The Giant Smugglers (16 page)

Charlie felt the weight of the keys in his hand. The chips were down. It was time to play the biggest card he had.

He dashed inside DJ's ride and slammed the door, checking the apartment windows to make sure no one was on to him. Charlie scooted the seat up, then tested his foot on the brake. The accelerator. The clutch. He felt the gear shift, cool and smooth, against the palm of his damp hand. He found the gas gauge, the speedometer, and the tachometer.
It's just like
Total Turbo
. I've raced cars through flaming police barricades and enemy minefields—why couldn't I drive this?

He depressed the clutch, gave it a little gas, and turned the ignition key. The engine roared to life.

The dashboard lit up and blue LED lights spelled out
Driver 1.
Whoa
, thought Charlie,
this is even more like a video game than I thought.
He put the shifter in reverse. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw DJ rumbling down the stairs. He must have heard the Hummer start up.

Rain pelted the man as he reached the H2 and rapped on the driver's-side window. “What are you doing, C-Salt?” he yelled.

Charlie lowered the window an inch. “Sorry, DJ, but I have to borrow your car. Tell Mom I love her, and I'll be home soon.”

“Quit goofin' around!”

Charlie slid the window back up and let the clutch out. With an awkward jerk, the huge vehicle lurched backward and out of the driveway.

“Charlie!” DJ yelled as he ran alongside the car, pounding on its side. “You do not have permission to borrow my car!”

Charlie stepped on the gas and ground his way into first gear. The vehicle careened toward the sound of the booms. The storm seemed to be picking up by the second. He pulled away in search of Bruce as DJ grew smaller in his rearview mirror. Soon, he was out of sight completely.

Charlie jerked hard on the steering wheel to avoid a garbage can lid that clattered across Seminary Street in a squall of leaves and trash. The wind hurled a metal lawn chair in front of the Hummer, and he yanked the wheel again. The H2, not built to take such sharp turns, tipped onto two wheels. Charlie counter steered to avoid rolling over. The truck fishtailed. He pulled back under control but not before ripping a long strip of sod out of the Finks' front yard.

Then Charlie ground into third gear. Frustrated, he stomped on the clutch. The big tank of a vehicle didn't respond anything like his
Total Turbo
Lamborghini, which Charlie could count on to swerve around anything short of a heat-seeking missile. The Hummer lurched forward in angry coughs. “I can't drive this stupid thing!” he yelled, smacking the steering wheel.

Tornado sirens sounded, at first low and ominous, then building into a full-blown distress call. Charlie winced as the alarm rattled in his ears; he could only guess how the eerie sound would unnerve Bruce.

Charlie followed the sound of the thunderous booms, but as he drove closer to their source, there still was no sign of the giant. The boy panicked as he saw a cop car on an intersecting street—it suddenly occurred to him that he was driving a stolen car with no license. But the officer was too preoccupied with a downed tree to pay him any attention.

A strong crosswind pushed against the Hummer as Charlie turned off Seminary Street and onto County Highway N toward another boom. He tried not downshifting so much. It helped. Richland Center was soon in his rearview mirror. Charlie kept his eyes peeled for signs of his giant friend. The crashing noises got louder as the houses disappeared, and the sides of the road turned to alfalfa and fields of corn.

A big rise loomed in the road ahead. The booms were leading him toward the quarry. Then a huge, blue-clothed figure bounced into Charlie's field of vision.
Bruce!
Charlie floored the accelerator.
What's he wearing?

As he reached the top of the crest, Charlie got a better view of the giant he was chasing. It wasn't Bruce at all! This colossus had red hair and wore a blue version of Bruce's tent-toga.

Charlie eased back on the accelerator as the monstrosity covered another thirty feet of real estate in a single stride. The giant rounded a bend in the road and dashed up Stone Quarry Hill. Charlie saw the giant's face in profile and gulped. It couldn't be.

Fitz!

His dirty-red pimples were the size of baseballs, and his anger had gathered like the storm that raged all around him. The blue gown made the bully look like an escaped twenty-foot-tall mental patient. He took a swipe at a 100-year-old oak on the side of the road. The blow knocked the top third of the tree's branches into the wind.

Whoa
.

Charlie slowed down the Hummer to a crawl as he pulled up to the quarry entrance. His head spun. What on earth had happened? How had Fitz become a giant? Charlie watched the red-headed behemoth rumble through the quarry, backhanding construction barriers that happened to be in his way. He was as loud and brash as Bruce was silent and stealthy. Giant Fitz stopped and snarled at the silo at the edge of the quarry.

I've seen that look on his face before—when he was chasing me on his bike! He's after Bruce!

Giant Fitz bounded to the silo, scaled it, and glared down. It must have been empty, because he gave a frightening howl, leaped off, and punched the side, knocking a dozen concrete blocks out of place. He turned and saw Charlie. “Lawson!” he bellowed and broke into a broad smile, like he was seeing an old friend for the first time in a long time.

Charlie inhaled sharply.

In three leaps, Giant Fitz was halfway to the Hummer. “I got some unsettled business with your big buddy,” he growled. “Where is he?”

Charlie depressed the clutch, worked the shifter into reverse, and retreated. Giant Fitz chased after the H2, not seeing what Charlie saw on the horizon: Bruce, high atop a wall of stone, running full speed, not making a sound. The scowl on his friend's face let Charlie know Bruce was not going to be quiet much longer.

Without breaking stride, the giant leaped off the edge of the cliff. He sailed through the air, right leg fully extended, left leg bent at the knee and tucked alongside his body. His arms sliced through the storm with incredible control and balance. The move was pure grace, fueled by fury. Charlie had seen it before—on the warehouse wall during
Enter the Dragon
.

Bruce's huge foot slammed into Giant Fitz's lower back just before he reached the Hummer, sending the twenty-foot bully sailing face-first into a mountain of gravel. A fountain of rocks sprayed into the air. Bruce landed and let out a high-pitched “Waaaaaah!” His furious eyes never left Giant Fitz.

The giant bully squeezed gravel out of his eyes and rose to his feet. “I'm the new giant in town, Stinky.”

“I'm Bruce.” He thumped his chest and squared up again, ready to pound Giant Fitz back down to size. Unlike at the drive-in, it was a fair fight now, and Bruce had friends to protect. Charlie was dying to see Bruce kick Giant Fitz's butt.

The red-haired Godzilla ran full speed at Bruce, who stood his ground with both fists up. Giant Fitz cocked his right hand.

At the bus stop, Charlie had seen Fitz's signature move. He knew what was coming next:
the uppercut!

But Bruce wasn't taken in. He took a deft step to the side as Giant Fitz's monster fist sailed past his head. The miss threw Giant Fitz badly off balance, exposing his huge, pimpled chin.

Bruce tagged Giant Fitz on the jaw in time with a massive thunderclap. The dazed bully staggered backward. Bruce kept the pressure on with a fierce kick to Giant Fitz's stomach, forcing all the air from his lungs and sending him reeling into the gravel once more.

“Give it to him!” shouted Charlie.

Giant Fitz was off the pile again, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “That's pretty good fighting, Stinky,” he yelled, an evil grin spreading across his face. “I got to admit—I'm impressed!”

Bruce crouched at the ready as Giant Fitz took another run. Unlike his first attack, however, he stopped short, wound up, and threw an enormous handful of gravel into Bruce's eyes. Bruce reached up in pain, unable to see, defenseless.

And Fitz knew what to do with a defenseless opponent. Just like he learned in football tackling drills, he wrapped Bruce up and drove him into the ground. Howling like a madman, Giant Fitz kneeled over Bruce, pummeling his head with an insane flurry of wild punches.

Charlie couldn't just sit there. He revved the H2's engine. He wasn't big enough to fight even normal-size Fitz, but with DJ's Hummer, Charlie sure as heck could pack a different kind of punch. He raced the Hummer forward and sped toward Giant Fitz. The spinning tires kicked up gravel as Charlie slammed the Hummer into third gear … or at least that's what he tried to do.

The engine hacked, sputtered, and died, killing the vehicle's momentum well before it got to Giant Fitz. Charlie had found fifth gear, not third. It had been a rookie move at exactly the wrong time.

But more help was on the way. Like a mutt missile, Powder flew out of nowhere and latched her sharp teeth into Giant Fitz's ear.

Giant Fitz screamed in agony and slapped at his ear, sending Powder to the ground with a bloody hunk of lobe still between her teeth. It was the opening Bruce needed, and he heaved Giant Fitz away.

Charlie winced at the sight of Bruce's face: It was bruised and bloodied.

The enormous bully touched his hand to his ear, then spied the blood on his fingers. He sprang to his feet and unleashed a deafening roar down at Powder, rippling a puddle of water below. Powder stood her ground, bared her teeth, and barked back. Giant Fitz's fist slammed down and cracked the limestone quarry floor as the dog bounded out of the way.

Then the bucket of an end loader smacked into Giant Fitz's chest and stayed on him. Charlie saw the old man, Hank, in the cab.

“You leave my dog alone, Fitzgibbons!”

Giant Fitz's face flamed as he tried to push the bucket away from his chest. He stumbled backward until Hank's gravel loader pinned him against a rock. Powder dashed up and bit at Giant Fitz's ankles. He screamed in rage and tried to stomp the dog while struggling back against the big machine.

Hank kept on the throttle. “Powder, come!” he yelled out the loader's window. The dog got in one last bite before she ran away from Giant Fitz and skittered into the loader's cab.

Bruce rose from the quarry floor, still picking gravel from his eyes. He started toward the tussle between Giant Fitz and Hank's end loader.

“Enough! Get back to the warehouse!” Hank hollered as Giant Fitz beat down on the loader bucket with bloody fists. “I switched the pickup. Your ride's almost there! I'll hold him off, then catch you at the rendezvous.”

Bruce hesitated. Charlie saw that his friend wanted another piece of Giant Fitz.

“Go! Or all of this is for nothing!” The old man shouted down at Charlie, “You're in this now. If he's not at the warehouse in fifteen minutes, he won't be able to join his family!” He ducked back into the cab, maneuvering the loader bucket to keep Giant Fitz pinned.

Charlie gunned the accelerator, banging his hand on the side of the Hummer. “Come on, man! Let's fly!”

“Hank,” Bruce stammered. “Powder!”

“You heard him—they'll meet us there!” Charlie slammed the Hummer into gear and took off for the warehouse.

Bruce took one last reluctant look at the end loader and sprinted after his friend.

 

22

From the cliff above, slabs of limestone tumbled and pelted the end loader. Silicate dust mixed with the falling rain, making a paste that the wipers smeared across the windshield in streaks. Inside the cab, Hank maneuvered the bucket, keeping Giant Jamie pinned against the rock.

Giant Jamie kicked at the base of the end loader, trying in vain to push it back. The unforgiving metal rammed repeatedly into his midsection, and his screams of frustration changed to howls of pain; his ribs would soon crack. “Back up,” the towering youth begged. “You're crushing me!”

Hank scowled through his war-painted windshield and opened the throttle three-quarters of the way to keep the pressure on.

Movement in the distance caught the old man's eye, and he glanced out the cab's side window. A familiar white van sped through the quarry toward the loader. The Accelerton vehicle skidded to a halt. Hank kept on the controls.

Dr. Fitzgibbons leaped out of the van and ran toward the loader, looking up in horror as the heavy machine crushed his son.

“Dad!” Giant Jamie panicked. “He's trying to kill me!”

Fitzgibbons jumped onto the driver's side of the loader and climbed the slick, wet ladder that led to the cab. He pounded on the accordion door. “Hank, you have to stop! I'm begging you.”

Hank leaned forward on the throttle, about to open it all the way, when he looked up and hesitated. Looking in the giant's huge eyes, he saw that Jamie was still little more than a frightened kid. The old man growled and cursed himself for going soft.

He set the emergency brake and reached across Powder to open the far door. “Go on, girl!” Powder flew out, bounced off the back tire, and hit the ground running through the pouring rain.

Hank turned back to Fitzgibbons and pulled open the accordion door. “You control that monster of yours, because if you can't, I swear to God I will.” Then Hank followed Powder out of the cab. He strained to lower himself to the ground, his bad hip almost giving way as he landed. Duster flapping in the wind, he limped away from the end loader. Powder growled at Giant Jamie's feet, ready to attack again.

“Let's go, girl.” Hank slapped his thigh, and the two of them set off through the quarry, back to the old man's truck.

Fitzgibbons took Hank's seat at the end loader controls, trying to determine which lever did what. He found the one that backed the bucket off just enough to allow his son to breathe easier.