Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos (15 page)

Like I said, I’ve never seen a giant before. They used to be more common in Biblical times. Goliath, for example. It must’ve been some time after, that giants started keeping to themselves. Regardless, it’s an amazing sight! I’m not really good at guessing heights but this giant is probably hundreds of feet tall! He doesn’t even notice when he steps on houses! They’re just another place to put his feet. He runs toward Fairy_26 with something between concern and fury in his eyes. He wears white. It’s pristine. It stays that way. The debris he creates doesn’t stick to him. “Another member of our little revolutionary group,” explains Fairy_26, above the noise of everything falling apart and everything else being broken. A shadow falls over us. The giant crouches down. He crashes the back of his hand on the ground nearby, flattening a group of zombies who’d regained their feet and who were moving towards us with their arms outstretched. The side of the giant’s hand is too high for us to climb so Fairy_26 shuttles us up. Once we’re on, the giant lifts us up. When he’s standing at his full astonishing height, he looks down at us and smiles. It’s breathtaking. To be so close to something so huge. So powerful. To realize how vulnerable you are. How small. I feel safe now. Safer at least. There’s still an air-strike on its way but I’m in the hand of a giant and I feel safe now.

“He’s going to drop us,” says Ralph, The Pessimistic Elf. “I can tell he’s going to drop us. I don’t know why the rest of you can’t see that.”

I’m wobbling around in troughs that are fine lines in the giant’s palm. I’m insignificant. My existence isn’t worth noticing. How can I find this comforting? Isn’t this what I always felt miserable about? I always hated being a tiny powerless being. I always lamented others having control over me. How can I be glad this giant has taken control? How can I be happy to relinquish my well-being to someone else? I couldn’t do it with the albinos. Why can I do it with this giant? It doesn’t make sense! Is it merely because I can see him? Is it because he’s a friend of a friend? Is it because I finally admitted to myself I have no hope of doing this on my own and I need some sort of supernatural creature, a giant, to help me?

Okay, yeah. That’s probably it.

As soon as the giant scoops us up, Fairy_26 flies up to his ear. While she’s gone, I find a way to look down. Tiny zombies surround us. They clamour around the giant’s feet. They fill the streets as far as I can see. That’s me. I’m one of those ant-sized expendable undead monsters. But I have a new perspective now.

I’m positive the albinos are behind this. Zombies would never be this organized, this intent on a single goal, if it weren’t for mind-controlling albinos. When I look back up, I see white traces streaking across the grey clouds. The white traces keep multiplying.

Before explosions bloom and blossom like orange and red flowers all around us, and before the noise of their growth smashes into our ears, the giant bundles us up in his fist and starts running. We’re probably heading for Guy Boy Man’s aircraft carrier. I don’t know if the giant is going to swim us out or if he’ll just take us somewhere helicopters can retrieve us but I’m confident that’s where we’re going and we’ll be safe there. I doubt we’ll stay there long.

Light and heat and debris crash into us and smash into us and I wonder, “Is this creation or destruction?”

In the dark of the giant’s fist, rolling over mountains of flesh and down into valleys of flesh, I remember Fairy_26 telling me she wants to be with me. In this shaking, breaking, blowing up, and falling apart world, it’s something for me to hold onto and I hold onto it like I’m a giant and it’s a handful of revolutionaries and I’m running somewhere safe.

To learn more, please visit
www.howtoendhumansuffering.com

The author wishes to thank his agent, Liza Dawson, and her husband, Havis Dawson, of Liza Dawson Associates Literary Agency, New York, for their insight, guidance, support, and friendship; Judith Engracia and everyone else at Liza Dawson Associates Literary Agency; Fernanda Viveiros for recommending ChiZine Publications; Samantha Beiko for her hard work and help editing
Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos
; Danny Evarts for the layout; Erik Mohr for its amazing cover image; Kelsi Morris and Zara Ramaniah for proofreading it; Kelsi Morris and Beverly Bambury for marketing it; Ashley McCallan, Klaudia Bednarczyk, and everyone else at ChiZine Publications, especially co-publishers Brett Savory and Sandra Kasturi for pouring their hard work, time, and resources into the novel, thereby helping the author realize a dream: seeing it published. The author also wishes to express his gratitude to his friends and family.

James Marshall’s short fiction has appeared in numerous Canadian literary magazines:
PRISM International
,
The Malahat Review
,
Exile
,
The Literary Quarterly
, and
Prairie Fire
. One of his stories was nominated for the National Magazine Award for fiction, the M&S Journey Prize, and it was a finalist in the 22nd Annual Western Magazine Awards, 2004. A collection of his short stories,
Let’s Not Let A Little Thing Like The End Of The World Come Between Us
, was published by Thistledown Press in 2004, and it was shortlisted for both the 2005 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Caribbean and Canada Region) in the “Best First Book” category, and the ReLit Award for short fiction. His first novel,
Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies
, was published by ChiZine Publications in 2012. It was the first in the How To End Human Suffering series.
Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos
is James Marshall’s second novel and the second book in the How To End Human Suffering series.

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