Giant-rn-the -Box - free short stories

“Oh no, not again... I have nothing left!” Mable exclaimed looking distressed as she arrived at her apartment with her groceries. The door was slightly ajar and the temporary board she had nailed to the frame had been kicked in again indicating that she had once again been burglarized. “This is ridiculous... How many times can one old lady be robbed in a month!” Mable set the two bags of food she had purchased at the corner grocery on her counter. She called the metro police again and got a unit on the way so she could fill out the necessary paperwork. Unfortunately, the thief had taken what little of value she had left. Her T. V. had long been gone from previous break-ins and now the small portable radio she had just bought to entertain herself on her limited social security income had been taken. “The police are useless in this city. . .“ she fussed, “They cannot protect us from this much crime. But what can I do? I don’t have enough money to move from here. It is hopeless.” Mable sighed taking a deep breath and began to try and clean up the mess the thief made and take inventory of what she had left. Eventually, the police came and left leaving her with a useless report to try and replace her belongings. She certainly could not afford to get lisurance. Besides, who would insure an old lady who had been previously robbed so many times? “There must be something I can do about this,” she pondered in deep thought after sitting down for a break. The thief had never attempted to break in while Mable was present, but she was terrified that one day he might get bold coming while she was home and possibly hurt her. Finally deciding to fight back, she sat for thirty minutes trying to fomiulate a plan. “I got it!” her eyes opened wide as she grabbed her purse in order to go to the store and purchase supplies for constructing her plan. She bought a large lockable footlocker, colorful paint, several daily newspapers, a large metal spring, several bottles of glue, and various other items. She managed to get all the supplies back to her apartment just before dark. Fortunately, the thief did not break in again while she was gone. Once she had gotten all the items laid out on her floor, she began working with a sense of vengeance. She cut the newspapers into long strips and dipped them into a watered down glue creating a kind of paper mache’ paste. She began to wrap the pieces around a large punching balloon she bought at the drugstore. Mable had blown it up to the largest possible diameter that still fit into the trunk. After several coats of newspaper, she let the balloon dry. She went about her business taking a little break from her project. Later Mable popped the balloon that was inside the now hard sphere and painted the most horribly terriiring face on the paper mache’ giant’s head. She made it incredibly realistic looking. After the paint had dried she put the spring at the bottom of the trunk and a board on top to make a springy platfonm Next, in went the scary giant’s head with its mean stare. She had some difficulty closing it under the spring’s tension, but after she sat on the top she managed to get it shut. “Now for the test,” Mable thought. She flipped the latch and released the top. The trunk flung open with great force propelling the giant scary head straight at her. “This ought to make him think twice about breaking in here again.” Mable giggled with anticipation like she was a little girl playing a trick on her brother. She could hardly sleep that night and almost immediately left early the next morning almost hoping she would be robbed. After a long day, she slowly made her way home. Once again, the door was slightly ajar and splintered wood lay on the ground. “Ha!, the stupid fool tried it again!” she exclaimed hurrying inside. She peered around the doorway into her bedroom where she had left the footlocker. Sure enough, there was her trap sprung with the big head lying on the floor. To Mable’s surprise, lying next to the giant head was a local neighborhood punk clutching his chest dead. Mable gasped, “Oh my, I scared him to death!” She called the police and sent for an ambulance. The police could not find anything that Mable legally did wrong so they left her alone. The coroner zipped up the foolish young punk in a large plastic body bag and pushed his cold body out of her apartment on a stretcher. “I suppose it was sort of poetic justice,” one of the cops said as they were leaving her apartment. Mable was glad that she was able to stop the attacks even though she was a bit shaken up by the thief s death. Would you believe that to this day Mable’ s apartment has never been broken into again? Invasion From Within One thy in late October, a farmer was harvesting soybeans on a southern IVlississippi farm when he stopped his tractor and watched a strange sight. About a hundred yards in front of him the earth itself was moving. It appeared to be churning like a toilet flushing. He stared in amazement as a large hole opened up that was at least forty feet across. He waited to see what would happen next. After a few minutes, hundreds of small stature, pale beings began to pour out of the hole. They were slightly more petite than a small size man would be and they stood about four feet tall. Quickly, they iànned out across the field and surrounded the tractor and the farmer. The farmer was astonished at such a sight and stood up to greet the strange creatures. Suddenly, one of the larger than their average framed creatures screamed a strange word in a bizarre language that sounded like nothing on earth and all of the others pulled out items from their packs that roughly resembled guns. They opened fire on the farmer with their weapons exploding him into small chunks. Unfortunately, all that was left of him was a red mush on the tractor seat. The creatures quicldy found the man’s house and headed straight for it. Hundreds more of the strange beings just kept pouring out of the large hole they had created in an endless line. They easily destroyed the man’s house and killed his wife who was inside. Nothing was left of his house except a pile of burning wood fragments. Unfortunately, the man lived in a rather mral area and nobody responded to the apparent invasion from the inside of the earth. The creatures all stayed clustered in the man’s fields until their numbers reached into the hundred thousands. The massive army of beings then started marching down the road towards the small Mississippi town. The people in town were amazed to see such a sight coming towards them. Their approach quickly caused a panic in the minutes before they reached the edge of town. Some of the people were slowly walking towards them to greet the army, but mostly people were rushing to their homes as fast as they could manage. When they reached their human greeters, as they did before, they opened fire on the small crowd. People were exploding in a red mist everywhere. A mad panic ensued as the people tried to flee from the terrible weapons. Efficiently, in less than a minute, all of the greeters had been exploded. The pale beings began to attack the buildings of the small town and lay waste to everyone and anything they saw. The businesses offered little resistance and crumbled under the great creature army. When the alien lbrces approached some of the residences of the townsfolk, they were attacked. A hail of buckshot belched from one farmer’s shotgun that was poling out of his window dropping several of the strange creatures. However, he was quickly overwhelmed and his house was exploded just as everything else was. By the end of the thy, the entire town had been utterly destroyed. Fortunately, for the world, the news of their presence had spread beyond the town and the Marines were called in. The government attempted to control the giant force with ground troops the next morning. Many of the creatures were killed, but they just kept pouring out of the hole. It was like a never-ending reinforcement of the pale beings and their destructive guns. Unfortunately, the entire division of Marines was killed. The president declared a national emergency and called air strikes into the whole area. Many more of the creatures died as a result, but they just kept coming out of the strange opening. Finally, the president authorized a single nuclear missile to be launched directly into their hole. The hope was that this would close the passage and end the never- ending onslaught. The missile detonated after descending down it a bit and lit up the small town with a spectacular fireball. The resulting mushroom cloud that could be seen from afar. Reasoning indicated that a radioactive town in IVlississippi for a couple of thousand years was better than the world being destroyed by these beings. The explosion effectively sealed up the hole and stopped the flow of creatures. In addition, the blast vaporized many of them that were still close to the entrance. The half a million or so of creatures that were outside of the missile’s range were killed off one by one by the remaining U. S. forces. Dismally, hundreds of thousands of U. S. troops were killed in the war. Several weeks later a hole similar in nature to the original one opened in France. Hundreds of thousands of the same kind of beings were able to make it to the surface to wreck havoc before the French government was able to authorize a nuke to close the hole. Fortunately, the closure was successful, just as in the case in the U. S. The common enemy unified the entire Earth, as they have never been before. Governments, who were fomially enemies, made agreements with each other until the whole world was together. In the following weeks, several more holes popped up globally but were quickly closed with nukes. Humans studied some of the creatures that were captured and found their weaknesses in the aftermath of the world war. Finally, as a final attack, some twenty different holes opened up around the world at once and millions of the small waniors gushed out. The resulting global war lasted for years without end. Eventually, humankind was able to stop the creatures once and for all. They sent millions of human soldiers down into the Earth at various key entry points. Many of the human soldiers that participated in the attack were armed with miniature tactical nukes. Not surprisingly, they discovered that the center of the Earth was hollow. There was a giant ball of molten iron floating in the center and billions of the creatures living on the inner surface. Densely packed buildings covered all of the available surface space. Apparently, these beings had run out of room in their inner world and were attempting to take over the surface in order to expand. The human soldiers destroyed almost all of the creatures and their buildings. Earth government decided to allow about half a million of the creatures to live. They had decided that they did not want to destroy an entire race even if they were evil in nature, but they could not allow them to destroy our own race. The Earth soldiers pulled out of the center of the world they lived on and nuke sealed all of the entrances. Hopefully, the strange race would come to its senses and not attack humans on the next go around. Our technology was only slightly more advanced than theirs was. Next time, we might not be so lucky.