Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
The little ravine seemed to open fifty feet ahead of us. Alan stopped,
seized a chunk of rock, flung it up. I saw the giant's face above us.
He was kneeling, trying to reach in. The rock hit him in the
forehead--a pebble, but it stung him. His face rose away.
Again we emerged. The tunnel-mouth was near us. We reached it and
flung ourselves into its ten-foot width just as the giant came lunging
up. He was far larger than before. Looking back, I could see only the
lower part of his legs blocked against the outer light.
"Glora! Alan, where are you?"
For a moment I did not see them. It was darker in this tunnel; broken
rocky walls, a jagged arching roof ten feet high. Then I heard Alan's
voice.
"George! Here!"
They came running to me. For a moment we stood, undecided what to do.
My eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness; it was illumined by a
dim phosphorescence from the rocks. I saw Alan fumbling for his vials,
but Glora stopped him.
"No! We are the right size."
* * * * *
We were a hundred feet back from the opening. The giant's legs
disappeared. But in a moment the round light hole of the exit was
obscured again. His head and shoulders! He was lying prone. His great
arms came in. He hitched forward. The width of his expanding shoulders
wedged.
I think that he expected to reach us with a single snatch of his
tremendous arms. Or perhaps he was confused, and forgot his growth. He
did not reach us. His shoulders stuck. Then suddenly he was trying to
back out, but could not!
It was only a moment. We stood in the radiant gloom of the tunnel,
clinging to each other, ourselves stricken by confusion. The giant's
voice roared, reverberating around us. Anger. A note of fear. Finally
stark terror. He heaved, but the rocks of the opening held solid. Then
there was a crack, a gruesome rattling, splintering--his shoulder
bones breaking. His whole gigantic body gave a last convulsive lunge,
and he emitted a deafening shrill scream of agony.
I was aware of the tunnel-mouth breaking upward. Falling rocks--an
avalanche, a cataclysm around us. Then light overhead.
The giant's crushed body lay motionless. A pile of boulders, rocks and
loose metallic earth was strewn upon his head and torso, illumined by
the outer light through a jagged rent where the cliff-face had fallen
down.
We were unhurt, crouching back from the avalanche. The giant's mangled
body was still expanding; shoving at the litter of loose rocks. In a
moment it would again be too large for the broken cliff opening.
I found my wits. "Alan! Out of here--God! Don't you see--"
* * * * *
But Glora held us. The drug the giant had taken was about at its end,
and Glora recognized it. The growth presently stopped. That huge,
noisome mass of pulp which once had been human shoulders--
I shoved Glora away. "Don't look!" I was shaking; my head was reeling.
Alan's face, painted by the phosphorescence, was ghastly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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