Troll Brother

  ~~~

  In the airfield, a crashing and howling racket was approaching Dan’s position quickly. He at first tried to ignore it and continued to round his plane around the west edge of the airfield. But the noise was growing insistent. He thought he’d probably better check it out and his momentary glances into the forest hadn’t yielded any information yet.

  Quickly he turned the B-52 towards him and brought it in for a landing. As the noises picked up and then some distal crashing could be heard in the trees, he hastened his movements, detaching the wings of his plane and packing it into the little back-strap carrying device he’d made for it. As he stood and turned to the south to see if he could make out the source of the noises he saw two hulking masses burst from out of the trees.

  He stood open mouthed as the giants stomped into the airfield at full run…and they were carrying something.

  “Run!” Robert yelled from under the arm of his slightly smaller giant. “Run, Dan!”

  Daniel stared blankly as the giants quickly made up the gap between them in the field. Then another voice rang out.

  “DANIEL! Run! Get across to the other side of the field!”

  It was Mr. Johansson. But what were they doing being carried around like sheep for dinner in the movie he’d recently seen about giants? And why were these giants so weird looking? They weren’t of human proportions at all…even for their incredible size. Their legs were too short and stocky and their chests and arms were enormous!

  “Mr. Johansson?” Dan asked, much more quietly than could possibly be effective with all the ruckus going on.

  “Run Daniel! You’ve got to run right now!” Mrs. J. screamed at him.

  Then he heard the hoots, howls and screeching behind them. He leaned slightly to try to peer around the giants thudding towards him quickly. In the trees several shadows, maybe even a couple hundred of them had smashed into the tree line and bounced and hopped along it waving arms and seemingly cursing at them.

  A couple nocked heavy arrows and shot them towards the approaching giants and Daniel. They were relatively ineffective for the distance was too far for such heavy arrows but one impaling the ground near where Dan stood was enough to finally bring him out of his trance.

  He turned and ran as fast as he ever had towards the northern side of the airfield, zigging and zagging slightly as he went, subconsciously also trying to make an effort to keep the giants following him between he and the arrow shooters. He ducked into the opposing tree line just as the giants caught up and did the same.

  As they positioned themselves a few feet back from the edge of the meadow behind a couple clumps of Aspens and a large oak tree, the giants set their human cargo down, who did the same as they did. Daniel on the other hand after a few seconds of trying to gauge what was across the field looked to his left at Dronosh and to his right at Scrimp and tried to reason out for himself whether it was a good time to faint or not.