Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 7

reply. “That’s what I thought.”

  Then Crush noticed that several more of the little simian creatures had begun to descend from the foliage and were gathering in behind Simon. None of the primates appeared shy toward Crush and Boulder, and they all began to converse with one another in their own special language of hand movements and grunts. Crush reached one open hand out toward Simon, and the monkey gently latched onto his index finger with its tiny paw.

  “Is this your way of communicating with the beast?” Boulder asked as he looked on expressionlessly.

  “Come on. You have communicated with animals before, right?” Crush replied with a bit of sarcasm, but Boulder simply returned a blank stare. “You mean to say that as long as you have been alive, you have only every communicated with humans?”

  “Yes, Crush. That is what I am saying,” Boulder confirmed. “Animals have no real meaning to a mountain. Though the bird droppings can become quite irritating,” he added.

  “Hmm. You’ve been missing out then. Where I come from, the planet Earth, we keep animals as pets,” Crush explained, and Boulder still did not seem to understand his meaning. “We keep animals as friends. They keep us from being lonely, and they’re capable of returning affection.”

  “All of my friends are rocks,” Boulder replied.

  “Believe it or not, some people keep those as pets, too,” Crush countered, leaving Boulder speechless.

  As Simon pulled his tiny hand away, Crush spotted some new movement behind the tree limbs, and a gigantic human hand reached through the foliage to grab a monkey by surprise. The stunned monkey squirmed to get away from the tight grip, but the arm and hand held on tight, pulling the monkey around the tree and disappearing behind the greenery. Everything was calm for an instant, and then the enormous hand appeared again and grabbed the base of the tree where the monkeys perched, shaking it violently. The remaining monkeys scattered to adjacent trees and scampered up toward the treetops as another colossal hand joined together with the other in shaking the tree. Instinctively Crush sought to climb to high ground, and he leaped to the first branch of another tree. Then he reached down to offer a hand to Boulder. The elemental latched onto the agent’s outstretched arm, and being made of solid, heavy stone, he nearly pulled Crush’s arm out of its socket as he heaved himself up into the tree. The two adventurers then began scaling to the top of the tree in an effort to get away from the mysterious hands, and they managed to get about twenty feet off of the ground before they were finally confronted with their new enemy. An oversized face appeared from behind the gigantic hands, and for the first time, Crush understood crisply the warning that Boulder had given him about giants.

  Black, soulless eyes swept a glance into the open area as the jaws crunched together on the small meal that the captured monkey had become, and Crush wasted no time fleeing the overgrown mythical creature. Before the giant could lock his gaze on him, Crush bounded upward into the dense foliage. Leaping with the grace of a panther, the DAM field agent scaled the tree quickly to the upper limbs at the treetop before the giant could see him. But the massive hulk of a man had hunting abilities of his own, and he sniffed the forest air, catching a whiff of the cat-man as he loomed in the treetops with the rest of the monkeys. The giant roared out in anger as he looked up to discover the scurrying movements of the tiny scared creatures. He could not reach them from where he stood on the ground, but he could climb to where they were.

  Placing one foot at the junction of the bottom limb and the tree trunk, the giant lifted himself up onto the tree and then placed his other foot on the bottom limb of another tree for balance. He still had not yet noticed Boulder, who was pressed up against the bottom limb of the tree, and this gave the elemental a component of surprise. The giant dragged himself up to the next limb, and was within reach of Crush when Boulder punched his fist upward into the soft arch on the soft bottom of the giant’s foot. Howling in pain, the giant lost his balance and fell backward off the trees to land flat on his back upon the ground. The trees shook, and Crush, who had lightened his grip in preparation of jumping to another tree, was ill-prepared for the unexpected vibration. Losing his balance, he fell from the treetop. In desperation, he snatched out at the passing limbs to slow his fall and then landed in a most unfortunate spot on the ground beside the fallen giant. With the wind knocked out of his lungs, Crush lingered on the ground in a daze, and he failed to recover as quickly as he would need to in order to get free of the danger zone where he had fallen. There was little time left for planning, and Boulder recognized that he would have to work quickly if Crush were to escape. Acting fast, Boulder sprung off the lower limb where he was perched and landed on the giant’s abdomen, knocking the breath out of the behemoth’s lungs. With a rebound, he bounced off the giant’s midsection to the ground below where Crush lay. He reached down and lifted the cat-man in his arms, and propped him onto his feet in an effort to help the agent get his bearings. When Crush came to his senses, he recognized the danger and nodded his agreement with what Boulder wanted to do. Together they made a mad dash away into the dark forest to place some distance between themselves and the giant.

  “Keep moving,” Crush said as he caught his breath and looked back to see the giant sitting up to rub his traumatized head. Crush then bent down to pick up a huge stone from the ground. It was the only weapon readily available out here, and he figured that if it worked for the giant crow, then it would work for the giant. “I’ll be glad when I get back to my world,” he said to himself as he increased the pace to catch Boulder. Dodging in and out between trees afforded them the ability to keep a strong lead over their pursuer, and every once in a while, Crush would look over his shoulder to check their progress. The density of trees in the forest had the desired effect of slowing the progress of the colossus, but Crush knew that they had a very long way to go to get to the river. As they ran on they reached the brink of a slope that led downward, and to Crush’s surprise, Boulder tucked his head down between his knees and rolled like a bowling ball to the bottom of the hill where he crashed into a shallow stream.

  “He doesn’t call himself Boulder for nothing,” Crush thought as he turned sideways and leaned his head backward to balance himself down the steep hillside. Just then the giant came over the edge with a boulder of his own in his hands and belched out a roar of anger. Losing his concentration, Crush slipped on a mass of wet leaves and slid down the hill into a tree. Luckily his feet caught the side of the tree, and his progress was stopped before he was injured by the slide. The giant however bounded wrecklessly down the slope and quickly gained all the ground that had been lost. To change the odds in his own favor, Crush placed the rock in his pocket and quickly scampered straight up the tree, making his way to the top to see the light of day. When his head came out into the open, the sight that awaited him was awe-inspiring. He saw what he could only describe as a wave of movement as of a great wind scattering out and pressing along the treetops. But it was not the wind that swayed the treetops. Hundreds of monkeys like Simon were now located on the treetops, and the wave of movement was caused by the leaping motion of the monkeys as they jumped from treetop to treetop to escape from the menace of the giant.

  Meanwhile down below, the giant was undaunted by the field agent’s display of athleticism, and with a grunt, he dislodged his own boulder from the hillside. He then flung the massive boulder up into the tree, snapping limbs on its flight upward. The giant smiled at his feat of strength, and Crush watched helplessly as the boulder rose upward alongside the bark of the tree. If it were not for the fact that Crush was situated on the opposite side of the tree, he would have been impacted by the stone as it hurdled above the treetops. As it was though, the boulder burst through the treetops with a small arc at the peak of flight, and Crush watched as the stone fell downward into the dark forest below where it landed with a thud. Everything in the forest went quiet over the next moment, and Crush wondered whether he should e
njoy the sunshine for a while or dare to peek his head down below to see what the giant was doing. Opting for neither, Crush decided to play monkey for a while. Crouching down, he then sprang outward to catch the limb of the next tree where he climbed across to the far side of that treetop. Then he did the same thing again, going from treetop to treetop until he was satisfied that he was at the top of the next hill.

  He stopped for a moment and put his hand to his ear for a moment to listen, pausing to hear the resonances of the giant’s footsteps moving in the leaves below. After waiting several minutes and hearing no sounds, Crush grew deeply intrigued by the unusual silence, and he dared a peek of his head below the dense foliage. When his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he could find no evidence of the giant nearby. He considered whether it was a good idea to go back down or not, and he came to the conclusion that he needed to find Boulder if he wanted to continue on the journey. As he climbed limb to limb down the length of the tree, he kept his eyes peeled for any signs of the giant, and to his satisfaction, the