The Honoured Guest (2 page)

She'd better get some sleep!

Chelsea sent back a last goodbye text, then tossed the pink phone back onto her bedside table and sighed deeply. She was still bothered a great deal.
With a frustrated sigh, and telling herself that she was a fool, that it was nothing, she slipped under the bedclothes and into an uneasy sleep once more.

Chapter 2

Boom.

Chelsea came abruptly awake with a cry this time, her heart already thundering in her chest. It felt like she had come out of her dream already in a full blown panic, but she couldn’t figure out what was making her feel that way.

God though, that
sound
. It was like…like…something huge was bashing into the side of a building. She wanted to run, to hide under her covers like a little kid, to go into her parents’ room just as she had when she was five and say she was scared.

Boom.

Was it an earthquake? Now, she could feel the ground trembling under her, even through the thickness of her mattress! When Chelsea’s eyes went to the glass of water that she always kept by her bedside at night, she saw the liquid shaking with increasing violence.

Whatever it was, it was closer - a lot closer.

Boom.

She drew in a shaky breath and sat up, slowly pushing away the covers, swinging her feet onto the floor, sitting up even straighter. With her soles lightly resting on the wooden floor, she could feel the vibrations even more strongly. The booming seemed to be coming from deep inside the earth.

Chelsea rose shakily to her feet and padded over to the window, where she pulled the dark green curtain to one side and peered out. A dark, silent street greeted her, in spite of the orange glow of the streetlights. Her gaze scanned the nearby apartment buildings, but there was only a light here and there from someone up early to start a new day.

There still wasn’t a single car driving past; although, there were several parked along the street. She looked at them intently without blinking.

She saw a red Honda below her window was rhythmically moving ever so slowly in time with the booming noise. As the tyres actually left the ground in little jumps, she gasped, stumbling back.

Boom.

The reverberation came up through her ankles into her calves and she stumbled as the sound got even louder and deeper.

Chelsea’s panicked gaze went to the opposite buildings, seeking out windows and doorways. Why weren’t there other people peering out like her? No lights coming on? They
had
to be feeling or hearing this!

“What the hell is going on?” she demanded, casting a look over her shoulder. Should she go and wake up her parents? She was amazed that they weren’t already up, but her dad was a deep sleeper.

Boom.

Is it getting faster?

Chelsea hastily undid the window-latch, slid it sideways, and stuck her head outside. All the cars along the street were jumping now, and then abruptly, several car alarms went off, blasting into the pearl light of dawn.

Now, people had to be hearing and feeling this!

She looked around expectantly, but no lights went on in the apartment buildings around her, and no front doors were opening. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she whispered incredulously. That was impossible. It was Sydney, right in the middle of the city. People were paranoid as hell about their cars.

For no reason that she could readily figure out, the red-head finally looked up towards the sky. It was instinct, though logically nothing should be
up there
. At first, all she saw were stars, but then, something huge blocked out the brightness of the moon.

Her green eyes widened in shock, and then fear, her heart leaping into her throat. “What? W-What the hell is that? Oh my God!”

Then there was something
massive
blocking out the sky and the stars – and it was moving. Chelsea could see it about six blocks down; an ominous dark shape against the sky. It was moving as the ground quaked. The moon was bright in the sky, but it was as if the thing heading her way was shrouded in gloom; as if the very last shadows of the night were clinging to its form.

Boom.

“Dad! Mom!” Chelsea finally screamed out in pure panic, finally unable to suppress the sound that had been fighting to escape her throat for several moments. She expected to hear her family waking up and come running, as they had when she’d been a kid, but there was nothing, no sound. Her dad’s snoring continued.

“Ben!”

Ben was a few years younger, and a brat, but even he wouldn’t have ignored her screaming for help. Something was
wrong
.

She threw a stunned look over her shoulder towards the door and then quickly turned back to the dark shape that was moving steadily towards her window.
What
is it
? What could possibly be that monstrous?

Boom.

Her irrational childhood fear of giants was crowding into her mind right now and her hands shook; her eyes desperately trying to make out a shape. It wasn’t human, it wasn’t something man-made, and the fact that no one else could hear or see it, meant that it was something supernatural. “Oh God, don’t be what I think you are. You don’t exist!” she whimpered.

She wanted to run to her parent’s room, but she didn’t want to take her eyes from whatever the thing heading her way.

As she watched with growing dread, it became obvious that the giant was searching for something. It stopped at every apartment and building, and bent down slightly to peer into windows, before continuing on.

What is it looking for?
She wondered mentally.

Chelsea really didn’t want to know.

***

Chelsea watched it closely for the next ten minutes and terror slowly engulfed her as she finally understood what it was. Her childhood nightmare was coming true. She could just make out legs clad in some sort of dark brown material and huge bare feet striding down the middle of the street,

Cars were crushed under its weight, or they were kicked to the side; buildings shuddered. The giant walked boldly down the middle of the road, with no apparent fear of being seen or heard. Windows rattled loudly, and then shattered; car alarms were blaring and dogs were howling.

It was a giant.

“No. No, this isn’t happening. I’m asleep,” she sobbed, hands clinging to the window sill and head craned up to watch the monstrous being. It was coming towards
her
, she was certain. The steps were too purposeful and the giant was not pausing at all. It knew exactly where it was going.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

She still couldn’t make out anything above its knees except for a faint outline here and there of thighs and waist illuminated by the moon, the traffic lights and street lights as it passed by.

The giant was so colossal, that everything above the waist was higher than the ten and fifteen storey apartment blocks which lined the street. Chelsea couldn’t even comprehend the sheer magnitude of its mass.

Boom.

When the massive creature reached one block away, she yanked herself back into the room and ran to her door in pure panic and terror, barely restraining the scream that wanted to break from her throat. It was only the thought of the giant hearing her that stilled the instinctive sound of fear from escaping.

Chelsea’s hand closed over the knob and she turned it, ready to fling the door wide. But it didn’t turn in the slightest. Nothing. It didn’t turn in the slightest. Her hand jerked the know left and right but it didn’t move, like it had been turned to stone. She let it go and thudded at the wooden panel of the door with her fists, shouting for her dad at the top of her lungs.

Boom.

The room shook as she fell against the wall, breathing erratically; small whimpers escaped her mouth. She curled down into a small ball against the door, huge eyes looking to the still open window.

Boom.

Her crazed eyes went to her dresser where she saw the silver candleholder her friend Amanda had given her as a gift. She crawled across the floor, reached up to grab it, then threw herself back against the door, bashing the handle to try and break it. The clanging noises were loud as she hit it harder, but the candle base warped at the bottom and then it snapped at the middle, parts falling to the floor.

Chelsea yanked at the knob again, throwing her whole weight behind it, but it didn’t move an inch.

“
Dad
! Dad, please!” she screamed in desperation. Nothing. Why couldn’t they hear this? Why was the door immovable?

Boom.

“Ben!”
Still no response
.

Chelsea spotted her cell phone sliding over the floor and quickly scrambled for it on hands and knees. She raised it closely to her face and dialled her home phone with shaky hands. There was absolute silence. She wrenched it back and stared at it. Had it been broken when it fell? The screen wasn’t smashed.
Something isn’t right.

She typed out a hasty text to Kate. Seconds later it came up with a message to say it hadn’t been delivered. “This is impossible! It’s blocking my phone!” she cried out in disbelief.

The giant was closing in, the whole room juddering madly with his footsteps. The glass fell off her bedside table and smashed, books tumbled from the bookcase onto the floor, her bed was jumping off the ground just as her own body was. The light fixture in the ceiling was swaying to and fro madly and threatened to smash into pieces.

She couldn’t sit still and splayed her figure out flat on the carpet, as she tried to keep from throwing up. Chelsea’s head thudded painfully on the floor and she winced, but kept herself down, rolling onto her stomach and crawling towards her bed. She saw a massive shadow block out the light from her window, and hastily scuttled under her bed.

The bed- frame slammed into the back of her head and she saw stars, and briefly, the flare of pain bright.

Everything in the red-head’s room had crashed down, rolled along the floor and was covering most of the carpet. The bookcase had toppled over and everything quaked as there was one more huge footstep right outside her building.

Boom.

And then there was silence.

Chelsea froze like a rabbit, her green eyes popping out of her head as she lay under the bed, fingernails digging into the floor. She tried to slow her erratic breathing by holding her breath, but knew that she was being far too loud. Her heart was ready to leap out of her chest, her vision becoming unfocused as she fought pure unadulterated fear and dread.

The giant was
there
, right there outside her window. She knew it.

Over the sound of her own breathing, Chelsea suddenly heard his. Deep, and so loud it sounded like a gale. There was movement, and then she heard a huge thundering noise against the side of the building that shook it like a small boat in a storm. She bit her lip hard to stop the scream.

A strange rushing noise came and then…

Sniffing.

It’s smelling me!

Chelsea recoiled in horror, pulling her legs and arms up to her chest to make herself as small as she could, her eyes on the left side of the bed where the covers were falling over the side. Please, please don’t let it smell her! She couldn’t see the window and the room was pitch-black, but she knew he was there looking in. She could imagine his one massive eye pressed against the frame of her bedroom window, moving around the chaos of the room as he tried to spot her.

She felt her body shuddering in primal terror, breathing hitching in her chest. She wished that she could faint or something, and block all this out.
Oh God, oh God
. It had to be a nightmare. It just had to be.

The sniffing grew longer and louder, deep breaths drawing into lungs.

“
Maiden,”
said a huge rumbling voice, making every hair on her body stand up on end. Her very ears ached from the deep pitch of the tone and a stench like rotting feet filled the room. She sobbed and buried her head into her arms, not wanting to see.

Boom.

Boom.

The giant moved closer to the building and Chelsea couldn’t understand why no one was coming. Where was her dad and mum? Her brother? Where were the police? Why couldn’t she hear sirens or people screaming, or anything above the car alarms and the chaos that the giant had left in his wake down the street?

“Please,” she whispered to herself.
Please don’t find me.

“
Maiden
!” he roared, the entire room shuddering in the aftermath. She screamed loud and long, clapping her hands over her ears.

The whole room suddenly began roiling and moving, the bed sliding to one side; her body rolling with it. To her horror, Chelsea came right out from under the bed and slid into her dresser, which toppled over, almost crushing her. She lurched to the side and then froze in place in complete horror as she saw a monstrous eyeball looking at her through the window, just before it was smashed and ripped open by a massive finger.