Part Three-Valerie's Nightmare

After Dr. Burger just set her free, Valerie, invisible to both that giant and Andre, their ally, slid down a lamp cord to the floor. She instinctively hid at a table leg once she reached the floor. Then carefully and overflowing with amazed relief, Val showed herself in the open. She smiled. What a joy to be able to show herself like this--to walk freely among giants. Raising her eyebrows to a thankful expression, Val decided to "get moving while the moving was good." She slipped under the door to the office. The first object which caught her attention was the large, lumbering body of Inspector Kobick. She wasn't sure would be invisible to him or if the effect wore off again. He was unaware of her presence. The problem was he was approaching quickly--his foot was a scant three feet from her. Something hit Val hard. She seemed to pass out--and to get thrown in utter blackness. Had Kobick kicked her? Val felt as if he had or perhaps, she thought, he brushed past her, kicking her without realizing it. Valerie rolled over and stood up. Did she black out? Was she still unconscious--or dead? She shook her head clear and stood to her feet fully to face whatever it was. "IT" was a towering, very aware Kobick--who stood watching her. A grim, sadistic smile graced his wide angle face from ear to ear. Val stood defiant, "I'm not afraid of you anymore! I've been on this planet for a good, long time now. Almost two years. I'm more used to it than before. Nothing you can throw at me can make me afraid anymore. Why this is almost home to me!"

Kobick laughed. A loud one which seemed to break Val's ear drums. She ran. "Go ahead run. You can't get away from my traps. From our traps. I have the whole giant population on my side. We are you know, well, you really do know--we are, well, giants. Hadn't you realized that we're bigger than you are--and on this planet we matter, our lives make a difference. Does you own infinitesimal life?"

As Val ran under a door that seemed to be floating in blackness, she also ducked from Kobick's swinging foot. He obviously thought this was some kind of joke--his whole manner seemed mocking, deriving an uncontrollable hysterical fun from what he had said. He hadn't sounded angry or mad as he would normally. Not at all serious--yet believing what he said and trying to control his guffaws of laughter. Val ran and found herself running in a rocky gully.

The rocks were too big for quick escapes and she couldn't run over them. It took her minutes to scramble across just one slightly tilted rock which was flat on one side, a crevice and cracks on the other. She felt her progress was slow. She peered behind her and saw Kobick's feet mashing stones she had just crawled over.

She managed over one last rock and began to fall into a slide. She felt her stomach go hollow. Her feet hit ground--on some small two inch rock ledge. Below was a black pit. It was moving. Val squinted. Some mass was in it. The pit seemed to be filled with squirming, writhing, many legged insect monsters! Maggots. This was a cliff. Val stared down, then up. Above, Kobick's face rose against the black clouded sky--if it was a sky. He smiled, "Afraid? Just admit it and I'll scoop you up."

Val nodded a no to him slowly as if her head were difficult to move. She forced herself to look down, transfixed on the livid, pale colored worms of slime oozing over each other. They were on a garbage pile. A stick passed up Val and brushed under the ledge she was on. The rock support under it gave way and slid down into the pit. Kobick was doing this. A maggot, hoping for food, rose up to greet the debris. It hissed its maw in hunger. Val saw what the maggots were feeding on--a dead, bloody rat. Or what was left of it.

Kobick brushed the stick under the ledge more, "Oh come on, admit it," he laughed.

Val could not look down or up. She imagined a maggot crawling its way up to her. One seemed to rise up in front of her, searching for something to eat. The putrid small made her gag. The ledge was crumbled into nothingness. Val turned to grab onto the rocky cliff wall but couldn't find a place to grab onto. She slid down, screaming. A soft, fluffy landing. She bounced. Val moved upward, composing herself as best she could, brushing her hair with her hand. She walked along a strand. Val's relief ended with an inner growing trepidation. She walked along a safety strand in a gigantic, pearl-like spider web. It was draped across two stones, spiraling to a center. Val dared move pupils to that center--in it sat a four foot, hairy, bulbous headed, plump bellied spider. It pawed at a hairy sack. Dozen of foot long baby spiders began a march along the strands--for their food--Val. She would be their first feeding.

Val had watched when Major Kagen, an Earth astronaut they met just after they first landed, was eaten by a single spider. It was horrible then and would be so now. This death wouldn't be the same: the lone spider had stung him as it swallowed him whole. These would cover her while each used its own deadly dart in her. All vying for flesh. Or perhaps the spiders would subdue her for the now moving mother mass in the center. Val tripped and fell forward, then back. She was stuck on her back in web with no escape. She watched as the babies replaced her foot. Whether they bit into it, she didn't know. She kicked. A giant hand wiped Val, the spiders, and the web away. They tumbled in a mass, rolled in a gooey, sticky ball. Val fell out. She fell onto a dirt floor near a log, set against a dark swamp--murky and black. On the log a giant frog jumped. Val jumped too--onto her feet which were whole and unmolested. She saw Kobick's foot nearby, assessing her fear.

"Why are you doing this? I am not afraid!" But she was. Swooping out of near blackness, a fanged, hairy flash cut clawed feet into the frog. A demon, a devil faced, near blind mammal with swishing wings that caused enough wind to flatten the tiny girl. In a flash, the bat made off with its prey. Val stood up again, "Okay, so it got the frog. It missed me--I'm too small a meal for it."

"What about..." Kobick's voice indicated a feigned search for something, a thing he already had his sights on, "..oh...them." He pointed.

Val saw a large swarm of bats blocked out the clouds. The flurry of flapping wings deafened her. Val thought she could feel the claws touching her hair, then her head. She shook her head free and ran on. Valerie collapsed. It seemed hours passed before she squinted her eyes open and blinked the haze away. Someone pulled her up by the wrist. "Mark. Oh, Mark. I've never been so glad to see anyone. Oh Mark, what's happening, Mark?"

Mark's friendly face beamed, "Val, are you okay?"

"Yes, but why did it get so dark? Why...?"

Mark could see that Val had undergone some trauma. He put two hands on her shoulders, "Val, relax. You're okay now."

"Yes," she eased herself, looking down, very tired.

"Val, have I told you lately how much I care about you?"

Val looked up, a wisp of a smile on her face, "Mark, no, but I appreciate the thought."

"No, I mean, I really like you..."

"Mark, I know, I really do. But I mean, is this the time to..."

"But I must tell you--I don't think you know how much..."

Val shrugged her shoulders free of Mark's hands, "C'mon, Mark...this isn't the time. We have to find the others. Barry...and where are Dan and Steve? Weren't they with you?"

"I don't care about them...I only care about you..."

Val gulped. She didn't like the way he was talking and how it grew more and more obsessed. His eyes glazed over. Val backed away, stopped, and then turned and ran. She knew his intent. His face told her. She ran through bushes which seemed to move up in front of her of their own accord, blocking her way. Finally she ran into arms--those of Steve.

"Ohhhh! Steve! Steve, help me. It's Kobick...I mean Mark...he's..oh Steve..."

Steve looked past her, "I'll help you, Val."

Val put her arm to her brow to wipe. "Steve, you don't know what I've been through..."

Steve focused on her again, entirely. "I'll help you."

"Thank God," Val puffed, "He's gone crazy. I don't..." she read Steve's smiling face. His eyes had the same crazed look. "Oh no!"

Steve shook her over to a tree stump, "But first..."

Val gasped, "NO, NO! Steve, what...what are you doing!"

Val brought her knee into Steve's stomach as he came closer. As he folded over, she scratched him so he would let her go. She continued her flight but didn't stop until she was far off into the forest. Trying to control her breathing, she leaned on a yellow, log which was on its side.

"Dan!" She saw Dan coming out from behind the fallen, yellow log. "Dan!"

"Yes, Valerie, me too. Surprised?"

"Oh Dan, no," Val cried. "I won't let you!"

"You won't remember any of this," Dan came at her. Val grabbed a tree branch from the ground and swung. Dan fell back. Val ran and also fell. Into blackness again.

With a flash, she landed into daylight in a pile of soft flowering plants. She passed out. Soon, she would come to and head for what usually was a place of safety--Spindrift. But was it? Nothing familiar seemed safe now. Everything seemed changed. Bent. She had to find out what was happening. Mark. He would be the one to tell her everything. She had to find him first, fear or not.

Part Four-Dan's Nightmare

Dan felt for the top of the curb. Steve had begun to lift him up but now there was no Steve. Mark wasn't on top the curb to give him a helping hand. To Dan, they had vanished. Something about his surroundings, the way they had changed yet really hadn't, told him he had been bounced into yet another land. Getting himself on top the curb, Dan looked into the street--and heard the sounds of rushing vehicles which informed him that the monster motorcars and trucks were there, only he couldn't see them. Dan wanted to panic, to run for cover. He composed himself as best he could. The lab was his destination before he experienced those funny lights.

Dan plodded on toward the lab, avoiding any sound of giant people and animals. He ran onto a lab table, not knowing how he arrived on it or how he came to be in the lab so suddenly. He knew he had to help Steve--and Valerie. He ran toward dissecting slides where he somehow instinctively knew the pair had been scotch taped down. Dan stopped short. He was too late. Steve and Val were already dissected, opened up. He stared in horror, knowing the bodies before him were too mangled to be stared at for long. Dan gulped, forcing himself away in despair. How could he hope to manage their little group? He leaned against a giant microscope which held a slide under it. The parts of his former friends' internal organs that were on that slide made Dan run. His stomach churned and tightened all at once. Dan plunged into to a drawer, half open. He rolled off its edge and hit a stack of books which toppled, Dan above. He fell over the rain of mammoth objects.

In darkness, Dan shook himself. He leaped off his back and spied a red object. He hastened to it. It was the Spindrift, he thought. Or was it? It looked too cardboard-ish. Almost a cartoon of its real image. He had to try to find out what it was.

Dan fled into the cockpit, quickly buckling himself in. With Steve dead, he was in command. He couldn't bear the decisions this giant land would call for. He made one now--they would attempt--he would attempt--an orbital stab through the space-time warp that brought them here not long ago. How long? Time seemed disturbed.

Dan already shot Spindrift up past the trees. He wondered about the others back in the passenger compartment: beautifully innocent Betty, the hopeful, little Barry, the trusting Mark, the voluptuous Valerie, and the comical Fitzhugh. Wait--Valerie was dead, wasn't she? And at this point, was Fitzhugh comical? Mark, all that trusting?

Dan saw the shining green space time warp. He focused the ship at its center. A movement caught Dan's eye. Steve--or parts of him--were in the control room with him. A hand slapped his shoulder. A disembodied hand. "I told you. We didn't have the power. We couldn't achieve orbit." Steve smiled.

"No. But we are in orbit!" Dan sweated. This was not possible.

"Not for long," Steve smiled and then laughed, his mouth twisted up, "You'll be joining Valerie and I soon."

Steve was correct. Spindrift never reached the ball of green. Her nose dipped downward, the green haze over the cockpit and Dan's face dipped upward. Spindrift plunged at the planet. Dan dripped the controls. The ship flew down, down, down. The forest sprang up to meet them ship. Dan's stomach flopped as the ship splashed into a watery pit of sand. Water and sand piled into the cockpit from the air vents. Dan thrust the ship up, out of the pit. The ship skipped over the sand.

Dan's fear broke with a laugh as he realized the Spindrift had escaped. He saw the thickness of two trees ahead. Just in time, he turned the controls. Yet Spindrift wouldn't turn. She skidded through a flat, dark nightmare landscape--into trees. The whole ship blew up as it hit them. Behind him, he could feel the ship deteriorate in the mass of heat and flame! Dan was flipped from the spaceship--his entire seat was ripped from the cockpit, reddish-yellow explosions behind and beneath him--where the ship should have been. As he flew through mid air, Dan grappled to unbuckle himself. His seat, hurtling beneath him to its doom, was enveloped by quicksand. Dan also fell at the bog.

He stood up, alert. Why wasn't he hurt? He winced. Maybe he was hurt. "What the hell is going on here..?"

"Help! Help! Help! Help!" There were several voices. All familiar. Dan turned with barely enough time to grieve for those on the ship that must now be dead. One cry made him move toward it. Betty was scotch taped in front of a giant tire belonging to a giant car. As the tire did, he rushed toward her but another cry of, "Help," caught his attention. Turning, Barry was surrounded by a family of fat, slime trailing slugs! Who should he rush to? The creatures moved at the boy, spouting gooey substances at him. To another side, Dan saw Marl calling for help as the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner sucked him up. Mark grabbed onto a crate for support. Fitzhugh was nearby too, tied to a giant railroad with a train coming. From its window yelled Dan's former giant friend Biff Bower, who was black like Dan. Two black giants--a man and a woman looked down at a confused, anxious, and helpless Dan.

Dan called, "Help the boy and the men. Please! I'll get the girl!"

"No," the man laughed, "We are the ones who put them where they are!"

The black giantess smiled, "Did you think we were friends just because we were black?"

"My dear, isn't that prejudice--in reverse, really just another form of prejudice?"

"I believe so, dear. We are people. And as such..." the woman went on, "...we can act any way we want--and we want them to die!"

Dan moved to help Betty first, "I can't help all of you! Forgive me!" As Dan untied Betty, he thought he felt the wheel crushing him as it rammed into his back. Betty reached up for Dan, he thought she meant to help him.

But Betty turned into a copy of himself. "A clone!" Dan gasped. It pulled him down, "I'm the one who gets to live this time! You're not going anywhere!" Dan was sure the wheel would be on both of them. It rolled at them both and he saw it just as he hit the black floor with the clone, both struggling.

Dan rolled back from the tire and the dark floor gave out under him. He fell and fell into more darkness. He rolled past a window. He thought on the other side of it, he saw Steve falling. Dan reached out to help him but fell out of it himself. He fell and fell, down and down.

Dan landed out of his nightmare onto a pavement near a lamp post. After a long while, he recovered and when he checked himself, he was amazed that he still had his radio attached to his belt. He opened it, "Steve, Mark, Fitzhugh? Can any of you hear me? If you can, please answer me. Come in?"