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Giants Rising
Giants Rising
Giants Rising
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Giants Rising

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A genetic researcher's goal of creating super athletes takes an unexpected turn when he accidentally creates hundreds of young giants.
The billionaire owner of a sports equipment dynasty financially backs a brilliant geneticist to secretly create future sports heroes to endorse his products. Illegal and dangerous, the desired results happen faster than planned as teenage athletes begin to suddenly break records in a variety of sports.
Social media and national news coverage make these young athletes famous. Everything is going better than planned when it all rapidly changes as these young people abruptly grow, adding two or more feet to their height.
Things take a terrible turn when a side-effect of experiencing sudden and extreme growth comes to be called The Rage. Unpredictable and erratic, regular news stories appear of violent episodes by giants.
As the government begins to round up all of the giants a few manage to go into hiding.
This is the story of David Jones, a giant, and his brother Ethan's attempt to keep him out of the government's hands.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherJohn Schrock
Release dateJul 16, 2017
ISBN9781370032761
Giants Rising
Author

John Schrock

Those that love books of all types, are likely baby-boomers, have worked in a variety of fields, would do anything for their family, like to think they have grown wiser and a bit gentler, understand that most goals require quite a bit of work, and because of all of this could not resist the urge to write - we have a lot in common. My first real job was at thirteen, and I have never wanted to stop. I have met very few people whose path in life have not taken twists and turns. The wrong turns I have made shine like warning beacons from my past. Everything else is a measure of mystery. Did I, or have I made the right choice ? I like it though and would not change a thing. I've been writing for my own amusement for more than thirty years. The itch to publish my words and await public judgment is exciting. I am from Texas. Started out in Dallas, and have since spent most of my adult life at the other end of the state, near the border, or in its famous Hill Country located in the middle of Texas.

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    Giants Rising - John Schrock

    Chapter 1

    David the Giant

    Hiding from the world and fighting the urge to simply get up and go outside, David sat quietly alone in the darkness of his self-imposed prison. The grey light of the television washed over him.

    The final minutes of playoff game had the San Antonio Spurs locked in a titanic battle with the Golden State Warriors. The lead was changing frequently, and the crowd was on its feet yelling and cheering for their team at the top of their lungs. The game’s announcers excitedly called out the play-by-play action, struggling to suppress their own urge to yell.

    With less than a minute to go, down by three points, the veteran point guard for the Spurs, Tony Parker brought the ball down court trying to set up a play that would win the game, or at least force overtime. Crossing the three point scoring line it became apparent that his coach wanted a shot taken that would also draw a foul and set up a chance to win the game outright.

    Four laser-like passes in six seconds and the ball ended up in Tim Duncan’s hands as he stood underneath the bucket. With a quick pump fake and very short layup the ball dropped through the netting. Almost as if scripted by the Spurs’ coach, and with barely a handful of seconds left in regulation time, Draymond Green, the Golden State power forward slapped at the rising ball but missed, instead hitting Tim Duncan’s arm. At the sound of the referee’s whistle, the loud and boisterous crowd went crazy, forcing the game’s announcers to shout if they wanted to continue calling the game for the viewers at home.

    Each time David heard the words ‘big man’ used on TV he could not help but laugh, something he did less and less as each day passed. He turned his gaze away from the television and to this left. The flickering light from the screen danced on the walls of his room surrounding him with shadows and light. Looking at the horizon of his confined space as it rapidly switched back and forth between light and dark, he imagined himself at sea receiving semaphore signals from another ship. Just outside those claustrophobic walls existed the ability to stretch, to feel the cool night air, to see the stars; but his brother had said soon and convinced him that the dangers out there were very real.

    He stared at the basketball on the floor and the huge poster next to it. Gifts from his smart-ass brother, Ethan. It was a life-sized image of Paul Sturgess, the seven-foot, eight-inch, NBA D-leaguer from England, the tallest man currently in pro basketball. At that height, Paul was able to dunk the basketball while keeping his feet firmly on the floor of the court. Hanging from the rafters next to Paul was Heidi Klum, but even her flawless beauty barely dressed in three tiny but strategically placed pieces of bright yellow fabric were unable to reinflate David’s quickly falling emotions.

    The huge cardboard picture of Paul was nailed to one of the twelve foot tall posts used to hold up the roof over the small garage that had been converted to be David’s dungeon. A dog’s distant bark in an otherwise silent night momentarily distracted him.

    Above the top of Paul’s head were half a dozen marks drawn on the wooden post; each with a date scribbled next it. David’s mood plummeted as his eyes rose to each successive black line drawn across the face of the wood.

    The highest one, noted more than two months earlier, had ‘8 7’ neatly written in black. David thought to himself, if those announcers wanted to see a really ‘big man’, here he was. But he knew that the NBA would not be searching him out. There would be no local news crew coming to interview him. And if a reporter and cameraman did come, they wouldn’t be alone. He knew the dangers beyond the walls were real, and he knew his brother was working hard to get him safely out of that old garage.

    David, trapped somewhere between celebrity and criminal, was in hiding. All the ‘big men’, and for that matter, ‘big women’, had either been rounded up by the government or were now underground, just as he was. Every newly discovered giant instantly made headlines.

    Finding giants was a new national pastime, and increasingly put pressure on Ethan to be creative in getting his brother both the food and clothes he needed without being discovered. When found, not all giants went peacefully. Each new capture instantly became the top story of the day. Too many of the giants found ended up dead - in David’s eyes executed by paranoid citizens, both public and private, much in the manner of lynch mobs from the old West.

    Never in the history of the world had there been hundreds of giants reported at the same time. A dozen autopsies of those that put up a fight and lost uniformly revealed the same genetic mutation. The news reporters had a field day with this information and sparked widespread speculation as to the cause. Everything was considered and widely debated, from the possibility of a tainted GMO food supply, to a sick and twisted terrorist plot to destroy the United States. A few fundamental preachers even claimed it was due to the re-emergence of the ancient, biblical Nephilim and proof the end of the world was near.

    David was going stir crazy hiding like this, but Ethan had stressed he remain patient as he came up with a plan to safely smuggle his little brother out of Los Angeles and away from so many prying eyes. If it had not been for his big brother, David knew he would already have been captured by the authorities, or worse, dead.

    Looking back, it was unsettling to now be more than two feet taller than he had been just two years earlier. When he started to grow and stood seven feet tall it had been fun. Seven-foot tall people were unique, but not big enough to be considered a freak of nature. People could not help but notice men that tall. That handful of extra inches did not qualify a person as a freak.

    What was amazing was that all of David grew proportionately. His broad shoulders were now broad giant shoulders. Previously, a well-muscled and athletic six-footer, David’s muscles had also grown and now he was well muscled and ripped eight-footer. He had always been in shape but never in as good of shape as he had become. His body’s metabolism had kicked into hyperdrive to support its supernatural growth and had burned up every stored calorie it had been holding on to. Again, it was Ethan to the rescue as he experimented with David’s diet until he came up with enough calories every day that kept David from going crazy with hunger.

    Even the second foot of new height was fun at first, but that had quickly worn off almost eighteen months earlier. Being eight feet tall had been an exciting time for him. He had been interviewed by all three local television stations and regularly was receiving marriage proposals from women he did not know. His height had landed him a tryout from the Lakers, but he had not grown up playing basketball and the coach had proposed having him play with one of their semi-pro development teams for a year to learn the game and work on his skills. He even had a private lunch with a major sports agent discussing her possibly representing him if he wanted to make a run at the NBA. Life back then was good, but unknown to him at that time, would soon change. Clothes and shoes were impossible to come by and David could no longer fit inside the largest of vehicles.

    Continuing to grow beyond eight feet tall was the tipping point for David and his brother. By then the public’s fascination with the sudden appearance of so many giants across the Midwest and West Coast had turned to fear. Each of the last six months one or more giants had been killed during a sudden and violent confrontation with the public. The media managed to stir the pot when they pointed out that giants were credited for killing more people in the last twelve months than rabid dogs or poisonous snakes and spiders combined. Likening them to animals began the public’s shift in perception of them. More than once the term ‘non-human’ was used to describe them and harkened back to the time when the same was said about other minorities.

    It took the shooting death of Jason Carls to send David into hiding. Jason’s huge metabolism, requiring massive amounts of food, had ultimately driven him from his own hiding place, a deserted warehouse in St. Louis near the Mississippi River. Alone, he had managed to forage his meals until his hunger started to drive him crazy. Without the benefit of a big brother like Ethan to keep his hunger appeased, Jason had broken into a suburban home looking for food. The homeowner called 911 to report he had a giant in his house ransacking the kitchen. The first responders shot and killed Jason within two minutes of being at the site of the break-in; seemingly not enough time for them to try to peacefully arrest him. The wrongful death suit his family brought against the police was dismissed. To the giants both in government custody and in hiding, and their families, the judge had set the stage for vigilantes to operate without fear of legal action. It was then that both David and Ethan knew that he could no longer move about freely in public. The remaining free giants became invisible.

    Day by day the public discussion about what to do with the four hundred known giants was played out in the media across the country. The decision to ‘round up’ all of the giants horrified Ethan. Everything about it was wrong to him. Having lost their parents a few years earlier in a car accident, Ethan was not ready to simply hand his brother over to authorities. Rumors were rampant that the ones they already had in custody were being tested in a secret lab in the Pacific Northwest. He was not about to allow his gentle, baby brother to be a huge guinea pig and subjected to whatever cruel torture they passed off as research in the name of science and public safety.

    Both their deceased parents had been real estate agents that owned rent houses in the hills north of Los Angeles. One of these small houses in a quiet neighborhood had recently been vacated. Before moving in, Ethan and some of his buddies had crudely remodeled the garage as David’s new bedroom. He lied to them explaining that he had agreed to certain modifications the new tenant requested be done to the garage. As soon as it was ready Ethan waited for nightfall to move David in the back of an enclosed four-horse trailer he borrowed.

    He had failed to realize that horses relieve themselves while in trailers and by the time he opened the rear door of the trailer David smelled like a dirty stall in a barn. Far too large for the small house’s 1950’s-era tub, Ethan and David discussed a water hose and the backyard, but Ethan was nervous taking a chance of David being seen and having a nosy neighbor call the authorities. Standing in the dark surveying their house’s backyard, Ethan heard a pump turn on and water moving through pipes. It was coming from the house next door. Part of the decision to move to this house was learning that their only immediate neighbors, the people next door, were out of the country for a year and the house would not be occupied while they were gone.

    A pump meant a pool. He quietly told his brother, Wait here, while he ran inside and emerged with a bottle of dish soap and pile of beach towels.

    As soon as he returned he grabbed David’s arm and pulled on it indicating he was to follow him.

    Man, you stink, Ethan wasn’t smiling as he said it.

    Chapter 2

    National News

    Los Angeles, Last Year

    For the last two years Ethan had spent every free minute he had studying giants. He mined the Internet for all it was worth. Ethan thoroughly researched everything and anything even remotely linked to giants. He knew all of the alien theories. He studied the story of David and Goliath and the ancient legends about the Nephilim, the mixed offspring of fallen angels and humans. He saw all of the pictures of grizzled men standing next to holes they dug in the ground and the supposed giant skeletal bones they had discovered. Of all of those, Ethan’s favorite was the picture of a complete thirty-six foot long giant skeleton buried just twenty feet underground. In spite of the fact that it was deemed a complete hoax, Ethan liked the chutzpah of the old boy grinning broadly in the photo next to the giant bones. He attended every one of the Los Angeles town hall meetings sponsored by the giant researchers at U.C.L.A. He watched over and over again the short videos of Robert Wadlow, a young man from the early 1940’s that dwarfed the crowds around him.

    He read and reread copies of the letters their father had sent the mysterious Dr. Little. Ethan was well aware of the secret and illegal DNA engineering the doctor had done on his brother seven years earlier. The letters their father had received from Dr. Little made the doctor sound no better than the old-West huckster selling his magic elixir from the back of a covered wagon. The doctor’s sales pitch to their father detailed his discovery of the so-called Goliath gene; and how the two hundred thousand dollars he was charging per patient would prove to be an incredible bargain compared to the future endorsement income a top professional athlete would earn. It was a blatant, shameless document full of self-promoting language and incredible claims that would have quickly generated a better business bureau investigation; that is, if it were selling a legal product.

    The doctor wrote about the ten years it had taken to prove what he constantly referred to as his amazing discovery. Working in secrecy all those years, he knew that he had discovered how to create truly superior athletes. He cited how his animal trials supported his prediction of being able to change a person’s complete physiology in such a manner that he could guarantee turning anyone into a world-class athlete. He went on further to say that anyone predisposed to be strong or fast or having natural abilities or instincts for a given sport would be ‘super-charged’ by his therapy and would exponentially benefit from his new and amazing discovery.

    There was a three month void between Dr. Little’s first letter to their father and the sixth and final one he received from the doctor. In it Dr. Little referred to a phone conversation they had had that same night. Incredibly, Dr. Little was confirming in writing that Mr. Jones’ youngest son, David, was being accepted to join the test group. The letter included detailed instructions how and where to send the two hundred thousand dollars being charged for his treatment. Never in any of their father’s correspondence was there a reference to their mother. Ethan wondered if she even knew.

    It was almost three years before Ethan, along with the rest of the world, witnessed the mysterious Dr. Little’s fantastic claims prove to be true as scattered stories emerged of young teenagers setting unofficial records in their respective sports. That changed after only a few years when Dr. Little’s protégés’ began to fall prey to an unexpected side effect. They grew. Now, not only stronger and faster than anyone else on the planet, they were bigger, which in turn, served to magnify their physical abilities. It did not take long for them to gain the label of giant.

    It took another twelve months for the Rage to appear. Dr. Little was preparing to step out of the shadows and onto the public stage to receive the accolades he expected to be heaped upon him when the sudden and unexpected side effects first appeared.

    The national media went into a feeding frenzy every time the ‘Rage’ turned a ‘giant’ into a wild and dangerous animal. Parents of these children panicked, and while being interviewed by the news media one of the fathers told the world for the first time about Dr. Little and his underground science. Fear, shame, and cowardice kept the majority of mouths tightly shut of the parents of giants as they frantically sought medical care for their children. No longer the darlings of the sports world, and now considered dangerous to the point of being deadly, some families began hiding their sons and daughters, unsure of what to do.

    Dr. Little’s staff had managed to keep up with the location of all but four of their test subjects.

    David’s parents were one of these four families, hiding their second son in order to protect him from the media, the scientific community, and the government. When tragedy struck and his parents died in a car crash, David’s older brother, Ethan, assumed the responsibility of continuing to hide his brother.

    Day by day the news and national debate of what to do about the giant threat became more startling to David and Ethan. Already self-conscious about his nearly nine-foot frame, much to David’s horror, the media now likened everyone of his stature to being a wild and dangerous animal that needed to be confined.

    A high school basketball player in Nevada, one of the ‘four hundred’, as the media tried out different monikers in their reporting, was fouled while driving for the goal and became irate. At the ref’s whistle for the foul he made a move towards the opposing player. When both refs and his own coach tried to restrain him, one ended up unconscious, and the other ended up on the floor with a broken jaw. The crowd stood frozen seeing a teenager, even the size of that one, manhandle two grown men.

    Seven days later in Massachusetts, a policeman arrested an eight-foot member of the four hundred for vandalizing cars in a parking lot. The boy instantly became belligerent. The officer went to cuff him and the young man broke both of his arms. It took ten men to ultimately subdue him.

    But these, and similar headlines, were nothing compared to the Ventura Drive Giants.

    Chapter 3

    Traffic Jam

    Ethan Jones sat frustrated in his car after a long day at the gym. His first two clients were no shows. After that he trained six in a row, including Mrs. Haldemon the young wife of one of Hollywood’s biggest producers. She was a beautiful, young cliché with too much money, too much time, too little husband, and far too much ego to add value to his world. He sighed. It had never occurred to him while in college that a physical trainer might serve as entertainment to bored, privileged women. It was a far cry from the life of a surgeon he had planned for himself.

    He checked his watch. It indicated a quarter to four. He needed to be home by five-thirty because his brother would need food.

    Parked in the middle of a major intersection, he could see stopped traffic for blocks in all directions. There was little solace for him as he checked the drivers around him and able to confirm he was not alone in his frustration. The radio was tuned to the oldies channel, which was doing a tribute to Sinatra. Strangers In The Night was the current love song mocking him from his car’s speakers. Ethan was a sucker for sappy songs like that; even during times like now when he had no significant love interest.

    Hoping to get a read on how long before he would be moving again, Ethan rolled down his window and turned off his engine and radio. He was surprised that most of the drivers near him had already done the same. Sitting quietly in his car the flawless Southern California weather went quickly to work on easing the tension he was carrying within. Slowly the din of surrounding vehicles became quieter and quieter as the remaining drivers followed the lead of others as Ethan had done and shut down their cars as well.

    Ethan was just beginning to marvel at the unexpected solitude growing around him when multiple sirens could be heard wailing in the distance. He strained to determine their proximity from where he sat, but before he could he heard the heavy whump of a helicopter overhead chopping the air. That helicopter and two others were slowly circling less than a half-mile in front of his car. A much closer siren’s screams grabbed his attention. Ethan turned to his left and saw an all-black van with the word ‘POLICE’ written in large letters on its side careening wildly through the traffic and baring down on him, so close, he could see the intensity on the driver’s face. Dark glasses covered the man’s eyes, but they did not prevent Ethan from seeing the hard-set jaw below them. A second, uniformed man stood where a passenger would normally have sat. Ethan could also see the black shotgun he was holding and the equally determined expression on that man’s face.

    The S.W.A.T. team van was headed straight for his car. Without thinking Ethan pulled away from his open window and laid himself across his front seats, closing his eyes tightly, expecting impact. Instead, the van’s driver expertly maneuvered around both his car and the one in front of his. The driver hit the nearby curb but never lost control. Only after he sat back up did Ethan first see the growing crowd all around him that had abandoned their vehicles and were moving on foot in the same direction as the S.W.A.T. team. Whatever the cause it was something either big, extraordinary, or both. He checked the sky again. A fourth helicopter had joined the others.

    Ethan turned his radio back on and searched for a local newscast. The first thing he heard was breaking news. He turned the volume up to hear a newscaster in the Channel Six helicopter report what they were seeing below them. Ethan thought he might make eye contact with the reporter above; they were that close to the ground.

    The radio report continued, Just twenty minutes ago a frantic call was received by officials that two giants had attacked shoppers at the Benny’s grocery store on Ventura Boulevard. Reports have been coming in steadily of casualties and extensive property damage. I’m looking down at the Benny’s store now and I can see a large, gaping hole in the front of the building … The reporter’s voice trailed off.

    Ethan looked out his windshield. There it was. He could just make out the last three letters of a Benny’s sign. He watched the rooftop of the black van turn when it reached that sign. Many of the people now passing by his car had cellphones to their ears, talking excitedly. Out of all the words in the air he repeatedly heard the word ‘giants’. It was all the bait needed to lure him out of his car and join the crowd streaming down the street.

    He rolled up his windows, locked his car, and allowed himself to be swept along with the swelling crowd. Random bits of multiple conversations from all around him reached his ears. Only one word was on everyone’s lips, ‘giant’. By the time Ethan reached the edge of the Benny’s property the street in front of the grocery store was full of gawkers. Ethan was not shy and easily made his way through the crowd until he was pressing firmly against the hastily erected police barricades. The Do Not Cross yellow tape stretched tightly against his waist.

    The black van that narrowly missed hitting him was parked in clear view in the middle of the grocery store’s mostly empty parking lot. Ethan watched the six-man team dressed in black talking with each other as their van shielded them from the front of the store. Ethan counted more than twenty police cars scattered across the front of the store.

    To Ethan’s right and near the front of the store he saw a small car on its side. Mortally wounded, the car’s dark, thick liquids were pooling and spreading beneath it.

    The front of the store had a huge, jagged hole in its plate glass. From the direction of the growing number of blue uniforms an announcement boomed over a bullhorn. Ethan saw a tall, balding man with broad shoulders holding it. He pointed the device towards the big, black hole in the front of the grocery store and spoke. His words were directed in the opposite direction from where Ethan stood and were unintelligible to him. The three uniformed officers nearest Ethan seemed nervous and tense, their focus and weapons all pointed in the direction of the damaged store even while their actual assignment appeared to be crowd control.

    A hand on his shoulder startled him. He blushed, but no one seemed to notice.

    A tall, striking blonde looked him in the eye and said in a very professional and business-like voice, Excuse me, sir. Channel Six News crew, please let us through.

    It was Jane Nickell, the Channel Six field reporter. He seldom watched the news, but when he did, he watched Channel Six, only because of her. She was simply the best-looking thing on TV. Momentarily stunned to have her standing next to him, he was speechless.

    She did not wait for his answer, motioning for her crew to follow her. He wanted to call his brother and tell him to record Channel Six but didn’t. Two policemen initially stopped her, then quickly let her pass when they recognized her. Momentarily distracted and with big smiles on their faces, one moved a barricade to allow her through more easily, while the other held the yellow tape up for her. In less than a minute her crew was setup just inside the police perimeter. Rolling, she immediately got down to business as she began describing the scene for the viewers at home.

    She began by telling her audience, including Ethan now standing just out of camera shot, that two male giants suddenly appeared out of nowhere and abruptly began attacking anyone and everyone in the grocery store’s parking lot. They created the huge hole in the store’s glass entrance. There were unconfirmed reports of at least three fatalities and several injuries. As far as everyone knew, the two were still inside. Other than the sounds from the helicopters lazily circling overhead like mechanical vultures, and the chatter from the various news crews now on-site reporting live, it was eerily calm and quiet.

    Ethan shuddered each time she used the word ‘giants’. He looked at his watch. It was now ten after four. He needed to be home, but this could potentially be his first personal contact with other giants. He felt compelled to see them; and besides, his car was going nowhere until the crowd around him cleared. He took a chance and waited.

    The S.W.A.T. team was now pressed tight against the store’s front wall with three of them on each side of the dark, cave-like hole. Ethan could see their leader using hand signals to guide his men. They had a small camera on a long pole and were extending it in ahead of them trying to assess what they were up against. On the instructions of the man with the bullhorn the power to the store had already been cut. The jagged opening, now dark from within, looked like the mouth of a very, very large shark.

    Ethan was staring at Jane Nickell and listening carefully to her words. She was much more attractive in person than he imagined. Trim and fit, he wondered who trained her, because they were obviously good at it. No one in California seemed capable of exercising themselves on their own. Everyone had a trainer, if not more than one.

    He always believed she was taller than him, but now, seeing her in person he realized that with her heels on they stood eye to eye. What really grabbed him was how vividly green and luminescent her eyes appeared in the late afternoon light.

    Mesmerized as he studied Jane’s every move, Ethan’s attention was on Jane when he saw the crowd all around him forcibly take a step back and simultaneously let out a collective, slow oh. Ethan turned to face the store and saw the grocery cart fly from the darkness through the hole in the glass and crash into the closest police cruiser. The man with the bullhorn was forced to throw it away and dive for cover. There was an odd ringing sound that bounced off the surrounding buildings when the metal of the cart met the metal of the car.

    Deep, guttural sounds now came from the dark opening. Everyone in the parking lot heard those same threatening and ominous sounds and became silent straining to hear them better. It seemed like an eternity of silence, when an almost animal-like howl of unimaginable proportions blasted its way out from the inside of the store. If the crowd had been silent before, they were absolutely mute now. All eyes, now large and round, were glued to that frightful hole. Some of those pressed up against the barricades

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