PodCastle

* Authors : Derrick Boden and Kevin Sandefur
* Narrators : J.S. Arquin and Dani Daly
* Host : Matt Dovey
* Audio Producer : Devin Martin
*
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When the Giants Came Through the Valley – Previously published by Lightspeed
Floaters – Previously published by Pulp Literature Magazine


When the Giants Came Through the Valley – Content warning for references to suicide and parental death
Floaters – Content warning for hospitalisation


Rated PG-13
When the Giants Came Through the Valley
by Derrick Boden
 
When the giants came through the valley, they made footprints as long as the Santa Monica Promenade, as wide as Dodgers’ Stadium. They crushed dance studios, keto cafes, a waterpark. They left trails of steep-sided ravines with walls of stratified clay and crumbling asphalt, and this is where we now live. Sunset comes earlier down here, but it could be worse.
Our footprint is deep and arid and full of retooled strip malls. We dwell in the remains of Foot Lockers and tiki bars, tag our names out front in bold blue letters. Lazy Stan, Carmencita, Hot Hot Henri. We didn’t all live here, before the giants came through. We’re a product of collective chance. Grinding out another two-hour commute, heading for happy hour at The Village after working another double, the third this week. Some of us still have homes topside, in buildings the giants happened to miss. But that’s neither here nor there. The footprint is our home, now.
No two footprints are the same. Ours doesn’t have much going for it, aside from a surprisingly fertile heel wall. Good for growing grapes, which has come in handy considering how the airdrops never include any wine. A few footprints down, they struck oil. Bleeding through the cracks in that old giant’s sole stamp. Most people topside say the footprints are a blemish, an embarrassment. Not that one. Excavators moved in overnight, kicked everyone out.
The grapes are our little secret.

When the giants came through the valley, they shed all manner of alien creatures. Land-crawling octopuses shaken from the hairs of their feet, huge spiders jettisoned from their vast dreadlocks. Razor-toothed frogs that are ninety-percent mouth.
They scuttled about in a daze, like us, before aggressively laying claim to whatever residence they could find. The dusty asphalt crags of a basketball court, the ethernet-cable jungle of a ruined server farm. Most of them are herbivores, lucky us. Tomas took it upon himself to sort out which ones weren’t. He had a good run; we’re thankful for his contributions.
Topsiders have a rule. Anything that breaches the surface that isn’t human, kill it. Down here, though, it’s live and let live. Sure, the critters aren’t always pleasant, but who can blame them? They’re just like us, clinging to some dispassionate monolith our whole lives because we’re all too scared to let go, even as it stomps and stomps and stomps on everything we’ve ever known. Until finally, through exhaustion or the sheer loss of will, we just can’t hold on anymore.
So we let go.

When the giants came through the valley, they caught everyone unaware. Where did they come from? The Moon? Mars? Bakersfield? Did they rise from an age-old slumber deep within the crust of the earth?