Donald, Barlomie's chief of police, sank back into his seat with the glass of wine in his hand. He looked down into it as he swirled the liquid, lost in thought.

The man loved wine, and knew that the bottle that the town's mayor shared with him was a fine one indeed. Typically that exclusivity alone was a flavor Donald enjoyed, and yet the party at the mansion -- with all its fine food, to be had by anyone -- and the poorer folk of Barlomie trading up in droves for what seemed like a pretty good deal made the wine sour in his mouth.

"Troubling times we live in," Donald remarked finally.

"Troubling, indeed," Paul, the old, stooping mayor agreed.

Beside Paul was his wife, Wendy, who reached for the bottle to pour more wine for her husband; Donald held his cup out for her, too, and nodded at her with a smile. Both men were about eight feet tall; Wendy was a shorter six. Like many old-fashioned male-led households, Paul set up his finances in such a way that he'd be considerably larger than his wife.

"You know," Donald said, "I'm beginning to think there's something to that coalition Brock's got going on. I know that'd mean giving up our money for the time being for the greater good, but there seems to be no stopping this giant bitch we find invading our town. Every road leading to her mansion is packed with lines of people ready to give up all they have for her little experiment. Hell, she owns most of the land around here, even. What I wouldn't give to be able to march right into her house with my deputies and shoot her dead."

Wendy cleared her throat softly. "I'm going to get myself a water, if anyone wants anything."

"Folks have gone mad," Paul murmured, watching his wife go. Then his eyes glanced back toward the windows, and the rain running down them, and the darkness beyond. "Why, can't they just be happy with what they have? Freeloaders just looking for a handout -- all of them! If ol' Barlomie himself were still here, he'd kick the lot of them right out. Makes me sick to call myself their mayor."

Donald smiled ruefully. "Well, while I wish we could just ditch the lot of them, ol' Barlomie never had to kick people out by the dozen - let alone hundreds of them at once. You got to hand it to that woman: she came in here and played folks like a fiddle. And now here we are, our money and influence all meaningless. I have to tell you, Paul: I've half a mind to just get in my truck and leave Barlomie behind."

Paul glared at the police chief; his thin, colorless lips twitched. "Don't you talk like that, my boy. This is our home. Barlomie is sacred ground." Paul listened to a distant, short thump, like thunder; his face softened. "Besides, this tomfoolery will blow over soon enough, and then the rabble will be back, begging for our help and leadership. No, I won't sign up with Brock, and I won't sign up with that Circe, either. To hell with them both!"

There was another echoing THOOM in the distance, and the odd shortness of it -- and how close it came to the noise before -- made both Paul and Donald furrow their brows.

Wendy popped her head in from the kitchen. "Dear? The water ain't working."

"What'dya mean 'ain't working,'" Paul asked, irritated.

"I turn it on but nothing's coming out," Wendy complained.

Somewhere out in the night, in the darkness, the sound the men heard continued, a steady THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! that made them all stop and listen. Shortly after each rumbling noise, Paul, Donald, and Wendy all felt waves of energy shake up through their legs from the floor.

"What's that," Wendy asked.

"Does that sound like thunder to you," Donald asked the older man.

"Wendy, go get my gun, right now," Paul commanded. "It's her!"

The approaching, thunderous footsteps came nearer and nearer, clearly heading directly toward the mayor's house; there was a cascading crash, as Circe no doubt ignored buildings that were between her and her target. And, finally, nearly overhead, a peel of joyful laughter.

"I got a shotgun out in my truck," Donald said, leaping up from his seat.

"Wendy, now!" Paul called in his feeble voice.

"Ha-ha-ha!" A voice chuckled directly above the house; glasses and plates rattled on the table, and Wendy stumbled on her way up the stairs, screaming.

Both Paul and Donald were forced to look upward with startled terror: it sounded as if a tornado was ripping off the roof to the mayor's home. It wasn't a tornado, however: it was Circe's fingers. The entire ceiling came away, lifting upward into the night. Heavy rain splashed down into the exposed room, instantly soaking the mayor and his guest.

"Holy fuck!" Donald cried out.

The mayor gasped and threw up his hands to shield himself from the rain. Beyond his arms he could see Circe's huge face, far larger than it was the day of her parade. Water dripped from the towering woman's dark skin; her teeth glistened in the night sky as she grinned widely; her dark eyes were glowing like moons as the lights of the town illuminated her visage.

"Hello, mister mayor! You haven't come to visit me yet," Circe said, her voice booming. "I'm disappointed. So I came to visit you. What a lovely little house you have here."


Wendy stayed at the bottom of the stairs, where she fell, screaming up at the face that filled the hole at the top of the house; Donald, too, was shaking his head and shouting in surprise. Only Paul recovered fast enough to react, driven with rage.

"You no-good bitch!" The mayor shrieked, running for his coat, which had fallen off of the rack and to the rain-slick ground. He nearly fell over trying to scoop it up, and pulled the dripping garment around himself. "You think you can fuck with me? I'll call the governor! I'll have the state troopers haul your ass away. Hell, I'll get the national guard to shoot you down!"

"Well doesn't that sound like fun," Circe said, watching him run for the front door; she only had to tilt her head to the side to watch him come out the other side. It was like peering into a dollhouse, she thought.

Paul scrambled across the front walk of his home, to the car that was parked out front. Circe chuckled, sounding even more like the thunder they had thought she was, and she straightened and watched the tiny man run.

It was quite a sight for Circe to stand all the way up: she stood nearly seventy-five-feet tall now, half again the height that she was earlier. With her hands on her hips she felt like she was back in her mansion, standing over the model replica she had of Barlomie in her foyer. She had to resist the urge to crush the mayor underfoot then and there; no, she waited for him to get into his car first.

Donald rushed out of the house with Wendy just behind him, both of them gawped up at Circe as she lifted one of their legs.

"Sorry to say, Mayor Paul, but there are still people in this town waiting to see you make a move against me. I simply can't have that."

Paul started his car, muttering angrily. Circe's voice boomed all around him, and he screamed back at it like a senile old man shouting at his television.

Looking out the front of the car, he saw a shadow darken the hood; he saw the shocked expressions that seized Wendy and Donald's faces.

Paul's eyes widened and his head snapped upward to peer through the rain-soaked sunroof, only to see a pure wall of darkness. Then in the next moment the car jerked violently as the roof of the vehicle smashed downward with a spray of glass and a shriek of twisting metal; the windshield exploded into a million tiny shards that shot outward, and sluiced down the dashboard; the underside of Circe's toes settled across the mayor's vision and blocked his view out of the front of the car.

The old mayor hunkered down in his seat with surprised yells and gunned the accelerator, but the car wouldn't budge. "You monster!" He screamed it over and over again.

Ahead of the car, Donald rushed forward, pistol in hand. "You stop right now, or I'll shoot!" The police chief called, aiming his gun up at the giant. "You've already gone too far, and we both know you won't kill him."

"I won't?" Circe asked innocently, her voice loud and powerful to the tiny people gathered around the driveway. "Sure I will. I have great insurance."

The police chief fired his gun, and then in the next moment something huge moved right next to the car, and he was flying through the air. The mayor screamed in terror as he saw the police chief slammed into the garage door in front of him, dent it, and fall to the ground in a heap.

His wife screamed, too, and ran toward his car. Paul reached his hand out to her, calling her name. There was a resounding chuckle high above, and then the hood darkened again: the mayor heard a high-pitch wail that he realized came from his own throat just before the ceiling of the car smashed down on top of him, and he felt his body curl over onto his legs before he was pressed flat with a crackle of bone and a squelch of meat.

High above, Circe stood with her hands on her hips, and one foot on top of the flattened car. She looked down at the wailing woman on her knees in the driveway. "I'm the mayor now. Go tell your little friends to either leave town, or they're next. Unless, of course, they'd like to take my deal."

"Please," Wendy cried, falling to her hands and knees. "Just leave us alone!"

Donald shakily rose to his feet and shook his head to clear it. He saw his gun sitting there in the driveway, and dashed for it; he was quickly intercepted by a giant toe and knocked onto his side. Wendy rushed over to him, but Circe only knocked the poor woman over with her same toe with the barest effort, sending her tumbling away from the fallen chief.

"No," the giant said.

Circe laughed. She placed her big toe on the back of the police chief and forced him to the ground; but her toe didn't stop there: with a long series of crackles and pops she broke the man's spine from his hips to his neck; his ribs popped like twigs as he was pressed into the driveway, and he vomited blood in a stream as he twitched and flopped under the weight of Circe's digits.

"Oops. He's probably going to die, isn't he? Oh well. Accidents happen around people a lot bigger than you. That's just how it goes. Hopefully you won't have to learn that lesson for yourself, because I won't leave you alone." Circe smirked as she looked down at Wendy, lifting her toe from the police chief and showing the tiny people the sole of her foot. "Stay out here, and this will be the last thing you see. Agree to my deal, and maybe it won't. Those are your two options."

Then Circe stomped off down the road, in the rain, in the dark.

###

Brock stood atop the wall that would be mark the edges of his planned fortress. It was shorter than he originally wanted; his supporters were shorter than he planned. As much as hated the woman, Brock had to admit: she was shrewd, especially with money. All his years in business made him able to spot a shark, and yet Circe genuinely took him unawares.

Circe had effectively cut Brock and his group off from the rest of the world. Losing cellphone service was just the start. Circe quickly bought up all the town's utility companies, and just as quickly did away with them. Brock imagined that she kept the water running and the lights on at her mansion, but the town of Barlomie had lost both in the days since the mayor's death.

Brock had declared a state of emergency for his little pocket of resistance, and they now fortified the square of town; they pooled all of their food, and what water they scavenged, and their guns and weapons -- and, perhaps most importantly, they pooled their money. It was their Alamo, and Brock was its General Travis; he was down to a paltry ten feet of height, now, as he spread his money around and tried to keep everyone about five feet tall or more. Any smaller and they'd have a hard time firing a gun, and he needed them to be able to do that.

Circe's construction crews were tearing down the city around the ramshackle fort. Brock and his militia kept them at bay the best they could, but, at a distance, some of the heavier vehicles were able to operate under small-arms fire. It was a losing battle, Brock knew, and it wasn't going to get any better: most of the remaining townsfolk of Barlomie were still lined up to sign up with Circe, despite Brock's best efforts to stop them. He sent his own supporters to plead with the people to come throw in with his lot; he'd even sent a runner to go warn the nearest town of their trouble. It was amazing, without cellular service or an internet connection, just how cut off from the rest of the world he felt. There was no help coming, not unless he could scare some up.

Brock sighed and came down from the fort's wall. Marybelle was there, squatting on a stool and peeling potatoes that night's soup. They all lived like people in a besieged castle, and that's exactly how it felt: they were determined to stretch their rations and cash for as long as it would last, until some help could come.

When Wendy came banging on Brock's door, talking about how Circe had murdered the mayor and it was the end for all of them, Brock could hardly believe it; now the woman spent most of her time alone in a tent, hugging herself and rocking back and forth, mumbling about how the giant would kill them all. Brock would've kicked her out of the camp already for all the noise she made, but he needed her as proof of what Circe had done.

Really, in a way, he was lucky for it: Circe had surely stepped over a line. No matter how rich she was, there had to be justice for that. As much as it felt like the world was falling apart around him, Brock clung to the idea that he could expose what was happening to Barlomie to the rest of the world, and still set things right. How he longed to return to the Barlomie that existed just a few weeks ago -- if he could make that happen, maybe they'd put a statue of him up along in the square, next to ol' Joseph Barlomie.

If anyone was going to turn this situation around, Brock thought, it was him.

He looked down at Marybelle, who looked back up at him. "I don't like that face you're making," she said.

Brock growled under his breath. Ever since everything started going to shit, Marybelle's demeanor had changed with him, too: she had a far harder edge to her, and constantly reprimanded his orders. If he restored Barlomie to its former glory, he'd make sure that changed, too.

"You don't like this face I'm making? Well, I'm making it because I have a mind to go down to that mansion and set this whole thing straight. This is between me and her, really, after all. If I can convince her to leave us alone, that'll give our runner time to bring help. We don't have much, Mary Bee, and we're not going to last long like this. Hell, Circe's wrecking crew could come in her any day, now. But if she's enough of a fool to agree to something like a cease fire -- well, then, we can bring all hell down on her for what she's done her. Could probably sue her ass into the ground, too, and make off even nicer than we were before."

Marybelle stood up and threw her peeler down with an angry huff. "Brock, you goddamn moron, don't you go over to that mansion! She crushed the mayor under her foot like a bug, and the damn chief of police didn't last much longer after what she did to him. You see the state Wendy's in now."

"Ah, hell," Brock said angrily. "I'm not afraid of her like the rest of you cowards."

"Coward?" Marybelle rushed forward and grabbed Brock by the shoulders. "You think you're some kind of hero, don't you?" She shook him. "Fuckin' Joseph Barlomie, back from the grave! Well that's just great, Brock, but Circe is a killer, don't you understand that? I don't know what her agenda is, but she doesn't give a fuck about Barlomie, or anyone in it, let alone the letter of the law."

"Fuck you, Marybelle," Brock said; he wasn't as tall as he used to be, but he was still a good head or two taller than her, and he glared down at her. "I bet you want to go over there and sign up with her, don't you. Is that it? Do you just want to give up? Well I don't. I won't!"

Wendy's grip on Brock's shoulder relaxed, and she rubbed his arms, pleading. "Brock, don't do it. Don't go. You won't be coming back. I know you think you're invincible, but you're not. You're mortal like the rest of us, sweetie. The best we can do is stick together, hunker down, and wait for help to arrive."

"The hell!" Brock pushed Marybelle from him, and ignored her cry as she fell down onto the sooty street.

He started walking toward the big door of the fort -- a corrugated sheet of steel they'd rigged up to a pulley, that could be opened and closed like a castle's portcullis -- and motioned to some of the guards at the gate.

"Let's go, boys; and bring your guns: we're gonna pay the Queen Bitch herself a visit, and see if she's dumb enough to leave us alone long enough for help to arrive."