2. The Ray Case

The next morning

Tommy woke up, brushed his teeth, and did the usual routine before walking to the bus stop and boarding the daily transport. He sat down next to Simon.

            “Tuesday morning,” he said. “Four more days until the weekend.”

            Simon wasn’t pay attention, his focus fixated on the laptop before him. “There’s been a weird social media buzz going on,” he said. “Lara didn’t show up at home last night and her parents are freaking out, along with all her friends. You can’t declare someone a missing person until 24 hours since anybody saw them.”

            “Carl said he saw her yesterday morning, so we should be approaching the time when police start investigating then, right?” Tommy said.

            “Well, you remember how adept they were with investigating your little party incident,” Simon pointed out.

            “What are you trying to say?”

            Simon sighed. “This could be a potential case. A ray case.” There was their code phrase. Anybody listening in would just think they were talking about their supposed conservation club.

            “People go missing all the time, even teenagers,” Tommy said. “It doesn’t mean that this is a ray case.”

            “Anything else you notice going on strangely yesterday?” Simon asked.

            Tommy thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, Mrs. Watson disappeared yesterday. She left her purse and everything too.”

            “But she never does that,” said Simon.

            “I’m sure she just went to the bathroom or something,” said Tommy. “It doesn’t mean anything’s happened to her.”

“That makes two people who have gone missing in the past 24 hours,” said Principal Emerson to Detective Kenner, standing in the Main Office of the school. “Shouldn’t we notify the students that there’s a potential kidnapper, or even worse, killer, on the loose?”

            “I wouldn’t worry about it just yet,” said Kenner. “For all we know, these could be two isolated incidents. Or they could be nothing at all.” He smiled.

            “Yes, but I will not have it come out that a serial killer was murdering students on my watch!” the Principal thundered.

            “As opposed to when someone else was watching?” Kenner replied. He had a slick tone and way of talking that Emerson hated.

            “You know what I mean,” Emerson said. “We have to do it for the safety of the children.”

            “Of course,” said Kenner. “We’ll look into these cases, but is there anything else I should know? Usually this would be the disappearance of two students, but a kid and a teacher sounds a little odd to me. If this is a serial killer, we’ll need to identify a pattern and an M.O.”

            “Can’t you only do that if you find the bodies?” Emerson asked, realizing the implications.

            “Yes,” said Kenner.

Bobby came up to them before first period. “Did you guys here about Mrs. Watson? She’s gone, just like Lara.”

            “Simon here thinks we might have a ray case on our hands,” Tommy said.

            “There’s a good chance that this could be it,” said Simon. “That whoever killed Henderson and took the shrink ray is making people disappear.”

            “If that is true, we won’t find any bodies, or evidence for that matter,” said Tommy. “They’ve either eaten these people themselves or disposed of them in some other manner.”

            “We have loose protocols for this sort of thing,” said Bobby, “but we’ve never tested them out.”

            “Emergency meeting at lunch,” said Simon. “We’ll meet at the secluded table by the palm trees, over on the northwest side of campus.”

            “I’ll get Francine,” said Bobby.

The bell rang, and Tommy headed to his first class, Spanish. Going around a corner, he accidentally bumped into a girl and knocked her textbook out of her hands.

            “Oh my God,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” He grabbed the textbook and handed it to her as she straightened out her hair.

            It was Autumn, Cat’s new friend, he realized. And he also realized how beautiful she was with her strawberry-blond hair, slim but fit frame, and her gorgeous yellow eyes, like leaves in…autumn, he thought.

            “Don’t mention it,” she said and smiled, looking him in the eye.

            They must have stood there for a few seconds, saying nothing but looking into each other’s eyes, before she scratched the back of her neck and said: “Well, I’ve got to get to class. See you later.”

            “See you,” he said, and they went their different ways.

Noon

The unofficial of the meeting of the Rays Club began as soon as the last member, Tommy, arrived. “So do we have an official code red?” Francine asked.

            “Alright guys,” said Bobby. “I’ve got something to say before we get off into any crazy tangent.”

            “Nobody’s stopping you,” Simon said.

            “I mean, we founded this club two months ago because of what happened at the Party, and because of what happened three days later: the most dangerous piece of technology we’ve ever encounter vanished from our grasp. We came up with codes, plans, meeting schedules, and a cover story. But who the fuck do we think we are? The protectors of our school, watching out for hungry teenage girls who shrink people down and eat them? We’re either completely insane, or in way, way over our heads.”

            “Thanks for the motivation,” Simon commented.

            “Look,” Bobby said. “All I’m saying is that nobody’s ever done this before. We don’t know what we’re getting into.”

            “We could be saving our own lives, not just those of others,” Francine pointed out.

            “We should’ve destroyed the shrink ray when we had it,” said Tommy.

            “But we didn’t know what it was,” said Bobby. “We needed to analyze it, to understand it. What if there were others?”

            “Look,” said Simon, “I’ve never actually seen this shrink ray you’re talking about, or gone through what any of you have. But I took a leap of faith coming into this club of yours, and so far you haven’t fucked me over by telling me that this was all a big freakin’ joke the whole time, so I trust you, and I don’t trust many people. But if there are more people out there like that Kelsey chick, then we’ve got a serious problem. So if they’re truly is a killer at our school, we need to find out who they’re killing and why, who might be next, and of course, who they are.”

            “Easier said than done,” Bobby scoffed.

            “Well, we need to investigate the two potential victims,” said Francine. “We’ve got Lara and Mrs. Watson. How about we split up into two groups of two?”

            Tommy and Simon nodded, already knowing which two would be put together first.

            “I’ll go with Bobby,” she said, smiling, “to investigate Lara, and you guys can find out what happened to Mrs. Watson.”

            “Sounds like a plan,” said Tommy.

            “Alright,” said Bobby. “Francine and I will ask around Lara’s friends and find out if she had any enemies, who she hung out with, any problems she had, etc.”

            “And Simon and I will try to find out who wanted to kill Mrs. Watson,” said Tommy.

            “A better question would be: who didn’t?” said Simon.

Later that day

The final bell rang and Tommy was the first one to leave his Physics class, meeting up with Simon in front of History across the hall.

            “What did you think of the substitute for Watson,” Simon asked.

            “Alright,” said Tommy. “But I don’t think they’ll know what happened.”

            “Of course not,” said Simon. “So who did?”

            “Well, it didn’t look like anybody had been there by the time that I got into her room, but her purse was still there so they must have shrunk her at the desk, or at least, inside her room.”

            “So who was the last person in there before you?” Simon asked.

            “I guess we’ll have to find out.”

“Plain” Jane was your average student. Average looks, average grades, average lifestyle. She was so normal, it was almost unnatural. But, as Tommy recalled, she had been in Mrs. Watson’s final class period yesterday.

            “Did you see anyone go in after you?” Simon asked.

            She thought for a moment, scratching the back of her head. Tommy was pretty sure that he saw dandruff flakes fall off the back. “Not really... Wait. No, there was someone.”

            “Who?” Tommy said.

            “Some girl. Pretty, blond hair, short skirt.”

            “What color was the skirt?” Simon asked.

            “Uhhh….,” she thought for a while. “Blue, I think. Dark blue.”

            “Navy?” Tommy asked.

            “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well that narrows it down,” said Simon. “A pretty blond girl wearing a short skirt at a California high school. Those are quite rare.”

            “Who do we know that was wearing a short skirt yesterday?” Tommy said.

            “Who says that we’ll know this person? For all we know, they might even go to this school.”

            “How would they get on campus?” Tommy asked.

            “It’s the end of the day, people come and go…” Simon shrugged. “You never know. But at this stage of the investigation, we have to keep all possibilities open.”

            Tommy thought back to the day before. Someone had been wearing a short skirt…

            “Caterina,” he said.

            “The queen bee?” Simon asked.

            “Yeah, I bumped into her outside the classroom a little while after I left. She was wearing a blue short skirt. She drank a bunch of her Coke can in one go and then burped.”

            “You don’t think…,” Simon began.

            “That Mrs. Watson was in that Coke can? I have no idea. It’s just a possibility.”

            “Yeah,” said Simon. “And we’ve got to keep those possibilities open.”

Later that afternoon

When Lexi got home, no one was waiting for her. Her parents were still on the two-week business trip. She missed them, but was glad that she had so much freedom because she could do whatever she wanted.

            Going to her bedroom, she pulled out a secret item that she knew her parents would never let her have: a dildo. Trying to imagine it was Zack, she stripped off her shorts and t-shirt, then flung off her panties and spread her legs, sitting on the bed.

            She moaned as it entered and she started rocking back and forth.  She rolled over onto the bed, using her weight for force it in harder. “Yes, yes,” she moaned, thrusting it deeper into her vagina.

            The phone rang.

            Leaving the dildo in, she rolled around and picked it up off the bed. It was Zack. “Hey baby,” she said.

            “Hey Lexi, how’s it going?” he asked.

            “Why don’t I show you?” she said, exiting out of the call to take a picture from above. It showed her lying there naked except for her bra, the sex toy stuck in her pussy near some pubic hair. She was smiling in a sexy way.

            Lexi felt it was a good photo and texted it to Zack. A moment later, he called.

            “Damn Lexi, I almost forgot how good you look naked. Had to delete it from my phone of course, don’t want the cops or anyone finding out about us sexting. Oh, and was that a dildo?”

            She giggled. “I’m pretending it was you. Not as big as yours, of course.”

            “Glad you enjoyed everything.”

            “I want to do it again,” she moaned. “I can't get enough.”

            “You’ve only done it once,” he said, “but maybe we can swing something this weekend.”

            “Sure, my parents are gone until the end of next week.”

            “But until then… You wanna go to the local In ‘N Out Burger and grab some grub?”

            Lexi looked down at her stomach, which suddenly rumbled with hunger. “Yeah, my tummy’s ready for some food.”

            “See you at 6:30, then.”

            “Bye Zack,” she said, and hung up. Then she reached down to the dildo and began masturbating again. She got down on the hard floor and used it force it in as hard as she could go. She rode it down on the carpet like a cowgirl, beads of sweat rolling down her face and back. She moaned and moaned, but kept going. Almost there… She climaxed and let out a wolfish howl.

Five minutes later, Lexi sat up on her bed and pulled the dildo out, then collapsed back on the sheets, arms and legs splayed. Her stomach grumbled again, and she knew it was time to put some food in there. She put on her panties and stared at herself in the mirror, running her hands across her breasts, stomach, and ass.

            She felt so hot as she panted there, hormones still racing from her fun with the dildo. She choose a see-through white crop top that exposed even more of her stomach than the day before, and some very short, sexy shorts.

            She put a little bit of mascara around her eyelashes, then grabbed her phone, wallet, and car keys. She looked back at the dildo lying on the bed, and a darker secret flashed to her mind, one that not anyone could know about.

            She looked down at her exposed stomach and suddenly the sexy, empowered feeling was gone. She felt guilt, horror, but then swallowed the feeling down. No, she said, a smile returning to her face. What’s done is done. And I know what I’m going to do next.

            The feeling returned. Lexi walked out of her apartment, locked it behind her, and set off to feed her hungry tummy.

TO BE CONTINUED