Wanda had noticed isolated housing developments to her left and right, but now there was one directly in her path. The first of many, as that pretty much made up Mesa and its adjacent Phoenix suburbs. Bedroom communities of single-family homes for people who worked in the nation’s 6th largest city to the west. Or they didn’t work at all, as this was also a popular area for retirees. As she took her last step before the housing development, she had for the first time since she played with the airliner, a useful reference for just how big she was. Each house was about half the width of one of her smaller toes. At the next step, her foot would come down on several blocks of the little rows of grey and red pink roofed rectangles.
There was undoubtedly widespread panic down there, but Wanda couldn’t see it. She could just barely see the cars which from her perspective, barely looked like they were moving. If people were outside, she couldn’t she couldn’t see them all. Another reminder that she was missing a lot at this size and should shrink down some soon.
In fact, almost everyone in those neighborhoods were outside. The massive earthquakes from her previous few steps saw to that. Of course, once outside, the sight of Wanda shocked everyone to their core. Some leaped to their cars to escape. Others ran back into their homes, only to run back out after her next step. Those directly in her path tried to determine if her foot would land on them or miss them as Brian Hayashi did, lacking both his mathematical skills and his clean line of sight.
Whether they guessed right or not, it didn’t matter. Those destined to be among the 70-75 homes under her next foot step were crushed no matter how fast they tried to get away. Those up to two blocks away were sent flying with the cars and homes blown away by the shockwave of displaced air. The blocks beyond that were pummeled by the flying debris of the same. The survivors who witnessed the carnage of their neighbors returned to homes that were so shaken, many were no longer habitable.
To Wanda, it felt like stepping on a layer of cornflakes over a yoga mat; the ground sinking to form a distinct print just as much here as it did in the desert sand.
She was sharing the sky again. This time with news helicopters. She could see three of them, though they were hard to see as they stayed miles away from her, either for safety or because that was the only way they could fit all of her in the camera image.
Wanda decided to ignore them and instead enjoyed the in-flux of life-force energy from the homes’ occupants as her right foot swung forward and came down to take out another 130 homes or so. And then another, and another. The fact is, neighborhoods of single-family homes seemed to lay endlessly before her. Walking toward Mesa in a northwest direction, the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport was on her right, which might have been fun if she weren’t in something of a hurry.
In fact, she was a little concerned that the suburban sprawl was so uniform that she may have trouble locating her destination. With all eyes watching her, she definitely did not want to appear to be wandering around lost, she thought as her left foot came down on a shopping center.
There was a wide white patch in the mosaic of rooftops a few miles ahead, and that was when she remembered the mobile homes. A consequence of Mesa’s large retiree community was a large number of mobile home parks, including an area near the center of town over four miles long east-west and about a mile north-south of a uniform stream of nicely manicured mobile parks. Their white aluminum roofs contrasted against the red clay and gray composite shingled roofs of the houses.
She knew that the Christian Brotherhood mega-church was just a couple of city blocks north of the western side of that trailer home hive. That there was another mega-church practically around the corner, also near the mobile homes, gave you an idea of what constituted a notable part of their congregations. She headed to the north.
It was all residential from here to there. There was no avoiding the mass destruction of homes even if she was inclined to. With each step, she felt the distinctive crunch of over 70 homes and accompanied by the unfelt blowing away of 30 – 50 more. She may not see the people among those homes, but she sure felt the influx of their energy with each step. How much more energy could she possible absorb?
People had been arriving at the Christian Brotherhood church shortly after Wanda became a news story. More headed to the church when it was apparent she was heading in their direction and still more when stores and other businesses in town promptly began shutting down. Some arrivals came for holy protection, others for salvation and reassurance, and still others simply because the church seemed far more robust than their little homes. Had more made the connection between the giant long-haired naked woman in the desert, and the tall bob-haired witch they had been told to hate for weeks on end, they probably would have chosen a different point of refuge.
The first vibration from her footsteps came shortly after Wanda’s head crested the southeastern horizon. Every six seconds, the bump got stronger until it was no longer a bump but a boom. Each boom, equaling the energy of a category 6 earthquake brought more cries of fright, and more rattles from the overhead stage equipment, seats, and eventually the structure itself. Eventually, it seemed that each boom would have to be the final one as they couldn’t possibly get louder or the shaking any worse. And six seconds was just long enough to offer hope that it was true, until another step 2,000 feet closer shattered that hope
The attendant clergy and church staff scrambled to accommodate the impromptu congregation. They piped in canned music from previous services through the state-of-the-art sound system. Assistant minister Daniel Carlson, tried to present reassurance with a hastily cobbled word-salad of religious phrases, spoken with a voice that betrayed his fear as the violence of each giant step became more pronounced.
Of course, the person the people really needed to hear was the significantly more charismatic Dr. Joseph Austin himself, but he was nowhere to be found despite a budget meeting having been scheduled for that morning. Neither he, nor his wife were responding to their cell-phones leading some to wonder if they had already been stepped on, not that anyone one knew of any plans the couple would have southeast of town.
Wanda’s first step into the mobile home area felt distinctly different. The mostly double-wide mobile homes were much closer together. There were probably over 150 of the little white rectangles under her foot. Their flimsy construction offered almost no crunch at all – as though her cornflakes had become moist – but the devastation around the perimeter of her foot was at least two-fold for the same reason. Just two steps in the mile-deep mobile home ground cover and it was back to single family homes, and Wanda’s goal was now clearly in sight.
There was no mistaking the Christian Brotherhood Church for anything else. From above it looked more like an alien spacecraft than a church. The ultra-modern structure consisted of three 150-foot diameter domes equidistant from each other connected by a 210-foot diameter low, flat circular building. The north dome was the main sanctuary. The eastern dome held a children’s chapel and classrooms. The west dome had a gym and more classrooms. The view from above was familiar to anyone who watched their televised services where unabashedly prideful aerial photography filled much of the opening credits. Wanda watched plenty of the shows after she became their main topic of discussion.
Inside the church, the last step shook like no other as the whole building seemed to leap up 8 feet and then crash back down. Anyone standing or walking was thrown to the ground. People held tightly to the pew in front of them as the ground seemed to reverberate a foot up and down. Cracks that had formed in the walls a few steps ago now showed daylight coming through. Nervous looks up showed the dome holding steady even as full-length windows flanking the glass doors to main lobby shattered from the shifting structure. Even more car alarms joined the discordant chorus outside. Yelling, crying and screaming was constant now, but through the din, some could make out an exclamation of “My God, she’s right outside!”
The next step was no better, but for the first time, also no worse except that cracks now did form in the dome ceiling. As plaster powder started coming down like a light snow, everyone noticed that after steadily approaching from the south, this boom seemed to come from the northeast possibly indicating that the was walking past them. But no sooner had they processed that when an equally loud boom came from the west. Light now showed through many of the cracks in the dome but it didn’t look like sunlight coming through.
Suddenly, loud rumbling came repeatedly from both the east and west. Left, right, left right. It was like being inside one of those big base drums carried in a parade. A two-square foot section of the dome crashed down on the stage. What people saw through the opening it left wasn’t the color of sky.
The main church entrance faced south allowing Wanda to walk right up to the front. The building sat a little east of center in a wide 1,100 X 500-foot parking lot. She could have covered almost all of it with one perpendicularly placed footprint but that isn’t what she came her to do.
There was an open field where she planted her left foot. Her right foot came down on a couple of sprawling mansions on big lots. The churched seemed to border some of Mesa’s most upscale real estate.
Wanda hadn’t squatted for a shit on open ground since she crossed Poland on foot, but until then, she had shat no other way in the caravan, so the fundamentals came back to her. Hopefully this proportionally tall, and top-heavy body would provide her better counter-balance than those old days. She shuffled her feet until she felt she was positioned correctly. She definitely did not want to miss.
She was just about to bend her knees when she realized she should say something. Cursing herself for not preparing such a statement, her mind raced for words.
“It is important for you to remember…” she started to the group whose remaining lifespan could now be measured in seconds. “…that you all brought this entirely upon yourselves!” That was it. Even if she had more to say, it didn’t feel like she had the time to say it as things had gotten pretty intense internally.
On the ground level, it sounded like the voice of God. The words were thundering, omnipresent and clearly invoked judgement. But the churchgoers had little time to think about it, because soon after came a far more thundering sound. In fact; it sounded very much like rolling thunder but with the percussive beat of a jackhammer, and louder than both combined. For the first five seconds, it got progressively louder and then sustained its highest volume for another six seconds. The percussive sound pounded the building, collapsing the flat lobby roof on dozens of people. Cracks on the walls and dome of the sanctuary grew wider with pieces falling on the crowd, most of the remaining roof lighting fell, trapping some people.
And before the sound ended, came the aroma. The unmistakable pungent fecal stench rushed through the broken roof, and immediately permeated the interior. Feeling the need to escape the asphyxiating interior, or driven by fear of the cracking dome, many fled to the side exits, outside, of which, the smell was even worse. The first thing they saw as they fled the building was her foot – farther away than they expected and larger than they could even imagine. Most everyone’s eyes followed their respective towering leg to its bended knee, and then along the thigh to…Oh My God!!!
It wasn’t what she planned, but Wanda simply accepted the fact that her long walk while holding it in created a large quantity of gas that escaped at first opportunity. The slight widening of her butt from moment she bent her legs, was all it took and out it came. Noisy and getting louder and more baritone the lower she squatted, it still continued after she reached her position. Eleven seconds in all, which is a hell of a long time for a fart, but didn’t seem unusual amid the other slowed down actions that came with her size. It was terribly undignified, but she doubted anyone was laughing at her. And now it was time for the main attraction.
The people stumbling out of the exits in the noxious air stared uncomprehendingly up at her ass hanging almost three thousand feet above them yet filling the sky at over two thousand feet wide. And there was no ignoring the focal point directly above where brown moist solid matter hundreds of feet in diameter was already emerging from a similar size anus. Downward it proceeded toward the astounded onlookers in a steady motion.
It was firm from the pressure of having been held in for her long walk, and Wanda felt the satisfaction of pushing out a big, long one. In fact, unseen from both her and the church escapees, what had been the #7 Special at some non-descript Mexican restaurant off the freeway outside Tucson yesterday, was now a hanging turd reaching the size and proportion of the Empire State Building before it was pinched off and fell 1500 feet dead center on the church.
The building collapsed immediately from the impact as the turd bottom diameter spread immediately from 300 to 500 feet in diameter, and then spread further from the force of the weight above, completely enveloping the entire building and everyone running away from it. The top then started tilting and then toppled completely over the western parking lot.
That was the most of it but Wanda wasn’t done yet, and moved her butt slightly to her right to let the second and final mass crash onto the eastern parking lot. As had been her custom for the past few years, Wanda let her energy shield remove every last bit of substance from anus and cheeks, which sprinkled down on the pile, leaving her perfectly clean.
Standing up, Wanda twisted and looked down with satisfaction at her creation. There was no sign of the church, just one giant pile of shit the size of a 20-story building where the church and parking lot used to be. There simply wasn’t a more fitting end to the institution that had made her life so unpleasant. She then wrinkled her nose at the strong odor, grateful she would be walking upwind.
She wasn’t quite finished with Mesa however. She had an unscheduled appointment with a certain Chevrolet dealership. It was on the western edge of town aside the wonderfully-named Superstition Freeway which ran a few miles south of what she just made her outdoor toilet. The southwest heading conveniently took her to the other local mega church, which had acquired its own refuge seekers. About four hundred of them judging by the life force influx after the entire multi-building campus unceremoniously succumbed to her left foot.