Chapter 3

Lucrezia expanded. Her body increased several inches per second, all the more emphasized by the garage which was shoulder-level to her now. She got bigger still, her chest after ten seconds higher up in the air than the garage's roof, her body really colossal already. And she grew further. Gerald and Philip saw her increase to 20 feet, her legs rising up and up like thick ropes, her hips getting broader by the second, her head topped nearby trees. It was as if she was made of elastic rubber. Lucrezia's butt passed the garage's roof, she could have used the garage as a stool to sit on. But still she grew, smiling, obviously enjoying every second of it. Her enormous feet were already bigger than cars, her toes longer than a normal man's foot.

Gerald and Philip stood frozen, watching this Renaissance woman turning into a giant. Lucrezia was 60 feet tall now, but showed no sign of stopping.

"What have we done?", Philip said, tears welling up in his eyes. "This can't be true. Oh, let this be a dream, or a hallucination! Can nightshade made one hallucinate? Ooohhh...." he winced, as Lucrezia reached 80 feet.

Gerald just stood next to his brother, eyes wide open, looking at the human lighthouse before him. Like a huge cathedral's spire, Lucrezia towered high above them, expanding in every direction. Small cracks appeared in the garage's walls, as the heels of her growing feet touched them and bulldozed the bricks out of their way. As Lucrezia reached 100 feet, the garage collapsed. Nothing but the growing of her feet had destroyed it.

"That's fine. For now." Lucrezia stopped growing at 120 feet. She smiled and sighted happily. Looking down to see the small cockroaches that were people, she also noticed a box-sized building next to the place where she was summoned. She realized it was the manor of Philip and Gerald. Lucrezia got an evil idea. She looked at the two cockroach-sized would-be summoners again.

"Is that your house, guys?", Lucrezia said, pointing at it. It looked so small compared to her, a pair of huge legs rising upward next to his home. The roof didn't even reach her knees.
"W...what are you going to do?", Philip asked, not knowing if Lucrezia could hear him. But that question was answered immediately, as Lucrezia rose a foot and placed it on the roof of the house. Her foot, darkening the sky, hovered menacingly over the two brothers' house, was wider and two times longer than the building.

"Nooooo!!!", Gerald and Philip whined together as they realized what was about to happen, hoping that she was just trying to scare them. But Lucrezia wasn't in the mood to threaten. Slowly, she pressed down. Windows shattered first as the huge foot, carrying thousands of tons of female flesh, made its way down. Then, a large black crack appeared on the wall, as if drawn by an invisible hand. A rumble rose as Lucrezia brought her foot further down. Plaster and small stones loosened, rained down, dust clouds emerged from everywhere. Painfully slow, Lucrezia shifted more and more of her weight on her foot, never taking her eyes off a tortured Gerald and Philip, who stood watching aghast as he saw their parents' expensive house, of which the mortgage wasn't even paid, being destroyed.

As Lucrezia's foot reached the ground, she twisted it a couple of times, as if she was killing an insect. The stones and concrete crumbled further as she did so, along with whatever furniture was underneath her foot. Gerald noticed a wooden desk struck between her toes.

Smiling down at the duo, she wiggled her toes, splintering the wooden desk and creating more dust and debris. For her, it was a game, for Gerald and Philip, a nightmare.

Lucrezia's height had drawn the attention of other people, who were gathering around her now. The spirit looked at them, and also noticed small, colored beetle-like objects running at high speed over the street. Wondering what they were, she used her big toe to press down on one. Immediate, it flattened. It felt cold to the touch, and made a sound like a tin can was demolished.
Lucrezia had never seen a car before, but the unlucky guy driving the car she picked for her "toe-experiment" couldn't care less about that. He was killed as Lucrezia's huge big toe crunched his car flatter than any car-compacter ever could, as well as his body.
She repeated this a couple of times, smashing cars under her big toe as if she was pressing a button with it. The cars crunched and didn't move anymore, she noticed, when she lifted her huge toe, which was as big as a living room.

As she began crushing cars, the people ran away, screaming. Gerald and Philip as well, after having witnessed with shock how she carelessly killed people in their cars, who just drove by. They fled along with the small mob, in the direction of the Kansas River.

Lucrezia, bored now with the little colored beetles, tore a toothpick-like object from the ground. It was bent at the top, and made of metal. Curious, she examined it. It bended easily, she found out, but why did these people place so many of them in the street? What was their purpose? It was daylight, otherwise she would have seen the street lantern she pulled out of the ground burn.

Gerald and Philip ran. Lucrezia threw the lantern away and looked around her. Where were the two guys? People ran in all directions, but she soon discovered the two brothers running away among three dozen others. Lucrezia followed them, stepping on cars and people without care. She assumed the two brothers knew a spell to "unsummon" her (they didn't, by the way), so getting them and kill them was her goal.
Her huge, 17 feet long feet smashed everything they trot upon, made cracks in the asphalt and crumbled street tiles like dry crackers. People turned into splotches of red mixed with torn clothes under her feet, cars and bikes were pressed into thin plates.

"What do we do? She is following us!", Gerald panted. He could feel the tremors each of her footfalls caused, people were screaming and running in panic all around him, but still he and Philip managed to stay ahead of her.

"We are going to the river," Philip said, breathing heavily. "We can take the speedboat. Maybe we'll shake her off that way...".

The brothers had a speedboat docked in a small nearby yard, as one of their spare time pleasures was speeding up and down the Kansas River. They both owned it, as they had put together their saved money to buy it two years ago.

"And if we can't?", Gerald asked. "Then what?"

"We must keep a distance from her. She can only remain here for three hours. If we can stay out of her reach for that long, she'll disappear and we are fine." Philip cried, trying to be audible over the screams of the mob running along with them.

Gerald nodded, running like mad. It was only half a mile to the river, and if they could reach their boat in time, they might have a chance to outrun her.