GENETITECH/BIOENG. confidential file
SUBJECT: --GOLDMAN, David
A.U. No.: --NC 654 55 D
S.C.I.D. No: --7474HHD
SUPERVISING DOCTOR: --Dr. Terrence LYNCH
ITEM: --Transcript of recorded testimony regarding subject's current condition. File for ASSESSMENT/INFO
[cont.]
"You know," Linda said to me, "we might wanna think about a new living arrangement for you guys. Come next week, that little shoebox is going to get pretty crowded."
We were on our way home from work, and after much begging and pleading I had finally convinced her to give me my clothes back. So now I was sitting in the sticky cup holder, pulling on my sweats.
Linda was giddy. She had plans for Eddie's machine, and her list of potential shrinkees had grown disturbingly extensive. I had been fine with the idea of her shrinking Carolyn. The way I saw it, that gigantic bitch deserved what she was going to get.
But Linda was planning to shrink her husband Randy when he got home from his fishing trip. She'd also spent all afternoon quietly regaling me with the torments she would soon be inflicting on her boss, Mr. Nichols.
And now, as we drove home, she kept adding to the list: Randy's mom and sister, because they'd always thought their precious Randy was too good for her. That kid Chad who worked at Blockbuster, because he was just too adorable. That old woman at the 1-Stop Shop, because she wouldn't take Linda's checks anymore. That divorced guy down the street who always mowed his yard without a shirt...
I kept telling myself that there was nothing I could do. I had nothing to feel guilty about. After all, it wasn't like I was in any kind of position to talk Linda out of anything. And if I tried, all I'd succeed in doing was getting myself punished.
It was obvious that Linda wasn't as careful or clever as Carolyn. The more people she shrank, the better the chance that somebody at GenetiTech would eventually catch on. And it wasn't like she was planning on really hurting them or anything. At worst, they'd just have to put up with being petted, played with, or humiliated until we got rescued.
Or escaped.
***
Grunting from the strain, Linda lifted the box of newsletters from the trunk of her car and staggered into the garage with them. Her purse swung wildly, dangling from her lower arm. And since I was in the purse, I found myself clinging to a hairbrush for dear life.
She dropped the box on the concrete floor. It landed with a loud slam that echoed through the dingy garage.
"Looks so much nicer without that [EXPLETIVE DELETED] car," Linda muttered as she fished me out of her purse. The spot that had been occupied by Randy's dilapidated 280-ZX was empty now. The greasy floor was still covered by the border circuits, six square plastic sheets bearing the GenetiTech logo.
The machine was sitting on a card table against the wall. The monitor was still displaying its last target, which had been yesterday's lunch. Wire-frame models of ham sandwiches and potato chips on paper plates rotated in the main window.
The interface and the border circuits were my contribution to the project. Eddie may have invented the matter proportioning matrix, but I had written the code that made it safe and easy for anybody to use.
I swear, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
***
"Okay, here's the deal," Linda said to the three of us. Eddie, Julie and I all stood on the coffee table. Linda, still dressed in her work clothes, held a cold beer in her hand. She had kicked off her shoes and was pacing around the living room in her stocking feet.
"Carolyn is planning on taking you home with her on Saturday afternoon. But I've decided that I love my little darlings too much to give you back, and sooo..."
She paused melodramatically, letting her voice trail off as she took a long drink from the bottle of Bud Light. She sighed contentedly and smiled.
"I'm going to keep you for myself," she said. "And when Carolyn shows up here on Saturday..." Linda raised her hand so it was next to her face. She held her finger and thumb apart, then moved them together. "I'm going to shrink her."
She set the beer down on the table next to us and giggled. "That'll teach her to be so selfish with her [EXPLETIVE DELETED] shrinking machine, right?"
***
"I don't like it," Julie said as we sped along the kitchen floor in my car. "I think Eddie created a monster."
Linda was microwaving some of our leftover pizza for dinner, and Eddie was keeping her company. Since I'd been such a good boy at work, Linda had magnanimously allowed me and Julie to drive around in my car. The only conditions were that we had to stay in the kitchen and we had to keep the top down. I doubted she'd be able to hear what we were saying, but just in case I had Tom Waits blaring from the stereo.
"We can't get squeamish now," I said. "You have to admit, Linda going on a shrinking rampage could definitely work to our advantage."
"Jesus." Julie shook her head. "That's a bit cold blooded, don't you think?"
I shrugged. "Maybe. I figure Linda won't be as careful or clever as Carolyn, so she's more likely to get caught. The more people she shrinks, the better the chance that GenetiTech's going to notice."
"And once Carolyn goes missing," Julie said, "they're going to be watching Linda like a hawk. I see your point, but it still feels wrong."
I nodded, but didn't get a chance to respond. Linda placed her bare foot in the path of the car, letting us know that our ride was over and dinner was served.
***
Later that evening, Linda cradled the three of us in her hands as she sat on the couch. Big Brother was on TV, but she wasn't paying any attention to it. Her bravado had melted a bit since dinner, despite Eddie's constant reassurance.
"I don't know how I'm going to fool her," she said. "I never could lie to Carolyn. Besides, she's gotten really spooked since this whole mess started."
I'd spent most of my lunch with Carolyn under the table, squirming between her toes, and so I wasn't privy to a lot of their conversation. However, I had heard bits and pieces. I knew Carolyn was convinced GenetiTech was still following her, so she tended to drive convoluted routes when she left the house. She also believed that still had her phones tapped, so she would drive into town and use the payphone at Albertson's when she wanted to discuss us with Linda.
I'd also heard that Carolyn had taken the revolver out of the garage and started carrying it with her whenever she left the house. When it wasn't in her purse, she kept it in her glove compartment.
"Carolyn's always been a bit paranoid," Eddie said. He whirled his finger around his hear and said, "but I think this whole business had driven her plumb loco."
"Pot, meet the kettle," I whispered to Julie, who stifled a giggle. Linda suddenly grasped me between her thumb and finger and yanked me into the air. She dangled me before her enormous face.
"What have I told the two of you about whispering your little secrets?" she said, giving me a small shake for emphasis. "Do it again and you'll lose your little car."
"Sorry, Linda," I said, managing to sound contrite. It wasn't hard--my voice was sincerely trembling. "I was just telling Julie that Carolyn is starting to scare me, and I don't trust her to treat us as well as you do."
"It's true," Julie said, nodding emphatically. "We'd much rather stay here with you than go back to Carolyn."
Linda's frown softened. She gently nuzzled me against her cheek, then dropped me back into the palm of her other hand with Eddie and Julie.
"You poor little things. I keep forgetting how weird all this must be for you." She offered us a small smile. "I won't let Carolyn take you away from me. I promise."
"Maybe you can that paranoia against her," Eddie suggested to Linda. "Tell her you need her to back her car into the garage, so you can load the machine without the neighbors seeing. And then, once she's in, you can shrink her and her car all at once."
Linda nodded. "That might work. But she'll get suspicious when she sees those plastic sheets spread all over the floor, won't she?"
"You can cover them up," Eddie said. "Use the tarp from Randy's car. Or use some flattened out cardboard boxes. Hell, it doesn't matter what you use just as long as you don't cover up the edges."
Linda's face brightened. "Oh my god, Eddie! You are such a little genius!"
She reached down with her index finger to stroke him. And as he turned his face away from her, enduring her petting, Julie and I both saw the madness return to his eyes. His face contorted with rage as once again he began muttering to himself, "Hold it together, Eddie."
***
That night, I dreamed I was back in my house with my family and friends. A banner hung across the back wall of the living room reading, "WELCOME HOME, DAVE!!!" Everybody was hugging my neck, telling me how much they'd missed me and how happy they were that I was finally back to normal.
They were all oblivious to the enormous brown eye peering in through the window. And none of them seemed to hear Carolyn's deep chuckle from outside...
I woke up with tears in my eyes.
Julie lay on the folded tissue pallet next to me, still sleeping. And from outside the shoebox, I could hear Linda's snores. I glanced around and saw Eddie sitting near our pile of provisions. He was drinking warm beer from a bottle.
I stood up and walked over to him. His face looked unusually sinister in the moonlight that spilled into the box. He smiled as I approached.
"We need a refrigerator in here," he said. "Drinking warm Bud is like drinking piss." He chuckled and took another swig.
"Maybe Linda will shrink one down for us," I said.
Eddie laughed and shook his head. "I know you think I'm crazy. You and Julie both."
"After everything we've been through..."
"Sometimes I think I'm crazy too," he said. "There's all this white noise in my head, like a stadium full of people talking to me all at once. And when I think about what that bitch did to my dog..."
His face contorted with rage again, and he cracked the beer bottle against a plastic milk crate. It shattered, spraying beer and broken glass all over the cardboard floor. He held the jagged bottleneck up, clenching it in his fist.
Julie woke up and came bounding over, and I had to stop her to keep her from stepping on the broken glass. I held my finger to my lips, and we listened for any sign of stirring from Linda. But she just snored on.
Eddie's madness retreated once again. Still clutching the broken bottle, he whispered, "Keep it together, Eddie boy. Just keep it together."
We cleaned up the mess as best we could, and we escorted Eddie over to his pallet in the corner. I coaxed the broken bottle from him, and tossed it in with the rest of the garbage while Julie put him to bed.
Soon, Eddie was snoring almost in unison with Linda. But neither Julie nor I managed to fall back asleep. We lay there, holding each other, until Linda's alarm went off.
***
Linda skipped her usual shower that morning. And instead of getting dressed for work, she slipped into a t-shirt and a pair of cutoffs. She went into the other room, and we could hear her rummaging around through the stack of papers by the phone. She came back into the bedroom, dialing the portable phone. She gave the three of us a conspiring wink as she plopped down on the waterbed.
"Mr. Nichols? It's Linda." Her voice was low and ailing, and she threw in a couple of coughs. "I'm sorry to bother you at home, but I've had a relapse and I won't be able to make it into the office today."
She held the phone away from her ear. Even from across the room, we could hear the angry whine of Mr. Nichols coming through the receiver.
"No, I finished them," she said. "I was up almost all night working on them. That's probably why I got sick again."
More ranting from Mr. Nichols. Linda rolled her eyes and flipped off the phone with her free hand.
"Could you swing by and get them on your way to work? I know it's inconvenient, but..."
Mr. Nichols' voice buzzed again, still angry. Linda endured his tirade with a smirk. "Well, they're pretty heavy. You might wanna back into my driveway so we can get them... right, I'm at 3018 Quaker."
She coughed a couple more times. "Thanks so much, Mr. Nichols. I really appreciate this." She hung up the phone, then fell back on the bed giggling.
***
We didn't see any of it, but apparently it all went relatively smoothly. Linda moved her car out to the street so Mr. Nichols could back his Honda Civic into the driveway. She tried to convince him to back his car all the way into the garage, but he wasn't in the mood for her games. He put his key in the hatchback and opened it up. Then he walked into the garage to pick up the box of newsletters. He noticed they weren't in their envelopes and was about to tear into Linda for her irresponsibility when she hit him with the ray.
The hatchback was still open, so she slammed it shut and grabbed the key. Then she backed the car into the garage and shrank it.
***
Charles Nichols was obese, a fact made even more startling by the fact that he was naked and sopping wet.
"The fat little bastard [EXPLETIVE DELETED] himself when I shrank him," Linda said, "so I rinsed him off in the kitchen sink."
He was unconscious, a side effect of the size reduction. He'd be out for another hour at least, and then we'd be faced with the task of explaining to him where he was and what had happened.
I wasn't looking forward to that conversation.
"Let me see if I can find some sweats or something," Julie said. "They'll be tight, but at least..."
"No." Linda's hand came down, blocking Julie from our folded stacks of clothes. "Leave him like that. I want him all naked and scared when he wakes up."
***
After Linda called in sick to work, she grabbed a shower and got dressed. She actually tried on several different outfits before settling on a yellow floral sundress.
She twirled in front of her mirror, practicing her smile. Her blonde hair hung loosely over her tan shoulders, and it bounced when she casually shook her head.
"Not too shabby," she muttered, standing with her hands on her hips. She smiled once more into the mirror, then walked into the living room.
"Why's she getting all dressed up?" Julie whispered to me. "It's not like this poor guy is going to notice what she's wearing."
I shook my head. "No idea."
Linda came walking back into the bedroom, her flip flops slapping with each step. Her purse was slung over her shoulder, and she was carrying the DVDs from Blockbuster in one hand.
"I've got errands to run this morning," she said, making a point of peering down at us. "If that little bastard wakes up before I get back, make sure he's good and scared."
***
Linda had been gone about an hour when Mr. Nichols woke up. He grunted as he tried to bolt upright, then rolled over awkwardly on his side. He looked at us through bleary eyes, tiny and deep set in his doughy face. His hair was short and brown, with gray creeping in on the sides. His tight mouth was framed by enormous jowls and a considerable number of chins.
"Where am I?" he asked us, squinting. "Where are my glasses?"
"You didn't have any glasses when you were brought here," I told him. "And as for where you are... well, that's kind of hard to explain."
"Ms. Greenwood did this to me!" he wheezed. "She must have drugged me or something. I was in her garage..." He noticed that he was naked, and his fat cheeks were suddenly red. He squirmed uneasily, trying to cover himself up.
"Where the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] are my clothes?" he shouted. "Where am I? What did that [EXPLETIVE DELETED] bitch do to me?"
"I'll try to explain, but it's a lot to swallow," I told him. "You'd better brace yourself, because..."
"You've been shrunk," Eddie said. He pointed his finger at Mr. Nichols and made a ray gun sound. "Now you're one of Linda's pets, just like us."
Mr. Nichols stared at Eddie, who went back to muttering to himself. Then he looked pleadingly at me and Julie. "Please," he said, "just tell me what's going on."
Julie sighed. "It's like he said. You've been shrunk. You're now about two inches tall and sitting in a shoebox in Linda's bedroom."
He just shook his head. "This is insane. Ms. Greenwood drugged me and now I'm dreaming. Or hallucinating."
The garage door opened in the distance. We heard Linda's footsteps and the rustle of plastic grocery bags.
"Look," I told him. "She's going to come in here in a few minutes, and it's going to freak you out. So you might as well brace yourself now."
He stumbled awkwardly to his feet, huffing with exhaustion. Then, suddenly remembering that he was naked, he lumbered over to our makeshift bed and grabbed the thin blanket to cover himself.
"This is..." He shook his head and moaned. "Does anyone have a phone I can use?"
"Mr. Nichols..."
He glared at me. "Who are you, and how the hell do you know my name?"
We heard Linda approaching, humming happily as she walked down the hall. Mr. Nichols' eyes widened as he glanced nervously around the shoebox. For the first time, he seemed to notice the vast expanse of Linda's bedroom beyond the cardboard walls of our prison.
When she peered down into the box, Mr. Nichols lost it. He fell to his knees, screaming and covering his head. Linda smiled smugly as she reached down into the box. She scooped him into her hand and lifted him away from us.
"Stop it!" he screamed as she held him in her fist. "Whatever you're doing to me, just stop it!"
"You're a fat little thing, aren't you?" Linda said, giggling. "It's like holding a little baby hamster."
"Oh god!" Mr. Nichols' screams turned to sobs. He blubbered uncontrollably in Linda's grasp.
"Oh, come on," Linda said, giving him a squeeze. "I didn't hurt you." She chuckled, then added, "Yet."
"Please, Ms. Greenwood," Mr. Nichols gasped between sobs. "Please, just put me down."
Linda smiled pleasantly. "Well, of course, Mr. Nichols. All you had to do was ask nicely." She knelt to set him on the floor, then stood back up. "Is that better?"
We couldn't see what was happening on the floor, but it wasn't too hard to imagine. We could see Linda looking down, smiling wickedly. We could hear Mr. Nichols' pathetic cries amidst his wheezing. And we heard the thud of Linda's sandaled foot on the carpet.
"Uh uh. Where do you think you're going?" she asked playfully. Her foot slammed down again, and Mr. Nichols whined pitiably. "Bad Mr. Nichols," she scolded him, bringing her foot down again.
"Are you slowing down already?" Linda said. Her sandal thumped to the floor as it slid from her foot. Mr. Nichols gave a loud, startled cry that was suddenly muffled. Linda giggled. "Now I've got you."
Mr. Nichols pleas fell silent, and for one horrible moment I thought perhaps Linda had crushed him. But her cheeks grew pink and her smile grew vicious. "Yeah, that's right," she said, focusing on the floor. She licked her lips. "Kiss my toes, and maybe I won't squish you."
I couldn't stand it anymore. I slumped against the inside of the shoebox and put my hands over my ears, trying in vain to shut out Linda's taunting voice. It wasn't my fault, none of it was. But somehow, I still felt responsible for Mr. Nichols' current plight.
And from the look on Julie's face, so did she.
***
When Mr. Nichols would no longer respond to Linda's relentless teasing, she scooped him up and put him in the shoebox. As her enormous fingers hovered over him, he lay face down on the cardboard, red and gasping and damp with sweat.
"Poor Mr. Nichols," Linda cooed, prodding him with her index finger. "I bet you wish you'd been nicer to me now, don't you?"
Linda stroked Mr. Nichols with her index finger, brushing her nail along his broad, pale back. He trembled and whimpered quietly, but made no move to avoid her petting.
"I picked up some KFC for lunch," Linda said cheerfully. "While I'm getting your plates ready, you get Mr. Nichols here situated and find him a place to sleep."
She withdrew her hand and started to leave, but turned back. "Oh, and you might as well make up another bed." She grinned. "I invited Chad over for dinner tomorrow night."
***
Giantess World
Summer Job by Cayce