Erin's Living Nightmare - Ch 13

It's the finale! Time to tear the roof off this wacky story...

…I wish they could see what it feels like for themselves…

Something had snapped in Erin and she didn’t care. She was making fierce, angry noises as she punched at the office building, smashing walls apart to grab the fleeing occupants. It was already too late for most of them to escape, with the lift doors bent and any paths to the stairwells buried with debris. Most of them were just blindly trying to avoid bits of falling ceiling. They were crawling over the rubble and each over like a hive of insects, only slower and less graceful, distracted by terror and ill-suited to climbing or descending walls. Erin didn’t care who they were, there was no one left in this building who’d ever been kind to her – she pinched them in twos and threes, sending some tumbling out to fall a tremendous distance as she thrust the others into her mouth. She was suddenly voracious, chasing a burning need to fill herself with her ungrateful, insulting, mean-spirited colleagues, so she rapidly chomped on mouthful after mouthful, barely tenderising most of them before gulping them down. Their shouts and screams blended into one terrific din where the words were scarcely audible, though she caught the occasional “Please!” or “No!” as she trapped and devoured them.

Erin tore her way through the eighth floor first, of course, though in her frenzy wasn’t sure who she’d caught or who she’d let escape. She noticed Gina, at least, trying to hide in a toilet cubicle when Erin ripped the wall away. The little woman had her hands together, praying for mercy, but Erin dragged her out by an ankle and threw her into her mouth like a piece of popcorn. Once she’d cleared out that floor, she crouched all the way down, to where people were reaching the shattered lobby to escape, and she scooped them up as they fled. She kicked in the base of the stairwells and stomped on a few people who’d reached the street, then she worked her way up, plucking people from the floors above. She hadn’t got far before sirens sounded and she noticed flashing lights appearing in the nearby roads, but she threw big chunks of building towards them and the emergency services kept their distance after that. She shifted around the tear in the office, trampling parked cars as her shoes cracked through the road surface, and she peered into the windows, searching for anyone who was hiding. Had she killed Yvette already? Possibly. Not Janet, though; she would’ve noticed Janet.

Putting both hands on the sides of the building, Erin shook it slightly and said, with a satisfyingly booming voice, “Give me Janet and I’ll spare the rest of you!”

She grinned maliciously at a couple of suited men she saw trying to crawl backwards through a wasted office space. A woman was pressed against a wall further back, shaking her head in fear. No, she wasn’t going to spare any of them at all, but she’d learnt from her nightmare: it made things that much more delicious to offer a little bit of hope. The frightened survivors started slowing down, screams quietening, as they checked around them, asking if anyone knew where Janet was. Erin backed up, scanning the floors herself.

“Enough, Erin, dammit!” a shrill voice shouted and Erin quickly found its source, a tiny lady in a burgundy pantsuit at the edge of the remnants of the third floor. Yvette Crossward was coated with dust, hair a mess, forehead bloody. “You foolish girl, look at what you’ve done!” She gestured broadly above her to all the damage, as if Erin should be ashamed.

Erin was stalled by her audacity. Even after she’d almost been crushed in her hands, and seen all this destruction, the woman was still fiercely superior, expecting Erin to bow down.

“I’ll give you one last chance, you hear!” Yvette shrieked, pointing sharply. “Stop this at once – or you’ll be sorry!”

Erin pushed the building, just hard enough that it shook through its full length but didn’t break. It created a cascade of rubble as loose bits of wall and ceiling fell down, dragging desks and shattered windows with them – and it knocked Yvette off her feet. The manager screamed as she tripped out of the building, smacking into debris and flipping before landing battered in the mess of the ground floor. She tried to pick herself up, groaning, as Erin positioned her scruffy tennis shoe over her. Yvette gave an ear-piercing, disbelieving shriek as she lowered her toe. It only took the slightest pressure to squash Yvette into the floor.

“You bitch,” a familiar voice made Erin turn back, a smile spreading across her face. Janet, finally. But Erin chilled as she turned, not towards another tiny victim but into the shadow of a much bigger object. Suddenly, she found herself staring up into a body that eclipsed the sky, greater than any of the skyscrapers that flanked them. In a moment of Erin’s distraction, the vile woman had grown, too, even bigger than her. She had to be twenty storeys high, feet barely fitting in the main road, and Erin’s head was only just past her navel. Janet put her hands on her hips. “I heard you were looking for me.”

Erin swallowed, her old entrenched fears flooding back, all her sense of power evaporating. What a fool she’d been – the curse gave hope, she knew this by now. Her nightmare was on show for the world to see. Her humiliation now on the grandest of scales with her nemesis impossibly massive above her. Whatever control she’d taken back, it was nothing before giant Janet.

I wish that…

Erin blinked against the sunlight, peeking through the clouds behind Janet, lip trembling at the idea of how unfair this was. Again. Janet grinned, mouth already wider than seemed natural, an unavoidable reminder of how she could bend physics to swallow anything. As Erin trembled, locked in fear, Janet casually lifted a huge hand and reached to the side. Her fingers tore through a neighbouring building like it was nothing, gathering a handful of furniture, rubble and writhing people in a fist five metres tall. She jammed it all into her mouth and crunched it as one crumbling, partly alive mouthful, with snatches of screams and the sight of tiny people escaping through her parted lips. Janet deliberately watched Erin as she swallowed, being sure she appreciated the preview, then the same hand came down and closed on Erin’s throat, gently but with a promise of impossible strength.

“Stay still,” Janet said, bending to bring her head above Erin’s. “It’s time we finished this.”

Erin flinched away, but her feet were rooted to the spot as Janet’s lips opened above her with a wet smack, bits of building and people falling out. Her too-thick tongue slurped out, licking Erin’s face almost seductively, curling out longer than any person’s should’ve been. Whimpering, Erin reached back for something, any kind of support.

I wish that…

As Janet’s mouth lowered further, spreading to cover Erin’s head, the injustice burned in her. She could’ve had anything with the power of Radik’s wishes. She could’ve just run, at least. But if she’d been cursed, then Janet should’ve been, too! Janet had made a wish and this was supposed to be justice! The colossal woman’s jaws were closing, pressing Erin’s face into the slick tongue. Her fingers closed on the hard surface of the office building. This was supposed to be justice, the thought flared in her again. And she recalled something more, then, words uttered in anger, when she’d first spoken to Radik.

I wish that everyone could see what a nightmare my life is…

She tightened her grip on the building, feeling the handful of brick and glass breaking away in a heavy chunk. Janet was taking her time, suppressing a laugh as her hand stroked down Erin’s side, tongue probing her face.

I wish that everyone could see what a nightmare my life is, and see what it feels like for themselves!

Erin’s hand came up suddenly, unthinking, crashing furiously into the side of Janet’s massive head. They were both jerked sideways with the movement, Erin’s own head caught between the giant woman’s jaws, and they careered with unstoppable force through a pair of buildings. Janet made a pained, startled noise, as Erin swung the chunk of building up again, so hard this time that it broke apart in her hand and Janet’s grip released. She tore her head out from the monstrous woman’s mouth and fell back as Janet stumbled the other way, foot landing on a low-rise and crunching it to nothing. Erin darted back, reaching out again as Janet tried to regain her balance, snatching after her.

“Little bitch!” Janet roared, voice slurred by her thickened lip, head bleeding. As her huge hands landed on Erin’s shoulders and pulled her back, Erin got her own hands on the Pagen Paper builder and dragged it with her. She’d caught some of the main supports, great metal struts that came out like concrete-studded spines, hurling rubble and people into the air, and as Janet spun Erin back to face her, Erin brought both hands up fast. One of the twisted bits of metal slashed across the giantess’s face, making her howl in a spray of blood, as the other jammed into her neck, deep. Janet retreated, aghast, putting a hand to her neck wound, as Erin fell back into the remains of the building. She couldn’t keep upright, and sat down, smashing through her office. It came down around her, crumbling past her shoulders, onto her legs, in a huge cloud of dust. Little people caught in the collapse rolled out and across her, falling in her lap or clinging desperately to her top. She ignored their frightened cries as she watched Janet trying to stay standing.

The vast giantess stumbled to the side, one hand limply grasping as the other tried to staunch the flow of blood from her neck. She gagged, unable to speak with the shard of office still jammed into her throat. Her eyes met Erin’s with mixed disbelief and hurt. Then her expression firmed up, finding some fresh hate in her fading strength. She took a step towards Erin, but as she did, there was a great wheeze of pressure relieved, and as her foot fell she was suddenly smaller, as if she were walking away, rather than closer. Eyes widening in renewed fear, she took a second step, to bring her right up to Erin, and shrank even further, half her height again. She needed a third step to reach the building’s rubble, bringing her down even lower, and more, until she came staggering between Erin’s legs, finally reduced to her normal size. She looked up with horror, Erin’s knees bent up above her, and started shaking her head in denial.

Erin stared in her own disbelief, not trusting this to be real now, waiting for another twist, but the world was still, with Janet apparently immobilised, terrified, and her still at a huge height. The office building was completely destroyed underneath her and it seemed to be over. She had won. Reclaimed the nightmare. Erin smiled broadly, relishing the moment, as Janet started to back away. Brutal as the neck wound had been, it didn’t appear to have been fatal after all, and she looked ready to run. As she turned to flee, Erin leant forward and reached down to grab her. She carried the vile woman up to her face in a fist as Janet squirmed and she chewed her lower lip, considering this final snack. But Erin was tired now, their fight and her gorging from before combining to drain her. Her appetite had faded and she had an urge to lay back and just rest.

It was over, she told herself.

Whatever else was going on, and with the wider world surely having witnessed all this, the main nightmare was over, and she was safe. She’d won. She’d overcome it. The office was gone, Yvette and all her little bullies were gone, and was Janet hers to do whatever she wanted with.

The question was, what next?

Was she stuck this size? Would the army come for her? Try to lock her away? She wouldn’t be able to go back to her apartment and doubted anyone would hire her after all this, ridiculous as she realised that thought was.

The answer came, though, with a huge rumble of thunder from the sky. Erin looked up with weary resignation as the clouds parted and something big beyond comprehension stretched out of the heavens. Another hand, so vast she could’ve been back where she’d started this morning – a god reaching down to take her. Erin took in a breath, unbothered now about where she might end up. She let the giant take her.

...okay, it's not quite the end. Tune in next week for the Epilogue!