Erin's Living Nightmare - Ch 11

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

The lobby stretched further than the grandest of cathedrals, the floor a shining expanse of polished tile, pot plants bigger than trees, the reception desk like a cliff of wood veneer. Erin sighed wearily at the mere task of crossing this space to get to the elevators at the end, not having regrown from her current four-inch height. She’d set out incredibly early to be sure of getting to work in time, which had left her too tired to recall exactly how she’d made it from her apartment to here, let alone how she’d got home or survived the night. Too tired to especially care. At least it left her less able to fret over the horrors of yesterday, and the impossible prospect she now faced of Radik being gone. She definitely wasn’t wishing herself out of this now; all she had was the vague memory of half-formed wishes that might have helped. Little whispers of what she’d hoped she might say. I wish that…

As Erin walked, she glanced up at a male receptionist tapping away at a keyboard, the young suited man not having noticed her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to. But looking ahead, the realisation hit her that once she reached the elevators she was going to have to wait for someone else to press the buttons. It was probably best to ask for help now. She had half an hour to get to her desk before nine, but that time could easily evaporate if by some madness no one else came in. To say nothing of the threat of getting stepped on if lots of people did come. Erin redirected and began to approach the receptionist.

Almost exactly the moment she’d made her decision, the main doors swished open and the floor shook with someone entering. Erin backed up quickly, turning to face the newcomer, as the receptionist cheerily greeted her: “Good morning, Miss Cody!”

She cast a titanic silhouette – of course, the one person it had to be. Janet, striding in at full height thanks to the lobby’s high ceiling. She swerved slightly to avoid a light fixture of dangling glass and stopped as she noticed Erin on the floor. The giantess grinned wickedly, a mountain of feminine curves, wearing another body-hugging dress, this one a shoulder-less rich blue, barely holding in her breasts and finishing well above her knees. Her colossal feet stood not far from Erin in strappy, open-toed heels.

“Morning, Erin. Good to see you here bright and early!” Janet exclaimed with exaggerated cheer. “Do you need a hand getting up to the office?”

Erin shook her head mutely, taking another step back. Damned if she was going to invite any interaction with this monster. She wanted to ask what she’d done with Chloe but at the same time didn’t want to know the answer. She wasn’t sure if she could speak right now, anyway, so exposed on this floor before such a vast, dangerous woman. Her eyes went to Janet’s belly, which was mercifully flat again, no one struggling inside her right now. Erin wondered how long they took to digest…

“Yeah, I was running a bit late,” Janet said, noticing her looking. “Thought I’d grab a bite once I got in.” Her eyes narrowed, chilling Erin. “In fact…”

Erin wanted to run, but found herself tensing in fear instead, body shutting down in the knowledge there was no way she’d could escape this huge woman. She flinched as Janet snatched a hand out, but the huge woman went to the side, not down to her. Whip-fast, Janet grabbed the receptionist by his chest and hauled him over the counter, knocking over his monitor and various papers. He had only a second to register what was happening, hands grabbing her wrists and eyes widening in surprise, as Janet shovelled him into her grotesquely stretching mouth and gulped him down. She veered away from the desk, stuffed once more with the man’s moans just audible through her stomach, and she ran her hands over the bulge of his struggles.

“That’s better,” she said and walked off towards the lifts without another glance to Erin.

Erin was left gaping in terror, stunned by the merciless speed of Janet’s attack, as the giantess crouched into the elevator and left. The lobby was very still then, just Erin and the debris of some scattered paper.

It would be best, the thought came, if she just left. She should get the hell out of here and never come back. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? She desperately needed the money, and would face losing her apartment almost the moment she stopped earning, but that didn’t mean much in a situation where people were getting killed being here. Besides, without the receptionist, her best chance of getting upstairs was gone. Steeling herself, Erin turned back towards the exit and began a quick march out to the dim morning light.

The doors opened again and she pulled up short, shocked anew at the sight of the person she second-most did not want to see. Yvette strode importantly into the lobby, head high, in a burgundy pantsuit and shiny black pumps. Erin dashed aside as her feet clomped closer, but her boss paused, scowling at the disrupted reception desk. She called out, “Harry?” She drew a quick conclusion: “Oh for fuck’s sake, not again.” Yvette’s gaze turned quickly to the side, finding Erin, somehow expecting her to be there. “Dobson. I should’ve known. You couldn’t have handled this?”

“It was Janet,” Erin replied, weakly, as her giant manager took a step over her.

“Obviously. And I suppose you just let it happen?”

“I…” Erin was lost again, sure nothing she could say would help.

“So I’m another receptionist down thanks to you. Meanwhile, you’ve obviously made no progress with the task I set you.” Yvette drew a hand down her torso to her legs, encompassing her plainly unchanged size. Erin hadn’t even thought about it, how her manager expected her to make her bigger, to at least match Janet’s burgeoning size. Reading that in her expression, Yvette scoffed angrily. “No, apparently I expect too much from you. When what I should really do –” She swung a foot forward, shoe gliding big as a truck towards Erin, and caught Erin in the chest, knocking her to the floor. The toe came down, pinning her against the tile as Erin pushed against it. Yvette applied a little more pressure to stop her struggling and leaned forward, so her nasty face was visible. “You’re a pest, Dobson. I step on pests.”

“Please!” Erin cried, hands up spread before her. “Ms Crossward, I can do better!”

Yvette regarded her with disgust, but shook her head, reluctantly taking her foot away. Erin sat up, almost sobbing with relief, and got only a second’s reprieve before Yvette’s vast shadow swept over her, a hand coming down. She yelped as she was balled into a fist, legs cycling free, and her stomach dropped as Yvette picked her up, stood, and shoved her in a pocket. Erin tumbled about, unable to keep steady as her manager walked, bouncing against the great, warm cushion of her body. Only when Yvette stopped, the lift button pinging, did Erin manage to settle and look up through the slit of the pocket to see her chin, and realised where she was: Yvette’s breast pocket, on the outside of her jacket. They went into the lift and Erin cringed into a corner of the pocket, uncomfortably aware that the wall she was rocking against was her huge boss’s breast. The indignity of it – surely done deliberately when Yvette could have just carried her.

They rose to Floor Eight in silence and Yvette walked briskly through to her private office, giving only short, curt greetings to the few others who’d come in early. She closed the door, sat down and started clicking at her computer. Erin lay still, looking up at the giantess’s chin as Yvette made occasional irritated noises, unimpressed by whatever she was reading to start her day. Was she planning to just go about her work, leaving Erin here ignored?

“Um,” Erin said, to get her attention, and Yvette looked down fiercely. She wanted to apologise again, to just settle into the dark here and be forgotten, but it was too late. The manager’s massive fingers came into the pocket and pinched her by one wrist. Yvette roughly pulled her out to hang from that arm before her face. Erin swayed with a whimper and tried to reach up, to hold on, but couldn’t.

“What should I do with you, Dobson? I don’t know,” Yvette grumbled. She gave her fingers a shake to send Erin side to side like a pendulum, eliciting a shriek. It was twenty feet or more down to the hard surface of the desk, though that peril was met by the equal distraction of Yvette’s open cleavage, particularly large and round this morning with her shirt partly unbuttoned. Erin had an unpleasant feeling that she might get shoved in there if she wasn’t careful.

“I think I just need some time!” she called out urgently. “I grew back to normal size yesterday!”

“To what end?” Yvette scoffed, breath blowing Erin back. “I’m missing the reports for Birmingham and Leeds from yesterday, you know? Seeing as you decided to take the afternoon off. It’s not just people going missing, it’s work not getting done.”

Erin hung limply, considering the accusation. Neither of those reports were her responsibility, nor that of anyone she’d seen being eaten. She said, “Did you get the Manchester report?”

“Obviously,” Yvette snapped. “I’m not talking about that, am I? Gina and Russel have both complained that you were supposed to be helping them.”

“But I wasn’t –” Erin started.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses again. We could be losing money, Dobson. There’ll be shipping delays, people I have to placate. And you, making promises – I had high hopes this morning. I should be twelve feet tall, shouldn’t I?”

She stopped long enough, staring hard, that Erin realised it was a genuine question, and answered, “Yes, Ms Crossward. I just don’t know how it works.”

“That much is obvious. You just thank your lucky stars we got that streaming deal in, otherwise you’d be in with the rest of these reprobates.” Yvette opened a desk drawer with her other hand, and with it came a chorus of little screams. Erin jolted with a panic, setting herself swaying again, as she saw the drawer was full of tiny people like her – at least a dozen of them, men and women, variously dressed in smart office wear or the overalls of warehouse and delivery workers. Exposed to the light, they started falling over themselves trying to climb up, waving for attention and pleading in pitiful voices.

“Who are they?” Erin asked in shock.

“Believe me,” Yvette said, reaching into the drawer, “this company has more than its fair share of disappointments.”

Though they’d been clamouring for attention before, the crowd of tiny people fearfully scrambled away from her hand, with nowhere to go. Her fingers closed in the middle of them. She lifted her fist with a woman in a blouse reaching desperately from one end and a man in a boiler suit writhing from between two of her fingers. Erin thought she recognised the woman, but as she tried to place her, Yvette stuffed them both into her mouth. The screaming in the drawer renewed as the giantess chewed on them both, barely fitting them in her cheeks, the woman’s legs kicking out her lips. Erin had to look away as blood spilt, Yvette crunching the pair between her teeth, then she swallowed. The screaming below was silenced as the giantess slammed the drawer shut again.

Erin shook with horror, breath shuddering, as Yvette wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and continued, “You’ve got three days, Dobson. That’s our contractual minimum with the streaming company for now. After that, if things don’t shape up, I’ll have you for breakfast.”

The giantess flicked her hand dismissively, releasing Erin to roll hard over the desk. She came to a stop on the other side of the computer keyboard and quickly got up to run to one side, looking fearfully back. Yvette was a monster, towering in her chair, glaring, but one of her hands had already drifted back to her mouse, eyes on her monitor.

Erin had a hundred bitter responses she wanted to throw, along with a hundred questions. Janet had been bad enough, but how many people had Yvette killed? Where had she gathered them from, to build that terrible collection in her drawer? And how could this go on? With people getting killed so quickly, there’d be no one left in the office within a week. And, Erin thought, why was everyone getting eaten?! She’d even seen herself be eaten by Chloe. What was going on in her mind to make these nightmares manifest? Her initial conversation with Radik crept back to mind, when the wish giver asked if she were a macrophile, whatever that was. Obsessed with size, she supposed, which was a weird way to put it considering this all pointed more clearly towards a phobia. Her fear of the most commanding and scary people in her office literally trapping people inside them…

A more practical question overrode all that fear and confusion, though, as Erin recalled what Yvette had just said. Three days. A streaming company contract. She asked, “What streaming contract? What’s going on?”

Yvette paused, looking down with her standard “Are you still here?” glower. She answered, “They’ve given us a seven-figure sum to live stream for a minimum of thirty hours of exclusive content. The Terrors of the Tiny Woman, they’re going to call it. Apparently it’s a hit already, which is good for you because it’s been putting me out no end.” She pointed up and Erin followed her gaze to a far corner of the ceiling, but saw nothing there. “I had to stay until seven last night so they could install the cameras. I had dinner reservations, Dobson.”

Erin turned about trying to see if she could spot any other cameras. This was unreal, almost as unbelievable as all the size-shifting and people being devoured. It wasn’t that a streaming company might’ve made a deal with her manager, and so quickly – from the nature of the curse, she couldn’t be surprised that the whole world would quickly be exposed to all she was going through. It was Yvette’s attitude. She’d just said seven figures? For three days of content? That was more money than Pagen Paper made in a quarter. And she was angry she had to stay until seven, when Erin hardly ever got home that early? While still complaining that a few reports were late?

“Do I get a cut?” Erin questioned out loud, realising the greatest injustice in this. “I mean, if they’re steaming my nightmares –”

“In my office,” Yvette quickly corrected. “As long as you’re in this building, drawing my pay, you belong to me, Erin. You’ll find it’s all in your contract.”

“This isn’t fair,” Erin said, more to herself.

But Yvette straightened up, recalling her huge size. She shifted her jaw unhappily, lips curling back to reveal teeth still bloodied from the two people she’d just eaten. She said, slowly, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that and suggest you go back to your desk and get caught up on your work at once. In fact –” Yvette pointed up, to the clock on the wall, where the minute hand was dangerously close to nine. “No surprise, it looks like you’re going to be late again.”

Erin shifted towards the edge of the desk, taking in the great distance to the door, and the terrible drop to the carpet. No way she could climb down or get anywhere without help. She looked back up at Yvette and found her giant manager’s icy stare threatening her to make any more trouble. It was beyond unfair. She couldn’t get out of here. Definitely couldn’t get to her desk in any reasonable time. And it didn’t matter because they’d already made an obscene amount of money for her suffering. Exactly as they’d been doing for years now. But Yvette was staring, waiting for her to do the impossible, again, and the second hand was ticking up to nine. Radik was gone, with no more wishes to come. Chloe might have already been dead, and things were only getting monstrously worse here. Yvette was profiting off this, Janet was having a great time. And when that bitch made her wish nothing had happened!

Erin brimmed with anger, tight all over, and wanted to scream at Yvette, to push her over, to do something. More likely, though, when that second hand hit nine, her manager would crush her as she was clearly itching to do. Erin braced herself. At least, she supposed, then it would all be over.

The minute arm ticked to nine and Yvette’s mouth turned up in a satisfied smile.

But Erin grew.