Erin's Living Nightmare - Ch 8

I wish everyone could see what a nightmare…

Erin hugged her handbag tight to her belly as she huddled against the side of the bus stop, sitting on the bench, caught in a fog of racing thoughts. She’d made it out of the office and was on her way home, if the bus ever came, but everywhere she looked she saw people watching her, whispering to each other. People in the lift and lobby on the way out, a dog walker across the road, a couple of mums pushing prams. They all knew who she was. They were all judging her. She self-consciously tried to straighten her clothes, to look partway presentable, but there wasn’t much helping her rumpled appearance. She tried to make herself smaller and less noticeable, instead.

She’d take a long hot bath soon, and finally make a plan. As long as this bus arrived.

To effectively work herself free from this wish, Erin determined, she first had to establish the rules. It was apparent now that whatever power Radik had at work, it wasn’t entirely linear or predictable. For one, sitting at the bus stop, at last free of the office, she became quite sure that she had barely left the office since all this had begun. She couldn’t remember going home because the curse hadn’t let her go home, it was just jumping her from one horror to the next, keeping her trapped in the site of her worst torments. She had a sense of foreboding about that, because it’d somehow allowed her to come here, to give her the hope of going home at last, and that probably meant some other trouble was on the way.

Her greater challenge in this was that this curse was apparently playing a long game, where it allowed her moments of respite and even hope before pulling the rug out from under her. Three times now she’d had glimpses of people maybe being willing to help her, only to see them get brutally killed. Even talking at lunch with Chloe, which had seemed like an innocent chance to relax at the time (besides being teased with a giant fork) had turned into a disaster with her situation being broadcast across the entire internet. At the same time, not everything was apparently literally connected by this wish: the horrors she’d encountered running into Janet alone and inhaling Xavier, after all, weren’t seen by anyone else. She chalked that up to collateral damage, or perhaps the curse laying down more stress that could later be publicly displayed. And the whole situation with Chloe and her diary and the tiny versions of herself… Things were just getting weirder.

A group of three youths came sauntering past and Erin turned her face away, hoping they’d move by quickly. They were joking about something, pushing each other, and walked on. As she was about to relax, though, one of them shouted, “Little lady!”

Suddenly they were back, spread out before the bus stop, getting in her vision as she tried to avoid looking at them.

“It is her, isn’t it!” one of them laughed. “Hey, little lady, be nice!”

“What you doing out here? You need a ride? I asked you a question!”

She had to look up and address them, finding herself looking at two wiry young men and a stocky girl, all wearing variously coloured grubby sweatpants and hoodies. The taller boy was straddling a BMX and wore a baseball cap, while the girl chewed gum, her hair in ginger braids. Erin said, meekly, “Please leave me alone.”

“Well that’s rude!” the boy on the BMX boomed, much louder than was necessary. “I offered you a ride home, didn’t I? Dangerous for a little lady out here.”

“Yeah, we can take care of you,” the girl said with a sneering lilt. They were a spotty, nasty-looking group, the sort that Erin usually crossed the road to avoid. She considered getting up and walking, but they were blocking the pavement.

“We saw you on that video,” the shorter boy, with a snub-nose, told her. “It was cute. And sad.”

“Gotta suck being so small,” Baseball Cap said. “Like, anyone could do whatever they want with you.”

“Anything at all,” the girl agreed.

Erin lowered her eyes. If she didn’t react, eventually they’d lose interest, surely.

“Oi, I’m talking to you,” Baseball Cap went on. “You want our protection or what?”

“You need it,” Snub-nose put in. “Look at her. She’s bloody tiny. Could get carried away on the wind.”

“Might get stepped on,” the girl said.

Erin gritted her teeth, anger stirring. She’d taken all this at work long enough, but from three strangers, younger even than Chloe, it was getting ridiculous. She wasn’t small, dammit. She had got her size back somehow, and she was a grown woman, who should not have to be afraid so damn much. As they kept teasing and laughing, she took a deep breath, bracing herself to tell them to get lost. She looked up furiously and the words caught in her throat.

She was staring up at giants and her shock was matched immediately by their delight.

The youths jumped and down as they pointed and laughed. “She did it! She done gone small again!”

Erin’s breath quickened and she jumped at the volume of their shouts, the size of their vast bodies. These brats were each a hundred feet tall, their roughness magnified to terrifying proportions, and she was standing on the bench, utterly vulnerable. Erin glanced about desperately for an escape, or something to hide behind, but the bench stretched far either side of her and the ground appeared three or four storeys down. With no options, her body seized up.

“She’s such a little dork!” the girl was saying, both her and Snub-nose now holding up their phones to record her. “Go on and do something, then! Dance for the camera!”

Baseball Cap clambered off his bike, letting it clatter to the pavement, and crouched before the bench, filling Erin’s vision with his horrible size. “This is too funny. I’m having you.”

Erin shrieked as his hand came up quickly and the giant’s rough fingers easily caught her. He lifted her, turning back to his friends, as they all laughed again, cameras recording. Erin squirmed pushing against his fingers, and yelled, “Get off me! I’ve got a bus to catch!”

“Oh, she’s got a bus to catch!” Baseball Cap roared with amusement and she heard it herself, how daft that concern was in the scope of being caught in the clutches of a giant. “Let’s have a good look, shall we?” He opened his hand and took hold of her arms, stretching her out. The others joined in, attempting to poke at her as Erin kicked out. The boy pulled her leg almost to the point of popping out and she screamed at him to stop, but they only laughed more. He dangled her then shouted to Snub-nose, “Catch!” and tossed her into the air. She flew a terrifying moment before landing in the shorter boy’s thick hands, and he roughly jostled her, pinching at her clothes.

“I wanna see what’s underneath!”

“Don’t be a perv, prick!” the girl came in, snatching Erin suddenly. Holding her in a big sweaty fist, the girl grinned like an ogre. Her fingers began tightening, hard. “I wanna see if I can make her eyes bulge.”

Erin gasped for air, lancing with pain, but before her captor could crush her, Snub-nose lashed out, wrenching the girl’s hand open. “It was my go!”

The girl shouted and their giant fingers became a blur as they wrestled over her. Erin was struck and pulled and twisted with the monsters arguing above her, until Baseball Cap came back in, shoving them and snapping. She was grabbed in another giant fist and pulled clear as Snub-nose tripped to the side, then Baseball Cap held her up, grinning luridly.

“Back off the pair of you. Finders keepers. And I’m gonna keep her well. Oh, little lady. You’re gonna make me a mint. After we’ve had some fun.”

Erin tried to struggle but was winded, hurting, and couldn’t even protest. He had a slick slimy look in his eye and she dreaded whatever he might have in mind. A roaring engine drew her attention to the side, as the bus arrived at last. It was a colossal metal beast, trundling up alongside them, with faces in the steamy windows looking out, here to watch her demise. The door hydraulics hissed open.

“Let’s get out of here,” Baseball Cap decided, now they had an audience, and he lowered his hand.

Erin saw her destination, the loose pocket of his sweatpants, and had a flash of a terrible, short future as the captive of these monstrous youths. She found a new surge of panicked energy and screamed, “No!” before sinking her fingers hard into the boy’s flesh, pinching with all her strength. Without an immediate effect from that she dived forward and clamped her teeth on him, biting hard on a mouthful of solid, salty skin. The boy yelped but didn’t release her – instead his grip tightened as he lifted her back to his furious face.

“Little bitch!” the giant snarled. “Trying to mess with me? Here, you wanted your bloody bus so bad, you take it!” Triggered to angry violence, he quickly cocked his arm back and threw Erin forward, hard. She screamed again, twirling into the sky, no chance of surviving the immense fall to the pavement. The world sped by below as she was propelled forward, and Erin hit the bus hard, splatting against its cool surface. She stuck there for a moment, spread against what she saw was a murky glass pane, and the youths pointed and laughed at her. They had their phones out again.

“Oi!” the bus driver roared, moving furiously from his seat. “What you bloody kids doing to my bus!” Still laughing, the youths scattered as he ran out of the vehicle, shouting insults.

Erin slid down the window, and before she could peel off to fall, she pressed herself into the glass. She toppled over the lip of the window frame and just managed to catch hold of its metal surface, pulling herself up. Standing on the edge of the window, she had a dizzying view to the road, like looking down a cliff. To the side, though, she saw a space. Finally, a bit of luck – the window was open! Quickly but carefully, she side-stepped along the rim and threw herself through the opening. In her eagerness, she went over the edge, losing her grip, and fell with a yelp. Erin tumbled down inside the bus, an enormous seat-back whizzing past, and she smacked into the soft cushion of an empty seat. She bounced, huffed and came to a halt, lying on her front. It hurt, and knocked the wind out of her, but she could twitch, and still breathe. Not seriously hurt, she thought. Just needed a moment.

Lying face down on a grubby bus seat, she almost laughed, because it was all so mad. She’d escaped hell from those terrible giant youths. And she was on her bus at last, with maybe some possibility of getting home after all. She could feel the engine rumbling beneath her, heard people talking, but not too close – this pair of seats apparently free from giants. Safe.

But the bus shook with someone’s movements, footsteps approaching, and Erin realised they weren’t driving yet. People could still get on. She rolled over at the sound of someone drawing up to her seat, and irrationally feared it was the youths returning. Instead, she saw a young woman twisting into the pair of seats – or at least, her legs, angling above her. Erin’s eyes bulged in shock at the quickly descending newcomer. The sky was filled by the vast curves of a firm, round behind in tight jeans, descending fast.

Erin tried to get up, tripping over herself to run, but it was already too late. She yelled in terror as the giantess sat on her.