Quitting Time
Scott Grildrig
08-Nov-2002
Disclaimer: This is a work of friction…er…fiction, which is meant…not meant to be red – drat – read…I’ll start again… Wicked story. Make brains go mushy…mushier…it’s all relative. It’s also all about finding the right level. For instance, if you still think that working the grill at the local burger joint is a step up in your career either you’re a lot happier than I am or a lot younger, and I’m pretty damn happy, buster, so put the story down and practice flipping things. And stop spitting in my whoppers. (um, and deepest apologies to Ms Lavigne and Def and the hatless guys).
The setting sun shone down the long lane, painted the spreading shadow of a young aspen tree to prodigious length. A warm summer breeze moved slowly and slightly, wound its way around the sapling. The ground rippled every so slightly. For a brief moment the aspen’s heart shaped leaves shivered, then went still. Another moment passed, the ground trembled, and the leaves shivered again. Further down the street, suspended high above the road a traffic light jiggled, swayed gently on its long wire, then jiggled some more. A red Volvo parked near the curb rocked gently on its springs, leaned and bobbed from side to side.
Crump. The sound was crisp, brief, there only for a moment before fading into obscurity. Crump. It returned again, a little louder, a little closer. Crump. There was no rush in its approach, no sense of hurry, just an easy, relaxed rhythm. Crump. The young tree shook. Crump. The traffic light swung. CRUMP. The car jerked. CRUMP. The sound level rose ominous and loud, no longer totally staccato, it was accompanied by a deep crunching like boulders being ground to dust. CRUMP. A dark shadow swept over the tableau. Suddenly, a woman’s colossal bare foot stepped down beside the little aspen, dwarfing it as if it was a blade of grass. The tree whipped from the violence of the impact, green leaves stripped from its branches by a fierce gust of wind. The giantess’ huge toes sank down into the tarmac with a ruinous noise, pressing into it as easily as if it were soft dirt. There was a long pause as her bare foot shifted slightly in place, caught in mid-stride in the act of walking, her black bellbottom cuff rippling against her shapely ankle.
A distant scream cutting though the air ahead and to the left was abruptly silenced by a second crump. There was a pause. The giantess’ shapely toes spread slightly as her heel lifted, revealing the compressed pit of her print. Raising from its own crater her little toe brushed against the Volvo, its alarm wailed as it was flipped and hurled end over end into an adjacent house. Her gigantic foot lifted more, gliding with awesome grace through the wire supporting the traffic light, snapping it like thread. The light arced through the air like an illuminated tetherball, slamming into the ground with enough force to crack it open. CRUMP. Her huge foot stepped down scores of feet away, crushing the road around it, paused, and then lifted again. Crump. The noise diminished with distance. Crump. The sounds faded as she headed towards the city.
- : - : -
Dann rested his arms on the steering wheel of his vintage black ’68 hardtop Mustang and frowned at the jammed packed street before him. Something about a Friday evening gives license to vast hordes of humanity to gather and mill about in vague and aimless fashion. Add to it the Friday beginning a long weekend and you get the vehicular equivalent of glue. Still, it was the end of the week, work was done, and there were good things to look forward to. Dann concentrated on threading through the congestion as though navigating a maze of car loving shopping carts, which explains why he didn’t join the initial round of screaming with the rest of the crowds. He was busy trying to decide which way to edge around a triple parked UPS truck when an inky black shadow dropped all around him. CRUMP. Even that might not have caught his attention, save for the fact that it was the kind of darkness normally reserved for thunderstorms, big ones, that and the fact that everyone around him, including the UPS driver off to his side were looking straight up. There was a second CRUMP and the UPS man disappeared.
Dann blink. He saw toes, female toes, big toes.
He rolled down the window, stuck his head out, looked at the toes, looked up.
It was an unalloyed “oh fuck” moment…
- : - : -
Megan tipped her black cowboy hat up with a finger and glared down at the little man peeking out at her from the driver’s side window of his teeny-tiny black Mustang.
“I told you not to go downtown this evening,” she growled. Her soft voice rumbled and reverberated amongst the thick forests of buildings, made windows rattle in their frames, and generally freaked out the already frantic populace churning around her bare feet. The tiny UPS man caught partially under a colossal toe went unnoticed as she focused her attention on the subject of her ire.
Dann gestured wildly with one arm. She pursed her lips, his words failed utterly to reach to her lofty 400ft tall height, but she didn’t need to hear him to recognize the flood of questions coming from him.
“Save your breath, I’m big, deal with it. I told you to avoid downtown.” Dann waved another question at her. “If you must know I’m here to tell the restaurant off,” and she pointed to a tall building a block over. “I’ve had my fill of waitressing; they’ve pissed me off one too many times: the nerve of them docking my pay for listening to music on the job. And right now you’re as bad as any of them, little guy. Why don’t men ever listen?” The tiny unseen UPS man beat desperately against Megan’s warm flesh with futile little fists, and then gurgled in gut clenching agony, blood welling from his mouth from her shifting weight as she casually squatted down onto her heels, her heavy breasts bobbling gently in the confines of her blue tank top.
For his part Dann resisted the urge to gun his engine and speed away. Traffic jam or not it’s not easy staying still when a lovely skyscraper-size girl hunkers down beside you. This was all impossible; Megan was not a colossal destructive giantess. It was a dream. He pinched himself, yelped and rubbed his sore arm. It’s as well that he didn’t move, though, as it would have done nothing to improve her mood. Her eyes glittered as she reached out and curled her fingers around his Mustang, catching it and lifting it like a toy. She peeked inside the windshield at the tiny man and purred, “Honk if you think I’m beautiful.” Dann was no fool; he wasted no time in pounding on the horn. A few other beeps from below testified to more voting from the streets, though most people were too busy screaming and running to take note. Megan grinned and curled her gigantic toes, sinking them into the tarmac, unknowingly popping the suffering UPS man like a bug, his glistening guts squirting yards away from his smooshed little body.
Standing up slowly she glanced down and around at her city with the air of someone ready to play with a very elaborate toy. The western horizon hummed red with the fires left behind by the setting sun, the glow painting some of the taller structures the colors of blood. Window lights dotted the skyscrapers and office buildings as night shrouded the streets where yellow pools of illumination vied with the white and red lights of cars and trucks. The roads were jam packed with traffic caught in a hopeless snarl of panic, tiny faces peering up through windshields at the giantess in their midst. The spaces between the vehicles were similarly full with crowds of people fleeing both the buildings and the trapped autos.
The noises wafting up to Megan blending into a cacophony of horns and howls, curses and crashes, a nonstop roar of human panic. She basked in it. The terror before her was a kind of worship, and she deserved all the worship these insignificant people could offer her. There was still the matter of her quitting her job, though. She set about doing it right.
- : - : -
Dann clung tightly to his steering wheel as Megan strolled casually about the downtown portions of her city. Her fingers put pressure on the frame of his Mustang, causing it to ping and groan in alarming ways. Still, she was careful with him, making sure not to shake his car too vigorously as she walked; or inadvertently flip it upside-down. The tip of her middle finger poked up just behind his right shoulder, and he reached out and touched it for some additional assurance of his safety; something he needed badly at the moment.
He couldn’t see what was happening on the street, until he thought to reach out a shaking hand and adjust his driver’s side mirror. The mirror jiggled violently, but still gave him chilling bird’s eye views of the chaos in the street. Megan was herding the mobs of people as though they were sheep, her gigantic footfalls slapping the ground with measured deliberation causing ripples of fear to wash through the crowds, forcing them towards the hotel where she used to work. For all her carelessness, though, she didn’t step on any people, at least not any people fleeing down the streets. She did crunch flat a number of cars, pushing and kicking them all into a pile, and some of those did have drivers and passengers within them. Dann licked lips gone dry as he watched a man leaping from his car sliced in half as Megan casually trod on his Cadillac, before flicking it with her toes to the brightly burning mountain of demolished automobiles. She left the legless little man there twitching and screaming while she padded to the adjacent street.
It didn’t take Dann long to realize that whether she was doing it deliberately or not, Megan was methodically blocking the streets with rubble from shattered buildings and mounds of blazing cars. The intense flames cast lurid shadows onto the taller buildings while twisting columns of black smoke rose into the air like the anchor points of some unholy altar. Several thousand people ended up trapped in the intersecting streets around a towering 60’s style cylindrical hotel topped by a red sign – The Bellevue. Glancing up he could see the smile curling Megan’s lips, her brown eyes aglow with delight. She sensed his attention upon her and looked down at him.
“Okay, sugar,” she said. “Dig deep into your tinker toy car and find me some dancing music.”
- : - : -
Megan felt a delectable anticipation warming her from within as she strutted towards her former place of employment; tiny crowds covering the street parting before her bare feet. Pausing close to the building she grinned and traced her fingers up the stacked balconies, giggling as people caught off guard scrambled wildly to get back into their small rooms. She peeked into the restaurant windows at the top of the building, glancing around until she spotted a man in a black suit. She winked at the pale little manager standing by the hostess’ podium.
“Okay, honey,” she purred to Dann. “What have you got for me?”
It was fairly obvious that Dann was having difficulty searching through a case of CD’s, what with the car tipped at a disconcerting angle and all. Megan didn’t make it any easier for him as she slowly rocked his tiny vehicle this way and that. Every so often he paused to check the security of his seatbelt, but a giantess size growl of impatience kept him on task. Waving a silvery disk he pushed it into the player.
There was a long pause while it loaded…
“Ah we can
dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind
Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance
Well they're are no friends of mine…”
Megan pursed her lips and lifted the black Mustang to the level of her eyes. Inside she could see Dann trying to claw the CD back out of the player. Her dark gaze never wavered as he freed it, pried open a Men Without Hats jewel-case, pulled out another disc, slammed the first one into the case and tossed it aside, then stuffed the second disc into the player.
There was an agonizingly long pause while it loaded…
“Sometimes I
get so weird I even freak myself out
I laugh myself to sleep it's my lullaby…”
Megan’s curled lips spoke volumes. “Avril,” she murmured. “Perfect. Make it loud, little man, and don’t stop playing till I tell you,” and she tipped her head back as the music gushed from the car and poured over her gigantic body.
In the streets below chaos reigned.
The crowds learned quickly to focus their full attention on the giantess in their midst. They moved like schools of fish, surging, and twisting, darting, running for their lives. None of it saved them. Previously, Megan’s steps had been slow, methodical and infrequent. Now she moved with fluid grace, her bare feet lifting to the rhythm of the song, the beating of the words. Dann’s Mustang was in her hand, swaying over her head as she gave herself to the music. Inside the car he clung helplessly to the steering wheel, his stomach lurching as the motion lifted him one way, paused and dropped him back again.
Her gigantic toes pressed the asphalt flat, twisted and moved on so that the road became more and more uneven, perilous with pits and great jagged cracks. Megan danced slowly around the building, her head nodding, and the crowds backed away from her approach, thousands of eyes riveted on the movements of her feet.
“…I'd rather
be anything but ordinary please
I'd rather be anything but ordinary please…”
In the unceasing panic a lone man tripped and sprawled, separated from the retreating throng, isolated and alone. With a twirl that sent her hair waving out from under her cowboy hat Megan spun around and took a step. The man threw up his arms and screamed as her huge toes stepped down. There was a moist crunch as his body flattened, crunched down into the collapsing street, his guts blurting out in a long glistening line. Megan smiled sweetly and twirled again, grinding the mess into the road, wet viscera stringing along leaving a trail of blood. Then, pursing her lips she swayed closer to the tiny mob of people. She kept the pressure up kept them running around the tall building, until one by one they began to drop from sheer exhaustion.
A gasping man stumbled and fell prone. Her shadow covered him and colossal toes playfully tapped down, left him thrashing in agony, coughing up blood. Another tap and a tiny woman howled with her lower body crushed to jelly. Megan left a trail of partially squished people in her wake as she danced. She didn’t care about them. Their helpless agony meant nothing to her. She just enjoyed her power.
One terrified little man who found himself about to be stepped on managed to clamber onto the roof of a car, flinging himself into the air as Megan’s foot kicked it into the running crowd, the bouncing spinning vehicle leaving a trail of broken and smashed bodies in its wake. In the meantime the man hit her toes and rolled helplessly up her instep as her colossal foot swung forward. Reaching out blindly he managed to grab onto the hem of her black bellbottoms. For what seemed an eternity he hung on with manic strength, riding up and down the gut clenching roller coaster motion of Megan’s foot as she danced. He wished this giantess would notice him, prayed that she would look down and spot him, maybe stop and let him go. He cried out in mounting terror as he felt his fingers slipping, glancing to the side he saw the hotel swinging towards him. Megan twisted her foot a little too close to the building, her bare heel crashing through ten feet of the outer wall as she spun on her toes. A wet smear on both the cuff of her pants and splattered across the shattered concrete was all that remained of her little hitchhiker.
The tiny crowd of people rounded the hotel yet again, hiding some of the semi-crushed men and women in its ranks as it passed, trampling some in the stampede. Megan giggled; the shrill screams sounded a little like being at a concert. Her feet stepped closer to the crowds, trod down casually on a little man who tried to brace himself against his impending doom. The ball of her gigantic foot easily bent him backwards, his tiny spine snapping, his puny body folding in half, bones bursting through his flesh as he both crunched and squished pleasantly for her. All this power felt utterly delicious, and she waved her hands in the air to release some of the sweet tension in her sexy body.
The music stopped.
Megan paused, still standing on her latest victim, feeling the warm gore oozing under her sole. She brought her hand down and gazed coolly at Dann who was digging desperately about on the floor of his car.
“Sorry! Sorry!” he yelled. “I bumped the eject button and it shot out under the other seat!”
Megan tapped her bare toes on the pulpy body under her foot and tightened her grip on the little Mustang until the chassis creaked and protested from the rising pressure. Dann was feeling similar pressure as he flung off his seat belt and hurriedly jammed the passenger seat back, groping wildly amidst the rails and springs until he felt the thin disc. Pulling it out as quickly as he dared he inspected it, brushed it off and slipped it back into the player, which clicked and whirred for a long moment, then popped up a message on its LED.
Error
Dann had a heart attack on the spot. Megan’s fingers squeezed his car. He felt her gigantic eyes boring into him. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Poking at a button he held his breath as the mechanism clicked promisingly a few times and popped up its next message.
Disc Stuck
Pausing to beat his head on the steering wheel he jammed a finger into the player and tried to figure out what the hell was wrong. A moment later he was rewarded with the CD, which he promptly flung into the back of the car. Diving into his collection he rifled through it, grabbed something and – carefully – eased it into the player. The disc spun. The lights changed to numbers…
“Step inside,
walk this way
You and me babe, Hey, hey!”
Megan’s eyes showed approval, but still gleamed with cold fire. “Okay, sugar, that’ll do. Turn the volume all the way up, and keep your little fingers away from the buttons.” Then she took the Mustang and slipped it hood first under her tank top, smirking down at Dann, who found that he had a remarkable view between her gigantic breasts down to the street far below. With a little shift of her shoulders Megan tipped her head to the side and let her gaze drop down to the people in the street. Her giantess eyes faced down thousands of frightened little faces. The music took over again, faster now, more urgent. Hips swaying she took a first step forward. CRUMP. The crowd moaned in terror. She took another playful step towards them. CRUMP. People began to run again, the crowd melting away from her.
It didn’t help them one little bit.
Three steps carried her forward; three gigantic, dancing, earth quaking steps. The crowd’s howl of animal panic scaled up with each one of them. CRUMP. The tiny mob poured over the street before her. CRUMP. Megan ignored them, they didn’t matter. They were tiny, inconsequential. There was nothing they could do to stop her, nothing they could do to save themselves. Her eyes roamed over the city, took in the lofty view she had of all the streets and buildings. She was colossal, gigantic. The sense of absolute power welled up within her into an ache that bordered on arousing. She gave herself to the pleasure of moving to the music. CRUMP. Her colossal footfall shook the ground with such violence that scores of tiny people stumbled and collapsed. Luck smiled on them for the moment as she passed them by. Her huge body moved with preternatural grace as she swayed to the rhythms of the music. Dann was tossed within his seat between her warm, jiggling breasts, the belt was all that held him in place, his eyes riveted on the merciless chaos in the street.
“Demolition woman, can I be your man?”
Megan’s colossal toes lifted serenely and moved forward over the trailing edge of the crowd. Scores of tiny people crashed into each other as they tried to look up and flee at the same time. Megan stepped down, felt the resistance of countless little bodies, a squirming mass that yielded to her as she shifted her inconceivable weight until, with a moist pop, her bare foot crushed the tiny people, their guts and blood splurting in all directions, oozing up between her long toes. She twisted a little, lifted her heel which trailed the strings of flesh and torn muscles of her victims. Making a full turn she picked up her other foot and brought it down on the fleeing men and women, the wet crunching noise echoing down the street. Megan’s hips swayed provocatively as she danced on the frightened crowd, each step killing more of them. Two groups of people trying to anticipate the motion of her right foot collided in a tangle of arms and legs, their puny bodies immediately felt the weight of her giant heel as she trod down on them, guts and viscera decorating the footprint she left behind.
“…You gotta squeeze a little, squeeze a little
Tease a little more…”
Wrapping her arm around the hotel gave her leverage to swing in a tight circle as though pole dancing. It wasn’t a gentle maneuver, though, as shattered balconies dislodged by her hand and arm rained down onto the bloodstained streets. With a giggle Megan lifted her left leg and swung around the other direction, the tall building leaning as she pulled at it. The tiny people tried to run, tried to flee ahead of her. It was a mistake. Her colossal bare foot brushed over the fleeing crowd, vast and impossibly swift. Stepping her toes down into the throng she felt the warm crunch of liquefying flesh, then a tickle as the surging mass of people pressed against the ball of her foot, unable to change their momentum fast enough to save themselves. She lowered her gargantuan heel, and the helpless people were squeezed against the asphalt before bursting wetly against her sensitive sole. A twist of her toes smeared the tiny bodies, her huge foot slamming gleefully through more of the mob.
Anyone watching from an adjacent street could only see her upper body looming over the tall buildings, her shoulders rolling, her head swaying from side to side. But they could feel the ground trembling, and could hear the distant screams of terror as tiny people were squished flat. It didn’t matter to Megan; she was having a blast rocking to the song.
Glancing into the restaurant at the top of the hotel she giggled at the mess inside. Her light bit of play with the building shook it up enough to overturn chairs and tables. She could see the patrons and staff huddled around the stairway doors and the elevator. It looked like the door was stuck in its frame, and the elevator wasn’t coming no matter how hard they jabbed at the buttons.
This suited her just fine. Her fingers lifted, effortlessly ripped the façade off the building, peeling the walls back, exposing the restaurant to the outside air; the tiny people within screamed and clawed at the door, trying to break it down. The enterprising manager grabbed a chair and slammed it against the unmoving obstacle, to no avail.
Megan brought her lovely face close to the building, her soft lips brushing aside the small tables until they were scant feet away from the trapped people. She smiled for them, her breath washing warm and sweet over them.
“I just stopped by to tell you that I’ve decided to quit,” she said, her voice vibrating the walls and the floor, shaking the bones of the puny men and women. “I was going to call it in, but decided to come in person. I’m glad I did, because I love how you scream. Though, I bet I can make you do it louder. Mmmm,” she purred “guess what’s on the menu today?” And her lips parted just enough to let her huge tongue slip out. The screams soaring in volume as she tasted the little people, felt them pushing against her playful tongue, some of them beating on it with their little fists. A hint of fruity cologne caught her attention. She tasted it for again, ignoring the feeble struggles of the tinies. On rediscovering it she licked out sweeping one of the tiny people into her mouth. She could tell from the scent of Hugo Boss that she had the restaurant manager.
She played with him for a long moment, rolling him on her gigantic tongue, subduing his every insignificant attempt to fight back. His shrieks echoed nicely, but she wanted to feel him go down, so she parted her lips so the tiny staff and customers could see him lying on her tongue. “You should never come between a girl and her music,” she whispered. “There are consequences. Now you see him,” and her tongue lifted him back, his piecing shriek suddenly silenced. “Now you don’t,” and she parted her lips wider so the helpless people could see that it was empty now.
“…Pour your sugar on me
Oh, I can’t get enough…”
She sang with the tune, her body swaying against the hotel. Her lips pressed close against the men and women, her smile dominated them utterly as she crooned the lyrics.
Then she began to eat them. Her tongue licking them into her mouth by twos and threes, sucking on them like candy, giggling as they desperately fought back. She purred as she swallowed them one after another. Down below Dann was pinned against the building, trapped by her breasts. He turned his eyes away from the street where Megan’s gigantic bare feet still lifted and fell in place as she swayed. Glancing up he could see her throat move and he trembled and looked back down again, trying not to think of the people sliding down into her tummy behind him.
Megan eased back, licked her lips. There was no one left in the restaurant. She giggled and hugged the hotel, grinding her body against it, using it in her dance until with a final twang the music from the little car between her breasts faded. Quitting was sweet.
Megan lifted her cowboy hat and combed her fingers through her hair, “That’s enough music, little man,” she said. She felt pleasantly warm from all the exercise. Tugging open her tank top she lifted out the little Mustang and grinned through the window at Dann. He was still clutching his steering wheel, his eyes wide with images of the tiny people he’d seen squished flat. She tapped on the window and he jumped, then waved at her looking nervous as hell.
“I’m done here, sugar,” she murmured to him, “and I’m tired of carrying you. So get back to driving this toy of yours,” and she bent down and set his somewhat dented Mustang on the ground.
The view was shocking. As Megan was dancing Dann thought he had a clear conception of what it was like in the street. Now he could see it close and it sent chills up and down his spine. The road was hopelessly broken and smashed, bearing the countless overlapping footprints from the last hour. A car smashed up against the hotel burned brightly, casting a garish illumination over the shattered ground. And everywhere he looked he could see the crushed and smeared remains of countless people. Guts and gore still dripped down from the walls of the adjacent buildings where they had squirted from their luckless owners. Bodies were pressed flat into the bottom of imprints from toes and heels, or sliced in half sprawled on the edges of the deep impressions in the tarmac.
The Mustang lurched, skidded forward a few feet as Megan nudged it with her colossal toes. “Come on, little man, get that thing moving.”
Dann started the engine and slowly navigated around the worst of the carnage in his path, looking up at the huge pile of debris blocking the street ahead of him. He had a clear image for a moment of what it must have been like to be trapped with no escape, and his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Megan stepped ahead of him and flicked the mound of mangled vehicles and crushed masonry out of his way with her foot, giving him way out. He pressed down on the accelerator, the car lurching and bouncing as it rolled over a muffler, a flattened tire, a crushed door. Once in the relative normalcy of the street beyond he had to weave around the remainders of the traffic jam. Megan wasn’t so constrained, and he winced each time her heard her bare feet press another vehicle into the road like it was tinfoil. She wasn’t too concerned about his comfort either, as her colossal feet stepped down close to his car, making him jump even more as the Mustang lurched and wobbled. A couple of times she nudged him to make him go faster. He left a thirty foot skid mark on the road, proving that brakes weren’t much use against a giantess.
Then she stopped.
They weren’t that far away from the hotel. Dann still had his window rolled down and in the silence could hear a strange creaking, like tree branches rubbing together in a strong wind.
Megan glanced back over her shoulder. She slowly lifted herself up onto her toes. Dann saw this and resisted an urge to floor the pedal and zoom out of there. She held her pose for a long second, and then dropped her full weight down onto her heels, her breasts bouncing under her tank top. The ground heaved violently, the Mustang skittering sideways on the road, Dann clinging to the steering wheel. The creaking noise grew loud and he spun around in his car seat in time to see the Bellevue hotel twist and sink down, caving in on itself, crashing and avalanching floor by floor into a smoking pile of rubble.
Megan giggled and nudged the Mustang again. “Some on, sugar, let’s go find more fun.” And Dann straightened his car out and tried to keep ahead of her as she strolled happily behind him down the narrow streets of her tiny city.
…End…