Mark was the first to hear the footsteps through the underbrush.

It was early morning, and the four members of the scavenging party crept through the woods, collecting nuts and berries and other sustenance as they went. Sometimes, if they were lucky, they would stumble upon a field mouse and kill it with their makeshift spears. Of course, killing the animal wasn’t always easy; at their size, mice were as large as bull moose, and their teeth were deadly.

Mice weren’t the only danger that they faced out here; birds and snakes and even feral cats regularly attacked them. Of course, one-inch tall people didn’t stand much of a chance against normal-sized predators. But the forest was a better alternative to the human cities and towns. The little people (or “ImMen” as they called themselves) had been created by pharmaceutical companies to replace human test subjects. When several of them escaped, the government had decreed them to be threats and they were routinely hunted down and eradicated. So they shied away from human civilization, preferring to face the owls and the cats. At least animals weren’t purposely cruel, not like the giants were. Fortunately, they never really saw humans except for the occasional hiker or deer hunter.

So Wyatt and the others were surprised when Mark froze and gestured for them to stop. Mark was the oldest in the group, one of the original ImMen who had escaped from the labs. He still had the scars all over his body from the testing that the humans had conducted on him, although he never spoke about it. The thick, twisting scars and the haunted look in his eyes told Wyatt more than enough.

The group trusted Mark enough that when he gestured for them to stop, they did. At first, they couldn’t hear anything but sparrows singing in the trees. Then they heard it, the rhythmic sound of something large moving through the underbrush. A twig snapped and Wyatt nearly fled, but a look from Mark stopped him. The four ImMen remained motionless as the human came into view, dressed all in black and moving with a slow deliberateness through the forest. Its clothing was clearly some sort of uniform, a long-sleeved shirt and cargo pants tucked into boots. A metallic canister was strapped to the person’s back, and even more ominous was the axe that gleamed in the human’s hands. It was obvious to Wyatt that this wasn’t a hiker or a hunter.

It was something much worse.

He couldn’t see the human’s face, which was hidden behind some sort of gas mask. The huge round eyes and the protruding air filter gave the mask an insectile appearance, and the awful sight of it sent shivers down Wyatt’s spine. He fought back the urge to run as the human’s vast legs swung closer and closer, huge pillars of flesh clad in dark fabric. When the giant’s left foot landed dangerously close to the group, he actually felt the ground beneath him shudder from the impact. His heart hammered in his chest as he realized how easily he could have been flattened. Relief washed over him as the human lifted its foot and strolled away, crushing the small ferns beneath its tread. The relief quickly turned to dread when he realized where the stranger was headed: toward the colony.

Mark and the others came to the same conclusion. They bolted after the human, who had left a clear path of flattened vegetation and broken branches in its wake. By the time that they caught up, they could see that the giant was peering intently at the dead tree that held their colony. Wyatt wasn’t sure what to do. He had his spear but it was tiny, insignificant compared to the immense being that prodded at the tree where the other ImMen remained hidden. The human probably wouldn’t even feel it. So he silently prayed that the giant would just lose interest and go away.

With one hand, the human tapped at the wood and listened. For the longest time, it didn’t move, just pressed its ear against the trunk. The tinted glass eyes on the mask flashed as the head slowly nodded and pulled away from the tree. With a slow casualness, the human gripped the axe tighter and lifted it high over its shoulder. Wyatt gasped as the giant swung the weapon around in a wide arc, hitting the trunk with enough force to send chunks of bark and wood flying in all directions.

“No,” Wyatt whispered. Not surprisingly, the human didn’t hear him. It continued to chop at the tree, gouging a huge hole in the trunk. Even from the ground he could see the frantic movement inside the hollowed-out sections of the tree, tiny men and women trying to escape from the axe. Blow after blow struck the trunk, little bodies tumbling through the air, unnoticed by the giant. Finally, after the tree had been thoroughly hacked apart, the human dropped the axe with a resounding crash and reached around for the sprayer attached to the metal canister.

Wyatt knew what the assailant had in mind as they inserted the sprayer into the tree’s gaping hole, but he still couldn’t bear to watch as the poisonous gas was pumped inside the colony. The hissing sound of the gas filled his ears and he probably would have been sick if Mark hadn’t grabbed his upper arm.

“C’mon. We need to get out of here,” Mark urged. Wyatt was turning to run when he heard a piercing shriek followed by a tremendous burst of sound. The giant had stopped gassing the colony and was turning its attention on the survivors at its feet, stomping one person after another. There was a cold, almost detached, quality to its movements. It didn’t matter if the InMen screamed or begged or simply cowered; it squashed them one by one, leaving behind corpses embedded deep in its footprints.

When the human raised one mammoth foot over his friend Deirdre, Wyatt couldn’t take it any longer. He dashed toward the hovering boot and saw to his horror that the sole was caked with viscera and the flattened remains of several ImMen. Somehow, he managed to lift his spear and throw it, heaving it with all of his strength. But his weapon simply bounced off the boot leather, falling back down to the ground. Wyatt’s attack didn’t faze the human, although it did stop the descent of the foot long enough for Deirdre to crawl away. She sobbed hysterically as she tried to stand up, her auburn hair streaked with something dark, blood perhaps. Wyatt was helping her when the shadow fell over them both, blotting out the sun. The human’s colossal body bent as it reached down, its outstretched hand grasping for them.

He tried to ward off the fingers but they pinched his entire torso, sending blasts of agony throughout his entire body. As he opened his mouth to scream, he gazed up into the terrifying face of the giant, the round eyes of the mask clearly inspecting him. With the other hand, his captor reached into the pocket of its pants and pulled out a mesh bag. Wyatt finally screamed as he and Deirdre were shoved inside.

They twisted and writhed in the bag, trying to sit up. The human paid them no heed, plucking up more survivors and depositing them in the sack. Wyatt found himself suddenly upside down, pressed against countless other bodies as the giant tied the bag to its belt and snatched up its axe. All around him people moaned and wept, squeezed together. The ImMen in the tree were all dead, as were those on the ground. With a sinking heart, Wyatt knew that he would probably be dead soon as well. His prison banged against the hard wall of the human’s thigh as it started to walk, carrying the survivors with it.

***

What happened next was a blur, especially since Wyatt couldn’t see much besides a tangle of limbs and heads around him. He tried again and again to pull himself up but he couldn’t, so he just remained upside down, the blood rushing to his head. By the time that the bag was finally tilted enough so that he tumbled right side-up, his head was pounding terribly.

The giant had untied the bag and was dangling it in one hand. Before them was a silver-white machine, monstrous in its sheer size. It took Wyatt a moment to comprehend that he was looking at a truck, a vehicle that others had described but which he had never seen. He stared in wonder as their captor opened a door and dumped them on the tan seat inside. The idea of actually being inside a human vehicle was amazing, but his attention was quickly diverted when the giant reached up to take off the gas mask.

He didn’t know what he had been expecting. A man, perhaps, because of the brutal way that the others had been murdered. He was surprised to see that the human was female and relatively young, with curly hair that was such a dark brown that it was almost black. Despite her size, she was pretty in an everyday sort of way, her mahogany eyes surrounded by thick lashes. The woman’s cheeks were flushed from wearing the mask as she leaned down, silently studying them. Wyatt decided that he didn’t like the look in her eyes at all. There was something sinister lurking behind them, something that turned his blood to ice.  The human continued to stare; then she put the mask in the footwell and slammed the door.

Wyatt clawed at the interwoven cords of the bag, trying to find a way out before the human returned. By the time that he realized that the bag was inescapable, their captor had already opened the other door and slid into the seat next to them. She turned her head slightly, her full lips parting in a devilish little grin. Then she started the truck.

***

It took ten minutes to reach her cabin. Well, technically it wasn’t Melissa’s cabin; it belonged to the United States federal government. She was just another bureaucrat, assigned to this particular outpost in the middle of nowhere. Her official position title was “Wildlife Control Expert,” although really, the sole purpose of her existence out here was to locate and exterminate ImMen and their colonies. For two years she had been doing that. The pay wasn’t great but she certainly was never bored.

She didn’t get out of the truck right away. Instead, she took some time to fill out the standard form reporting eradication of a colony, listening to the chirping of birds outside. The tiny ImMen in the bag on the passenger’s seat chittered as well, completely unintelligible to her without her sound amplification unit. Melissa would put it on later, when she actually needed to speak to them. Halfway through the form, she paused and looked over at the little creatures, each one smaller than her thumb. They were trying to wiggle their way out of the bag and failing miserably. Their predicament made her chuckle.

When she was finally finished with her report, she picked up the bag with its thrashing contents and headed into the cabin. It was a small four-room building and her understanding was that it had once been a forest ranger’s outpost. The cabin probably hadn’t been updated much since the 1970s but it served her needs well enough. She placed the bag on one of the Formica countertops and hunted through the closet until she found what she needed. The ImMen cage was on the top shelf, next to a spare gas mask. Knowing the federal government, they had probably paid some vendor a ridiculous sum of money to give them what was basically a hermit crab tank.

Melissa set the cage down and opened the bag, glancing inside. The bug-like people crawled away from her, still chittering madly. She noticed the expressions on their faces, mostly horror and desperation, and it made her smile despite herself.

It had been too long since she had had the pleasure of interrogating the little fuckers.

Reaching deep into the bag, she pulled out handfuls of ImMen and dropped them into the plastic cage. Some of them struck the bottom of the cage too hard and didn’t move. Whether they were dead or simply injured, she didn’t care. She had more than enough of the creatures for her purpose. When the bag was empty, she placed the top on the cage and, giving her captives one last look, went into the bathroom.

Melissa stripped off her uniform and stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. She tried not to scrutinize her body too much but it was a difficult habit to break. Gently, she cupped her breasts, weighing them and wishing that they were bigger. When her eyes had picked out all her flaws, eyes that were too far apart and legs that were far too short to ever be elegant, she stepped into the shower.  There she stood, her head bent, until the hot water ran out. Her mind was blissfully empty when she finally turned off the faucet and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around her body. She took her time getting dressed, pulling on a plain gray t-shirt and faded shorts.

The cabin was eerily silent as she walked back into the kitchen, her footsteps echoing around her. Melissa purposely didn’t acknowledge the ImMen in the cage, instead taking a bottle of water from the fridge and taking a sip. When she finally looked at them, they all stared back, wide-eyed behind the clear walls. It was amusing to see how her every action drew their attention, their faces following her in unison like marionettes pulled by invisible strings. She drank more water and then reached forward to tap on the cage with one finger.

The ImMen all fled away to the opposite side.

Melissa’s eyes moved around the group of tiny people until she spotted him, the one who had thrown his spear at her foot. Now that had been one of the most foolish and bravest things that she had ever witnessed. In a way, she admired him. She probably wouldn’t have had the courage to stand up to a rampaging giant.

She studied the tiny man huddled in the corner. He was a handsome little thing with his dirty-blond hair and sinewy body. It looked like his clothing had been constructed from tatters of fabric by a half-blind seamstress and she wondered if the ImMen had taught themselves to sew or if they had watched humans doing it at one point. The pitiful state of their clothing suggested the former.

The spear-thrower met her gaze and again, she marveled at his bravery. He really was quite attractive and if he had been a normal human, she never would have dared to look at him twice. But since he was the size of a cricket and she held all of the power over him, she leered at him while he stared back. The staring match continued until she took the top off the cage and poured in some of the water from her bottle. The ImMen screeched and scattered as the torrent of water bore down upon them.

Melissa chuckled as she carefully placed the top back onto the cage. She glanced at the spear-thrower one last time, who was dripping wet but not yet defeated. Then she went to type up her daily activity report for her supervisor.

***

They were all relieved when the human left, disappearing into the other room. Wyatt stood in cold water up to his thighs, shivering and trying to decide what to do. Escape from the cage was impossible; the plastic walls were easily fourteen or fifteen times his height. And the human was bound to return, once she was finished whatever she was doing. He heard an incessant tap-tapping from the other room and once, there was a deafening ringing noise. Her voice interrupted it: “Hello, Melissa speaking. Yes, I will. No, only one this week.”

So her name was Melissa. Wyatt mentally filed this information away.

Deirdre sloshed through the water toward him. The blood in her hair had dried into long streaks but she didn’t seem to notice.

“What do you think she’s going to do with us?” She sounded terrified.

“I don’t know,” Wyatt answered honestly. It didn’t make sense that the human would eradicate everyone else in the colony only to let them go. But why would she be keeping them alive? To give them back to the pharmaceutical companies or the government? Wyatt doubted that. They all wanted the ImMen dead.

When the tapping in the other room stopped, everyone held their breath. The human (Melissa, he supposed) appeared in the doorway, looking more bored than anything else. She strode right past them and dug through the closet again, this time pulling out a nondescript case. Inside were all kinds of strange machines and she selected something small and silvery that she clipped over one ear.

Humming loudly, she strode over to the cage. Wyatt and the others all looked up as the top of the cage was taken off yet again, Melissa’s gigantic face looming far above them. The human’s hand reached in and began snatching up ImMen at random, the massive fingers closing around them and lifting them from the cage. Wyatt was the last and he debated whether or not to fight the hand when it dove down for him. In the end, he realized that resisting wouldn’t do him any good, so he stood still while the hand scooped him up. The human’s skin was soft yet rough, the raised ridges on the pads of her fingers brushing up against his own body. By now, he had been picked up enough times to appreciate the power behind those fingers, the strength that could reduce him to a jellied mess with ease.

The others were clustered on the counter below and Wyatt expected to be placed down there with them. But Melissa didn’t lower her hand; instead, she brought him closer to her face. He found himself frightfully close to her right eye, the pupil constricting slightly as it focused on him. The eye swept over his entire body in such a lustful manner that he felt violated somehow.

He jerked, startled, when she spoke. ImMen were engineered to be able to understand human voices, which made them more cooperative test subjects. Still, he found her voice to be terrifying at this close range, the sound vibrations reverberating through his chest.

“So you’re the one who threw that spear at me,” Melissa said.

Wyatt nodded, painfully aware of how her fingers were still squeezing him. She stared at him, her lips curling slightly. He couldn’t tell if that signified disgust or annoyance or amusement.

“That was pretty stupid,” she commented at last. Again, he nodded.

The human moved her face slightly closer, and he flinched. “What’s your name?”

Wyatt hesitated until the enormous brown eyes narrowed dangerously. He swallowed hard and muttered, ”Wyatt.”

“Ah.” Melissa looked him over once more in that uncomfortable manner; then she lowered him to the counter with Deirdre and Mark and the other ImMen. She picked up the cage and emptied the water into the kitchen sink. Briefly, Wyatt considered trying to run while her back was turned but he was too high off the ground to get very far. He gritted his teeth in frustration as she finished dumping the water and began loading people back into the cage. Melissa saved him for last, her gaze lingering on him before she opened her fingers and allowed him to crawl free.

She remained standing over the cage, her hands on her hips. When she addressed them, it was in an almost friendly manner, although Wyatt could detect the underlying malice in her voice.

“I know that you can understand me and this…” she indicated the silver device wrapped around one ear, “…will let me understand you. Now, I know that there’s at least one more colony in that forest, but damned if I know where it is. However, I’m willing to bet that one of you knows exactly where it is. Am I right?”

No one answered. So that was why they were still alive. The human wanted to know where the other colony was located. Wyatt could guess why she was so interested in that knowledge. The memory of the destruction of his own home filled him with gut-wrenching horror. He sucked in his breath as she smiled broadly, still regarding them as though they were all pals. But her eyes remained cold and hard, glittering in their sockets.

“Who’d like to tell me where the other colony is? Anyone?” The smile vanished when they all remained silent.

“Fine. Be that way.” And with that, her hand darted back into the cage, grabbing a raven-haired woman named Sophie. Sophie howled with terror as she was pulled out, kicking spasmodically in the human’s grip.

“Now, where is the other colony?” Melissa demanded, each word punctuated by a tightening of her fingers that made Sophie yelp. The poor woman’s face was ashen as she shook her head, mumbling over and over again that she didn’t know. Which was the truth. Wyatt knew the location, but that was only because he was one of the scavengers who had routinely left their own colony. Sophie, on the other hand, wouldn’t have known the whereabouts of the other ImMen settlement. Her ignorance clearly irritated the human, who grasped Sophie’s head with between the thumb and forefinger of her other hand.

“Wait!” Wyatt shouted and to his surprise, Melissa paused and glared down at him.

“Please don’t do this,” he pleaded. “We’re people too…”

Melissa snorted and grinned wider. “Right.” Then, with a single simple motion, she compressed Sophie’s head between her two fingers. A crimson jet of blood and shattered bone and brain matter squirted out, splattering across the front of the cage and obscuring Wyatt’s view. Behind him, the other ImMen cried and shrieked as Sophie’s body dangled limply from the human’s hand, but he pounded his fists against the cage.

“Bitch! Fucking bitch!” Wyatt roared, hitting the plastic wall until his hands ached. Melissa rubbed her red-stained fingertips together, mashing Sophie’s body further. Then she tilted her head to look down at him. He thought that her face would contort would anger, that she would strike the cage or crush him like she had Sophie.

But she just laughed.

Poor little people, staring back at her through the clear walls of their prison.

They had freaked-out badly when she had squashed the woman in front of them, especially the spear-thrower. Even now he glowered at her, his mouth trembling with barely-suppressed rage. Melissa paused in washing the gore from her fingers and raised her hand, waving at him, mocking him. Wyatt blinked, his cheeks reddening with fury. His impotent rage made her giggle.

Once her hands were clean, she found a plastic cup that had come with the cabin and reached down into the cage, snatching up a fistful of people. By now, they understood that her intentions were far from benevolent and they fought with all their might, some wiggling desperately, others kicking and punching her fingers. It was difficult not to just clench her fist and reduce them to hamburger. No, she needed to interrogate them first. The entire handful went into the cup.

Melissa carried the panicking ImMen into the bathroom, flicking on the light as she entered. She knelt down and upended the cup into the bathtub, insect-sized people tumbling down near the rusted drain. This was the best place to do what she had planned; after all, clean-up would be much easier than if she put them down on the floor.

Her shadow fell over them as she leaned forward, elbows propped up on the side of the tub.

“Listen up, you little bastards. You’re going to tell me where the other colony is located or I’m going to kill each and every one of you,” she declared cheerfully. The ImMen looked up at her, clustered together in the center of the tub as if for solidarity. She remained crouched beside the tub, waiting for a response. When one didn’t come, she stood up and swung one leg into the tub. The little people fled as her other leg came down.

“Are you fucking deaf?” Her voice sounded less angry than she would have liked. Melissa wasn’t mad, not really. Instead, she felt a vicious thrill as she stood with her legs wide apart, her tiny victims trying to climb up out of the tub. She eyed one young man who was dressed in scraps of emerald green fabric. His attempts to scale the sides of the tub were pitiful but he was obviously trying his best, searching for a foothold in the porcelain. Good God, they’re all so pathetic, she thought.

“Hey there, Peter Pan. Where the hell are you going?” She demanded.

The ImMan stopped trying to climb the wall and reluctantly glanced over his shoulder when he heard her remark. He really did resemble a little Peter Pan, with his boyish face and green outfit. It was too bad for him that he had caught her attention. When she lifted her right foot and brought it toward him, he made a shrill bleat of terror and raised both arms. She took her time lowering her foot onto him, feeling the tickle of his minuscule hands against her arch. The laughter that bubbled up from her throat quickly drowned out the man’s cries. With deft precision, Melissa pinned the ImMan against the wall of the tub, his body squirming against her sole. Although she couldn’t see his face, she imagined that he was scared out of his mind. The realization that she held complete control over his very life made her shiver with cruel delight.

Melissa applied just enough pressure to make him shriek in animalistic agony before she crushed him against the tub wall. The ImMan’s delicate body simply collapsed beneath her weight, like soft Play-Doh, bright red streamers of blood spraying outward. She drew her breath in sharply, aware of the pleasant warmth that was spreading from her lower belly to the junction of her thighs. It felt so wrong and yet so right as she touched herself through her shorts, the pleasure increasing as her fingers lightly pressed against her clit.

She lifted her foot, the smashed body landing with a wet plop on the porcelain. The other ImMen squealed and ran, but she was far too quick for them. Her blood-smeared foot lashed out, crushing a scrawny brunette against the side of the tub. When Melissa dragged her foot away, it left a small streak of blood, and her mouth twitched with impatience. They weren’t talking, she could see that. They were panicking like the stupid little animals that they were.

“You know what? I think I’m just going to kill you all anyway,” she said in a voice husky with desire.

That sent the surviving ImMen into a complete frenzy, and they fought each other as they tried to get away. Melissa ignored them for the moment, taking a step or two across the tub and leaving behind crimson footprints. She turned on the shower radio, where “Dream A Little Dream of Me” was playing on one of the satellite stations.

Predatory lust filled her as she faced her little victims and then began to stomp on them one by one, sending their insides out through various openings in their bodies. The sound of fragile bones snapping and crunching rose over Mama Cass’ singing. Soon most of the ImMen were reduced to reddish-purple mush, the inside of the tub littered with their flattened bodies. Their blood contrasted starkly with her pale skin, splashes of gore reaching her ankles. With a terrible deliberation, she pursued the survivors, unzipping her shorts as she did so. As she stepped on yet another wailing ImMan, the woman’s organs erupting through her side with shocking violence, Melissa began to stroke her clit in languid, circular motions.

She felt huge and powerful and unstoppable, a living goddess standing amongst her tribute.

Her moans of pleasure reverberated throughout the bathroom as the gory remains of the ImMen smeared beneath her. The orgasm ripped through her a few seconds later, and she arched her body, her head thrown back. Eventually the pleasure wore away, leaving her feeling tired but satisfied. Glancing down, she spotted movement amidst the carnage in the tub. Oh, look, one had survived. Melissa watched the tiny woman crawling through the pulverized remnants of her friends for awhile. Then she grabbed her, nearly dropping the slimy, bloody creature.

As the ImMan squeaked and wiggled, Melissa sat down on the edge of the tub. Another song had come on the radio, but she wasn’t listening to it. Her focus was on the woman in her hand.

“This is what happens when you don’t answer my questions,” she said, waving her free hand toward the smashed corpses dotting the porcelain. “I mean, I told them that I’d kill them.”

The little creature in her fist gasped.

“Now, are you going to tell me where the others are?” Melissa asked, bringing the ImMan so close to her face that her every breath stirred the woman’s hair.

Of course, the ImMan wouldn’t tell her, so with a single squeeze, she ended her life. Opening her hand, she allowed the broken body to plummet to the tub.

***

The next morning Melissa sat outside on one of the cabin steps, watching the sun rise behind the pine trees and contemplating the fate of the remaining people in the kitchen. She could just kill them all at once, but that wouldn’t help her find the other colony. No, what she needed to do was gain their trust. One of them would blab the location of their fellows eventually. She hoped it would be the spear-thrower, Wyatt. He intrigued her with his bravado, and the thought of slowly breaking his mind and body brought a tingle of pleasure to the area between her legs. Idly, she imagined how it would feel to have him lick at her breasts, at her swollen clit. Although she usually never thought of ImMen in that way, she found herself dwelling on that idea.

She was replaying the fantasy in her mind when her cell phone rang. A quick glance showed her that it was her friend, Heidi. At first, she was reluctant to answer it. She had known Heidi since they had been roommates in college and although she was a kind-hearted person, she had a unconscious habit of pointing out the flaws in others. The last time that they had spoken she had gone on and on about Melissa’s job, how it was awful that the government actually paid exterminators to kill tiny people. Melissa had pointed out ImMen were not people; they were a step up from talking lab rats. Of course, that had angered Heidi, who had countered that only monsters would think that way. Melissa had allowed the insult to pass, although she had silently resented Heidi and her morality and her high-paying attorney job and her handsome husband.

And here she was again, calling at six o’clock in the morning.

Melissa sighed and answered the phone. “Hey, Heidi.”

“Melissa! I didn’t think that you’d be up!”

“Yeah, I’m up. How’ve you been?”

“Oh, you know. Jack’s away on travel and I’ve been so lonely the past few days. Honestly, I don’t know how you do that, living in that cabin all by yourself,” Heidi said.

“It’s not so bad.”

“It’d drive me crazy. And that job—,”

Melissa interrupted her friend by clearing her throat. There was no way that she was going to let Heidi go off on one of her tirades again. For some reason, her mind drifted back to what she had done yesterday. Her friend would probably never speak to her again if she knew about that little adventure.

“Well, I do worry about you. How’d you feel about me visiting sometime? Just you and me and a nice bottle of merlot? It’ll be like college again,” Heidi said. But Melissa wasn’t paying much attention. She was thinking of Wyatt and trying to decide whether he would have screamed like some of those ImMen had in the tub.

“So?” Heidi asked.

“So what?”

“So how’d you feel about me visiting?”

“That’s be great,” Melissa heard herself say, although her mind was still on the little spear-thrower.

***

By the time that the human came for him, Wyatt felt nothing more more than a reluctant acceptance. With the exception of Mark and Deirdre and a few others, many of the ImMan had disappeared with the giantess. Deep down, he knew what she had done with them and what she would eventually do to him. When he saw Melissa approach the cage, he just watched her face, moving from one eye to the other. For some reason, her eyes reminded him more of a bobcat’s than a human’s. There was intelligence there, yes, but something else. Something cold and predatory and utterly lacking in mercy.

The human dipped her hand into the cage and picked him up. Surprisingly, she was gentle as she carried him into the sparsely furnished living room. There was an old blue couch that had probably been in style twenty-five years ago, a well-used coffee table and a bookcase with sagging shelves. Melissa dropped Wyatt on the table and settled down on the couch, facing him. On one side of the table was an immense device which Wyatt assumed was a computer (although this was based solely upon vague descriptions that Mark and others had provided).

A platter with some sort of food was on the other side and as Wyatt watched, the giantess reached over and grabbed it. He was accustomed to eating seeds and mushrooms and whatever else the forest provided, and the whitish foodstuff looked vaguely disgusting to him. Still, it had been quite some time since he had last eaten and he watched with hungry eyes as she took a bite big enough to feed him for a month.

As Melissa chewed, he thought about running. But to where? He was too high off the ground to get very far. Perhaps he could just jump off the table and end his life quickly. As he was considering this, the human finally addressed him.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot, Wyatt.”

He remained silent.

Melissa smiled, a seemingly benevolent expression, and tore off the corner of the strange white food. Instinctively he backed away as she laid it before her. The chunk of whatever it was awful looking, brownish and purplish paste between two spongey slabs. A cloying, sweet smell, vaguely nutty, drifted off from it.

“Go ahead. It’s not like it’s poisoned,” Melissa said when Wyatt didn’t touch the offering. The smile expanded and she showed far too much teeth as she continued, “There are more amusing ways to kill ImMen.”

As much as he didn’t want to, he ripped off a handful of the food, noticing how repulsively sticky the brownish goo was. He purposely averted his eyes as he ate, painfully aware that Melissa was staring at him the entire time.

“See? I’m not such a bad person,” the giantess said, and Wyatt didn’t dare to argue with her. No, she wasn’t a bad person…she was a horrible one. The saccharine-sweetness of her voice couldn’t change this. She had murdered countless people, which he supposed that he could understand in a way, especially since humans viewed ImMen as vermin. But she had done it in a way that suggested that she relished every second of their agony. That was what sickened him.

The only question left was why she hadn’t killed him, and Wyatt already knew the answer. He stopped eating when she spoke again.

“So, Wyatt…have you seen the other colony? I’m sure that you have,” Melissa said.

It took all of his courage to meet her inhuman gaze. “No, I haven’t. I-I didn’t go outside of my own colony much. It was too dangerous.”

He truly expected her to simply kill him then and there. Every muscle in his body tensed, anticipating a lethal blow from above. But Melissa just leaned back, still wearing that chilling smile.

“Well, that’s just too bad.” She tapped on her chin with one finger, scrutinizing him thoughtfully. There was something else in her eyes, something that he had seen before. Wyatt was aware that he was young and attractive and so he had never lacked for female attention. He recognized the attraction in her eyes, similar to that of the women with whom he had shared a bed. Except the human's gaze was so much more intense.

Melissa moved her hand from her chin, sweeping it down toward him. He thought she would grab him, but she just ran her finger down the length of his body, beginning at the top of his head and ending around his knees. The giantess’ touch was gentle but it repulsed him nonetheless. The naked lust in her eyes was terrible to behold and he tried to back away, but she caught him around the middle. His reaction was instantaneous. Frantically he pummeled her fingers with both fists, his blows ineffective. Still, he continued to beat at the giantess’ flesh until she chuckled at him.

“Really? You think that’s going to stop me, you little pissant?” Melissa shook Wyatt in her fingers like a dog with a chewtoy. His entire body flopped bonelessly in her grip, his teeth clacking together hard enough that he feared they would shatter. When she finally stopped, his mind continued to reel with dizziness. He was too disoriented at first to notice that she was eagerly undressing him, yanking at his clothing. One of her plum-painted fingernails, as large as his torso and tougher than steel to him, tore at his skin. Wyatt shrieked in pain and rage, fighting her again as she nonchalantly stripped him.

When the human succeeded in pulling down his pants, exposing him before her, Wyatt stopped punching the massive fingers. Instead he sank his teeth down into the digit closest to his head, biting down so hard that his jaw ached. He tasted salty sweat and flesh but no blood; his teeth were too tiny to puncture her skin.

But she certainly saw what he was doing. Annoyance deformed her face, and then her finger lashed out, flicking him. There was a moment of agony and displacement as Wyatt went flying backward. He must have blacked-out, since he didn’t remember landing. The next thing that he knew, his entire body was pulsating with pain and he was sprawled out on a fabric plateau. The ground beneath him was warm and quite alive; he could hear a powerful, rhythmic pulse as he lay in a fetal position. Wyatt understood that Melissa was now spread out across the couch and he was atop her abdomen, just above her navel. He didn’t dare to stand up; only his eyes moved, drifting upwards toward the massive face that watched him contemptuously.

“I’m willing to bet that you’re one of those tough guys who can take a beating. But there’s more than just physical torture. I bet it’d absolutely tear you apart if I killed all of your friends in front of you,” Melissa told him. Something in his expression betrayed him because she gave a short, delighted chuckle.

“I could do that, you know. There was one ImMan leader, this bitch who thought that she could defy me. I could tell that there wasn’t much I could do to break her…I could have twisted-off one of her legs and she probably still would have spat in my face. Anyway, I realized that she had a lover amongst the other prisoners and so I decided to show her how the French prepare Ortolan.”

Wyatt felt the blood draining rapidly from his face.

“So I bought some Armagnac and after I drowned him in it, I roasted him right in front of that little bitch. My goodness, how she screamed! And she screamed even louder when I chewed him up,” Melissa said with maniacal glee. Somehow, he knew that she wasn’t lying. Perhaps it was the way that her mouth contorted into a sadistic smile, or the merciless gleam in her eyes. His stomach churned but he refused to give her the satisfaction of being sick in front of her.

“I wonder what your girlfriend would taste like,” the human mused aloud. Deirdre, he realized with increasing dread, she was talking about Deirdre…Wyatt quivered as she continued, “But if you cooperate with me, I’ll go easy on them. Understand?”

“Y-yes,” Wyatt agreed reluctantly.

“‘Yes, Mistress,’ because that’s what I am to you, you little creep.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

This time, when she began to stroke his curled body, he didn’t resist.

***

Once Wyatt was back in the cage with the rest of his ImMen friends, Melissa went into the bedroom and stretched out on the twin bed. She’d type up her report later. It wasn’t like the daily reports mattered much, just the ones that actually involved the extermination of colonies. Her boss probably didn’t even look at them, just automatically saved them into some folder on her desktop. All of Melissa’s statistics, including time spent researching, time spent exterminating, time spent creating reports, were added to a vast and incomprehensible database that someone in Washington, D.C., may or may not read someday in the future.

Sometimes, she idly wondered if she should choose another career. Perhaps she could apply for another job, become a zookeeper or researcher or something like that. But in all honesty, she loved what she did. And she could still pinpoint the moment when she had chosen her path in life.

Melissa had been a biology major in college and one of the special electives had been ImMen anatomy. She had heard about the tiny creatures, especially since they seemed to be all over the news on a recurring basis. Once, when she was by herself, she had watched a politician place an ImMan on the table before him and explain how the little being wasn’t a human at all. Melissa had leaned closer to the television, studying the petrified woman and wondering how it would feel to hold her in the palm of her hand. The thought had made her shudder with excitement.

So of course she had signed up for the anatomy course and she had half-listened as the professor droned on about the physical differences between the two species. There weren’t many; ImMen tended to be hardier than humans, which made sense for organisms that were created for the sole purpose of being test subjects.

The best part of the class had been when she had dissected one of the tiny creatures. With exquisite precision, the scalpel had sliced through the screaming ImMan’s soft flesh. His insides had been revealed to her, his minuscule torso opened up to show a collection of glistening maroon organs. As she had looked down at her glassy-eyed victim, ruby droplets of his blood sparkling on the knife, she decided that she wanted to become an exterminator.

And so here she was, lying on a hard mattress, putting off her report so that she could daydream for awhile. Her mind went back to the remaining ImMen in the kitchen, Wyatt in particular. For a moment, she imagined him normal-sized, gently holding her breasts in his hands, his thick fingers curved around them. Then she pictured him tiny again, so small and fragile, his life now in her hands. She alternated between the two images as she lay there, her eyes closed but her eyelids fluttering slightly.

The human left the ImMen alone, which was a blessing at first but quickly became a curse as the days passed and she didn’t bring them any food or water. The hunger pangs were terrible, and Wyatt began to dream about the strangely sweet substance that she had fed him during their last conversation. But the thirst was so much worse. The thirst consumed every minute, and as his joints began to ache from dehydration, he thought about water constantly. Cool, refreshing water. It made his dry throat constrict and spasm.

When Wyatt was convinced that the human was going to allow them to die from dehydration, she appeared before the cage. Most mornings, Melissa went out for a jog, and today was no different. She was still dressed in shorts and a navy blue tank top, her curly hair matted to her forehead with sweat. All of the ImMen cowered as she removed the top of the cage and grinned down broadly at them.

“You guys don’t look like you’re doing so well,” she said. “I bet that you’re really thirsty, huh?”

Wyatt bit his cracking lips, wondering what awful trick she had planned. A huge shadow fell over the cage, and they looked up to see Melissa’s smiling face positioned above them. Her lips parted, and a glob of viscous saliva landed with a sickening splash on the cage floor. Wyatt and the others stared in revulsion at the foaming blob of spit.

The giantess laughed cruelly. “You can drink that for now. And maybe, if you all behave, I’ll get you some water.”

It was a joke. It had to be. But despite her wide smile, Melissa’s eyes were completely serious. Reluctantly, the ImMen approached the foul-smelling slime, which was still warm from the human’s mouth. They began to dip their hands into the saliva, desperate to end the horrible thirst. But just as Wyatt scooped up a handful, the human grabbed him.

“No, I have something better for you,” the giantess declared. She brought him closer to the sprawling wall of her chest, the skin shining with sweat from her jog. Wyatt pulled his head away, wincing at the strong, acrid odor. It seemed to come in waves, and his empty stomach twisted in protest.

With her other hand, Melissa pulled down one side of her damp tank top, exposing her breast. Like the rest of her skin, it glistened wetly, and Wyatt softly moaned as he realized her intentions. But he was too thirsty and too weak to even argue with his captor.

She cupped him against her breast, and hesistently he licked at her flesh, an obscene mockery of a mother nursing her child. The giantess’ voice rumbled around him as he dragged his tongue over her wet, salt-tinged skin.

“That’s a good boy, Wyatt,” she said, and he could hear her undisguised glee. He winced, and to his shame, continued licking.

***

The scissors gleamed in Melissa’s hand as she studied the ImMan before her. He was an ugly little creature, his scarred skin resembling some sort of weird patchwork quilt. That, combined with his age, told her that he was probably one of the original ImMen, the ones bred by the pharmaceutical companies. This fascinated her, the thought of an ImMan surviving for so long.

“So you were one of the originals, huh?” Melissa casually opened and closed the scissors with a metallic snap. She cleaned them regularly, although she seemed to have missed a spot. There was dried blood near the edge, long since faded to a brownish color.

“Yes,” the tiny man replied. His pinprick eyes were on the scissors.

“What I always wondered was how you guys managed to get out. I mean, I bet that security was pretty tight.”

“It was.”

She sliced through the air with the scissors, pretending to inspect them, and the ImMan continued, “One of the human technicians let us out.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Melissa sneered. Snap, snap, went the scissors.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re vermin. Who the hell would risk their job for you?”

“He did,” the ImMan said quietly, and Melissa considered cutting his little body in two, laughing as his organs spilled out over the polished blades. But no, that wouldn’t have helped the situation. This one wasn’t talking, and probably wouldn’t. She’d try again later.

Right now, she had other things in mind.

***

Wyatt watched as the giantess dumped Mark back into the cage, relieved that she hadn’t killed him. But his relief was short-lived, because her hand swooped down for him instead. By now, he was trained well enough to let his body go slack and to allow her fingers to coil around him. He expected to go into the living room and be asked yet again where the other colony was located. What he didn’t anticipate was the giantess heading for the bedroom. Wyatt had never been in that room and he saw that there were only a meticulously-made bed and a chest of drawers with a cracked mirror above it. He didn’t have much time to examine his new surroundings, however, because the giantess dropped him on the plaid bedspread.

Melissa began taking off her clothes, beginning with her short-sleeved black shirt and followed by her jeans. As she slipped down the straps of her plain white bra, he quaked in dread. The bra fell to the floor, as did her panties, and she put her hands on her hips, standing before him nude. Wyatt had seen naked women, and although Melissa’s body wasn’t the most breathtaking one that he had seen, she wasn’t unattractive. But her sheer size unnerved him, as did the predatory lust in her eyes.

The giantess placed one colossal leg on the bed and he received a good view of her sex as it moved by overhead, the crimson outer lips parted slightly. Melissa sat down on the bed and then snatched him up, the movement so fast that he felt like he had left his stomach behind. With a skillful deftness, she began to take off his own clothing. Wyatt made a few pitiful protests, especially when she bent his arm back too far as she was yanking on his tunic. To his horror, she placed a fingertip against his genitals, jamming them up against his crotch. Whether she meant it as a playful gesture or not, it hurt terribly and he whined in pain. The huge finger moved away, tracing the length of his abdomen, upwards toward his chest and shoulders. Wyatt couldn’t tell if she was pleased with what she saw; her eyes remained cold and hard as usual.

Melissa shifted on the bed, settling into a more comfortable position, her upper back and head resting against the headboard. He tried to keep a calm expression as she brought him closer to her face, although it was difficult when the soft masses of her lips brushed against his torso. Initially, he panicked, flailing against the lips. Then, when he understood that she wasn’t going to shove him into her mouth, he relaxed. That is, until her lips lips parted, and he felt the humid heat of her breath and the sharp edges of her enormous incisors against his penis. All that it would take would be a muscle twitch and her teeth would neuter him.

Wyatt gasped and tried to push away, shoving against her lips. But her warm, wet tongue was already probing at his cock, and as he hammered his fists at the gigantic face before him, he felt his treacherous body reacting to the stimulation.

“Stop it! Stop it!” He protested but it was to no avail. The tip of the tongue continued to lick at him, sliding over his thighs and crotch, the sensations inciting both revulsion and pleasure simultaneously.

He wept as he orgasmed, his seed spilling into Melissa’s mouth.

The hand moved away and placed him on the human’s lower belly. The ground beneath him was now hot and hideously alive, the faint murmurs of her insides rumbling up around him. Her bent legs rose up before him, gargantuan and seeming to stretch out forever. And behind him, past the twin mountains of her breasts, were her cruel eyes.

“Now, you know what to do, don’t you Wyatt?” There was more than a hint of threat in her voice.

Wyatt stared up at the giantess, hating her and yet still riding the post-orgasmic wave of bliss. Fine, he decided. I’ll give the bitch what she wants. There are certainly worse things that she could have me do…

As he crawled toward the looming mound of mons pubis, he heard her hold her breath, and the huge muscles beneath him grew taut, trembling slightly. It gave him a grim sort of satisfaction that he was the cause of it, and he could practically feel her eyes creeping over the back of his head. An image, unbidden, infiltrated his mind. He imagined all of the things that he would do if he found Melissa suddenly reduced to his height. His initial thought would be to punch her in the stomach or break her nose in an attempt to pay her back for all of the pain that she had caused. But his next thought was confusing. He would show her the error of her ways, he would help her find her humanity. It was such a silly, romantic notion that he almost laughed. Humans were cruel in general, and this one in particular was monstrous. There probably wasn’t a scrap of compassion in her.

Still, his mind kept wandering back to that second fantasy as he traversed her lower abdomen, up onto the gently-curved hill of her mons. There was a dense tangle of hair there, as dark as the locks on her head, and he fought his way through it until he reached the cliff of her sex. When Wyatt glanced over his shoulder, he saw her watching him, her eyes gleaming almost feverishly. With one hand, she kneaded at her breast, pulling at the nipple.

“What are you waiting for?” Melissa demanded, and he scurried forward, toward the glistening bulb of her clitoris. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do, so he tentatively touched the maroon knob, the flesh hot underneath his fingertips. Moaning, the human writhed and bucked her hips, nearly catapulting him from her body. With his teeth clenched, Wyatt held on for dear life. Just as she stopped thrusting her hips, her free hand came for him, pushing him roughly downwards. The next thing that he knew, he was being forced into the terrifying abyss of her sex, the flesh pillowy-soft and slimy as it pressed up all him.

Wyatt howled and wiggled as he was forced up into Melissa, the darkness and the heat and the musky female smell overwhelming him. It was getting difficult to breathe, although whether that was because the living walls were closing in on him or whether it was because he was having a panic attack, he wasn’t certain. He clawed ferociously at the soft flesh, his fingers sinking deep into it but having no effect. The giantess’ thick fluids flooded the small space, and they seemed to fill every orifice…his mouth, his nostrils, his ears, all invaded by the pungent slime. She was everywhere and everything at that second. His entire universe was her.

Wyatt must have fainted, since the next thing that he knew, he was dragged back out into the harsh light and the frigid cold. He blinked, too exhausted to say anything as she wiped his body with a tissue. What Melissa’s motions lacked in tenderness, they made up for in efficiency. Once she was done cleaning him, she balled up the tissue and flung it at the wastebasket. He watched the tissue hit the wall, then glanced up into her eyes. For some reason, she seemed less aloof as she examined his nude body, the scent of her all over him still. When she finished looking him over, he thought that she would bring him back to the cage with the other ImMen.

But instead she placed him on her chest, below her collar bone, and her hand came down heavily upon his body. At that point, Wyatt was too tired to even consider escape, and he prayed that she would just kill him quickly. A sort of calmness descended over him as he closed his eyes and waited for her to crush his body against her own.

But to his relief and disappointment, she didn’t move her hand.

***

When Melissa awoke, she could hear rain beating against the roof and window. She had left the light on, so she could see even though it was dark outside. When she removed her hand from her chest, she saw that Wyatt was still below her collar bone, sleeping. For one second, he almost looked like an actual person instead of an ImMan.

Then she realized how ridiculous that sounded. He was an ImMan, nothing more. An abomination, a disgrace to his human cousins. As she watched the slight rise and fall of his minuscule chest, she considered how easy it would be to lower her finger onto his sternum and drive her finger through his delicate body. He probably wouldn’t even jerk much; he’d give a feeble twitch or two and then he would be another number in her monthly extermination report. Yes, it would be so easy to just kill him right now. But the way that he lay there, on his side with his legs drawn up near him…she drifted back to sleep with that image in her mind.