4. Early Check-Out

Simon took off running just as the beam flew over his head and headed back down the corridor where he had come from, his belly seeming to bounce and jiggle as he sprinted and he felt its contents sloshing around in there. But Simon was too concerned with saving his life right now to care about his aching stomach.

            He rounded another corner as thoughts raced through his mind. He had come back into the main lobby to see an attractive girl, late teens, standing there rubbing her belly with a shrink ray – this one with an yellow streak on the side instead of green – and he guessed she probably ate the receptionist, maybe someone else too. This must’ve been the “Huntress” that Kenner had been talking about on the phone.

            Despite his terror, Simon grinned. He was right. He was onto something and now people were trying to have him killed.

            He had never felt so happy that someone wanted him dead.

            Simon sprinted down the hallway and looked back over his shoulder and unknowingly slammed right into a big and burly man. Simon collided stomach first, sending an aching pain shooting through his belly as he fell back.

            The burly man stumbled back against a wall and looked at the shirtless teenage boy lying on the ground clutching his bulging tummy. “Watch where you’re fucking going!” the burly man hissed. “Who the hell are you?”

            “I’m Simon,” he said, getting back up and doing his best to ignore the ache from his gurgling stomach. “Please, there’s a killer here. She looks about 17 or 18 and she just ate someone!” He suddenly burped, then covered his mouth in embarrassment. The meatball subs were giving him a tough time down there.

            The man eyed his abdomen. “You look like you just ate someone yourself, son.”

            “Oh, hehe,” Simon laughed. “I just ate too much dinner. Meatball subs.” He belched again.

            “Well I’m run this motel, and I’m not going to tolerate some belly-stuffing, no-good teenager running around and telling my guests some girl’s eating people.”

            Simon’s eyes lit up. “You’re Karey’s dad!” he exclaimed.

            “Karey?” the burly man said. “What did that bitch say about me? Why I oughta –”

            Just then the Huntress came around the corner. She had stripped out of her catsuit and was now only in her black bra and panties. She looked so startlingly beautiful that both boys felt boners coming on in their pants.

            The burly man made an effort to conceal his.

            “That’s her,” Simon said, getting to his feet. “That’s the Huntress!”

            The burly man looked her up and down. “If you want some cash baby, I can set up some pole-dancing stuff for you tonight. You can do it right next to my foster daughter.” He laughed. The Huntress laughed too. Simon looked back and forth between the two of them, not sure of what to do.

             Then she stopped. “No thanks,” she said, raising the shrink ray.

            “No!” Simon cried, reaching his hand out, but it was too late. She fired and the burly man was shrunken in an instant.

            Simon broke into a run and disappeared down another corridor.

            The Huntress reached down to pick up the burly man, who was now half an inch tall and shaking with fear. “Please don’t eat me!” he screamed.

            She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to eat you.”

            The man looked relieved, then his eyes widened once he realized what she meant.

^^^

Simon came back out into the pool area, where Tommy and Karey were sitting around on the lawn chairs and talking. He struggled to catch his breath and not to throw up the contents of his full stomach.

            Tommy looked over his shoulder. “Hey Simon. How’s the sub doing?”

            “I’ll still be digesting it tomorrow,” Simon said, putting a hand on his belly and trying not to burp in front of Karey, even though he knew she was already seeing his protruding gut while he was shirtless and only wearing swim trunks. She giggled when she saw his titantic tummy. Then he snapped back into reality. “Listen Tommy,” he said. “Someone just tried to kill me. She’s called the Huntress. I heard Kenner talking about on the phone back at the gas station –”

            “Kenner?” Tommy asked. “The cop?”

            “Yeah,” Simon said, realizing Karey was still sitting there. Oh well, it didn’t matter if she heard this. They were all in danger now. “The Huntress looks about our age, but she’s a trained assassin. She’s here to take us out.”

            “What?” Karey asked, sure of herself. She probably thought Simon was insane. “Take you out to dinner?”

            “You have no idea,” Simon said.

            Tommy shook his head. “Look Simon, I don’t know what you want me to do.”

            “We need to get out of here.”

            Karey liked the sound of that. “I won’t be a burden. Just get me to San Francisco. I never want to see my foster dad again.”

            She hugged Tommy, wearing only a bikini. Her naked flesh pressed against his. She rubbed a hand up and down his flat abs, tracing the fine hairs down to his navel. “Please,” she said. “Let’s leave now. Maybe your friend is right.”

            Tommy smiled. Simon wondered if what he had said to Karey earlier about Jenny was true, or if he was just trying to play hard to get. Since Simon had known him, Tommy had become more and more about having sex and hot girls that just caring about them.

            “Then let’s get out of here,” Simon said.

            “You go pack up your stuff,” Karey said. “I have to show Tommy something.”

            She led him off. He wondered if the Huntress would try to kill them, but then he realized she had called him “SimonSays23”. She didn’t really know who he was. She was probably just being sent in to kill him because he was stumbling onto something and to retrieve the shrink ray. He realized that whoever had sent her had a brilliant idea. By having the Huntress eat her victims, there was no evidence as to their disappearance. He shuddered at the thought of being her next meal.

            Simon rushed back to the second floor, food sloshing in his belly, and he threw open the door to Claudia and Jenny’s room. Jenny was lying back in a chair in her bikini with a hand on her distended tummy, and Claudia (also still in her bikini) was giving her a belly rub. Both girls looked towards him and smiled.

            “You get the Pepto Bismol for Jenny?” Claudia asked.

            “No,” said Simon. “How is she?”

            She shrugged. “She’s got a pretty bad tummy ache, but she’s a teenage girl. She’ll be fine.”

            Jenny burped.

            “We’ve got to get out of here,” Simon said. “Pack up your things.” He headed for the door. Claudia still looked confused.

            “Why?” she asked.

            Simon stopped in the door, then turned around. “Because someone’s trying to kill us.”

^^^

Karey lead Tommy into her father’s office. “I’ve just got to get the key to my room,” she said. “I’ll get my things, then we can get out of here.”

            “Okay,” said Tommy, looking around. It was a messy office, disorganized with papers strewn about everywhere. In the center was a big wooden desk with a pitcher of lemonade sitting on it. Karey began looking through the drawers. Then she looked up and saw the pitcher.

            “My dad might be an asshole,” said Karey. “But at least he makes good lemonade. You want some?”

            Tommy realized he was kind of thirsty. “Sure, pour me a glass.”

            “We’re not that fancy here,” she said, taking some plastic Dixie cups out of the drawers. “These’ll have to do.” She poured out some lemonade into a Dixie cup and handed it to Tommy. He took it and sent it down to his belly in a few gulps, feeling the cold liquid rush down his esophagus and pour into his stomach.

            He patted his flat tummy. “That was really good,” he said, then let out a soft belch.

            “You want some more?” she asked, giggling.

            “You first,” he said.

            “Okay,” Karey said, pouring a full Dixie cup of her own.

            Little did she know, a tiny speck surfaced shortly after she finished pouring. It was the motel manager, groggily coming to his senses after having woken up in a yellow sea inside the pitcher. Looking up, he saw a shirtless teenage boy and a teenage girl in a bikini…his foster daughter, Karey.

            As he treaded in the lemonade, he realized once again that Karey was a hot girl and was glad he had decided to use her as a stripper to entertain the men who came around, but in the back of his mind he wondered why he had never fucked her. No one could stop him out here and she was so hot. It gave a boner just thinking about it, a boner he wanted to shove into her loins.

            Then Karey’s hand grabbed the cup and jerked him back into reality. He was rising. The whole cup was rising. He was heading up, past Karey’s gorgeous stomach, past the firm breasts he had slid his hand down her shirt this morning to hold in his hands. He loved the way she had screamed in fright and he had almost gotten his hand down her panties for the real prize, but she squirmed away. But now he realized something that truly terrified him.

            She was going to swallow him.

            “Karey!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Don’t eat me! You can’t! Please, no!”

            But then she closed her eyes as the cup drew nearer to her lips, which parted to reveal an open, cavernous maw that awaited him. The cup tipped forward and the lemonade carried him over her teeth and along the tongue down into a dark hole as he screams echoed all the way down her gullet.

            Tommy watched as Karey finished drinking the cup in a few mouthfuls and came over to put his ear to her belly as the liquid rushed in. The girl finished drinking the lemonade and looked down, pleased to see the cute boy listening intently on her digestive system.

            “Hear anything?” she asked.

            “Oh yeah, it’s in there,” Tommy said. Then he stopped smiling. He heard something, very faintly, very briefly, and then it was gone, drowned by a loud gurgle. He could hear the stomach lurching and churning as it began to digest what Karey had swallowed. Whatever it had been, it was gone.

            He pulled away. “You fine?” she asked.

            “Yeah,” he said. “You got your stuff?”

            She walked over to the desk and pulled a key out of the top desk drawer. “Yeah.”

            “Pack your things,” Tommy said, heading out the door. “Meet us by the Jeep in the parking lot.”

            Tommy walked out and down the hallway, looking back over his shoulder as he went. He was pretty sure he knew what he had heard inside of Karey’s stomach.

            And it sounded like a human scream.

^^^

Simon, Jenny, and Claudia had packed everything up and were taking the suitcases out to the balcony before they would load them into the Jeep later. Claudia was inside the room, and Jenny and Simon were out on the balcony, still in their swim wear.

            “How’s your tummy?” Simon asked her.

            She put a hand on her bloated stomach, which gurgled. “Ugh. That food was so good, but I’ve still got a bad tummy ache. How about you?”

            Simon looked down at his own bulging gut, which seemed to have decreased in size a bit. His teenage metabolism was making quick work of all those meatball subs. He let out a small burp to relieve gas pressure, then rubbed his belly. “Better.”

            “Who’s trying to kill us?” she asked.

            “I’ll explain later,” he said.

            “Does it have anything do with your conspiracy theory about that car earlier?” she asked.

            “Kind of,” Simon said. “I think I sort of stumbled onto something.”

            She looked him up and down and smiled.

            Claudia came out. “Alright guys, I’ve got everything. Where’s Tommy?”

            “He’s coming,” Simon said.

            “What they hell are you kids doing?” said a gruff voice behind him. He turned around. It was the mean Republican man from earlier. “You better not be having sex out here on the balcony!” he thundered.

            “Actually, we were just leaving,” Claudia said.

            “Damn straight you are!” he yelled, grabbing Simon by the arm and pointing to Jenny. “Did you get her pregnant, boy?”

            “No –” Simon began.

            “You teenagers have no respect for life. You play with things that you aren’t meant to play with,” the man rambled.

            “No sir,” Simon said, showing off his own bloated tummy. “She just ate too much. Me too.”

            The man eyed Simon’s belly, then Jenny’s. She burped.

            “Disgusting vermin,” he said. “I’m calling your parents. They should know what you kids are doing out here. You think you can escape to some shitty motel so your folks won’t know you’re having sex and eating too much food.” He grabbed Simon and began pulling him towards the stairs. “You’re coming with me to the reception, pal.”

            “Wait!” Claudia cried. “Get off my boyfriend!” she said and kicked the man in the back of the leg. He let go of Simon and cried in pain.

            “I’m so sorry,” she said, covering her mouth.

            The old man spun around and grabbed her by the throat, forcing the bikini-clad girl against a wall. “You little bitch!” he said, starting to choke her.

            Claudia’s body struggled, but she was unable to break free of his grasp. Suddenly, Simon ran up to him and punched him in the face as he looked to the left, the boy’s fist colliding directly with his nose and breaking it.

            The old man reared back and screamed. “I’ll kill you, boy!” he screamed and lunged for Simon.

            Claudia lashed out with her bare foot, kicking the man in the nuts hard.

            He froze, his hands immediately going to hold his crotch. Then Simon punched him in the head again and the old man feel back to the ground, knocked out cold.

            Claudia threw her arms around her boyfriend and hugged him tight. “Oh, Simon!” she cried, burying her face in his chest. Jenny watched them embrace from a few feet away, and scratched her arm, suddenly feeling guilty.

            “I’ll start loading up the car,” Jenny said. Simon and Claudia separated. They helped her start carrying bags down the stairs to load them into the Jeep.

^^^

Tommy leaned up against a wall outside Karey’s room while she collected her things. He couldn’t stop thinking about what he had heard coming from Karey’s stomach and began thinking about what Simon had said earlier.

            He had been careful to phrase it in front of Karey, but he said she had “no idea” when she said the “Huntress” was going to “take them out to dinner.” Tommy also thought about what Simon had told him on the bus just yesterday morning, about his conspiracy theory that the government was in some way responsible for the shrink rays and keeping them quiet.

            It made him realize that for all the teenagers and other people who had gone missing between parties and other girl’s shrinking-and-eating sprees, there hadn’t been a great deal of police involvement, save for that Detective Kenner guy, Tommy thought. And Simon seemed to think he was in on this too and that he had been at the gas station earlier today. Tommy wondered if he had been the man driving the car that Simon was so worried about. And then that scream from Karey’s belly… What if this Huntress assassin had shrunk the manager and put him in lemonade, knowing someone would come along and drink it.

            He looked down at his own stomach, realizing that if he had taken that second cup the scream would have come from his own belly. The thought of gulping someone, a live person, down and not evening knowing it made him shutter. He didn’t want to tell Karey, but he knew that she would never have to deal with her foster father ever again. But all of that brought him back to what his friend had been telling him earlier, and it really made him wonder:

            What if Simon was right?

            They would all be in danger. They had already been tailed throughout the day and this Huntress was good, getting rid of Karey’s father like that. It had to be Karey’s father who was digesting in her stomach, he realized. Who else would have been in the office? But then he wondered if the manager hadn’t been shrunk in the office, or if the manager wasn’t the one who Karey ate at all. Where were all the motel staff?

            Just then, Karey came out with a duffel bag full of belongings. “You ready?” he asked.

            “Let’s go,” she said.

            They walked past the reception and he saw the man behind the counter was gone. He suddenly wondered if he had been eaten by the Huntress too, or if the Huntress had put someone else in the lemonade too. Tommy wondered if he could have swallowed someone as well and looked down at his tummy once more, thinking about a tiny little person banging on the walls of his stomach as his gastric juices melted them down.

            No, he thought. I didn’t eat anyone. I need to get out of here before I become eaten, though.

            Tommy led Karey back by the pool and looked all around him as they passed by the water, making sure they weren’t followed. He went up a flight of stairs towards where their rooms were and saw the groggy old man from earlier lying unconscious. He peered over the edge and saw the others finishing up loading everything into his Jeep, including his stuff. Good, they were ready to go.

            “Alright,” he told Karey. “Let’s go join them.”

            Just then, they heard a groan and turned to see the old man getting up. He blinked, rubbing his swollen, broken nose and then glared at them, seeing Tommy was in swim trunks and Karey was in a bikini. “You fuckin’ kids,” the man said. “You’re with them aren’t you? The ones who did this to me?”

            He pointed to his nose. Tommy and Karey froze, unsure of what to do.

            “I’m going to kill you,” the old man said. “I’m going to kill all of you!”

            “Sorry, that’s my job,” said a young, female voice.

            All three turned to see the Huntress, coming up the stair well in sexy black lingerie. Tommy saw a bulge start to form in the crotch of the old man’s pants, and tried to hold his own in his swim trunks.

            But then she stepped into the light and he got a good look at her face and froze with horror. Karey saw his face go pale and watched his entire body clench up.

            The old man looked the Huntress up and down and looked ready to make a comment about teenagers and their lack of clothes around here or something, but she never gave him the chance. She brought up the shrink ray with its bright yellow streak on the side and fired, dwindling the old man to half an inch tall instantly.

            Survival instincts kicked in for Tommy, and he grabbed Karey by the arm, pulling her towards the other stairwell as fast as he could.

            The Huntress casually strolled over to the little man and picked him up between her right index finger and her thumb and raised him up to her face. He was screaming at her. “Put me down you fucking murderous cunt!” he yelled.

            She just laughed and looked down at her stomach. It was ready for some more, not that this little morsel would satisfy her appetite. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth wide.

            She imagined the look on the man’s face as she dropped in him in, felt him slide to the back of her throat along the tongue and let him squirm around in there for a few seconds or so before closing her mouth and swallowing. She felt her esophagus pull him down her gullet, easing him down to her stomach.

            She felt him plop in and stood there on the balcony, rubbing her smooth tummy and licking her lips, eyes still closed as she imagined her stomach acids setting to work on him. The burp interrupted her reverie, and she gave a soft giggle.

            Then the Huntress heard the sound of a car pulling out and walked to the edge of the balcony to see the Jeep driving for the exit. It turned right onto the desert road and sped off into the night.

            She smiled to herself. Chasing teenagers was the most fun she’d had in a long time, and the erotic anticipation she had while watching Karey unknowingly swallow the manager through the office window had nearly killed her. She had refrained from eating any more of the teenagers because she was having too much fun with them. If she were being completely professional, they would all be swimming in her tummy by now.

            She had overheard the earlier incident with the groggy old man and had hoped she could find a way of slipping him into Claudia or Jenny’s drink, maybe even put him on a one-way trip to Simon’s tummy. But given the circumstances, she decided to just eat the man herself and looked down at her stomach now with sinister glee, listening to it gurgle and digest him.

            She watched the distant taillights of the Jeeps disappear into the night, then pushed away from the railing. Now it was time to be professional. She had lured them into a false sense of security, but the next time they would not escape her hunger.

            Now the hunt was really going to begin.

^^^

Out on the desert road, Tommy could only see as far as his vehicle’s headlights would allow him as the asphalt stretched off into a black void, the occasional speed limit sign whizzing by them.

            Karey was wedged in the back seat between Jenny and Claudia, with Simon riding shotgun. Everyone had safely put their belongings into the trunk or at their feet before they took off, but they all felt it had been close. Tommy had expected a shrink ray blast to miniaturize the entire vehicle as they drove off, but it never came.

            No one was really saying much, but now Simon leaned over.

            “You were right,” Tommy told him. “I should have believed you from the beginning.”

            “Did you see her?” Simon asked.

            Tommy nodded, his eyes still on the long road ahead of them. “There’s something I need to tell you about her,” he said, the blood draining from his face with memory again.

            “What is it?” he asked.

            Tommy glanced over at him. “She’s my ex-girlfriend Kelsey.”

TO BE CONTINUED