5. Pursuit

Simon felt like Tommy had a driven a knife into his chest, puncturing his lungs and releasing all of the air from his body. He had never known Kelsey but had seen her around school before the party incident happened, and had heard all about it from Tommy himself. But there was still one thing he couldn’t get through his mind about what Tommy had just told him.

            “That makes no fucking sense,” Simon blurted under his breath, so the girls in the back seat wouldn’t hear him. They were still looking out the windows, watching the desert go by underneath the pale moonlight.

            “I know,” said Tommy.

            “Didn’t she get eaten by Alexis?” he asked.

            Tommy nodded.

            “But there’s no way she could have survived that…right?” Simon asked.

            Tommy shook his head. “No, I heard her getting digested in Alexis’s belly. She’s gone.”

            “Then how do you know it was her?” Simon asked.

            “Because I saw her,” Tommy said. “She walked out and shrank that mean old guy. Probably ate him too. But it was her. There was never a doubt in my mind.”

            “Did she recognize you?”

            Tommy thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” he realized. “She didn’t say anything to me. I seemed more surprised to see her.”

            “Wouldn’t she have said “Hi, Tommy?” or something like that?” Simon asked.

            “Probably,” Tommy said, looking out at the road before him. He gripped the wheel and sighed. “What the fuck have we gotten into?” he asked.

            “I don’t know,” Simon said, looking back at Jenny in the rear seat. She was looking out the window, giving him a profile of her beautiful face from this angle. He turned back around and sighed too. “I really don’t know.”

            They drove on into the night.

^^^

The black sedan pulled into the parking space outside of the reception and Kenner stepped out, breathing in the night desert air. He casually strolled across the parking lot and up a flight of stairs to the second-floor balcony where the Huntress stood in her underwear, looking off into the distance.

            “Contact K,” she said. “It’s been a while.”

            “It’s Detective Kenner,” he said, straightening his tie. “At least it has been since last fall.”

            “Ooh,” she cooed, turning her slender body towards him. “That must be a promotion from Special Agent Kenner, right?”

            He glared at her but said nothing.

            “Consider yourself lucky,” she told him. “You messed up and then put you on desk duty in Malibu watching over cute girls in bikinis.”

            “It’s boring as shit,” he said. “I want my old job back, and here you are lounging on the balcony like a Victoria’s Secret model.”

            “Careful,” she said. “There’s more room in here.” She rubbed her gurgling stomach sensually and gave a little burp. Kenner eyed her body up and down and felt a boner coming on, but managed to hide it.

            “Are they in there?” he asked, pointing to her belly.

            “No,” she said. “Just a little snack.” She belched softly again.

            “Then where the hell are they?” he asked.

            She gestured off into the night. “They left. Got away.”

            “When?” he asked, his blood boiling.

            “About ten minutes ago.”

            “This is why I never trust you to do the dirty work!” he hissed. “You always get caught up eating people, becoming horny, and playing with yourself. We need to leave, now!” He turned towards the stairs.

            “Roger that, Special Agent Kenner. Oops, I mean Detective Kenner.”

            He shot her a glance over his shoulder, then continued on with her tow. He couldn’t believe it. All of this time he had waited for a time to strike and prove his worth to Command and they had assigned him a partner who was impossible to deal with. Well, he wasn’t prepared to fail this assignment. He wouldn’t let those kids get away.

            Kenner climbed into the driver’s seat of the car and the Huntress got in next to him. “Where to now?” she cooed.

            Kenner didn’t even look at her as he pulled out of the motel and onto the road. “Wherever they went.”

            He gunned the engine and sped off, leaving the motel in the desert night behind them.

^^^

“Pull over,” Jenny said, holding her still-full tummy. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

            Tommy swerved the wheel and the Jeep drove off the road and stopped. Jenny opened her door and stumbled off into the dark. “Hey wait!” Tommy called, and got out of the car after her.    She started running, the contents of her belly sloshing around and making her want to throw up. She stopped and caught her breath, then felt the hairs on her body stand on end. It was surprisingly cold out here in the desert at night, with no sun beating down to warm her salty skin. And she was still only in a bikini. Jenny hugged herself tightly, running her hands along the smooth hairs of her arms, feeling the goosebumps on her skin, even on her abdomen.

            She wanted a boy to hold her and touch her like this, but she didn’t want that boy to be Tommy. In spite of her better self, she was falling for Simon hopelessly and head over heels. But she felt so terrible, so guilty for the kisses they had already shared.

            Tommy ran up behind her, still only his swim trunks. Even in the glow of the moonlight, she could get a good look at his attractive frame, fit and lean but not too buff. It was nothing to do with his body that she didn’t like, though. It was just the way she felt a connection with Simon more than him. But how to tell him?

            “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I know we’ve all been through a lot tonight, but –”

            “It’s not that. It’s…” She swallowed hard, feeling the glom of spit slid down her esophagus towards her gurgling stomach. “I saw you with Karey. I saw you kiss.”

            Tommy backed up in shock. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. But I pushed her off a moment later, didn’t you see?”

            Jenny had, but she realized that by lying she could sow the seeds of a break-up. But then that would make it feel like he had done something wrong, and she didn’t want him to feel like that. He was a nice boy, after all and Jenny suddenly realized she was doing a bad thing.

            She was the cheater, not him. She was the liar, not him.

            Jenny felt terrible to the pit of her stomach, and it wasn’t just from the food she ate.

            She shook her head. “Tommy, I just –”

            He kissed her, full on the lips, and hugged her body tightly to his. There was no boner in his swim trunks, no groping of her ass, just a long kiss full of wet passion. Then he pulled away. “Jenny, we need to have a talk about this, but not right now. Simon was right about something, and now some people are trying to kill us. We need to go. Now.”

^^^

Simon, Karey, and Claudia had remained in the car. “What’s going on?” Claudia asked as soon as Tommy had exited the car to go run after Jenny.

            “I think I stumbled onto something,” said Simon. “I’ll explain it as soon as they get back in the car.”

            Claudia nodded and sat in her seat. Then she leaned forward and gave Simon a kiss on the cheek. He didn’t return one, but smiled. “Thanks babe,” he said.

            She leaned back into her seat, feeling like something was missing between the two of them. Ever since they had started the trip, Simon had been different. She wondered if he didn’t like her anymore or if it was just the trip and the people trying to kill them.

            But then she noticed something strange. Karey put her hand on Claudia’s knee. At first she didn’t really notice it, but Karey gradually started moving her hand towards Claudia’s thong. After all, they were both in bikinis.

            Karey was also leaning into her, her smooth skin pressing against Claudia’s side. Claudia decided to not move as Karey slid her fingers under the thong slightly, then moved them back out and resumed sitting next to her normally.

            Claudia’s heart was beating faster than ever before. What was going on? She had felt a tingling sensation that deep, deep down she had been slightly aware of, but never really thought about before. That part of her suddenly felt awakened, like it was growing inside her. A new, forbidden desire.

            No. She swallowed that feeling away, repressed the thought and let it sink into the dark recesses of her mind. Claudia had butterflies in her stomach, but they began to subside as she glanced down at her smooth tummy. What had she just thought about? It was gone now, but she never wanted it to come back. Except that maybe, just maybe, some part of her did.

            Tommy and Jenny got back into the car and Tommy started driving again, turning the wheel so that the vehicle headed back onto the empty road. “You want to explain some things, Simon?” he said.

            Then under his breath, he whispered: “The edited version.” Simon nodded, knowing what he meant: cut out the parts about the shrink ray. Then it would have gotten awkward, especially since Simon knew that both Jenny and Claudia had eaten people before and never even known about it. Some of them were bad, but others were good people like Bobby’s girlfriend Francine who Jenny accidentally swallowed at a Christmas party.

            “I was poking around on some conspiracy theory sights recently and this one guy had some interesting things to say about something tied to our school. So I sent him an email and never heard back from him, but then the next thing I knew we were being followed and now nearly killed by some government agents. One of them is a girl who looks to be about our age but is probably older, and a police detective who looks about 30 named Kenner.”

            “What was the conspiracy theory this guy had come up with?” Karey asked. “The one you contacted him about.”

            “Uh…,” Simon said, quickly thinking. “Just…all the disappearances lately. He thought the government was somehow involved. I never got to find out more.”

            “We need to find out the truth,” Jenny said. “Get to the bottom of this.”

            “We can do that later,” Tommy said. “Right now all we need to do is survive.”

            Simon looked in the passenger mirror and saw some headlights in the distance behind them, maybe a hundred or so feet back. “Oh shit!” he said. “It’s them!”

            Tommy looked in the rear view mirror. “You sure?”

            The three girls in the back looked over their shoulders. “I think I can see it,” Jenny said, squinting her eyes. “It’s some sort of black sedan.”

            Simon and Tommy exchanged looks. “It’s them,” Simon said. “I’m sure of it.”

            Tommy looked ahead on the road. There was nothing in front of them by the endless expanse of desert and darkness. Then Tommy saw it.

            A juncture. A crossroads.

            The road had been curving east for some time now and by taking the left up ahead they would continue on their Northern course towards San Francisco. By continuing straight ahead they would head towards the Nevada border. But to the South, the arrow pointed towards Palm Springs.

            “Change of vacation plans, guys,” Tommy said. He slowed the car as they approached the intersection and made a hard right onto the southbound lane. The Jeep nearly tipped over as then did so, then the right-side wheels came crashing back down as Tommy put the petal to the metal.

            The vehicle began accelerating very quickly as Simon saw the speedometer tick up towards 100 miles per hour.

            “What are you doing?” Karey screamed from the back over the roar of the engine.

            “Losing them,” he replied.

            Simon and Jenny clutched their door handles and looked sick, their bellies still digesting those meatball subs. Claudia and Karey grabbed hold of whatever they could as everyone held on for dear life.

            Tommy gripped the steering wheel, watching ahead as his car fly over the asphalt, the road lanes whipping by. He thought of having sex with Jenny in his mind, making his hard pump faster and a boner grow in his trunks. But that didn’t matter. He felt like an animal. He felt alive. And no two-bit government agent was going to take that from him. Even if she might have been his ex-girlfriend.

            But Tommy didn’t think of that as the vehicle roared and sped down the desert road. He thought of the girl he loved and his friends, and that kept him going. There was a soda can in the cup holder next to him from earlier. He picked it up and drained the rest in a single gulp, feeling the liquid trickle down his throat to ignite the fire in his belly like an engine. He belched, patted his stomach, then grabbed the wheel with both hands again.

            “Simon, where are they?” he asked, still clenching the wheel and starring ahead with furious intensity.

            Simon looked over his shoulder. Off in the distance, he saw faint lights swing around the curve at the crossroads. Then the car began to build speed.

            “We’ve got a good start,” Simon said. “But they’ll gain on us.”

            Jenny looked behind them, then back up front. “We need to hide.”

            “Where?” Claudia asked.

            Simon saw a big billboard advertising Palm Springs loom out of the night in front of them. “There!” he said.

            Tommy saw it. He killed the lights and applied the brakes, the car lurching to almost a halt from its high velocity as he steered it behind the big billboard, then threw the car into reverse and backed up all the way to the rear of the sign. He twisted the keys, turning the car off to kill the tail lights.

            “Now what?” Karey asked.

            “We wait,” Simon said.

            Nobody made a sound except for the occasional breathing. Jenny’s tummy gurgled, and she clutched it with both hands but refrained from groaning.

            Then a moment later, the sedan sped by them down the road without stopping. Tommy kept his hand by the keys, but the tail lights faded off into the distance and were gone.

            After another few seconds of silence, Claudia asked: “What do we do now?”

            “I think it’s time we got some rest,” Tommy said, leaning back in his seat. “We’ll hit the road again after sunrise.”

            No one seemed to disagree.  They all curled up and started to drift off, trying to make the most they could of their limited space.

            A few minutes later. Simon turned over in his seat and used the headrest like a semi-upright pillow. He had a good view of Jenny in the back seat and smiled at her, loving the way the moonlight illuminated her face as she leaned her against the glass window.

            Then her eyes fluttered open. She saw him staring back at her and a smile came to her lips. They held each other’s gaze for a least a minute, then she closed her eyes and went to sleep, that same smile still on her face.

            A shiver of joy ran down Simon’s spine as he too drifted off to sleep, dreaming of forbidden love and the most wonderful girl in the world.

TO BE CONTINUED