The Hard Way

He thought he saw some type of flash, like light reflecting off something metal but he couldn’t be sure, everything seemed to happen so fast. It started as a tingling sensation in his chest before rapidly expanding outward and over his limbs. He took a step backward, the world felt like it was going to start spinning. His stomach seemed to twist in on itself, wrenching him violently forward, his vision blurred and he felt as if he were falling forward, as if from a great height. The gun and his gloves fell away from his hands, as his withdrew back into his sleeves. There was a ringing in his ears as everything went black. He didn’t know what to think, though he was still aware, everything was dark. Reaching out, he felt coarse woolen fiber. “What the...” he mumbled, pushing against the cloth.

“That’s that,” he heard the raven haired woman say, voice loud. “Let’s see who we have here,” she added. Where once a man had stood, now there was only a pile of clothes. Moving forward near the pile, she knelt down on floor. Picking up the balaclava, she tossed it a short distance off to the side.

Now the whole world did spin as he felt elevated and then he was weightless, flying in the darkness. Tumbling through the air, he landed in a soft bed of material. Pulling himself free of the fabric, he was stunned by what he saw. Standing in the eye hole of what had been his balaclava, his mouth hung agape at the spectacle before him. He was still inside the same room, but everything had become incredibly enormous. The dark haired woman, now gigantic, was knelt down beside a mountain of clothing and appeared to be picking through it. The blonde, now the height of a twelve story apartment building looked down on the clothing. Already feeling vulnerable, he realized he was naked. Filled with panic and head still swimming he dashed away from the women and toward one of the chairs situated beneath the dining room table and ducked behind it. Heart pounding in his chest.

The dark haired woman paused in sifting through his clothing. Lifting up a glove, she held first one then other by the fingers. “He’s gone,” said Clare, sitting back on her haunches and placing hands on her shapely hips.

“The cap?” asked Angela, pointing at the balaclava near the table.

Clare leaned back, picked it up, looked inside and shook her head. “Nope.”

“I didn’t see him dart out,” added Angela, a perplexed look on her lovely face.

Clare lowered her head and peered around at floor level, but for all intents and purposes, the tiny man had vanished. Sitting back upright, she pulled the wallet out his trousers and removed his driver’s license. “Jack Dalton,” she said aloud. Holding the license up for the blonde woman to see.

Taking the license in her hand, “Ruggedly cute,” she said in her slight drawl, before folding her arms under her perfectly rounded breasts.

“Where are you hiding Mr. Dalton,” asked Clare as she carefully sifted once more through his clothing.

Jack crept further under the table using the legs of the center pedestal as a hiding place. What the fuck is happening. No, no, no, no, he thought. This cannot be real! From his vantage he could see the woman called Clare standing upright, she seemed to be at least a hundred and forty feet tall, if not taller. She picked up the pistol by the silencer and handed it to the blond woman.

Jack looked down at his hands, then his arms and rest of himself and did a self-assessment. Everything seemed to be exactly where it should be, except everything else was gargantuan. He ran in the opposite direction from the women, ducking from chair leg to chair leg until he got out and away from the table and under the china cabinet against a wall. To the best of his calculations he figured he was must be somewhere between two and three inches in height scaled to the furniture in the room. He tried to control his breathing as he combatted his rising fear.

Jack scaled the interior of the foot of the china hutch and sat inside the frame. He could hear the women as they abandoned his clothes and started to search for him.

“Come out Jack, the longer it takes to find you, the worse it will be for you,” called Clare.

Leaning back in his hiding place, he shuddered. How could they have made him so tiny, was he hallucinating?

“Jack, come on out sugar. It’s ok, we just want to talk” purred Angela in her lilted accent, her voice seeming to come from very close to where he was secreted.

Like fuck he thought to himself, holding his breath for fear he might inadvertently give himself away.

A bemused smile on her gorgeous face, Clare looked at Angela, “Crafty little bugger. This little hunt might just be fun.” Angela grinned back.

“It appears as if the cats will have to find the little mouse, poor little mouse,” Clare said loudly, excitement growing as the game progressed. Together the pair began to explore the spacious interior of Clare’s mother’s home. Moving furniture, they moved the dining room table and chairs.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” sang Clare. After a short time, she turned to Angela, “You want some wine?” she asked.

“Sounds good, alcohol and a hunt, recipe for a good night” chuckled Angela.

“There’s some glasses in the hutch,” Clare said.

The sound of footfalls grew closer. From somewhere up above Jack heard one of the glass doors on the cabinet open followed by the clink of glass. The footsteps retreated. It seemed an eternity, but eventually the sounds of searching faded off, after a while he couldn’t tell where they were. WHAT THE FUCK! Jack screamed mentally. This made absolutely no sense at all. Everything was fucked. He needed to escape. What if he escaped, he thought, then what? It’s a half hour drive by car just out of the Hills. At his current height he doubted he could make it out of the house, let alone through a whole new world of predators that would snatch him up outside. How could he force the girls to restore him to his normal height? Even when he had the upper hand when he held the loaded pistol to Blondie’s head she didn’t seem to flinch. Most folks, even the hardened ones will squirt a little piss under the same circumstances. That was full size with a gun, now he was tiny and had shit. FUCK! Dropping down from within the china cabinet, he cautiously surveyed the area. The table and chairs looked slightly askew. Peering around the leg of the cabinet, he could see no sign of either woman, even his clothes weren’t where he fell. He was just about to sneak out from his hiding spot when the urge to look up halted him in his tracks. Clare sat perched on the island counter, legs folded under her, green eyes sweeping the room looking for any sign of movement as she traced a finger around the rim of a wine glass. He felt his heart race.

Tony

Tony was playing a game on his phone, glancing up only occasionally. He checked his watch every few minutes. He hated being a point man, waiting sucked. He pulled the half full mickey of whiskey from his coat pocket and took a good pull, just to calm the nerves he justified to himself. Getting out of the car to stretch his legs, a half hour and no sign of Jack. Tony chuckled, maybe Jack did bust a leg. He found the thought funny, the Hammer laying on the other side of the fence with a broken pin. Lighting another cigarette, forty-five minutes, still nothing of Jack. The mickey was empty, he tossed it beyond the car into the woods, the bottle smashed in the darkness. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, he didn’t want to have to climb the wall. He followed Jack’s path to the wall and with some considerable effort he finally managed to scale it. Moving silently across the yard he saw lights on inside the house, creeping closer he tried to peer through windows. “Where the hell are you Jack,” he hissed. He heard the sound of laughter, girl’s laughter from within the house. “Motherfucker,” he cursed, “you better not be in there getting your pole greased!” He removed his revolver from his jacket pocket. He hated the easy way Jack seemed to get women, even the peelers down at the club seemed to fawn all over him when he was around, they called him the Hammer for an entirely different reason.

Testing the handle, he found the front door was unlocked. Opening it, he slipped in quietly. Treading lightly, he paused. There was some split tail with dark hair sitting up on the counter, clothes suspiciously looking like Jack’s lay on the counter beside her. He couldn’t tell what she was looking for, but whatever it was it held her attention. Putting the revolver away, he pulled the knife from his pocket and opened it silently. Stepping in behind her, he raised the blade against her slender throat, pressing the cold steel cruelly into her flesh. “Where’s Jack?” he whispered, smelling the scent of her hair. Clare held herself rigid. He pressed the blade harder into her neck, a trickle of blood marked the edge.

The clothes definitely were the ones Jack was wearing earlier. Angela came around the corner and started at the sight of Clare with the steel at her throat. “You best be letting her go,” she warned in her slight drawl, brow furled.

“Looks like Jackie has been getting himself some primo tail. Tell that prick to get his ass out here,” barked Tony, lasciviously eyeing the blonde now clad only in a shirt and small panties. A half glass of red wine in her left hand.

 “You are going to release her now, or you will not live long enough to regret it,” warned the blonde, voice unyielding.

“Fuck you,” he laughed. “Jack!” he called out.

“Jack!” Angela called, miming Tony. “He’s around here somewhere, aren’t you Jack?” she taunted, mocking grin on her comely face. 

“JACK!” bellowed Tony.

No response. “Those are his fucking clothes right there,” he said, pointing with to the pile with his free hand.

“So it would appear,” acknowledged the blonde woman. “But he can’t help you,” she added, taking a step closer toward Tony.

“Maybe I’ll get me a little taste before he comes back,” he snarled, leaning in closer. The thought of hurting her made him hard. She could smell the stink of cigarettes and booze on his breath. He licked the side of Clare’s smooth neck opposite the blade.

“Enough of this,” Angela said with a slight shake of her head. She raised her right hand and waved it at him, as she might a bothersome fly. Tony staggered back a step as if physically slapped by an invisible force, the knife fell from his hand. Clare ducked and hopped down off the island and out of his grasp. The pair watched in amusement as the man vanished into his clothes as he shrank away. Circling the island, they deposited their glasses on the counter before dropping down to hands and knees, one to either side of the heap of clothes, Clare said, “We can’t let this one get away.”

The world seemed to spin and fall away, his stomached revolt and he vomited, whiskey and acid burning his throat. He twisted as another wave of nausea tore through him. Suddenly he felt weight pressing down on him from above, oppressive weight. He didn’t know yet, but it was the women patting his clothes searching for him. Suddenly the darkness was pulled away and he was blinded by a stab of light.

Startled expression full of fear. He glanced about, wild-eyed, desperately trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. Suddenly the gigantic hand of the brunette swept down over him, catching his leg, he twisted and came up against the back of her hand. Thrashing, he bit Clare as hard as he could. Surprised by the suddenly stab of pain in her hand, she him go. He fell back onto his clothes. Jumping to his feet he tried to clamber over his clothing to run but Angela quickly closed her hand around him, only his head poked out from between her thumb and fore finger, the rest of him secured in her hand and confining fingers. Instantly he leaned forward and bit down on the flesh of her thumb. To her, it felt like a bee sting, or being bit by a horsefly. He bit her again on almost the exact same spot.

“You little insect! You want to use your mouth,” said Angela with anger, changing her grip to dangle him by his feet. Lifting him toward her own mouth, she opened it and quickly pushed him inside, he tasted awful, faintly like cigarettes and day old sweat as he twisted and struggled inside her mouth. Using her tongue, she pushed him to the back of her mouth. Opening her throat, as she might for an oyster, she lifted her chin and swallowed. She could still feel him struggling as peristalsis pulled him down into her interior. There was even some residual sensation in her stomach. “I can feel him moving inside me,” she said touching her smooth belly. Clare reached out and put her hand next to Angela’s.

Clare laughed, “That was drastic,” she teased.

“The little bastard bit me,” she answered, rubbing the pink spot on her hand where Tony had chomped her. “Hard.”

“As rewarding as it might have been, we are no closer to understanding why we are crawling with thieves tonight. I was hoping he might have given us some insight,” said Clare.

Angela frowned, “Not overly rewarding, he didn’t taste very good. Feeling him struggle on the other hand,” she left the rest unsaid, rewarding Clare with a smile.

“I’m going to have to call Hilde,” stated Clare, adding, “There is something afoot. Two robbers in one night is more than coincidence. She needs to be in the know. If you want to take care of this mess, I’ll go make that call.” Taking her glass by the stem, Clare left the kitchen, touching the mark on her neck left by the blade.

Angela scooped up Tony’s clothing and set it on the island near Jack’s. Leaning against the counter, she raised her glass to her lips and tipped it savoring the wine as it washed away the lingering unpleasant aftertaste left by Tony’s passage.