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How long had we been here?  Time didn’t seem to affect us anymore.  The room had no windows, no clocks, no calendars, nothing connecting us to the outside world or any real sense of reality.  There was only us, the door, a chair and a single light overhead.  We were the only living things in the room, trapped in what used to be a kennel.  The scent of dog still lingered within, but was mostly smothered by the smell of blood body odor and human waste.  The top, bottom and rear of the kennel were a tough beige plastic and the front was a steel gate with very little space between the bars.  One of the previous prisoners tried to stick his arm through and lift the latch but had gotten stuck.  I remembered him crying out to us, begging us to help him before she returned.  We didn’t.  Our cowardice cost him his life.  I think his name was Elliot.  It was.  I remembered because we shared a brief laugh that we shared the same first name.  He was also the first I ever saw die.    

               There were about thirty of us in the kennel now.  Sitting along the sides.  We were all naked, but there was no shame in that.  Fear drowned out the shame ages ago.  There was rage too at one point, indignation as well, but those elements had been stomped out and what was left of it stained the hardwood floor in front of us.  We were hollow, shells of what we were, diminutive shadows of men.  

               “When will she feed us?”  A voice whined.  It was Jacob.  He was one of the newer prisoners, he hadn’t yet adjusted to the schedule.  He was a slight young man, white, with long brown hair and a short beard.  His face was narrow and gaunt.  He wouldn’t last long. 

               “Soon.”  That voice came from Darron.  Darron had been here longer than any of us.  He was tall, black and he had maintained his powerful build through pushups and squats.  The rest of us didn’t see much of a point.  But Darron did.  Darron was a survivor.  I made a note to ask him what he did and who he was before.  Before this.  Darron stood at the gate looking out at the massive door to the left of us.  Waiting. 

               “I need something, anything.”  Jacob cried “Does anyone have anything at all?  She has to feed us.”  His voice cracked with desperation. 

               “Shut up.”  I said.  I empathized with him, I did.  But the noise was too much.  I was trying to strategize.  She would be here soon, and she’d want to play.  It was probably going to be tag today.  She loved that game.  The brutality of it. 

               “I need to eat.”  Jacob was on his feet walking to each of us clutching his stomach and grimacing.  “Please.  Anything.” 

               “Shut up and sit down” someone said. 

               “How can you all do this to me?  I know you’re saving something.  Give it to me.  What’s wrong with all of you?  How can you treat someone like this?” 

               “SHUT UP!”

               “Please, someone, anything.”  Jacob wandered back and forth.  “Please-“

               The rumbling began.  It was soft, and grew heavier quickly.  A steady rhythmic crescendo that grew to be so violent that it shook our prison and caused us to brace.  Jacob fell to the ground, Darron steadied himself with the bars. 

               “She’s coming.”  Darron said. 

               “Shit” I thought. 

               The rumbling continued for a few seconds, but the dread made it feel like hours.  Finally the rumbling stopped.  The handle twisted and the door lurched forward with a anguished squeal.  Revealing our warden, torturer and executioner: Sheila. 

               Even at our original sizes, Sheila would have been an imposing woman.  She was immense, with broad shoulders. She was fat, but not the fat that indicates apathy or laziness, the kind of fat that you see in farmhands and bricklayers.  Something beyond “big boned.”  The kind of fat that hides muscle, the kind of fat that implies incredible strength.  Her skin was tan and she was wearing a tank top that strained against her heavy breasts.  Her leggings worked twice as hard containing her wide hips and large, protruding belly. Her massive, muscular calves were exposed and she was barefoot. 

               Her feet.  Wide, with thick, calloused soles.  We estimated that she’d be something like a size 12W in men’s based on our relative size.  So much life had been lost to them.  So much pain caused. 

               I got up and walked to the gate.  I looked up at her face.  Her hair was cut short, I think the style would be called pixie.  My wife mentioned something like that once.  I don’t remember her face anymore.    

               “Hey boys!”  Her voice was incredibly feminine, but powerful.  It had a body to it, it was deep and it reverberated throughout the room and into our bones.  She flashed a grin across her wide mouth.  She looked down at us with large black eyes.  Darron met her gaze, but I looked away.  I found a blotch of dried blood on the floor with the partial shape of a heel.  I tried to remember who died there.  I think it may have been Eddie.  Or maybe Christian.  I don’t remember. 

               She walked over to our cage and stood right in front of us.  The entire opening was filled with her feet and calves.  They were the size of large pickup trucks to us.  The smell of her feet filled the cage and quickly overpowered the animalistic scent we had grown accustomed to.  There was the very faint smell of lotion, but mostly sweat.  She must have worked out recently.  

               The cage shifted and began to rise.  We all tumbled around and cries of pain and shock bounced against the walls.  She held us right in front of her face. 

               “How are my little babies?”  Her voice boomed and a few men covered their ears.  “Did you miss me?  I missed you!” 

               “Let us go you fucking bitch!”  I turned to see who said it.  Even though I already knew who it was.  Jacob got up and ran to the gate and looked Sheila right in her enormous eyes.  “Let us fucking go!  We didn’t do anything to you!  You fucking fat bitch!”  Sheila’s smile fell.  The wrinkles in her face returned.  We began to descend.  We landed back at Sheila’s feet with a bit of bang. 

               “You stupid fuck, do you know what you’ve done?” Someone said. Sheila bent over and we saw her hanging breasts before her large, thick hands began undoing the latch.  

               “Thanks for volunteering Jacob.”  She said.  The gate swung open and her hand reached through the opening. 

               “NO, NO FUCK!”  Jacob cried, trying to scurry to the back of the kennel.  Two other men grabbed Jacob by each of his arms and dragged him to the opening.  They threw him into her hand and stepped away.             

               “YOU PIECES OF SHIT.  YOU FUCKING PIECES OF SHIT, FUCK ALL OF YOU.”  Jacob screamed.  Sheila closed the gate and locked it.  As she stood, Darron and I ran to the gate and looked upwards through the openings.  Jacob was still yelling, but we could no longer make out his words.  Sheila didn’t seem amused.  She held him with her fist, his legs dangled about and he was pushing against her grip with his hands. 

               “You don’t talk to me like that Jacob.”  Sheila said.  Her voice was disturbingly calm.  With her free hand she placed her index finger and thumb around Jacob’s right leg  “You should know; you never talk to me like that.”

               She pushed her fingers together and snapped Jacob’s leg in half.  The sound of bone cracking was deafening. I choked down vomit, but I didn’t look away.  Jacob’s defiant yelling turned into animalistic howls of pain.  He clawed at Sheila’s grip but her thick skin was impenetrable to us.  His bones were exposed and his lower calf hung by a thread.  Blood spewed out of the upper part of his calf onto Sheila’s broad toes.  The crimson blood contrasting sharply with her baby blue toenail polish.  Noticing this, she began to frown.  “Jacob, I just got my toes painted and you’ve ruined them.  Tsk.  Your punishment just got a little more severe.”  She bent down and placed Jacobs ruined body in front of us face down.  Jacob looked up at us and held out his arm.  “Please” he wailed.

               Sheila lifted her right foot and placed her heel on Jacob’s back.  His wails were cut short as air left his body. 

               “I want this to be a lesson for all of you.  I shouldn’t have to be teaching respect after all this time.  You should all know better.”  She spoke with an authoritative tone.  This was the true Sheila.  Power and cruelty.  We all knew this.  Why she maintained the veneer of kindness occasionally was beyond us.  She slowly brought down the upper half of her foot onto Jacob, pushing his torso into the hardwood.  He was whimpering now.  We could hear his ribcage cracking under Sheila’s weight. 

               “I really hope you all learn from this.”  She lifted her foot off of Jacob’s back.  It was over.  Jacob was mangled, but at least alive.  Jacob took a deep breath and smiled. 

               Sheila brought down her foot with a grunt and Jacob’s body exploded into gristle and blood.  Nearly everyone in the kennel cried out in shock.  A pool of blood surrounded Sheila’s foot.  Her fists were clenched and she had a satisfied smile on her mouth.  She turned and began walking away.  Her right sole took Jacob’s entrails with it, dragging them across the floor.  Sheila noticed this and brought her foot up behind her and flicked bone and blood fragments off her foot onto the floor. 

               “Egh.  Don’t you boys worry, you’ll get to clean him up later.  I’m gonna watch a little Netflix before my nap.  See ya!”  She walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.  The men walked to the front of the cage to look at the carnage.  Jacob was nothing more than a few skeletal fragments and a smear on the floor.  

               “Jesus”  A voice said. 

               “What did we do” said another.

               “We did what we had to.  If we didn’t, whose to say she wouldn’t have killed even more of us?”

               “Fuck.  Fuck, fuck fuck.  We’re never getting out of here.”

               “Yes, we are.” Darron said. 

               “What the fuck are you talking about?” someone said.  Darron turned away from the bloody mess outside and looked at the rest of the men. 

               “We’re going to get out of here.  I just need time.” 

            We sat in silence for what felt like hours, it may actually have been.  It’s not as though we had any way of knowing.  It wasn’t as though there was much that could be said.  It had been so long and we had seen so much, but every “playtime” was as grotesque and as horrible as the last.  I sat near the gate and looked out at the last blood smear before the door. I could see half of a bone fragment within the massive, bloody footprint.  I knew that staring at the carnage only fed the void growing in my stomach, but I couldn’t look away. 

            “How the fuck is she doing this man?”  A voice said.  The voice was distant, probably coming from far back in the kennel.  “How does she keep fucking doing this?”

            “She must have superpowers.” Another voice said. 

            “Does anyone remember how they got here?” I knew this voice.  It was deep, with a slight southern accent.  Like he was trying to hide it, poorly.  His name was Daniel “We haven’t talked about it.”  

            “What’s the point?” said another unfamiliar voice from the back of the kennel.  “Why should we get to know dead men?” 

            “Talking about it may give us an idea on how to get out of here.”  I said.  “If nothing else, it’ll fill time.” 

            “I remember what happened.” It was Edwin.  He and Daniel got here at the same time.  They were sitting next to each other in front of me and to my left. Daniel was a massive man.  He had forearms the size of footballs and biceps that were even bigger.  He looked like someone who’d done manual labor his entire life.  He had a big black beard and bronze skin that you could barely see through thick strands of body hair.  Edwin was a thinner man, but athletic.  Almost like a swimmer or a cyclist.  His skin was olive and he had black hair as well, but basically no body hair.  There was something   Daniel looked at Edwin with deep worry.  Edwin looked back and put his hand over Daniel’s and began their story. 

* * *

            “Daniel and I were looking for a third.  We’re bisexual, but we were mostly looking for other men.  We set up a Grindr account and just started going through profiles.  We saw one of this guy that seemed normal and had a really nice body.  We started talking and we finally decided to meet after a couple of days.  We never invite strange people into our home so we rented a hotel.”

            “We got to the hotel and tried to make the place you know, sexual?  We burned some incense and lit some candles.  We gave ourselves a little while to get settled and we expected the guy to get there about an hour later.  Literally thirty minutes later we hear the loudest banging on the door.  It almost sounded like the fucking police.  I went to the door and opened it.  That’s the first time I saw her.  She had a big purse or a satchel or something. She was so much taller than me.  She looked down at me and smiled.  Daniel couldn’t see her at the door and asked who it was.   I told him I didn’t know.   I asked her ‘Who are you?’ she said that she was from Grindr.  I told her; ‘Not interested’ and tried to close the door, but she put her foot in the way.  I tried to push the door shut but I couldn’t move it an inch.  She forced her way into the room and I fell back on the floor.  She slammed the door shut behind her and threw her bag on the table next to the door.  Daniel ran to me and tried to help me off the floor.  He asked her who the fuck she was and she just smiled while going through her bag.  Daniel stood up and told her to leave while walking towards her.  She pulled her phone out of her bag then stood and looked at Daniel.  She was even larger than he was.  She finally started talking.  ‘My name is Sheila.’  Daniel said ‘Well, Sheila we’re not into this.  Catfishing is fucked up, just fucking go.’  She said ‘I’m not going anywhere. Daniel.  I came to have fun, just like your profile said.’  Daniel walked towards her and put his hand out.  She grabbed his wrist and forced him onto the ground.  I was so shocked I couldn’t move.  Daniel was one of the strongest people that I’d ever met.  He worked out every day and he used to compete in those strongman competitions.  Sheila handled him like a child.

            “She tapped her phone and the room started growing around us.  Sheila got bigger and bigger and she started smiling more the smaller we got.  We were shrinking so fast our clothes started falling off of us.  Then it stopped.  I couldn’t see anything outside of the folds of my shirt.  It was like I was caught in one of those fishing nets.  I was screaming for Daniel and I could faintly hear him screaming for me.  I saw the collar of my shirt and a little light above me so I started crawling in that direction.  As I got closer I felt the entire world shake.  I was so disoriented that I had completely forgotten about Sheila.  I got out of the shirt and looked up to see her smiling down at me.  She tossed her flip flop off with her foot.  It landed next to me.  It was pretty far from me, but I could smell it.  It was overbearing, I nearly couldn’t breathe. She put her foot right in front of me.  ‘Lick.’  She said.  I didn’t understand.  I was still pretty fucked up from being shrunken.  ‘What’ I said to her.  ‘I’m not fucking doing that.’  She stomped her foot so hard that the shockwave knocked me back on my ass.  I landed really hard on my back.  I looked over and saw Daniel on his stomach screaming something, but my ears were ringing so loud I couldn’t hear him.  I looked up at Sheila.  She wasn’t smiling anymore.  She was so angry.  I got up and tried to run away.  There was a couch with a small opening at the base.  I figured that she wouldn’t be able to get me underneath there.  I felt the room shake as she came after me.  I managed to get underneath the couch by sliding under it.  I turned around and saw her coming towards me.  Every step she took was like an earthquake.  She came to a stop right in front of where I was hiding. 

            “’Come out Edwin.  Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”  I didn’t move at all.  She stomped again rumbling the entire room.  I still didn’t move.  ‘Fine’ she said.  I saw her shift her weight and place her fingers underneath the couch.  In basically one motion with one hand, she threw the couch over.  I couldn’t run.  She grabbed me and held me tight.  She stood up and started walking back towards the door.  I heard Daniel screaming, but I couldn’t see him.  She stopped and said ‘Oh!  I almost forgot about your hunky little friend!”  She bent over and I could see Daniel punching her calf screaming “Let him go you fat bitch.”  She took her free hand and grabbed Daniel.

            “’You two are so cute.  Like a couple of Ken dolls!  We’re going to have so much fun together.’  She walked over to her bag and threw us in.  She picked up her phone, tapped something and then I blacked out.  When I came to, we were both in this kennel.  That’s all I remember.’”

Edwin looked up at everyone.  There was a low murmur throughout the men.  Someone from the back of the kennel said “She used a phone to shrink you?  I remember the same thing.  She tapped something and the next thing I new I was as small as a can of coke.”  There were aggregable mutters. 

            “Where does she get this kind of technology?”  someone said “There can’t just be an app to shrink people.  That’s science fiction.  Are you sure?”

            “No, I remember.”  I knew this voice.  Gerald.  He was one of the first I met when I got here.  He was tall and lanky, with a deep voice.  He was a lighter skinned black man that had been to some Ivy League school.  He told me which one, I just couldn’t remember.  “She pulled the same thing on me.  That’s not just a phone.  It can’t be.” 

            Darron spoke up: “Either way, we’ve got something to go on.  That phone is the source of her power.”

            “It’s not like we can get it from her Darron.” Edwin said. 

            “I know that.  Not yet at least.” 

            “NOT EVER!”  Another voice.  His name was Jamison, or just James.  He was one of the newest captures.  A thinner man.  White.  With short brown hair.  He couldn’t be any older than 25.  He was sitting with his knees drawn to his chest.  “We’re not fucking getting out of here.  I don’t know why we’re even talking about it.  Can’t you see it?  She’s God!  This is it for us!” 

            A quiet fell over the kennel.   

The kennel was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.  I thought about what Jamison said: that Sheila was God.  It was true.  I turned and looked out at the desolate carnage.  The floor covered in enormous bloody footprints.  Within them you could see small pieces of broken bone.  Sheila’s foot odor filled the room so thoroughly every breath we took was filled with it.  It was a heavy, sour odor that went away and that we never really got used to.  Sheila never cleaned the room.  She wanted her prisoners to see the results of defiance.  It was incredibly effective. 

            At least an hour went by before Jamison started speaking again.  

            “There’s got to be something we can do.” His voice was strained, like it took great effort to form those eight words. 

            “You said it yourself” someone said, “She’s God, what the hell are we supposed to do?”

            “I know what I said, but we can’t just accept this,” his voice was sounding clearer, the whimpering gave way to the low rumble of rage.  “We can’t.” 

            “Jamison, sit down” someone said.  The voice came from the dark rear of the kennel where newer prisoners tended to gather.  They naively believed that the farther back they were, the less likely they were to be selected for one of Sheila’s “games.” What they hadn’t yet realized that Sheila had caught onto this long ago and would pull from the back.  We’d watch her enormous arm cruise through the kennel like a train coming into its station.  Her thick fingers would search and claw until they found prey, then they would enclose their victim like five boa constrictors squeezing the life out of their lunch.  The man would scream and beg for his life the entire way out.  We always turned our heads as he looked at us.  We couldn’t bear to see the pain and fear in his eyes.  To hear his vocal cords tear themselves to shreds as he pleaded for help that would never come.  The cries were always the same.  They started with demands for help, then pleading, then came the curses and promises of damnation and finally, the childlike begging for one’s mother.  We watched strong men regress to crying, screaming children as they realized that no help was coming, and their life was coming to a violent end.

            There was a brief silence.  Jamison was standing in the middle of the kennel.  The dim glow of the ceiling light came through holes in the upper side of the kennel.  Jamison’s face was illuminated by a single ray of light.  I could see how fear and stress had aged him. His eyes were hollow, almost sunken within his skull.  His skin was sagging from malnourishment and there were black spots on his torso.  They looked like bruises.  His brown beard was long, scraggly, and discolored.  Specifically, around his mouth where spit and what looked like vomit had dried, coagulated and created a sickly grey color. 

            “We can get out of here.  Even if we can’t, we can’t keep living like this.”  Jamison said.  “We’re men, we deserve to live like men.  We deserve to die like men too. 

            “What are you talking about?”  Another voice from the dark back of the kennel. 

            “I’m talking about taking a stand,” Jamison said.  He turned his head to the back of the kennel.  “A fucking stand!” 

            “You’re talking about trying to fight her.” I said.  I don’t know what made me speak up, I almost never did.  Jamison turned and faced me directly.  The intensity of his gaze made his eyes seem more sunken, almost gaunt. 

            “Yes.  I am,” he said “I’m talking about doing something that matters.”

            “Jamison, you’ve seen what she does to people,” I said “what the hell are we supposed to do against her?  What can we possibly do that would affect her at all?” 

            “I don’t know!  SOMETHING!”  Jamison seemed to be trying to convince himself more than anyone else.  “We have to fucking do something-  Wait.”

            “What?” someone said.

            “Sometimes she leaves the door open right?  We’ve seen her do that before.”

            “Yes,” I said “But we know it’s bait.”  Sheila would occasionally leave the door open during her “playtimes.”  It was a trick for the newer prisoners.  She’d let them get close the threshold before sprinting over and catching them, or worse.

            “What if we had a distraction?  What if we did something to her that would stop her for just a little while.  Maybe some of us could get away. Find help.” 

            “That’s insane Jamison” Darron said.  Someone else who rarely spoke, but when he did everyone in the kennel listened.  He had a commanding presence and a voice to match.   

            “Darron, you said earlier that we’d get out of here,” Jamison said “You haven’t given us any idea as to how.  This is something!”

            “I know, but-“

            “Look out there!” Jamison gestured to the carnage outside “Those men are dead because we didn’t do anything!  Because we were terrified of dying!  That’s how she controls us!  Fear!  I don’t care anymore Darron!  How is living like this better than dying?!  We have to do something, if not for us then for those other men that died under that fat cunts heel!” 

            Darron offered no refutation.

            “I’m with you Jamison.”  A tall man stood up next to Jamison.  He looked to be middle eastern.  His beard was grey, but he didn’t look quite as emaciated as Jamison did.  “I won’t live like this anymore.” 

            “I’m with you too” said another man, then another.  Soon a little less than half the men were standing.  Jamison was smiling, tears were forming in his eyes. 

            “Thank you all.” Jamison said. 

            “Jamison, this is insane.  What are you going to do?” I said “We’re not much bigger than action figures.  What are we going to do against her?”

            “I don’t know yet.  I’ll figure something out.  You’ll know.

            We felt the floor begin to rumble.

            “Sit down!” someone in the back screamed.  Jamison was forced to the floor by another man and those that were standing quickly fell back into place.  The triumphant feeling of the previous moment was replaced with a familiar dread.  The rumbling grew louder and more violent in a steady rhythm. 

            Sheila was coming.   

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