Lima, May 23, 2102:  I am in Santa Fe hospital on the Pacific coast, recovering from the injuries I sustained two days ago.  Javier was released yesterday, and has kindly offered to stay with me until I am well enough to go to Cali.  Mostly, he has been speculating about the women who visited Ciudad Hullaga. I am now able to tell, say, a teddy from a bodice.  Given what happened two days ago, that is a small consolation, but with faith now in such short supply, it is about all we survivors have.

After I heard Esperanza's threat two days ago, I knew that I had to get out of Ciudad Huallaga.  I could've tried to warn everybody of the imminent attack, but who would believe me?  For weeks, street preachers were claiming that the women who were coming were actually vampires, or werewolves, or worse.  (Only one speculated that the women were actually 15-meter-tall giants.)  The ladies weren't coming to mate with us; they were going to eat us.  Or something.  The point is, nobody listened to them, either.

What I could do, maybe, was convince just Javier about the danger, and get him to leave town with me.  Of course, I didn't sleep well, but out of sheer urgency, I called Javier at 0500, and told him to meet me at the Terminal Bolívar.  Good friend that he is, he agreed.

We met at the city's main train station a bit after 0630.  The daily commuters had started rolling in, blissfully unaware of what was coming. Some left the station, but most just boarded other trains that took them closer to work.

After picking up coffee and tamales, we sat at a bench near the main departure board, looking for a train that would both leave soon and head to a suitable destination.  As we scanned the board, I told Andrés about the attack on Arecibo and Esperanza's personal message, but he was not quite convinced. "Javier," he asked, "if she lied to you about her intentions, how do you know that the women are coming at all now?  How do you know it was really her at Arecibo, and not another 'Tec?"

"Maybe she was lying, Andrés," I retorted testily, "but you didn't see either the feed from Arecibo or the way Esperanza spoke to me this morning.  'Esperanza!'" I sneered.  "What a hypocritical name!"

During that talk, we found a good train to board, a mountain transport that would scoot east across the highest Andean passes before turning south.  Heading to its final destination in La Paz was out of the question -- it would probably come under attack, too -- but the big construction rigs never visited Cusco or Juliaca, so those cities were safe.

Then, at 0745, as we boarded the train, it started.

A powerful tremor shook the building, as though a nuclear weapon had gone off.  The next thing we heard was the air-raid sirens going off. Then, the televisions in the lobby flashed from the usual morning cartoons into a live news report from the Hullaga International Airport. Our jaws, and those of everyone else in the crowded lobby, dropped at the sight.

An enormous hemisphere of shimmering scarlet light, well over a hundred meters in radius, had formed over the airport runway.  We could see a shockwave radiating from its center, knocking down the few service vehicles that remained on the tarmac.  After a few moments, the shimmer faded, revealing five humanoid figures.

Esperanza hadn't lied about the women -- the five of them were gargantuan!  The smallest, a woman with soft curls of pale blonde hair falling over bare shoulders well over seven meters wide, stood just over sixty meters tall.  The largest of the giantesses, seventy meters from head to toe, had light orange hair which flowed luxuriously down her back, almost halfway to her waist.  The other three women all had brown hair: the darkest skinned one looked like an African, the lightest one had her hair cut so that her neck was bare, and the other one's hair bounced freely down to the top of her shoulders.  All of them were stunningly beautiful, with full breasts, hourglass figures and powerfully gorgeous legs.  Each of them was wearing the cosmetics of which, as Andrés kept reminding me, made them even more lovely.

"Jesus," muttered Andrés, "these are more women from the 1900s. Actresses, models, or more likely, prostitutes."

I stared at him.  He was fascinated by the sight, and was obviously concentrating on their apparel. "All of them are wearing high heels, just like at Christmas," he informed us all quite loudly.  "The blondes are wearing things called 'teddies;' the big one is in purple, the other one is in red.  Both of them have stockings on; the smaller one is wearing black ones, the big one's are also purple.  The one with the short hair is in a gold bodysuit that hugs her body.  The last two are wearing short-shorts and halters.  The dark one is in red, with demi-boots on, and the light one is in pink.  From the way they're surveying the area, they expected to be as big as they are.  Judging from the way they're dressed," he added ominously, "they came to play." Each of them carried a case of some sort.

As though they expected a camera in the helicopter, the women turned to it, and struck a rather provocative pose.  Each of them spread her feet at least thirty meters wide, planting their hands on their curvy hips. All but the one in pink wore short, open-fingered gloves that highlighted well manicured fingernails.

"HELLO," said the big, purple-clad blonde, with a grin wider than I was tall.  "MY NAME IS IMELDA."

"I'M TERESA," announced the dark skinned woman in the red two-piece outfit.  "I AM NAMED ANDREA," declared the brunette in pink, the one with the bouncy hair.

"CALL ME CRISTINA," smiled the small blonde in red.

"AND I'M ROSA," offered the short-haired titan.  "AND WE CAME TO TAKE SOME OF YOU.  I PROMISE WE WON'T TRASH THIS PLACE COMPLETELY," she smirked, "BUT THIS IS OUR FIRST TIME OUT HERE."

And at that all five of the giant women boomed in menacing laughter.

The only helicopter in town belonged to the television station, and someone in it was now giving us an aerial view of the titanic females. They were now milling around the airport, looking for men.  Three of them peered inside the terminal, and saw no one.  To the surprise of one of them, the building did nothing when she sat on it; it had been reinforced by the robots in January.  Bored and frustrated -- the airport was closed, so there were no men there -- they stepped on several on the carts on the runway, flattening them under their stiletto heels, and headed away, followed by the helicopter.  Having reached the tollway that led from the airport downtown, the titanic beauties started on separate paths.

At the terminal, there wasn't a single man among us who didn't have that sickening felling of sexual arousal.  Andrés, the expert on women, was relatively calm, but many of us were grabbing at our crotches in a vain attempt to relieve tingling that none of them had ever felt before. Several men wet their pants, and I myself felt that odd, milky fluid coming out of my own stiff penis.  Overall, it was a disgusting sight.

On the crowded tollway, Andrea put down her case and started a deadly game with the men travelling along it.  Rather than stepping directly on the cars, she stepped in between them with the front of her foot, and waited for the car to helplessly crash into the sole of her shoe. Letting the back of her foot down, she allowed her weight to settle on the roof of the car, stabbing it with her spiked heel.  After a few rounds of this, Andrea had three cars impaled on each heel.   The men in those impaled cars had survived, but surely perished once Andrea lifted each shoe up fifteen meters in the air, reached down, and slid the cars off her heels, sending them crashing onto the ground.  Men in other cars finally had a moment to stop and scramble on foot from their deathtraps before Andrea started her second cycle.

"TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM ME, ARE YOU, LITTLE MEN?" Andrea boomed mockingly, as now she started stepping on men as well as cars, but didn't crush them into the augmented pavement.  Instead, she applied just enough pressure to the ball of her foot to pin one or two men between it and the hard surface.  The first few men she toyed with in this way perished, but with practice, Andrea learned to step on her (mostly) unwilling pets just hard enough to immobilize them.  "I'LL BET YOU'LL FEEL GOOD INSIDE ME," she propositioned lewdly, "BUT THIS IS ALL I CAN DO RIGHT NOW!"  She was still playing her two games -- impaling cars on her heels and stepping on men -- when the helicopter camera turned elsewhere.

The roads taken by Cristina and Rosa as they approached the toll booth were not reinforced.  These two women, the helicopter showed, were careful not to step on anyone, but their spike heels dug well over a meter into the earth, and simply destroyed the pavement as they walked. Their shapely calves tore through the telephone and power wires suspended over the streets as if they were made of thin paper. Sparks flew, and a few fires began where the wires hit the ground.

"WHAT A BACKWARDS WORLD," commented Rosa.

"YEAH," concurred Cristina.  "THEY STILL USE SILLY STRING TO TRANSMIT POWER!"

They reached the toll booth, packed with commuters.  They could see the men getting out of their cars, so naturally, the women found other targets.  "LOOK!" noted Cristina.  "A CUTE LITTLE TOLL BOOTH!"

"WHY DON'T WE ROB IT?" Rosa suggested mockingly.

First, standing at opposite ends of the booth, they bent down and lifted the roof.  The booth, not reinforced, gave way too easily, falling apart like cheap crackers in the hands of the giantesses as they pulled it up. For some men, that was the last of their lives, as pieces of the roof fell on them.  But the toll collectors had all survived, and Cristina and Rosa plucked them into the sky, inspected them, and placed them in their now-open cases.

Done with the toll booth, the titanesses picked up the commuter buses, whose passengers were never able to get out of them.  On the first attempt, each of the women crushed a bus in her titanic hand. Lacquered, blood-red fingernails the size of coffee tables punctured the sides of the buses as though they were made of cardboard.  "THESE BUSES ARE SO DELICATE!" observed Rosa.

"AND THE LITTLE PASSENGERS ARE SO CUTE!" giggled Cristina, as she placed her damaged bus up to her bright blue eyes.  "I WANT THEM NOW!"

"PATIENCE, MY DEAR CRISTINA.  WE'LL HAVE OUR CHANCE."  With that, both women placed the buses in their cases.  Each of them took six more buses before moving on.  Rosa looked back at Andrea, still playing her dangerous games, and yelled at her to "GET BUSY!  YOU CAN PLAY WITH THEM WHEN WE GET HOME!"  Cristina and Rosa shut their cases and moved on to follow the progress of the others as they headed downtown.

The helicopter then followed Teresa along Calle 6.  That street was not important enough for the robots to have reinforced, so it crumbled under Teresa's high heeled demi-boots, but it did lead to the University. More importantly, it led to the dormitories.  Her target, a building six stories tall, reached halfway up her thighs.  She stopped, and bent down to look inside.  Seeing that it still had students in it, she stood up, gave a moan of lustful anticipation (at least that's what Andrés called it), and straddled it effortlessly.  After a pause, she sighed, savoring the moment, and looked at the helicopter.  "HEY, LITTLE GUYS," she cooed, "WATCH ME SEDUCE ALL THESE YOUNG MEN AT ONCE!"  Smiling seductively at the helicopter, Teresa reached down, and, with her black, gloved hand, stroked the sides of the building as though it were a lover's head of hair.  She pointed to her hips as she rotated them over the building, inviting the camera to leer at them.  Once it did, Teresa slowly, sensuously, began to sit on the unreinforced structure.  The moment her buttocks touched the roof, it caved in, and as she proceeded her way down, her vast weight collapsed floor after floor.  It was clear that Teresa wasn't using all her mass, but she wanted her audience to understand what she was doing -- and so it was that about five seconds passed before each of the levels gave way.  Finally, only the lowest two levels were left standing.  Once fully settled, Teresa, surveyed the remnants of the floors before her, looking for survivors.  Gazing inside the remains of the highest floor, she smiled at the men there, then cupped her hands at the edge.  "Y'ALL HAD BETTER COME WITH ME," she threatened, "OR I MIGHT DESTROY YOU, TOO!"  Immediately, men leaped into her huge palms, and dumped them into her case.  When she was done with the sixth floor, Teresa didn't have to say anything to the fellows on the fifth -- they quickly dived into her ponderous, waiting hands.  She must have taken a hundred men from that hapless dormitory.

Finally, we got to see Imelda in action.  As the most destructive of the women, Imelda didn't bother with the formality of streets.  She simply plowed through buildings, proclaiming, "RENTS ARE TOO DAMN HIGH!".  In most cases, she simply crushed houses, apartments and shops underneath her purple stiletto-heeled pumps, not in the least concerned that anyone would be inside them.  When she crossed a street, she made sure to kick any vehicle that got in her way ("OUTTA THE WAY, LITTLE MAN!" she screamed), sending it flying into a nearby tenement and setting a vicious fire.  The first of the giantesses to reach the central skyscrapers, Imelda walked through one, and survived without a scratch. Another, she levelled by slamming her ample hips into the side of the ninth floor.  The twenty-story hall broke in two at impact, the upper half falling apart and showering her with glass, steel, concrete and dead men.  Laughing maliciously, she insultingly brushed off the stuff that had gotten stuck onto her fabulous body, and moved on.  To her annoyance, several of her targets were reinforced, and she had to content herself with playing 'tag' with the terrified men inside a seventeen story structure.  Though she had to stretch, Imelda found herself able to even reach the highest level as she grabbed man after man and placed them in her case.  After capturing a couple dozen victims (and, judging from the blood on her hand, crushing several more), Imelda became bored, sat on a reinforced five-story office, and waited for the others.

It seemed fortunate that the train to La Paz was ready to leave. Realizing what these women might do to us, we scrambled onto the train. In the fifteen minutes it took the other four women to join Imelda, the train was crowded, and ready to go.

We needn't have bothered.  Even as the train accelerated out of town, the ground was shaking as the giantesses strode into view, and I could see four of the invaders from my window seat.

In the distance, Cristina and Rosa, the last to reach the central area, were visible behind some ten-story apartment complexes.  They were looking over the scene, and I was even able to meet Cristina's eyes directly (though I doubt she noticed me).

Behind us, Teresa had reached the station itself.  "HEY, BOYS, SORRY YOU MISSED THE TRAIN!" she said with sarcastic relish, and, reaching across the station with one mighty arm, tore its roof off.  "DON'T WORRY, I'LL TAKE YOU OUT OF TOWN," she promised, and started scooping men from inside and placing them into her case.

To my left, Andrea had resumed her games, but was now stepping on the streetlights, as well. She was also reaching down and taking cars in her hand, and putting them in her case.  Occasionally, she used one mighty pink-coated fingernail to rip the doors off a car and dump its human contents into hand.  The luckless men were inserted into her halter and shorts, trapped between the pink clothing and her breasts and crotch.

It was all I could take, sitting in that seat.  Figuring that we were dead, anyway, I reached inside my pants and started stroking my penis, which had never been so hard in all my life.

Andrés wanted to be disgusted with this (I certainly was, though I couldn't stop myself), but instead he was amused.  He smiled at me and started on an insult:  "You should've watched skin disks when you had --"

Suddenly, the train violently stopped, sending us all bouncing off the walls and seats.  Those of us who survived the wrenching impact then felt ourselves being lifted rapidly, as though we had just been put on the world's fastest elevator.  The moment the ascent stopped, our bodies, dead and alive, fell to one end of the car.

I heard a booming, feminine voice cry out, "HEY, TERESA!  YOUR LITTLE MEN CAN GET ANOTHER CHANCE TO CATCH THIS TRAIN!"  Peeking out the window, I found to my terror that Imelda had caught the train in her immense hands.  She was crushing the car behind ours in those purple-gloved monsters of hers.  I could only imagine what the men in there were feeling as their world collapsed about them.

Imelda squeezed so hard that the car in her hands broke in two.  She caught the falling halves of the train in each hand, then, smiling "ADIOS, AMIGOS!" at our half, dropped it.  We bounced off the ceiling, Andrés' body and mine cushioned by the bodies of several men who were killed when Imelda first grabbed the train.  We felt ourselves falling to the ground, only to slow down when the car before ours crashed into the elevated tracks.  Finally, we stopped, our car maybe a meter from the ground.  Outside the nearest window of the ruined car, I could see Imelda's lovely legs, capped with those luscious, purple stiletto-heeled pumps, bending over towards the tracks.

My body filled with pain, and I could feel myself losing consciousness. The last thing I saw was the beauteous Imelda tearing the roof off the cars still in her hand, and dumping the passengers into her case.

Andrés tells me that the giantesses disappeared not long after that. They assembled in the City Park and formed another monstrous hemisphere around themselves, and were gone seconds later, along with perhaps a thousand men.  The devastating beauties killed half that many, and left large parts of the city in ruins.  Ten thousand were injured, and with Ciudad Hullaga Hospital packed, many of those, like myself, have been sent as far away as Buenos Áires and Caracas.

The spiritual damage, however, is even worse, and it has, no doubt, spread all over the Patriarchate.  What kind of God lets something like this happen?  The mystics have all died, too, and there is talk that God has sent the women here as angels of judgement.

At long last, I am beginning to accept Andrés's view of history.  Maybe we did kill our original women, after all.  Maybe Esperanza and these giantesses are their sisters, coming here for revenge.  And maybe, if there is a good God, they have finished punishing us.  But the passing hours are making faith a difficult proposition, and I fear our troubles have just begun.

END