If It Looks Like Candy…

A Shrinking Suspicion

4 months prior to Halloween:

Gerald Winston looked out of the attic window of his ancient, large, 3-story home. The 80 year old long retired looked down. His gaze followed the path of a teenage girl and her dog through his yard. They had taken the sidewalk, of course, but the dog had veered off several feet and, lifting it’s leg, had begun to take a dump near one of his bushes.

--

Gerald was a former electrician as well as software engineer. His partner Gale and he had dabbled in electronics and micro-technologies their whole life.  On the side, the two had worked on their pet project for several years, going back to their days in the military, and had continued off and on through the years, continuing into their retirements and beyond. Gale had always been the hardware and networking specialist, while Gerald had been the ‘idea man’. Together they had formed quite a partnership. Unfortunately, Gale’s passing 3 years earlier meant he had not seen the finishing touches that Gerald had applied to the shrink ray.

Micro-technologies had many practical usages, for a wide range of products such as for airbags for cars, blood pressure monitors, projection display systems and ink-jet printers, among other things. It was useful for components, systems or devices that were small in size or required high precision. The nature of the shrink ray had more sinister motivations, however. Gerald and Gale’s initial foray into it’s development was as a way to get back at the protest movement. Initial annoyance had turned to disgust and eventually to outright hatred. The two had worked on a way to ‘make it disappear’ or at the least, minimize it’s significance.

Unfortunately for them, the concept proved almost impossible in practice.  And yet the two had continued their hobby through the years. If nothing else, it gave them an excuse to get together, reminiscing their experiences and discussing current events. When they had both retired, it gave them something to do. They had finally achieved a breakthrough about five years from present day, finding a way to alter the mass of matter, reducing it and expounding it. Gerald had finally ‘perfected’ the ray shortly after Gale’s death.

Gerald had never liked Millennials. They were too lazy in his view, seldom accounting for their own personal responsibility. They were unappreciative of how folks like him had sacrificed and provided for the country. It was one of the reasons he had decided to never have children.

The neighbors, all of whom had moved into the neighborhood after him (he had lived in the old manor for almost 45 years), had looked upon Gerald as an eccentric hermit. From time to time, strange lights would flicker and emanate on the 2nd or 3rd stories of the house.

***

So it was on the warm summer day that high school junior Nora was walking her pet Chihuahua outside Gerald’s home. The pretty latina teen had a figure that was adored by all men and boys who were lucky to have her come across their vision. She was perfectly proportioned, with her semi-curly brunette hair flowing to her mid-back. While her pert breasts were on the smallish side, somewhere between A and B cup size, she sported sleek, muscular, dark brown long smooth legs, bigger than her 5’4” frame should allow for. Her butt was crafted as if by an artisan. Her physical appeal was a good match with her saucy personality.

Gerald had initially like Nora’s family when they had moved into the smaller house across the street when she was a toddler. He would see them out from time to time on his then daily walks around the neighborhood or when he sat on his porch with Gale after fiddling around with the shrink ray for a couple hours.

Things had changed shortly after that though, when Nora’s parents became outspoken in their protests against the Iraq War. To make matters worse, he didn’t appreciate their support of equal pay for women or their push to the local schools to teach ‘real’ American history. This had prompted Gerald to stop attending city council meetings as it stressed his ticker out. On multiple occasions, he had gotten into arguments with Nora’s father on the idea of gun control.

Recent years had seen Gerald become more reclusive. Oh, there were times he overheard people walking by talking about the ‘kooky’ neighbor as he sat out on his screened-in porch, but he generally kept to himself. He’d also observed Nora having friends over on weekends. He didn’t appreciate their loud, partying ways.

Now – the poop on his lawn. It was the last straw.

I’ll take care of you, young Nora. Just you wait. We’re gonna have some fun come Halloween.

***

Halloween was Gerald’s favorite holiday. The upcoming Halloween would mark the one-year anniversary of his successful first experiment on humans. With all the chaos and mix of people milling about in his busy neighborhood, Halloween was the perfect opportunity to make people he didn’t like disappear without pointing the Police in his direction. After all, nobody had missed those two little twelve year old brats, Missy and George, the Thompkins twins, when they went missing last year. Indeed, nobody thought anything out-of-the-ordinary when their accompanying bulldog, already in it’s own costume, puttered around with blood red ‘paint’ on it’s jowls, thinking the dog was simply decked out appropriately for the festive occasion.

Present Day – Halloween

“C’mon, guys, hurry up! We’re gonna be late for the party!” Nora yelled at her friends who were busy putting on their costumes in various rooms of her house. The five of them had been invited to a Halloween party and they all decided to dress up as different pieces of candy. They had decided to meet at Nora’s house due to it’s relative location to change into costume and head out to the party. Nora herself was a bright green gummy bear. She stood in her main entryway waiting while spooky music played out of a stereo in the living room.

“Alright, alright!” Kathy said as she came down the stairs. “Take it easy! Not everyone’s costume is as easy to put on as yours.” Kathy, a tall brunette of Italian heritage, was dressed as a sucker. Her body was the stick and a large blue orb circled her head like a space helmet.

Next to come was Michael, who asked, “Hey, I know I’m the only one of us who’s black, but did I really need to be the chocolate bar?”

“What are you talking about? It was your idea!” Kathy responded.

Michael smiled, “Yeah, I know. I was just messing with y’all.” Michael was a bit of a computer nerd and class clown. Most of the time he wore glasses, but today, he suffered to wear contacts, something that irritated his eyes if he left them in for more than a few hours. His short hair blended in well for his costume.

Fourth to finish was short blond Jeana who was dressed as a red strawberry hard candy. “Whoa, Jeana!” Nora exclaimed. “Your costume looks perfect!”

“Thanks!” Jeana replied with a smile. “I thought this would be a fitting costume since everyone calls me Jolly Jeana.”

Jeana was popular with the guys. Her personality bordered on the slutty side. At the age of 16, she was the youngest of the bunch and her looks (bubble butt and firm C-cup tits) and flirtatious mannerisms had already procured three lovers, all within the last 18 months. As the boys couldn’t keep quiet about it, her reputation had taken a hit in school. Still, Nora found her a blast to hang out with.

Last to come down was Clayton. As soon as Nora saw him, she said, “Really, Clayton? I told you we were dressing as Halloween candy!”

“Candy corn IS Halloween candy!”

“No, it’s fall candy.”

“Like it makes a difference! Anyway, I didn’t have time to make a costume and this was the best thing they had at the store.” Clayton was a bit of a brat, but Nora found him attractive, so she tended to put up with his antics. The blond-haired boy was a jock and his physical attributes had been apparent to both Nora and Jeana, though Nora had not went ‘all the way’ with him just yet. On the other hand, Jeana had. Neither girl was aware of the mutual attraction to him, though they had joked about his body a couple times.

“Okay, you two, enough arguing!” Kathy butted in. Unlike the other girls, she was annoyed by Clayton’s personality, “Let’s just get to the party.”

“Hey, what’s going on across the street?” Michael asked Nora, pointing out a front window. The house on the other side of the road had an eerie green light shining out the large angular window on the second floor.

“Oh, that’s Dr. Winston. That old weirdo is probably conducting another weird experiment like usual. Either that or he’s just setting a Halloween mood.”

“That’s a casual way of telling us you have a mad scientist for a neighbor. Ha ha!”

“Well, I wouldn’t say he’s ‘mad’ exactly. A little odd, but harmless I think and supposedly real smart. But, I haven’t seen him in months. Anyway let’s get going.” Nora turned toward the kitchen. “We’re leaving now, Mom! Have fun with the trick-or-treaters!”

“Okay, honey! You all have fun at your party!”

The group of friends was about to head out when a beam of light shot out of Dr. Winston’s window. The light was blinding to all of them and each became similarly disoriented for several seconds.

“What the…? What the heck just happened?!” Clayton cried out.

Nora looked around at her now gigantic house. “Oh, my goodness! We’ve shrunk!”

All five of them had been immediately shrunk to the size of about an inch tall, their costumes shrinking with them.

“It must have been your weird neighbor!” Michael clarified.

“I dunno, you might be right.” Nora noticed Jeana shaking with fear. “Don’t panic. We’re not that small. We just have to get my mom’s attention so she can take us over to Dr. Winston and then we’ll be back to normal.”

As if on cue, the floor began to shake from the footfalls of Nora’s mother, Felicia. The doorbell had rang, so she grabbed her bowl of candy and headed for the front door.

The group of friends tried desperately to get Nora’s mother’s attention. They jumped up and down and screamed loudly, but unfortunately it did them no good. Felicia was too focused on her destination to look down and couldn’t hear the teens’ tiny shouts over the sound of the music. She continued to walk forward while holding her bowl of candy.

Once they realized Felicia wasn’t going to notice them, the friends scattered in all directions to avoid being crushed beneath the sexy boots of her witch costume. While she was at the door handing out candy, Kathy suggested they call her using a cell phone.

“We can’t,” Nora replied. “None of our costumes have pockets and I didn’t grab my purse before we shrunk.”

If the friends were paying attention to the front door, they would have noticed that a woman at the door pointed out to Felicia that she had dropped some candy. Felicia thanked her and turned around to pick it up.

The group was excited when Nora’s mom bent down to pick them up. Somehow she had noticed them! However, they didn’t realize that Felicia was not wearing her glasses because they didn’t work well with her costume. Therefore she couldn’t see that the candy she was picking up wasn’t real.  Furthermore, the elbow-long gloves she was wearing didn’t allow her to detect the warmth of the ‘pieces of candy’.  The friends figured this out when they were picked up one by one and tossed into the candy bowl.

The group tried again to get Felicia’s attention from within the bowl, but to no avail. The bigger problem was that they were so focused on getting her attention that they failed to understand where they were. Nora was the first to notice.

“Oh, my gosh, guys! We’re in the candy bowl. If some kid takes us home with them, we’re goners!”

Moments later a mother and daughter showed up at the door. Felicia was good friends with the mother, so they talked for a bit. She also told the daughter to take a big handful of candy from her bowl.

The group was terrified when a monolithic face appeared above them. But it wasn’t that of a monster - it was a little girl, and her name was Alice. She looked to be around 8 years old and was wearing a princess costume. The friends quickly tried to escape as her hands outstretched and scooped up the top layer of candy from the bowl, including all of them. They were then dropped into a plastic pumpkin bucket full of even more candy.

The friends cried out for help one last time as the girl picked up her bucket and happily walked away with them. She and her mother passed by, another group of trick’r’treaters going to the front door.

Watching from across the street with his special binoculars, Gerald cackled quietly to himself as he observed the heat given off by the tiny bodies within the girl’s pumpkin bucket. That takes care of that little shit and her spoiled rotten friends, he thought, chuckling. He would soon retire to bed, having wicked dreams.

--

The friends were carried along and tossed around while Alice visited a few more houses and dumped new candy on their heads, burying them in the wrapped treats. Eventually the girl made it back home and carried her pumpkin pail up to her room to indulge in some sweets.

“Now don’t eat all your candy tonight, little princess. Make sure to save some for dessert tomorrow and the day after that. And don’t forget to brush your teeth!”, Alice’s mother chided her.

“Ok mom”, Alice said, rolling her eyes and trudging up the stairs to her room.

***