Chapter 2
Linda stood in the living room archway, her piercing blue eyes locked on Scott as he lingered in the dollhouse’s tiny doorway, its pastel walls cracked from months of neglect. The room’s vast shadows stretched across the faded carpet, swallowing the frail structure and offering no refuge for his four-inch frame. Scott’s shrunken limbs trembled, his tattered loincloth damp with sweat, as her gaze bore into him, unaware of the hunger driving her. Months of meticulous scheming—quitting her job at a Florida pet store, packing her life into a battered suitcase, moving to the Northeast, and spinning a web of lies to win Louise’s trust—had culminated in this moment. The Incredible Shrinking Man, once a tabloid curiosity, was now her obsession, his fragility a pulsing beacon to her darkest desires. Her heart thudded, a primal rhythm echoing the crunch of tiny bones from her past.
Her fixation on crushing had taken root in childhood, a twisted seed planted in a Florida garden under a blistering sun. At ten, Linda wandered the stone path behind her mother’s bungalow, her bare feet gritty with dirt, crushing snails that glistened in the morning dew. Their shells popped under the ball of her foot, a sharp crack followed by a wet smear of viscous innards across the warm stone. Her mother, a wiry woman with eyes like chipped flint, knelt beside her, her voice low and fervent: “Feel them break, Linda. You’re stronger than they’ll ever be.” The sound—the brittle snap, the soft squish—sent a shiver through Linda’s small frame, a thrill she couldn’t name but craved. Ants followed, their black bodies bursting in tiny puffs under her toes; beetles, their carapaces splintering; worms, writhing until they stilled in slick, muddy streaks. The garden path grew treacherous, slick with carnage, as her mother’s praise wove a twisted lullaby: “You’re in control, Linda. Small things bend to you.” Abandoned by a husband who mocked her frailty, her mother had vowed to forge a daughter who’d never break, who’d see the small and fragile as hers to destroy.
By twelve, Linda hunted alone, her bare feet silent on the dew-soaked grass. In the shed behind the house, she cornered spiders, their legs curling under her heel’s slow press. By the creek, she stalked frogs, their damp bodies yielding with a muted pop as she ground them into the mud. Each crush was a ritual, a private communion with destruction, the act intimate as a secret kept from the world. At thirteen, she slipped into her bedroom, the door’s lock clicking like a vow, sealing her in a sanctuary of power. Her pulse raced as she clutched a hamster stolen from a friend’s sleepover, its golden fur matted with sweat, its tiny heart hammering against her palm. She knelt on the hardwood floor, its cool grain pressing into her knees, and released the creature, watching it skitter in blind panic, its claws scratching faintly against the wood.
Her mother’s voice slithered through her mind: “You control them, Linda.” Linda rose, her shadow engulfing the hamster’s quivering form, her lips curling into a faint smile, a flicker of unease buried beneath the hunger she was learning to embrace. She lifted her foot, the sole hovering, savoring the hamster’s frantic darting, its eyes like black beads glinting with terror. Slowly, she pressed down, the soft resistance of its body giving way to a sickening crunch, ribs splintering, a high-pitched squeak cut short. She twisted her foot, grinding the remains into a glistening smear, fur and blood melding with the floor’s polished grain. Her mother, finding the stain the next morning, smirked, her fingers brushing Linda’s shoulder. “A woman’s foot is power, Linda. Wield it.”
At fifteen, Linda crept into the shed at dusk, the air thick with the scent of mildew and decay, the concrete floor cold against her bare feet. She clutched a gray mouse, its wiry tail thrashing, its black eyes bulging as she pinned it with a strip of duct tape to the scarred concrete. The tape’s adhesive scent mingled with the shed’s musty tang, heightening her focus. She loomed over the mouse, her toe tracing its spine, feeling its shudders ripple through her skin. Its squeaks grew shrill, desperate, as she raised her foot, the ball poised above its head. Her mother’s voice echoed—“You control them”—but Linda needed no guide now, her cruelty a flame she fed herself. She pressed down, the skull collapsing with a wet pop, a brief resistance before brain and bone smeared across the concrete, the gritty texture tingling under her sole. The thrill surged, a primal heat in her veins, shame a fleeting shadow she crushed as easily as the mouse.
Days later, she bought pinkie mice from her old pet store, their translucent bodies no larger than grapes, their pink skin pulsing with fragile life. In the shed’s dim light, cast by a flickering bulb, she scattered them across the concrete, a cold altar for her ritual. Their blind, writhing forms squealed faintly, barely audible over her steady breaths. One caught her eye, its minuscule limbs flailing, a tiny heart visible through paper-thin flesh. She stood, her big toe hovering, the faint warmth of its life radiating upward. Slowly, she pressed down, the mouse bursting in a grotesque squish, blood and tissue oozing between her toes, a warm, slick sensation that sent a jolt through her core. Another followed, then another, each crush a pulse of power, her bare feet stained red in the bulb’s jaundiced glow, shame drowned by the hunger that roared within her.
At sixteen, Linda bought her first pair of high heels and pantyhose, their allure transforming her ritual into something sacred. The shed’s dank air clung to the scarred concrete, etched with faded stains of past victims, lit by the bulb’s jittery glow. She slipped into her stilettos, their sharp black points glinting like obsidian, and sheer nylon, the fabric clinging to her legs like a shimmering second skin, catching the light with each step. The nylon’s whisper, a soft hiss, filled the silence as she moved. In her hands, she cradled a guinea pig, bought with her first paycheck from a pet store, its brown fur quivering, its heart pounding against her fingers like a trapped bird. She set it on the concrete, its claws scrabbling faintly, its squeaks sharp in the stale air. Her mother’s voice lingered: “Wield your power, Linda.” Linda adjusted her stance, the pantyhose taut over her arches, and positioned her heel above the guinea pig, its eyes wide with primal fear.
Her breath hitched, the moment stretching as she savored the creature’s terror. Slowly, she pressed down, the stiletto’s point piercing its flank, a piercing shriek erupting before a vile crack silenced it, bones shattering under her weight. The body convulsed, legs twitching as organs ruptured in a wet squelch, blood pooling beneath her heel. She twisted, grinding the remains into the concrete, a flattened ruin of fur, bone, and crimson, the nylon slick with gore. Lifting her foot, she inspected the carnage, the heel’s tip glistening red, a faint tremor of guilt snuffed out by the thrill coursing through her. Her mother, stepping into the shed later, saw the smear and nodded, her voice a low purr: “You’re mastering it, Linda. Embrace your strength.”
Now, in Louise’s living room, Linda’s stilettos clicked softly on the hardwood, each step a deliberate echo of the shed’s rituals, the nylon whispering against her legs like a conspirator. The dollhouse, a flimsy mockery of safety, stood on the carpet’s worn pile, its plastic walls trembling as her shadow fell over it. Scott’s four-inch frame shrank back, his eyes wide, sensing the danger in her calm. His tiny chest heaved, the air thick with dust and the faint scent of Louise’s perfume lingering in the room. The living room’s vastness amplified his fragility—couch cushions loomed like cliffs, the coffee table a distant mesa, its glass surface reflecting Linda’s towering form.
“Scott,” she said, her voice soft, almost tender, but laced with a hunger that made his skin prickle. “You’re even smaller than I imagined.” She crouched, her red nails glinting in the lamplight, her minidress stretching taut as her knees bent, bringing her face closer to the dollhouse. Her breath, warm and faintly mint-scented, stirred the air, a hot gust against Scott’s face, making him flinch. Her smile curled, sharp as a blade, as she tilted her head, studying him like a specimen pinned under glass. “All those stories about you,” she murmured, her fingers twitching, brushing the dollhouse’s roof, sending a tremor through its walls. “I had to see for myself.”
Scott’s throat tightened, his voice barely a rasp. “What do you want, Linda?” His tiny hands gripped the doorway, the plastic’s rough edge biting into his palms, his pulse hammering as her shadow swallowed him. Memories of Louise’s foot, its crushing weight, flashed through his mind, but Linda’s gaze held a different threat—calculated, ravenous.
“Just to know you,” she said, her voice a velvet trap, her stiletto tapping once, the sharp clack reverberating through the carpet’s fibers, shaking Scott’s fragile world. “Up close.” Her fingers lingered on the dollhouse, tracing its roofline, as if testing its fragility—or his. Scott stumbled back, the doorway’s shadow his only refuge, his shrunken heart pounding with the certainty that her calm masked something monstrous.