- Text Size +
Dr. Raven Albert stomped into the room and slammed her file folder down on the desk in disgust.  “Those idiots!” she said.  She crossed her arms and stood, fuming.

Albert’s lab assistant, Blaine Meir, smiled, hoping to help soothe his boss.  “I take it the pitch didn’t go well,” he said.

“Not.  Well.  At all,” Raven said.

“So, how does this one rate in relation to the other times?” Blaine asked.

Raven’s brow furrowed.  Blaine realized she was about to start crying, something he’d never seen her do before.  “It was the worst,” she said.

“Worse than the third time?” Blaine asked.

“Way worse,” she said.  “They told me never to bring the Candy Rock proposal to them again, or I’d be fired.”

“That’s bad,” Blaine said.  “But it’s not the end of the world.  You’ve still got your research, and your job.”

Raven shook her head.  “You don’t understand,” she said.  “There’s no way you could.”

“Hey, boss, it’s OK,” Blaine said.  He was torn.  He wanted to hug her, to comfort her -- but then, he had wanted to hold Raven since the day he met her.  She was tall, curvy and beautiful, and he had been smitten since he first laid eyes on her.  But she was his boss, and such a move wouldn’t be appropriate on his part.

Raven leaned into Blaine and laid her head on his shoulder.  She sobbed for a moment, then pulled back and worked to compose herself.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s OK,” Blaine said.  “I know this was a big deal to you.”

Raven wiped her eyes.  “It’s more than that,” she said.  “It’s my life’s dream, my life’s work.”

Blaine was surprised to hear Raven say this, all though it explained her obsession with the mysteries of Candy Rock.  “Really?” he said.

Raven nodded.  “Really,” she said, “and I’m not done with this yet.”

Blaine’s eyes darted back and forth as he processed what she was saying.  “But the company said --”

“The company doesn’t control the site,” Raven said.  “I can get us in, and we can do the work there, on our own.”

“On our own?” Blaine repeated.

Raven ran her hand through her hair.  “Oh, I’m sorry, Blaine, I shouldn’t have assumed that.  Look, I know this would be off the clock work -- without pay -- but I believe I can get the data we need to prove my theories on the site, and it really could change science as we know it forever.”

Blaine’s expression looked as though he’d eaten something that he wasn’t too sure was good.  “But, Raven, your research on growth here has been remarkable.  You’ve made more progress than anyone else I know in ways to safely grow crops and farm animals.  If you pursue this, you might be throwing all that away.”

“Blaine, it’s because of what I know from Candy Rock that I’ve been able to make that progress,” Raven said.  “That’s why I’ve got to pursue this.  But I‘ll need an assistant for most of the data collection, and I‘d really like it to be you.”

Blaine was trying to understand what she meant by “what I know from Candy Rock,” but he was also gazing into those clear blue eyes, the most lovely he’d ever seen.  He saw the earnest desire in them.  He knew that desire wasn’t for him, but for his help; still, he couldn’t resist.  “All right,” he said.  “But how will we get in?  Candy Rock is under the control of the government.  It has been since the mid-1950s.”

Raven smiled.  “You remember your history of the case.  Good.  But don’t worry.  I can get us in.”

They set up the plan for Raven to pick Blaine up at his apartment on Saturday morning.  At the end of the day, she came over to Blaine and said, “Thank you.” She craned up on her toes and kissed his cheek, then pivoted and left.  “See you Saturday,” she said, doing a flirtatious finger-wave over her shoulder.

“See you then,” Blaine said.  The things I’ll do for a date, he thought.

On Friday evening, Blaine turned over what he could remember of the Candy Rock case in his mind, hoping he could pull up all the pertinent details.

In 1956, a woman named Emmy Lou something and her boyfriend, Artie Pinsetter (he remembered that oddball last name) had gone off into the woods and rocky hillsides in the area of the town of Candy Rock, named for one of those little crags.  Something had happened -- there was a dispute about what, exactly -- that had caused Emmy Lou to grow to 30 feet tall.  Some said the cause was a magic Indian spring, others Pinsetter’s amateur invention.  Raven was convinced that it had to do with atomic testing in the area in some way.

For reasons Blaine didn’t understand, Pinsetter had married Emmy Lou while she was a giantess.  After the wedding, he tried to hose her down to give her a shower and she grew a few more feet with the exposure to water.

Ultimately, it was an invention of Pinsetter’s that allowed the excess mass from Emmy Lou to be transferred to Pinsetter’s pet dog.  Unfortunately, the dog didn’t handle the extra size well, and had to be put down.

The problem the bizarre incident had from a scientific standpoint was that no one had been able to duplicate what happened.  There had been experiments performed exploring all theories, including the ones Raven supported, but none had produced any size change in the subject.

Blaine smiled as he thought about Raven.  Her name really didn’t fit her.  She was Nordic-looking, with pale skin, blue eyes and light blonde hair -- not a look one would associate with a raven.  But she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, with the most spectacular body -- large breasts, a relatively small waist and a glorious round derriere.  She had ears that begged to be nibbled on, and a very sexy neck.

What Blaine found most attractive about Raven -- just ever-so-slightly more so than her face and body -- was that she was so wickedly intelligent.  She was quite possibly the smartest person he knew, although he was always a little bit freaked out by a sort of 1930s mad-scientist streak in her personality.

The morning came, and Raven pulled up in a white sports car.  There was a mound of silk in the back seat.  “Hop in,” she said.

Blaine glanced at the back seat’s contents.  “Parachutes?” he said.

“They used to be,” she said.  “If this experiment works, we’ll need them.”

Shortly after they started, Raven turned on the CD player.  “My favorite album,” she said.  “I really wanted to hear it today … with everything.”

At Candy Rock, Raven identified herself to the guards and they immediately allowed her in.  “How do you have that kind of pull?” Blaine asked.

Raven smiled.  “When it comes to this place, I have connections,” she said.

They pulled up near a cave.  After parking, Raven had Blaine help her remove the silken fabric from the back seat.  He quickly realized that it had been sewn into a dress.  From the look of things, the dress was at least 50 years old.

“Is this what I think it is?” Blaine asked.

“If you think it’s the wedding dress of the 30-Foot Bride of Candy Rock, then, yes, it is,” Raven said.

“But how did you get your hands on this?” Blaine asked.

“I have connections,” Raven said.

Blaine looked around.  “So, where are we testing, and where’s the test subject?”

“We’re testing in there,” Raven said.  “And you’re looking at the test subject.”

Blaine shifted his head away from Raven, then rapidly back to her.  “You?”

“No choice,” she said.  “It’s got to be me.”

“Raven, you can’t do that!” Blaine said.  “It violates all the principles of science!  The scientist can’t be the test subject.”

“Normally, I would agree,” she said, “but this is my only option here.”

Blaine took a deep breath before saying, “Then at least let me be the test subject,” he said.  “You’re the scientist; I’m just the assistant.”

Raven caressed his cheek.  “That’s sweet,” she said.  “And, as a scientist, it would be tempting -- but not as someone who cares about you.  I know what I’m getting into.  Besides, it wouldn’t work on you.  You’re a man.”

“What’s that got to do with this?” Blaine asked.

“Everything,” Raven said.  “Remember, the original Candy Rock incident happened in the 1950s.  Attitudes toward women were different then, and the military saw the opportunity to create a bunch of giant soldiers -- all of whom would have been male back then.  So, the on ly test subjects in efforts to duplicate the experiment were men -- no women.”

Blaine started to protest, but Raven grabbed his hand.  “Come on,” she said.  “I need to go in to the cave far enough to be away from the fresh air at the entrance, and I need you to stand at the entrance to monitor things.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Scientists thought Emmy Lou Pinsetter’s gigantic growth was due to the water she drank, or Artie’s invention, but they’re wrong,” Raven said, reaching the cave entrance.  “You’ll be able to hear me as I go in.  Anyway, it was the gasses of the cave, infused with radiation carried here by underground streams and mingled into the area’s water supply, that did it.  It wasn’t the water itself.  The radiation level is way too low.  But, when it mixed with the natural and unique combination of gasses in the cave, it produced gigantic growth.”

“But how do you know all this -- like the cave’s acoustics, and what exactly triggered the growth?” Blaine asked.

“Simple,” said Raven’s voice from inside the cave.  “I heard it from Emmy Lou Raven Pinsetter herself.”

Blaine’s eyes widened.  “Emmy Lou Raven Pinsetter?” he said.

“That’s right,” Raven said.  “My first name is my great-grandmother’s maiden name.”

“Great-grandmother?!”

“Give me a minute,” Raven said, her voice sounding louder.  “I’ve got to take a few deep breaths to get the full effect.”  Then after a few seconds, Blaine heard ripping sounds, then heard an even louder voice, saying, “Yes, Blaine.  The 30-Foot Bride of Candy Rock was my great-grandmother.”

Blaine was too stunned to speak.  He leaned against the entrance.  This explained so much, he thought.

Then he heard an echoing voice say, “Better clear the entrance, Blaine.  I need to get out quickly, and its gonna be a tight fit.”

Blaine got clear as he saw the enormous head of Raven Albert, rapidly growing slide past him.  He fell back into the side of the crag, then slid down to its base, as he watched Raven, naked and still growing swiftly, emerge.  Her knees were already above his head as she stood up straight, and she was still swelling, surging upward.

Blaine could see everything from his vantage point.  A small corner of him was fascinated to see the private parts of a woman for whom he had feelings, but he was in too much shock to enjoy it too much.

Raven picked up the silken wedding dress.  It looked a bit small as she held it up, but she was still growing, making it seem tinier and tinier.

Raven frowned.  “Must have overshot my mark,” she said.  “Ah, well.  The main thing is, I’m all the proof I need now for my theories.”

Blaine craned his head back to see Raven stop growing.  He estimated her height at just under 70 feet tall.  The dress her 30-foot great-grandma had worn for her wedding now looked like something a young flower girl would wear to a wedding.

Raven turned her colossal head toward her lab assistant.  She gave him a coy finger wave.  “Hi, cutie,” she said.  “So, whaddaya think?”

It had all been too much for Blaine.  He passed out.
You must login (register) to review.