January/ 8/ 2006 : Mount San Antonio State Penitentiary
“Attention all inmates, Please line up for mandatory cell inspection.” Screeched the intercom, and awaking inmate #2357, aka Gerome Tillman from his sleep.
Gerome sighed, and wiped the crust and sweat from his eyes. This was the fifth night in a row that the guards had awakened him from his dreams; for cell inspection no less. In his mind it was starting to get a little annoying, and the worst part was that he had about 42 more years of his 50 year sentence left to serve.
“ATTENTION ALL INMATES, PLEASE LINE UP FOR MANDATORY CELL INSPECTION!” demanded the man on the intercom to the wise guys who inevitably don’t get the message.
Must be one of the new guys, thought Gerome as he took his place in line and stared into the dirty concrete wall on the other side; his thoughts no longer with the desperation and disrepair of this prison, but rather with his wife and two daughters back in Mississippi, who he will likely never see again.
This time cell inspection was taking longer and was much more noisy than usual. He sighed as curiosity finally got to him. Looking to his left he saw a young man no older than 20 covered head to toe in gang tattoos trying to slit one of the smaller guard’s throats with a plastic shiv.
He never did care for street punks like that. No respect, no proper goal; just mindless killing over cocaine and ‘turf’. At least he was professional about the crimes he committed; even if he did end up the same way as that sorry excuse for a man.
“Back the fuck up. Fucking pigs!” shouted a man who he recognized as Taylor; a man who after 3 murders and numerous incidents of gang violence was finally caught, convicted, and sentenced for life.
Gerome counted the seconds and wished the little idiot would just have some dignity and surrender. After all there’s no way he could win, and the sooner they completed inspection the sooner they all got to eat breakfast.
“I’ll fuckin kill yall’s whole families. You here that! Imma rape your fucking daughters, you shit pigs.” Screamed Taylor as he held a very afraid looking guard captive.
But as usual, as soon as it began it was over. Before Taylor could even react two of the other guards had already pinned him to the floor, “Get the fuck back! NOOO! NOOOOOO!” he screamed in rage and terror as the guards disarmed him and dragged him into the center of the cellblock by his arms.
Taylor’s head smacked hard against the pavement as the guards callously dropped him onto the cold hard floor. Gerome had to admit, it was a harsh punishment, but not unheard of given the circumstances. What happed next made him realize that something was clearly wrong today.
The younger looking guard who was held captive rushed over as quickly as he could, and with rage filled eyes as wide as marbles, began to repetitively kick and beat the young man over and over again with his baton. Meanwhile one of the older guards held a gun out to the rest of the prisoners, his hand firmly on the trigger.
For the first time in a while Gerome was actually afraid of the guards, and as he looked at both the inmates and guards faces all he could see was fear; even from the veteran guards.
This isn’t right, he thought and instinctively backed up into his cell.
“You there, get back in line.” Screamed the younger guard through gritted teeth while waving a blood soaked baton.
“That’s enough! We have bigger problems to worry about.” Commanded the head guards for this cell block, “Gerome you can get back in your cell.”
“Whada about me, Huh?” shouted Gerome’s cellmate Ramiro.
“Fine! You too, just get the fuck out of here.” Barked the head guard who was busy trying to suppress what was beginning to look like a full scale riot.
There’s got to be something bigger going on here, thought Gerome as he backed into the rear of his cell and gripped a plastic fork he hid in his pillow with anticipation.
He looked down at the ground towards the square of sunlight projected by the morning sun. It gave him comfort to know that no matter how fucked life got for him that the sun would still keep shining.
“Dude. What’z with the guards, they crazy as shit, man.” Said his cellmate Ramiro who ran back into the cell and hide in his bed.
“I have no idea Ramiro.” He said as a thundering shot was heard throughout the cellblock, followed by an ear-shattering scream that was not unlike a wounded animal.
“Holy shit, man. They shot dat dude.” Yelled Ramiro hysterically.
Gerome paid no attention to what was occurring outside, or to his boisterous cellmate; it was the probably only thing he could do to keep himself safe and sane throughout all this chaos.
This incident is probably just a misunderstanding. A young guard went nuts, that’s all this is, he told himself as he stared at the sunlight on the ground, and gripped the photo of his youngest daughter and wife like his life depended on it.
That’s when he realized that the amount of sun was different today. The shape of the window on the ground from where the sun enters the cell was usually longer, but on that day the splotch of sunlight appeared to have gotten shorter. It was as if the cell itself had somehow been moved.
That was when he made the decision to look outside the window, and into… nothing; literally nothing. There were no trees, no grass, not a single speck of life or discernable landmark; just what looked like a completely flat brown field that carried on for miles, and even more distressing, two unrecognizable dark tan pillars that grew closer by the second.
****
Maria Cruz hit the gas petal hard on her Ford Explorer as she raced angrily down the road towards what will likely be the most important source in her term paper; The Mount San Antonio State Penitentiary.
A prison which holds over 6,000 of California’s most dangerous and deranged criminals both men and women, and whose prisoner run manufacturing facilities made the perfect topic for Maria’s paper on the economic benefits of prison labor.
Unfortunately for her, they were not responding, “We’re sorry, but the number you have reached has been disconnected or is no longer available.” Chimed the automated message on Maria’s flip phone for the seventh time.
It didn’t make any sense to her. How could one of the largest prisons on the west coast just casually fall of the grid? Of course she was only a few miles away and would find out soon enough.
And she absolutely had to find out. As an Economics major at Caltech, this was not some simple book report; this took weeks of planning and grueling research, and this particular term paper was worth over 50% of this class’s grade. In other words, she would not be deterred by this prisons lack of a PR department.
What she would be deterred by was her cars terrible mileage, “Half a tank? Are you serious right now? It’s only been a couple of days; I literally JUST filled you up.” She shouted at her car.
Fortunately for her, according to her GPS there was a gas station up the road.
Maria sighed when she rolled into worn down place, “This place is hella stupid” she muttered to herself as she looked at the dilapidated structure which was seemingly run by a single man who couldn’t even bother to look up.
And so she filled up her car, texted a few of her classmates, and purchased several stacks of cardboard boxes for her sorority activities. Then without so much as a goodbye she paid the man and continued on her journey towards the prison, determined to get the information she needed.
Finally after 30 more minutes of driving she made it to the gate, or rather where the gate would be as the only thing she saw was a big dirt field in the shape of a giant circle.
“What! What is this?” Said Maria who in confusion checked the address to confirm that this was indeed the right place.
Quickly she looked down at feet, “Good thing I’m rockin flip flops today. Wouldn’t want to get anything valuable dirty.” She said as encouragement to herself before leaping out of her car to investigate.
The air was thinner and colder in the mountains than it was in the city and as Maria walked across the enormous dirt field she had to constantly push her jet black hair from her eyes, “All this way just for a bunch of criminals.” She said out of spite.
Then about 1000 meters inward, around what must have been the center of this mysterious circle, was what looked like a series of boxes. Curious she walked closer and as she did she could make out even more detail.
From her perspective it was a complete model of the prison. Everything from the fences, to the cellblocks, and even the front gate were there exactly as she had expected; only they appeared to be reduced by at least a factor of 100.
As she grew closer, she forgot all about the term paper and her anger, as this phenomenon was practically asking to be investigated. Then as she grew even closer she began to see figures moving about the facility; undeniably human figures at that.
Maria was absolutely dumbfounded by what she saw. There was no way what she was seeing could possibly make any conceivable sense.
Then the questions began to arise in her mind. How did this happen? Did anyone else see this? Are these actual people? And most importantly, what the fuck do I do now?
She stood at the edge of the prison, towering over it. She felt like a bird, as she could see everything as if she was in a plane. She even looked down at her body to confirm that she was in fact a giant relative to these buildings, and not just inside a plane tripping on acid or something similar.
She saw a crowd of men walk towards her, they all appeared to be dressed in some kind of uniform. For Maria it felt unreal, in fact, they almost seemed like they weren’t even people at all. They were only about 2 inches in height, so they looked more like toys than anything else.
She took a single step forward towards the crowd and was immediately greeted by the feeling of her foot sinking and the sound of cracking and crushing. When she looked down she realized that the sensation she barely even felt was one of the guard towers which now sat in a disorderly pile of rubble at her feet.
She panicked. Someone had to have been in that, and now she faced the possibility that she had unintentionally killed someone with her foot. Shocked she looked down at her tan black painted toes, lifted her foot into the air and shook her foot at an angle in an attempt to dislodge anything, and just as she expected debris fell from both in between her toes and on the underside of her cheap pink foam sandals.
One piece of debris on the underside of her second toe caught her attention. It appeared to be the lower half of a human body. Upon closer inspection she realized that the man’s upper half had been completely ripped from his lower, no doubt caused by her.
She fell to her knees devastated, and in the process crushing the re-enforced chain link fence which to her felt like paper crumpling against her skin. It was just a step, that’s it was, that’s all it took to kill him. She thought to herself as she continued to stare at the man’s crushed body.
Maria took a deep breath. She was a murderer now; there was nothing she could do about that. However, right now she needed to remain calm. She had to find a way to resolve this situation; to cover up her murder. But how? There were hundreds of witnesses, and Maria was not a cold-hearted girl, she couldn’t simple kill all of them.
No, it seemed that the only humane solution to this fucked up situation was to hide these people. To keep them a secret from society, or else she would surely be charged with murder.
Then in a stroke of brilliance and desperation an idea began to form.
“Boxes!” she exclaimed remembering the stacks of cardboard she acquired earlier, “I can take them all in boxes!” she shouted with excitement at her half-baked idea before leaping to her feet and running as fast as she could towards her car.
****
Gerome watched as the two tan towers grew closer. As they did there was a rhythmic series of booms that followed one after the other every few seconds. These booms shook the ground within his cell and knocked dust and small objects loose from the shelves.
From his perspective, they almost seemed alien. The gentle curves and tone substance reminded him of human muscle, but it also had a mechanical feel to it. He could see the individual parts that made up these enormous and no doubt powerful machines, quiver, stretch, and compress in perfect harmony with each fluid motion.
The towers grew even closer, and it soon became difficult to stand. Inside the cellblock a small riot had erupted, and gunshots were being fired like crazy. It was incredible, but even the sounds of the war inside were muffled by overpowering rumble generated by these two terrific towers.
Finally the towers stopped right in front of his cellblock, they were so tall he couldn’t even see where they ended up at, and so massive that the shadows cast from them covered his cell in darkness.
The riot had ended no doubt because of the earthquakes caused by the leviathan creature. And through the silence he could hear the petrified voices of a small fleet of guards.
“Who the fuck is that!” “It’s a girl, a god damn girl” “Jesus this can’t be happening.” They screamed and shouted at the creature.
A girl? What do they mean by that?” thought Gerome as one of the titanic beings towers began to move again.
It started to move up into the air and fold around the midpoint. That’s when he realized what they meant. At the end of what he now knew was a giant girls leg, was a petite looking foot easily the size of the bus that brought him into the prison. It was clad only with a filthy looking pink flip flop, the bottom of which was caked with clumps of dirt, enormous green stalks with he now recognized as grass, and a large whitish wad which was do doubt someone’s gum.
He looked away from the foot, and towards its intended path. There was a guard tower staffed by a two men both in their mid-twenties, one firing his rifle into the fast approaching pink wall to no effect.
When the foot came down, it smashed into the front part of the tower; crushing the concrete as if it was made of crackers, and generating a ghastly symphony of splitting rock and twisting metal. The poor guard, who even through all that continued to hold his ground and fire his weapon was thrown directly into her toes as the foot continued its destructive path through the tower. The other was smashed into paste underneath the foam wall; his internal organs exploding outward from his face like toothpaste from a plastic tube before getting stuck in the dirty folds of her footwear.
Her foot appeared to hit the ground in slow motion, flatting out and adding pressure by factors of a hundred every millisecond. The sound of the foam flip flop compressing was added to the macabre musical that had proceeded before it.
As the pressure finally moved up her foot and into her toes, the guard with a rifle had just enough time to look up from his unfortunate position on the worn insole of the sandal and see a massive pinkish tan slab of toe flesh descend upon him. His screams were cut out prematurely by her indomitable second toe first smothering then smashing his upper body into oblivion. Then as the step came to completion her toes squeezed together, ripping the man’s upper half from his lower half and leaving the rest of him stuck to the layer of grime and oils generated naturally by the human foot.
Gerome had to hold his mouth and look away just to keep himself from vomiting. Not because of the blood, but because two men were killed by being stepped on by a cheap dollar store flip flop. And the fact more than anything sickened him
He heard more noise, and against his better judgment he, along with Ramiro, decided to investigate further.
The girl had collapsed to her knees, no doubt realizing the destruction she had caused and experiencing some form of guilt. Gerome strained his head and looked up to see the face of a beautiful young women, tear-stricken by her actions. Maybe it was the fact that for 6 years he had limited contact with women or the sheer size of her body, but from his perspective she was beyond voluptuous. In fact, he almost found it hard to believe that someone so cute and innocent could possibly be responsible for all this death.
Sadly that was the reality of the situation, and she was by all means now an extremely dangerous being. He was only thankful that she showed remorse for her actions, so at the very least she valued human life somewhat.
Then suddenly her building sized face lit up like the sun, as if coming to a compelling realization, “Boxes!” Said the girl, “I can take them all in boxes!” she shouted to no one in particular before leaping hundreds of meters to her feet and sprinting back into the distance.
“The hell women!” screamed Ramiro, “What da’fuck she mean by boxes?”
“Ramiro we need to figure out what’s going on here” said Gerome, not wanting to take any chances.
The sound of her thundering steps were becoming louder again, and he knew that if they didn’t find a way out of this that they would likely end up in those “boxes”.
Gerome grabbed Ramiro and ran past the guards who were now all either cowering in the corners or pre-occupied with other prisoners. He found the young guard from earlier who had beaten Taylor, he was muttering to himself and denying that anything even happened at all.
“Thanks, bro.” said Ramiro to the traumatized guard as he snatched the keys, “Gerome, I know the best way out. There’s a bridge that goes to the other cell blocks, if we get there I know we can escape this bitch.” Said Ramiro while motioning towards one of the doors on the third floor.
The girl’s footsteps grew closer with every second, and out of desperation the two began to sprint up the stairs as quickly as possible. Then right as they reached the door, they were greeted with the sound of metal tearing, and the sight of 5 muscular fingers punching through the metallic roof of the cellblock like tissue paper.
“Hurry up dammit! Hurry up!” Screamed Gerome at Ramiro who was desperately yanking on the door.
“I’m trying man! I’m fucking trying. They put the whole cell on lockdown, this shit ain’t easy!” He shouted as the girl ripped the whole roof off in a single motion, causing a huge gust of wind to sweep through the cellblock. The interior of the building was now entirely exposed to sunlight which was only eclipsed by the living moving sky scraper that was the giant girl.
“Hello.” She said enthusiastically right as Ramiro managed to undo the first lock, “My name is Maria” she said then paused right as Ramiro undid the second lock, “And I will be taking care of all of you from now on.” She said reaching in with her hand, which was easily larger than his entire cell to grab the screaming masses from inside the building.
“Got it!” shouted Ramiro as he opened the door.
“Yeah… No escaping,” sarcastically said the girl now known as Maria as she slammed her other hand into the bridge, sending Ramiro floundering to the ground below where he landed with a loud crack.
“NO!” screamed Gerome in terror as two warm masses pinched him with more pressure than he had ever felt in his life, before lifting him up into the air with the speed of a roller coaster. When the wind finally stopped blinding him he was face to gigantic face with the girl.
Her facial muscles twitched, then Maria’s plump lips opened up and a thick cloud of hot stale air whooshed past him, this act was immediately followed by air being sucked back into the slimy darkness of her mouth.
There was a pause for a moment as she examined him with perfect green eyes the size of manholes.
Maria tilted her head and smiled, “I’ll admit,” she trailed off, “that was a hella good escape attempt.” She finished and lowered him into a long but short cardboard box.
“Welcome to Maria’s prison.” She smiled and waved to the squealing roaring crowd of confused and enraged inmates and guards before shutting the box and concealing him in total blackness.