Chapter 4

“I’ll get you out of there!” I wasn’t so much concerned about the house as I was Mandy.

“I don’t need your help,” Mandy sneered as she ducked her head out from the hole in the ceiling. That’s going to take some explaining.

She carefully positioned her legs beneath herself as she sat down on the floor of the living room so as to not wreck anything else in the house. Even kneeling down the top of head nearly brushed the ceiling. I told her to watch out for the ceiling fan.

“How the hell am I going to be able to go anywhere?” she shouted. “I’m a giant!”

“My dad left his company van in the garage. There’s plenty of room in the back once we take out some of his junk. You can fit back there. I’ll drive us back to the lab and you’ll be back to your normal size before you know it.”

Mandy crawled on all fours and contorted herself sideways through the door out to the garage. The cargo van Sterling Labs lets my dad drive should be just big enough for Mandy to squeeze in the back. Even then, it was a tight fit. 

You know how difficult it often is to take your eyes off a woman’s rear when she’s bending over? Imagine how tough it was when you’re in my shoes watching Mandy clamber into the van. Whew.

Mandy wasn’t exactly light by any means either. You could hear the van strain under the weight of the nearly 2,000-pound young woman. The load was most noticeable as we pulled out of the neighborhood.

“Can’t you drive any faster?”

“Sorry, I’m driving as fast I can go. You’re just too heavy.”

Poor choice of words. Mandy elbowed the back of my seat and glared at me through the rearview mirror. I thought I was gonna go through the windshield.

We pulled up to the security hut outside the Sterling campus. The guard was the same one as a couple hours before. I reminded Mandy to keep out of sight in the back of the van.

“Hey, it’s me again. My dad forgot something in his office and needs me to grab it for him. Here’s his ID badge. I’m sure you understand.”

The guard took a long, hard look at me and the badge before it clicked that I was indeed Wayne Szalinski’s son. He waved the van through, not realizing the cargo contained within.

Now the challenge was to avoid drawing attention to ourselves as we walked inside the building. Luckily it was a Saturday and only security vehicles were to be found in the parking lot, one of which was circling the campus. I parked near the rear entrance to my dad’s building and we waited until the roving security car had passed before making our way to the door.

Mandy backed her way out of the van and then darted to the entrance. I couldn’t keep up with her stride, not with legs as long as hers.

I used my dad’s ID to open the door and Mandy squeezed through the narrow, single-wide entrance. Once inside, Mandy had to crawl on all fours until we reached my dad’s office. Fortunately for her, my dad’s lab has 30-foot high ceilings so she could finally give her knees a rest. Once we got inside, I had a moment where her height finally hit me. At that minute, there was no woman in the world as tall as my girlfriend. What a thought.

I needed to sort through the rows of shelves to find the old shrink ray. They went all the up to the ceiling and were stacked with all of my dad’s inventions from over the years. This would take some time.

While we began looking through the boxes, I began wondering just how exactly Mandy ended up growing like she did. It seemed the microwave in the kitchen was what triggered her growth.

“You know, I think what happened to you is the same as with my brother. Exposure to electricity is what set off his growth. Maybe that’s what happened to you. Except this is a different type of growth ray. And besides, I’d have thought my dad would’ve have figured it out by now and learned from that mistake.”

“Well, whatever the reason was, let’s just find that shrink ray so you can make me normal size again and we can get out of here,” Mandy replied.

Not long after, we heard talking from the darkened hallway.

“Quiet. Don’t let them hear us in here,” I whispered to Mandy. I turned off the lights inside the room.

We could see the beams of flashlights peering through the window of the door. Then, the door crept open and the silhouettes of two burly men entered. I hid behind one row of shelves, and Mandy crouched down behind another. Hopefully the guards wouldn’t peek too closely, though they’d already flicked the lights back on in the room.

I could see hear their footsteps moving from row to row as they made their way across the lab. They came to my row first before they had a chance to look down Mandy’s. 

Just as they were about to pass mine, my heart skipped a beat. The alarm on my digital watch was making a perfectly loud beeping sound. “1:30” it flashed. With my mom out of town, I’d set it to remember to feed our pet fish. Bad idea.

Twin beams of light immediately froze on me, crouched behind a box on the ground.

“Alright, freeze,” bellowed a guard. “Whoever’s down there, stand up and put your hands where we can see them.”

Not knowing if they were armed, I did as they said. They shined their lights in my face. They weren’t armed. Of course not. They’re just security guards. Sigh.

“Young man, you better have a good reason for being here or you’re under arrest for trespassing and breaking and entering a secure facility.”

“I can explain. Just let me show you my dad’s badge. He works here. This is his lab.”

As soon as they saw I was about to reach for my pocket, one guard tackled me, threw me to the ground and restrained my hands behind my back. The other guard helped me to my feet as they began to lead me towards the door.

“You’re coming with us, boy. You’ll have a chance to explain yourself to the police.”

Just then, an oversized fingernail-polished hand flew into view and knocked the guard beside me to the floor. Me and the other guard turned around to see Mandy now out of hiding and challenging the far outmatched guards.

“You keep your hands off my boyfriend. He’s only trying to help.”

“Sweet mother of …” uttered the guard beside me. 

Mandy was about to take aim at the still-standing guard when I saw the one crumpled on the ground stumble to his knees with something pointed at Mandy. A TASER. I quickly realized what was about to happen.

“No! Don’t shoot! Stop!” I screamed.

Too late. A pair of barbed darts plunged into Mandy’s back and sent a shock of electricity throughout her 14-foot body. She writhed in pain as she fell to her knees.

“Do you know what you just did?! You better get out of the way!” I shouted.

There was nothing I could do as I was hauled by the collar out of the lab by the other guard. Several more guards rushed past us and into the room.

I heard loud noises coming from the lab and then felt the building shake as I was being hauled outside and thrown into the back of a windowless security van. I swear I heard Mandy shouting from above the siren of the security van as it drove me away.