Field Research, Chapter 14

“I tried to do this the easy way, you know.”

I flailed and clawed at my assailant, but it was no use. They had me pinned to the central console of their car, an elbow the size of a beach ball pressing into the small of my back. Between the darkness and my awkward angle, I couldn’t really get a good look at them, but as they started up the car and began rolling slowly through the woods, I realized that I’d recognized that voice.

“D… Dr. Walker?...” I wheezed.

“You two aren’t as clever as you think you are. Box trucks can be hard to drive if you’re not used to them, you have a big blind spot right behind you. I followed Amanda all the way out here without her noticing.”

Fuck. Fuck. So that’s where the pills had gone.

“What… are you doing with me?...”

“I need some insurance against Jennifer doing anything to act against me. You’ll be my house-guest while I recreate my research, and once you sign an affidavit that Jennifer unethically coerced you into being a test subject, I’ll let you go. Well… assuming I’ve got what I need from your blood by then, anyway.”

“My bl—my blood?!”

“I’ve been working in this field for decades. I can reproduce most of my research from memory. But, for the parts I can’t… I should be able to reverse-engineer them from a blood sample, yes. Of course, given how small you’ve gotten, you don’t actually have all that much blood to give. Extracting enough might be… challenging”

I started to panic, my vision blurring as I struggled to get a good gulp of air under the painful pressure of his elbow. I squirmed and writhed, but he just pushed down harder, causing me to croak in pain.

“I’d rather give you the dignity of riding up front with me, but if you don’t stop that I’ll have to put you in the trunk.”

“You’re… crazy…” I groaned.

“No, I’m passionate. Dedicated. I refuse to let my life’s work be stolen out from under my nose. Unlike some of us, I have a backbone.” The car lurched as it hit a bump, pulling out of the woods and onto a dirt road. I strained to lift my head up enough to see out the passenger-side mirror, and could see the lights of our cabin gradually drifting away.

No. No, please, God, no.

“Sean, I have to admit something,” Dr. Walker said idly. He adjusted his arm, pulling it back and resting his entire forearm along my spine. It didn’t hurt as bad as his elbow, and breathing got a little easier, but the weight was no less oppressive. “You disgust me.”

Yeah, well, the feeling’s mutual.

“I mean, really. Giving away your dignity, your life, just for… what? Sex? I mean look at you. You’re not even a real man anymore. You’ve given that, that… that bitch everything.” For all his degrading comments, the way he stumbled over the word “bitch” made him sound completely pathetic.

I was angry, I was scared, and, yes, I was ashamed that I wasn’t capable of fending him off on my own. But there was a question itching at the back of my skull, overriding all of that.

“Why do you need my blood?”

“I already told you, I need to reverse-engineer the drug that’s in your system.”

“But, you have the pill itself. Isn’t that easier?”

In response, Dr. Walker loudly gasped and swerved the wheel. The entire car lurched violently as we crashed into something, and the doctor was rattled enough that I was able to break free of him.

Jenny was standing in the middle of the road, her face a mask of pure rage. The car had crashed directly into her, the front bumper crumpling against her legs. She didn’t budge an inch from the impact. Instead, she rose one leg up and stomped straight through the hood of the car, the cabin instantly filling with the smell of engine oil and gasoline. Dr. Walker struggled with his seatbelt, but he was far too slow; Jenny’s fist smashed through the glass of the driver’s side window, and he screamed in pain and shock as her massive hand gripped his arm tightly and yanked him through the window. I watched, slack-jawed, as she lifted him up by his limply swaying arm and then threw him onto the ground. He groaned painfully, but didn’t move. Jenny raised her foot up again, and looked for all the world like she was about to bring all one thousand pounds of her weight down on his chest.

“Jenny! Stop!”

The sound of my voice was, blessedly, enough to snap her out of it. Lowering her foot, she turned and saw me through the shattered car window, standing on the console.Wordlessly, she rushed over and squatted down, wrapping a single hand around me and pulling me out, hugging me tight to her naked chest.

We both started to softly weep in relief.

***

Walker was in bad shape, covered in cuts and bruises. The arm Jenny had grabbed was broken and mangled; the way it bent the wrong way turned my stomach to look at, so I didn’t.

We’d dragged him back up to the cabin, and Jenny had used a roll of duct tape to tie him to a chair.

“Greg,” Jenny said. She was on one knee, bringing her roughly eye level with him. “You fucked up real bad.”

Walker didn’t respond. His head lilted to one side, and he stared at the floor. If I couldn’t see him breathing, I might’ve worried he was dead.

“This can go two ways from here, Greg. The first way, is that you give me the pills you stole, you find some way to convince me that you’re never going to pull a dumb fucking stunt like this again, and then we call you an ambulance and say you crashed into a tree.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled. “I didn’t steal any—”

“The second way,” Jenny said, grabbing a small, silver case from the coffee table. She popped it open, and retrieved a tan gel-cap. It almost looked more like a sprinkle pinched between her huge fingers. “The second way, is that we add a new test subject to the project.”

Walker looked at the pill in horror. He instinctively tried to jerk his way free, then whimpered in pain when his movements agitated his broken arm.

“We’ve got your car. We’ll find the pills either way. The only thing that’s going to change about tonight is what height you’re leaving this house at.”

“I didn’t steal any pills! I didn’t! How could I have! I—agh!!!” Jenny shut him up by pressing a hand against his arm.

“No one else could’ve done it, stupid. We’re completely alone out here. So don’t give me any fucking excuses. Instead, give me a reason not to pop you like a goddamn grape.”

I didn’t realize Jenny had a side like this. I mean, sure, she was stubborn. Assertive. She liked to be in control. But I’d never seen her hurt anyone before. I instinctively took a half-step away from her, thinking as I often did these days about those grizzly bear genes in her that were helping stabilize her body at her increased size. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Greg sobbed. “Please, just let me go! I won’t bother you again. Please…”

Jenny scowled at him. “I really, really wish I could believe you, Greg. But you’re not giving me any reason to. Sean. Go get the pot of soup.”

“What? Why?” Jenny’s eyes suddenly snapped to me, her face still a vicious scowl, and I felt the strength drop out of my legs. I didn’t quite come up to her knees now, and the sight of this gargantuan… creature looking so hatefully at me, it nearly made my heart stop.

“I, I, I can’t,” I stammered. “Th-the pot’s too heavy for me.”

Jenny’s face slowly softened, and she sighed. “Right. Sorry, I forgot. Watch him for me.” Jenny rose to her feet, briefly casting me in her shadow before she stomped off toward the kitchen. Walker stared down at me with wet, pleading eyes.

“Please. She’s going to kill me. You have to get me out of here.”

I looked up at the broken, pathetic man, and for a moment, my heart softened. Then, I remembered that not thirty minutes ago, he had crammed me into his car, kidnapping me so that he could steal my blood. My blood. A cold anger slowly spread across my face.

“Fuck you.”

It wasn’t long before Jenny came back, holding the pot of soup I’d been working on. Just above the rim, I could also see the edge of a white plastic funnel floating in the liquid.

“Last chance, Greg.”

“P-please…” He didn’t even have the energy to beg.

Jenny set the pot down and grabbed the pill again.

“I’ve been experimenting with dosages lately. This one’s the most potent pill I’ve printed.” She grabbed his chin, her hand dwarfing his head. I watched on as she gently but firmly squeezed, forcing him to open up so she could shove the pill into his mouth and then clamp it shut, like a dog. Even from down on the floor I could see the muscles straining in his neck and face as he struggled fruitlessly against her superior strength.

“Greg, I swear to God, if you don’t swallow that pill I will snap your neck.”

Timidly, Greg Walker swallowed.

“Good. Now to give the reaction fuel.” Wasting no time, she grabbed the funnel out of the pot and jammed the narrow end into his mouth. With one hand, she pinched his lips tight around it and forced his head back. With the other, she grabbed the pot by the lip—even back at normal size, trying that move myself would have dumped soup everywhere, but for Jenny it was like holding a glass of water—and started pouring it down the funnel.

Walker sputtered and choked, gurgles of soup bursting back up the funnel. But as Jenny kept slowly but steadily pouring more and more in, he couldn’t help but start to swallow it. I saw his eyes glass over, and realized that the pill’s euphoria-inducing effects were kicking in; his attempts at resistance were futile, but now he couldn’t even muster the willpower to struggle in vain.

I climbed up onto another chair, and then onto the end table to get a better view. The hate and anger had drained from Jenny’s face. There was nothing there now but cold, clinical determination. I watched as Greg’s head slowly drifted downward, wrinkles developing in his clothes. There was a soft riiiip as the duct tape peeled away from his shrinking skin, though it continued to cling onto his increasingly baggy shirt. His stifled groans and sputters began to morph into muffled moans, and while it was hard to tell, I was pretty sure that one of the wrinkled mounds in his pants had something solid pressing into it.

And all the while, Jenny poured, and poured, and poured. The drug’s psychoactive effects began kicking into a higher gear, and Greg was no longer limply allowing her to feed him. Now, he was hungrily suckling the tip of the funnel, gulping down the cold soup with wild abandon. As soon as his good arm was free, he obliviously reached it into his pants and started stroking himself.

“How small are you going to make him, Jenny?... Jenny? Jenny?”

She didn’t answer. She just kept pouring, until, before long, the pot was empty. She released him then and leaned back, watching with arms crossed as he continued to jerk himself off while he dwindled smaller, and smaller, and smaller. 

Eyes wide and mouth covered, I watched as his limbs slowly disappeared into his clothes. Jenny grabbed at the duct tape and casually ripped it free from the chair, shaking the still-attached clothes to make him fall out of them. He landed on his back, naked, his broken arm sprawled out to one side as he continued to massage his dick. He was my size now—no, smaller. I leaned forward to watch as he continued to diminish, eyes rolling back in his head. Soon, he was only a foot tall. Six inches. Five. Four.

“Jenny… didn’t you say something about. About how I had to be careful to not shrink too small? That my brain could only shrink so small before it would start… you know, not working?”

Kneeling, Jenny crouched low. Her breathing was short and shallow, she reached out and pinched the hand he was using to pleasure himself between her thumb and forefinger, causing him to cry out in pain, his voice soft and small. Despite the pain, he began to mindlessly buck his tiny hips into the empty air

He seemed to stop shrinking around three inches. Jenny lifted him up by the arm, dangling him in front of her titanic face. I could faintly hear him moan in some kind combination of horror, pain, and ecstasy.

“Last chance, Greg. Tell me where I can find the pills, and you can live the rest of your life as my pet. I’ll get a little fuckin’ terrarium for you and everything.”

“Fff… Ff.. Fuck.” The tiny man squeaked. I could barely hear him from my position on the armrest. “Fuck… you! You fucking monster! You fat, disgusting—”

“You want a second dose? Is that it, you little shit?! You wanna find out just how far we can push this! It’s getting a little hard to hear you, you’re so small and pathetic, but it’s sounding like you want to see firsthand whether the human body will break down before it gets microscopic!” I shivered a little as Jenny turned her attention down to me. “What did he say in the car, Sean? Did he mention where he had the pills?”

“I… no. He just… He said that he was going to use me to make you cooperate with him, and… and extract my blood to reverse engineer the… the formula…”

Jenny’s eyes almost seemed to flash red with rage as I explained. And then…

Crunch. Like brittle autumn leaves stomped by a heavy boot. The sound resonated in my brain several seconds before I fully processed what happened. In one rapid motion, Jenny had closed her massive fist around the shrunken doctor. I could see a single dangling foot hanging out from the edge of her hand, and a few streaks of red liquid seeped out between her fingers.

Time froze. I stared up at her bloody fist silently, mouth agape.

“Jenny… Jenny, oh my God. Oh my God. What did you do? What did you do?!”

“I…” for a moment, a look of panic crossed Jenny’s face as she reckoned with the act she just committed. But it passed as quickly as it came, and she slowly opened her hand, looking down at her palm. I couldn’t see anything from my vantage point, but I could imagine the maimed, broken form of Dr. Walker, and I started to feel nauseated. “He fucking deserved it.”

“Jenny, we can’t… you just murdered a person.”

“Would you have rathered I let him take you?!”

“That’s! We had him tied up! We just should’ve called the cops!”

“I don’t remember hearing that suggestion at any point before now.”

I looked away, clenching my jaw. She had a point. I hated the fucking guy. He was arrogant, bitter, hateful. He insulted both of us at any opportunity, and it was entirely possible that if tonight had gone differently, he would’ve killed me. If we’d called the cops, it could’ve quickly led to the research project being shut down, and who knows what would have happened to either of us after that. Killing him was… it was grisly. But it was also probably the easiest way out of this situation, and, if I was really honest with myself, I didn’t care that much that the bastard was dead.

But I cared that Jenny wasn’t more conflicted about it.

Her anger slowly gave way to tears. She dropped his body onto his shirt, wiping her hand off on it before reaching for me.

“Come here,” she said, though she didn’t actually give me a chance to obey. She lifted me up and nestled me in the crook of her neck, sitting back on the floor and rocking slightly.

“I am so, so sorry I let him get to you, Sean.” Her voice was slow and quivering. “You’ve put your faith in me to protect you, and I let you down.” I felt a hot teardrop on my back. “I will never let anything like that happen to you ever again.”

I trembled, my own emotions beginning to spill over as the adrenaline faded. But though I huddled more tightly against my girlfriend’s body, the truth was…

The truth was, in that moment, I was more afraid of her than I was of anything else.