Author: [draight] Stories~collected

[Jeremy Lightning]

Very interesting start, it seems to me that it could be a long, overarching story that could have a lot of potential for muscle and strength feats, but would still contain a lot of other details that could keep the story interesting when there is no strength and muscle involved. I look forward to more. k+!

[ImperatrixRattus]

Awesome.  I've got that crawling feeling at the back of my neck already and the frisson of a good erotic horror yarn on the horizon.  I'll be following with great interest!

[Circes_cup]

Wow, great start.  I tried writing a halloween-type vignette and it never came close to this. 

Like many classic horrors, it’s got a strong sense of foreboding and leaves me wishing I could tell that pair “Go no further.  Turn around.  Get out.  Get out!!”

I love the way those elements are combined in an original setting.  Rather than a creepy Victorian house on a stormy night, it’s daytime, brutalist architecture, concrete, and graffiti.  I love it!

[Trinitus]

Really nice beginning. Very eerie story and very refreshing change from most other stories I have read here. Looking very much forward to the next part.

[draight]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.  I was pretty on the fence about this one so I appreciate it.
***********


“Don’t we already have enough on our plates with the just the report on the primary facilities?” Richard asked.  “Judging by the lobby the central heating is shot, there’s no way in hell that the elevator is up to code, general cleanup and restoration…

“Yeah, probably,” Amanda agreed disinterestedly.

“Are you listening to me?  I think that it’s a bit early to start going door to door.  Think how much time that would take.”

“Quite a bit,” she said, “all the more reason to get started on it right away, right?  Besides, Mr. Bureaucracy, you can file the report yourself, right?  That way you get to stay here where it’s nice and warm and I’ll be the one doing the legwork.”

“Suit yourself.”  The notion clearly appealed to Richard as he settled in behind his desk.  “Are you sure you’re okay going by yourself though?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she teased, daring him to give voice to the concerns they hadn’t worked themselves around to discussing this morning.

“Well, I’m still just worried about the elevators trapping you or something like that.”

“I’ll take the stairs,” Amanda promised as she collected her coat and headed out the doors.
----------

General impatience with the pace of local government and her own distaste for paperwork aside, Amanda had to admit to herself that that wasn’t why she felt the need to come down to the Estates again.  Part of her was glad that Richard had found an excuse to stay away, nestled safely in his world of documentation.  Had he known how curious she was to speak to some of the inhabitants, get a chance to really quiz them, he probably would have laughed or, more likely, sighed with exasperation.  “When people die,” he would no doubt have said, “there’s documentation; police reports, coroner’s assessments, certificates of death.  None of these exist, therefore the stories aren’t true.  QED.”  But she was pretty sure that life wasn’t clean like that.

She stood for a moment in the late morning sunlight, hefting her notebook in one arm, and debated where to start.  It would probably be warmer inside she decided that but spending too much time in there would waste the natural light.  At the moment it was hitting the southeast court, so she decided to start there.

This courtyard was much the same as the other and she set to work, trying to stay warm.  The first several doors that she knocked on stayed firmly closed, drawn shades denying any hint of whether they were occupied, although she would have sworn that she saw them flutter on at least one occasion.  Eventually she got results, a door cracking open to reveal an older woman locking out from behind the safety chain.  She peered about for a moment before, seeing no-one but Amanda, she shut the door, followed by the rattling of the chain and the entrance swinging open more fully.

“Help you dear?”

“Maybe…” Amanda said.  “Actually what am I saying? I’m supposed to see if I can help you.”

“I’m sorry?”  The woman frowned in confusion.

“Let me start again.”  Amanda blushed at the woman’s expression.  “I’m Amanda Swann.  I’m with the city and I’m looking in on the residents…”

“Oh.”  The woman smiled in recognition.  “Yes, I heard about you.”

“You did?  Word travels fast around here.”

“I suppose it does.”  The woman nodded knowingly.  “You’ve come to look around, make sure everything is up to code.”

“Yes, and make sure that occupancy records are up to date.”  Amanda consulted her paperwork.  “You live here alone Mrs. Simmonds?”

“Yes, quite.  And everything is fine, as you can see.”

From where she was standing, everything did seem fine.  The woman was clearly in no distress.  Now that she was here she felt the pretense for the visit fall away, her burning curiosity pushing through.  “Mrs. Simmonds… can I ask you some questions?  About… events here?”

The woman didn’t respond, instead she continued to simply look up at her quietly.

“You’ve been here… a long time?”

“I have.”

“I’ve heard stories.  Um…”  She paused, uncertain how to continue with this polite old woman.  “Perhaps you heard or saw something?  There was a case of domestic abuse I think… the man was killed.  His bones were broken?”  She let the last bit out in a rush.

“Hmmm,” Mrs. Simmonds huffed in thought, “I can’t say I recall that for certain…”

“Nothing like that?”  Amanda felt a spark of… what?  Relief?  Disappointment?

“Like that?  Oh certainly.”  Amanda felt a chill spread through her stomach at the words.  “Why, not quite a year ago…”

“What?  So recently?  When?”

“I just said, not quite a year ago.”  She seemed unable or unwilling to commit more firmly.  “Quite a thing.  The young man was fair torn apart.”

“Torn apart?”

“Yes.”  She nodded.  Far from disturbed, she seemed happy to have an audience for her tale.  “Arms pulled from his sockets.”  She shrugged.  “They said that he had some sort of criminal record, must have been trying to find a place to lie low.”

“Who?  Who said?”

Mrs. Simmonds shrugged.  “They did.  I had the story from my friend Bernice.  She saw the body, said that the arm looked like a chicken wing that someone had…”

“Bernice?  Bernice who?  Where?”  Amanda fought to keep her tone calm, at the level of polite interest.

“She’s over in the northeast court.”  She furnished the younger woman with the number, and Amanda restrained her desire to immediately head over.  The older woman must have seen something in her eyes; she simply smiled.  “Would you like some tea before you go?  Its cold out today, you don’t want to catch anything.”
----------

As the cold began to set in, Amanda regretted refusing Mrs. Simmonds’ offer.  She had been surprised but elated to find Bernice at home and willing to speak.  Her hopes had quickly been dashed however, as the woman admitted that while she certainly may have told the story to her friend, she certainly hadn’t seen the body herself.  No, that had been… oh, who had it been?  Well, anyway, such things happened from time to time.  Certainly they were fortunate; from time to time someone desperate or insane would make their way to Smith-Moorefield with evil intentions, and yes women would get hurt, but there was always justice.

But the young man… Amanda had insisted, who had he hurt exactly?  Bernice had admitted she couldn’t remember, but she was happy to relay the tale of the crackhead who had cut one of the young girls in the main tower and been found with his head crushed, the concrete wall cracked with the force of the blow that had driven him into it.  And where was this crack?  Well, it had probably been plastered over by now.

Several hours later, she felt that she had only been going in circles, chasing mist.  The few women she was able to talk to all had stories, some even matched, but none that anyone had any ability to verify.  She slumped down onto the ground, allowing her binder to spill open in front of her.  Tales of blood, but no bloodstains.  Her gaze landed on a folder that had fallen from the binder and she picked it up.  Opened it.  Another tale of blood.  She lifted her eyes to the tower.
----------

Amanda stood before the door marked 1004.  She glanced down into her binder, flipping to the police report to check again but she knew that she had the number correct.  What am I doing here anyway?  She hadn’t actually stopped to ask herself this question until now, but the answer came to her as quickly as she wondered.  This was the place where the true story had happened… where it had begun anyway.  A young girl had died here, whatever lies or obfuscations had sprung up in the wake of that event.  Was it occupied?  She flipped through the incomplete list of residences.  Come to think of it, was it incomplete?  After trudging around for most of the day she was beginning to wonder if half of this building was just empty.  She wasn’t surprised to find that there was no name associated with this apartment.  She reached out to knock.

She stifled a short gasp of surprise as the door abruptly swung open under her firm blow.  She shot a look over her shoulder as though expecting to find some of the residents laughing at her like this was a practical joke.  She reached out to push the door open further and immediately realized what had happened.  Unnoticed to her, fixated as she had been on the number, the door had clearly been forced; the knob was broken and askew, the deadbolt missing.  How long had it been like this?  Thirty years?  Was this how it had been left that night?  She shivered.

With that thought in her mind she stepped through into the unit.  She simply found a bare apartment and almost laughed in relief, quickly dismissing the images of blood spattered walls and overturned furniture that she had conjured up in her mind.  Several odds and ends remained from its prior occupation; a chair and table coated in dust, an unplugged refrigerator, everything else was gone.  She stepped fully into the room, covering her mouth and nose against the dust.  The air was stale and musty but mercifully free of foul odors.  Nonetheless, she put her binder down on the table and tried to open the far window to let in a breeze but found herself unable to; it was either rusted or held shut.  After several futile tugs she left it alone.  Three doorways led away from the central room.  One was ajar to reveal a small, dirty bathroom.  She ignored this in favor of the door closest to the entrance.  The room she found had probably served as a bedroom once.  Like the main area it was empty, the tattered window shade allowing in weak sunlight.  She turned away and made for the other door.

Her breath caught in her throat.  This had been the girl’s room.  This is where it had happened.

A child’s chair lay overturned and broken within the threshold.  Pieces of paper, yellowed and faded, lay scattered across the floor amongst pieces of broken glass and plastic.  All of this occupied her thoughts only for a moment before her gaze fell upon the far corner where a child’s bed was nested.  It had been stripped mostly bare; pillows and blankets long gone.  A single mounded white sheet rested conspicuously in the center.  Amanda glanced back towards the entrance to the apartment, once again almost expecting to see women watching her from the doorway, tittering at their joke.  Of course there was no-one.

To hell with it.  She strode to the bed and yanked back on the sheet.  A small collection of children’s toys spilled forth; a tattered and moth-eaten bear, a plastic dinosaur, a small pouch, several dolls.  “Fuck!”  Amanda took a step backwards as they spilled towards her feet before balling up the sheet and throwing it back on the bed.  She willed her heart to steady itself.  Fine, she didn’t know exactly what was going on here, but it was time to get some answers.  She turned for the door.

There she was.

Staring down from the wall.  The woman, the Mother.  Had it been done by the same artist as the one in the courtyard?  She wasn’t sure.  The face was much the same; the dire expression, the wild hair, those deep, iris-less eyes.  It had been done with more care perhaps, and more detail; she almost looked more like a photograph.  The lines of her face had been painted; lines accumulated from a life of work?  Worry?  Laughter?  She didn’t think about this for too long, the rest of the painting drew her eyes away.

Amanda judged that the woman would have been about the same height as herself, maybe several inches taller, if she had been real instead of graffiti, but she was as unbelievably broad as before.  Here the artist hadn’t concealed her in shadows.  She was depicted wearing a simple, solid dark-red sleeveless blouse and a dark patterned skirt.  They were torn almost in an oddly deliberate, artistic fashion at the hems, collar and in patches revealing the dark skin beneath.  Any doubts about the figure’s sex were instantly banished as its inhumanly broad chest somehow seemed to heave as it stared at her, breasts threatening to tear through the fabric.  Just the patches of skin peeking through the fabric somehow seemed to be packed with more flesh and muscle than the average person’s entire torso, so her fully bared arms…

She quavered, staring at the pillars of brawn.  In the Mother’s Arms… In her arms…  They were held down and outstretched, as though reaching to take the observer into their embrace.  Without thinking, she walked forward as though to allow herself to be gathered, folded into the beast’s chest.  Were those arms relaxed or tensed?  Veins protruded from the ham-sized forearms like webs and crawled over the bulging biceps, seeming to pulse with vitality.  Her hands, however, were open, palms forward.

Abruptly, she found herself standing a single pace from the wall.  The eyes looked down at her from the elevated position.  The size of the figure seemed even more unbelievable from here.  She felt like she could pack her entire body into one of those limbs.  Could a person control so much strength?  So much power?  She thought that it almost seemed as though the offered embrace would prove deadly regardless of the intentions behind it.  Arms pulled from their sockets… cracked concrete… broken bones.  Could such strength be gentle?  Could it protect as well as destroy?  Where were these thoughts coming from?  What was happening to her?

She reached out with a hand, pressed it flat against the cold wall.  It looked so tiny, dead in the center of the woman’s chest.  What would a chest like that feel like?  She rubbed the hand against the smooth surface, her fingers conjuring up the imagined sensation of warm, pulsating muscle.  Of the beating of her strong heart as it thundered in that cavernous chest.  Her jaw fell slack, her tongue moistening dried lips.  Her other hand joined the first, each pressed to one of the swells of bosom.  The depiction down in the courtyard hadn’t come close to doing the woman justice; hiding this incredible body in darkness, removing the femininity of those perfect breasts.  As striking as the face was, now she hardly bothered to give it a second thought as she lost herself in the rugged landscape of chest and shoulders, the muscular symphony of mounded arms.  Those arms…  They demanded her attention, pulled her to them.

As with the chest, Amanda reached out to trace the bulging, sinewy, grossly overstuffed limbs.  Even though the upper arms of the woman were two-dimensional, Amanda found that both of her hands together side by side weren’t up to the task of spanning the hypnotic mound.  In front of this behemoth she felt so small, so vulnerable.  Like a child, a little girl.  Her arms would be almost as thick around as my chest…  I could wrap my own arms around them…  that would be just about the only part of her upper body that I would be able to get my arms around…  Why was she thinking these things?  She realized how warm it was in here.  How warm she was.  The air here was still musty, but now there was an odor underneath it, seeping into her nostrils.  A scent of sweat, a deep musk, heady and powerful.  It seemed to hit her brain, exploding like a firecracker.  She quivered as it rippled down her neck and through her nerves, filling her stomach with butterflies, tingling in her sex.  Yes, she thought, sinking forward In her arms…

Her eyes snapped open.  The tip of her nose, her open mouth hovered an inch from the wall.  The scent was everywhere, the warmth enveloping.  Why was it so dark?  Where had the light gone?  A cloud must have crossed the sun… or was something blocking the window, casting a deep, massive shadow?

Out!  She needed to get out!

Without a backward glance she bolted for the door, slamming it shut behind her.  The living room was brighter, the air still stuffy, but at least cool.  She gulped down a breath.  Another.  The room was silent, no sounds from the bedroom she had just abandoned.  She moved to the kitchen table as quietly as she could and scooped up her binder.  She stood for a time regarding the door and debating her next move.  She glanced at her watch, surprised to find that it was already mid-afternoon.  She must have spent more time chasing leads than she had thought, unless she had somehow spent over an hour in this apartment…  With a final backwards look she hurried for the elevator.
----------

She emerged from the building, her head still spinning.  It took several seconds before the sound of sirens cut through, her head bolting up as she recognized it.  They sounded like they were coming from the northwest quadrangle.  Mary and Penny.  There was no reason to think that anything had happened to them but…  She hurried towards the commotion.

An ambulance and two police cars had been pulled up onto the curb outside of the entranceway to the court, lights flashing.  She hurried past them, through the archway, underneath the gaze of the dark woman.  A small group had gathered by one of the apartments.  An officer stood by the kicked in door while another one had joined a pair of medics over by the side of a young blonde haired young woman.  She had been strapped into an emergency stretcher and was being wheeled away as Amanda arrived. Amanda felt a pang of relief as she saw Mary’s face among the crowd.  She hurried forward.

“What happened?”

A face turned toward her; Ms. Woodridge.  “Mr. Bevins, from the eighth floor,” she said in a hushed tone.  “He must have been drunk or something.”

“Drugs,” said a dark haired woman with a sniff.

“He’s still inside,” Woodridge continued with a grim smile, “what’s left of him anyway.”

Bevins.  She didn’t recognize the name from her list, but it was possible she’d overlooked it.  A mad impulse seized her, to march forward to the cop, to demand to see the body.  To get to the bottom of this madness.  Instead she turned away, took a few steps to clear her head.  A gentle hand took her by the shoulder.

“Come on,” Mary said quietly.  Amanda followed in silence as the young woman led her back to her apartment across the way.  Mary indicated that Amanda should sit at the table while she busied herself making tea.

“Where is Penny?”  Amanda looked around the room.

“She’s down for a nap.”  Mary replied, indicating towards the bedroom as she placed a mug down on the table.  She settled herself, hands shaking slightly.

“I want to help you,” Amanda finally broke the silence, “but I don’t know how.  I need you to talk to me.”

“We don’t need help,” Mary said quietly, “we’re safe here.”

“But what about…” Amanda gestured helplessly at the door.

“Do you think we’d be safer anywhere else?” Mary mumbled.  “We’re protected here.”

“By who?  By what?  A vigilante?  A specter?  Mary, I don’t know what’s going on here, but ghosts aren’t real, this… this… Mother,” Mary flinched, “isn’t real.  This is no place to raise your daughter.”

“My daughter,” Mary murmured.

“Yes.”  Amanda stood, crossed the floor to gesture at the photographs hung on the wall.  “Your…” she stopped, stared.  In the frames Mary, perhaps slightly younger, less worn, held a smiling young girl of five or so with her dark hair and bright blue eyes.  Something jogged in her memory.  Amanda turned slowly, her hair prickling.  “Mary…”

“My daughter,” Mary repeated.

“Who is Penny?”  Amanda whispered.

“You don’t understand,” Mary said slowly, “Allison had just…” she paused.  “Penny came to us.  We found her.  She had nowhere to go and I…”

“Mary…”

“You don’t know what she’s been through.  What she told us.  The things she saw.  The things her father did… got away with.  What happened to her mother…”

“Mary…”  Amanda said again.

“They’d send her back to him.  She’s safe here.”

“She isn’t safe here.”  Amanda felt that she was near hysteria now.  “I don’t know what you think, but there is nothing keeping her safe here!”

“But you just saw what happened!” Mary protested.  “What happens to people who…”

“I didn’t see anything!”  Amanda gestured imploringly.  “I didn’t see Bevins or whatever his name is.  I don’t know what he did, or what happened to him!  If anything happened at all.”  Even as she said it, she thought back to the presence in the abandoned bedroom; that scent, that feeling…

“Please,” Mary begged, “please.”

Amanda stared down into her tearful eyes, full of desperation.  “I…”

[Trinitus]

Okey, I'm officially scared now. Please continue.

[Circes_cup]

still loving this story.  the suspense is killing me — can’t wait to see what happens next! 

amanda is clearly drawn to this ghostly power, but what happens what her skeptical partner gets back involved?  its all the dynamics that mulder and scully had, but the gender roles are reversed, with her being the believer and him being the skeptic.  and its just as creepy, with real life and death stakes.   more!

[draight]

Penny Barrett.  Penelope Barrett.  Amanda recited the name to herself as indecision gnawed away in her guts.  Across from her, Richard hummed quietly to himself as he glanced back and forth from his computer screen to the open folder in front of himself.  What am I supposed to do now?

Over Mary’s objections she had insisted on speaking to the girl, she winced as she thought back to the brief conversation.  The pain and terror was evident in Penny’s eyes as she relayed, in halting terms, the physical abuse from her father leading up to the breakdown of her mother and the aftermath.  Amanda had quietly withdrawn to the living room and left Mary to console the girl.

Eventually, the haggard woman had returned, shutting the door to the bedroom behind herself.  “Why not go to the police?” Amanda had immediately asked her.

“They don’t care,” the woman had huffed, “he already got away with it.”

“But he wouldn’t!” Amanda had exclaimed.  “Not if she testified.”

“They wouldn’t believe a scared, confused, lost little girl like her, and if he knew that she was still alive that she’d ever be safe again?  If they sent her back to him even for a day…”  Mary’s eyes shone, she spoke with an unaccustomed ferocity.  “Besides, what then?  They’d take her away, put her in a home somewhere or shuffle her around.  She’s better off here.  With me.”

Amanda returned to the present.  The report she had been reviewing sat open in front of her:  The photograph was in black and white but it was her, the face was unmistakable.  Missing – Penelope Barrett.  Age 6.  Last seen November 14th, 20XX.  Believed to have run away from home following the accidental death of her mother…

She glanced over at another report:  13 November, 20XX.  Caucasian female identified as Ellen Barrett by Gerald Barrett, husband of the deceased.  Subject was found at the base of the stairs of their apartment block…   She skimmed ahead.  Blunt trauma consistent with a fall… toxicology suggests the deceased was intoxicated at the time of the event…

And the third article:  Gerald Barrett questioned in the death of his wife, disappearance of his daughter… Insufficient evidence...

What was she supposed to make of all of this?  That the man had murdered his wife and gotten away with it if Mary and Penny were to be believed.  And she did believe the girl.  Certainly she seemed sure of everything she had said.  The authorities would care.  They wouldn’t send her back to him…  But could she take that risk?  She shook her head.  Had that place really gotten this far into her head?  It needed to end, one way or another.

“It’s quitting time.  Whatcha working on?”  Richard grinned down at her.

“I… I don’t know,” she replied quietly.  The smile slowly disappeared from his face as she shook her head.

“Is everything all right?”  He sat down heavily, now concerned.

“I don’t think that it is,” she admitted.  “You remember the other day?  The woman and young girl that we met?”

“Sure, of course.”

“I…”  She couldn’t bring herself to tell him.  “I’m worried about them.”  She swallowed.  “I can’t stop thinking about that poor little girl.  The one who was murdered.  Or her… her mother.”  Richard frowned as she let out the last two words in a rush, but didn’t say anything.  “I went to the apartment the other day, 1004,” she admitted.

“You did?  Why?  Did you find anything?”

“It was like it had been preserved somehow, like a monument, or a shrine.”

“Really?”  Richard stood back up. 

“I don’t know exactly what’s going on at that place, but I think it’s gone far enough.”

“Wait, wait.  Are you about to start in on this murder conspiracy theory again?  You know that that’s crazy.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, it is.”  Richard didn’t seem interested in debating this.  “The place has gotten into your head.  I think you should consider taking some time off from this.  Yes, it’s sad that your new friend has to live like that, but the best way we can help is by completing our job.  I’ll go on Monday to see about getting a team in to clean 1004 up.”

***

Richard would have been exasperated with her, she knew that, but she couldn’t help it.  The Smith-Moorefield drew her back in.  As she drove home it weighed on her mind: the girl, both girls, the building.  That room.  What she had felt in there.  Her hands seemed to work almost of their own accord; turning the wheel, steering her back towards the estates.  She parked a little way away and walked, holding her coat closed against the cold wind.  The sun offered little warmth.  Despite the cold she paused in the archway to glance at the painting as she passed.  Its dark eyes seemed to follow her.

The northwest quad was abandoned as she crossed towards Mary’s apartment.  What was she going to say?  What was she even really doing here?

The door swung open after her knock.  “Mary…” she said before stopping.  Carol Woodridge stood in the doorway, and seemed as surprised to see Amanda as Amanda was to see her.

“What are you doing here?”  She peered out over Amanda’s shoulder before focusing back on her.

“I came to talk to Mary,” Amanda declared.

“I think that you’ve spoken to her enough,” Ms. Woodridge sniffed.  Behind her a voice called out.

“What is it?  Is she…”  Mary moved into view behind the older woman, her face a mask of worry.  On seeing Amanda she came rushing forward.  “What are you doing here?  How did you know?  Did you..?”

“Know what?” Amanda asked, taken aback.  Mary’s face immediately fell.

“Penny…” she whispered.  Amanda’s heart sank in her chest at the fear audible in the single word.  “She’s missing.  I don’t know where she is…”

“Everyone is looking for her,” Ms. Woodridge interjected, “I know that this is horribly frightening, but I’m sure that she’ll turn up in no time.  She’s probably playing a game.”

Everyone looking for her?  Amanda frowned to herself, I didn’t see anyone outside…

“But what if her father somehow found out she was here?  What if he came for her?  She could be…”

“What happened?” Amanda interjected sharply.

“I went down to the store, just to pick up a few things.  She was napping…”

“The door was locked when you got back?”

“Yes…” Mary said slowly before nodding firmly to herself.  “Yes.  It was.”

“What are you doing here?” Amanda said, turning to Ms. Woodridge.

“Excuse me?” the woman huffed in surprise.  When Amanda continued to stare she continued haughtily, “We’d had a little conversation several days ago that we hadn’t quite finished, I was coming around to talk to Mary…”

Several days ago, when Mr. Bevins was killed?  “A conversation about what?” she asked.  Ms. Woodridge’s glare spoke volumes.  “We need to call the police.”

“We can’t call the police.”

“I’m sure the girl is fine.”

“What did you do with her?”  Amanda demanded of Woodridge.

“Excuse me!?”

“Where is she?”

“How would I know that?”

“Because you’re at the center of everything that…” Amanda’s shout died away.  No, she isn’t at the center of everything.  At the center of everything…  “Mary.  I think I know where Penny is.  Come on.”

“What?  No!” the terrified woman shot glances back and forth between the two arguing figures.  “I can’t leave.  What if she comes back and I’m not here?”

Amanda snarled in frustration.  “I… fine!  But keep her here, with you.”  She pointed at Ms. Woodridge.

***

The shadows were growing longer as Amanda ran across the quad towards the tower.  The monolithic structure was dark; no lights shone in any of the windows.  ‘Where is everyone?  What is Woodridge playing at?  What are they all playing at?’  The entrance gaped at her as she rushed towards it and wrenched the doors open.  The only sound was that of her own feet as she crossed the lobby and jabbed at the button for the elevator.

***
Amanda steeled herself and eased the door to 1004 open slowly.  It swung open silently, without protest, and she stepped forward into the room.  A quick scan of the room showed that she was alone but she held her breath, listening intently for any sound.  There was nothing.  The last rays of light from the sun were dying as, outside, it slipped below the horizon, leaving the room in darkness.  To her surprise, the lights still worked when she tried them, throwing feeble, flickering illumination over room.  She moved across to the door on tiptoe.  There was no sign anyone was here, no sign anyone had been here, but somehow she knew that this was where Penny would be.  Her heart pounded in her chest, sweat breaking out on her brow and slicking her palms as she reached out for the doorknob to the girl’s bedroom.

Someone had been here.  The bundle of sheets had been replaced on the mattress.  “No…” she let out a low moan.  The bundle was larger than it had been, she was sure of it.  “Please no…”  All concern for herself forgotten, she rushed forward to the bed and swept away the sheets.

It was Penny.  Her face was pale and she lay unmoving.  “Please, please…” Amanda put her hand to the girl’s neck, searching for a pulse.  A long sigh of relief escaped her lips as she found one, weak and slow but steady.  She looked the girl up and down searching for wounds, any sign of injury.  There were none.  Drugged then?  Why?  She hoisted the girl into her arms and grunted, surprised at the weight.  She turned, finding that the door had closed behind her.  She simply stared at it for a moment, her hands full.  After a quick deliberation she deposited the girl back on the mattress.  She moved and opened the door, propping it open with a chair.  The door to the hall had remained open and she quickly went back to gather the girl.

She felt, somehow, that something changed; a shift in the ambiance moments before a faint scent reached her nose.  She turned.

A shadow fell across the dim light spilling in from the entranceway as a figure stepped into view.  And what a figure.  Amanda could hardly begin to take in what she was seeing before it moved forward.  The doorway wasn’t nearly wide enough to accommodate its full girth as it compacted and shifted itself to move through.  Amanda stared, unable to move as the figure completed her task and stopped, standing at ease between her and the door.  The dark woman stood eye to eye with her, but that was as far as any equality between them went.

It isn’t possible.  No one can be that big.  But big was an understatement.  The woman’s bare arms were enormous, as though boulders had been stuffed underneath her skin.  They were attached to shoulders bigger than volleyballs, all anchored by a torso wide as a barn door.  Amanda had seen pictures of bodybuilders and weightlifters, but no man she had ever seen had muscles like this.  Of course, the figure wasn’t a man: the beautiful femininity of her face, the plump softness of her lips and long tangle of her hair made this immediately apparent.  If that wasn’t enough, the enormous globes of her breasts would have dispelled any doubt.  They heaved up and down in a slow rhythm with her breaths as her barrel chest slowly expanded and contracted.  Through tears in her top peeked abdominals larger than Amanda’s fists.

“Oh God, oh God…” Amanda whimpered.  It was like something out of a dream, or a nightmare.  Somehow both.  The cloying warmth, that utterly overpowering scent.  It was overwhelming.  It was the scent of her.  Of sweat, adrenaline and blood.  Of sex, of feminine power.  Her eyes frantically darted to the wall.  The likeness was still there watching over her, but… she could never have known, never imagined that it would be so far from doing her justice.

The figure shifted, simply twitching the fingers of its right hand, and Amanda moaned at the sight.  Slabs of muscle that would have humiliated and degraded the largest bodybuilders in the world rippled in symphony underneath the paper-thin, mocha colored skin of that forearm.  Somehow she knew that just the twitch of those fingers would have been enough to crush her wrist to a bloody pulp, to shatter any part of her that this monster desired.  “Who are you?” she managed to whisper.

“You know who I am,” the apparition’s voice was dispassionate, her expression unreadable.

“What…” Amanda tried to swallow, to moisten her throat, but nothing came, “what do you want?”

“I came for you,” she stated simply.  Now the machinery of her body churned into motion.  It defied all logic, all anatomical sense.  How could she move with muscles so impractically swollen?  She looked like something that could only exist in art or the imagination, but no matter how much Amanda disbelieved, no matter that she couldn’t understand, that grotesque form moved closer and closer to her.

“No.  No!”  She began to backpedal, her hands held up impotently in front of her.  “I don’t understand.”

“You didn’t believe.”  Did she detect the faintest hint of regret in the deep rumble?  “Didn’t believe what they said.  Didn’t believe the depictions that they left.  So I was forced to come in the flesh.”  Surely she had imagined the regret, the figure now smiled coyly, proudly.  “All of it.”

The specter stopped, now they were within arm’s reach of each other.  Those arms started to rise slowly until they were fully spread at her sides.  She clenched her fists.  Held tensed but not flexed, they were already as thick as Amanda’s torso, the incredible swells of muscle forming unbelievable mounds.  Those dark eyes turned as the woman glanced at her own musculature quickly before looking back at Amanda.

She shook her head in mute appeal.  No more.  She couldn’t take any more.  Her plea was ignored.  With agonizing slowness the figure began to contort her arms into a double bicep flex.  Grossly swollen, blocky muscles erupted, veins as thick as pencils running over the unbelievable expanse of chocolate flesh.  Muscles that could crack concrete.  Muscles that could break men as easily as swatting a fly.  Muscles that she had refused to believe could exist.  Amanda dropped to her knees in front of the colossal woman, her mind unable to process the sight, unable to resist any longer.  “Do you believe now?”  The power of her voice alone shook Amanda to the core, the room trembled around her.

“Yes,” she whispered.  How could I not?

“Then come to me.”

Amanda didn’t even consider resisting.  She crawled forward on hands and knees, a supplicant before the goddess of muscle.  ‘Yes, goddess.’  She latched franticly to this thought and flung herself at the Mother’s feet.  Any lingering hope that she could be a hallucination or phantom disappeared, snuffed out as she pressed her lips to her and found solid flesh.   She kissed frantically, desperately trying to appease the enormous woman, expecting that at any moment one of those feet would rise to fall down upon her skull or back with terrible force.  When the woman didn’t respond Amanda began to work her way upwards, brushing the tatters of skirt to the side as she continued up past her ankles.

The enormity of her task immediately became clear as she revealed more of the woman’s mountainous physique.  Surely it would take an hour just to kiss every inch of the bloated calves that now met her eyes, let alone the rest of her, but even as she despaired Amanda found herself beginning to salivate at the prospect.  Above her, that heady, intoxicating scent beckoned, overpowering her.  Amanda didn’t think that she had ever felt so impotent in her life, even as a child. Yes, she felt like a child comparing herself to this…woman.  The word was inadequate.  She had surpassed such a simple concept as womanhood.  She was more than human; stronger, sexier, more potent.  She was some sort of primal ideal; a mythological figure that had stepped out into the light of day.  The power that she held in those limbs, that body, was beyond anything a mortal could hope to possess, but she hadn’t even needed to use it to bring Amanda to her knees.  Her mere presence was more than sufficient.

“Have you finished?”  The woman sounded amused.  Amanda’s voice failed her as she flung herself forward, wrapping her entire body around one of those redwood-trunks.  She mewled in supplication, grinding her sopping womanhood against the broad shin, submitting utterly.  She couldn’t bring herself to remove her hands from the pulsating muscles of the dark thigh, so she simply thrust her head under the folds of the skirt, seeking desperately for the source of the scent.

She experienced a momentary sensation of weightlessness as the leg she was wrapped around lifted into the air to hold her parallel to the ground.  The Mother casually swayed the leg back and forth through the air, like a bull trying to twitch an insect off of itself.  Amanda clung even more desperately as she was shaken.  It was no use.  The woman reached down with a hand to pluck her free and hold her suspended, her feet dangling uselessly.  A slight tightening of the fingers wrapped around her neck would be enough to pop her head from her shoulders but nonetheless she wrapped her hands around the brawny wrist, trying to relieve the pressure around her throat.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she choked out.  “You don’t do this.  Not like this.”

“Tell me,” the behemoth purred.

“I haven’t done anything.  I haven’t hurt anyone,” Amanda gasped thankfully as the fingers loosened their grip slightly.

“Are you sure?  You came here.  You brought your doubts, your influence.  Even a word can be an act of violence if spoken the right way.”  The Mother’s free arm churned into motion, gesturing to the still figure of Penny sprawled on the bed.  “You sought to take her away from here.” 

“You don’t hurt women.”  It was a shot in the dark, but miraculously Amanda felt the tips of her toes scuff against the carpeting.  The mammoth arm slowly lowered, depositing her on her feet.

“I haven’t before.”  That fierce head cocked quizzically to the side, those dark eyes studied her.  The calloused hand rested gently on her neck.  It no longer exerted any force, but the threat remained.

“Please.  Don’t hurt me.”  Subtlety was long past.

“Are you sure?”  Those dark eyes continued to study her with something approaching… interest?  Pity?  “You asked me who I am.  If you only understood...  You thought me a story.”  She grinned suddenly.  “You were right.”

“I don’t…”

“The flesh will abandon you.  Cast it aside first.”  She released her grip on Amanda’s neck and spread her arms wide.   “Come to me.  Join me.  Let me take you.  The kindly young woman, they’ll say, the outsider who came to save up, who thought she knew what was best.  They will remember you, share stories about you.”

“No…” she trembled.  “I can’t.  I can’t!”

“I won’t force you to.”  She placed her hands on her hips.  Tried to anyway.  Instead, her arms ended up cocked to her sides, resting on the incredible lats that gave her the appearance of being almost a circle they were so broad.  Somehow her top remained intact, was it somehow a part of her?  Part of the essence which composed that body?  Amanda found herself wishing that top would shred, dissipate, whatever.  She didn’t care, she wanted to see the torso that it was concealing in all of its glory.  The woman smiled at her knowingly as she licked her lip.  “I’m true to my word.  But…”  Her hand reached out once more, to stroke Amanda’s cheek.  It lingered there as the overmatched young woman quivered.  “I so rarely get to be.  Perhaps before I go…  I did so enjoy the feel of your lips…”

That face, those dark eyes were swimming closer to her.  Amanda realized that the hand was pulling her forward, the huge arm beginning to tighten around her.  The woman’s other hand rose to her own collar, pulling the tattered shirt off of herself as easily as tissue paper.  Amanda’s entire chest wasn’t even close to being as wide as even one of bared pectorals she found herself being pulled into.  She raised her hands, trying to push away but as they grazed against the diamond hard, pointed nipple capping the glorious breast something snapped.

With a smile of complete, effortless domination, the woman brought her mouth towards Amanda’s.  Her strong tongue cracked Amanda’s jaw open, invading her mouth, their tongues filling with the taste of each other and Amanda melted against the enormous woman.  Her arms, her hands, her mind gave up their struggle.  She began to feel the woman’s arms, her shoulders, caressing the enormous muscles, marveling at their sheer, brutal size.

It would have been trivial for the figure to force Amanda to her knees, to take her, control her utterly, but it wasn’t necessary.  Amanda’s knees went out from underneath her of their own accord.  She pressed her face against the armor plated surface of those abdominals.  She wanted to worship every inch of this body.  Wanted to service this larger, stronger, superior woman. But even as she began the overpowering scent of her womanhood drew further Amanda down.  She dove beneath the long skirt, seeking desperately.  She was confronted by thighs so voluminous that they held her from her goal, but she pounded at them desperately and the Mother acquiesced, and adopting a squatting stance in order to separate them enough to grant her access before tearing away the garment.

Her sex was warm and wet as Amanda buried herself in it eagerly.  She had never done this before, never been with a woman, but she didn’t care.  All she desired was to be a tool of pleasure for this transcendent being.  She fingered and licked, reading every twitch in response, desperate to serve.  The wetness of her own arousal spilled over, slicking her lips and running down her thighs.  She’d hardly been at it for several moments before it was too much for her; her passion boiling without even touching herself.  She moaned into the gargantuan woman’s pussy as waves of pleasure crashed through her; no man had ever been able to inspire the level of arousal in her that this goddess had produced with her mere presence.  An impossibly strong hand on the back of her skull forced her further in.  Her entire body was encased in hot, pulsating, granite muscle as she frantically licked.  The figure standing over her, using her, may have said something, but she couldn’t make it out.  A second wave of bliss pulsated through her as the thighs tightened around her, threatening to crack her skull like an eggshell.  Stars exploded in her vision.  The woman had promised not to harm her, but in this moment Amanda almost thought that she wouldn’t care.  A gush of wetness sprayed over her like force of nature, potent and copious.  She sank into darkness as above her the giantess roared with satisfaction.

***

Amanda came to with a gasp.  She lay on the cold floor, it was dark.  She quickly ran her hands over herself, and found that everything was okay.  Nothing broken.  She took a deep breath.  She was safe, she was fine, she was alone.

No, of course she wasn’t alone.  Penny!  She bolted to her feet and ran back to the other room.  The young girl stirred as she entered, sitting up with a broad yawn.  “What’s happening?” she asked sleepily.

“There’s no time sweetheart.  We have to go, now!”  She grabbed the girl by the hand, pulling her off of the bed.

“You’re scaring me!” the girl protested.

“I know, I’m sorry!  I’m taking you back to your… your mother.”  The entranceway was empty, she pulled Penny into the dim lighting of the hallway.  Get to the elevator.  Get to the elevator.  And then what?  Should she take the girl back to Mary?  To the police?  Down the hallway, a faint ping heralded the arrival of one of the elevator cars.  The sound pulled Amanda up short.

The doors slowly pulled open and a man stepped out into the hall.  Despite the low lighting, despite her confusion, Amanda had no doubt: she had seen him before.  Not in person, but in the reports she had hungrily scrounged up in the last several days.  Penny stiffened, drawing back to hide behind Amanda as the two larger figures stood and stared at one another.  Gerald Barrett didn’t seem surprised to see her.  He peered at her cautiously.  “You’re the one who called me?”

“What?” her voice came out in a rasp.

“My daughter.”  The shadowed face screwed up into a mockery of concern.  “My sweet Penelope, she’s here?  You have her?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said stiffly.

“Sure you do.”  He was advancing slowly now, looking around as if expecting a trap.  “You called me, told me she was here.  I’ve come to bring her home.”

“You’re mistaken.”  She cursed herself as her voice trembled.

“Oh.”  He didn’t stop.  He raised one hand gently in front of himself, as though attempting to sooth a skittish animal.  Amanda suddenly realized that the other was concealed in his jacket pocket.  He was only several steps away now, his face clear despite the dim lighting.  His eyes….  They were hard, flat.  Dead eyes.  “Give her to me,” he said suddenly.

“No.”  It came out a whisper.

“No?”  The face twisted into a horrible smile.  “Just stand aside.  I’m taking her home.”

“No,” she said again, louder this time.

“Well…” he sighed, “no matter then.”  His right hand emerged from the pocket, metal flashed.

“Penny, run!”  Amanda pushed the girl away.  “Find a place to hide!”  The young girl disappeared down the hallway as Gerald bore down on Amanda.

“Get out of my way!” he bellowed.  Instead, she put herself in his path, blocking his body with her own.  The two of them went down in a tangle, madly scrabbling at each other until he quickly got the upper hand.  Amanda found herself on her back as he straddled her, her hands and his locked around the handle of the knife as they both desperately strained against each other.  He was larger than her and her arms quickly began to tremble as he used his weight to push down.  “Sorry darling.” he snarled down at her, “I’m afraid this is going to hurt.”

Lights sparkled in her eyes as she strained, the pounding of her heart filled her ears.  Over the man’s shoulder the darkness seemed to coalesce and swirl.  Yes… I can’t beat him… but…  “Fucking right it is!” she spat at him as her arms gave out.

White hot pain lanced through her abdomen, then again through her chest, and once more.  She tried to cry out but nothing would come except a dull wheeze.  Her arms dropped limp at her sides.  She could feel a warm, sticky wetness spreading down her torso.  Gerald stood, his face crazed.  He gave one last glance at her before beginning down the hallway.  With the last of her strength, Amanda pulled herself into a sitting position against the wall.

She felt, rather than saw, as an enormous form moved past her.  Penny’s father stopped, cocking his head to the side as though listening.  “What..?” he said as he turned back towards Amanda.

Then she was there.  Gerald’s eyes bugged out of their sockets.  She had made no concession to modesty; the entirety of her monstrous body was as bare as Amanda had last seen it.  Slowly, deliberately, she lifted one of those mahogany trunks, took a step towards him, the leg packed more pure, incredible mass than his entire body.  Her body glimmered under the light, as though covered in a light sheen of sweat.

With a wordless cry, Gerald leapt at her, his knife flashing towards her abdomen.  She made no move to intercept as the blade plunged in between two of the softball sized bulges of her abdominals.  It simply stopped as it came up against her armor plated core.  Immediately, he tried to leap backwards, but the blade was stuck deep in the crease of her eight-pack.  He desperately tugged with both hands, trying to pull his weapon free to no avail.  The woman allowed herself a small smile as she flexed her abdomen into a crunch, the knifeblade shattering into slivers as it was caught between the expanding, impossibly hard muscles.  Before he could move, she caught both of his hands in one of hers.  Despite standing a head taller than her he quickly seemed to shrink away as he desperately twisted and thrashed to free himself.  His cry of anger turned into a shriek as the bones of his wrists shattered under the gentle squeeze of her fingers. Then with a small chuckle she released him.  He fell back, supporting himself against the wall.

“Come to me,” she said simply.  He seemed beyond understanding, staring at the ruin of his hands.  “Come to me,” she repeated herself, “or I will come to you.”

“What?” he gasped out.  It was the last intelligible thing that he said.  She stepped into him, the sheer breadth and thickness of her body almost entirely eclipsed him from Amanda’s view even though she was to the side of them.  Gerald began to scream as she breathed in deep, the sinewy, striated beef of her chest flexing into his own.  His chest seemed give way before her superior one, collapsing inward and flattening as she expanded.  The first crack met Amanda’s ears, accompanied by a rise in octave as Gerald cried out anew.  Then she was taking his ruined hands in hers and insinuating her thighs with his feeble looking sticks.  She held him spread-eagled against the wall as she slowly pressed forward, an implacable glacier of pure female muscle.  More cracks and snaps were audible over his sobbing breath as his body seemed to flatten and…  Amanda dropped her head to her chest, exhausted.  In the background the sound of breaking bones and tortured breathing died away to be replaced by a dull squelching and finally silence.

The pain was receding now.  It seemed small and far away.  A massive shadow fell over her as she gasped for breath.  The figure’s deep voice was softer now, almost a whisper.  “It’s time that we were gone.”  Strong hands gathered her, lifted her, and folded her against that massive chest.  Gargantuan arms enveloped her. 

They were gentle.
***

“Amanda?”  Richard called out into the empty apartment.  “Amanda, are you here?”  He held his breath and listened, letting out a long sigh when there was no response.  It had seemed like a longshot to think that she was here, but he had figured that it would be worth checking if nothing else.  When she hadn’t showed up to work for several days without any communication he hadn’t been sure where to go.  Would he need to file a missing person’s report?  He shivered as the thought, combined with the ambiance of the abandoned apartment, sent a chill through him.  He had tried to stop in to ask her new friend Mary if she had seen her, but she hadn’t answered at her apartment either.  Gone for the day, or just gone?  He pushed the thought away, moving through a doorway into what seemed to be a bedroom.

“What the hell…?” He stopped in shock, staring at the wall.  That must be the same artist and subject as that thing down in the archway…  The representation of this brutally muscular woman would have been enough to set him aback all on its own, but it wasn’t what had caught his interest.  A second figure adorned the wall: a young woman looked down at him beatifically.  The light dress she wore was a ruin: blood ran from several tears in the fabric down her torso and legs.  Nonetheless, her arms were spread wide in a gesture of comfort.  A gesture of protection.  The smile on her face was serene, content.  Her face…  He knew that hair, those eyes.  He knew that face.

[Jaguar]

Wow, really really excellent !
 

Fantastic suspense!