You were wrapping at work and were on your way to your supervisor’s office to let her know you were leaving. As you walked past the breakroom, you noticed a small crowd gathered around the TV. Curious, you stepped into the breakroom.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
Your coworker Sarah didn’t take her eyes off the TV. “Something’s going on over in Olympian Heights.” She glanced at you. “Isn’t that the subdivision you live in?”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
Sarah hesitated. “Uh, all they’ve said so far is that a, and I quote, ‘large child’ is attacking the neighborhood.”
“A ‘large child’ is attacking? What does that mean? A fat kid found his dad’s gun?” You were growing nervous. “My sister is at home. I should probably call her.”
Brian looked up from his phone. “Uh, there are some rumors on Twitter that it’s a kid, uh…” he hesitated, then gave a disbelieving chuckle. “A kid the size of a house.”
You paused, halfway through dialing. “What?”
“That’s what popping up on Twitter. There’s no footage, though.” Brian said, as you finished dialing.
“So it’s some stupid prank,” Sarah said, rolling her eyes.
"No one's answering," you said, lowering your phone. “I should probably get over there.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Rob said, pointing to the TV. “Listen.”
You turned to pay attention to the news report and the woman sitting in the local newsroom. “-ordered an evacuation of the surrounding area and police are in the process of closing roads to inbound traffic. Our ‘Five in the Sky’ chopper is now over the neighborhood.” The woman looked uncomfortable. “Some of the images coming out of the subdivision are disturbing and may be inappropriate for some viewers. Craig, what do you see?”
The screen switched to an aerial view. You recognized your neighborhood, but it looked like a tornado had blown through. Several houses were missing roofs. Your next door neighbors’ house was missing several walls as well, actually looking like there had been some sort of explosion inside the front rooms of the house. The camera zoomed in on the damage, and you could see that your house was mostly fine, except the front door was laying in the front yard, surrounded by what looked like pieces of the patio doorframe.
“Allie, where are you…?” you muttered.
“Shauna, it almost looks like a hurricane has struck the houses down here in Olympian Heights,” Craig was saying. “One house you can see has almost been completely destroyed.” A graphic highlighted the house next door. “Reports suggest that is the house that the, uh, giant emerged from.”
The breakroom broke out in excited chatter. “It is a giant?” Sarah said.
Craig continued. “-houses have had their roofs torn off. The giant is currently a few houses down and appears to be systematically tearing the roofs off and removing items from each house.”
The chopper cam panned around, and then there he was. The breakroom, you included, gasped.
The giant was sitting on his knees with his bare back to the chopper, shoveling stuff out of the house. The news switched to a split screen between the aerial footage and the newsroom.
“Craig, can you estimate the g-giant’s size,” Shauna asked, voice trembling slightly.
“Hard to say, Shauna. You can see he’s taller than, um, all the one-story homes surrounding him, and he’s still kneeling down. Probably more than 50 feet tall.
Shauna’s eyes widened. She silently mounted “Fifty Feet.” Out loud she said, “Craig, some eyewitnesses have reported the giant is a child. Can you confirm this?”
“The scale is throwing any point of reference off, but hold on, Shauna, we’ll try to come around to his fro…hang on, he’s doing something.” Craig tried to keep his voice steady. “He’s getting up!”
The giant slowly got to his feet. The helicopter was keeping a respectful distance, away from and above the giant’s head. The giant turned around.
“It’s a girl!” Craig exclaimed.
You gasped. Your phone slid out of your slack grip and shattered on the tile. The giant was a girl, alright. She was several stories tall, and didn’t have on a stitch of clothing, so it was pretty obvious. You couldn’t blame the anchors for using male pronouns. Between the flat chest and the short haircut and just the sheer impossibility of the situation, it had been easy to assume the town was under attack by a giant boy.
But it was Allison. Your "little" sister, whom you had last seen struggling to reach the top shelf of the pantry, was now more than twice the size of your house.
By now, Allison was strolling across the street to the McKays’ house. You noticed that her stomach was huge and round and totally out of proportion to her frame. She had even gone from an innie to an outie. Evidently, though, she was still hungry. She dropped to her knees in front of the house and casually ripped the roof off. She reached in where you knew the kitchen was and proceeded to shovel the contents of the room, presumably food, into her mouth.
“She’s…eating the contents of the house,” Craig said, dumbstruck.
“Craig, can you gauge her age?” Shauna asked.
Craig hesitated. “Well, her size makes it difficult to, uh, pinpoint, since the scale’s so…skewed. But she’s, uh, obviously… a young girl.” Craig was obviously uncomfortable being asked to describe a naked elementary schooler on TV. “Uh, my pilot doesn’t think she’s any older than 10. Maybe 8 or 9.”
For her part, Allison kept shoveling the kitchen’s contents into her mouth. She wasn’t being picky; you saw some furniture get swept up and tossed into her mouth. What if she wasn’t paying attention? What if a person got swept up between her huge fingers?
Sarah had evidently been thinking along similar lines. “She’s just…eating. Oh, god, what if she eats a person?”
Fortunately, it never got to that point. Allie apparently exhausted the kitchen and sat back on her calves. Then, she grabbed some shrubs from the front of the house and started devouring the McKays’ landscaping.
Finally, Allie appeared to be sated. She got back to her feet, and seemed to notice the helicopter for the first time, gazing directly at the camera and waving while wearing a wide smile. She walked to under where it was hovering in a few steps, and reached up toward it.
Craig said something to the pilot. The view of Allison shifted a bit as the helicopter bobbed around. “Don't worry, we can stay out of her reach.”
Just then Allie’s eyes went wide and she dropped her arms from the chopper to cradle her bulging gut. As you watched, her stomach shrank under her hands, deflating back into Allie’s normal lean midriff. Then, her face screwed up into a look of discomfort, she opened her mouth, and “BUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPP!”
Allison released a thunderous belch. You definitely heard it through the TV speakers, and you were pretty sure you could hear it in the distance. Shauna flinched and ripped her earpiece out.
With a rapturous look on her young face, Allie once again reached toward the chopper. Again, the view bobbed and weaved as the chopper stayed beyond her reach.
Except, a moment later, the helicopter appeared to be descending toward Allison’s grasping fingers. Quickly.
“What are they doing?” Brian asked.
“Craig…?” Shauna began.
“She’s growing! Holy shit!” Craig cried as Allison swelled to take up more and more of the camera frame. “Pull up! Pull up!”
The view became chaotic for a moment as the helicopter jerked and swerved. It dipped to one side but then jerked back up, twisting around before refocusing on Allison, now from a considerable distance.
“W-w-we’re all right,” Craig stammered. “She just…just grew. Right up to the chopper! She actually got some fingers on the landing skid, but we broke away.” He was panting. “Shauna, it’s…it’s incredible. This 8 year old girl can just pluck helicopters out of the sky!”
The 8 year old girl in question was staring at the chopper with a pout, evidently disappointed that her new toy had escaped. Then she took a look at the neighborhood around and below her and her smile returned.
By now the houses only came up to Allie's knees. Still grinning like a maniac, she placed a bare foot on a car parked in a driveway. A moment later, the sedan crumpled like a soda can. Allison giggled, then bent down to pick up the wreck. She brought the flattened car up to face and studied it for a moment. Then her eyelids drooped and she bit her bottom lip as a shudder ran through her body. Her free hand made a few tentative motions between her legs.
“Oh, shit,” Sarah said. “She’s enjoying this. Like really enjoying this.”
You looked at her, shocked. “She’s eight.”
“Same age I was when I discovered that my electric toothbrush didn’t just brush teeth. Some girls are precocious.” Sarah laughed nervously. “And what’s more precocious than a 65 foot growth spurt?”
Meanwhile, Allison had come back to her senses. She refocused on the crushed car in her hand, then, after an exaggerated pitcher’s windup, threw it as hard as she could. The mass of crumpled metal flew a few blocks before impacting in a clump of trees in a cloud of dust and smoke.
Allison stood there with her hands on her hips, looking at the cloud of dust. You knew her well enough to know she was dissatisfied with her effort. Then she turned her attention back to the tiny cars and houses and helicopters around her, as if considering what to do next…
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