"A Little Love" by The Beast (Complete)

[qzar9999]

...Ok, not all that popular, and not so much a demand, but still. My mostly well-received story from back in the days when I still answered to The Beast and was not reduced to this shadow of my former self by my emasculating, controlling girlfriend. Who, by the way, I'm now happy to say is an ex-, and my new one actually understands and is willing to let me participate without complaint. Can you say 'keeper'?

Anyway, without further ado, what you're really here for:




A LITTLE ?LOVE?
By The Beast


Part One

SOMEWHERE IN LOS ANGELES?

Craig stared numbly at the screen. He couldn?t believe it! All that tweaking with his image editor program to no effect, and FINALLY he had gotten it to work! His fingers ached and twitched from all the programming and re-writing, but he had finally gotten the program to work, as he wanted it to. At least, he thought he had. He needed to run more tests with more complex images?namely, images of people, which was his ultimate goal anyway. He chuckled to himself as it occurred to him that he was skipping directly to the human testing, so to speak.

He decided that he should dedicate this momentous occasion?his first successful (hopefully) test of his first original program?to someone. He had no idea who, though. As he sat and thought, an idea finally took shape in his mind?his favorite female celebrity would be perfect for this! He would have worked with her image eventually anyway, so why not go right to it? He began searching his celebrity image archives for an image of her, muttering to himself, ?Jennifer?Love?Hewitt. Now where did I save those pictures???

MEANWHILE -- SOMEWHERE ELSE IN LOS ANGELES (GOLD?S GYM, HOLLYWOOD)?

Jennifer entered the rear room of the large gym. Tom Brooks, her personal trainer, was waiting for her, as always. Tonight found him leaning on a treadmill. He had her on a regular schedule?Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings?but the routines were anything but predictable. He would work her on different machines for differing lengths of time, often causing her workouts to end at odd times?and never the same time two nights in a row.

She sighed deeply. ?Well, what are we starting with tonight? Walking? Jogging? Mobile handstands??

He cracked a slight smile. ?Actually I was thinking maybe you could pull yourself along by your hands. Then we?ll put you on your elbows. If you do really well, next it?ll be your teeth.? She glared at him. ?Ok, ok. I?m gonna start by having you run 5, walk 5, for about 30.?

She looked at him curiously. ?Miles or minutes?? The way you?re working me you probably expect miles and minutes to be the same from me, she thought.

?Why, miles, of course. So, get on and let?s go!? He reached for the switch on the treadmill.

?Yes, master?? she grumbled. Oh well, she reminded herself; you ARE paying to keep yourself fit. She stepped up onto the machine as he flipped the switch.

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Craig had found his JLH pictures. He had a directory devoted solely to her, but had forgotten what folder he had it in. He uploaded the image he desired into his program and sat down to get to work, talking to himself as he did so. ?Ok, I?ll make the necessary preparations?now, get ready to reduce!?

He began working with the image, trying to set it up and see if his programming worked correctly. Finally, he got to the desired setup and chose the ?Reduction? effect. He set it to not reduce her clothes, because he had always thought of it as more fun that way.

?Ok, she?s 5?2?? right now?I?ll start by making her an even 5? tall.? He typed it in. ?Now THAT?S odd?? Whereas most programs would have had an ?OK? button, he had an ?Apply? button. ?I don?t remember programming that?oh, well. As long as it works.? He clicked the ?Apply? button.

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Jennifer slapped her hand down on the console and sudden felt a jolt. ?Oluch!? She squealed as she drew her hand back. ?Hey! I think this damned thing shocked me! A powerful one, too?it felt like my whole body was jolted!? (Hee.. Hee.)

?Really?? Her trainer looked over with mild disinterest. ?Have you done your 30? I?m not letting you stop until you?ve done the whole 30.?

?Yes, TOM, I?ve done my 30. I was just hitting the console to stop it and the damn thing? shocked me.? As she stepped off the treadmill, she stopped suddenly?for a brief second, it felt like her shoe didn?t fit quite right. She looked up at her trainer and had another moment of disorientation; at 5?2?? she was used to looking slightly up at his face, situated atop his 6?3?? frame. But it had seemed as though she?d looked a bit higher up.

He suddenly snapped his fingers in front of her face. ?Jen? Hello? Earth to Jen??

?Huh? Oh, sorry. Just lost in thought for a second.?

?Well, find your way back. I think you should head for the sauna? I think I?ll let you off easy tonight.?

?Oh? have a date, huh?? She grinned impishly at him. ?That?s the only time you EVER send me home early.? Her grin widened as she saw him turn red. ?That?s what I thought. Well, don?t worry, I?m suddenly not feeling so well anyway. I think I WILL go hit the sauna, then go on home. Have a good night, Tom? enjoy your evening with whoever-she-is.?

?You know me too well. Maybe you should get another trainer? Aht* ? He held up his hand to silence her. ?I know? I know?my program is too good for you to just let me leave.? It was his turn to grin. ?I know you pretty well too, don?t forget. Anyway, goodnight, Jen. I hope you?re in the mood for a little extra work tomorrow night!? He turned and headed for the lockers. Jennifer headed for the women?s locker room.


Part Two

Jennifer entered the women's locker room and opened her locker. She grabbed her towel and put her sports bra and shorts into her gym bag. She was briefly disconcerted by how easily the normally tight and stretchy garments slid off, but she didn't give it a second thought. She wrapped herself in the towel and headed over to the sauna.

She couldn't get over the feeling of wrongness, like somehow things had been moved around or altered without her knowing about it. She figured her imagination was acting up and dismissed the weird notions. As such, she didn't even think about the fact that the sauna doorknob and thermostat were slightly off from their usual positions.

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Craig had finished his cleanup of the 5' image of Jennifer. He had found a way to set it up so he could make a video once he was done editing the images, but first he wanted to make her a bit smaller. He set up the image for more editing and thought for a moment about how much she should shrink this time. He finally decided to take her down another 2 inches to keep the video smooth looking at first. He set her up to be 4'10'' and clicked the APPLY button. He watched as the image editor began changing the image?.

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Jennifer was sitting on the bench in the sauna, grabbing her bottled water for the umpteenth time in an hour, when she felt a mild jolt pass through her body. It felt like the shock she had received from the treadmill earlier. She took a sip from the bottle?then stared at it. It suddenly felt as if the bottle had somehow?STRETCHED in her hand. She looked at it quizzically, so preoccupied that she didn't notice her towel feeling just the slightest bit looser. She stood up from the bench, deciding she'd had enough steam for tonight. She reached for the doorknob, not noticing that it was even higher than before.

She stepped out of the sauna and again headed for her locker, this time deliberately ignoring the little details her mind was shouting at her about things being out of place. It seemed like the gym was populated with a different group of people tonight?everyone seemed taller, somehow, compared to her. She was used to people being over her head, but this crowd was more so than usual. She pushed this thought out of her head and directed her focus to finding her locker.

When she reached her locker, she threw down the towel in favor of normal lingerie and a short blue dress. At least, she had THOUGHT it was short?it went further down her thighs than she remembered. Also, the bra fit ?almost-but-not-quite? snug enough. She idly hoped she wasn't losing weight in her breasts. The gym bag felt a little odd, as though it were weighted differently. She decided she'd need to go home and get some rest, and the weird feelings would be gone by morning?she hoped. She pulled the rest of her items from the locker and stuffed them into the bag.

SLAM! She jumped back in surprise as a hand suddenly slammed her locker door closed. She looked up at the grinning face of her trainer. Once again she was hit with the idea that she had to look further up than she should have. He smirked at her and said, 'Have a great night, Champ?see you tomorrow!' and whistled as he walked away. She stared after him for a moment? at times she was thoroughly convinced that there was something very wrong with him.

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Craig finished up the editing of the 4'10'' image of Jennifer and set up the program for the next reduction. 'Man, this is gonna be great! I can't wait to see the video!' he mused to himself. 'Now, time to make her? smaller.' He once again clicked the APPLY button?this time he was doing three inches instead of two, figuring that at two inches per try he could be at his computer all night.

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Jennifer had been leaning against her locker for a moment as she watched her trainer amble to the door. 'OUCH!' She jerked her hand back as she was again shocked. 'That's the third time tonight! I'm not having a good night, I don't think,' she said to no one in particular. She started for the door herself and stopped briefly. She stared at her shoes in puzzlement. She lifted her heel? sure enough; the tennis shoes were slightly loose on her heels, so they slipped slightly when she walked. She noticed again how low her dress looked? the hem that she had thought was up at the top of her upper thighs, nearly exposing her panties, was instead halfway down her thighs. She must have confused this dress with a similar smaller one. She walked out, trying to get her mind on her nice, comfortable bed at home and not on the sliding shoes, or the lowered dress, or the slight looseness of her bra and panties, or the feeling that everyone had more of a height advantage than they should.


Part Three

Jennifer stepped out of the gym's front doors. She dug around in her purse for her cell phone. When she pulled it out, the idea that it felt odd in her hand flashed through her mind for a second before fading. She called her maid and said she'd be coming home early tonight. Then, she started out toward her car. She had to stop a few times on the way to adjust her clothes and shift her bag. 'That does it,' she said aloud to no one in particular, 'I'm getting rid of this dress. It's been stretched or something.' That settled, she continued toward her car, not bothering to adjust the dress when it felt odd again.

She eased the door of her sports car open and settled in behind the wheel. She cranked up the car and suddenly exclaimed, 'What the hell!?' Her seat had been moved, oddly enough and her feet didn't quite reach the pedals, as they should have. She rolled the seat forward just slightly, stepped on the brake, shifted gears, and released the emergency brake. She then headed out of the parking lot toward the freeway that would take her home.

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Craig had done his best, but he decided that a three-inch reduction was just a bit too much to keep the video flowing smoothly. He hit the 'Undo' button and then began to set it up for another two-inch reduction, so that she would be 4'8'', as she would have been if he'd stuck to the initial pattern. He was going to have to keep using two-inch reductions for a while, apparently.
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Jennifer suddenly felt a jolt again-only this one was different from the previous ones. It was accompanied by a sensation of shifting. She glanced down at herself for a moment and realized the dress really hadn't been as low or loose as she had imagined-it seemed to fit better now. It was still longer than she remembered it being, but perhaps that was just a mistake of her memory. She began to think that perhaps she could put the feelings of weirdness out of her head for good.

Several minutes later, just as she was driving onto the exit ramp, she felt yet ANOTHER shock. She ignored it, though, making up her mind to stop paying attention to them. She didn't even feel the dress shifting a little bit again, or her shoes sliding minutely. She parked the car in her garage and stepped out. Something felt off about the garage, even?but she refused to hear that little voice in the corner of her mind that was insisting the room was more spacious. It also claimed that the doorknob was higher up and didn't fit as well in her hand and that the garage door opener button wasn't in the same place. It even had the nerve to remind her that her shoes were still sliding on her heels.

'Mariana? Are you here?' Mariana, her housekeeper, was a Latino woman in her early 30s. Her teenage son Joe was usually around when she was, and he seemed to be mildly infatuated with Jennifer. She heard Mariana's voice from the adjoining kitchen, so she ventured in. The tall woman was putting the finishing touches on some kind of soup she had on the stove.

'Hi, Jenny!' Mariana had been around so long that formality would have seemed odd, which is probably what prompted her next statement. 'You look? different somehow...' She stared at Jennifer with a puzzled expression. 'Did you change your hair or something?'

'No, why?' That little voice again chimed in, noticing that Mariana appeared taller than usual.

'I dunno, you just look?' she started to say 'shorter,' but of course that was ridiculous. She shook her head, 'Nothing? Something just looks off about you. Maybe it's just from the workout.' She shrugged. 'Or maybe I just have an overactive imagination.'

You and me both, thought Jennifer. 'I'm kinda tired?would you mind terribly bringing the soup up to my room in a little while? I want to go lay down right now. That exercise wore me out.'

'Sure hon, just go on up. The soup'll be ready in about another 10 minutes or so. When do you want it?'

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Craig was very pleased with the results so far. The 4'8'' image turned out great, and it blended well into the video sequence. If he kept this up, he'd have a nice sequence of still images in addition to the video. After some final extra touches, he set it up for the next 2-inch reduction.

'Well, is Ms. Hewitt ready to be 4 foot 6?' he asked aloud. Nobody replied. Then again, nobody hung around in his computer room except him anyway. Good thing, too? he doubted his family would really understand his interest in shrinking fantasies, so he had asked for privacy. He shook his head, realizing he was getting sidetracked. He clicked the ?Apply? button again and waited for the image editor. 'Come on, work your magic?'

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'?in abou... Ouch!' Jennifer recoiled from the metal of the sink.

'You ok, Jenny?' Mariana asked, concerned.

'Yeah, I'm fine. I must be statically charged tonight or something. I keep getting shocked!' She paused to recall what she had been about to say. 'Well, anyway, how about bringing up the soup in about 25 minutes? That should give me time for a short nap.' She tugged at her dress strap again. That voice in her mind said it was now even looser than it had been, and again, she refused to listen.

'Okay, 25 minutes it is. You want?' Mariana trailed off as she looked at Jennifer. She looked different again, as if she had changed in the last thirty seconds. Mariana didn?t realize she was staring, and Jennifer was looking at her expectantly.

'Mariana?'

'Huh? Oh! Sorry, I got distracted for a second. I was going to say, do you want crackers, and what do you want to? drink?'

Jennifer tried to ignore the fact that the counter came up nearly to her elbows. 'No crackers, thanks. And I'll have whatever you pull out of the fridge? fruit juice, whatever.' She turned and headed for the stairs.

Mariana watched her go. Yes? definitely shorter.


Part Four

Jennifer slowly trudged up the stairs. She had the odd sensation that they were steeper than she remembered, but like all the other weird feelings she'd had this evening, she let it slide. She reached the top of the stairs, adjusted her dress, and turned left down the hall, heading for her room. She passed by a few other doors and ignored the idea that the frames and knobs rose higher than they should. She continued to ignore this when she passed through the door to her own room.

Instead of the nap she'd been planning, she decided that perhaps a short shower was in order first. She tugged slightly at her shoulder straps, and the dress slowly slid off. She stepped into the bathroom and started the water, then decided to test something. She shrugged and shifted her shoulders and wriggled her hips? to her relief, her underwear didn't fall off, although it did become dangerously low and loose. She pulled the bra and panties off with little effort and stepped under the warm water.

Standing under the water, she failed to think about how the water was hitting her head at a position in the shower where it should be hitting her shoulders. She also didn't consider the raised towel rack or shampoo shelf.

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Craig had yet to be disappointed with his new program. It was working like a charm! He carefully typed in the 4'4'' setup and clicked the 'Apply' button; already anxious for when she would be VERY small.

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Jennifer reached up to adjust the water pressure and was again shocked. 'OUCH! Dammit! That?s it! This has got to stop!' She washed her hair (careful to not get too close to any of the chrome fixtures) and gingerly reached up to turn off the water. She grabbed for the towel. Her hand flashed through empty air. 'Huh?' She looked at the towel rack. Unbelievable as it was, the rack was now even higher than it had been a minute ago! She grabbed the towel (which wrapped around her with excess slack and fell lower on her than it should have) and stepped out of the bathroom. She was unwilling to pick up the 'stretched' pair of panties and bra; instead she opted to grab her bathrobe from the wall.

She went over to her bureau to go through her drawer, noticing how the robe's sleeves fell to her fingertips and the bottom dragged the floor. The drawer was up to her nose, and she distinctly remembered it being up to her chin before tonight. She pulled out her favorite lacy white underwear and slipped it on. It, too, was noticeably loose. Fearfully, she performed the hip-shaking test. This time, the panties stopped for a moment, but then lost their tenuous hold and fell to the floor.

'No! This?this?whatever is happening to me?it's just not possible!' She tried on every pair of panties and every bra in her drawer, all to the same effect. None fit her quite right. She finally did find a frilled white set in another drawer. These had been her previous favorite before they had become too snug to wear comfortably. She put them on and discovered that they were no longer too snug?in fact, they fit perfectly now. Very disturbing, because they use to be two sizes smaller than what she usually wore.

This information hit her with hammering force. It finally became impossible to ignore all the odd occurrences that had comprised her evening. The abnormally tall people in the gym?the clothing, which gradually became looser?the doorknobs and other things that were higher than they should have been?her custom-made robe being too large?and now, smaller lingerie fitting her perfectly? It was absolutely impossible, but somehow she had gotten shorter. No, not shorter?SMALLER!

Her breasts didn't feel any smaller to her hands. Neither did her face or her legs. She hadn't lost just height, she had become proportionately smaller. She had? SHRUNK! Still unable to reconcile this as real, she grabbed a tape measurer from her desk and measured herself against the wall, making a mark at the top of her head. She read the measurement. Then, she read it again. 'Four feet, four inches!!!? But?but? how could this? '

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Craig sat back for a moment and admired his work. Everything was still going smoothly, and he detected no gaps, skips, or jagged edges in the video. 'Very well then! Time to move on!' He leaned back over his keyboard and clicked the 'Apply' button after setting up the disappearance of another 2 inches.

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Jennifer, still staring at the tape measure, suddenly felt it shock her. 'Olww!!!' She immediately let the instrument drop to the floor. It closed with its characteristic rapid rewind noise and bounced before settling. She faintly detected a tingle this time after the shock and watched in disbelief as the mark she had made seem to slide UP the wall? just a tiny bit.

'Ahhh? Ohhhl? no?No?NO!' Her arms beat against her sides then sagged lifelessly, now the sleeves covered her hands completely and she wobbled slightly. Suddenly she felt totally drained and light-headed, she was about to pass out. Somehow she managed to stagger over to the bed and flop onto it before the total shock of what was happening to her set in and rendered her unconscious.


Part Five

Jennifer's eyes fluttered open. She felt as if she was too tired to move. Then, she became more fully awake and realized some heavy clothe was over her face. It wasn't pressed down to suffocate, but it was heavy, and it was resting on her. She tried to pull it down and off, but she couldn't seem to find the edge of it anywhere. It was very coarse, and there were many small holes in it. She could feel the bumps and holes rubbing against her skin. This was decidedly odd, so she looked down only to discover she was completely naked. She tried to remember where she was, how she had gotten there, and where here clothes had gone in the process.

After some further shuffling of the cloth, she finally decided to stand up and see if she could get something done. The heavy fabric persisted, weighing her down as she rose. Finally, as she stood up completely, she thought she could see light at an edge. She started to pull the edge of the cloth toward her?and then realized the floor she was on was somewhat springy and unstable. It felt almost?spongy. She decided to deal with her more immediate problem-that of getting the cloth off of her head so she could see her surroundings. She tugged at the fabric until she finally pulled the edge over her head.

She realized she was standing on more of the same cloth, and it was spread around her for some distance, although she could see the edges of it. It was a light bluish color, and was somehow familiar to her. She noticed that the fabric didn't go down very far and the ground UNDER it was what was bouncy. She currently stood in the middle of a large slit running down the length of the fabric. A short distance from her, some large, flat, white object lay under the cloth, visible through the wide gap. She proceeded toward the white area.

Standing on top of it, she found it was fuzzy and covered in intricate patterns. It felt like cloth, as well, but a different kind than the large blue patch that she had awakened beneath. The white cloth was as familiar as the blue to her. She couldn't quite place them?then she looked at the end of the white area and recognized how it was cut. Her memory suddenly flew back to her and she realized exactly where she was-she was standing on her robe (now MASSIVE by comparison) and she was situated right beside her panties, which, at this point, could serve her much better as a tent. Judging by scale, she couldn't be more than 3 inches tall. She wondered if the shrinking had at least stopped?and then she felt the strange tingle again. She screamed loud and long until she again collapsed.

Her eyes again fluttered open-only this time; she was looking up at her ceiling, with her head on her pillow and her body in her robe, with her panties in the right place. She blinked in surprise, running her hands down her body, first in confusion, then in relief. She WASN'T 3 inches tall. As she started to sit up, though, she felt a drag on the pillow. Turning her head and looking back, she realized her hair had been spread like a fan on her pillow. Did that mean...?

She stood up quickly. The robe's hem now sagged onto the floor by at least four inches. The sleeves fell past her hands, their ends hanging loosely just beyond the ends of her stretched fingers. The panties, which she distinctly remembered as fitting near perfect, slid just a bit down her hips. She immediately grabbed the tape measure again, trying not to think of how it felt larger in her hands, and re-measured herself. No, she wasn't 3 inches tall?but she was now only 4 foot even. She remembered being 4'4'' before the tingle hit her and passed out cold. That meant that she had shrunk 4 inches. No, wait, she thought, that can't be right, because I shrank more after hitting the pillow. So, assuming the two shrinks had been equal, she had shrunk 2 inches twice.

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Craig couldn't believe how well the imaging process was going. He had yet to encounter any major difficulties. Evidently, his programming was better than he'd thought. The 2-inch shrinks all turned out beautifully, each only needing minor touch-ups to preserve video continuity and image quality. He also hadn't eaten a sizable chunk of his computer's RAM yet, either-a sure sign of an efficient program. He was thoroughly enjoying working with his editor, and since it was running so well, he decided to again try to increase the shrinkage to 3 inches. If he could get that to work, he could conceivably finish the whole image sequence and video in one day!

He set the 3-inch reduction and clicked 'Apply,' waiting eagerly to monitor the results.

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Jennifer had been rummaging in her closet, trying to find something she could still wear. As she grabbed for a hanger, she got shocked again. 'Aahhh!!! Damn, that's getting annoying?' She trailed off, as the rod at the top of the closet seemed to slowly slide upward, in sync with the peculiar tingling she was feeling throughout her body. The robe sleeves sagged a bit more, crawling down her arms toward her elbows. The bottom of the robe piled up a little more on the floor below her. Her panties again slid down her hips briefly. She reached down to pull them back up and found that her fingertips no longer even reached the near end of the robe's wrist cuffs. She pushed the sleeves up and tugged on the panties, wondering if she had shrunk 2 inches again, or possibly more. She had to figure out what was causing this, and she had to do it before she got too small to do anything about it! She measured herself again, discovering that she was now 3 feet 9 inches tall. It's gone to 3 inches at a time now!? She thought in dismay. Oh God, I may have less time than I thought!

She opened the door to the hall and found a bowl of soup, slowly getting cold. She thought of calling Mariana, but realized there was no way her housekeeper would believe her. Jennifer herself hadn't believed the obvious at first-it was just too much like a Sci-fi B-movie to be real. Yet, it was happening. Here. Now. To her! She was suddenly smaller than the most petite size made, slowly approaching child size. She had no idea who was doing it or why, and she certainly didn't know how to stop it. She knew that she had to, though, because one persistent thought had been echoing in the back of her head, despite her best efforts to silence it, since she had thought about shrinking 2 inches at a time: What would happen if she hit?. zero?


Part Six

Craig found that the 3-inch shrink he had tried this time worked much better than the first time he had increased the rate. This time, the resulting video wasn't choppy. He had somehow fixed the bug. Either that, or the detail level was decreasing, as his subject's image got smaller. He shrugged, figuring it didn't really matter either way-he could shrink her 3 inches now, regardless of the reason. He quickly set up the next reduction, ready to hit the 'Apply' button, not even knowing what he was causing across town.

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Jennifer had decided to roll up the robe's sleeves so her hands would be free. The heavier feel of the robe was an unaccustomed sensation to her, and the roll-up took longer than she had thought it would. Finally, she got her hands free. 'There! All fixed up,' she said to no one in particular. She shook her arms to move the sleeves a bit. Deciding the robe was in order now, she realized how surprisingly hungry she was. She remembered the soup and took a step toward the door. Since her feet were weighed down under the pile of loose robe and unstable in the oversized slippers she had found (her feet had been cold), she pitched forward slightly. In doing so, she reached out and grabbed the handle of her dresser drawer. She was again jolted by an electrical shock and let go of the handle.

She pitched forward gracelessly. The oversized robe's collar fell over her, coming halfway up the back of her head. She felt the now-familiar tingle running through her nerves and knew she was getting smaller again. This suspicion was confirmed by her head dragging itself slowly downward until it was almost completely under the collar. Her hands had moved into her sleeves again, erasing the work she had just done on the cuffs as her fingertips again barely passed the end of the sleeve. She wailed-if she was in a new pattern, she was now 3 feet, 6 inches tall.

She stood up (trying not to worry about the even-heavier robe) and adjusted her panties. She finally pulled the slack out and tied it into bundles to hold the falling undergarments on her now smaller hips. She did more rolling up on her sleeves and finally abandoned her slippers as too ungainly. She still had no idea who or how could be doing this, but a gnawing sensation in her belly convinced her she wasn't going to find out on an empty stomach. She headed for the door-careful to let the hem drag behind her this time. When she got to the door she was surprised to find how high the knob was. It was practically staring her in the face.

It took a lot of effort, but she eventually got the knob to turn. She dragged the tray in (it was the size of a coffee table to her) and grabbed the soupspoon (the size of a trowel). She ate until she felt fairly full. This, too, demonstrated her diminished size-she ate less than half of the bowl, when it used to take the whole bowl and half of a sandwich to make her feel so full. The mug of tea (the size of a large soup pot) was amazingly heavy and she couldn't even drink half of the contents.

The whole meal was getting cold, which only added to the slight chill she had been feeling since she got out of the shower. She shivered a bit and pulled the robe closer around her diminutive shoulders. She was still in mild shock over what was happening to her, but she forced herself to start thinking about it. 'Whoever is doing this to me,' she thought aloud, 'must have some way of monitoring me somewhere so that they can do this?this?' she trailed off before resuming, 'something that can shrink me.' With that, she decided to look for it.

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Craig was having a great time with the editor. He had this continual paranoid feeling that it was going to give him an ominous 'Illegal Operation' message and shut down. So, every time he generated a new image, he would hit SAVE. He saved his last image and again started to set up for the next reduction. He was still in disbelief that it was this detailed and yet ran so smoothly. 'Still?' he said to himself, '?don't look a gift horse in the mouth, eh?' He entered the next 3-inch reduction, realizing that she was now less than three and a half feet and finding that very impressive.

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Jennifer hadn't thought about the health club or her car. She believed some weird surveillance/shrinking device had to be in her room somewhere. She searched everywhere (everywhere, that is, that someone her stature could reach.) She figured it had to be low to the ground, though, in order to reach her once she got small enough. She shuddered at that line of thinking-how small did her mysterious antagonist intend to make her, anyway?? 'Ow!!!' Recoiling from another shock from her bed frame, she realized that she didn't have the answer to that question yet-the tingling was back again.

She almost thought she could FEEL herself shrink?or at least, she could feel the rubbing of the coarse robe as it slid on her back, and the odd sensation of her underwear again gradually shifting to become too loose. She untied the loops of her panties and retied them, again cinching them up so they would stay on. The tingle ended, and she realized that she was now only 3'3'' if the pattern was continuing. She measured herself again (the tape measure was becoming increasingly unwieldy) and found that the pattern was, in fact, continuing. Since the shrinks weren't occurring at set intervals of time, she had no idea how much longer she would have until she was at the point of hitting zero?and she didn't want to think about how close or far away that might be.

She resumed her desperate search, now finding herself unable to look into the top-level drawers, though she could open them. She also realized that her head was barely above the top of her bed. Being this small certainly altered perspective-the room now seemed gigantic to her, as though she were in the home of someone twice her size (which was rapidly getting closer to the truth). It finally occurred to her that a device could be placed higher up if it was set at the right angle. She didn't want to acknowledge it, but the possibility had appeared in her mind that she might not find whoever or whatever was doing this to her. Ignoring this thought, she continued her search.


Part Seven

Jennifer had all but given up on finding the thing that was shrinking her. She had searched her entire room and bathroom from top to bottom?well, bottom to halfway up, anyway. Nothing even remotely suspicious turned up. Perplexed, she hopped up onto the bed and sat on the edge, staring at her dangling feet while she contemplated the situation. There was no mad-scientist device in her room. She hadn't been exposed to any radiation or anything recently. She couldn't recall angering any witches, gypsies, or anything else recently. So?why was she shrinking!!?

As she thought more about it, she realized there wasn't even any discernible pattern. It didn't hinge on what she thought about or did, and didn't happen at set intervals of time, just the weird tingle and the shrinking. She absently began to swing her feet while trying to come up with something-ANYTHING-that unified the whole mess?

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Craig had paused in his shrinking work to have a snack. He scraped the last of the ice cream out of the bowl and tipped the can of Coke straight up to drain it. He watched his screen saver for a few more moments (it too, of course, was SW images) before moving the mouse. 'Well, Jennifer, did you miss me?' Without waiting for the image on the screen to reply, he typed in another 3-inch reduction and set to work.

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'FUCK!!!' Jennifer's swinging foot tapped against the bed frame, again administering a shock to her. She jerked her foot up, holding the heel. The pain of the shock quickly faded and was suddenly replaced by the terribly familiar tingling sensation. The robe shifted again on her shoulders. Her panties again moved and loosened on her diminishing hips. She could even see her feet creeping slowly up the side of the bed. When the tingle faded seconds later, she knew she was 3 feet tall without even bothering with the tape measure.

As she looked at the bed's headboard, she thought of something. She stood up on the bed (noting with unhappiness how little she pressed it down now) and walked up to the headboard. She was still an inch or two taller than it, but not for long. She reached down and picked up her pillow, which looked more like a small mattress at this point. She was also about 3 inches taller than the pillow was long, but not nearly as wide anymore. She wouldn't have any chance of getting her arms around it.

She stepped over to the edge and hopped off the bed. She scolded herself for not thinking of this sooner-she should call a doctor. However, her phone was up on top of her bureau, which presented a severe problem. 'No problem,' she said aloud. 'I'll just have to let Mariana know what's going on.' She turned to face the door-and her heart stopped for a brief moment. She ran over to the door in disbelief?but disbelief, as it so often did, failed to change reality. The intercom in her room was normally at face height to her-which put it almost 5 feet off the floor. She simply couldn't reach the talk button.

'Great! Just fucking GREAT!!!' she yelled, 'I'm COMPLETELY cut off from the outside world!' As she said this, she shivered. She realized it had been cold in her room since she had gotten home over an hour ago. The A/C must be on. The chill made her think about her balcony. Not only was it likely to be warm out there but that was the one place she hadn't already searched for any possible device that could shrink her. One of the double doors leading out to it was ajar, so she stepped over to it and out into the warm night air. It was disconcerting to have her eye level at the top of the railing. The gaps between the rails now looked almost as wide as doorways. She stepped over to the rails and held on as she leaned over to look out momentarily over the surroundings.

She had a great view of the hills behind the collection of Hollywood super homes masquerading as a normal neighborhood. Many a night, she had come out here and just sat, staring at the panorama or the sky to relax. Even now, given her predicament, the pretty picture had a momentary calming effect. However, she didn't have all night to watch the stars while her body dwindled indefinitely. She took up the search for any mysterious devices.

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Craig finished up the editing and got ready for the next 3-inch shrink. 'I don't know what kind of person you really are,' he told the on-screen image, 'but I wonder what you would say if you could see this right now?' He clicked the APPLY button and sat back to watch the program do its work. 'What, indeed.'

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'Damn.' She had searched the whole balcony and still nothing out of the ordinary. She thought she had seen a flash of light from somewhere in the neighborhood below, but there had been no tingle, so it couldn't have been associated. She finally gave up and started to go back into the room. As she did, she turned for one last look at the view and leaned on the rail.

'NAHHL!!!' She got another shock. 'Dammit! Bad enough that I'm a midget on my way to becoming a doll, but I have to keep getting electrocuted?!' At that exact moment, it finally hit her. She slapped her forehead for missing such an obvious connection. The shocks always preceded the shrinking and it had all started with the treadmill in the health club. As if to confirm her sudden realization, the tingle returned, as strong as ever. She watched helplessly as the railing rose above her eye level, stopping just above the top of her head. She was now a meager 2 feet, 9 inches tall.

The whoosh of air behind her didn't register for a moment-then she realized the air conditioning had come on. She thought nothing of it and turned to go back inside, only to see the door slam with the change in air pressure. Her blood turned to ice and her dinner became a lead weight in her belly as she reached up and found she couldn't grasp the doorknob. She was trapped out here! Refusing to accept that, she jumped for the doorknob.

She missed, and landed awkwardly. The impact of her landing caused her perilously loose panties to drop around her ankles while her foot was still moving back. She caught her foot on the fallen undergarment and stumbled backward. Her other foot slipped off of the loose fold of robe it had landed on, and she tumbled. Things couldn't POSSIBLY get worse, she thought, bracing herself to crack her head on the concrete. Instead of the impact, she kept falling. Evidently they CAN, she countered, as she realized that she had pitched between the railings and was now falling from the second floor down to the ground.


Part Eight

She tumbled for what seemed an eternity, briefly wondering whether the impact would kill her or merely break every bone she had. She braced herself for the hard crash that was sure to come and?

*SPLASH*

She suddenly found herself floundering in her swimming pool. She had stepped out on the OTHER balcony?and she was safe because of it. Or at least, less endangered. The robe was rapidly soaking up water and its increasing weight was starting to drag her down. She struggled and fought to escape the garment twisted around her diminutive body. Finally, she pulled free of the robe. She had landed in the shallow end of her pool but since she was now less than three feet tall, it was still too deep. She swam toward the edge, which seemed very far away, but finally she dragged herself up and out of the pool. She collapsed on the rim, her heart pounding and pulse racing from the two near-death experiences in as many minutes.

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'Come on, dammit!' Craig thumped violently on the computer. It had frozen up and it refused to unlock. Even CTRL-ALT-DEL wasn't working. Disgusted, he whacked it one last time and stood up to stretch. Suddenly the computer made a strange noise, then the screen flickered and then came back to life. Cautiously, he moved the mouse and typed a few things. It seemed to be back to operating as normal. 'Ok, that was weird?well, back to work then!' And he entered the next reduction.

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Jennifer lay beside the pool, still trying to calm her racing heart and slow her breathing. Gradually, she relaxed and got her mind settled (at least, as settled as it could be given the circumstances.) She lay there another minute or so and might have remained there all night if she hadn't suddenly felt a tingly jolt from the water and a strange scratching against her backside. She felt as if she were sliding along the tiles, yet she knew she wasn't moving. Then it hit her? she must be shrinking again! She jumped up and had to resist the urge to scream. After all, it wouldn't do any good for a neighbor to look out of a window and see her two and a half feet tall (if the pattern was indeed continuing) and naked. Naked! She hadn't thought about it until this moment, but with her grossly oversized panties up on the balcony and her sunken robe beyond her grasp, she was totally nude! Panicked anew, she searched frantically around for something-ANYTHING-with which to cover herself.

All the beach towels had been taken inside for washing, and she never left any bathing suits outside. She had no idea how to get back into the house, but she had no intention of wandering around outside naked and smaller than the average first-grader. Finally, she spotted a hand towel draped over the back of a pool chair. She estimated it would at least do the job, even if she would have to hold it up the whole time. She started toward the chair?

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Craig was being very careful. He was worried that his computer might lock up again at any time, so he was saving after every change he made. He was about to add his most recent image to the video. Crossing his fingers, he blended it in and re-ran the video to test the new addition. It ran according to plan. Keeping his fingers crossed, he went back to the shrinking.

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Jennifer grabbed at the towel and pulled it down. Unfortunately, it snagged on the top of the chair. She reached up and tried to get it unstuck. As she did so her hand brushed the pool chair's metal frame and she received another shock. 'OWWLL!!! Aw, damn? not again?' Unfortunately, the tingle followed exactly as it had been doing all evening and she felt the slight disorientation of her world growing around her. She should now be 2 feet, 3 inches tall. She HAD to figure out what was causing it and stop it before she got too small to do anything at all?or before she had a conflict with being zero inches tall.

She wrapped the hand towel around herself. It covered her?but she immediately noticed how oily it felt. The smell of cocoa butter made her groan? she was wrapped up in the towel she used to wipe her hands on after applying sunscreen! The towel did what it was supposed to do, though, and she now had a toga-like cover that extended from below her shoulders to nearly her knees. Then realization REALLY sank in? she was wearing a HAND TOWEL and it was large enough to be a party dress on her! That, combined with the fact that the top of the pool chair was slightly over her head, gave her an idea of just how small she really was and how small she could get.


Part Nine

Jennifer wandered around the backyard for a while, staring mournfully at the sunken bathrobe and finding nothing to pin the towel in place. Consequently, her arm was starting to get tired. She had looked in through the sliding glass door, but Mariana had been nowhere in sight, the den silent and dim. She had pounded on the glass anyway, knowing her reduced size put her at disadvantage of being heard?and Mariana hadn't come. Maybe she's upstairs, wondering where I am?or maybe she left early. Jennifer didn't want to think about that, though, because she didn't want to think that she was all alone. Bad enough barely being over two feet tall, but ALONE, with no way back in her house?she shuddered.

She had to do something about her situation. I can't just stand around in my own backyard until?until I dwindle to nothing, she thought. She found herself wishing her bedroom were on the first floor. At least then she'd still be inside? and she could call WHO!? Who would believe a crazy story like this!? Of course, it wouldn't have hurt to call her doctor and see if he would come out for a house call. Even the often annoying witticisms of her personal trainer would be welcomed about now, because it would mean someone normal-sized was there to help her and?.

That's when it hit her! Her trainer! This had all started at the gym earlier this evening? maybe Tom had done this to her! She shivered again, and it wasn't because she felt the increasing chill of the evening. She wondered why he would do something like this, or how? She dismissed the thought, deciding the most important thing was getting inside, followed by getting back to normal. She would worry about the who, why, and how later? and whoever was responsible would pay?. A lot. Yeah? and if you can't get back to normal? Then wha? She shut off the mental voice before it could gain any more attention. There were some things she just didn't want to think about and that was the main one.

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Craig's computer locked up hopelessly after the shrink to 2'3''. He had beaten on it and even threatened to go get the hammer but the damn thing was frozen solid. Grudgingly, he rebooted and restarted the image program, hoping it had been properly saving his work. He sighed in relief when he saw it had, there was the shrunken image of his celebrity crush almost lost in the clothes she was wearing in the picture. 'Alllllrighty then? Back to work?and if you pull that stunt again I'm gonna rip your innards out with a pair of pliers. Understand?'

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Jennifer had hoisted herself up onto the pool chair (no easy feat considering the lowest part was above her navel) and she laid back to think, being careful not to slip too far between the straps. She had wracked her stressed-out, shrunken mind?and the only idea she could produce was incredibly risky. She could go around to the front, and then all she had to do was find a way to ring the doorbell and Mariana would come down and open the door. This assuming that (1) she could get the back gate open, (2) that she could make it around the house without being seen, (3) that Mariana was still here, and (4) that she could ring the doorbell when she got to it. Not to mention Mariana finding out what had happened to her. Oh yeah? good idea, Jennifer thought.

As she started to sit up, she wobbled off-balance due to her rear being sunk into one of the large gaps of the chair. She grabbed at the side? and almost wailed from the electric shock she got. 'GODDAMMIT! How much longer can this go on!? Stop it!!! Just stop it!!!' She felt the loosely wrapped towel get somewhat looser and felt herself sink slightly more into the gap. Quickly, before she could be shocked again, she flipped over the edge and landed on the pavement. Turning around, she discovered that the chair's rim was now up at her breasts and looking down she realized the party dress/towel now fell partway down her shins. She had to be only 2 feet tall now.

Jennifer needed to put her plan into action now or come up with a better one before she got too small to do? ANYTHING.



Part Ten

Jennifer finally snapped into action. She was going with her plan and hoping that all the assumptions she was balancing it on held up. She walked determinedly to the wall of her house and followed it parallel to the gate in her privacy fence. It was here that she hit her first snag. She was 2 feet tall and the latch was 3 1/2 feet off of the ground. She needed to stand or climb on something to get it... Alternatively, she could wait until she had been shrunken small enough to fit through the gap, but by that point she would never make it to the front door.

She jogged back to the pool, thinking perhaps she could drag over a pool chair or something similar. She avoided the one that she had been sitting on minutes ago--it had caused her most recent shrinkage, after all--and grabbed the leg of another one. She grunted and strained, but was unable to move the relatively heavy chair more than a few inches. She needed something lighter that would still be tall enough to stand on. Ideally, it would also fail to have anything metal she could brush up against.

After searching around the pool area a bit longer, she discovered that the door to the utility shed was open. Inside, she found her answer--a large plastic bucket. She could move it, and it seemed to be tall enough. Just to be sure, she tried to climb atop it and found she could manage to get onto the slippery bucket. It smelled strongly of chemicals--probably used in cleaning the pool--and she had to stay as far ahead of it as possible so as not to suffocate in the fumes. Finally, she positioned it under the latch.

It took considerable effort, but she made it up onto the bucket and reached for the latch. She stretched her little arm as far as it would go and rose up on her tiptoes...but couldn't quite reach the latch. Dismayed, she dropped herself off of the bucket.

Then she spotted it--the tree. There was a small tree that she had been meaning to have removed. It had some sort of plant illness and sagged pathetically against her fence. It looked bad and was mostly dead, but she hadn't yet gotten a gardener to come out and get rid of it. She was glad for it now, because she could climb the low tree and get up onto the top rail of her fence. Then it was only a matter of walking (carefully) along the rail to above the latch. She could then drop down onto it and open the gate.

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Craig was confused. The image of Jennifer on his screen was still, apparently, 2 feet tall. He had typed in the next reduction and hit 'Apply,' but nothing had happened. He had tried it a second time and gotten an error message. He had tried it a few more times and always gotten the same error message, and Jennifer still hadn't shrunk. He wondered if maybe it was still processing his first attempt, but that had been a few minutes before. It should have processed by now... He frowned and got up from the computer, deciding to go have a soda.

Maybe after a few minutes it would be more cooperative. Maybe he SHOULD go get the
Vise-grips.

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Jennifer had made it up to the railing. She had been worried that it might be too narrow for even her reduced form to balance on, but she discovered the next-door neighbors had a top rail on their side as well, so she could walk with one foot on each rail. She slowly advanced toward the corner and the nearby gate. She thought she saw another flash of light from somewhere, but just like last time, there was no tingling feeling and she didn't shrink. Other than that, she didn't see any signs of activity. It was going well, until...

* Woolf! Woolf! *

The neighbor's terrier, which was in their backyard, had spotted movement atop the fence. Coming over to investigate, it had discerned that there was, in fact, a small living creature up there. According to dog logic, it therefore had to be terrorized until something more interesting came along. It ran at the fence and slammed into it, not even seeming to feel the impact as it bounced off and continued barking and trying to run into the fence.

The dog was not a large dog, but at Jennifer's present size it would probably have the relative power of a small horse. It would be a bad idea to fall off the fence at all, but to land on that side...she shuddered. The dog was fortunately not larger or it might have been able to rattle the fence enough to knock her off. As it was, the tremors caused by the collisions were making her wobble unsteadily. The dog continued to bark mindlessly. She almost wished one of those annoying, ever-present squirrels would come by...but of course, none were around.

* Woolf! Woolf! * * SLAM!! *

She moved along a bit faster. She was grateful to reach the corner and move onto the next part of the fence. She was also glad that the towel had stayed up by itself through all the climbing--she didn't like the idea of being out here nude, especially not up on a fence where people could see her. She was finally above the latch...and fortunately, the dog had lost interest in her since she was no longer in view. She had seen it enter the house through the rear doggie-door. She braced herself and dropped down onto the latch.

Two things happened...

Her weight falling onto the latch flipped it up and forced the gate to move, and the metal of the latch delivered a jolt to her. 'AAAAAANNNHHH!!! Nawwwht ahhgaaaain!!!' she screamed. She cried out again as she lost her balance and fell off, barely managing to grab the handle on her way down. Of course, now that she was only 1'9'', the towel had gotten loose again and, being tied like a tube dress, it slid off of her and fell to the ground.

She had had her share of bad days before, but being less than 2 feet tall, trapped outside, and hanging naked from a door handle that at any minute could cause her to shrink further had to make for the worst one yet. Realizing that the handle could shrink her again at any moment, she finally let go and braced herself for the fall. It wasn't as bad as it would have been if she was less than a foot tall, but it was, relative to her, almost a ten-foot drop. It hurt, and knocked the wind out of her for a moment.

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Craig came back from his soda break and found that the computer seemed to have unlocked. The onscreen image of Jennifer now looked to be about 1'9''. 'Ah? Excellent,' he said in his best evil megalomaniac voice. 'Now, Mr. Bond, you will die...' He cut himself off with, 'Wait? wrong situation.' With that, he put down the sledgehammer and got back to work, realizing that soon he'd be finished shrinking his celebrity crush and could move on to OTHER celebrity babes... the possibilities were endless. Maybe he could even sell his software--he was sure that Shrink Wizard, Talon, Elric, and a few others he'd run across in the online community would probably be interested in something like this... He snapped out of it. First he wanted to be sure the video-making tool worked. Maybe he could even put in new morph features and sell in the other communities...but that would come later. 'Quit daydreaming and finish shrinking the girl, dude.'

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Jennifer finished tying the towel around her again. The cloth was even larger now--it ran from under her arms all the way down to her ankles. A breeze had started up and it didn't do much in keeping the wind out, either. It wasn't really chilly, but it was somewhat disconcerting to have wind whipping around inside her 'dress.' She wondered how she was going to press the doorbell once she got around to the front... Fortunately, there weren't too many plants, lawn implements, or other obstacles between the two houses, so she would have a straight shot to the street side. However, she'd hate for any people to see her like this.

She waited a few minutes to see if any cars came by on the road. She didn't know exactly what time it was but she figured it had to be getting late. She hadn't even gotten home from the gym--where this mess started--until well after 8. It was probably around 11 now, maybe a little later. Everyone who wasn't already falling asleep in front of late-night TV was out at a nightclub somewhere. She stood little chance of being seen. She groaned inwardly at her choice of words before moving on toward the front of the house. She rounded the corner with little trouble and started toward her front porch, trying to work out in her head how she was going to press the doorbell.

Suddenly, she heard a noise behind her. It sounded like something moving in a bush somewhere. She spun around, immediately on edge. She searched the yard frantically for any sign of motion, but saw nothing. She looked around. Nothing on the street seemed to move. There was nothing in her yard either. She turned around once more and finally saw something on her neighbor's porch. She tried to make out what it was... Finally, it hit her. The doggie-door at the bottom of the front door was? swinging gently back and forth. Her neighbor must have forgotten to latch it for the night, which probably meant...

*Grrrrrrrrr..... *


Part Eleven

Jennifer spotted the terrier crouching beneath a bush near the edge of her neighbor's property.

It wasn't (yet) close enough to get to her, but she knew if she ran for her doorbell it would beat her there (And she'd seen the little furball play with a chew toy before.) If he got a hold of her it would NOT be pretty.

I've GOT to get this mutt away from me. But how?? She came up with no immediate answers... and she saw it slowly advancing out from below the bush. She thought about perhaps hiding in a bush in her own yard, but realized there were too few and none were close enough. Suddenly, her earlier thought of how it would seem almost as powerful as a horse recurred to her... and she got an idea.

A crazy one, to be sure, but it might work.

*Grrrrrrrrr..... *

She watched as the dog drew steadily closer, growling faintly with its teeth bared. She didn't know if it perceived her as a threat or was simply menacing her the way it would a small rodent. Either way, if her idea didn't work, she was going to have a very BIG problem (And it was getting bigger all the time...)

But she had to stop thinking like that. When it had closed to half the distance between them, it picked up its pace a bit. When she noticed this, she carefully untied the towel and shook it out like a sheet. To her, it was the size of a small tarp, but fortunately she was able to move it without too much trouble. She shivered slightly in the breezy night air.

Jennifer began to step toward the dog. 'Here boy? come and get me! Come on! You want a treat, huh? You think I'm a Milk-Bone? Come on!' She was talking louder and walking more quickly toward it. The terrier was a bit confused by this action but finally responded and ran toward her.

'Eeeeasy? Not yet... not yet... NOW!' She swung two corners of the towel in an overhead arc so it briefly fluttered like a flag in the breeze. It wrapped around the surprised dog's head, temporarily blinding it. The dog stopped, confused, and tried to shake the towel off, working to pull at it with its teeth. But before it could remove the blindfold, she clambered up onto its back and grabbed the upper corners of the cloth. With the animal pulling at the lower half and Jennifer holding the upper half, the towel remained stretched over its face.

Angry at being foiled, at its predicament, and at the sudden weight on its back, the terrier began to run madly around. Risking a looser grip on a corner, she reached over and yanked its left ear, hoping it would turn in that direction. It responded by snapping its head to the left, turning momentarily, and suddenly bolting straight ahead.

'HEY!!! WHOOA!!!' Jennifer fought to steady herself, time and time again almost being flung from the beast's back. Everything was a big blur so she closed her eyes? but that was even scarier, so when she looked up from her struggle, she gasped at what they were headed for? 'Whoa!!! WHOOAA!!!!' Her calls for the dog to halt were ineffective. 'HOLD IT!!! I mean, HEEL!!! SIT!!! STAY!!! DAMMIT? STAAAHP!!!' Nothing produced any results, and the animal continued to run blindly forward until?

*BOOMPH!!! * *Arrrrlllpp!!! *

The panicking terrier stumbled slightly and ran headlong into the front wall of her house. Its speed combined with the trip caused it to impact fairly hard, and it dropped to the ground, quite dazed. She had leapt from the dog's back when it tripped, so she lay to its left side, lightly bruised in a few places and a bit dirty but otherwise in good shape.

She stood up, brushed herself off, and? patted the semi-conscious bow-wow on its throbbing noggin. Poor dog didn't look like it would be getting up for quite a while, and when it did, it probably wouldn't want to come after her again, she thought as she disentangled the cloth from the whimpering animal's head. Besides, she hoped to be inside the house before too long.

That jogged her memory... 'Mariana!' She realized that the animal's mad dash had actually brought her closer to her front door. She could even see the distant (from her perspective) drive, and was able to tell that her housekeeper's car was still there. 'Thank Heavens for small miracles, eh?'

Now, all she had to do was figure out how to ring the doorbell...


Part Twelve

Jennifer approached her front steps, continuously sweeping her gaze around the immediate area to see if anybody might be observing her.

She thought she saw another of those peculiar flashes of light (What were those, anyway?) but she couldn?t be sure, and it didn?t repeat itself. Other than that, she saw nobody peering out the windows, or out for a late night stroll. Behind her, the dog remained motionless. She had the street to herself. She stopped briefly when she reached the first step. They weren?t incredibly high, but as she was just over a foot and a half tall, they were a nuisance. She briefly considered pulling herself along using the railing, but it was metal, and she had no intention of shrinking further just to get to the door faster.

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Craig finished hurling yet another string of epithets at his computer.

A few minutes ago, it had again refused to shrink his subject, and his repeated attempts had produced an ?illegal operation.? He?d had to shut down and restart. His computer took over 5 minutes to restart most of the time, and he was especially impatient this evening. He was glad to see that the image program had preserved Ms. Love-Hewitt at 1?9?. However, the more he thought about it, the more confused he became, as he could not recall installing an auto-save feature in that program.

Then again, he had never been one to complain about being helped. Now, after a fresh reboot, the stubborn machine STILL would not reduce her image any further. He was getting hot under the collar at his computer?s inadequacy. ?I?m giving it about 10 more seconds?after that it might end up sporting some new dents and dings??

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Jennifer clambered up over the fourth of seven steps.

She had been forced to loosen her towel a bit to provide more mobility for her legs, and she was having some trouble keeping it in place. She was considering taking it off and just dragging it up the steps after her, but didn?t know if that might present more of a problem. She paused momentarily on the step to think about it, but realized she didn?t need to waste any time. Deciding that she was getting along well enough, she stretched her leg up onto the fifth step. She slid her leg forward as far as it would go, then pressed her palms on the flat surface, pushed with her hands and leg, and pulled the rest of her body up.

As she rose to a standing position, her towel caught briefly on her right knee, making her stumble. She began to fall toward her right side, and instinctively reached out a hand. She made contact-and received a painful static jolt, which forced her to let go. ?OOOF!? She landed on her side on the hard step, bruising her thigh. She did not notice the pain, however, as a fresh wave of tingling swept through her body. Too late, she realized she had grabbed the metal step railing!

?Oh, no! Not AGAIN!!? she wailed, as she felt the rough textures of the towel and the steps sliding over her skin. She could actually feel herself shrink, and see things expand slightly around her. The sensation faded after several seconds. It seemed as though it had been a while since she had shrunk. If things were still working on the same pattern, she would now be exactly 18 inches tall.

She could only hope that the rate of shrinking wasn?t INCREASING-But even if it isn?t, I?ll still be wearing doll clothes before long if this keeps up? She took a minor amount of comfort in the fact that she had remained on the fifth step-a fall all the way down would have cost her time, and probably would have resulted in something a bit more injurious than the small reddish-purple tender spot forming on her upper thigh.

What little solace that provided, however, was soon shattered, as she tried various methods of tying the towel around her body with no success. She was now shorter than the towel was from one end to the other. Indeed, it might even be possible to wrap her up entirely in it. And if not yet, it certainly will be if I shrink again. She had to stop thinking like that, because she had to keep her hopes high if she planned on getting out of this while she was still visible to the naked eye.

Being even shorter now, the sixth and seventh steps were more difficult. To avoid another mishap, she centered herself on the steps, as far as possible from *either* railing, and climbed sans towel, dragging it up after her. She finally reached the top and stopped for a moment to rest and think. She stood, and after some experimentation with creative folding and tying techniques, managed to surround herself with the towel once again. She briefly noted with dismay that she had it folded easily twice as thick as when she had first used it as a covering.

?Now, how am I going to get Mariana?s attention?? she asked nobody.

As expected, nobody responded. She stared up at the doorbell-a daunting 4 feet high-and looked around the porch for something she could use. Fortunately, there was a broom in the corner of the porch, which Mariana must have abandoned after sweeping the steps at some point earlier today. Jennifer walked over, grasped the broomstick, and dragged it slowly back to the door.

She tried to pick it up and found it rather heavy and unwieldy. She did manage to raise it to the button?s approximate level, but, try as she might, she simply could not accurately maneuver the stick into place on the button and cause it to press the ringer. The stick was too heavy to position well, and she could not apply enough pressure at her end to move the button inward the few times she did land on it.

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Craig was confused as hell.

The computer would appear to freeze, then unfreeze for no apparent reason, then freeze temporarily again when he tried to shrink Jennifer. He had thought originally that his processor was slowing down too much, but he noticed that there seemed to be no set time period for the freeze-ups. They were about as random as they could get. He had yet again told it to shrink her, and it had yet again frozen, but instead of making threats, he had decided to see if it would again unfreeze itself. Perhaps it was doing something he wasn?t noticing?and if it kept unlocking itself eventually, there would really be no point in rebooting.

----------------------------

Jennifer went on trying to poke the doorbell for several minutes, to no avail.



Finally, frustrated, she let the broom drop onto the porch. The noise it made, while loud to her, would not be heard well in the house, and she knew it. She had to think of some other way of getting Mariana out here, but how? She had thought of one possible solution, but it was simply too risky. She refused to do it. Yet, her mind was having a war with itself trying to ultimately come to terms with the situation.

It might be the only way. It CAN?T be. Got any better ideas? Doing nothing is better than trying THAT. Nothing. Exactly what I?ll become if I can?t get help. I can?t do it. I have to do it. I can?t.

She glanced down at the yard, knowing she could not go back down there. There would be nothing useful, and even if there was, she couldn?t drag it up the stairs. She stared up at the doorbell, remorsefully at the useless broom, and once more up at the distant doorbell. It was a terrible thing to think, but there did not seem to be any other way to reach the bell, and the bell seemed to be the only means of getting help. The question was, could she really bring herself to do it??


Part Thirteen

Craig pounded on his keyboard in frustration.

"What keeps taking you so long to work, you ridiculous, outdated garbage heap?" His computer had been behaving like this all night, and he still didn't know why. It had yet again frozen on the image of the now 1 1/2-foot tall Jennifer. His patience was beginning to wear out for his new wait-and-see approach. He'd been waiting long enough. It was time to SEE something.

"If you don't do something in the next 30 seconds, I'm shutting you off. No games, no tricks, no empty threats...I'm gonna yank your plug out of the wall." He imagined he was probably a little unbalanced to talk to his computer as though it were alive, but it was a hard habit to break and he'd been doing it for some years now.

Besides, it sometimes got results.

----------------------------

Jennifer stared mournfully up at the doorbell, then loathingly at her only apparent means of approach. The latticework on her screen door certainly looked climbable, and it would put her more than close enough to touch the bell. The problem was, the intricate patterns were all ironwork. She stood a chance of being shocked many times on the way up...and the sixth one would reduce her from three inches tall to...what?

Microscopic? Subatomic? Something so small there was no word for it?

However, she could devise absolutely no alternate method for ringing the bell. And aside from the bell, she could see no way of getting Mariana's help. Without that, she might never get back in the house. It would only be a matter of time before she shrank away from accidental contact with metal objects, or perhaps some wandering child would take her home as a living Barbie. Possibly, even some sort of neighborhood pet might kill or maim her.

The small terrier next door had given her a rough time at 21 inches tall. If she were only 6 inches tall and came across a full-grown Rottweiler... She shuddered at the possibilities. Reminded of the dog, she decided she did need to get inside quickly. If it wasn't already up and around, it soon would be, and it would probably try for her again.

She visually and mentally plotted the fastest possible route up the wrought iron, trying to minimize the number of times she would have to change her point of contact and present an excellent opportunity for a shock. Finally, she steeled her nerves, reached out for the highest bar in reach, and was immediately rewarded with a jolt. "DAMMIT! I KNEW IT!" She cried, as the sensation pinpricked all her nerves.

Her carefully folded towel sagged and slid down her dwindling form. She concluded it would probably trip her up if she shrank again on the way up (very likely) so she regrettably let it fall and pool at her feet. She could feel her arm stretching slightly as the bar she held rose higher. Finally, the tingle subsided. She should now be down to 15 inches.

The concept of climbing over 4 feet this way--more than 3 1/2 times her current height--impacted her suddenly, and she almost had a sobbing breakdown on her porch. However, she redoubled her concentration, shook her head to clear it, and pulled herself upward, grabbing the next bar. To her relief, she was not met with a shock. Feeling slightly better, she put her foot down on another piece of the frame and began to push herself up the wall.

----------------------------

Craig's hand had been on the plug, ready to jerk it from the wall, when he felt compelled to spare one last glance at the screen. His jaw dropped in brief amazement at the timing of it all, and then he released the plug. Once he got situated in his computer seat, he saw that the image of his celebrity crush was now only 15 inches tall.

"Hmm. Maybe there's something to the wait-and-see theory after all. Or maybe you only work right when I threaten you?"

Shrugging the reason away as unimportant, he prepared to add the new image to the video (which was progressing beautifully) and then to shrink her yet again. He grinned with glee at the screen, already anticipating how the finished product would look.

----------------------------

Jennifer was nearly at the doorbell. A few more bars and she would have it.

She tried not to look down. She was already about 3 1/2 feet up, and the drop to the porch's concrete was (relatively) almost 20 feet...and it looked and felt longer. A fall now would probably break several of her bones, if they were more fragile at present due to their size. She shut her eyes to fend off a brief spell of dizziness, and then grabbed the next bar--and was shocked again! She bit down on a scream of frustration, not wanting to lose her focus when she was so close.

Then she realized she wasn't tingling.

She opened her eyes and the world did not appear to be growing around her. It must have been common, everyday static electricity. Just to be sure, she waited around for several more seconds. She determined that she was definitely NOT shrinking, at least not this time. Encouraged by this development--maybe this horrible experience was drawing to an END? She climbed more quickly. A precious few more inches, and she could lean over and press the doorbell...and she would have help, and it would all be over?


Part Fourteen

A 15-inch tall Jennifer pulled herself up dead even with the doorbell. At last, here she was!

She leaned carefully over toward the large button. She was so eager that she didn?t think about possibly being shocked by the ringer. She also had no way of knowing that a young man on the other side of the city was at this moment entering a computer command that would shrink her further. She pressed the button in and heard the distant chimes from somewhere in her house.

She then received a frightful jolt that shot through her miniature body from the tip of her outstretched arm all the way down to her toes. This particular shock had seemed much more potent than the minor static bursts she?d been getting all evening. It was so strong, and so sudden, that she lost her footing and scrabbled frantically for purchase on the ironwork with her hands.

She caught on with her arms only about 2 inches down from where she?d fallen, but from her reduced perspective it had seemed a long fall. Her heart was pounding, and she gasped for air, unable quite yet to put her feet up on the lattice. Then she felt the tingling that implied shrinking. She assumed she would end up at 1 foot tall... but then she realized the tingle seemed to be more noticeable and longer lasting, and she seemed to be shrinking for a longer period of time. It must have been because of the more powerful electric shock.

Hanging on for dear life, shrinking below a foot tall, and praying fervently for help to arrive, she felt as though her mind was about to completely snap.

----------------------------

"Damn. I knew that was gonna happen."

Craig stared irritably at the alert box that had appeared on his screen.

[SizeShop.exe--This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down]

Frustrated, he clicked the "Close" box, figuring he would have to start over from his last save. He couldn't figure out what had happened. He had entered a shrink from 15 inches to one foot even, and sat back to wait for it to finish. Suddenly, his screen had blinked, and the image had appeared to be *TOO* small, and then it had generated an error. He restarted the program, and was amazed to see it exactly as he had it before the ill-fated shrink.

"Did I program auto-save into this thing?" he mused. "Ah, well. I guess I did. Time to get back to work!"

----------------------------

Jennifer was teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

The only thing that kept her sane was the realization that her grip was starting to slip and she needed to get her feet on a bar. She did so, and clung to the wrought iron, holding her eyes tightly shut and forcing down sobs and screams until she felt she was calm enough to make it. She opened her eyes and realized she probably indeed WAS less than a foot tall. Based on the apparent distance to the ground, and how much larger her surroundings appeared, she assumed she was about 6 inches tall.

Just then, she felt a bizarre sensation--similar to the tingle she'd been feeling all night, only it was like it was...reversed, somehow. Then she realized she was growing! In her excitement she almost let go of the bars before realizing she would still hurt herself if she fell at this size. She would wait until she had grown enough to drop safely. Perhaps by that time, help would have arrived...she was jerked out of that train of thought when she felt the sensation fading.

Her growth had stopped, and she appeared to be back to the 15 inches she had been seconds ago.

She almost lost it again, having hope for a moment and then losing it just as quickly, but then shook her head vigorously from side to side. "Pull it together, or you'll drive yourself crazy, girl," she said to herself. "You will hang on, you will get help, you will find a way back to normal." And you will find whoever did this and bury them alive, she mentally added.

The thought of returning to normal, and doing something bad to the guilty party, made her feel slightly better. She felt her legs and arms beginning to tire, and she swung a leg up and repositioned herself so she was sitting/straddling/laying on one of the larger iron segments.

She idly wondered how long it would be before Mariana came to get the door. She certainly hoped Mari had heard it; it would be a rough trip to get up there and press it again. At that moment, she heard the distant thumping of footsteps somewhere within--possibly coming down the stairs, from the sound of it. They were slowly approaching the door. She looked up eagerly as she heard the CLACK of the lock disengaging and saw the knob turn.

The door began to swing inward...


Part Fifteen

Mariana's son Joe had been upstairs knocking on Jennifer's door for a few minutes, wondering why she hadn't answered.

Ostensibly, he was there to collect the dishes from her late dinner and take them down to his mother, but in truth, he just enjoyed seeing her face and being in her presence. Even if it was just for a couple of minutes, he might catch her dazzling smile, or get a chance to run his eyes over her fabulous figure.

He was completely infatuated with her, to the point where he voluntarily came over and did some of the housework "just to be helpful." He often wondered what she thought of him, for though she was very pleasant toward him, he knew that to be her natural personality. He even daydreamed sometimes of having a chance with her, though with him being only 18 and her slowly approaching her mid-20's, he didn't think it was all that likely.

He had, out of idle curiosity, tried the doorknob, and found it wasn't locked. He didn't want to just barge in on her, but, after all, she wasn't answering the persistent knocking; maybe she was asleep, or in her bathroom--or maybe something bad had happened to her? Fixating on that possibility, he finally decided to turn the knob and peek in.

However, a strange sight greeted him.

Swinging the door all the way open, he saw several things wrong: many drawers were hanging open, some clothes and a lot of underwear were strewn about the room, and he saw what looked like several marks going up the wall near the dresser. Stepping in, he almost tripped over the dinner tray. He noticed that only about half the soup and half the tea was gone.

Looking around further, he noticed several things turned over or opened-almost like she'd been looking for something. Of course, the oddest thing of all was that Jennifer herself was nowhere around. The bathroom door was open, and he could tell she wasn't in there (although the clothes she had worn to the gym earlier were). The balcony doors were closed, and he thought perhaps she might be out there. However, he rapped gently on the doors and got no response.

Opening the door, he saw something white at his feet. He picked it up and turned very slightly red when he realized it was a pair of panties. Strangely, they seemed to have been bunched up and tied so they were smaller than normal. Confused, he put the panties in his pocket absently and looked over the rail.

Panic struck briefly when he thought he saw her lying at the bottom of the pool, but after a moment he realized it was only her robe. Still, all of this was very odd-clothes everywhere, the panties left outside, and the robe sunk in the pool. What was going on?

Just then, he heard the doorbell ring. It would of course resound throughout the house, but it also caused the intercom in her room to chime. He doubted his mom had heard it, as he had last seen her wearing her headphones (she sometimes liked to listen to dance music while doing some of the chores).

He started toward the door, and on his way, he saw a tape measure on the floor near the marks on the wall. He was getting more confused by the second, and he was going to go tell Mariana what was going on, but since he'd pass the front door on his way, he would get that first.

Pocketing the tape measure, he walked out of Jennifer's room, closed the door behind him, and walked briskly down the stairs. "Coming!" he called in the direction of the door. He strode across the front hall, released the deadbolt, and pulled open the door.

At first, he saw nothing. He wondered if some neighborhood kids would be playing pranks, but then he realized it was almost 11:30-a little late for something like this to be funny. Still, there was nobody standing there. Irritably, he moved to close the door-and then he saw a brief motion halfway up the latticework in front of the screen.

----------------------------

Right about the time that Joe was opening the door, Craig was busily typing in Jennifer's next reduction. He filled in the necessary parameters, and clicked the button to begin. He was eagerly awaiting the culmination of his pet project, and rubbed his hands together in anticipatory glee--and then his computer beeped at him. He realized he'd forgotten to type in an actual number of inches to shrink her. In his haste he had pressed the key before being in the right place. "D'oh!" He slapped his forehead and corrected his mistake, and waited for the results.

----------------------------

Jennifer was momentarily shocked to see Joe standing inside the door; she hadn't even known he was here tonight and certainly hadn't expected him to answer the door. Woefully she looked down at the fallen towel and wished she had it around her. A nagging voice in her head reminded her it would have impeded her climbing progress, but that didn't relieve her embarrassment at being nude in front of Joe. She was pretty sure he had a crush on her anyway, and this wouldn't help. Then she noticed he was moving to close the door... Without a second thought, she leaned up and waved both her arms.

The motion caught his attention. She saw his eyes get wide--very wide. Then her state of undress returned to her mind and she put one arm across her breasts. The way she was sitting, a more intimate area was out of his view. Joe pushed the screen door outward and leaned around the edge. He blinked several times, rubbed his eyes, and squinted. Jennifer turned several shades of red before managing to squeak out "Umm, hey, Joe."

Seeing that he was still a bit too stunned to speak, she continued. "Mind helping me inside? And could you pick up that towel down there and hand it to me?"

Joe finally seemed to phase back into reality. "O-Okay, Jennifer." He reached out his hand for her, palm up and fingers extended. "If it's not too personal a question?what the hell's going on?"

Stepping into his hand, still blushing furiously and holding her arms in front of her, she replied, "I honestly don't know. Sometime earlier this evening, I think maybe at the health club, I started noticing some strange feelings--I guess I've been, well, shrinking all night since then. It's been awful, really-I had this horrible dream I was only 6 inches tall, and then nothing would fit me anymore, and then I got stuck out on the balcony, and then I fell over the edge and almost drowned..."

At this point Joe figured out what the robe must have been doing in the pool, and the knotted-up underwear made some sense to him.

"Then I had to get around to the front, and the neighbor's dog attacked me, and I just kept shrinking and shrinking and I didn't know when it's going to stop, and? and... OW!!!"

She was cut off as a ring on Joe's hand suddenly zapped her with static electricity. She cried out in despair, and Joe was at first mystified. Then he saw and felt her getting smaller in his hand! She seemed to shrink about two or three inches before it stopped. It seemed that this was the last straw, and her internal restraints collapsed.

She curled up into a fetal position and started sobbing and shaking violently.


Part Sixteen

Joe was absolutely dumbfounded.

On the one hand, the total babe he'd had a crush on was nude in his presence and depending on him. Never a bad thing, really, when he stopped to think about it.

On the other hand, well, she literally WAS on the other hand!

She couldn't be more than a foot tall, by his estimate. And she was wracked with sobs?no wonder, considering the evening she'd evidently had. He started to touch her bare back with his free hand to comfort her, but was suddenly reminded that she had asked for the towel on the ground. He stooped down carefully to recover it, keeping his right hand steady so she wouldn't be even more upset.

He retrieved the fallen towel and laid it gently over her. This seemed to have a mild calmative effect on her, and after a few moments, she sniffed and stopped crying. She took her hands away from her face and, rising from her curled-up position, wrapped the towel around her body. By now it was very large on her; the material was coarse against her bare skin, and several inches of towel would drag along behind her, but it would suffice for now as a covering.

He watched as Jennifer stood in his palm and wiped her eyes before turning to face him. There was a brief and slightly awkward silence as they stared at each other. Shortly, Joe broke the ice.

'So,' he said, 'any idea what might have caused this?'

'Not really, no,' she replied without hesitation. 'I mean I know it happens when I get shocked, but I can't figure out what started it.' She looked very thoughtful for a moment before continuing. 'I've been shocked probably hundreds of times and this has never happened. I really don't get what made it start tonight.'

'Did you do anything different tonight?' he asked. 'Anything you don't usually do?'

'Like what?' she returned, confused.

'Well, uh...' He stopped. He hadn't really thought of anything specific. 'Um...maybe ate somewhere you'd never been to before?' It sounded lame, and he kicked himself even as the words were leaving his mouth.

She seemed to think it was an idea, though. She started rattling off her list of activities that day, from the time she got up that morning. He found he was having a hard time listening, though--her voice was higher in pitch, and for some reason, to him, that just accentuated her appeal. He started to zone out just a bit...

'Hello? Earth to Joe?' she was saying. He jumped slightly and realized he must have been staring. 'Were you even listening?' Jennifer asked irritably.

'I...uh...that is...sorry,' he mumbled sheepishly. 'It's just that I. . . Oh, never mind.'

'You what?' she pressed.

'Nothing. It's nothing, really. I'm sorry I zoned out like that. What were you saying?'

She wanted to know what he was going to say, but decided to let it drop for the time being. 'I was saying, after I picked up that script from my agent, I went for my evening workout.' She glanced at him to be sure he was still paying attention. 'And I didn't start shrinking until sometime after I'd been to the gym.'

'Do you think it was something--someONE there?' he asked.

'See, that's the thing,' she replied, seeming slightly disappointed. 'I wish it were that easy, but I can't imagine anyone who would want to do this to me, let alone anyone I know at the fitness center, or how they'd have done anything to me. Plus, most of this has happened to me while I was here, so unless they followed me back and were watching the whole time, what would be the point?' At that, something appeared to suddenly strike her.

She looked stunned and stared off into space for a moment.

'What?' he said. 'What is it?'

'I just realized? I still don't see the point in any of this.'

'What do you mean?' he said. 'Obviously it's for someone's twisted enjoyment.'

'But, like I said, wouldn't they have to be watching me to derive any amusement from it?' she returned. 'And the neighborhood security is supposed to be looking for things like that. The only two people who'd see me on a regular basis tonight are Mariana and you, and somehow I doubt it was either of you. So what I'm getting at is, why is this happening at ALL?'

'Yeah, it's strange,' Joe said to her after he'd thought for a minute. 'I mean, maybe whoever it is intends to kidnap you. You know, have their own pet celebrity.' His face wrinkled at that, and judging from her expression she hadn't taken that lightly. He cleared his throat, embarrassed. 'But if they were going to do that, why not grab you while you were outside?' He kept talking, trying to recover from upsetting her. 'That would have been the best opportunity. Neither of us were watching, and we wouldn't even know what had happened to you.'

She shuddered briefly in his palm. 'Please, Joe, don't discuss things like that. It's frightening to think about being kidnapped anyway, but when you're smaller than a toddler it's even scarier.' She seemed to choke up again for a second, and he was worried she might start crying again, but she didn't. 'Anyway, like you said,' she continued, 'why wouldn't they just get me outside? That was the perfect chance.' She sat on his hand in frustration. 'This is all so strange,' she said.

'Very peculiar,' he agreed. 'So if the motivation isn't to kidnap you, and isn't even to watch you, why do something like this?'

----------------------------

Craig waited impatiently while his computer connected to one of his favorite sites--the SW Forum.

He had paused in his size-changing efforts to post a few preliminary pics from his work on the board. As the page loaded, he noticed the usual things: A few new pictures and story chapters, a story request, mention of an upcoming shrinking moment on TV.

The Miniaturizer had posted the latest segment in his recent lengthy tale, and Craig made a mental note to read it a bit later. Of course, there was the multitude of posts by natlo, who never failed to come up with something he liked about almost every contribution.

'I bet he'll go nuts when he sees this,' mused Craig. He had already uploaded the first few images he'd made to an all-purpose size-changing server elsewhere and created a new topic with a link to the pictures. 'JLH SHRUNK ANYONE?' was his topic line, and underneath he tapped out a few words: 'Just a glimpse of my upcoming project, guys. Let me know if you want to see the rest! Heh!'

With that, he posted the link, and decided to check back later for responses. For now, he had a couple of stories to read...


Part Seventeen

Joe had switched the shrunken Jennifer between hands as he took off both of the rings he wore, to avoid accidentally shocking her again.

He had been slightly uncomfortable doing this, as he didn't seem to be able to put his hands anywhere without touching her somewhere personal, so to speak. She had deliberately ignored this, realizing he had to hold on to her somehow, but he could see her miniature form blush briefly whenever one of his fingers brushed against anything. It was a good thing she was wearing the towel, he told himself.

'So,' he said after shock-proofing his hands, 'can you think of any way to figure out what we can do about this?'

She stared at him for a moment as if that was the dumbest question she'd heard in a while. Which, he supposed, it might well be. 'If I knew that, Joe,' she answered, 'I'd have already done something about it.'

'Sorry,' he mumbled.

Her expression softened. 'It's alright. I know you're just trying to help. Forgive my irritability.' She gestured at her shrunken body. 'Although I'm sure you can understand why I would be a little stressed.'

'Maybe we should call a doctor,' he suggested.

She shuddered involuntarily in his hand. 'I know that might be for the best, but...' She hesitated a moment. 'I...I'm kind of...I feel embarrassed to be seen like this, really,' she said.

'It could end up being the only way,' he replied. 'Besides, something tells me we won't be figuring this out by ourselves.'

She shifted position in his palm. His nerves tingled a little as her tiny but still dazzling figure shifted against his skin, and he had to repress a sudden urge to grin. 'Well, okay. I don't know what doctors are still open this late--'

'No problem,' he interjected. 'I know who to call.'

So saying, he turned and headed for the nearest phone, in the den. As soon as he stepped into the room, though, they heard humming and footsteps from the hall, coming toward them. A faintly accented voice called out, 'Jennifer!'

'Must be Mom,' Joe said.

'Quick!' Jennifer hissed. 'Hide me!'

'But I thought you--'

'I was hoping she'd find me, but you did, and I'd like to keep this to as few people as possible!' she exclaimed. 'Now please, hide me!'

'Have it your way,' he replied, looking around rapidly for a good place to stash a foot-tall woman.

Craig had just finished catching up on the latest parts of the ongoing stories when he remembered he had work to do. Out of curiosity, however, he hit the REFRESH button on the forum's main page to see if he'd gotten any replies yet. He had only one so far, and decided to check back later. He opened the image program again and reloaded his ongoing project, wasting no time in setting it for a further reduction. 'Down to nine inches you go, miss Love,' he said aloud.

As Mariana approached, Joe, having no other ideas, bent down and set the miniature Jennifer between the wall a nearby recliner. She started to move beneath it to conceal herself better, but then she noticed the exposed metal framework attached to the extendable footrest, and stopped. She stood just at the edge of the shadow cast by the chair as the housekeeper entered the room.

'Jennifer!' she called again. 'Oh! Joe!' she said, noticing her son standing on the opposite side of the room. 'What are you doing down here?'

'Oh...I...uh...' he sputtered, momentarily dumbstruck. 'I was...um...looking for you, to see if you needed help with anything else.'

'Uh-huh,' she said. Ordinarily she would've seen through that, but she seemed preoccupied. 'Have you seen Jennifer anywhere? Her room is a mess, and she didn't finish dinner, but she's not in there and I haven't seen her in the house anywhere.'

'No, mom, can't say that I have,' he replied quickly. He hoped she'd leave so he could get back on task and get the shrunken woman some help...

'Well,' she said, walking across the room toward him, 'I'm going to check the rest of the house. If you see her, just let her know I needed to ask her something, okay?' She passed him and continued toward the other side of the house, brushing against the recliner as she went. The sudden slight push caused the chair to rock back briefly, and if Mariana hadn't had her mind on where Jennifer might have gone, she would've heard a tiny, brief yelp from behind the furniture.

'Will-do, mom,' Joe returned. As soon as he was sure she'd gone, he bent to look under the chair. 'You ok?'

'I'm fine, except I got shocked again by this chair!' she moaned. 'I'm tingling all over...I'm going to shrink again!' she wailed. He stared, amazed, as her head visibly sank lower and the towel became looser and larger until it again slipped off her dwindling form. She blushed and shrieked as she moved her arms to block his view. He turned slightly red as he looked away and waited for her to cover herself again.

'I...I think it's stopped,' she said. He heard fabric rustling. 'Ok, I'm decent.'

He reached his hand behind the chair and set it down, and she stepped onto it. He could detect a noticeable difference in her weight from just a few minutes ago! Also, she could sit a bit better on his palm. 'Are you ok?' he asked after she'd settled in.

'Well, aside from the obvious, I'm fine, I guess,' she returned. 'Could you do me a favor?'

'Sure, anything for you,' he said quickly. 'Um, that is, anything I can do to help.' Nice save, genius, he told himself.

Under different circumstances, she would have smiled. As it was, though, she merely sighed resignedly. 'Would you find a tape measure and tell me how small I am? I'm guessing nine inches but I'd like to be sure.'

'No problem,' he said. 'I think I found one up in your room earlier and--' he fished in his pockets and produced it. 'Yup, I still have it. Stand up,' he told her. She did so, struggling with the bulky towel.

'I hope I don't shrink again,' she said, 'because if I do I don't think I'll be able to use this towel anymore. It's getting heavy, and...' She gestured at the fabric, puddling at her feet even though she was standing straight up.

'I'll try to keep you away from shocks,' he said, pulling the tape out. 'Nine inches exactly.'

'Great,' she muttered. 'I've definitely confirmed the pattern. Now if only I knew how, or why, or how to stop it...'

'Oh, that reminds me!' Joe exclaimed, smacking himself on the forehead. 'We should call a doctor!'

'What's your idea, anyway?' she inquired, puzzled.

Instead of responding, he picked up the phone handset and punched three digits.

'911 Emergency,' came a crisp female voice over the line.

'I have someone here who needs to see a doctor, pronto!' he uttered.

'Alright, sir, what is the nature of your emergency?' the operator responded.

'She's shrinking!' he replied.

There was a momentary silence from the operator. 'I'm sorry, sir, what did you say?'

'I said she's shrinking! She's only nine inches tall now, and she could get smaller any minute!' he said, a note of panic entering his voice.

'Sir, this is an emergency line. It isn't a place for prank calls.'

'No, this isn't a prank! I swear! Just send a paramedic, I can prove it! ...Hello? Hello?'

Defeated, he replaced the handset. 'Guess I should've thought of a lie, huh?'

She frowned. 'Probably. On the other hand, we didn't really stop to think about them not believing us. It's just not the kind of thing you expect from emergency services, you know?'

'Of course, this is probably not the kind of thing they expect from their callers,' he countered.

She slumped in his hand, depressed. Suddenly, though, she seemed to perk up. 'I've got an idea!' she shouted.

At her reduced size, the shout had sounded almost as loud as her normal speaking voice. 'What?' he asked, intrigued.

'The Internet!' she said, excited. 'Maybe we can look this up! Maybe it's happened to somebody before!'


Part Eighteen

Craig had been pleased with the results of the nine-inch reduction.

He was beginning to wonder about the mysterious and seemingly random time periods between him making adjustments and them actually showing up in the program, but as long as it kept going, he wouldn't complain. He had punched in the six-inch mark and was biding his time by flipping through the various forums, posting his preview images on other ones and returning to the original to see if he had any more responses. The few he'd gotten so far had been positive (with the usual clamor for more) so he was curious what they would think of the finished series. He kept switching between windows, waiting for the editing program to do its job...



Joe had carefully cradled the now nine-inch Jennifer in his hand as he headed for the study, where Jennifer kept her computer. He had narrowly missed Mariana spotting Jennifer ('No, ma, I still haven't seen her') along the way. When he arrived, he set her down on the desk as the computer booted up. To Jennifer, the machine seemed to take an eternity. Sometimes it almost seemed to be sentient and interested only in annoying her... When it was finally ready, Joe opened her Internet access program.

'Uh-oh,' he said.

'What?' she asked, with a flicker of impatience.

'Password?' He looked at her quizzically.

'I'll type it,' she said. At his surprised expression, she added, 'What? I'm not giving you my password.'

'Suit yourself,' he replied, and he pushed the chair he was seated in back and turned it around. 'You may proceed.'

She stepped up onto the keyboard and walked across it, pressing the necessary keys in with both hands. She tried to ignore the fact that each key was the size of a large dinner plate and the monitor next to her looked like a movie screen. As she pressed one key, she leaned over a bit too far and her hand slipped, falling and getting momentarily stuck between the keys. She wriggled her arm, trying to free it...and accidentally brushed something metal under the key, receiving a shock that ran the length of her miniaturized arm. She seized and yelped in pain. She then moaned 'NO!' as she saw the keyboard and computer getting even larger before her eyes!

'What?!' said Joe, turning around just in time to catch the last few seconds of her reduction. 'Oh?' he said after a moment of watching her lean on the huge keys. 'I think we should be more careful keeping you away from metal things.'

'You think so?' she snapped, and regretted her sarcasm when he briefly looked hurt. He was only trying to help, after all. 'Sorry,' she said. 'Not your fault, neither of us thought about there being anything metal inside the keyboard.'

'Did you finish the password?' he inquired.

'Oh. Yeah, that should've been the last key.' At that, he pressed ENTER and waited a few seconds for the ISP to log her in. At least she paid for high-speed internet, he mused. Shortly, her home page popped up.

'Where should I look, you think?' he said. 'Google? Yahoo?'

'Wherever you think we'll turn up some possible results,' she said sadly. If things were still going the way they had been, she was only 6 inches tall now. The hand towel was far too big and bulky to use now, so she let it fall to the desk. She wasn't particularly comfortable being nude in front of Joe, though. She was still trying to figure out what to wear when he typed something on the screen and turned to address her.

'Ok, I'm trying Goo...' He trailed off when he noticed her state of undress. 'Um.' Beyond that he didn't seem to be able to speak. An awkward silence descended.

'Yeah,' she finally said. 'Can you think of anything I can wear? At all?' She turned a hopeful expression on him.

'And would you not stare at me? Please?'

'Oh. Right. Sorry.' He looked away sheepishly, turning red. 'Well, I, uh...' He was taking care not to turn back to face her. 'I have an idea. I'll be right back,' he said. Before she could ask where he was going, he'd gotten up and left the room, closing the door behind him.

After only a few moments, the doorknob turned and began to swing open. 'I was wondering where you--'

She cut herself off when the towering figure of Mariana stepped through the doorway.


Part Nineteen

Mariana was not in a good mood.

Jennifer didn't seem to be around anywhere, and her room was a mess. She was beginning to worry--it wasn't like her employer to just walk off in the middle of the night without saying a word. And walking would have been her only recourse, as her car was still here. She -had- to be in this house somewhere. Joe didn't claim to know where, but he'd seemed awfully fidgety earlier. Maybe he knew more than he was letting on. What, though, she couldn't imagine.

She was determined, though, not to leave for the night until she could be reasonably sure of Jennifer's well-being. She felt a sort of affection for the actress, who never treated her like hired help--much more like a sister or aunt. Mariana knew she wouldn't sleep well tonight worrying about the vanished woman.

Her mood only worsened as she traversed back and forth through the house, straightening up little messes and things as she went along. She continued to produce no results and was becoming frustrated. Such was her mood as she pushed open the study door. No sign of Jennifer.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a small movement on the desk, but as she turned nothing was there out of the ordinary. She was sure she had seen something, though, and was certain she had heard a faint squeak and a scrabbling noise to accompany it. Hopefully, no mice or other vermin had gotten loose in the house!

She bent over the desk and squinted into the various cubbyholes, pushing aside papers and assorted desktop clutter. Nothing seemed to be in the small recesses or hiding under anything on the desk. She noticed a drawer was partially cracked open and almost unthinkingly grasped the handle and jerked it open. Though she didn't know what to expect, she found herself slightly disappointed that nothing jumped to her attention. Some pencils, paper clips, tape dispenser, post-it pads...loose desk junk that just accumulated in the drawer. She shuffled some of it around, but no sign of pests. She couldn't possibly be seeing things...

Just then, she glanced at the computer screen and noticed it was on, and signed on to the internet under Jennifer's account. Very odd--she didn't leave it running very often. Perhaps she had been in here recently?

'Jennifer?' called Mariana. 'Je-nni-fer!' she cried, somewhat louder now.

No response. Perhaps she was on this side of the house, at least, and Mari could find her. Temporarily forgetting the suspected pest hiding in the study, she turned and left through the door, shutting it behind her.

Pressed flat against the back of the drawer, hiding behind a few envelopes, Jennifer finally dared to release the breath she'd been holding as her housekeeper's calls faded away down the hall. She had dropped quickly into the open gap in the drawer, hoping the giantess wouldn't find her. Her tiny heart was hammering in her chest--what if Mari had crushed her, thinking she was a bug? She didn't want to be seen by anyone else like this, but being accidentally smashed would be much worse. She shuddered at the memory of the massive hand, almost as large as her entire body, shoving the nearby junk around casually, a few times almost brushing against her. One of the massive, razor-edged fingernails had nearly cut her! She shivered more and curled up against the rear wall of the desk drawer.

Shortly thereafter, she heard the door creak. 'Jennifer?'

She breathed a sigh of relief. Joe was back. She pushed the stationery away and stepped forward, calling up to him and waving her arms. After a moment, he caught sight of her and turned red again. In her brief panic and rush of relief she had forgotten that she was still naked.

'I...uh...' He faltered, and lowered several blanket-sized sheets of Kleenex into the drawer. 'You can...ah...that is, i think you can...um...wear these,' he managed, obviously still tongue-tied at her state.

'Thanks,' she said sincerely, trying not to chuckle despite herself.

Once she had wrapped the tissues around herself in a suitable fashion and arranged them so they'd stay put, he was more easily able to talk. 'I grabbed some out of the bathroom,' he said, 'but then as I started to come back I saw ma come in here. I didn't think it'd be a good idea to bump into her and have to explain what I was doing in the study, on your computer, with a wad of tissue. So I had to wait it out.'

'You're probably right,' she said, but he saw her shiver again slightly.

'Give you a scare?' he asked, concerned.

She nodded. 'A little bit,' and almost laughed at her choice of words. 'Maybe with any luck I won't have to worry about it much longer though.'

'Oh! Right!' He suddenly seemed to jerk upright and focused intently on the monitor. 'We'll just Google it, then...' He hesitated. 'What should I type? 'shrinking,' or 'shrinking woman,' or what?'

'I guess we'll just try them all until we come up with something,' she replied, hoping it wouldn't take too long.

Nearly thirty minutes later, the two of them were getting annoyed. All they ever seemed to come across were references to a 1980 Lily Tomlin movie, some environmental articles, and sites about women experiencing weight loss. Joe had jokingly suggested maybe that was her problem--after all, this did start at the gym. The icy glare he got in return kept him from any further attempts at levity.

Frustrated, Jennifer was about to admit that they would have to take her to a doctor when Joe's half-closed eyes snapped fully open and he leaned forward in the chair, attentive. 'Hel-lo...'

'What? Got something?' she inquired eagerly, trying to see the screen.

'Well, I'm not sure, but something tells me I might find the right place from here.' He turned the screen sideways, and she backed up on the desk to see the whole picture.

INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMEN, read the caption at the top of the page. With it was an animation of a woman gradually getting smaller as height markers scrolled upward next to her.

'Pay dirt,' she said hopefully. However, many of the sites and places the 'links' page led to seemed only to regard shrinking as a fantasy--often sexual in nature, though sometimes not. They ran into stories where women shrank out of their clothes, as was happening to her, but they were all works of fiction. Many pages had pictures, all fabrications of the people who ran the sites. Nothing helpful at all. Nothing in the whole mess... Until they discovered there were message boards for discussion of shrinking. Maybe, just maybe, somebody on them would know what to do if asked about real, actual shrinking?

As it turned out, they didn't even need to post a question. Jennifer had finally turned away from the screen and sat down, frustrated and annoyed by their continued failures (and somewhat troubled by some of the more graphic and horrible things they'd found in the fantasy community). She'd asked Joe to let her know if he found anything.

'Jennifer?' Something strange was in his voice. It made her stand and whirl around quickly. 'LOOK.'

Glowing in phosphorescent yellow letters on a black background, one single recent post caught her eye. Its author's moniker was 'WolfBeast,' and the title was, 'JLH SHRUNK ANYONE?'?.


Part Twenty

Joe drove onward, trying to watch the roads and traffic signals while keeping an eye on his tiny passenger. The six-inch Jennifer was clinging to the passenger seatbelt, making every effort to keep herself from tumbling off the seat every time he stopped suddenly or took a sharp turn. Fortunately he had put the top up or she might be blown away. He needed to drive as quickly as possible, but he didn't want to hurt her, and he was also forced to be wary for police, as being pulled over would only slow them down more.

They were heading for an apartment across town. There, they hoped, they would find an explanation for her shrinking, or at least some help.

The post on the message board with the author's name, 'WolfBeast,' had had an email address attached to it. It was a yahoo address, and on a hunch, Joe had looked for a profile matching the user name. As luck would have it, one had turned up, and 'WolfBeast' had put some useful information in it. He lived in the Los Angeles area, and had given his name as Craig Marten. A brief investigation of the phone listings had yielded only two names matching it, and they were on their way to the first listed address.

They were, of course, assuming that 'Craig Marten' was his real name, and that he would know anything about what was happening to her (though the pictures he had posted lent support to that), and that the first listed address would be the right one. Quite a stretch, of course, but they were grasping at straws by this point.

Through the entire drive, neither of them spoke very much. Joe occasionally asked if she was still alright, and she would answer briefly. Neither of them wanted to acknowledge how desperate this idea was, because it might be the only option short of taking her to a hospital. She didn't merely dread a whole crowd of people seeing her this way (and the publicity her condition might get), it was also all the tests they would probably subject her to. She shuddered at the images that flashed through her mind as the possibilities were considered.

Joe, meanwhile, thought about how he might explain any of this to his mother. He had taken off in Jennifer's car--with her permission, although Mariana could not possibly know that--with no explanation or warning, leaving his mom still unable to find her employer and becoming increasingly agitated. If this search failed to yield any positive result, he would have to return and try to explain the miniaturized woman. Or, he might only have to explain why he had taken off in the missing actress' car, provided he dropped her off at a hospital first.

Then again, even if he brought her back restored to normal size, there would still be some explaining to do.

He turned hard to the right and realized he was on the road where their destination lay. After a few moments, he spotted a low sign ahead on the right: PINE COURTS APARTMENTS. He swerved into the driveway, scanning frantically for 3F. When he came across it after a few minutes, he screeched to a halt in the nearest parking space. He quickly shut off the engine and grabbed the keys from the ignition, then turned to Jennifer.

'Okay. This is the place.' He suddenly noticed she seemed dizzy. 'You still okay?'

'Ugh,' she replied. 'Fine...except that last stop was a little rough.'

'Sorry about that,' he said sheepishly, holding his hand out to her. 'Wasn't thinking, I guess. Hop on.'

She jumped into his outstretched palm, and...'Yeow!'

'What? What was it?' he asked quickly. Then he noticed her shrinking again in his hand!

'The keys!' she wailed. 'I got shocked by the keys!'

He started to apologize again, but stuttered and snagged on the words. He had just caused her to reduce to half her size. Stupid! he told himself. Rather than speak, or even look her in the eye, he simply grabbed the keys quickly with his other hand and stuffed them into his pocket, then stepped rapidly up to the door marked 3F and knocked quickly.



Craig had just watched the image shrink to three inches, but was startled out of his reverie at hearing a car come squealing to a halt near his apartment, and more so when a rapid pounding came at his front door. Grabbing a baseball bat out of his closet, he stepped up to the door.

'Who's there?' he called, silently cursing the lack of a peephole.

'You Craig Marten?' came a masculine voice with a faint accent.

'Who wants to know?' he returned, gripping the bat more tightly.

'Maybe I should say I'm looking for WolfBeast,' replied the voice. 'It has to do with a certain actress.'

That was certainly intriguing, he thought. Had someone from the Forum tracked him down? If so, why? His curiosity piqued, he slid the night chain into place and pulled the door open the few inches he could.

'What about WolfBeast and an actress?' he said, eyeing his visitor. Young guy, slightly younger than himself, Hispanic features. He was cradling something in one hand, away from the crack in the door. He didn't look threatening, but he wasn't anyone Craig knew, either.

'If you know what I'm talking about,' he replied, 'then you must be the guy I need to talk to. You should let me in.'

'What, you think I'm stupid?' Craig snapped. 'You show me your hands. I can tell you're hiding something.'

'Well,' said the man at his door, 'I can't do that unless I know you're the person I need to see.'

'I'm WolfBeast, yeah.' He narrowed his eyes at the stranger. 'What's it to you?'

Rather than speak, the visitor held up his other hand so Craig could see what was curled up in it.

For the first time he could recall, Craig Marten fainted from shock.

Jennifer waited impatiently in Joe's hand outside the door for several minutes while Craig came around. When he finally did, he pushed the door shut completely, and Joe heard the sound of the night chain being undone. Craig pulled the door wide, dropping a bat he'd been holding in the process. After ushering Joe in, he shut and re-locked the door.

'You'll have to excuse my method of greeting you,' Craig began. Jennifer almost covered her ears--their voices boomed like thunder above her tiny head. 'But, I don't get that many visitors anyway, especially not so late. Besides, it's a rough neighborhood sometimes.'

'I figured,' Joe replied. 'But, I'm not here to talk about you. I'm--We're here to see if you know anything about what's going on.' He kept his hand out in front of him as he related the events in brief (including why they were here for him), and Craig leaned in close to stare, wide-eyed and fascinated, at the now three-inch Jennifer. She shuddered and recoiled slightly at the giant face looming so close to her. Everything was so huge to her now! She was having a hard time even seeing it all as real--she felt like she was in a fictional world made for giants.

Of course, the expression on Craig's face was doing little to ease her discomfort. She drew the loosely-wrapped tissue more tightly around herself and turned away from his intense gaze. After a few moments, she sensed his face moving up and away from her. However, when he spoke, he did so quietly, addressing her.

'Um...Je...Miss...er...' He faltered for a moment. 'What should I call you?'

'Jennifer will be fine,' she returned, almost shouting. She never was one for formality, after all.

'Okay...Jennifer.' He still seemed unable to proceed. 'I, uh, well, I think, that is, maybe I...'

'Spit it out,' Joe interjected. He shifted his posture slightly to assume a vaguely threatening stance.

'Well, let me ask you this,' he said, ignoring Joe and still talking to her. 'Has this been going on in spurts? All evening?'

'Yes!' she called up to him. 'Do you know what's going on?'

'I think maybe I, uh, do...' He trailed off, looking somewhat gloomy and very uncomfortable.

'Well?' she said loudly, after he glanced nervously around the room.

'Um...I think there's...well, there's a possibility that...um...I...kinda...caused...this--UURRK!' He made a half-strangled noise as Joe's free hand suddenly fastened itself around his neck.

'Hey!' she yelled at Joe. 'Knock it off! If either of us gets to kill him, it'll be me...and NOT until AFTER he fixes this!'

Joe fortunately saw the logic in her statement and released his hold. Craig rubbed his sore throat a moment, then suddenly brought up a fist and slugged Joe in the face. Joe was about to retaliate when the other man put up his hands in a back-off gesture. 'SHE can hit me all she wants, if this turns out to be my fault...But I didn't do anything to YOU,' he spat. Joe reluctantly decided he did have a point.

'Alright, boys. Act civilized,' the miniature woman piped. She turned to face Craig. 'You can fix this?' she called.

'Well, if what I did caused this to happen, then I probably can,' he replied.

'What did you do, anyway?' she asked, curious.

'Well, I just made a sequence of images of you getting progressively smaller,' he replied. 'I used a program I created myself...who knows? Can't imagine why it would cause the real you to shrink, but...'

'Who cares?' she yelled. 'Just undo it! Please!'

'Alright.' He walked toward the PC sitting in one corner. He tapped rapidly on the keys, clicking buttons and changing things. After a few minutes, he stopped, stood, and returned to look at the miniature woman, Joe still protectively cupping his hand around her. 'That should do it,' he said. 'Feel anything?'

'No,' she answered, disheartened. 'Nothing.'

'Well, I don't understand why--' Suddenly, you could almost hear a CLICK inside his head. 'Hmm...'

'What?' she asked. He simply smiled unsettlingly at her and dug in his pockets for a moment. 'What are you--' She screamed as he suddenly produced a set of keys and jabbed them at her, giving her a painful zapping of static electricity. 'OOOOOWWWW!' she cried, as loud as her miniature lungs would let her. 'That REALLY hurt! And I'm going to shrink again!'

'Ouch,' he said, rubbing his fingers where the shock had jumped back on him too. 'Actually, if I understood things right, you should be--Joe! Set her down on the floor. Quickly!'

Glaring at Craig for the commanding tone in his voice, Joe put her down. She could feel the same awful tingling she'd felt all night returning. It was building in strength rapidly, making her feel as if all her limbs were asleep. She dropped awkwardly to her knees and then her belly as her legs and arms suddenly gave out. Seconds later, she felt the carpet sliding roughly along her skin--she must be shrinking again!

She abruptly realized, however, that everything was shifting in the opposite direction. The tissues she had covered herself with were drawing tighter around her body. She was getting bigger!

Pushing herself back up to a standing position, she had to resist the urge to jump up and shout happily. Already, she could tell everything was smaller, and she seemed to be growing quickly. Joe and Craig looked on, amazed... A few faint tearing noises drew her attention down, and she saw that the thin tissues had torn apart. Embarrassed, she covered herself with her arms and looked back up to see the two men staring even more attentively.

'Guys! If you wouldn't mind?!' she snapped.

Mumbling vague apologies, the two turned around quickly. Based on the relative size of her surroundings, she guessed she was already almost three feet tall. She scanned the room, looking for something to cover up with until suitable clothes could be found. On the couch, she spotted a rumpled blanket and a pillow--evidently Craig slept there sometimes. (Who knew, maybe he didn't have a bed...?) Whatever the reason, she was grateful for its presence and pulled it quickly around herself.

A minute or two later, her perspective had stopped shifting upward, and she was relatively close in height to the two men who still had their backs to her.

'Alright,' she said. 'You can turn back around now, I guess.'

'Good! It worked!' Craig exclaimed. 'I'm really confused as to why it affected you in the first place, but-- mmrmmph!'

He was interrupted by Jennifer jumping forward and kissing him.

She pulled back after a moment. 'That was for returning me to normal,' she said. Satisfied that he was still thoroughly shocked, she then drew back her hand and slapped him as hard as she could manage. He twisted violently sideways, and when he faced her again, his eyes were watery and there was a bright red mark across his cheek. 'And THAT was for making this happen to me in the first place!'

He groaned and gingerly rubbed the angry red area. 'A little excessive, don't you think? It's not like I knew that would happen...'

'Just be glad I didn't use a knee somewhere that it might have hurt more,' she retorted angrily. 'What's the deal with this, anyway? Why would you make pictures of me--any woman--SHRINKING, of all things?'

He turned away from her, flustered. 'It's...it's difficult to explain. It's kind of a...hobby. Interest. Um...it's...'

'Never mind,' she replied. 'I think I can see where this is going.'

'It's not like I'm alone in it, you know,' he blurted, almost defensively. 'There's a lot of people who are interested in it.'

'Yeah, we know,' Joe interjected. 'We saw the message board thing. News flash: Just because you aren't the only one in the world doesn't make you any less of a freak.' He smiled smugly at that.

Jennifer glared at him. 'Stay out of this, Joe. Name-calling isn't going to help any, and besides, I'm the one who gets to be angry at him.'

Joe grimaced and seemed about to reply, but he bit it off and stepped back, staring sullenly at Craig.

'Isn't 'freak' a bit harsh, man?' he said. To Jennifer, he continued, 'Listen, for what it's worth, I really am sorry. If I had known this would happen, and you'd have to go through all of that, I would never have done it.' Seeing a decidedly skeptical expression on her face, he pressed on. 'No! I mean it! REALLY! I'm not such a bad guy, you know. Besides, if I had meant it, would I have even admitted to causing this? I could have just faked ignorance and not returned you to normal! The only reason I--' He cut himself off and looked away, apparently embarrassed.

'What?' Jennifer stepped closer, curious. 'What? The only reason you...what?'

'The only reason I did this at all is because...well...I...hell,' he spat. 'I kinda have a 'thing' for you, so to speak. A celebrity crush, if you wanna call it that. I'm infatuated with you, okay? And I didn't see any harm in combining two interests of mine that could only exist in the realm of fiction anyway. Okay? There.' He walked away, sat down at his PC, deleted the pictures, and closed the program. 'I'll never bother you again. You can leave me to my shame now,' he said over his shoulder. He buried his face in his hands.

Joe stepped forward and tapped Jennifer on the shoulder. 'Let's get you back home, Jennifer.'

She turned to follow him out the door, but surprised all three of them by saying, 'Wait,' and turning to face Craig in the corner. His head rose back up, but he didn't turn to face her. 'Just so you know...' She almost choked on the words before forcing them out. 'I...I forgive you for this. As long as you never do it again.'

After a drawn-out moment, he turned to face her, his expression one of total disbelief. 'Really?' When she nodded, he thought a moment before speaking again. 'Would you let me make it up to you?'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Epilogue

-ONE WEEK LATER-

Jennifer pulled her car into the space and stopped, staring out the windshield at the door marked ?3F?.

She told herself it wasn't too late to change her mind and back out. She could just drive away, right now, and go home. She didn't owe this rather strange guy anything in particular. In fact, after what had happened, she ought to be wary of him. She probably should hate him, or at least harbor a permanent dislike. At the very least, she shouldn't be letting him take her out to dinner.

Sighing, she decided to stick it out and hoped she wouldn't regret it later. Other than his rather unusual 'hobby', he did seem to be a nice guy, and his desire to make amends appeared genuine. Stepping out of the car, she quickly strode up to the door and knocked before she could talk herself out of it.

'Just a second!' came Craig's voice from within. She was still confused about his odd request--he had asked her to come by his place before they went out so she could dress for their evening out. He claimed to have bought her 'a very nice outfit' as part of his apology, but refused to bring it to her house, instead insisting that the best time for her to try it on was just before they left. Consequently she had dressed casually before coming over.

'If that's you, Jennifer, you can come on in,' he called moments later. She grasped the doorknob and was rewarded with a mild shock.

'Ouch! Damn, not again,' she muttered. She turned the knob and stepped inside...only to hear a muffled thump behind her. She glanced back in surprise and discovered her right shoe had slid off of her foot and fallen to the floor. She did a quick check of herself and found her blouse and jeans to be slightly loose, and her rings slipping a bit on her fingers. 'Why you--'

'Why me what?' he said, grinning, as he appeared from the kitchen. His hands were behind his back.

'I thought I told you not to do that to me again!' she yelled. 'If this is how you want to start things off, you can forget about dinner!'

'Hey, calm down,' he said, trying to placate her. 'It's just that, well, I found this.' he swung his hands around and handed her a rather dazzling black spaghetti-strap dress. A quick glance at the designer's label suggested he had paid rather more than tonight's dinner would probably cost.

After she recovered her dropped jaw (not that she couldn't afford such things herself, but she seldom got them as gifts and hadn't been expecting it at all) she looked at him with a mixed expression--surprise, puzzlement, anger, and happiness. 'Th-Thanks. It's...wow. But it doesn't give you the right to shrink me again,' she said, and narrowed her eyes at him.

'Well, you see,' he replied, his grin widening, 'they only had it in this size. Now, go ahead, try it on in the back room while I finish getting dressed.'

Rolling her eyes, but smiling a bit in spite of herself, she walked toward the room he had indicated, pausing just before shutting the door to call back to him, 'You know, I have to say this is definitely the most unusual apology I've ever received.'


THE END

[qzar9999]

Oh, yes, forgot to mention...

Many thanks to Talon for archiving all of this stuff. I couldn't seem to find the last two chapters or so, and without him I'd probably still be looking. So, much obliged, friend.

[Nom Anor]

Still one of my favorites, good to see it in its entirety.

[TrunKated]

Many many thanks! A fun story, nicely done.

And finally, some closure!


;-)

It's good t'have ya back, buddy...


tal

[theangelofdeath1986]

i have been waiting for the end of this story since i saw it, on your site and i was not dissapointed.

Thanks