Chapter 2: Ravenous

From the case notes of Doctor Hefmire, dated 03/09/2011:

“I think another one of our mistakes was to think it was possible to contain the situation without alerting the public. I don’t think we could really believe that we’d experience first contact at all, and I think that made us sloppy...”

***

The mysterious woman made her way through the town which, due to a rather draining carnival the day before, was almost entirely closed up. The deserted streets did not make it seem like a ghost town, but one enjoying a contented and well-deserved rest. Most of the inhabitants were either inside or on the beach, and she was the only living person in sight. She took a deep, satisfying breath of the sea air, tasting all the scents that filled the town’s atmosphere, and then began to walk in the most direction of the most enticing of these.

***

The chip shop’s wide, accommodating door swung open to reveal a wide, accommodating woman in its frame. The man behind the counter, a rather greasy man with the inappropriately buff name of Tan displayed on his name-badge, greeted her with a friendly smile.

“What’ll it be, miss?” he asked.

“Tell you what,” she flashed him an utterly winning smile, “you just load up a plate of chips and we’ll see how things go from there.”

It was a curious thing to say, Tan reflected, but wasn’t about to argue. Doing as he was instructed, he loaded up an extra-large portion of chips, and heaved them onto the counter-top.

“You want anything on these? Salt? Vinegar?”

“Salt, thanks.” She smiled again as he sprinkled an ample measure of salt onto the chips.

Before he could ring up what she owed him on the till, she had opened her mouth and simply tipped the huge plate of chips into it. She savoured the salted chips in her mouth a moment before swallowing. She hadn’t even bothered to chew.

She smacked the plate back down on the counter like she was replacing a vodka glass at a bar. She gave the same winning smile again, wiped a few stray bits of salt from around her mouth and said “same again, please, Tan.”

“That’s impossible...” began Tan, before being interrupted.

“Don’t worry about that. Just keep it coming.”

Tan did- he seemed unable to refuse the woman. Instead he served up another plate of chips, which the mysterious woman engulfed as quickly as the first. A third soon followed it, and more after that until he lost count. Tan watched the strange woman’s body expand with each over-the-top gulp. Her entire physique growing fatter rather than, as one might expect, her belly just stretching with the input of new food. Her clothes grew tight, her belly and breasts straining the buttons on her shirt while her buttocks and thighs forced the seams of her trousers apart one at a time. She continued to eat as the button on her trousers popped off and the zip was demolished, letting her belly force its way out and overhand the tops of her legs. She continued eating as the buttons of her shirt pinged off one at a time and a ripping noise coming from one of the sleeves indicated that even her upper arms were filing out beyond the point at which they could be contained by such small clothes.

Tan only stopped serving when there were no chips left to serve up. The woman in front of him wiped her mouth delicately with one of the paper napkins that the chip shop provided for use by its customers.

“Mmmm. That was good,” she said, offering Tan her warm, dreamy smile again. Then she ran her hands over her notably expanded body and concentrated for a moment. “295lb- to the ounce, in fact. I can always tell.”

“That’s...”

“How much I now weigh, yes,” she confirmed.

“What ARE you?” Tan asked.

The woman leaned on the tough, glass-and-steel counter. “Aside from still hungry?” she asked. “To be honest, I couldn’t tell you.”

“Well...” Tan was determined not to simply let the matter drop. This woman had just eaten approximately 75lb of chips in a single sitting and gained accordingly. Frankly, he wanted some kind of explanation. Well...” he said again, “Do you at least have a name?”

“Not that I can remember,” she saw the exasperated look on his face and added. “But let’s make things a little easier, shall we? I need a name, so you can call me...” she looked around for inspiration and a thought struck her. “You can call me Beach,” she said.

***

At a military complex somewhere far below Victoria Station in the heart of London, General Awn was pacing back and forth, trying to come to terms with what the frightened man in the chair before him was saying.

“You dug up a woman?” he asked- not for the first time.

The frightened man nodded. “She was deep in the rock beneath the ocean bed... but... but... but she was... she was alive.”

“And you say you found her when... what? The oil-rig drill hit her?”

“Yes. I was working there as an engineer...”

“Yes, yes. That bit’s not important,” Awn said, waving away the man’s profession irritably. “Just tell me again what she did when you woke her up!”

“She ate all of the food we had ready for that day then tried to leave. We tried to stop her... but she was so strong... she batted us off her and jumped off the rig...”

“Into the ocean?”

“Yes.”

“But you think she’s still alive?”

“You didn’t see her. She’s still alive.” The engineer looked into Awn’s face with a certainty he had been unable to hitherto produce over the course of the conversation.

“Did she say anything?” Awn asked. “When she left?”

The engineer laughed, nervously. “She said she was going to get lunch.”

Awn left the interview room and confronted one of his Corporals, a man named Pepworth.

“Any luck, Sir?” Pepworth asked, saluting.

“What a cluster-fuck,” Awn muttered, then, louder “Not really, Pepworth. I want you to get Hefmire on the phone, immediately. I need his expertise.”

“Yes Sir!” Pepworth saluted, snapping fully to attention this time, and set off down the corridor.

“What a cluster-fuck,” Awn said to himself once more.