Demons, Part 1
By Nathan
The Capture
    

     The lab was in ruins.  The entire room seemed to shimmer in the intense 
heat of dozens of small fires.  Thick smoke in a multitude of colors rose from 
destroyed machinery and pools of burning chemicals.  In the center of the room 
lay the twisted remains of what appeared to be an enormous block of metal, 
snapped in two by an equally enormous force.  Across the room, a gaping, 
fourteen-foot hole had been smashed in the reinforced concrete wall and, indeed, 
several walls beyond.  The makeshift portals stretched in a straight line 
through several rooms and hallways, all the way to the outer wall, beyond which 
could be seen a dark, moonlit forest, or, rather, a flat forest.  Dozens of 
trees had either been snapped like twigs or just uprooted completely, and lay 
where they had fallen, always pointing directly away from the compound.  Sirens 
blared.  Searchlights flashed.  Large jeeps carrying heavily armed men roared 
off down the makeshift trail.
     Something was running away.  Something large.  Something powerful.  
Something that could cause an awful lot of trouble.  
     A woman.

     It was a rainy Sunday morning in a quiet suburban town.  Parched, brown 
grass sucked hungrily at the suddenly moist dirt, glad to have at least a little 
relief from the incessant dryness and heat of the last several weeks.  Warm, 
sticky air seeped through window frames and crept under doors.  Cars glided 
quietly down the steaming streets, carrying late-rising workers,  families on 
the way to church, and older couples who beieved, quite fervently, that the day 
of the Lord somehow made the streets perfectly safe for driving ten miles an 
hour.  
     In a small, blue house on Norton Drive, a young woman named Katherine Starr 
sat, immobile, in a very old recliner.  She mused about just how nice it was to 
live in the age of information and technology as she watched Jerry Falwell 
preach fom her air conditioned living room.  No need for her to drag herself 
down to that stuffy old church, especially on a day like today.  It wasn't even 
air conditioned, and they certainly didn't have as good a supply of ice cream.
     At least, not that she remembered.  She hadn't been since Dad died, she 
thought.  Which was true.  Her father had been a devout Catholic until the day 
he died, forcing the religion so hard down Katherine's throat that, once he was 
gone, she had effectively regurgitated it.  She had thought of becoming Jewish, 
her mother's original religion, before a Catholic (Naturally) marriage ceremony 
had forced her to convert, but had dropped the idea out of hand when she 
realized that she just didn't like religion all that much.  It wasn't the 
conformity, or the dogma, so much as it simply bored her to tears.
     Tears.  She felt them welling up in her eyes.  She hated remembering.  
Mom's strange accident, her passing a scant few days later.  The awful spiral of 
alcoholic depression and subsequent death of her father, only seven months 
afterward.  She had been fifteen.  Now, the house was all she had left of them.  
Now, she had been living there for twelve lonely years.  Her aunt had come, at 
first, to live with her, but left as soon as Katherine was eighteen and out of 
high school, taking the good silver and Katherine's mother's hats with her.
     Katherine had never gone to college.  She had had neither the time nor the 
money.  The amount her parents left her was sufficient to pay off their mortgage 
and car, but not much else.  She made just enough as a bank teller to keep the 
place standing and the car running, and had pretty much accepted that this would 
be her life from now on.  Living alone, never traveling beyond her town, never 
expanding her horizons, never having anything exciting whatsoever happen to her.  
     She sighed, and looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.  Ten-fifteen.  
Plenty of time yet to get to church, she decided.  It might be stone-dead 
boring, but at least there would be people there, and not just pictures-on-a-
screen people either.  Real boredom would be a godsend compared to the all-
encompassing numbness that was setting in here.  She wiped her eyes, clicked off 
Jerry's sermon on gluttony, tossed an empty pint of Ben & Jerry's in the 
garbage, and went to change her clothes.
     As she stripped off her chunky sweatsuit, she wondered why she was still so 
lonely.  She met a lot of men during the course of a day, and she wasn't bad 
looking.  Five-foot-two; long, dark hair, nice figure, cute face...and yet, men 
seemed never to notice her.  Or simply to forget her five minutes after meeting 
her.  She stared at her body in the mirror.  After a few seconds of looking, she 
tried shoving her breasts forward and wearing a pouty expression.
     "Hello, big boy," she cooed.  She did not feel particularly seductive.  She 
went back to staring.  Then, slowly and sadly, she put on her dowdy, black 
church dress.  
     She decided not to bother with makeup.  She simply grabbed her purse and 
her coat and slouched dejectedly out he front door.  
     Across the street, someone watched her turn and lock it.  Someone watched 
her get into her car.  Someone saw her fail to start it six times before its 
engine finally caught.  Someone watched her drive away.
     Across the street, the door of a sleek, black Mercedes swung open.  A very 
long leg, followed by a tall, beautiful woman, emerged.  She was wearing a 
custom tailored, black suit which appeared to be worth several thousand dollars 
and very dark sunglasses.  Her hair was pure platinum blond, nearly white.  Her 
skirt barely rustled as her three-inch heels clicked along the pavement toward 
the small blue house on the other side of Norton Drive. 
     She headed for the backyard.  Anyone who had seen her might have commented 
on the way she sent the enormous German Shepherd from down the block running 
with a single glance, the effortless, one-handed vault she made over Katherine's 
fence, or the way she simply pushed open Katherine's deadbolted, chained back 
door with a light shove and a loud cracking sound.  But nobody saw her.  She was 
very, very good at not being seen when she didn't want to be.
     The strange woman entered Katherine's house, and got straight to her real 
work.  She was very, very good at that, too.
* * * * *
     Katherine returned about two hours later, after church and a fast food 
lunch which had left ketchup stains on her good dress.  She felt even more 
dejected than she had when she left.  So many good-looking men at church...all 
married, of course.  So many happy young wives...  Oh, well, back to TV.  She 
inserted her key in the lock, turned, and pushed.
     The door wouldn't move.  She pushed again. Nothing.  It was like something 
large and heavy had been pushed up against it.  And all the curtains were 
closed.  She certainly hadn't done that.  A wave of fear ran through her.  She'd 
never dealt with burglars before.  She looked around for unfamiliar vehicles.  
None.  Just the black Mercedes owned by the doctor across the way.  Why was he 
parked in the street?  Perhaps he expected company.  She certainly must have had 
some unwanted guests while she was gone.
     Drawing her pepper spray out of her purse, she crept around to the rear of 
her house.  The gate to the backyard didn't appear to have been opened, and 
there were no telltale footprints in the mud around it.  She opened it and 
stepped through.
     The back door of her house was wide open, hanging loosely from the hinges, 
and swaying bak and forth slightly.  There was no sound from the house; no 
lights inside.  They must be gone, she thought, and entered.
     The sights within drove the breath from her body.  Her eyes boggled, and 
she clapped her hands to her mouth to avoid screaming.  The house had been torn 
apart.  Nothing was gone; it was simply all smashed, broken, reduced to useless 
rubble.  Her kitchen was a disaster area.  Food was everywhere.  The refigerator 
lay on its side, the door gaping wide and dripping various liquids into a 
disgusting brown puddle on the linoleum.  The dishwasher and stove appeared to 
have been wrenched away from the wall and hurled clear across the room.  They 
were half buried in the rubble of the collapsed wall which they had hit.  
Everything else, the cabinets, the table, the chairs, was simply obliterated, 
crushed beyond repair, beyond recognition.
     Katherine began to cry as she stepped through the ruins of her life.  
Everything was gone.  She wandered despondently from room to room, her despair 
growing by leaps and bounds as she realized that every room was in the same 
condition as the kitchen:  completely destroyed.  
     Gaping holes opened in several of the walls, and, invariably, she would 
find some enormous, wrecked piece of furniture on the other side, as if somebody 
had thrown it straight through the wall.  She wondered who could possibly have 
done this; only a bear, or perhaps a rhinoceros would have been strong enough to 
heave her mother's solid oak dresser around in that way.  She suddenly realized 
that she was quite afraid.  Her grip tightened around the pepper spray.  Soon, 
there was only one more place to check: the basement.
     She fumbled for the light switch at the top of the stairs.  Her clammy hand 
flicked it upward, and, to her great relief, the light still worked.  At least 
the damage hadn't knocked out the downstairs circuits.  She descended slowly and 
carefully, holding the cylindrical spray at the ready.  Whatever had destroyed 
the upstairs apparently hadn't gotten down here.  She turned on more lights and 
looked around.  Dad's old tools still hung on the pegboard, just where she had 
left them.  The washer and dryer were still in the corner, surrounded by a pile 
of dirty laundry...boxes of her childhood toys and dolls were still stacked 
behind the stairs.  Everything was still in perfect order.  She decided to close 
the door at the top of the stairs to keep whatever it was out of the basement.  
She turned around.  There was a cracking sound.
     Katherine barely moved out of the way in time as the staircase toppled over 
toward her, ripped from its moorings by a dark figure silhouetted in the 
doorway.  She backed away, even as the thing leapt from the portal above down to 
the concrete floor of the basement, landing effortlessly on its...three inch 
heels?
     It was a woman.  A six-foot platinum blonde wearing a black, pinstriped 
suit that showed no trace of the dust and dirt from the demolition upstairs.  
She was wearing sunglasses, even in the darkness of the basement.  She looked 
over them at Katherine like a lioness eyeing a wounded baby gazelle.
     "I am Ilsa."  Her voice was a rich contralto.  It sounded as if she was 
from Austria or Germany.  "You are Katherine Starr."  It was not a question.  
Neither was, "You will come with me."
     "I...what?" Katherine stammered.  She wanted to say, "Did you do all 
this?", but she looked at the staircase lying on the floor and thought better of 
it.  This woman, whoever she was, must be incrediby strong.
     "I have destroyed your home, your belongings," Ilsa continued.  "You have 
nothing.  You must come with me."
     "What?  No..NO!"  Katherine held out her pepper sray like a priest holding 
a cross out toward a vampire, knowing it wouldn't work.  She backed into the 
corner.  "I don't know who the hell you are, but I'm not leaving here with you!"
     Faster than Katherine could even see, Ilsa snatched the cylinder of spray 
from her hands.  "Do not make me take you forcefully,"  Ilsa threatened.  "I am 
quite capable of harming you."  She squeezed the spray capsule.  It buckled and 
burst like a water balloon.  Katherine barely managed to shield her face from 
the spattering liquid. It burned her skin painfully where it made contact.  Ilsa 
didn't even flinch.  She threw the remains of the spray aside and grasped the 
edge of the dryer.  Her fingers sank deeply into the metal, which creaked and 
groaned horribly as she hoisted the entire appliance over her head with no sign 
of strain.
     Katherine was visibly sweating. "I'm not going!" she spat through clenched 
teeth.
     Ilsa casually tossed the dryer across the room, where it landed with a 
thunderous crash.  "You can see my strength," she said calmly.  "But perhaps you 
are not intimidated enough?  Perhaps you would like to see how strong I can be?  
Yes, I think I will show you.  Please watch."
     Ilsa grinned and stretched out her hand.  She clenched it into a fist and 
slowly began to flex her arm up.  Katherine watched in stunned silence as Ilsa's 
sleeve began to inflate.  The seams began to stretch, then to pop.  Katherine 
could see glistening bronze skin exposed as the fabric separated.  Ilsa 
continued to bend her arm until, at the apex of her flex, her sleeve simply 
exploded, as did the shoulder of her jacket.
     Her arm was awesomely massive.  Katherine had seen plenty of muscle 
magazines and televised bodybuilding competitions, but never anything even 
approaching this level of development, not even on the male bodybuilders.  As 
she watched, the rest of Ilsa's body began to expand.
     Her other sleeve exploded, revealing an arm equal in enormity to the first.  
As Ilsa brought her arms up for a double biceps pose, the remains of her jacket 
and blouse simply ripped in half, and hung off of her shoulders like the 
curtains of a window looking in on a world of muscle, showcasing enormous, 
separated pecs which swept upward, tying into deeply striated shoulders, along 
with a stone slab of abs.
     Her skirt easily gave way to the pressure of her expanding thighs, tearing 
up the side and popping at the waist, leaving her ornate garters exposed, at 
least until they, too snapped from the sheer force of her growth.  Ladderlike 
runs began to appear in her stockings, and soon the nylon separated altogether.  
Ilsa's legs were like classic columns:  Huge, separated, and hard as marble.  
Below her thighs, Ilsa's calves had flared to incredibe size.  It was as if she 
had strapped a pair of bricks to the back of each leg.
     Even further down, there was the creak of straining leather as Ilsa's feet 
burst out of her shoes.  Her increasing weight and strength had already 
flattened the heels into two flat lumps which spread out from under her ruined 
footwear.  She kicked them aside as she removed the remains of her ruined 
outfit.  All that remained was a black string bikini which appeared as if it 
would burst at any moment.
     She was still smiling, but her smile was now at a much greater height than 
it had been.  Katherine had been so terrified and transfixed by Ilsa's growing 
muscles that she had not even noticed that Ilsa's blonde locks were now brushing 
against the eight-foot ceiling.  If she had been intimidating before, Ilsa was 
now downright horrifying.  Her immense muscles rippled with power as she moved 
toward Katherine.
     "I hope you appreciated that, Katherine Starr.  Those suits are extremely 
expensive.  I can only get them in New York.  Now we will go."
     Her mind racing, Katherine felt a surge of adrenaline rush through her. She 
bolted for the nearest window, but she might as well have been standing still.  
Ilsa had speed to match her new size, and simply reached out to grab Katherine 
by the back of her dress.  Katherine felt herself yanked backwards and slammed 
against the granite wall that was Ilsa's chest.  A pair of iron arms wrapped 
around her and began to squeeze. Soon, Katherine could see flickering lights 
dancing in front of her eyes.  She knew she had to fight, to stop this behemoth.  
She struggled and strained, but Ilsa's steel muscles could not be budged a 
single millimeter, and her struggles only made the flashing lights more visible.  
She felt a sickening crack from her chest.  Pain lanced through her entire body.  
Oh my god, she thought, my ribs are breaking...
     Another rib popped, then another and another.  Finally, mercifully, a 
great, bitter blackness surged up from beneath her brain, engulfing it, and she 
felt no more pain, or terror, or even despair.
    
     Somehow, nobody noticed an eight-foot-tall blonde wearing only a bikini and 
a set of impossible muscles walk calmly out of Katherine's house, a black-
shrouded body draped over her shoulder.  Nobody saw her squeeze herself into a 
sleek, black Mercedes, and nobody saw her drive away at top speed.  Ilsa was 
very, very good at her job.

TO BE CONTINUED...