The Kidnappers
By: Sean
I was sitting under a big piece of corrugated metal leaning up against
an old 2x4 which I had nailed between two trees. It wasn't exactly
raining; the air could not quite make up its mind between fog and
drizzle. It was getting cooler, but I had my jacket on and was pretty
comfortable.
I liked to spend a Saturday afternoon (like today) under this
makeshift shelter I had made, watching the trains moving in and out of
the switching yard. This ragged strip of woods seemed to belong to
nobody, and there was lots of old junk half buried in the old leaves.
Down the hill from me were the tracks, and above and behind me was a
residential area, barely visible thru the trees.
At this particular moment, a big long train was going by slowly, and I
was counting the cars. This one was mostly boxcars with a few empty
flatbeds. 58, 59, 60, 61, and then the caboose made 62. That was a
pretty long train, but not nearly the longest I had ever counted.
As the caboose pulled away, the abandoned factory on the other side of
the tracks came back into view. A guy I had never seen before was
standing on the other side of the tracks. He looked up and down the
track after the caboose had passed, and then crossed the tracks and
walked purposefully in my direction. I didn't much like the looks of
him; he had on grungy clothes and had a rough look about him. He was
carrying some kind of small box.
The guy crossed the ditch and walked up the hill to my makeshift
shelter. "Howdy," he said, ducking under the metal and sitting down
next to me. "Watchin' the trains?" I could now see that the box he
was carring was an old cigar box.
"Yeah," I said, watching him guardedly. What did he want with me?
"Good spot for to see 'em going into the yard," I said.
"Yeah," he agreed. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lighter.
"Mind if I smoke?"
I shrugged in response, showing that I didn't care. The guy stuck the
cigarette in his mouth and got the cigarette lighter ready in his
hand.
Then the grungy guy did something totally unexpected. Instead of
lighting the cigarette, he roughly grabbed my head into an armlock,
and stuck the lighter in my face. Before I even had time to struggle
or yell, he clicked the button on the lighter.
WHAM!!! No fire came from the lighter, but I felt a sickening impact
all over my body, as if I had run into a brick wall. The pain was
great for only a moment, but then it ended. For a moment my
vision was confused, and I thought I was falling. Then something
light fell on me, and I recognized the fabric of my own jacket, but it
seemed to be a much larger expanse of fabric than it had been. It all
happened so fast that I hardly had time to take in that I had been
shrunk to a height of a few inches and was covered in my own
normal-sized clothes.
I immediately felt the jacket move, and then the guy's huge hand
reached into the jacket and pulled me out. I was tiny and naked in
his rough hand. Before I could cry out or ask any questions, he
popped me into the cigar box and shut the lid, leaving me totally
alone in this dark, rectangular little prison. Then the box turned on
its side and I was rolled down to the narrow edge; I think that the
guy must have tucked the box back under his arm, tilting the box on
its side.
I stayed in that dark box for a while, and I could tell from the
movement that the guy must be walking. Why had he done this to me?
How had he done it? Where was he taking me? I shivered a little as I
wondered; it was not a warm day, and even tho I was not directly
exposed to the outside, this little cigar box wasn't heated.
Finally I heard the sound of someone knocking on a door, followed
shortly by the sound of a door opening.
"Come on in," said a male voice. I heard the door close. "Got me
another one?"
"Yeah," said the voice of the grungy guy who had shrunk and trapped
me. I felt the cigar box being set down, and I rolled from the narrow
side of the box to the broad floor as the box was set with the lid up.
The lid opened, and light came in. Looking out of the cigar box, I
saw ceiling tiles far up above me. There were two men standing and
looking down into my box. One way my kidnapper, still dressed in his
worn-out t-shirt and threadbare military-style jacket. The other man
was someone who I recognized immediately, even tho I didn't know him
very well; it was Mr. Brunson, whose yard I used to mow to make a
little spending money.
Mr. Brunson's face was masculine but not especially handsome. He
often went around without a shirt on, letting his hairy potbelly hang
out rudely. He was shirtless now, and I found myself looking up at
the overhang of his gut.
I yelled out to Mr. Brunson, "Hey! Please help me get out of here! I
don't know what this guy did to me!"
Mr. Brunson ignored me. "How much you want for this one?" asked
Mr. Brunson.
"Eight bucks," said my rough kidnapper.
Mr. Brunson leaned down and looked me over. "I'll give you five," he
told the kidnapper.
The other man grimaced thoughtfully. "All right," he said.
Mr. Brunson pulled a wallet out of his light-colored shorts, pulled
out a bill, and handed it to the kidnapper. Then Mr. Brunson lifted
the cigar box and tilted it. I fell out of the box, but I didn't have
far to fall; I landed in a shoebox, and just briefly caught a glimpse
of several other tiny naked guys like me before Mr. Brunson put the
lid on. It immediately became dark in the shoebox except for a little
light coming in thru the air-holes poked into the sides and top of the
box. I heard the sounds of my kidnapper leaving, and the shoebox was
lifted up and then set down on something, probably a shelf.
"Another one," remarked one of the other tiny guys in the box, as
things quieted down.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"I wish I knew," said another guy. "I was just taking the trash down
to the basement of my apartment building, and this guy came out of a
corner and shoved a cigarette lighter in my face. I don't know what
happened, it sure hit me, whatever it was."
"Like falling off a skateboard and landing flat on the concrete," said
another male voice.
"Like a car wreck," said another.
My eyes were slowly adjusting to the light which was coming in thru
the airholes. I could see that all the guys were pretty young, like
me; mostly late teens and early twenties. Most of them were pretty
good looking.
"I'm Eric," said the first guy. "We've been talking about it, and
none of us have any idea what's going on. It sounds like there's at
least three different guys who are doing it: you know, shrinking and
kidnapping. It sounds like they sell us to the guy who lives here."
"I know who it is," I said. "His name is Mr. Brunson."
"Mr. Brunson? Do you know his first name?"
"No. I used to mow his lawn," I said. "He always seemed to be kind
of an asshole, but at least he always paid me on time."
"You have any idea what he wants us for?"
"No idea," I said.
"Brunson? Maybe I know who that is," said another guy. "I never met
him, but my cousin used to work with a Brunson at Ameri-Metal; you
know, the factory down by the train yard where they make pipes and
stuff. Brunson quit about eight years ago when he won the state
lottery; not a real big jackpot, like five million or so, but enough
that he didn't have to work. My cousin said what you said, that
Brunson always seemed to be kind of a jerk."
"Could be the same guy," I said. "He never seemed to do any work. He
was always just loafing around without his shirt on when I mowed his
yard."
"But what does he want us for?" asked someone. "Did it seem like he
was buying you guys from the kidnappers too?"
"Yeah, he paid six bucks for me," said one guy.
"Three for me," said a scrawny, skinny guy.
"Ten for me," said a guy who had been a serious gym rat, as was
obvious from his muscular physique.
"But what for?" said the six-buck guy, echoing the question which we
all had. Nobody had an answer, and we were all silent, trying to
figure it out.
"Should we try to get out of here?" asked Eric.
"I was the first one in here, and I've been trying to rip one of the
airholes bigger," said a guy who was right next to me. In one of the
circles of light, I could see that he was a dark-haired, handsome
young guy with a goatee, naked like all of us. "But I couldn't do it.
I could tear cardboard easy enough at my usual size, but it's just too
tough now, at this size."
I reached over and offered my hand to the owner of the goatee. "I'm
Hank," I said.
"Mike here," he said, shaking my hand. He introduced me to the
others. Including Mike and me, there were eight of us altogether:
--Eric, who had spoken first, was slim and blond. He had been
skateboarding in an alley when he had been kidnapped.
--The six-dollar guy was named Kip, and he was an exchange college
student from Sweden. He had been in a library bathroom where the
janitor had shrunk and kidnapped him. Kip had always had the
impression that the janitor was a sleazy type of guy.
--The scrawny, three-dollar guy was named Marvin. He admitted that he
had been in a movie stall in a porn shop when a guy came in and seemed
to be putting the moves on him at first, but then abruptly shrank him.
--The ten-dollar gym rat was named Keith. He saw the guy who had
shrunk him, but didn't know who it was. Keith had been just getting
out of the shower at the gym when he had been attacked.
--The guy who had been taking out the trash when he was kidnapped was
named Marco. His hair was dark and curly, and he had a hairier body
than the other guys. He was the oldest in the group, 25 years old,
and had just gotten out of law school and had gotten a job last week.
--The guy whose cousin had worked with Mr. Brunson at Ameri-Metal was
named Carl. He had a shaved head and tattoos, and said that he played
bass guitar for a band.
We had finished the introductions and were still discussing our
unanswered questions when we heard the sounds of someone coming into
Mr. Brunson's house. I tried to press up to one of the airholes to
see who was there, but I could only catch a glimpse of Mr. Brunson's
fat hairy belly. From the conversation outside, we could tell that
Mr. Brunson was buying another little guy ("That's the same guy that
caught me," murmured Carl, recognizing the kidnapper's voice). The
price of eight dollars was negotiated, and it was no surprise when we
felt our shoebox prison being lifted down and opened. Another tiny
but handsome and well-built young man tumbled down among us.
"That's plenty for today," we heard Mr. Brunson say. "If you get any
more, hang on to them for me till next week. Tell the other guys that
I don't want to be interrupted for the rest of the evening."
"Sure thing," said the kidnapper.
The lid to the shoebox was clapped back on, but Mr. Brunson left the
box on the coffee table this time. We heard the kidnapper leave the
house, and we heard Mr. Brunson move away from the coffee table. He
came back a few moments later, and we heard a cracking sound like a
beer can being opened. We heard nothing as Mr. Brunson presumably
took a drink, and then we heard the can being set down on the table
next to our shoebox.
The lid to the shoebox opened. We saw Mr. Brunson's middle-aged male
face looking down at us; he seemed to be sitting down in his armchair
and leaning forward to look down into the box. A couple of the guys
started shouting questions and complaints up to him, but Mr. Brunson
paid no attention and reached in and picked up Carl. Then Mr. Brunson
leaned back, and we no longer see him or Carl because of the walls of
the shoebox.
I tried to peek thru an airhole, but the hole was too small and ragged
for me to see much; I could only see part of Mr. Benson's potbelly.
It was quiet for a moment, and then we heard a few quiet, indistinct
sounds. We heard Mr. Benson sigh, and then we heard him pick up his
beer, take another swallow, and set the can back down.
Mr. Benson leaned forward again, and Carl was no longer in his hand.
What had happened to Carl? This time, Mr. Benson pulled Kip out of
the box. Kip vanished from our view.
"What do you think he's doing?" I asked.
"I don't know," said Marco. "Gimme a boost and I'll try to look over
the side."
"Good idea," I said. I crouched against the wall and gave Marco a hand
as he scambled up and stood on my shoulders. Marco peered over the edge
of the box.
I heard Marco gasp. "Holy shit!" said Marco, unable to say anything
else for a stunned moment.
"What is it? What is it?" asked a chorus of whispers from the other
guys in the box.
"He- he-" Marco stammered. At that moment, Mr. Brunson leaned forward
again; and since Marco was up the highest, he was the one who ended up
in Mr. Brunson's huge hand this time. Marco was gone before he could
tell us what he had seen.
We could hear Marco screaming and pleading for a few seconds, getting
fainter as Mr. Brunson leaned back and away from the shoebox. Then
Marco's voice seemed to be suddenly muffled, and we could hear him no
more. There was another faint indistinct sound. After that, we
heard Mr. Brunson take another swig of beer. There came the loud,
crude sound of Mr. Brunson belching. Six of us were still in the box,
and three were gone; but to where?
Mr. Brunson leaned forward again, and this time I was the one to end
up in his hand. I felt my stomach lurch as I was lifted up. I caught
one quick glimpse of five tiny upturned male faces down in the box:
Mike, Eric, Marvin, Keith, and the new guy whose name we hadn't had
time to learn. Then the hand turned. I was facing the huge
Mr. Brunson, who was kicked back in his easy chair. I saw no sign of
Carl, Kip, or Marco. Where were they? What was going on?
I had always felt that Mr. Brunson was sort of an asshole. Now I was
about to learn just how big an asshole he truly was.
I was being lifted up past the hairy hill of Mr. Brunson's belly, past
his hairy chest, with the big rough hand closed around my naked
squirming body. I heard myself saying, "Mr. Brunson? Mr. Brunson?
Don't you remember me? What are you doing, Mr. Brunson?" Mr. Brunson
completely ignored my questions, and soon I was up right in front of
his face. He had never been an especially handsome man, and seeing
that huge face right in front of me was alarming. His eyes looked
down at me, and I felt certain that something terrible was about to
happen.
And then I screamed, because I saw Mr. Brunson opening his mouth wide.
I saw the lips parting to reveal the huge teeth, but I only got to see
the teeth for a second before Mr. Brunson had shoved my whole head
into his mouth. I was struggling like crazy, but what chance did I
have against this giant? Mr. Brunson easily pushed my whole body
inside his mouth, and I felt his lips close around my ankles.
The wet tongue was rough but soft under me, undulating as it rolled me
from side to side and tasted me. I was being soaked in Mr. Brunson's
saliva. It was disgusting. I felt Mr. Brunson suck me the rest of
the way into his hot mouth; my feet slipped inside his lips, and I was
now totally inside the dark mouth. Mr. Benson moved me around inside
his mouth, tasting me from every angle. I could hear the deep sound
of his breathing from further back. I could sometimes feel the soles
of my feet against the smooth, hard, closed teeth. I could feel my
little body being pressed between his rough tongue and the smooth roof
of his mouth.
After tasting me for what seemed like forever (actually probably only
half a minute or so), I guess Mr. Brunson decided that it was time to
send me to his stomach. I felt the tongue moving me toward the back of
Mr. Brunson's mouth. Then he gave an easy gulp and sent me down his
throat. He just swallowed me alive. I could feel the smooth walls of
the throat sliding by as I was pushed swiftly down the totally dark
tube. It was only a couple of seconds later when I felt myself being
pushed through a tight ring, and I tumbled into Mr. Brunson's stomach.
I heard someone say, "Oooof!" as I feel on top of him.
"Sorry," I said, totally by habit. Then I yelled, "Holy FUCK! He
swallowed us!"
"No kidding," came Marco's quavering voice.
The guy I had fallen on moved out from under me, and all the guys had
to readjust their position. The stomach was a dark, slippery sac, and
we were all pressed up against each other. Whenever we tried to climb
and get some more room, we just slid back down together. It was hot
and dark. There was a strong beer-smell, and also a dank, humid
stomach-smell. It made no difference whether I opend my eyes or
closed them, because the darkness in Mr. Brunson's stomach was complete.
"Who just came in here?" asked Kip, meaning me.
"It's me, Hank," I said. "What the hell are we going to do?"
"What _can_ we do?" hollered Carl. "That guy just fucking _ate_ us!
That fucker!" Carl punched the wall of Mr. Brunson's stomach, to
little effect since the stomach was so soft and stretchy. Mr. Brunson
surely must have felt this, but it didn't seem to bother him since we
felt another swallow of beer pour down over us and settle down by our
legs.
"How could he do this to us?" I asked.
"He doesn't give a fuck," said Marco. "He's an asshole, just like you
said. He just wants a full stomach, and he doesn't mind if _we're_
his fucking dinner!"
We all heard a loud gurgle from just below where we were, somewhere
further down in Mr. Brunson's digestive system. It was an ominous
sound. At that moment, we heard another gulping sound, and it was no
surprise when another guy was squeezed through the tight ring on the
ceiling of the stomach and landed heavily on top of us.
"Ow!" yelled someone as the new guy landed on him.
"Holy shit!" said the newcomer, whose voice I recognized as Marvin's.
"Will you get your foot out of my face!" I yelled. There was a moment
of movement as we all tried to get into a decent position, but it was
getting more crowded in Mr. Brunson's stomach, and Marvin ended up
pretty much under the rest of us, with his head just enough out of the
beer and stomach juices that he could still breathe. We felt him
squirming under us.
"He's going to fucking digest us," said Marco. "We're in his big
fucking potbelly! I don't believe this! I finally get a job, and
then this fucker swallows me alive!"
"Let me up!" whined Marvin from underneath the others of us.
At that moment, another unlucky guy got pushed out of the esophagus
and dropped into Mr. Brunson's stomach. I got his full weight on me, and
it knocked the wind out of me.
"Who's that?" asked Carl.
"It's Lee," said the newcomer, and I knew this must be the new guy who
had joined us in the shoebox just before Mr. Brunson sat down to his
dinner. "What the hell's going on?"
"I've got no idea why he's doing it," said Kip. "But you can see where
we are!"
"Why couldn't he just fucking order a pizza?" asked Lee, as I tried
to push him off of me.
"He likes the goddam feeling of power," said Carl.
Marco added, "He likes being such a bad-ass dude that he can swallow
up other guys, have 'em for dinner, just like that. What a fucking
jerk."
Somewhere down a little further, I could hear Marvin coughing in the
bath of beer and stomach juices. I felt sorry for him, but someone
had to be at the bottom of the stomach. Better him than me, altho I
knew it wasn't going to make a difference for very long.
Another rain of beer came down on us, running thru our squirming
jumble of warm naked male bodies. My hair was soaked with beer and
saliva, and I was sweating from the heat of the stomach. My face
seemed to be up against Lee's buttocks, but I couldn't manage to move
into a better position, because my own legs were pinned in between
someone else's legs (Marco's, I think, because the legs felt hairy,
and Marco was the hairiest of us). Well, at least I was more or less
upright and had my head above the beer and stomach acids.
There was another arrival in the stomach, which turned out to be Eric.
I could tell that the stomach was stretching larger to accomodate all
of us, but this didn't stop of from being piled on top of each other.
It was getting harder now for me to breathe in and out with the weight
of the other guys on top of me. There was a lot of struggling and
cursing going on as everyone tried to get closer to the top of
Mr. Brunson's stomach. I could no longer hear Marvin's complaints
from further down; maybe it was just too muffled and crowded in here,
but I had a bad feeling that Marvin wasn't going to be able to make
any more complaints at all.
The weight on me got still heavier as Mike arrived. Mike was
screaming and screaming; we couldn't get him to say anything
intelligible. A couple of the guys yelled for him to shut up, but
Mike continued kicking and screaming himself hoarse. I grabbed hold
of Mike's ankle with one hand that I had free, to try to stop him from
kicking the side of my head. This worked pretty well, since there
wasn't much room for Mike to kick anyway. If I hadn't lost count,
eight of us were now inside Mr. Brunson's stomach. One more to go.
Then we heard the sound of Mr. Brunson's voice, the man who had just
swallowed us. The voice was loud and deep, and it rumbled all around
us, but we couldn't make out what Mr. Brunson was saying; it was too
muffled. Mr. Brunson spoke for a bit. Then we heard another muffled
gulp, and the last of us arrived: Keith. All nine of us were in
Mr. Brunson's stomach now. I remember that Mr. Brunson had paid the
most for Keith, and that Keith had been the most muscular and athletic
of us; I guess Mr. Brunson had saved the best guy for the end of his
meal.
"Holy fuck. Holy fuck," I heard Keith saying.
"What was he saying to you?" I asked Keith. Mike stopped screaming
for a moment to hear what Mr. Brunson had said to Keith.
"He told me to give a message to the rest of you guys who were already
in his belly," said Keith. "He wished us all a warm welcome to his
stomach, and said that he hoped we enjoyed the trip down. He said we
were a lucky bunch of guys, because we should consider it a true honor
to be swallowed by him. He said that we should be very proud of
ourselves for satisfying him, and that he was going to find it a real
pleasure to digest us. Then he gulped me."
"The fucker," growled Marco's voice, somewhere below me. I felt his
arm move as he punched weakly at the stomach wall.
I felt the center of gravity shift, and I was pretty sure that
Mr. Brunson had kicked back to relax in his chair. Then the whole
stomach vibrated four or five times; I'm pretty sure that this was
Mr. Brunson patting his round, hairy potbelly.
More beer trickled down among the bellyful of struggling young men. I
almost thought I might be hearing the very muffled sound of another
beer cracking open, but I couldn't be sure because there was so much
of Mr. Brunson's bellyfat and muscle between us and the outside.
Also, it was pretty noisy with all the complaints and struggles as
each of the nine guys tried to get in a better position.
A moment later, we all groaned as the pressure changed. Mr. Brunson
had given a loud, crude belch. It was his last insult to the nine
young men he had just consumed.
There wasn't much air now. I wasn't struggling as much; I was too
tired, and I wasn't getting enough air to breathe. It was no use
anyway. Struggle or not, Mr. Brunson was going to digest us.
The guys further down in the stomach couldn't be heard any more. Mike
was still screaming on and off, but his voice was getting hoarse and
weak. The gurgling from deeper in Mr. Brunson's digestive system was
getting louder and more frequent, and the smell of stomach acids was
getting stronger. I could feel it starting to tingle on my skin.
Keith was the strongest and had been swallowed last, so he managed to
stay on top. His face must have been pretty close to my ear. "I
can't believe it," he was saying to nobody in particular. "I can't
believe that fucker would actually swallow me. Five years I've been
working out, and now all my muscle is that fucker's dinner."
"We're all his dinner," I murmured, and that was about the last thing
I remembered. Sweating and dizzy in the hot crowded blackness, I
slowly blacked out.
It took Mr. Brunson several hours to digest all of us. We stopped
being nine struggling guys; there was no more Carl, Kip, Marco,
Marvin, Lee, Eric, Mike, Keith, and Hank. We were just a bunch of
nutrients now, broken down by the kneading by Mr. Brunson's stomach
muscles. We slowly made our way thru his intestines, and were
absorbed bit by bit into his male body.
Mr. Brunson had promised that he would take real pleasure in digesting
us, and he found it a great pleasure indeed. He occasionally rubbed
his belly, listening to the little gurgles of its slow triumph over
us. He knew what a complete asshole he was to swallow guys whole. He
didn't care; in fact, he loved the feeling of being strong enough to
be as big an asshole as he liked. He could eat whoever he wanted.
Finally, Mr. Brunson got up and went to bed. Next Saturday, the guys
who caught his meals for him would bring by their unlucky captives for
him to buy, as they did every weekend. He could do his own hunting if he
wanted, but why should he? He could pay guys to do his hunting, just
as easily as he paid me to mow his lawn. He definitely had plenty of
money to pursue his hobby of swallowing young men. The sleazy
kidnappers who supplied him were glad to take the money; and they had
no intention of ever telling anyone where all the young men had ended
up. They had their own reasons for not telling (they were accomplices
to what Mr. Brunson was doing; and why would they want to end their
source of income?), but just in case, Mr. Brunson had made clear to
them what would happen if they did ever tell.
Mr. Brunson hoped that the young men he bought next week would be as
satisfying as the ones he just ate. With that thought, Mr. Brunson
gave his potbelly a final rub, and drifted to sleep.