It sure was a hot one, the white cliffs of the coastal marathon’s winding course all aglow from finish to start, where thousands had gathered in energetic anticipation.
But something of a tumult had picked up amongst the dense and bustling crowd, originating from the very back, where a woman of unnatural stature - double that of the throng’s average - was limbering up quite casually.
While the giant’s over-keen attire broadcast her ambition to compete with all the subtlety of a steamroller, she appeared indifferent to the ensuing furore, quite oblivious to how otherwise subdued it might’ve been were such menacing machinery parked in her stead.
They knew who she was.
The whole world did. Katie proved something of an inextricable thorn in its side.
When force proved fruitless, they invited her to the bargaining table, which she promptly repurposed as a barricade before not so gently encouraging every last delegate to line up and kiss her derriere. Multiple times if she wasn’t pleased with the picture.
There was a refusal, but the obliging others weren’t rebuked for returning to their humiliated countries intact. Not since the following day those same countries remained likewise intact.
Despite the capitulation, Katie wasn’t one for formal demands. She functioned either as a free spirit or a force of nature (perhaps depending on perspective). Still the message was clear; she would do the fuck as she pleased.
Nobody could oppose her, and near enough nobody tried.
And so it was at the marathon. Uneasy yet unchallenged assent as she announced her participation and her own take on the rules, following on with a pep talk.
“Now obviously I’m quite a bit bigger than the rest of you…”
Wading through a sea of bodies that displaced at her hips’ insistence, she combed her hands lightly atop their heads, sifting through them.
“So it’s only fair that I give you a head start.”
Her right hand stopped, tilting a boy’s shivering face up toward her own, appraising him long enough that her captive audience grew wary of the suspense. She didn’t mask the lust in her expression, nor the subsequent disappointment once the fingers of her left hand brazenly infiltrated his waistband. Withdrawing swiftly, she continued sifting.
“But just because you’re small…”
She left that hanging as she assessed another prospect. A little more optimistic.
“Doesn’t mean you should give up trying.”
Katie scooped this fellow up, tucking him under an arm. She wasn’t done.
“So I don’t want to see any quitters today!”
Her other hand found a woman this time, just as decisively claimed for symmetry.
“We all came here today to have a good time, so let’s everybody just do that okay?”
Having secured entertainment for her cunctation, Katie returned to the tail end of the crowd.
“And the two of you are going to help me with that.”
Crooning breathily, the self-satisfied remark was only half a whisper.
“The rest of you should probably start running.”
Many already had.
Kyri and Sofia certainly weren't hanging around for a starting gun. Both seasoned runners, they took off at a much faster pace than usual, clearing the tangled trample of the panic-stricken mob at their heels.
Exchanging only glances, they didn’t waste breath on words. Instinct told them to run. It’s what they knew, it’s what they were good at. There was an undeniable comfort in that. But as the miles and overambitious pace-setters ticked by, overamped on adrenaline, underserved by their endurance, exhausted at the roadside, doubts crept to the fore.
One such straggler preferred his chances leaping some 120 feet into the ocean. Kyri winced at his unsightly entry from the far side of a hairpin. After rounding it, the chancer hadn’t resurfaced.
Their glances took a different tone. Sofia broke the silence.
“He had the right idea.”
“I never forget a pretty face.”
Having obtained both their names, then informed them that their recent undertakings were no one-off, but now so closely represented their futures that they would be wise to notify their families of immediate and permanent eviction, the dubious compliment was indiscriminate.
“But it never hurts to make sure.”
Twice clicked the camera-shutter before it was back in Katie’s armband.
Marina stumbled into an involuntary ejaculation.
“But I...I’m not...”
“Into girls?”
Katie interjected helpfully, imposing upon Marina, who could only crane and nod contritely.
“Oh sweetie that’s alright!”
Katie shuffled closer, practically straddling Marina.
“My pussy doesn’t mind. Unless of course, you can’t mean you’ll be unhappy?”
Presence alone was enough to cow the smaller woman, who reflexively shook her head, earning a grin.
“Thought not. So aren’t you gonna give me a good luck kiss?”
Though Marina’s eyes told a different story, nods were already conditioned response. Katie’s grin broadened as she swooped down to lock her lips around Marina’s jaw, cupping her head as it jolted in futile resistance to the prolonged violation.
Finally detaching with an unmuffled moan, Katie wasted no time straightening slightly and tugging aside her briefs.
“And?”
Any pretence of asking was gone, and the nauseousness of a red-faced Marina was insufficient to inspire much hesitation.
“Properly, like before.”
Dissatisfied with the peck, Katie scowled down, drinking the tears welling in Marina’s eyes as she choked down her revulsion then reluctantly obliged, being greeted at once by encouraging coos and a returning hand.
The hand let her know when she was done, then Katie squatted to eye level.
“Won’t lie sweetie, I totally get off on you playing hard to get. I’m gonna come see you tonight! Remember, be careful not to go missing or hurt yourself. That could be bad for your extended family. Understand?”
Tears streamed as Marina managed her final gesture of resignation.
“Good girl!”
After an approving kiss to Marina’s forehead, Katie sprang to her feet, expanding to leave her acquisitions quivering at her knees, then bounded off at frightening speed, turning only briefly.
“Wear something nice.”
“I love you.”
It echoed before an ardent kiss and a tight embrace.
“Everything’s gonna be fine.”
Sofia nodded in affirmation as Kyri caressed her face. Then the two stepped apart, their fingertips grudgingly ungluing.
“I’m ready.”
“3...2…”
“Seriously?”
Katie arched an eyebrow and tapped her trainer next to some bushes, out from which emerged a grovelling man dropping to his knees.
“You didn’t even try.”
Katie’s hand clamped brutally about his skull as she hoisted him aloft, squeezing the screams out of him, until an ugly crack left him whimpering. Getting only as much as a pathetic yowl as she mangled his right hand, she pivoted twice on the spot and hurled him out to sea.
“Eat that Hercules!”
A little further on she spied the precious sight of a couple climbing the cliff face. Amused, she approached silently, getting beneath and behind them, then surged upwards, until her shadow enveloped the entire span.
Perhaps for a second they took the transition for a cloud, but the moment they froze was priceless. At that point, the crushing confirmation of Katie’s snickering was surplus to requirement.
“Yeah it’s me, but you just keep going, you’re doing so well! Pay me no mind I’m just, hangin’ around.”
The affront came as she leant her elbow upon the rock, resting her head in her hand as she watched their grip falter from the impact.
“Oh I’m sorry, did I make you slip? That must really…”
Katie paused, leaning in so close that the next heavily enunciated word washed over them.
“Blow.”
Inhaling noisily through her rounded lips, she held her breath, basking in their pleas and helplessness, before puffing her cheeks and sending them plummeting.
“Kyri! Kyri!”
Sofia sputtered several times after resurfacing, twisting in the water until she identified a single thrashing hand. Hurrying over, she wrenched Kyri to the surface, pedalling backwards as she pulled him into her.
Kyri hacked a while before mysteriously grinning, overtaken by the strange euphoria that follows a brush with death and the survival of trauma.
“My Hero!”
He nearly coughed up a lung saying it, as Sofia lugged him to the cove.
“Shut up Kyri.”
“I still love you.”
“Still shut up.”
After watching them writhe like bugs on their broken backs, Katie snuffed the climbers out with two quick stomps, then continued playing catchup.
Though she remained disciplined about adhering to the route, it wasn’t long before she was boulder dashing with the tail end of the pack, treating them to the same fate as she gleefully incorporated crunch after crunch into her gait.
If she hadn’t been so focused on where she was stepping, she would’ve missed them.
“So what do we do now?”
“We wait.”
“But how do we even know when she…”
Screams overhead answered, followed by staggered stomps. The screams grew thinner, the stomps grew louder. Until they stopped.
Why did they stop? Sofia and Kyri hugged the rocks, staring up the sheer face as they willed it not to happen, but sure enough, Katie peered over the edge.
“Hey down there! You guys look like you need a hand.”
The colossus cannonballed into the water, her splash dashing them against the rocks before she fished them out in her palm.
“I really don’t know what’s wrong with people, I’m sure I said no quitters.”
She shuffled them to face her, watching the guy wince.
“Oh you hurt your leg? Let me see if I can fix it.”
Sofia screamed in protest as Katie twisted the limb into an unnatural position and Kyri howled.
“Oops, better even that out.”
Even as the tiny girl pounded at her fingers, Katie simply smirked as she repeated the process.
“Oh hush he didn’t need those anyway. My you are a feisty one though. Let’s see if we can’t put that to use hmmm?”
Katie detached the desperate woman with no more than a pinch, treating her to a ringside view as she peeled aside her briefs and fingered the crippled Kyri up inside her, teasingly extracting the digit to give a measure of depth as her folds reconvened.
It had the desired effect. Sofia went wild and was promptly deposited within Katie’s briefs, which then snapped back into place, followed by a provocative pat.
“Ok, let’s get this show back on the road.”
Katie enlarged enough to step up and bound off. With her feet now taking up most of the road, she cut corners, still picking off stragglers, but leaping hairpins, gaining ground at an impossible rate.
Within minutes she was upon the first pack. Within seconds they were satisfying smears beneath her soles. A slick appetiser for the swathes two minutes ahead.
They felt the pounding. They tried to disperse, then dive or dodge, but it was useless. She was too big, too fast, and too fucking ruthless.
By the dozens, by the hundreds, and the thousands, they fell to the merciless beat of Katie’s cadence. So many, yet they were nothing before her, and she relished every moment as their blood bespattered the pristine cliffs like mud from a trail.
The very landscape bearing witness to the day’s devastation.
Even though her efforts induced precisely the outcome Katie desired, as testified by the crushing and cloying contractions, Sofia delved deeper regardless.
She had to get to Kyri, nothing else mattered.
Squirming, kicking and writhing for what seemed an eternity, she finally reached out to clasp his hand, and found a glimmer of inspiration in feeling him pull back.
Each using all their might, Sofia came close enough to hear him groan over the intensifying thump of Katie’s heartbeat.
“I still love you.”
She wept, but as she moved to share at least one final kiss, two cruel, monstrous fingers curled up inside, feeding the fervour the pair had helped to rouse, and seizing upon their bodies to viciously finalise that end, leaving them as barely recognisable as the bodies upon the road.
Katie’s love proved greater it seems. And she couldn’t wait to see Marina that night.