Backteach Bay (Part 2) [Commission]

The screaming became harder and harder to hear after the giant boy tilted his head back and swallowed the tiny man. Everyone in the valley heard Bradley gulp. The tiny creature squirmed and writhed as he got sucked down the giant’s throat. High up near Bradley’s face, up in the tallest palm tree, a cameraman with a baseball cap zoomed in and captured the gargantuan swallow on film.

Poor Bradley immediately went red in the face. This is not happening. This is not happening, he told himself. Coincidentally, he felt like he was going to be sick. The giant boy turned to the ocean, bent his knees, and vomited into the sea. Like a cannonball, the tiny man went flying out of the boy’s stomach and landed in a large pile of stomach juice in the ocean. He began to swim back to shore. Sitting with his face in his hands, Bradley just sulked until the transformation occurred.

Several minutes later, the young actor felt the world start to zoom in. The sand began to move and pulsate underneath him as his body shrank. It was a quick change. One second, Bradley was hugh and towering over the tallest tent, and the next, he was back on the ground. Everyone surrounded him. “You did a great job, Bradley,” said the director, breaking the silence.

The young actor was still to ashamed to show his face. He buried his face in his thigh like a little boy. “No I didn’t,” he replied, his voice muffled from behind his leg.

“Nonsense! That was some of the best acting I’ve seen, even if it wasn’t acting,” Mr. Hammond laughed and held his chest. “And your ‘victim’ is alive and okay. I just checked on him.”

“Really?” Bradley lifted his head up. “I thought I killed him. Thank God,” he said.

“He’s still kickin’, don’t you worry,” Mr. Hammond reassured him. “However…” the director lowered his voice and beckoned for all three boys to gather in close, “Between you and me, it’s alright if a couple of these extras don’t make it home tonight.” The boys were very confused. Mr. Hammond clarified, “Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want anyone to die while filming, but I specially selected this group of extras from rock bottom. These people are criminals, ex-convicts, murderers, all of the above. You’re gonna try not to harm anyone while you’re big, but if a few people go missing…” he paused, “Let’s just say that no one knows these people are here, alright?”

All three of the young actors didn’t know how to feel. They looked at each other trying to figure it out.

Mr. Hammond clapped his hands. “Nice! Good job today, boys. Gavin and Bradley, you made spectacular giants. Joel, I’m sorry, but the sun is setting and there’s not enough daylight for you to get big today, so tomorrow morning it is!” Joel pursed his lips and nodded. He doesn’t have to talk to us like we’re five years old, he thought. “You need to get a good night sleep. Each of you needs to be in your best physical condition for tomorrow. My assistant can accompany you back to your tents. Until I see you again!” the director waved and walked off the set.

The assistant brought the boys into the jeep and rode with them back to the tents. Once the jeep arrived, his assistant didn’t stick around long. “Goodbye!” she said formally as the driver pulled away, leaving the three young actors alone in the woods. It was light out when they left the beach, and although their ride was short, it was enough time for the sun to fall below the horizon. The forest was getting darker each minute. The boys pulled out their phones so they see where they were going as they walked to their tents in the half-light.

“Okay, can I admit, that was WAY cooler than I expected it to be,” Gavin practically yelled.

“I still feel dizzy,” Bradley said quietly, holding his head, “Was all of that even real?”

“It definitely was,” said Joel. “But it hard to believe. Like why isn’t this technology being used productively? Why are we just making a movie with it? There are so many more applications for this stuff.”

Gavin and Bradley nodded in agreement. The first day gave the boys more questions than answers. “But it’s pretty cool, right?” asked Gavin.

“Yeah, being a giant is amazing,” Bradley pursed his lips and turned to Joel, “Don’t chicken out or anything, dude. When I was tall… man…” he trailed off. “It’s worth having to do whatever Adam says; that’s all I’m gonna say.”

Joel shook his head. “Adam? When did we get on a first-name basis with this guy? We barely even know him!” he said. The young actor started talking with his hands and wandering around the campsite. “And what he said about the extras. He said they were nothing to him, like we could kill them and no one would know. There’s no way any of this is legal.”

Bradley and Gavin looked at each other and then back at Joel. “I mean… Yeah that was weird. I’m not going to stomp on anyone, for sure. But… if you want to get off the island, you have to at least wait until tomorrow night, after you get to try it at least once,” Bradley urged. “It… It felt better than sex.”

Gavin snickered. “Like you would know,” he jabbed before turning and walking towards his tent. “I’m calling it a night, guys,” he said.

“What? I mean, like, like you would know!” he retaliated, but Gavin was already walking away.

Joel put a hand on Bradley’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to him. He’s being an asshole,” he said. The older boy sighed, “I wanted to go home the moment I saw the syringes, but if you want, I’ll stay another day.”

“You mean it?” Bradley’s face lit up.

“Totally. If you regard it as highly as that, it must be a load of fun,” Joel smiled before turning around and walking to his tent on the far side of this hill. “Later,” he called back.

“Later,” said Bradley. The moon shone through the trees, providing a little more light for the young actor as he made his way to his own tent. Stumbling on some roots, he slumped up to the entrance and zipped himself inside, collapsing on top of the sleeping bag laid out for him.

Bradley dreamt. He dreamt of the unbelieveable things he saw on his first day at Backteach Bay. In the dream, Gavin was a giant, maybe even taller than he was yesterday. Bradley’s giant friend was a decent distance away on the shoreline, but he could still see Gavin’s huge feet pressing their way deep into the sand. Each time the giant boy lifted his foot, little bits of sand stuck underneath would cascade down onto the shadow of his massive leg. Every step brought Gavin closer to Bradley’s insignificant body. He was just a tiny bug compared to the giant. He started to get scared; Gavin wasn’t even paying any attention to where he was walking.

Thump, thump, thump. The giant boy’s steps resonated like big bass drums. “I’m down here! Down here!” Bradley yelled, trying to warn Gavin, but his voice was too quiet for the huge guy to hear. He walked closer. He was standing right above the tiny boy when we stopped walking. Maybe he saw something, or heard something below him. The giant peered down at the tiny Bradley below him. The tiny boy cheered. He thought he was saved.

Much to his horror, Gavin rose his foot to crush the tiny bug at his feet. The giant’s big toe caressed his face while Bradley fell down onto his back. Gavin grinned as he flattened his foot down onto his friend, pressing harder and harder and harder into the boy’s body.

“Ahh!” Bradley shot up. He ran his hands across his chest, making sure that his guts were still inside his skin. “Whew… it wasn’t real,” Bradley whispered to himself. But his dream, it was so vivid. He still felt as though something huge was pressing on his face and his ribcage. He shrugged it off as a side effect of the growth serum.

He froze. There were voices whispering outside his tent. From the mesh covering the back of his tent he could tell it was still dark out, so it wasn’t Mr. Hammond’s assistant. The talking sounded deeper, almost certainly male. Bradley listened in. It sounded like… Joel?

Cautiously zipping open his door, Bradley crawled out of the tent and walked toward the voices. He rubbed his eyes. The moon still shone overhead, meaning he couldn’t have been asleep for very long. It was probably still around midnight or early morning.

Walking towards the voices, Bradley rubbed his eyes. It was Joel and Gavin talking with a man in a baseball cap. They heard him step on a branch and turned to face the sleepy actor.

“Oh! Bradley,” Joel whispered, “Come here. Max, tell him what you told us.”

Bradley came over to join the three of them. He looked up at the tall man in the baseball cap. “You’re Max? Who are you?” he said accusingly.

The man straightened his hat. “I’m one of the cameramen, but that’s not important,” he whispered. In that instant, Bradley recognized him. He was the same man who was filming when he was a giant. From up in the palm tree, he captured Bradley’s terrorizing of the poor extra yesterday. “I came to warn you guys. About the director. About the situation here,” his voice carried a tone of grave concern. “I’m sure you know by now that what Mr. Hammond is doing here is not exactly legal.”

Bradley nodded. He looked over at Gavin expecting some kind of rebuttal, but the usually cheery teenager was silent. Max continued, “If you think it’s bad now, wait ‘till you see what the guy has in store for you tomorrow. I’ve heard some rumors. I heard the director say things about scenes that are just so…” he stopped himself.

Bradley was horrified. “I can just say no, can’t I? Can’t we?” the young actor asked.

“Not exactly. The problem is that every time I look for a way out, it’s like the director has control of it. You can’t catch a ferry off the island because a private company runs all the ferries. A private company owned by Adam Hammond. You can’t call anyone because he confiscated your phones. You can’t run and hide anywhere on this island because he reserved the island for the entire week. There are no tourists here. EVERYONE is working with the director, even me.”

“You didn’t answer his question,” Gavin spoke up, “I mean, if we refuse to cooperate, there’s nothing he can do, right?”

Max sighed and crossed his arms. “Did you boys ever wonder why he didn’t just ask one of you to come to the island at a time? Logistically, it would be easier that way. See, when you’re a giant, there’s nothing the director can do to stop you from killing him and destroying everything. The only problem is the other two actors.” Gavin’s face went pale. Bradley still wasn’t getting it.

“You saw the guns, right? The creepy-looking guys with the AK-47s? What I’m saying is if a giant actor refuses to cooperate, then he’ll shoot the other two. You’re being held hostage until the scene is over.”

Bradley cleared his throat, “What?” he said under her breath, unable to believe what he was being told. He began to feel claustrophobic.

Joel fixed his posture. “So you’re saying we can’t trust the director, but how can we trust you? You work for him, don’t you?” he said forcefully.

“Hey! I’m risking my ass to help yours. If he finds out I came here, I don’t even know what would happen. I’m just saying, you need to find a way out of here. Sooner rather than later,” Max said ominously. “I need to get back before someone notices I’m gone,” he said before walking back into the night.

Somehow, Joel remained unconvinced. “That was weird. I don’t even know who to believe. I don’t know what reason that guy would have to lie, but still… ” he said, creating a silence between the boys.

“Well, Adam said we had to get a good night sleep for tomorrow, so I’m going back to bed,” Gavin broke the silence.

“Yeah… I probably should too,” Bradley was still half-asleep. Joel agreed with them and they parted ways for the night once again.

Morning came fast. For Joel, it was as if he blinked and opened his eyes to find the sun shining through the mesh of his tent. He changed his clothes and exited the tent when he heard the sound of a car pulling up, along with the assistant’s cringe-worthy high-pitched voice.

“Rise and shine, my lovelies! It’s time to work,” she practically screamed.

Joel was already awake, but it took some nudging to get Bradley and Gavin up and moving. “When’s breakfast?” Joel asked.

“We’re on a tight schedule, so you’ll have to eat on the way,” she said, handing each of them a breakfast bar. It tasted as stale and drab as the assistant’s wardrobe choices.

When they got out of the jeep, the first thing they noticed was the director’s disposition. He seemed like he was trying to hide his uncomfortableness. The young actors gathered around him and waited for their instructions.

“Okay. So I need Joel to start,” he said, turning to Joel. “We are going to do something a bit different,” said Mr. Hammond while Joel braced himself, “How do you feel about getting your hands dirty?”

“What do you mean exactly?” Joel asked innocently.

“For this scene, you get to destroy a building. There may be a few people in there, but it’s alright. You just need to level the place completely,” he sounded excited as he was telling Joel what to do.

“Oh.. okay,” Joel tentatively agreed. He followed the director into the tent and the other two sat off to the side. Strangely enough, the two men in black suits with automatic rifles stood directly behind them. Bradley and Gavin were incredible uncomfortable.

Joel wasn’t sure what to expect as he donned the skimpy growing underwear and received the shot of growth serum. What he felt was an immediate glow around his shoulders and the back of his neck. He felt himself surge to the heavens. He tensed his back and stretched out all his muscles as he became gigantic.

The first person to notice it was Gavin, exclaiming, “That’s not fair. He’s much bigger than I was.” And it was true. Joel towered high above the tallest palm tree, so high that his head was practically in the clouds. Joel decided that Bradley was right, and that it did feel amazing to be huge.

“Okay, Joel,” the director’s voice crackled harshly over the megaphone, “Look behind you. The gray building over there is the one you need to destroy, in any method you want.” Joel nodded and turned around. The building was larger than he expected. He didn’t even notice it when he first arrived. It was tucked away behind some of the other equipment and miscellany in the corner of the bay.

The giant with his powerful legs stepped over to the building and started by looking into the side window. His huge eye took up the entire windowpane. Much to his surprise, there were actually a number of people inside. Upon seeing the shadow and hearing the giant’s heavy breathing, they screamed their heads off.

For some reason, something clicked in Joel’s head. With the rush of adrenaline he felt, the power went to his head. When he was regular-sized, there was no way he would have followed through with this, but at soon as he stuck his hand into the side of the building and clawed his way through the side of it, he couldn’t stop himself.

Joel was crouched like a giant monkey as he tore through the side of the building with one hand. He was afraid it would hurt, but he didn’t feel any pain. He reached his hand into the exposed floor and grabbed everything inside. He opened his palm, revealing crushed tables, chairs, cabinets, and a bunch of tiny red splotches. He threw it all aside and tore the roof off of the building.

Standing up again, he lifted his giant foot and gently crushed the building. His massive, fleshy organ wrecked the structure and the poor people who hadn’t already run away. He heard some screams get louder,  sound muffled, and then stop completely.

In one last power surge, Joel took what was left of the building in his hands. He lifted it up over his head and threw it down on the ground. It was obliterated. He turned to face the camera like a crazed dog, soberly realizing what he’d done.

“Great work, Joel!” the director cheered, “We’ve still got time. Don’t think you’re done yet.” Mr. Hammond paused, thinking. He saw a crowd of people scattering away from the base of the building. “Grab a handful of people and swallow them whole!” the director shouted over the megaphone.

Joel was taken aback. He saw the tiny red blood spots on his hands and started feeling funny. “I… can’t,” the giant said softly.

The director straightened his collar as if he had a speech prepared. And, of course, he did. “Joel, if you don’t do what I say, then your friends might be in some serious trouble,” he lowered his voice as he made his point clear. To make it even clearer, he signaled his two bodyguards and they pushed Gavin and Bradley out of their seats, aiming their rifles at the helpless teenagers.

He held his massive hands in the air. “Okay, okay,” he said, defeated. The giant sighed, scooping up several of the tiny people, cupping them between his hands. When he brought the people up to his eye level, their disembodied screams became coherent. Stop it! No! he could hear some yelling. Don’t eat me! another shouted. Joel couldn’t look them in the eyes. He just tilted his hands and let them fall into his open mouth. They stuck onto his tongue like little crumbs.

He swirled them around to make sure he didn’t have to swallow more than once. Once coated with enough saliva, he moved the people to the back of his throat and sent them down his gullet with a quick tilt of his head. The bulge of tiny people made it’s way down Joel’s neck. But unfortunately, they didn’t go down as easily as Joel hoped they would. He coughed a bit and swallowed again when he felt someone get stuck in his esophagus.

Joel felt himself start to perspire, his stomach turning. He sat on an unoccupied strip of the beach and lied down, clearly shaken by what he’d just done. He could hear the juices in his stomach. Every digestive noise his belly made caused him to picture what was going on in there. The tiny people were probably getting burned and turned into nutrients inside his churning stomach, becoming a part of him forever. The giant shuddered and waited for the transformation to occur.

“Don’t worry about the people inside you. Because you’re so big, your stomach acid becomes much more potent. Those people are so insignificant, they almost get instantly digested, bones and all. Shrinking will only make your stomach a little bit bloated,” the director tried to reassure the giant cannibal. Mr. Hammond’s words only reminded him of his voracious deed and made him feel worse.

Around fifteen minutes later, Joel’s fantastic giant form began to diminish. He felt himself shrinking, as if he were falling back down to Earth. In a matter of mere seconds, the giant actor was regular size again, only he looked like he’d eaten a Thanksgiving dinner for a family of four. He held his bloated belly and moaned in confused agony.

The director had his two henchmen do his work for him. “Take him out of the way,” he pointed to Joel and had the other men grab the boy and take him off to the side. “Now, I’ve got a great big snack for both of you,” he said to Bradley and Gavin. The young actors began to regret every decision they’d made thus far in life.

Mr. Hammond brought the boys over to the tent, instructing them as they walked. “Now, if you know anything about Backteach Bay, you know that there is a dense ecosystem full of many creatures. We’ve rounded up a… snack for you guys. Call it an early dinner. You’ll be dining on the finest delicacies the island has to offer, and I won’t let you off the hook until you’ve finished you plates,” he said excitedly. Mr. Hammond stopped trying to hide his joy.

“Why are you doing this to us, Adam?” Bradley asked confrontationally.

“Because I can,” Mr. Hammond answered with a smile. “Also, one last thing, I can’t seem to find that growing underwear we used before. I don’t know. Joel had it on last, and now it’s gone. Don’t know what to tell you guys,” said Mr. Hammond, feigning concern. Bradley and Gavin were horrified. Their safety net was being taken out from under them.

They were given their own space, standing several hundred feet away from each other, completely naked. Both shots were administered simultaneously, and both boys grew at about the same rates. Once they were huge, they were close enough to touch. They both looked at Mr. Hammond and wondered what to do next.

His answer came as a command. “Have a seat,” he said sternly. The two giant boys plopped down on their rear ends, making monolithic impressions in the sand. They were both remarkably nervous about what was going to happen next, sitting in creative ways to avoid having their private parts shown to the camera. Is he going to make us eat… animals? wondered Gavin.

The two boys attentions were captured by four trucks coming in from the mainland. Both giants watched intently as the trucks unloaded several creatures into a fenced off section of the beach. There were tigers, bears, monkeys, even some housepets likes dogs and cats. “This is animal cruelty!” objected Gavin.

“Eat them,” was all Mr. Hammond said in return, “All of them.”

Bradley and Gavin weren’t sure how to start. They both knew they had to follow the man’s disgusting orders, but neither of them wanted to start. Gavin took the first step, making direct eye contact with the director as he pinched a tiny dog between his fingers. The poor thing was writhing and clawing at the giant’s fingers as Gavin inserted the dog into his open mouth. It was small enough to slide down to the back of his tongue unobstructed. He looked at Mr. Hammond with a defiant glare as he swallowed the little animal.

Bradley tried to pick a creature that wouldn’t hurt or protest. He leaned over the fence, plucked a small monkey up off the ground, and raised it to his lips. He closed his eyes and mentally prepared himself for what was about to occur. He took a deep breath and slurped the monkey inside. The animal began to jump around inside the boy’s mouth. Bradley brought his tongue up to the roof of his mouth, silencing the animal’s protest. The creature tasted like dirt. The giant nearly gagged as his mouth filled with spit. He slowly brought the animal into the back of his throat, sucking the tiny creature into his stomach with one massive-sized swallow. It kept moving as it descended into the boy’s body. Bradley gasped as soon as he ate the tiny animal, in shock of what his body had done to the poor thing.

The boys proceeded to eat the rest of the animals over the course of a half-hour, working up the courage to try to stomach another one after they’d eaten one. The worst part for Bradley was the fact that the tiny animals were still alive inside of his body. He could feel them pawing at the walls of his stomach lining. They would always struggle on the way down, flailing around, fighting the boy’s powerful tongue and final swallow.

Gavin took one for the team by eating the black bear. It was by far the biggest animal they had to eat, and it took him several minutes to swallow whole. He tried his best not to bite it, or else he would have popped the bear like a blueberry with his huge teeth. He ended up eating him by gathering so much saliva in his mouth, so much that the bear was swimming in his spit, and then when the bear’s fur was coated thoroughly, swallowing the bear with a mighty glurk sound. Bradley saw his struggling and silently thanked his friend. He didn’t know if he could have done it by himself.

The roar of the animals in both of the boy’s bellies began to die down as their digestive acids did their worst on the poor creatures. Gavin didn’t know what was worse: their harming and ingestion of several innocent animals, or the fact that they did it all naked and exposed in front of a film crew and cameras.

Mr. Hammond had nothing to say. Nobody said anything as the giant teenage boys laid on the sand and digested their meals. At around the same time, Bradley and Gavin began to shrink back to normal size. The young actors returned to their human size with bloated bellies and grief-stricken faces. They held their stomachs and walked towards the director.

“I see that unfortunately, you boys have become acquainted with the hierarchy around here,” said Mr. Hammond, addressing all three of them. “You know, it didn’t have to be this way. We were cooperating so well. And we can still get along, as long as you do what I say, when I say it.”

“You can’t do this. What even is your endgame in all of this? What is this movie even about?” Joel asked, having fully recovered from his digestive issues.

Mr. Hammond took a deep breath. He felt all three pairs of eyes on him. “Giants,” he said bluntly. “I thought you’d have figured that out by now,” he laughed.

And that was all the director had to say about it. He led the boys over to his assistant, and she, along with Mr. Hammond’s two paid guns, drove the actors out towards their campsite once again. They didn’t talk much on the ride. There was only the sound of the jeep tires on the dirt for them to hear.