“Who are you?” Pepper Diamonds wheezed from Shelby’s fist. “How did I get here? Must be dreaming.”

“It’s a dream alright,” Shelby agreed with a grin. “But not for you. Oh, what was I saying I’d do, if I met her? A slap to bring her down to size. Ha – down to size!”

“Let me go,” Pepper insisted, quietly, her legs hanging limp. “Please. I’ve can pay –”

“Pay? We don’t even know what you are!” Shelby pushed herself up to standing. She swept Pepper up above her head, making the singer squeal and flap her arms and legs again. “Maybe the real Pepper has money, but you – you’re just here for us, I reckon.”

“Shelby.” I finally managed to speak. A one-word warning to slow down.

But Shelby’s mind was racing ahead and she responded, “Relax, Brian, this is a gift. What shall we do? Pin her up? Flush her down the toilet – that’s what she deserves.”

“No!” Pepper cried, beating her hands against Shelby’s finger.

Shelby scanned the room, searching for ideas, and let her arm drop down to her side, where Pepper twisted in her grip, trying to keep the floor in sight for fear of falling. Shelby’s eyes rested on the overturned bowl and the spilt pasta on the carpet. She said, “Ah, you bitch, that was my dinner.” Shelby lifted Pepper back in front of her face. “You made me spill my dinner. I’ve had a bottle of wine on an empty stomach.”

Pepper pleaded almost wordlessly, growing more frightened and desperate as Shelby’s disregard grew clearer.

“Shelby, can we take a beat?” I asked, pressed back into the sofa arm, feeling like I hadn’t blinked in an hour. “A tiny woman just fell out of the TV –”

“Not just any tiny woman,” Shelby said, flashing me a wicked grin. She held up the singer. “This is Pepper Diamond. Champion of poor kids and feeder of the Third World. But what the hell’s she ever done for me? She never fed me – same as everyone else that left me to rot.”

“I don’t know you!” Pepper cried. “Whatever you want –”

“I wanted a good dinner with my friend, that’s all!” Shelby replied loudly, a darker look crossing her face. “It’s about all I can hope for these days, and then you come and fall into my living room and make me drop my pasta? Any other way you want to ruin this evening?” Her eyes screwed angrily into Pepper, who shied back, both hands up in futile defence.

“I don’t think she meant to –” I tried, lamely.

“Exactly!” Shelby snapped, thrusting Pepper about as she spoke, the small woman flopping like a rag doll. “She doesn’t think a damn about people like me. What’ve I got? Not even charity. Well. She can do one thing for me.” And on some sudden, inebriated impulse, Shelby shoved the woman headfirst into her mouth. Pepper barely managed another shriek before she was engulfed, right up to her chest, her struggling arms filling out Shelby’s cheeks as her legs pedalled frantically from her fist.

I jumped right onto the sofa and shouted, “Jesus!”

Shelby’s jaw worked for a moment, eyes rolling as she sucked the woman, then she pulled Pepper back out and laughed. Pepper came away with shuddering sobs, wet hair slapping down over her face. Shelby licked her lips and said, “Fuck, she even tastes good.”

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Breathing relief, I climbed back down from the sofa and said, “All right. I think that’s enough. Let’s stop –”

“She ruined my dinner, Brian,” Shelby said, factually. “And you know what” – her eyes roved hungrily over the tiny woman – “I’ve deep-throated bigger dicks than her.”

“What the hell?” I said, my fears peaking as I recognised that tone. Drunk Shelby relished terrible challenges. She’d never shown much interest in men, or sex, but she liked to believe she could be good at it. She overcompensated for a lack of experience by practising taking large vegetables down her throat – she’d shown me once and made things really uncomfortable.

“I’m saying” – Shelby gave me an irritated look – “that I’m not exactly going to hurt a tiny woman; that would be horrible.” She opened her mouth, stretching her jaw, right then left. “She’s a prick, that’s how I’ll treat her.”

It was mad, drunken logic, and I’d barely unravelled it in my mind when she threw her head back, opened her mouth as wide as it would go. Shelby raised the woman above her head, with care to position her right, and Pepper waved her hands before her face screaming as she was given a good view of where she was going. I was too horrified to move, unable even to believe what was happening: my friend Shelby lowered a doll-sized Pepper Diamond into her mouth, and with small movements of her jaw and fingers, gently pushed the squirming singer deeper down. Gulping like a pelican, Shelby took Pepper all the way in, lips closing on the woman’s tiny shoes as they flicked as hard as they could, the rest of her body constricted. Shelby’s throat bulged, her head tilted right back, and she struggled not to gag, but kept going. Pepper’s screams were just audible through Shelby’s body. With little convulsions, she swallowed Pepper, the bulge slipping down her throat, and then Shelby leant forward and let out a huge gasp. Her eyes reopened with wonder.

“I did it,” she gasped, to herself, then looked to me. “You saw? I actually did it!” She laughed, then twitched, shoulders hunching as her hands went to her belly. “Oh my God, I can feel her struggling!” Shelby lifted her t-shirt to show me. Her own body was much less defined than Pepper’s – hard to see what movement was coming from inside and what were jiggles from Shelby’s delighted giggle. I wasn’t sure if I could still hear Pepper screaming, or if it was just the memory, lodged in my mind.

“Holy shit, Shelby,” I finally managed. I shook my head, realising now something had to be done. “Holy shit. You have to spit her out. You have to throw her up. Shelby!”

She locked eyes with me, considered it for a second, then twisted her mouth to a cheeky smile. “No chance. It was hard enough getting her down, I’d choke if she came back up.”

I backed off, and bumped into the sofa, almost tripping to the floor. I didn’t even know who I was looking at. Shelby had just swallowed a woman alive.

“Oh relax,” Shelby flapped a hand. “It wasn’t like she was the real Pepper Diamond. I told you this TV was special! I knew it! How did I –” She turned on the spot, searching for where she’d dropped the remote. “I think I pressed the wrong button. Do you think it would work again?”

“I don’t know what it was,” I said, but she was focused back on the TV. She switched channels, narrowing her eyes at the people that came up.

“Oh, looks who’s on!” she exclaimed. “Trent Halton, I bet he’s tasty.”

“Shelby, stop,” I said, about all I could manage. And I know I was pathetic, and that I enabled her, but really, nothing could prepare you for a moment like that – how was I even supposed to react? I didn’t know what that small woman was, let alone how anything could’ve possessed Shelby to so quickly gulp her down. And as my friend mused over recreating that horror, I panicked, wanting only to get away. I had a meeting the next morning. I had my own life to manage, I didn’t want to be there.

As Shelby clicked the remote, I snatched up my coat and ran for the door.

You’ll know the consequences now, even if you wouldn’t have connected them at the time. At 19:31 on Thursday, May 18th, 2016, Pepper Diamond died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage which doctors never satisfactorily explained. Eight minutes later, at 19:39 that same night, Trent Halton died from the exact same cause, equally inexplicable. They were the first of a handful of celebrities to suffer similar fates, in a mystery that was so bizarre it could not be explained, yet many investigators lost years of their lives trying to solve it. The closest anyone got was that some kind of electronic pulse weapon might’ve been used at distance, by a group of people with a grudge. The stuff of science fiction, this was roundly derided, and people mostly settled for it being a strange, cruel coincidence.

The reality was far stranger, and this was just the start: it had woken Shelby to a new hunger.