Shelby descended on the six-inch Isla Carr before the actress had a chance to steady herself. This time moving with sober deliberation, Shelby took a quick stride to loom over Carr, then bent down and grabbed before turning back to me. The woman kicked but couldn’t scream, as Shelby had wrapped a fist around her upper half, smothering her head. With all the poise of someone at an investor meeting, Shelby held up the struggling woman and explained, “I can only do it once per person, but I’ve checked carefully that taking those who’ve already died doesn’t impact anyone. I’m taking it slowly. You only need one a day.”

“One a day?” I echoed lamely, as shocked now as I had been the first time.

“Yes,” Shelby said. “To look like this.” She struck a quick, model’s pose. Not exactly glamorous in her lounging wear but notably healthy. “It’s what I wanted to show you. After Pepper Diamond? I felt amazing the next morning. No hangover, not hungry, and just full of energy. I’ve been pulling double shifts at work, I’m so awake. And the best part is that they’re super useful, too. I put them to work for half the day, first.”

“What?” I was struggling to keep up, or really comprehend that she was still doing this, but I double-checked the clean apartment. “What have you been doing?”

“Nothing much,” Shelby said. She sat beside me on the sofa, hiking one knee up under an elbow. She dropped Carr onto the cushion between us and the actress shot up onto her elbows and backed off, gasping for air, looking up terrified at us. I recoiled from the unnatural sight of such a rapidly moving, tiny person, as unsettling as seeing a spider.

“Relax,” Shelby said, “both of you. But tell him” – she stabbed a finger down at Carr, pinning her chest to stop her fleeing – “you’re not going to run or scream are you?” Carr got both small hands up on Shelby’s finger to push back, but froze, petrified. She shook her head. “You’ll do whatever I ask, won’t you?” A rapid nod. “There’s a good girl.”

Shelby released her finger and Carr tentatively sat up, looking from Shelby over to me, pale with fright. She opened her mouth to talk, but Shelby spoke over her, “Ah. No talking. No questions. Don’t worry, everything will be okay.”

I met the tiny woman’s eye and wanted to apologise, or offer to help, anything. But again I was inert, enraptured by the strangeness of the situation, and, this time, by how calm and confident Shelby was about it.

“There’s no crime here, Brian,” she told me. “No one’s actually getting hurt. It’s just a bit of fun. Well, more than that – I got a stockbroker the other day who gave me some investment tips. I can do so much with this, don’t you see? Housework is nothing; I get world-class entertainment. I bet she could tell us some stories, huh Isla?”

Carr swallowed loudly, too afraid to respond.

“This is inhuman,” I finally decided. “Whatever they are, even if you’re not hurting actual people, you can see they have feelings. To say nothing of what they could be capable of. If this is really happening – Jesus, what does it mean for science?”

“What’s science matter?” Shelby scoffed. “Besides, they have to go. I wouldn’t want to get attached or leave any loose ends. This is a diet of gods, you’ve got no idea how it feels. That’s why you have to try it.”

“I don’t want to die,” Carr finally spoke up.

“Then you’ll do as we say,” Shelby told her with a smile, leaning a little closer and making the small woman cringe.

“I’m so sorry, Ms Carr,” I said, quickly trying to get a handle on things. “We don’t fully understand this. Where were you before? How did you get here?”

“I don’t know,” Carr answered, on the verge of tears. “There was light, after – when I was –” She swallowed again. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I’ve been taking too much. But this, oh God – what’s happening to me?”

“Shouldn’t have done what?” I frowned, and as she continued blabbering, about a needle and drugs, the details fell into place. Her last memory was what she was doing before she died. She hadn’t been taken from that scene on TV, but from real life, all the same; even if she was dead, Shelby had somehow reached through time to take her. I couldn’t shake the feeling this was still the real Isla Carr. Was it really an overdose that killed her? I said, “Shelby, have you tried sending them back? Is there any way –”

“All right, that’s enough,” Shelby huffed impatiently and grabbed the woman again. Carr gave a tiny yelp but held onto Shelby’s hand with otherwise quiet dignity as my friend held her up. “Once they come through that TV, they’re mine. I don’t have much, Brian, but I have this. My smelly little apartment is my empire, and those who enter it serve me however I please, right down to dinner. I treat them right while they’re here; I’m not cruel or violent, except where they’ve forced me to be.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“They’ve forced you to?” I exclaimed, and she waved that off with a gesture that made Carr flop about.

“Some have bitten or pinched me and I stood on one by accident – it’s nothing. But it’s my life. It’s what I’m here for. I had nothing before, now I have everything. I’m asking if you want a part of it, Brian. You’ve been there for me, you believed in me, now I’ve got something I can share back.”

“I don’t want this,” I insisted. “Not for you and definitely not for them. This is psychotic.”

Her eyes shimmered, mad anger focusing on me. “You aren’t listening.”

“I’ve heard it all, and seen it. A normal person doesn’t behave this way.”

“Who’s normal? Look, we can do whatever you want. This actress is hot – when would you ever get a piece of her out in the real world? I’ll give her to you, you can play with her. No judgements. Just, you have to eat her when you’re done. That’s how this works.”

“No!” Carr cried. She pushed herself up, stretching out of Shelby’s fist. “You’re joking, surely? Listen, I don’t know what’s going on, but please – I’m a respected –” She looked from Shelby’s stretching grin down to the hand that held her and lost momentum, as the reality of her situation sunk her argument. “I’m . . .”

“You’re whatever I say,” Shelby said, wickedly. “Unless Brian grows a pair.”

She looked up at me, decision time, and I hesitated. Absolutely no way I wanted a part of her mania, but I couldn’t leave Carr to this fate. If I pretended to go along with it, I could take her away, do something to help. Maybe find someone who could explain what the hell was going on. But in the seconds it took me to process that, Shelby’s face steeled over. I said, “Wait. I’ll take her.”

“No, you won’t,” Shelby replied, suddenly icy. She held Carr to her chest, looking fierce, making the actress push hopelessly against her breast.

“Shelby –”

“I know you, Brian, I can tell what you’re thinking. Ah. This was a mistake. For fuck’s sake, I won’t convince you, will I?”

I wanted to lie, to try and persuade her, to do something for Isla Carr. But Carr was struggling, smothered, and the truth came out: “No, I’m not going to kill people.”

“Okay.” It was one word that carried everything. She’d given up on me in a cruel instant. I tried to say more but she huffed, a sound that said I was dismissed. With Shelby’s grip slackened, Carr slid away from her chest and breathed in deeply. She looked up from her to me.

“Don’t let her –” Carr started.

“You can go,” Shelby sighed. “I don’t think I want company anymore.”

“Shelby, wait,” I said, but she moved in a flash to cut me off. I flinched back, thinking she was about to strike me, but she lifted her hand to her mouth instead. Carr desperately cried out, to me, “Help, stop her!”

By the time I focused, Shelby’s mouth was over the actress, lips closing on her waist. For once, I managed to act, raising a hand to pull Carr out, but Shelby slapped my arm away and stood in one motion. I stumbled, as she worked her jaw and shovelled Carr’s legs into her mouth with both hands. Her throat bulged just as with Pepper, and again I heard tiny cries and screams inside her gullet. This time it was over much faster. Shelby had her technique down to snatching up a person and swallowing them whole in seconds: by the time I shouted at her to stop, Carr was gone.

Shelby rubbed both hands over her belly and gave me a sinister look, eyes narrowed with horrible pleasure. With one hand still up, impotently, I croaked, “Why?”

“Now you don’t have to decide,” Shelby said. “You can go, think about it. Come back if you want to be a part of something special. But only if you really mean it. I’ll know, Brian. You know I will. And if you try anything, I’ll come for you. Anyone you’ve ever cared about who’s been on TV? Or I could make an exception, maybe I’ll eat you as you are.”

I was off the sofa, backing towards the door. She looked deranged, grinning clownishly, watching me like her mind was already ticking over how I’d taste. I banged into the door and fumbled sideways for the handle, not taking my eyes off her as I made my escape. My last image of her, as I squeezed through the door, was Shelby pursing her lips with pleasure as she whispered, “Oh, Isla’s putting up a fight. I shouldn’t, but I love feeling it.”

I ran without closing the door and never looked back.

Once again, I wished I’d done more. Wished I had some idea of what to do, or the bravery to do it. But the truth is, once I got out of Shelby’s building, all I wanted was to never see nor think of her again. I had witnessed impossible things, punctuated at the end by a shift in her from a harmless, hapless friend to a monster. I was convinced, without doubt, that if I saw her again, it could be the death of me.

So I didn’t call the police. I didn’t tell anyone, ever, what I had seen. I went numbly back to work, met friends for drinks, and barely interacted with the world. Gradually, I came back to myself, as the distance of time let me believe maybe it was all somehow imagined, or at least not as bad as I recalled. My dreams – nightmares – occasionally showed me otherwise, when I relived the scenes in Shelby’s apartment, or saw her swallowing handfuls of struggling people, or marching giant through a city. In the worst dreams, I was the victim, falling into the abyss of her mouth. But on waking I convinced myself it was nothing.

Shelby never texted me again, and after half a year I deleted her number, to put her completely out of mind. I met an ambitious, caring woman, Gillian, a few months later, and we quickly built a life together, as she helped me forget I ever knew someone like Shelby. Years passed: Gillian and I moved into the suburbs and I managed to move on, avoiding all news of celebrity deaths.

I determined to never so much as think of Shelby again, and hadn’t done so for a very long time when something terrible happened. A gas main blew on my street and a manhole cover was blasted across the road. I ran to push a neighbour’s child clear. Years of regret over not acting quicker to stop Shelby manifested in that one selfless action. Truthfully, it wasn’t much, and the child might’ve been safe without me, but I had, at last, acted in the face of danger. A local news team were impressed and in the excitement I didn’t even consider that I shouldn’t give a short interview.

That was my final mistake.