🌃 Wednesday weigh-in: Too heavy for the haunt (Patreon)

Morning all 👋

Hope everyone has had a good week. Bit of a hectic one for me, with a lot of things going very wrong in work-work, but I managed to finish off this little short story, inspired by one of ExtraBaggageClaim's weekly writing prompts from a few weeks ago.

The prompt word was haunt, and the story below is a longer version of the one I've posted on DeviantArt.

I had real fun with this, and plan to continue it, probably when a future prompt pops up.

Work continues on TLWL and other projects. Of which more very soon!😊

All the best,

Hal

🍔

Too heavy for the haunt

~ BBW ~ WG ~ Stuckage (sort of) ~

The scream echoed down the alley: as sharp and shrill as a diamond scraping a chalkboard. A tomcat froze mid-prowl, bristling as if it had been electrocuted. A trio of ravens cawed in agony and took flight, and even the stars themselves seemed to wince in the darkness.

The girl who'd screamed raised a quivering French-manicured finger.

'Look!' she squeaked, pointing at the rooftop the ravens had vacated. 'Our old haunt!'

Her two companions stopped alongside her, and together the three of them gazed at the haggard old building. 'We used to climb up there,' Sarah continued, moving her finger to indicate a rusty fire escape ladder, 'and get wasted on vodka on the roof. Then we'd go over the trellis and down the other side and sneak into the club through the back door.'

Sarah stared ahead wistfully. 'That must've been ten years ago.'

Her cloud of nostalgia was dispersed by a snort from beside her. 'Try twenty,' Lauren said. 'We had fake IDs, remember? And Tiff had that passport Dave Clyde made in Photoshop. That's why we ended up having to sneak in.'

But Sarah wasn't listening. 'Last one up's got genital warts!' she crowed, tottering drunkenly towards the ladder, the ruffled hem of her miniskirt fluttering up to reveal a bottom as pale and full as the moon. Giggling drunkenly, the blonde pulled off her high heels and tossed them up onto the roof. 'Come on,' she said, slipping into a pair of pumps from her handbag and then tossing that up onto the roof as well. 'We have to show Zoe!'

Sarah's enthusiasm was dampened by a squeaky creak from the ladder.

She hesitated, one foot on the bottom rung, and looked up. It seemed an awfully long way to the top. Much further than she remembered. The ladder did have a safety cage around it... but that wouldn't do much good if a rung snapped beneath her foot halfway up.

A short. slightly grumpy gurgle from Sarah's stomach reminded her of the chunky second helping of cheesecake she'd eaten at dinner. She reached down, running her fingers across the jelly-soft bulge that pushed out just beneath her boobs. Twenty years ago, a small voice at the back of her mind whispered, and twenty kilos ago too.

The blonde shook her head. It's just my IBS flaring up from that greasy burger, she told herself. I've been playing tennis every week and the coach can't keep his hands off me, so I must be in excellent shape.

Bolstered by this ego-boosting reflection, Sarah gripped the siderails and stepped confidently up onto the second rung.

The ladder let out a metallic double-screech, like a cat tripping over an electric guitar.

Sarah leapt off.

'I- I think it's a bit rusty,' she called out, trying to keep her tone factual. She turned to the others. 'I suppose... I mean it's not as if we need to sneak into the club any more, is it?'

Lauren stepped forward, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lip. 'Not in theory,' she said, sauntering over to the ladder. 'On the other hand, I doubt they'll let you in wearing those.'

Sarah's jaw dropped in disbelief. 'What?! These are vintage Loubou--'

Realisation dawned like a cold January morning. She looked down at her pumps and groaned.

'Shit...'

She looked up at the roof.

A few seconds of silence passed.

'I suppose... I'll have to go up and get them,' Sarah said in a faint voice.

More silence wound onto the spool of eternity.

'What's the matter?' Lauren grinned cheerfully. 'Scared of a little ladder?'

Sarah rounded on her with a pout. 'I'm not scared at all!' She thrust out her chin. 'I was just thinking... I mean, I'm just a bit concerned about... about... Well I bet you wouldn't go up,' Sarah rallied with huff. 'And I can understand why,' she added under her beath.

Lauren's cheery smirk vanished. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Oh come on Lauren, dearest,' Sarah snorted, poking a well-manicured finger into her friend's midriff. 'That cheap Skims knockoff isn't fooling anyone. It's squeezing you so tight you look like you've got two bellies stacked on top of each other.'

A dark flush stained Lauren's cheekbones. 'Well at least my bum isn't hanging out of the bottom of my skirt,' she snapped back. 'You'd better hope the men in this club like cottage cheese.'

Sarah staggered backwards as if she'd been punched in the nose, her eyes almost bursting from their sockets. 'Why you wretched...! I do not have cellulite! I'm Miss Cheshire!'

'Two thousand and three.'

'Said the scale to Lauren Miller!'

The two women glared at each other, bristling like a pair of housecats who both knew, deep down, that they'd grown far too sleek and soft to actually come to blows.

'Well we'll see, won't we?' Sarah huffed eventually, pirouetting away from Lauren with a swish of her platinum blonde hair. 'Zoe!' She bawled. 'Come here and hold the siderails. I'm going up!'

Sarah paused with her hands on the rungs. 'Zoe?'

'Up here!'

Two pairs of eyes panned upwards in unison.

Zoe waved down at them from the roof.

'It was a bit shuddery,' she said, slightly breathily, 'but not too bad. And there's a great view.' She held up Sarah's heels. 'Do you want me to chuck these down, or are you coming up?'

Sarah opened her mouth, then shut it again. Her instinct, of course, had been to have her shoes passed down. But now that she'd challenged Lauren to climb the ladder... well she'd really lose face if she backed out. And if it can take Zoe's weight, surely it can take mine, Sarah thought, eying the soft creases that had been thickening up around her friend's neck. She thought about the oozy blueberry muffins and flaky custard slices Zoe liked to snack on at work, nibbling away furtively like a greedy mouse. And it'll be safer to go up with someone at the top and someone at the bottom. Sarah looked sideways at Lauren's reassuringly wide hips and puffy tummy. Landing on that would be like landing on a big soft mattress.

Thus reassured, Sarah Lytton took a deep breath and stepped forwards. She was reaching out for the rungs when something soft and heavy bumped against her hip.

It wasn't, as bumps go, a particularly violent one. But it was so sudden, so unexpected that it knocked Sarah completely off balance. With a squeal of shock she began to stagger off sideways, flinging her arms out for balance.

Up on the roof, Zoe's eyes widened. It was like watching a drunk and rather plump ballerina attempt a long-forgotten routine. Sarah's chubby arms flailed wildly, bingo wings flapping as she lurched across the pavement, legs crossing one way and then the other as she fought desperately to keep her footing. Her jelly belly jiggled in her tight dress and her frilly skirt fluttered and swirled, exposing pale quivering buttocks and thickly fleshed thighs that trembled with every footfall.

The performance was brought to an abrupt halt by the kerb. Bumping the side of her heel against it, Sarah let out a grunt of pain and, with one final, wobbling pirouette, sat down heavily in a puddle with a thumping splat.

'Hey, watch it!' Lauren called, clinging on as the ladder shuddered.

Zoe gasped. 'Oh my god, Sarah! Are you all right?!'

For a few seconds the fallen blonde sat there in a kind of stunned silence, hands dangling limp between her spread legs, eyes blinking ahead dumbly. Eventually she looked up with a vague, dazed expression.

And saw a cackling Lauren hauling herself up the creaking ladder, buttocks swinging pompously.

Sarah's left eyeball began to twitch. A hot red mist spread across her forehead, and a vein, stretching from her left eyebrow to her right temple, rose into a throbbing crimson ridge.

'That... is assaaault!'

Shrieking the last word like an Amazon war cry, the portly ex-beauty queen sprung to her feet and charged towards the ladder, snorting like a bull in heat.

By this point, Lauren was halfway up. Or at least, most of her was... On account of its size and weight, her bum drooped heavily below her, like a huge overripe peach sagging from a tree branch.

It was too tempting to resist. Reaching the ladder, Sarah bunched her fist and swung out with a wild, leaping uppercut that wouldn't have looked out of place on Mortal Kombat.

She couldn't miss. Her knuckles sank deep into their pillowy target. With a yelp of surprise, Lauren jerked her left buttock upwards, her knee smacking into the underside of a rung.

A discordant metallic twang quavered through the night air. The ladder vibrated, shuddering Lauren's bulk from the creases of second chin to the tips of her chubby pink toes.

And her other foot slipped off the rung.

In her days as school netball captain, Lauren had been able to do an impressive five pullups. But that had been twenty years ago. Twenty years of slurping creamy lattes and munching on pasties, with her swelling bottom planted comfortably on an ergonomic office chair. Twenty years of guzzling every sugary cocktail she could get her pampered hands on, and soaking up the booze with burgers, overstuffed kebabs and sacks of chips. Twenty years in which greed and laziness and an almost total absence of exercise had piled pounds upon pounds of dense, greasy fat onto the queen bee's once-svelte curves.

Lauren gritted her teeth. She strained her shrunken muscles for all she was worth, trying desperately to pull herself up the inch or two needed to hook her feet onto the rung they were dangling beneath. But it was no use. She was simply too heavy. With a horrible sense of dread she felt her fingers creeping towards the edge of the rough, rusty rung, until only the tips were clinging on, claw-like. Cursing every sausage roll and skipped gym session, Lauren lost her grip.

Yet Sarah was the one who screamed.

Scrunching her eyes shut and twisting her head aside, the blonde wailed like a banshee, thrusting up her hands as a great black mass plummeted towards her.

Her arms sank almost up to the elbows into Lauren's bum - fingers and wrists bending painfully as the heavy pillow of flesh spread over them. Sarah whimpered beneath its weight, a horrible tabloid-style headline flashing up in her terror-maddened mind: "Local Beauty Queen Suffocates Beneath Selfish Best Friend's Enormous Bottom!"

But just as her knees had begun to buckle, and her obituary was scrawling itself out before eyes, the crushing heaviness suddenly lessened.

'I– I've got you.'

The voice quivered down from somewhere above. Sarah craned her neck around the vastness of Lauren's backside, looking up.

Zoe was hanging over the side of the building, tits squashed together by her arms, which were stretching straight down. Her hands were holding Lauren's wrists.

Try... try to get your feet on the ladder,' Zoe gasped. Her eyes slid sideways, and she added, with all the vigour of a maternity nurse: 'Sarah! PUUUSHH!'

Sarah and Zoe were hardly strong, and Lauren was a big girl, but with one friend pushing from below, and the other pulling from above, she was able to latch her heels onto the middle rung of the ladder. Driven by adrenaline, the overweight queen bee hauled herself up the rest of the way, ignoring the ladder's agonised creaks, and rolling over the edge with Zoe's help.

They lay there on the roof, panting like a pair of winded pigs - Lauren slumped on her front, Zoe sprawled on her back. After a few moments, Lauren's heaving breaths gave way to a cough. Which in turn became a spluttered chuckle.

The laughter spread to Zoe, and soon a wild, breathless cackling filled the night air. Anyone listening would have thought there was a witches convent taking place up on the rooftop.

'I'm glad you both find this so fucking amusing!' Sarah huffed from below. 'I could have been killed!'

Lauren's grinning face appeared over the edge of the roof. 'Come on Sarah, dearest,' she leered. 'Last one up's got genital warts.'

*

Harrumphing like a pitbull, the blonde began to climb. 'That obviously doesn't count any more,' she grumbled, pausing for a moment as the ladder moaned in discomfort.

Lauren winced dramatically. 'Oof, Sarah... shouldn't have had that second slice of cheesecake!'

Sarah glared up at her. 'It's not me! Your massive fat arse has weakened all the fixings!' She grabbed the next rung, hauling herself up angrily.

Too angrily...

The ladder moaned like a wounded beast. But it was the sound that followed the moan - a kind of tinny, rust, squeaky sound, like a spade scraping against brick - that choked off Lauren's chuckles, and turned Sarah's face bone white.

Her eyes rolled slowly sideways, following the sound to the bolt that was holding the siderail to the wall a few inches from her head.

The bolt that had been holding the siderail to the wall.

The bolt that was now hanging halfway out of the crumbling brick and edging squeakily towards freedom.

Sarah's face seemed to contort in slow motion - her lips twisting and parting into a quavering wail as the ladder tilted away from the wall. She hugged herself against it like a desperate lover.

And for once that second helping of cheesecake worked in her favour.

With Sarah's ample plumpness pressing into it, the ladder teetered for a moment and then reversed direction. The bolt scraped back an inch or so into its hole, and the siderails clanged back against the wall.

Sarah let out a whimper of relief, and reached up - only to pull her hand back down quickly when the ladder wobbled and shuddered. She pressed her forehead against a rung, mewling like a terrified kitten. 'Lauren! Help!'

'Shit... Just hold on!' Scrabbling forward on her front, Lauren leaned over the edge of the roof. For the second time that night, she wished she hadn't eaten such a big dinner. Her belly was so full it was pushing her up, increasing the distance between her stretching hands and Sarah. And it was unstable, too, like lying on a waterbed. Lauren's cheeks puffed into a belch as she sloshed from side to side. Urgh! She could feel her burger and loaded fries gurgling around inside her, in a great frothing lake of beer and cocktails.

Grimacing against the discomfort, Lauren leaned forward, stretching her fingers down.

'Sarah... you'll have to reach up!'

The blonde whimpered and shook her head, squeezing the ladder even tighter. Which only made it creak and shudder again.

'Come on Sarah,' Zoe coaxed, leaning over the building alongside Lauren. With less of a belly pushing her up - a puffy cushion compared to Lauren's overfilled waterbed - Zoe was able to reach lower and touch Sarah's shoulder. 'Just take our hands,' she said softly. 'We'll pull you up.'

With a choking sob, the blonde raised five trembling fingers. Zoe seized them, wincing as Sarah's soft hand squeezed hers with surprising strength.

'That's it,' Lauren reached down and taking Sarah's other wrist. 'Now just lift your foot up...'

Sarah lifted a shaking leg, placing her toes on the next step, then withdrawing them quickly when the ladder shuddered. She looked up, huge blue eyes damp and pleading. 'I can't!' she sobbed.

Lauren looked at Zoe, who nodded.

'Okay... On three.' Lauren paused, gathering her strength. 'One... Two... Thrrrrr-'

Zoe felt like her shoulders would pop from their sockets, and Lauren gritted her teeth so hard she thought they might crack. But slowly, Sarah began to rise, gradually edging up inch by inch.

'God Sarah,' Lauren panted, cheeks puffing with effort, 'you really…need...to lay off the puddings.'

Terrified though Sarah was, she still managed to open her mouth poutily.

But instead of an angry response, all that emerged was a huffy 'Oof!' as her upwards progress came to a sudden jolting halt.

Frowning, the girls on the roof tugged again.

'Oof!' Sarah repeated, her rise once again thwarted. It was as if something was sticking on something, or blocking her. Zoe craned her neck, and it didn't take her long to see what the problem was.

'Um, Sarah...' she hesitated, biting her lip. 'I think... your tummy. It's...'

'Stuck between the rungs!' Lauren gasped out the words. 'For fuck's sake - suck that gut in before my arms drop off!'

For once, even Sarah didn't object. Hunching her shoulders, she drew a deep breath, pulling in her paunch in for all she was worth. It wasn't easy with such a big meal inside, but it was enough. The blonde whimpered as she felt the bulgiest part of her belly scrape against the rusty rung on its way past.

Yet just as the girls overcame one obstacle, another took its place. For without Sarah's weight pushing against them, the siderails now began to tilt away from the wall again.

Her shriek of terror was drowned by the ladder's own death-wail - a groan of old steel and crackling of brick and mortar. By some miracle Zoe and Lauren managed to hold on, hauling their quivering blonde cargo over the edge of the roof just as the ladder fell away.

A great clang of vibrating metal echoed through the alley, setting off a cacophony of wailing cats and cawing ravens. When both noises faded, all that was left was a heavy, rasping breathing.

After a few moments this in turn was broken by another shriek from Sarah.

'Oh no!' she wailed, drawing the top half of a broken bottle of Vodka from her tote bag., 'my Chanel! It's ruined!'

Lauren shuffled up into a sitting position. 'More to the point, we don't have any vodka,' grunted, pushing herself up to her feet. 'Oh well, the sooner we get down to the club the better.'

'Yeah, about that...'

The words came from Zoe's mouth. And there was something in her tone, something slow and foreboding, that sent a shiver down Lauren and Sarah's spines.

They turned slowly towards Zoe, and found her gazing out over the side of the building.

'Um... girls,' she said. 'I think we may have a little problem.'

To be continued...