Hit The Buffet Like A Nuke

They had crab legs. Lois Lane's favorite. There was a limit on how many crab legs you could have, but the people running Chin's Chinese Cafe were reasonable: the more money you gave them, the more crab legs you could have.

Lois Lane sat in the booth, the idol and her laptop in the paperbag to her left, as she cracked open the hard shell and sucked out the salty, succulent meat within. The servers eyed her with something like awe as the reporter ate with a single-minded devotion. Lois couldn't even explain it to herself, except that she felt a raw, consuming need at the center of her. It was like no hunger she had ever felt. For a moment, as the hot flesh slid down her throat, washed with tea, Lois would be sated...and the next moment, she would twist her way out of the booth, holding the broken crustacean limbs, and head back for more.

In forty-five minutes, Lois devoured fifteen pounds of crab legs.

The reporter repressed a little belch as sweat began to dampen her forehead. She felt oddly heavy...and her pregnant stomach was not pressing against the table when she leaned forward a little. Moving to stand, the waiters eyed her warily...but Lois didn't go straight for the crab legs this time.

No, now she hit the buffet.

Three plates at a time, piled with rice, vegetables, fried chicken and shrimp, chow mein. In a normal trip to the buffet, Lois might struggle to finish one or two plates...yet all her thoughts about research were forgotten as her teeth stripped white meat from bone, cramed spoonfuls of rice into her mouth, slurped down bowls of soup...and her stomach rumbled in protest, unable to process the mountain of food she was piling into her mouth.

After her ninth or tenth plate, Lois sat panting, blinking, breathing hard. Her stomach pressed hard against the edge of the table now, and she could feel the weight of her meal. It was more than she should have been able to eat in a week...and she felt disgusting, grease dripping from her face, fingers sticky, crumbs down the elastic exercise shirt she wore.

She leaned against the bag, as a waitress came and took away empty plates, and placed a fresh pot of tea on the table...Lois had already given them her credit card, willing to pay extra. The reporter groaned, hands clutching her taut, swollen stomach, suddenly nauseous...and more than that, she felt something. A kind of burning heat, radiating from the idol, palpable through the paper bag...and that was when Lois realized that something else was happening to her.