SPOILED 2 - part six

Multitudinous clacking of shoe heels against the cold Lab flooring. Mr Swan and Dr Nightingale made their way through the white hallways, speaking in clipped tones, the occasional passing staff bowing deeply to the former.

‘And no news from the mainland?’ the heavy doctor asked.

‘Maddeningly little,’ Mr Swan replied. ‘The inept plebeians at Kingfisher’s Farm don’t keep records of their subjects’ identities, so I’ve been informed. They throw wallets and passports and the like into a furnace, apparently, and only Kingfisher himself knows the names of all of his “pigs”.’

‘That’s frustrating,’ Nightingale agreed. ‘And still no sign of Mr Kingfisher himself, no?’

‘No. I wouldn’t be surprised if the oafish neanderthal’s gone and gotten himself killed.’

They passed a lab room with a porthole in the door, through which a middle-aged man could be seen propped up in bed, a large pipe surgically grafted to his middle, in through the navel, pumping foodstuffs directly into the man’s stomach, causing his belly to balloon disproportionately against the rest of his averagely-sized frame. He appeared distressed. Nurses were taking notes and measuring. When catching sight of the doctor and Mr Swan through the porthole, the man began crying out,

‘I don’t like this…! This feels weird…! Please… I want it to stop…! Please…!’

The two Masters kept up their pace, not even turning to look.

‘You know, that farmer we interviewed said the Greys were investigating the incident,’ Nightingale told Mr Swan, a trace of apprehension in his usual jaunty Irish tones.

‘No, Donal,’ Mr Swan replied coldly. ‘We don’t involve Greys here. Even if they do know something. My men’ll soon uncover the truth for themselves. We don’t need Grey scum sticking their noses around in our business, they’re not welcome on my Island, you know that as well as I. They are to be kept out of this entirely.’

Dr Nightingale nodded solemnly.

‘No, that… makes sense, of course,’ he conceded with a slight tightening of his jaw. Then he consulted his clipboard a moment. ‘I need to check in on 4J, if you don’t mind.’

Mr Swan gave a small sigh.

‘Needs must, I suppose.’

And as the pair continued on their way through The Lab, the tall doctor added, ‘Do we even know which police force these detectives were working for? That would help to narrow-‘

‘I have people looking into that as we speak,’ Mr Swan interrupted, then slowed his footsteps as another porthole came by.

Through this one a lumpy, reddened man was being aggressively spoon fed while strapped to a chair; his features appeared unevenly swollen and there was much head shaking while an orderly shovelled more food into his unwilling mouth.

Mr Swan paused to stare.

‘Remind me of this one.’

Dr Nightingale joined him at the porthole. ‘The allergy tests you requested,’ he stated. ‘The patient has a severe swelling reaction to dairy, among other things, so we’re seeing how big he’ll go with sustained intake.’

‘Interesting. And?’

‘We’ve got him to about double his original size so far,’ the doctor said. ‘As you can see, it’s a rather violent reaction.’

The man’s whole body was puffy and bright scarlet, chubbing outwards in lopsided rolls, giving him a kind of Michelin-Man look. He was in clear discomfort.

‘Hmm,’ was all that Mr Swan said. It was more of a glottal utterance than a word. ‘Well, keep me informed.’

The doctor inclined his balding head, said, ‘Of course,’ and the two men once again went about their way.

Their heels clacked ever loudly down the echoing corridors until a room marked ‘4J’ came into view. The doctor pressed the engraved image of a nightingale on his ring against a dark sensor pad by the doorframe, and the door slid open with its usual soft hiss.

Quiet beeps and whirs of medical machinery sounded about this room. Attached to much of it was a massively fattened man in his late 30s, again propped upright on a medical bed, voluptuous belly spilling out of his front, cascading between and atop his adiposed legs. All of him looked soft and jelly-like, and he continued to eat and eat from the serving spoon a muscled nurse was continually applying to his mouth from a gigantic tray of cheesecake. Various cannulas were skewering the obese man, silently medicating him. He looked unbelievably tired, not really registering the appearance of the Masters before him.

‘How are we doing today, Philip?’ Dr Nightingale asked the man brightly while flipping through pages of his clipboard and settling his glasses against his nose.

The fattened man looked up slowly, chewing and chewing. There were bags under his eyes the size of golf balls, the skin there grey and pallid. His eyelids seemed to be in a permanent state of droop.

‘I wanna… sleep… Doctor…,’ he said with his mouth full, painfully slow. ‘So… tired…’

The nurse took his large double chin and tilted it back his way, pushing more cheesecake between Philip’s lips.

‘What’s wrong with this one?’ Mr Swan asked, stepping closer and receiving a dutiful bow from the nurse.

‘Philip is part of the sleep study you ordered, if you’ll recall,’ Dr Nightingale said, consulting his notes.

Mr Swan thought for a minute, then brightened.

‘Ah yes,’ he remembered. ‘That’s going back some time. It’s been…?’

‘Very close to two years without sleep,’ Nightingale reminded him. ‘No sleep, but solid, continuous eating. The drugs keep him awake.’

‘I just… wanna… sleep…,’ slurred Philip, taking more dessert.

‘He started at - one moment…’ The doctor flipped more pages. ‘142 pounds, quite average, and… How are we getting along with him now, Nurse?’

‘786 pounds, as of this morning, Doctor,’ the nurse replied, momentarily pausing the cheesecake-laden spoon.

‘Not bad,’ Mr Swan commented. His crotch began to tent.

‘I’m… so… tired…,’ Philip went on.

‘Not long now,’ Dr Nightingale reassured the enormous man cheerily, patting a swathe of belly that rippled beneath his hairy hand. He then explained to Mr Swan, ‘The study is set to end in a couple of days. It’ll have reached exactly two years on the dot, and then our portly Philip here will finally get his rest at last, hoh hoh.’

Mr Swan waved the nurse away and came right up to Philip’s side. The patient was so obese that turning his neck to face the Master wasn’t much of an option.

‘Two years,’ Mr Swan repeated, studying Philip’s fat, becoming harder downstairs. ‘Such a long time to eat and eat without sleep.’

‘Yes, Mr Swan… Lord…,’ Philip huffed with effort.

‘Indeed,’ Nightingale added. ‘He’s done so well, haven’t you, Philip? Eaten like a trooper, blown up nice and fat, hoh hoh.’

‘One can only imagine,’ Mr Swan said, ‘how you must be yearning to sleep. Begging for it. But the medication just won’t let you.’

Philip nodded with what was probably as much enthusiasm as his extreme sleep-deprived state would allow.

Mr Swan brought his face inches from the obese patient’s.

‘One can only imagine how much bigger you’ll get with another year,’ he whispered, now grabbing at his own member through the fabric of his exorbitantly expensive trousers.

Philip’s heavy eyelids did their best to raise.

‘Wh-What… my Lord…?’ His bloodshot gaze pinged from the Master beside him to the doctor whose attention was buried within his notes. Philip’s lardy chest rose and fell over and over.

‘Didn’t hear me, you bag of blubber?’ Mr Swan said louder, unzipping his penis. He pressed it between the patient’s folds.

‘The doctor… said…’ Philip’s jowls wobbled. ‘I… I… could sleep… in a… a couple of… days… I’ve waited… for so long…’

Mr Swan watched as condensation began to well in the fat man’s eyes, his heart clearly winding up, moobs working to heave out faster breath.

‘Did I say another year of no sleep?’ Mr Swan said, now thrusting himself into the patient’s flab. ‘Just eating and eating, turning into a whale? I meant two years.’

Philip issued a loud pining noise, his tears now filing the huge bags under his eyes like bowls of water.

‘No… Please no…,’ he whinnied, beginning to panic. ‘I’m so… tired! Doctor, please…! You said…!’

‘You look at ME,’ Mr Swan growled, openly fucking Philip’s fat, grabbing it tightly, pulling, pushing.

Dr Nightingale remained absorbed in his clipboard.

‘Three years, you pile of lard,’ Mr Swan exclaimed, his own chest heaving a little. ‘Three more years without sleep. Just eating and eating and eating, stuffing your fat fucking face. We’re going to turn you into a mountain.’

‘Oh God… No, please…!’ Philip wailed between sobs. ‘Please, I’ve been good…! All I do… is eat… all day… all night… I’m so… big! And I’m…so, SO tired… Please! Doctor, you promised…!!’

Mr Swan grabbed the patient’s face in his powerful hand, squeezing his cheeks and forcing his lips into an O shape, wrenching the fat head to face him, and hissed, ‘Five. More. Years.’

And while Philip broke into an inconsolable snot-filled weep, Mr Swan came between the hot, soft folds of his once-fit body, using the excess lard to wipe himself off afterwards. He let the man cry and cry on while he zipped himself back up, steadying his own breath and brushing his designer clothes down.

After exiting the room, Mr Swan already resuming his businesslike gait and Dr Nightingale stooping into a more hangdog walk, the latter sighed and stated,

‘I really did promise him.’

Mr Swan said nothing.

‘They take me at my word, you know. It becomes meaningless when you do things like that,’ the doctor pressed on.

Mr Swan’s eyes peered sideways at the tall man.

‘I want a report from the dorms soon,’ he said, ignoring the doctor’s concerns. ‘The newcomers should be growing nicely by now. Good to get a headstart on who might-‘

‘I’d rather not lose any more good ones,’ Dr Nightingale responded quickly, gripping his clipboard a little tighter.

Mr Swan stopped and let his glare settle on the bigger man.

‘You’d rather?’ he asked, mouth downturned at the edges, as though the words themselves tasted bitter on his tongue.

‘They…,’ the doctor began, then scratched at his bushy beard. ‘Yes.’

‘They’re fulfilling their purpose, Doctor,’ Mr Swan drew closer, tilting his jaw upwards.

‘Their purpose? To end up as playthings for your p-‘

Mr Swan stepped into the doctor’s space so aggressively it caused the rotund physician to back up against the wall.

‘Do you really need reminding, Donal?’ he seethed dangerously. ‘Of your place here?’

Nightingale breathed. Mr Swan’s hand was pressed into his stretched, cardiganned belly. ‘I…’

‘Niall can be brought to The Island at the snap of my fingers,’ Mr Swan told him. ‘Or have you forgotten that?’

The doctor’s face hardened.

Mr Swan went on,

‘Your son would do well in the dorms with the other feedees, don’t you think? Or in The Lab, being experimented on.’

‘You leave my Niall alone,’ Dr Nightingale replied, lacking in venom. ‘I’ve… told you before… You leave him…’

‘Perhaps we can feed him his “favourite food”, eh, Doctor? See how much he can handle?’

‘He’s no part of this. He has his own life…’

‘With his fiancé in Dublin, yes I’m well aware. I have men watching him all hours, you know that.’

‘Don’t you lay a finger on my boy…’

‘Maybe we keep fattening you up so huge he won’t even recognise his own father anymore,’ Mr Swan suggested. ‘The possibilities really are endless.’

Nightingale just breathed, wanting to speak, but not doing so. Mr Swan’s eyes bore into his.

‘You’ll keep yourself in check, Doctor,’ Mr Swan told him, keeping his hand over the swollen doctor’s gut. ‘Know your place.’

He stepped back, and Dr Nightingale released a wave of bated breath, his shoulders slumping.

‘Yes, Mr Swan…,’ he uttered from beneath his chestnut beard. ‘… My Lord.’

****

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

For hours the predominant sounds heard across the overgrown island were those of Sweet and Dey’s shoes trudging through the dirt. Not long after departing the abandoned resort had the terrain become an incline, leading up and up, hills turning to mountains coated in lush trees and greenery. Birds chirped and chirruped all over, while Arthur panted and sweated. Manni brought up the rear, watching his partner’s huge buttocks work their way up the mountain. Neither had spoken much during this overly-warm, muggy journey.

It was obvious to Dey that he’d scored a deep cut by interrupting Arthur’s proclamation of emotion before bolting last night. He’d been cursing himself over it ever since. Especially because presently Sweet barely wanted to talk at all. Manni, who’d never come out to his parents, now saw them in his mind’s eye at random, intermittent bursts, wearing their looks of distain, barring him access to the feelings he knew he had for the man ahead.

He’d been falling in love with Arthur from, unfathomably, the moment they’d met. He knew this with all his heart. But saying it out loud? The vision of his mother and father wouldn’t allow it.

Manni wished he could close that box and seal it shut forever.

(Why didn’t I just let Arthur say it, for crying out loud?)

‘Are you sure this is the way?’ he called out to Sweet, if only just to get communicating again.

‘Yep,’ Arthur called back, not turning.

‘Okay… great,’ Manni replied rather feebly. ‘D’you see anything yet?’

No answer for a while. Dey suspected more cold shouldering. But then Sweet called, ‘Maybe.’

Manni jogged ahead, drawing up alongside the big man.

‘Oh, really?’ he asked.

Arthur jerked his chin up at something to his 10-o-clock. Here the jungle cleared and the ground evened out. Pretty soon the two men found themselves standing on a well-worn, man-made path stretching off around a bend in the side of the mountain.

‘I guess this must be it,’ Dey noted, sighting the smeared shoeprints in the dirt.

‘Mmmh,’ Arthur grunted.

He’d communicated much like this when Manni had first met him, all rough around the edges. The feeling that their relationship was being wound back to the beginning pulled a nasty string inside Dey’s heart.

‘This was where we saw the lights,’ he added pointlessly, just to say something.

Sweet nodded, and immediately began marching off, following the path.

The footprints actually went in both directions, lending credence to the notion that their owners had schlepped across the mountaintop, done something, and then turned around and headed back. But in possession of no answers or theories, Dey decided to return to silence while he followed Sweet’s wide behind. At least here they were no longer trekking up the mountain, but rather walking parallel across it.

‘See here, it looks like it could be three sets of tracks,’ Arthur spoke up after some time, his detective instincts perhaps rousing him from frosty quietude. ‘One central set - I’d say that was the single file torchbearers, but then there’s these larger prints either side.’

Manni saw them, and was grateful for the return of conversation.

‘Maybe they were escorted?’ he suggested.

‘Maybe,’ Arthur said. ‘Or… if this is Rookery we’re talking about, it was prolly summing unpleasant, or forceful.’

‘So, like, they were carrying the torches under duress,’ Manni replied in uncertainty. ‘But to where?’

Sweet lifted a porky digit.

‘There.’

The dirt trail ended at a stone plinth about a meter high, atop it a small object facing away from the mountainside, out to sea.

‘What is that…?’ Dey got closer.

Arthur lumbered up to the monument, or whatever it was, pacing around it.

‘A mask,’ he stated.

‘The fuck?’

Both men studied it, finding no words or engravings on the stone stand.

Manni kept shifting his position to see the mask’s outer visage, then inner.

‘What the hell is a mask doing, just here on its own on the side of a mountain?’

Arthur only scowled at it.

‘I can’t work out what it’s made of,’ Manni went on, scrutinising its surface. ‘Doesn’t look like stone, or wood, or…’

‘I think,’ Sweet replied, grimacing, ‘this may’ve been someone’s face.’

Dey flinched back.

‘Fucking really?’

‘Look here,’ Arthur gestured. ‘It looks like skin that’s been weathered and treated. Possibly preserved.’

Manni saw what he meant; there were holes where the eyes and mouth should have been, but it did clearly resemble a human face. Small imperfections in the surface might have been moles or pockmarks.

‘Jesus…’

He then reached into his pocket to produce his phone, booting it up to take pictures and a short video of this ominous finding.

‘Fuck is going on in this place?’ he muttered.

Arthur adjusted his glasses and smoothed down his moustache. ‘All the hallmarks of some kinda ceremony, I reckon. If you look down here, there’s marks in fronta the base. Could be from kneeling.’

‘So, what, they…,’ Dey started, ‘… they put their faces in it? Ewww!’

‘Macabre,’ Arthur remarked flatly.

The dried-out face on the plinth gave Dey the creeps, and, frankly, he couldn’t wait to be shot of it. He felt its eyeless sockets following him. Any questions of what it was doing here or who it might have belonged to got deprioritised, shuffled behind the need to be far away from it. Theories could wait.

‘We should see where the tracks lead back to,’ he suggested, motivated by this strong urge to put distance between himself and the ceremonial site, if that’s what it was.

‘Agreed, lad,’ Sweet grunted.

Again Manni fell into step behind him, but took heart in being once more referred to as ‘lad’, perhaps inferring a tiny note of warmth buried deep in the gruff of Sweet’s voice.

They retraced the path and kept going in the other direction. It led deeper into the dense overgrowth that bound so much of this island. The footprints in the dirt grew erratic, suggesting that here the single file line had dispersed and become more casual. Manni was about to vocalise this finding when Arthur murmured,

‘Huh. Well I never.’

Ahead, a large concrete opening was set into the mountainside, appearing bunker-like. It was painted with a variety of utilitarian symbols and demarcations. Evidence of electrical power prevailed inside; insulated wires and cables criss-crossing the smooth ceiling.

Manni knotted his brows. ‘They came here…?’

Sweet was peering at the nearest concrete wall. At something written there in large block lettering.

‘’Monument’,’ he read aloud.

Manni joined him. ‘What does that mean? This is a monument, or is it referring to that thing back there? The mask on a stick?’

Arthur simply shook his head, causing his double chin to wobble.

They continued on, into the concrete mouth, their shoes now echoing faintly up and down the walls. Next came a kind of line diagram stencilled onto the concrete, various monikers appearing beside it, attached like the limbs of a tree.

‘’Monument’, ’Dorms’, ‘Maintenance’, ‘Lab’, ‘Engineering’…’ Arthur went down the list of names.

‘So what is this? Do you think this leads into a facility of some kind…?’ Dey asked.

Arthur kept reading, one particular point catching his attention along the base of the diagram. ‘’SP’… What’s ‘SP’?’

‘Smashing Pumpkins?’ Manni guessed, and was happy to get even a curtailed laugh out of the big man. ‘I think it’s fair to say we’ve stumbled upon something pretty significant here, Arthur, don’t you reckon? There are loads of sectors on this thing - ‘Lab’, ‘Engineering’ and whatnot. Do you think it’s Rookery, though? I mean, a Lab? In a mountain? And dorms?’

‘This one says ‘Kitchens’,’ Arthur pointed out, then added darkly, ‘Smells like them, alright.’

Then a notion hit Manni.

‘They’re stops,’ he said.

‘Eh?’

‘For a train or transit system of some kind. ‘Lab’ ‘SP’ and all that, they’re stops. Look, the line here is connecting all of them. It’s kinda like a subway map.’

And then Sweet saw what Manni was talking about: Further down the smooth, wide corridor was a kind of station. One singular rail in a deep trench, gated off with metal sidings, and even a little booth nearby, unoccupied. More diagrams had been stencilled against the surrounding walls, more location names now conjoined via a much bigger network of chunky lines, a veritable plethora of them.

‘This place must be enormous…,’ Manni breathed, tracing his finger across this much fuller map.

‘So this is a tram station,’ Arthur stated, pacing about to take in this unexpected space. There were light fittings above, currently dormant, perhaps due to the morning hour. No visible sign of cameras. ‘Technically a monorail,’ he added. ‘Could be up and runnin’ still, if our mystery torchbearers came this way.’

Dey glanced to his partner, frowning, all previous fallout temporarily forgotten. ‘This is a huge operation for just playing S&M with a bunch of fat blokes… This makes The Farm look like small fries.’

‘Mmmh,’ Sweet huffed. ‘We need to be careful, lad. I can’t see any but look out for cameras. Keep yer wits about you.’

The return of Arthur’s protective side brought some joy to Dey, even if there was an element of wishful thinking involved there. It was a moment before he remembered to capture this place on video. He had to be better about that. Just because they were stranded here, it was no excuse to forget their main objective: Log and record everything of significance. As he fumbled for the handset in his pocket, he said,

‘Shame we can’t hitch a ride on this thing,’ referring to the currently empty tram slot, ‘but that’d go against the whole ‘Don’t be seen’ part, I suppose…’

He trailed off, spotting something. A panel set into a nearby wall. It was big enough for two overgrown adults, and it looked pryable.

‘Arthur, I think I might’ve found something.’

When Sweet didn’t respond, Manni took it upon himself to get his fingers worked around the edges of the panel. ‘Might lead to access tunnels or some-‘

‘Wait!’ Arthur hissed.

‘What?’

‘Shhh!’

Manni fell silent, squinting.

It was so faint as to be mistaken for atmospheric background noise, but after a matter of seconds, the thin, rising whoosh made itself heard. Manni realised instantly its source.

‘Fuck…,’ he breathed.

‘Train’s coming in!’ Sweet half-whispered, half-growled. ‘Move!’ He began to lug his huge body back in the direction they’d entered from, until Manni gripped his arm.

‘I can get this open! I’ve nearly got it!’

He dug his fingers back into the panel’s egdes.

‘There’s no time for that,’ Sweet rasped. ‘Come on, we need to get out!’

‘This might be our best way in.’ Manni was already beginning to feel the panel loosen. There were times when his excessive strength came in handy, and this was most certainly one of them. ‘If we go that way then we’re just back where we started. But there might be tunnels through here. We can sneak inside quietly. We need to keep pressing forward!’

He took his partner’s lack of an immediate response as a sign to double down. With effort he’d gotten one corner away from the wall. Sweet watched, hesitating. The sound of the approaching tram was escalating, filling the station.

‘What if there ain’t a tunnel behind that? If we get caught-‘ the big man began.

‘We won’t! I just gotta…’

Suddenly the panel came away in one piece.

‘Aha!’

And Manni peered into the revealed opening, he looked back to his partner and nodded, before ducking inside.

‘Come on!’

A quick glance back at the sidings told Sweet all he needed to know - time was up; headlights were flooding the station. He swore and shunted his overfed bulk into the opening, which did indeed lead to an access tunnel. Once the older man was in, Manni hastily replaced the panel as best he could from the inside, praying he’d done a good enough job for it to go unnoticed, right as the tram pulled into the station with plentiful hissing and grinding of metal-on-metal.

There was no way to see who was disembarking the vehicle; only heavy footfall of two, maybe three bodies to be heard after the automatic doors had let them out.

Manni and Arthur waited with breath held, there in the darkness of the access tunnel, until the footsteps began to fade, quiet voices muttering indecipherable exchanges.

Dey let the air release from his chest, and automatically, unthinkingly laid a relieved hand on Sweet’s belly, before remembering their current state of disharmony. He took his hand back, composed himself, and peered into the gloom ahead. There was very little light here, but clearly only one way to go.

‘Come on,’ he said quietly, leading the way.

And the two of them headed along the pitch, cramped, wire-and-pipe-lined corridor, into further unknown territory, deeper into the mountain.