SPOILED 2 - part three

‘Eat.’

A serving of lasagne roughly the size of a builder’s toolbox was plonked down in front of Lucas without ceremony. He looked up at the wide guard who’d brought it.

‘Eat,’ the man repeated.

Then the same was placed before Reece.

His taxing task over, the guard left the two growing lads to begin attacking their insurmountable pasta mountains. The pair were seated at a cramped little circular dining table in the mess hall.

Sounds of scraping cutlery and gossiping fatboys resounded here between the brown nondescript walls and the low uneven ceiling, hefty guards coming and going, always bringing more food. More and more and more. It was part of the unending daily routine.

Most of the young gainers grouped themselves together at long wooden tables, or seated themselves around larger circles while they exchanged stupid stories or, even worse, simply accepted their fates like dumb animals, just eating and fattening, never bothering to think much beyond that, not questioning why their imprisonment in this place revolved almost entirely around Wake, Eat, Eat, Eat, Sleep, Repeat.

Lucas had come into Reece’s orbit at just the right time, because now Reece didn’t have to sit here in the corner alone, the subject of doubtless inane chit chat. The other lads didn’t like him much, and made no bones about vocalising it.

‘You’d better make a start, mate,’ he reminded Lucas. ‘You know how the guards get when you take too long.’

Lucas nodded and began picking at his meal.

The little blonde American might prove useful for future plans, but he wasn’t the quickest at catching on. It was choresome, Reece having to explain every little thing to the nipper, over and over (‘No, you can’t go home, we’re all stuck in this place.’ ‘Yes, you, me and all these fat lads are in the same boat; we all got abducted from different places and brought here.’ ‘No, none of us knows why.’ ‘We don’t know where this is - they only let us outside once a month; you’ll see soon enough.’ ‘We don’t know why they want us to get fatter and fatter.’)

That last matter was especially pointed. Reece had long given up questioning why the fuck any of this was happening. And none of the other gainers here knew, either. You just did what you were told: slept in your dorm room, ate in the mess hall, took the tram system to The Lab for the Doc’s ‘“tests”, ate whatever they gave you, and felt your body slowly start to gather more and more lard, getting heavier with each passing week.

Even in his short tenure thus far, Lucas had turned from average college bod to podge, a little bulb of flab working its way from under his tee, over his waistband. Reece knew he himself had seriously porked up in all this time. Mirrors being hard to come by here, it was still obvious when he looked down at his expanding belly, his tightening clothes (the guards occasionally - reluctantly - gave out new ones); even his fingers were starting to look like little sausages. He reckoned he’d probably gained around 100 pounds so far, give or take. He’d been of a moderate build before the good doctor and the guards had gotten their grubby mitts on him.

‘It’s not bad,’ Lucas muttered, eating the sheets of pasta.

Reece had to nod and concede. If there was a silver lining to being stuck here, it was that the food they gave you was actually pretty tasty.

Small mercies.

‘Well, you know the drill,’ Reece said with his mouthful. ‘Make space for seconds, and thirds, and then dessert, and then more dessert.’

‘I know,’ Lucas replied quietly. ‘It’s just so much. I don’t know how they expect us to keep up. Feels like breakfast ends and then lunch begins, then before you know it they got us eating dinner. I get so full I can’t think.’

The kid looked like he was approaching his limit already. It was always a struggle for newbies. Passing out at the dinner table was not unheard of. Sometimes worse occurred.

‘I know it’s like they say - Mr Swan always gets what he… or…’ Lucas floundered.

‘“What Mr Swan wants, Mr Swan gets”,’ Reece did his best impersonation of Dr Nightingale, soft Irish lilt and everything.

This made Lucas laugh. ‘Okay, but who is this Mr Swan guy, anyway? Have you met him?’

‘Saw him in passing once,’ Reece said smoothly. ‘Him and the Doc run this whole place. The word around the dorms is that they just like to keep us here and fatten us up for their amusement, or it’s like a kinky sexual thing for ‘em or something. Nightingale likes to have his fun in The Lab. If you’re lucky, your little ‘favourite food’ episode’ll be the worst you get from him. You hear of much darker goings on there.’

Reece let that morsel settle for a moment, enjoying the disconcert in his captive audience.

‘And as for Swan,’ he went on, ‘he resides in The Palace.’

‘The Palace…?’ Lucas’s face turned rapt with wonder, as Reece had seen it do many times now. So fucking dopey. Easiest fish he’d ever reeled in.

But before Reece could respond, another mighty guard returned with more lasagne that he slid onto the boys’ plates.

‘Less talking, more eating,’ he grunted, and skulked off in a powerlifter’s waddle.

‘What’s The Palace, Reece?’ Lucas asked, all stupid-eyed.

Reece checked around for unwanted ears, then responded in a hush.

‘The Palace is where you and I are going.’

Lucas gasped a little.

‘We are?’

‘Yep. That’s our ticket out of here. We get picked for The Palace, then make our escape. It’ll be easier to get away there, without so many eyes on us.’

That last part was a little embellished, but whatever.

‘What do you mean ‘picked’?’ Lucas continued to ply pasta into his mouth, but the going was slow. He looked far more interested in Reece’s words.

‘Now and then lads here get picked to go to Swan’s Palace. It’s like an… upgrade, I guess you could call it. You graduate from the dorms to The Palace. It’s a way better life there, everyone knows that. Cushier digs, finest food, no guards watching you like a hawk day and fuckin’ night. It’s massive, like you’d expect a palace to be, that’s what everyone says. They’re pretty select about the lads they take on, though.’

This was all common, if unofficial, knowledge around these parts. Every now and then a guard would stomp into the mess hall, or the dorm rooms, or even the showers, and just click his fingers at a few fatboys, tell them they’d been picked for The Palace, and that would be that. Off they’d go to their new life. The gossipy dorm boys had pieced much of this together from scraps of overheard conversations around the facility. Being chosen for The Palace was the best anyone around here could hope for.

‘That sounds great…’ Lucas was mesmorised.

‘It is,’ Reece guessed with confidence. ‘And for most fatties round here, that’d be bliss. But you and I aren’t stopping there. Once we get into The Palace, that’s when we make a break for it.’ He tossed a hunk of beef and sauce into his mouth.

Lucas also kept up the stuffing, but slowly, his eyes so wide, eager to absorb more wisdom.

‘How do we get in there? We gotta get picked!’ he stated with genuine concern.

A guard was coming back with yet more lasagne.

‘I’m working on that,’ Reece whispered extremely quietly.

The guard reached their table and tipped the new lasagne on top of the existing, creating some kind of multi-layered pasta megastructure on both lads’ plates.

‘Eat,’ this guard repeated that same line.

Lucas’s eyes engorged yet further, and he swallowed. ‘Y-Yes Sir…’

He was so willing to please, so eager, he really was going to be perfect for Reece’s machinations. Too early to call them plans, per se. Reece had never much been in the business of making ‘plans’. It was always more of a go-with-your-gut (and he certainly had plenty of that nowadays), play-it-by-ear, talk-now-think-later kinda deal with him. But certain things were coming together…

Lucas would almost certainly get chosen for graduation to The Palace; the kid was just the type they went for: Pliable, Obedient, exactly the right amount of Stupid. And then he would be Reece’s ticket in, too. He’d make sure of that somehow. He’d think of a way. Hell, all they needed was the invite. And once Reece was on his way to The Palace, to Mr Swan, there’d be no further need of little Lucas.

In fact, it made far more sense, once invited, for Reece to show up there alone. All the better for getting to Swan (plus everything after). Lucas was just a way in, nothing more. A chubby foot in the door.

After the invite, Reece would do away with the little twerp himself.

****

Constant downpour. Murmurings of thunder from the darkness above. Groaning wooden gangways in disrepair. Lampposts long inoperative. No signs of life.

‘Fuck, Arthur, the boat…,’ a drenched Manni cried, gripping tightly to what precious little he’d salvaged from ‘Juicy Julie’ before she sank: A waterproof backpack of sundries and a life jacket each.

‘Worry about that later,’ Sweet grunted, wiping rain and seawater from his brow. ‘Let’s get you inside somewhere, find shelter. You’ll catch your death out here.’

‘And you,’ Dey countered.

‘I’m alright, lad, I got more insulation,’ Arthur sniffed, slapping a wet paw against his almighty belly. Then he squinted, wiping his glasses with fat fingers. ‘Summin’ up ahead. Come on.’

It looked like a dark blob against a background of dark blobs, but it might’ve been a building. And there were certainly zero reasons to remain put.

Manni followed Sweet’s lumbering gait, away from the ocean and deeper into these portside surroundings. Overhead, thunder grew louder, more insistent.

It turned out the blob was a building, low and curving, glass-fronted, perhaps sleek in its heyday but that had surely passed. It looked empty now; panels cracked, deep gouges in the glass, no lights, no movement, no nothing.

‘Over ‘ere!’ Sweet called out through the rain. He’d already found an entryway. ‘Reckon I can get the doors open!’

Dey jogged over to join him. Though impossible to see inside, such was the murk, the large glass doors did indeed look ripe for forcing, as Arthur was attempting with some strain.

‘You don’t think this’ll trip any alarms or anything?’ Manni asked his partner, pulling at the handle.

Sweet shook his head then glanced about this place. ‘Looks like the power’s long gone. There’s no-one around. Don’t think anyone’s been here for a long old time.’

And he wasn’t wrong. No light sources of any kind were evident here in this building or in the black distance surrounding. As a matter of fact it appeared that nature had begun to fill the vacuum left by the absence of human presence; vines had discovered the structure’s glass frontage, foliage was creeping up around the edges.

‘Got it!’ Manni exclaimed with a push. The door slid aside wide enough for the large men to pass inside, which they did.

‘You’re probably right,’ Dey said, stepping slowly into the gloomy interior, his sodden footsteps issuing soft, echoing squelches, ‘about there being no alarms, but let’s tread careful anyway. You never know.’

‘Aye, lad,’ Sweet agreed. ‘You never know-‘ The prow of Arthur’s belly suddenly bumped against an upright rubbish bin, the sleek cylindrical kind with built-in ashtray. It clanged noisily as it tipped over onto the wet floor tiles. ‘Can’t see a bloody thing in ‘ere!’ he growled.

Sounds of the rain pouring in through untold holes in the roof bounced all around this space.

‘Hang on,’ Manni responded, unslinging the waterproof backpack and fishing into its contents. He sought through the packs of biscuits and scotch eggs. ‘Aha!’ And his hand emerged with a recently-procured phone.

‘Oh, thank fuck for that,’ Arthur sighed at the sight of it. ‘I left mine on the bed back in the boat. It’ll be well on it’s way to the bottom of the ocean by now.’

‘I’ll be amazed if I get any signal here… Yeah, no, that’s not happening, buuuut…’ Dey fiddled with the touchscreen a moment.

Suddenly the phone’s torch flicked into life, illuminating he and Sweet, who looked saturated. Manni proceeded to swing the torch around the interior of this place.

‘Careful of the battery, lad,’ Arthur warned. ‘Don’t wanna go drain - OH JESUS!’

In the torchlight rose a giant figure. A huge man, standing in the centre of what could now be identified as a weed-strewn, waterlogged atrium. His head was missing.

Manni practically jumped out of his skin, causing the light to flicker and dance all over the place. He rested a hand over the heart now thrumming beneath his warped pectorals when he took a closer look.

‘It’s just a statue,’ he breathed. ‘Fuck my life…’

‘Scared the ever-loving shit outta me,’ Arthur grumbled, waddling over to inspect it. Small rogue animals skittered away upon his approach, off into the shadows.

Dey followed, training the torch at the plaque upon the statue’s base.

‘The name’s been scratched off…,’ he noted, not exactly in ease. ‘Who d’you reckon it is - or was?’

The thing was likely brass, but had fully oxidised under the weight of time and the exposed elements. There was no sign of the head anywhere.

‘Not sure.’ Sweet pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. ‘Could maybe be… There was a bloke Ben told me about, founded The Rookery way back when, like Victorian era, type-thing.’ He muttered to himself quietly, ‘What was his name…? Uh… Elias Crowe. S’pose this statue could be him… That’s if we’ve landed in the right place.’

The figure looked sort of lordly, Manni supposed, positioned in something of an arrogant stance. But minus its head it really could have been anyone, and it was perhaps a leap to presume Rookery involvement just yet.

He worked the light around the rest of this room.

‘What was this place?’ he asked, noting its details.

There was a kind of check-in counter, rows of broken, sodden seats. Parts of the ceiling had collapsed inwards. Then the torch found the letters E-L-C—M-E hanging from the far wall.

Sweet studied for a moment. ‘… Welcome?’ he guessed. ‘Maybe… it was, I dunno, a visitor’s centre or something?’

Dey half-listened, but had moved in on the check-in counter. ‘Arthur… come take a look at this.’

‘Yeah?’ Sweet’s warm, homely breath was soon upon Dey.

‘Look.’ Manni shone the torch along a ruined countertop. ‘What does that look like to you?’

Arthur frowned, leaning in, fat arm and lovehandle brushing into his partner.

‘Hmmm. Scratches… Could be an animal.’

‘Fucking serious claws,’ Dey nodded.

Deep indentations ravaged each surface, and one counter looked to have been torn in half.

‘We need to be very, very careful here,’ Manni told Arthur, ‘if this is what the local wildlife’s capable of.’

Sweet drew himself up. ‘Of course, lad. ‘Careful’’s my middle name.’

‘Hmmm.’

The pair continued on in this fashion for a time, picking their way about this wrecked centre, finding only critters and plant life now living among it. Nothing here threw up much in the way of clues as to what this place had actually been, or even where they were. The ex-policemen had to concede they had no way of knowing if this was, in fact, The Island they’d been aiming for, or somewhere else entirely. There were plentiful islands in the Atlantic, after all. The pair could be stranded on any one of them. But whatever the case, clearly people had been here once, at the very least. That was something. As the first slithers of dawn began to bloom in the skies outside, Arthur suggested they pause to take stock of what they had.

‘It’s not much,’ Dey lamented, reopening the waterproof backpack. ‘I just grabbed what I could.’

‘I know,’ Arthur replied, wrapping his porky hand around Manni’s planetoid shoulder. ‘You did well. I shoulda done the same.’

‘We were sinking,’ was Manni’s answer; all he felt needed saying on the topic. And he moved on quickly, ‘We’ve got biscuits, scotch eggs - you’ll be pleased to know - the half loaf of bread we didn’t finish off yet, there’s a carton of orange juice, drinking water, two bunches of bananas, some chocolate bars… It’s not much but at least it didn’t get too wet. I did manage to save the binoculars, though. Oh, and the phone.’

‘And those,’ Sweet nodded to the life jackets they’d left on the broken seating.

‘And those,’ Dey echoed, then sighed, stretching his great torso outwards. He ran a weary hand through his hair. ‘It’s not gonna last long, even if we eke it out.’

‘Perish the thought.’ Arthur shuddered. ‘I got plenty of reserves, though.’ He wobbled his magnificently large gut.

‘Yeah and sexy as that is,’ Manni half-smiled, ‘we need to survive. And I don’t think we’re gonna do that by staying here.’

Sweet took in the centre, now dimly lit by an emerging sun. They’d seen about as much as there was to see of it.

Outside, the rain was slowing to a patter.

‘Agreed.’ He nodded. ‘What’s say we move on, keep exploring? If people were living here once upon a time, there’s bound to be something we can scrounge up somewhere for supplies.’

Manni agreed, and switched off the phone torch, placing the handset back into the bag. ‘I’ll film if or when there’s something to film,’ he explained. ‘Do you think The Rookery are even here?’

‘I honestly don’t know, lad,’ Sweet told him, and then drew in closer, taking Dey’s hand. ‘But we got no way of leavin’ this place. Not yet, anyway. We need to keep our wits about us. You stay close to me, alright? You got that?’

Manni snorted a little, but kissed him. ‘Yes, Dad,’ he joked.

Arthur kissed back, and lay both plump hands on the younger man’s cheeks. He left his lips in place for a while. ‘Just… stay close,’ he repeated in a whisper. Then he led the way back to the glass doors they’d forced open. ‘At least the bloody rain’s pissing off now,’ he added, back to his usual gruff tone. ‘Brightening up nicely.’

Back outside, the skies had cleared some, and the sun now lit this port-zone with thin, warm rays. The two former detectives could finally see the wider surrounding lands.

And they were tropical.

Dense foliage made up of tall trees ran rampant. Verdancy billowed before them, continuing inland and sloping up into lush mountain ranges way off in the distance. Sounds of birdsong were erupting with the coming dawn.

‘Bloody ‘ell…,’ gaped Arthur.

It seemed the port didn’t amount to much at all. Just a few crooked gangways and the welcome centre. But there was a brick tiled path half hidden in dirt and greenery underfoot.

‘Looks like our best bet,’ Manni noted. ‘Wherever this goes.’

‘I reckon so,’ Arthur concurred. ‘And look ‘ere.’ His thick index finger stretched down at the pathway. There were wide marks deeply ingrained into it, doubled.

‘Tire tracks?’ Dey guessed. ‘You think there was transport here maybe?’

‘Maybe,’ replied Sweet, studying. The tracks were worn deep, likely old, but they were there. ‘Might’ve been a van or minibus. Summing little and local, perhaps. Looks like it did plenty of journeys.’

Manni hoisted the backpack more securely onto his giant trapezoid, and felt the sun beginning to warm him. It would likely dry their clothes in time, too, and he was thankful for that.

‘I guess there’s only one thing for it, then,’ he said. ‘We follow the tracks.’

Arthur grimaced back from under his moustache. ‘That we do,’ he responded. And he let out a hearty sigh. ‘That we do.’

The tracks led into unseeable overgrowth ahead. Manni was the first to begin the trek.

‘Say, you wouldn’t be a sweetheart, would ya,’ Arthur asked of him, following, ‘and pass me one of them scotch eggs?’

****

Thwap!

A sideswiping kick.

‘Ungh!’

Thup thup thup!

A triple barrage of punches.

‘Agh!’

Whack!

A precision uppercut.

‘Nnnngh!’

Thap!

A flawless roundhouse.

‘Urkh!’

The man, extremely well-preserved, dark hair swept back and falling to his nape, beard of a designer trim, build of natural heft and stature, and carrying a posture that radiated effortless elitism stood back from the punching bag a moment to gather his breath, to centre himself. He dabbed his forehead with an Egyptian cotton towel draped over one shoulder.

‘Ahem. Excuse me, my Lord,’ came a voice from behind him. It belonged to one of the fatter servants, head bowed as far as his double chin would allow. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you.’

The martial art of kickboxing required constant discipline, unwavering focus. Staff here knew never to interrupt training sessions, barring the severest of emergencies.

Mr Swan turned away from the punching bag, bore his gaze into this manservant.

‘Speak.’

‘News from British branch, my Lord.’ Eyes always at his feet.

‘Out with it, then.’ Mr Swan was already returning to his combat. His padded gloves resumed quick flurries of blows against the punching bag.

‘Uggh!’

‘It’s about Kingfisher’s Farm, my Lord,’ the servant went on, poorly masking nerves with a feigned collectedness.

‘Don’t tell me,’ Mr Swan responded, ‘Kingfisher wants more fucking tar. That bumbling yokel’s obsessed with the stuff.’ He spoke in cut-glass transatlantic tones reserved only for Oxford-Harvard alumni, paving over all vocal trace of his Indonesian origins.

He let out a succession of kicks, each higher than the last, culminating in a hard blast to the punching bag’s chest.

‘Aakkh!’

‘There, uh, appears to have been an… incident at The Farm, my Lord…’ The servant’s pitch was unravelling with each sentence.

When Mr Swan did not reply, only continuing to pummel at the object before him, the fat staffer went on,

‘There… There was a… breakout of some kind, my Lord…’

A pause in the pummelling, for no more than a beat. Mr Swan’s padded fists resumed unabated.

‘I’m failing to see how any of this is my concern,’ he said with trace aggravation.

‘Uunffh!’

The punching bag was becoming louder in its pained exhalations. Between that, the myriad lumps and the fact that little to no unbruised skin was left across its swollen flank, Mr Swan calculated that time may be nigh to have it sent off for re-stuffing, or simply disposed with and a new one grown. Its declining state was becoming a distraction.

The fat staffer swallowed. ‘Mr Kingfisher is, uh…’ He fiddled with his own pudgy fingers, now clammy and hot. ‘He is missing, my Lord.’

The punching stopped dead.

Filling the silence came the endless shush of the palatial waterways; aesthetic canals that rushed through this sleek dojo as they did most of Swan Palace.

Once more Mr Swan turned, slower this time.

‘Missing,’ he repelled the word back coldly.

More finger fiddling. ‘R-Reports are coming back from the mainland th-that The Farm was, uh, intercepted, in some way, my Lord. Almost all of the subjects there were… set free - uh, I mean - let out… M-Mr Kingfisher is nowhere to b-b-be found-‘

His nose produced uneven, quickened breaths as Mr Swan approached, stepping barefoot across the handwoven tatami mats with the graceful poise of an apex predator.

‘Intercepted by whom?’ Mr Swan asked slowly, removing the padded gloves and letting them fall to his sides.

The fat servant’s eyes flickered for less than a second to the tall man left dangling behind Mr Swan, who had been forcibly fattened into a mammoth ball purely for use as the Master’s punching bag, now strung up by the arms, balls of his feet shifting against the ground, all of him bruised and sore.

‘Uh-uh-uh,’ the servant stuttered, his Master now upon him. ‘Unknown, my Lord…’

Mr Swan’s gaze was like the tip of the sharpest blade.

‘You don’t… know,’ he stated.

The servant bent his body in order to manage a deeper bow.

‘It w-wasn’t in th-the message, my Lord,’ he practically blubbed. ‘I-I’m just the messenger…’

He had quite literally drawn the short straw. None of The Palace staff had wanted this task. All had known of its possible - nay, probable - consequences.

Mr Swan sighed and reached out to brush the fat servant’s bloated cheek. ‘You’re just the messenger,’ he mirrored softly.

The fat man nodded, practically bent double, belly hanging low.

‘The bearer of bad news,’ Mr Swan continued.

There came a sniff from the staffer.

‘One of our instillations has been compromised and you’ve got nothing of value to relay on the subject. So you’ve decided to interrupt my training for… what exactly?’

‘P-Please, my Lord Mr Swan S-Sir…’

‘Something happened at The Farm, and you don’t know how or why or by whom.’

‘I… j-just…’

‘Doesn’t that make you rather fucking useless?’

‘I-I…’ The fat servant could scarcely breathe.

‘More pertinently, it begs the question of what should be done with you.’

A tear dropped onto the servant’s perfectly polished shoe.

‘Sending you straight to Hell seems a waste…,’ Mr Swan mused. ‘However, I’m in need of a new punching bag. That one’s starting to sag.’ His head inclined to the strung-up, bruise-addled fat man behind him.

‘P-please, m-my Lord… Please no…’

‘Then again, Vashti might have use of you.’

Upon hearing her name, a beautiful white tiger resting lazily in the far corner of the dojo raised her head slightly, making a small swoop of her tail. Mr Swan often liked to keep her close by.

‘N-no, p-please don’t…’

‘Or perhaps we send you to The Lab. Maybe our good doctor can run a few experiments on you, hmm? I’m sure he’ll appreciate a fresh patient.’

‘Oh G-God…’ The man was openly sobbing now. ‘Please n-no, my Lord… I-I’m so sorry…’

‘Maybe a tube down your throat, and we pump you full of food, or something else.’

The servant whimpered loudly. He shook his head awkwardly ‘My Lord, I beg you, please not that!’

Mr Swan had grown quite the bountiful erection during the course of this exchange, and openly let it press through his track pants against the fat man’s bulging stomach. There he held it, studying this pathetic underling for some time.

Eventually he clicked a finger, his mind made.

In moments a guard was present.

‘Take this one away,’ Mr Swan ordered. ‘Tell Nightingale to get him plugged.’

‘Oh God!’ the fat servant wailed. ‘Please, please no! Please!’

The guard simply nodded in silence.

‘And send word to the mainland. I want one of Kingfisher’s farmers brought here for questioning.’

Another deep nod.

‘I want to know exactly what the fuck happened at The Farm.’