Everett Lodge

1 - Luck

(I)

Kendall walks. He hasn’t much of a choice in the matter. The sweet-smelling summer rains lash around him; hot, slick, unremitting. The water becomes mist about him in the shimmer of the summer-heat rising off the asphalt to meet it. The cascading rain makes the wooded road ahead bleary, indistinct – as if seen through the plastic matte of a shower curtain. Heh. Rain. Shower curtain. What a laugh riot. Take my wife, please. The ringtail feels an immediate rejection of the joke, jaded for the letting that one pass inspection. Normally Kendall had himself a well sharpened rapier-wit, finely honed, scathing. All the rain and heat must have drawn his sense of humour dull as well as drowning out everything else. It’s hard to think too clearly with your head in the clouds and on this fine July day, the clouds were low to earth, making a hot day into something jungle-humid. What a day to day to get into an adventure like this. Soaked to the bone, tail low and dripping with water, coat beaten thin by the weather. Just about the only thing untouched was his travel bag and only because he was hunched over to keep it safe. Sure, he could put it over his head and keep maybe a square foot of rain off of his head and still suffer the effects of essentially walking through a waterfall that filled the world up but there’s no sense in wetting his change of clothes.

He almost wishes he’d stayed in the car and tried to wait things out but sitting in a broken down car, under the summer sun and the windshield? Bad idea. Nothing to drink but a few bottles of rapidly warming gin? Tempting fate. No sign of traffic in any direction? Sounds like a death sentence. He couldn’t have had a worse situation to breakdown in unless he’d turned the key in the ignition and been catapulted into the 15th century or some whacky shit. Something nice and plaguey. He may as well have been cast out into the renaissance for all the difference it made. Fixing cars was no problem, sure. Kendall knew his way well around a machine shop. The problem lay in the fact there wasn’t going to be a machine shop on barely used road to nowhere. Mark it well, shortcuts lead to dead ends. That was better. None of that shower curtain bullshit – some actual snark. He could feel the smirk creeping back to his lips. Still, nothing he could do for his car then and there but make it safe – grab his bag and lock it up. If no one was likely to be coming to his rescue on a day like this, then chances were good nobody would be breaking into his car, either.

The bag would have all he’d need until he could get someone to see to his car. At the top was some spare clothes – baggy t-shirt, some loose-fitting jogging bottoms, some light trainers. At the time, it’d been hot and dry, with looming clouds at least promising a little shelter from the sun at least; he’d gone into it thinking he’d maybe just want to get into some freshened, comfortable lazy clothes after he got back to his place but now he needed them for when he got out of the rain. The rest of the pack was less essential for a short trip but nothing he could see himself without. Immediately below the change of clothes, his hip flask nestled against a sealed cold-pack. If his luck was good by the time he fancied a drink, he wouldn’t find the bag bleeding droplets of water-soaked gel over everything but on a day like this he wouldn’t be able to bear finding his booze as warm as the country air. Zipped up in an old leather pencil-case to keep it dry in case the pack did leak, he’d stashed a wad of bills – all hundred dollars, won at the card table, fair and square, by a good deal of luck. For days when his luck wasn’t so hot, a couple of pouches in the sides held some equalizers – marked cards and loaded dice. Lady Luck was a pretty fickle bitch and sometimes you needed to try a little sleight of hand on her. Wrapped in a rag around the bottom of the bag, you’d find a pair of handcuffs and a key. If he did get lucky at the table, well, he might get a little lucky in a rented room a little later, too. Last but not least of all, tucked into the side so he could grab it in a pinch, was his old iron. His days of running guns were a ways behind him, but Kendall still kept the piece close at hand. In a way, it was like the loaded dice – a little risky to get caught with but careful use could make your life a whole lot safer.

A little risk made life fun though. Enough unpredictability gave it that spark; making the perfect plan wasn’t so much fun as a roll of the dice. You couldn’t expect much out of life and you’d be disappointed if you expected all good or all bad but, if you looked close, you could see a rhythm in the random. Luck seemed to come in waves. Not so much like the tide but like a sine-wave, bouncing up and down; positive, negative. Good to bad to good again. Today, for instance, had been just like that. Big win at the tables. Car breaks down with nothing he can do. Pray for rain. Get all the water in the world. Up and down, zip, zap. With luck like that, you could afford a little optimism and he’d had much worse days. Days that he wasn’t about to see dredged up and, if any one tried to, well, that’s another good reason he has the peacemaker tucked into his sack. With a little grace, he knows he’ll see a gas station or a truck stop or good old fashioned roadhouse creep up between the woods eventually. It wouldn’t even need to be a place with so much as a pickup truck – so long as he can find his way to a payphone, he can make a few calls and get someone on his car. It occurs to him that for all his little fortune adjustments in his bag that he didn’t think to bring a little modern convenience like a cell phone or something. He shrugs some of the rain off of his shoulders; he’s just an old fashioned gambling man in his heart, nothing holding him back or holding him down, least of all a damn cell phone plan or network subscription or whatever they take.

(II)

There! Through the rolling haze of heat, he can spy a great wooden signpost looming over a turn in the road, snaking off to the right. The words may as well be written in Dutch from where he’s at right now though – the angle on it and the relentless attack of the elements have made it unreadable. EV____T L__GE he can squint out from the distance – the rest of the fading letters choked out in ivy. Everest Lodge? Why would anyone proclaim a connection to the Himalayas out here in the sticks? The hill here, if you can call it that, is barely a bump in lawn. He muses that there really is nothing special out there, unless you counted himself. As he closes with it, he can work it out; bracing under a tree to get himself out of the rain for a second, he can spell out the rest of it. Everett Lodge. Nothing spectacular after all then – maybe nothing more than the guy who set it up? He notices a second sign, half hidden by bushes by the base, red on off-white wood.

‘VACANCIES’.

He mulls it over as he keeps walking – if they have hourly rates, he could make a call, change out of the rain, shower and be back on the road by dinnertime. That suits him down to the ground – he is starting to feel at least a little hungry. It isn’t quite the knife in the guts just yet but hours of walking up the road have gotten his stomach sawing at his torso. In the end then, he could get shelter and maybe a snack. The hike uphill isn’t long but he understands just how true the lodge is to the second sign – it is vacant. Parked out front of the striking looking central lodge – a tall and homely looking cabin with a peaked roof, sloped ceilings flanking a central chimney – is a grand total of zero cars. The only sign of any activity out here is a dusty-orange van, sitting silently by a lean-to. Cordwood, growing fat with water and split here and there by a bloom of fungus, sits untouched. A thought strikes him – the place seems to expect to have vacancies. Normally signs for motels at least have the option to slap down a ‘NO’ leading the ‘VACANCIES’ when tourists hit the place in the holidays. It’s almost like the resort doesn’t plan on operating at full capacity.

“Guess this place is the last resort that people would want to check into” he mumbles to himself.

Not perfect but grading on a curve with that shower curtain remark, it’s got to at least be a B. Quiet as things might be, he has to get out of the rain. If there really isn’t anyone here, he can at least steal some shelter for a while… and maybe the van, if there isn’t working phone lines. He pushes open the door to the lobby and that possibility is dashed in an instant. Cool air rushes out – the sound of a fan roars in competition with a yammering television, people nobody likes un-ironically selling products nobody needs at all. The rustic charm of the hall blends with crassly mundane things. Framed photos of the perhaps not entirely breath-taking locale dot the walls, alongside fake-looking trophy heads – ocelots in sunglasses and elks with baseball caps. A row of pamphlets billows like a ship of many sails under the harsh artificial wind by the check in desk whilst a stand of cheap lights clicks like claws on wood whenever the fan turns their way. A bare fireplace practically rattles with the coursing of the rain down the chimney. Standing bright, thick and utterly out of place beside the hearth are two vending machines, offering cheap fizzy shit and cheap junk food. All the windows are open, to let what little real breeze there is run through the cabin.

It isn’t literally soulless, however – two people sit in the room, minding their own business, almost oblivious to his entrance. Nearest the door, a finely furred fox sits by the shuddering fan, craning his neck to let the rush of air blast him, tussling his stark white hair and tipping forward his large ears. Despite the heat, he sits comfortably in a long red jacket, with white wing decals emblazoned upon the shoulders, his blue jeans marked by flame. Kendall wonders how he can bear to take the temperature in that jacket by choice as the tepid air of the fan can’t be cooling him that much. The long coat is half-cinched by a leather-strap, leading to an empty sword scabbard. Perhaps a cosplayer, short a convention, Kendall thinks. Not really his business. The other guy he does have business with, if he runs this place. Propped up on a stool, a husky raccoon slumps, thumbing through a DIY magazine. Considering the shape, slump and trucker hat, Kendall thinks it all about adds up. NGI, the hat reads - meaningless to Kendall. The floorboards creak loudly, protesting underfoot as he approaches the desk. He wonders why such a dead place like this might need a big basement but it’s easy to think of plenty of good reasons why it might have one and not need the storage space – Mr NGI probably turned out to be a pretty lousy manager.

“Did you know…” NGI-hat says, as if answering the floorboards, “That a good leather belt can take three thousand pounds per square inch before it snaps? That’s a lot of tensile strength. Can you imagine what it takes to break something like that?”

“I…” Kendall says. He can literally think of no easy way to segue into anything sane, “I can’t say I do. I don’t know, I think a pair of scissors would do a good job.”

“Oh, funny guy,” the raccoon says. Kendall can practically hear him roll his eyes, even though he can’t yet see them. He can see a grin cross his face though. “I mean just from pushing on it though. I guess I’ll have to experiment with that.”

The manager tips himself gently back on two legs of the stool, leaning into the wall. He tosses down the magazine, knits his paws behind his head and smiles warmly across at Kendall.

“What can I do for you this evening then?” he asks.

“Do you have a phone here?” Kendall says, cutting to the quick.

“We sure do. We have lots of phones. Guests have gotta call for room services, ring up relatives, call for the emergency services every now and again. Every cabin for every paying customer gets a nice complimentary phone and a nice complimentary phone bill if the fancy using it.”

“Do you have a phone here, though?” Kendall insists, tapping the desk, “One I can use?”

“Why, I sure do!” the raccoon responds, tipping forward again and resting his chin smugly on his hand in one swift movement, “But that’s the office phone, I couldn’t very well let you tie up the line with international calls now, could I?”

Kendall grits his teeth. He’s beginning to see why the motel isn’t operating at full capacity. Rubbing his temple, he starts to explain.

“My car broke down, maybe ten miles up the road,” he says, “I need to get it towed and patched up so I can get on my way, you know? If I can make a call, I can get out of your hair.”

“Well, whatever’s wrong with it, it’ll probably be laid out for a few days, right? But where are you going to lay whilst it’s getting fixed? Might as well be here – nowhere else to go for miles around. Nobody else out here but us! I like your face,” he says, transparently turning on the charm, “so I’ll give you a cheaper rate for your little sob story, how about it? Twenty bucks a night. Nobody else is booked in right now, anyway.”

There goes the hard sell. Order by credit card now and we’ll maybe throw in a little extra dignity, just because we like your face and because nobody else in the world can help you right now. That really is all there is to it – he probably can’t talk the guy into giving him a lift all the way home, quiet day or not. Positive to negative, riding the wave of luck.

“Alright, you twisted my arm,” he grumbles, shouldering his bag, “I’ll pay on the way out then, since I don’t know how long I’m going to be here for.”

“Sounds fair to me,” the raccoon responds, clicking a pen and scribbling into the sign in book, “If you need anything, I’m Boomer and my man over there is Hikari. You missed dinner time, I’m afraid, but hit up the vending machines if you feel peckish. I’m afraid a liberal dose of corn syrup’s the best you can hope for right now.”

“You’ll find a number for a good mechanic on the bulletin board,” Boomer says, waving a paw towards a corkboard with dozen reminders and notes tacked to it. He pushes himself off of his stool and temples his fingers in mock subservience, “I hope I’ve been helpful to you, sir, but I’ve some business I’ve got to conduct out back so, if you’ll excuse me…”

“The key?”

“Oh!” the raccoon exclaims. It really isn’t much wonder at all that business is booming for Boomer. He unhooks the key nearest the end of the rack; cabin 7 marked by a giant blue and white tag, and tosses it over to Kendall. “Just follow the path up the hill, you’ll find it at the end on the left. Can’t miss it, there’s only seven of them anyway.”

With that, his host disappears through a door behind the desk to take care of whatever. Kendall thinks it a little funny that he didn’t ask for his name – when staying at motels, it’s entirely customary for him to give a fake name. Usually he books himself in under his friend’s name. People usually ask why he’s ‘Eric Skunk’, he’ll tell them an anecdote about he once got caught in a compromising situation with one Mary Jane, folks will laugh, he’ll make some friends. None of that today – not even the chance to make something up. He marks it down as bad form on behalf of Boomer – he doesn’t really seem all that cut out for running a hotel. The fox, meanwhile, remains entirely silent, still basking in the cool air of the fan. Kendall shrugs it off and heads over to the corkboard.

Reminders to buy more syrup. Forklift insurance details. Coupons for free batches of ice cream. ‘Cuban Sugar Smuggler – this time it really isn’t cocaine’ followed by a phone number.

Weird guy.

Off to one edge of it all, he finds what he’s looking for – ‘Mola Motors Sunfish Special – we fix any car, any time’. Judging by the local area code, they should be close enough by to get onto him quickly. Up goes his personal luck meter again. He tears the note from the board since his host isn’t around to offer him a pen and paper and the eerie fox ghost sitting in the cool air might kali-ma out his heart or something. Best not to push his luck. Before he can get out the door, his stomach grumbles at him to not forget the vending machines. Whatever cheap chocolate lurks inside probably isn’t doing too well with the heat but he could do with something to up his blood sugar. He plugs a dollar into the machine, hits some digits to get a candy bar and gets on his way. If he can get lucky with his luck, the chocolate will suck and he’ll be ready for some good fortune again. It even looks like the rain has stopped.

2 - Settling

(I)

The ringtail heads up the hill, following the path and counting off cabins. Before he gets to the seventh, something tumbles out of the underbrush ahead of him – large, round and fuzzy. For a split second, he thinks he’s looking at a wild bear and dips a paw into his bag, feeling for the grip of his gun before he realises what he’s looking at. Not a beast but obesity. The fluffy and scruffy animal picks himself up – Kendall’s at least reasonably sure he’s a boy, despite the fact the kid has way too much of a chest, causing his pale-lemon shirt to rise up and expose a large dome of cream-furred flesh. The ball of animal is about as wide as he is tall, hips snug in his beige pants. He stoops, paws on his thick thighs, puffing to catch his breath, apparently having not noticed Kendall yet. Though it’s hard to be sure with features so doughy, the kid looks like a fox under all that flub. His first thought is that he might be Hikari’s kid but he suspects that the fox doesn’t swing that way. Supporting it is his darker fur, his smaller ears and his blonde hair. Whilst he hasn’t noticed him yet, he also probably isn’t quite so deep into a world of his own.

“Hey, kid,” he calls over to him, “You okay there?”

“Muh?” he asks, turning his chubby face to look towards Kendall. Perhaps he was wrong – he doesn’t seem quite all there after all. His eyes look a little glazed, his jaw a little slack. The kid almost looks a touch mesmerised.

“I was asking if you were okay, kid,” he says, “You in any trouble there?”

“Nuh,” he says, shaking his head, much of his figure shaking with it, “Just playing! Feel hungry...”

His distant eyes sharpen swiftly as they fall upon the open coat pocket of Kendall’s jacket, practically sniffing out the chocolate bar.

“Candy!” he squeals, coming to life and rushing over and almost through Kendall, practically bowling him over with the impact of his body. The fox’s pudgey tummy curves around Kendall’s legs and he rubs his cheek affectionately against his abdomen, tail wagging in an excited frenzy.

“Please can I have it mister, please oh please oh please, I’ll be your friend forever!”

The ringtail sighs and fishes the chocolate bar out, peeling the packaging off as the fox pup looks at it with eyes that shine with delight. His plump paws delicately take it once offered and, despite his overbearing joy, he nibbles on it almost daintily, making the melting sweetness last.

“Thanks, mister!” he says, muffling a burp with a chocolate-smeared paw, “I’m Comet! I live here. Do you live here too now?”

“No, kid, I’m just saying here for a few days and then I’ll be off again.

“Yah, lots of people say that but they stay anyway!”

“Oh?” he says, eyebrow cocked in curiosity, “Then why’s it so quiet around here?”

“Well they don’t really get out and talk much, mister!” he says. He takes a deep breath, filling his cheeks with air before pushing them around his muzzle, smudging chocolate across his cheeks, “Mffwh mffwh mffwh! You wouldn’t talk much if that’s all you could say! Thanks for the candy, I gotta go!”

“Hey wait!” he calls after the kid, but he’s already waddled his way into the woods again. Strange kid. These woods just seemed to call out to peculiar people. He can probably spare another buck on the vending machine when he heads back to pin up the phone number again – he has nothing but dollars to spare – but for now he needs to settle in.

(II)

Cabin number seven sits at the end of the path, a humdrum looking, one-storey affair made of logs. A small porch teeters out front that looks fragile enough that if that kid had come running at him on the deck, they probably would have both gone right through it. A chimney pokes out of the roof – Kendall can’t say he cares for lighting a fire but any additional ventilation on a steamy evening like this is well desired. Nothing necessarily exceptional, but it’ll do for a few nights. In the least, it looks like it might be a fifty-fifty chance to stand up against a stiff breeze and he’d love to see it put to the test, if only it meant getting any kind of wind to seep away the heat. He moves to slide the key into the lock and finds the door swings open on a touch.

“Well, that’s nice and secure, at least,” he grumbles, “Might as well lay out a few signposts by the road telling people who swing by this way to not go into cabin seven and steal all my money.”

It’s frustrating but he figures he doesn’t have too much to worry about – the chances of anyone else showing up in the near future are probably a thousand to one. Besides, he has experience secreting his stash away so it won’t turn up on a quick scan of the room. The place has plenty of hiding spots from the look of things – he could throw the cash bag on top of one of the thick, exposed roof beams and nobody would find it without knowing it was there. Maybe stash it behind the mini-fridge or-

Mini-fridge.

Fully stocked. Wine. Beer. Spirits.

Yes, the room might do well after all. It certainly seemed comfortable enough; a double bed sat with its headboard against the wall, a stock painting of some giant ugly fish that looked sort of like… like nothing, really. Sunfish sure were ugly bastards. A pair of end tables flanked the bed, one with a reading lamp on, the other with a good, old-fashioned phone. Black, plastic, wonderfully aggravating springy-cord and all. Perfect. He sets the note down beside the phone and drops his back beside the bed before he scopes out the second room. The miniscule side room seems to be a bathroom for ants – primitive shower, lavatory, sink, towels to traditionally accidentally pack. Pokey but serviceable. Everything in order, he sits down on the bed, peeks at the note to confirm and starts pushing the number in. The dial tone rustles for perhaps half a second before picking up.

“Hey, is this Mola Motors?” he asks.

“Uh… yes,” the voice on the other end answers, seemingly unsure. Something about that voice…

“Yeah, my car broke down off of the old Hayford road and I need to get it picked up. You really can’t miss it – it’s the car that isn’t going anywhere. It’s probably the only car there, period.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” the voice says. It sounds familiar to him but he can’t place it. Maybe it’s just the accent or something, it doesn’t really sound like anyone he knows, just the voice, “We’re a little backed up at the moment but we’ll get a tow truck out to it as soon as we can. It might be a few days until we can get it fixed though so hang tight wherever you are. If it broke down out there, you must be staying at the Everett Lodge?”

“Yeah, that’s right… how did you know?”
“It’s really the only place to go to out there,” the other person chuckles, “Not hard to guess. Just get something to eat, maybe pop a beer and settle in. We’ll take care of everything.”

The phone clicks and he sets it back down. For a second, he feels glad to get things sorted but then he starts feeling weird again about things. Once again, nobody asked for his name. Nobody wanted any of his details – no address or a number to call back on or his insurance or credit card details. Just “oh, sure, we’ve got space, we’ll get on that”. Maybe everyone in this town just has a strange way of doing business but... even then, if they had a lot of jobs going on, they’d want his name so they don’t get his car and give it to some other guy. They’d write down more than ‘broken car – guy at the lodge’. Something is off about the whole arrangement. Kendall can’t really put his finger on it for now though – he’s tired, his head aches, his stomach is growling for his attention and he needs to get out of his soaking clothes. He tosses his damp clothes into the bathroom, towelling off as much of the water he can from his fur, ringing out his tail into the shower before pulling on his baggy spares. In the least, it’s a start – he feels a little refreshed. He stretches his aching paws, spreading his worn-out toes before pushing his feet into his unworn, un-soaked trainers and heading back to the main lodge. With the sky clearing, the world smells new, promising better times to come or, at least, the promise of a bag of something salty and cheap from the vending machine without getting drenched by rain in the bargain.

(III)

When he arrives at the lobby, he sees the fox still sitting by the fan, never stirring, not even opening his eyes. Kendall could probably lift change from the machine from his pocket without getting his attention but there’s something so off about him. Something feels weird about everything here. No sign of the raccoon though – whatever business he’s taking care of, he must be still sorting out. He pulls the pin from the board and tacks up the note for the mechanic back about where it was originally. Again, he plucks some change from his pocket, having dumped his coins and notes – what notes survived the soaking – from his jeans into his tracksuits. He feeds it into the machine and hits in a number to get a bag of chips – if that Comet kid has a sweet tooth, he might be less willing to relieve him of a saltier snack next time he’s in the woods. The coil of metal spins listlessly, the bag moves forward and then… oh, cruel fate. The worst imaginable scenario for the cheap and easy diner strikes him here – the bag gets stuck. Biting his lip, he strikes the glass case with the flat of his hand, rocking the machine soundly, not from anger, but to see if a good slap will get it to give up the goods. No dice. The thought of giving it a second go rises and falls rapidly – rocking the machine back and forth over a buck isn’t really worth it. If he shows a little too much discourtesy, the machine might roll its weight on top of him and that’d be the end of the encounter. He decides he’ll let the greedy bastard keep its pitiful winnings; he’ll be the bigger man and walk awa-

“Do you need some assistance, sojourner?” a soft, strange voice acts. Kendall can’t put the way the words sound into words – it sounds something like tinsel looks, all spangled and bright. When he turns, mouth agape, he finds that the fox is standing behind him. His eyes…

“I, uh, sorry about hitting the machine,” he says, rubbing awkwardly at his neck, “I didn’t mean to do any damage or anything, it’s just-”

“It’s just that it took your money without recompense, yes?” Hikari asks, chirpily. There is something odd about his eyes now that he can see them. Nothing he can identify, but abnormal. Though he does not know the word, the experience is numinous, brushing against the paranatural. Kendall feels his train of thought uncouple.

“Sir?”

“Yes, uh, yeah, it took my money.”

“I could unlock it for you, hold a moment,” Hikari says, stepping forward and opening the face of the vending machine with a key. With a slow, simple gesture he unhooks the bag and sets it in Kendall’s hands before closing the machine up again.

“Will that suffice?” he asks, “Are you satisfied in all ways, sir?”

“Uh…” is all he can manage for a moment. He has too many questions, none of which have any words in them. He asks the closest thing that approximates what he would ask if he could, “What do you do here exactly?”

“Most times, I wait.”

“You wait? For what?”

“Once things have gone wrong, I fix them,” he asserts with a half-bow, “When a mess is made, I clean. I never intervene in any matter uninvited but mess is inevitable and someone must clean. It is best to keep things essentially spotless.”

“So…” Kendall says, fumbling, “You’re a janitor then?”

“Yes!” he says, “In a manner of speaking, I suppose.”

“Well, uh, I guess that clears that up then.”

“That would be my purpose here, sir. Is there anything else?”

“Not that I can think of,” Kendall says, turning to leave. He’s about half way out the door before he stops and looks back. Hikari has already returned to his place by the fan, eyes closed, some of his strangeness already evaporating, “Hey! Who was that kid I saw out in the woods?”

For a moment, he doesn’t think Hikari will answer, returning to his state of complacency. Much to his surprise, he does, “Could you narrow it down at all?”

“Kind of fat?”

“There’s nothing narrow about that.”

“Okay, he was a fox kid, said his name was Comet, I think?”

“You have answered your own question then?” Hikari says, smiling serenely.

“No, I mean, what’s the deal with him? I mean are you, like… I don’t know. I mean, he… isn’t he a little big for a kid his age?”

“Boomer and I are his guardians, yes, and I have catered for those with larger appetites that young Comet,” he says, tenderly, “He isn’t that much of a special case, barring the fact that ultimately all people are special.”

“Yeah, okay, I get you,” Kendall says, waving back as he heads off. Things are getting a little too miracle worker in a place where a social worker might be more useful and the conversation is starting to cut into valuable drinking time, “I guess I’ll call back if I need anything else.”

“I don’t believe you need worry,” Hikari says whilst the ringtail walks out the door, “We take very good care of people here.”

(IV)

Back in the open air, Kendall feels a little less… well, spooked. Hikari certainly seems like a nice enough guy – he doesn’t quite seem the sort who’d hurt a fly if he found it in his soup. Not intentionally, anyway. There was something alien about him, not quite all there. Kendall pops the bag of chips open, munching idly on them in case he should happen to run into a hungry cub again so he won’t have to be guilted into sharing any, when he notices another oddity. As he passes the second cabin, he notices the door half opened, probably knocked by from a gust of wind. He wouldn’t be so surprised to find all of the cabins here with shitty locks and bad weatherproofing but what is strange is the contents. From a cursory glance – he doesn’t wish to longer in case he gets caught poking his nose in where it’s apt to get tweaked – it looks like barrel after barrel of… he doesn’t know what. When the wind turns, he can smell sweetness coming from that way, cloying and sharp. All at once, things click for the ex-smuggler. Crafty. Moonshiners. They must be distilling stuff out here or something – that might account for all the weird and guarded behaviour, for having this little place so cut off, for putting people off from lingering long. That was something he could understand, hell, even respect. Men after his own heart. Finally feeling a little reassured, he sets off to his own cabin, nudging the door open with his shoe and throwing himself on the bed. Not bothering to take his trainers off, he turns over to snag himself a drink from the fridge. Everything is more or less in its place now – everything makes sense. Opening the fridge, he sets his paw on something clear and cool – it claims to be vodka but he very well hopes he might be having the chance to sample some homebrewed liquor from these boys. He pops off the bottle top and knocks it back…

And gags on it by the sixth sip.

Oh, no, if that’s a spirit, something has gone horribly, horribly awry with it. The taste isn’t remotely smoky liquid fire – it’s something nasty and chemical. Antifreeze? Would that have been cruel enough to use that? No, no, he’d had that poison before – it had lodged its stinger deep enough his memory that he’d know if he’d had a second dose of that. Something else then, something bad. He’s on his feet in an instant, stumbling towards the bathroom and off his feet just as fast. There’s definitely something alcoholic to it but he can’t articulate – it feels as if his mind is glued to the floor and his hands, cool, numb, fuzzy are just an extension of those ceramic tiles. Everything feels weighted to the floor but stuffed with so much cotton – when he tries to prop himself up on his arms, gravity drags him down again.

“Juzt my luch, I gezz…” he slurs before the world slides out of focus.

3 - Trap

(I)

The world moves in an ugly spiral, a bleary whirlpool that swims and pulses. Everything seems interconnected, his short-term memory crashing into a ten car pileup. Fat kid bootleggers are making bathtub moonshine in showers whilst guardian angel foxes clean up and sell the chlorophyll from vending machines. No, chlorophyll is for plants. Trees everywhere. What was it… chloroform? Is that what it was? Chloroform? He drank something and it reminds him of going to the dentist. Dreams of chains and teeth. They don’t use chloroform anymore though? Numb. Dizzy. Half-drunk but not drunk, exactly. It’s a vapour. Inhalation. He’s not drunk, he’s inhaled. That’s it.

No, that doesn’t make any sense. Where was he? Awake. Then not awake. Then awake. Like a sine-wave, positive, negative. Up and down. Focus.

He was in the room
Kendall pink , I hope you’ve got room, cutie.

No, that was from outside his head. Asking if he has room. No, not now, an intrusion on the thought process. Kendall, yes, that is who, but where? Not sure, dark. He is thankful for the dark, at least – he doubts his eyes could take much light right now. He feels groggy as hell – not so much in terms of a hangover just overslept. Was he slipped something? No. No, someone had literally filled a bottle with some kind of anaesthetic and he’d taken a hearty swig of it and swirling and no. Narrative sequence. Order of events. He’d crawled into the bathroom and conked out on the tiles. Strange dreams and half-heard things. Familiar voices echoing in the night. Soft light in a dark room. He can just about take looking at the world now.

“Ah, you’re waking up now then, buddy?” asks the voice on the phone, gently guiding his consciousness back. It isn’t on the phone now though. For a second it sounds as though it is - like the words are coming to him from down a long corridor, muffled through his bleary senses but the voice is here. The voice on the phone away from the phone. The voice of the manager. Boomer. Kendall supposes the call to the mechanic never got through – either he’s got himself something that intercepts outgoing calls or else, simply enough, he just tacked up the phone number for the office on the note for the machine shop. Clever. The whole set-up feels kind of insidiously coordinated – funnelling him into this place. Judging from the small, slit windows, high on the wall, probably the basement. The floor was soft linoleum; slightly yielding and cool – almost pleasant for a summer evening like this but probably picked to be easier to keep clean. Everything essentially spotless, that’s what the fox said. A few other items, here and there – a small fridge, a couple of tables, an ugly looking vat of a machine with hoses and pipes that might be a boiler or a tank for their bootlegging operation. A strange switch, ruby red, poked from the wall across from him, looking comically out of place – an alarm from some cartoon where the hero would be fighting some pastiche of Nazis and Soviets. Weird.

“You sleep okay?” Boomer calls out, his face just about visible in the fading light from the windows until he fingers the light switch. Kendall shutters his eyes, reading for stark white light but instead the room slowly warms from the bulbs above as the raccoon twists a dimmer switch. How cute, Kendall thinks. Sweet to think of how much his eyes might be stinging. Gradually, his eyes adjust and he can see Boomer more clearly – a bright and welcoming smile on his face, laughter in his eyes, a funnel in one hand, his bag in the other.

“Ugh…” he groans. He remembers he forgot to take his winnings out of the bag and hide them somewhere – he hadn’t quite anticipated a threat so immediate and so… conniving. Kendall was always ready for some old flame to come gunning for him or rivals showing up at the door with shotguns in flower baskets but… nothing ever like this.

“Well, I hope you did, you poor little thing,” Boomer says, plodding over, ruffling Kendall’s brown hair with his free hand, “You sure looked like you were in need of a good night’s sleep after all that walking you did. Don’t worry – you’ve walked moooore than enough in your lifetime.”
The words the raccoon utters as he saunters ever closer are a clear and obvious threat but his tone? The way of his words is almost sickly sweet. There is less sneer to Boomer’s attitude than tease. Still distinctly threatening but not so much taunting – terrifying in its promise but what promise? Kendall knows it isn’t anything he wants to see through – there is nothing hopeful on Boomer’s face. Not for Kendall, in any case – the raccoon looks like he’s looking forward to something at least. The grin crossing his lips is welcoming in the same way a crocodile has a welcoming grin, his eyes lit by sincere excitement but sharp as a dragon’s. He has no desire to see what Boomer plans on doing but his seat to this showing is well and truly booked; his hands already chaff from their bonds.

The click-rustle of steel, the gentle tinkle of the chain, give only enough to extend his paws a handspan out from the small of his back. Handcuffs alright. Though he wouldn’t put it passed Boomer to have a pair of his own considering the setup, the bookkeeper of cosmic irony – oh so good friend to Lady Luck – would mean they would almost certainly be his own handcuffs. If that was true, that would mean his illustrious and considerate host had already unpacked his bag. Chances of the money being left un-skimmed were slim and his iron had to be gone – the bag had lost a bit of weight when he’d put on the change of clothes but it would still sag more than a little with the gun in there. If he loosed the cuffs – a bit of a mean feat but nothing he hadn’t done in his time – that meant that going for the bag and waving around the piece was out. Easy option crossed out. Option Two – find where it had been stowed and start pointing at it. He had no real interest on firing it and probably no real need – a little show of force and he could be on his way. The little nap he’d taken had left him a little groggy but had restored his strength whilst Boomer was probably fresh from hauling him down here from the cabins and setting up this little scenario. The raccoon outweighs him by a substantial margin but operating on a full tank meant he could probably keep out of reach if it did come to blows.

There was, however, a second problem. Kendall had a few tricks for getting out of handcuffs – enough run ins with the authorities, both legal and decidedly illegal goons, meant you had to get pretty used to conventional restraints or find yourself trapped in either jail or a nice, unscrupulous construction project somewhere in Neo Jersey. Eager to avoid a snug-fitting Chicago overcoat, Kendall was intimately familiar with small locks and always had something on his person that he might use to tender to his freedom. This arrangement, however, is at least slightly unconventional. Hands shackled behind his back is not a new look for him; simple lock, enough wriggle room and not attached to the wall. What is odd to him, however, is around his neck. Hanging a little loose, tag jangling gently from a catch, is a dog collar. Kendall has no idea what the tag reads, but he can feel it there, laying over the collar of his shirt. Behind him, dangling slack for now but without too much room to manoeuvre was the collar’s companion – a leash. When he leans forward he can feel it straighten out, tensing like a tendon, meaning it must be fastened to a bracket or something on the wall behind him. It could be tied to a chair leg but he doesn’t think that seems right – when he came to, he remembered laying back and he’d be able to hear a chair scoot forward with a wooden scratch. Wall-mounting then. That meant preparation and not for him. Either he’d been expecting someone to stumble onto whatever kind of operation he was running or Boomer had some decidedly interesting hobbies. The first option seemed the more savoury of the two. He sincerely hoped to God it was the first option. Nothing to bear thinking of for the time being, though. Getting rid of the would be more of a chore – he could probably tease it free once his hands were free but getting them free with it over his head meant he probably couldn’t wriggle his hands forward without it catching. The other way? If he tucked his feet in tight enough, he might be able to squeeze his way forward but that would take time and be highly visible – Boomer would probably put a stop to that. Even if he turned his back for a moment, Kendall doesn’t think he could do it in the few seconds he would have to spare. If he got caught, his host might make things worse. The look he sees in Boomer’s eyes tells him he doesn’t want it to be worse. Hikari had a strange and alien look about him – eyes from a fair-weathered and distant place. The raccoon, meanwhile, had a look from a monster from a storybook. Maybe not a beast, after all, though. Not the big bad wolf – he was much too amiable for that. Kendall’s mind reaches for a sweet old lady, caring and comforting, feeding up a couple of kids that got lost in the woods in a house of gingerbread. Here was he, lost in the woods one midsummer evening, here were his fat kids, here was a strange, sweet wind blowing and a witch of one sort or another.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Boomer says, setting the funnel gently down on a side table, “You’ve had a long day, haven’t you, cutie-pie?”

A chill runs down Kendall’s spine; it’s as if Boomer has been reading his mind. He is hungry though – walking through dinner and sleeping through supper has incited a riot in the ringtail’s gut. Even so, he’s still sure he wants nothing that Boomer might be offering him. His eyes fall to a gallon, glass pitcher, full to the brim with milk from the look of things.

“Look, if this is about the bootlegging,” Kendall says, his tongue working enough for him now, “I didn’t see anything, really.”

Boomer’s ear twitches, scratching his head through his hat, confounded for a second.

“…wow,” he says, a little slackjawed, “You really didn’t see anything then, did you? I guess you saw a lot of barrels of stuff and played a little game of Jump to Conclusions? Yeah, nothing illegal in them. Just corn syrup! Heck, if anything, I can probably get a subsidy considering the gallons of that stuff I’m buying.”

His smile restores and he claps his paws together before striding in closer to Kendall, “Now, what I plan to do with it – that’s hella illegal!”

(II)

Kendall’s mind dances around Hansel and Gretel. Chances are, he isn’t going to end up in an oven, unless you counted how the basement might feel by high noon tomorrow, but he suspected that it might still be cool down here. After all, Boomer did proclaim to take good care of his guests – the fan upstairs might be straining to keep up, but if he planned to keep him here a while, the basement would probably be built like a terrarium. The raccoon’s grin is back to full strength as his fingers play over the spout of the funnel.

“I guess it really doesn’t matter if you’re hungry or not,” he says, moving in, “It’ll go the same way either way.”

The ringtail tries to push himself up on his knees but, though his mind is clearer now, his legs are still stuck in dreamland and he’s gently eased down by Boomer’s guiding paw. One hand brings the funnel over, as the other gingerly purses Kendall’s lips to receive it. Kendall does not like where this is going one bit but… well, perhaps, on some deep level, a part of him does, though he’d never admit to it, nor paying for the pleasure of similar experiences. He suppresses his instinct to fight for the time being; the urge is very great to resist the raccoon every step of the way but to what end? Fighting whilst he’s bound – and now gagged by the funnel – with Boomer right there? He’d get nowhere, except maybe into an extra pair of shackles or some rope bonds around his feet. That would be bad. That would be worse than what he knows is about to unfold, because it means putting himself into a new predicament instead of getting out of one. For now, he knows he has to bear the slings and arrows until an opportunity arises. There is no advantage in squirming his way into more chains.

When the milk comes, the huge pitcher heaved over in both hands by Boomer, the surprise of it almost makes Kendall drop the funnel. Unfortunate as his circumstances are, doing that would make things even worse – he’d have to endure all proceedings with the stink of spilt milk under his nose. His luck turns for the better, at least, but the weight of it and the warmth of it caught him off guard. It isn’t the tepid ugly warmth one might expect from leaving it out in the summer sun – Boomer had to have heated it up. Why? When he’d only just woken up? Perhaps to make him a little more docile and suggestible weaken his will as he filled him up. Kendall can already feel his stomach swell with the weight of it, rounding out like a fluffy football under his shirt. He’s glad he switched his stiff shirt for the baggy change of clothes and tossed his belted jeans for the tracksuits. The bite his belt would put into his belly right now would be unbearable. Though he’s willing to accept it, his body protests the pressure it’s under – whilst his stomach strains to take it, he hiccup-gulps, rising and falling as he tries to keep up with the chugging the drink forces on him, gulping it as fast as it can come. It isn’t too bad. Inconvenient and the strangest thing to impose someone but, in a weird way, it is a little nice. The whole thing kind of reminds him of a girl he once knew. That had been an interesting mix-up. He’d found some trucker’s wallet lying out on the road. No, not just a trucker – a sucker, considering the night he’d had at that guy’s expense.

The lashings of milk stop coming, pulling him away from memory lane and leaving Kendall slurping air for a few seconds before realising the jug is out. With his hands bound and the pressure loosening, the funnel tumbles weakly out of his mouth, a plastic pupple sound as it bumps off the floor. His mind is a little muddled – the tryptophan kick off the milk isn’t putting him to sleep after his enforced nap, but it certainly leaves his senses a little dulled and dazed. An ear twitches as he hears the empty glass rattle and roll a little as Boomer sets it down, his grin brightening. Still no opportunities to sneak off – if anything, his window diminishes further for now as the raccoon plops down beside him, paw probing under his shirt, fingertips lightly pressing upon the surface of his stomach. The sensation is a little too much, he-

“BURAAAAP!” he belches heartily, his half-lidded eyes crossing, much to the amusement of Boomer, paw pinching the swell of his stomach.

“Excuse you!” he says, idly kneading at exposed tummy, helping it work on its full load whilst his own hand leads a candy bar up to his mouth. There is no real room for it but after a day of missing meals and with the blunt insistence of the raccoon, it’s hard to turn down the snack. He gnaws on it, milk chocolate cracking between his teeth, thick peanut flavoured fudge twisting on his tongue, chewing it away until a candy nub remains, easily pushed between his lips by Boomer’s thumb. Then another. Another. Another. He almost imagines he can feel every aching calorie on him, already feeling fat and urpy again. He barely feels full now – full isn’t word enough. Bloated, perhaps. An ugly word but an apt word. The sugar, at least, is helping him come out of his daze, giving him the energy to go on. For now, he plays sleepy – it might work to his advantage in the long run. In the meantime, Boomer seems practically beside himself with glee, parting momentarily and walking out of the room. Not walking though; he was too light on his feet to be ‘walking’, too giddy. Scampering was the word Kendall’s mind was calling out for. In a moment’s notice, he had come back, pushing a dessert trolley into the room, laden with creamed cakes, chocolate doodads, whimsical fondants, lemon marquis squirkles – Kendall has to confess, he knows approximately nada about confectionary. His old job had him doing business with other kinds of delights, never dealing, never using, just moving. Now he dares not think about what would have happened if he’d taken anything more mind-tweaking than booze for the intoxication he gets off the baking.

Or it might be a touch of asphyxiation – Boomer’s more than a little firm and forceful when it comes to the cakes, giving him little opportunity to chew, let alone breathe. When he almost inhales an éclair, Boomer’s there, patting him on the back as though he’s burping a baby. Shovel and swallow, no time for thought because thinking might postpone the next breath – you glut or you gag. Over the sound of his own eating, Kendall thinks he hears Boomer talk about the expense of feeding him, as though he had put this burden on him by a choice of his own. Talk of settling him in before he switches to kibble or something. Through the haze and daze, he thinks he might have heard Boomer mention his winnings going down the drain for cookies and cream but, as the pints of cream and custard drizzled pie and triple and whatever else he was spooning into him, Kendall found it harder to follow a point too far. His thoughts drifted as easily as Boomer’s hands did, to the next morsel. An hour passed with his mind half-there but once he came to enough to catch up on what was happening to him, shaking some of the stupor, he knew it didn’t matter if his mind has been half there as his body was pulling double duty. At some point, people had thought Kendall had appeal. He was cute – and not in a possessive, overfeeding raccoon context. Women were into him. What do women want? Whatever they specifically want as an individual because they’re people, basically. But what did they tell magazines they wanted? A guy with a sense of humour. Wit? He didn’t have that in spades; he had that in all four suits, Ace to King. People wanted people who could make them laugh and who better than a wildcard like him – a born Joker. That was about all the mileage he could get out of the card metaphor though without straining it harder than his stomach presently strained – he already felt urpy without scrabbling for weaker jokes. The point was, Kendall knows he has charm – if not for his appearance and personality, he knows he is cool.

Or was.

Right now, he can’t really be entirely sure. He surveys the damage done to him – it isn’t easy, with his fluffy cheeks rounded out into view, as though he had filled both with a good gulp of air. His chest feels weighted and puffy, mercifully obscured from view by his once loose-fitting shirt. Loose no more, it has risen up easily upon the curve of his belly, exposing a thick and doughy dumpling of gut, spreading out his thick legs. He’s thankful to have tossed his belt but the elastic waistline on his pants is already sinking firm fingers into his midsection, forcing his tummy into an awkward puffed-up muffin – perhaps four hundred pounds of overstuffed fluff, gently squashed and kneaded by his thickened thighs. Equally thankful to lack a mirror, he could at least feel what work had been wrought on his rear – his trousers could scarce keep up with it and the cool breeze of the air conditioning brushes against the fur there. In a sense, at least, he is still cool, even if not in the way he wishes. He supposes he can’t really contest that he is still kind of cute, if you like your animals overfed but there is little classy about a pants-splitting backside. Before, he’d been maybe half the weight of the raccoon whilst soaking wet from the summer shower – probably less. The situation, now, is wholly reversed – Boomer’s piled the pounds on in almost no time and there’s no escaping from it. When his illicit work was endangered or his cover compromised, he could always go to ground, lay low until the heat died down. Right now, the heat is on his plump cheeks, bright with blush – there’s nowhere for him to turn to, no place he can lay low for he has been laid low.

This will not stand. Even if he has trouble standing himself, Kendall swears that this won’t stand. He will take every advantage and get out of this. A gambler, born and true, he will beat Boomer at his own game. For now, the raccoon is wiggling a bottle of milk back and forth before him, gently, gauging his interest and probably seeing if he’ll have to break out the funnel. A small possibility opens to him and he seizes the moment.

“Muh…” he mumbles, feigning fatigue.

“Oh, you poor thing!” Boomer fusses falsely, teasing as ever, before setting down the milk bottle, “All that food just about wear you out, huh? Well, we can’t have you pass out just yet – it’s more fun to feet you up whilst you’re awake.”

At last, Boomer takes to his feet, drawing back. The dessert cart is deserted now – Kendall wishes he’d played this card earlier but he felt practically hypnotised as he filled out. The time vanished as readily as the contents of the table. Kendall sways softly, keeping his eyes half-shut, maintaining the ruse, ready to snap into action when has a moment to himself. He feels a little sluggish again - having been rendered an overstuffed cuddly toy about the size of a beanbag chair isn’t helping his speed – but he has enough presence of mind to make the most of things when his chance comes. If his chance comes. If nothing else, the added weight means that if he should get into a scrap with the heavy raccoon, he could almost certainly pin him and get a little payback for the pleasure. For now, let’s pretend continues. Boomer doesn’t seem to suspect him of anything just yet – he remains sincere and painfully sweet to his captive.

“Let’s get you some soda, see if that helps you perk up,” Boomer says, full of pep, “If not, well, I guess we can get you on the hose good and early before you snooze, hm? Sound fun?”

Kendall gulps and hopes he will not have to gulp much more today.

(III)

Boomer bends over, swaying butt and tail as he opens up one of the ubiquitous mini-fridges, humming happily as he unloads it, exchanging a six pack of soda. Kendall’s legs pinch at his paunch, pressing his soft and supple stomach between his knees, already groaning with the thought of taking the fizz. It takes him a moment to place the tune Boomer’s working through – he realises it is, of course, ‘Shortnin’ Bread’. He supposes it had to be either that or ‘Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah’. The out-of-tune chorus is abruptly interrupted by a something else joining in song – from elsewhere, a bell rattles out. The ring is rendered half indistinct by the walls – almost white noise to go with the black noise of Kendall’s still grumbling gut. The raccoon pauses, ears pricking up to the lilt of the bell before tucking the cola back into the fridge. He straightens out again, putting his hands into the small of his back, easing himself into the motion. Boomer’s response is slow and comfortable, entirely content in how he goes about his ‘work. There’s nothing ‘business’ about his business – his set up is deep and dedicated but he approaches it with a warped, homely charm. Not a professional – an artisan. Perhaps not even that because what purpose does it serve? Not business, pleasure. A spirited hobbyist having too much fun. Living the dream. He smiles his way on over to Kendall again, gently nudging the dome of easily exposed flesh with his foot. Kendall gingerly lays into it, still trying to suggest fatigue but careful not to pull too tight on the leash – if he pulls it beyond its fair limit, it’ll snag him and snap him right out of the illusion and that game will be over.

“Sorry to have to love you and leave you, but I’m needed elsewhere.” he says, smiling with grace and goodwill and such a genuine sliver of sadness, as though he had missed the first words of his own son. He waves his paw towards the wall, drawing Kendall’s attention to something jutting out from it. At well over a yard away, his mind had completely filtered the red protrusion out – he can’t reach it, it can’t really help him escape, it isn’t doing anything to him right now, not important. All of a sudden though, Boomer was investing it with weight as readily as he had invested Kendall with the same in a more literal regard. He was pointing at a large red button, about the size of an open palm and jutting an inch and a half from the plasterwork.

“When you hit that,” Boomer explains, “I’ll know it’s belly-rub o’clock. You can get some shuteye in the meantime, at least. Or not – you can totally be squirmzilla if you fancy but I think you’ll tucker yourself out in no time anyway.”

Smirking, he pinches Kendall’s plush cheek, good naturedly. Kendall has no idea what Boomer is talking about – if he was free enough that he was able to each it, the last thing he would do is summon Boomer back through. If pressing the button did the reverse – sent him back to whatever hell he’d been brought from – Kendall would be willing every atom of his being into it without hesitation. That leaves… the alternative. His eyes fall to his pudgey tummy, still whinging from its recent treatment.

“Yeah, you’re getting it!” Boomer says, happily ruffling Kendall’s hair, “And that sound means another of our little guest’s has made it that far! I’ve got to go reward them for being such good sports! It’s important to keep a good hand in matters, don’t you think?”

His tail practically wagging, he keeps his hand against what matters to him, fingers firmly squeezing at the soft padding on Kendall’s stomach, inciting him to belch again. Boomer shakes his head, his grin almost transcending his face and ascending to the heavens.

“Sadly, I’m going to have to leave you alone with the machine,” he says, almost sighing, “Still, it’ll be good for you two to get to know each other. I mean, you’ll be rooming together so it’d be best for you to be truly acquainted with your new best friend!”

An outstretched hand flips towards the great tank structure that Kendall had perhaps misread as the boiler. It has all the tells of a classic, industrial boiler – an immense round tank, shoved up on thick struts, a spider’s web of pipes running up and down and around it. A gauge clearly seemed to read pressure, with valves controlling the flow of it. Closer inspection noticed a few oddities – he had seen the hoses and tubing running from it before but hadn’t noted it as especially important. Like the button, it just seemed a part of the weirdness of things, perhaps connected to his presumption that Boomer was making booze. Knowing what he actually was doing cast the tubing in new light. Another piece of a puzzle he could already clearly read, like the funnel in retrospect. A feed-hose. His eyes track what the hose leads to but Boomer’s hands have already found it and are bringing it up for his inspection. The narrow nozzle of an old-fashioned garden hose, with a few critical adjustments. Around the neck, a collar had been fitted, with a couple of notched screws. Hanging from them, belt buckles, glimmering in the soft-light. A long leather strap, now getting looped over his head, as though Boomer were giving Kendall a medal for good behaviour, hung from these, loose at first and then pulled tight before he can protest. The whole apparatus was essentially a gag – albeit a gag that would forcibly feed him whilst Boomer spent some quality time tormenting and teasing someone else. He would have to suffer it, whatever it is, for at least a little while after Boomer leaves, but suppressing that instinct to fight immediately means getting out from Boomer’s shadow – saving energy and time he can use to lose the cuffs. He won’t fight, yet, but he will try to understand it. Taking everything in, he watches as Boomer snaps on a few cables and cords, which run from the tube and into something on the pumping machine. It isn’t active yet but he knows it won’t be long now.

“There, that ought to do it,” Boomer says, standing back to admire his handiwork with the machine and then his handiwork with the ringtail. Kendall cocks his head, trying to tempt an explanation from the raccoon. He’s sure that an inspired amateur like Boomer could be easily encouraged into a nice and obvious monologue. Villains who really got into their work, who toyed with their captives and liked to add a personal touch always were. Either humouring their interests made them become overbearing, excitable nerds, ready to go into an alienating level of detail over what they were going to do or they had spent too much time watching Bond movies and believed you were supposed to divulge your scheme ‘in your moment of triumph’. There was no scheme or plan to uncover here, as such – just a guy indulging insidious appetites – but knowing how might up his odds of getting out of them.

“Do you like it?” he says, almost bubbly, “It’s a little too technical for you I might imagine, I mean, you weren’t very interested in the little bits of DIY earlier. I don’t need to remind you that it’s hard to make leather snap, right? If you get good with the machine though, I think you’ll be able to split your first harness in a week though!”

He nods towards the smaller cables, hoping he’ll be spared further digs. They hurt him none but they waste his time and Boomer may wander out before he gloats over how specifically fiendish the device is.

“Oh, you want to know what those are about?” he asks, “Well, if you pull or push or squirm around too hard, it sends a little nudge to the machine, tells it to kick it up an extra notch. Not until you stop wriggling – permanently. The more you move, the worse it’ll get. I got the idea from one of those Saw movies. You ever see those? I haven’t – awful things. I just can’t stomach all the blood and guts they throw around. Now!”

He sweeps over, away from the machine, pushing his paws snug into Kendall’s stomach as he were drawn over, like iron filings to a magnet.

“What you’re sporting – those of the kind of guts I can approve of!” he declares before straightening out again, “I read about them though, the internet wouldn’t shut up about them for a while. The guy in them has no taste, you know? I guess a bit like you, probably, when we’ve finished you on the corn syrup. That’s what was in those barrels I guess you saw. I get that stuff shipped in by the truckload. It’s sweeter than sugar, you know? Can’t say it has much of an aftertaste I can stand but, hey, who needs to worry about aftertaste when there’s no ‘after’, eh? I buy that stuff in bulk since it’s cheaper than the dirt it comes out of, so there’s loooots to go around.”

He sighs, almost wistful, his eyes perhaps looking to a future that Kendall wants no part of. The raccoon snaps back, seeming to recall something forgotten. Wagging a finger towards Kendall, as if telling him not to go anywhere, he scans the room, looking for some item he’s misplaced. After a second spin around the basement, he finds what he’s looking for. Stuffed under the table, half hidden behind a spare, patched hose, Boomer pulls out something blue, black and white, stitched of firm felt. On a first glance, Kendall thinks it might be a cuddly toy, though one far from finished. When Boomer brings it over though, he sees it can’t be – it’s just a head, though of what he can’t be sure. Large, shiny eyes twinkle on the plush face, round cheeks with patches of pink hold a false blush and the inside is red-lined and silky – probably artificial but it feels that way, at least. He can tell because, in an instant, Boomer has thrust it on his head like some insane football helmet – the open half-mouth means he can still see, but the cheeks now help hold on the belt-band that keeps the hose in place and make his hearing muffled and stuffy. Boomer’s games seem to dive deeper into the ridiculous by the minute. Now he’s left to watch as Boomer backs up, slowly, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, eyes squinting as he traces him with his thumb and forefinger out, rendering a box – a viewfinder – through which he sizes Kendall up, like an artist. He parts his fingers, still forming that “box”, albeit one that is now triple the size in the open air between his hands. Nodding, barely suppressing a giggle, he waves, coyly, dismissing the joke and Kendall as he finally walks out of the room.

Kendall thinks it’s about time.

4 - Turnabout

(I)

There’s no doubt in his mind that he isn’t being tested – he’s sure Boomer isn’t about to immediately come back through the moment he slips his bonds, slowly clapping at what a good job his new pet has done but the jig is up. If Boomer has other projects on-going – and considering the size of that kid, Comet, he bumped into before, he’s utterly convinced he does – he’s postponed checking up on them for much too long. Those hours spent feeding him delicacies was time well spent for Boomer, surely, but he probably regretted taking time away from Porker #1-6 or however many he was running through his program. He’d have time, even if it were only a little and a little would be enough. Handcuffs he could handle – if they were his, even easier. Once, when staying at a motel that was decidedly seedier but at least saner than this resort, coincidentally after a big win and further proving his theory of Luck-As-A-Wave, he’d ended up in his own handcuffs. Arguably, it was his intention that he had – he’d paid good money for the pleasure, after all – but he’d paid a lot more money after she’d walked off with the rest of his win and left him there for the night. Since, he’d spent plenty of time picking cuffs and he always had a few things on him in case of emergencies – it almost made the restraint seem a little pointless if you looked at it in the light of day but he didn’t feel quite that way about it. In a way, having a lock pick or a spare key to your handcuffs was a lot like having a safe-word. A lot like carrying around a gun and loaded dice and marked cards – you got your fun but you to be safe when it stopped being fun. The coat’s back in the cabin and if his spare key was in his pocket, he’d definitely feel it pushing into his butt. That left his shoes – he always held out a pick in his shoes for safety. Like hiding money there, it was the last place people would traditionally look for it. Getting the shoe off, however, would be a bit of a trick, with his arms behind his back and all that weight piled on him. There’s no alternative though and time spent bemoaning it is time wasted.

He starts.

The first problem comes from getting his hands out from behind him – he had done it in the past but doing it with all the extra meat on his flank was making it difficult to get the chain swung out from under him. He rocks, back and forth, trying to get as much give as possible and-

“Blrk!”

Almost Gags. Twice in one day. Whatever technology the raccoon has played around with, it decides his seesawing motion is enough to constitute ‘bad behaviour’ on his part and the machine has started up. It isn’t a spray of the awful goop just yet – as is, the saccharine syrup is practically on drip-fed into him but it snuck up on him. Now, at least, he knows he can’t work too hard before it triggers the machine’s wrath. If he’s fortunate, however, it might only be able to crank up so much at once – if he can get things done in a rush, he might be able to outpace the pounds it piles onto him.

He makes his play.

(II)

Working in a rush, he swivels his arms as far forward as he can, rocking his backend back and forth in a mad and ridiculous pendulum to squeeze it through the gap the chain gives him. The machine flares, pressure building, squirting sweet sludge out – now he can feel it in him, filling him freshly out again. His metabolism is already cranked to 60 meals per hour – he can practically feel the pudge pooling onto his swelling ass, half numbed from sitting down so long.

If he doesn’t do it now, he doesn’t do it ever.

He does it – his arms sweep forward, chain catching on his poorly strained pants, pulling them down and exposing his buttocks. Kendall doesn’t care – he doesn’t notice. His focus is honed to a fine point as he draws his arms forward, pushing in his thickened thighs against his heavy, growing abdomen, raising them up as far as he can and then tucking them in, tight, to get his feet in under the link of the cuffs. As he does, he snags the back end of his trainer, snapping it as far forward as he can, trying to work it loose. The back end is off before the hot ache in his arms, shoulders and back force him to stop – his back is arced hard, his legs up in the air, putting all his substantial weight upon his lower back, whilst his arms are already out front. The trainer can wait – for now, he rests, letting the tension out of his body, his first victory achieved. He winces as his large leg slams down, foot catching a table and knocking something off. Judging by the glassy smash, the milk bottle. He sighs – if Boomer comes now, he comes – before he looks down at his bonds – they are his handcuffs, judging by the brand. Once he has his shoe over to him, he’ll have them off in an instant. Looking down, he sees enough of his work is done there, at least – the rest he gets off by dragging the loosed end against the linoleum, popping his paw out. Still, he has to get hold of it and he doesn’t fancy his chances of half wriggling, half kicking it around to within better reach. It might end up at the other side of the room if he misjudged it and then he’d have to try with the other. By then, his stomach might have swollen enough to engulf it and that would be the end of that. It has to be now.

He leans sharply forward, paws pushed together, arms outstretched, grasping for it. Fingers feel the lip of it, tips just brushing the lining whilst his stomach groans and glurns and gurgles ominously before him. Anymore and it’ll be out of reach for good. He strains, squirms, stretches and… got it! At the same moment, he feels his stomach heave out, all too much to lean over any more, throwing him back against the wall as the machine doubles down on him again. The wall behind catches him, knocking a whine from him. Groaning, Kendall draws his paw up against his head and the cool sole brushes his forehead with its dull, rubbery teeth. The shoe. He has the shoe. Fingers dig in, dragging out the inner soul in a rush of exaltation, feeling the slight metal prick of the pick underneath. Had he had it in hand when the handcuffs were still stuck behind him, he could have been out of here all the sooner – he could have picked the lock on them with his eyes closed. He does, smile on his face, syrupy slop dribbling down from the corner of his mouth for a second before he wipes it away with his free hands. Next, he gets to work on unhooking the hose – he almost falters, wondering if maybe it has some kind of anti-tampering device somewhere to stop something like this. If he pushes it too hard, all of a sudden it might give one final surge and he might have to be rolled out. He dismisses the thought – the idea of having some kind of anti-tampering device that would fatten him further seems like an even more ridiculous notion than everything else here. Nothing stops him from taking the hose out and tossing it to one side, still pumping the stuff onto the linoleum in the corner of the room and nothing much will stop him from leaving soon, but there still remains two things to take care of – the leash and revenge. The leash comes away easy – when he feels back behind the collar, the catch it hooks into takes a simple a press to release. The collar, however, won’t come away so easily – it stretches when he tugs it but not enough to snap it loose over his cheeks. He can’t even get it beyond the collar of fat that now forms his newly fluffed out second chin. It’ll wait. What won’t wait is the machine – if he doesn’t shut it off, he’ll be wading through the sticky stuff soon.

Getting up takes considerable effort – though the weight has been on him for hours now, he has spent the entire time firmly planted on his swelling behind. It takes considerable effort to first push himself forward, onto his knees, aching with the weight, stomach sprawling before him, the size of a beach ball but more weighted down, spreading wide, out from him in every direction. From there, his rise is ponderous – he feels like he’s trying to raise a palette’s worth of flour sacks that some unkind soul has strapped to every angle of him. Awkward, ungainly, he pushes his foot into shoe, thankful that it even fits whilst his pants hug perhaps half-way down his thighs and his shirt acts are barely a bra. Where it not for his handsome chin – half buried by the spare one he picked up in the last few hours of stuffing – he might almost pass for a girl, with his ample bosom and curving hips. The thought makes him tug at his underwear up a little, hoping his boxers might hide a little more but he manages to gain no ground after gaining so much weight. In the least, his underwear covers enough to be modest – if it didn’t, his stomach would easily do the job for him, swinging down below his knees as he plods forward, body swaying against him as he moves to shut the pump off. With the situation at least reasonably sorted now, he can think of other matters – what he’s going to do about Boomer.

First thing’s first – he grabs his travel bag from the table top. He fishes into it, seeing if he’s been left anything by his gracious host, seeing if his gun is still there. No dice. Well, the dice are still there, for what little use they will be, but the pistol isn’t. As he predicted, the gun is long gone. Interestingly, as he digs around, he finds that the bullets still remain. He thinks it over - Boomer had expressed an utter revulsion for violence, even of the fictional kind, so he probably held little interest in keeping or using the piece at all. At most, he’d probably just wanted to get it as far as possible from Kendall – the handgun would probably be lying in some ditch now, gummed up with mud. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d lost one but they were easy enough to come by for a man who kept his kind of circles. Still, he’d miss the old thing. The money was gone too but he could probably expect that to be around still – in the office or the front desk, somewhere for easy access. Considering how poor the turnaround on the resort must be, it makes sense that Boomer might be borrowing a few bucks from the people dropping by to keep it going and to take such good care of the guests. Corn syrup might be dirt cheap but when you’re buying enough to feed a small country or a large animal, you have to at least have a little scratch. Providing the good luck holds, he might walk away with a little extra after all – he can’t imagine Boomer calling the cops to report a theft considering his own crimes. Of course, considering the kind of business Kendall conducted for so long and with so many enemies in investigative agencies by now, he might want to avoid making a call to the police as well. That’s part of why serving a heaving platter of revenge is so important – it’s all on him.

He searches through the rest of his things and turns them up; dice and cards and drink are all where they ought to be. Something else shows up that he hadn’t put in here – the spare keys he’d had in his pants pocket. Boomer probably tossed them in there after giving him a once over. Kendall shoulders his bag and thinks how he might make use of this. If he could get the cuffs on him, he could engage in a little karmic justice but grabbing him and slapping them on so quickly? Before, maybe. Now, he was heavy on his feet and getting the drop on Boomer without some significant edge would be out of the question. He had the energy but Boomer could easily outrun him – he could get through the door before he’d managed to get a few feet, whilst Kendall would probably get stuck in the frame. Then what? Then Boomer would find a way to get things back the way he thinks they ought to be. Not a bad plan, but it wouldn’t work without an edge to it. He scans the room, looking for an in. The table, his bag, the machine, hoses, spilt syrup, spilt milk – still slick and slippery. If Boomer went over on that, he’d probably be cursing that easy-to-clean floor about then. He might be able to roll on top of him then and put that new weight to use. Still, he’d see the spill in an instant – he wouldn’t walk into it. Even with the lights off, the light from the hall would probably make it obvious. Still… roll. That gives him a new idea. More aptly, same idea with a new twist. It can be made to work.

(III)

He reaches out for the button in the wall, to ring the bell. Inside, he laughs – he never thought he’d want to summon Boomer down. The bell is shrill in the small room and once it gets going, it doesn’t stop – the button stays depressed into the wall. Moving as fast as he can ably waddle and still avoid the spill, flabby legs chaffing and tugging his pants further down in the process, he pushes himself as far into the corner of the room as he can to remain out of sight from the doorway. His long ears prick to the sounds under the bell, Boomer’s footsteps, softened by socks, as he walks down the hall. This time he is humming ‘Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah’, occasionally replacing a hum with a half-sung word or two.

“Wow!” he says, as he gets to the doorway, “You must have been extra squirmy with those binds to fill out that fast but that’s okay! I like my couches good and whiny! In fact, I-”

He stops as he pokes his head through the door, his jaw dropping slack, eyes picking up the broken milk bottle, the abandoned hose, the absence of fat animal to toy and tease. Either he has not dealt with escapes before or he forgets procedure as he blunders into the room without checking the corners out, missing Kendall as he moves in. He hears a bony click but makes too little of it in the three seconds when it might have counted. His mind can’t make a sensible fix for what sounds like the rolling of dice in the empty room but when he stands on something sharp and reflexively raises his feet, he knows instantly he’s stepped on one of them. Thrown off balance, his other foot stumble-hops forward, losing traction, he puts his good foot down hard in the cool milk, skidding for half a second before the battering ram strikes. Quite what a medieval battering ram is doing in the basement is beyond him but it knocks both the air out of his lungs and the sense from his mind. Kendall falls on him as sure and hard as the vending machine would have if he’d have invoked its wrath. His own wrath has been well and truly invoked by the raccoon. The cuffs go on as he rolls his stomach off enough, pulling back the mattress of his body to give Boomer some more permanent restraint. After that, the leash hooks into chain links of the handcuffs, ensuring Boomer will get less leeway than he got himself. No spare keys or lock picks for him, either. If he’s going to get out, it’ll be all luck on his part.

“Turnabout’s fair play, isn’t it?” he sneers, smirking at the back of Boomer’s head.

“You’re darn right,” Boomer says, sounding less frightened than frustrated, “And when I turn this around, on you, you’ll-”

“What?” he asks, pinning the raccon whilst his paw reaches out for the hose, castoff from before, “I’ll have a bigger turning circle? I won’t be able to turn for being so round? If you’ll pardon the pun, I’m at my wit’s end with you. I don’t have time for any damn fat jokes, least of all coming from you. If you’ll allow me just one more though…”

He throws the belts around Boomer’s cheeks, hooking the hose firmly into place before he can register his disagreement.

“I think it’s time you had a taste of your own medicine.”

The ringtail rolls off his captured captor, swinging his arm out to catch and spin one of the valves. All of the valves worth turning go to full – he judges the worst to turn for Boomer’s sake by the look of deepening shock as he approaches each, watching the widening shape of the raccoon after each is twisted. After that, with Boomer’s belly ballooning, the machine howling from pressure and the raccoon’s rising whines and struggles, he books it as best he can. He doesn’t want to be in here when things go critical – if something doesn’t give, he’s apt to get trapped by the rapid swell of raccoon gut. Kendall heaves himself forward and doesn’t look back.

And then he can’t look back – he’s well and truly wedged in doorframe. At long last, he turns to panic – he just knew something like this would happen, he knew and now he – He realises why he’s stuck. It isn’t his stomach - sucking it in and liberally wiggling his swollen hips lets his blobby body pop free. No, the cause of this problem is he forgot to take the damn plush head off. Leaning back, belly pressed forward, his head pops free enough that he can yank the headgear off and toss it back into the room. It makes a gently ‘dumf’ noise as it bounces off of something equally soft that Kendall wants to spend no more time thinking about.

(IV)

There are other rooms along the hallway, each with a red fire bell above the door. Kendall suspects all might play a different note, so Boomer knew who to spend time doting on – or sleeping on, if it was late enough in the day. He won’t have anything to do with the other rooms though – he’s coasting on good luck right now, from breaking out all the way home, if it’ll hold. If he stops and lets himself get weighed down, he might never make it out of here. At the end of the hallway, the basement stairs rise steeply up, almost seeming too steep for someone who’s every upward step was against their stomach. The stairs are a struggle for him, each creaking loudly underfoot – every step he takes he’s sure will send him through the stairs, but they hold for long enough to get him to the back office. The room is choked with knickknacks and keepsakes; clothes of all sizes, toys and trinkets, ugly artefacts, goofy gewgaws, so on and so forth. If it weren’t for the fact it was all tucked back in the office, Kendall would figure it part of the tourist trap array of souvenirs. None of this matters to Kendall – what does matter is sitting in a bucket by the phone, untended, unhidden. Money. His money and more – if there were so much as a few hundreds or even a dozen fifties in there, it had to be thousands of bucks on top of what he’d started the day with. He dispenses with all courtesy and caution and tips the contents into his travel bag – without his change of clothes, there’s plenty of room it all. Some of it might go towards hiring a personal trainer and gym memberships to perhaps sweat some of the weight off of him – as though his struggles up the stairs hadn’t prompted plenty of that – but a hefty portion would be going towards buying enough booze to last a lifetime and then drinking it in a day. Anything to burn the taste of corn syrup off of his tongue – turpentine paint thinner would do as a great palate cleanser right about now. If he drank really hard, he might be able to dispose of the events before they hit his long term memory. If his luck held.

For now, it does. There’s no sign of the janitor around the lobby when he peers out – that could be good or bad but he suspects he’s safe. Hikari hadn’t shown any concern about what was assuredly a kid under Boomer’s care wandering around without a care in the world so if he bumped into him, he would probably be in the clear so long as he had yet to find out what had happened to Boomer. He isn’t sure the guy could be angry – the emotions of people seemed so foreign in his features – but he has no desire to push it. The fan continues to roar in the sun-lit summer night, keeping the air lush and cool, the air blowing in through the windows chilled by the slowly falling sun, still damp from the evening’s rain. For all the trouble he’s had today, things seem almost peaceful and pleasant now though, besides the cooling weather, he is entirely done with today. Looking out into the parking lot as he moves through the lobby, he sees no signs that anyone has arrived in the interim. That doesn’t surprise him though he has to confess that he half expected to see Hikari standing there, staring at the easing moon, blank-white hair blowing in the wind or something spooky. In the least, he had anticipated spotting his car out there; license plates clean, up on cinderblocks, stropped of engine. He’s thankful that Boomer doesn’t own a tow-truck as part of his mechanic ruse – there was a good chance his car would be on the road.

That was a thought though – the van would be parked around the size of the lodge, probably good to go. A cart of cakes hadn’t magicked itself into existence and it was highly doubtful that a pastry chef was on staff – that meant trips into town. The van would have to be running and he’d only need it for the night – his car would probably be salvageable if he could get to town and make a call to Mola Motor or whoever. That was, if it existed. There’d be someone in the yellow pages, at least. Providing he didn’t have to use a phone booth for it – there was no way he’d be able to get in and still reach the phone, let alone close the door behind him. Dropping by anywhere, he would be apt to draw a few stares – he might as well drive the van the whole way home and save himself the embarrassment. It’d still be a squeeze to get in but it would be a hell of a lot more comfortable than a car he’d practically outgrown, especially one that had been sitting exposed in the sun all day. If nothing else, he could always sell it for scrap to get a little pocket change and send the guy a few polaroids to really rub it in. Revenge was a dish best served as often as possible, at first, and then sporadically throughout the rest of their life. You had to keep ‘em guessing which days were going to be bad days – it’s how you dealt with the pain they’d caused to begin with. Later, you’d do it just for the kicks, so long as they really deserved it. If you couldn’t convince yourself they were that bad a guy anymore, you maybe let them off and let them stew over it for a while and forget it. Eventually they unlearnt the worry, if you gave them a wide enough berth. Maybe you’d send them a note to let them know it was over. Boomer? He was definitely a for-as-long-as-you-live kind of revenge. There wouldn’t be any calling the cops – not just because he might bring some heat down on himself but because they’d get in the way of him having any fun. Considering how much fun he seemed to be having in the few short hours they’d spent together, he was going to have plenty of fun with Boomer to even things out.

When he hefts his way to the van, he finds it like the cabins – comfortable and homely, neatly kept and utterly unlocked. It’s almost disappointing to him that he doesn’t get the opportunity to sharpen his skills on it but by this point, he’s tired enough to accept it. Lucky him, the keys are even still in the ignition. The rest, however, is an uphill struggle – hauling himself into the van is a nightmare task. Firstly, his heavily muffined hips are wider than the door is, necessitating a lengthy struggle to so much as wriggle into the van in the first place. Secondly, his backside’s wider than the seat is, forcing it back whilst the slab of his flabby thigh digging into the gear stick. Thirdly, his gut pushes so far forward that it half-smothers the dashboard, his hulking spreading around the steering wheel. With all that in mind, there is no conceivable way of getting the seatbelt on him. He almost wishes Hikari was here – he could probably butter him up, put on a half-hypnotized look like that Comet kid and beg him to run him by the bakery. That way he could ride in back and not have to deal with any of this – there’d be at least enough room for him back there. He suspects that that kind of capacity is possibly the main reason Boomer has such a big van. The whole thing is nothing but trouble but he’s thankful he isn’t having to try this with his own car – what pars of the vehicle didn’t get crushed would probably be unserviceable anyway as the tire on the driver’s side might just about burst from the uneven weight getting put on it. Somehow, he’s able to get himself in enough that he can manage it – he’ll take it easy on the road since moving the steering wheel between his moobs is decidedly awkward and his legs struggle against the dash and his gut to be able to hit the pedals. There aren’t apt to be many people on the road for miles but if he get pulled over, there’ll be a lot of questions – do you know how fast you were driving, are you wearing a seatbelt, can you show me your license and registration, can you step out of the car? All of these would be answered with big, fat ‘no’s. No, officer, I can’t see the gauges under my gut. No, officer, it won’t fit over my gut. No, I don’t have them because I stole this car and even if I did, the glove compartment is under my gut. No, I can’t get out, my gut, my gut, my gut.

Best not to risk it.

No need to push his luck.

5 - Circles

(I)

Hikari takes his time. He doesn’t believe he has all the time in the world. In fact, he knows he doesn’t – what he does know is exactly how much time he has to do what he’s doing. It will be hours before he’ll be needed to clean up in the basement and come to Boomer’s aid – he can just feel it out, a sense that comes from beyond himself. As such, there is no need to rush in his present chore of cleaning the cabin. When Boomer had come to carry Kendall out, a lamp had been knocked over and a bulb bust against the floor. The bottle had spilled something. The damp clothes needed drying and mud had been trekked in from outside. These are not the order the events took place in – quite the opposite – but the progression means little to him as he sweeps broken glass into the dustpan. The clothes had already been cleaned and ironed by now and wrapped snug around the handgun, nestled in the back of Boomer’s van. Hikari cared for the firearm about as much as Boomer did but, even so, its owner would be leaving this place soon and he would probably miss the macabre keepsake – he’d cleaned and oiled it to the best of his abilities, making sure to get the dirt out of it. He was no armourer but he felt he had done a decent enough job. Their guest would be pleased to find it, even if he was displeased with the immense amount of weight he had gained. Hikari didn’t really understand Boomer’s hobby and loving him so didn’t lend him much in the way of knowledge on the matter. All he knew was that it made Boomer happy and, after a while, it made their guests happy. Soon, Boomer would be on the receiving end of the treatment himself – anyone else knowing this would be rushing to his aid, surely, but Hikari tarries. The turning of the tables is amusing in its way; Boomer will think as much later. It is surely shameful for him but he will be happy, at least.

Hikari cocks his head as he examines the kinks from the lampshade. Chances were that knocking them out would only cause a tear in the card here or there, or produce other unnatural markings that would ruin the form worse. They would stay – they added character to it. Perhaps it came down to similar such things in people; things knocked gently askew by birth or by bearing. There was no fixing some of that; only making matters worse. It was best to leave things be and clean up what you could clean up. Everything here was now spotless – if it was bent or broken, it was, at least, now accepted to be so and not bad for it. The lamp had a new bulb –it was happy. With his work done, he takes a moment to take a few, easy breaths before heading back to the lobby. He will run into young Comet on the way; he will reassure him that everything is fine because it is and then gently ruffle his hair and send him on his way.

When it happens, he does this. The pup begs for a treat, as Hikari knew he would, just as much as he knows that Hikari will have candy for him. For the cub, it’s a learned response, quite Pavlovian. He sees a person coming and starts salivating, feeling hungry. For Hikari, it is his knowing and his inevitable waiting for things to come to pass. He sets Comet’s heart at ease and then sends him to take a nap in the cabins. If he sent him towards the lobby, he would probably run into their new guest – their visitor would feel harried and probably embarrassed when confronted at his new weight whilst Comet would start to feel hungry all over again for running into someone. No sense in worsening the night of two. He walks just slowly enough through the gathering night that he’ll be able to miss their guest’s exit from the lodge – he doesn’t wish to spook him any and he knows that many find approaching him an unearthly experience. This is not surprising for him.

When he walks down into the basement, he can hear the high, metalled whine of the pumping machine going into overtime, joined by other whines because it’s feeding time and food has not arrived yet. For Boomer, it has, however. All of it has. It has not been going on for long – perhaps no more than ten minutes on the machine – but the raccoon must already be triple his size, half-ballooned by the sudden surge of syrup. His metabolism has yet to warm up to it, so most is just going to his poor strained stomach and staying there for now. Some cuddles should help ease him up but he will still have to deal with half a ton of flub for some time. Out in these backwoods, it should not be so surprising – Hikari can probably work at the desk whilst Boomer caters for the guests. Smiling softly, as tranquil as ever, Hikari twists the valves to turn the machine off for the time being. He knows the flow and direction of the conversation – it will be nice to have it.

“Are you alright, dear?” he asks, ears settling low as he bends to remove the binds on the hose. The handcuffs will take a little doing but he set a boltcutter out earlier. “Do you need a hand?”

It takes Boomer a moment to muster an answer beyond a long, drawn-out belch, sloshing forward on his engorged body. After that, a few puffs and pants. Hikari passes him a mint to staunch the evil wrought on his tastebuds before he manages more.

“I’ll…” he huffs, “I’ll be alright. Hoo! He was kind of a wily one, wasn’t he?”

“Most certainly,” Hikari says, tucking his paws into Boomer’s armpits, gently tipping him back onto his bottom, “We’ll hear more from him, I expect. He isn’t the type to let this sort of thing go.”

“Well, hun,” Boomer says, pausing to hiccup, the great water balloon of his belly quivering lightly, “We’re not going to wake up one day and find he’s sent us a bomb or something, right? Like, he’s not going to send a guy to clear us out?”

“Well…,” the fox says, mulling it over, “Not a bomb. Though clearing us out… perhaps, in a manner of speaking. I think we will be alright for the time being though.”

“If you’re sure…” Boomer says, a faint blush rising in his cheeks, “Then could you maybe put the hose back on for a little while?”

(II)

The glass makes a refreshing tinkle in his paw as the ice clinks, lit lemon yellow from the light over the bar. After such a strange experience, it feels equally strange to be back in such safe surroundings again, with the ‘new and improved’ figure Kendall sports. Presently, he sits on tree stools by the bar, legs spread to give his stomach space to let it rest. The first order of business after getting back and getting his car seen to had been to get some new clothes. Someone had at least put his old clothes in the back of the van. It might have been Boomer, planning to dump them somewhere far away from the resort, to keep suspicion from falling on him but he could have put them on a washing line out behind the back of the lodge and nobody would have found them all the same. The gun had been with them, though, and that had been even stranger for him. Still, all his stuff has been returned to him, at least – everything except his winning figure. What he was left with – perhaps five or six hundred pounds of cuddly fluff may be kind of cute even if it lacked street cred – was very hard to shop for clothes for. Off-the-rack stuff with maybe half a dozen Xs to their solitary L on the tag still didn’t completely cover everything – his hips still were partly pinched in by the sweatpants and he couldn’t get the shirt to stop riding up over his bellybutton. For now though, it would do. Not very well, but it would do.

The balls on the table make a resounding, nostalgic clak as Eric finally takes his shot. The skunk was good company – he never quite made him feel bad for having had the pounds piled on him. Granted, Kendall felt damned embarrassed about the matter – it was shameful enough to have gone through the whole ordeal but, when it came to hanging out with guys at the bar, Eric Skunk was the fat guy. That red-furred skunk was always the fat guy, no matter the group he hung out with. Hell, he remembered the time the skunk said he was going to an eating contest and Eric showed up heavier before the contest as if he were competing to be a prize pig or something. Granted, he lost pretty hard at the actual competition – all that extra meat on your bones makes it hard to keep packing it in for most normal people. Most normal people aren’t having it force-fed under duress by a crazy goddamn raccoon or getting their food administered by fire-hose. Afterwards, he’d mentioned it to Eric, apologised even for betting against him, he just didn’t think he’d be able to hack his way to first place. The guy had said it was fine and he wasn’t going out of his way to win – he just went in for the free-food and ate until he wasn’t especially hungry anymore. Heck, he said the other contests could stand to gain a few pounds and he was more than happy to let them have most of the buffet if it went that way. Sweet guy. In a way, Kendall thinks Eric had won in the end, then. In a way, he sort of always did.

Sort of. Right now, not so much.

“Looks like you’re getting a little behind, man,” Kendall says, setting down his glass and taking to the table.

“I’m only a little behind if you look at yourself! I’m having a pretty okay night!” he says, quite sincerely. For anyone else, that would have been a fat joke. Easiest thing in the world; Kendall set them up, he knocked them down. With Eric though? Eric never really meant things like that. He was kind of a goof, in his way. It wasn’t that he wasn’t smart or anything – he had every bit the wits the world had blessed Kendall with. It just wasn’t in his nature to take them out on others so readily. He left that kind of thing for Kendall to do. All the same, he can feel the blush rising to his pudgey cheeks despite it.

Kendall waddles to the table, hips slowly swaying. He picks up his cue and lines up the shot, putting his paw on the table to get an eye for where it’s going. Now, he has to be careful. This is their second table – he already has a bill waiting for him for what became of the first table he’d hustled for the evening. Money or not, if he bust a second one, he probably wouldn’t be getting any more drinks for the evening. The yellow ball will be tucked into the back right pocket and-

The table jumps with a staccato scraping sound, scattering the balls everywhere. Kendall can count on his luck that he hadn’t taken the shot or the cue would have been slicing up the felt, the rim of the table would be a foot deep in his fat and his paw would be through the surface. Again. He looks for the culprit and his eyes instantly fall on Eric. Of course it was Eric – presently, the skunk is trying to squeeze his way between the table and the next one over, going back to top up his glass by way of the short route. Kendall can’t really prove that he gave the table an intentional bump to spoil the shot – he’s kind of surprised he has enough mass on him to move the table with a swing of his hips if that’s the case – but he definitely has something to do with it, at least.

“Oops,” Eric says, dismissively. He might not be one to easily pick on others but he certainly knows how to take advantage of a situation. Swinging free meals and ruining a good shot. It wasn’t all that bad, though. So long as the game went on, they’d still be buying drinks and wagging chins and his presence in challenging Eric’s dominance of the position of ‘local fat guy’ had definitely piqued his interest.

“Eh, it’s no big deal, big guy” Kendall says, glancing to one side before popping the balls back out to try and take the shot again.

“WELL! Speaking of big deals,” the skunk responds, seguing into the topic as obviously as he is capable of, “I don’t, uh, want to draw attention to it, but-”

“But when did I get so fat?” Kendall asks, dropping a fistful of red balls onto the table, “That about the long and short of it, man?”

“Well, uh, I guess I am kind of curious about the wide of it, yeah. I mean, you used to be slim as a signpost – anyone would be curious,” he says, smiling innocently before recalculating, “Well, I guess people might be less curious and more shocked and mocking? But I’m genuinely interested!”

That was about the truth of things – on both counts. Others had been surprised to the point of delirium since it seemed entirely impossible to put on that kind of weight on short notice. Since it really was, he didn’t blame them. Some had kind of scoffed about the confident ringtail getting husky as hell – the fat jokes were as abundant as, well, the fat itself is. Eric had just wondered what had happened and was interested to know more. It was embarrassing to talk about but with Eric, he knew that was all on his side; he wasn’t going to be made to feel bad about it. All the same, he felt a little bad because, in telling, he might be putting Eric in danger. Boomer was crazy as a bag of angry cats and generally as cool and pleasant seeming on the outside as a slowly flowing river. Put those two elements together though and you get something horrible. The memory of the eating contest keeps coming back to him, the thought of Eric trying to score a free meal He doesn’t want to see the guy get hurt at all…

But on the other hand, the conclusion of that memory sneaks into mind. Not of Eric feeling any bad at all, but acting as though he could have eaten it all. Not being a sore loser – just calm, quietly confident, happy. He thinks that if Eric does something, he’ll probably be okay. It might even spoil Boomer’s fun if has a guest the likes of Eric. Whilst he goes to have his fun, Kendall will lay low and maybe see if he can do something about the weight situation. Most likely, he will convince himself that this is his plan but do what he always does when he’s out of ideas. He’ll get drunk.

“Well, you know the other day when I went out for that card game with some of the old boys? Y’know, the day when we had that tropical storm?”

(III)

The tubby skunk grins from ear to ear, rubbing his paws together in utmost anticipation. When Kendall finally fessed up the location, it was like getting an early birthday present. Arriving at the place where it was assuredly going to happen was like Christmas, except all the presents were going to be entire Christmas dinners. The tree and decorations would be too. The snow, also. Basically, there would be a lot of food and he’d be having it. It definitely looks like the place – Kendall had given him a copy of the brochure he said he’d found in the van he’d ‘borrowed’ on his way back. He’d also given him an envelope of photographs of the van at a scrapyard and a letter promising to mail him the head gasket and then the engine block in pieces if he didn’t take good care of Eric. If the skunk came back bearing a review of the dread number – 7 out of 10 – or lower, the van would be suffering for it. It took some doing to get him to that point though – he had to feign horror in all the right places, submerging his interest and excitement until he could tell enough that it actually seemed like Kendall had wanted him to go their way. Now it was like a vacation, albeit it was a holiday from ‘not eating like crazy’.

The whole thing sounds entirely absurd to the skunk – he just wants to get a good meal. Well, that and to be ‘the fat guy’ again. The heavyset skunk feels sorry for Kendall – he’s seen some of the looks he gets. Well, sure, a lot of people think he’s adorable as heck – Eric knows he is because he’s lived at that side of the looking glass for long enough himself – but he sees Kendall struggling with some of the downsides. He knows his buddy just needs to ease up and be willing to walk into the big and tall stores without feeling embarrassed. Well… probably the ‘just honestly really big and wide stores’ more than anything else. He’d be okay in time but Eric can’t imagine he wants to be the fat guy. He can take being a fat guy but the fat guy is his post. Eric’s butt’s supposed to be the butt of jokes, he’s supposed to be the one who can hold his liquor harder than others and people are supposed to see him and ever so slightly up the portions on his meals. These aren’t things to boast for – they are a badge of office. They’re a responsibility and, with a little service, he can be back where he belongs.

Unfortunately, the lobby seems to be dead silent – there’s no service to be had here. Still, as a southern gentlemen might, he demands satisfaction. He may not be southern and he may be no gentlemen – just gentle and male will do him – but he’s going to come away from this well and truly sated.

Polite as he tends to be under normal circumstances, he strides into the office.

IV
Boomer lazes back on the loveseat, taking up the whole thing by himself, stomach rising easily over the arm rests. He’s barely gotten up since having to get up the basement stairs. The whole incident with the whatever-he-was seems so far in the past now. Boomer thinks he might have been a raccoon but his fur was a little too pale for that but it seems so distant. Even though it can’t have been more than a week, the effects seem to echo through the ages. Boomer can barely remember a time where wasn’t huge and hungry as heck. The other day, he’d even had to resort to inviting one of their guests to a private dinner function, of sorts. Idly, he spins the cat’s collar around a fingertip. He thinks that guy might have been some kind of cop but not a normal one. Like a special cop, only with time. Do they have those? The idea seems insane but rational thought seems impossible with him being this fat in this kind of weather.

The summer is utterly unrelenting – the cool air off the spinning collar is about the best he as. It spins off his finger and into the rest of the junk collection, not to be seen again for some time. He sighs and struggles to peer over the round ball belly he bears, straining to see what movie is on. He regrets putting the popcorn bucket on the curve of fuzzy gut as it only makes it harder to see but, worst of all, he regrets asking Hikari to go out and get a drum of ice cream. Not because he doesn’t want it – he desperately wants something to fight the heat – but because it means taking on being this tubby without being able to at least cuddle up to something. Mostly, he feels kind of antsy – he hasn’t had a new project to work on. Nothing to even really distract him from the ‘ruination’ of his shape. He has to confess he kinda likes it but it isn’t making Summer easier on him. If he had something to do, at least, he might not feel so hungry.

A large shadow casts over him as though a guardian angel – besides Hikari – had heard his prayes, bearing a suitcase in his hand and a few hundred pounds of fluff on his figure.

“Okay!” says the skunk, bristling with delight, “I’ve packed for a month! I want a guided tour of the place! Can I meet Porkers 1 through 6? Do you actually have six or did Kendall just say that because there’s six other cabins? Does it have to be corn syrup or can we use molasses or something like pudding? I’m not going to be competing with you, am I? Like, it’ll just me eating? I mean I don’t mind sharing but this is a vacation so you’ll be, like, a waiter, yeah?”

“Uh…” Boomer says, utterly dumbfounded, “Sure, I guess?”

He knew this was going to be an… interesting experience.