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Hard Work

_ Part 1 _

_ by: pennwolf _

"No. No, no. Oh FUCK no!!"

I sat rigid in the driver's seat, covered in sweat, begging the car to move. Key strained in the ignition, I hoped and prayed to whatever power out there watching over me. Despite all evidence to the contrary, ignoring the plume of steam spewing from the hood of the car, I willed it to move. Hit the gas. Cranked it into neutral. Punched the horn. Anything.

My car responded be letting out a long, guttural howl. Like a dying animal, it groaned and hissed until it was spent. I sat for another few seconds, head pressed into the steering wheel, and teeth grit in frustration.

"FUCK!"

I gnashed my teeth in agitation, and wiped sweat from my forehead. It was quickly getting hot in here. The air conditioning had cut off with the rest of my amenities. Not even the radio could summon strength enough to sputter the same ten pop songs into my ears. It was silent, except for the hiss of whatever coughed up steam from underneath the hood. I jammed my finger into the switch to roll my windows down. Nothing, of course.

I flung the door open and leaped to my feet. It swung back at me and slammed into my hip, the blunt metal striking sharply against bone. I let another string of curses fly free, and then angrily stormed to the front of my car. The Geo Metro, blood red and bellowing steam, looked like it was an overcooked piece of meat. Finally, I had driven it into the ground.

"Just had to fucking stop. I just _had_to fucking stop! Fuck!" I fumed. "Just had to take a piss. Dammit!"

My fingers dug underneath the hood, and I attempted to wrench it up. Nothing, of course. In my rage, I had forgotten to pop the cover using the lever on my dashboard. My impatience instantly rewarded with singed fingertips. I yelled, shoved the top half of my torso back through the driver's door, and gouged my thumb into the soft give of the button.

The hood lurched. I strode back to the front of the car and kicked it open with the toe of my boot. Another plume of steam shot skyward and dispersed into the cooler air. I folded an arm in front of my face, and gazed downward over the crook of my elbow.

I didn't have the first fucking idea what I was looking at.

I stepped back and pulled the phone out of my pocket. Struggling with the thumbprint sensor, which no longer recognized my cooked fingertip, I threw it to the gravel highway shoulder upon seeing a total lack of bars.

"Fuck!" I screamed.

• -

On the two-hour anniversary of my stranding, I was at least thankful that this useless hunk of phone could function as a six-hundred dollar watch. My car no longer steamed; it simply sat like a the world's worst show model. I sighed, and considered my options.

"How the fuck haven't I seen anyone drive by all afternoon?"

Was I really even that far out here? I just wanted to take the long way home. The scenic route--not like anything in this flat, dismal hell could be considered pretty. Flying down the highway at eighty miles-per-hour while I dropped classes using my phone's e-registrar had almost been meditative. Almost.

"Instant karma," I said.

It had been a bad day. A bad week. Several bad weeks, one after the other. College wasn't for me--I just wasn't the type. Couldn't focus, couldn't focus _on_focusing. Couldn't talk to anyone about this, because I didn't _have_anyone. Didn't connect. Didn't fit in. Couldn't get deeper than ice-breaker games at freshman orientation. Shallow conversation in the corner of an apartment kegger. Arguing with my dumbass roommate and his dumbass friends that were _always_over.

I took another lap around my car. Saw my reflection in the mirror, square face flushed with rage and rust-colored hair sticking to my forehead. Veins tensed in my neck. I jumped in the driver's seat again. Stabbed the key into the ignition and cranked. Nothing but a postmortem groan of gas.

"This fucking car!" I brought things back to the present.

Why had I felt so proud for buying this hunk of shit in high school? Worked all summer to buy it all in one lump right before junior year started. It wasn't brand new, and it certainly wasn't beautiful. But it was mine. Ran me to school, ran me to work. Ran me out to first dates, and to my best friend's place on the other end of town. It was mine. Now, well beyond a decade old, it was total slag.

I looked at my phone again. This was getting me nowhere. Standing here, waiting. Trying to flag someone down. Hoping some farmer with a heart of gold would pull up, spit on his hands, turn a few plugs under the hood, and I'd be good as new. He'd offer me a place to stay--so I didn't have to face down my parents--and he'd have a smoking hot daughter. We'd bang, then get married. I'd grow to resent her. It would be perfect.

I jogged a few paces into the middle of the road. In front of me? Nothing. Behind me? Fucking nothing. The last speck of civilization I had remembered seeing was that_Gas-N-Go_ twenty minutes back. Bought that fucking off-brand Red Stallion that got me into this fiasco.

Better to head back that way? I would be walking for miles. Walking all night. Who knows if they'd even be open by the time I got back there. Or if I'd even make it that far. It was hot out, unseasonably so, and god damn if I wasn't thirsty already.

Or I could walk the direction I had been driving. Hope there was something closer. Maybe I was just on the cusp of civilization and hadn't even noticed. I had been barely even been paying attention to the Maps app on my phone. I had driven mindlessly in a straight line, wanted to put this shit-show of a year behind me.

"Dammit," I felt moisture welling in the corner of my eyes. "Ugh, how fucking pathetic _am_I?!"

I checked my phone again. Nothing. Maybe a sudden blip on the service icon. Hammering my "recent calls" list, I tried for home again. One ring, and then that fucking robot voice. I'd die with her whispering sweet nothings into my ear._'Service unavailable,'_she'd sing to me as I keeled over on the roadside from a rage aneurysm.

Maybe I could cheese some use out of this phone. Just had to get some elevation, maybe.

"Wait, right, Indiana. Tallest thing around here are megachurches."

I looked around, trying to get a sense of the land. Just fields as far as I could see. They were turning green again, no longer brown and crinkled from a long winter. Plots of corn and soybeans. Hay bales.

"Oh wait, maybe?"

I ran into the field and threw myself at the nearest bale. It was scratchy, brittle and sharp. I dug my hands into the flat, circular face, and tried to climb. Though I wasn't exceptionally athletic, I was at least strong. Probably too heavy, though; I felt the grass cave in under my weight. Clumps fell off and were crushed beneath my boots on the ground.

I tried again. And again. Eventually, I was able to dig both of my feet into one of the swiss roll-esque layers of hay. I heaved, and dug in again. I got one of my arms to the summit of the bale. Another grunt, and I felt my stomach crest the mound of grass. I let my legs hang off the side, and wrenched the phone from my pocket. I pointed it into the sky like I was the goddamn Highlander.

There was a rumble in my ears. Must have been my heart racing from the adrenaline. Blood pumping hard in my veins. I turned my eyes up, trying to see my phone's home screen through the glare of afternoon sun. The rumbling got louder, and louder, and--

"Hey bud, you need some help?!" A voice called at me from the road.

I whirled around too quickly. With my phone clutched and pointed at the heavens, I lost my grip on the crumbling hay bale. I slid down, tumbling ass-first onto hard dirt.

A white pick-up truck had pulled up in front of my car. The vehicle looked old as hell, older than my car even, but it was running. The truck idled, keys in the ignition and the motor running. It hadn't been my heartbeat moments ago. It was...

"You okay, boss?" The voice again.

I saw motion from the truck's driver's side door and a man landed on the gravel. He was probably older than me, but still fairly young. A plain white undershirt and simple blue jeans. Work boots. Seemed like the usual rural fare. Tawny, with buzzed hair that could have been black or dark brown. The scruff on his chin had a lighter shade. As he approached, I realized he either had a wicked farmer's tan or some spanish heritage. Concern blazed in his expressive brown eyes.

"I'm fine," I sputtered. My voice was a bit ragged, throat dry and raw from shouting.

"Don't look it," He said.

The guy extended a hand, and I took him up on it. He pulled me to my feet with surprising strength, and I had to focus on the balancing act. He was a head lower than me, but made up for his short frame with broad shoulders and a layer of solid muscle.

"Having some car trouble," I elaborated, forcing a smile.

"Mm," He nodded. The guy looked me up and down. I felt him rub his thumb against my palm. Strange. But then, he gave me a vigorous hand shake. "Name's Scott."

"N-Nathan," I responded. "...Er, Nate."

"Good to meet ya," Scott said. He let go of my hand. "Need a lift?"

"Uhhh, yeah," I said. "Either that, or...uh, advice? Don't know much about cars."

"It's done for," Came the reply almost instantly. Nothing sugar-coated. "Don't need to know much about cars to know that. But I do, and, well..."

"Got it," I sighed.

Scott lead me back towards our vehicles. I was strangely at a loss for words, despite replaying scenes of help in my head for the past few hours. Situations to explain. Phones to borrow. Directions. Advice. Just someone to vent to. I guess this dude was the answer to my despondent fantasies.

"Where you headed?" Scott asked. He opened the driver's side door for me.

His truck was parked opposite of my car. Apparently, he had been headed the opposite direction, and just cut over the lane of nonexistent traffic to come to my aid. I suddenly felt guilty that he was inevitably going out of his way to help me.

"Middleton," I said.

"Hoo man, you take a wrong turn or something?" He chuckled.

"No, I--well, maybe," I admitted. "I definitely wasn't heading my usual way home."

"Home, huh?" He repeated, almost as if he hadn't ever heard the word. He then gestured to my piece of junk car. "You need anything outta there?"

"Are we...not coming back?"

"Doesn't hurt to be safe," Scott said. "But you really wanna try and rescue this thing?"

"Well, I don't want to _leave_it here," I replied. In all honesty, I didn't really care. This whole ordeal had purged me of any nostalgia I had for the car. I just didn't want to get fined for it or anything. Have to pay out some bogus ticket to an asshole sheriff. "But I dunno what to do with it."

"Here," Scott said.

He reached down to his waist, and hoisted the undershirt over his head with a swift motion. Shirtless, bare-chested save for a smattering of hazel hair, I raised an eyebrow at the odd turn of events. Scott moved towards my car and balled up the shirt. He opened the door nearest to him and wedged the white shirt into the corner before slamming the door shut.

"Oh," I realized. The universal symbol of a broken down car. "Thanks."

"Your stuff?" He asked.

"R-right. Sorry," I said.

I had a lot in the backseats. Well, nothing_important_ really. Clothes, a few knickknacks. Whatever I decorated my dorm room with that I didn't wish to abandon. A poster or two, rolled up and squashed beneath a box of heavier junk. My backpack caught my eye; it had phone chargers and other valuables stowed inside, my laptop chief among them. I grabbed the bag, not wanting to risk it getting stolen, and not wanting to hold Scott up while I deliberated.

He opened the passenger side door of his pick-up for me. I hopped in warily. However, the worry quickly melted away as I felt the vibration of a working motor through the ratty passenger's seat. It was a fucking _miracle_that I was leaving this cornfield behind.

"Home?" He asked again. I heard him through the open window as he made his way around to the other side of the truck and jumped into the driver's seat. "From where? If Middleton's home, you might as well head down to Kentucky at this point."

"Hard to explain," I said. "Well, not really. From uh, from school."

"College?"

"Yeah..." I admitted. "Indiana University."

"Heading home on a Tuesday?" He probed further.

"Like I said, hard to explain," I said, perhaps a little too short with someone who had just saved my ass.

"Don't then," My companion shrugged.

I would have thought I'd offended him if it wasn't for the slight smile on his face. He simply put the car into drive, fiddled with the clutch, checked his mirrors, and then we were off. I hadn't ever been happier to have the wind in my face.

"I'll take you to my uh, Father's house," Scott said. "It ain't far."

"Thanks," I said again. "For everything. I was waiting there for, shit, I don't know. A few hours. It's been...a really rough day."

"Well, things are looking up, right?" He asked. "I happened to be driving by. Cruising the property."

"Farm's yours?" I asked.

"It's the--er, my Father's," He corrected. There was a strange, stilted way he said that word. "I just work it."

"Ah," I said. I gestured to the flat fields in front of us. "You guys own _all_of this?"

"Nah," Scott said. "We own a strip, that's all. Farm it how my Father likes to. Used to be that the big guys tried to muscle us off the land. We came to an understanding."

"Mm," I said. "You like it?"

"It's hard work," he sighed. "But it, uh,builds character, as my Father says. I can't imagine doing much else."

"Wish I could say the same," I said. "I could imagine doing _anything_else than staying at that fucking school."

Scott chuckled. "Could you see yourself doing farm work?" He asked.

"Sure. It's _anything,_right?"

In reality, I couldn't. Too simple, not my game. But I wasn't about to say something so condescending.

"I find that hard to believe," He replied. "Feel like once boys get a taste of college, they don't care much for this line of work."

"People who go to college are idiots," I retorted.

"Heh. Yeah, maybe. My Father went. Not me though. I wasn't the type either," He smiled.

It was a nice smile. Not that I cared or anything. Scott wasn't my type; he was a dude, after all. Probably had his fair share of farm girls out here, all to himself. Still, I did my best to return the grin.

• -

We rumbled down a long, gravel road. It had been twenty, maybe thirty minutes since Scott and I left my crap heap of a car behind. I saw a farmhouse appear on the horizon. It had been obscured by a small wall of trees until we rounded a wide turn. Hidden back here, with nothing but fields as far as I could see in either direction, it finally sunk in how out of my element I was.

I saw a barn, too. A large, flat building with a metal roof and sturdy windows. A stable of some sort, that much I was sure of. Bigger and taller than I'd usually seen, though. The walls were thicker. Prison-like, almost. Aside from the stable, the farm looked fairly picturesque as we approached. Scott's truck crawled into the driveway next to a tan, sun-bleached house. I couldn't make out any tractors or other large-scale farming vehicles, though. Probably hidden away in the barn.

No sign of animals either.

"Well, here we are," Scott said.

He killed the engine. I was suddenly overwhelmed at how quiet it was out here. A few bird songs, now that dusk approached, but that was all. It was peaceful and disquieting, at the same time. How could someone not get lonely all the way out here?

We both jumped out of the truck, and I slung by backpack over my shoulders.

"Thanks again for the ride, man," I said. "I hopefully won't stay in your hair too long. Just need to make a phone call or something. Figure out my next move."

"Take your time," Scott said. "Come inside, in the meantime. My Father should be in there. He'd like to meet you, I'm sure. We can explain the situation."

I nodded, and followed him up the remainder of the gravel driveway. I saw several other vehicles, all mostly pick-ups, in a carpool that was detached from the house. Several more vehicles, all of them in states of disrepair, sat like headstones in the sprawling backyard. Typical country shit.

What I _did_find kind of strange, however, was that there wasn't an address on a mailbox. Or even a mailbox, for that matter. No signs. I imagined a place like this, some family-run farm, would have a quaint, hand-painted sign with their title and acreage for all to see.

"C'mon in," Scott said with a warm smile.

He took the plain cement steps up the stoop, and opened the front door. I nodded, and allowed him to usher me inside. The dim room that I stepped into seemed like an all-encompassing utility space; there was a small, square kitchen table, as well as a stove-top and oven sat against the far wall next to some plain-looking counters. Bookshelves lined the walls, and several small lamps dotted side tables in the corner of the room. A fan with wide blades spun overhead, circulating the air from an open window. All said, it seemed very rustic. Not even a television.

There was a loud _thunk_behind me as Scott entered the house and closed the door behind him. I turned around in time to see Scott move and place several locks on the thick, fortified frame. _That_also unnerved me, slightly. Then again, we _were_far out here. Farm culture.

"Boss!" Scott yelled into the house. "Found someone stalled out on the road!"

He politely pushed me further into the living room, but remained near the door. I heard footsteps down one of the several hallways that lead out of the central hub. For whatever reason, I jumped as I saw a shadow approach from the corridor and a large man appear to greet us.

"`Nother one, eh Scott? Who do we have here, my boy?"

Scott's father was a big man, easily over six feet tall. He was broad without being fat. Despite this, he had an inviting presence about him. A surprisingly well-kept beard outlined his face, black with flecks of silver. A pair of glasses rested on his round nose, the lenses glinting light so that I couldn't make proper eye contact as he approached. He was wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his thick, hairy forearms, and a blue vest with several pockets. Like Scott, he also wore a simple pair of blue jeans and work boots.

"Yes, boss," Scott quietly confirmed.

"I-I'm Nate," I said quickly as the large man looked me up and down in much the same way Scott had when we first met. "I was stuck out there for a few hours before Scott drove by. I, uh, can't thank you and Scott enough."

"Much obliged," Scott's father beamed. "Happy to help a young man out of a bad situation."

"I just needed a place to get my bearings, and make a call" I continued. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, dismayed to see that it _still_didn't have any bars. Running low on power, too. "Er...do you guys have a phone I could use? Mine's still not working."

"Mmmm," The older man shook his head. "Unfortunately, my boy, our line is still down. Had a big storm the other night, didn't we Scott?"

"Yes," Scott said, not moving or coming in the house any further. He was standing with his back straight, arms at his sides, and he didn't take his eyes off of his father. What with him being shirtless, I was sort of reminded of a soldier.

"Real bad storm," His father embellished. "Still reeling from the damages. Lost one of my boys. Horace--a real workhorse, that one."

"Oh God," I balked at the sudden revelation. "I-I'm so sorry. Sounds like a fucking--I mean, a terrible storm."

"_Fucking_terrible indeed," said Scott's father. He smiled, which I found strange, then continued, "It's in the past, and we're moving forward. Rest assured, things will be patched up by morning. I think our luck is about to change. We'll get you set up, Nate, don't worry, my boy."

There was a look in his eyes, beneath those glasses. I tried to place it, but found that difficult. Determination was the closest thing that came to mind. Some sort of latent excitement beneath his brow, a strange glow those blue eyes.

"Scott," the man said at once, clasping his hands together.

I again looked to the doorway, where Scott was still standing rigidly. In an instant, he was at attention.

"Take care of our guest. I'll prepare some dinner, see if we have anything lying around."

"That's alright," I began, "I--"

"Nonsense! Several hours, you were stranded? You've got to be hungry. Thirsty?" He implored, standing up and moving towards the modest kitchen area.

"Actually, a glass of water sounds pretty damn good," I said. My throat was still totally parched.

The man chuckled. I saw him pull a pristine glass from one of the cupboards above the sink. With a flick of the tap, water gurgled out of the rustic faucet and he filled the glass. I stepped forward and took it.

"Don't mind the taste," He said. "Well water out here can be a bit spotty. Mineral deposits. It's why we farm! Very good soil. Perhaps not to _our_liking, but..."

I was overcome with a moment of hesitation as I put the glass to my lips. Something sprung to mind, about not taking a stranger's glass. Maybe it was on one of my old R.A.'s cheesy billboards as a technique for girls to avoid getting felt up at a party. I drank anyway. I was thirsty as hell, and it was just water, after all. I had seen it come out of the faucet.

"There ya go," Scott's father said with a smile.

It did taste a bit strange, I had to admit. Not quite metallic, which I had experienced before at my parents' old house in the back-end of Knox county, but still a little earthy. Still, it was a welcome refreshment. I finished the glass, and Scott's father took it off of my hands, setting it near the sink. He turned to his son and nodded.

"As I said, my boy, set him up," The man instructed.

I saw a strange look on Scott's face for a split-second. Again, not an emotion that I could place. Fear, or disgust, and then just nothing. He beckoned me to follow him down the hall, and I did. We only walked a short distance, and then he opened a room on the left. It was another insanely thick and vault-like door, which I couldn't help but find weird. Another door, further down the hall and equally-fortified, must have been Scott's room.

"What's with the doors?" I asked quietly.

"What do you mean?" Came the answer.

I looked at him and shrugged. Dude had probably lived his entire life in this weird, isolated little house. His father was obviously some sort of "prepper" or something--waiting for the government to collapse so that he could flourish out here. Nuclear bomb shelter underneath the place, or whatever. It was weird, but I supposed to each their own. I had other things to worry about.

"I'm really sorry to hear about your, uh, brother?" I ventured. "I can't believe you're dealing with that, and it's only been a few days."

"He wasn't my brother. Not really," Scott said flatly.

Not the response I was anticipating. I decided to stay quiet and watch him work. The room was spartan, but inviting enough. There was a small twin bed on the far wall, underneath a window. I figured I could crack that during the night, considering this house probably didn't have any kind of centralized A.C. There was a desk on the other end of the room, and an empty closet. No pictures or posters or anything. Maybe they cleared this out after Scott's not-brother's passing.

"You can sleep here tonight," Scott said as he quickly made up the sheets and a blanket for the bed.

I gingerly dropped my backpack at the foot of the bed and nodded. "Thanks a lot, man."

"It's nothing," came the simple reply. "Oh, and...this is a farm, so you might hear some noises from the barn, or the stable, or something. Nothing to worry about."

"Gotcha," I nodded. "That's fine. Can't say I'm really an animal person, but man, I'm just thankful for the hospitality. It's been a really bad fucking day."

"Tomorrow'll be better."

"Yeah," I said.

"I'll give you a bit to get settled. The Boss will probably be ready with dinner in a few. You wanna shuck those clothes and get 'em washed?" He asked.

"I..." There was definitely an oil stain or two on my shirt, as well as straw on my pant leg from the dumb hay-climbing escapade. One snag, though, I dumbly realized. "Actually, don't think I brought a change of clothes in my backpack."

"Probably something or another spare in the dresser there," He motioned near the desk to a small piece of wooden furniture with a single large drawer.

I walked over, bent down, and opened the drawer. Sure enough, I saw a pair of jeans in my waist size. Behind that, I found a plain white t-shirt. Not bad in terms of blending in.

"Guess these'll work," I said, pulling them from the dresser and throwing them on the bed.

"Lucky for you," Scott said with a smile. "Here, strip those off and I'll get 'em washed for you.

Before I could react, Scott's strong and nimble hands were at my waist, fiddling with the buckle to my pants. I immediately shied away, and my jaw clenched from what was from my perspective a sudden violation of privacy.

"Whoa-oaaa, haha," I said, putting a hand out. "That's cool man, but I--you know...kind of weird, right?"

"Is it?" Scott replied flatly, cocking his head. "I mean, who gives a damn? We're all guys here." He followed that up with immediately dropping his jeans to the ground and kicking them up into his hands. "Washing mine too."

"I uh, yeah, sure man," I relented. "Guess if it's convenient."

Against my willpower, a warmth crept across my cheeks. Was I embarrassed? It wasn't that big of a deal, Scott was right. My roommate and I had probably seen each other undress plenty of times throughout the semester. Nothing intentional, of course. It was just like Scott said, two dudes. I let the jeans fall to the ground with a clatter of my belt buckle. A second later, I pulled my shirt off over my head.

Scott had moved back near the bed. He took the shirt from my hands, and then I reached down to hand him the jeans. Seeing as he was right in front of me, I couldn't help but have my face crotch-level with him. I saw the short dude's fairly prodigious package twitch beneath his underwear before I immediately looked away.

"Thanks," Scott said, taking the last of my clothes. He gestured to my boxers. "And the...?"

"I think I'm good dude," I said, perhaps a little too quickly.

"Suit yourself," He said. "One of us'll holler when dinner's done."

"Alright," I said.

I watched him leave the room, muscles on his back and rear totally visible for all to see. Dude was definitely toned, and might as well have been fucking naked for all those briefs served to cover up. I shook my head, totally stone-cold weirded out. I wanted to get Scott's body out of my mind.

"Hicks, man," I muttered.

Not one to join the skimpy redneck, I immediately grabbed the change of clothes from the bed and pulled them on. The shirt fit a little snugly around my arms and chest, but I could deal. Might have bothered me at one point, but I had used a lot of my free time to hit the university gym this last semester. When you hated class, loathed your roommate, and just wanted to be alone for a while, your only option was a weight room really.

I looked around the bedroom again. Just like the main part of the house, the walls were completely bare. Aged white paint from floor to ceiling. Not even holes where something_used to_ be nailed up. I took it for what it was, and I moved to grab my phone off of the bed. As I did, my eyes caught something--a smooth, rectangular object tucked underneath the pillow. Kind of looked like a credit card, but without the sixteen digits and signature. Just a single magnetic strip.

"Food stamps card, or...something?" I shrugged, and put the blue card in my jeans. Must have accidentally fell out of Scott's pocket while he made the bed.

I finally turned my attention to my phone. I was dismayed to find that there was absolutely no change in the service level. Guess I was officially stuck in a dead zone. Battery was almost shot too, since the device had spent all afternoon trying to connect to something. I dug around in my backpack to produce a charger, then flicked my phone into airplane mode for the time being and plugged it into a wall outlet.

"Glad they at least have fucking electricity," I muttered, though I grimaced at my attitude. These two certainly were strange, but they had just saved my ass and gave me a place to crash for the night.

I went to the window and popped it open. It jammed not far up, but a cool breeze drifted into the room nonetheless. While it was hot as hell during the day, we were still just in mid-spring, so the cold could still bite back when the sun was down. Maybe I'd leave it closed tonight dependent on everything. But for now...

I flopped onto the bed and felt the wind on my face. Arms folded behind my head, I closed my eyes and tried to relax. My car exploded, I was picked up by a buff farm boy that was way too insistent on getting me out of my clothes, and now I was falling asleep in his dead brother's bed. This would _definitely_be a story worth telling when I finally got home tomorrow.

• -

"Nate! NATE!"

My eyes opened, dry and heavy with sleep. "Shit," I grumbled.

"Dinner's on the table, come out and get it!"

I wondered how long I had been out. Couldn't have been more than a few minutes, but I supposed I was more tired than I realized. Big, emotional days tended to do that to you after all. It was tempting to check my phone, but the call-to-arms for dinner was much more persuasive. I stood up and stretched like a dope. My body was sore and tired, and I felt ragged as a racehorse. Not wanting to keep them waiting any longer, I swung the heavy door open and left the room.

"Smells good," I commented, walking down the hall and back out into the main room. The scent of cooking meat hit my nose like a truck. I inhaled, and sighed. "Thanks again for treating me, the two of you."

"It's our pleasure," Scott's Father said. He took a seat at the small, square table and gestured for me to join.

I did, and sat across from him. Scott's Father was smiling, as seemed the usual for him. His vest was off, and the flannel shirt was unbuttoned near the top, allowing me to see a grove of dark chest hair. Now that I thought about it, it was odd that Scott and his Father didn't really look much alike. Scott was tanner, probably mixed-race, and had light hair. His dad, paler with dark hair.

Scott, who was now finally clothed for once, in an outfit that mirrored mine, set a plate of food in front of me. I took a whiff, and my mouth moistened. A huge slab of what appeared to be perfectly-cooked steak sat atop the pearly white dinner plate. Some steamed carrots and spinach rounded it out nicely, and I assumed they were all farm-fresh. A plate arrived in front of Scott's father as well. He continued to smile pleasantly.

"Scott," his father said gently, "wouldn't you like to join us?"

"I--uh," The young man stammered.

"You _are_my son, after all," He implored, the smile widening.

"O-Of course," Scott said. He grabbed a plate from the counter, though his lacked steak. Carrots, spinach, probably some lettuce or something. Radishes too? He sat down.

"Oh, was there uh, not enough? With me here?" I asked as the realization dawned. "Scott, you should have half of my steak. It looks pretty damn--"

"No! Thank you," he protested, and shoved a forkful of greens into his mouth.

"Don't worry, Nate," Scott's Father said. "Scott's simply a vegetarian. There's plenty to go around. Now, you're our guest, so dig in. Oh, but, would you like something to drink? Perhaps...a beer?"

"Actually," I said with a smirk, "I'm only nineteen, so..."

"Just a number," Scott's Father said with a wave of his hand. "If you'd like one, then have one."

"Ah, uh, actually, I don't really...stomach alcohol well," I admitted. Though I was tired, and my words were a bit slower, I still wanted to keep my wits about me. Something didn't feel right. In reality, my excuse was on the ball. "If college taught me anything, it's that I _really_shouldn't drink."

"I see," the older man said. "Some water, then."

Scott moved to obey. He grabbed another glass out of the cabinet and began filling it from the sink. A moment passed, Scott's father continued to eye me curiously, and then Scott set the water down in front of me.

"A toast," The older man said, raising his own glass. "To new company, if only for one night."

"Mm," I nodded. I raised the glass in tandem with Scott and his dad, and the three of us _clinked_them together. I took a sip of water, and then said, "Thanks again for the hospitality, both of you. And the food looks incredible, Mr., uh..."

"Moore," he said with a chuckle. And then, gently, "_Dr._Moore."

"I can't believe I never thought of asking for your last name," I said to both of the hosts. "Just been...a wild day."

"Of course," Came Dr. Moore's response.

The three of us dutifully dug into our dinners. Hungrier than I anticipated, I immediately attacked the slab of steak. It cut easily, was cooked to perfection, and had a juicy red center. The vegetables were also surprisingly flavorful. As I downed another large helping of water, I was feeling pretty contented with the turn of events. The three of us were nearly done when Scott's Father chimed in.

"So, Nate, you mentioned that you were in college," Dr. Moore began. "What are you studying?"

"I, uh..." I stammered. It was kind of a sore subject, considering I was AWOL, but he had no way of knowing that. "Biology. Er, or, I was. Didn't really end up liking it."

"Oh?" Moore cocked an eyebrow. "Why's that? I only ask since you seem to have tickled my field. I'm a doctor of genetics."

"That's really cool," I said. "Sorry, it isn't the subject I didn't end up liking, I guess. Just...class, I guess. I dunno. I-I'm actually, uh, dropping out."

"Dropping out? Could you tell me why?" He asked.

I tried to find words, but couldn't. I scratched my head, wanted to turn the turbulent feelings into a coherent explanation. Frankly, this was something that I would have preferred not to bring up, but the dinner seemed to be loosening my lips. I had no connection to these two, so what harm was there in just being honest? I'd be out of here by tomorrow, and free of any judgment.

"College just isn't for _me_I guess. I don't really like my roommate. I don't really like how fake and friendly everyone seems, or how they uh...all seem to get along. I can't get in that mindset, I guess. I miss my friends from back home. And I just miss home. Everything feels _realer_there. I can be myself."

"I see," Dr. Moore said. "That's too bad, I would really like to see more young men follow in the nobler sciences. But, tell me, where is home?"

"Middleton, right?" Scott asked, piping up for the first time in a while. His plate was clean.

"Yeah," I said. "It's kind of a small town, I guess, but I just liked it better there. My friends, they_get_ me. I miss my family too, I guess. Except, I know my Mom and Dad'll chew me out for ditching school."

"Surely they can't fault you for following your heart," The doctor said.

"Maybe," I said, noncommittally.

"And so that's what brought you to our neck of the woods, hm?" He continued. "Enough was enough, and you decided to pack up and leave your University mid-week to call it a loss?"

"Something like that," I confirmed. "Bailed, more like. Had some stupid fight with my roommate the previous night, and I didn't study enough for a test this morning, and I just..."

"Say no more," Dr. Moore nodded. "Perhaps I had put you in a box of my own. When Scott brought you in this afternoon, I sadly say I mistook you for some ne'er-do-well out on the fringe of my property looking for trouble."

That surprised me a bit. What was Scott's dad getting at, telling me this? "Between you and me, Dr. Moore, I'm far from a saint. But, I only wanted to get back home. Maybe I just didn't want to rush, y'know? Took a wrong turn, or wanted to see the sights, or...fuck, I dunno."

"I think I understand," the older man said with a smile. "It's easy to get lost in your own mind out here."

The three of us were quiet for a time. I managed to finish off my plate of food. As I was about to say something, however, a strange noise from outside immediately snapped me out of the domestic stupor. A long, braying, blood-curdling howl. It echoed as if we were in a tunnel; I then realized it was _two_howls, one slightly delayed. Ice flowed down my spine.

"W-Wwhat was--?" I stammered. "A coyote or something...?"

"Good ear," Dr. Moore said. "But we haven't had coyotes on the property in a long while. Drove the little buggers off. Better precautions, now. No, I fear those are some of our animals."

"The Twins," Scott murmured.

"Yes," Moore said quickly, and then added, "I suppose we aren't the only creatures that need their dinner. Nate, I fear you will have to excuse Scott and I."

"Oh, sure, of course. I can help with something. Uh, cleaning up in here maybe?" I offered with a shrug.

"No, that won't be necessary, though thank you," The doctor said. He rose to his full, imposing height and stepped away from the table. "I'm sure you're very tired. You've had a long day, haven't you?"

"Yeah," I agreed. Actuallty, I wasn't very tired. The nap had helped. Coupled with that, my adrenaline was pumping what with the sudden scare from the yowling animals.

"Nate, you seem to be getting very tired," The Doctor implored.

What a strange thing to say. I looked up at him, and then glanced to Scott. The younger man was giving me a neutral smile. However, his eyes said something different entirely--they were wild, flitting in an anxious sort of way. As I thought about those brown, expressive eyes, I found my own get heavy. I yawned, suddenly struggling to keep my head up.

"Yes, you're exhausted now, aren't you?" Scott's Father insisted.

I nodded obediently. My eyes were nearly closed.

"Scott--"

"I'll see him to his room, Boss," Scott said without missing a beat.

I felt his hand close around my arm as he crossed the distance between us, around the square kitchen table. I smiled dumbly, letting him guide me out of my chair and lead me down the hallway towards my temporary room. My feet were getting heavier. It was as if someone had poured a gallon of sand down my pant legs. I stumbled, and felt strong arms hoist me from underneath. Scott gently guided me to the bed.

"Wh-what's...?" I tried to speak. "You're really...er, strong. You know that...?"

"Shhhh," Scott hissed quietly. "You're okay, aren't you?"

"Mmhmmmmm," I drew out the last syllable as my head touched a pillow. Lying face-down, I wanted nothing more than to be obedient to these kind people. "Y-you're so...so nice."

"Just sleep," Scott said into my ear. And then, in an even lower whisper, a voice that I could barely register, he said, "Use the key."

"Hmmrgh?" Before I could fully register what he said, or if he had truly said anything at all, I heard the thunk of the heavy door closing. There was a rattle of locks, and then my vision spiraled away from me. I sunk into the bed, and I slept.

• -

I was back in my car. Put it into drive and peeled out down the highway. The little circa-2000 Geo Metro was souped up, good as new. Steam no longer belched out from underneath the hood like a volcano. Finally, after four years in what felt like prison, I was out. Free. A degree in my hands. Not literally, of course. It was framed, and hung up in the car, rattling as I hit a high-speed hairpin turn. I watched as a herd of horses, keeping pace like they were gas-powered, galloped alongside the highway and blasted my horn at them.

The time had flown by, but I had done it. I graduated. Nothing to worry about anymore. No more shitty roommate. No more frustrating classes; professors too out-of-touch to keep us involved in the subject. No more pipetting water in rudimentary biology labs. No more farmhouses, with their blank walls. No more Scott, who I suddenly, sorely missed.

'Wait...shit.'

As the full magnitude of realizing it was all a dream hit me, my car was lifted into the air, flung around a floating double-helix of highway. I was feeling queasy. A nauseating fire burned in my gut, and I coughed. Wretched up whole carrots. My vision distorted, showing two images, and then...

"FUCK!"

I woke up, arms flailing beneath the blankets. As my stomach gurgled, I forced my overly-heavy limbs to find the crook on the windowpane. I sputtered up liquid and chunks of food, spraying it through the partially-opened window and splattering whatever was directly outside of the room. After another minute of dry-heaving, I let myself fall back into the bed.

My head pounded. It felt as if someone had cold-clocked me square in the forehead. I reached up to make sure my head hadn't actually split open. Additionally, what I assumed was a dark room was actually just the back of my eyelids. I could barely open my eyes, as they were nearly glued shut with sleep. I finally, laboriously managed, and rubbed at them vigorously with the wedge of my knuckles. The dark room was barely illuminated by a half-moon hanging in the night sky. Bright stars hid behind patchwork clouds. I craned my neck, tried to get a better view out of the window, and my vision started to spin.

"God, I feel fucking awful," I moaned. Then, I remembered that I was a guest in someone else's home, and it was likely the middle of the night. Didn't make any sense to wake my hosts.

Just needed to get to the bathroom. I still felt out of sorts, so better to use the toilet than make a second pass above the nonexistent window garden. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and staggered to my feet. I was shaky, my leg muscles cramped. Needed to take a few seconds to regain balance, and breathe. I crossed the room in a few off-kilter strides, and made for the heavy door. My sweaty hand clung to the cold metal of the door as I struggled to turn it.

Nothing. It was stuck fast. I bit my lip in frustration. Panic started to set in; the fears in the back of my head since I arrived at the compound-like house swelled in my mind. I was going to get murdered. Raped. Sold into dark net slavery. Drugged and chopped up into a hundred pieces to feed to whatever wild animals were howling in their barn.

"No, don't be a dumbass," I whispered. I tried the handle again, and was met with no change. My vision narrowed at the sight of what was above the handle.

There were several bolts and locks. A plastic square with a set of closely-placed ridges that reminded me of a debit card machine. Nothing that I could manipulate. Could it only be locked from the hall? Shit. Why hadn't I noticed that before?

I was completely at the mercy of my captors.

"Shortsighted plan, though," I thought. "Didn't count on me waking up. Or, like, needing to pee."

It dawned on me that they probably weren't planning to keep me stowed away in here long enough for those variables to set in. Even through the sludge in my brain, this flagged as a short-term operation. I ran over and jumped onto the bed, crouched down and craned my neck to see out of the partially-open window. The moon and stars hadn't moved in the last minute; I considered using them to judge what time of night it was, but I had no reference points.

"Duh. Phone." I could have slapped myself.

Scrambling again, I nearly fell off of the bed as I searched for the spot I had plugged in my phone earlier.

"Shit." It was missing. As was my backpack. "SHIT!!"

How could I have been so fucking stupid?! The signs were there from the beginning: the stilted manner Scott spoke, the fact that _no one_was on the roads, and Scott had just _happened_to find me here. This nuclear bunker of a house. Doctor dad and his weird questions.

Why the fuck did they bother with giving me room, board, and a hot meal when I was just going to be unceremoniously murdered in a few hours?

"The water," My stomach knotted in realization.

I _had_been drugged. That explained why I loosened up so much during dinner; it explained why I was so chatty and why I had suddenly wanted to answer all of Dr. Moore's questions. He had casually interrogated me about something, tried to find out more about me. He put something in the drink, to lower my inhibitions. And I had fallen for it.

'But why? What for?'

"None of it makes sense..." I mumbled. A sharp pain buzzed angrily within my skull.

The two of them. Father and son. This expansive farm. Barns and stables full of...what? Howling creatures? Had they planned to drug me so that they could kill me and chop me up as free meat for whatever illegal animals they were keeping out here on the farm?

"Nah, that...doesn't make any sense. Just poach someone's cattle or something," I reasoned. There were cases of people doing that already. Low-lifes parked out in a field waiting for some farmer's cow to stray far from the herd, then kill it and bring it home to feed a plot full of dogs. No need to drug and carve up a person.

I thought on it some more. Scott had seemed friendly enough; but then, a moment later, had been capable of acting like a damn martian. His thing_with clothes. Walked around in his underwear. Didn't act like one of his brothers had just died. Er..._not-brother. Right.

I struggled to put the puzzle together. The pieces were there, but I lacked a solid foundation to construct it on.

It must have been some weird-ass cult. Tokyo subway-bomber levels of weird. Were there more"sons" out here? A whole fucking compound of young dudes running around in their underwear under the thumb of some giant fucking pervert cult leader-slash-father figure? I had seen enough youtube documentaries to draw the right conclusions.

"Am I next in line or something? He's gonna turn me into a...houseboy?"

I guess it made sense. But also--no it didn't? At least I still had my clothes on. For now. Well, not mine_exactly, but I still wore the white t-shirt and _jeans--the jeans!

I slapped the sides of my legs and dug around in all of the pockets, not sure where I had hidden it. The card. The weird, blank, blue card with the magnetic strip on it. My fingers struck something in my pocket; thin, hard, and blunted.

"The key!" I sputtered, biting down hard on my lip to stifle the yell. Didn't want to wake anyone up. The key that Scott had told me to use. That he had _given_to me? "Does he...?"

'Does he want me to escape?'

Whatever. I pulled the card out. I bolted to the door, nearly stumbled over my own feet, and slid the card through the plastic readers. Nothing. I cursed, flipped the card and my hand fumbled it around the reader. I slid it again in the reverse direction, trying in the darkness to press it as close to the scanner as possible.

Click.

Something metal shifted in the door. I saw a small flash of green near where I slid the card. I let out breath, ragged with anticipation, and bit my lip as I pressed my body weight against the door. It shifted slightly, and I applied more force. I was able to wedge it just enough to slide my body through. Sucking in my stomach, I passed through the opening and was met with the quiet darkness of the hallway.

I forced myself to take a breath. My heart felt as if it was pounding outside of my chest. I wrangled it, almost afraid that the sound of it thrumming would give me away, and peered further down the hall to see another one of those heavy wooden doors. It was closed, and I figured it was where Scott was sleeping. If he really had intended me to use the card, then maybe he wasn't my enemy. He was on my side. In fact, it was entirely possible that when he gave me the card, he expected me to help _him_escape.

_'Fuck that.'_I thought selfishly.

It would be stupid to risk this opportunity. Plus, I couldn't force myself to care enough about Scott's predicament. Me getting the fuck out of this hellhole would give him the satisfaction of a selfless good deed.

I turned on my heels and headed the opposite direction. My footsteps were painstakingly slow as I quietly stalked down the hall towards the living room.

None of the lights were on. I had the sudden vision of Dr. Moore's hulking figure perched in the shadows. He could be waiting in anticipation for me to make an escape, with a shotgun at the ready. Hell, he was big enough that he could probably overpower me without a weapon.

I shuddered at the thought. I rounded the corner, and held my breath. I couldn't help but fear even the slightest exhalation would give me away. I did my best to survey the dark room. Then I crouched, and stepped forward.

Nothing. Not a sound, except for what might have been a distant clap of thunder. Or, more realistically, I realized it could be a bellow from an animal in the barn.

I noticed a flash of light on the kitchen table. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness, and I was aided by moonlight seeping in through old shutters drawn over crystal-clear windows. I saw it: my cell phone rested on the table. A cord was still attached to the charging slot, but the device itself wasn't plugged in. The cable was loosely wound around the reflective black screen.

I took a cautious step forward, and held in a breath. Naturally, I anticipated a trap. A sudden jolt of movement in the darkness from any direction.

I waited several long seconds before taking another step. I exhaled. My bare feet plodded against the cold wood floor as I took several small steps in quick succession. I approached the table, crouched even lower, and grabbed my phone. I slid it off the tabletop and kneeled on the floor. I used the furniture as potential cover.

I gingerly tapped the screen, and was silently relieved when the thumbprint scanner recognized my touch.

Still no service. I wanted to spike the useless scrap into the floor, but resisted the urge. Wouldn't help anyone. After another second, a menu popped up. It was Wi-Fi connection availability. I held my breath. Everything was secured, and I didn't have time to attempt some cryptically-impossible password. Basically useless, but it did serve to give me a glimmer of hope. This place wasn't as rustic as it seemed if they had working Wi-Fi. I pocketed my phone. It slid in adjacent to the key card.

I deemed the room safe enough and stood up. I eyed the hallway that I came from. It wasn't worth trying to break into Scott's room and persuade him to help me out of this mess. The front door? I considered the attempt to leave, to just run off into the fields and journey to some other speck of civilization. I remembered the wide open space that I had been stranded in earlier today. The decisions to leave school and lose myself out in these fields played over and over in my throbbing head. I was a victim to my own rash courses of action.

My fears were exacerbated by the fact Scott had driven me to an even more remote location. I didn't have a map. Simply put, I wouldn't get anywhere before I passed out from dehydration or found myself even more hopelessly lost.

There was the other hallway. The one that Scott's "Father" had entered the living room from prior to greeting me. I played with the idea, a nervous knot tying up my stomach once again. It wasn't the best choice I could make, but it made sense. Access a computer. Send a message. There was no way I'd be able to get through the front door without tripping some kind of alarm, now that I thought about it more. Worse, I could end up alerting whatever animals had been howling in the barn.

Fuck it. Any decision was better than just standing here. It was a stroke of good luck that even got me out of my room in the first place. Anything I did now, any mistakes I made that would further seal my fate, were choices that I didn't have sealed in that room. I was on borrowed time.

Plus, there was a part of me that wanted to know what the hell was going on in this bizarre compound. Maybe I'd get answers if I found whatever was giving off that signal.

I crept down the second hallway, hunched low enough to the ground to almost be on all-fours. My breath came in quick, quiet pulses. It was darker here. No windows, nothing on the walls. Par for the course, it seemed. As I skulked down the corridor, I squinted, and saw two doors. One of them was in the same style as I had been locked behind: thick, imposing, locks everywhere. I saw another key card scanner. The other door? It almost blended into the white plaster walls, but I could make it out due to a third key card scanner protruding slightly from the otherwise flat wall.

As much as I wanted to deliberate, there was just no time. Another bedroom posed the exact same problems that I was facing when I woke up. This door? It was hiding something.

However, first I needed to see if it accepted the card. With shaky fingers, I withdrew the key and tried to orient it in the exact same way as before. With a manic swipe, I heard the telltale click. No light, though. Instead, I saw shadows appear on the outline of the doorway as it depressed further into the wall. There was a slight hiss. I pushed, and it swung open. Just as heavy as the others.

"Oh fuck."

I groaned in apprehension as I saw a narrow, winding staircase descend down into a basement. A dim light emanated from below, through the metal lattice pattern of the floor and stairway. I bit down on my lower lip, steadied my breathing, and took a step.

No reaction, no alarms. My bare feet were pressed against criss-crossing cold iron. I put my hand on a side-rail and kept walking, venturing down the staircase and hopefully closer to a way out of this hellhole. Key tucked in my pocket, I didn't even blink as I quickly and carefully spiraled down.

A minute later, I keyed through another door at the bottom of the stairs and pushed my way through into what looked like a utilitarian workroom. It was large, maybe the same size as the living room on the ground floor. It was in this room that I saw the only furnished walls. Several framed degrees and certificates were hanging up, arranged deliberately in some sort of order that I didn't care to figure out. My eyes lit up as I saw a computer at some sort of desk or workstation.

My heart skipped a beat as I saw the large chair in front of the workstation slowly spin around.

"Fuck," I sighed.

"Nate," Dr. Moore addressed me, an unpleasant and familiar smile on his face. "Glad you could join me."

I immediately turned around and attempted to bolt out the door and up the stairs. No sooner did I lift up a foot than Dr. Moore's calm and cold voice reached my ears.

"Nate, would you stop trying to run?"

A haze filled my mind. It pushed all other thoughts away. I could only concentrate on keeping as still as possible, swaying slightly in the doorway.

I recognized it as the same heavy and tired sensation that I felt during dinner. I wasn't in fully-realized control of my body. My foot panted itself back onto the ground, and I stumbled, half-turned away from Dr. Moore. My arm flailed out, perhaps in protest, and I knocked something off of the wall.

"To think that I was going to let you go," He chuckled. "Have Scott give you a ride out of here in the morning. Very well then, I suppose your fate is sealed with us, my boy. I simply can't allow you to leave my domain after stumbling into my workshop. Nate, would you stand in front of me?"

I obeyed, vision blurring. It felt as if I was drunk off of something harder than any human had any business ingesting. I registered what Dr. Moore said, but before I could decide whether or not I wanted to listen to him, my body mandated a course of action. I approached the doctor.

Moore rose out of his chair. At his full height, broad as he was, I would have been intimidated had I been in the right frame of mind. I managed to notice he was wearing a lab coat. A pair of gloves had been discarded near some test tubes and vials on a desk. He was _working_on something.

"You're no longer the author of your own story, I'm afraid," Moore frowned. He put a hand on each of my shoulders, and then firmly kneaded my muscles. "You're one of my boys, now, Nate"

I didn't say anything, only offered labored breaths.

"Nate, can you speak freely, please? Ask me questions, but stay here. Alongside me," Moore instructed, as he continued massaging me. His hands roved from around my neck, down to my shoulders and arms. He pressed and squeezed at me, as if I was a show-dog and he was sussing out an imperfection.

"...What," I began, startled by my own words, "what did you do to me? What are...the drugs?"

"I won't bore you with the details, but they are heavy hypnotics. Put you into a sort of dissociative state that's highly susceptible to suggestion. Some say these cocktails are used by _certain_government bureaus to coax out hidden-away truths from captive agents," he explained.

"Hmm," I mumbled. I could feel his hands poking and prodding further. He reached underneath my shirt, and I felt his fingers dancing over my bare chest. "W-what are you doing? Feeling me up? Uhn." I accidentally groaned as I felt him squeeze one of my nipples.

"Think of it like a physical examination. I'm ensuring that you're healthy before we proceed further," The doctor said.

I shivered as his hands glided over my stomach. I saw him smirk, and he forced a hand into my pants. He tugged at my dick, and I moaned again as I felt my member swell to life. I started to think that the chemical cocktail had a side-effect to make me more sensitive. Libido was acting up.

"Testing stock, so to speak," Moore finished the thought.

"So you are..."

"Are what?" Moore repeated.

"Raping people? Scott? He's not your son, is he?" I asked, eyes darting around the room. Was there anything I could grab, anything to use as a weapon against him? I couldn't even move, really, but it would just take a second. Moore just needed to be distracted for one critical moment.

"He isn't, no," Moore said with a smile. "I was never the type for the typical, er, procreational practices. As helpful as a son of my own would be, I'm simply too obsessed with my work, and my pet projects. Though that's not to say I don't relish in enjoying a fine specimen."

To emphasize his depravity, the doctor's large hands rubbed down my thighs. He leaned forward, wrapping his hands around my waist, and he roved greedy fingers over my ass. I wanted to vomit, just standing there, unable to do anything. I wanted nothing more than to fall forward, pin him under me, and choke him out against the desk.

"How did you get all of this land? All of these, uh, these...science things? Down here?" I wanted to blame the drug cocktail for my lack of coherence, but I was also just an idiot. An angry, disgusted idiot.

"Those bureaus that I mentioned," Moore mused. His hands returned to his sides, and there was a hungry look on his face. Something about the whole process pleased_him. "I used to work for them, you see. Government labs. Military projects. A man of my talents, I was in _demand. Gene splicing. Drug synthesis. You might think super-soldier formulas for the government are simply, well, overactive fancies from comic books? There is fact in fiction, my boy, you just need to know where to look. Where to separate the plausible from the implausible."

"I don't get it," I said. "And also, I guess I don't care."

Moore frowned. The only power I had right now was the ability to needle him mid-monologue. I wanted it to sting. There was obviously no way that I was getting out of here anymore. The hypnotics had me completely under his thrall. Even then, I doubted I could overpower the madman on even footing. I was sort of big, but he was a mountain.

"Yes, well, you'll be a tough one to break. A strong spirit," he said. There was an anger that bubbled underneath all of those fancy words. He leaned over his desk, and I saw him grab a small vial from a rack suspended over ice. "Now Nate, would you please raise your left arm?"

I obeyed. Though I gritted my teeth and attempted to resist, I was compelled to obey. My mind was again drowned in a fog. The arm raised, straight and robotic. My fingers dangled.

"Now Nate, could you please turn it over? Could you face it towards me?" Though Moore phrased it as a question, my body took it as an immutable command.

I turned my arm over. I winced as he produced a hypodermic needle from a drawer and deftly removed it from the packaging with one hand. He popped the vial open, placed the needle-tip in the liquid slurry, and withdrew the fluid into the barrel of the syringe. I winced. Needles and I had never exactly been on good terms even at the best of times.

"Nate, can you remain calm for me?" He instructed.

My body obeyed. I still stood, but my muscles slowly slacked. The doctor smiled, approached me, and jabbed the needle expertly into my arm. I felt the pinprick, but that was all. The real horror was wondering what had just invaded me.

"More hypnotic," The doctor said, almost reading my mind. "Although the product stays in your system for roughly twenty-four hours, I can't be too careful. _Unfortunate_things tend to happen when I have a lapse in judgment, or when someone fails to maintain my schedules."

Once again, my mind almost instantly went hazy. I was in a fog; my head was sinking, but my eyes were not fully closing. I nodded absently, though the doctor hadn't asked anything.

"Now," He began. Moore re-capped the vial and disposed the needle into some sort of plastic container near his desk. Moore removed his labcoat, and slung it over his chair. One of his hands reached for a jacket that had been hung up on a hook nearby. He threw it around his massive frame, and then he beckoned me. "Nate, could you follow me please? Stick close, my boy."

I did. Rebellious notions had been completely eroded away. I was tired. I wanted to lay down, wanted to sleep. Wanted food and water, which I knew I could only receive if I followed this man. The Doctor. If I obeyed him, I would be satisfied.

He lead me to another door on the other end of the lab. Moore produced a card of his own, slid it through the scanner, and the door clicked open.

"Ah, yes, before I forget," The doctor said. "Nate, could you give me that key card, please?"

Dutifully, I reached into my pocket and motioned the card in his direction. The doctor took it from me and whisked it out of sight. I couldn't fully process what was happening; nonetheless, I felt a full-body twinge. Fear.

Now I could only follow the doctor.

"Nate, did you take anything while you were upstairs? Either one of your items, or one of mine?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Nate, could you give those items to me?" He requested.

My phone followed suit into his coat as he snatched it from my obedient hand.

I shadowed Dr. Moore through the door. The passage we entered was sparsely-lit by old fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. I staggered behind Moore, doing my best to keep pace with the doctor. One foot in front of the other. Arms at my sides. Ears at the ready for the allure of a command. Before I knew it, we ascended a stairwell that mirrored the one that had lead me into the lab.

"Watch your step," The doctor said. "Motor skills are not at peak proficiency while under the influence of the hypnotics."

I bobbed my head dumbly, and paid more attention to my feet as I ascended the staircase.

"Thankfully," Moore continued, "I have nearly perfected the mixture. In the past, the chemical compounds would render your entire body numb. No movement whatsoever. Did not bode well for long-term servitude, as you can imagine."

Another nod from me. I wasn't sure what Moore intended to do by unloading information on me. Why did he tell me this? It was just borderline white noise in my ears; I only desired to follow him.

Moore inserted the key card again, and the door in front of us swung open. I followed him through the passageway as we emerged into a large, tall room with a metal roof. A steel walkway with grates lining it on either side stretched as far as I could see along the huge room's floor. My sluggish mind dully realized we were now standing in the stables on Moore's property.

"Nate: can you again speak freely, my boy?" Moore granted. His voice never wavered in that fatherly facade.

"Er...uh..." My tongue was heavy in my mouth, but I was now free to ask questions and take everything in. I shook my head violently. It was wishful thinking, but maybe I could permanently snap myself out of the hypnotic trance if I jostled myself hard enough. "We're in your stables."

"Yes," The doctor said. "Though, I much prefer the term quarters. Our residents here are much more than your run-of-the-mill livestock."

I frowned. I wasn't sure what conclusions I was supposed to draw from that. It was ominous, though. As I looked around, piecing things together, I saw there were several cells that reminded me of animal pens. Although, where one might expect wooden doors and troughs, I saw silver and green metal. The doors of each cell didn't fully come to the ground. Hay, straw, whatever it was, was strewn in the space behind these doors. It looked like bedding.

The smell was apparent, too. The earthy smell of dried grass and tilled earth. Stale air, and what I could strangely only place as a thick, sweaty scent. An animal musk, or perhaps just an unwashed human body.

I continued to look around. Shadows move against the walls; almost as if they were sensing our presence, animals roused into activity. Stomps and shuffling of hay underfoot. Snorts, bovine bellows, maybe a grunt from a pig. However, in one stall I noticed something peculiar.: two silhouettes moved rapidly from behind the sealed doors. Fleeting, fleshy shapes that were unmistakable as bare human feet.

"Shit," I cursed. The realization struck me. "There are...there are people here."

"Yes, in a sense," The doctor chuckled. "Come, follow me. I want to show you something. Get you acquainted."

"A-Acquainted...?" I stammered. My feet moved mechanically to follow the doctor. My body was still largely on autopilot, though I did retain more awareness than during our journey through the underground passage.

"I started a project for the military," Moore began. We followed the metal walkway at a brisk pace. "This was decades ago, mind you. Human genome mapping and sequencing. You know what those terms mean, don't you, Nate?"

"Mm," I nodded anxiously. The gravity of the situation began to hit.

"I'm very good at what I do, you see. A perfectionist. Using the resources that the government afforded me, I successfully turned the human body into my personal hobby shop," he chuckled. "Well, within the scope of our project, of course. It started simple: inject a chemical compound into a soldier in order to maximize his output on the battlefield. Make him stronger, faster. Less susceptible to fatigue, or to muscle atrophy. Take away his need to sleep. Improve his body's filtration mechanisms so that he could eat or drink whatever he could find. All in the name of_survival_."

We paused in front of a metal cell. I could hear activity from behind the door, and see the telltale signs of human feet pacing back and forth. The movement reminded me of an animal that was on edge. There were lots of utilitarian-looking digits and signs on the metal cell: number designations, name plates, and a keycard scanner. One of them stood out, a scientific name that read: Bos (primigenius) taurus.

"A cow?" I asked, and then added, "...looks familiar, sort of."

Moore nodded. He seemed pleasantly surprised at my appraisal. "Yes. Highland cattle, to be more specific. Typically bred for meat. A shaggier coat, adapted to colder winters. I had to tinker with the compounds for some time to get it perfect."

"I don't get it," I said. "Compounds? Where did you--why don't you work for the government anymore? They have to know that you're out here, abducting, and kidnapping, and hypnotizing, and..."

"They don't know the full extent," Moore said with a haughty grin. "Perhaps they suspect. We've had numerous talks, those foul men and me. We've reached an understanding, so to speak. The knowledge locked away in my mind," he tapped his forehead with a knowing finger, "is more valuable than any damage I can do while relegated to a small parcel of land like this. They can call on me, if they have desperate need."

"For what?!" I demanded. "This super-soldier serum? We'd all know if they were using it, right? Giant soldiers stomping through the Middle East, and--"

"You didn't let me finish my story," Moore said. "And I don't like to be interrupted. Nate, would you like to hear the full story?"

"Y-yes," I groggily answered.

"Wonderful. You see, my boy, it didn't stop at the human genome, no. We expanded. Quickly. Once we unlocked the schematic for the most advanced life-form on the planet, well, the others unraveled quite easily. Cattle. Dogs, cats. Rats, of course. Simple things. Other primates."

Moore was nearly breathless as he exposited. He spoke fast and gesticulated with sweeping motions, like an artist going on about their latest piece.

"I suggested to my colleagues, you see, what if we could _enhance_this super-soldier formula? Mix-and-match, in a sense, from all of these genetic trees. A soldier with the strength and stamina of a bull," Moore was smiling madly now. "Snipers with the sharp eyes of a hawk. Coordinated teams of wolf-pack strike forces."

"Holy shit," I said, eyes wide. I could feel moisture in my eyes, the dawning horror of what this man was talking about. Ice ran in my veins. I grasped the full scope of this madman's vision. I knew, and feared, what sort of fate was in store for me.

Moore revealed a panel on the side of the metal pen. Buttons were illuminated in the dim light of the hallway. He hit a series of switches, and barely even glanced at the board. It was as if he did this every day.

A metal panel slid down from the side of the pen. It revealed a large glass window. Moore stood aside, and beckoned me towards him. My fingers were shook, and I didn't think I would be able to put one foot in front of me if it weren't for the effects of the mad doctor's hypnotics. I stared wide-eyed into the cell.

"Scott," I said, dumbstruck by my lack of surprise.

The young man paced around the cell, nearly naked save for his briefs. A substrate of straw and hay blanketed the metal floor. There was a trough full of clean water, and a thicker pile of grass on the side wall of the enclosure. A large thick quilt was draped over the mound, and it had the squashed down appearance of an area which an animal was accustomed to sleeping.

"He's one of your soldiers," I said.

"Not quite the term I would use," Moore said. "But it _is_everything you fear, my boy. Scott is a subject of my experimentation. The custom-tailored chemical compounds that force him into an altered state course within his body. Hypnotics, a stronger dosage than yours, mind you, bend him into my servitude. However, soldier is where I draw the line."

"Oh?" I balked.

"I do not intend to raise an army, Nate," The doctor said. He met my venomous gaze with his own steeled expression. "All I wish is to continue perfecting my formulas. I need more test subjects. I need to continue to expand the possibilities. To live off of this land, this small domain that I now rule over, and hone my craft."

"How many?" I asked quietly. "How many people have you enslaved?"

Not phased at my likening his subjects to slaves, Moore replied, "Nine."

"Holy fuck," I said.

"And you were to be the tenth," He said simply, placing a meaty hand on my shoulder.

I shivered, repulsed by the maniac. My captor. My own personal executioner, who intended to use me as a toy. Treat my genes like clay and twist my mind in some sort of sick game, until I was spent. I felt queasy again, and I bent over to dry-heave. The noise seemed to draw the attention of Moore's prisoner.

"...Nate?" Scott whimpered. He slowly, timidly, walked over to where the window had been revealed. I saw him stare at me with those big, brown eyes.

"Scott, I..." I sputtered, wheezing from the fit of nausea, "I-I couldn't get away. What the _fuck_man? Why didn't you...?"

"I-I'm sorry," He muttered. Tears welled in his eyes. "It's...my job. It's what we do, here. The Boss's boys. We follow his orders, we bring in people like you. No, not like you!" He cried out suddenly. "Boss, he was different! He has a family! People care about him, people will _look_for him. He isn't like the rest of us..."

"I know," Moore said. I could almost sense a hint of human empathy from Moore as he nodded solemnly. "It was an ever-evolving plan, my boy. I considered letting Nate go. Drugging him and waiting for the preserum to leave his system. He would wake up in his car in the morning, at the edge of our domain. None the wiser."

"B-but...I..." Scott stammered.

"You interfered, my boy," Moore interrupted. He spoke in restrained fury to Scott. No trace of that sympathy from moments prior. "Slipped him one of my keys while my mind was elsewhere. Over-rode one of your directives. Tragic, really. You could say that Nate's fate is due to your own hand. I'll have to adjust your dosage."

"No!" Scott wailed. "I-I-I'm sorry! I just thought..."

"You thought_you were smarter than me, did you, boy?" Moore snarled. "I created you! I dictate you! I'm your _God!"

I turned to look away. Pretended that I was somewhere else as Moore bellowed on.

"Whelp! You exist to serve me, and you exist as is convenient for me. For this, Scott, you will have to be punished."

"N-no..."

"Punished?!" I roared. "How the hell can you punish him any more than THIS, you fucking monster?"

"You'll see," Moore chuckled.

He suddenly gripped me by the neck, and pressed me closer to the window. Scott, tears in his eyes, muscular body wracked with sobbing spasms, extended a palm and pressed it against the glass. I felt tears at the corners of my own eyes, but I swallowed that fear. It was replaced with pure, seething hatred for our megalomaniac captor.

"Scott," Moore spoke, smooth poison in his words, into the enclosure, "can you stay calm for me?"

Scott obeyed. I saw his body relax, his muscles stop trembling. The doctor spoke again, and I flinched reflexively as I heard him utter my name.

"Nate," Moore hissed, "can you watch the transformation carefully?"

I nodded, and obeyed, my eyes focused on the boy in front of me. I wanted to reach out and do _something_for Scott. But I couldn't. We were separated by an industrial-grade wall, and the two of us were at the mercy of the Doctor's commands. I waited in terrible anticipation, as Moore uttered an enigmatic, but strangely familiar phrase.

"Hard work builds character."

Scott froze. He backed up several paces, and groaned. His body was wracked with spasms, every muscle flexed and quivered as he clutched desperately at his stomach. His legs gave out, and he fell to his knees. Hard. Tears streamed down Scott's face, and he cried out in pain.

"Aaaaaaauugh!" Scott screamed. The echo carried it throughout the complex. "I hate this part. I-it hurts! I feel...I feel so full. So hot. Under my skin, it....ahhh. Uuuuuurgh, ahhhh...."

His hands, shaking, migrated towards his head. Scott clutched and groped madly at his forehead. Two protrusions appeared on each side of his skull, just underneath his hairline. The bumps grew, and Scott moaned in agony as bone pierced his skin. A ridge formed along his brow as blood leaked from the punctured flesh. The structures grew, and slithered out of his head before curling inwards. Two great ochre horns now bent up and slightly back towards his head, just shy of a foot long each.

He bent over, yowling, and his face scraped the straw on the floor. He put his palms to the ground, madly digging at the bedding in an attempt to grab something. Maybe he needed to focus on something else, _anything_else, than the pain. Had to be it. Scott's body started to swell; it expanded out well beyond his typical athletic tone. Muscle pulsed beneath his skin, and stretched his frame as veins bulged from underneath tan flesh. Short hazel hairs sprouted out of his flesh, which dyed him darker and laid flush against his bulking frame.

"UUAAAAAAAGH," Scott cried out, his voice deeper now. "O-oooooh. AHHHHHH."

Scott stumbled to a standing position. Hit feet were now squat, toes pressed together in a grotesque blunt trunk. I watched with morbid fascination as his toenails darkened and soon grew to encase his foot like a black shield. He again groaned in pain. I thought he was about to fall over again, but this time Scott found support. Muscular legs flexed, and easily supported his gargantuan bulk. His lower body darkened with more shag. I could hazard he now stood a foot taller as the transformation progressed.

"MMMuuuuuuurrrgghhh," The monster moaned in bestial tones. "N-N-NATE!! I-IT.....muuurgh, NATE, IT HURTS. B-BUT.....uuuuaaaagh."

"Holy shit," I gasped.

My gaze migrated. Scott's dick inflated to an insane size; it snaked out of his briefs and was pinned in place against his growing thigh. It strained against the fabric, threatened to tear the garment from sheer girth. It was a massive eight or nine inches of thick, veined, and engorged flesh. Brown skin with paler mottle gave it a monstrous dissonance to the mostly-man that stood before us.

"IT FEELS...GOOD," Scott rumbled, his voice rolling thunder. "THE HURT. IT FEELS GOOD."

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Dr. Moore whispered into my ear. "The new form can't retain full human intelligence, language comprehension, and problem-solving. Still functional, yes, still the same man, but...simple beasts."

Scott's moans persisted. I was now aware of the cacophony of other animal sounds that had erupted in the premises. Snorts, grunts, and howls. One of the pens next to us, I could hear what was the telltale bray of a donkey. They had all been stirred to action by Scott's transformation.

I shivered. I didn't want to think what other inhuman monstrosities the Doctor had locked up in his compound.

"Uuuuuugh," Scott moaned. "Oooooh. Moooo."

His body had fully ballooned out. Muscular beyond belief, he looked like a body builder covered in a brown shag of hair. Now he was taller than me, and sported an erection that had finally strained his briefs beyond repair. The garments lay tattered on the floor of his enclosure as the slab of meat speared forward. It throbbed grotesquely at nearly a foot in length.

Horrible to think about, but I just couldn't look away. I wanted to, but couldn't. I wanted to spare Scott the shame, and myself the unpleasant sights and thoughts of a gargantuan bull cock. Was it just the compulsion of hypnotics, or...?

Something stirred in my own loins. I...tried not to think about it.

A brutal snap of bone thrust my focus back to the transformation. Scott's nose pushed out from his face. The skull contorted and reformed to become much more bovine. We were momentarily relieved from Scott's bellows of pain as he was muted. The snout burst forth, and then Scott rumbled in what sounded like relief. His eyes, scrunched shut in pain, were soon obscured as the hair on his head draped down over his face. A shaggy mane of curly caramel fur. His arms hung at his sides, swollen with muscle. I only just noticed that they were three-fingered, with thick black nails that matched his hooves.

"Is it...is it over?" I asked anxiously.

"...Yes, it seems so." Dr. Moore said. He seemed pleased.

Scott had finally stopped screaming and bellowing; he was just breathing. I could almost feel his heavy huffs of breath against the window as he approached us, nostrils flaring. His ears, now a curved bovine shape, flicked as he observed us on the other side of the enclosure. One of his gargantuan three-fingered hands rose to press against the glass. It dwarfed the sweaty print that his human palm had left just a minute prior.

"Would you like to go in there?" Moore turned to me and asked, a wicked carved into his face. "I think he wants to see you."

"N-no fucking way," I answered honestly.

"Mm," Moore nodded. He chuckled. "Understandable. You two will rendezvous in time. But you're right, I'm afraid, as he'd likely tear you in half in your current state."

My breath caught in my throat at that ominous prospect.

"...And we still have much to see, Nate, my boy. Get you acquainted with my other subjects. Prep you for your own transformation."

The realization crashed into me and stole my breath. My transformation. I knew it was coming, that this was my fucking fate in this twisted farm. It just didn't hit me until now, until I had seen Scott's body warp and distort into a half-human monster with my own two eyes. I still couldn't believe it.

I gazed through the smudged glass at Scott. He paced around his quarters with heavy footfalls. A half-man, half-bull. Completely unrecognizable, save for the vague proportions of his body. The color of his fur, which resembled his human hair. I watched him, and took in every monstrous detail.

I wanted to save him, dammit. Get him out of here.

Scott looked around. He snorted, and seemed to take in his quarters. The mannerisms were sort of human, but hardly that same spark of energy that I had seen from him earlier. He mooed, and his gaze turned down towards the erection that jutted out from his furry crotch. He moved a hand down, and began to stroke himself. Scott's lower lip curled in pleasure. A glob of drool dropped from his mouth to land messily on his cock.

Dr. Moore looked down to me. He saw that I was looking at the lewd display, and smiled. I turned away, which averted my eyes from both Scott and the Doctor.

"Simple beasts," Dr. Moore repeated. "Bound by simple desires: Food. Sleep. Pleasure."

My skin crawled. I couldn't get the image of Scott groping himself out of my mind. I needed to save him. From Moore. From himself.

"But strong," Moore continued. "Quite strong. Useful. They do retain understanding of basic concepts, and follow my orders. Training is sometimes necessary. I would not be able to maintain this kingdom that lays before you, if it were not for their dedicated work."

"Their slavery," I corrected him.

"Hmph," the doctor snorted in agitation. "Yes. I suppose so. Nate: would you like to follow me?"

I obeyed, and gave the bull-man one final, somber glance as I followed Dr. Moore further down the metal walkway.

Each cell had a small glass portal to view the occupant within. I glanced into the enclosure right after Scott's. This was the one I remembered hearing a donkey bray. I saw it. Saw_him._ On all fours, chewing mindlessly on a clump of hay, was a stout donkey-man. His body was charcoal gray, and a black mane of hair ran from his head along his vertebrae. He too was muscular, neck and shoulder muscles rippling as he grazed.

"One of my first residents," Dr. Moore said. "Reggie."

I grunted in acknowledgment of the humanoid.

"Nate," The doctor said, "would you like to speak freely?"

"Does it matter?" I responded with disgust.

"Soften the inevitability with answered questions," he offered.

"Fine," I fumed. "So, you got rejected from a federal gene-splicing project and were shipped out here to fuck-nowhere. That's insane, but fine, I follow."

"Rejected? No. My skill was peerless, but" he sighed, "I had certain unforeseen _predilections_for one of our early subjects."

"Eugh," I cringed. "Guess I figured as much. But no, so, how'd you get the people out here? The resources? The--"

"As I stated," Moore interrupted me, leading us further down the path. "The secrets in my mind are beyond value. My preservation is beyond question, as I have never once shared the contents of my mutagen. I was permitted to live out here, as you so aptly put it, more-or-less off the grid, in case need for my talents arises again. War, if you couldn't follow. Men, how we love war. Love fighting. Love killing. I would need to churn out more mutagen, perfect the preserum formulas, if I was called to arms."

"Perfect them?" I asked.

He smiled knowingly, and tapped a finger to the side of his head. "There's no stockpiling my formula, you see, Nate. While the base is there, it takes a subtle art to craft a mutagen tailored to the test subject. While any batch administered to a subject will invariably result in mutation, the subject runs the risk of perishing under sheer stress. Or, an unfavorable transformation may leave them missing a heart, or perhaps gaining a second head. You follow, yes? Unsightly and fatal deviations. The first transformation is quite volatile. Your body can only sustain it for so long. Therefore, I take the subject's blood, rich in mutagen, and tweak the formula. I run it again. And again. I do this, sometimes for months on end, until I've custom-tailored the subject's sustainable form."

"So, uh, y-you need time to prepare mine," I said. I had time.

"Not exactly," Moore nearly sang. "While you slept, I took a blood sample from you. Though I _had_planned to let you go, it never hurts to have extra stores of DNA, you see. I'm a meticulous artist, my boy. All I had to do was cross-reference your DNA with my past subjects. You were a sixty-eight percent match for one of my previous boys."

Defeated, I hung my head. "That's..."

"We'll get it higher, don't you worry," the mad doctor smiled. "I was working on it just now, in my laboratory, before you interrupted me."

"Guess I should have taken the front door after all," I said wryly.

He chuckled. "Perhaps. Frankly, it's commendable that you got as far as you did. I didn't account for you having a reaction to the preserum."

"I...what?"

"The preserum, my boy. It suppresses the body's immune system and preps the subject's DNA for splicing. It's loaded in an alcohol. I put it in the food, but apparently I failed to account for the possibility that you would not stomach the substance."

"Oh," I said flatly. Nearly saved by being a lightweight.

"And then, in my wildest scenarios, I didn't think Scott would retain the willpower, the basic animal cunning, to find a loophole in one of my commands. I told him to not permit you to escape. But the boy merely left you a means to your own escape."

Looked like I owed Scott a lot more than what I originally thought. From the moment I met him, he had been under Moore's thrall. A slave to the hypnotics; not to mention the fact he was probably broken from so much mental stress. Scott was merely a cog in this sick machine that the doctor had created. And now, he was...that beast. I couldn't think about it.

Had to, though. Couldn't ignore something like this. Couldn't delude myself into thinking it wouldn't happen to me. Maybe if I just retained the right frame of mind, I could fight off the hypnotic control. Something. Anything.

Moore stopped in front of another enclosure. A dark-skinned man with long, wild hair appeared to be sleeping on a bed of hay. He was athletic, like Scott, but older. Maybe mid-thirties? Hard to tell. I looked at the designation on the quarters and didn't recognize the species name.

"You said you were going to let me go?" I asked, following the doctor as he continued.

"I did," Moore confirmed. "You pinged too many of my red flags for a subject. Scott informed me you had a family. You were enrolled in a university. There was an immutable paper trail, unlike so many of my other subjects. I have channels, of course, for disappearing things like that, but better to call in those favors only when I'm absolutely sure. But then, I talked to you over dinner; you seemed a friendly, if misanthropic young man. Smart, but not driven. Still, someone who would be _missed._Too risky."

"Fucking flattering," I hissed. I fought back tears; instead of succumbing to fear, I gave into anger. "So what the fuck you gonna do now? You abduct me anyway? My parents will come looking, Moore. They'll figure out I'm not going to class anymore. I didn't finish my un-enrollment!"

"They will miss you, but I don't think they will come looking," Dr. Moore said. There was a certainty in his tone that made my skin crawl. "I accessed your records at the University. Marked you as a potential red flag for suicide watch."

"What the...fuck?!" I exclaimed. My voice strained and echoed down the industrial barn. I was answered by snarls as we approached a new enclosure.

"I instructed my boys to haul your car into the river that runs a mile east of the property," Moore continued, as if I hadn't interrupted him. "I planted your backpack, your belongings. Your cell phone," he tapped his pocket, "will show up downstream in a few days. Along with a convincing body double, and likely a usable DNA sample for the determined detective."

"Fuck," I fumed. "you won't fucking get away with this!"

"I nearly already have," Moore said simply. He beckoned me to another viewing window. "The Twins."

Inside, two massive brown-haired beasts feasted on a carcass that was no longer possible to identify. They greedily devoured the mass of meat, long lupine snouts stained with blood and gore. The two were predictably muscular, though with long limbs tipped in sharp claws. One of them, with its ears bent back in feral rage, snapped at his cohort. They could have passed for wolves, but had much more sinister, wiry bodies.

"Coyotes?" I sort of recognized the look.

Stark naked as well, though that no longer surprised me. The one who growled at his twin turned to see us through the glass. Its lip curled in a low snarl of bestial rage. It stood up. With its chest puffed out and arms flexed in fury, I was intimidated. He probably clocked in at almost seven feet tall. Despite its long limbs, it was still quite muscular, and a predictably large organ swung between its legs.

"The Twins," Moore repeated. "Ruthless and vicious, but still loyal to me. Carnivores are a trickier sort to maintain. Thankfully, it seems as if the lifestyle agrees with them. Two-bit thugs that lead a prison break. They are also some of my oldest residents."

I could see flecks of discolored hair on one of the Twins' pointed ears. I wondered how old some of these men really were, if they could even be considered _men_anymore.

"There's a principle known as The Threshold," Dr. Moore continued his lecture. "The longer I'm at this, the better I make the serum, the more likely my subjects are to hit The Threshold. It is when they no longer revert to human form. The Twins here, they have nearly reached the threshold, I believe."

"Jesus," I said, horror wrenching at my gut. I thought of Scott. How long had he been here?

While I had seen others beasts, like the donkey-man, I had also seen a human in one of the enclosures. Scott too, I had witnessed his transformation into the altered state. Interacted with him as a fairly run-of-the-mill human. But now I learned that eventually, there was no going back. It would be a one-way trip. Forever a monster.

"It can take anywhere from months to years," The doctor said. And then, nearly reading the mortified look on my face, he added, "And yes, you too will eventually lose your human body, Nate. You will become something better, something that redefines what it is to even _be_human, my boy!"

"You're a monster," The words flew from my mouth like a spray of venom. I looked at the Twins. "Not them. You're trying to scare me with them? Showing me a normal man transform into a mindless monster? _You're_the monster."

"I feared you would think that," Moore said. "And...perhaps you're right. Perhaps it is I that is the monster, and I should be locked up in a cell to stew. Though I have enjoyed this spirited debate, Nate, I simply do not ascribe to the morality you offer me."

He was a loon. A psychopath. I wanted to break out of this trance and beat him across the head. Maybe I couldn't overpower him, but I could hurt him. Knock him prone if I was lucky. Grab a key card and get out of here, but not before I turned his creations loose on him. See if he could still demean my morality from that precious pedestal as his Twins tore him limb-from-limb.

Dr. Moore was quiet now. He lead me to the final few cells. I could sense that he was growing tired of this prolonged demonstration. In one cell, I glimpsed another bull, though it was unlike Scott. This brute was even larger, with jet black hair and shorter horns. It didn't acknowledge us, just sat propped up against one of the walls and mindlessly chewed on a clump of grass.

Another quarters was the most crowded I had seen so far. Three subjects. A portion of the enclosure was covered in thick, sopping mud. Two hog-like men, with large tusks and rosy flesh, were engaged in, for lack of a better term, fucking their brains out.

Their bodies were still muscular, though covered in a layer of fat. A third figure was a burly human with a brown beard. I watched him clamber away in shame as he half-watched his cellmates carry on. As we moved onto the final cell, I witnessed the two hogs disengage from one another. Viscous cum leaked from one of the hog-men's rears. Both of them then hurried across the pen and pounced on the man. One of the hog-men grabbed the bearded man's arms and pushed his head into the dirt, restraining him. The other swine leaned down and forcibly plunged his dick into the human's exposed and spread rear. I listened in horror as they all erupted in a cacophony of pleasure and pain.

The final cell in the row was empty. I frowned.

"This was your tenth?" I asked.

"Mm," Moore nodded solemnly. "This was Horace's enclosure. He was one of my best, or so I thought. Nearly hit the Threshold, the other night..."

"A storm...?"

"Hmm," More frowned. "Yes, a storm. Not simply rain and lightning. But a disaster nonetheless. It was some time ago, now. Horace, my boy, had somehow regained a degree of dominion over himself. He had always been a tough one to break, to temper, but I thought the threshold would fix that for me. Perhaps I pushed the dosage too hard, or I missed a round of hypnotics as I pulled an all-nighter to perfect his formula. In any case, my boy had somehow gotten his hands on a rope. I found him the next morning, his human form hanging from one of the water pipes."

Moore gestured to the roof. I could see the large pipes from where I stood, criss-crossing right below the roof of the barn and dipping down in wide circuits over the quarters. It looked like Moore was doing some renovations near where the pipes swooped over the cells, certain tubes gutted or patched. The image of a limp body dangling from the ceiling swung morbidly in my imagination.

"You killed him," I said, quick to remind Moore of his role in all of this.

"Mm," the Doctor responded noncommittally. "I won't make that mistake again. This will be your new home, Nate."

I nearly choked. Moore hit a button, and a lock clicked. The door swung open. He forcibly lead me into the cell, my feet dragging on clumps of straw.

"Wh-what...?" I protested, and was then thrown to my back in the middle of the space. "J-just...fuck, just tell me already! Tell me what sort of fucking animal I'm gonna turn into. I can't take all of this anticipation. I-it's torture! You leading me around, pretending like this is some...some fucking campus tour, or something, you sick fuck."

"Like I said at dinner," Moore said, looming over me, "Horace was a real workhorse."

I sputtered, choking on my own words. The cold realization wrung the breath from my throat. I wanted to scream.

"Now Nate," The mad doctor said, his voice smooth, "could you go drink some water? You look exhausted. After that, shouldn't you get some sleep?"

The dreaded haze subsumed my waking thoughts. Half-asleep and in a state of undeath, I crawled across the cell over to the water trough. Dry grass stuck to my clothes as my knees shook uselessly underneath the half-weight of my body. I leaned over the trough and plunged my face beneath the surface. I greedily chugged the water, not a second thought given to its contents. Hypnotics, mutagen, cyanide...it didn't matter. It forced itself down my throat, freezing my insides in icy waves.

I clambered away from the trough; my legs failed to coordinate, as artificial fatigue set in. I crawled towards the enclosure door. My shirt had been pulled up during the struggle, and I felt the hard grass scrape against my pale, sensitive flesh.

I reached one arm out, pathetically, as Moore's blurry form strode out of the quarters. The slam of a metallic door sealed my fate. I tried to slur out one final curse before my mind finally gave into the command. Face flat against the ground, I was pulled into a dreamless sleep.