Gorditos - Part 2

It was the next day. Apple had gone to the Boss and demanded a meeting in the morning as soon as possible. The trouble now was getting Brad inside the building to be there too; something Brad was admittedly still nervous about.


            The doors to the restaurant had always been a little wider than normal ones, due to the size of it’s usual guest. As Apple smeared coconut oil around the doorframe, convinced it would be good for Brad’s skin and make sliding in easier, Brad stood just outside the building, his breathing now so heavy he had to strain to hear even someone right in front of him.

            When the greasing was finally done, Apple got behind Brad, taking hold of his watermelon-sized love handles – and pushing against him with all her might. She may as well have been struggling against a mound of bubblegum taffy. With enough pushing to nudge a boulder, finally Brad felt his nearly 900 pounds of pure blubber sloshing into the lobby, immediately filling it to capacity. Apple had to push herself up against the wall in order to get back to behind the counter. She sighed, but looked at Brad with determination. If Brad wasn’t already sweating from his extra baggage, he would from nervousness. What was she gonna tell Boss? What would he do? By the time they both made it to the office, already Brad felt ready for a nap.

            “Sir,” Apple started, giving up on finding Brad an adequate place to sit. “You can’t let this experiment continue. Bradley is going to get too fat to even move his fingers if we don’t do something about that machine!” Brad couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed, heft aside. He was thankful that Apple cared so much about what happened to him, as it felt like everyone else around him was treating him as if he hadn’t just quadrupled in size. He watched as Apple grew a bit more bold, speaking clearly and with conviction. Apple’s cheeks turned red as she spoke as well, even though she was no stranger to it. Boss had a blank look on his face.

            At last, he closed his eyes.

            “It’s unfortunate. That you got involved, I mean.” His voice was colder than it had ever been. The room felt as if it were plunged into an arctic ocean. Apple’s hands grew into fists, trembling. Boss continued. “Now I know you ain’t stupid, girl. You were always around to make sure this Tub didn’t get himself into too much trouble. Not with his precious cargo.”

            Brad was more than confused, but Apple looked like she already knew what was going on, and was less than happy about it. Boss broke the silence by pushing himself out from his seat, standing to his rather considerable height and build. He still looked as if carved out of stone.

“We finally made it, boy. I couldn’t have done it without you.” Brad scrunched his face up in frustration, his fat cheeks a thick pink. Boss came to his side, putting one of his hands onto Brad’s mammoth back. “I knew a new recruit wouldn’t say no to an all expenses paid scholarship just for eating some junk food every night.” He was speaking in a matter-of-fact sort of way that made Brad even more nervous than before. This was the man who fattened him up to the size of a boat…but for what? He still didn’t understand. The world was growing hazy as stress and suspense pressed down upon both Brad and Apple alike.

“This here boy’s my golden goose. He’ll produce Jelly that will make anything just as addictive and fattening as this junk was!” He motioned to the machine behind him. The ZWM – the thing that had started all of this. “See, that fancy machine out there runs on one thing and one thing only.” Without much notice, Boss’ face grew dark.

“Giant Jelly.”

            The words were familiar, yet foreign. They made sense apart, and together they were almost agreeable. But there was too much unanswered. “I know.” Was all Apple said. Brad turned his head laboriously to see Apple’s face once again hardened with determination. Boss laughed. “Of course you do. Little Miss Biologist would, wouldn’t she.”

Apple demanded to know how he of all people had found ‘it’- whatever ‘it’ was. “It’s not important how we came into possession of the Giant Jelly. Rest assured, it came to us because it was meant to. There will be no question as to it’s power once you’re big enough to juice, Brad my boy…”

            Brad’s stomach was already in knots, so instead he broke out into a cold sweat. Boss kept speaking, seeming like he was discussing something arbitrary, but first he brought out a tray of what looked like the same neon slop that came out of the machine regularly. Upon seeing it, Brad immediately began salivating almost uncontrollably, until Boss placed it on top of his shelf-like belly, allowing him to inhale the feed with intense focus.

“He’ll never be able to live on anything else. That was the point of this entire operation, you foolish woman.” Boss walked around Brad, who was noisily inhaling his slop, giving his meaty thigh a squeeze. “We needed to make sure the process worked. And it looks like it does. Maybe a little TOO well.” The metal tin clattered to the floor as Brad belched, already finished. Apple was horrified, unsure of what her best move would be. She was still nearly paralyzed with shock.

            Boss walked back towards the machine, his footsteps mixed with Brad’s laborious post-feasting panting. “You wish to see it for yourself?” He asked coldly. As silently as snowfall, he unlatched the main panel of the ZWM. It opened like a medicine cabinet, revealing a large, nest-like structure that housed what looked like a large, slimy glob of puddy. Even though it was small and simple, it still seemed like it was from another world.

            “Just a morsel. Barely any left now.” Boss whispered. “But that’s where you were coming in, boy.” Boss looked at Brad with an intense focus that made him even more uncomfortable than he was already.

“If we’d gotten you just a little bit bigger, you woulda started producing it yourself. From your size I’d say we would have had you too big to move by midmorning tomorrow.” Apple had gotten the courage to take hold of Brad’s meaty hand, which made his face flush and his heart start beating like a drum.

“So Brad was nothing more than an experiment you conducted.” She asked icely. Brad was reminded of a time when a particularly nasty customer had raised his voice just a bit too high when talking to her. That was her calm angry voice.

            “Oh don’t make it out to be so dramatic!” Boss nearly lost his breath with a bout of laughter. “He would have been happy as a clam, living as a human jelly machine, never needing to move a muscle ever again…sounds nice, doesn’t it big boy?”

            Brad opened his mouth to answer, but found it empty of words. Luckily Apple wasn’t finished with Boss. “That blue gunk.” Apple said. She pointed to the blob resting inside the machine’s core. “I think I know what it really is.”

            Boss only had a second or two to react. As he turned to look once again at the egg-sized blob fueling the ZWM is when it pounced out of nowhere. To Brad and Apple, it at first looked like Boss was simply choking. But as he slowly jerked around it was clear that the blob of goo, which was now shimmering as if giving off a faint light, had latched itself onto Boss’ face like a diabolical face mask, his eyes and mouth horrified shadows of their former selves. The noise he made was ghastly – Apple shuttered within seconds – but eventually, after growing small tendrils that further cemented it onto his face, he fell to the floor.

            Neither of them moved at first. Not even Brad could take a breathe, despite being entirely winded by now. Boss’ body lay lifeless facedown, no longer making a sound. Apple had tightened her grip on Brad’s hand, and now gathered the courage to stand and take a look at what now appeared to be the Sludge’s first casualty.

“Pheramona Adiposa. He called it Giant Jelly.” She said. Brad had accepted that today would be a day where reason and common sense were out the window, so he simply inquired further without hesitating.

“What is that?”

            Apple looked frustrated for a moment. “Well…it was something of a mystery, really. For years, there have been people trying to find and dissect samples of the PA, but no one’s gotten anything that proves it’s existence. But it was the symptoms it was said to induce that made me think of this.”

Brad was still impressed at just how knowledgeable Apple was about these matters. He looked over at Boss’ body now too, content in knowing he might actually live to waddle out of this restaurant, god willing.

“So he was putting that stuff in the food…is that right?” Brad realized he might actually be hungry, despite everything. All this food talk. He hadn’t had much to eat before coming, maybe he could grab just a few things before they left…

But the opportunity didn’t come. Giving both of them a start, Boss’ body started trembling suddenly. Soon, it was slowly but visibly expanding – just a bit at first, but then too much to be ignored. Soon he was nearly twice his normal size, and only growing more and more rapidly. Apple didn’t think twice before grabbing both of Brad’s hands and hauling all 900 pounds of him to his weary feet, making him grunt out of surprise and exhaustion. The rumbling didn’t cease as she piloted his huge frame out the door leading to the lobby. It was a slow pace, but somehow they made it no worse for wear.

“We gotta get outta here. C’mon, the door should still be greased from earlier!!” Apple yelled. Throwing dignity to the wind, Brad braced himself as Apple rammed all of her body weight into his jiggling mass, squeezing him out like the end of a tube of toothpaste with ease.

Once they both were safely outside, Apple realized just how drenched Brad now was in sweat, the small evacuation taking more than a considerable toll on him. He fanned his face with his thick fingers. “Thanks…for that…” he finally got out, still in such a daze from everything he was experiencing that he might as well have found out that Apple was an android too.

            The building didn’t seem to be in any trouble at first – but soon it became apparent that something was filling it. Only the two of them knew exactly what it was, of course, but soon everyone else in town was able to see as well. With a cracking like the sound of a storm brewing, the roof of Gorditos erupted as a flood of blue gunk collected in the air like a floating grease spot on water. Soon it developed into what appeared to be a rather lumpy cloud, misshapen and ominous.

With speed that defied human logic, it had dissolved itself into the atmosphere, as soon gone as it had appeared.


EPILOGUE

            The Giant Jelly hadn’t shown itself again since escaping from Gorditos, and now that the building was down for repairs Brad found himself 750 pounds overweight AND unemployed. Luckily the grant issued for his tuition and board waiver was approved, so he would still enjoy a debt-free school year. Going back to school was of course something that took getting used to, for both Brad AND his classmates. Still, he was more popular than ever despite everything, and like he had suspected, did seem to have also drawn the attention of a handful of admirers. He left most days with at least a few flowers.

            Apple was all he really cared about these days, though. She had gotten him through not only his near-immobile blob experience, but had apparently been nursing a significant crush on him that his growth had only helped along. Maybe it was her that helped him feel happy and confident in his new body, any hope of being a normal-sized boy now completely impossible. Still, it didn’t feel bad to be him these days. Once he graduated maybe he and Apple could find somewhere small to spend a few years as he got his bearings as a newly formed giant. Things didn’t seem as bad as they might have before all this.

Brad was definitely gonna be harder to take down in Rugby now, too.

~

            The skies looked as cranky and unpredictable as Hawthorne had ever seen it, and that was saying a lot. The flat plains that surrounded most of his property were used to a little bit of stormy weather, but something in the air made this feel like something more lethal. More significant. He felt his hip throbbing, which always meant one thing and one thing only. Rain was on the way.

            Without a sound, a shimmering blue cloud emerged into the darkening sky…