Long Story #19: The Last Meeting of the Midnight Society

“Okay, so my story is about a genius at a special school for the smart kids. They have science fairs just like we do, but the stakes are higher and the projects are way more complex. Let’s just say that this particular project has Darwin in mind… Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, my story’s called...” Monkey Business: "Want another banana, *Chimp*?" It wasn't a real question, at least not one asked in good faith. There was no doubt that Chip Savage, former boy genius extraordinaire, wanted a banana. That's what a lab monkey like him enjoyed most, wasn't it? That's what he was supposed to gorge himself on. But, the boy who was offering, wasn't doing it to be magnanimous. It was a taunt, a mockery. The boy outside the cage was his former lab assistant, who himself was to blame for the sorry state that Chip now found himself in. That sorry state was what could only be described as the hybridized form of a boy and a monkey. It was as if Chip had been partially flung back into his evolutionary history. Fur grew in patches on his arms, legs, face and tummy; his incisors had grown more prominent and his face had become more like a primate; a tail wiggled from behind him, poking out from the same bulky diaper that the other lab monkeys were stuck in, and he rested on his haunches with his hands planted in front of him. "N-nuuu! Ook-ook! Nuu boo-nanna!" The former genius screeched angrily, though his instincts said differently as one was handed to him and he immediately gripped it. Chip peeled the banana and began to greedily eat it; as he was chewing, he farted hard in his diaper and got a twisted face as the fart grew so powerful that he was pushing out an enormous mushy log into the garment. This little routine had itself become routine for the monkey boy, who may not be king of the jungle, but who was king of pantsfilling among the other simian subjects. Like the other primates, his Pampers had a swarm of flies buzzing all around the back. "Sounds like a big one. You enjoy that and maybe we can get you a clean diaper before the science fair, okay? Maybe." The science fair had been where all his troubles had began. It was highly competitive here at Rosewater academy, where all the kids entering were considered geniuses. Chip Savage was himself a specialist in evolutionary biology and genetic engineering; his partner, Barry, was a chemist. Barry wasn't on the same level as Chip. In fact, it wasn't Chip's original intention to work with someone as lowly as Barry, but partner assignments had been randomly selected. With their disparity in intellect, Chip had swiftly assigned Barry to be his assistant instead of his partner. On that same note, Chip treated Barry like a dimwitted assistant, instead of anything resembling an intellectual equal. It wouldn't be until later that he discovered how bitter Barry was about that. Chip's project had been effectively a 'devolution' serum. The concoction was supposed to fling a primate further back in their evolutionary chain, by completely altering their genetic structure. The idea being that more could be gleaned about how they had evolved in the first place. There was a beautiful simplicity to it, and Chip thought there was a good chance at taking home the blue ribbon for his work. The lab where they worked was filled with the sounds of monkey business, both figuratively and literally. The beasts screeched and chattered, while intermittently farting and defecating in their lab-grade diapers. The lab monkeys were shared among groups, and unfortunately one of those groups had been testing a potent laxative for their own project, which had things rather unpleasant on a gastrointestinal level. "Ugh...Barry, put the prototype in the fridge and go change all the diapers. It seriously stinks in here, and I don't want them to start throwing anything." Barry's job as an 'assistant' had involved way more diaper changes than he'd ever thought possible. The other aspects of his role weren't much more dignified, with him getting drinks for Chip or cleaning up the lab; no actual scientific labor was expected of him. Being a genius himself, even if a lower one, he was sick of having his skills squandered. Admittedly though, he thought that Chip's project was worthy of the award he expected it to get. That'd end up being quite the feather in his cap, but what recognition would Barry get? Not enough, that was for sure. "Do I have to? The group doing the laxative testing should be responsible for that." "They don't get the lab for another hour and I don't want poop getting flung around the lab. Take care of it and get me a soda too, I'm parched." "...Yes sir, okay." Barry grumbled as he picked up the vial of the serum to go put it away. As he walked over to the fridge, he got another idea. He got out the soda and poured a cup for Chip. Before he went to deliver it though, he uncapped the vial and poured half of it into the drink. There hadn't been any human testing, but it stood to reason that it'd work on any primate. "Here." He grunted, placing the cup on the desk in front of the other boy. "Thanks, now go attend to the diapers, I think--" Chip was cut off by a gurgling blast that came from the cage; one of the lab monkeys was squatting stiffly and screwing up its face as a sloppy geyser of bubbling mush exploded into the back of his diaper. The garment immediately swelled, sagged, and stained with the deluge of diarrhea. Flies swarmed the bulging backside and two other monkeys followed the same example right after. "--That they really, REALLY need it." Barry cringed, "Sure thing, *boss*." He wouldn't be changing any diapers today, at least not by his partner's orders. He went to get the supplies, keeping an eye on Chip as the smaller boy started to drink his tainted soda. It only took a few minutes after he'd finished the cup for things to start happening. Chip felt his body get hot, and his vision was getting blurry. His bones ached and he felt itchy all over. He scrambled out of his chair and took two steps before falling to the floor on his hands and knees. Barry smiled, "Feeling okay, Chimp?" Chip was in too much distress to realize the taunting change of his name. "I feel...Something doesn't feel right...I don't know..." "Maybe doing all the work is stressing you out, hmm? Or maybe, somehow, some of that serum found its way into your cup..." "W-wait, what?!" Fur began to rapidly grow across his body, and Barry watched with morbid interest as the boy's body altered its morphology. Chip was getting smaller, his incisors were growing, and a tail was beginning to grow from the back of the pants that'd sagged off his hips. The total rewriting of his biology was enough to make him pass out. When he would later awaken, he'd be on the inside of the cage. His cognition would be muddled, his body still aching, and he recognize that he had on the same garment that he'd ordered Barry to handle. Ostensibly, Chip Savage had become a lab monkey in a diaper, just like what would be the expected result of a human trial. He also had a collar around his neck, which he could only imagine was to keep him in check. "Him? Yeah, that's Chip. He had a little lab accident, but you of all people should know how messy science can be." "So is he...?" "Hm? Oh, yeah. I already spoke to the headmaster about it. He's no longer a student here, just a test subject. Feel free to include him in your laxative experiments. I just need him in one piece to show off at the science fair." Chip was too groggy to fuss, but not so much so that his body couldn't give a response in lieu of his mouth. There was a nasty rumbling from within his simian diaper and a magmatic flood of filth began to erupt inside. He felt shame and disgust, but he also felt the compulsion to reach inside, like he was truly a monkey at the zoo. His project would surely get the blue ribbon at the fair, but he wouldn't be the one allowed to accept it. ------------------------------------ “...The end.” Kyle finished, looking around for reactions from his audience. “Oh, that one was pretty spooky! Sci-fi stuff always gets me…” Jean shuddered, squirming on the log. As he did, it almost sounded like he had a bag of chips in his pocket or something. Crinkling and rustling from his every movement. Erin was decidedly less impressed. The grump wrinkled his nose, catching another whiff of that that sweet scent from earlier, and he shook his head. “I mean, it was okay, I guess. Kind of weird that it had dirty diapers in it too. Did you guys rehearse together or something?” Marvin gave a shake of his head, “No, I guess it’s just a funny coincidence, huh?” “Jean, why don’t you go next? That way, Erin can go last and he can show off.” Kyle chuckled. “And maybe try to avoid talking about Huggies.” Erin rolled his eyes. Jean cleared his throat and put his hands on his knees, he was the second youngest at the fire, but his tone had shifted to sounding even younger than that. “Okay, okay. I got one. A real spooky one too. A story about a monster, a monster that does really bad stuff. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, the name of my story is...” Pail Into Insignificance Little Timmy Treister was a bratty, obnoxious boy. He liked to play crude jokes on people and make up immature names for them; he was a real class clown and was generally identified by his poor behavior. Then one day, out of the blue, he had changed. He'd become a complete nitwit. That wasn't to say he was all that witty before, but he'd been several rungs up the latter from the glassy-eyed moron he'd become. It was such an extreme shift, that Timmy had been relocated to the dumb-dumb class, where he could pick his nose and poop his pants among like minded peers. It wasn't ever explained what had happened to him, but people would eventually accept it without question. Timmy hadn't been a very popular kid, so he wasn't missed, and thus his poopy plight was soon forgotten. Peter had never forgotten. Peter had an inquisitive mind and he had been one of the first to see that side of Timmy. They'd been sitting right next to one another in class up until that point, and Peter had been forced to endure the brunt of Timmy's buffoonery. It had been an especially trialing placement, because Peter was the 'smart' kid in class, the one who actually cared about his education. So truthfully, nobody should have been as happy about Timmy's downfall as him. Timmy becoming a booger-eating simpleton should have been nothing but a boon, since that'd gotten him taken out of the class. But Peter was shaken by seeing Timmy's meager intellect becoming so disgustingly broken. He'd been sitting next to Timmy on that day he'd changed. The hyperactive boy had seemed so subdued, except for the dumb giggles he kept making; he'd also been a drooling nimrod that day, almost like he'd been drugged or something. Peter's first inclination had been that Timmy was finally medicated with much-needed ritalin or something, and that he hadn't adapted to it yet. It was a stretch, but it'd been all that Peter could figure. One other enigma though was the very faint odor of a dirty diaper that wafted off of the boy; not strong enough to suggest he was wearing a dirty diaper, but undeniable that Timmy smelled faintly of poo. Timmy would eventually get called to the board to answer a question, and when he got up there, he suddenly announced to the class: "GOTTA MAKE POOPIES!" That'd been a shocking thing to hear, but it'd immediately been topped by seeing Timmy clumsily pulling down his pants and showing off a puffy diaper. If Peter had to guess, then he'd say it looked like the kind of diaper that a kid in SPED might wear, but as beneath Peter as Timmy was, he wasn't one of those kids. The entire class would watch in bemused disgust as Timmy squatted down and squeezed out a flatulent pile of poop into the garment. It was like it was his final performance as the class clown, but this was no act. Timmy might not have had a lot of self-respect, but he would never resort to a self-defecating brand of humor. That was the last time Timmy was in the normal classes. People laughed and joked about it for a while, but eventually they'd practically forgotten he'd ever been anything but an idiot that pooed his pants. Peter couldn't forget. One of his biggest fears was losing his intellect, since it was the defining characteristic that he could be proud of. Seeing Timmy just 'tardify' one day, without any explanations given, had made him obsessed with uncovering the truth of what happened. Speaking to the one kid that had been friends with Timmy, he learned that Timmy had been planning a prank for that day. The kid didn't know exactly what the prank was supposed to be, but he mentioned that Timmy had planned to sneak into the special ed class before school started that morning. So Peter dropped by one afternoon during his lunch period, under the auspices of visiting his former classmate to see how he was doing. Peter had never been in there before, since he was frightened of seeing kids in such a state, but he had to overcome his fears to properly investigate this matter. It was as unpleasant of a room as Peter would have assumed. Boys acting like particularly stupid and gross babies, diapers being constantly farted and crapped in, drooly babbling nonsense coming from their mouths. In that group was Timmy, who had currently been taking deep whiffs of one of his fellow moron's still-filling diaper. Also there was Hugo, a kid from a higher grade that volunteered as a helper for extra credit. Hugo was ostensibly pretty normal, if not a bit rude; he was rough around the edges, but not to such a degree that Peter would label him a bully. Peter asked him about Timmy and inquired if he knew anything about the boy's sudden mental collapse. Hugo offered a shrug, saying that he wasn't privy to any of the conditions that students had in here. He did say that Timmy was an especially dumb student though, that he even got mocked by the other idiots in the class, and that he always retained a faint odor, even after being changed. Peter couldn't stay long, as his threshold for anxious disgust had been reached. He mentally took note of the few details he'd gotten and tried to work with them. Not much longer after, he would get another break in the case. He'd been discussing what happened to Timmy with another classmate at recess, and a younger kid had heard him. The younger kid interjected and explained the same thing had happened to a boy from his own class, some months prior. That other victim had been a second grade boy named Tate, who allegedly had gone to the special ed room after school to record 'proof' to his peers that those special kids indeed wore diapers. Apparently when Tate had returned, he'd been *wearing* that proof, and he'd been reduced to being a permanent occupant of that class. There had never been any explanation for Tate either. It'd just been casually swept under the rug. It fit the same scenario that Timmy had been involved in though; Tate had been mysteriously victimized in almost exactly the same way. Peter would return to that classroom a few days later, to ask the teacher or Hugo some more questions. When he arrived though, he saw Hugo was no longer an assistant in the classroom; the older boy had instead been reduced to a student. Much like Timmy, or Tate, he didn't have a whole lot going on upstairs anymore. Drool, babble, fart, and poop. The teacher wasn't all that helpful. She'd apparently stepped out for a few minutes to get something from the office, and when she'd returned, Hugo was mushbrained. What was helpful was Peter asking if the class had grown at an unnaturally fast rate; if many of the students had been normal beforehand, instead of born like this. There were currently a total of five kids who had mysteriously been 'tardified'. Timmy, Tate, and Hugo were the three that Peter knew, and the other two got pointed out to him. Peter had a feeling those other two had similar mysterious circumstances surrounding their current mental state. All the evidence pointed to the SPED room being where it all happened. For whatever reason, something in that classroom was robbing kids of their intellect. But what could it be? Peter needed to catch it happening. He needed to see for himself what was going on, but he didn't want to endanger his own beautiful brain to do so. As messed up as it might be, he needed to possibly 'sacrifice' a fellow kid to ascertain the truth. Fortunately for his poor conscience, Peter wouldn't have to make that call. He'd started to walk by the room more frequently, to keep tabs on it, and he noticed that he kept seeing the same kid peering in. A boy a little younger than himself, who cast longing looks in the smelly class; who Peter caught staring at the diapers that most of the class wore. Peter was a good enough judge of character to recognize that this kid had some strange obsession going on. Either that, or he was somehow involved in what was going on. Any way it was cut, he was a person of interest. So Peter trailed him whenever he could, waiting for the moment that he'd be bold enough to make a move. Talking to other kids, he learned the boy's name was Alex, and he had a particular fondness for potty humor. Primarily potty humor that involved *diapers*. One day after school, Peter had stuck around to see if anything peculiar was happening around that classroom. He hid in an empty class that was adjacent to the SPED class and turned off the lights, so he could look out the window. He saw Alex come down the hall, his head on a paranoid swivel. After looking up and down both sides of the hall, he let himself into the dummy room. Peter decided to wait a few minutes, as to not spook Alex away from doing whatever he'd been plotting, and then he went to enter. Creaking the door slowly and quietly, he was stunned by what he saw. Alex had dropped his pants and undies in the middle of the classroom; in their place, he'd put on one of the thick diapers that belonged to the kids who 'learned' in there. As if that wasn't bad enough, he then had toddled over to the diaper pail and opened it. He picked up one of the lumpy diapers and looked to silently admire it. From Peter's vantage point, all he could think about was what a freak this kid was, and that this appeared unrelated to the mystery at hand. He had walked further into the class and was about to say something when he got a really good reason not to. It happened fast. Faster than either boy could really comprehend. Some mysterious tendrils had risen from within the pail; some wrapped around Alex's wrist to keep him in place, while others grabbed hold of the diaper he was holding. Following the tendrils was a larger pair of translucent looking, hollowed out tentacles; they were like tubes at a bank. One went to one ear and the other went to the other. Alex couldn't even get out a scream before the worst part happened. One tube sucked out his brain, and the other jettisoned the balled-up diaper he'd been holding right into his head to replace it. Altogether, the full attack probably only lasted three seconds, but Peter had been forced to take in every grisly detail like an eternity. Whatever was living in that diaper pail was eating people's brains and replacing their brains with stinky diapers. There was no other way to interpret it. This must have been what had happened to all the others, when they'd come into the classroom alone.