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

Long Story #19: The Last Meeting of the Midnight Society (Content tags: Messy diapers, supernatural and spooky stuff, horror, brain-drain, transformation, tooth loss, humiliation, mental regression) The fire crackled in the clearing. Two boys sat on a log and watched the flames dance in the darkness of the night; they’d been waiting for nearly twenty minutes now. It was sad that Kenny’s family was moving, but as the leader had said, that also meant they were short a member. When Jean had talked to the older boy earlier in the day, there had been mentions of finding someone who could fill that spot, so now Jean and Erin were waiting to see who that might be. “Sorry that we’re late guys. I want you to meet Marvin, he just moved into town and he said that he loves scary stories. He’s the one I talked about sponsoring earlier.” Kyle announced as he walked into sight, the sound of crunching leaves announcing his arrival before his voice had. The other two boys had never seen Marvin before, but he looked typical enough. He was a little small, maybe a little younger, but Kyle rarely sponsored new members that weren’t up to the task. Still, Jean and Erin looked at one another and exchanged their skepticism. “Okay, uh, I’m Jean and that’s Erin. Why haven’t we seen you at school, Marvin?” Kyle sat down at another log near the fire, “Well, he just got into town, and he doesn’t go to our school. He’s uh, he’s still in elementary school…Fourth grade, I think.” Kyle was the oldest of their group, being in ninth grade, while Jean and Erin were in sixth and eighth respectively. When Kenny had still been here, he’d been in seventh, which had made a perfect ladder from sixth to ninth. But now they were supposed to let in some kid who was still in ‘elementary’ school? Some baby? Erin sneered, “We’re not babysitters, dude. Besides, doesn’t he speak for himself? Or has he not learned to talk yet?” Marvin smiled sheepishly, “I like scary stuff, and Kyle told me that you guys tell scary stories, right?” Jean sighed, “...Yeah. That’s what the Midnight Society is all about. But we only tell ones that are actually scary; not stuff for little kids. Don’t blame us if you end up crapping your pants.” “Or your Pampers.” Erin smirked. “Okay, okay. That’s enough teasing guys…” Marvin sat on the log next to Kyle and looked to admire the fire for a few moments, while the rest of the boys got quiet. It would be Jean to speak up again, “Well, he can’t join unless he tries out. He’s got to tell a scary story that’s good enough for him to be allowed to stay. That’s the rule.” “I already told him. Go ahead, Marvin. Tell us your story.” Kyle nudged, before taking out a satchel and tossing a handful of an enigmatic dust into the fire, which caused the flames to stir around. It was the same ritual for every start of their meeting, but this time it left behind a strange, sweet smell from the smoke. Something familiar. The younger boy nodded his head, “So, you guys know all about a sickness can spread right? Like zombies? Well, what if the zombies didn’t have to bite you to make you sick? And what if you were the only one to notice that there was anything wrong? Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story...” A Crinkly Contagion Smell is a powerful sense, perhaps the strongest one that a human has. Scents are able to alter moods, bend perceptions, and manipulate thoughts. In nature, this can be seen with pheromones, which an animal will emit for purposes of finding a mate; in people, an odor can unlock deep memories that a person had thought they'd completely forgotten. Everything has a smell, even if a subtle one. Some are perceived as good, some as bad, and some we are just indifferent to. Some say that the way we perceive smells are based on cultural factors, while others believe we are hardwired to feel particular ways. Trash smells bad, flowers smell good, and there's evolutionary incentives to have us think that way. We can even assign archetypes to smells, or vice-versa. We know what 'new car' smells like, or what 'old person smell' is; we can assign values to that without understanding the deeper meaning why. Odors are also a warning, where our nostrils are the canary in the coal mine for things that may bring us harm. In more simplistic times, before the advent of germ theory, there was even the idea that a bad smell could cause disease. It was called 'miasma', a foul air that brought death and pestilence. Modern sensibilities would have us believe that such a concept was absurd, now that we know about bacteria, viruses, and fungi. But maybe there was some merit to it. Not in a grander sense that would somehow uproot the last century of science, but localized to a small subset of phenomena that we still don't fully understand. Perhaps there are ailments out there that spread through odor? Imagine, if you will, an average town with average American citizens. It could be any town, maybe even your own. Let's say that you're a schoolboy in that town, just happily living your life. Maybe you're thinking about a math test, or baseball practice after school, and you're just going through the everyday motions. Another student bumps into you in the hall and you smell something peculiar. It's a smell that you don't often encounter in your day-to-day life, but it has a stunning familiarity to it. As your brain fires on all cylinders to nail it down, the nostalgic center of your mind pegs it almost immediately. It's a 'baby' smell. It's a *diaper* smell. Wet wipes, talcum, lotions or creams to prevent or treat rash, and that base odor. It isn't foul, but it also isn't completely pleasant either. Dialing either forward or backward could break the tie on it; a little less sweat or urine, and it would be undeniably sweet smelling. Soggy or dirtied, and it would obviously stink a lot worse. It's the faint odor of a mostly dry diaper found atop the trashcan in the bathroom. Or maybe its recognizable from being forced to sit in a daycare class as an older kid who is surrounded by toddlers. Somewhere in that brain, everyone has a memory associated with it, even if going all the way back to infancy. Maybe you don't think much about it at first. You didn't get bumped into by a baby, so why would you assume your instinct was correct? It must be some other combination of circumstances that created that distinctive smell. You almost forget about it until you smell it again in the lunchroom, and then again on the playground. You give yourself the sniff check to make sure that you're not somehow the culprit, but there's nothing. What could be causing your fellow big kids to smell like this? But then it starts to become a little more clear. You start to look more closely at those who have that stench and their bums look a little too rounded or poofy. Their eyes betray a vacuous mind and their gait is goofy; maybe you even catch one of them drooling and staring off into space. It's like they've forgotten that they're supposed to be big kids. You only see a few that first day, but as the week goes on, you can see more and more kids starting to act like that. They all have that smell. Everywhere they go, it's like they've dusting the air with baby powder. The behavior grows more brazen and bizarre as well. They started out just seeming spacey or slow, but now they're starting to act like toddlers. From Kindergarten to fifth grade, you're seeing more of these oversized babies. Nobody else seems to notice though, or if they do, then they aren't talking about it. Not that hard to believe when you aren't bringing it up either. Perhaps everyone else is waiting on someone to step up, therefore creating a bystander effect where nobody takes control of the situation. Equally possible is that with all the distractions that modernity has brought us, that nobody has actually noticed or they don't have the attention span to connect the dots that hung so eagerly in front of them. A boy in your class came to school in a onesie today, like a two year old would wear. The diaper you've already been sure about it completely confirmed, as it bulges the onesie out utterly. Nobody says a word, not even the teacher. Later, at recess, you see that boy again. He looks angry by the way that his face is red and scrunched up. You wonder if someone finally pointed out how ridiculous he looked and appropriately mocked him. You decide to move a little closer, and you hear what sounds like a foghorn full of pudding. It doesn't seem real at first. You don't even consider it as an option, even though all the evidence is in front of you. Was that sound really coming from him? From his diaper? Yes, it was. The proof was in the way that you saw the onesie begin to sag right before you. The diaper was getting heavy, and there was really only one good reason for that, though you hesitate to believe it. This kid, eleven or so, was taking the mother of all dumps in that ridiculous diaper he was wearing. He wasn't trying to hide or stop it; he just looks focused on filling his pants. You're disgusted, but you can't look away from it; you've never witnessed something so surreal. You take a few steps back, not wanting to engage with the pantspooper. Not for worries about your social credibility, but because something tells you that the strangeness of the situation might be an indicator of its danger. What could be dangerous about a poopy diaper? Toddlers and the booger-eaters on the short bus seemed harmless enough, right? But there's something different about this. There's something not right. From a safe distance, you watch as the boy finishes befouling himself and starts to waddle away. He's walking like a duck, or a cowboy, and who can blame him with a pound of steaming hot pantload weighing him down? That onesie looks strained. You wonder if he's going to go get changed or if he's just going to sit in his own mess, but he does neither. Instead, he hobbles his way to a smaller boy in the sandbox, and without warning, he sticks his bulging seat right into the kid's face. It's bewildering at a minimum. What would possess an otherwise normal boy to become like this? To wear diapers and fill them? To force some poor unfortunate soul to get a whiff? The kid in the sandbox struggles at first, vocally repulsed by what was being foisted upon him, but then he becomes calm. You mentally commend him on his fortitude, because frankly, you imagine that you would have retched if that sagging onesie had been pressed to your own nose. The pantsfiller steps away in a showing of mercy, and the victim of his malodorous mayhem is stuck with that same vacant look that you've seen so much of lately. He starts to suck on his thumb, and you realize his jeans have turned to overalls. You have a sneaking suspicion that there's probably a diaper under there too. Can you really trust what you just saw? It sounds too crude and fantastical to be real. Being a dumb baby wasn't something that could be contagious, right? People's minds and clothes didn't change from just smelling something, that was an impossibility! And yet, what else could you have just seen? What else explained the odd way that kids were behaving? As you look around the playground, you start to realize just how insidious this contagion has been. There are victims of it all over, dressed ridiculously and many sporting lumpy backsides. Still, you do nothing. You're too meek, or maybe you're unsure of how to explain it. If it didn't sound so crazy, then surely someone else would have already noticed? Your classes are increasingly becoming more disrupted by this Pamper-packing pandemic, and the classwork is getting as infantile as the student body. Not everyone is infected, but even the 'normal' kids don't seem right. They don't even flinch as their fellow classmates are crapping in their exposed diapers or openly discussing the merits of Barney versus Teletubbies. That's part of the reason you don't feel like you can say anything, because if you're the only one to see it, then that must make you crazy. Not every case is as severe. For some kids, it seems to take hours or days for the change to happen, while some take only mere moments upon exposure. A direct bout of forced seat-sniffing of a freshly pooed diaper seems to cause an instantaneous transformation, and typically those are the most extreme cases. Those victims go straight to dumb-dumb diapers and baby-brained bliss. For others, you see a more gradual shift; maybe it's just a sudden lack of bladder control, or being bad at fractions when they had a mastery the day before. Pull-Ups instead of diapers, sippy cups instead of bottles; stuff that would be all blanketed as 'baby stuff' to a normal big kid. The distinction actually matters here though. Those milestones, or lack thereof, are how you diagnose just how badly infected they are. You're looking at symptoms and keeping distance accordingly, for as little distance you can keep in an increasingly expanding 'hot zone'. It doesn't appear to infect the adults, or perhaps it just takes on a different form for them. Even if they aren't being reduced to empty-headed tots, they're still incapable of acting rationally about what should be a blaring alarm. They just act as good caretakers, never questioning why half their class is suddenly more worthy of special ed. Every day you watch another victim fall. It would appear that the ailment compels the afflicted to actively spread their sickness to those who haven't been yet infected. It's almost like watching a zombie movie, except one where none of the people are aware that they're surrounded by zombies. Obviously you're too scared to intercede in any of these assaults. You're no hero after all, and you count yourself lucky that none of these mushbrains have noticed you as a viable target. So each day is watching some normal boy getting an in-progress Pamper-load to the nose. At a certain point, you become numb to it. You start to wonder why it is that you’re invisible to them, as if you’re somehow immune to what’s going on. And then one day, while you’re getting dressed, you notice something crinkly about your underwear-- ------------------------------------------- “—Stop, little dude. Just stop. Are you being serious right now? That’s your story? A diaper plague? This isn’t the playpen!” Erin interrupted him with a groan. “I mean, I guess it was a little scary?” Jean tried to compliment, though it was plain as day that he seemed a little put off by the immature tale as well. Not to mention that it had been a little on the icky side too. Marvin didn’t look too offended, he just shrugged and put his hands on his knees. “Well, maybe someone can show me how it’s done?” Kyle leaned forward on the log, “You did okay, Marvin. It was very...Creative. We’ll all tell a story tonight, so you get a better idea of what the Midnight Society is all about. I’ll even go next.” That seemed to sooth Erin’s ire, since Kyle was known for telling pretty spooky ones.