Marco adjusted the collar of his Prada polo, trying desperately not to let the bottom of his designer jeans touch the dusty floorboards of the farmhouse hallway. He was twenty-one, a creature of espresso shots, the L train, and artisanal focaccia. He smelled like Santal 33 and hair gel. Here, in the heart of rural Kentucky, the air smelled like wet dog and silage.
"Here ya go, city slicker," Uncle Dale said, slapping Marco on the back with a hand the size of a catcher's mitt. "You’re bunking with the boys."
The door creaked open to reveal the lair of Rufus and Zac. It was a room that smelled aggressively of testosterone, drying sweat, and feed corn. Rufus and Zac were sprawled on their respective twin beds, looking up from a hunting magazine. They were effectively the same person printed in two different sizes: massive, block-headed, with necks thicker than Marco's thighs and corn-silk blond hair buzzed short.
"Well, lookie here," Rufus drawled, sitting up. His biceps strained against a faded camo t-shirt. "Cousin Marco. You look like you'd blow away if a tractor drove past ya too fast."
Zac, the younger but wider brother, snorted. "Don't break him, Ru. Aunt Maria said we gotta be nice. Even if he is wearin' girl pants."
Marco clutched his leather weekend bag tighter. "They're slim-fit," he said, his voice sounding thin and reedy in the dense room. "And I appreciate the hospitality."
"Just throw your stuff in the corner, Hollywood," Rufus said, scratching his stomach with a sound like sandpaper on wood. "You’re on the cot in the middle."
Dinner had been an ordeal of heavy starches and meat, where Marco picked at a casserole while Rufus and Zac shoveled mountains of food into their mouths with mechanical efficiency. Now, with the lights out, the bedroom felt like a pressure cooker.
Marco lay on the flimsy cot between the two massive beds. The room was hot. The window was cracked open, but it offered no relief, only the sound of crickets screaming in the humid night.
"Night, city mouse," Zac chuckled from the left. "Don't let the bedbugs bite," Rufus added from the right. "Or the coyotes."
Within minutes, the snoring started. It wasn't just breathing; it was a dual-engine rumble that vibrated the floorboards beneath Marco’s cot. But the noise was the least of his problems.
It started with a sound like canvas tearing.
It came from Rufus. A long, wet, pressurized release that seemed to go on for ten seconds. The smell hit Marco almost instantly,a wall of heat carrying the scent of boiled eggs, sulfur, and something deeply earthy, like fermenting compost.
"Oh god," Marco whispered, pulling his high-thread-count sheet over his nose.
Zac answered the call from the other side. His emission was sharper, a trumpet blast that heralded a stench of pure, processed protein and decaying corn.
The cousins were asleep, deep in a food coma, but their digestive systems were wide awake and working overtime. The room began to fill. It wasn't just a smell anymore; it was an atmosphere. The air grew thick, humid, and yellowish in the moonlight. Marco tried to hold his breath, but his lungs burned. He gasped, inhaling a massive lungful of the biological smog.
He coughed, choking on the density of it. It tasted like heavy cream and musk. But as the gas entered his bloodstream, the coughing stopped. A strange warmth bloomed in his chest.
Rufus let out a low, rumbling growl from his gut that erupted into a thunderous BLAT that shook the picture frames on the wall. The gas cloud descended over Marco’s cot, heavier than oxygen, sinking into his pores.
The transformation began in his legs. Marco’s flannel pajama pants, already snug, suddenly felt like iron bands constricting his blood flow. He kicked his legs, trying to get comfortable, but the fabric groaned. His calves, usually slender from walking city blocks, began to twitch violently. Muscle fibers shredded and rebuilt in seconds, inflating like balloons. The definition blurred, buried under a sudden layer of thick, insulating bulk.
Marco groaned, but his voice was dropping, the pitch sliding down from a tenor to a gravelly baritone. The country air, rich with the cousins' potent stench, was rewriting him. The expensive cologne on his skin curdled, replaced instantly by the smell of hay and heavy sweat.
Zac ripped another one, a silent-but-deadly creeper that settled directly over Marco’s face. Marco inhaled it greedily now. His brain felt foggy, the sharp, anxious thoughts of New York subway schedules dissolving into a slow, syrupy contentment.
Why was I worried about dirt? he thought sluggishly. Dirt’s good. Dirt grows corn.
His shoulders broadened, cracking loudly as the clavicles lengthened. The cropped pj shirt stretched to its limit, the seams screaming before ripping open down the back. His chest expanded, the ribcage widening into a barrel shape, built for hauling hay bales and hollering across fields. His pale, moisturized skin darkened, thickening into a rugged, sun-baked tan, rough with sudden callouses.
His hands, clutching the sheets, swelled. The manicured fingers thickened into sausages, the knuckles growing knobby and hair-covered. The delicate gold ring he wore on his pinky snapped under the pressure of his expanding flesh.
The Italian gel in his hair failed. His dark, styled locks bleached out, turning a sandy, dirty blonde, and shortened into a practical, fuzzy buzzcut identical to the boys sleeping beside him.
As the night wore on, the room became a gas chamber of brotherhood. The three of them breathed in the same recycled, methane-heavy air. Marco’s mind finished its recalibration. The memories of art galleries and espresso bars were pushed out, replaced by knowledge of carburetor repair, defensive line strategies, and the taste of sweet tea.
He wasn't Marco anymore. That name felt too light, too flimsy.
Somewhere around 3:00 AM, the new boy on the cot contributed to the symphony. His stomach, now vast and solid as an oak tree, churned the heavy dinner he had previously picked at but now metabolically absorbed.
It was a sound of tectonic shifting. The vibration rattled the windows.
The sun rose over the bluegrass, cutting through the haze in the room.
Rufus sat up, scratching his armpit, yawning loudly. He looked down at the cot. The flimsy metal frame lay flattened on the floor, crushed under the weight of the sleeper.
Lying on the mattress on the floor was a third giant. He was wearing the tattered rags of a cropped shirt that looked like a bib on his massive chest, and flannel pants that were more like distressed shorts now. His thighs were tree trunks, covered in hairy fuzz.
The figure stirred, slapping a hand the size of a ham hock against his mouth as he yawned.
"Mornin', Rufus," the boy grumbled, his voice a deep, slow drawl that sounded like tires rolling over gravel.
"Mornin', Mark," Rufus said, not batting an eye. "Sleep good?"
Mark sat up, the movement causing his spine to pop in three places. He scratched his belly, feeling the satisfying roughness of his own skin. He felt hungry. Not for a croissant, but for eggs. A dozen of them. And steak.
"Slept like a log," Mark said. He looked at his brothers. He felt a pressure building in his gut, a familiar, comfortable heaviness.
He leaned to the left, lifting one massive, calloused butt cheek off the mattress.
It was a wet, heavy finisher that smelled distinctly of the barnyard. A family scent.
Zac woke up at the noise, sniffing the air appreciatively. "Good one, little brother. You're learnin'."
Mark grinned, a wide, goofy, corn-fed smile. He stood up, towering in the small room, a perfect copy of his kin. "Yeah, well," Mark said, hitching up the waistband of his ruined pants. "Better out than in. Let's go eat. I'm starvin'."
"That's the spirit," Rufus said, punching Mark on a shoulder that felt like a bag of cement.
The three brothers walked out into the hallway, thumping heavily on the floorboards, leaving a thick green fog in their wake. The city was a million miles away, and Mark couldn't recall why anyone would want to live there anyway.
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