The Clubhouse

"Ida make a good as hell clubhouse." Mused Presley. His freckled cheeks twisted into a full-faced squint against the bombardment that was the afternoon sun.

The four boys, the youngest of which had only seen eight summers, and the oldest of which had only just begun to have some small inkling to as what his father's uncouth jokes might mean, gaped with trepidation at the dilapidated barn from the other side of the dusty, country road.

"Ain't no one allowed there afta what happen." Noted Hunter as he peered through the mess of curly golden locks which his mother had given up on keeping neatly combed long ago.

"Even if we was allowed, I don't wanna be in that barn." Clarified Easton, who was consistently picked on for the size of his front teeth.

"Yall a buncha Puds." Muttered Holt, the youngest and smallest of the four, the boy who never seemed to be wearing shoes. His tiny feet were nothing but a mass of calluses that had converged into a single monstrous scale which was immune even to the hottest of summer concretes.

In the end they made the decision through Indian burns, rock, paper, scissors and a game they had created the prior summer in order to solve problems.

The game involved judging who amongst them best weathered having the largest stick broken over their leg or butt. Using this method of determination, they decided that the barn was the absolute perfect clubhouse.

With the results of the game directing their perspectives, the rumors of the property being 'haunted', the stories concerning the twisted and deformed skeletons that the men in black suits unearthed nearly two decades ago, that was all a plus.

The macabre history of the abandoned farm assured that teir clubhouse would remain a well guarded secret. It was a deterrent to anyone who might possess the desire to step foot upon the supposedly 'cursed' grounds.

The boys traveled up the road a way, hitting the woods and circling back around the barn from the west side of the property, figuring that there was less of a chance of someone spotting them if they approached from the back.

It took all four of them to yank open the back door. As those long rusted hinges finally gave way with a screech, part of the door crumbled in Hunter's hand, the brown crumbles looked and felt more like dirt than wood.

It took their eyes a few minutes to adjust to the murky gloom. The smell was of old hay, rust, earth, mold and dust. As the last boy stepped inside the old barn, there was an audible click heard clearly by all present, followed by a light humming, an electricity in the air that never ceased.

"It's just the place settlin." Easton assured the group. He was the oldest of the boys and naturally knew the most about the business of things 'settlin.'

Beams of sunlight saturated with dust shone through loose boards and broken windows, illuminating the shadowy barn just enough to aid in exploration.

Easton chose to rifle through a back office, imagining it would be where their club president would conduct business.

Presley searched each and every stall, keeping an eye out for discarded horse shoes.

Hunter climbed in the seat of a rusted, dusty tractor that probably hadn't run in decades.

Holt scurried up a creaking wooden ladder to explore the loft.

After a few moments into their exploration, a green mote of light appeared nearly a foot above each of their heads. There was another click and the sound of an electronic zapping. A viridian illumination swept over each of the boys as every inch of their bodies were scanned. Then, with a blink, the ghost lights vanished.

Holt yanked back his tiny hand at the sensation of a sharp, burning sting. Spotting something protruding from the wood of the closest wall, he at first assumed it to be a nail. As he leaned closer, the boy realized that it was too long to be a nail, too thin.

It was a needle... a syringe needle.

He jumped a little as the probe retreated with haste back into the wall of the barn.

Hearing a cacophony of murmuring complaints and yelps, Holt knew the others had been pricked as well.

There was a whirring noise as the humming in the air rose in intensity, and the barn shuddered.

Breathless and with a hammering heart, Holt rushed back down the ladder, breaking the last rung as he leapt to the ground.

The sound of working machinery dominated their vicinity with a screeching whine.

The barn began to quake.

The boys, properly spooked, bolted from the barn in a mostly silent panic.

They convened in the woods and immediately set to downplaying what each of them had seen and heard. By the time they reached their houses, they had mostly convinced themselves that nothing had happened, that they just got spooked.

The barn was a creepy place, after all.

**********

It was Presley who caved first. Since they'd left the barn, anxiety assaulted every moment of his existence. By the second night, he found himself sneaking from his bedroom window, to make the trip down to the abandoned farm.

Selecting the last stall, he was able to find peace and rest among the hay. It didn't occur to him to wonder where the fresh hay had come from. The relief he felt from being back in the barn was simply too overwhelming.

**********

The second night Easton joined Presley, taking the first stall for himself. By the third night, all four boys were sleeping in the barn. Hunter claimed the loft. Little Holt chose the corner which received the most sunlight at mid-day. It was enough to allow a few wildflowers to grow, their appearance a stark contradiction to the barns gloom.

The vibrations constantly permeating the dusty air became a mark of comfort for the boys, like a mothers voice. It wasn't long until the random whining noises and bouts of shaking ceased to cause them worry or distress.

At first, the changes were only behavioral.

After their second night of sleeping in the barn, the boys began to notice subtle differences in their bodies.

Easton found that his toes and fingers were starting to fuse together. Presley was experiencing the same symptoms.

Hunter suffered little growths sprouting all over his body, except from the knee down. The older boys took turns examining them in the moonlight, flabbergasted as to what they might be.

"It's feathers." Holt said as a matter of fact, appearing suddenly at their sides. He retreated to his corner, forgoing further discussion. With every passing night, there seemed to be more and more wildflowers littering that area of the barn.

By the fourth night, they couldn't bear to leave the barn at all and stopped returning home during the day. By that point they were too fearful of someone noticing the change in their appearances. They felt too anxious and out of place when they attempted to leave the barn.

The barn was safe. The barn was where they belonged.

Easton and Presley's arms grew longer as the joints became a bit strange. Their fingers and toes had completely fused; their fingernails had spread to cover the entire foot and hand.

Most of the time they found it more comfortable to walk on four legs.

White feathers covered Hunter's body, and his lips were growing more pointed as they hardened.

Little Holt didn't leave his corner much, but when anyone neared him, a distinct buzzing could be heard, starkly different from the humming of the barn.

The barn's activity increased by the day. Parts of the loft would shift and rearrange itself, exuding a mechanical clamor. New stalls would appear as old ones vanished.

The barn sheltered them.

The barn cared for them.

When they awoke they would find new hay in the stalls and in the loft. Easton and Presley would discover buckets of feed set before them, and Hunter would awaken to ample scratch to peck at.

Their clothes no longer seemed to fit right, and they found that they preferred not to wear them anyway.

The next notable change was when their individual needs began to manifest. They did their best to oblige each other in order to reduce their suffering.

If no one sat upon Easton's back, he claimed agony and begged incessantly to be ridden.

The udder sack growing beneath Presley's chin required milking or it would continue to swell until it became purple and threatened to burst. The two on the backs of his thighs were worse.

When they became swollen Presley would grow delirious and ramble on like a drunken profit, describing things that were upsetting enough that Easton and Hunter were willing to do nearly anything to keep him silent and calm.

At first, Easton tried to milk Presley using his hooves, but they only nicked and cut the swollen udders. His mouth was far better suited for the task. The process of sucking and spitting quickly grew tiresome enough that Easton elected to simply swallow the milk.

It was rich, rich and sweet.

About every hour or so, Hunter would dangle his feather covered posterior from the loft, and with no shortage of groaning shrieks, would drop an egg to splatter down on the barn's floor. Each time this happened, he immediately ran down from the loft, head bobbing, to sift through the shell and yolk, making sure he hadn't been inside the egg.

There was a point where Holt came to them. His body had become rectangular and full of holes. Oversized buzzing insects with a head and face identical to his, crawled to and from the orifices.

A sticky, golden nectar oozed from him.

"This is who I am." He repeated as the other three gathered to lick the honey dripping from the boy.

The barn's rearrangement grew in frequency, until eventually there was a rumble, a small, final earthquake.

When it was over, the backdoor swung slowly open.

The doorframe was lit in an other-worldly light. An electric magenta energy crackled along the frame.

The four felt as if they were being pushed, expelled like fully-formed unborn. The barn narrowed and squeezed, forcing the boys through the crackling doorway.

It was an endless, grassy, flat plane, an enormous farm stretching in all directions. There were pens with horses like Easton. Humans old and young alike were stretched and twisted into equine forms.

There were fields of cows like Presley, udders dripping rich, creamy milk grew from a-symmetrical positions on their naked, twisted bodies. Instead of the usual long, slow bellowing 'mooooo' iconic to most cows, these simply screamed periodically.

There were plenty of crowded, dark chicken houses where people like Hunter, crouched, shambling things, covered in feathers, pecked at the ground. Occasionally they laid a shriek accompanied egg.

And then, there were the bee hives like little Holt. Rows of buzzing people-boxes swarming with insects possessing human heads and faces, busied themselves with collecting nectar and making honey.

There were farmers, long-limbed automatons plated in gold, swiveled upon joints made from precious stones. They rode horses, gathered eggs, milked the cows, and collected honey in large metal buckets.

Some of the metal men operated larger machinery, rolling things with a long arm and a hand that grabbed fistfuls of the screaming animals, before carting them off towards a factory in the distance. The factory spewed plumes of black smoke into the sky which blotted out most of the light.

Those were not the only jobs the machine men occupied. Some were builders. The clamor of their hammering and sawing echoed through the farm as they worked to erect hundreds of barns, barns of every conceivable shape and size.

Upon completion the barns shook and shuddered, an electric machine whirl permeated the air as they one by one, came to life.