Deadweight

by Forster, Paul

  It had been in the neighbouring house and heard the panting, sweaty mess of a man in the garden next door. The outside door was open. The fence was short. It needed to do nothing more than reach out as it walked to flop over on to the unkempt lawn. It stood itself back up and eyed up its prey under the fence. Peter hadn't noticed the thing bearing down on him. He swung his legs clear gave the panel one last heave to get it off his shoulder and rolled onto the floor just as it struck.

  The first Peter knew of how close he came was the greying arm thrashing around under the panel inches away from him. He rolled further clear and grabbed his mop handle. He hadn't attached the new blade so opted against lashing out. He stood up and checked his surroundings, the creature in the house had taken notice of this potential meal and it pressed itself against the double-glazed pane of glass. Peter composed himself ready to face what may lie beyond the gate. He just prayed the fucking thing wasn't locked.

  He moved through the garden glancing for anything useful. The people in this area didn't believe in gardening. Hope for a shovel or hatchet to arm himself further with were woefully blown. The gate was unlocked, Peter carefully opened it to look out at the street beyond nothing. Not a monster, pigeon or even a stray piece of litter blowing in the wind. Peter cautiously entered the street, cricket bat and mop handle ready for action, even if he wasn't.

  A loud cry erupted from the direction of the car alarm, Peter shuddered, they had got whatever they were hunting. He didn’t quite have his bearings but didn't want to stop moving. It was early, he'd slept, taken on some calories and had a full water bottle. He wished he'd had time for good crap, but he'd have to wait until his next digs. He headed out of the cul-de-sac at a steady pace, no point running when he wasn't sure where he was or where was safe. He would keep moving in the direction that should take him back out of the built up area, avoiding any great risks. Despite his rest, he wasn't built for this much activity and he ached. He knew he probably would have to slow down or stop within the next half an hour, by then he hoped to have skirted around the town and be back in the countryside where his visibility would be better.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  NATASHA HAD FEARED she'd always be fat. She hated herself and thought others hated her too. At twenty-three years old, she had a lot of life to live but shied away from the crowd. Her friends were few, and she dared not socialise with the girls at work. She was embarrassed to stand next to those stick insects. No, Natasha knew it was best to keep herself to herself. Her modest ground-floor flat was home to her and Renton her British Blue cat. Natasha had tried every fad diet, every slimming club, and even one of those army based park fitness groups. Tried and failed. Some had a small short-term benefit, but Natasha just couldn't stick to any of them. At any bump in the road, Natasha found comfort in chocolate and crisps. Natasha had a lot of bumps in the road.

  It was an average Friday night. Natasha was home watching her reality shows whilst browsing the internet on her laptop. This is how Natasha would spend most nights. One celebrity Natasha followed, a hugely talented but damaged singer/songwriter from Australia known as “Shaz” was one of Natasha's favourite influencers. Normally, it'd be some shocking celebrity story or a link to some overpriced, under quality clothing. Tonight didn't seem any different. Shaz, like Natasha had fought her own battle with weight all her life, but she was now tweeting about a stone loss in just one week. Natasha was excited. In a series of tweets, Shaz shared how easy her solution was, no exercise and no rabbit food. Shaz could eat whatever she wanted and the weight would still come off. As if to prove this, Shaz shared a series of pictures of her meals that week. They were less a collection of evening meals and more examples of what a prisoner on death row may request for their last meal.

  This was what Natasha had been dreaming of, hell, this is what the world had been dreaming of. Shaz finally shared a link to a website offering FatBGone - a one a day diet pill that offered unbelievable results. The site didn’t look impressive or official and this brand-new treatment and only available in limited quantities. The link was live for all of five minutes before it went offline and Shaz deleted all the related tweets. That five minutes was enough for Natasha to have gone to the site, put an order for a month's supply in her shopping basket for the bargain price of £600 delivered. Card details punched in, she hovered over the orders submit button, Natasha paused. This was nonsense, surely? Nothing could be this easy and effective? Was it a scam? Had Shaz's Twitter account been hacked?

  Natasha decided she didn't care. Her credit card company would surely reimburse her if it was some nerd at his computer stealing card details. And if it was legitimate but didn't work, it would just join the extensive list of failed weight loss attempts. Submit button hit, Natasha smiled, imagining the possibilities of how she might look in just a few months time.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  NATASHA RETURNED HOME from work as if it was any other day, but it wasn't. She'd received a text from the courier confirming they had delivered her parcel to a neighbour at Flat 3. Thank goodness for that. Mabel lived in Flat 3, a kindly widow in her early eighties who Natasha would run the odd errand for and sometimes just pop round for a chat. Had they delivered the parcel to Flat 1, Natasha may not even have bothered to retrieve it despite the value. At Flat 1, Kerry lived with her boyfriend Mark. They both cruelly referred to Natasha as “Fatasha” and did just enough to make her life miserable, without stepping over the line to risk eviction by the council or having their housing benefits taken away. Natasha knocked on the door and Mabel gleefully opened it.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” Mabel was always delighted to see Natasha and the feeling was mutual.

  “That would be lovely Mabel.”

  Natasha entered the flat which would have been dated twenty years ago but was immaculately tidy and everything inside was in pristine condition. They both made their way to the kitchen as the kettle on the stove began whistling away.

  “So you've been buying off the internets again?” Mabel handed over the unassuming box, it was the size of a house brick and had no weight. It didn't feel like it should have cost £600. It didn't feel like it should have cost £6 but it was too late now.

  “It's a new diet pill.” Natasha felt embarrassed, but knew Mabel wouldn’t judge her too harshly.

  “Another one?”

  “This one is supposed to be amazing, Shaz, the singer, lost loads of weight using it.” Natasha could hear the desperation in her own voice, but didn’t care to hide it. Mabel reached out and touched Natasha's shoulder.

  “You shouldn't worry about being bigger, you're a lovely young, beautiful girl.” She was sincere, but little old ladies weren’t the problem. They all loved Natasha. People her own age, they judged her far more harshly.

  “I know, but I'd really be happier if I just lost a little.”

  Mabel poured the hot water into the teapot on a tray, ready with two cups, a small milk jug and a plate of biscuits. She led Natasha through to the living room with the tray and they both sat down.

  “So you won't be wanting any of these custard creams then dear?”

  “That's the beauty of these pills, I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want.” As Mabel poured the tea, Natasha took a biscuit. Then a second and a third biscuit offering a cheeky embarrassed smile.

  “You have as many as you like dear.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  NATASHA SAT ON her sofa with Renton majestically standing by her side. It'd been three hours since she had returned from Mabel's flat and she couldn't bring herself to open the box. What if inside there weren't thirty pills, what if it was empty? Or worse, the pills weren't genuine and were toxic? She could have thirty doses of cyanide wrapped in a nice little bundle for all she knew.

  She opened the plain brown exterior box and inside was a very colourful, well-designed smaller box with “NewU Pharma” proudly above the FatBGone product name. This somehow gave Natasha some confidence, the name was naff, but it looked genuine.
They had put enough effort into the design and finish that even if the pill was a fake, it probably wouldn’t be toxic. Probably.

  Removing the blister pack and instructions, she was shocked by how tiny the pills were, the smallest she'd even seen how could they possibly be effective? The instructions seemed standard, one a day with a glass of water after a meal. Do not take if pregnant

  “Chance would be a fine thing.” Natasha quipped to herself.

  She pulled her weighing scales out from under the sofa and stepped on them, twenty-two stone and 6 pounds. This wasn't her heaviest, but neither was it her lightest, it was the weight she settled at when she wasn’t self medicating with food or on an extreme fad diet.

  She'd eaten about an hour ago, but Natasha thought this would be fine. Carefully she popped out the tiny pill, desperate not to break or drop it before placing it in her mouth. The taste was sour, nearly meaty but unlike anything she'd had before. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just strong, even more so considering the meagre size of the solitary pill. Natasha gulped down a glass of water and the deed was done. She was on the first step to her new self.

  *

  It was 3am and Natasha woke abruptly, her stomach was grumbling loudly, a sharp stabbing pain sent her bolt upright clutching her belly. Sweat was pouring from her brow as she launched herself out of bed and quickly crawled on all fours to the toilet just in time before her bowels erupted. A constant stream of liquid faeces splattered the toilet bowl. As her bowels emptied, the pain gradually subsided. She sat more upright and breathed heavily, feeling some relief. What had she done? Why was she so stupid?

  After an initial flurry of gas and excrement, her stomach settled down. She cleaned herself up and went to find the FatBGone packet. She rifled through the side effects listed on the back of the instruction insert.

  ‘In the first twenty-four hours some diarrhoea and discomfort may be experienced, this is perfectly normal and will have completely cleared up by day three. If symptoms persist, please stop taking FatBGone and consult with your GP.’

  This was normal then. Natasha felt relief she'd not shit herself but wished she'd flipped the instructions over to see what she could be expecting. If these pills did nothing else, they proved to be an efficient laxative. Natasha returned to bed to find Renton had taken her spot in the warm patch, she forcibly moved the cat and tried to get back to sleep.

  *

  Renton rudely awoke Natasha batting her face with his furry paw. After the previous night's emergency bowel evacuation, Natasha had managed uninterrupted sleep, she was a little sweaty, but otherwise felt fantastic. She was hungry, but that wasn't unusual. Renton again batted Natasha on the nose, she wasn't the only one feeling a pang of hunger, but first things first, a weigh in.

  Natasha pulled the bathroom scales out from their resting place and stood on them, waiting for her weight to be displayed. To her delight, she was eight pounds lighter than the previous morning. Before patting herself on the back too hard, she recalled the less than calm night time toilet trip. She was lighter, she'd expelled a lot of waste and no doubt dehydrated. She had far cheaper laxatives in the medicine cabinet that would produce comparable results so if this was FatBGone's weight loss solution, she knew it was doomed to end in an expensive failure.

  She carried on to the kitchen to get Renton's breakfast and fix herself something light. Renton's breakfast comprised the usual protein rich luxury kibble, Natasha's light breakfast evolved from scrambled egg on toast to eight rashers of bacon, four sausages, another six pieces of toast, an additional four eggs fried and two tins of beans. If the local cafe had put this on the menu, it would probably have had a name such as a “Gut Buster”. With the feast polished off, Natasha felt the usual shame, but was still hungry. And sweaty. Pouring through the fridge, Natasha pulled out and rejected an apple, throwing it to the floor along with half a lettuce, opened up a milk carton and downed it without taking so much as a single breath. Dropping the drained vessel Natasha reached back into the fridge pulling out a lump of cheese and a stick of butter which she promptly chowed down on.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  FOUR YEARS AND not a moment or opportunity wasted. Gareth had spent tens of millions of Cahill's money, a special fund, not linked directly to NewU Pharma, set aside especially for bribing and extorting. His favourite use of the money had been a nineteen-year-old rent boy they had set up with a fifty-odd year old prominent married cabinet minister. They had tapes of the intimate encounter and arranged a viewing at a local private cinema for its star. Gareth hadn't been present himself, but this encounter too had been filmed. He'd never seen a man produce so much vomit. At first, seeing the encounter, then when told the boy was only fifteen, that was a lie, but a plausible one. The vomit was very much true.

  The MP wasn't just looking at a ruined career and marriage, he was looking at a prison sentence and a lifetime on the sex offenders register. He agreed to help them, use his influence to bring the obesity epidemic to the fore. Gareth's people made it clear he was safe and that the secret would remain so, as long as he did what he was told. Gareth had mused that all this effort, expense and criminality had been wasted on trying to get a legitimate pharmaceutical approved for use. He'd stooped very low many times in his life, but never to these depths and for so long. But after killing Josef, none of this seemed like a line was really being crossed.

  The tabloids had been engaged to get the public's blood boiling at the uncaring government and the greedy pedlars of sugary and fatty foods. Know the right people at the right red tops and they will get your message across. You could even start a war if that’s what you wished.

  Over the last two years, everything had stepped up a gear. After the death of a grotesquely obese twelve-year-old girl called Jenny, the public were putty in the press and Gareth's hands. “Jenny’s Law” had gathered nearly a million signatures on an online petition calling for immediate government action, banning of high sugar and highly addictive junk foods. Those behind the petition campaigned on every media stream for serious government investment in curing obesity.

  The left leaning government were people pleasers, they over promised and under delivered at great expense. Luckily, a particular cabinet minister had a solution. It just so happened that the Health Minister had been working with private industry on just such a solution. Gareth's man did his part and the Prime Minister listened gleefully as they presented the solution. The PM knew he'd get all the plaudits, and this could become part of his legacy. And it would be so easy, it was ready for distribution, he barely have to dirty his hands in forcing it through. He had public opinion behind him and he'd be the man to fast track this miracle cure for the epidemic of the twenty-first century. He didn't have to aggravate the junk food industry banning certain food types, put draconian limits on how much sugar could be used or tax people’s favourite chocolate bar.

  The Prime Minister himself pushed through the drug, the trials had all been outstanding, no long-term side effects and impressive results. Some close warned him against being too heavily involved, five years down the line if people drop dead with colon cancer, he'd be finished. He didn't need to listen, he knew best, he knew this was his moment to be forever remembered. He was all too eager to stand beside Jenny’s parents, with a picture of the overweight tween and shed a tear as he introduced the newly passed Jenny’s Law. A law that would enable them to fast track urgent medical treatments if they were in the public interest, it would start with fighting fat, but could treat any future illness or condition.

  It was too easy for Gareth, it had taken on a life of its own. He spent less money corrupting and more time schmoozing. James Cahill had been keen to share the limelight and there was more than enough for both.

  Four years, but here they were, launch night. For several months, warehouses had been full and ready to ship. The government had signed a billion pound deal to supply the NHS, they had marketing materials and had already reached out to social media influencers, supplyi
ng them FatBGone for free, but reaping the benefits of all the attention.

  The popularity amongst the pointless internet celebrities had created a black market that shifty warehouse workers and those with easy access were ready to capitalise on. Neither Gareth nor Cahill cared about a few hundred missing boxes. It was all good publicity as word spread about this wonder drug.

  The work in the UK almost complete, tonight's launch would confirm that. Contracts were already being drawn up for shipments to the USA, Canada, Australia, several South and Central American countries, pending approvals from the various agencies and governments. In the next two months, they would be all over the world. Thanks to a Prime Minister easily manipulated who didn't just open a door to a country, but the entire world.

  A sophisticated venue in central London hosted the night. The media, politicians, celebrities, investors and that fat girl's family. Gareth happily stayed in the background and let those who would pay his bonus and decide his stock options to bask in the glory. The presentation felt more like the launch of an expensive new smartphone rather than a drug marketed to save lives. Gareth had put much of it together himself. Two morning television presenters were the hosts, introducing each of the experts and speakers, case studies and the rigorous testing that had been undertaken. Jenny’s family featured heavily as did a tear jerking two minute video dedicated to poor Jenny. Gareth privately referred to it as “An Ode to Cake” and could barely keep a straight face as it played.