Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad Read online

  Praise for the first

  ZIPPERED FLESH anthology

  “If director David Cronenberg edited an anthology, this would be that book.”

  —HORROR WORLD

  “Hardcore studies of shocking monstrosities that will enthrall and entice even the most hardened horror fan.” —FANGORIA

  “I loved this anthology. Reading it was like riding a rollercoaster in a haunted house.”

  —READER’S DEN

  “There are some real high points in this collection, and the authors have all attempted to approach the subject matter from very different and interesting angles.”

  —THIS IS HORROR

  “This anthology will not let you down!”

  —Blaze McRob’s TALES OF HORROR

  ZIPPERED FLESH 2

  More Tales of Body Enhancements

  Gone Bad!

  Edited by Weldon Burge

  Smart Rhino Publications

  www.smartrhino.com

  These are works of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  First Edition

  Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad. Copyright © 2013 by Smart Rhino Publications LLC. All rights reserved. Individual stories copyright by individual authors. Printed in the United States.

  Excerpts from FAHRENHEIT 451 are reprinted y permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc. © 1953, renewed 1981 by Ray Bradbury.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9847876-5-4

  ISBN-10: 0984787658

  DEDICATION

  For the editors and fellow writers who provided support and encouragement to make Smart Rhino Publications possible.

  CONTENTS

  THE MODERN ADONIS

  BRYAN HALL

  TAUT

  SHAUN MEEKS

  THE HUNGER ARTIST

  LISA MANNETTI

  SKIN DEEP

  CARSON BUCKINGHAM

  THE SUN-SNAKE

  CHRISTINE MORGAN

  KNOWLEDGE

  KATE MONROE

  PROSTHETICS

  DANIEL I. RUSSELL

  AFTER DARQUE

  M.L. ROOS

  THE AFFAIR OF THE JADE DRAGON

  RICK HUDSONS

  THE FUTURE OF FLESH

  JM REINBOLD

  WE’RE ALL MAD HERE

  E.A. BLACK

  SEEDS

  L.L. SOARES

  PERFECTION

  DOUG BLAKESLEE

  UNDERNEATH

  KEALAN PATRICK BURKE

  THE PERFECT SIZE

  A.P. SESSLER

  PIPER AT THE GATES

  DAVID BENTON & W.D. GAGLIANI

  BABYDADDY

  JONATHAN TEMPLAR

  THE LITTLE THINGS

  CHRISTIAN A. LARSEN

  CLOCKWORK

  SHAUN JEFFREY

  LUSCIOUS

  JEZZY WOLFE

  RAPTURE

  CHARLES COLYOTT

  PRIMAL TONGUE

  MICHAEL BAILEY

  THE WRITERS

  THE ILLUSTRATOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks go to Shelley Everett Bergen for her amazing cover illustration, to Scott Medina for designing the cover, and to Terri Gillespie for her excellent proofreading skills.

  I must also point out that, although most of the stories are original to this volume, a number are reprints. Carson Buckingham’s story, “Skin Deep,” was originally published in the Masters of Horror anthology (published by Triskaideka Books, 2010). Kealan Patrick Burke’s “Underneath” first appeared in Shivers III, edited by Richard Chizmar, Cemetery Dance Publications, 2004. “Clockwork” by Shaun Jeffrey was originally published in Wicked Karnival #7, 2006.

  THE MODERN ADONIS

  BY BRYAN HALL

  Firm.

  Firm, but not rock hard. Not the kind of muscle a real man should have. The kid had a long way to go, but even I had to admit he was off to a good start.

  He was standing in the back corner of the gym, over past the free weights, flexing and taking a good long look at himself in the wall-to-wall mirror back there.

  Doubts. If you’ve got that need to check yourself out in public, it means even you know you’ve got a lot of work to do. I know. I was there once, just starting to fill out and excited as hell at what I was achieving.

  I thought about going over and letting the kid know that he’d hit a plateau. That no matter how hard he worked, he’d hit the point where the body simply can’t convert anything else to muscle. It’s a weight ratio thing. Your body is only designed for a certain amount of muscle mass; anything beyond it is impossible.

  Fuck impossible. There are ways. People don’t wanna talk about them. Don’t wanna admit to them. But the simple fact is that there’s a limit to what the body can produce, and once you hit it there’s no damn way to go any higher on your own.

  On your own being the key phrase there.

  I didn’t bother telling the kid. He’d find out on his own eventually, if he stuck with his regimen. Then he’d have to make a decision.

  Me, I had my own worries. My own decision.

  Seems there’s a natural plateau, and there’s one designed all on its own, one that you can’t eclipse no matter what. It’s frustration is what it is. A real synthetic son of a bitch. You push and you shoot and you lift and you work and you just don’t get any more gain.

  I’d spent two months languishing at that ceiling, trying everything I could. Talking to everyone I knew. They all said the same thing.

  “Sorry, Al. You’ve hit it, man. No way to get bigger.”

  “Christ buddy, look at you. You’re a fucking specimen. What else do you want?”

  More.

  That’s all. Not too much to ask. But I’d hit the point where I realized me and that kid had something in common.

  I watched him flex and smile and posture and go try to strike up a conversation with a pair of blondes on the treadmills. I chuckled to myself and left.

  Home was a little house in an upscale neighborhood outside Atlanta. Away from the junkies and the thugs and the drunks. Tucked in a nice pine grove, not a skyscraper in sight.

  Upchuck was at the door, same as every day, little nub of a tail wagging like crazy. They say a man’s dog is a reflection of himself, and we were proof of that. He was a boxer-pit mix—a mongrel, just like me. Shorter than a boxer but with that square chest and shoulders that a badass pit bull has. Pure muscle—not an ounce of fat on his seventy- pound body. Part of it was his own genetics, but he owed a little to me, too. I mixed in a few supplements with his dinner, and made sure to buy only the best dog food. No soy. No fillers. Red meat three days a week.

  If you’re gonna have a pet, you treat it like you would want to be treated. And I treat myself well.

  Upchuck followed me through the house to the weight room. I dropped my gym bag in the corner and went to the shelf in the center of the far wall, took the metal toolbox off it. The combination to the padlock was 265—my own season weight goal. Pro bodybuilders separate their weight from their off-season and on-season numbers. Off-season, you’re usually heavier since you start training harder during competition time. You gain a little when you’re not pressing yourself as hard, or at least most do.

  Not me. I’ve always stayed right at two
hundred forty-five, or within a couple pounds of it. I don’t gain fat. I gain muscle, or I don’t gain at all. If you treat every day like you’re in competition, you’ll stay hard.

  Built.

  Ripped.

  Toned.

  Two hundred sixty-five was a good number to shoot for. Realistic, achievable. Until my body decided to impose that goddamn two- hundred-forty-eight ceiling. I couldn’t climb above it. No matter what. I guess I could stop working out, start eating processed shit and drinking milk shakes until I turned into a chubby blob. That would put me up to two hundred sixty-five. Past it, really.

  But I wanted two hundred sixty-five in muscle. Pure muscle. Sure, my bones and organs and skin would all help add to that weight, but most of it?

  Muscle. Just the way it should be.

  I unlocked the case and slipped out the bottle, the vial, and a fresh syringe. Drew out a dose of testosterone cypionate first. After a while you don’t even feel the needle’s little prick. After a while, your muscles are so tight you don’t even bleed.

  After that was the Winstrol. Little pill with a big punch. Took two of them dry, then put everything back into the box and put it back where it went. Upchuck watched me like he had a thousand times before. He never got his own shot, but I swear sometimes his eyes were begging me to give him one.

  I went to the study, Upchuck padding along behind me. One wall was lined with trophies, photos of me at different competitions, newspaper clippings. Stuff like that. Rhonda had taken most of the pictures, back before she said the bodybuilding was getting in the way of our relationship. We never married, so she couldn’t take any of my money. But I missed her. After nine years of being with someone, you can’t help but miss them.

  I dialed Ricky’s number and waited. I needed something else. Something better. I’d doubled the doses on both of the chems, but nothing had happened in the last two months. Not a single pound of change in my weight. Normally I stacked, running through the cycle the way you were supposed to. But two months with no change at all called for doubling up. Ricky yelled at me the last time I talked to him and told him I was gonna do it. He’s an asshole, but he can get what you need.

  “I’ll be damned, Al. I expected you to call me from a hospital,” he said as he answered the phone. His nasal voice sounded happy that he’d been wrong.

  “I told you I’d be okay.”

  “Small miracles, man. Small miracles.”

  “Listen ... I need something else.”

  The line was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, all joy was gone from his voice. “I can’t do that, man.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve sold you too much. You’re stacking and cycling like a madman, Al. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. And besides, I’ve gotta cover my own ass. You kill your damn fool self with all this juice and it gets traced back to me somehow ...”

  “It wouldn’t. And I won’t. I’m a fucking brick wall, man. The stuff I’m on now doesn’t even speed up my heart. It doesn’t do shit, in fact. That’s the problem.”

  “Have you looked in the mirror lately, Al? You get any more ripped, your muscles will probably split through your skin.”

  The thought actually made me grin for a second. Then reality crashed back in. “I can’t get any more ripped, damn it. That’s why I’m calling you.”

  He hesitated. “No. I can’t, man. Not in good conscience. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Fuck your conscience.”

  “Al, man. There’s no need to—”

  “And fuck you, too.” I hung up the phone. Thought about throwing it across the room, let it smash into the wall. But, as much as Ricky may not want to admit it to his other clients, I knew damn well that there were plenty of other chemical fish in the sea.

  I switched on the computer and listened to it hum to life. I like computers. They’re so goddamn useful it’s amazing anyone got by without them. So much information, so easily obtainable. Plus, they’re like a human. You can keep upgrading them, adding new RAM and hard drives and video cards. There’s always something else you can do to make them a little better.

  I had a few bookmarks stored, online shops for different chems. But I’d tried most of them through Ricky over the last months. There had to be something else.

  An hour into the search and I was starting to lose hope. Vague searches weren’t working. Things like Steroids Online or Muscle Building Supplements. Finally, my Hail Mary play turned up something. I searched for something simple—Buy Steroids in Atlanta. Hard to get more direct than that.

  And it worked.

  The top results were the same bullshit sites I’d seen a dozen times, but I combed through them and on page six of the results, right about the time I was starting to give it up, I saw a result that looked promising. I clicked it and watched as a knockoff version of Craigslist filled the screen. Shady shit on there, things like Evening Companions and Help With Your Problems buried alongside Electronics and Collectibles.

  I’d never seen anything like it, but after you see some of the shit the internet is home to, it’s hard to be surprised.

  The listing I found was too perfect to believe.

  Gain muscle mass! No matter your size or figure, bulking up is possible! Get the body you want—no side effects!

  It was followed by a local number that was practically begging me to call it.

  So I did.

  I got an answer on the third ring. A lot quicker than Ricky had ever answered my calls.

  “Yes?” The voice was nothing special. A man, impossible to tell the age. Just a common baritone.

  “I’m calling about the ad online?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one for muscle mass?”

  “Oh. Well. What is it you want?”

  “I need to get bigger. I’ve hit a plateau and the stuff my usual guy’s giving me isn’t helping anymore.”

  “Okay. Well, I can probably help you. But it’s costly.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  There was a long pause. “How much do you want this?” The voice had dropped to a near-whisper.

  “More than anything.”

  Another pause. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have someone close to you? A brother, a lover? Even a pet?”

  I glanced at Upchuck. He’d plopped down in front of the trophy case and was licking his balls like they were ice cream. “Yes. A dog.”

  “Bring it. And five thousand dollars.”

  I hesitated, but only for a second. “Okay. No problem.”

  He gave me the address and told me to be there in two hours, then hung up.

  It was a long wait. I left twenty minutes early and did fifteen over the speed limit all the way there. I expected a business, some run down little shithole in a bad part of town. Instead, I ended up parked on the sidewalk in front of a house that looked a hell of a lot like mine. A little suburban community, first home on the left. Two stories, manicured lawn. I double-checked my GPS to make sure it hadn’t led me astray, then checked it again on my cell phone with the maps application. Everything said I was in the right spot except my gut.

  I tucked the envelope with the guy’s cash into my waistband, clipped Upchuck’s leash to his collar, and we climbed out of the car.

  The door opened before I was able to ring the bell. The guy standing in the doorway looked like a skeleton. He was thin to the point of being disgusting—I could probably fart and knock him over. His skin was like chalk, eyes sunk back into his head and sitting atop purple bags that were bigger than his biceps. His gaze jumped from me to Upchuck and back again.

  “I’m here about the—”

  “Come on in.” He moved to the side and I started into the house. Upchuck had other plans. He barked twice, then let out that low growl that dogs do when they’re about to bite. He didn’t like the look of the guy any more than I did.

  I dragged him into the house anyway. He’d never been a fan of strange place
s—or people—so I was pretty much used to it. The guy didn’t seem to give a shit either. He didn’t give Upchuck a second glance and motioned for me to follow him.

  “You okay, man?” I asked as we walked down a bare hallway. I had to pull Upchuck every step of the way. “You sick or anything?”

  “I’m fine. I just don’t sleep a lot.”

  I glanced through the open doors we passed. Nothing remarkable. A den with a recliner and a midsized TV. A bathroom with seashells on the shower curtain. The hallway ended at a closed door, with an open one on the right. The man led us through the open door.

  It was a bedroom he’d converted into a kind of home office. Three computer monitors lined a desk, with a matching trio of computer towers visible underneath it. The desk was cluttered, lots of notes scattered among wires and wire cutters, bulbs and screwdrivers. A pair of envelopes that looked a lot like mine—one of them a lot thicker—sat to one side of the desk.

  “So ... advertising online. That’s not risky?” I’d never felt the need in my life to break the ice, but the guy’s nonchalant, disinterested demeanor was starting to make me feel a little like Upchuck.

  He shrugged. “No risk, no reward. Besides, cops have more important things to do than try to bust people on a web site offering blowjobs for twenty bucks a pop.”

  I held out my hand. “I’m Al.”

  He stared at my palm a moment, and then leveled his eyes back to mine. “Mark.” He didn’t bother shaking hands; he just sat there, looking back and forth from me to Upchuck and back again.