The Mammoth Book of Body Horror

by Marie O'Regan

  “We should all go through this,” he continued, babbling excitedly. “I’m serious. The three of us should do it.”

  “What if I don’t want to?” I said. “What if there are side-effects? Christ, Morgan, you could drop dead tomorrow.”

  “That’s not going to happen, John. Think about it . . . my body’s stronger than it’s ever been. Listen, I might only have just told you about this, but I’ve been working on it for years. There are no side-effects. I know what I’m doing.”

  My anger towards Morgan slowly subsided. I watched him for weeks, checking him over every couple of days, monitoring his health. And what I saw was remarkable. One afternoon, he cut himself on a jagged piece of metal in his scrapyard-like garage, slashing the palm of his right hand. It was a deep and vicious cut and yet, incredibly, within a couple of hours it was healed. I went to change his blood-soaked dressing and discovered that the wound had almost completely disappeared. Just a faint red line remained where the flesh had been torn open.

  “I’ve still got to be careful,” he told me, laughing. “If I’d lost a finger, it wouldn’t have grown back!”

  The following day both Deanna and I were off work. There was much we should have been doing, but we chose to do nothing instead. It was almost midday, and we lay in bed together like a pair of teenagers. She climbed on top of me, still naked from the night before.

  “You can’t want more,” I said, half joking. “Bloody hell, Dee, it’s only been a couple of hours.”

  “Don’t you want me any more?”

  She slid off and lay beside me again, running her hand over my chest.

  “Of course I do. I’m spent, that’s all. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

  “You’re getting old.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  “Then maybe you should try Morgan’s treatment.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I’m not,” she said, sounding offended. “I’m serious.”

  “It’s out of the question.”

  She moved her hand lower.

  “Just imagine it, John. Making love all night, every night, for ever.”

  And as she disappeared beneath the sheets, it was impossible to argue.

  I lost a patient.

  How ill she’d been and how hard my team and I had worked was irrelevant; the fact remained that a seventeen-year-old girl was dead – her family devastated – and I hadn’t been able to save her. And as I’d struggled to keep her alive, all I’d been able to think about was that fucker Morgan and his damn treatment. Could I really be expected to keep what I’d learned to myself? His discovery, which he seemed to think of as little more than a party trick, could potentially alleviate untold amounts of pain and suffering. I decided to confront Morgan when I next saw him, and I didn’t have to wait long. He was at the house when I finally got back.

  “What’s up with you?” Deanna asked. The two of them had been drinking.

  “Bad day,” I answered. “A patient of mine died. She was only seventeen.”

  “I’m sure you did all you could,” she said, sounding less than interested.

  “Don’t try and trivialize this,” I shouted at her, surprising even myself with my sudden anger.

  “Calm down, John,” Morgan said, standing up and moving towards me. I pushed him away.

  “Calm down! For Christ’s sake, Morgan, I think I’ve got every right to be a little pissed off, don’t you? You’re sitting on a discovery that’s going to revolutionize medicine for ever, but you refuse to share it. If you’d seen what I’d seen today . . . if you’d been the one who had to tell that girl’s parents that their daughter was dead—”

  “We’ve talked about this. You know I can’t just let this out into the public domain. Society can’t cope with people living twice as long, or even longer.”

  “What would you know about society? What are you afraid of, Morgan? Do you think that we’ll all become selfish, self-obsessed shits like you? Or is it a power thing? Does it make you feel like a god?”

  I stared at him, desperate for the argument to continue, but he didn’t answer. I glared at him with his long hair and his stupid bloody patchwork quilt of tattoos covering every visible inch of skin, and those goddamn things in his ears, and the split in the tip of his tongue—

  “You’re not a god,” I told him, “you’re a fucking freak.”

  Morgan remained infuriatingly calm. He picked up his coat.

  “Sorry, Dee,” he said, as he left, squeezing her hand when he passed her. The silence after the front door slammed shut was deafening.

  “You bastard,” Deanna said, barely even looking at me. “You totally underestimate him.”

  “You think? I’ve been out there trying to save lives today, Dee, and what’s he been doing? Playing Superman and pissing what’s left of his inheritance up the wall, no doubt.”

  “You’re wrong. He was here tonight because he wanted to talk to you. Have you ever stopped to think he might be struggling with all this too? He needs your help. You’re all he’s got, you insensitive prick. He knows the importance of what he’s discovered, and he can’t handle it on his own.”

  “Well, he wasn’t on his own, was he?” I snapped, not thinking. “He’d got you.”

  I tried to apologize but it was too late. Deanna pushed past me and went up to bed.

  When I woke next morning, she wasn’t there. I knew where she’d gone, though. I drove straight to Morgan’s house and hammered on the door until he let me in.

  “Where is she, Morgan?”

  I didn’t wait for him to answer. Deanna was in the kitchen, sitting staring out of the window. She glanced back over her shoulder at me, then turned away again. “What do you want?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Morgan needed to talk last night.”

  “Come on, Dee. Look, I’m sorry. I was an idiot. It’s just that I could have saved that kid yesterday if I’d had access to Morgan’s treatment.”

  “I know that,” she said, still not facing me, “but Morgan’s right, isn’t he? The world’s barely limping along as it is. If he shares the information he’s got, we’re all screwed.”

  “It’s an impossible situation, isn’t it?” Morgan said. I turned around and saw him standing right behind me. “Damned if we don’t, damned if we do.”

  “We?”

  “We’re all in this together now, John. But I’m seeing things from a different perspective to either of you. We need to get back on to a level playing field.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Let me tell him, Morgan,” Deanna interrupted, and I felt my legs weaken momentarily. Tell me what? Were they having an affair? In the heat of the moment that, stupidly, was all I could think. “I want us both to have the treatment, John,” she eventually admitted.

  “You can’t be serious—”

  “Deadly,” she said, and it was clear that she was. “Thing is, we need time to make sure we handle this properly, and Morgan can give us that.”

  “No way.”

  “But it’s so much more than that,” she continued. “You’re an ass at times, John, but I love you. We’ve been together for twelve years, and they’ve been twelve incredible years, haven’t they?”

  “The best.”

  “So imagine another hundred years like that. The treatment will make that possible.”

  “Come on, mate,” Morgan said. “You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. If someone told me I could have a hundred years with someone like Dee, I’d take it in a heartbeat.”

  I knew he was right, and I was about to say as much when Deanna spoke again.

  “Thing is, sweetheart, I’ve already started my treatment. I took the medication before you arrived. I have to see it through now.”

  When Deanna’s reaction began in earnest, I was terrified. She’d been talking normally a short while earlier, but had suddenly sunk into deep unconsciousness. And now she lay in front o
f me on Morgan’s operating table, her body convulsing. The heart-rate trace kept time, and I didn’t realize how much reassurance the constant noise provided until it stuttered, then stopped. I stepped back as Morgan moved forward, fighting against all my instincts to push him out of the way and resuscitate her myself. He held back for what felt like forever, then plunged the syringes into her naked body and waited for her to reanimate.

  Every second felt like an hour.

  “Morgan, is this—”

  “It sometimes takes a little longer,” he hissed defensively. “Just wait.”

  And then, finally, the heart-rate monitor began to bleep steadily again and I leaned back against the wall with relief.

  “See,” he said. “I told you it would be—”

  He stopped speaking instantly when the noise of the machine turned to a sudden, high-pitched whine. I reached out for Deanna but he blocked my way.

  “Her body’s rejecting it!” he screamed.

  On the bed in front of me my wife’s naked body began to convulse. Her spine arched as I fought to get closer, and then she dropped back down hard, like a piece of meat on a butcher’s counter.

  No noise. No movement.

  Absolute silence.

  I shoved Morgan away and tried to resuscitate her, my head spinning, my hands numb with shock. I refused to give up, even when I knew she was gone and there was no hope. Morgan pulled me away from Deanna and I collapsed in the corner of the room, barely able to breathe.

  She was dead, and my reason for living was gone.

  Morgan had taken everything from me, and I needed him to feel my pain. I anaesthetized him while he was sleeping, and took him back down to his lab where I operated. The various procedures took hours to complete, but we had plenty of time.

  I kept him sedated for a day to ensure he made a suitable recovery. It was remarkable – anyone else would have taken many weeks, but in less than twenty-four hours all his wounds had healed. I strapped him to a chair while I sealed the cellar door with the three of us inside. I blocked it with as much equipment as I could, then sat down and waited for him to come around.

  He tried to move, but he couldn’t.

  “Don’t panic, Morgan,” I said, “You’re safe. We’re in your lab.”

  He tried to move again.

  “Please don’t struggle, because it won’t do you any good. You’ve taken my life from me, Morgan, and now I’ve taken yours.”

  He shuffled on the seat and I stared at what was left of him in the low light. His bare but colourfully inked skin, his long hair, those bloody holes in his ear lobes, the stumps—

  “I need you to try and understand what you’ve done to me. You’re a selfish fucker, so I don’t expect you’ll grasp the full enormity of the hurt you’ve caused straight away, but you’re a man with plenty of time now. I’ve done what I can to give you the perfect conditions in which to reflect.”

  What remained of Morgan gave a little shudder.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve made a few body modifications of my own, just to help keep you focused. You’d be amazed if you could see what I’ve done to you, except, of course, you can’t because I’ve taken out your eyes. And that split tongue of yours? Gone too. I didn’t want you shouting out for help when you should be thinking. But the biggest change is your arms and legs. I’ve amputated them. Like you said once, nothing’s going to grow back, but everything seems to have healed nicely.”

  The bizarrely decorated torso twitched and fought against its bonds, then slumped forward with resignation. I got up and lay down on the bed next to Deanna. I held her body tight as I injected myself with enough drugs to finish me.

  “The door is sealed, and I doubt anyone will come looking down here for a long time. I’m going to end my life now, Morgan. See, I still have the power to do that. You, on the other hand, are stuck here forever with nothing to do but think about what you’ve done. Well, almost forever.”

  Butterfly

  Axelle Carolyn

  Dr Alistair lifted the plastic sheet protecting the bed and let Mrs Adler step inside the sterile area. He followed her in and closed the opening carefully behind them.

  Mrs Adler held her breath. Could this mummy-like figure, surrounded by humming machines and lying still on this hospital bed, really be her son?

  “You may go closer if you wish,” Dr Alistair said.

  She hesitated, then took a couple of steps forward. John was wrapped head to toe in white gauze, in places stained shades of yellow and red. Only parts of his face were visible. One of his eyes had swollen shut, reduced to a mere slit; his grotesquely bloated lips drew an uncertain line in a block of charred, blistered flesh. A feeding tube – one of John’s many precarious links to life – had been inserted into his nose. Tufts of hair stood out between the layers of gauze, yet they were few and far between. The head itself was oddly shaped under the bandages, with inexplicable protuberances on the side of his chin and on his left temple. Of the happy twenty-five-year-old who, only last week, had insisted on organizing a barbecue with his parents to celebrate his engagement, not an eyelid was left.

  Mrs Adler forced herself to smile at her son through the stinging tears that streamed down her cheeks.

  “John?” she called.

  The young man did not respond. He didn’t even acknowledge her presence.

  “John, honey, it’s me. It’s Mummy.”

  No reaction. Mrs Adler turned to the doctor, inquisitive.

  “He has suffered second- and third-degree burns on nearly seventy per cent of his body,” Dr Alistair explained. “That he is still with us at all is a miracle. We are working very hard, but his brain has gone into shock.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “He’s in a very deep coma. I’m afraid . . . the chances that he will some day emerge are extremely slim.”

  “Are you saying he will never—?” she began, but the last trace of hope had disappeared from her face, and tears choked her before she could utter the last words.

  Dr Alistair looked down, uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  From under the bandages, the world seemed miles away. John’s skin prickled and stretched. The sensation was odd, but not entirely unpleasant – at any rate, nothing comparable to the excruciating pain of the flames. His eyelids were still too heavy to lift; but he felt the protective chrysalis around him, tightly wrapped around his slowly rejuvenating skin, and he sensed the soft, gentle light filtering through the membrane which shielded him from the harshness of the world. Sheltered, nurtured, he had nearly completed his transformation. Memories of his life up to this moment were hard to recall; his friends, family, and even the fire itself seemed to have faded into the distance. His previous existence had to be forgotten for him to be reborn. He was waiting to emerge.

  He knew he had spent a long time lying there already, gestating inside his cocoon. Nature had worked its little miracle . . . It wouldn’t be long now until his release.

  The doctor had already stepped out of the sterile area. Mrs Adler, however, stayed inside and inched closer to her son, her knees touching the side of the bed. She leaned over her sleeping boy to give him a kiss. Just as her face brushed over his, tears slipping and crashing on to his cheek, she noticed the movement of his eyes.

  “John?” she tried again.

  No response.

  She called out, “Doctor?”

  Dr Alistair stepped back inside and stood next to her.

  She pointed at John’s fluttering lashes. His eyes moved in quick circular motions under the heavy eyelids. “Is he waking up? Is he trying to open his eyes?”

  Dr Alistair observed his patient for a moment. Finally, he shook his head.

  “He’s not waking,” he said. “He’s dreaming.”

  John’s metamorphosis was nearly complete. He had shed his old skin; it lay discarded on the ground. Blood pulsated through his new, leaner, stronger body. He felt the overwhelming impulse to
push himself out of the chrysalis; at long last, it was time to hatch! Wriggling, writhing, twisting around, he shed his bandages and heaved himself towards the chrysalis, which suddenly cracked open. Light came flooding in and he revelled in its warmth, half blinded after his long stay in the dark yet opening his eyes as wide as he could. Finally, he emerged: a creature whose smooth skin gleamed and glistened in the sun, and sat on the torn, empty shell, looking around, taking in his environment. He slowly opened his wings, feeling them harden as blood spread through their veins. They were impressive, translucent, each one as long as his whole body; sunlight streamed through them, painting rainbow colours on the floor. Never before had any butterfly looked so magnificent.

  He turned to the open window and flapped his wings a couple of times. They responded perfectly. His body was light, and he took off without any great effort. How wonderful to finally leave the ground! How liberating!

  He reached the window frame and glanced back at the burn victim on his death bed in the little hospital room; the broken, useless, forever-damaged remainders of his past existence. Machines beeped in alert around the lifeless body; doctors and nurses rushed to his side, shouting instructions at each other; outside the sterile area, a woman cried.

  John spread his wings outside the window and flew away.

  Sticky Eye

  Conrad Williams

  Conjunctivitis. Jesus. It sounded like some hellish offshoot of grammar. Welch had heard of it before, but hadn’t paid it much heed. He supposed that must be true of anybody who had never suffered from it. And suffer was the word. It felt as though some masochistic ghost was raking ragged nails across his sclera in the way an eczematic will worry irritated skin. Opening his eyes hurt, closing his eyes hurt. Light of any strength made his eyeballs feel as though they were being impaled slowly upon lances.

  Welch blinked imploringly at the doctor as she shone her ophthalmoscope deep into his pupils. Tears from each eye had travelled the tense oval of his face and had almost met each other chinside. The doctor retreated to her desk and pulled a phial from a tray. She cracked off the top and shook a few drips into Welch’s eyes. The world turned acid orange.