Zippered Flesh: Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad!

by Nicholson, Scott; Shirley, John; Jones, Adrienne; Mannetti, Lisa; Masterton, Graham; Laimo, Michael; Rosamilia, Armand; Colyott, Charles; Bailey, Michael

  Alesha was torn between terror and relief. Her palms were clammy, trembling so badly she kept them tightly clasped on her lap.

  He seemed oblivious to her panic, instead hitting the button on the intercom. “Clara, can we get some samples from Alesha? I need to readjust her immunosuppressant therapy.”

  Clara responded quickly, entering the office with a tray of syringes, vials, and rubber tourniquets. “Wow,” she said, “you healed better than anyone I’ve seen so far. Now, didn’t I say you were in the best hands?”

  Alesha nodded, unable to speak around the lump in her throat. She waited as Clara extracted three vials of her blood and left the room. “Dr. Pift, something is not right. I don’t remember leaving Dr. Middleton’s house. I don’t have any memory of the last three weeks. When I called you, I had just woken up. In the donor’s apartment.”

  Dr. Pift stared, speechless.

  “Plus I seem to love yogurt now, which is weird, because the stuff usually makes me throw up. And that’s not the worst of it ...”

  “Yes?”

  “These aren’t my clothes. I woke up in them. My clothes were in her tub, covered in blood.”

  If he was worried at all, she couldn’t tell. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully before replying.

  “The Cytovene you’re taking is known sometimes to cause changes in taste. Not unheard of. Just means we need to lower your dosage. Prednisone often comes with a host of complications, including confusion and a difficulty in your perception of what’s real and imagined. I’m sure all this can be fixed with your medications. As soon as your tests come back, we’ll see where your levels are and make the necessary changes. You are a very fortunate young lady. I suspect you’ll be on your way much faster than anticipated.”

  But his unflustered optimism was clouded with concern when Alesha met to discuss the results of her lab work.

  “The tests results came back with unexpected information. I’m not sure what to make of it, honestly.”

  Alesha braced herself for the bad news. Did they find a tumor? An impending aneurysm? Was she on Death’s doorstep?

  “Before the surgery, your records all indicated your blood type was A negative. The samples we just tested are O positive.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Coincidentally, your donor’s blood was also O positive, so most likely it was an error somewhere in our paperwork.”

  Alesha frowned. “But my blood type has always been A negative. I used to donate ...”

  “That aside, everything looks good. I’m giving you scrips for the lowest possible dosages of your medications, and we can look you over in a couple weeks to see how you’re doing. Meanwhile, relax.” His demeanor was brisk, his smile tight and businesslike. “You finally got your dream come true.”

  “I love your eyes.”

  Alesha didn’t realize the cashier was speaking to her at first. But the clerk smiled wider as she handed back her credit card. “Thanks. That’s kind of you to say.”

  The woman laughed. “I’m sure you get compliments like that all the time. Men can’t resist pretty redheads with big green eyes.”

  Alesha smiled nervously and shrugged. “I guess so.” She took her bag of groceries and left without mentioning that her eyes were brown. She’d have to be colorblind not to notice that!

  She was still adjusting to the attention she now received. While she expected people would stop staring at her like she was a freak, she never thought she’d get so many compliments. Men and women both seemed fascinated with her looks. Not used to all the praise, she found herself more often than not at a loss for words. Sure, she’d always had a pretty face, but adding a head of hair surely wouldn’t transform her into a supermodel.

  The cashier’s comment really bothered her. Her eyes were so brown they were almost black. When she arrived home she headed immediately for the bathroom.

  “Holy shit!”

  They weren’t green ... they were emerald. And for some reason, rounder. Not even the most expensive contact lenses existed to create the shade staring back at her. Those weren’t her eyes.

  She woke from her nap feeling heavy headed and drained. Standing up, she stretched, rubbing her eyes. Shuffling a few steps, her toe kicked something on the floor. Opening her eyes wide, she gasped. An empty cup of blueberry yogurt rolled across a designer rug. Copper’s rug.

  She crossed to a desk and brought up the screensaver on a laptop computer. She hovered over the time in the bottom corner. Four days.

  The blackouts were continuing, sometimes for just a day or two, sometimes for weeks. Every time she woke, she found herself in Copper’s apartment, wearing her clothes, eating her yogurt. But Copper wouldn’t need it anymore. In fact, Alesha contemplated moving in permanently, especially when she discovered the checkbook to Copper’s fat bank account.

  It didn’t hurt that Alesha discovered she could sign Copper’s name perfectly.

  She no longer panicked when people paid her unexpected compliments. Before her last blackout, a flirtatious waiter called her “freckle face” ... she discovered afterward that her pale cheeks had turned golden, sprinkled with sandy speckles. To her amusement—and delight—her breasts outgrew her brassieres by a whole cup size. Fortunately, Copper had extravagant taste in lingerie, and it all happened to fit Alesha perfectly. Almost everything about her changed in the months following her surgery, and for the better.

  The only lingering concern was the bathtub full of bloody clothes that came with every blackout. She immediately dumped them in the incinerator, and would forget about them. Out of sight ...

  Life was perfect now that Alesha Alopecia was history.

  Copper’s apartment proved a much better fit for her new life, as long as she remembered to check the calendar. Once, she forgot, and only discovered that she had blacked out when she went for a shower and stepped into a bloody tub. She only needed to make that mistake once.

  She even remembered to respond when people called her Andrea.

  Spring cleaning Copper’s closet felt like an Easter egg hunt. Looking through boxes and drawers, she found photo albums, journals, budget planners, and keepsakes. Judging by the treasure trove of mementos, she gathered Copper accumulated a lot of frequent-flyer miles.

  Humming a song she didn’t know, she pulled a stack of hatboxes off a shelf and placed them on the bed. Most of the boxes contained hats. But when she opened the largest one, she found a jumble of mismatched sleeves.

  There were different colors, different fabrics, different sizes. The only commonality they shared was that they were all men’s sleeves. Some were torn off at the shoulder seam; others appeared to be hacked off with scissors. One by one, she laid them in a neat pile. Twenty three in total.

  Underneath the sleeves was a metal lockbox, but the hasp was unlocked. She opened the box, half expecting to find, perhaps, a random collection of collars. Instead, she found a pile of newspaper clippings. She unfolded the clipping that rested on top and read the headline.

  Body Found Believed To Be Victim Number 23 for Sioux City Slayer

  She looked for a date on the article. It came from the previous day’s newspaper. Thumbing through the other clippings, she discovered they were all about the same thing. They came from different papers, different cities, but each one detailed the killing spree of a psychotic murderer who slaughtered men without an apparent motive or agenda.

  Her stomach started to cramp.

  Twenty-three separate murders, six occurring in the past five months. She sank onto the bed, reading each article, absorbing the details of the murders. The killings started two years earlier, with no rhyme or reason. Investigators couldn’t profile the suspect because the only consistent clues were that all the victims were male. And all were found missing one shirt sleeve.

  Copper is dead. Dr. Pift burned her body. So why did the murders continue? Was Copper an accomplice? Did the real murderer have access to Copper’s apartment?

  Now that
she knew about the killer, would he come for her next?

  Waves of nausea seized her, and she ran for the bathroom. Dropping in front of the commode, dry heaves wracked her abdomen. Alesha rested her head on her arm.

  And saw a puddle of bloody clothes in the bathtub.

  An explosion in the living room pulled her away from the tub. Heavy footsteps stomping through the apartment amid shouts and commands in strange voices filled her first with fear, and then relief. She was saved!

  Suddenly she was staring at the firing end of an automatic weapon, the man behind it screaming at her to lie on the floor.

  “I don’t understand! What do you want with me?” She couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying because the bathroom quickly filled with officers, all angry, all barking orders that made no sense. She laid face down, hoping someone would explain what was happening.

  “Andrea Aimes, you are under the arrest for the murders of twenty-three people—”

  “No no no! That’s not me! I’m not Andrea Aimes. I don’t even know her! You’re making a big mistake. She’s still here!” Alesha pleaded with her captors as they cuffed her hands behind her back and forced her to her feet.

  A voice at her back snarled, “Save it, you bitch. We got you on video this time.”

  “No!”

  “Someone tell Forensics we have some evidence in here.”

  Over her shoulder, she could see a couple policemen leaning over the bathtub.

  “I swear to you, I have no idea what’s going on ...”

  They pushed her into the hallway, where a photographer busied himself with crime scene photos. A flash of light bounced off a passing mirror, drawing her attention. The woman’s face in the glass that stared back was not her own.

  BY HOOK

  BY ELLIOTT CAPON

  Rarely does someone decide at an early age to become a pirate.

  Such was the case of a medical student named Charles Breck, who, in October 1751, found himself in a situation where leaving his native London immediately was imperative; hubris had prompted him to try to reconfigure the damaged face of a member of the Royal Family. With a murder indictment against him and a howling mob almost literally at his heels, he paid a huge sum for an anonymous passage on the Fair Wind, bound for Jamaica. With only the clothes on his back and a satchel full of medical books, he reasoned that he could continue his medical education in the colonies; and, perhaps, ten or fifteen years later, return home.

  The Fair Wind, a relatively small vessel carrying mostly manufacturing equipment, was targeted before it had even sighted Jamaica, overtaken, and easily conquered by one of the dozens of pirate ships stalking the Caribbean. Breck was obviously no seaman, and so sparked the pirates’ curiosity.

  “Well, lad,” the captain of the pirate vessel asked him, “be ye worthy of ransom to some merchant or duke?”

  Breck had to smile. The only people waiting for him back in England were the hangman and the headsman. “No, sir,” he answered.

  The captain glanced over the side, where several crew members of the Fair Wind were eagerly rowing away in the small lifeboat the pirates had deigned to give them. Several of their compatriots had been killed in the brief fight after boarding. The ones who had immediately thrown their weapons down had been spared. There was neither point nor profit in slaughtering fellow seamen—the purpose of piracy was to accumulate wealth, not souls. Ransom was as good a source of income as was the actual seizure of goods. But, since this young dandy was worthless ...

  “Ye’ve missed yer boat,” the captain said, pointing to the departing lifeboat. He withdrew a poniard from his belt. “I’m afraid we canna accommodate ye, and so—”

  As a cold flash ran through his body, Breck looked left and right. He saw two of the pirates inexpertly trying to tie tourniquets around saber wounds they had received in the brief fight. Another lay on the deck, a musket ball in his belly. He saw a glimmer of hope. “Your men are wounded,” he said, “have ye not a surgeon to tend to them?”

  The captain froze his blade in midair. “No, lad. The bastard went and died on us last month.” He tilted his head. “Why? Are ye a sawbones?”

  Breck glanced at his satchel containing medical books, which was lying on the deck near the rail. “Aye,” he said.

  The captain, who replenished his losses of crewmen exclusively by the no-choice-volunteerism of prisoners, smiled. “And wish ye to be ship’s surgeon, then, lad?” he asked quietly.

  Breck swallowed hard. “Aye, sir,” he acknowledged. “I would join your crew.”

  With a roaring laugh, the captain announced to all assembled that the gentleman was their new shipmate and surgeon. He then demanded that all extraneous debris on the deck—including that satchel full of—faugh!—books, be tossed overboard. Breck watched in horror as the rest of his education splashed into the water. Still, he was alive, and that was more than half the battle. Fate would have to look after itself.

  Hubris. Arrogance. Cunning. Self-confidence. Megalomania. Charles Breck never fully realized he had these traits, but he did. After the first two or three nervous weeks, he gradually ingratiated himself with the crew to the extent that they thought they had known him since birth. And he knew so much! He would lecture them, singly and in groups, for hours about the mysteries of the sea and its creatures, of far-off lands they only hoped to visit when their pirating days were done, of the perceived (ah! to the trained eye!) mental and physical shortcomings of their captain ... all of which were lies. Breck assumed, and displayed, an intellectual superiority over his fellow buccaneers that had them at first in awe, then in worship. Illiterates the lot of them, they had all fallen into piracy as he had, by ill luck or impressments. They perceived him as a font of illimitable knowledge. The mortality rate among the wounded did indeed fall from previous levels. Others, who could have been saved by a real doctor, had their wounds surreptitiously embellished by the ship’s surgeon, who would declare them as lost as soon as they were brought to the sick bay.

  And thus it was that night in October 1753, when the captain, having another of his Breck-invented “dizzy spells,” fell from the quarterdeck into the sea—and, by Davy Jones, right when the doctor was standing next to him!—that the crew unanimously voted Breck to be the new master of the vessel. He promptly demanded to be known as Captain Fear.

  From having originally intended to delve into the mysteries of human blood, over the years Captain Fear, discovering how he enjoyed power over people, found himself thirsty for the red liquid of life. Thanks to the tales of the few survivors of his predation, Captain Fear and his renamed Black Barracuda became, in the truest sense, the “scourge of the Caribbean.” The Black Barracuda was a swift boat, able to overtake any galleon or merchant ship.

  After looting a vessel, the remaining crew and passengers, if any, were then subject to the dubious mercy of Captain Fear. If the captain found himself short of crew, he would see if any of the captured victims would care to join him—he often had more volunteers than he needed. Officers were generally put to death, with the added benefit of a little amusement for the crew by having them walk the plank. Ordinary seamen who were not taken on as Black Barracuda material were frequently set adrift in a lifeboat with minimal supplies. Passengers who were worth ransom were taken to a small town on Hispaniola that thrived on the illicit business of piracy—pubs and brothels, “guest houses” for unwilling detainees, even facilities where bulky merchandise would be exchanged for gold coin. But Captain Fear was not called the “scourge” because of his good business practices. Ship’s officers who protested, who fought to the bitter end, who, even with their hands tied behind their backs, swore that they would see Captain Fear and his crew hang! damn you, hang! had special treatment. They were crucified to the mainmast, nailed three-quarters of the way up, hand and foot, so that they could spend the next two or three days enjoying the view and the wind and salty air and spray, until it was time to die and serve as food for the albatrosses and gulls. Others met f
ates similar, if quicker. One giant Irishman, for whom there was no room in the tiny boat set aside for his fellows’ escape, thrust his chin out and said to Captain Fear: “Sure and I would serve wi’ ye, Captain.”

  “Oh, aye?” asked the Captain, a smile on his face. To the Irishman, it was a good sign; to the Captain’s crew, it was a sign of amusement to come.

  “I’m a good seaman, a good fighter,” the Irishman claimed.

  “And would ye abandon your employer and your mates with such ease?” Captain Fear continued.

  “Oh, aye,” insisted the Irishman, “for what are they to me now but a dim memory?”

  The Irishman had only time for a quick “Huh!” as Captain Fear’s cutlass entered his pants right below where they buttoned and ripped up until the blade rested against his chin. The falling body extricated the sword with little effort from Fear.

  “Ah, me lad,” he said to the corpse as all of his men laughed and a few even danced a few steps of a spontaneous jig, “I value loyalty first among my crew, not seamanship.” He couldn’t resist laughing himself as he told his men to feed the sharks their Irish stew.

  About a year after taking possession of the Black Barracuda, Captain Fear attacked a Portuguese ship that he knew was full of spices and sugar cane. Usually, ships under attack tried to flee; those that could not escape often merely surrendered in the hope of saving their own lives. Captain Fear did not know that this ship, the Flor de Lisboa, was family owned and to a large extent family staffed. The passengers and crew had no intention of surrendering their livelihood.