Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad (40 page)

With a shake of my head, I dropped the knife and stared at the corpse. It looked pitiful, and fresh tears stung my eyes. After a slight hesitation, I picked the knife up again and sliced the blade into the cat before I had time to change my mind. It wasn’t so bad when I started. There wasn’t much blood as no heart pumped, and despite the cold, slimy feel, removing the cat’s innards was no worse than taking the giblets out of the turkey at Christmas, something I had done last year.

Once I had gutted the cat, I started to construct a mechanism to provide movement. It wouldn’t be the most technical of accomplishments, but I knew when it was inside the cat, no one would see it, so I wasn’t too concerned. I used a small drill to make holes in the cat’s bones, to which I attached Meccano strips, supplementing its own skeleton with one of my own onto which I attached the clockwork device I had made.

I had to make a couple of journeys to the house, but mother seemed to either not notice me or ignore me as she fed Vicky.

Because I found the body, I think she blames me for father’s death.

It took the best part of the remainder of the day, but eventually I finished.

I stood the cat on the table, inserted a key into a small hole in its underside, and turned it. Through my fingers on the cat’s back I could feel the cogs turning, the multiple springs being tensioned.

Ten turns later, I released the key and stepped back. The cat’s eyes stared back at me, but nothing happened.

Wondering if I had done something wrong, I stepped toward the cat when it suddenly blinked, stopping me in my tracks. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Its eyes weren’t supposed to blink—couldn’t blink because nothing powered them. I had considered how to make its eyes move, but decided making it walk would be enough.

The cat’s head moved a fraction, just a twitch at first, almost imperceptible, and then it swiveled from side to side as though testing the movement. It took a tentative step, its movements jerky, mechanical. The limbs hardly bent at the joints, which was disappointing after I’d spent so long fashioning the Meccano and bone links.

I could feel my heart beating in time with the clocks that pulsed through the room. The cat staggered toward me, its limbs moving with the stiffness of a soldier on parade. I took a step back; could feel the blood throbbing at my temples, could feel the sweat on my back.

What had I done?

The cat opened its mouth. That shouldn’t have happened either. It wasn’t wired to work.

I wondered whether it made a sound.

Unable to look at it any longer, I ran out of the den, back to the house and into the kitchen, where I stood shaking.

“Alex, are you okay?” mother asked as she looked up from feeding Vicky.

I couldn’t tell her what I’d done, didn’t fully understand it enough to explain, but that dead cat was more than a reanimated clockwork pussy. It had a life of its own, and it terrified me. I’d only wanted to make it move, to make it not seem so dead.

“You’re pale as a sheet. Are you sure you’re okay?”

I signed that I was fine, and then I offered to carry on feeding Vicky while mother had a break. Mother smiled and nodded.

“You’re a good boy, Alex.”

While I spoon-fed Vicky, something purporting to be pasta in sauce, I thought about the cat. I couldn’t leave it in the den. But what could I do with it?

My sister opened and closed her mouth, as greedy as a baby bird. Her hair was like spun gold, her eyes as blue as the sky. She still had a lot of baby fat, which made her look like those old paintings of cherubs. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. I envied her the innocence that didn’t yet feel the pain of loss.

After I’d fed and changed her, I rocked her to sleep, put her in the cot, and then walked back out to the den.

I stood outside the structure, my hand on the door, feeling the beat of the clocks through the wood.

Bracing myself, I took a deep breath, then flung the door open and stepped back. When the cat didn’t appear, I took a cautious step toward the den and peered inside to find the cat had torn its way through the plastic window.

Distressed, I ran around the side of the den and looked in the hedgerows to see if I could spot the cat, but it was nowhere to be seen.

How far would it get with ten winds of the key?

Surely not that far.

I remembered the way it had blinked and opened its mouth, actions it wasn’t supposed to be able to do. Perhaps it would go further than I imagined. Perhaps the clockwork components weren’t powering it at all; perhaps it hadn’t really been dead. A shiver ran up my spine. I felt like screaming, but didn’t know if it was through fear or uncertainty.

Although I continued searching, there was no sign of the cat. After a while, I even wondered whether it had really happened, but when I returned to the den, I noticed the cat’s innards in the plastic bag. They had started to smell, so I buried them in the garden and then ran back inside the house, where I shut and bolted the door.

During the next few days, I stayed indoors more than normal, which didn’t go unnoticed by mother. I think she preferred it when I was out. She questioned me a couple of times, and I could tell she thought there was something wrong. But I couldn’t tell her what I had done as it didn’t seem right. Besides, I didn’t think she’d believe me.

That first night in bed, I had felt sure the cat was going to creep up on me, and there I’d be, unable to hear it. So I lay on the mattress in a way that I could touch the floor, trying to feel for the ticktock of my feline creation, but when it never came, I eventually fell asleep.

It wasn’t until three days later that I found the bird’s carcass in the hedgerow.

I stared at it, wondering how it had died. Eventually, I crouched and picked up the bird, recognized it as a starling. When I looked closer, I noticed a hole in its neck. Parting the plumage around the hole, I could just make out the shuttlecock ridges of an air-rifle pellet.

Bird in hand, I walked down to the den. Being a small creature made it a tricky process, but I made a small incision on the underside of its chest. Into this, I placed a small frame, to which I attached the motor, fashioned from watches. Its legs were too small to animate, so I didn’t consider doing anything other than making its wings move. I hoped it would be enough.

I had rigged the windup mechanism into its chest, and I gave the key ten turns and then set the bird on the table.

It took a while, but then it blinked and its beak opened and closed. It flexed its wings, the movement still mechanical. Moments later, the bird gave a nod of its head and launched itself into the air. It made an ungainly test flight, struggling to keep itself airborne. I wondered whether the watch components were too heavy.

It finally came to rest on the windowsill where it fluttered its wings a couple of times before flying away through the open door.

I ran outside and watched it struggle into the sky, circling higher and higher until I lost sight of it. When I eventually lowered my gaze, I saw mother standing at the back door, gazing out. She looked happy. Vicky babbled in her arms.

When I found Vicky sprawled on the floor by her highchair a couple of days later, it seemed like an ironic case of déjà vu. I stared at her for a moment, then checked her neck for a pulse. The feel of her cold skin made me flinch. I sat back and chewed a fingernail, wondering whether she had cried out when she fell. Not that it would have mattered, as I wouldn’t have heard.

Having left Vicky in my care while she visited my father’s grave, mother would undoubtedly hold me responsible. This time she would be right.

My sister felt heavier than she was as I lifted her from the floor and carried her out to the den. The partially gutted badger that I had been working on eyed me from the bench as I set my sister down. My skill at reanimating the clockwork menagerie had grown immeasurably.

I picked up the knife.

Hopefully, mother would never notice.

LUSCIOUS

BY JEZZY WOLFE

“I really wanna be a 10.”

A row of perfectly straight teeth gleamed between full lips. Bryce’s eyes dropped from the botoxed smile to her taut calves, following their curve behind her knees and over her smooth, bronzed thighs, to the cuff of her short shorts. 

Damn. She’s a 10 already.

He pretended to look at the color swatch she held against her arm.
“I think you’ve hit a plateau. That happens with regular beds. But our unique bed design will allow you to break through that wall and give you the deepest tan you’ve ever had. If you sign up for a platinum membership, the first thirty days are a trial offer.”

His smile split his face in a calculated maneuver he’d perfected for his sales pitch. “We also have our own specially formulated line of lotions and serums to give you a deep bronze glow without turning you orange. And as a platinum member, you’ll get them at a discounted price.”

“I have my own lotion,” she said, flipping straight black hair over a coppery shoulder.

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t be permitted to use it in our machines. Our lotions are designed to work with the bulbs we use, and other lotions will inhibit your results.”

She frowned. “I dunno ...”

“I’ve noticed you’re starting to peel on the back of your shoulder.” Bryce gently brushed her back—which didn’t have so much as a flake of dead skin—and feigned concern.

Her eyes widened, registering immediate panic. “Okay, I’ll do it!”

“Good girl,” he said, steering her to the front desk, his hand on the small of her back. “Denise, please enroll Miss—”

“Candy.”

“Of course. Enroll
Candy
in our platinum program. And give her a complimentary bottle of our starter serum.” He winked at Candy before heading to his office, and she shot him a quick smile before giving the clerk her information.

Women spared no expense when it came to vanity, and twenty years taught Bryce Golden every trick in the book for securing their loyal patronage. There was a time when women were dissuaded from tanning due to harmful UV rays and the potential contraction of nasty melanomas, but Bryce broke that barrier with a cornucopia of lies that eased their minds and opened their wallets ... and legs. At fifty-three, Bryce had the physique of a man in his twenties, and the stamina to match. 

The salon was a perfect remedy for his raging libido, which he assuaged on a daily basis with the various women that visited the beds. But only with the platinum members. A man had to have standards, after all.

He poured a glass of scotch and settled behind his desk, looking over the many applications of new platinum clientele. Opening his planner, he penciled different names into his schedule throughout the week. Before leaving the office, he knocked back the remnants of his beverage and adjusted the rigid muscle in his slacks.

Membership wasn’t the only thing on the rise.