Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad (47 page)

Hidden code in the book?

“Now in here,” Abrahan said, tapping Gil’s forehead. “We can leave no trace.”

The phone display turned white and then it was gone, black, powerless, and Gil knew it had been wiped clean.

“
Fazer a conexão
,” the driver said.
Make the connection.
“
Vamos
.”
Let’s go.

“Yeah, yeah,” Abrahan said.

“
Apagá-lo.
”
Erase him.

The most frightening phrase Gil had ever heard.

Two words.

No, no, no—

Abrahan prepared a
black box
—an unethical device used by computer hackers long ago, the plain chassis hiding the complex interior, an interface on either side.

He attached a cable to the
D-SAI
port on Gil’s wrist and connected the other end to the black box. The antiquated touchscreen connected to the other interface to decode the digital makeup of whatever he planned to wipe from Gil’s mind.

How much could he see? What could he erase?

And then the man told him.

“Language translation app:
português
, language translation app:
español
, language translation app:
le français
,
Deutsch, svenska
,
dansk
... You must like languages,
meu amigo.
Ah, flashbook:
Fahrenheit 451.
Bom livro
?”
Good book?

The fireman.

“Find it?” said the driver.

“
Sim
.”
Yeah.

The man worked through the list of languages, swiping his finger across each program to erase them: “
Dansk, ido
.”
Gone.
“
Svenska
,
ido
.
Deutsch, ido
.
Le français, ido
.
Español, ido
.” His finger simply flicked them away. “
Português
,” he said and paused. “I take this one, you no longer
entender
...”

“
Não se preocupe
.”
Don’t worry.
“I will let you keep
bom livro
to have until you pass, but will scramble the rest.
Entender
scramble,
como
ovos?
”
Like eggs.

They planned to erase Gil’s memory, not just the translation applications or past purchases, but everything about him.

“Wrong place, wrong time,
meu amigo
. We have to destroy it all. You will not feel a thing,
eu prometo
.”
I promise.
“
Português, ido
,” he said, swiping his finger one last time, and it was gone. All of his learned languages were gone.

A small part of Gil welcomed the loss.

“
Fazê-lo
,” the driver said. No translation.

“
Não me apresse. Isto é difícil.
”

“
Você já fez isso antes.
”

“
Cem vezes.
”

Foreign words once again.

The driver pulled the car into an empty alley. They gently carried Gil’s numb body and set him on the pavement. Immobile, he faced the sun as they poured flammables over his body and his belongings.

Kerosene is nothing but perfume to me
, Gil pulled from the book.

Abrahan tapped on the device still connected to the port on Gil’s wrist, deleting, erasing, doing something ...

“Lamentamos muito, meu amigo.”

Soon it would—

0100100100100000011011000110111101110110011001010010000001111001011011110111010100101100001000000100111001100101011011000110110000101110 ...

—
be gone, perhaps a virus shot through the mind to—

“Sinto muito,”
one of them said.

Nell
—

0100100101100110001000000111001101101111011011010110010101101111011011100110010100100000011100110110111101101101011001010110100001101111011101110010000001100110011010010110111001100100011100110010000001110100011010000110100101110011001000000110110001101111011100110111010000100000011101000110100001101111011101010110011101101000011101000010000001100001011011010110100101100100001000000110000100100000011000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001001000000111011101101111011100100110110001100100001011000010000001101011011011100110111101110111001000000111010001101000011000010111010000100000010010010010000001101000011000010111011001100101001000000110000101101100011101110110000101111001011100110010000001101100011011110111011001100101011001000010000001111001011011110111010100101110 ...

PART ONE

The Hearth and the Salamander

It was a pleasure to burn.

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and
changed.
With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his hands, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history ...

Special thanks to Trine Einspor for writing and translating those beautiful Danish words; to Chris Prasad for offering an interesting conversation in Hindi; to Gary A. Braunbeck, Mort Castle, Thomas F. Monteleone, F. Paul Wilson and Douglas E. Winter for their guidance with this story; and to Ray Bradbury for changing the world with words that will never be forgotten.

THE WRITERS

MICHAEL BAILEY

Michael Bailey is the author of
Palindrome Hannah
, a nonlinear horror novel and finalist for the Independent Publisher Awards. His follow-up novel,
Phoenix Rose
, was listed for the National Best Book Awards for horror fiction, was a finalist for the International Book Awards, and received the Kirkus Star, awarded to books of remarkable merit.
Scales and Petals
, his short story and poetry collection, won the International Book Award for short fiction, as well as the USA Book News “Best Books” Award.
Pellucid Lunacy
, an anthology of psychological horror published under his Written Backwards label, won for anthologies for those same two awards. His short fiction and poetry can be found in anthologies and magazines around the world, including the US, UK, Australia, Sweden, and South Africa. He is working on his third novel,
Psychotropic Dragon
, a new short story and poetry collection,
Inkblots and Blood Spots
, and recently edited
Chiral Mad
, a multi-award nominated anthology of psychological horror to benefit Down syndrome charities, with stories by Jack Ketchum, Gary A. Braunbeck, Jeff Strand, Gene O’Neill, Gord Rollo, and many others. You can visit him online at www.nettirw.com.

DAVID BENTON & W.D. GAGLIANI

Outside of his writing, David Benton has worn many hats, finding employment as a warehouse worker, landscaper, printing press operator, cheese maker, brick layer, and janitor (long nights, impossible odds). He is also a musician. Current projects include a collaborative novel with Bram Stoker Award winning author John Everson and W.D. Gagliani, a mid-grade novel series and a young adult novel series (both with W.D. Gagliani, written under the pen name A.G. Kent) as well as playing bass guitar on tour with the heavy metal novelty act Beatallica.

W.D. Gagliani is the author of the novels
Savage Nights
(Tarkus Press),
Wolf’s Trap
(Samhain Publishing),
Wolf’s Gambit
(47North),
Wolf’s Bluff
(47North),
and
Wolf’s Edge
(Samhain), plus the upcoming
Wolf’s Deal
(novella) and
Wolf’s Cut
(Samhain, 2014).
Wolf’s Trap
was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award in 2004. He has published fiction and nonfiction in numerous anthologies and publications such as
Masters of Unreality
(Germany),
Malpractice: An Anthology of Bedside Terror
,
Dark Passions: Hot Blood 13
, and
Dead Lines
(all with co-writer David Benton), plus
Robert Bloch’s Psychos
,
Wicked Karnival Halloween Horror
,
The Black Spiral: Twisted Tales of Terror
,
More Monsters From Memphis
,
The Midnighters Club
,
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
,
BookPage
,
Chizine
,
Cemetery Dance
,
HorrorWorld
,
Hellnotes
,
Science Fiction Chronicle
,
The Scream Factory
, and others. Some of his fiction is available in the collection
Shadowplays
(Tarkus Press) and various Benton & Gagliani collaborations are available in the collection
Mysteries & Mayhem
(Tarkus Press). With David Benton, he also writes middle-grade fiction as “A.G. Kent.” He is a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), the International Thriller Writers (ITW), and the Authors Guild. Raised in Genova, Italy, as well as Kenosha, Wisconsin, W. D. Gagliani now lives and writes in Milwaukee.

New publications for Benton & Gagliani include a reprint of their
Hot Blood 13
story, “Mood Elevator,” upcoming in
Old Nick
(magazine), and W.D. Gagliani’s review column “Printer’s Devil,” also in
Old Nick
. Recent publications include a reprint of Gagliani’s “Until Hell Calls Our Names” in the anthology
Undead Tales
(Rymfire Books). Find W.D. Gagliani online at www.wdgagliani.com, or read their “Mysteries & Mayhem” blog at http://moodelevator.wordpress.com/

DOUG BLAKESLEE

Doug Blakeslee lives in Portland, OR and spends his time writing, cooking, gaming, and following the local hockey team. (Go Winterhawks!) His interest in books started early thanks to his mom and hasn’t stopped since. A heavy fan of sci-fi and fantasy, it came as a pleasant surprise that his first sale was the suspense short story “Madame” to the anthology
Uncommon Assassins
. He recently started a blog, The Simms Project at http://thesimmsproject.blogspot.com/, where he talks about writing and other related topics. He can be reached via the blog, Facebook, or e-mail at [email protected].

E.A. BLACK

E. A. Black’s dark fantasy and horror fiction has been appeared in
Kizuna: Fiction For Japan
,
Stupefying Stories
, and
Mirages: Tales From Authors Of The Macabre
. She writes erotic fiction with the pen name Elizabeth Black. An accomplished essayist, her articles about sex, erotica, and relationships have appeared in
Good Vibrations Magazine
,
Alternet
,
CarnalNation
, the
Ms. Magazine
blog,
Sexis Magazine
, Clarion blog, Erotic Readers and Writers Association blog,
On The Issues
,
Sexy Mama Magazine
, and Circlet blog. She also writes sex toys reviews for several sex toys companies. Born and bred in Baltimore, she grew up under the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. She lives in Lovecraft country on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and four delightful cats. She has never been under the knife. Visit her web site at http://eablack-writer.blogspot.com/. Friend her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack.

CARSON BUCKINGHAM

Carson Buckingham knew from childhood that she wanted to be a writer, and began, at age six, by writing books of her own, hand-drawing covers, and selling them to any family member who would pay (usually a gumball) for what she referred to as “classic literature.” When she ran out of relatives, she came to the conclusion that there was no real money to be made in self-publishing, so she studied writing and read voraciously for the next eighteen years, while simultaneously collecting enough rejection slips to re-paper her living room ... twice. When her landlord chucked her out for, in his words, “making the apartment into one hell of a downer,” she redoubled her efforts, and collected four times the rejection slips in half the time, single-handedly causing the first paper shortage in U.S. history. But she persevered, improved greatly over the years, and here we are.

Carson Buckingham has been a professional proofreader, editor, newspaper reporter, copywriter, technical writer, and comedy writer. Besides writing, she loves to read, garden, and collect autographed photographs of comedians and authors she loves, as well as life masks of horror movie icons. She lives in Arizona, with her wonderful husband, in a house full of books, orchid plants, and pets. Check out her blog at carsonbuckingham.blogspot.com.