Welcome to Scary Saturday
For the past year our Free Kindle Nation Shorts program has been connecting thousands of Kindle readers with emerging and established writers, and we’re proud to have helped many writers of distinction climb the Kindle Store bestseller lists. One of those authors has been Joe Konrath, and it has been a lot of fun to watch such a talented storyteller become one of the most successful fiction writers in the Kindlesphere. Joe has also been a very important trailblazer in the world of writing and independent publishing, so I was especially pleased when he decided recently that he wanted to give something back to the citizens of Kindle Nation by providing the stories on which we are drawing to initiate a new Free Kindle Nation Shorts feature called “Scary Saturday.”
We’ll continue to showcase many other writers here at Free Kindle Nation Shorts, but on many coming Saturdays we’ll treat you to truckloads of terror with the horror fiction of J.A. “Joe” Konrath. We’ll also provide links to his current and coming Kindle books and we hope you’ll be brave enough to turn all the lights on and keep reading.
Check out the latest bestsellers by J.A. Konrath, just $2.99 in the Kindle Store!
or scroll to the end of the story to read more about Joe Konrath
“Mr. Pull-Ups“
a short story by Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath
Copyright © 2010 Joe Konrath and published here with his permission
Author’s note: Prior to being published, I’d often go to open mike night and read stories at a venue called Twilight Tales in Chicago. They sporadically publish short story collections, and for their latest anthology, Tales From The Red Lion, asked me for one. This is what I gave them. -J.K
Horace checked the address he’d written down, then walked left on Fullerton. Chicago was dark, but far from quiet. Summer meant people stayed out late. Though it neared 10pm, the sidewalks remained packed with college kids, bar hoppers, tourists, and the occasional homeless man holding out his filthy Styrofoam change cup.
Straight ahead he saw the sign; The Red Lion. Horace contemplated walking away, realized he didn’t have any choices left, and entered through the narrow door.
The bar resembled a traditional English pub, or what Horace assumed one would look like. Dark, smoky, with stools older than he was and a large selection of scotch bottles lining the wall. He scanned the room, saw one man sitting alone, and approached him cautiously, the stained hardwood floor creaking beneath his feet.
“Are you Dr. Ricardo?”
The man—old, grizzled, red-eyed—glanced up at Horace over a half-empty rocks glass. He drained the remainder and stared, not saying anything.
“My name is Horace Gelt. You’re a plastic surgeon, right?”
Ricardo sniffed the empty glass, looking mournful.
“I don’t like talking about the past.” The doctor’s voice was rough, as if he didn’t use often.
Horace looked around, saw that none of the bar’s four customers were paying attention to him, and sat at the table across from the doctor. He leaned forward on his elbows, getting a closer look. The results didn’t impress him. Sallow pallor. Sunken eyes. A fat tongue that protruded between thin lips. The doctor looked like he’d died a month ago but no one had bothered to tell him.
Again, Horace considered walking away. Then he thought about the record book, about his life’s dream, and forced himself to continue.
“I was told you might be able to help me.”
Ricardo’s red eyes squinted. “Help you how?”
This wasn’t illegal. At least, not on Horace’s end. But he still felt as if he were making a drug deal, or soliciting a prostitute.
“I need…surgery.”
“I need whiskey.”
Horace caught the attention of the bartender and pointed at Ricardo. A moment later, the doctor had a fresh glass in front of him.
“How about you?” Ricardo asked. “Don’t drink?”
“I’m training.”
Ricardo’s shoulders flinched in what might have been a shrug, or a snort. He sipped his new drink and leaned forward. The smell of booze coming off this guy made Horace want to recoil, but he didn’t move.
“What are you? Tranny? Want me to lop off the goods, shave the Adam’s apple, give you boobies?”
Horace made a face. “No.”
“I’m good at it. Making little boys into little girls. Had talent. A kind of sixth sense. They shouldn’t have revoked my license. I helped a lot of people.”
Horace had done his research, and didn’t mention the patient that had sued Ricardo out of a license. The guy had gone into surgery expecting a nose job, and had walked out with a vagina. Rhinoplasty on the wrong protrusion.
“I don’t want to be a woman.” Horace pulled the book page from his pocket, unfolded it carefully. Brett Gantner’s smiling face stared up at him, mocking. Horace showed the doctor.
“What is that? I don’t have my glasses on.”
“Page 43 from the Shawley Book of World Records. Brett Gantner is the record holder for pull-ups. Seven-hundred and forty in an hour.”
“I’m sure it makes his mother proud.” Ricardo leaned back and sipped more booze. The bartender returned with a basket of food—fish and chips—and set it before the doctor. Without bothering to look at it Ricardo stuck his hand in and began to munch.
“I’m second place. See?” Horace pointed at the printing. “Horace Kellerman. Seven-hundred twenty-five.”
“Only missed by a few,” Ricardo said, his open mouth displaying half-chewed fish. “Damn shame. Maybe you should work out.”
Horace bit back his reply. He worked out all the time, eight, sometimes ten hours a day. He ate all the right foods, supplemented with the right products, treated his body like a shrine. But no matter how hard he worked, how much effort he gave, he couldn’t do more than seven-hundred and twenty-five pull ups. It didn’t seem humanly possible.
The quest to be number one had become such an obsession with Horace that he actually flew to Phoenix to meet Brett Gantner, to see what he had that Horace didn’t.
As it turned out, it was what Brett didn’t have that made him the World Record holder. Brett was missing his left leg, above the knee.
“Car accident,” Gantner had told him over wheat germ smoothies. “I get around okay with the prosthesis. It hasn’t slowed me down any. Don’t you agree, Mr. Second Place?”
Horace felt his bile rise at the memory. Gantner had beaten him not because he was the superior athlete, but because he weighed less. About fifteen pounds less. The weight of one leg.
After that meeting, Horace had gone on a crash diet. But his body fat percentage was already dangerously low, and the diet caused him to lose muscle: he couldn’t even break six hundred. That led to steroid injections, which led to heart palpitations and perpetual shortness of breath, which made him give out at just over five hundred. He finally went back to his old regimen of diet and supplements, and again regularly hit the seven hundred mark, but he couldn’t reach seven-forty. The last time he tried he’d hung on the bar, tears streaming down his face, putting so much effort into his last few pull ups that he shit himself. But seven twenty-five was as high as he could go.
But then inspiration struck. Epiphany. All Horace needed was a doctor who would be willing to perform the surgery. He’d been searching for two months straight, and so far had gotten nowhere. Doctor after doctor turned down his request. One had even told him his problem wouldn’t be solved by plastic surgery, but by psychiatry. Asshole.
An internet forum on body modification and voluntary amputation eventually led him to Dr. Ricardo and this dinky little bar.
Horace wasn’t sure if the whack-jobs on the website were telling the truth. One guy bragged he had his hands removed. If he did, how could he be using a computer keyboard? Was he typing with his face? But if the forum people were right, Dr. Ricardo might be able to help him.
“I want you to cut off my legs,” Horace told the doctor.
Ricardo didn’t miss a beat. He drained his whiskey and then used a fork to roughly bisect a golden fried fillet of perch. He only answered after his mouth was full of fish.
“Ten thousand. Cash. Up front.”
Horace was overcome by a surge of joy, but mingled in were feelings of wariness, and oddly, remorse.
“Five beforehand, five after the operation.”
Ricardo dunked a greasy bit of fish into some mayo and popped it into his mouth.
“That’s fine. But why stop at your legs? Human’s have lots of unnecessary body parts weighing them down. A kidney is a few ounces. You don’t need all of your liver. Appendix, tonsils, gall bladder, half your stomach and a few yards of intestines—that’s several pounds of material.”
Horace’s face fell, and he realized that the man sitting in front of him wasn’t simply an incompetent drunk—he was insane. Much as he longed for the surgery, he wasn’t about to subject himself to…
Ricardo’s body shook, and it took Horace a moment to realize the doctor was laughing.
“Just kidding, Mr. Kellerman. Let’s talk dates. The sooner you lose those legs, the sooner you can break your record. When are you free?”
#
Horace stared up at the operating room lights. Actually, this was a bedroom, and the lights were the kind do-it-yourselfers used when repairing drywall. He turned his gaze to Dr. Ricardo, who was fussing with a tank of anesthetic, turning the dials this way and that.
Upon arriving at the building—a crumbling brick duplex with empty beer bottles and used syringes decorating the front porch—Horace almost decided to forget the whole thing. But the inside seemed much cleaner than the exterior, and the ersatz surgery theater was extremely white and bright and smelled like lemons; courtesy of the can of disinfectant on the counter. The doctor had walked Horace through the whole procedure, and he seemed to know what he was doing. Tourniquets would restrict massive blood loss, veins and arteries would be tied off one at a time, and an extra flap of skin would be left on each leg to cover the bone and form an attractive stump, just below the buttocks.
Dr. Ricardo poured a fresh bottle of rubbing alcohol over a hacksaw blade, and Horace looked down the table at his legs, one last time.
They were good legs, as legs went. Perhaps a bit thin, but they’d treated him well for twenty-six years. Horace felt no remorse in losing them. His goal to become the world record pull-up holder was more important than petty things, like walking. And his job had amazing disability insurance. Horace would make do in a wheelchair just fine.
“Are you ready?”
Dr. Ricardo had on his surgical mask, and to Horace’s eye seemed sober as a judge. Horace nodded, and Ricardo fit the gas mask over his face.
“Take a deep breath, and count backwards from one hundred…”
Horace began to count, but not from one hundred. He began at seven hundred and forty.
By the time he reached seven hundred and twenty, he was asleep.
#
Recovery was harder than Horace might have guessed. The pain was minimal when he was lying down, but moving, sitting, taking a shit—these all brought agony.
Ricardo had given him drugs, both oral meds and morphine to inject into his stumps. He only used them once, and as a result slept all day. That was unacceptable. Horace couldn’t afford to miss a work out.
While in bed, he stuck with barbells, but after a week he was ready to hit the pull-up bar again.
The results were impressive. On his first attempt, he hit six-hundred and fifty. Not bad after major surgery and seven days on his back. His balance was a little off, but he was thrilled by the results. Ricardo had warned him against resuming activity so soon, and Horace did manage to rip a few of his stitches, but he knew—knew—that the world record would soon be his.
A month after his double amputation, Horace felt great. His stamina was back, and constantly moving around on his hands had made his arms stronger than ever. He set up his video camera, used a step ladder to reach the pull-up bar, and prepared to break the record.
The first two hundred pull-ups were candy. They came smooth, easy. Horace didn’t even break a sweat.
The next two hundred were harder, but he still felt good. No leg pain, good breathing, good stamina, and a full half an hour left on the clock.
Horace paced himself for the next two hundred. Fatigue kicked in, and the familiar muscle pain. He also felt a bit of dizziness. But he still considered himself better off than he did while still having legs, and knew he’d make it no matter what.
When he reached seven hundred, he wasn’t so sure anymore. He became extremely dizzy, and nauseous. While his grip was strong, the up and down movement had begun to make his stomach lurch. Perhaps it was still too soon. Perhaps he needed more recovery time, more workouts.
At seven hundred and ten Horace threw up, lost his grip, and fell hard onto his stumps, sending lightning bolts of pain up his spine that made him throw up again.
He waited a week before giving it another shot. Made it to seven hundred and thirty, then hung there for ten minutes until the time ran out, unable to do any more.
The week after that he could only manage seven hundred and twenty-five. A few days later he ran out of time at seven hundred and thirty-two. In the following month he posted numbers of 722, 734, 718, 736, 728, 731, 734, 729, and a tantalizingly frustrating 737. But he couldn’t reach seven hundred and forty. No matter how hard he tried.
Depression set in. Then anger. Then a plan. Dr. Ricardo had mentioned all of the extra organs in a human being, extras that amounted to several pounds.
If Horace were five pounds less, he could easily get over 740.
#
When Horace rolled up to Dr. Ricardo at his usual table in the Red Lion, the good doctor was tilted back in his chair and snoring. Horace shook him, hard.
“I need help. I still weigh too much.”
Ricardo took a few seconds to focus. When he spoke, the booze on his breath burned Horace’s eyes.
“I remember you. Howard something, right? You needed your legs amputated for some reason. What was it again? Some sort of fetish?”
Horace roughly grabbed Ricardo by the shirt.
“You mentioned that people have extra organs. Kidney, liver, appendix, stuff like that. I want them taken out.”
Ricardo blinked, and his eyes began to glaze. Horace gave him a shake.
“Remove it, Doctor. All of it.”
“Remove what?”
“Everything. Take away everything I don’t need. All of the extra stuff.”
“You’re crazy.”
Horace struck the doctor, a slap than sounded like a thunder crack. The Red Lion’s three patrons all turned their way. Horace ignored them, focusing on Ricardo.
“I got a disability settlement. Half a million dollars. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars for each pound of me you can remove.”
Ricardo nodded. “I remember now. You want to weigh less. Some sort of world record. Sure, I can help. A few yards of intestines. Half the stomach. The arms.”
“No! The arms and the muscles stay. Everything else that isn’t essential to life can be removed.”
“When?” Dr. Ricardo asked.
Horace smiled. “Doing anything tonight?”
#
Horace awoke in a drug-induced haze. Thoughts flitted across his drowsy mind, including his last instructions to the doctor.
“Leave the arms, leave the eyes. Everything else goes.”
Like a fire sale on body parts.
He squinted at the table next to him, saw the mason jars lined up with bits and pieces that used to be his. Pounds and pounds of flesh and organs.
Several large loops of intestines, floating in formaldehyde.
A kidney.
A chunk of liver.
So far, so good.
An appendix and a gall bladder, though Horace didn’t know which was which.
A jar of fat, suctioned from his buttocks.
Part of his stomach.
His penis and testicles.
When Horace saw that, he gasped. No sound came out—in the next jar were his tongue, his tonsils, his vocal chords, and a bloody half moon that he realized was his lower jaw.
Doctor Ricardo had gone too far. The drunken bastard had turned Horace into a monster, a hideous freak.
But…Horace still had his arms. And even as maimed and mutilated as he’d become, he could still do pull-ups, still break the…
Horace’s eyes focused on the last mason jar. Horace filled his remaining lung with air and screamed, and he was absolutely sure he made some noise, even though he had no ears to hear it.
The last jar contained ten fingers.
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Say Hello to Joe Konrath!
J.A. Konrath is the author of seven novels in the Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels thriller series, Whiskey Sour , Bloody Mary , Rusty Nail , Dirty Martini , Fuzzy Navel , Cherry Bomb , and Shaken (coming in October, 2010.)
Under the name Jack Kilborn he wrote the horror novel Afraid. Two more Jack Kilborn novels, Endurance and Trapped , have just been released. Under the name Joe Kimball, he also writes sci-fi, which is set in 2054 Chicago and features Jack Daniels’ grandson as the hero.
SERIAL, by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch, a free ebook about serial killers, was one of the top Kindle Store downloads of 2009, and SERIAL UNCUT (Extended Edition) is now available in the Kindle Store for $2.99.
Konrath has also released several other books on Amazon Kindle, most of them for just $2.99 each, including:
Truck Stop
– A Jack Daniels novella
The List
– A police technothriller (Jack Daniels makes a cameo)
Shot of Tequila
– A heist thriller (Jack Daniels is a supporting character)
Origin
– A horrific technothriller about Satan
Disturb
– A horror thriller about medical experiments
Planter’s Punch
– A Jack Daniels novella written with Tom Schreck
Floaters
– A Jack Daniels novella written with Henry Perez
Suckers
– A Harry McGalde novella writeen with Jeff Strand
Newbie’s Guide to Publishing
– Over 360,000 words of writing advice
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