Voracious (4 page)

The first punch landed flush on the left side of the producer’s porcelain chin, dropping him to his knees and making the room spin. He held his hands out in front of him, trying to ward off the still-advancing, still-murderously angry music producer.

“What the fuck, Easy? You fucking hit me!”

Easy growled, revealing his elongated red-tipped canines. The producer’s eyes widened, and he let out a tiny yelp and a squeak like a kicked cat. The next punch dropped him face first onto the floor, where Easy began to stomp and kick him in the side of the head. His Bruno Magli loafers cut the producer’s scalp and drew blood. The next kick turned the gash into a yawning maw.

“Easy! Jesus Christ,
stop!
” someone yelled.

Easy didn’t know who and didn’t care. The hunger had made him insane, enraged, and venting that rage on the producer’s skull felt amazing. The producer rolled onto his back and with his arms tried to shield his face from Easy’s blows. Someone grabbed Easy’s right arm and, Easy gave the guy a left hook for his troubles. A security guard grabbed him by both arms and tried to pull his arms behind his back. Another guard tried to slip an arm around Easy’s throat. Easy bit the second rent-a-cop’s hand, crushing bones and snapping fingers. A finger came off in his mouth and Easy instinctively chewed it up and swallowed it. The guard screamed and pulled away. He collapsed to his knees, holding his bleeding hand, and then rolled over onto his back and began to convulse as the neurotoxin in Easy’s saliva invaded his bloodstream and caused his muscles to seize.

The other guard pulled away too, holding his hands palms up in surrender, terrified and paid far too little to risk getting torn apart by a guy with fangs like a damn vampire. Easy turned back to the producer, who was trying to climb to his feet. He leaped onto the man’s back, driving him back down to the floor where Easy began to bite him, ripping chunks from the producer’s arms, tearing down to the bone as the man screamed and begged, and a viewing audience of thirty million watched in horror.

5 

“What the fuck did you do to my client?” Dr. David Ebersol asked, wiping his shoulder-length mane of frizzy, unwashed blond hair back out of his face and rubbing the bald spot at the center of it in the same unconscious motion. He was not a small man at six foot two and just over two hundred pounds. He looked farm-boy strong, a combination of muscle and fat. He gave the appearance of one who’d never spent a day in the gym but had acquired muscle through hard work.

Dr. Trevor Adams, in contrast, spent every day in the gym, working hard on his chiseled physique, but he was a naturally smaller man, just five-seven and 175 pounds. Ebersol had seen the young molecular biologist gain 40 pounds of muscle in the six or seven months he’d known the man. He suspected Dr. Adams had been self-subscribing and administering genetic hormone boosters. The same brand of gene-therapy he’d no doubt given his client, but with very different results.

“What are you talking about?” Dr. Ebersol was red in the face and breathing hard like he’d just run sprints.

“Lelani Simms. What the fuck did you do to her?”

“The model? She wanted to lose weight without going on a diet or spending hours in the gym. That’s what they all want. Her exact words to me were, ‘I want to be able to eat whatever the hell I want and not gain a pound.’ So I helped her out.”

“You-you, what? You injected her with some kind of DNA or something?”

Trevor Adams raised an eyebrow and squinted at Dr. Ebersol. “Why are you asking me this?”

“I’ve been getting calls from her for the last three days, ever since she left here. She said she can’t stop eating and she was losing weight like crazy. I referred her to you, so I want to know what the fuck you did to her.”

Trevor shrugged. “I don’t understand. What’s the problem? Sounds like she got exactly what she asked for.”

Dr. Ebersol lunged forward and Trevor winced. Even with his new muscle and size, he still felt like the little guy, especially around naturally large men like Ebersol.

Dr. Trevor Adams wasn’t just the smaller man, he was younger by almost two decades. He’d graduated from Stanford University with a doctorate degree at the remarkable age of twenty-two. He was a genius, a prodigy. The only reason he was working for the clinic instead of at some prestigious think tank was because of a few ethical lapses early in his young career.

He was still in college when he was implicated in a gene-doping scandal involving an Olympic powerlifter and an artificial genetic retro-virus called Repoxygen. He’d allegedly used the virus to transport a gene for the production of myostatin and insulin-like growth factor I, which affects muscle production, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, a family of proteins that regulate metabolism. The treatment failed, and the Olympian developed leukemia and died. Text messages between Trevor and the powerlifter cast suspicion on him, but no conclusive evidence could be found. After graduation, the young biologist was again embroiled in a controversy, this time involving Olympic sprinters.

A German track coach had allegedly contacted him about procuring Repoxygen, and using it to insert a gene for erythropoietin, a hormone that tells the body to make more red blood cells, which carry oxygen to muscles. The Olympic committee believed he had planned to use it to increase his athlete’s endurance. There were also e-mails between the two regarding injecting “naked” DNA directly into athletes’ muscles to permanently alter their genes and make them more muscular through the release of growth hormones. The e-mails suggested that some athletes had already been injected but that their immune systems had fought off the foreign genetic material. Both Trevor and the track coach were permanently banned from any association with the Olympics and Olympic competitors, and any athletes found associating with either man would likewise be permanently banned from Olympic competition. It was soon after that that Dr. Trevor Adams was contacted by the Aphrodite Aesthetic Reconstruction Clinic.

“She can’t stop eating! That’s the fucking problem! She says she can’t sleep, can’t work, all she can think about is eating. Her metabolism is completely screwed up! What the hell did you give her?”

“I tried something new. I perfected the use of Repoxygen to transport DNA and transfer genetic traits from one host to another. It’s been a huge success. I’m booked up for the rest of the year.”

“What kind of genetic material are you using?”

“Pygmy shrew DNA.”

“What?”

“I isolated the gene that controls the pygmy shrew’s metabolism. Did you know they have one of the fastest metabolisms of any animal on the planet? They don’t even store fat cells.”

Dr. Ebersol’s fingers clenched and unclenched, making a white-knuckled fist and then relaxing as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to punch Trevor in the face or strangle the life out of him.

Trevor’s eyes watered, anticipating a beating.

“Well, did
you
know that because they don’t store fat, they have to eat every two fucking hours or they’ll die? They eat twice their body weight every day. They kill animals twice their size. They are some of the most vicious animals on the planet because they are always hungry! And you put those traits in a fucking human being! Are you crazy?”

Trevor held up his hands. “Whoa! Whoa, David! I’m sure it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be. I’ve seen about a dozen patients so far this week, and I haven’t heard any complaints. Why don’t you try calling her again? I’m sure she’s fine.”

Ebersol reached into his pocket for his cell phone. He pointed a finger at Trevor like he was aiming a gun. “You stay right the fuck there!”

Trevor raised his hands. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The phone rang for a long time before someone finally answered.

“Hello? Lelani?”

A low growl came from the phone.

“Lelani? It’s me, David. Dr. Ebersol.”

A howl erupted from the phone, filled with pain and rage. It seemed to go on forever, increasing in volume until it became an ear-piercing scream. Both doctors trembled as they listened.

“Lelani? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

“I’m so, hungry! Hungry! HUUUUUUNGRYYYYYY!”

“Do you have anything there to eat? I’m catching a flight back to Austin. I’ll be there soon. You just need to keep your nourishment up until I get there. Is there any food in the house?”

“Bill.”

“Bill’s there? Can he go get you some food?”

“No.”

“Why not? Put him on the phone.”

“I ate him.”

“What did you say?”

“I ate Bill. I’m so hungry. Help me! Help me! I’m SO HUNGRY!”

Dr. Ebersol hung up. All the blood had drained from his face. He looked visibly shaken.

“What? What did she say?”

Dr. Ebersol punched the young biologist, smashing his nose and depositing him on his ass.

“Jesus Christ! You broke my fucking nose! I’m calling the police! I’m going to sue you for everything you own or will ever own! Fuck, man! Are you crazy?”

“Am I crazy? You have the fucking nerve to ask me if I’m crazy? You want to know what she said? She ate her fucking fiancé. That’s what she said. She ate her fucking fiancé! You reckless fucking asshole!”

“Oh, shit,” Trevor said. He stopped wiping the blood from his nose and just sat there on the floor with his mouth hanging open, staring straight ahead with a glazed expression on his face.

“What-what do we do?”

“We? I should let your ass go down for this, but you’d take the whole clinic down with you. We’ll ask Sarai. But we need to do some damage control in the meantime. Go wash your fucking face. And don’t worry about your nose. I’ll have Jim fix it later. It was too fucking big anyway. You look like Henry Winkler. Tell him to give you something that won’t break as easily. I have a feeling I’m going to want to hit you again when I get back from Austin.”

“You’re really going there? I mean, she ate a dude.”

“Look, you little piece of shit. I’ve known Lelani for more than ten years, ever since we started this clinic. She was one of our first clients. I’m more than just her dietician. I’m her fucking psychiatrist. She’s been to my home, eaten with my family, played with my kids. I brought her to you because she was desperate and you were supposed to be some kind of genius.”

“Look, I’m sorry, man. I fucked up.”

Trevor held his hand out for Dr. Ebersol to help him up from the floor, and Ebersol smacked it away and hissed. Trevor scrambled to his feet and snatched a handful of cotton balls from a jar and shoved them up his nose to stop the bleeding.

“This shit you injected into my client, this retro-virus, is it contagious?”

“What?”

“Can it spread? I need to know how bad you’ve fucked up here. Is it communicable?”

“Repoxygen? No. It’s not communicable.”

“What if it mutates?”

“It’s an engineered virus. It won’t mutate.”

“It won’t or it can’t?”

“It won’t. I mean, I suppose it could. I didn’t make the damn virus. I just used it to transport the DNA. I didn’t invent the shit.”

“So you don’t really know if it could spread or not? You injected a dozen people with an untested genetic virus that you don’t know shit about?”

“The virus has been tested. I didn’t alter the virus. I just added the DNA to it.”

“You’d better hope this shit you concocted doesn’t cause any more damage than it already has.”

Trevor’s eyes widened and he put a hand over his mouth. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“The girl! The little girl!” Trevor began rifling through a stack of files on his desk.

“What girl? Don’t tell me you injected that shit into a kid.”

“She was a teenager. Fifteen years old. Her parents brought her in because she was severely obese and none of the diets they tried were working. They even hired her a personal trainer. Nothing was working. She was being teased at school.”

“So you thought it would be a good idea to fuck with her genes?”

“I thought it would be safe, and her parents were willing to pay anything for it. Sarai told them about it. They wanted it. They were insistent.

“Here it is. The girl’s name is Star. Star Mourning.”

“Star
Mourning
? You mean-? Ah, don’t fucking tell me. Alexis and Mike Mourning, the actors, their daughter?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Then we’re fucked. The media will be all over us if she goes rabid like Lelani did, if they aren’t already. After that, it’s only a matter of time before the FDA comes beating on our door. They’ll be lawsuits. Maybe even criminal charges.”

Dr. Ebersol paced frantically, running his hands through his long, blond hair and rubbing the bald spot on top of his head.

“Not if we can get to them before the virus takes effect. I just injected her yesterday.”

“Get us booked on the next flight back to the states. I need to get to Austin and you’d better get your ass to LA and see that kid.”

6 

Jamie and Elaine could not remember when they weren’t famous or weren’t in love. They’d met on a children’s TV show in the nineties. They were eleven and twelve years old when they fell in love. When the show ended, they both launched successful careers as pop singers, quickly becoming two of the biggest teen stars in the country. Their wedding was a national event. But age and the indulgences of wealth had taken their toll, and the media had not been kind.

A year ago, Elaine gave birth to their first child. Six months ago, she’d tried to make a comeback with a multimillion-dollar video and an appearance on a popular singing competition, but all anyone could talk about were her thick thighs, her paunch, and her “muffin top” bulging out over the top of her skin-tight jeans. Jamie had gained weight too, sympathy weight as he called it, and after seeing what his wife had gone through, he’d delayed his own reemergence into the spotlight. In truth, he’d become a recluse, hiding behind the walls of their multimillion-dollar estate. Rumors circulated that he’d put on hundreds of pounds and become some kind of obese shut-in. His agent urged him to show himself and dispel the rumors, but he was afraid. Then one day, his agent told him about the Aphrodite Aesthetic Reconstruction Clinic, and he’d made an appointment for him and his wife. The results were miraculous.