Festival of Fear

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Of course it’s safe,’ Myron told her. ‘The ancient Egyptians did it, in the reign of King Seti, thirteenth century BC. If the king complained that one of his concubines was growing too chubby, his eunuch used to find a sarcophagus beetle, and insert it under her skin. Then he let it roam around inside her for a couple of hours.

  ‘They eat subcutaneous fat, that’s all these suckers eat. It’s natural liposuction.’

  Maureen looked at the small brown-and-yellow beetle that was struggling to climb up the side of the Perspex box. It looked harmless enough, like a ladybug.

  Myron took off his glasses and polished them on his Albert Einstein T-shirt. ‘It’s your decision. Sure, your fifty bucks will help me to buy some more rare insect specimens, but you’re very pretty as you are. A little zaftig, maybe.’

  It was zaftig that decided her. ‘I’ll do it,’ said Maureen. She heaved herself back on the bed and lifted up her XXL sweatshirt. Myron sat next to her, took a scalpel out of a sterilized wrapper, and pinched three inches of flesh from the left side of her stomach.

  ‘This will hurt just a tad,’ he told her, and cut a quarter-inch slit, right into her underlying fat. Blood ran into her panty elastic.

  Carefully, Myron opened the Perspex box. He used a drinking straw to suck out the beetle, and to drop it over Maureen’s open cut. It immediately burrowed beneath her skin.

  ‘It feels like a spider crawling all over me,’ said Maureen. ‘But inside.’

  Myron checked his watch. ‘I’ll be back in two hours exactly. By that time you should look like Gwyneth Paltrow.’

  As he stepped outside the dorm, Myron collided with a tall, slim, dark-haired girl in skintight jeans.

  ‘Ellie? Ellie Newman? Well, look at you!’

  Ellie grinned. ‘Atkins Diet. I lost forty-eight pounds.’

  ‘You look great! Do you have time for a drink?’

  Walking Ellie back to her dorm, Myron heard the campus clock strike eleven.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, clapping his hand to his mouth. ‘Maureen.’

  ‘What about Maureen?’

  He pushed open the door. Maureen’s room was in darkness. He switched on the light. Maureen was still lying on her bed. Her face was a glittery-eyed skull, and her skin hung from her shoulders like heavy folds of drapery.

  ‘Myron,’ she croaked. ‘Am I thin, Myron?’

  As he approached her, Myron heard scratching coming from the bathroom, followed by a wallowing sound. Cautiously, he peered inside.

  Underneath the basin was a huge, distended bag. It was translucent, so Myron could see that it was filled with thick lumps of white fat. It was only when he looked closer that he could see its tiny black head, and its minuscule legs.

  ‘Yes, Maureen, you’re thin,’ he said. ‘You don’t have an ounce of fat on you.’