Ugly As Sin Read online

  ALSO BY JAMES NEWMAN

  Holy Rollers

  Midnight Rain

  The Wicked

  The Forum

  Revenge Flick!

  Animosity

  Olden

  COLLABORATIONS

  Night of the Loving Dead

  (with James Futch)

  Death Songs from the Naked Man

  (with Donn Gash)

  Love Bites

  (with Donn Gash)

  The Church of Dead Languages

  (with Jason Brannon)

  COLLECTIONS

  People Are Strange

  Massachusetts • Pennsylvania • Connecticut

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Previously published in limited edition hardcover by Thunderstorm Books.

  This edition has been revised and expanded.

  Cover art by Mikio Murakami

  Cover type design by Yannick Bouchard

  Digital layout by K. Allen Wood

  Digital Edition Copyright © 2013 by Shock Totem Publications, LLC

  Established in 2009

  www.shocktotem.com

  ISBN 978-0-9882723-5-4

  Printed in the United States of America.

  PRAISE FOR UGLY AS SIN

  “Ugly As Sin is James Newman’s best book yet! I loved every brutal, violent, pulpy page, and I recommend the hell out of it!

  —Jeff Strand, Author of Dead Clown Barbecue, Faint of Heart, and Gleefully Macabre Tales

  “Ugly As Sin is a terrific page-turner, a body slam of a book that features tough-guy noir, freakish horrors, and human redemption. James Newman skillfully spins a spiral of suspense that pulls you in and won’t let go.”

  —Brian Pinkerton, Author of Killer’s Diary, Rough Cut, and How I Started the Apocalypse

  “Ugly As Sin is brutal, fast-paced, grimy fun, a compulsive page-turner with characters you’ll be deeply invested in by story’s end.”

  —Blu Gilliand, October Country

  “Ugly As Sin has about as vicious a premise as I’ve ever come across. It’s not what it first appears to be. It’s worse. Wrapped inside its mystery and ticking-clock hunt is the most jaundiced indictment possible of the corrupted soul of celebrity culture...its feeders and especially its fed.”

  —Brian Hodge, Author of Picking the Bones and Whom the Gods Would Destroy

  “James Newman is one of my favorite authors. His novels are always engrossing and entertaining. I can’t recommend his works highly enough.”

  —John Little, Author of Miranda, The Memory Tree, and Ursa Major

  This one’s for DAD. Through the years, as you taught me what it means to be a man, I might have thought you were a “heel” at times...but you’ve always been the good guy.

  I hope I make you proud. I love you.

  They caught him walking out the back door of the Amarillo Civic Center around one a.m. At six foot nine, a hair under three hundred pounds, he was the biggest in the Biz. But a homerun whack to the back of his skull with their aluminum baseball bat was enough to lay the giant down.

  Of course, what fun would it have been if they stopped there?

  Motherfuckers hit him again, in the ribs.

  A third time, across his bum knee, for shits and giggles.

  Then everything went black for Nick Bullman, a.k.a. The Widowmaker.

  †

  “Wake up, asshole.”

  A high-pitched titter, like the mating call of some brain-damaged bird, followed by a second voice: “Time to pay the piper!”

  “Shit, that smarts,” Nick groaned as he came to.

  At least one of his ribs was broken, he knew right away—he could feel it scraping against something soft and vital inside of him with every breath he took. His head throbbed as if an eighteen-wheeler had rammed into it at full speed. Not to mention his left knee. Damn thing hadn’t been the same since Harry Hardcore’s sloppy Figure Four at the Brawler Series last summer. Now it felt as if that same eighteen-wheeler had driven over it, reversed, did it a few more times to add insult to injury.

  Once he was fully conscious, Nick went to rub at the back of his head. But he couldn’t move. His captors had cuffed his wrists together behind some sort of steel post. He looked down to see that his ankles were bound as well, with black rubber bungee cords.

  The persons responsible for his predicament were fuzzy humanoid shapes at first, looming twenty or thirty feet away from him. They watched Nick struggle and flex and curse their mommas for a minute before they stepped closer...

  Two men. About half his age, but a thousand times uglier. The first thing Nick noticed: they wore matching referee shirts. Zebra-striped, zip-up, the Association’s blood-splatter logo on the left breast. Guy on the right, the taller of the two, sported maybe half as many teeth in his mouth as Nick had fingers and toes. Tufts of dirty blond hair stuck out from under his Longhorns baseball cap. On the T-shirt beneath his rumpled ref-wear, Nick recognized a smirking portrait of Rebel Yell, those Confederate Flag-wearing “rednecks” whose gimmick portrayed them as tag-team spokesmen for the downtrodden Southern man. Guy on the left had a few more teeth than his companion, but only one arm—the other ended at his elbow in a pink, misshapen knob. A tangled mop of curly brown hair fell just past his shoulders. The shirt beneath One-Arm’s ref-wear advertised his idolization for the Association’s reigning Heavyweight Champ, Big Bubba Bad-Ass.

  Nick sat in one corner of what looked like a homemade wrestling ring. The thick blackness beyond it and a hint of corrugated metal suggested some kind of warehouse. Rust-colored splotches stained the mat beneath his feet. Even the smell was authentic: sweat, baby oil, and soggy spandex.

  Nick was almost impressed. To suggest that the men before him were wrestling fans was like saying...well, like saying the matches were choreographed and it was all a soap opera for dudes.

  “Here’s the deal, Mr. Widowmaker,” the guy in the Rebel Yell shirt began the festivities. He stood over Nick, arms crossed. “There was a time when people liked you. You seemed like a decent fella. But then I don’t know what happened. You got too big for your britches, betrayed your buddies in the Alliance. I couldn’t believe it when you hit Joe Cobra with that steel chair. You helped Garth Hater take the one-two-three, left your buddies high n’ dry. After all you guys had been through!”

  “With friends like you,” spat One-Arm, “who needs enemies.”

  “That was ten years ago.” Even as he said it, Nick wondered why he was explaining himself to these freaks. “Ratings had dropped. McDougal wanted to shake things up.”

  “You oughta be ashamed o’ yourself,” said Rebel Yell. His tongue raked across his rotten teeth as he spoke, and the sound was like a snake slithering across wet concrete. “Them guys was your best friends! Scotty Mojo, Freddy Face, even that wetback, El Diablo. They believed that horseshit about the Corporation brain-washin’ you. Remember when you was gonna give away Freddy’s fiancée? They was tyin’ the knot at Doomsday XVII, right before Diablo’s ‘Rage In the Cage’ match with Vesuvius. But you turned on your buddies, and you hit Miss Jessica with the ring-bell?”

  One-Arm nodded, his single skinny limb flailing about as if to emphasize his buddy’s point. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Always kickin’ below the belt, cheatin’ to win. It ain’t right!”

  “I’m on one of those hidden camera shows, right? Is that what’s going on here?” Nick no longer knew whether to laugh or fear for his life. This felt like a lame beginning to an even lamer storyline, something the Association’s writers had co
njured up on the fly but they had neglected to tell him about it. Marks who believed the work was real? Thirty, forty years ago maybe. But wasn’t it common knowledge these days that the outcome of every match was predetermined, and even the promoters called what he did for a living “sports entertainment”?

  Apparently, these two morons didn’t get out much.

  “You think you’re so smart,” said Rebel Yell. “But we got you! Waited on you after the main event, almost didn’t recognize you without your demonistic makeup.”

  “We got you,” One-Arm said. “Fucker.”

  Without warning, Rebel Yell reared back and slugged Nick in the mouth.

  Nick hadn’t noticed the guy’s glove before now. It was one of those steel-lined SAP jobs. Often used by law enforcement, designed to inflict maximum damage.

  His busted lip leaked blood down his chin. He spat out a tooth.

  Still, he couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped out of him. “Stupid marks. You don’t even deserve to wash my cup.”

  “Look,” said Rebel Yell, as if trying to reason with the wrestler before things really got out of hand, “When Black Samson killed you in that ‘Loser Leaves Life’ match at New Year’s Evil IX, what’d you do?”

  Nick decided to play along. Why not. He had nowhere else to be. “I didn’t do anything, right? I was dead.”

  “Big Bubba carried you backstage, told the crowd he was gonna do what was right since you two used to be close. Said he was gonna talk Father Ivan Ruffstuff into givin’ you a proper Christian burial.”

  “But then you sold your soul to Moloch so you could live forever! A week later, on Thursday Night Hardcore, how did you repay Big Bubba?”

  “Don’t recall. But I’m sure you’ll refresh my memory.”

  “You slammed him through the entrance ramp, you asshole! You teamed up with the guy who slit your throat, helped that nigger throw Bubba fifteen feet onto the concrete floor. You broke his back!”

  When Rebel Yell was done, he looked like he might start crying.

  Truth told, Nick had always liked Big Bubba—this past 4th of July, in fact, their families had gotten together for a barbecue in Mr. Bad-Ass’s (real name: Eric Aubrey) backyard, Nick pushing Aubrey’s giggling eleven-year-old on her swing-set, harmlessly flirting with Mrs. Bubba as he was wont to do—though things appeared quite the opposite inside the squared circle.

  In the ring, their ongoing feud kept the fans screaming for blood. Usually the Widowmaker’s.

  After all, Nick Bullman was the GWA’s top heel. All that sacrilege, cartoonish crap about ’Maker being the SON OF ETERNAL DARKNESS—it never failed to get the marks going good.

  “Actually,” said Nick, “Eric had some vacation time to burn, took Renee to the Bahamas for their anniversary...”

  He trailed off. Knew it was like trying to argue with a couple of ring-posts.

  “Sure. We messed Big Bubba up good. Put his ass in ICU.”

  “You’re evil, Mr. Widowmaker,” said Rebel Yell. “You’ve bullied your way through the Global Wrestling Association long enough.”

  He pronounced it rasslin’. Naturally.

  “You’re worse than Leviathan!” said One-Arm. “At least he’s a big dumb monster, can’t help doin’ the things he does.”

  Nick shook his head. This had to be some surreal steroid dream. But then, he hadn’t touched the juice for the better part of three decades.

  “You dildos are crazier than my third wife,” he said. “And trust me, that’s pretty fucking crazy.”

  Rebel Yell reached into his ref shirt. Gripped something hidden between his pants and the small of his back. He brought it out.

  The knife was one of those big mean sons-a-bitches with a serrated blade, spiked knuckle guard. Kinda piece made you feel like you should start bleeding somewhere tender just for looking at it. It reminded Nick of a weapon from some post-apocalyptic B-movie, something with leather-clad road warriors and mutants running amok.

  “You do it,” Rebel Yell told One-Arm. “I’ll hold him.”

  His companion nodded, let loose with another birdlike giggle as if he had waited his whole life for this moment. Rebel Yell scrabbled like a spider atop the ring-post to which Nick was cuffed.

  A thick rope looped tight around the wrestler’s neck, pulling his head back against the turnbuckle.

  “You wanna reveal a man’s true colors, you gotta dig deep,” Rebel Yell whispered into Nick’s ear. “Get to the skull beneath the skin.”

  One-Arm began to cut.

  †

  Later. Impossible to tell how much later, as time—reality—had become a nonsensical joke that was anything but funny.

  A cacophony of wailing sirens, doors being kicked in, the staccato clicking of numerous gun-hammers.

  “Drop the knife, dirtbag!” someone shouted.

  Another voice: “Step away from him! Both of you! Now!”

  In the center of the chaos: the body of a sweat-soaked muscleman transformed into a bug-eyed Halloween decoration.

  “Took you long enough,” said the thing in the ring, to the boys in blue standing over it.

  More stunned gasps from his saviors, a chorus of disbelief exhaled on breaths that stank of coffee and doughnuts.

  Until he spoke, none of them had known he was alive. His massive chest rose and fell so slowly it barely moved at all.

  And the blood...so much blood, everywhere they looked...

  One tall cop with a 70s-porn-flick moustache slipped on something as he stepped into the ring. He pirouetted gracelessly but caught himself just in time, gripping the top rope with one hand to regain his balance.

  A self-conscious glance at his companions. He bent, lifted something pink and dripping from beneath his shiny black shoe.

  “Holy Mother of God. Is this what I think—”

  He dropped it. It hit the canvas with a sick plop.

  The policeman looked ready to lose his supper. All of them did.

  Nick Bullman stared at the gory pile too. And when some helpful soul finally got around to uncuffing his hands, he reached for it. Wept for it. As if he could just slide it back into place and everything would be A-OK.

  Three years later...

  He still dreams about it now and then, but more often than not he dreams of what happened after it was over. The repercussions of that night he spent with two men he would always think of—despite having learned their real names in the days following his ordeal—as “Rebel Yell” and “One-Arm.”

  He dreams of what came later. After his tormentors were convicted and sent away. After the surgeons had done their best to fix him.

  He dreams of all he has lost.

  And strangely enough, he often wakes up smiling...

  †

  In his dreams, it is that fateful day in late August. He’s visiting corporate headquarters in Wilmington, North Carolina for the first (and last) time since Doc Saldutti gave him the OK to return to work. He has already made his rounds, thanking everyone for their awkward welcome backs and good to see yas. Now his well-wishers have returned to their pencil-pushing and their keyboard-tapping, and Nick finds himself alone at last. He stands at the far end of the hall from the executive hustle and bustle, head down, waiting for the elevator. He doesn’t know that, in the coming months, his loneliness will drown him in a sea of black depression. So he welcomes this moment of introspection after playing the role of circus freak surrounded by the gawking masses, folks who pretend to pity him while rejoicing inside: Poor bastard, sure glad that ain’t me.

  Now he’s approached by Veronica Townsend, the administrative assistant with the horn-rimmed glasses and the perfect bronze legs that stretch into infinity. Nick turns to her with a distracted frown. Of course, these days he always looks like he’s frowning.

  When their eyes meet, Ronnie quickly glances down at her clipboard. There’s a hitch in her voice, as if she ate some bad fish for lunch: “The, uh, boss wants to see you in his office. ASAP.”

  Me
ssage relayed, she makes her escape. The trail of expensive perfume she leaves in her wake tickles the Widowmaker’s nose.

  He stomps down the hall to McDougal’s office.

  As he goes, he pulls out an old yellow handkerchief he keeps in the ass pocket of his jeans. He dabs at the wetness that constantly trickles from his right eye, a result of permanent damage to his tear ducts.

  Once the rag is back in his pocket, his huge fist knocks three times on the boss’s door, rattling the gold nameplate there: LANCE K. MCDOUGAL III, C.E.O.

  He waits, careful not to look at his reflection in the nameplate.

  He’s preparing to knock again when the boss calls out: “Come in!”

  Nick pushes the door open. Stoops to clear the threshold.

  It’s an icebox in here. AC’s cranked to full-blast. The room smells like pine-scented Lysol.

  The boss is on the phone. Arguing with somebody about how he owns the trademark to every name on the roster so you bet your ass he expects fifty percent of the cut, assuming this piece-of-shit movie gets a green-light in the first place.

  When McDougal finally hangs up the phone, Nick wastes no time asking, “You wanted to see me, boss?”

  “Nick Bullman.” The CEO’s teeth are impossibly white. A used car salesman’s grin on the face of a filthy rich entertainment mogul. “Take a seat. Please.”

  Nick eases his six-foot-nine bulk into the chair opposite his employer’s mahogany desk. The vinyl cushion is as soft as a boulder beneath his ass. Nick has always wondered if guys like Lance McDougal intentionally stock their offices with furniture only slightly more comfortable than instruments of torture. Just so there’s no mistake who has the best seat in the room.