About this ebook
They wanted to lose the weight. What they got instead was far worse.
Arthur and Rose are desperate. No matter how hard they try, they can't stop eating, and their weight keeps piling on. Climbing stairs leaves them winded, they sweat through their clothes, and breaking furniture has become an embarrassing norm. With each failed attempt at losing weight, they grow more desperate to find a solution—any solution.
When they hear about a mysterious weight loss clinic that guarantees results, they think they've found their answer. After each visit, they wake up lighter—twenty pounds lighter—but with no memory of how it happened. What begins as a seemingly miraculous change quickly turns dark when they begin having unsettling, nightmare-like visions.
Determined to uncover the truth, Arthur and Rose dig deeper into the clinic's secrets. What they discover will push them beyond their sanity, as they come face-to-face with grotesque body horrors, twisted monstrosities, and a chilling reality far worse than they could have ever imagined.
In a race against time and their own unraveling minds, they'll learn that the weight loss clinic didn't just help them shed pounds—it's leaving them with something far more terrifying: a horrific price to pay.
Prepare for a twisted tale of obsession, grotesque transformation, and body horror in The Obese.
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The Obese - Jarred Martin
First published by Bloodshot Books in 2022
Current version copyright © 2025 by Jarred Martin
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Cover Art:
François Vaillancourt | francois-art.com
Layout:
Jacque Day | jacqueday.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
image-placeholderimage-placeholderOTHER TITLES BY JARRED MARTIN
Desperate Things
Inner Demons
Knives Of Christ
The Mad Face Behind The Night
Mules
Red Christmas: A Holiday Horror
The Long Red Trail
You Fucked With The Wrong Motherfucker
1
The tightness in Arthur Franklin’s chest had more to do with crushing anxiety than heart disease, but judging from his size, clogged arteries wouldn’t be a bad bet. He’d drawn the eye of everyone at the party. He could feel their gazes crawling over him like garden slugs. They all had their reactions: from pity to revulsion to morbid curiosity. Some measured his dimensions against their own, while others simply questioned how a person could do that to himself. He must be dumb, they thought, maybe retarded. He must be depressed. He’s self-loathing. No other explanation as to how a person could get that fat. He must have a medical condition—something wrong with his lymph nodes or pituitary gland. Something’s off with him psychologically. Maybe he was molested, or maybe his father was fat, or maybe his mother baked cinnamon rolls instead of hugging him. Maybe he’s some kind of pervert and food is like sex to him. Maybe he fucks carbs and sucks off saturated fats.
These were his friends. These people who pitied him; these people he disgusted; these people who stared at him like a two-bit sideshow attraction. He was acquaintances with more than half of them. Whatever their individual reactions, they all shared a single thought: He’s really let himself go. Arthur had heard that exact phrase whispered from polite distances and spoken aloud by the less tactful. They were right. He had let himself go. His condition wasn’t medical, and it wasn’t psychological. He wasn’t any more depressed or self-loathing than any other person of average intelligence. The blunt truth was that he was just a fat-ass. He ate too much shitty food and he never exercised. He knew this about himself, of course. He knew how many X’s came before the L on his shirts. But the strange thing was, like witnessing the derailing of a slow-moving train, he seemed powerless to do anything but observe it.
He found some shade around the side of the house, far away from the other party-goers by the pool with their dripping bathing suits, limp paper plates, canned beer and music that hadn’t been popular in the last decade. He couldn’t look more pathetic and isolated if he tried.
You having a good time, buddy?
This was Ryan talking. They’d known each other for over fifteen years and right now he was sounding like a babysitter trying to cheer up a kid whose parents had gone out for the first time without him. This was Ryan’s party. His house. His pool. His stagnant taste in music. They’d been close since college, back when Arthur was a svelte two-twenty-five, but since their late twenties they’d been drifting apart. Now that they were approaching thirty-five, it looked like that thread was finally going to snap.
You want to get in the pool?
Ryan asked.
He didn’t. Arthur didn’t want to call attention to himself by keeping his shirt on, and if he took it off he was afraid he’d look like that fat Hawaiian guy who sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow with the ukulele. I didn’t bring my trunks,
he muttered.
That’s okay,
Ryan momentarily seemed to forget basic physics, you can borrow something-
he caught himself. Never mind. You get enough to eat? Bratwursts? I know you’re not gonna pass those up.
Yeah,
said Arthur. He looked down at his shirt where twenty minutes earlier he’d managed to roll a mustard-covered sausage between his tits, down the length of his convex, swinging gut, smearing a bright trail of yellow all the way down.
Well, there’s plenty more if you want. Drinks, too. Shit. Remember how we used to knock ‘em back when we were twenty-two, twenty-three? We could drink a fifth of Jack and go to work feeling good the next day. These days if I have more than three drinks I’m so hungover it takes me two full days to recover.
He shook his head.
Maybe in a minute,
said Arthur. He looked at the crowd by the bar. The gap between bodies was more than he could politely wedge himself between while mixing a drink, and besides, he had to be careful. He got carried away with drink as easily as he did with food, and frequently had a fair bit more than Ryan’s self-imposed three drink limit. He had more or less trained himself not to get shit-faced in public by sticking to beer and weak mixed drinks.
Look, man,
he said pointedly, you don’t need to look after me. I’m good.
Are you?
asked Ryan.
What’s that supposed to mean?
I mean you look fucking miserable. You’re hiding in the shadows like the Phantom of the Opera. I had to come over to make sure you weren’t about to start dropping chandeliers on peoples’ heads,
said Ryan.
We’re outside,
Arthur refuted.
Is that all that’s stopping you?
No,
he looked away, dejected, then back to Ryan. I just haven’t felt very good lately. I don’t feel like myself. Or maybe I’m too much of myself.
I get it,
Ryan nodded. Getting out of the house is good, though. We didn’t even think you’d come.
Well, here I am. Bang the gong.
They stared at each other while a long silence hung between them. It was unfamiliar for two who had been so close. So, how’s Charla, anyway?
Arthur said for no other reason than to break the silence.
Ryan held up his hand to show Arthur the wedding band around his finger. Still married. She’s good. Kids are good. We wanted to throw a little get-together to christen the new pool. I don’t want to tell you how much it cost to have it installed, and heating is another thing. You wouldn’t believe it.
Arthur had a feeling that Ryan would like nothing more than to tell him exactly how much his pool cost. He had a habit of announcing the price of everything he owned, or how much his raise was, or how big a tax refund he got. Arthur found this frivolous and tacky. A big part of it was because he owned fuck all himself, but he had a sense of pride in his austerity. Denouncing consumerism just seemed bitter coming from a broke-dick in his mid-thirties, so he just nodded.
Oh, but speaking of Charla,
Ryan continued, One of her friends is here. I think you two might really get along.
Arthur could guess what the two of them had in common. Why are you setting us up, Ryan? You think dating has weight classes? Only fat people deserve to be together?
I didn’t say that. Did I say anything about how she looks?
Point her out, then. I’ll bet she’s huge.
So, what if she is?
said Ryan.
Picture a beach ball colliding with another beach ball. Is that image vivid enough for you? You need something more graphic?
She’s smart. You’ll like her, I promise.
Ryan insisted.
I’m just not in a good place right now. I got stains all over my shirt. I smell like mustard. I been in the sun all day. I’m sweating. Plus, I’m not drunk enough to fake being interesting enough to talk to.
Sorry,
said Ryan, you’re not getting out of this. It’s been too long. You just have to say hi to her, that’s it. But stick around, I still want to talk to you about that thing next week.
What thing?
Arthur asked. You mean with the horses? I don’t know about that shit. People with my complexion don’t fuck around with horses.
Just think it over. You know Mark and Van are going. But whatever. Come meet this girl. Her name’s Holly. We told her all about you.
All right, man. Just let me wash the mustard out of my shirt. Can I do that? Am I allowed to do that?
Okay,
Ryan smiled at last. You know where the bathroom is. Be quick, though, right?
Yeah. Right,
said Arthur.
He decided to stop by the kitchen on the way to Ryan’s bathroom. He shook his head at the giant accent stone wall in the living room complete with fake moss and water stains. It looked like something out of a medieval dungeon. Just needed an emaciated dude with a long beard hanging from it. He opened the fridge and rooted through the beer, pushing aside the cheap stuff until he found something interesting. Some bottles of microbrew IPA. Don’t mind if I do, he thought. Before shutting the door, he helped himself to a chicken leg with a layer of cold grease that had turned to jelly, and a slice of some kind of pineapple cake that he ate without utensils. He choked it all down, wasting very little effort on chewing.
The hall bathroom was occupied, and when he tried Ryan and Charla’s bedroom to use their private bathroom he found the door locked. He rolled his eyes. Who did they think was coming to this thing, anyway? Didn’t they trust their own friends? He went to wait for the bathroom to open up.
He was wiping chicken grease inside his pants pockets when he heard a voice behind him.
Oh, sweet Jesus, let me go first. I know there ain’t gonna be nothin’ left in there after big man gets finished puttin’ a hurt on the bathroom fixtures.
Arthur turned to see Mark. They were part of the same group of friends, but they weren’t close. That’s good, man. Fat man gonna break the toilet. I never heard that one before.
He hated being called big man. You might as well say fat fuck and get it over with.
He laughed and tried to shake Arthur’s hand in a way that a white man sometimes will try to do with black people they’re overly familiar with. No, you know I’m just clownin’, my dude.
Mark’s eyes were bleary red. I ain’t seen you in a minute. What have you been up to? You still stay in town?
Yeah,
said Arthur. I live off of Locust street.
Oh,
said Mark. I don’t really get over there too much. It’s, uh─
Shitty,
Arthur cut him off. It’s a shitty neighborhood for poor people.
Hey, you said it, not me. But you’re not poor, though. I mean, you got a gig, right?
I edit technical manuals. Freelance.
Well, if you ever want real work, I could put you on, easy. I do contracting. Construction. I work with my dad and my uncle and my brothers. I don’t own the business or nothing, but I don’t exactly carry bricks around in a wheelbarrow either, you know what I mean?
Arthur had no idea what he meant. Carting bricks around sounded exactly like the sort of thing a construction worker would have to do. But he didn’t know much about manual labor. He’d worked in a coffee shop through college, and a bookstore after that, then the writing gigs which he did from his home office, which was located in his bedroom. I’m not really feeling the brick thing. Thanks, anyway.
"Shit gets you swole, though. You get mad pussy then, you feel me?"
Yeah,
said Arthur. That construction worker pussy.
He turned and stared at the closed bathroom door, wondering how long he’d been waiting outside.
Mark was undeterred and spoke into his back. You know, for real, I thought you was someone else when I came up. You remember that dude, what was his name? Big dude like you. Used to be around like seven or eight years ago? You know who I’m talking about? Crazy motherfucker?
Lamar,
said Arthur. Lamar was roughly Arthur’s size and used to drift in and out of the group for a short time years ago, until it became obvious he was dealing with some heavy mental problems, and they just weren’t equipped to handle someone like that. He just faded into the ether. Arthur hadn’t thought about him in years.
Yeah, Lamar,
said Mark. Dude was out of his mind. He used to say all the mailmen were like spying on him. Remember that?
Yeah, man. He was schizophrenic. Literally.
All I know is, motherfucker was crazy,
Mark repeated. I heard he got locked up. He was in the holding cell trying to bite his wrists open, smearing shit all over himself and eating it.
Arthur was coming to the conclusion that someone, perhaps out of shame, had locked the bathroom door and walked away. He knocked and heard a woman’s muffled reply informing him the bathroom was occupied.
And you mistook me for the guy who tried to pull his teeth out with pliers because he thought there was a recording device in his mouth?
Arthur asked.
Yeah,
said Mark. At first I did, but then I remembered. I saw dude like six months ago. He couldn’t have weighed more than a buck twenty-five. Skin all hanging off him a wet shower curtain. He showed me. Lifted it up his shirt. Nasty. Looked like somebody wrapped up in a parachute or something. It’s weird, though, you know? When I think of him, he’s still real big. Crazy, huh?
Yeah,
said Arthur.
Oh, hey,
said Mark, his expression lit up like he just thought of something. Are you going with us next weekend?
Going with you where?
Arthur asked.
You know. With Ryan and all of them.
"You’re going?"
Shit. You ain’t heard? I’m a cowboy ass motherfucker. Straight blasting injuns with my six shooter,
Mark made finger guns and mimed genocide.
I’m still thinking it over.
Just then the bathroom door opened. A tiny Asian woman he didn’t know stepped out. Damn, it’s about—
Arthur called as she pushed past him, but his words were cut off by the abrupt odor of human waste striking him full force.
Bitch, light a match or something, goddamn,
Mark shouted after her.
She turned her head walking away, obviously humiliated. "I’m sorry," she wailed before scurrying down the hall.
Mark and Arthur stood staring in through the open bathroom door. Damn. Good luck in there, homie. I guess there ain’t gonna be anything left by the time y’all are done tag-teaming it, huh?
Arthur stood before the mirror looking down at the yellow stain across his shirt. A white shirt? What the hell had he been thinking? He knew that his jutting belly attracted particles of food like iron shavings near a magnet. He stretched the stained fabric between his fingers, marveling at his own hubris. He turned on the hot water and splashed some onto the stain, squirted some hand soap and began to work it in. A faintly yellow lather began to rise at his fingertips. He wished he wasn’t so practiced at stuff like this. He felt like a slob but wearing a darker shirt probably wouldn’t fix that. He rinsed and saw that the stain was more or less dissolved. He opened the cabinet below the sink and found a hair dryer. While drying the wet patch on his shirt, he studied his reflection.
The person staring back at him was almost shocking to see. Arthur’s mental image was several years out of date, and a hundred pounds lighter. The man in the mirror holding the hairdryer to his shirt was grotesque. His torso was like a distorted gumdrop with great heaving tits on top. And his head, though huge, looked like a tiny Hershey kiss in comparison; his swollen cheeks and the fade haircut accentuating the slimmer peak of his skull. He peered at the mirror in disbelief. How could this be him? He’d always been big, but this person was monstrous. No human being should look like this. No wonder people stared at him. He was a marvel of the human form. Somehow, while gaining those hundred-plus pounds, he’d crossed the line from fat to jarringly obese. He stood holding the running hairdryer. He walked around looking like this? And he was supposed to meet a girl? What would they talk about? High blood pressure? Diabetes? How difficult it was getting to wipe his own ass these days?
He was overcome with vertigo. He had to sit down. He moved his massive frame to the toilet and settled on it with the lid down, holding his head in his hands. All he could think was that he had utterly ruined himself, and there was no way he could get back from where he was. The tightness came back to his chest and he wasn’t able to distinguish anxiety from heart attack. He wiped sweat at the back of his neck and his hand came away soaked. His body was completely fucked. He thought about how he had to turn sideways to pass through doorways. Things like that had gotten so normal to him. And he stank. He couldn’t deny it. The bacteria reproducing between the folds of his skin was too much for him to keep up with, even though he showered twice a day. And he thought he deserved to eat fucking hotdogs and drink beer with regular people? Right now, he wanted nothing more than to crawl back to his dingy apartment and lie in bed with the lights off.
He had to get the hell out of there. His heart was pounding like a bass drum. If he ran into Ryan and his mystery date before he could escape, he thought he might have a full-on breakdown.
Get out. The thought was repeating in his head like a bad advertisement.
He lifted himself off the toilet, and as he did, he heard the crack of breaking plastic. He looked down where he’d been sitting and the toilet lid was shattered. Jagged shards had fallen into the bowl, but that wasn’t what upset him. The toilet was clogged with a formidable wad of toilet paper and filled nearly to the brim with brown water. No one would need two guesses to figure out who to blame for this. That bitch, he thought. That dark haired bitch. She set me up!
Arthur unlocked the door, and he barely had it open before Mark shoved his way in. Oh, hey man, how was the party?
Mark asked himself, sarcastically. I don’t know. I spent half of it waiting to take a shit and the other half-
Silence as he peered down at the carnage in the toilet. Oh, what the fuck, man? You went fucking suicide bomber on the john, bro. That is some seriously uncool shit. You need to get like a plunger and make this right, man. Use your hands if you gotta. Do something.
I didn’t do it,
said Arthur, pointlessly.
I ain’t no forensic examiner or nothing, but I’d say this has got your signature all over it, homes.
Arthur was suddenly furious. Alright, fuck it! Yeah I did it. I’ll do it to you, too! Say another word, motherfucker!
The pain in his chest was back. He felt like he could put Mark’s skinny ass through a wall, and in the next second the vertigo struck. It was all he could do to stay upright while he walked away. Behind him, he was vaguely aware of Mark telling him he needed to chill.
Arthur managed to make it out the front door, surprised to find the sun had gone down. At the end of the drive, he experienced mild panic when he forgot where he parked his car. He found it further up the street. It had to be the oldest car on the block: a faded green Toyota, nineteen years old. He squeezed into it like someone trying to get Spam back into the can. It was a tight fit even with the seat all the way back and the steering column pointed up at a forty-five-degree angle to accommodate his extruding gut. Just getting in took his breath away. He took off without attempting to strap on the seatbelt. He had long since outgrown it. There were seatbelt extenders you could get, like on airplanes, but he only had so much shame he could endure daily, and that was beyond the limit.
On the way home he felt a deep emptiness boring into him and pulled into a drive thru on compulsion. Gone were the thoughts of his girth, his inflated party clown of a body. He shoved those thoughts deep down in the recesses of the gnawing void inside of him, determined to bury them under grease and salt, and a bucket of cola. He spoke into the drive thru’s speaker, ordering two half-pound bacon cheeseburgers, forty chicken nuggets, three orders of large fries, onion rings, and a two-liter of Coke. He sat tapping his credit card against the steering wheel impatiently, waiting to pull up.
He noticed something moving in the darkness beyond a dumpster. A bum, done up in filthy rags that seemed plastered to it, scrawny, with long, skeletal fingers. He was poking through the trash, a litter of glass shards sparkling at its feet. Arthur hit the door lock reflexively, but he still couldn’t look away. There was something familiar about this creature. Something he thought he recognized in its gaunt visage and flowing rags. What was it?
A car horn honked behind him, snapping his concentration like a chicken bone and he threw his car into gear and pulled forward. All thoughts of the slender figure vanished from his mind as he was handed hot paper bags full of oily goodness.
The disheveled thing watched Arthur drive away with wide, intense eyes. It was not only Arthur who had seen something familiar, the thin figure saw something familiar in Arthur as well. He remembered him from long ago. Yes, he remembered him very well. He dropped the black plastic bag of mostly-eaten garbage he was going through and stepped out from around the dumpster to see which way Arthur’s car turned.
Later that night, when Arthur was setting aside the last dozen chicken nuggets, purely because his jaw ached and he had grown tired of tasting them, the emaciated figure stood on Arthur’s street outside his apartment building.
He watched.
He waited.
2
She stuck two fingers down her throat and for a second the rose tattoo on her calf furrowed like a flag in a strong wind as every muscle in her body twitched at once. Head down in the toilet, the sound of her own retching echoing off the bowl, her muscles jerked again and a slurry of hot vomit seasoned with a distinctive blend of eleven herbs and spices, erupted out of her mouth. She spat a yellow rope of slime, sizzling with her own stomach juices into the blooming cloud of half-digested puke below and wiped her mouth. Sweating, sucking air fouled by the taste of her own innards, she pushed herself away from the toilet and sat leaning against the bathroom wall. Acid crept up the length of her esophagus.
This bulimia shit isn’t for me, Rose Alvarado decided then and there, noticing from her position on the floor how mildewed the bottom of the shower curtain had gotten. Maybe the pretty girls could handle it, but she could guarantee they’d never tried to regurgitate a mixture of spicy southwest chili and KFC. She pulled herself up and grabbed the mouthwash off the sink. She watched her reflection as she swished the blue stuff around in her mouth. Similar to Arthur Franklin, Rose was overcome with the thought that she’d irrevocably buried herself under a grotesque mound of lard from which she could never emerge. She’d been cute once, but now when she saw herself, she saw a malformed blob shrouded in unseemly clothing. She’d need more than a shovel to excavate that cute girl again. She felt like a woman no one would ever take a second glance at, but one people couldn’t stop staring at. She wanted to bring the cute girl out again, but she had no idea how. For a long time, she hid what she was becoming. She put on flattering outfits from Lane Bryant. She fixed her hair and wore makeup that disguised the roundness of her bloated face. She managed to hide it for a while, for years in fact, that cute girl could still be seen like the faded remnants of a relief carving in old stone. But now that she had to order her clothes from specialty magazines and websites with names like Large and Lovely, and Queen-Sized, she knew that the attractive girl she’d once been was gone and buried forever.
She spat into the sink, rinsed it down, and left, glad to turn away from the mirror. From there she headed down the hall, walking slowly.