Year's Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology

by C. P. Dunphey

  From the time of her announcement to when the next dinner rush came, the ark was all talk about the new meals. Parents would send children away as we talked, wondering if we should go to the next serving of portions or could avoid it. There was talk of boycotting the meals and having them find another way to dispose of the growing bodies, if the morgue couldn’t be used as one. We knew we couldn’t throw them out of the ark, not while the fear of utter extinction still resided out there, as was believed what would happen if the doors of the ark were open too long as there existed nothing else outside. This wasn’t like with space and airlocks. As long as there was the utter chance that even opening the doors would lead to the destruction of the ark, so long as there was only void, they would remain shut. There was even talk about overthrowing the current administrators, who were said to not have been eating the meals themselves and were either mad enough to incite this plan or cruel enough to inflict it under a populace that needed them, but none of it meant anything. It was the hollow venting of frustration, the adjustment of a new way of life. No one would ever try to overthrow the administrators. They were the ones who knew the secrets of the ark. Not even that, they were the only ones who knew how to run the thing, to utilize the scanners and equipment necessary to maintain the ark as well as look for anything outside. The ark had not been built with windows, for the administrators had feared the psychological effect it might have to peer out and see the void, so it scanned instead. Without the administrators, there would be no leaving the ark. Still, that was not what really kept us from moving against her. We didn’t act because we believed she was right. So, when the time for the next dinner came, everyone slowly shuffled to where the dinner was being held, uncertainty still lingering over the new food.

  What we had not expected was to see the captain herself, her presence broadcast on all the screens in the ark, already standing alone in front of the food dispensaries. She just stood there. She had been waiting for us. The children complained about her being there before them but we held them back, wanting to see what would happen. When she was sure that we were all watching, she made the order for a meal. It was a meal of mashed potatoes, a thin pea soup and a slab of the meat. We expected her to play around with it, to wait to taste of it, to show some signs of reluctance at the thing that could have once been her father. No, the first thing she did was grab her knife and fork and cut off a piece. She stabbed into it and raised it to her lips, our eyes watching every second of it in anticipation. She bit down and chewed and we heard the most satisfied hum we had ever heard. She swallowed and began to cut the meat up into other pieces, a smile on her lips and a blush on her face. She mixed it with her soup and potatoes, slowly devouring it as though it had been her first meal all day, and we agreed. The meat was unlike anything else. There was nothing like it. We watched her devour it until she was running her finger along the edge of the plate, sucking up any juice that remained off her fingers. Then, when she was done, she got up, returned the plate to be washed, and left, regaining her dignified posture and sense of presence.

  That had solved it. There was no more hesitation. We scrambled to be the next to eat the food, to mix it just as our captain had done or simply swallow huge chunks of the portions. We told ourselves we did it in the name of survival. We convinced ourselves that this was only natural and that our predecessors would want this. We would live through them. It was the best that human-kind could do.

  The mood of human-kind had changed once again. Though death was still feared, it was no longer seen as another failure. It was seen as more hope for the rest of us. The morgue ceased to be anything less than cold storage from then on. There were plenty of bodies to live off of, plenty to cook and heat up and sauté. Families were given rights to the first cut whenever one of their own was being served. When one of us died, instead of avoiding talking about their missing presence, their family and friends discussed what they might be served with and hoped for a hearty meal. There were even those that tried to skip ahead, that cut tiny portions of themselves and heated it up as a snack. When they were found out, they were admonished and disgraced. How dare they horde themselves away? How dare they act so selfishly, so as to keep from everyone else’s chances?

  This was the state of the ark for many millennia. Things remained as they always had, living, breathing, teaching and now devouring. Our second captain died a hero and a revered leader, her body treated as a delicacy on the day she was served and the scene of her child eating of her meat broadcast for everyone to watch. It became tradition for each new administrator to personally devour their parent for all the ark to see. This new way of life though was only to hearken new things.

  In the year 10,871 AE, the only allowed child of a 10th Generation couple was born and he was named Jakobson. It had only taken the first glance from all those involved to know that something about the child was different. Even as an infant, he barely resembled either of his parents. Though only newborn, his skin was gaunt and a light tan. His fingers already seemed long and narrow and his eyes bulged from an already enlarged skull. Now, between the 8th and 10th generations, it was becoming increasingly common for the newborns to have some sort of small mutation. Perhaps they had an extra finger or perhaps they had heterochromia. Medicine and science had come far enough that anything too terrible could be treated and with a little gene therapy or surgery, we could be adjusted. The doctors gave no such chance to young Jakobson. Gene therapy on a newborn was unheard of and the doctors agreed to watch over the baby while his parents were to wait at home. When he was dead, they could try and petition the administrators for another child. So, the doctors tried to make the young baby comfortable and waited.

  They waited for hours. They waited for days. They waited for a week.

  When they went to check on him, they were shocked as Jakobson squealed when the light hit his eyes. It was a dry squeal, so it sounded deeper than expected of a baby, but it was a squeal nonetheless. Looking over the child, he was even thinner than before, nearly all skin and bones. The nurses admitted to feeding him rarely and even then only morsels, just something to make his supposed passing easier. It was only enough to feed a baby for a day, not at all a week. Despite the odds, he had survived.

  From there, Jakobson, named Jakob for short, had a strange life. When he finally went home, his parents cared for him unconditionally. His mother especially loved on her baby boy, proud of his survival. She would brag on his behalf and tell about how able he was, growing up just as any other baby his age. People who knew the couple would gather around, marveling and wondering how such a child could last a week on next to nothing. Though he usually looked like he would fall apart at any second, he grew just as any other child did and eventually attended school just like other children. Those children that questioned Jakob about his strange appearance were reprimanded by their teachers, who knew of Jakob’s story from word of mouth or from his parents. As he grew, his reputation continued to proceed him and popularity began to follow. Even as his skin continued to grow tan and leathery to the touch, there were still adolescent boys and girls who wished to kiss his shriveled cheek and fantasized about his rangy fingers grasping their naked bodies. Even as his skull continued to enlarge, sloping back and to the left, he was heaped upon with scholarly expectations and met with each and every one. Even as his body began to grow and his once spindly form doubled in size, bones and muscles pressing against his skin, both teachers and students watched in marvel as he pulled himself up the ropes and suspended himself in the air with his strength alone. He was the boy who seemed to be everything human.

  Yet we who did not have the pleasure of meeting him were not so easily impressed. Word of Jakob spread through the ark as people continued to watch his growth. There was no teacher or authority figure to admonish us when we pointed out how unique he appeared. There were those of us who described him as disproportionate and misshapen, a body that had somehow slipped away from medicine and science to produce something so different. The mo
st ashamed and removed of us even described him as inhuman. Yet none of us would ever say it aloud or admit thinking so to anyone. His existence was proof enough of how fallible this claim was. He had survived, so he was human. To say otherwise meant to interrogate everything that they had sacrificed to make it this far. This was all it took to keep us quiet.

  Still, Jakob’s story had only just begun. By his 1st century birthday, reports began to flood in of new births, babes as malformed and suspected not long for life as Jakob had been. This time, knowing of Jakob’s story, we embraced our bundles of joy and began to compare them to each other. When their mothers met with each other, a baby with two mouths would find itself in competition with one that had a third arm growing from their side. They were taught the same as Jakob was, heaped upon with the same expectations and, just like Jakob, met most all of them. In fact, we taught them to aspire to Jakob, as the true icon that he is. He was their forbearer, their advent, and it was true. Jakob had only been the first in what was to come.

  Slowly and surely, these new figures of human-kind grew in number. Soon, entire classrooms of these children were being taught, each made special and unique by one trait or another. They followed Jakob in lifestyle, wanting to do right by us and human-kind. It is even said that Jakob visited the classroom in which his future wife was just starting to learn. By the time Jakob was 250 years old, the population of this special human-kind was a quarter of the population of the ark. There were fewer average human births. No one wanted an average human birth.

  Not even the administrators wanted average births. In his middle-age years, Jakob and his family became good friends with all of the administrators. The administrators flooded his parents with questions, wanting to know what raising Jakob had been like and were eager to plunge any secrets from them that may have resulted in the miracle baby. His wife, Annabelle, had been given special permission to give birth to two babies, was the envy of many and lorded her status as the sole reason Jakob’s line would go on, as far as anyone else knew. The captain himself was especially fond of Jakob. He would often invite Jakob over to his personal cabin to talk about the ongoing of the ship and various theories and ideas they had about ancient human-kind history, when we were still planet-locked. He would often insist they share a drink of alcohol, instructing his wife to come and bring them the glasses. She would serve it to him while wearing shirts with plunging necklines and skirts that displayed her supple thighs. Once they were thoroughly buzzed, the captain would often make the excuse of going to find a certain book for them to read over and discuss next time, going out to the ark’s library to retrieve it. He would leave Jakob alone with his wife and not return for hours.

  As the population shifted and more creative mutations began to emerge, our older members of human-kind, who looked more like our ancestors than the current generation, went to work trying to understand what was happening. We were not urged on by fear of our surroundings, for we saw nothing to fear. We were not compelled by duty to the rest of human-kind, for there was nothing to resolve. No, in truth, we acted with jubilation and enthusiasm. We were excited for the task, ready to put our minds into action, to shed the nausea and veil of boredom that left us stagnant. We had all the knowledge to toil over but none of the application. We were desperate for anything. We toiled for years upon years, excited for any one new piece of information or discovery, no matter how inconsequential. Gradually, the new generation took our place until it was not uncommon to run the tests on ourselves, just for the slightest indication of difference. At dinners, we would meet and discuss our findings, only ever stopping to tear and devour our meat, something we can never get enough of.

  The day Jakob died was a day of mourning for all the ark. All experiments were halted and everyone watched their screens as those closest to Jakob gave some parting words on his life, words we had heard ever since he had been a child but listened to again. Through a single involuntary act, Jakob had paved the way for the rest of human-kind and reaffirmed that all important part of ourselves. Survive. When his body was cooked and prepared, people whispered and admired how his family ate of his body, his wife’s mouth prying open from cheek to cheek, jaw unhinged, to consume and digest as much of her late husband as she could. His children, who were not born with mouths like their mother, ripped and cut the meat into bite sized portions, skewering it with their forks, or fingers in the case of his daughter, and tore at it with sharpened canines, all while the crowd silently supported them. His family later described him as tasting tougher than other meats but having an odd spiciness that was otherwise unknown to them from prior meals.

  After that, little else happened. The administrators locked themselves away, focusing on their work of sustaining and watching over the ark, and we saw nothing of them for millennia. The body of human-kind continued to change, children looked less and less like their parents with every passing generation. They had to be reminded, when being taught our history, that those beings on the screen, all sharing a common frame, were our ancestors and, just like we were doing now, they survived. Because that’s what we were doing. We were surviving. As long as we remained, as long as our legacies continued, no matter how chaotic or mutated or strange our bodies became, we would survive. That was all that mattered now. As long as we survived, little else mattered.

  Then, one day in the year 10 billion AE, the ark shook. The ship tilted and everyone was thrown about. The voice of the administrators, who we had almost begun to doubt ever existed in the first place, came on and warned all of human-kind to lock themselves in their rooms and watch their screens for upcoming news and information. We did as we were told, our frames shuffling as quickly as we could into our rooms with our families and friends. We turned on our screens and saw the faces of the administrators. Their time alone amongst themselves had guided them. They were all cyclopes with one white, filmy eye, frail forms strapped to their chairs to keep their bodies upright. They drew our attentions to the video feed, warning us to only focus on the center of the screen and not along the borders. We listened and watched. There, we saw a white, flaming ball floating in the void. Our bodies and minds shook in the silence, unable to quite comprehend what was in front of us and being drawn towards the black of the blasphemous void. Then the administrators welcomed us to the beginning of a new universe, resetting the clocks to the year 0 NU, New Universe.

  With those words in our heads, all fear and anxiety about the void was banished. There were certainly children conceived on that day and the morgue was raided of multiple bodies in celebration. Human-kind had not known such happiness in such a long time, not since before the time of Jakob’s death. Our journey was halfway done. We had survived the end all the way to the beginning. We would live on again, in a new universe, and reestablish the greatness of human-kind.

  The generations continued. The administrators allowed us to watch the foundations of the universe to be settled, the ark’s machines finally able to process an existence outside itself. We recorded everything that we could, from the birth of the first stars to the first recorded instance of a planetary body. It was all so alien, so new, and so strange. We reviewed our histories, back when we had been planet-locked. We remembered the struggles that had always proceeded us. We remembered the battles and wars. Physical necessity wasn’t an issue, the ark had proved that much. But co-habitations with others was discussed. Human-kind had always been hunted. There was always somebody out to kill us, to remove us, to stop us from living another day. The tide of favor began to turn.

  I was born in the year 13 billion NU, and am said to be one of the last of the ark children. I grew from my mother’s womb, tearing through with already sharpened digits, taking her life with me. My father assured me that she tasted succulent. I sometimes think I can taste her when I try to imagine the scene, father’s jagged, misshapen fangs tearing through roasted flesh. It does not matter, for I am of human-kind. We are all of human-kind. There is nothing to us but human-kind.

  As I grew, I hea
rd us talking about the end of the journey and I listened to us. We had found a planet that had developed multicellular life. By the time we reach it, it will have a wonderful, horrid ecosystem. It will reek of life and death. We children grew excited while the adults shuddered. The planets would sprout civilizations again, alien worlds with their own agendas and desires. They will want to be rid of us again. They will want the extinction of the ark children, of their human-kings. Because of this, I have been tasked with writing this very message you hear now.

  To whoever finds this, I tell you now. Don’t blame us. We don’t have any choice. There is nothing else we can do. If we don’t, it would all have been for nothing. Do not stand in our way. We will not hesitate. Human-kind will survive, even if that means alone.

  WRIGGLERS

  By Chantal Boudreau

  Maddy and Charley weren’t sure what city kids did for summer vacation normally, but they were pretty sure it wasn’t what they had in store for their cousin, Scotty. They had protested when their mother explained to them that Scotty’s family would be coming to visit from the city, and that they would be expected to keep him company and keep him out of trouble. Neither of them liked the idea of some strange kid tagging along and spoiling the best fun of the year. They both vowed that they would still do everything that they would usually do and drag Scotty with them, whether he liked it or not. They weren’t about to let city kinfolk ruin things for them.

  The morning after his family arrived in the country, Scotty was waiting in the kitchen when Charley and Maddy came down the stairs for breakfast. They were drawn by the smell of apple cinnamon flapjacks and weren’t anticipating their visitor so early in the day.