Year's Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology

by C. P. Dunphey

  There is a door, and it’s open. Maria crosses it. She has returned. Sitting behind a desk, the demon is waiting for her.

  “You’ll have to fill out the form. Give the boy to the midwife so we can prepare him.”

  Maria trembles like a leaf when the parody of a woman whom she assumes is the midwife comes to her with her arms wide open. The stench of her withered and open body makes her gag, but she knows she must be obedient and silently gives her the boy.

  “Mommy,” he says, but there is no reproach in his voice.

  The midwife displays her body shamelessly. It’s completely covered in festering sores. Her extreme thinness and her black skin are a striking contrast with the healthy look of the boy. Maybe that’s why Maria wants to scream when the thing she takes for a woman gently, very gently, puts the gas mask on the boy’s face.

  “He needs a name,” says the demon, before showing Maria a series of documents. “And you need to sign all these papers with your menstrual blood.”

  Maria nods. A castrated man with shaved skin covered in cellophane gives her back her clothes. She gives him an imploring, begging look as she sinks the quill into her body and signs sheet after sheet after sheet of paper.

  “Tonight, we’ll go home,” says the demon while she gets dressed, “and we’ll take the man.”

  Maria nods. That’s the payment. It’s only fair. Her clothes feel scratchy. She can’t take her eyes off the boy and the gas mask stuck to his face like a second skin.

  “One year, six months, four days,” says the demon.

  “Yes,” answers Maria.

  She can’t think of anything else to say.

  “Fine,” says the demon. “You’ll go back, then. Good luck. Enjoy every day. In a few years, we’ll meet again.”

  And then the midwife gives her the boy and everything goes dark.

  The classroom is empty. There’s no one there. Only her, with her son sleeping in her arms.

  “I’ll take care of everything,” whispers Maria.

  She shuts her eyes and caresses the gas mask covering the boy’s face. Then she unbuttons her blouse and lets the creature find her breast and feed.

  HUMAN BODY

  By Balázs Farkas

  “Thus the human body is considered an interloper, not being part of creation, the pillars of the world aren’t strong enough to carry it. It should be unable to step into the great lake, which is the origin of all life. Even daemons stand before us puzzled by our presence, understanding not how we are able to see, walk and create on this plane, we can only hope in the graciousness of the lotus. Hiding the higher knowledge and the true size of the cosmos from us was a merciful act, the wisdom of Tindalos.”

  (From the Fifth Cryptical Book of Hsan.)

  It’s a wonderful day for Péter Tabán.

  He’s standing in the house he’d inherited, staring at the mouldy walls, the battered bookshelves, the unmade bed. He’s looking at the cobwebs on the ceiling and jammed windows.

  Later, he’s pacing around in the kitchen. He can smell spoilt food, cheap detergent, and the stench of death. He flips the switches to check if they’re still working. He’s thinking about the old lady who used to live here, whose name he hadn’t known at all. At least not before he received the letter about the inheritance.

  He’s trying to deal with the fact that at only twenty-six, he’s now a proud owner of a house. Maybe he could sell it. Or he could move here, away from the city. This is a tidy little village after all. He’s got plenty of options.

  He might not be an expert when it comes to architecture, but still he knocks on the walls, squeezes the door frames, opens and closes the doors. It’s a good house. By no means big, and there will be plenty of work to be done, but it’s all right.

  Then he exits the house to the backyard, observing the unused pigsty and the neglected garden. He’s about to leave when in the toolshed he finds the human body.

  And from this moment on, it’s the only thing that matters in his life.

  The woman in the mayor’s office is typing annoyingly slowly. It’s almost unbearable.

  “Your name again? Péter . . . Tabán?”

  “Yes.”

  He glances behind his back. Through the window and out onto the street.

  It’s in the car. The human body is in the car.

  Covered in a blanket, on the back seat. It’s there. He found it, it belongs to him now. When can he get out of here?

  “Your mother’s maiden name?”

  Reluctantly, he answers all questions. None of this matters now. The inherited house? It doesn’t matter. He himself doesn’t matter anymore. Nor his personal data. Nothing makes sense anymore.

  The human body is in his car now.

  As the woman is reading the instructions aloud, Péter is tearing off little pieces of skin from his fingers. His feet move involuntarily and he starts sweating.

  They should let him go now. What’s all this for? He has other things to attend to. He has a task now. He can’t just leave the human body alone.

  “For fuck’s sake now!” he snaps.

  The woman glances up from the monitor, from behind her glasses.

  “Come again?”

  “Nothing, it’s just . . . it just occurred to me that . . . that I have to . . .”

  The woman waves her hand.

  “You shouldn’t worry. We’re done here. We’ll send the rest of the documents through mail. You can call me, you know my number, right? I’ll have to check with the mayor as well, if you decide to move here . . . some time in the future.”

  It’s almost like the woman was scared. The words themselves didn’t give this away, but her look. It’s like she wanted to get this matter over with as well.

  “Uh-huh,” Péter says. “Can I go now?”

  The woman shrugs.

  “Can’t see why not.”

  As Péter hurries away from the mayor’s office, and as he’s nearing his car, he grabs his phone, calling Krisztina, his girlfriend.

  “Don’t come over today,” he says. “Still more paperwork to do . . . I’m sorry, really, but at least I’ve got the house.”

  “All right,” Krisztina says. “So, what’s it like? Is it nice?”

  “Nice . . . real nice, but listen, we’ll talk tomorrow, I’ll tell you everything. Got to go now. Bye!”

  “Uh, bye.”

  As he’s talking to his girlfriend, some kind of inexplicable nervousness takes over him. As soon as he puts away his phone and he sits behind the wheel, he calms down. He can breathe out now.

  Then he turns back, slowly, staring at the backseat. Under the blanket, the human body occasionally makes a sluggish, faint motion. That’s all it can do.

  “We can go now,” Péter says. He stares at the blanket, wetting his lips. “Everything will be all right. Everything will be all right.”

  He’s struggling to carry the human body upstairs. It’s not that big, but a bit heavier than expected. It’s still covered in the blanket, but it’s stirring more intensely.

  Péter chooses the stairs. He just has to climb two floors.

  He has a horrible premonition. What if somebody sees him? What would they say? Or worse yet, what if somebody wanted to grab the human body from him?

  For the first time in his life, Péter Tabán feels like he could kill somebody. If somebody asked him right now . . . if somebody would stand in his way. . . .

  Before he can finish the thought, he arrives at the door of the condo. He’s fumbling with his keys. He can hear voices from the back end of the corridor. He glances over there, but sees nobody.

  A door lock rattles somewhere.

  They mustn’t see the human body.

  He holds it to his chest with his left arm as if holding a child while he struggles with the lock with his right hand.

  A door opens.

  Now Péter can’t tell where he is. He’s feeling dizzy; his sight is blurred.

  “No,” he groans.

  He push
es his weight against the door. It gives way.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  He steps inside the condo with an inhuman speed and closes the door behind his back. He tosses his keys somewhere. He runs towards the bedroom, to the bed. He doesn’t even take off his shoes.

  If his girlfriend would see this . . . if his mother would see this. . . .

  But nobody sees him. No one should see him.

  He hurries to the bed and lays the human body down, taking off the blanket.

  “We’re home,” he mumbles. “We’re home. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Now he can study the human body for the first time. So far he hadn’t done so, didn’t even think about it.

  Péter is convinced that the human body is beautiful.

  It is perfect like this. It has no legs, nothing under its hips—but it doesn’t need legs, if there’s somebody who can carry it. Its skin is smooth like an infant’s. Above its hips there’s the torso, without a navel, without nipples. You can’t tell if it’s male or female, it’s simpler than that: it’s human, it has to be, it’s the prototype of a human being, its most perfect, cleanest body. Its two arms end in elbows, nothing below them—but why would it need hands, if there’s somebody who could help it? And that head, that perfect, regular oval form, is not ruined by hair of any kind, nor a face. The whole skull is just covered by skin, fair, smooth skin.

  Human body.

  It moves its head—turning that emptiness where the face should’ve been—towards Péter.

  It’s thirsty, he ponders. Why couldn’t I think of this before! Who knows how long it had been lying out there alone!

  He runs off to get water. He is not thinking. He moves in a hurry. He doesn’t want to leave the human body for such a long time. He returns with a glass of water.

  He hesitates at the bed, looking at the human body. What’s he supposed to do?

  But of course, he knows. He has always known.

  He kneels beside the bed, dips his fingers in the glass, and with wet hands, he caresses the faceless head of the human body. The water drops are glimmering on the clean, smooth skin.

  The human body turns its head eagerly.

  “Yes,” Péter says.

  He dips his hand in the glass again, wetting the rest of the skin on the limbless torso. The human body moves, its muscles tense under the skin.

  “Easy . . . easy . . . good.”

  Péter doesn’t take notice of the fact that his own mouth is open, and a line of drool appears in its corner.

  “Good.”

  He caresses the body with his wet hands.

  Suddenly, a sound comes from behind the faceless face: a hollow moaning.

  “You’re going to tell me your secrets,” Péter whispers hopefully.

  And the human body tells him its secrets.

  Péter Tabán has a terrible day.

  He’s been sitting for almost six hours in the office of the car dealership. He’s crunching numbers, sweating, hoping that his boss doesn’t return.

  He was late this morning, almost didn’t show up. In the first hours, he’s been growling at customers, so his boss sent him in here to work on the computer. He’s been doing that since.

  Until this moment, the place hasn’t seemed real. Now the contours are becoming stronger; the door, the chair, these are right here, they are so real, he could almost touch them. This is where he works after all, this is where he makes money.

  He doesn’t understand what’s happening. Why was it so hard to leave his home?

  And it comes back to him. The human body.

  He’s confused. Did that really happen? Impossible!

  He’s thinking hard. What kind of foolishness is this? Could such things be? And if so, why would he bring home a body, why would he care, why wouldn’t he be able to leave it behind?

  He’s becoming nervous.

  I’m gross, he thinks. Never, never again! I’ll have to get rid of it.

  His phone rings. He jumps in his seat, almost having a heart attack.

  “What!” he yells.

  “Huh, easy now! I thought I could call you.”

  Péter buries his face in his hands. He wipes the sweat off his brow.

  “Krisztina . . . I’m sorry, I’m just . . . having a stressful day.”

  “Okay then,” his girlfriend says. “I just wanted to ask if we’re going to meet up this evening. I assume you’ve finished with your things.”

  “Hmmm? Oh! Oh . . . yes.”

  “When can I come over?”

  Péter is startled by the question.

  The human body is still lying on his bed. He’s trying to remember what happened last night, but everything is confusing. His last solid memory is leaving that inherited house. And then. . . .

  “No, don’t come over,” he mumbles.

  “What?”

  “I mean . . . I should be the one going to your place. There has been a . . . uh, I don’t know, I made a mess, everything is wet in the house now . . . uh, accidentally.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind, just . . . I’ll tell you everything, but can we meet at your place this time? It’s closer and I should . . . it would be better to meet up as soon as possible, I just need you.”

  “Uh-huh. Okay then, but I hope this house will settle the question of moving in together. I’ll be ready when you’re done.”

  “Of course. I lo—”

  Silence.

  Péter is staring at his phone.

  Ripples appear on the table in front of him. It looks wet.

  Péter closes his eyes.

  He’s looking around in Krisztina’s condo as if he’d never seen it before, peering in every corner, fearing that somebody might be hiding here somewhere.

  They eat dinner. Then they sit on the couch, watching a movie.

  Péter has a vague feeling that all this might be fake. Staged. He’s trying to remember who he is, who Krisztina is, what this place is, and what that matter was with the inherited house. From time to time he touches his own face.

  “You must have had a really stressful day indeed,” Krisztina says after the movie.

  “Yeah, I guess . . . you know, everything happened so fast. It’s weird. I mean what kind of person am I if I don’t even know my own relatives? Like . . . absolutely nothing!”

  “Don’t overthink it. You got yourself a house, bam, just be happy about it.”

  Krisztina is smiling. Péter hopes that he’s smiling too, but he can’t tell anymore.

  They start cleaning up.

  While Krisztina is in the kitchen, Péter notices that his sense of time has completely changed and that he couldn’t describe this feeling with human terms. Time didn’t go faster or slower, it was completely off the hinges. Events happened, but independent of him, or rather, they went through him.

  His eyes fix on the wall, on a picture of a lotus flower. He feels like years would go by in an instant.

  In the next second they are in the bedroom, drinking champagne.

  “I figured we could celebrate.”

  Péter is unsure whether Krisztina said this before opening the bottle, or she’s just about to say this.

  The alcohol is mercifully dampening these feelings.

  They cuddle. They get undressed.

  They make love.

  The skin of the girl is smooth. . . .

  Smooth.

  Imperfect, fake, not right.

  He thinks about the human body. It’s now impossible not to think about it.

  Péter and Krisztina lay in the bed, staring at the ceiling.

  “I’m sorry,” Péter says. “I . . .”

  “It’s okay,” Krisztina says.

  Péter Tabán is kneeling beside his bed, looking at the human body, struggling with his tears.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” he whimpers. “I’m so sorry, I won’t . . . I won’t see her again! I’m sorry, I will never leave you alone!”

 
; He came home at night; it’s almost four in the morning. Soon he’ll have to go to work. He thinks about his boss, the cars, the spreadsheets. . . .

  The human body stiffens.

  Péter screams.

  “No! It’s not important! I don’t have to go! It doesn’t matter, going to work, it’s . . . no!”

  His speech begins to fail resembling any words; he’s now just bending over the human body with open mouth and closed eyes, trembling, drooling, crying, he can’t even breathe. He’s bawling like a little boy.

  “Muhsorrysorry muh I-uh, I’muhsoooo . . .”

  His tears and drool hit the skin of the human body. It’s muscles twitch under the skin. The human body is turning its head again. There’s a deep groan coming from it.

  “Yes.”

  He’s still sobbing, but he wipes off his tears. He pulls a napkin from his pocket, blows his nose, then he throws the napkin away, somewhere in the corner of the room.

  “Yes, I’m listening. I’m listening now.”

  The human body is calming down. It lays perfectly straight and still. So peaceful. So beautiful, incredibly beautiful. The skin on the non-existent face is becoming softer.

  “Show it to me,” Péter whispers. “Show me.”

  A small opening appears on the skin where the mouth should’ve been. This too resembles a mouth, but it’s small, lipless, and there’s only the void behind it.

  “We’re all children of the stars,” Péter mumbles. “Nothing matters. I’m insignificant.”

  The mouth of the human body is growing wider, like a demented grin.

  A small tongue appears in the corner of that mouth, slipping forth carefully from behind the faceless skull, then slides all the way out like a venomous snake, reaching the chin of the human body.

  Péter is looking at these events hypnotized.

  “You’re going to tell me your secrets,” he whispers.

  There’s a deep, guttural moaning coming out of the mouth of the human body.

  Péter reaches out to touch its tongue. It wriggles, its saliva making his fingers numb.

  He doesn’t need any fingers, he doesn’t need his hands, because. . . .