Maxi has been waving the gizmo around, holding the screen up to her visor from time to time.
“Okay, I think it’s breathable, just. Not toxic, anyway. Maybe the filters ran for a decade or two after the collapse? Who wants to try it?”
Burnsie is first, as usual. There’s the click and whoosh beside me as he releases his helmet clasps. He coughs, and for a moment we all think this might be the time, his last first breath on an alien world. Then I hear him growling over the comm.
“You can breathe it, but it stinks. Man, this place reeks worse than Sarge. I’d stay helmeted if you don’t want to puke.”
He still keeps his helmet off, though. Maybe he finally got those nasal augments he’s always been talking about.
It’s not entirely clear what we’re supposed to do, now we’re here. Look for survivors, obviously. That goes without saying. Beyond that, they just want to know what the hell happened. Before all the links went down and the planet went dark, there were all kinds of rumors circulating about this place. Weird alien drugs, year-long parties, augments that would make your eyes water. The last delivery shuttle dropped off sixty-two bio-printers, a custom order for whoever was in charge. Clearly they were either as high as a drone or physical augmentation was trending in a major way.
The rest happened so fast there wasn’t time to do anything other than sit and watch. Explosions levelling the major cities. Armed militia chasing survivors through the desert wastes. Fires, screaming, a planet in collapse. Then all the news feeds went silent. The final message came two days later, via an old satellite, from an unknown sender: “Ptolemia is all one. Dead planet. Leave us.”
There were the normal conspiracy theories—did they mean to say, “all one?” or “all gone?” who were the “us?”—but it amounted to little more than a mildly interested buzz. Business as usual: we wrote the planet off, worried about colonizing the next one. Sometimes the colonies thrive, sometimes they implode. We’ve learned that the hard way.
Sarge is already kicking at the sand like it’s done something to offend him, and I’m about ready to call us all back inside when Maxi waves the gizmo at me.
“Come look at this. Maybe I’m going crazy, but I think there’s something out there. A building. A structure. Something, anyway. We should check it out?”
I’m hoping she’s got it wrong, but when she shows me the screen there’s no mistake. We can’t tell what it is from this range, but it’s registering a footprint big enough to be a military base, or maybe a small city. Now I’ve seen it, we can’t ignore it. Cursing our luck, I give the order to unpack the rover and wheel it out. None of us like using it—the seats are hard and cold, even with our suits on—but it’s either that or spend the day wading through this sea of grit. This way we can be there in under half an hour.
I don’t know why, but I let Sarge drive this time. Usually Burnsie likes to rip it up, but his helmet’s off and I have a feeling that we might need someone more responsible at the controls. Call it intuition if you like. Burnsie moans in frustration as Sarge trundles us along at regulation speeds, while Maxi and I whoop it up to amusing effect. It’s like a school outing, minus the teachers. All we need is for the food-synth unit to rustle up a packed lunch.
We first see it after about twenty minutes. It’s clear that it’s a tower of some kind, a spindle reaching a kilometer or two into the sky. Even from this distance it looks immense.
Maxi whistles. “Told you there was something. You think the colonists could have built this? There’s nothing in the file, is there—not of this size. Who the hell builds a tower in the middle of the desert?”
Who indeed. I’ve examined the files front to back a hundred times on the way out here, and none of the registered structures were higher than a couple of stories. None that we knew of, anyway.
We’re still getting nearer, and the detail is coming into view. It looks pieced-together, as if someone has assembled it from a pile of junk, the odds and ends of a wrecked civilization. What appeared symmetrical from a distance is gradually distilling into individual turrets and ridges, openings and what might be air ducts.
“Will you look at that?” This is Maxi again—she always did like to talk more than the rest of us. “Something this size . . . who has the time to make that? Or the manpower? I mean, the number of people involved in something this big—”
And then she stops. She’s seen it. We all have. And we’re still moving, drawing closer and closer faster than we can think, and that arm becomes two arms, fifty arms, a hundred legs, a thousand torsos.
Finally, Sarge brings us to a halt. We’re only half a kilometer or so from the base of it now and we can see it all.
The tower is constructed of human bodies. Thousands of them, grafted together with untold augments—bones stretching from head to ribcage, tendons connecting wrists to ankles. I see two heads joined at the temples by what appears to be a section of intestine. I see a child, no more than two or three years old, emerging from the stomach of an adult male, suspended in the air by a narrow bridge of gristle. I see things I cannot—will not—name, until I can’t take it anymore and I close my eyes.
Over the comm I can hear Maxi crying, Sarge cursing. Burnsie is close to silent, but even he is muttering under his breath. There’s the sound of retching and someone’s breakfast splatters against the inside of their helmet. My money would be on Maxi, but you never know. None of us truly knows how to deal with this.
It’s Burnsie who turns us around in the end. Sarge is wailing now, his head in his hands, so Burnsie reaches over and wrestles the controls from him. My eyes are open but I can only stare at the floor. As the sands rush beneath me they blur into nothingness.
Back at the shuttle, we don’t speak. We pack our suits away. Maxi rinses the inside of her helmet with the water jet. The rover is stowed. I find my hands are shaking, so badly that it’s difficult to undo all the clasps. I know the others are struggling with it too.
It’s Maxi who speaks first. Her voice is subdued, sitting quiet and heavy in the recycled air.
“How could they do that? I mean . . . why? I can’t understand this, I can’t . . .”
Burnsie fills the silence. “Did you see? At the bottom? In the sand? There were marks there, tracks dug into the desert. Like it had been moving. Whatever it is, it’s dead now. But it wasn’t. It lived. What could it have been like? Existing as . . . that?”
None of us speak. My imagination is conjuring answers but I don’t want to share them. I don’t want to poison anyone else’s mind. We don’t talk about this as we take off and set our course for home. We won’t tell stories about it around the food-synth unit.
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
I will not be including this in my report.
A POUND OF FLESH
By Edmund Stone
I should not have let her go. When she needed me most I, too stupid or prideful, let her slip into oblivion. She offered her skin for a canvas and I used it willingly. The perfect foundation for my greatest artistic achievement, a tattoo to rival anything I had ever created. But I went too far and twisted it into something abhorrent. Now I brood and the anger I feel only fuels my disdain; my memories of her are locked in my heart.
For two years, I’ve kept a tattoo shop on the edge of town, where most days I plan designs and troll the internet for inspiration. Lately, I’ve found the same designs lame; either some tribal circle or a letter-type tattoo. The people who enter my place are, by design, destined to ask for the same thing; some letters, typically in Roman typeset, to remind them of a date. Be it their child’s birth or a date that reminds them of their anniversary.
I always agree to do what the customer wants, because any other response would end in no business. I would then have to resort to some other living. I can think of nothing else I could do that would bring the same money. There are others that produce tattoos in this city, but most say that my attention to detail makes me the most sought-after artist in
the area.
But say what they will, a good tattoo always begins with the canvas. If the skin is lumpy, then the tattoo is harder to line up properly. When Aryn walked into my shop, I fell into a stupor. Her skin was the perfect canvas: smooth and free of blemishes. She had a color that would blend perfectly with any ink. I knew I could produce a tattoo that would rival anything I’ve ever created.
I’ve always dabbled in the occult; old symbols and hieroglyphics of the ancient world, things that have fallen out of context to the modern day. I have a wonderful collection of prints that I’ve spent years collecting. My plan was to incorporate them into a spectacular tattoo, given the right flesh canvas came along. The benefactor of this gift would have to agree to have their skin bombarded with writings and symbols that made no sense to the common person.
Aryn, perfectly suited to the task, had a trust in my abilities that bordered on fascination; I think she had a desire to tear an envelope that needn’t be opened. In so doing, we unknowingly introduced an evil power to a new realm of possibilities.
She came to me from the urging of a friend. Her interest in the occult slightly mirrored mine, and our attraction was immediate. Aryn, an archaeology student and self-proclaimed Wiccan, more than willingly volunteered to be my canvas, when I explained to her what I had in mind.
Her beauty mesmerized me, with long black hair to her waist and dark eyes that enchanted the soul. She stood an even five foot seven; tall by a woman’s standard, but only two inches shorter than me. Her legs were her most prominent feature: long and luxurious, a canvas that begged to be painted.
I’m not the best-looking man, and Aryn could have her pick of suitors. For some reason she wanted me. I have no explanation. Perhaps my art attracted her; the darkness I attach to it. But darkness made sense to her. She invited it, but never understood it. I only wish I had.
When I first introduced her to the idea of my illustrious plan, she couldn’t contain her enthusiasm. Aryn jumped up on me, wrapping those million-dollar legs so tight, that my breath momentarily left me. It was settled, she would be the canvas, although she didn’t know I planned it that way. We made love that night and talked afterward about the tattoo. It would take several days to accomplish such a feat, but Aryn didn’t care. In fact, she couldn’t wait to get started.
In the morning, I made coffee and began to go through my collection. I reached for an old box of supplies by my work table. I opened it to reveal a stack of prints, copied from old papers. I spread them out on the table and Aryn and I scanned the symbols to see if we could find a suitable design. Her eyes were drawn to an interesting configuration. It had two triangles and a circle that encompassed the perimeter. Inside, the head of a goat presided. She said it reminded her of Wiccan texts, but had not seen anything like it in her archeology books. There were symbols of unknown origin, at least to me, adorned inside and outside the circle. They were strange and I shuddered to think of what each of them meant. But the artistic expressions that abound in each symbol drew me in and captivated my soul.
Aryn stood leaning over the table in only a short silk gown that hung open slightly in the front, revealing one of her breasts. I marveled in her perfection. She caught me looking and grinned. Then she stood and released the gown to the floor. Her perfect form glistened in the morning sunlight that beamed in from the window. She placed her leg on the table and bent forward over it, as a ballerina would warm up before a performance. I studied that leg for a moment and anticipated drawing on it. Aryn, satisfied in the spectacle of my erection from the sight of her, only smiled.
I grabbed a roll of drawing paper and stretched it out the length of her leg. Picking up a pen, I started to work. I aligned the drawing on the paper in as perfect symmetry to the leg as possible. I would complete the tattoo in four parts, starting from the pelvis to the mid-thigh. Then work my way down until the design encompassed the entirety of the leg, from the top of the thigh to the ankle.
I drew feverishly, a man with purpose. Aryn had put her leg down, but still leaned up against the table, disrobed and apparently aroused by my work. She breathed heavily in my ear and whispered naughty desires she wished upon my person. I grinned, but stayed focused on my work. The symbols and pictures that she and I picked were prints derived from a book called the Necronomicon. This book claimed it contained spells to conjure the dead. I never believed such things, but thought the pictures very cool. The drawings were mostly bereft of color, but some symbols did contain a red and black tinge, although faded together. A drawing of a dragon devouring its tail caught my eye; an elaborate circle with another circle inside. A crude sketch of a tortured creature mummified and bandaged up to the waist. Its head uncovered and the chest splayed open with the skin pinned to the side. The entrails of the thing hung out and sprawled down to its feet.
In the space of an hour, I created a drawing for the basis of the tattoo. I presented the drawing to Aryn and it pleased me to see her face light up. She ran her fingers along the paper and traced the symbols and figures. She was so pleased, that she pinned me to the table and gave me no choice but to make love to her. Not that I minded, my love belonged to her and I reveled in our perfect union; she the canvas and I the artist.
I planned to start on the first part of the tattoo the next evening, after my last customer of the day. The insipid day dragged with laborious skin paintings of cartoon characters and a tribal band that made a man twice my size cry like a baby. I so longed to decorate Aryn’s fresh skin. It consumed my thoughts to the point that my lack of concentration nearly turned a pink bunny into a greenish reptile. I closed the shop at my normal time and waited for Aryn to arrive. She left that morning to work a waitressing job in the city. It wasn’t her favorite thing to do, but the tips were good, especially for a young beauty like her.
I prepared a small meal for the two of us, complete with white wine. When she arrived, Aryn could hardly contain her enthusiasm. Famished, she ate the meal hurriedly and after several glasses of wine, readied herself for the leg tattoo. I requested that she cover herself, as the distraction of her womanly parts may cause me to lose focus. I prepared my ink gun with the needle and laid out the supplies I would need. I began to work on my masterpiece.
Aryn never flinched, even though the work proved laborious. She stretched out and relaxed, as my needle hummed and embedded the ink into her skin; she my Mona Lisa and I her daVinci.
Two hours later, I finished the first part of the tattoo. I marveled at the creation and how Aryn’s skin complimented the superb design. Star symbols, goat-like creatures, and unspeakable things from some unknown afterlife, sprawled down that perfect leg. I covered the fresh art with bandages to ensure no infection could occur. Aryn rose from the table and kissed me, long and deep; the same kiss that Leonardo may have received from his painted muse.
We slept that night, our bodies intertwined. We never made love, only held one another; the exhaustion of the previous hours had taken a toll. I for one tossed in my bed waking up on occasion; my sleep invaded by vicious entities. The creature I painted on Aryn haunted my slumber. I woke in a cold sweat. I considered the room and found nothing there. Just a crazy dream, I assumed. Aryn lay next to me, sleeping soundly with a silky sheet covering her naked body. She lay perfectly still, unaffected by my movements. I did notice a small twitch on her leg, under the sheet. It bobbed up and down and then stopped. The sporadic movement turned to a fluid one, like the locomotion of a snake, writhing under the sheet.
It journeyed up Aryn’s leg and toward her hip, and followed the contour of her body, until it stopped just short of her breasts. My curiosity piqued, I felt compelled to pull the sheet back. When I did, I saw something incomprehensible. The skin over Aryn’s ribs distended out in a distorted fashion, and I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t feeling this, because as I watched in amazement, she lay still, sleeping, as though nothing was happening. The tumorous thing began to move again and I heard the skin, that perfect over layer that I painted the night bef
ore, begin to tear. The terror of the canvas being torn was more than I could bear! Trickles of blood produced small drips down Aryn’s side. It pooled on the bedcover and still she slept. Her flesh ripped with ostensible audibility and a large splash of blood covered my face. I pushed back against the top of the bed, cringing with horror.
There it was, the flayed man looked at me, his flesh pinned to the side of his body; blood dripping from every orifice. He was the same size as I had drawn him and he had teeth that were chomping on Aryn’s tender flesh. He considered me, then jumped for my head. My arms went up in front of my face, anticipating the death that followed.
But instead, I woke up. Lowering my arms, I looked around the room and then over at Aryn. She still slept, as quietly as ever. No part of her body had been harmed. My heart hammered in my chest and I trembled with goose-bumped flesh. I switched on the lamp sitting on the nightstand. Rolling over, I put an arm around Aryn, and pulled her close. She woke and considered me sleepily.
“You’re shaking. What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing, just cold,” I said. I held her tighter and tried to sleep.
The next morning Aryn woke before me and made coffee. I couldn’t get the dream out of my head. The flayed man still hung heavy on my mind. I had created several tattoos, but his was the first to ever mess with my head. She sat at the table when I entered the room, investigating her leg.
“I think it’s healing faster than you thought it would,” she said.
“Yes, I think you may be right. About the tattoo, I’m wondering if we should go any further with this.” I said. Aryn considered this and turned her head to the side.
“What do you mean? I thought you were as into this as I was?”
“I am, but maybe the design should be different? Have you ever wondered what those symbols might mean?” I said.
“I’ve never thought about it before. I guess they are just random things, why does it matter?” Aryn said.
Year's Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology Page 37
