by Brian Hodge
I stood up quickly, fully startled, dread coating my body as if in the form of an army of skittering ants, and I kicked at the player until it terminated the ghostly wail of wind with an abrupt click. Once bathed in raging silence, I backpedaled away from my display, knocking into that of another’s before escaping the threat of the gallery and finding sanctuary amongst the sculpt-artist castaways in the amber-coated basement.
Unaware that I had swooned, I fell awake much like I had earlier: at the summon of an evil-sweet voice calling my name. I peered suspiciously about the basement, taking in everything while those heads, those shining eyes, pondered my presence. Again the calculation of time seemed impossible, and I sought the moon beyond the measly rectangle of a window at the top of the wall, ineffectively I might add, due to a ceiling of roiling storm clouds; either night still reigned, or daylight continued to avoid me.
Unaffected by fatigue, I traipsed back upstairs, despite the pleas of the whispering heads to return. I found my way back to the display area, directing my attention to the third complete depiction on exhibition.
My recognition of the piece was instantaneous to my recalling of the scene that inspired it, my perspective even now no different as it was back when I first bore witness to The Archer House. Here, standing in front of such a masterpiece makes me feel as if I am not peering at the house itself, but rather standing inside the domicile, thus looking at the painting is much like observing the dark room as if trapped within its obscure walls: I can sense its dusty floors, I can smell the stale aroma, I shiver from the frigid climate within. Peering cautiously about, the room appears to be empty, perhaps abandoned. It is stripped of furniture and fixtures, its barren, grotto-like foyer visible only in the sickly light that glimmers through stained, curtainless windows. A staircase climbs from the center of the room like a crooked spine and meets a landing that runs the entire length of the room. Up here are two more windows centering the rear wall, each housing sharp broken panes and snagged pigeon feathers. This strange place is truly awe inspiring! Whether it be the naked bookshelves along either sides of the staircase, or the wooden floors that creak despite the absence of footsteps, I can sense the bitter atmosphere upon my skin. It is thick with gloom and anxiety—the perpetual residuals of some subversive adversity, an act I’ve committed with the freely probing strokes of a paintbrush. And although my metaphysical presence and purpose here is precisely undefined, I am staunch in my search of the The Archer House for something extraordinary, something so maddening that I must question my sanity for doing just this; the horror I painted within the walls of this forsaken residence has my too-free imagination tempting the fragile bounds of lunacy.
The pallid light here provides enough illumination to allow me a free climb of the steps, and when I reach the landing I find a high-back chair draped with a hide unlike anything I’ve ever seen; upon closer inspection I discover that it is human skin, still damp from the underlying viscera it had been flayed from. Below the chair a straight-razor lays, cast away not unlike any one of the plaster limbs in the basement of the gallery, its blade smeared with still-moist blood. And then, I behold the body from which the skin came. It is lying lengthwise across the floor so that the tender head and upper torso is bathed below the broken beams of light sifting through the shattered panes in the two windows, one crimson-glistening foot dangling from a protracted leg over the edge of the second-floor landing. From the perspective of an admirer who abstains from this metaphysically-induced analysis within the walls of The Archer House—who maintains themselves as the common peruser in simple sight of the painting itself—they would absorb the murderous scene as if standing in the vestibule upon first entering the dwelling: the glint of a razor’s edge, the tiny glisten of a peeled sole, and the gentle flap of indefinable skin in the breeze—all of this witnessed from their uni-dimensional standpoint.
At the logical remembrance of this passive style of analysis, I found myself standing before The Archer House not unlike the common observer. I then alertly peered down at the supplement left behind for me to behold: a small and rather old-style television with accompanying video player. The television screen showed only static (strange that The Archer House held my attention so steadfastly that I did not previously notice the sharp white glow filling the vestibule), a storm of video snow awaiting its signal. With only one obvious move to make, I kneeled down before the screen and pressed the play button on the video player.
A dark-haired girl in jeans and a leather jacket greeted me from the small television screen, backing away only after smiling happily at someone beyond the scope of the camera’s eye. The view was set at a point in The Archer House (this one real, not imagined like the depiction this video supplemented; the apparent existence of The Archer House took me by surprise, regardless of the of the existent scenes I created in the depictions entitled Hallow’s Moon and Raingods Dancing) near the same viewpoint in the painting, that from the vestibule I imagined one might encounter upon entering the front doors. In the bland light, the girl looked pale of skin, and I immediately recalled my imaginings of just moments earlier when I placed myself upon the landing at the top of the crooked staircase and saw the fresh human hide draped across the highback chair. She stepped back, rather hesitantly, so that the staircase was visible behind her, and then she became quite different, someone openly dismayed rather than enigmatic, her smile disappearing as if confronted with sinister intents. A gremlin appeared, one not unlike those in my other depictions, leather-caped and hooded. It lunged forward, its stance twisted, gloved hands seizing the girl by her black hair and pulling viciously downward so that her skull encountered the wooden floor with a single yet effective strike. Here at this moment I realized with some anxiety that the video was devoid of a soundtrack, this being, of course, a supplement solely in the form of film, whereas Hallow’s Moon and Plague Of Ghosts kept true to photography and audio respectively. The silence of the video made it no less dreadful though, and perhaps even more steeped in a distant and dreary desolation. And while my mind and body fought this horrific emotional awareness, I watched with utter dread as the hooded gremlin dragged the semi-conscious and bleeding woman up the steps, her feet and legs thumping the stairs as if engaged in some wicked tap-dance. It dropped her body at the foot of the chair, then starting at the scalp, proceeded to flay the skin from her body with the adeptness and precision of a butcher removing the scales and fins from a semi-frozen cod. It took approximately ten minutes for the gremlin to incise her from the base of her hairline all the way down the side of her body to her ankle, and then another five minutes to peel away the outer dermis in one single piece. And all this while her face showed the most gruesome of acrobatic expressions before being ravaged away, the body convulsing just the same until it was left red and raw. I could do nothing but watch, riveted and unable to tear my sights away from the transgression taking place on the tiny screen before me. The occurrence of this dreadful action was like something I’d never come close to experiencing in my life, and it immediately started transforming me into the artist I was about to become. Yet still, the matter turned far graver, for the hooded gremlin, once finished with its ghastly deed, turned to face the camera. Although I could hear nothing, I was able to see its lips through the mouth-hole in the hood he wore, and I could read them as he articulately mouthed a dreadful sentence:
One great art form deserves another, Brion.
The video turned to black.
I ran away, feeling as if I were performing a weird dance—hopping, tilting, bobbing—all the while laughing as I made my way back to the sanctuary of the basement. I convulsed, not unlike the woman in The Archer House, but under different provocations: those triggered through madness, the sudden derangement taking hold of me, all due to the ingenious supplements the God of Art has left behind for me and my work, plus the distant and dreary desolation that would stay with me now and forever.
The photographs. The soundtrack. The video. The forms that emulate my creati
vity. The time had come for me to model my future as an answer to these abhorrent ingenuities. I must now create a new art form on the blank canvas that holds a place in the fourth position in the vestibule that houses my exhibition. And then, I will create a supplement like no other to complement it.
Brion Heloise, the child-like voice called. I turned to face the gremlin head on the shelf, its eyes shining, its lips frozen. Under the stairs, it said only once.
I hunkered down beneath the shelf on which the head lies and found a small closet beneath the stairs, slightly ajar. My heart thrashed wildly as I opened the door and beheld the most extraordinary sight of all. Somewhat analogous to the fact that the creator of the supplements had made my depictions come to life, here the subjects of his creativity filled a position in my world: the hanged woman with the chain about her neck; the family of three, father, mother, baby, all dead and blue; the skinless woman and her hide. All of them, left aside not unlike the sculpt-artist castaways, evidence of the greatest art of all.
Digging through the pile of corpses, I located the straight razor. I removed the chain from the girl’s neck. I gathered the flayed skin. And then I uncovered something else, something that would point a finger and reveal to me the creator of the supplements. In the back of the narrow and deep closet, beneath a blood-stained blanket, was sophisticated film equipment, an audio recording device, an instamatic camera. Little gremlin puppets wearing leather jackets with slits on them. A leather hood.
And, a photograph of me I took of myself holding the instamatic camera.
I am the god of art. The creator of the supplements. And I left these clues behind to stir the sunken memories trapped in my delirious mind, to remind me that now I am to create the most unparalleled supplement of all. In doing so, I will utilize the chain to tie myself to the fourth canvas. But not before I use the skin of my woman victim to swathe myself in disguise. And not before I use the straight razor to slit my body in a multitude of places so that I may paint the blank canvas with my blood. And then, not before I carry my five victims to the gallery and arrange them before the canvas as admirers of my art.
All of this will occur, of course, before I place a mirror in front of the fourth canvas so that I can admire the supplement to the depiction entitled The Startling Supplement To Brion Heloise’s Depiction.
May those who attend the gallery tonight admire it just the same, and agree with unequivocal passion, that every great art form most definitely deserves another.
THE NIGHTMARE FRONTIER
By Stephen Mark Rainey
Tay Ninh Province, South Vietnam (War Zone C)
June 1967
Technically, it wasn’t jungle. Its official military rating was “triple-canopied rain forest,” which meant visibility through the trees and undergrowth exceeded thirty yards, at least in places. In the past hour, the platoon had hacked its way through more than a thousand yards of matted vines, creepers, thorns, and bamboo clusters—half again the limitation of “jungle” terrain. Still, even if sunlight penetrated the leafy tiers only sporadically, the temperature hovered around the 100-degree mark, and at 99 percent relative humidity, the air quickly left a man feeling as if he were drowning in hot bathwater. Moving little faster than the ants that marched to their own drumbeat, the 39 Americans advanced single file through the brush, foregoing the standard parallel columns, which offered Charlie not one but two tantalizing groups of targets should he be in the mood to spring an ambush.
Since the First Infantry Division had been deployed, he had been in the mood an awful lot.
On point, PFC Ryan Cortland was making decent time and actually seemed to have a cool head on his shoulders—doubtlessly because he was the FNG (fucking new guy) and hadn’t learned yet that, out here, showing initiative more often led to a bad end than a promotion. Hell, though; if there were snipers in the bush, your odds were about the same whether you were the point man or the tail-end charlie. Or anywhere in between.
The last time there were no snipers in the bush, Lieutenant Glenn Martin had been Mister Glenn Martin, sipping vodka and tonics on his back porch in Huntington. The VC always hit hard and then turned invisible with shocking suddenness, largely because they could pop in and out of concealed entrances of their tunnels, which formed an ominously impressive network between Tay Ninh and Svay Rieng, Cambodia. Today, Martin’s objective was to rout the vermin out of the ground and into his sights.
He had brought along his best tunnel rats for the job.
Cortland slowed his pace, and Martin moved forward, leading with his M-16. Softly he asked, “Smell something, private?”
The young man, his eyes brilliant amid black greasepaint, shrugged uncertainly. “Looks like a break ahead. Think I saw something moving.”
Martin immediately held up a fist, halting the column. A broad swath of daylight split the hardwood pillars some fifty yards ahead, and within it, a wisp of shadow swayed slowly back and forth—which he finally identified as a bunch of creepers caught in a breeze too feeble to penetrate the tree line. The air smelled of rotten citrus and sour loam, but it bore no trace of cordite, petroleum, or other human detritus. Of course, out here, that meant diddlysquat; if Charlie didn’t want you to know he was around, you didn’t know he was around. Simple as that.
Where the trees ended, Martin could see pale gray stone—either the face of a tall cliff or the wall of some hulking structure, though the latter seemed unlikely. He raised his hand, waggled one finger in the direction of the clearing, and the line started moving, very slowly, only slightly louder than a band of Cherokees. As they neared the break, sure enough, Martin could make out the irregular outline of a massive stone edifice, overhung with vines and deeply stained from God knew how many years of exposure to the elements. No sound trickled from the building, and birds, insects, and other unseen noisemakers kept up a constant chatter in the distance.
Good sign, that.
From what he could see, the structure resembled nothing he had previously encountered in this country. Definitely not one of the ubiquitous Cham temples, which featured tiered, intricately sculpted walls, friezes, and porticos. This one was obviously ancient and built to last for ages, but its contours were simple, its ash-hued walls featureless, though severely pitted with age. Off to the left, he could see a row of thick gray pillars, maybe twenty feet high, apparently all that remained of a long, covered entranceway. Above the broken green canopy, a tall spire the color of bone rose high into the sky, which superficially lent the building the appearance of a European cathedral.
A relic left by the French?
He paused to allow his second-in-command, Sergeant Matt Collins, to catch up to him, then whispered into the shorter man’s grease-painted ear, “Send Sieber’s squad to the left, Wiley’s to the right to secure the entrance. For God’s sake, watch out for traps.”
Collins’s eyes flashed, and he rushed to carry out the order. Martin then crept up beside the stocky, simian figure of Sergeant Samuel Barrow, his senior tunnel rat. Like Martin, Barrow was a West Virginian, but came from some podunk town in the mountains that probably subsisted on coalmining. A vulgar, supremely ugly hillbilly, Barrow had damn near become a company legend for scurrying recklessly through tunnels, blasting everything fore and aft, burning Charlie out of his hive with the zeal of a crazed exterminator. Martin admitted to a grudging respect for the man because, like himself, Barrow was on his second tour of duty and—also like Martin—had never qualified for a Purple Heart.
“Sergeant,” he said, immediately getting that quizzical, cockeyed gaze from Barrow that slightly unnerved him. “Ever seen a place like this before?”
Barrow shook his ungainly, oversized head. “Nawsir. But if they’s Charlie in there, we’ll roust ’em out.”
Martin nodded. His men had assumed attack formation expertly and stealthily; if they were going to take fire, it would come as soon as they were in the open.
Now he could now see a tall, rectangular doorway beneath a bizarrel
y tilted porte-cochere, so caddywhompus it looked as if a strong wind might topple it. A narrow apron of rubble-choked, sharp-bladed grass girded the structure.
Just the place to find punji pits, toe-poppers, or other extremely nasty booby-traps.
Martin felt the presence of an enemy as plainly as the scalding sun on his shoulders. He glanced at Sergeant Collins, raised his right arm, and gave the signal to move.
Corporal Sieber’s squad went first, fast and low, the leader’s eyes on the ground, the rest scanning the tree line, the rubble around the building, the looming black entryway. They reached the first row of pillars and pressed close to them for cover, half their guns pointing at the trees, the other half at the building entrance. Martin’s finger tightened on the trigger of his M-16, expecting to hear the lethal clatter of AK-47s at any second; but even as Sergeant Wiley’s squad rushed for the entrance, the forest remained eerily still.
Martin tapped Barrow on the shoulder and said, “Let’s move, Sergeant.” Then they were hauling pell-mell across the apron of knifelike grass, skirting waist-high blocks of stone rubble, Sieber’s men closing up to form a cordon behind them. Martin screeched to a halt just shy of the weirdly angled porte-cochere, realizing its floor might be counterweighted to give way beneath them.
