Deep Cuts

by Angel Leigh McCoy

  Martin had never seen a movie like this—more like a snuff film than a teen screamfest. He wondered what it was. Had Sprague finally taken his advice and booked some torture porn for the Royale?

  The screen remained a blurred smear of burgundy as the viewpoint protagonist wallowed in gore. It…bothered Martin more than the other flicks he’d seen. The violence didn’t have the jaunty, music-video editing or the exaggerated funhouse shock value of splatter. Instead, the ordeal dragged on, the girl dying by degrees, until her shrieks became grating white noise. And the longer it went on, the more Martin felt it, as if someone were nuzzling his own guts.

  The shot grew so grindingly monotonous that Martin couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering. And that’s when he saw the silhouette outlined in the aisle seat, second row.

  Good movie, Martin.

  Martin flinched, for the voice hadn’t come from the sound system’s speakers but from inside his head. It played in his brain like a memory, echoing the brief conversation he’d had with Virgil Aldon Barnett. But its intonation was entirely new—sinuous and insinuating.

  He stared at the back of the shadowy figure’s head. There couldn’t be anyone else in the theater. He’d checked. There was nowhere Randy or Tom could have hidden from him.

  I knew you’d appreciate my work, said the voice that he might have mistaken for his own thoughts. You and me—we like real horror.

  It didn’t occur to Martin until then that he should say something. “Y-you…you’re not supposed to be here.”

  The voice ignored the interruption. The others, they don’t understand. My mom sure didn’t.

  The scene onscreen abruptly cut to another location, with no attempt to bridge the transition with exposition or narrative logic. This time, the set was a tiny bedroom with pressboard paneling, the kind found in mobile homes. The camera looked down upon a nude female form on the bed, but this body belonged to a much older woman. The breasts and hips fleshy and rumpled, and the stomach bearing the stretch marks and C-section scars of multiple pregnancies. But something else was different: the body’s skin remained livid when a hand swung into the camera’s view and slapped the flabby tits, and the arms stayed as stiff and still as manikin limbs while the unseen cinematographer ground his pelvis against the prostrate woman.

  The camera panned up the woman’s torso, and Martin gagged. The neck ended in serrated tears of sawn skin, sinew, and spine, leaving only a gaping vacancy on the bloodstained pillow. But the lens focused on a bookshelf about a foot above the bed. There, among thrift-shop knickknacks and ceramic figurines, rested the head of a trailer-park Medusa, her disheveled salt-and-pepper hair still partially rolled in pink plastic curlers, the color drained from her face along with the blood that oozed from the stump beneath her doubled chin. Her filmy, half-lidded eyes had rolled up toward the ceiling, unable to watch the spectacle even in death.

  Doubled over by nausea, Martin braced himself against the seat nearest him and heaved, but couldn’t seem to draw enough breath to vomit. He thought he’d seen everything—after all, he’d rented DVDs about guys like Edmund Kemper and Ed Gein, complete with buckets of corn syrup gore. But he hadn’t realized just how much of the reality the directors left out. Here, he could almost feel the rubbery hardness of the lifeless breasts, the cold stiffening of the labia in the beginning stages of rigor mortis.

  “Y-you’ve got to go,” Martin stammered, trying to convince himself that this guy was only a bum looking for a place to flop for the night. “Or I’ll call the cops.”

  He wished he had the wooden blocks back—any weapon, in fact—but doubted they would make any difference. His gaze again fixed on the figure in the second row aisle seat. The head no longer lolled against the back of the chair but now tilted upward, peering avidly at the screen. Martin got the crazy impression that the celluloid images up there did not originate in the projection booth, but instead radiated out from the silhouette like an aura of atrocity.

  Know why I killed myself, Martin? the echo in his skull asked. Not from remorse, no matter what people would like to think. No, I couldn’t stand the thought of spending the rest of my life in jail, never again to know the joy of torment, the ecstasy of annihilation…

  Martin spun around, the coruscating light from the projector dazzling him as he turned his back on the screen. He intended to run up the aisle and out of the theater, but the extremes of bright and dark disoriented him. The upward slope of the auditorium floor seemed to seesaw beneath him, tilting like the base of an upended cup, and when the blinding afterimages cleared from his eyes, Martin found himself skittering like a terrified insect toward the screen. He skidded to a halt mere feet from the second row aisle seat.

  But the movie doesn’t have to end. Now I can watch, and you can be the star.

  The set onscreen morphed into a different location—a different bedroom—this one decorated in girly pinks and pastels and Hello Kitty crap. Martin didn’t need to see the bare body of the tween girl on the bed to know who it was.

  “Rochelle,” he croaked.

  He had never seen nor ever wanted to see his kid sister naked. Now she was splayed out before him like any movie screen queen, arms lashed to the headboard with nylon rope. Except she was no Bijou Phillips or Linnea Quigley—this was a twelve-year-old whose preadolescent chest had barely begun to bud breasts. She thrashed on the mattress, bawling, her baby-fat face bunched in agony. Beneath her bony ribcage, her punctured bellybutton welled red over the bulge of her tummy.

  So, how about it, Martin? the whisperer goaded. Are you a poser or a player?

  A sickening excitation stirred in Martin’s crotch; it seemed he could feel his erection penetrate the wound, its shaft lubricated with blood. Although he would never have admitted it to anyone, Martin was still a virgin, and he’d always fantasized that his first time would be with a hot girl his own age—a green ticket—who’d welcome his touch with a sultry smile and deep tongue kisses. Not this—this fear, revulsion, and hatred. And certainly not with his sister. Sure, she irritated him but this—

  “Go to hell!” Martin clapped his hands over his eyes, shouting defiantly at the shadow in front of him. “I won’t watch any more! I’m not like you!”

  The moment he said it, though, it occurred to Martin that he might be—probably was—imagining this whole thing. If so, his own mind had produced everything he saw on the screen…which meant he was like Virgil Aldon Barnett.

  He’d shut his eyes, but the festival of depravities continued to unspool before his vision, as if his hands and eyelids had become transparent. Martin started to cry, and he let his legs fold up, expecting to sink to the floor. Instead, he found himself supported—comfortably cushioned for the next feature.

  “I’m not like you!” His fingers clawed into the hollows beneath his brows, but he couldn’t look away from the movie screen. “I don’t want to see!”

  The film rolled on…

  ◙

  Kids were already camped outside the Royale when Randy arrived at eleven in the morning to prep the theater for the first matinee. Evidently, neither school truancy laws nor the Fright Fest’s “R” rating could stop the teens from trying to sneak into what the locals had dubbed the “Serial Killer Cinema.”

  Since the discovery of the killer’s body, Charlene had flat refused to enter the auditorium, which left Randy as the only other person on the day shift to unlock the theater exits and make sure that Martin the Slacker had actually cleaned the place the previous night. As the sole staff member who’d actually seen the ear-to-ear gash gaping beneath the dead man’s jaw, Randy didn’t relish the thought of going in there again, but at least it was easier than having to deal with the hot dogs and popcorn at the concessions stand.

  As he pushed open one of the double doors, the taint of blood in the air made Randy feel like he was going to hurl again. He’d have to gas the place with Lysol. The queasy sense of déjà vu swelled when he saw a dark-haired figure seated in that chair—the one with the
tattered black trash bag still draped over it. The fleeting notion that somehow Virgil Aldon Barnett’s body had returned nearly sent Randy running from the theater.

  But he quickly saw that the guy in the chair was not the dead serial killer. This figure rocked back and forth and made little mewling sounds as if weeping. And he wore the ill-fitting red vest of a Royale usher.

  “Martin?” Randy moved down the center aisle toward him. “You spend the whole night here, buddy?”

  His steps slowed when Martin didn’t answer. He suddenly dreaded the thought of seeing Martin’s face, particularly as the words Martin muttered grew more distinct.

  “No more, please. I don’t want to see any more…”

  Martin’s profile phased into view like a moon emerging from eclipse. He pressed his balled fists to his temples, trickles of blood and clear, viscous fluid running from between the knuckles. Crimson drips trailed down his cheeks in lieu of tears.

  The vacant gouges of the sockets gaped as if they still had eyes.

  “Please, stop. I don’t want to see.”

  Randy reflexively glanced in the direction that Martin stared. He saw nothing but the Royale’s blank white screen with its sagging rip. Randy backed away, his chest heaving, and ran up the aisle.

  He nearly slammed into Ms. Sprague as he barreled out into the lobby.

  “What is it?” The manager’s expression darkened from quizzical to apprehensive. “Is something wrong?”

  Randy was about to blurt what he’d seen, but he noticed that Charlene had already unlocked the front entrance and started to take tickets from the patrons who surged into the lobby. Two teen girls—the green tickets from earlier that week—had returned for an encore performance, giggling with excitement as they approached the double doors of the auditorium.

  For the second time that week, Randy steadied his breath and bent to whisper in Ms. Sprague’s ear. “Mr. Casey is in the house.”

  MENACE

  Chris Marrs on Yvonne Navarro’s

  “Santa Alma”

  I lived in a small town on a little island until my mid-teens. It was during the pre-Internet era, so I relied on the public library for my horror fix. Although well-stocked, they only carried bestselling authors. So, my introduction to horror was through King, McCammon, Koontz, and Barker, and I thought Anne Rice was pretty much it for women horror writers. I knew about Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier, having studied a short story by each in English class. Also, Ms. Mary Shelley, of course. Imagine my delight when, after having moved to a bigger town on a larger island, I walked into the public library for the first time and discovered not only that a plethora of additional horror writers existed, but there were more women writers than I had initially thought. And talented women writers at that. Yvonne Navarro is one of those writers.

  Her story, “Santa Alma,” sneaks up on you, carries you along with its lyrical and moving prose. At first glance, it appears unassuming but, in the capable hands of Yvonne, you realize too late that this isn’t a gentle whimsical ride. With deft turns, she takes you down past the upfront horrors and drops you into the terrifying heart of choices, or lack thereof, and their far-reaching consequences.

  If you haven’t read any of Yvonne’s work, I highly recommend her novels Mirror Me and AfterAge. There are scenes in both which made even this jaded horror reader squirm. So, to Yvonne, I say thank you for sharing your talent with us and for being a part of this anthology.

  Santa Alma

  Yvonne Navarro

  Jonas Scharffen saw the woman by the back wall of the Monasterio de la Encarnación.

  She was there—

  —and then she wasn’t. Headlights cut across the sidewalk as some lost late-night tourist started to turn onto the Calle de Encarnación, then realized it was a one-way street. As he watched the car retrace its path then continue down the Calle de la Bola, Jonas thought about the vision he’d seen and decided she had to have been a dancer. Maybe she was one of the women who’d been at the Café de Chinitas on the Calle de Torija before he’d gotten there tonight, because he certainly would have remembered someone wearing a dress that looked like it was made of layers of ruffled, white clouds. He turned back, rubbed his eyes and strained to make sense of the darkness—perhaps she had turned the corner. But no, there was no corner, not for another fifty yards. No one dressed as she had been could run that fast, and certainly not him, wobbling along the streets of Old Madrid on aged legs and fueled by too much sangría and too few tapas. Perhaps that was his trouble—not the alcohol, the lack of food, or even his age, but that there were too many things in his life that he couldn’t outrun.

  Suddenly, Jonas wanted to go back to the Café de Chinitas and ask the owner, the staff, everyone—did they know her? Had they seen this woman, with her silver-dusted hair drawn tight behind an exquisite Spanish lace comb? But it was such a long way back…even beyond the sangría in his stomach, Jonas was weighed by too much grief and guilt, an overwhelming combination and surely one that invited hallucinations.

  Trudging homeward in the hot darkness, he was unable to turn his bleary thoughts away from the woman in white. He had seen her for only a moment, yet now it seemed like much longer. She had danced, had she not? Flamenco, and even Jonas, outsider that he was, could recognize the steps of Sevillanas—God knows he had seen it enough times in his nightly hauntings of the Café de Chinitas and the other dance clubs in Old Madrid, the darker and smokier the better. In these places, he could feed his lifelong addiction to alcohol and try ever uselessly to drive away the keening of old ghosts in his head and heart.

  The thought of a drink made Jonas stop and shiver. Whether it was because of the disappearing woman or his own pain, the pleasant, numbing high he’d had was gone, evaporated by the July heat and too much thinking. It was easily twice as far to the dingy room he rented in a private residence on the Calle de Lazo as it would be to return to the Café de Chinitas, and turning back wasn’t so much a conscious choice as a necessity. He needed the drink, the disassociation from reality, the eventual forgiving oblivion; tomorrow’s hangover meant nothing but handfuls of aspirin and treating patients at the free clinic—the only place that would hire him—while he waited for the cover of darkness so he could start all over again.

  Like the woman in white, the memory of the return walk eluded him. Then the café was there, like an old, dark friend welcoming him with a comforting embrace, one whose breath was thick with cigarette smoke and whose intimate kiss was tangy with wine. His blood sang with the familiar disastrous desire—God, how he needed, how he had always needed.

  Jonas slipped in through the unlocked back door and headed to his usual table at the far right of the stage, where he could sit and drink himself into a stupor as he listened to the local guitarist pick out a song. Earlier there had been two couples on the stage, paid dancers whose bodies had arched and trembled as they followed the intricate music and danced a Rumba. Now the touristy lights were dimmed and the front entrance was locked, and Jonas’s glass of the house’s cheapest sangría barely touched his mouth as a middle-aged woman took the stage. Her wild dark hair, heavy eyebrows and full lips bespoke of Romani heritage, and everything inside Jonas soured—the red wine, the simple plate of jamón serrano and bread he’d eaten three or four hours ago, his soul.

  She was good—more than that, excellent—and her sturdy heels followed the rhythm perfectly as the guitarist played “Belingonero Flamenco.”

  Her eyes flashed as she whirled, the movement lifting her patterned skirts high and showing shapely legs. Halfway through the song, a young man with pale skin and dark hair joined her in mid-pasada, and for some reason Jonas felt that her gaze changed—every time she turned and met Jonas’s eyes, her darker ones seemed to stab at him. When she lifted her arm in the usual flamenco curve and the loose sleeve of her blouse fell back, was he really seeing a crescent-shaped scar above her right elbow, the signature of his handiwork on so many young woman in 1970's Czechoslovakia? No, of cours
e not; she would have been barely a teenager then, perhaps only fifteen—

  The perfect age for sterilization.

  Jonas slammed the wine glass on the table and stood. The only thing he could think of was escape—no amount of alcohol would dull his guilt when unspoken accusation swayed only a few feet away.

  “Jonas, is something wrong?”

  Caught, he turned to face one of the few men he would occasionally drink with, Carles Herrero. Like Jonas’s, Carles’s face was aged and weathered beneath a thinning cap of gray hair, and his fingers were stained with nicotine; unlike Jonas, his expression was free of remorse, his eyes clear. Jonas had lived in Madrid for two years, and he had talked with Carles off and on; Carles was the closest thing he had to a friend in this country, perhaps in the world. No doubt, Carles considered himself just that, but the truth was he knew absolutely nothing about the real Jonas Scharffen.

  Jonas had been very careful about that.

  “Is something wrong?” Carles repeated and inclined his head toward Jonas’s glass and the puddle of wine that had splashed around it. A mere ten feet away the couple went into another round of pasadas, heeled feet flashing upward at the start of each pass.

  Jonas tried to speak, but for a moment nothing would come out; finally he sank back onto his chair and motioned reluctantly at Carles to join him.

  “It’s her,” he finally managed. “The dancer. She…reminds me of someone.”

  Carles’s eyebrows lifted. He wasn’t prone to prying and this was a large part of the reason Jonas could tolerate his company. Still, even Jonas had to acknowledge the invitation he’d just extended. “Someone you used to know?”