Zippered Flesh: Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad!
Page 21
Captain Fear, having only a year of seamanship under his belt, was surprised that the Flor de Lisboa was turning toward him, apparently planning to ram the Black Barracuda. He scrambled about a third of the way up the mainmast netting, hoping to get a better view so that he could direct his men. “Turn toward them, straight on!” he yelled. “Get those grappling hooks at the ready! Hook them, ye dungbies, ye damned freebooters!” The grappling hooks flew across the narrowing gap of water and caught on the Portuguese ship. With the ease borne of practice, the pirate crew turned the Flor de Lisbon sideways and brought it thudding into their hull.
A more experienced sailor would have known not to be standing on a rope netting, holding on with one hand, when two ships crunched together. Captain Fear was knocked off the ropes. He landed on his sternum, half-bent across the low railing of his own vessel, his arms hanging over the side.
The vagaries of the sea separated the ships for a few feet, for a few seconds. In that time, Captain Fear, stunned and unable to breathe, managed to get his left arm back to his side. But then the ships smashed together again, catching his right arm just below the elbow between the two vessels. The Captain choked a scream and managed to pull back a bloody, mangled mass of dripping flesh and ruined bone.
As was usual, the battle-experienced crew of the Black Barracuda eventually won the contest. This time, none of the opponents were permitted the succor of a lifeboat.
Some hours after the transfer of merchandise and the murder of the survivors, Captain Fear retired to his cabin. His crew heard screaming, but didn’t dare enter. Two hours later, the captain came on deck, missing his right arm from about halfway down from the elbow, a bloody, bandaged stump defining the end of his arm. The crew saw him fling something overboard with his left arm, and then he gave orders to head to their town on Hispaniola. He retired to his cabin for eighteen hours and, when they docked, he came out clutching dozens of sheets of paper on which the crew could see intricate designs and drawings. He gave them three days’ liberty among the rum houses and brothels of the town.
Captain Fear went ashore and sought out the surgeon who had been, for indiscretions that nearly had him dancing the hempen jig, expelled from the British Navy. This worthy now made his living in that godforsaken town, mostly performing abortions and amputations and treating the French Pox. Fear showed him his drawings.
For three days, people who passed the surgeon’s house heard screams and curses ... which was not at all unusual. When Captain Fear emerged from the house on the third day, he sported a brand new hook on the end of his arm. But he also carried a large canvas bag that clanked as, pale but determined, he went back to his ship, collected his crew, and set off to sea again.
Captain Fear was not merely the owner of a hook on the end of his arm, his crew discovered; he had a collection of tools and utensils. For a good and proper fee, the disgraced surgeon had drilled holes in Fear’s radius and ulna bones, cleaned them out, made nice little tunnels in them. He had then, with the assistance of the town blacksmith, made a variety of hooks, small spade-like tools, sharp pointed knives, and spoon-shaped utensils. Each of these ended in a round base that fit the stump at the end of Fear’s right arm, and then had two long prongs that inserted into the holes he had drilled in the bones, making for a secure fit. He sewed a metal latch, something like a mousetrap, into the skin of Fear’s arm that fit into slots on each of the addendum’s bases, so that each tool slid into the bone, and, as added security, was latched onto Fear’s arm.
Thus, the captain could switch from hook to spade to lance as the mood struck him. As he slid off and on the appendages, the pain was quick but intense, like the application of a branding—but it was a small price to pay for the versatility and the ability to increase his knowledge.
That vestige of a would-be doctor, the Charles Breck that still lived in the callous Captain Fear, had decided that the time was right to finish his medical education after all. Sometimes there were hostages who weren’t worth ransoming, and whom it would be no fun just killing. These were the people Captain Fear took into his workroom to continue his anatomical research.
The narrow shovel, the thing that looked like a giant crochet needle, the pincer that actually grasped and tore ... he would unlatch whatever he was wearing, painfully slide off what he had on and painfully slide on the tool of choice. Once the burning sensation had subsided, he would begin to delve into the mysteries of human anatomy. There was rum and whisky in the workroom, but that was for him, to slake his thirst, not to dull in the slightest the pains of the objects of his experimentation.
The crew would gather at the other end of the ship and play hornpipes and sing sea shanties when the captain’s curiosity was aroused. He was the captain and no one dared question Captain Fear, but still ...
There was not a cloud in the sky from horizon to horizon that April day in 1756 when they spotted the British man-of-war escorting a massive, low-in-the-water merchant vessel, headed northeast. That meant the ship was going back to England, doubtless loaded with raw goods.
The man-of-war put up a good fight. Captain Fear gave begrudging respect to the sailors on board, and to their morale and competence. That meant that the officers were probably decent men, so he considerately had their throats cut before dumping their bodies overboard.
Taking the merchant ship, of course, was as difficult as strolling through your aunt’s tea-rose garden.
There were civilians on board, after all. A man of about fifty, well-dressed; apparently his wife; and a young thing of about fourteen who was likely their daughter. There were also three servants, but they counted for naught, at present.
The older man was shaking, whether from fear or indignation Captain Fear didn’t know, nor care. “Pray, whom do I have the honor of addressing?” the captain asked him.
“I am Lord Ellington,” the man said. “I am the Vice-Governor of the Royal Spice Conglomerate, to whom this ship and all its goods belong.”
“Ah, sir!” Captain Fear chided him, waving his finger. “Tis I, Captain Fear, to whom this ship and all its goods belong.” He paused. “As do its passengers.” The crewmen, who had gathered around watching the scene, chuckled in appreciation of their captain’s wit. “And, speaking of passengers,” Fear continued, “whom might these ladies be?”
Ellington turned red. There was no doubt but that fright was gone from him; he was angry now.
“My wife, the Lady Ellington, and our daughter, Miss Priscilla.”
“Oooh, Miss Priscilla,” Fear said in a high, lilting, feminine voice. This generated another, heartier laugh from his ruffians. “And, m’Lord,” he continued in his normal voice, “has me fair wench yet to have been plundered, d’ya think?”
This got a hearty laugh from his men, while Ellington shook as if he had the ague. His wife and daughter looked like they were going to faint. Captain Fear joined the laughter.
“Worry, not, dear Papa! Ye are to be held for ransom, and it’s the addled member of the brethren of the coast who damages his own merchandise!” He turned to look at his other remaining captives: servants, apparently of the Ellingtons. He pointed to a small, wizened man. “And who be this, m’Lord, your own dear papa?”
Ellington’s indignation was now limitless. “Bounder!” he replied. “That’s McTavish, my manservant.”
“Ah,” Captain Fear nodded in understanding. “T’will not return the cost of feeding a manservant, when ransom payment arrives, will it, m’Lord?” He took a pistol out of his belt and with absolutely no ado shot McTavish in the head. Two of his men matter-of-factly tossed the corpse overboard. “And this pretty lassie—” he got another laugh, for he was indicating another woman, also in the coarser garb of a servant, who by the looks of her had accompanied Noah on his inaugural sea voyage.
“My—my wife’s maidservant, M-Mrs. O’Halloran,” stammered Ellington.
“Tis Mrs. O’Halloran, it is then? Why then she be’s not some blushing virgin, hah?” He turned to his m
en: “Who wants themselves a fair turn with this proud beauty?”
With a roar of laughter and exclamations of what passed for witticisms, the crew turned down the chance to cavort with the elderly woman. When the laughter had subsided sufficiently, the Captain made a small gesture with his hand and, while Lady Ellington and Priscilla screamed, two of his corsairs grabbed the old woman and dumped her over the side.
“And now ...” said the captain, approaching the last remaining hostage.
The woman was about thirty or so, black, black, black as the darkest night. Whether she was a second- or third-generation Jamaican or had herself come over on a slave boat direct from Africa, Fear couldn’t tell. But there was one thing about her ... she held herself proudly. She stood tall and erect and looked him in the eye. She wasn’t shaking, nor were her lips trembling, nor were there tears in her eyes. She was defiance personified.
Captain Fear couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Take these three and make bilge rats of them,” he ordered. Several crewmen grabbed the Ellingtons and forced them below.
Fear kept staring at the black woman. There was not only defiance in her stance, her posture, her expression, there was ... he searched for the word ... a regalness, a dignity ... a strength of spirit he had never seen in any real human being, much less a Black ...
And within him, Charles Breck, would-be man of medicine, decided that this manifestation of strength and haughtiness must have a physical basis. It had to be there, somewhere, inside that proud body.
He had her brought to his workroom. She was stripped and strapped spread-eagle to the table. The crewmen who had prepared her quickly left the room and headed for the foc’sle, where a loud musical soiree had been planned to cover up the anticipated noise. The captain fortified himself with a big glass of rum. He took out his book of notes and found a blank page. Then he went over to the wall where a dozen different appendages hung. Wincing, he removed the traditional hook he had been wearing, and pushed in a base that had a three-pronged fork.
He got to work.
The music was loud, the men sang as vociferously as they could, but they still couldn’t drown out the screaming they heard when they paused for breath or for a drink. It seemed to go on for hours, and they themselves tired of the constant concertina playing, hornpipe dancing, and lusty song singing.
Eventually, to their relief, they saw the door to the captain’s cabin open. He bore in his hands a ... monstrosity.
It was slickly red and it had no arms or legs. But it had eyes. From the other end of the ship they could see open white eyes in that mass of red. The captain slowly walked over to the rail, as if exhausted.
“I curse you!” the sailors heard, every one of them, as if the words had been spoken directly into their ears. “I curse you to hell!”
The crew saw no reaction on the captain’s face as he threw the wet crimson mass into the choppy sea, where it hit with a splash. “I curse you!” each of them vividly heard. “I curse you to hell!”
The captain turned to where his crew were sitting, all gaping at him.
“Make sail, damn you!” he bellowed, and they all scrambled to their stations.
Men scurried up rope ladders and along the railings, untying knots and pulling on ropes. In moments, hundreds of square yards of canvas were unfurled. The captain walked up to the wheel.
And the wind stopped.
Hundreds of yards of canvas flopped down, limp and unmoving. “Becalmed,” whispered forty voices. There was silence for a few seconds, the silence of shock and surprise, because never had the winds died just like that. There was no sound but the creaking of the wooden ship and the gentle slap of water against the sides. Until they all distinctly heard:
“I curse you! I curse you to hell!”
Everyone, including the captain, rushed over to the port side and looked down. Floating in the water, bumping gently against the side of the ship, was something red, something with no arms and legs but with big white eyes. “I curse you!” they heard from that floating thing. “I curse you to hell!”
The captain muttered profanities, though no one could hear exactly what he was saying. Finally he bellowed, “Sink that! Sink that damned thing!”
It took some time for the stunned crew to react, but finally the second mate took an empty barrel, leaned out over the railing just above the floating thing, and let the barrel fall. The object floated away from the ship and the barrel fell harmlessly between the ship and the thing. Then it drifted back, bumping into the wooden side of the vessel. “I curse you!” the crew heard, as if the sound were coming from the thing, “I curse you to hell!”
Other objects were thrown overboard to try and hit the thing. Each time it drifted away, to receive only the splash of whatever had hit the water, and then it was back, bump-bump-bumping against the side of the Black Barracuda.
Superstitious as only sailors can be, the entire crew, as if with one mind, backed away to the starboard side of the ship. No matter how much Captain Fear railed at them, they would not come back to portside and lean over and try to throw anything else at the floating thing. The captain uttered every profanity known to every seafaring man in the world at the time, but to no avail. He finally gave up and went back into his cabin.
For three days, the Black Barracuda remained motionless, as if anchored, with not a breath of wind to provide any motive power. For three days, it remained in one place, relative to the stars and the hot midday sun, while constantly, constantly they heard “I curse you! I curse you to hell!” from that red floating thing with the white eyes.
For three days, no one saw the captain. He remained in his cabin until at about noon on the fourth day, when he rushed out onto deck. “I can’t stand it anymore!” he cried out to everyone and no one. “Is there no wind to free us from this damned thing?”
To his crew’s astonishment, he began scampering up the ropes attached to the mainmast. He wore his plain hook, the one favored by pirates since time immemorial. He used this to climb the rope maze until he was in the crow’s nest. Openmouthed, the crew stared at him. Captains did not go up to the crow’s nest, not ever.
He raised one fist and one hook toward the sky and screamed, “Wind! Wind! Damn you, Neptune, Jesus Christ, whoever or whatever you may be, give me wind!”
Just then, an unusual swell suddenly lifted the Black Barracuda and tipped it over to starboard at an almost eighty degree list. Every man on board slid or fell against the starboard rail; everything not nailed to the deck followed them.
In the crow’s nest, Captain Fear found himself suspended thirty feet over the water, the sides of the crow’s nest becoming his floor and within two seconds of becoming his ceiling. With an instinct born of practice, he shot out his right arm and looped his hook over a stout piece of cross-rope. As the boat continued its list, he found himself hanging from the rope by just the hook—an uncomfortable position, but not an untenable one. He could hang there until the boat righted.
The hook’s base separated from his arm with an agonizing shock of pain. He had a fraction of a second to look at his arm, to see that the latch that held the hook to his arm was still in the locked position, before he hit the water.
He went under, came up. He had removed and replaced his arm appendages a thousand times, and they had never bled; now his arm was gushing blood like a geyser. As he stared at the stump in disbelief, a gust of wind at gale force came up and filled the Black Barracuda’s sails to the breaking point, propelling the ship forward as if it were a horse with its tail ablaze.
As Captain Fear watched his ship sail away from him, he noticed a long shadow passing under him; left to right; right to left; left to right, as his blood continued to pour into the blue waters of the Caribbean. Then he saw the fin and, for the merest fraction of a second, was fascinated by the way the fin split the water into a slim channel.
It might have been an Oceanic Whitetip or a Lemon shark; Captain Fear did not care. All he knew was that there was a tremendous ag
ony around his midsection, and he somehow knew that whatever there had been of him below the navel was now gone.
As the pain swept through him, he surrendered to death. But the pain was unrelenting. He opened his eyes and saw himself in a pool of red. He was not yet dead.
Through the waves of agony, he lowered his left hand into the water. He felt where his left thigh should have been ... there was nothing there. He crossed his arm in front of him, felt for the other thigh ... not there. Then he put his hand onto his belly, and moved it down. His hand went down under his torso, where his bladder and intestines should have been, and felt something hard and wooden. Something ... smooth. Like a ... polished wood. Like ... the base that was latched onto the end of his arm, to fit his tools into ... something that sealed his torn body and was not letting him bleed to death ...
He felt a bump at his back. At first, he thought, he prayed to the God he so often cursed, that it was the shark coming back to finish him. He turned his head slightly and saw something red, something with no arms and legs, but with big white eyes, rubbing against him.
“I curse you,” the thing said. “I curse you to hell.”
CREEPING DEATH
BY ARMAND ROSAMILIA
It was raining the first night I saw Angelika at the Limelight. I’d gone straight from work, a dingy café in Belmar, into New York City, dressing as I rode. By the time I walked from Penn Station to Avenue of the Americas and West 20th Street, I was drenched—my mascara running down my face, the black lipstick streaked, and my fishnet top weighing an extra ten pounds.
Ironically, I’d been to this location before, but for a different reason—although, if I was being honest, it was actually one of the same reasons. When this was Odyssey House, in the late ‘70s, I stayed for a month with a serious heroin addiction. My parents pretty much abandoned me at that point, and I never looked back. I kicked the habit, slinking into quieter ways to get high and drop out of society.