by Alan Spencer
Craig was backed into a corner where Janna’s body used to be. The creature from the floor reached out, but it missed by an inch, and he shouted, “Damn you, stop walking toward me. Stay the fuck away from me.”
You’re not hooked up to the machine. You have to have some form of control. Dr. Krone can’t manipulate everything, especially you.
With the harsh rip of flesh and click of bone, the room of hanging bodies jerked free from their suspension. Feet clopped in unison. The hunched forms were seconds from entering the room. Their moans escalated at the sight of Craig.
“Muuuaaaaaah!”
“Unnnnnnnnnn!”
“Nuuuuuuuuuuh!”
“They want to be cooked,” Rick announced. “They wish to serve Satan, and they know you wish to stall me from my task.”
Craig leapt for the opposite corner of the room. Rick was at the head of the group, the frosted-over bodies behind him. He clicked the scoop and smiled at Craig, “Let me have those eyes, huh? I can prepare you dead or alive, it’s up to you.”
He closed his eyes. Screaming wouldn’t help. Pleading for his life would be a waste of breath.
They were seconds away from towering above him.
The hairs on his arms and head stood on end. Static electricity. The energy of souls translated by the machine and translated by Dr. Krone’s commands.
Hands kneaded into his shoulders, arms, and legs, the corpses already upon him. They aimed to drag him into the gutter opening and throw him to the monster. The bear-trap teeth clamped shut with a jarring steel clang, enticed by the prospect of eating Craig. Cah-rrrrink! Yellow almond-shaped eyes glowed brighter and more corrosive than the fires in the oven. The leather-black talon hand reached out to claim him.
“I guess I won’t need to cook you after all!”
Think about somewhere else. It’s like you’re still connected to the machine. Think. Save yourself!
The blackened hand dug into his flesh, the talons curling bone-deep. “Graaaaaaaaah!”
Craig was dragged into the pit. He glanced down at the swirling fires below, thousands of burner jets threatening to sear into him. In seconds, he’d be swallowed up by the inferno.
The Krones
“The clams and linguini sauce are wonderful, darling.”
“Thanks, h—”
The conversation abruptly halted. Craig was sprawled on a fringe rug. His clothing was smoking. The thick stench of burnt flesh and cinders exuded from him. He muttered, “I could’ve thought of a better place than this. Shit.”
He was within easy eyeshot of the kitchen. Dr. Krone’s father and his wife ate at the corner table. A bottle of wine was half-buried in a bucket of ice. They weren’t expecting him to drop in, judging by the vexed expression on their faces.
Dr. Krone, Sr. was pleased after the initial shock. “It’s Mr. Horsy. I knew he had a fire in him. He’s going to be more fun than we anticipated.”
He finally noticed the TV screen installed into the refrigerator. It replayed him scrambling from Rick and the frozen bodies.
Craig asked, “How are you doing all of this?”
“The machine has enough of your soul recorded,” he replied, “that it can record your experiences even as they happen. But the premises are juiced up with so much brain energy and souls. Can’t you feel the electricity in this place? Anything my son wants to happen will happen.”
Hillary’s eyes were concerned. “This man’s dangerous. Why not just kill him?”
Dr. Krone, Sr. shot down her idea. “Everything’s fine. Let’s just enjoy ourselves.”
“You and your boy are too cocky.” She was incensed. Her long straight hair had obviously been dyed ink-black and it shined with a bluish tint. The woman was in her sixties, as old as Dr. Krone, Sr. She too had exhausted features. She’d been burning the midnight oil for far too long before her death. “You’re not untouchable anymore. He’s not hooked up to the machine. He’s real. He can fight back.”
Dr. Krone, Sr. laughed at her concerns, dismissing them completely. He refocused on Craig. “Oh, I’m rude. Mr. Horsy, this is my wife, Hillary. She is ravishing, even eight years dead.”
“I can’t say I’m as happy to see you,” Craig said bitterly. “And did your son bury you in somebody else’s grave too, lady?”
Dr. Krone, the son, ambled down the steps and greeted his family. The three of them stood in the kitchen studying Craig. He was their child. Their creation. And they could do with him as they wished. He was their plaything.
“Don’t come near me,” Craig shouted.
“I won’t have to,” Dr. Krone spoke excitedly. “We have twelve hours left before the machine dies down…well, eleven and a half now.”
Craig leered at the three. “The machine has robbed you of your minds. These souls have turned you into murdering lunatics. You haven’t cured anybody of mental illness. You’ve created a new malady.”
They were living their mistake, he realized. They had no real concept of the fact they’d been playing with the souls of the infirm. They were essentially inside the mind and control of insanity.
Hillary swigged wine from her glass. “It was so easy stealing the bodies from the sanitariums. It’s like stealing a motherless sleeping baby. We found something greater than curing mental illness. We’ll live your memories, and we’ll relive them forever. And we have life after death. What can top that?”
“Um, I don’t know,” Craig shot back, “saving people’s lives might be a start.”
“But this is so much fun,” Dr. Krone laughed. “We’ll live through the machine until the end of time. We’ll live through people like you, Mr. Horsy.”
Dr. Krone, Sr. piped up. “We’re wasting precious time. I want to see how our subject reacts to new stimulus.”
“I still say he’s a high risk,” Hillary insisted. “He escaped the chef. He’s thinking and fighting back.”
“That was nothing,” Dr. Krone contradicted his mother. “We’ll wear him down, but not before one helluva show.”
Hillary peered behind Craig. “What do you say to that, Katie?”
Craig’s neck was tied with something wet, slippery, and cold. He couldn’t breathe, his throat constricted. He yanked back on the coils, which slithered bloody and amphibious through his fingers. The room tilted right-side-up and upside down, and then he was facing the stairway behind him. He’d been flipped. He couldn’t focus on any one object, being strangled. His grip over the choking coils was weak and so slimy. Katie’s body was tainted, her corpse dripping with each step, skin and muscle tissue turning into liquid.
Katie gritted her teeth. Craig overheard several teeth fall from the gums and land on the wood floor in plick noises. She groaned, her throat gargling with liquids, “You owe somebody an apology!”
The Krones lined up at the edge of the kitchen to enjoy the event. Dr. Krone taunted Craig, “He abandoned Alice, Katie. And he allowed you to bleed to death. You and your child died because of his mistakes.”
“Naaawgh!” Craig choked, his thoughts spiraling. This isn’t real. Katie’s dead. For God’s sake, she’s wrapping the baby’s umbilical cord around my neck.
Picture it.
You have to defend yourself before you die.
But can I die?
He imagined the sliver glint. The sharp edges. The hoops to stick your fingers through. The sound the device made when you sliced through an object.
And there it was in his hands, a pair of sewing scissors. He cut through the purple-black-white umbilical cord. When the sinewy material broke, the flood was released.
“Hah-hah-hah-hah!” Dr. Krone’s grating laughter carried throughout the house. “This is genius. We should’ve let one of our patients off the machine a long time ago. It’s been years since I’ve had this much fun!”
Hillary complained, “You’re covering everything in blood.”
Dr. Krone, Sr. guffawed, “Enjoy the moment. Who gives a shit if everything’s covered in blood?”
“You’ll clean it up, you rascals! I won’t have anything to do with the cleanup, you got that?”
Blood had exploded from the umbilical opening in a torrent the second the scissors completed the job. A high-powered monsoon was unleashed, literally tearing Katie in twain, her core turned inside out from the pressure. The wave slammed Craig up against the television and then he bounced, landing on top of the couch. Another wave swept him up like a red liquid hand. He front flipped. Collided into the kitchen table. He was dunked beneath the water, swallowing a rancid gulp. Hoisted by the next tidal wave, thrown onto his back, thrust upwards, he finally landed in the kitchen and clutched the sink handle to stay anchored in place. The roar of waves crashed against him, the entire house was flooded in five feet of red, creating a crimson wave pool. The Krone family was missing. Katie’s flaccid body was floating on the surface, wedged between the floating coffee table and the staircase. Her belly and legs were connected to her torso by thin strips of muscular fabric.
He had pictured the scissors, and they arrived. He imagined them down to the detail, and it worked. I will make it out of here alive. My ability to conjure objects is growing keener. Maybe it’s because the machine’s been on for so long.
“I’m fighting back, you sons of bitches!”
He waded in the blood. It grew thicker by the second into a gel-consistency. He couldn’t leave through the doors or windows, so he paddled toward the stairs. That’s where Katie’s body waited. She was motionless.
Dr. Krone arranged it so she’d explode blood. He can orchestrate anything. Dr. Krone, Sr. said the machine has a radius. All you have to do is locate a way out.
“You owe her an apology!”
The words were choked by blood and phlegm. Katie’s neck cracked to peek at him. She didn’t move except to point at him and blather, “She’s coming for you. I can’t force you to be sorry. A woman’s pain is her own. But not this time. Alice wants to introduce you to her sorrow.”
When she smiled, her face broke into five pieces.
Horrified, he asked, “What has Dr. Krone done to you?”
Craig was pleading his case to the wrong jury. She wasn’t Katie. Hillary and Dr. Krone, Sr. were souls brought back to life, and Katie was merely a replication of a memory. She was Dr. Krone’s manipulation made flesh.
The surface of the red water was disturbed. Pockets of air burst. The top of a head. The beginning of ears. The slits for eyes opened. Lips issued a hiss upon the sight of him. The black hair was twisted over her face in a wicked veil. Alice raged, batting the surface to reach him. And she was quick. Craig couldn’t react because it was already too late. Hands seized his neck. Then Alice’s cold, raspy warning, “You can’t run. Not this time. Not ever again!”
He was forced down into the blood, throttled by the neck. The smack against the surface was so intense he nearly lost consciousness. Alice’s fingers dug into his flesh so deeply it paralyzed him, drew blood, and threatened to break bone. He was underneath the surface, gasping for air, kicking, scratching at the stairs, battering for breath. He couldn’t focus on a single thought.
He was dragged up one stair at a time, closer to reaching the surface and air. Alice’s bare feet stomping the stairs was gong loud. She was carrying him up the steps, he realized, not drowning him.
One more step, and he coughed, “Blaargh!” He spat out blood, vomited it up, and cleared it from his eyes.
“Almost there.” She lifted him up another step. “And you will see it this time.”
He caught a door opening down the upstairs hall.
Three bodies leaned out to watch.
The Krones.
Alice lifted him up from the floor by underneath the arms. The hallway tilted, and he was suddenly inside Alice’s bathroom in her apartment. Random flecks of blood glowed from the white tiles and beige bath rug. The toilet was closed, he noticed, as his face was leveled onto the floor beside the toilet seat. He looked up at Alice, and she was ghostly pale. Blue around the eyes and lips. She wore the face of a long-disturbed individual. Alice grimaced at the sight of him. “It’s you who left me to cope with this monstrosity.”
“Monstrosity?”
Alice cupped his mouth, enraged that he’d talk to her. “You haven’t seen my child. Dr. Krone tried to help me. He said it was too late. If I would’ve gone to the hospital sooner, my child wouldn’t be a monster. You could’ve helped me make a better decision and snuff this baby when I had the chance.” She shook her head, her mouth twitching. “It’s much too late now.”
Craig resisted the tears, but he couldn’t fight them. Dr. Krone was playing on his innermost pain, the kind of pain you forget for the necessity of moving on, but this time, he couldn’t avoid it.
He pleaded, “You shouldn’t listen to Dr. Krone.”
“I shouldn’t listen to you!”
She pried open the toilet lid, lifting him up by the neck with her free hand. Craig slammed it shut, throwing his arm up and dodging the sight. “No—you can’t!”
Static electricity shocked his flesh. Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt! The jolts dug into the bone. His marrow tightened, his flesh kicking up smoke. Alice pried his hands from the lid, digging her nails into his back and pounding him in the face with her fists. She bloodied his nose, split his lip, and scratched his right eyelid.
“You—will—see—my—unborn—child!”
Craig reached up with one hand and seized her face by the jaw and nostrils. He shoved her backwards. Alice rolled away, slamming into the floor. Then the door opened. Katie crawled over Alice’s fallen body. Her words were blood and slush. “You will see her child!”
Katie’s legs were dragging behind her, useless and broken. Bloated and saturated organs were trailing out her torso. Closing in, he was pinned by his arms and back. Alice closed in on him, and she pried open the toilet lid. Alice and Katie’s hands gripped his head together.
“Look!”
“Open those eyes.”
Bone fingers wrenched back his eyelids.
“No, I’m begging you. Stop this! Stop!”
It was too late for words. He witnessed what he battled to avoid. The sight was taken in right before it transformed. The wad of flesh was caked in blood. It had no special features, too ill-formed and underdeveloped to look human.
“I’m so sorry,” he wept. “So sorry…”
“Yes,” Alice said, not in anger but awe. “It’s happening just as Dr. Krone promised.”
The toilet shattered. Toilet water spilled onto the tiles, gushing in a torrent. The fetus was growing at alarming rates. The wall was covered in tendrils of flesh, and bone, and cartilage. Eyes, mouths, jaws, snapping teeth, arms, legs, breasts, male and female genitals, hearts, lungs, intestines, digestive cavities, and bones were splayed on the living quilt of flesh. Cries of agony and a baby wailing for its mother resounded to eardrum-shattering levels. Every appendage and organ throbbed with life. Veins audibly circulated blood, the flesh squeezing the arteries to spread the life-giving juices. Fingers extended to grab hold of Craig. Fists threatened to beat him to a pulp. The tiles from the wall were plucked free with accompanying crashes. Plaster crumbled and rained overhead. The floorboards were split by the weight of the monster. The living sheet of flesh and warring limbs lurched toward Craig.
The door opposite the room was ajar. The Krones surrounded one of the machines inside, watching the show. Dr. Krone, Sr. and his son took turns typing on the keyboard. They showed no fear of the incoming abnormality. Hillary stepped from the room and dared to confront the creature. She shook hands with one of the arms jutting from the wall. Other fingers stroked Hillary’s hair and caressed her chin. Dr. Krone joined his mother. He touched lungs that throbbed. “Simply amazing,” he whispered. “Astounding.”
Dr. Krone, Sr. stood beside his son now. “There’s so much more we could do with this machine outside this mansion.”
“It’s a question of souls,” Dr. Krone concurred. “The more we receive, the more we
can create. It’s a matter of extending the electrical current beyond these premises. You’re right, we need more souls. A lot more souls.”
They were obsessed with their creation. And it continued to grow. The wall of flesh covered the entire wall of the hallway and was still expanding. They would continue to harvest souls and create horrors like this, and they would never be satisfied. What if the machine carried on outside the mansion? Everybody’s nightmares would come true. And what else could they drum up besides living flesh walls?
He eyed the room and the machine. It would be so easy to leap inside and shut it down. But there were two other machines on the premises, maybe more. He was outnumbered and outsmarted. Craig followed his first instinct to attack the three and charged the room. Five hands seized him by the arms and hair before he traveled more than three steps.
Jaws bit into his flesh. Fists battered him. The flesh dripped over his face and smothered his airway, the liquid spreading like a mask. The Krones were delighted at the turn of events. “He can’t do anything.” “Watch his pants. I bet he pisses himself.” “No, he’ll shit.” “Not yet.” “Give him five minutes.” “He’ll be dead in five minutes.” “I betcha he’ll die sooner than that.”
Alice and Katie joined the group, Alice speaking dreamily, “My child is so beautiful.”
Katie wept, “I wish I got to be a mother.”
“You can,” Dr. Krone offered to Katie. “We can make children as we wish.”
“Like Alice’s?”
Dr. Krone stepped toward Katie, Craig catching the outlines of the two through the thin veil of flesh, and the doctor was hugging his wife. “Anything you want.”
Hillary joined in. “I want children too. This is so extraordinary. The mind is fun to play in, but this, this is so much better. We have to continue with this progress.”
“We will,” Dr. Krone, Sr. encouraged her. “I promise.”
Craig was desperate for air, the flesh mask constricting both mouth and nose passages. How much longer could his body take the strangulation? He fought the arms and flesh, but they were stronger. The mask of flesh was unyielding.
