The Skin Worshipper

by RB Schalin

Chapter 23

  Kerry comes out of unconsciousness with a splitting headache. His mouth is dry and he can hardly swallow. He manages to conjure up some saliva and coughs a few times.

  He is lying on the ground, and he can’t move his hands or feet. He looks around as much as he can and sees some light further away. He tries to shout, but only a horse whisper comes out. With some effort he manages to roll over on his stomach, but that doesn’t make it better. He tries to roll back on his side again, but he is too weak.

  Then he hears the drums, a slow rhythm coming from the light. He lies there listening, but the rhythm doesn’t change. He tries to scream again and this time some sounds come out of his dry throat. He is just about to scream again when he hears a sound, it’s a shuffling sound, like someone walking, but dragging their feet. It comes closer and suddenly he sees two pair of feet next to his face. Strong hands grip him by his elbows and pulls him up. He looks around and sees two dark skinned men. Their faces are narrow and their small noses twitch as they smell him.

  "Hey, what are you doing?"

  They don’t answer him, but begin to lead him towards the light. He can’t walk since his feet are tied and they have to carry and drag him along. They are a lot shorter than him, but strong.

  When they reach the light Kerry sees it comes from a large space, like a room, but the ceiling is so high he can't see where it begins. He looks around and sees more people. They all look like the two men who have carried him there. They have loincloths and the women's breasts are bare. There are some children running around naked while their mothers call to them in a guttural language he doesn’t understand. He guesses there are fewer than a hundred of them, some sitting down others standing. At the far end of the room there is a structure. It looks like a square about eight feet tall and ten feet wide. It must be anchored to the floor because he sees no ropes that could be supporting it.

  The two men beside him, lead him towards it and as he comes closer a man stands up from where he must have been sitting next to the structure. He looks very old, with only a few strands of white hair coming off his head. His skin is grayish and he is walking with a cane made of some kind of white material. He is very short, no more than five feet which makes him even shorter than the rest of his people. As he comes closer to the man Kerry sees that the cane he is leaning on is made of a human bone and wood. The two men let go of him and he falls to the ground where he lays at the feet of the old man. He looks down on him and then says something to the two younger men. One of them bends down and cuts the rope around his feet with a knife made of stone, flint maybe. Kerry manages to get up on his knees where he stays looking up at the old man.

  The Indian studies him for what seems like an eternity, then says something in the same guttural language as the women used.

  "I’m sorry, I don’t understand you," says Kerry.

  The man keeps watching him and talking, but when he realizes Kerry can’t understand him he signals to the two men and they grab Kerry's elbows and stands him up. The old man walks around the structure and the two men follow with Kerry between them.

  Directly behind the structure stands, what Kerry first believes are some kind of ornaments, maybe statues, and as he gets closer he realizes they are wood mannequins. The old man stops in front of one of them and points at it, then says something which Kerry doesn't understand. The old man gives an order and the two men lead Kerry closer, so close he is no more than a couple of feet to the closest mannequin. At first he doesn’t understand what he is looking at but when it dawns on him his knees go weak and he manages to say, "Oh god."

  The old man laughs and nods his head. Then he points at the mannequin with his cane and says something else.

  Kerry is not listening; he is looking at what is in front of him. Hanging loosely over the wood mannequin is a skin. He recognizes the arms, and legs of a human being. There are a few tufts of what looks like black or brown hair on the head. The eyes are empty and in some parts the skin has dried up and looks brittle. He realizes it must have been here a long time. There is no smell of rotten flesh emanating from it.

  The old man gives another order and the four of them walk around the structure where Kerry is thrown to the ground. The two men stand on either side of him, and the old man walks up to the center of the structure.

  He begins to talk. His voice starts low and grows as he becomes more and more excited. Suddenly the crowd roars and the beat of the drums increase. Kerry feels movement behind him and when he turns around, he sees the crowd parting and two groups are walking towards him. As they get closer he sees two men hauling Julia between them and behind, two others are dragging Hogan along. When the first group passes, he tries to say something to Julia, but is hit in the back of the head and falls to the ground. The crowd has begun to chant to the rhythm of the drums and Kerry can see Julia's mouth open like if she was speaking, but he can’t hear anything over the noise.

  The two men throw her to the ground to the right of the structure and wait for their comrades to bring up Hogan. Once they arrive with him, they place him kneeling on the floor below the structure. Two men cut the ropes holding his arms behind his head, and then tie other ropes to each of his wrists. A third hangs a noose around his head. When they are done, they take careful aim and throw the ropes holding his wrists through rings made of a metal hanging almost half way up on either side of the structure, and the third man throws the rope from the noose over the top beam. The old man calls out and the three men begin to pull on the ropes and as Kerry watches in disbelief, Hogan is hoisted first upon his legs, and then slowly up in the air. His arms are pulled away from his body towards the rings in the beams and his body weight is almost entirely held up by the noose. He tries to kick and struggle and his mouth opens and closes when he tries to scream. When he is hanging about three feet from the floor, the three men ties off the ropes on the beams.

  Kerry looks up at his friend and he can see how his face is turning red from the lack of air and the blood in his head. He looks at the old man, but he only laughs and points at Hogan hanging from the structure.

  While Kerry looks on, two men tie more ropes to Hogan's legs and then a third cut the ones tying them together. His legs are spread apart and tied to another set of rings in the structure. He is now hanging like a giant X from his neck.

  The old man comes forwards and then checks the rope connected to the noose, he loosens it a little and Kerry can see that Hogan can now breathe a little. But what has also happened is that his body's weight is almost completely held up by his outstretched arms and legs.

  Julia is on the floor looking up at Hogan, she can’t help it, but she urinates and the warm liquid spills out on the floor. One of her guards sees it and laughs at her saying something to the old man who comes over to her. He bends down and dips his finger and then smells it with his twitching nose. He licks his finger and then says something to the guard who laughs.

  Back in front of the structure he holds his arms high above his head, and when he lowers them slowly the noise and the drums die out and the room is silent, only the sobbing from Julia and the moans from Hogan can be heard.

  He is floating in the air and there is an excruciating pain in his arms, shoulders neck and legs. Hogan opens his eyes a little and through the tears he can see a vast room. It’s in semi darkness, only lit up by fires in the corners. He blinks a few times to clear the tears and sees Kerry sitting on the floor below him. Behind him there are scores of little brown people looking up at him in awe. Their eyes are wide open and some are slowly rocking back and forth. He hears a voice and looks down as much as he can. The rope around his neck makes it hard to see what’s directly below him. He sees a small man looking out over the crowd and then he turns around looking up at him. He says something Hogan doesn’t understand and two men carry a wooden bench from the left and places it behind Hogan. Then the man walks around and disappears from his view.

  Julia watches as the little man steps up on the bench and
now his head is just below the hanging Hogan’s shoulders. He sticks his right hand out and one of the men who carried the bench gives him a long curved knife. It doesn’t glimmer, and it looks to be rusted. The man says a few words and then places the knife against Hogan's skin at the nape of his neck. The room is completely silent, only the crackle from the fires can be heard. Tears roll down Julia's face as she looks up at Hogan. He has a vacant look on his face.

  Kerry closes his eyes, he doesn’t want to watch, but the guards beside him sees it and forces him to stand up and while two of them hold him in a vice a third guard comes up behind and uses his fingers to pry his eyelids open.

  Then the old man moves the hand with the knife downwards, and Hogan screams. At first, it’s only his voice echoing, but soon others join in and it doesn’t take long before the entire room is humming along with the screams.

  A pool of blood is forming below Hogan and at a signal from the old man two men climb up on the bench with him. They have smaller knives in their hands. Then Kerry hears a ripping sound, like if you tear a shirt apart. Hogan howls even louder and the response from the crowd is deafening. The entire room is howling with him.

  Kerry manages a quick glimpse at Julia, she has passed out and is lying in the puddle of urine. Kerry’s head is turned back to Hogan and when he tries to close his eyes the guard viciously rips them open again, forcing him to see his friend skinned alive. Julia comes too when she is hoisted up in the air. She looks down and to her right and a little in front of the structure is a red body. She realizes it’s what is left of Hogan. Kerry is forced to look up at her and she can see tears coming down his cheeks, he mouths the words “I’m sorry” to her and she closes her eyes.

  Kerry vomits when he hears the first scream emanating from her mouth, and then everything goes black and he slumps down.

  The old man cuts along the spine of the young woman, her skin is soft under his touch and he smiles at his fortune. He had almost lost control of his tribe. Now he has three sacrifices in one night, and his power is restored. As the two men on either side of him begins to pull the young woman's skin away from her spine as he changes the angle and in turn cuts the skin so it comes of the flesh. He glances at the fat man on the floor, soon it will be his turn.

  Kerry comes to just when the knife begins to cut into his skin, he is about to scream when there is a loud crack, he doesn’t know where it came from, and then he hears it again, and suddenly everything crumbles and he falls forward.

 

  GREEN TREE

  Present Day