The Fleshless Man - Norman Prentiss

by Norman Prentiss

  He obeys without argument. They pass below the main deck, through the crew’s sleeping compartments. Small groups had occupied themselves with storytelling or music or games of chance, but they pause to glance at the covered stretcher. The burlap and ropes remain in place, thankfully, and Montgomery can only guess at the ideas that pass behind the men’s questioning faces. The hidden shape is too small to be a member of the crew, and they notice the stretcher is being taken further below, rather than to stern and overboard for a sea burial.

  Before the Captain and Redding leave the sleep quarters, the head wriggles anew against its bindings. Redding’s ill-fastened gag must have fallen again from the creature’s mouth, because a muffled voice rises from beneath the burlap covering. “Tell them it’s not human,” the creature says, and Redding and the Captain redouble their efforts to drag it back to the hold. It repeats the phrase, and the men who hear it can’t fail to be chilled by the sound. The creature’s voice near perfectly mimics the Captain’s own.

  They descend the ladder-steps into the hold, and the fleshless thing continues to scream in the Captain’s voice—“Not human. Not human.” Montgomery responds as he would to any crew member who agitates his command, pounding a fist at the creature’s cloth-covered head in an attempt to silence it. The creature continues its cry—“Not Human, not human”—and close to his voice still, though with a frail gurgle that unsettles the mimicry.

  Bruggard comes down after them, and it is a relief when he shuts the hatch. The crew will no longer hear, at least. Once they set their burden on the deck of the hull, Montgomery removes the tarp, and Redding cuts a strip in the cloth to fashion a new gag for the Fleshless Man. As he stuffs it into the wet, toothless mouth, he expresses concern that he’ll suffocate the bound captive, bringing worse luck to the ship. Montgomery assures him not to worry.

  “However, it must eat.” The Captain retrieves ingredients from the shelf canisters, and empties extra powder into a bowl of moist, chunky gruel. As he stirs the mixture with a flat stick, the gruel achieves a paste-like thickness. “Help me place this behind the gag.”

  It takes all three of them: Bruggard steadies the head, Redding moves aside the gag and holds down the abomination’s lower jaw, and Captain Montgomery forces the heaped stick into the rancid opening. When feeding a stubborn infant, one strategy is to push the food onto the roof of its mouth, using the ridge of the child’s gums to scrape food off the spoon. This creature’s gums are mushy and flexible, like wet brown rags; he has to press his finger against its upper lip to hold the shape of the mouth and help funnel the sedative paste inside. Immediately upon introduction of the gruel, the creature’s lip puckers beneath his finger and its tongue and gums suck obscenely at the food. He presses several more heaps into that unnatural mouth, filling it like he’d use a trowel to spackle over a hole.

  Bruggard and Redding release their grip, and the creature contorts its mouth and busies itself with the paste, its eyes rolling in a confused pattern. Eventually its lids grow heavy. The gums and cheeks fall from an insistent rhythm into a few weak sputters. Thankfully, the men won’t hear its parrot-voice for a long while.

  “You’ve killed it,” Redding says.

  “Would that it would be so easy. Examine the corner of its mouth.” A trickle of saliva breaks through the paste. It bubbles faintly, from the creature’s slow, intoxicated breaths. “Return it to its cage, and resume its feeding schedule the morning after next. I trust you’ve learned your lesson.”

  The scolding is for Redding, but he and Bruggard both nod in obedience. Redding starts to ask questions, particularly about the effect of the powder. The Captain answers quickly, indicating the additional cages—because, as I can see you’ve already guessed, the Fleshless Man is not their only cargo. “Be grateful the others are not in clear view, and know that you were lucky in your choice. Another might not have been as easily restrained. Or its appearance might have been too much for you to retain grip on your sanity.”

  I can tell you, a handful of these immortal creatures are far more hideous than the Fleshless Man. But it’s equally true that some have a mild appearance, much like that of an elderly relative.

  Well…following their Captain’s orders, Redding and Bruggard answer the disturbed crew members’ questions with the agreed-upon story: the ship transports a collection of exotic primates, including one with a strange ability to parrot human speech. The men receive assurance that these primates are unintelligent and non-threatening—especially since they are kept drugged to avoid seasickness.

  Unfortunately, the subterfuge about the cargo’s lack of intelligence proves to be wishful thinking. That night, the men of the lowest deck are awakened by thumps and scratching from the hold. A murmur rises from the depths of the ship, muffled by the closed hatch, the sway and creak of the vessel through rough ocean, and the odd intermingling of competing voices. But some voices break off and gain clarity. The refrain “Not human, not human” distinguishes itself, sometimes in the deep ordering tone of their Captain, but sometimes in haunted echoes of voices from home: the crew hears their parents or their wives, moaning in some agony of abandonment.

  The next day, the Captain’s only solution is to increase the dosage, then ensure the abominations consume the offered food. As any parent could attest, the only way to be sure a child eats is to feed it by hand and watch it swallow. Previously, they’d protected themselves from direct knowledge of the strange cargo, keeping a safe distance in mind and body. For Redding, Bruggard, and their Captain, those days are over.

  Consider this: a frail old woman—your own mother or grandmother, perhaps, or everyone’s grandmother. She’s feeble and doesn’t recognize you, and her face is filled with terror. Though she struggles, your friends must hold her down, and muttered curses and cries come at you—since you’re the relative who betrays her—and you must stop her mouth with a mashed paste she knows is poison, suffocate her with it, all the while wishing that it was possible she could die. Your own grandmother. And you’ll do it a dozen more times this morning, poisoning some other elderly soul trapped in a different, degraded shape. That is one version of the hell that Captain Montgomery and his two trusted crew members had to face—all the while knowing that several weeks of rough ocean remained until their voyage was complete.

  Here is their other version of hell. Imagine creatures that bear little resemblance to humanity. Realize you must climb into a cage with them, into their filth, press close to something more horrible than any nightmare you’ve ever suffered. Hold each one down, an awful leather texture beneath your grip, your fingertips slipping in foul oils that sweat from unnatural pores. Find something that bears slight resemblance to a mouth, fill it with poison, while clouded animal eyes glare back, not with fear, but with unmatched hatred. And while pressed close to that hatred, you notice something worse than the stench and the monstrous appearance and the awful textures: the abomination is human, after all.

  Do I need to mention that Redding and Bruggard nearly came unhinged on several occasions, and that at times their Captain nearly joined them? More than once, one or the other of them vomited or cried or begged for the task to be over. And their duties stretched on, to the point where they couldn’t decide which was worse—the ones like family members, or the monsters.

  •

  Those things (the nurse continues). None of them could die. They were sent to America to be hidden from sight, forgotten. I can see by your expression that you’ve guessed the solution to my mystery. You’ve always been good at puzzles, haven’t you? Yes, I believe this story, because I’ve seen those creatures first hand. They’re alive to this day, in a hidden section beneath the Evergreen elder care facility where I work. Oh, you’re one step ahead of me, aren’t you? That’s the wing of the facility that’s under my special charge. That’s why I can describe so vividly the most horrible experiences of Captain Montgomery and his trusted associates.

&nb
sp; I’ve told you this story for two reasons. One, to assure you that I’ve seen more than most nurses could stomach. No point ever getting ashamed about bedpans or soiled clothing—I’ve seen worse, believe me. And the second thing is to let you know about these immortal monsters, and the feeble ones, too, all suffering through a miserable, endless existence. There are worse things than having a terminal illness. The worst thing would be never to die at all.

  So, my story has a nice lesson at the end. Don’t you agree?

  •

  And in his dream, Curtis hides in the dark hallway and eavesdrops. He’s had no strength to interrupt the nurse’s horrifying story.

  The story itself is fantastical, but even worse is the situation of the telling: a nurse, required to calm the nerves of a chronic patient, instead chooses the worst possible bedside story. In an elaborate conceit, she concludes by asserting her story is factual, adding to its persuasive power.

  Worst of all, her son has been a guilty bystander, allowing the story to run its awful course.

  His mother could die this very moment. If this was the last story she ever heard, it would haunt her. It would twist her afterlife into an eternity of tortured imaginings.

  The nurse needs to be fired immediately. Curtis breaks through his paralysis and steps into the room.

  The bedside chair is empty. His mother is propped up slightly in bed, eyes closed, her head turned toward the vacant chair. Although she is asleep, she maintains the posture of someone who listens attentively. She nods her head then shivers slightly, as if acknowledging the impact of a story she has just heard.

  -5-

  When Curtis woke the next morning, his wristwatch, which he hadn’t adjusted from California time, read 4:15 a.m. He tried to shake off the night’s bizarre dream. His subconscious had cast him as a sleepwalking murderer, and had composed a cruel fable that perverted the relationship between caregiver and patient. Could these ideas have really come from his own mind? He tried to convince himself these were the kinds of conflicted thoughts any child might experience under the stressful influence of a parent’s illness. Besides, it was a dream. People aren’t responsible for dreams—they just happen.

  He threw on a pair of shorts and a fresh T-shirt. When he didn’t find his brother upstairs, he expected to meet him in the kitchen. He eventually found Glen in the garage. Their mother no longer drove a car, so Glen had cleared away a back corner to create a small exercise area.

  “I must have missed breakfast.” Curtis had to shout over the whirr of the elliptical machine. It was an awkward place to talk: Glen, standing in the contraption, was a good foot-and-a-half higher off the ground than Curtis. His rapid leg motions in the device gave the impression that he was trying to run away.

  “Help yourself. I had a grapefruit earlier.” Glen’s breathing was strained, suggesting he was in the last gasps of his exercise session, but his arms and legs moved a little faster. He wore a gray exercise suit and his wisps of hair were matted down with sweat. Looking at him, Curtis couldn’t help but remember the nurse’s words last night—the real nurse, not the storytelling witch his subconscious had conjured. Glen simply didn’t look anorexic. He’d lost a good deal of weight—close to 75 pounds, Curtis estimated—but that brought him into “pudgy” range, still a long way from “thin.” The problem was, this weight-loss should make his brother appear healthy, but the effect wasn’t quite convincing. In the loose sweatsuit, Glen’s arms and legs seemed to lack muscle definition. His face, in particular, had suffered in the transformation, as if his features couldn’t keep up with the weight-loss. Last night at Baggage Claim, Curtis had smiled and told Glen he looked great—this was the change they’d always hoped for, of course, so it would have been wrong to criticize. In the cold perspective of the morning he recognized his brother’s countenance… and yet, he didn’t. His hair had thinned in a way that didn’t fit the usual pattern for male baldness: instead of fading back from the temples or over the crown of his head, it had fallen out evenly all over his scalp. His skin seemed loose and overly pale. Curtis had a strange urge to touch Glen’s face—to grab the skin from the lower corner and turn it, like the page of a book.

  Instead, he asked a question. “When we were growing up, I used to tease you about your weight. You know I didn’t mean anything by it, right?”

  Glen didn’t answer. He concentrated on the LED chronometer of the exercise machine and pushed his legs to move faster.

  “We were just kids.” Curtis again had to shout over the grind of the machine.

  His brother seemed to be ignoring him, but then Glen pressed a button on the display and slowed his exertions. As he stepped out of the machine, the footpads and ski-pole arms continued without him briefly as the motor whirred down. Good. The garage was quieter now, and they stood on the same level.

  “Kids are naturally cruel, I guess,” Glen said. He picked up a towel and blotted at his neck and forehead.

  Curtis touched the side of his shoulder. “I’m sorry, anyway.” The shoulder felt spongy, damp from the exercise. He let his hand drop away. “I was stupid. You got enough of that teasing at school; things should have been better at home.” And here was the odd fact: Curtis rescued his brother from the worst of that playground teasing, would threaten those laughing kids, punch or push them to the ground until the jokes ended. But once home, Curtis sometimes lapsed into similar taunts. Thinking back on those days, he felt terrible about how he’d behaved. The apology was long overdue.

  “Thanks.” Glen offered a weak smile—behind it, no doubt, the wince of a hundred or so awful memories. “It’s not like anybody said anything I didn’t already know. I was fat. Better for me if I wasn’t, right?”

  He wanted to read sarcasm into Glen’s comments, but they seemed neutral—bland statements of fact.

  As if he accepted now that the childhood humiliation was a kind of gift. That’s how Curtis, thinking back, sometimes tried to rationalize his behavior: he was trying to help, to motivate his brother toward healthy diet and exercise. Calling someone fat and lazy, calling him a pig…yeah, sure, that was well-intentioned. All in good fun.

  “It took a long while before I was ready to change,” Glen said. “I feel a lot better about myself now.”

  “I’m glad.” Curtis had mentioned the childhood teasing as prelude, to acknowledge that Glen struggled with weight issues his entire life. The next step was to ease into the situation with Mom, point out how the stress of her illness would understandably complicate matters. He would explain what the nurse said last night, confront Glen and ask him to stop the compulsive exercise.

  But he couldn’t follow through with the rest of the discussion. He’d made a breakthrough with Glen, received a sliver of forgiveness he hadn’t expected—granted conditionally, while his brother imagined himself in a healthier place.

  He couldn’t burst that illusion with subtle hints: You’ve been exercising a lot or You seem a little tired. Not now. It was a fragile time, for both of them.

  Save the unpleasant discussion for later.

  Glen smiled again. Sweat ran down his face, beads of energy draining from his body. His posture seemed unsteady. Curtis got the sense that his brother put on a show for his benefit. If Glen were alone right now, he would slide to the ground and hug his knees to his chest, breathing heavy and too exhausted to stand until he’d rested a long while.

  •

  The doorbell rang. Glen didn’t look up from his newspaper.

  “Should I get that?”

  “Don’t bother. It’s Nurse Lillian. She has her own key, but rings so I know she’s arrived. Like clockwork.”

  Curtis checked his watch, added three hours for Eastern time, and verified the nurse had arrived exactly at 10:00—the Sunday schedule, as indicated on the chart clipped to the refrigerator. “Wasn’t sure I liked her at first,” he said. “Got off on the wrong foot, but we sorted it
out.”

  “Catch her on a smoking break?”

  “Yeah. Not the best habit for a nurse with a cancer patient.” Curtis shook some more Corn Flakes into the milk at the bottom of his cereal bowl.

  “I know. But she’s really good with Mom. You’ll see.”

  “I believe it.”

  Glen’s hair was slicked back. His face had the same gaunt appearance, but a quick shower had given his cheeks a healthier glow. Glen folded back a new page of the newspaper, and the section rustled between his hands. The newspaper almost seemed too heavy for him to hold up; at the same time, it seemed he would shake the pages so vigorously that he’d tear the section into pieces. His place-setting was empty, save for the speaker/monitor he’d put there to listen into Mom’s room. By his own admission, he’d eaten nothing more than a grapefruit this morning. Glen’s legs still moved under the kitchen table. In his mind, he was probably still on the exercise machine.

  The nurse and I didn’t talk about Mom that much. We talked mostly about you.

  But Curtis didn’t say it. Another thought occurred to him: “Does Lillian ever work here outside her usual hours? You know, like at night?”

  “No, she works night shift at her regular job.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “The old folks’ home up in Evergreen. The kind of place Mom didn’t want to go.”

  The same place the dream-nurse had mentioned in her story. But perhaps the real-life Lillian had mentioned her job in passing, a small detail for Curtis to ignore but for his subconscious to file away to add realism to his nightmare. Just as likely, his subconscious had made an educated guess. Evergreen was the next town over. They had the closest elder-care facility, with a large staff of nurses.

  “She gets the best of both worlds,” Glen said. “Comforts of home, but all the care she would have gotten at Evergreen. Lillian’s their most experienced nurse, and she can always consult with their physicians.”