The Mammoth Book of Body Horror

by Marie O'Regan

  The door opened the length of its safety chain. Cabrini’s face, up close, was as stork-like as his movements. His nose was a great stabbing beak overshadowing his thin-lipped mouth and flat cheekbones. The store-bought toupée was gone, revealing a smooth, liver-blotched scalp and a greying fringe level with his ears. Cabrini stared at me, then at the camera slung around my neck. He grunted, more to himself than for my benefit, and then shut the door. A moment later I heard him fumbling with the chain and the door jerked open. The toupée was back – still slightly askew – and Cabrini motioned me inside.

  “C’mon, dammit. No point in lettin’ every damn skeeter in the county in with you.”

  The interior of the trailer was hardly what I’d expected. The front section normally reserved for the “living room” and kitchen area had been stripped of all furnishings except for the refrigerator and stove. Gone was the built-in wet bar, the pressboard room divider, imitation oak panelling and wall-to-wall shag carpeting. In their place was a small Formica table, a couple of Salvation Army-issue kitchen chairs and one of the best-equipped workbenches I’ve ever seen. The rest was a labyrinth of lumber, varying from new 2×4s to piles of sawdust. I noticed a spartan army cot in the corner next to a mound of polyester clothes.

  “Yer that fella what takes pictures of freaks,” he said flatly. “Flippo the Seal-Boy tole me ’bout you.”

  “And Fallon told me about you.”

  Cabrini’s spine stiffened. “Yeah? Well, what d’ya want? I ain’t got all night . . .”

  I reached into my jacket and withdrew the Polaroid he’d left at Fallon’s trailer. “A picture. Just one. I’ll pay you.” It made me sick to speak to him, but I found myself saying the words nonetheless. I knew from the moment I saw its picture I had to add his freakbaby to my collection.

  He looked into my eyes and it was like being sized up by a snake. When he smiled, it was all I could do to keep from smashing his stork face into pulp.

  “Okay. Hunnert bucks. Otherwise you walk.”

  My bank balance reeled at the blow, but I fished two fifties out of my wallet. Cabrini palmed them with the ease of a conjuror and motioned for me to follow him down the narrow hallway that led to the back of the trailer.

  There were two bedrooms and a bathroom off the main corridor. I glanced into what would have been the master bedroom and saw four or five small crates stacked in the darkness. Cabrini quickly closed the door, indicating that the second, smaller, bedroom was what I wanted.

  The room stank of human waste and rotten food. I fought to keep from gagging on the stench. Cabrini shrugged. “What can I do? They’re morons. Jest like animals. Don’t clean up after themselves. Don’t talk. Shit when and where th’ mood strikes ’em.”

  There were three of them. Two girls and a boy. They sat huddled together on a stained bare mattress on the filthy floor. Their deformities were strikingly similar: humped backs, twisted arms, bowed legs, and with warped ribcages resting atop their pelvises. Their fingers curled in on themselves, like those of an ape. They were pallid, with eyes so far recessed into their orbits they resembled blind, cave-dwelling creatures, and features like those of a wax doll held too close to an open flame. Their hair was filthy and matted with their own waste.

  The odd thing was that their limbs, albeit contorted into unnatural angles, were, unlike those of most dwarves, of normal proportions. These stunted children looked more like natives of some bizarre heavy-gravity planet, where their torsos were compressed into half the space necessary for normal growth, instead of victims of a defective pituitary gland.

  But what truly shocked me was the look of animal fear on their ruined faces. I remember when I photographed Slotzi the Pinhead. Despite her severe imbecility, she enjoyed singing and dancing and was disarmingly affectionate. She was locked into an eternal childhood, her mental development arrested somewhere between three and five years of age. And compared to Cabrini’s trio of freakbabies, Slotzi was Nobel Prize material. One thing was certain; these monstrously distorted children had never laughed, nor had they known any joy or love in their brief lives. Without really thinking of what I was doing, I adjusted the focus and checked the light. And then I had my picture.

  Cabrini closed the door, propelling me back into the hall. I stared at him, trying to make sense of what I had seen.

  “Those children . . . are they related?”

  Cabrini shook his head, nearly sending his toupée into his face. “Drugs.”

  “Drugs?”

  Cabrini’s voice took on the singsong of a barker reciting his spiel. “LSD. Speed. Heroin. Crack. Who knows? Maybe an experimental drug like that thalidomide back in the sixties. They were all born within the same year. Ended up in a home. Until I found them.”

  We were back in the front room, among the lumber and sawdust. Cabrini was looking at me, an unpleasant smile twisting his lips. Averting my eyes, I found myself staring at a pile of papers scattered across the workbench. Among them were several detailed sketches of Rand Holstrum’s face. I had to admit Cabrini had some talent with a pencil.

  Cabrini brought out a plastic milk jug full of home-made popskull and placed a pair of Dixie Cups on the workbench.

  “Don’t get too many visitors out this way. Reckon you deserve a free drink for yer hunnert bucks.” White lightning sloshed into the cups and on to the bench. I half expected it to eat into the wood.

  As much as I loathed Cabrini and all he represented, I found him perversely intriguing. For fifteen years I’d actively pursued knowledge concerning the secret life of freaks. I’d listened to stories told by men with too many limbs, women with beards and creatures that walked the blurred borders of gender. I’d talked shop with people who made their living displaying their difference to the curious for a dollar a head. All the while I was aware that soon their way of life would be extinct and no one would know their story. Harry Cabrini – seller of freakbabies – comprised an important, if unsavoury, portion of that history.

  “Y’know, I’ve run across quite a few of yer kind in this business. Fellers who take pictures.”

  “Izzat so?” I sipped at the deceptively clear fluid in the paper cup. It scalded my throat on the way down.

  “Yeah. Some were doctors or newspaper men. Others were ‘art-teests’.” He smirked. “They was like you. Thought I was dirt, but still paid me for the honour of lookin’ at my babies! Y’all treat me like I ain’t no more than some kinda brothel-keeper. But what does that make you, Mr Art-teest?” He tossed back his head to laugh, nearly dislodging his toupée.

  “Where did you find those children?”

  He stopped laughing, his eyes sharp and dangerous. “None of yer fuckin’ business. All you wants is pictures of freaks. Why you wanna know where they come from? They come from normal, God-fearin’ folk. Like they all do. Just like you ’n’ me.” He poured himself a second shot of squeeze. I wondered what Cabrini’s guts must look like. “The freak business is dyin’ out, y’know. Been dyin’ since the Second War.” Cabrini’s voice became nostalgic. “People started learnin’ more ’bout what makes freaks for real. Folks used t’think they was th’ sins of the parents made flesh. That they didn’t have no souls ’cause of it. That they weren’t like real people. Hell, now that there March of Dimes has got rid of most of what used to reel th’ fish in. Don’t get me wrong. There’ll always be people who’s willin’ to look. I think it makes ’em feel good. No matter how fuckin’ awful things might be, at least you can walk down th’ street without makin’ people sick, right? But who wants to pay an’ see dwarfs? Midgets? Fat ladies? Pinheads? Sure they’re gross, but you can see ’em for free at th’ fuckin’ Wal-Mart any ole day of the week! No, you gotta have something that really shakes ’em up! Shocks ’em! Repulses ’em! Something that makes ’em forget they’re lookin’ at another human! Tall order, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “I got to readin’ one time about these here guys back in Europe. During what they called the Dark Ages
. These guys was called Freak Masters. Nice ring to it, huh? Anyways, these Freak Masters, when times were tough an’ there weren’t no good freaks around, they’d kidnap babies . . .”

  Something in me went cold. Cabrini was standing right next to me, but I felt as if I was light years away.

  “. . . and they’d put ’em in these here special cages, so that they’d grow up all twisted like. And they’d make ’em wear these special masks so their faces would grow a certain way, what with baby meat being so soft, y’know . . .”

  Images of children twisted into tortured, abstract forms like human bonsai trees swam before my eyes. I recognized the expanding bubble in my ribcage as fear, and adrenaline surged through me, its primal message telling me to get the fuck outta there. My gaze flickered across the jumble on the workbench. Foul as he was, Cabrini was a genius when it came to working with his hands. I saw the partially completed leather mask nestled amid the sketches and diagrams; it was a near-exact duplicate of Rand Holstrum’s face. Only it was so small. Far too small for an adult to wear . . .

  “. . . they fed ’em gruel and never talked to ’em, so they came out kinda brain-damaged, those that dint die. But the kings an’ popes an’ shit back then dint care. They bought freaks by the truckloads! Pet monsters!” Cabrini laughed again. He was drinking straight from the jug now. “They didn’t have freaktents back then. But it don’t matter. There’s always been freaktents. We carry ’em with us wherever we go.” He tapped his temple with one unsteady finger. The toupée fell off and landed on the floor, where it lay amid the sawdust and scraps of leather like a dead tarantula.

  That’s when he lunged, scything the air with one of the leather-cutting tools he’d snatched from the workbench. There was something feral in his eyes and the show of yellowed teeth. The stork had become a wild dog. I staggered backward, barking my shins on a pile of 2x4s. I’d just missed having the hooked blade sink into my chest.

  Cursing incoherently, Cabrini followed after me. The knife sliced within millimetres of my nose. I heard the muffled, anguished cries of idiot children coming from the other room. I threw the contents of the cup I was still holding into his face. Cabrini screamed and let go of his knife, clawing at his eyes. He reeled backward, knocking over the kitchen table in his blind flailing. I headed for the door, not daring to look back. I could still hear him screaming long after I’d made my escape.

  “Damn you! Goddamn you, you fuckin’ lousy freak!”

  Region of the Flesh

  Richard Christian Matheson

  I bought a bed at a garage sale.

  It was all I could afford; I have a dead-end job.

  A man was murdered on it three weeks ago. His wife hated him; went into a trance. Tied him down. Slaughtered him. Face slashed into a red Picasso. Limbs severed while he struggled. Throat bled until he couldn’t breathe; drowned without sea.

  The first night I brought the bed home and lay on it, I thought a lot about the murder. How it happened. What it looked like. How the fevered mutilation must have sounded. The neighbours said he screamed for an hour. They did nothing, thinking it was sex, frozen in horror; wax witnesses.

  Staring at dark ceiling, far past midnight, I thought about the washed bloodstains beneath me; uneven Chlorox freckles that hid the torment. Dead rorshachs.

  I couldn’t sleep.

  The second night was better.

  But after I fell asleep, grisly visions tiptoed-in.

  They knelt beside my ear; described themselves with shocking adjectives. I saw the argument in my dream. The twisted mood.

  I grabbed at sheets, humid in blackness.

  I saw the electric knife. How deeply she was hurt. How she cried in anger; wounded hopelessness.

  I saw his trapped eyes. Bound wrists.

  I didn’t awaken until she’d cut him into pieces.

  I loathed the feeling it left me with; dread-soaked. Yet it fascinated me to know I slept on death; found comfort where there had been indescribable pain.

  Though it confused me, I sensed there was a reason the bed had come into my possession.

  It revulsed me. But I decided to keep it.

  At first, I was afraid to. Afraid to even use it.

  There were endless moments I almost had it hauled away like some septic monstrosity. I couldn’t stand to look at it; the death puddles now erased to a silky albino. The quilted surface resewn; an ugly survivor of the attack, flaunting its stitches.

  Even its cleansed smell sickened me.

  I slept on the couch, avoiding contact.

  But I could still see the bed, in stark cameo, standing vigil on four legs, alone in the bedroom.

  Watching me.

  I tried, but couldn’t stay away.

  I slid silently between the cool sheets, spread my arms in drowsy crucifixion, slowly closed my eyes. I was a buoy, in a blood bay, awaiting cruel currents; lurid, horrific.

  In my dreams, I look down and see his helpless expression; eyes wet, terrified. I see the humming blade nearing his shivering flesh.

  He struggles.

  Begs through choking cloth.

  His fingers are bloodless rakes; clutching uselessly.

  But she ignores him and the vibrating blade cuts, squeezing between compressions of skin. My mouth waters for some reason in the dream, and I watch in deranged silence as his face freezes. I watch his eyes shut in escape, then widen, as the humming knife makes fast, countless incisions; sawing him apart.

  I try to awaken, but can’t.

  I am asleep. I know that. In a dream.

  I don’t want to look.

  Yet, I can’t stop looking. The images compel me.

  First, his face disappears, slice by slice, as his head shakes wildly, from side to side. There is blood everywhere. The room gets very hot; a sickly dampness. The body is sectioned, despite his suf fering pleas.

  It’s extraordinary: the total commitment she must have felt to do it. The unconditional purpose.

  It seems unimaginable.

  I woke up crying, feeling strangely alive, and sat, knees to my chest, rocking into dawn. The nightmare was obsessing me. Every thing else in my life seemed empty.

  Dead.

  After several days, the bed was the only thing I could think about; an irresistible fascination. When I got near it, my whole system felt a sick amperage. When I was actually on it, closing my eyes, drifting into the dream, it was as if I were physically experiencing murdering someone. Feeling the weight of the knife in my hand. The trembling of sliced skin as I severed veins; vessels.

  Though I hungered for the effect, I became ashamed of how my mind could be excited; the horrid entertainment it accepted.

  By the second week, things got stranger.

  At first, in the dreams, I was him.

  Feeling her weight on me.

  Watching her despising features staring down, sweaty hair brushing my face. Hearing the hateful names she screamed. Feeling parts of my body being cut away. My blood getting on everything; warm dye.

  Then, as I grew weak, soaking in a death pond, I stared up at her face, freckled with blood. She was watching me die. Watching my heartbeat soften, my features lose purpose. Watching red leak gently from my body.

  And through it all, I began to sense she was sorry for what she’d done. Lost so clearly in regret; sorrow.

  As I watched her, and my body became cold, my struggle unnecessary, I began to perceive her broken life. The agony she’d carried forever. The irreversible abuses. How she’d come to this. How life had hurt her. How I’d hurt her. Abandoned her hundreds of times.

  Humiliated her.

  I began to see her insides; the corridors and cul-de-sacs. The shattered futility. The way her insides were butchered and bloody. As I was. I began to see what she saw. Even though I was what she saw.

  Even though I was neither.

  At some point, perspectives had shifted; a random volition. I don’t know why. But I began to relate to her point of view. See through her eyes.
The dream took on another dimension; depart ed savage angularity, alone.

  As new nights passed, I craved the dream.

  Wanted to be absorbed by it.

  Become it.

  My pyjamas seemed to insulate me from the murder’s intimacy and detail. I began to sleep naked; an unprotected slave. I removed all sheets and pads. Tore off the mattress’s satin covering. Dug through the springs to find bits of dried blood, buried like lodged bullet fragments. Pressed my face against them and felt the storage of pain; excruciating vestiges.

  I slept deeply.

  I do every night.

  I’m starting to feel for the first time. To mean what I say; like she meant what she did. I’m beginning to do what’s right for me. Not let other people hurt me, like they used to. Maybe not be afraid to hurt them, if that’s what it takes. Violence used to scare me. But it’s just another form of emotion. Of expression.

  Sometimes, during the day, I sit and stare at the bed.

  Watch the sun stretching down on to it, taking a hot, yellow nap, warming it for me. I love its shape. The rectangular softness. The perfect way the mattress aligns on the boxsprings; two embracing forms. The accepting still of it.

  Like a friend.

  On weekends, I’ll sleep twenty hours a day, filling my mind with bloody images; communing. It’s my oasis; the one place that makes sense to me in this terrible world.

  The one place I trust.

  I was taking a nap today and began to think again about murdering someone. I began to think how wonderful it would be to see them struggle and bleed. To have that control. That passion. Then, I fell into a canyon of steep, black sleep.

  I know something is wrong with me. Something really wrong. I’m so tired all the time. All I want to do is sleep and dream about a man who’s being butchered. All I want to see, in my dream, is how he twists on white sheets; a human brush, naked and bloodied, painting something horrific.

  But if I’m losing my mind, why do I feel better about things?

  Shouldn’t I feel worse? Shouldn’t I feel bad? Shouldn’t something be telling me I’m in trouble?