A cage.
Roberts felt the sudden rage of entrapment—his chest tingled with anger, his pulse thrummed harder in his temples, and his eyes suddenly felt wide open and alert. He searched the room for escape, spotting a yellow plastic blind above a dusty window sill. He rushed toward it and nudged the yellow plastic aside.
Gray cement stared back at him. The tattered frays of a plaid blanket peeked out at its edges. The window had been holed up—giving no exit, not only for himself and the others trapped inside this room, but for the stink, as well. Roberts cursed.
He quickly looked around the room, searching. Beer cans were strewn atop a brown, wooden dresser beside an ancient black-and-white television set. Its gray screen was like the concrete wall—empty, dull. Like Corky’s eyes.
He saw more beer cans on the dresser, a plastic bowl, and a metallic box of some sort—a VCR, Judy’s VCR.
Roberts scanned the room, sure he would find an Indian dress somewhere, too. Instead, he discovered Kilpatrick’s trophy case—the wall of disgusting photographs and newspaper clippings. Roberts checked the photos, seeing his friends and the people he had once seen in the police photographs. But these were taken from more purposeful, artistic angles. More like family snapshots, the way the bodies were arranged into poses that emphasized their tattoos. Even Lockerman’s body…
Lockerman…how the hell did he find him?
He found the answer on the centerpiece of the grotesque gallery—a clipping from the Gazette that reported on the museum robbery. The words “Police Sergeant John Lockerman” were encircled by the thick black line of a marker. Other words were neatly underlined, highlighted: “artist” and “censored.”
Roberts suddenly heard footsteps. The Killer was returning.
Dizzily, Roberts searched for escape. He saw a closet; he could hide there, but the Killer would no doubt check it first. He saw the tattoo machine on the bedside table. Needles, he thought, and rushed toward it, nearly slipping on the newspaper sheets on the floor. He saw the machine, but couldn’t find any needles—just orange plastic casings and several vials of colored ink. The Killer had removed the only weapon in the room.
Something bumped against the door. Roberts panicked.
There was no escape. He was going to be a victim, horribly changed by the Tattoo Killer. Turned into something ugly, forced to live—or die—with the insane visions of the madman permanently stitched into his flesh, removing his own identity, his own dignity. Like his friends, like Corky on the bed right now.
He would rather die—kill himself—than go through such torment. To deny the killer the chance of invading his living flesh. To die with dignity. On his own terms. Like Bonz in Corky’s “Burn Out” story; like Corky’s self-destructive tattoo on his back….
And then suddenly he knew what to do. There was no time for second thoughts. He quickly turned, grabbed what he needed behind his back, and returned to the spot where he had been unconscious, gently laying his throbbing head down in front of the dead woman’s eyes. He furiously worked his hands behind his back, feeling like Houdini, luckily wringing a hand loose with the aid of the items he’d picked up. He worked quickly, without thought, praying he could finish in time.
He heard a key being slipped inside a lock. A metallic click.
The eyes of the dead woman on the floor stared at him, watching what he had done. Like a guard. Roberts almost believed that the corpse would tell the Killer what had happened while he was gone, a spy giving a full report, but Roberts tried to put that insane thought out of his mind. He closed his own eyes to feign unconsciousness, and found that it was so easy to do it, so very easy to escape into the darkness of his own mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I.
“Fucking interruptions!” Kilpatrick shouted as he entered the room, and kicked at Roberts’ head with a booted foot. Roberts skull shot back, smashing loudly against the corner of the dresser, like a hammer pounding a nail into the wood.
Kilpatrick looked down at him. His head was tilted back, mouth wide open and bloody. His neck was stretched out and inviting, the veins thick and purple.
He crouched down beside the newsman, sighting the jugular, watching it throb beneath the skin. Kilpatrick looked at his syringe, pushed the plunger down to get rid of the air still trapped inside the needle’s chamber. A trickle shot out from the sharp, shiny tip, landing on his wrist. He moved it toward the thick, pulsing vein.
And then a rivulet of dark red blood dripped down onto the raised tube of vein. Kilpatrick frowned.
He looked up at Roberts’ face: his forehead was smashed, his hair matted with dark blood. The crimson puddle covered his entire face, trickling across his cheeks, running behind his ears and down his neck. The man’s eyes clocked around behind heavy lids, the sockets pools of blood that drowned the orbs they held.
Kilpatrick stood, cursing himself: “Fuck! You had to kick him so hard, you had to break his face in, didn’t you?” He angrily flexed his fists and shook his head. Then he forced himself to calm as he looked down at Roberts. “Look what you did to your canvas. It’s worthless now. I can’t paint on…that. And even if I did, how the fuck am I gonna get him on the television? What if I killed the fucker, huh?”
Frustrated, he wanted to go back in the closet, back to the demon for answers, inspiration, comfort. The warm, wet womb inside, the chamber of creativity.
But he couldn’t. He still had work to do. On Corky.
He poked the dope-filled syringe into a belt loop on his jeans. Maybe he’d use it later. Maybe something could still be salvaged on the newsman—he had plenty of undamaged skin.
Kilpatrick turned, grabbed his tattoo gun. He took a fresh needle from his pocket and inked it up, working it into the machine. He clicked it on, the electricity surging into it, his hand absorbing the numbing hum.
He lowered it to Corky’s right nipple.
And in the corner, Roberts moaned.
Kilpatrick looked over at him. Clicked the inker off. Listened again.
He is still alive…good.
He dropped the inkgun on the bed, stood, and approached Roberts’ body. The blood that drooled from his face had spread, spilling off onto the newspapers on the floor, creating a large, oval stain of widening crimson. Kilpatrick thought of his father.
He clicked his tongue. “You can’t do anything right, can you? Maybe I should inject you, Mr. TV reporter…maybe I should put you out of your misery?” He fondled the needle in his belt loop, teasing the sharp wet tip that dangled there.
He crouched down. Looked at Roberts pathetically, petting the top of his slick, wet head. “It hurts, doesn’t it? I bet you’d like me to take away the pain, wouldn’t you? To make it all go away?”
Roberts moaned again—his voice box gurgling.
Kilpatrick felt his face spread into a smile. “Too bad,” he chuckled. “Suffer.”
And then the body beneath him sprang, two colored palms reaching for his face.
II.
It hurt holding them all, gripping them in his cupped, sweaty hands until he had the opportunity to use them. But when the time came, the pain in his palms had vanished, replaced with a surge of strength he didn’t believe he had.
Thumbtacks. Two brimming fistfuls of thumbtacks, taken from the plastic bowl on the dresser, secreted in his palms until Kilpatrick crouched over him. Handfuls of tiny needles and barbs.
And then he lunged forward, slamming them palm first into Kilpatrick’s open, disbelieving eyes. They felt like nails in his palms, but it didn’t matter—he ground them in, crushing them into the Killer’s bony face. He could feel their steel tips plunking into skin—both Kilpatrick’s and his own—as he pressed forcefully against the face that fell back, the face that howled in pain.
Kilpatrick wailed, thrashed his arms, scrambled backward. He swiped at
his own face with his fingers, flitting away the tiny barbs and sharp points that peppered his cheeks, his nose, his mouth, and his eyes.
Roberts pulled his hands away. They were wet and slimy and cold—and then he balled one up into a fist, and brought it quickly back and then forward into Kilpatrick’s face, punching the tacks deeper.
Roberts reached behind him, grabbed the black cloth of the Harley Davidson banner that had once bound his wrists together. He wiped the red out of his eyes, his face—red tattoo ink, not blood; ink stolen from the vials that were on the bedside table and poured on his face to fool the Killer. He wiped his face, then the wet tacks that still lingered on his hands, and then looked at Kilpatrick.
The artist was whimpering, slapping at his face as if it were covered with a nest of stinging bees. Several thumbtacks fell down onto his lap: yellow, green, red, and black pushpins, all wet, all beaded with purplish blood and jelly. Kilpatrick stopped slapping himself and lowered his hands. He opened his mouth and gagged…and even more tacks spilled out from his lips, dribbling down in a bloody drool. He spat the line of red saliva out, and then choked, groaning again as he swallowed the plastic and metal shards.
His face was bug-eyed and bloated with multicolored tacks, huge round clumps jutting out from where his eyes should have been, his eye sockets like bowls heaped with color. Roberts could see stirring inside, moving as the muscles beneath shook side-to-side like a sleeper in a dream.
The sight was disgusting; Roberts was now scared, scared of himself, of what he had become, at the raging animal inside that had viciously robbed another man of his sight.
Kilpatrick suddenly stopped crying. He leaned forward like a sleepwalker, slowly lumbering to his feet. To Roberts, he no longer looked human—the mask of tacks that covered his face gave it a new look, an alien look in its clumpy texture, as if the features of his face had been rearranged. As if popping into his eyes had broken some sacred seal, a secret seal of flesh that allowed something inside to seep out and escape, occupying the new face of colored pushpins.
Kilpatrick fell forward, stiff-arming the bed, his hand landing between Corky’s spread legs. His other arm swung madly through the air like a machete, frantically feeling the space around him. Kilpatrick’s voice grumbled and clicked wetly, his face bubbling blood. “Where are you, you son of a bitch? Huh, Mr. TV reporter?”
Roberts—who had been crouched on the floor, cooling his stinging hands—stood up, dodging Kilpatrick’s arm swings, staring in horror at his mutated face.
And then he saw that the Killer had pulled the syringe free from his belt loop. Sliding it over toward Corky’s thigh. His thumb on the plunger.
Roberts dove, seizing the hypodermic needle with both hands, trying desperately to grip Kilpatrick’s wrist, attempting to wrench the syringe free from his fingers. The needle scratched Corky’s skin, trailing a red line of blood.
Roberts released one hand, and rammed his elbow back into Kilpatrick’s face. The artist stumbled backward, the hypodermic needle slipping free from his grip. Roberts grabbed it, and quickly turned to ram it into the Killer’s chest. Leaning down on the plunger, pushing the Killer away from the bed. Kilpatrick fell backward, slipping on the newspaper pages on the floor, his head smashing into the black-and-white TV screen, cracking the glass. He crumbled to the floor, the needle sticking out from the center of his chest like a plunged knife. It moved up and down, slowly. The Killer was still breathing, still alive. Roberts could hear his face wheeze like cancerous lungs.
Roberts quickly undid the belts that held Corky to the bed, and used one to tie Kilpatrick’s arms together—tightly, like the Killer had done to him with the banner. He bound his legs, as well, and used another belt to hold the two belts together behind his back.
Corky screamed.
Roberts turned and faced him. The biker was slapping his chest, beating away imaginary insects. Roberts put a hand on his shoulder, and Corky looked up at him with wide, dilated eyes. His face shook madly.
Roberts pointed over at Kilpatrick, and Corky followed his hand. Moments later, he calmed.
III.
Corky sat up on the bed, staring silently at Kilpatrick, his hands covering his lap. His fingers occasionally twitched to scratch his groin, his gut.
Kilpatrick did not move. Roberts had taken the syringe out from his chest, and a tiny circle of red stained the middle of his T-shirt. His chest still heaved slowly. His face was still wet and shiny, peppered with tacks.
Roberts went over to the photographs tacked on the wall, and pulled them off, one by one. Fuck the investigation, fuck the scene of the crime. He didn’t want to look at these pictures of his friends any longer.
Finished dismounting the gallery, Roberts looked over at Corky—whose eyes still stared at the unconscious body on the floor. He needs some clothes, Roberts thought, and walked over to the closet, opening the door.
The stench hit him like strong hot wind. He looked inside. The dark walls dripped, wet and lumpy like the depths of a cave. He made out shapes in the darkness: red and black organs and viscera, with tiny silver dots—the heads of nails—buried in them. Collins’ innards, lining the closet’s walls.
Roberts shut the door, surprised that he was not horrified by the sight and smell of it. It just made his eyes heavy and weak, as if he were merely tired. He’d been through a lot—he’d lived through madness; perhaps it was over. But he just felt tired, he just wanted to go home and go to bed.
“You watch him,” he said to Corky as he exited the room and headed to Corky’s apartment to get him some clothing. Inside, he decided he might as well call the police. They asked a lot of questions, but he just told them the address and hung up, not caring about the details, only wanting to get the whole thing over with, only wanting some sleep.
Corky’s bedroom was locked, but he found a plaid hunter’s blanket in his living room. He brought it back with him, pausing outside to suck in the night air. It felt falsely clean in his lungs, like taking a shower in dirty water.
When he returned, he saw that Kilpatrick’s body was not where he had left it. Corky had dragged it into the corner, beside the bed. He had the tattoo machine in his hand as he crouched over him, still buck naked. He was drawing something on Kilpatrick’s arms—Roberts couldn’t tell what it was, and he didn’t really care. He dropped the blanket over Corky’s shoulders, covering his naked back like a cape.
Corky just grunted in thanks, and continued to violently work ink into Kilpatrick’s unconscious flesh.
Roberts sat on the bed, watching. “You shouldn’t do that, you know,” he said apathetically. “’Cause then you’re no better than him.”
Corky did not reply. The hum of the needle filled the room. One big buzz.
Roberts stood up. He thought about leaving, but waited for the cops anyway. He glanced at Corky, wondering if he even heard what he had said. Regardless, the biker continued to force ink into the Killer’s body—black ink that covered up what might have once been a red Doberman on his bicep—and Roberts let him do it. He just let him. He did not watch. He just closed his eyes, and waited.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I.
The phone rang.
Roberts woke up, every nerve ending tingling, as if he’d been sleeping on an icy bed of nails. He rolled his dehydrated eyes over to peer at the alarm clock. It was two in the afternoon—much too early to get out of bed. Angrily, he yanked the phone to his ear.
“Yeah,” he groaned.
“That you, typewriter man?”
“Of course it’s fucking me, Corky. You called me, didn’t you?” Roberts grumbled, reached for a cigarette from the pack on his bedside table. He lit it, sucked in a lungful and held it. “What do you want, anyway? You fuckin’ woke my ass up.” The nicotine raced to his head, stirring him awake.
Corky sounded uncomfortable tal
king on the phone. “Uh, well…you ain’t been around. I haven’t seen ya since the pigfest the other day when all those cops hauled that psycho out of my fourplex…”
“I know,” Roberts said, grabbing an uncapped bottle of gin from his nightstand, taking a swig and wincing. “Been busy.”
“Bullshit,” Corky said warily. “You quit your job, remember?”
“You don’t have to fucking remind me that I’m unemployed. Especially after I just got out of bed…” He took another shot of gin. His mouth was numb. It was working.
“Well, I figured since you’re not crunching words down at KOPT anymore, you don’t have no excuse for not dropping by my shop to get more work done on your back.”
Roberts rolled his eyes. “That tattoo is finished, Corky. And I got better things to do.”
“What are you? Scared?” Corky chuckled, teasing Roberts.
Roberts hung up on him.
He chugged from the bottle now, finishing off the remainder. Erasing the dreams, the nightmares. He stood up, walked over to the bathroom. Pissed. Took a handful of water—his palms still stung—from the sink to his mouth, slurping it down. He looked at his face in the mirror. Red. Stained red from the ink he camouflaged himself with that night at Kilpatrick’s. It had faded a little, giving his features a pink hue, looking as if he were constantly blushing. He hadn’t left the house because of it—embarrassed at the thought of always looking embarrassed.
He went into the kitchen, grabbed a beer to settle the gin in his stomach, and then sat down in one of the recliners in the living room, turning on the tube. Watching anything but the news. The music video channel came on, a heavy metal band singing something about revenge. Roberts didn’t listen to the song—he just stared at the tattoos on their shirtless, sweating bodies.
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