Grave Markings: 20th Anniversary Edition

by Arnzen, Michael A.

  Schoenmacher’s bedroll was still on his floor, open and empty, like a barren cocoon. Clive was curled up in a ball in it, probably missing her owner. He’d picked the cat up and taken it home with him after clearing out his desk at KOPT. It didn’t seem right that Buckman should have it at the station, that it didn’t have a home. He snuck it out in the box with his stuff, and brought it back—hoping that Schoenmacher would be out of the hospital soon, to reclaim it.

  He looked down at Clive, whose fur had now grown back for the most part, covering up the scars from the Killer’s needle, the pornographic tattoo and the dumb poem. Roberts studied the cat—jealous. Wishing that he could grow back to the way he was before it all happened.

  But he couldn’t. He’d been changed by his experience with Kilpatrick, changed for the worse. Although he was the only one of all the people who came in contact with the Killer who hadn’t been physically altered, he was just as changed as all of them, on the inside, beneath it all. Irrevocably transformed. Memories of the artist haunted his dreams, colored his every thought. He could never look at his friends again without being reminded of the Killer’s effect. It had been permanently marked into their flesh, an eternal reminder. Scars that would never heal.

  Even the tattoo on his back reminded him of the Killer. Any tattoo, on anyone, Roberts figured, would bring back the bad memories, would set off the nightmares.

  Looking at Clive, he wondered if the cat still felt the tingle of the foul ink still buried beneath her fur.

  Maybe you are scared, just like Corky said. Scared of living. Scared of having friends, afraid of losing them again. Is that it?

  He didn’t know. He just didn’t know.

  The Killer was gone, but he still survived in ink. He’d quit his job, but the news still played on. The world had not changed—NORAD still kept its vigil over the city in anticipation of nuclear war, car accidents still took more lives every day than the Killer ever had, and on and on and on. The world still spun on its axis of pain and struggle. He was not a hero; he merely had acted on instinct, doing what he had to do…and it really didn’t make a bit of a difference.

  But he had saved Corky’s life. He had saved his own skin. That was something. Wasn’t it?

  Roberts finished his beer. He didn’t have much left to live for anymore, but he did have Corky. He grabbed the cat, waking it up. It meowed in protest. He petted it, coveting its fur, its thick skin. He carried it out to his car, got inside, and drove drunkenly to Corky’s Tattoos.

  The tired, red eyes on the sign looked as apathetic as his own.

  II.

  “Look who decided to get out of bed,” Corky said as Roberts walked into the shop, placing Clive gently on the floor.

  Roberts nodded. “Got a beer?”

  Corky grinned at Roberts’ red-stained face. “Sure thing, kemo sabe.” He chuckled, opened his small refrigerator, and removed two cold ones.

  Corky sat comfortably at his desk. Roberts looked around the shop, avoiding his stare. He saw flash pictures on the walls—new ones: color sketches of faces without eyes, beautiful women in sexual poses with geometric faces scratched into their stomachs, and several scaled spiders and psycho crabs. Roberts spied a disheveled cot in the back of the shop, which Clive had hidden beneath, her eyes two green globes in the shadows. Booze bottles were everywhere. It looked much like his own house—Corky seemed to be going through the same sort of struggle that Roberts was.

  “Anyway,” Corky said, breaking the silence by continuing a dialogue that hadn’t really started, “I called you this morning to see if you wanted to get a new tattoo on your back. I suppose you got smart, eh?”

  Roberts looked at him for the first time. “I don’t want anything on my body. Not yet, anyway.” He nodded at the flash pictures. “Especially shit like that.”

  Corky blanched. “They’re just sketches. Everything in life is inspiration for an artist—good and bad. Just working it out of my system, that’s all.” He raised his T-shirt to reveal his gut. “The exterminator showed up the other day, too,” he said.

  Roberts looked at Corky’s stomach: a new tattoo was drawn around the nest of crawling spiders—a giant muscleman with a tattoo gun in his hand…except the inkgun sprayed dust on the various bugs that the Killer had drawn, killing them like something out of an insecticide commercial.

  Roberts laughed, his muscles loosening.

  Corky pulled down his shirt, covering the new tat up. “But back to the matter at hand,” he said, grinning. “I’d love to give you some new artwork…whenever you feel that you’re ready for it, that is. And I’ll do it for free, too. Not just because you’re broke and jobless, but ‘cause you’re my bud, and you saved my life. I owe you one, so here’s the deal: free tats for the rest of your life, as many as you want, as long as you let me do it freestyle. Deal?”

  “Corky, didn’t you just hear me?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Deal?”

  Roberts shrugged. “Oh, all right already. Deal. Just don’t push me into it now, okay?”

  “Got it.” Corky finished his beer, grabbed two more and handed one to Roberts.

  “So what happened to that friend of yours?”

  “Which one?” Roberts rolled his eyes.

  “The cop. The guy who pulled a gun on me. I read that the Killer got to him in the papers.”

  Roberts looked down at his beer, wishing Corky hadn’t brought it up. He’d only talked with Lockerman once on the phone since he’d been tattooed. “Well, he’s in Canada now.”

  “Canada? That’s good country.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s not there for the scenery. He’s getting laser surgery done on him. They told him that since all the ink under his skin was all the same pale pigment, that it would burn off pretty easily…”

  “Shit, I don’t trust all that laser surgery bullshit.”

  “Give it up, will you? It’s not like he can get his whole body covered up with new tats!”

  “Those ruby lasers work for some people, I guess,” Corky said. “But they ain’t perfect. And if it was me, I wouldn’t trust them doctors shooting me with no laser beams. Ever see Goldfinger?”

  “Shut up, Corky, and drink your beer.”

  Corky obeyed.

  Roberts watched him as they sat in silence, sipping their beers. He was feeling better—not feeling so alone, so empty. He was glad he came.

  “And what about those news folks—Judy Thomas and the weatherman?”

  “I’d rather not talk about them. They’re still in the mental hospital as far as I know. Schoenmacher’s recovering, I think, but Judy’s still catatonic.” Roberts leaned back, thinking about them, thinking about himself, too. “It’ll take some time, I think.”

  “Everything does,” Corky said, stroking his beard.

  Roberts nodded. “I hope so.”

  Corky looked out the front window, watching the cars pass by. “Listen, typewriter man. I was thinking about writing another story about Killer. A real story. What do you think?”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s just a thought…”

  “What are you? Crazy?”

  “Hey, now. Listen to what I have to say before you go shouting at me like a moron. Here’s what I was thinking: since you’re unemployed and all, you could me help me write it. You’re a word cruncher, and this sort of thing is right up your alley. Hell, you know more about the Killer’s case than I do anyway, so I need your help. We could make it a novel, a true story with a little bit of drama thrown in for effect, ya know? Like In Cold Blood or one of those things…”

  “Get the fuck out of here!”

  Corky raised his hands. “Just think about it, typewriter man. That’s all I ask. You’re not getting any richer just thinking about it, though.”

  Roberts heard a scratch
ing noise, and glanced over at the back of Corky’s shop. Clive was playing with something odd, pawing a rubbery blob. “Ugh, what’s Clive got there? A dead rat?”

  Corky looked at it, and chuckled. “Nope, that’s my sepia sac—left over from that squid ink.”

  “What the heck do you do with that stuff anyway? Use it for tattoos, or what?”

  “You should know. It’s on your back.”

  “No way!”

  “Yup…” Corky grinned. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. That’s why you were all raw and scabbed-up for a while. I gave you that zinc oxide to counter the allergic reaction you were having to the sepia. Happens to most everyone the first time. Takes a little getting used to, but once the skin builds up a resistance, it works great.”

  Roberts shook his head and cursed. “You sly son of a bitch.”

  “Oh, shut up…it’s not so bad. You survived.”

  The cat took the ink sac between its jaws, and ran.

  III.

  Roberts sat in front of the typewriter, feeling like the colorful monkey on his back. Furiously, he typed, the words spilling onto the page as he punched the keyboard, trying to get all the words out of his mind as fast as he could before the keys broke.

  Corky came up beside him, looking over his shoulder. “Amazing,” he said watching Roberts type. “For a guy who doesn’t want to do this, you sure are kickin’ ass.”

  Roberts stopped, leaning back from the typewriter. “It’s funny—I can’t stop writing. The images keep coming into my mind; I keep remembering it all. And in such detail.” Roberts ran his fingers through his hair.

  “You might have a little artist in you after all, typewriter man.”

  “I don’t know about that…it’s just, I dunno…weird.” He took a swallow of beer from a warm bottle. “I thought that if I tried doing this with you, it would just bring back all the bad memories, ya know? I didn’t really want to go through it all again. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it anyway, so…”

  “So this helps,” Corky said.

  “Yeah. It’s like I’m writing it out of my system or something. Reliving it, but getting rid of it, too.”

  Corky nodded. “Like a dream.”

  Roberts thought about his old job—working in the newsroom, reporting on the facts. Working on the Tattoo Killer’s story with Corky was much better than anything he’d ever done in his life, altering the facts for a good cause. Rather than preaching to the public every day about the world’s ills, he was showing them the real truth behind the facts, the humanity behind the horror.

  Corky slapped him on the back. “What do you say we take a break and get rid of a few beers, too? Kill some brain cells…”

  “Go ahead…I’ll join you in a second.”

  Roberts continued to type out the rest of the page, permanently staining the crisp white fibers with dark black ink. The images were writing themselves out of his mind, with a will of their own.

  He couldn’t wait until it was complete.

  OUT OF MIND

  I.

  His life had flashed before his eyes.

  And now the flash was gone.

  But Kilpatrick was back, banished by blindness, forever trapped in the wormy coils and never-ending labyrinth of his brain—forever. The escape hatch could not be redrawn; there was no tattoo machine now. No exit. No eyes.

  Trapped inside. No way out.

  The labyrinth of his mind was an entertaining maze, though. There were plenty of places to visit; plenty of memories to relive. Enough pleasure to last a lifetime: the exquisite torture, the exposure, the thrill of going public, of creating masterpieces of art that would be heralded in the world outside forever. He had been successful, he had accomplished his mission: he had gone public, changing history, making his mark.

  He had won. He could die now, die happily. The gallery was now gone—those horrible images from that dark cave without exit, that frightening cavern in his mind—burned out—burned clean by light’s glorious entrance. Gone. Public.

  He was trapped, encaged by darkness…and yet free.

  And then suddenly, he was there, pulled downward, swallowed by biting darkness, thrust back into the empty cavern.

  Only it was not empty.

  The portraits—like peeled scabs—were gone, true. But the tattooed mural of hell that Kilpatrick had once created to occupy time still burned there.

  It had grown; the mural had taken over the space where the portraits had been burned off, expanding, filling every crevice in the cave.

  And it was waiting.

  For him.

  Alive.

  And before the writhing, many-faced demon opened its mouth to chew, Kilpatrick realized that the organs that swirled together had attained shape, gathered texture…forming an evil collage of some very familiar faces…

  And that he had not been escaping, but creating his own hell all along.

  II.

  In the hallways of the maximum security ward of the Colorado State Hospital, the insane scrams and manic giggles that funnel into the artist’s ears are more than schizophrenic outbursts. They are the squirming exclamations of anticipation: the hungry look into the blind man’s eyes; the awe of his multicolored canopy of flesh, which they covet and worship; the hot breath and agonizing screams of pain as their own mortal flesh is punctured with the shaved plastic buttons tipped with caulky crayon wax or powdered watercolor or oily finger-paint. The sounds which spew from their mouths are not the mumblings of insanity—but the sullen ramblings of prayer.

  They worship him. He is their prophet, in his fleshy coat of many colors. The miracle maker, the giver of visions.

  He raises his arms, palms canted. “I must rest.”

  They caress him as they guide him back to his shrine, his bunk. They lead him past the many gifts they have given him…from the mundane presents of dolls and candy to the profound offerings of little fingers and paper cups filled with blood. All are treasured by the prophet; none are ignored.

  “Leave me now.”

  They scatter, biting their nails nervously as they return to their puny beds. Those who today have received the blessings of colored flesh—those who have become his disciples, who have given unto him their flesh, their souls—they weep in joy, and feel in themselves his aura. Tonight they will see. They have been freed.

  Finally, the prophet has found his following. His believers. His family. His Royal Family.

  Some are blessed, gifted with his visions, his true art. Others have only received token marks, routine flash pictures. But all—even those untouched by his power—have his name, his mark: MKI.

  Mark, King of Inkland.

  Mark Kilpatrick the First.

  Master of Killer’s Ink.

  (Some have called it the Mark of the Beast, but have begged to receive it on their offered foreheads and hands; those who fear the mark make no complaints, make no hesitation in giving up their flesh).

  A tap pokes his shoulder…the fingernail is sharp as a tack. The prophet shows no fear. “Who disturbs me?”

  The wise one reaches out, fingers the face of the visitor. He feels a long disjointed hook of a nose with large round nostrils, a hair-stubbled chin, lips rimmed wet with saliva. And a patch of thick cloth, covering one side of his face.

  “It’s me. Your favored one. Once known as One-Eyed Jack, now named the Many-Eyed One. Your disciple. Your seer.”

  “What is it?”

  “Rumors. I’ve heard that you might be getting the chair. Others say that you might be getting electroshock. Can this be true?”

  “No…” Kilpatrick replies. “…And yes. I already have done these things. It was once their Throne of Judgment—it is now mine.”

  The visitor nervously coughs. Whispers: “St
ill, I think we should leave right away. I’ve discovered escape. I will not leave without you, Lord. You must come with me. We will leave this place. We will spread your gospel to those who cannot see…we will show them the light. You can lay your hands on them, if you wish. Give them the touch.”

  Kilpatrick smiles—then frowns. His face feels wet, cool. He wishes it could be possible. Possible to blink. Possible to wash away the hot tears that suddenly pool and burn in the dark red clouds of his vision.

  BONUS MATERIALS

  Arnzen’s Anthology of Articles:

  “Permanent Ink: An Introduction to Grave Markings.” From the Tenth Anniversary Edition (Delirium Books, 2004).

  “Art Can Kill.” Unpublished. Written for the Tales from the Abyss Newsletter (Dell Books, 1993).

  “No Guts, No Gory.” The Iguana Informer (Oct 1994).

  “Luck of the Draw.” The Genre Press Digest (Sept/Oct 1994).

  “The Gargoyle on My Gables: On Winning the Bram Stoker Award.” Genre Writer’s News (Jan/Feb 1996).

  Corky’s Collection of Tattoo Tales:

  “Marked.” First published in Outlaw Biker’s Tattoo Revue (June 1991).

  “Bald Tires.” Unpublished manuscript (1991).

  “Copycats.” First published in Outlaw Biker’s Tattoo Revue (Feb 1992).

  “The Living Tattoo.” Unpublished manuscript (1992).

  Arnzen’s

  Anthology

  of Articles

  PERMANENT INK: