Beast Machine

by Brad McKinniss

  “Fine. Whatever. Okay, where do I start,” said Mandrake. He began to count his fingers and did his best to remember the past few months.

  “Now I’m gon’nuh do my goodest to remember, but I’m sure I’ll miss some of them.”

  “That’s fine, sir, please just tell me,” asked the broad shouldered nurse. “I’d like to get home; preferably some time tonight.”

  “Well, to start us off: I was down at Lil’ Jimmies last week and we did some of that crack-cocaine. That stuff makes you feel wiggity-wack, you know what I mean? Hmm, what else? Oh, I killed a twenty-four pack of beer just yesterday (it was a light beer in case you was wonderin’), and the six days before that I did the same thing on each day of the week, same brand too! Then I’m pretty sure I did, uh, those A.D.D. pills – Cla-Madderall I think they’re called – with a bit of cough syrup to wash’em down. The off-brand tastes just like grape soda!” Mandrake rubbed his chin and smiled. “There were a bunch’o other pills I swallowed that night. Don’t remember what they’re called, but they made my cock hard for a long time and I had to wet my whistle several times before it went down! I was a’bit pissed ‘cause I had to do the whistlin’ to my poor ol’ self, though!”

  Mandrake pantomimed the act of male masturbation without hesitation: gave himself quite the length and stroked his invisible member several times. He giggled like a shithead before continuing.

  “Then the next thing I remember is that… Oh, that I went down on my old lady after swallowing a few Xannies and drinking some soda - reminds me that she needs to do a better job of trimmin’ the hedges and washing the curtains!” Mandrake laughed audibly and adjusted his crotch. “I went and bought a handle of some of that shitty vodka and mixed it with a few of my sister’s birth control pills from the State.” He adjusted his crotch again, more feverish than the last time. “They actually make me feel damn good, like I’m on a fluffy cloud watching stockcar races. Boy, do I love me stockcar races, especially when they wreck’em up!”

  The nurse couldn’t believe the substances that this man had put inside of his body. He should have been dead a decade ago, yet the man the stands here blabbering away. He needed to hurry up, though, because she was going to miss Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune if this went on too much longer.

  “I’m not sure if this is a drug or nuthin’ but I ate a fried squirrel’s tail that had some pot sprinkled on top of it. Hmm. Then a month ago I did some more blow off Tracey’s backside – my sister’s friend with huge knockers and a sweet ass – and that pissed off the Missus, but we settled that out with a nice eighth I stole from my buddy Roger-Dodger. That was some primo-ass weed!” Mandrake slapped his leg and laughed hysterically. His teeth were various shades of yellow and his nostrils were slowly oozing out mucus. “It had little purple specks all over it and smelled like Jesus Christ himself! I swore I saw Jesus Christ that night too, but it was just my cousin Merle being a dick pretending to be Christ and everything while I was fucked up on the purple speckled weed. Merle said something retarded like, ‘It’s me, Jesus! I was the first-ever zombie and you better believe it!’”

  “Okay, sir, I think that’ll do,” said the nurse.

  “But I ain’t done yet! I haven’t even got to the party at Big Pete’s yet! That’s the best part.”

  “What you’ve told me is more than enough. Also, no, a fried squirrel’s tail is not a drug. It’s just rather disgusting and the fact that you’re alive is nothing short of a miracle.”

  Mandrake was satisfied with himself. He finally admitted to some of his transgressions, albeit in a self-aggrandizing way, and someone actually listened to him, rather than scolding him or putting him in a jail cell. “This felt nice,” he thought.

  “When will I get this filter-doo-hickey put in?” asked Mandrake.

  “Right now,” the broad-shouldered nurse grinned. “It will begin in a few moments once Doctor Silva is done implementing the filter in a previous patient.”

  “Don’t I gotta fill something-out or whatever?”

  “Nope. I did all the paperwork for you. Now will you please lie down on this operating table,” said the broad shouldered nurse. She pushed a black button near the room’s door and slowly an operating table descended from the peerless white ceiling.

  “Whoa, that is some’uh nifty shit!” exclaimed Mandrake. The scrawny man with an apparently indestructible digestive system climbed onto the operating table. He relaxed as the broad shouldered nurse procured blue straps from a cabinet and strapped Mandrake in tightly.

  “Do the straps feel secure?” asked the broad shouldered nurse.

  “What’s that about’uh strap-on!?” joked Mandrake. His mood kept elevating – happier and happier he became. “Life was going to get better for old Charlie,” he thought.

  “I’m sorry ma’am but yes it feels right. No tightness across the privates.”

  The broad shouldered nurse stepped back over to the black button and stated, “Thank you! I can finally go home!” She pushed the button with a strange finesse and Mandrake slowly rose up to the ceiling by way of the operating table. The machine that lifted the operating table up made no noise.

  Up went the operating table into another spotless white room, which had to be the operating room. There were no visible tools or cabinets but the spotless white room smelled faintly like iron.

  Mandrake was greeted by a masked doctor in dirty green scrubs. Mandrake couldn’t decipher if the dirty scrubs were from blood, guts or actual dirt. The doctor appeared to wait for Mandrake to shriek or act surprised but not a peep came from Mandrake. He didn’t seem disturbed by the doctor’s dirty scrubs.

  The doctor pulled his mask down. “Charles Mandrake, I presume?” asked the doctor. The mask was gently positioned back over the doctor’s mouth.

  “Yes sir, I am him,” said Mandrake as he stared at the ceiling. “Am I going to be getting that new filter thingie-ma-jig now?”

  “Yes you are! I am Doctor Takeo Silva and I am here to change your life for the better.” Silva spoke much louder when the surgical mask covered his mouth. It made him sound more aggressive than he needed to be toward his patients. More powerful, more manly.

  Mandrake squinted, still looking up at the ceiling. “You what?”

  “Darling Takeo,” a voice of a woman echoed throughout the operating room. “How much longer in here until you’re off? I want you to tell me more stories and sing me to sleep. Please!”

  Mandrake craned his head in every direction he could, but could not find the source of the woman’s voice. He figured it was a nurse that was just out of his line of sight.

  “Not too much longer, my darling Chelsey!” stated Doctor Silva with his surgical mask pulled down.

  “What the hell is going on?” questioned Mandrake. “This ain’t no social gathering, doc! This shit is s’pposed to be taken’uh seriously!”

  Silva stuck a syringe in the fold of Mandrake’s elbow. “This will keep you sedated. You won’t remember a thing.” Silva pushed down on the plunger, forcing the liquid into Mandrake’s bloodstream.

  “Ow!” screeched Mandrake. “What the fuck, doc? Gotta warn me when you do that junk! I’m used to th’needles but still need’uh warning, damn.”

  “Don’t kill this one!” laughed the woman’s voice. “Chairman Obelis will need people to vote for him, after all!” Mandrake felt uneasy by the presence of this woman. She wasn’t speaking like a nurse. She was just speaking nonsense.

  “Oh, hush darling,” said Silva to the voice of his deceased lover. “Someday, I’ll be able to hold you as you fall asleep.” The woman’s voice swooned loudly.

  “I didn’t think I’uh needed to be put to sleep for this’n?” asked Mandrake. He suddenly began to flail his arms as the fluid from the syringe burned his insides. His arms couldn’t flail much since his arms were bound. “What is this stuff!? Fuck man! Ow! This ain’t right!”

  Mandrake squealed loudly. It was an eerie mix between a pig squeal and a child crying. WeeeeO
W, weeeeOW, weeeeOW. Silva smiled contently.

  “Ah, I see that the nurse didn’t ask you about your allergies! You must be allergic to the anesthetic,” said Silva. Silva leaned in as closely as he could to Mandrake, “Extremely rare condition.”

  “Why are you so happy ’bout that?” howled Mandrake. A force inside of Mandrake shot up from his stomach and into his throat. He vomited a gooey black mass all over his own face and Silva’s face, though the surgical mask protected Silva’s mouth.

  “God damn it,” said Silva. “Now I have to clean that shit. I only have to worry about this being clean and you go and fuck it up!”

  Silva had regained his arrogance as a surgeon after it had been buried with the death of Chelsey many years ago. “A surgeon and scientist of my caliber should not be getting puked on, especially by lesser beings like this Mandrake fellow,” he thought. His renewed arrogance often brought out a crass fury, except when facing off against people that scare him – those more powerful than him.

  Fuming, Silva said, “I’m going to make your surgery a bit more painful than it is for the rest.”

  Silva grabbed a sterile towel and briskly wiped Mandrake’s face clean. Mandrake began convulsing slightly. Silva disposed of his mask in a waste bin next to the operating table and grabbed a clean mask out of a nearby cabinet.

  Mandrake slowly began to drift off into another dimension. “It’s finally… finally working, Doctor Silly,” said Mandrake drowsily. “Is this…” Mandrake was out cold.

  “I was going to tell you that I was happy because I get a little kick out of others’ pain,” said Silva, “especially when it’s a garbage person like yourself. But you didn’t need to know that, did you?”

  “You’re so confident and, oh, so devilishly handsome, Takeo!” the still swooning woman’s voice said. “I will reach out of these speakers to get you if you don’t sing to me soon!”

  Silva walked over to another cabinet which revealed a slew of vibrantly colored buttons and levers. Silva pulled a blue lever down and pushed a green button. The operating table began to tilt forwards until Mandrake’s head was level with Silva’s eyesight.

  “You are an ugly fellow, Charles Mandrake. Is it the drugs that you used or just your horrible genes?” laughed Silva. “I think I can give you a little something to fix that; first I need to put in the filter.” Silva inserted the nasal filter into Mandrake’s nose. He made sure to hear a click and then removed his fingers from Mandrake’s nostrils.

  Silva snapped his fingers together and shouted, “Voila!”

  “Takeo, you’re so wonderful at what you do!” whispered the woman’s voice seductively. Silva enjoyed the constant compliments from the voice, even if they were generic.

  “We didn’t have to put you under for that but it made the procedure much easier – for me.” Silva spun around Mandrake and focused at the base of Mandrake’s neck. Silva needed to get into the neck to reach the brain stem and spinal cord, but needed to do so carefully as to not cause permanent damage to Mandrake.

  Silva procured a large surgical object with rigid teeth from another cabinet. It resembled an alligator’s mouth but with metal teeth and at a considerably smaller size. He stepped behind Mandrake and gently lined up the teeth to Mandrake’s neck.

  “Now begins your new life, Charles.” Silva let the teeth snap on Mandrake’s skin then slowly pulled back on the tool causing Mandrake’s neck skin to come off as gently as peeling an orange.

  Mandrake’s muscle tissue, vertebrae and other body knick-knacks could be seen. Silva wiggled around one of Mandrake’s vertebrae with surgical tools to find the spinal cord. The wiggling of Mandrake’s vertebrae caused a spattering of blood to shoot out at Silva’s face.

  Unaffected by bodily fluids shooting at him this time, Silva kept wiggling vertebrae after vertebrae to find Mandrake’s spinal cord. “Ah, yes, there it is,” said Silva happily.

  “Now for my device that will change the way humans think, the way humans act, and the way humans will survive for beyond the next millennia! This is the Carda implant, Mister Mandrake.”

  Chapter 20

  Details

  It had been a few days since the first kill on Gora’s revenge tour. She had slowly reveled in the death of Doctor Spotila, especially after witnessing his bestiality tendencies firsthand. Still, it was a disgusting event that Gora wished she never had to witness. “That poor lizard and all the other poor lizards before it,” thought Gora. “At least Spotila is dead now.”

  Gora had thrown out the clothes she wore that night into a nearby dump, and she used some of her ingenuity to place the sedan she stole into a car compactor. She wanted any physical evidence of that night gone; not because it was evidence, rather, so she would not have any items to spark the emotional disgust of that night. She hoped the panic that swelled within her that night would die with those clothes as well.

  Each beast had thoroughly rested their mind and body before returning to any pertinent research. Hitbear, still with fur matted with blood, prowled the woods surrounding Gora’s laboratory, under strict orders to not be seen by anyone. Though he was glad to be outside, his trudging through the woods was uneventful as he became infested with burrs, ticks, and leaf detritus. On his small trip through the woods, he found the same species of tree over and over again, and one small headstone. The headstone read:

  Here Lies Penn And His Dog Jake: They Are Adventuring In The Afterlife

  Tubman got more attuned to her body by jumping on various objects placed around the laboratory. She jumped on a table, a box on top of the table, a table on top of another table, and she nearly reached the top of a tall bookshelf in one leap. She would often test her limits like this on days where the others were resting or researching, or would try her hand at yoga – something Gora introduced to her.

  Owlbert had been resting along with his companions, though he was in deep thought about a plan for the next kill mission. He didn’t do much during the last mission and wanted to make more of an impact on the next one. He wanted to prove his worth physically and strategically, not just intellectually. Gora’s library, for once, did not provide him a book on proper strategy during an assassination attempt, so Owlbert was left with drawing his own conclusions on what would be a perfect strategy.

  The radio was on and blared about the death of Doctor Spotila. Most of the news regarding his death was not about his spectacular efforts in herpetology, but about how gruesome his death was in his secret reptile chamber. The radio duo, like much of the public, did not know Doctor Spotila was found dead in a reptile sex chamber; instead, the police relayed that Doctor Spotila was merely found “inside his facility in a previously unknown basement chamber.” Technically correct.

  “Let’s make the next kill cleaner,” said Gora. “I believe Spotila deserved that bloody death, but I don’t want to see someone die like that again, if possible.” Each beast heard her, but none reacted to the message.

  “I’m intrigued by this desire of yours to see a non-bloody death, but I need to wash,” answered Hitbear. The blood clumped in his hair around his feet and lower back along with the burrs and ticks; it was beginning to smell like month old cat piss. “Any chance I can take a shower or find a pond to wash off first? There wasn’t much water in these woods…”

  “There’s a large shower in the other building to the right once you exit,” said Gora quietly. “It blends in with the woods, so you may have to feel around for it. Be careful to not let any passing traffic see you.”

  “Thank you,” said Hitbear as he stepped outside.

  Gora had a sizable plot of land on the outskirts of Pendleton but was hesitant to build much of anything on the land. It would have been a hassle, and not quite smart, to rid herself of any of the trees around her to build unnecessary structures. The trees were her protection from outsiders. She had always taken the advice of a close friend of “staying under the radar” as best as she could.

  Tubman, resting from training, was breathing
heavily and singing in between the heavy breathes. Owlbert, taking a break from brainstorming a strategy, was reading aloud from one of the many zany books he found in Gora’s library. Today he was reading Peanuts Are Not Nuts, But George Washington Carver Was Not Nuts!

  Gora wanted to listen more closely to the radio, so she silenced the two remaining beasts quite rudely. This drew glares from Tubman and Owlbert. Both dropped their glares and sat down next to Gora in the center of the lab.

  The radio buzzed:

  “They found that Doctor Spotila with his chest ripped open, guts flung all over the place, skull smashed and reptiles running amok! Reptiles tried to eat most of what was left of’em, but there’s still enough of a carcass left to establish that it is indeed Doctor Spotila. I just can’t fathom a death like that can you?” said one of the radio hosts, named Jimbo.

  “Not at all, Jimbo, but Sheriff Amherst believes Spotila may have died before his head was smashed and that it was an accidental death since Spotila was experimenting on them lizards real late at night,” replied the other host, named Elliot. “He served as an emergency veterinarian for many in the Portland community, most notably for the mayor’s twin pythons.”

  There was a slight pause before Elliot continued, “Now, Jimbo, back to the gory details!”

  Music fit for a horror movie played over the speakers briefly.

  “I still can’t wrap my mind around it being a suicide. An accident, maybe, but a suicide? No way he goes out like that.” More silence, loud breathing from one of the broadcasters could be heard. “His head could have been smashed then the guts ripped out, ya know? Plus, what kind of lizard could have smashed his head clean like that? The biggest lizard in that place was a boa constrictor!” exclaimed Jimbo. “I think…”

  “Whatever happened to this doctor, Jimbo, it was downright horrific! Just horrible. I feel bad for his family,” said Elliot. A short silence rushed over the speakers. “Oh, he doesn’t have any family? Apparently, Doctor Spotila does not have any immediate family members, so says our intern. Did he have any security at that obscene tower of his?” Elliot asked his colleague, Jimbo. “You’re more familiar with the story, as you talked to the Sheriff this morning.”