The Erasable Man: Chronicles of Zachary Artemas

by Christopher Salch

  "I didn't have much to work with," replied the woman. "It's hard to find raw materials in the Wastes, especially when you can't touch anything." She waved her hand through the wall to illustrate her point.

  The man grunted and used the axe head to clear away more of the sheetrock. Behind it was a very ordinary looking door. Being hardwood, it was a little out of place as an interior door, but ordinary nonetheless. The man grasped the knob—feeling the smooth metal against his skin—and yanked his now ice cold and numb hand back almost instantly.

  "Well, the door is still active at least," he said. "But what's it attached to?"

  "No idea," said the woman. "I just drift through the wall into the next room since I can't touch it anymore."

  "Well, let's find out," said the man, taking hold of the door knob again. He could feel the cold creeping up his arm—past the elbow all the way to his shoulder—but kept holding on. The iciness had stretched halfway across his chest before the knob finally turned, and he let go, almost collapsing against the doorframe. Through the door, he could see another room, almost a complete clone of the one he was standing in, but warm and brightly light. A gaunt, blond haired boy sat cross-legged on the coffee table with his hands steepled in his lap.

  "Hello, Artemas. I've been waiting for you," said the boy in a voice much too deep for his body. "It's time for you to repay your debts to me."

  "Hello, Adam," said Artemas and plopped down onto the couch in the new room. "It's taken me awhile to figure out where you were hiding."

  "Of course," said Adam. "I can't be expected to make the job easy. You owe me a great many favors."

  "I always pay my debts," said Artemas. "But, I don't like being used."

  "Artemas, you forget yourself."

  "Maybe, maybe not," he said and left it at that.

  "The favor?" asked Adam. "Now is the perfect—"

  "When I'm ready," cut in Artemas. He slid his forty-five from under his jacket and laid the weapon on the seat next to his right leg. "First, you're going to listen to my side of things."

  "That really isn't necessary—" started Adam.

  "You're going to listen, or I'm walking away right now."

  "You owe me."

  "I owe you shit," said Artemas. "But, I'm going to pay you anyway, and you're going to sit there and listen."

  "Now boys, don't argue," said the woman.

  "You're a part of this too," said Artemas. "So sit down and shut up."

  "I really—"

  "I said, sit it and shut it, mother," snapped Artemas. "You'll want to hear what I've got to say too."

  The woman crossed her arms, floating in mid-air, but said nothing more. Artemas glanced from her to Adam, who shook his head but stayed silent.

  "Fine. This whole mess started about four days ago when I decided to try out Mike's bar down on eighth and main. I knew something wasn't quite right from the moment Mike poured a finger of scotch in a glass and slammed it on the bar without me asking for it. The place itself was mostly empty except for a lady, sitting alone in a little niche behind the main bar. Something didn't feel right, so I walked over to check on her."

  T- 96 Hours

  "Miss, is everything… ?" I started, but quickly realized there wasn't much point in finishing the question. I'd seen the woman from behind, through the latticework separating the booths, and noticed that she wasn't moving, not even a slight twitch. It's the kind of thing I notice, something unusual that's just the other side of normal. Sometimes it's nothing, this time, well… I took one more look, adding another memory to the pile, and slowly walked back to the bar. The remaining amber liquid in my glass burned a searing path through my gullet, distracting me just enough to clear my head. She wasn't the worst I'd seen, not by far, but it had been a while.

  "Hey, Mike!" He was at the other end of the bar inspecting a freshly cleaned glass before putting it away.

  "Yeah?" he called back. "What's with ya? Ya look like sh't!"

  "I'll have another scotch, if you don't mind."

  "Hitting the hard stuff a little fast? Ya sure ya're okay?"

  "Oh, I'm fine, but you might want to call someone about the lady in that booth," I said gesturing.

  "What's wrong with her?" asked Mike.

  "I believe that she is deceased."

  Mike froze in mid-pour. "Ya better not be pulling my leg."

  "I wish to all that is sacred I were."

  He carefully set down the bottle and raised the little gate built into the bar.

  "I wouldn't look too close if I were you," I warned. "Just make the call and let someone else deal with it."

  "Ya're nuts if ya think I'm gonna call the cops without… " his voice trailed off.

  "Don't say I didn't warn you," I mumbled and downed my own glass in one swallow.

  Mike stumbled back to the bar and chugged a pint off the bottle of scotch. I closed my eyes and could see everything as if I were still staring at the grisly scene. She had nothing but raw muscle and bone where her face should have been. On the table, there were two small ears lying next to a neatly folded pile of skin and a silver knife, so polished my own quickly greying face stared back at me from its blade. Blood slowly oozed from hamburger colored pits on either side of her skeletal nose. Her gaping mouth was locked in a silent scream. Green eyes, she had brilliant, emerald-green eyes—eyes that watched me from a skewer in a large martini glass. Candy apple red lipstick stained the glass's rim to finish the scene.

  I took the bottle from Mike's limp hand and refilled my glass. An old man once told me that scotch "helped soften the bad memories and warm the good ones." As far as I could tell, it just made me drunk while I held on to the fiction that it might help me forget.

  CHAPTER THREE

  T- 17 Years - Beginnings

  Morning. It was time. Every morning something had to die.

  The first living creature, be it as a picture or in person, that Ed saw had to die. It didn't matter how long it took or what the consequences were. It had to die and die screaming or Ed would keep hunting. He wore a blindfold at night to make sure that the first thing he saw when he woke up was exactly what he expected it to be.

  Someone was knocking at the door.

  Once, several years back, he'd been awakened just after dawn by a man knocking on the door to his little shack—some salesman or other. He couldn't remember a name but would never forget the hapless soul's exquisite screams, or the gurgles that followed after Ed had cut out the man's vocal cords.

  "I have a package for a Mr. E. D.! Hello anyone home?" yelled a male voice outside.

  Ed's hunger was building, his lips salivating, but a voice wasn't enough, he had to see his victim.

  "Hold on!" called Ed and pulled himself out of bed, ignoring the small, caged rodent a that would normally assuage his appetite. It was safer to have prey at the ready when he woke up, and rodents were much easier to dispose of than people. Fumbling around, he made it to the door and let the courier in. With the blindfold in place, there should be no danger, he thought. The only package Ed was expecting would be from the stranger he'd met the previous day—his new client. That meant it would have his payment and the relics of his next victim inside.

  "E. D.?"

  "That's me," Ed replied.

  "If you could sign here," said the courier, pushing a pen into Ed's hand.

  "Could you put my hand on the signature line?"

  "Sure, let me give you a hand there," he said, placing Ed's hand onto the paper and positioning the pen's point right on the signature line.

  "Okay, where would you like this? It's heavy!"

  Groggily, Ed lifted his blindfold and glanced at the box. The courier's hand was sitting dead center in Ed's view. He looked at the young man and felt something in his mind click.

  "Right over there, in the corner of the room."

  "Over here?"

  "Yes, that will do nicely," Ed stated, closing the door.

  "Hey! What's the deal?"

  "I have
a problem," said Ed, hefting his shovel. He always kept it just inside the door of the shack. "You're the first living thing I've seen today."

  "What's that got to do with anything?"

  "Well, that means you are my prey," said Ed. "I meant to use my squeaky, little friend over there—"

  "Prey? What are you talking about? Hey! What's with the shovel?"

  There was no escape, nowhere to run. Ed stood in between the young man and the shack's only door. He glanced at the name patch on the courier's shirt and couldn't help but smile.

  "Lamb, that's a fitting name isn't it?" said Ed. The shovel smacked into the side of Lamb's head with a wet thud. It wasn't a hard enough blow to kill him, just enough to knock him senseless. Death couldn't come quickly. The screams hadn't even started yet. "A fitting name indeed."

  "So where exactly is Pocketville? I've never heard of the place," asked Anne.

  "The precise location of Pocketville is something that we in the Tekcop family prefer to keep to ourselves. Suffice it to say that the city will have everything you need," replied Janus. "Since you will be sequestered for the duration of your research we have done the best to provide anything and everything you could possibly desire."

  "Well, that's comforting," said Anne, a slightly sarcastic tone to her voice. "I don't even know what I'll need most of the time. How about a unicorn?"

  "With or without wings?" answered Janus without skipping a beat. "I'm sure one our geneticists has either pattern on hand."

  "You're kidding, right?"

  "I assure you that everything has been taken care of."

  "Let's get this over with then," said Anne. "I want to see my new lab."

  "If you will step into the airlock, we can begin the process of acclimatizing you to the atmosphere of Pocketville."

  "Acclimatizing me to the atmosphere? How much were you paying me again?" she asked.

  "The sum of two million US dollars has been deposited into your account. Also, a firm has been retained to manage the money in your absence," stated Janus with a smile.

  "Two million dollars?"

  "Two million dollars, US."

  Anne nodded, it was more money than she'd ever hoped to see at one time much less so early in her career. With one last glance around, she stepped through a heavy bulkhead door into what looked like a tiny airlock. At least it was tiny compared to anything that Anne had seen. The room itself was roughly cylinder shaped with a second bulkhead door on the far side, about three feet from the one that she had entered by. Everything, especially the doors, had an over-engineered, industrial feel to it—at least Anne hoped it was over-engineered based on how thick the walls were.

  The outer door closed behind her with a thud. A quick spin of the wheel by Janus on the other side and Anne's last chance to turn back disappeared. For just a moment, Janus's face appeared through a small window in the door, smiling at her.

  "As I explained before, Pocketville is a sealed environment. That means you and your belongings will need to go through a sterilization process," said Janus, his voice tinny over the intercom. From what Anne had read in the short brochure Janus had given her, she wasn't looking forward to going through the procedure personally. The thought of two million dollars and all that interest compounding while she didn't have to spend any of it was enough to push her past the last little hump of uncertainty. It helped that Anne was getting paid to do what she had wanted to do on her own.

  "To start with, please remove your clothing—all of your clothing—and place it in the bin to your left."

  "Is that really necessary?" she asked.

  "My dear, I have the cameras turned off and the porthole closed. There will be no prying eyes."

  With a sigh, she stripped down and folded each item of clothing neatly. None of the clothes were anything that she was particularly attached to; it just didn't seem right to leave them in a crumpled pile. The only possession she had that mattered was a thin, spiral notebook that held all her formulas and notes—which were what had earned her this trip to Janus's private research facility and that cool two million sitting in her bank account. A shiver ran down her spine to go with the goosebumps prickling her skin. She hadn't noticed just how cold it was in the anteroom until she was standing there naked with her notebook clutched tightly to her chest.

  "Two million dollars," Anne whispered to herself and hit the big red button next to the far door to signal her readiness.

  "You removed everything?" queried Janus.

  "Yes."

  "One woman tried to keep her undergarments and… well, let's just say things didn't go well. Amputations were involved, and it took the cleaning crew a month to find all the little bits—" said Janus.

  "Yes! It's all in the bin!" she yelled.

  "Good! In the next room, there will be a small compartment with a wire basket inside. Place any belongings that you will need once you arrive in there. They will be processed for you," chimed Janus while the door in front of her slowly unsealed itself. A hiss of escaping air and a strong chemical smell flooded the tiny anteroom stinging Anne's eyes.

  "Any reason I shouldn't put my clothes in this basket?" asked Anne.

  "We provide uniforms for all employees—yours will be waiting for you," answered Janus. "Besides, it's safer to do things this way. Less chance of forgetting to take something off."

  Anne stepped through the door, holding her notebook tight, and looked around. This room was very similar to the last one, only larger. It still had the over-engineered appearance that left her wondering just what kind of a mess she was getting into and felt like it would be more at home in a submarine than a high-end research facility. She found the compartment and wire-basket right where Janus said it would be and reluctantly sealed her notebook inside.

  "Alright, what now?" she asked with her arms curled tightly over her chest. Without the notebook, she felt even more vulnerable.

  "Look at the floor in the middle of the room. There should be two black markers for your feet and a mark on opposite sides of the room for your hands. For the sterilization process to be effective, you will need to stand with your feet and hands on the marks," Janus instructed.

  "Two million," she whispered again and took a calming breath. This was the part that Anne was most worried about. From what she had read in the briefing material, the sterilization process was completely automated—once she touched all four of the marks the machine would start.

  "Is everything alright?" asked Janus.

  "Just butterflies, that's all," reassured Anne. This was it. She moved into position, held her breath, and closed her eyes. All the lights went out and a plane of red laser light swept across Anne's body.

  "Good girl," said Janus. "Now hold still while the equipment takes your measurements. It's better than any tailor!"

  Anne held her breath and did her best not to move. The lights came back up causing her to wince against the sudden brightness. Instinctively, Anne tried to pull her hands back to cover herself but couldn't—thick black goo had oozed over both of her hands and feet, anchoring them in place.

  "Umm, what's going on?" her voice came out high-pitched, as though she were breathing helium.

  "Nothing to worry about. The restraints are just there for your protection," said Janus. His voice sounded strange, like he was talking to her through a long metal tube.

  "This wasn't in the briefing," accused Anne.

  "Oh dear, I guess they haven't updated that document yet. Don't worry, it will all be over in a few moments."

  The thick black goo was flowing along Anne's limbs, covering her skin in a thin, mirror-finished layer of itself. Fear settled like a lead weight in her stomach as she watched the inexorable flow move up her arm and a similar flow moving up her legs. In seconds, her entire body below the neck was completely encased by the shiny obsidian.

  Anne struggled, twisting and turning, trying anything to pull her body free of the black goo but only succeeded in tiring herself out. The more she fought, the stiffer
the goo became, hardening and constricting around her body like a shell. Within a minute she couldn't move at all and her breath was coming in shallow gasps—just enough to keep her conscious.

  "That's better. You're doing very well," congratulated Janus, his voice even more distorted and distant than before. "One last step to go!"

  It started as a faint tingling sensation in the tips of her encased fingers and spread along her arm in a searing wave of pain. She could feel her flesh burning away under the hard shell. Anne frantically flung her head around trying to escape the fire she felt spreading through her body.

  "Five," said Janus.

  Anne couldn't breath; the fire had reached her chest and started searing its way up her throat.

  "Four."

  A grey haze ate at the edges of her vision, and Anne felt her consciousness beginning to fade.

  "Three."

  She could feel fire burning beneath the skin of her face, consuming her from the inside out.

  "Two."

  A long dark tunnel.

  "One."

  Nothingness. Silence.

  "Zero," said Janus, looking at the figure of a lithe woman on the tiny screen in front of him. A statue cast in slippery black stone with terror frozen on her face—formed by a disturbed master craftsman. Satisfied, he nodded his head and clicked off the monitor.

  "Paige? The transfer is complete on this end. Please move Anne's anchor to the Ossuarium for storage," said Janus.

  "Yes sir. Will you be meeting Ruth at the house?" answered Paige, stepping into small control room.

  "No, I don't think there will be a need. That will be all," said Janus.

  "Yes sir."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  T- 96 Hours - The Faceless Dead Girl

  The sun was already low on the horizon when we were ushered outside under the watchful gaze of several grim looking officers. They led us to the rear end of a black and white, one of several now occupying the parking lot. Mike, ever the mindful barkeep, spread a towel on the trunk and kept our glasses topped off from a fresh bottle of scotch while we waited for a detective to get around to us.