by Rachel Caine
Teddy’s body was found under the Eleventh Street Bridge a week later by a longshoreman and his dog. The skin was removed from his left shoulder, and not an ounce of blood remained in his veins. The newspapers got to the scene before the police, and The Tribune ran a picture of Teddy’s face under the headline “Railway Skinner: Last Stop, Tacoma.” Henry didn’t see that paper, but news of the boy’s death was brought directly to his door.
Detective Palmer pounded his fist on the door of Henry’s shop late that evening, breaking Henry from his trance as he set up the inks for his first appointment of the night. Henry unlocked the door and opened it as wide as the chain allowed. His mouth parted slightly at the sight of the detective, and he opened the door wordlessly, afraid to even mention her name. Palmer shook his head.
“It isn’t Jane, Henry. I’m sorry.”
Henry nodded, sullen, and went back to his inks.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
Henry glanced over to where Betty slept behind his daughter’s door. “Just laying out my first appointment, detective. What are you here for?”
The detective cleared his throat. “Do you remember a fella by the name Teddy Keene?”
Henry stayed his messing with the inks and stood straight. “Yeah. He was in just last week. He wanted a cockroach on his shoulder in blue ink.” Henry placed himself between Palmer and the door to Jane’s room.
“A cockroach?” asked Palmer.
Henry forced a laugh. “Got quite a call for insects lately,” he said, and pointed up to the flash wall where Betty’s cards were hung. Palmer shuddered.
“Can’t imagine why anyone would want a cockroach. Did Teddy act funny at all while he was here?”
Henry shrugged. “Don’t know him well enough to say if he seemed off.”
“Anything odd happen that night?”
Henry leaned back against his barber’s chair and crossed his arms to keep the detective from seeing his heart race. “Yeah,” said Henry as he pictured Betty’s teeth clamp down before she could finish the line work. “He got cold feet after the first few pricks. He wasn’t sure if his mother would approve of her boy getting inked. I told him not to worry about it, patched him up, and said we could finish another time. Or change the picture. Then I walked him down to the bar, we had a few drinks and parted ways.”
“You didn’t see anyone follow him?”
“What’s this about, detective?”
“Some fella in the port found Teddy’s body this morning. He was missing the skin off that shoulder.”
Henry doubled over his stomach. “Jesus, Palmer!”
“We can’t get a single lead on this, Henry. The papers think it’s the Railway Skinner, but it doesn’t fit. The Bureau has been on that case for over a year, and the bodies are littered all across the country. There’ve been four like this in Tacoma over the last month, but the Skinner never stays in the same place for this long. Damn papers have been reporting the Skinner’s every move. My money says we’ve got a fan of his work trying to duplicate it closer to home.”
Henry shook his head, hand over his mouth.
“You were my last hope for this kid, Henry. You might have been the last one to see him alive.”
Henry collected himself for a moment. “Sorry, detective. I don’t remember seeing anyone else that night. Maybe check at the bar.”
Detective Palmer stared at him for a moment then held out his hand to shake. “I’ll give that a shot. Thanks’ Henry. If you think of anything else, just give me a call.”
It was thirty minutes past sunset when Detective Palmer left the tattoo shop. Henry drew the curtains and turned his sign to read “closed.” From the other side of the door, Betty quietly tapped the wall.
“Betty? Did you kill that boy?”
The tapping stopped. “I’m so sorry, Henry.”
He stood silent next to the door, unable to touch the wood to break it down.
“Henry? Are you mad at me?”
Henry leaned against the wall next to the door.
“I can’t help it, Henry. It just happens.”
“You know it’s wrong, Betty.”
“It is wrong. I know. But I treat them so well.” She opened up the door and stood fast in the entrance. “I want to show you something.” Her cold frail fingers held onto his hand and she led him into his daughter’s room. “Look, I don’t forget about them like some old piece of meat. I love them.”
Henry stood back in the room and let his eyes adjust to the gloom. The weak light from the parlor hit the walls and illuminated the skins tacked onto the plaster. Rawhide; cleanly cut from the flesh, but preserved by an inexpert hand. Most were small, hardly bigger than the cards she drew on, showing common flash pieces of sparrows and hearts. Her centerpiece, lit up by the doorway, was big enough for Henry to imagine the man who once wore it. It was carved from the shoulders and neck, around both sides, and down even to the buttocks, every inch inked with fish and mermaids and full sail ships. The knife she’d used had cut across some of the pictures. The whole man must have been tattooed head to toe.
“This one is my favorite,” she whispered as she took down a large piece from the frame of the mirror and passed it to him. It was the fly Henry tattooed across that old man’s chest two months ago. The ink was seated well into the flesh, the scarring from the needle had healed seamlessly. She must have waited weeks after that night before she killed him.
“You did beautiful work of my drawing, Henry. I couldn’t just let that walk away,” she said as he set down the fly.
“Why’d you do this, Betty?”
“They’re just so pretty, Henry. I couldn’t let them go to waste.”
“They’re calling you the Railway Skinner,” he said as he rounded the room. Over the doorjamb was a meager scrap of skin stretched out against the wall. It was wet and chalky. Torn where the needle tried to ink the skin. Teddy Keene. She’d stuck the knife into the marks made by her teeth and skinned him just hours after he left the bar. To the left of the door, over the little desk where his daughter used to illustrate all the stories they once read together, was a larger patch of skin. It depicted a young woman with a long red scarf collapsed into the wings of an enormous bat. Jane.
His blood drained. His stomach lurched, and Henry could not tear his eyes away from the remains of his daughter. The Railway Skinner stood next to him, and all he could think was how that idiot detective didn’t pin his daughter’s case to the biggest serial killer in the country. He turned, slowly, and faced the small woman who smiled at him with parted lips just barely showing the tips of her fangs.
“Do you want a tattoo, Betty?” he asked. His face was hard as stone and he prayed she could not hear his heart beating against his chest.
She laughed. “I got so many.”
“These ain’t yours,” he said, and his body was again under his control. He walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him and nearly caught her heels as she tried to follow.
“Henry, please, I thought you’d understand.”
“I understand that you got a thing for tattoos, Betty. And I’m offering to give you one.” He forced a smile for her and pulled the chain to turn on all the lights around the barber’s chair. Betty flinched away. Henry took his inks out of the drawer and began to mix them. He glanced up at the clock and calculated the time till sunrise.
“Henry, I can’t get a tattoo. You’ve seen my skin—it just closes up so fast.”
She was shivering in the middle of the room.
“I know you want this, Betty. So where do you want it?”
She walked to him, and turned to let him unbutton her dress.
“I might hurt you,” she said over her shoulder. “Sometimes I just hurt things when they scare me. So I might hurt you.”
He unfastened her dress down to the small of her back and motioned for her to lie on the reclined chair. She sat.
“All across my back. I want that fly. Exactly as I drew it. No var
iation. Center the wings on my shoulder blades, and the head points down.” She craned her neck to look at him in the eye. “I might kill you if this hurts.”
He nodded without meeting her gaze. “It’s going to hurt.” He flicked the switch on the machine to start the needle vibrating and began to free-hand the fly onto her skin, digging the needle deep.
She flinched under his hand, and a thin black line appeared on the small of her back. Her skin came apart at the line and fluttered upward. She whimpered and gripped the edge of the seat, and the skin grew back together. He worked calmly, etching away the minutes till sunrise, taking care with every tiny line in the fly’s wings. The lines he carved into her skin with the needle closed almost too quickly for the ink to seep in. He ran over his work twice for every line, and kept a steady pace as the clock wound down. At ten minutes to six, he pressed down hard through the skin and broke into the muscle.
“Stop, Henry!” She growled, and the skin peeled up from under the needle in three leathery black wings. He started backwards, nearly dropping the needle as she spun to face him. Her eyes were all black, and faint patterns of wings crossed her face. “You’re hurting me on purpose!”
Henry straightened on the stool and stared down at her, unafraid. “You can’t go under the needle without a little pain, Betty.”
Betty set her jaw as she realized her mistake. She shouldn’t have shown him the skins. He wasn’t ready. But they belonged to her, the skin and the blood and the lives she took to go on living, they were gifts from that endless hunger. And the girl with Dracula tattooed between her shoulder blades, Betty brought her back to him, in the blood that lingered in her veins. But Henry could never understand the service she’d done him, and she snarled, baring her fangs. “You don’t have any right to be mad at me! I never lied about what I am.”
Henry set down the needle and turned off the machine. “You killed my daughter,” he said, and the fury finally surfaced in white hot rage. His hand closed around the wooden chair leg he’d sharpened to a stake. “You killed my Janey and you knew it all this time.” His voice broke over the words, and he choked back the tears. He stood, and Betty backed away as the skin on her face began to peel. “I’m never going to let you kill again,” he said, and he lunged for her heart with the stake.
“You don’t have a choice!” she screamed at him with the last of her face as her skin tore into wings and swarmed into a hundred bats. The swarm descended upon him, taking small bites from his skin. He ducked his head and stumbled back toward the window, swatting away at her when he could dare to leave his neck unguarded. His hands were nicked and bleeding; bats clung to his arms, and the sun rose up over the city and Henry tore the lace curtains down. The bats screamed and Betty flocked up from him and flew in a swirling mass into his daughter’s room. She slammed the door as soon as she had hands, and he heard the click of the lock.
“Don’t you dare open this door, Henry Nevins! I’ll kill you if you open this door!”
He ignored her screaming and began to pack his inks and needles into a small crate. He took his cards off the wall and set them in with the rest of his equipment. Henry collected the cards she drew, then pushed the lot under the door. He grinned without joy as he heard her feet scamper back toward the bed.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Henry. You pushed me! You hurt me first!” Her voice was frantic and strained, and he heard flapping. “I didn’t know she was yours.”
He left her alone to stare at the door in her room full of decorated skins as the stairs creaked over her head. Something large hit the floor above her, and he dragged it down the stairs, thudding on every step. He glanced over to the door as he packed his life into the large black chest, and saw Betty’s smoking fingertips scoot his daughter’s skin under the door. The fingers drew back and she whimpered behind the door. “I’m sorry, Henry.” Her voice was tired and thin. “I’m so sorry.”
Henry draped a dishcloth over the remains of his daughter and gingerly packed it into his chest, unwilling to touch the sacred thing with his bare hands should his fingers burn away.
“I’m sorry, too, Betty,” he said as he emptied a bottle of kerosene on the door.
“No!” she barked as he struck a match. He held it to the door until the flames caught on strong, then left the house with his chest and walked down to the train station. He was on the train to California before he heard the sirens wail and barrel up the hill. The firemen saw a room full of skins burn away as they searched for survivors, but when the flames were extinguished nothing was left of Henry’s shop but cinders and ash.
THE HUNGRY LIVING DEAD
By Nancy Kilpatrick
At last I have died the true death and am in Hell, Réjean thought. He paused on the sidewalk, assaulted by the discordant sounds escaping through the cracks in the red brick wall. This club, like many others he had been to, was located in a run-down area of the city, in a structure built more than one hundred years ago. Not a particularly creative period architecturally, he thought, but at least it holds a flavor that the modern slabs of concrete and steel piercing the sky lack.
He sighed. They were all alike, these places. Follow the steps down into the chilled earth. Over the worn door with a peephole hangs the inevitable, nearly invisible sign, this one with the word Sanctuary burned into a black plastic chevron. Knock and, provided you look the part, they open unto you.
Inside, the air was dense and stale, pungent with the odors of sweat, tobacco, and a variety of intoxicants. His nostrils stung; his aesthetics were offended. A cacophony of instruments and voices careened off the black walls, impaling all in their path. A tomb for the living, he thought. Dank. Filthy. Hidden. Crawling with repugnant life forms. At least it was dark.
He had come here out of desperation. They possessed blood. The ruby river of life would be tainted with impurities, but he needed it to survive. It was abundant here. And, more importantly, they gave it willingly.
Réjean moved to a gloomy corner. He felt dozens of voracious eyes staking his back. His costume fit the purpose: a greatcoat and pants of velvet, and a silk ascot, all ebony, of course. His shirt glittered knife-blade silver. The high calfskin boots were a color light could not penetrate; his heels clicked smartly against the painted concrete floor, but only he could distinguish the sound amidst the cacophony. A layered cape rested on his broad shoulders, the type he had once worn in daylight, when he had walked as one of the living.
These youths loved theatrics, and the outfit, the most flamboyant in the room, attracted them, which was why he wore it. He swung the cape back over one shoulder dramatically, laid the cane with the silver wolf’s head tip on top of the small round table, and then sat. He removed the gloves slowly, for effect, scanning the room with disdain. Even before he draped the leather gloves across the cane, a female stumbled toward him.
Young, barely twenty, emaciated, as most of them were. Dressed in black, from her fashionable Doc Martins, tights, miniskirt and Gothic lace blouse, to the leather jacket she wore, the front studded with safety pins and stainless steel grommets. The back, he knew, would display a grisly picture of a skull, or a fanged version of Murnau’s Nosferatu. Her shaved scalp made her eyes appear large and liquid. As she neared, he noticed a spider tattooed on one side of her bare head.
Silently he gestured for her to sit. She nearly lost her balance but finally perched on the edge of the chair opposite him. She stared at him and tugged at the dozens of earrings and clips along her left outer ear. He knew the game perfectly; withholding would force her out. Eventually, she sucked in her generous lower lip, painted mold green, took a drag from a nearly finished cigarette, then blurted, “You look just like Lestat!”
He’d heard this before, of course. Many times. The look was intentional and he had often silently thanked Mrs. Rice for painting such a clear portrait that resembled him. He laid his head back against the wall, lowered his eyelids and stared down his nose at this fille in what he knew would convey a taste of the danger s
he craved. She had seen such looks in vampire movies. She knew how to respond.
The girl moved her chair closer. As she did so, Interview with the Vampire fell from her jacket pocket. They both reached down to pick up the worn paperback. Their fingers touched.
“You’re ice!” she said, shocked. Intrigued. Her breath stank of beer and cigarettes. The dross of other substances seeped from her pores.
“You can melt me,” he assured her, his voice floating along the air.
“How?” She took an agitated drag, but only the filter was left. Her eyes glittered.
“I think you know.” He heard her heartbeat quicken and felt the vibration as strongly as if he held that organ in his palm.
She glanced across the room and gestured wildly to a male sitting at the table she had vacated. He joined them immediately. Tall, painfully lean, holes in the requisite spots in his black denim pants and tight tank top. A ferret hung over the back of his neck, under his tied-back jet hair. The rat-like animal, sensing danger, scurried beneath the motorcycle jacket.
The male noisily dragged over a chair and sat with them. Réjean inhaled the odor of tart sweat wafting from his body, tinged with an undercurrent of sweet sex. The young man’s lashes were stained and lined in black, creating an androgynous look. His glassy eyes shone intensely, but he was not as intoxicated as the girl.
“Jason, man.” The boy held a palm up to be grabbed in the modern ritual of greeting.
“I am Réjean.” He grasped the warm hand and held it; Jason, too, felt the chill. The expression of disbelief on the young face faded to excitement.
“Man, like are you really the undead?”
“Of course.” There was no need to hide the truth. So many people drank blood now, every newspaper and magazine, every TV talk show featured stories of real vampires, that Réjean knew he could safely disguise himself as one of these deviants. Whatever these two before him believed was irrelevant. “For the blood is the life,” he said knowingly, stating clearly his true purpose for being here.