Mad Stacks: Story Collection Box Set

by Scott Nicholson

But that was wrong.

  Should have been hot.

  Fire lick orange. That was the last thing Roger remembered, until now.

  Along with the chill, other sensations seeped into the murky pool of his thoughts.

  Pain. A sheet of razors and barbed wire across his chest, an iron maiden mask closed on his face, sixty volts of electricity running through the fluids in his veins. Ground glass in his trachea when he tried to breath. Behind his eyelids, jagged lime and lemon shapes slicing at the jelly of his eyeballs.

  "Moo fwing okay?" Words from somewhere above his seething cauldron of agony, muffled by what? The upholstery of his coffin? The idea of being dead made Roger panic, and he tried to open his eyes. A wedge of brightness cut across his vision like a saber. Tears welled, and the salt made his face erupt in fresh hurt.

  A moist cloth descended and wiped softly at his eyelids. Cold. He shivered.

  "Welcome back." A shape now, fuzzy, large, pale. Over him. He blinked twice and saw her. A woman in white, her face an oval blur.

  Roger started to ask her where, what, why. But he could only gurgle weakly. There was a tube in his throat. He tried to push his tongue out to his lips, but the meat in his mouth was swollen.

  "Take it easy, Mr. Fremont. You're going to be just fine." The words were as soothing as a vanilla milkshake.

  Nurse. She was a nurse, not Grandma Roselli. So he wasn't dead after all. He felt a draft, saw another shape join the first. Another woman, this one wearing a drab turquoise apron.

  "He's awake," said the first. The new arrival bent over him. She wrinkled her nose at the scent of his cooked flesh.

  "Hello, Mr. Fremont," she said, and her words were frosty, clotted, like a daiquiri. "I'm Doctor Ghalani. You're a very lucky man, though you might not think so at the moment. But we'll have you back on your feet in no time."

  He tried to speak again, and this time managed a grunt.

  "Save your strength. Burns take a long time to heal, so the best thing for you to do is learn how to be patient."

  Patient. Burns. Doctor. The fire.

  "I'm sorry we can't give you any painkillers," said the female voice. "Unfortunately, the systemic injuries are so severe that we can't risk burdening your respiratory system. But maybe in a day or two..."

  Day or two? How long had he been lying under this sharp sheet? That meant somebody else was running the restaurant, probably skimming money from the register. Or else the insurance company was ripping him off by finding some obscure clause in his fire coverage.

  Roger tried to raise himself off the bed. His body was a water balloon. The effort undulated uselessly down to his lower limbs, awakening dormant nerve endings. The waves rebounded and raced to his brain, carrying fishhooks and shark's teeth and sharp broken coral in on the tide. This time his throat and tongue worked, but the scream was gargled and weak.

  "Don't try to move," Dr. Ghalani said. "You'll heal faster if you stay still and let your body do its work."

  Roger wept again, but this time no wet cloth came to his rescue. He didn't trust women. Grandma Roselli said they were leeches, wanting only blood and money. And a woman doctor was worst of all.

  Dr. Ghalani turned to the nurse. "It's time for another scraping, then we can change his bandages."

  Roger heard a sound that was unmistakable to someone who had cooked for fourteen years: the rattle of cutlery on stainless steel. He felt a tug on his abdomen, and a liquid tearing noise reached his ears a split second before the pain hit. Sparks of fluorescent custard yellow and vivid red jumped the wires in his brain. They were flaying him.

  He tried to turn his head, to scream, to run, but he was beached, bloated. He saw another shape in the corner, and his last thought was that the medical team had called in an extra hand to help shred his flesh from his bones. Then he passed out.

  The fire.

  He should have known better than to throw water on a grease fire. But the grill and deep fryers and stoves were all fueled by propane. If the fire reached the tank...

  Explosion.

  His eyes snapped open. The dull greenish striplights above stared back without pity. How long? He shifted his gaze to the window. Black, so it must be night.

  The shape in the corner. A doctor? Nurse? Roger tried to call out, but his vocal chords were still knotted.

  The shape moved. Was he injured so badly that he required constant supervision? This was going to cost him a bundle. Grandma Roselli said that modern medicine was just highway robbery without the highway. Chicken blood and bone powder and a little prayer were the best cures.

  He shivered, his body icy. That didn't make sense. How could you be cold when you were burned? And why did his body feel so thick? He'd always been lean, despite the lure of an endless supply of available food. Now the thought of food sliding down his raw throat almost made him want to vomit, and if he vomited when he couldn't turn his head, he might choke. Even if his stomach were empty, just the convulsions jarring his body would be a hellish torture.

  He wished the shadow-person would come to his bedside and murmur some placating words. Even if they were lies. He wouldn't mind having his eyelids wiped. And now that he was fully awake, he became aware of the itch.

  Not just a single itch. A thousand feathertips were at his flesh, tickling, quivering, probing. He was lying on straw. He was dressed in burlap, with fiberglass insulation stuffed down his collar and cuffs.

  He wished the person would scratch him, plow his skin with a weedrake. He managed a groan, hoping the noise would bring the caregiver closer. No luck. What kind of hospital were they running here? No painkillers, no attention, and probably a hefty daily charge for all the needles and tubes that were jabbed into his body.

  Itching. Waiting. The night didn't move. Neither did the shadow-shape.

  He thought of the years he'd spent working his way from dishwasher to restaurant owner, how everybody had wanted a piece of him, a handout. Well, he only wanted what was his. And the hospital officials and the insurance company were probably working together to make sure they took everything from him. The anger added to his discomfort and kept him from sleeping.

  After what seemed to be years, the window grayed, then brightened. Morning. The corner where the shadow had been was now empty. Dr. Ghalani came into the room.

  "And how are we today, Mr. Fremont?" She sounded like a bird, cheery, happy. She wasn't the one who was suspended in sawdust and wool and nails and shrapnel. He wheezed a complaint.

  "Don't try to speak." She looked at the machines above the bed, wrote some numbers on a clipboard. "Your blood pressure is up. You're on the mend."

  She peeled back what felt like a carpet's-thickness of Roger's flesh, though surely it was only the gauze she was lifting. He squeaked like a rat caught in a trap.

  "Looks like the graft is taking." The doctor sounded pleased with herself.

  Graft? She must have seen his eyes widen.

  "Skin graft. To allow your own skin a chance to grow back. You might feel a little itching, but it's only natural."

  Roger guessed she'd never been a burn victim herself. There was nothing natural about his "little itching." What did she care? She was getting paid the same whether he lived or died.

  He licked his lips and felt ragged tissue. There were bandages on his face. How much of him was burned? Did he have eyebrows?

  Was his face damaged? He hadn't been the most handsome guy around, but he'd grown accustomed to the slab of skin and cartilage that had stared back at him from the mirror all his life. And what was a guy besides his face?

  It figured. Grandma had warned that the world was out to get them. He'd developed a tough hide, but maybe not tough enough.

  A moan rose from his heavy chest. Dr. Ghalani patted him gently on a part of his body that must have been his arm. She didn't wipe his tears. "Don't worry. We'll have you good as new before you know it."

  Someone else came in the room. A nurse, different from the first one. "His respiration and EKG ar
e strong enough now that we can give him some morphine in his drip," Dr. Ghalani said to the nurse. Dr. Ghalani was reeling off some dosage instructions, but Roger had shifted his attention across the room, to the shadow in the corner.

  It wasn't medical personnel. The shadow wasn't wearing white. The shadow was red, the color of a peeled tomato. A visitor? Why would anyone visit him, unless it was to borrow money or steal his wallet?

  Grandma Roselli would visit him, to mumble prayers and rub potions on his feet. But she was dead. The only person he could ever trust. The only person who hadn't wanted a piece of him.

  He tried to focus on the visitor, but his vision blurred. Then he was soaring in ice water, swimming in blue sky, swelling like a summer cloud, riding a rainbow sled into unconsciousness.

  The tube was gone from Roger's mouth when he awoke. The window was black, meaning he'd slept through the day. The pain was nothing but a dull steady throb, like the itching, both merely background noise to his buzzing brain. He could move his arms a little under the sheet. They felt like sausages.

  Roger raised his head and looked in the corner. The red shadowy visitor was there, standing. Probably a claims agent from the insurance company, come to give him the shaft while he was too weak to fight back. Roger tried his voice.

  "Heeeey," he wheezed. His lungs raged with the effort of drawing air. The red shadow shifted a step closer, almost into the full glare of the fluorescent lights. The door to the room swiveled open, blocking Roger's view of the shadow.

  The nurse came in, the one who had spoken to him when he first regained consciousness in the hospital. He remembered how she had wiped around his eyes with the damp cloth. He tried to smile at her, then realized that he probably had no lips.

  "Well, hello, Mr. Fremont," she said. "I hear you're coming along just fine."

  "Huh...hello," he whispered.

  "So we're talking now. That's wonderful." She checked the machines. Roger smelled her perfume, and it was a pleasant change from the days or weeks of smelling his own barbecued flesh and the burn ointments. Then he remembered the visitor in the corner.

  "The vultures can't...wait," he said. His throat was dry but he was overjoyed to be able to make words again. Now he could tell those doctors and lawyers and crooks what he thought of them.

  "Sutures? They'll be out soon."

  She'd misunderstood. He tried to raise his hand and point, but she lightly touched his arm. "Now, now, mustn't stretch the grafts, Mr. Fremont. The new skin is still trying to make itself at home."

  Home. He'd read about how they took skin from a different area of a person's body for transplants during plastic surgery or burn treatment. But he didn't have enough healthy skin left to provide his own. His entire upper body was encased in bandages, along with his face. They'd probably given him the most costly treatment ever invented.

  "Swollen." He had trouble enunciating the labials.

  "It's your body's way of fighting off infection. Your immune system is sending plasma and antibodies to the injured areas. Nothing to worry about." She lifted a bandage from his chest and peered at the burns.

  "Nu—'nother nurse?" He rolled his eyes to the place where the shadow had been.

  "No, there's not another nurse. I'm afraid you're stuck with little old me tonight." She checked his drip, and Roger felt the first stirrings of disorientation. "Rest easy now," she said, walking toward the door.

  Roger wanted to call her back, to tell her not to go, he itched, he was in pain, anything to make her stay. But already his tongue felt thick and alien in his mouth, as if he were sucking on cotton. The door swung closed.

  The red shadow was silent in the corner. It stepped forward. Roger was glad he still had eyelids. He clamped them down and tried to remember how to pray. He thought of Grandma Roselli, how she knelt beside his bed when he was young, clutching her beads and crosses in her gnarled fingers. What were her words?

  He almost remembered by the time he finally fell asleep.

  "You're much improved, Roger," Dr. Ghalani said. She was calling him by his first name now. To Roger, that was a sign that he'd been in the hospital far too long.

  "The burns," he said. "How bad?"

  "Unfortunately, some were third degree, meaning the damage reached the fat and muscle. Other areas weren't as severely affected."

  Roger could raise his bandaged arms now. He looked like a mummy in an old Universal movie, one of the goofy ones with Abbott and Costello. The skin under the wraps was trying to merge with his meat. He had to know.

  "Where...the skin for the grafts." Needles and razors were in his throat. "Whose was it?"

  "Donor skin. Ideally, we would use your own skin, but in this case, the injuries were too widespread."

  "Donor?"

  Dr. Ghalani pursed her thin lips as if coming to a decision. "Taken from cadavers."

  So he was inside another person's skin. The person who was standing in the corner, the wet shadow, the thing that was watching with bright wide eyes.

  Because he remembered one of Grandma Roselli's stories. About how a person couldn't get into heaven unless they had all their body parts, because God wanted His angels to come inside the Pearly Gates all beautiful and whole and perfect. And those that lost a part were doomed to walk the earth until they were able to reunite their bodies and thus their souls.

  Dr. Ghalani must have seen the fear light his eyes. "It's perfectly safe. The skin is tested for infectious diseases before being removed. It protects your body until your own epidermal layers have a chance to rebuild themselves."

  Roger trembled under his sheet.

  "Cold? Your regulatory system is still trying to regain its ability to control body temperature. I'll have the nurse turn up the thermostat." She gave a professional smile. "I believe you're scheduled to begin your physical rehabilitation today. I'll bet you're looking forward to getting out of that bed for a while."

  Roger gulped some sharp air and looked at the red thing in the corner. No, it wasn't in the corner anymore. It was closer, near enough for Roger to see the gleam of its teeth against the pink of the gums. Its eyes were naked glass. The lack of lips gave the thing a gleeful grin.

  "I've got to finish my rounds, Roger," the doctor said. "See you later."

  She whirled and stood face-to-face with the red shadow. She didn't scream. She walked through it and out the door.

  The thing drifted closer. Roger could smell it now, a decaying corruption mingled with the coppery odor of blood. Stipples of red fluid stood out from the bands of gristle.

  "Go away," Roger whispered. Grandma's stories were just old folk tales. Ghosts weren't real. "You're not real."

  The red corpse's grin deepened. It was ten feet away now.

  The door swiveled open. A short man with muscular hairy arms came in the room. "Hi, Roger. Ready to get back on your feet?"

  Roger was more than ready. He wanted to regain the ability to run.

  "We'll take it slow today," the therapist said. "Maybe get you down for a workout by the end of the week."

  The corpse watched as the man eased Roger out of bed. Roger watched back. As the therapist waltzed Roger and worked his limbs, Roger had the feeling that the corpse also wanted a spot on his dance card.

  Night came, as always, too soon. The ward was quiet, not even the squeak of stretcher wheels in the hallway outside. The red thing had maintained its vigil. Now it sat in a chair beside Roger's bed. Sweat moistened Roger's bandages in the places where the skin was undamaged enough to exude liquid.

  Roger felt much better. He had a new theory, one that made more sense than Grandma's strange beliefs. It was the drugs doing it, making him have hallucinations. Good, expensive drugs.

  A low-voltage shock of worry tingled in the back of his mind, about how the corpse had appeared before the drugs were administered. But that period was hazy, just a long agonizing fog. Pain was probably just as much of a mental trickster as drugs. Sure, that was it. He might as well amuse himself, to help pass
the time.

  "H—hello," Roger said. The corpse only slumped lower in the chair.

  Strips of tendon and muscle stretched over the red thing's skeletal frame. The corpse wasn't entirely skinned: it looked as if it were wearing gloves. As if whoever had performed the butchery avoided the areas that were too troublesome to peel.

  "I know why you're here," Roger said. The corpse grinned wetly, showing too many teeth.

  "I'm sorry about what they did." Roger tried to roll over, but his body was too weak to respond. Dr. Ghalani said he was getting better. Then why was he so tired?

  "It was on me when I regained consciousness." The raw face with its too-wide eyes leaned closer. One of the skin-gloved hands reached out to Roger's chest.

  Roger tried to duck away, but the metal rails kept him imprisoned in the bed. He screamed, but no sound came from his throat. Only a bad dream, he told himself. Only a bad dream. That's why the scream didn't bring hospital staff running.

  The hand was on him now, its fingernails probing into the moist bandages. The funk of rot mingled with the smell of salve. The cold hand was now in contact with Roger's chest, Roger's skin.

  No, not my skin, Roger thought. His skin.

  A rattle of cutlery.

  There was no pain as the blade sliced into the flesh. Roger heard the scraping noises even over the pounding of his heart in his ears. The scalpel slid lower, across Roger's stomach, the thing's other hand scooping and clawing as it followed the instrument. Then the hand went up, around the sides, to the edges of the healthy skin.

  Roger tried to scream again, but his mouth was cloth, his tongue cotton. He closed his eyes, but the snick-snick of the flaying only grew louder. And the fingers were on his neck. The blade raked a seam up to Roger's chin, then to his mouth.

  Roger looked at the red thing's eyes. They were lifeless, without pity, but a grim determination shone in the tiny pupils. The hand worked its way along his cheek. Silver flashed as the blade scraped up to his temples and across his forehead.

  Roger tensed as the instrument stroked near his eyes. If the thing wanted revenge, it could choose a hundred places. His face, his exposed lips, his ears. Claim a scalp. Or down below, things at lower regions.