by Greg Dragon
I bet his wife was responsible for the decor, he doesn’t seem the type to be so interested in plates.
“Good?” asked Bob, encouraging them to take a sip of what he said was coffee and actually smelled like coffee too.
Edsel took a sip warily. “Aah. Oh boy, that is the best cup of coffee I’ve ever tasted.” Edsel took another sip greedily, trying not to scald himself with the piping hot brew.
It’s been a long time since I had anything this good.
“Hot.” said Aiden.
“Hot? That all you got to say?” said an amazed Edsel. “Don’t you know how precious this stuff is? It’s rarer than... well, it’s rare.”
“I just never drank it much, didn’t get a taste for it I guess,” said a subdued Aiden.
“Boys, boys, no need to bicker. I’ve got tons of the stuff anyway.” Bob looked like he’s said too much; he looked worried. “Well, a little bit anyway.”
Edsel patted the man on the shoulder, a surprisingly firm shoulder actually. “Don’t worry Bob, we aren’t going to rob you and slit your throat.”
“Um, good? But just you try young man, I was—“
“In the war, yeah we know. But you weren’t really, were you?”
Aiden turned to Edsel. “What do you mean?”
“I mean this old geezer here was definitely not in the war. He’d be ancient if he was, ain’t that right Bob?”
“Maybe,” came a quiet grumble.
“What’s that Bob? Must be my hearing in my old age,” said Edsel, cupping a hand to his ear.
“I said maybe, no need to get cheeky.”
“Hey, what’s going on?” said Aiden.
“Bob here, ‘old’ Bob, has been duping us a little, isn’t that right?”
Bob sat up straighter in his chair, suddenly seeming younger and a lot larger than he had a moment ago. Edsel had known something was going on the minute he put his hand on Bob’s shoulder — there was a fair amount of dense muscle there, not the kind of muscle an eighty or ninety year old geriatric would have. And with his cap off inside the house it was obvious that Bob wasn’t as old as he’d pretended to be. His face was sun-aged, but he was no decrepit old man that was for sure.
“Well, maybe a little. Ha, clever boy. I figured I’d stand a better chance of dealing with intruders if they thought I was some rather defenseless old man.”
“How old are you then?” asked Aiden.
“A man of certain years never divulges his age,” said Bob with a wink.
“Sixties is my guess. Early sixties.” Edsel looked at the ‘old’ man closely, noting faded tattoos on his forearms — thick and densely muscled, dark from the sun, wriggling with veins. Thick fingers too, and calloused palms; gray hair but still a hint of dark on top.
Bob zipped his mouth shut with his hand and just smiled.
“Looks like we have ourselves a man of mystery here Aiden.”
“Drink your coffee,” said a grumpy Bob.
What’s his story then? He’s a sly old bugger and no mistake.
Edsel drank his coffee.
Bliss.
BETTER
“How do I look?” asked Edsel, twirling in the cramped kitchen, showing off a dark blue short-sleeved shirt. It was in surprisingly good taste for something Bob owned, and the thin cotton barely irritated his skin at all.
“Less red,” said Bob.
“Like a lobster with a shirt on,” said Aiden.
“Gee, thanks guys. Look, not being funny or anything, but can we do away with the jokes about The Ink please? In case you didn’t realize, it’s kind of personal, and a little insensitive to be honest. Do you know what this feels like, knowing I’m going to look like this for the rest of my life? Not to mention that it hurts like hell.” Edsel’s voice was rising, he was getting angry, angry at everything.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude.” Bob busied himself washing up the mugs and the few plates he’d served some simple fresh vegetables and assorted fruits on. He was obviously a very keen gardener.
“Yeah, well. Thanks for the shirt Bob, I appreciate it.”
“My pleasure, anything I can do to help. Now, how about you boys tell me your story? What exactly has been going on with you two? You aren’t father and son, or related, I can tell that much.”
“It’s kind of a long story,” sighed Edsel. “And you may not like where it’s headed either. Maybe we should go, just in case. I’ve already caused enough trouble for Aiden here, I don’t want to drag anyone else into it too.”
“No chance,” said Bob, brushing away with a hand the very idea of them leaving without him being fully up to speed on the current situation. “You two are staying right here, I want to help.”
Aiden and Edsel exchanged glances, then nodded in agreement.
This is a bad idea. But he may be able to help.
***
“Wait, so they captured you, thinking they would turn you by giving you The Ink? Why?”
“That’s another long story, but years ago I’d met the man that is now a Bishop, and he saw me, remembered me. They must have followed me then and just grabbed me.”
“Okay, but you escaped. How’d you manage that?”
Edsel began to tell his story.
After they grabbed him off the street, bundling him into the back of a car as he was wandering down a narrow road in the more built up part of the city — a risk he was taking less and less frequently anyway now he had Kathy — they had driven him back to their church, one of many that they had taken over all across the country. They were used more as a meeting place than anything, nothing like a real church for praying in.
It was a small Protestant church of old, abandoned now much like most other religions of the world, apart from the new religion: The Church Of The Eventuals. They manhandled him through the heavy wooden front door, where there must have been almost fifty men and a few women, all tattooed red, all fanatic followers of the new faith.
He was frogmarched down the aisle between a mishmash of tables and chairs, tables loaded high with food supplies, weapons of all description, and clothes of various quality and size.
Into the back room, the old vestry, the room where you were given The Ink.
Edsel saw the table, a gurney actually, covered in white linen, a huge mirror on the ceiling, some kind of large portable mirror on an extending arm to one side. Against the wall there was a collection of small portable medical tables with bottle after bottle of red Ink, others holding clear solutions, gauze, bandages, gels and who knew what else.
Edsel went cold when he saw the two tables with the tattoo machines. He didn’t know anything about tattoos, but it looked scary as hell. Steel gray machines sat on the top looking like insects ready to pounce. There were an assortment of blister packs with different sized collections of needles in different arrangements, and various spherical things he assumed were grips, as well as spare parts, tubes, and a number of small boxes on lower shelves he guessed were for power. There were cables, adapters and LCD digital displays he had no idea as to what purpose they served. All he knew was that he was scared out of his mind.
It was frightening as hell and Edsel struggled manically to get away, but he was held fast by three men and even if he got out of their grasp he had a church full of Eventuals to contend with.
Suddenly he felt his consciousness slipping away, but before he fell to the floor he was hoisted onto the gurney and they began to take off his clothes.
Edsel awoke to a buzzing sound and as his eyes came into focus he realized he was staring at himself, looking up into a mirror, reflecting his body, strapped down tight. He blinked but couldn’t, and realized he couldn’t move his head, move anything, even his eyes were clamped open.
They were shaving his entire body, and just as he came fully back to consciousness they had finished.
While he lay there, unable to move, all he could think of was that Kathy would be worried sick. She wouldn’t know what h
ad happened to him. She needed him; he needed her, and she would be frantic with worry.
He had to get away, he simply had to.
As they began tattooing between his toes they argued first over the best needles to use for the delicate work they were doing, then in-between telling him exactly what they were going to do, and as they moved on to the large areas of the bottoms then the tops of his feet, the two men argued over whether a 15 Mag was better than a 13, the 15 Mag user saying he preferred the arrangement of seven needles over eight offset ones as it covered the easiest, the other man snorting derisively, saying that the 14 Round needles were just as good for the large work but speed wasn’t the point anyway, uniformity of color was.
On and on it went, a dizzying surreal nightmare that he felt must be happening to somebody else. He wasn’t really there — not really.
All Edsel could think about as the idiotic banter continued was that who the hell cared? It was all the same color, there was to be no shading, no subtle work, just needle after needle penetrating his skin, staining him red for the rest of his life. On and on it went, Bishop coming in now and then, joining in on the cajoling and the beginning of his indoctrination, the two tattooists arguing over different needle types, regularly swapping them out for different sizes and combinations depending on the area of his body they needed to cover.
The pain built, never reaching a crescendo.
After hours of work, as the day wore on and sweat beaded the men’s brows, they paused for a break. All Edsel could hear was the buzzing of the machines — it had become a part of him now, a constant background to his new life. It was all there was: buzzing and searing pain.
Edsel was panicked more than he’d been in his entire life. Just when existence finally had a meaning, had a purpose, it was all being taken away from him. But more than anything else he worried about Kathy. She was shy, not a fighter, not that he was either, and had found it hard to survive on her own. When he’d met her she was half-starved, constantly wary of sounds, and it took her some time to completely trust him. It wasn’t surprising — she’d had a hard life, most people did.
But they clicked, they were a team, company for each other and it went a lot deeper than that.
Now she was alone, probably terrified. He tried to think what food there was in the house and how long it would last, but he couldn’t think straight. Panic was rising and he knew he had to get away or he would never see her again and would forever be trapped in the clutches of The Eventuals, or simply be killed for not accepting their warped faith.
Hour after hour it went on as The Ink crept slowly up his legs and the pain intensified. Already his lower body was oozing — it was too much for a body to take without days, weeks or months between sessions. Large tattoos were done over countless hours, and they certainly were not blocks of the same color on every surface. The body reacted to the foreign invasion, causing adrenaline levels to rise dangerously high, lowering the immune system and sending antibodies to fight what were to all intents and purposes multiple tiny wounds. Thousands and thousands of them.
Edsel could see bumps forming around parts of The Ink after the blood was wiped away — granulomas, they had informed him. He’d probably get keloids too, where too much scar tissue formed — often common when such extreme body modification took place.
On and on it went, more horror stories of what was happening, new blisters, bumps and strange markings appearing on his skin as the body tried to fight off the incessant assault.
Time blurred, it had no meaning any longer; just the mindless droning of the two men, the buzzing of the machines, the swapping out of needles, changing their torture devices, and bottle after bottle of Ink being replaced before they bent to their work once more.
It was a living nightmare. The Ink crawled up his body toward his face.
There had been screams, loud and bone rattling, terror and pain that was indescribable, and it simply built and built as his body went into shock at trying to cope with such a continual assault. They gave him a drink at rest intervals, and the longer the torture went on the more they gave him. It was to stop his body simply shutting down from such a stressor, they told him, it contained important electrolytes, salts and antibiotics to help with his recovery.
How very generous of them.
Existence blurred, nothing had any meaning any longer.
All that existed was The Ink.
God, I haven’t replayed it like that before. It’s like a surreal nightmare, it doesn’t seem possible.
“And how did you get away? C’mon, tell us.” Aiden was staring wide-eyed at Edsel, totally engrossed in the story.
“Leave the poor fellow alone Aiden, that’s enough for now I think. Look at him, he’s too stressed.”
It was true, Edsel had broken out in a cold sweat just recalling the events of a few days ago, although he wasn’t sure exactly how long the torture had gone on for as time quickly lost all meaning to him. His body began to burn as the sweat stung his sensitive skin; he got up from his chair and shook his head.
“Another time okay? I’m beat. But do you see why I didn’t want to bring you along? Why I’m so worried? These people are absolute maniacs; they think they are right. There’s nothing more dangerous than people like that. Nothing.”
“I’ll make us a cuppa,” said Bob, getting up sharply from his chair, all pretense of being a crooked old man now well and truly gone. “Hey, tell you what,” he said brightly, “Aiden, why don’t you tell me how you two met and what’s happened since then? Give poor old Edsel here a chance to drink his coffee and then we can help to formulate our plan. Sound good?”
“Sure,” said Aiden, “although it’s not quite as gross a story as Edsel’s. But we did have chases and we did steal a car. And Martha, we lost Martha.”
“Tell me all about it,” said Bob. “And I’m so sorry, was she your mum?”
“No, she was my chicken.”
Bob looked at Edsel, who nodded in confirmation. “A chicken,” repeated Bob.
“Yes, she was my only friend, now she’s gone.”
“Hey, hang on a minute,” said Edsel, suddenly catching up with the conversation. “What do you mean formulate ‘our’ plan? What do you mean by ‘our’?” He knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“Look Edsel, no offense or anything, but you don’t seem like much of a fighter. You don’t seem to really have a plan yet, not a proper one, unless I am very much mistaken?” Bob looked at Edsel, who just shook his head.
Bob’s too smart by half. He’s got me beat already.
“Right, so you need help, and I’m going to give it to you. We can’t be having people running around tattooing innocents and making life worse than it already is, so I’m going to help. And obviously young Aiden here is in, aren’t you young man?”
“Absolutely.”
“Jeez. You guys.”
“So, Aiden,” said Bob, “how did you meet our lobster friend here? Oops, sorry Edsel. Or can I call you Ed?”
“No, you may not. And stop calling me a lobster.”
Bob winked at Aiden and made the coffee.
All I wanted was a sweater.
CREEPY
“Um, Bob, not being rude or anything dude, but this is kind of creepy. You do know that, right?”
Bob had led them out into his garden, then into an Anderson shelter, one that was already in the garden when he bought the place many years before.
“What? What’s wrong with it? I thought it would be a good idea to stock up as soon as the news talked about The Lethargy.”
Edsel stared around him at the old-style bunker, now much extended by Bob to go deep underground as well as simply be a shelter in case the bombs fell during the second world war. The place was jammed floor to ceiling with a cornucopia of items — from piles of clothes to bottles of water, to rope, tinned goods and other useful things like large propane bottles, cleaning supplies and even bicycles and replacement tires. All of that seemed like very go
od thinking and something Edsel had done himself, but then it got weird.
“Why have you got a box of women’s tights? Why have you got a whole shelf of woolly hats? Why are there, let me see, one, two three, four five six seven eight,” fired off Edsel rapidly, “nine printers and four TVs? And why on earth would you take up valuable space with a load of junk like that?” Edsel pointed into the far corner that was piled high with everything from decades old telephones to vinyl, bits of metal, old shop signs and a large number of obviously broken lamps.
“Hey, this used to be my storage shed all right? As I managed to find stuff I kind of just piled it in and never got around to moving out the old junk. I was going to do it, but, well, you know, stuff happens.”
“Fair enough, it sure does. You’ve done pretty well here though, I bet it took a while?”
“It did,” confirmed Bob. “A lot of this stuff I got the first year after The Lethargy. I sort of had a head start on most people. I saw it coming even before it was reported actually.”
Judging by the mostly useful items and the way it was neatly arranged before chaos took over near to the back, Edsel judged that Bob must have been some kind of military type. Ex-military anyway, or a policeman at the very least.
“So, what was it? Armed Forces? Air Force? Something like that?”
“Oh no, I was a postman,” said Bob proudly.
“Oh.”
“I thought you were going to be some kind of spy,” said a dejected Aiden.
“It was better than that. Oh, the stories I could tell,” said Bob, lost in reverie.
“What, about lost parcels and dogs trying to bite your hand when you posted letters?” said Edsel, winking at Aiden who stifled a snigger.
“I will have you know that it was a fine position, until, you know...”
“The Lethargy.”
“Right.”