Shock Totem 8: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

by Shock Totem

“They’re talking about the stones,” Dex whispered. “Trying to figure out if it needs to be higher. They’re not sure.”

  There’d been a circle about fifty feet around when we’d arrived, vine choked and lichen crusted, a scattering of stones no higher than my shoulder. We’d put forty feet of blood into the height of it, suffering in the heat and the mosquitos to raise boulder after boulder along the bamboo framework while the grim VC soldiers paced back and forth below.

  He turned. His smile looked like an uneven row of pebbles in his mouth. “She calls, can you hear her?”

  A soft moaning gurgled from the structure, like wind whistling through notches in the bamboo. It made the skin on my neck tickle. Interspaced, I caught snatches of song, but not ghostly elfin music, something more familiar. Jimi Hendrix’s deep buttery voice throwing out some Bob Dylan lyrics, a hit from last year’s Electric Ladyland album.

  “They’re all here.” Dex’s voice came out in a drool, words spilling over each other in a hurry. “They’re working already, hoisting the last stone in position. Come on, or we’ll miss it.”

  He started hobbling, the stump of his left foot clomping in the hard-packed earth.

  “What about the escape?” The words fell lame from my lips.

  • • •

  Three Viet Cong soldiers stood beside the ramp. Dark narrow eyes and squat expressionless features traveled along the high wall. Purple spots arced through my retinas, and I tensed. I thought I heard a woman laughing.

  “They can’t hear her. This was supposed to be something big, something magical, and they can’t feel it.” Dex laughed. He winked at me as if we shared a private joke, and then he mumbled something in Vietnamese

  • • •

  We waited until the VC marched from sight, and then I picked up Dex and shuffled over to the bamboo framework. I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but something about the music pulled me forward.

  “I don’t understand.” I helped my friend get a footing on the rough plank ladder.

  I shook my head, still too dazed to think straight. My movements felt mechanical, as if I stood outside my body while someone else controlled my actions. He scrambled up the casing ropes like a monkey, heading for the top. The music got louder. Hendrix’s guitar echoed over granite that seemed to glow brighter with each note. I followed him, passing teams of American soldiers. These were men who’d been too beaten down to lift themselves off their makeshift beds, but who were now singing and hauling rocks that flamed in their hands like napalm. Their grim faces shone with the same intensity as the stone.

  The top surged with emerald fire, arcs of jade passing through the immense glowing circle. A thin fog rose from within the well created by the ring of boulders. Dex teetered at the edge, glancing through the gap as if staring across a vast forest. His lips moved. I couldn’t hear his words over the music, but I could see the way his expression changed. He spoke to her.

  The hair at the back of my neck bristled. I felt a longing sadness, an ache to see deeper. Something wondrous and terrible waited beyond my vision. He could see it, but it eluded me like the hope of escape.

  I took a step back, and at the same moment Dex took a leap forward.

  “No!”

  He spread his arms, not to fly, but in welcome. Then he slid out of sight. I fell to my knees, stunned. Dex was the closest thing to a brother I’d ever had.

  The music got louder. It throbbed through my brain, disrupting my concentration, messing with my thoughts. Charlie had tortured me with acoustics during my first weeks in. Those memories burst over me like fireworks, and I screamed.

  “She calls.” The frail-looking infantry grunt with the dark Fu Manchu moustache and blunt sagging nose pushed by, falling into the bright haze. I watched him until he reached the bottom, but didn’t see him hit.

  Hunt and Bouchard, the two New Englanders who’d confessed to seeing the fantasy woman in their dreams went next, stepping into the gap as if marching at parade.

  The music overwhelmed me, screeching notes that had lost all semblances of tone and balance. I held my ears and cried as soldiers plunged into the pit, some leaping, others casually striding, and a few who got a running start. I spun, searching for the radio. If I could stop that, then maybe I could put an end to all of this. I couldn’t think.

  Charlie had done something to our heads. Maybe they were experimenting with drugs, or maybe I sat rotting in the tiger pit, and this was nothing but a nightmare.

  • • •

  The music stopped abruptly. Hendrix vanished in a purple haze, and I was left alone.

  The ringing in my ears turned to a soft shushing, like the ocean, or a faint lullaby. The cold fire in the stones subsided, and thin tendrils of fog slunk down the seams of rock and back into the earth below. The tingling sense of wonder returned with an echo of a long forgotten greatness that left me hollow and empty inside, as if I’d missed something miraculous.

  I felt her presence, the scent of her like a coating on my tongue. She was still out there, still within the circle we had made for her in this world, waiting. Tears poured down my cheeks. I stepped to the edge, but could see no path. My road wasn’t paved with faith as theirs had been, and I could see no easy escape.

  I stepped from the tower anyway.

  D.A. D'Amico is a playful soul trapped in the body of a grumpy old man. In early years, this presented a problem, but David has been growing into the role quite nicely. He's had nearly two dozen works published in the last few years, and can be found at www.dadamico.com.

  DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

  by David Barber

  1

  Pitchforks and torches. This mob howls like the one that harried Frankenstein. Now I know the perils of acquiring knowledge, and how much happier is the man who believes his native town to be the world.

  This rabble, my neighbours, my own relatives perhaps, have discovered my secret toil in the unwholesome damps of the grave and will not forgive me for it.

  2

  These are my parents. I am their only child. Look at the expression on their faces. No offspring should carry the burden of so much ignorant hope. There was another child, stillborn I think, but they never mention it. Perhaps they comfort themselves knowing they gave everything for me and could not have sacrificed more. And now I am suddenly home, without a position or degree. My parents know nothing of science. They think I would be paid for publishing papers and can imagine no other reason for doing so.

  “Dr Frankenstein has gone to the Arctic you say?”

  “Pursuing his research.”

  My father looks puzzled. “We heard...”

  What have they heard? More slanders and lies about a visionary? They understand nothing.

  My mother hurries to interrupt, as she always does, to appease any unpleasantness. “Then this is a holiday for you. You deserve a rest.”

  “I intend to continue Dr Frankenstein’s work.”

  3

  I have ordered the crates from Frankenstein’s laboratory to be delivered to the cottage. This ramshackle dwelling in the forest is my mother’s meagre inheritance.

  Dr Frankenstein was a great man, not bound by petty rules; he discovered more in a few years than an age of cautious minds, yet he was also careless of everything but his work. He never asked where his anatomical samples came from. It was I who sought out equipment and chemicals, and I who spent his money as carefully if it was my own. I still have coin enough for months.

  Still, I see no reason to repeat his mistakes. Why did he need to assemble bodies? Why the obsession with electricity? Did he not see the key to unlocking the secrets of life was to be found in life itself?

  We shall see whose name is in the history books.

  4

  We are so proud of you, my parents say. They have invited guests to a dinner party. Perhaps things have changed, for I do not remember them ever entertaining like this. Then I realise it is in my honour, like someone famous returning to the place of their birth. A
nd because of their inexperience, or because they know so few people, it is an awkward and bourgeois gathering. I know only my aunt and uncle, who run a shoe factory. They bring their daughter-in-law, Katya, already a young widow it seems.

  While I was away, my cousin managed to marry, father a child and die of septicaemia. Others acquire lives so effortlessly, plunging into the current, while I paddle at the water’s edge.

  I am not at ease with women, and I wait for the look on her face as she observes the scoliosis of my spine, but her expression reveals nothing but the bruising of fatigue around her eyes.

  “You study natural philosophy, I hear.”

  Her dark hair positively gleams. It is parted in the middle and caught up behind by some contrivance, leaving her neck exposed. A slender, bared neck. I know these pert ambitious sort of women, they have discounted me on many occasions, but loss and worry seem to have softened this one.

  “He works for Dr Frankenstein of Geneva,” says my father. “A distinguished family,”

  “Works with Dr Frankenstein,” corrects my mother. I always implied we were colleagues, and the matter is too far gone now to correct.

  “Franz was a surgeon,” Katya says. “But of course you knew that, you grew up together.”

  Oh yes, and was always his lackey in our dealings, and later his whipping boy. It is one of the shames of my youth that I did not cast off his thrall sooner. My mother has already explained how he nicked himself amputating a gangrenous foot and succumbed to the infected cut. My indifference seemed to shock her.

  In Katya’s mind, science and medicine are twins, so she tells me about her son and the fits he suffers. This is her first social outing since the death of her husband, and she confides her guilt at leaving her boy with others tonight.

  Earlier, as I tried to read, my mother described the woes of this sickly child, wracked by epilepsy. She lowered her voice as she spoke of a husband untimely taken, and now perhaps a son. She spends pity like pennies.

  “Doctors,” Katya says helplessly, her dark eyes gleaming in the candlelight.

  5

  Later I find myself amongst the men, few of whom knew me, or one another.

  “Ygor,” confides my uncle. “Listen to this.”

  My uncle has found a congenial companion, some sort of transport agent used by my father, the man clearly surprised to find himself invited. He accepts a cigar from the box my father keeps for Christmas, and tucks it away in his top pocket. He winks at me.

  “Jurgen here says there has been a desecration. A fresh grave opened. The authorities are keeping it quiet.”

  The transport agent explains. “In the Jewish cemetery you know. But still, it shows no respect for the dead. The body was not stolen, you understand, so not resurrection-men.”

  Casually, I ask if anything was done to the body.

  “It could be the churchyard next,” adds my uncle.

  6

  I confirm to Katya what everyone knows, that there is no cure for epilepsy, but hint at better ways to ease the suffering after an attack. While I casually mention the prestigious medical school where Dr Frankenstein studied, I think of his medical books. They will tell me more than any country doctor knows of palliatives for grand mal.

  These are exciting times, I explain. Science is discovering new medicines, novel ideas about microbes. Does she know about microbes?

  An infection that kills its host dooms the microbes also. It must be advantageous to the microbe to be less harmful, even to cause no damage at all. Countless millions of such harmless microbes probably live in each of us. But what if we pursued the idea further, what of microbes that prolong the life of their host?

  It is foolish to reveal so much, but what else have I to impress her with but my cleverness?

  7

  Problems, nothing but problems. Small mammals do not live long after reanimation. They fade again after a few hours and a second dose of the microbe serum is ineffective. It may be the body fights the very microbes that preserve it. The lifespan of bigger animals should be greater. I have hopes that a human might survive much longer. It is not a universal panacea for death then. But surely, to reclaim someone, a child, for a day, even for an hour, is to be on the side of life.

  I have invited her to the cottage, with the potions her doctors have prescribed. She may bring the boy if she wishes. This is where it begins, like something rising from the depths. If you have a thought you cannot unthink it.

  8

  Fretfully, she paces up and down. Her son is convalescing after an attack this very morning; they grow more frequent it seems. He is sleeping off the nausea and the headache in a darkened room. She fears her child worsens and the doctors do nothing. Now I am the focus of her helpless hopes.

  Covertly I study her, fascinated by her long fingers as she wrings her hands, by the way her slender wrists make her dress look too short in the sleeve. She proffers the pills and medicines I asked for. It is laudanum mainly, and cream of tartar, lavender. Useless. Worse than useless. She is waiting for me to speak and I see how much of doctoring is an air of confidence.

  “There are better treatments,” I say, handing her the drug I have prepared. “Follow the instructions on the bottle carefully.”

  Even in daylight her face is pale. “How do I know it is safe?”

  Safe? Her son has an incurable illness that is commonly fatal. And he is treated by doctors who have addicted him to opium.

  “I have something important to show you.”

  “I must be home before my son wakes.”

  “Here,” I insist, lifting the sheet from the cat.

  There is something about the limpness of a dead animal that convinces without listening for a heartbeat. The head dangles as I lift the animal to pierce the carotid artery, repeatedly drawing the ground-glass barrel of the syringe in and out. The blood is still warm.

  She turns away in disgust. “Why are you showing me this?”

  How can I explain? I do not have the skills of Frankenstein. I cannot sew together the parts of men, knitting together vessels and nerves, ready for the shock of their animation. But I have come to believe the vital force was not just electricity, but certain microbes in the very corpses he worked with, in fluids extracted from the recently interred. I cannot bring matter to life as Frankenstein did, but death is not beyond my reach.

  This I do tell her: Though there is much to be learned, it is not past conjecture that one day people will thank me for bringing back their loved ones, their children, themselves.

  Katya stifles a scream and points. The cat arches its back and spits, then jumps off the table and is gone.

  9

  It is the kind of night Frankenstein would have wished for: Lightning over the forest to the south, the dull complaint of thunder, rain drumming on the roof. My latest experiment confirms that the survival of dogs is proportional to their size. Distressed, they wander the cottage, barking at shadows and empty corners. This one forces its head beneath my hand, whimpering, needing to be stroked. Yet I will have to bury even the Dane by morning.

  Outside, I catch the sound of a carriage, stopping, then departing again. Cautiously I open the door onto the thrashing blackness of trees, and Katya steps into the light. Before I can ask what she is doing here, she brushes past me.

  She opens her cloak. Such a small bundle in her arms. There is something about the limpness of a dead child that convinces without listening for a heartbeat.

  “This morning,” she says in a tiny voice. “During a fit. They do not know I am here.”

  It is the mystery of death. If you have sat by the dying and watched, you will understand the unreasonableness of that moment. A living person has gone, how can this be?

  “I know it is wrong, but he was unjustly taken. Bring him back to me.”

  10

  I have skills, I was as clever as any of them. What did my accent and clothes matter? But they were the sons of gentlemen, careless and confident, polishing off their educat
ions. In practical matters I was even their superior, and the professors praised my work, yet I caught the amusement in the looks of my peers.

  I shivered in a room above a wash-house in Ingolstadt, living on penny bread, trying to make sense of books in Latin, unable to tell my parents the money they scrimped together was never enough, that students of science must buy equipment too, and books, and materials, must know more than I learned in a country school.

  Often I wake sweating from the dream of my disgrace, not even able to understand the questions. You must wait for the exam to end, they insist, but I run from the hall, from the eyes of everyone.

  I continued to send letters home, blotted with lies. I do not know how it would have ended had Viktor Frankenstein not stopped me in the street. He had missed me in chemistry classes recently and wished to ask a favour.

  I remember it clearly. “Perhaps we should go for a drink,” he said. “Isn’t that what students do?”

  Of course it would mean I could not afford to eat that day. He clapped me on the shoulder, the raised shoulder no one mentions. It was as if I had spoken my thoughts aloud. “Or if you are busy, shall we just chat as we walk?”

  University was all very well for those who played at learning, he declared, his look including me in those for whom it was not a game. He had his own ideas, and knew my skills in the laboratory...

  “Mama,” says the child, and reaches up a hand to her face.

  11

  Now, of course, you know how it ends.

  She stays here with me, with her son, though it is not as I imagined. She will do anything to preserve the life of her child, though I see now that I disgust her. I have tried to explain the problem with the microbe serum, but she will not listen, and there is nothing I can say that does not make me sound like a vengeful God. We live in a kind of dark Eden, never speaking of the future, not acknowledging death.