Shock Totem 2: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

by Shock Totem

I often wondered if the others had survived, but they never told me.

  They never again made the mistake of allowing me movement while people were in the room. Real people, anyway; I could move when I was alone. They never spoke directly to me, just at me, around me, about me, but never to me. I was dead, I didn’t officially exist. I had no rights, no life. My body was a metal shell. The power in my arms was immense and the strength of my senses was far beyond any human capability.

  That first man never returned to the room, either out of fear or inability. I suspected he might be getting a firsthand view of how it felt to wake up in a new body—or maybe he didn’t wake up at all.

  But they were curious. Obviously things had not worked as they had expected and they could not work out why. Why was I incapable of controlling these faculties they had given me? Why could I not compensate for the inputs as they had expected me to? Why, despite endless diagnostics proving there were no hardware malfunctions, had I never uttered a single word?

  I didn’t wish to speak to them. I knew them; I knew them better than I had ever known anyone before. I knew Tony who ate anchovies on his pizza every Wednesday. I knew Dianne, who smelled like she bathed in Chanel No. 5 and spoke to Rik with an undercurrent of lust and shared secrets trembling in her voice, a lust that was wholeheartedly returned. I wondered what she would think if she knew that Rik spoke to Andrew with those same tones in his voice, that same pheromonal scent oozing from his pores.

  • • •

  I was there for months—or years. Forced to endure indignity after indignity as they tried to provoke responses, monitoring the electrical activity of my brain as I was exposed to various “stimuli”; everything from pictures of naked girls to electro-shock treatment. The pictures smelled like cheap fixative and ink, and the electro-shock was a minor inconvenience next to being destroyed by a grenade—or the hell that had greeted me on my transformation.

  Time had long ago ceased to have any meaning. It’s hard to care about the passing of time when you have no control over your situation, or even your own body. It’s hard to gauge the passing of time when your entire world consists of one bright, white room. This new body never got hungry and never needed sleep. I have no idea what powered the whirring, scraping machinery that gave me movement, thought, and some semblance of life…this mockery of flesh. In the end, I did not care, I did not live. I simply existed.

  Then, finally, it happened.

  Those same people who fight so hard for animals’ rights, for them to be free from unethical treatment and testing—it turned out that some of them are just as vehement against human mistreatment and testing, even if all that is left of the human was the brain and malformed thought patterns.

  They took control of the Institute.

  • • •

  She came into my cell with a face so sweet and tender. She knelt down beside me and touched my metal face with her hand. It was the first time I had been touched like a person since my awakening. Softly, she murmured, “It’s okay now, everything will be okay.” And I knew she was right. The subtle scent of Chanel No. 5 graced her neck and its floral scent soothed my raw senses.

  I reached up and stroked her cheek with my silver fingers and smiled at her. “Yes,” I said as I crushed her jaw bone. She gurgled wetly as blood flooded her throat. Her body went into shock as she drowned in her own blood and I tore shattered fragments of flesh and bone from her face.

  I stood, shining in the light like a drop of blood in the moonlit desert.

  They had destroyed the equipment, the records, and ignored the pleadings of the lab-coats. They had laughed when the scientists fled the building and they had felt powerful in their actions. Godlike, I suppose; just as the coats had felt when they finally defeated death and transformed my lifeless remnants into something beyond the grasp of Death.

  They weren’t feeling powerful now.

  Most fled like the coats did. Some, perhaps regretting their actions, perhaps hoping they could salvage their holy cause, stayed and tried to stop me, restrain me, plead with me. I spoke with each of them, revelling that I had once more found my voice and my soul. Each one died so beautifully, and I stopped to listen to their bodies shutting down as the living fluids fled from their grinning, broken faces.

  Eventually, all went still. I listened to the silence. The machines had stopped their endless whirring, the computers had spun their last, and there were no sounds but for that of the dead decomposing. That is what the dead are supposed to do.

  I am not dead, though. Not anymore. In blood, in soul, I am reborn to walk again.

  Free.

  Nicholas Bronson is a software architect, writer and poet. He makes his home in the island state of Tasmania, Australia, with his wife, daughter and two crazed cats. While not working on large enterprise application systems he likes to write, read and dream.

  Leave Me the Way I was Found

  by Christian A. Dumais

  The date displayed at the lower right hand corner reads August 9, 2003, with a starting time of 20:03:17 and ending with 20:05:33: 2 minutes and 16 seconds in length. There is an enormous amount of speculation regarding the video’s origins. A Google search for the [TITLE RETRACTED] video brings a staggering 4,274,256,985 entries and is the most Googled search string ever, surpassing “sex” in less than three days. There have been more message board threads and blog entries devoted to the video than any other topic on-line, and its Wikipedia entry has been confirmed to be the most active and heavily debated article on the site with an edit occurring every 1.3 seconds. The most problematic statistic, of course, is the video’s emergence on YouTube. Since the video’s appearance on March 22, 2009, it has been viewed 1.67 billion times (interestingly enough, it has never been favorited). It is without a doubt the most successful and unfortunate meme in history. To put this in perspective, the second most watched video stands at 124.4 million views.

  The user responsible for uploading the video on YouTube was “albertfish,” his or her only upload. According to YouTube, he or she has never signed into the site after the video’s upload. All efforts to identify and find “albertfish” have been unsuccessful:

  And does it matter who “albertfish” is? Isn’t this like having Pandora’s box opened and suddenly being interested in who Pandora was? We can learn all about her, sure, but at the end of the day, the box is still open and we have to deal with it . . . The video is still there and it will never go away. You have no idea how horrifying that is to me . . . I’m to the point where the thought of using the Internet gives me panic attacks . . . Even now, as I think about what I saw—the nine seconds that I endured—my eyes water. If you ask me, “albertfish” did himself in like the others. (Maher)

  All things considered, Maher’s side effects are mild by comparison. Those who’ve witnessed the video in its entirety are said to suffer from continued high blood pressure, severe headaches, excessive itching in the areas of the ears and eyes, dizziness, loss of equilibrium, severe panic attacks, and intense ringing in the ears. Viewers, like Maher, who’ve seen only small portions of the video, complain of watering eyes, toothaches, dry mouth, and cold spells, among other things. Most disturbing are the alarming number of suicides. The most notable, of course, is the March 26, 2009 “WTF? Is this real?” video uploaded through YouTube showing an unsuspecting mother watching the video for the first time:

  The change in [her] face seems impossible, like a cartoon. The baby on her lap begins to cry immediately. The person holding the camera is clearly startled (unfortunately, not enough to stop filming). Off screen, you can hear someone say, “Paula, honey?” The baby’s cries suddenly stop. There is one second of silence. Someone shouts, “Turn it off!” before two distinct screams are heard. At this point, the camera is all over. One would have to slow the video down to make out what happens next, but thanks to the screenshots that were briefly available at Drudge Report, the rest of the story is clear. The baby is literally squeezed to death by her own mother before bei
ng thrown at the open laptop like a wet cloth. The last discerned image is that of the mother inserting her index finger into her right eye. (Morrison)

  The unsuspecting viewer trend died as quickly as it started; however, a new video continues to appear online even today, as well as remixes of the video and the notorious [TITLE RETRACTED]-rolling. This begs the questions: if the video can cause so much damage in short bursts, who are these people who can tolerate it enough to remix it? Who can stomach the anomaly?

  While the anomaly (I love how “safe” this word is) in the video is frightening, it’s the memetic nature of the video that’s truly problematic. We are talking about a video so ghastly, so horrifying that it’s rewriting our brains. We cannot process this creature—sure, this anomaly. Where did it come from? Who were these children? Why haven’t their parents come forward? My head hurts just trying to recall what I saw. And yet, the video persists. It will not die . . . when it’s dark and I’m in bed, I honestly believe that the 41,448 people (according to today’s Huffington Post) who killed themselves are lucky. They’re not stuck with these memories . . . not living with that sober off-camera voice that clearly states, “This is the beginning.” (Baldwin)

  Most articles written on the subject have an unhealthy obsession with deciphering the anomaly, with the most notable research conducted by the late Dr. Andrew Hill. If the anomaly has revealed anything to academia, it is the stark reality that this anomaly is beyond words, beyond any language’s ability to adequately describe it. It is beyond our capacity of understanding. We have seen the anomaly and yet we do not know what we have seen. All we have are questions:

  What is [TITLE RETRACTED]? Where did it come from? Why don’t the children at least scream? Why won’t my hands stop trembling? When will my heart slow down? Why do I want to watch it again? Will my family watch it with me? (Berezecki)

  Christian A. Dumais lives in WrocBaw, Poland where he works as a university lecturer, writes stories, and bakes sweet delicious pies. If you enjoyed his work here, look for his collection of short stories, Empty Rooms Lonely Countries, currently in stores. He is currently editing Cover Stories: A Euphictional Anthology, due to be released sometime in 2010.

  You can also visit his website at www.cadumais.com.

  UPON MY RETURN

  by David Jack Bell

  The detective told John to have a seat. He flipped open his small notebook.

  “You’re name is John Bryant?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you own the carnival?”

  “Just the one booth. ‘The Miracle Worker’ booth.”

  “How long have you owned that?”

  “About two years. I’ve been on the circuit for forty-two, though, doing all sorts of jobs.”

  “Is that how long you’ve known this Jesse Abrams guy? About two years?”

  “Yes. ‘The Miracle Worker’ didn’t exist before Jesse came along. We created it just for him. For his unique talents.”

  “Abrams ever say where he was from?”

  “I asked him that a few times. ‘Nowhere special’ he used to say. But I got the feeling he had traveled a lot.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He talked about being in places all over the world. Europe. The Middle East. Places here, too. I thought maybe he was in the military or something.”

  “Was he?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “He ever say if he had any family?”

  “He said he was adopted, and his parents were dead. No siblings.”

  The detective wrote some things down, his lips pressed tight together.

  John said, “I think this is all a misunderstanding. Jesse wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

  The cop looked up. “He tried to kill a little girl. And you witnessed it.”

  “He wasn’t trying to kill her.”

  “Mr. Bryant, let me decide that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now how did this Abrams come to work for you?”

  “He just showed up one day, looking for work. That happens a lot. You know, people running away and joining the carnival. Except that he was older than most. We usually get teenagers doing it. Jesse was older. About thirty-five or forty, I would say. He had some gray in his beard, and his eyes looked tired. Like he’d seen some hard times.”

  “And you put him to work as this ‘Miracle Worker’ guy?”

  “Not right away. First, he did menial stuff. Cleaning up after the animals. Hauling gear. That’s the way everybody starts. I started that way myself when I was just sixteen. I guess he and I got to be friends, just talking here and there. He told me about the places he’d been—all those other countries—and I told him about my life on the circuit. He was a good listener.”

  “How’d this ‘Miracle’ thing start?”

  “Right. One day we were talking, and he told me he had a secret. He told me that he could do things. ‘What things?’ I asked. ‘Things,’ he said. For three days I asked him before he finally showed me.”

  “What did he show you?”

  “He went and got a jug of water. A plastic jug that you could see into. He said to me, ‘John, do you like wine?’ I said, ‘Sure, I like wine as much as the next guy.’ So he put the jug of water down in front of me and he closed his eyes real tight. He put both of his hands on the jug and held them there. Well, a second later, the water was dark red. It changed right before my eyes. He pushed the jug my way and said, ‘Go ahead and have a taste.’ So I drank it, and it really was wine. Really good red wine, not the cheap shit we drink around here after work.”

  “He turned water into wine?”

  “See, I’ve been around a while. I’ve seen a lot of magic acts. I know how those tricks are done, but I never figured that one out. I mean, there was no way to switch the jug or add dye or anything. That’s why I say he was the best sleight-of-hand man I ever saw. Hell, when I saw that trick, I knew we had an act just waiting to happen. He could do other stuff, too. He could turn a stone into a loaf of bread. Or he could take a drooping, dead plant and make it blossom again.”

  The detective didn’t look impressed. “So he did magic tricks.”

  “Yes. But…no. That’s not the whole picture.” John struggled to find the right words. “He did magic tricks like nobody’s business. He was good. Really good. He could have gone to Hollywood and made a fortune. I used to tell him that, but he would just say, ‘That’s not my calling right now.’ I never did figure out how he did that stuff.”

  The detective flipped back through the pages of his notebook.

  “You told me that Abrams would never hurt anybody, but one of your fellow employees told me something about an incident with a group of men. This happened in the spring.”

  John let out an exasperated breath. He knew somebody would flap their gums. No sense lying to a cop, especially when he already knew.

  “That’s right. I remember that. But Jesse had a good reason—”

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  “Sometimes we get a bad element in here. People who have had too much to drink, or too much to smoke. You know the type. So we get these four jokers in here one night, and they start hassling one of the girls who works here. A young girl, new to the outfit. She’s working the ring toss, and these apes start bothering her. You know, making crude remarks about the ring toss and how they had something she could toss a ring onto. You know what I mean.”

  “I get it. Go on.”

  “So Jesse overhears this happening. He runs out there and tells these four guys to knock it off. I thought there was going to be a fight. Back in my prime, I could fight, but I can’t anymore. Arthritis in all my knuckles and shoulders. See?” John held up his hand and showed the detective his gnarled joints. “And there wasn’t anybody else around at the moment except that teenaged girl. I figured Jesse was in for a whooping because he’s a pretty small guy. Real thin like he hasn’t been eating enough. Just when the first guy starts to move in for the fi
ght, Jesse holds his hand up in front of him, almost like he was telling the guy to back off. ‘Be silent!’ Jesse says in this real deep voice. I don’t know what he did, but all of a sudden all four of those guys were grabbing at their throats. They couldn’t talk. They weren’t choking, but they couldn’t talk. They kept working their mouths, but nothing came out. You never seen four good old boys like that look so scared. I thought they were going to wet themselves. After a while, they looked so scared that I told Jesse to knock it off. He turned around and then those boys could talk again. They just stuttered and mumbled, and then they ran off like scared little kids. I asked Jesse about it later, but he said it wasn’t a big deal what he did to them. Just mind over matter or something like that. But you see, he was protecting someone. A young girl. You can’t fault him for that, can you?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Bryant. There are other ways to solve problems.”

  “You’ve already got your mind made up, haven’t you? You’re already seeing Jesse as a criminal.”

  “Well I have a mother in my office who is hysterical because someone tried to kill her daughter. I have a father who wants to sue your carnival as well as the town council for granting you a permit. What am I supposed to think?”

  “You’re just doing your job, right?”

  “That’s right.” The detective threw down his pen and pointed at John. “You’re a material witness to a crime, Mr. Bryant. I could place you in custody.”

  “All right.”

  “All right.” The detective took a sip of coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “You want anything?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The detective picked up his pen. “Why don’t you tell me what happened tonight? I’ll decide if there’s been a crime committed.”