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Order this writing in the collection book Layers of Creation available for only 1795 |
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This appears in a pre-2010 issue
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Skin Deep
John Ferguson
Blood poured from my arm as I walked through the emergency room doors. The white cotton towel that I had wrapped around my shoulder had fallen down in to a slump on my forearm; blood soaking into it created a twisted pattern of dark red and white. The plump dyed blond nurse behind the counter shrieked for help, as she jumped up from her comfortable overstuffed cloth chair. I could see her running around her counter as more help burst through the door heading for me. I had lost so much blood that all I could do was lean on the nearest bland green waiting room chair as the room became a dizzy vision.
I must have passed out, because I woke to orders being shrieked by a masked figure, and a flurry of activity around me. Masked people surrounded me, grabbing me and poking and prodding me with metal tools and needles. Some skinny woman saw that my eyes were open and attempted to talk to me but the only sounds that came from her mouth were mangled words. As the activity calmed down around me, people started leaving the room. A cold room, as hospitals always were, only a now unmasked doctor stood in front of me with a police officer standing next to him. Some large nurse was adjusting the heart monitor next to me when the cop started to speak.
“I’m Officer Phillips. Can you tell us what happened”, he spoke staring straight at me.
I knew at that moment that I could not tell them the truth. I would never see the light of sanity again; a Thorazine drip would become a way of life if told them the events of the last week. I stared back at the cop, hoping this was all a dream and they would just disappear back into my mind.
Looking at the doctor with a puzzle, the doctor took his eyes off me, “He is much to traumatized, and he hasn’t said a word since he walked into the ER. He may even be suffering from a trauma induced amnesia. Let him rest tonight and come back in the morning. You might get better results.”
As they all filed out of the room, I was left alone in silence except for the constant beeping of the EKG machine. My arm hurt, not just a simple quiet hurt, it hurt like it had been ripped off and sewed back on. As I sat looking at the bare room, only the foot of the metal bed and EKG machine were visible. A small television hung on the wall. I still felt dizzy like I was about to hurl whatever I had left in my stomach. It was then that the same large nurse waddled back into the room. She wasn’t tall, she was obese, not the kind of obese you get from having a kid or just not exercising but the kind of obese you get from grazing on a continuous stream of Ho-Hos and chocolate because you have no life to call your own.
“The doctor has ordered a regular schedule of morphine to keep you comfortable. He said you won’t lose your arm, but you will have a scar,” she said inserting a needle she had pulled from her coat pocket into the IV plug that I had been stuck with when I was passed out. “I had the kitchen bring you up some food also. You might be hungry by now. It should be here in a bit.”
I said nothing; I just looked at her with empty eyes. I didn’t want to respond. I wanted to keep them in the dark as long as I could so I could figure out what to do about this mess.
As she checked the EKG machine and wondered out of the room, it started to all come back to me like a bad nightmare you wish you could forget. It started in the hot jungle of Guatemala, still a blur in my mind or was it the morphine starting to kick me in the head. I had traveled there when a discovery had been made deep in the jungle. An Incan city had been found buried by time and the forest; I was just a stupid college student working toward a doctorate in anthropology. The university offered to send me to the jungle because Incan culture was subject of my long awaited thesis. It was the whole, “use the graduate student to do the dirty work, so we don’t have to pay them” situation.
The trip into the jungle was like any horrible experience. The insects slowly ate you alive from the time you arrived until the time of your departure or they managed to consume you whichever came first. I spent a month in the Incan city, taking rolls of pictures, but no great finds were made. Before I knew it the trip was over and it was the last day, the porters were tired of being here despite the pay, they were ready to get back to their families as I was to get back to a comfortable bed and a hot shower. It was the last day that I found the cave, sitting off a hundred yards from the edge of the city; it was opened towards the city. Searching the cave turned up an empty hole in the ground until I discovered a passage going off to the right only twenty feet inside the entrance. As I entered what was to be the last chamber a great room opened up and was filled with evidence of civilization. The room was a simple room, filled with decorated walls of long forgotten words and symbols, which surrounded a hand carved stone table that sat in the center of the room. Four pillars rose from the floor at equal distances about five feet from each corner of the stone table. Notches had been carved into the pillars in a circular pattern around the pillars along the circumference of the pillar half way up the pillar. Worn spots could be seen on the pillars and on the table as though this room had been used often.
Images of some being had been carved onto the walls in the spaces left without words and symbols. A simple image of a short hairy creature which looked like someone had drawn from a science fiction comic book. An ugly creature that gave an air of familiarity as well as cuteness as it was shown in many different positions around the walls of the cave room. Walking around the room twice I marveled at the simple layout of the images on the walls, I finally remembered I was holding a camera. I shot the rest of the film I had brought on the trip. Making sure the location was entered into my GPS as the jungle has a way of hiding things quickly I set off towards home. I was glad to finally be off the insect’s menu.
I dropped off the film to be developed on the way home from the airport. Lisa, the cute little redhead at the photo center was coming on to me like a banshee out to rape her victim. She was only a freshman at the university, twenty and full of life she demanded a lot of attention. She had an unusual attraction to me, I was too tired for her games tonight, and she pouted a bit at being too tired for wild sex.
“Are you sure you’re too tired tonight? I could help you relax...” Lisa said leaning over the counter and grabbing my left hand. Pulling me towards her she put my hand on her right breast and squeezed it, I could feel the heat coming off of her.
“Tomorrow night. I already feel like I have been consumed enough this month. Give me one night in a bed without being continuously munched on by insects and you can come over tomorrow night,” I said pulling my hand back and giving her a smile of lust. It was hard to turn her down this time. A month without sex and being eaten alive does take its toll on a man.
I didn’t even unpack. Shower then bed. I was tired. It was two o’clock in the afternoon when I woke up. Fourteen hours of sleep will either make you feel great or like someone has worked you over with a baseball bat. Crawling out of bed I slowly made my way to a hot shower to ease the muscles of my back and legs. It wasn’t long after that and a bite to eat that I was at the photo center getting the prints. Lisa was already there in her little work uniform, smiling at me she came around the counter and gave me a big hug and deep kiss.
“I get off work around ten, I will be at your house by ten-thirty,” she said with a smile as she gave me another kiss.
My arms around her narrow waist, she gave me another long kiss. It was hard to let go of her as she pulled away to get my prints.
“The prints turned out really good. You did much better on the lighting this time,” Lisa voiced in the tone of a professional, as she got my prints.
She wouldn’t hand my prints to me from across the counter, insisting on bringing them around for another hug and long kiss, “I’ll see you at ten-thirty.”
I headed to my office at the university, Dr. Paul Stevenson the professor that was over me in my research and my mentor for my doctorate wanted to see the prints as soon as I got back.
“These are all from the one cave”, Dr. Stevenson asked as he thumbed through them from behind his large oak desk. The desk seemed overly large for such a small man. Almost fifty, his balding head and goatee fit him well for the role of a professor. He kept lowering and raising his head as his small bi-focal glasses looked over the photos.
“Yes”, I replied holding back another yawn. I was still tired but I was on a schedule. I had to have my thesis finished by the end of this semester.
“You will need to include a selection of these with your paper,” he mumbled as he stared at the photos, “Do you have any ideas as to the meaning behind the cave and drawings?”
“Not yet, so far it is looking like some type of sacrificial room. I have more research to do on it and I need to go back and look more into Incan legends. I should know more by the end of the week,” I replied back thinking more about sleep and sex then I was a thesis.
“Come by Monday and let me know what you have found out. Don’t mention your find to anyone right now. Your thesis will have a lot better impact if you bring forth the discovery and the thesis at the same time.”
“Okay, that isn’t a problem I won’t have much time to talk to anyone about it anyway. I’m running out of time to get finished so I will be staying on campus a lot in the next few months.” With that I left. Dr. Stevenson was a good professor, but he had a dry personality like someone who was so burned out they just go through the motions of living.
On the way home I noticed they had opened up a new tattoo place just down the street from campus. I had been thinking of a tattoo for the longest time. It had become a college fad to get a tattoo in your senior year. I still couldn’t decide what to get, the tattoo flash art that always hung on the walls was to standard.
“Pain Station”, I mumbled to myself as I entered; a fitting name for a tattoo and piercing salon. It was a larger shop then most, lining the walls was thousands of tattoo designs. Centered in the room were two dark brown leather sofas. It was still early in the evening so the place was empty. Some skinny guy sat behind the counter at the back of the shop, some kind of gothic music filled the air with noise as I caught the smell of incense. As I approached the counter I noticed the guy was heavily tattooed and had several piercings. The black tank top he had on showed both of his arms and shoulders covered with tattoos. His long hair was back in a braided pony tail. Earrings lined each ear and flesh tunnels stretched out his ear lopes in a mutated fashion.
“Can I help you,” he asked looking up from a catalog. A heavy gauge nose ring came into view, the ring must have been a double zero gauge. It reached down to his upper lip and moved as he spoke.
“I just got back into town and noticed this place had opened up. Thought I would check it out,” I replied.
“My name is Rick,” he replied with a smile and reaching out a hand. “Thinking about a tattoo or a piercing?”
“Paul,” I said shaking his hand. “Actually I have been thinking about a tattoo. Haven’t really decided what to get though, the art work I have looked at before in other shops just doesn’t interest me.”
“Have you thought about custom art work”, Rick asked getting up from his stool. “We can draw up anything you might like and in any size.”
“I heard custom art work is a lot more expensive then the stuff on the walls.”
“Not really. It will run about the same, colors and design will affect the price much more. You can bring in designs in any format, we draw it up and you decide what changes and how big you want it, colors are your choice too.”
It was then I knew what I wanted. The design I wanted would be unique, I even had it with me, providing part of the weight that was causing the strap of my back pack starting to cut into my shoulder. Sitting my backpack on the counter, I pulled out the photos from the cave. Flipping through to find a good one of the creature that had covered the walls, I pulled it out of the stack and handed it to Rick, “Can you draw up a tattoo of this?”
Rick looked over the photo, “You just want the figure in the middle, correct? Not any of the writing?”
“Yeah, just him,” I replied stuffing the other photos back into my pack.
“No problem, how big do you want it? Do you want the same colors also?” Rick asked.
“About five inches height, would that get a lot of detail,” I asked. “Same colors also, if possible.”
“Detailed wouldn’t be a problem at that size. I could probably match the colors pretty good.”
“How much would that run?”
“One hundred fifty,” Rick replied after a few seconds. “If you wanted it done today, I would cut you a deal and do it for one hundred even.”
“How long would it take?”
“About an hour or so”, Rick said looking at the photo again.
“Okay,” I replied with a smile. It was hard to pass up the bargain of a cheaper tattoo.
“Give me a few to draw this up and we will get started,” Rick said heading to the salon in the back room where all the tattooing was done.
Ninety minutes later and a hundred bucks lighter I left the Pain Station and headed home. My left arm hurt like it had been stung by a thousand hornets. Rick said the upper part of the arm was a less sensitive place to get a tattoo. I didn’t believe him, if it hurt this bad I shudder to think what more sensitive areas were like under the tattoo needle. Bandaged up, Rick gave me a long list of do’s and dont’s for the next six weeks. I didn’t have time for the don’ts, I had a paper to get finished and sitting in an office on campus writing a thesis wasn’t on the “don’t” list.
I woke up from my nap in a startle, Lisa was standing over me undressing, “How did you get in?”
“You gave me a key last month right before you left silly,” Lisa said removing her top, “you didn’t want me to have to wait outside anymore if you got home late.”
Yeah, I had given her that key. A month in the jungle had caused it to slip my mind.
“What is the bandage for,” Lisa asked with a smile as she slid into bed next to me.
“I got a tattoo on the way home from campus,” I smiled starting to wake up.
“And you didn’t wait for me to go with you,” Lisa pouted, “I had been wanting to get one, didn’t want to go by myself. What did you get?”
“I got a tattoo from one of the photos I took. Rick, the guy at the tattoo place said to leave the bandage on until morning.”
Lisa pouted again, “Got a tattoo and I don’t even get to see it until morning. What makes you think I will be here in the morning,” Lisa started to smile again with a devilish look in her eyes.
“You will be if you want to see the tattoo,” I replied grinning back at her. Reaching out I pulled her close and gave her a deep kiss.
Morning came much too soon. I was on my way to campus again before I knew it. Lisa had already decided she was coming over again when she got off work. I had something to work towards today, at least something to keep me awake thinking.
Research on the cave was going slow. I had spent all day going through previous writings on the Incan culture. Nothing in the writings mentioned the creature. It was getting late; the clock on the library wall was already showing nine thirty. Lisa would be at my house in an hour. Packing up I headed home with the goal of starting fresh in the morning.
Lisa was already at my place when I got there. The smell of food filled the apartment.
“Surprise,” Lisa shouted. “I brought Thai takeout.”
I smiled.
Walking over she gave me a big hug and deep kiss before she lead me to the dining room to eat.
“I didn’t think you would eat at all today. You get to tied up in your work, you need to eat if your going to keep up with me,” she said giving a wicked smile.
“I’ve got to get this thesis done soon. Dr. Stevenson is going to get irate if it isn’t done by the end of this semester,” I said opening up a box of take out.
The night went quick. Lisa was in her normal take charge moods and led the way to the bedroom. I wasn’t catching up on my rest. Research all day, used like a whore all night, I shouldn’t complain though. Lisa was falling in love with me, and I was starting to feel things myself.
Morning came in the quick usual way it did yesterday. It wasn’t long before I was on the way to campus again. I hadn’t even paid much attention to the tattoo still fresh on my arm. Rick said I would get so use to it being there I would soon forget I have had one. He was right, but I didn’t think I would forget it this soon.
A quick stop by Dr. Stevenson’s office gave me a new path to follow in my research. He suggested I try looking in some of the older texts, even some general texts of magic, demons, and religions dealing with death. My research for the day still proved fruitless as the sun was starting to set. It wasn’t until I was walking back to my desk that I past a black book. I passed it and went on to my desk, but something told me to go back and find it again. A quick search of the aisle and the black book was in my hand. An abnormally heavy book, the cover was made from black leather. Inset on the cover and spine in gold letters was just one word, “Necrology.” Flipping open the book the pages were turning yellow with age. The printing date and author was not listed inside, the book went straight to a table of contents. Retiring to my desk, I started thumbing through the book. The book listed all manner of creatures, demons, and spirits, talking about the origins, how to call them, and how to banish them. It was starting to look like another on of those Grimore books used back in the Middle Ages for magic and witchcraft, when I found it. A hand drawn picture close to the end of the book, it was the figure I had found on the wall in the cave. I flipped back to the beginning of the chapter and started reading.
Let it be known to all, who ever calls forth Gurrot should make proper preparations. Those who do not shall become those preparations unless another means can be found to banish Gurrot back to his slumber.
After only the brief message in a broken middle ages English the rest of the chapter faded off into the language of Latin. Not having time to decipher the Latin I took the book and decided to go home for the night. Grabbing up the rest of my stuff I noticed that the library was unusually quiet as closing time approached. The absent of people brought a silence that was deafening to the ears. My skin started to tingle as I felt a cold rush of air race down the main aisle. I decided to pick up my speed and get down stairs, as I did I saw movement down the aisles as I walked past them. The library attendants were already starting to turn off the up stairs lights as I reached the stairs. I turned and looked back down the main aisle and saw nothing but was sure I saw someone else moving on the floor.
As I reached the counter and checked out, the last of the people were heading out the main entrance. On my way out I mentioned to the attendant that I thought I saw someone else on the second floor as I was coming down. He said he would check it out and I headed for home.
Lisa was already at my apartment when I got home and greeted me as soon as I walked through the door.
“Hi stranger, I was wondering when you would get home,” Lisa said walking to the front door and giving me a hug and kiss. She had on only a larger purple night shirt with Snoopy on the front in a Joe Cool pose. “I’ll go order some pizza.” She walked away while she said it.
Sitting my backpack down by the sofa, “I’m going to go take a hot shower while we wait on the pizza.”
She just smiled back as I walked past her on the way to the shower; she was already ordering the pizza on her cell phone.
The night went very quick after the hot shower, a couple of pizzas, an hour of love making and I was sleeping with Lisa curled up naked next to me. I woke to the sound of something scraping on wood. Looking at the clock it was brightly showing 2:00 in the blue glow on the LEDs. The scraping sound continued, it sounded like it was coming from the front door, I got up. It must be the neighbor’s cat again, the cat would often want in here at my apartment if the neighbors had went to bed before they let him back in.
The scratching was getting louder as I reached the front door. Undoing the locks, I crack the door so the cat could walk in. It was only after a few seconds did I even look out the door to see where the cat was. Still half asleep I looked up and down the hall and didn’t see the cat anywhere. Convincing myself I must be dreaming I locked the door and headed back to bed.
During my shower the next morning I noticed that the tattoo was once again hurting. The skin around it had turned red.
“Rick,” I said approaching the counter at the tattoo parlor.
Rick looked up from the piercing jewelry he was putting in the glass case, “Hey Paul, what can I do for you today? Ready for another tattoo so soon?”
“No, I need you to look at the one I already have,” I said reaching the counter.
“Sure, lets go into the back room,” Rick said coming out from behind the counter.
Rick asked me to sit down in his chair while he put on some latex gloves, “Ok, so what kind of trouble are we having?”
“It was fine until I woke up this morning, I noticed it was red and hurting,” I said sliding up my sleeve to expose the tattoo.
“It looks infected,” Rick said gingerly touching it with his gloved hand. “Have you been putting the antibiotics on it like I told you to do?”
“Yes, every morning,” I said.
Walking over to a cabinet, Rick pulled out a box, “Quit using the stuff I gave you and start putting this on your arm twice a day. It is another antibiotic but a lot stronger then what we normally use.”
“Ok,” I responded as I sat in the chair.
Rick opened up the box and took out the tube inside, “I’m going to put some on before you leave and then you should before you go to bed tonight and then twice a day for at least a week.”
As I left the Pain Station, the tattoo had begun a dull ache which grew in intensity as the day went on. I had managed to get the Latin in the “Necrology” book translated, but what I discovered had made little sense.
“See what I mean, Dr. Stevenson,” I asked not comfortable in the hard wooden chair the doctor had in his office for students.
“Yes, it shows that the Incans were involved in a lot more religious areas then previously thought,” Dr. Stevenson said thumbing through the translation.
“They must have believed heavily in this Gurrot to destroy the prisoners they had captured during conflicts they had with different groups throughout the region,” I commented trying to adjust to a comfortable position in the chair.
“They would tattoo their prisoners with an image of Gurrot and then they would release the prisoner to go back to their own homes. Then they would evoke Gurrot and he would hunt them like animals to dispatch them,” Dr. Stevenson replied reading as he spoke.
It wasn’t until now that I realized I was marked for death. The tattoo of Gurrot on my arm ached with the slow dull ache of infection, the flesh crawling beneath the tattoo in waves of pain.
“Yeah, it must have been horrible to know you were marked for death and it was only a matter of time,” I said thinking about the tattoo.
“It would give a feeling of dread and fear to them; then going home to their families knowing they it was only a matter of time before they would see their family member killed,” Dr. Stevenson said. “You think it would definitely give the whole tribe a second thought about attacking the Incans.”
“I need to get going, I hope to have the thesis done in a couple of weeks,” I said rubbing my hand over my shoulder where the tattoo was, the pain only intensified. The pain in my back from the chair didn’t help.
“Okay, bring the draft by when you get it finished and so I can check on it,” Dr. Stevenson said handing back the papers.
Leaving the office, I had the rest of the day to myself. Lisa was at her parents for the next couple of days. Rest and work was going to consume my time while she was gone, Lisa would demand attention when she got back. As I headed to my office in the lab, my left arm began hurting more and more, the pain became unbearable at times. My office in the lab was nothing more then an empty broom closet, but the school had provided it with a small metal desk and chairs. It was quiet, that was the important part, not many students came onto that floor except in the mornings when labs were being held; so I would have it to myself the rest of the evening.
I must have been much more tired then I thought, raised my head from the cold metal surface of the desk when I heard a sound coming from the hall. My head still full of the dreams, my hands found my face to rub my eyes open. Jerking at the sound of a primordial hideous shriek emanating from the hall I ran for the door expecting to find someone in trouble. Nothing; the hallway was empty. Closing the door to the hall, I made my way back through the lab to my office. I was only halfway across the lab when another shriek emanated from the hall followed by the sound of glass breaking. I froze in the middle of the lab, turning around I could hear grunting and the tapping sound of clawed feet impacting the tile floor. Another shriek again sounded from the hallway as a pounding against the door shook the hinges and shaking the wall.
I went for the door that connected to the other lab; it had a door which leads out to the hallway. The door exited into the hallway around the corner from the other lab, I creped to the corner and peered around it, I saw a small figure standing at the door pounding at it with hairy fists, and it suddenly stopped and sniffed the air. Whirling around it saw me and started running down the hall in my direction. I turned and ran down the hall.
Running down the hall the solution to my problems presented itself with the added fear of being at the end of the hall; out of options save for only this one. The hall ended abruptly with a lab door on either side of the hall. Both labs belonged to the biology department. They both connected to each other by way of a freezer that had doors in both labs, used by professors in the summertime to help keep specimens in storage while still having easy classroom access, both doors could only be locked using a metal pin on the outside, since the doors were already inside locked classrooms the school saw no need to use padlocks on the metal freezer doors. My only chance to avoid becoming a victim was to try and trap Gurrot inside the freezer. Opening up one lab door I ran to the freezer and made sure the pin was pulled out, so it could be opened from inside the freezer. Coming back out of the lab I heard a shriek just down the hallway around the corner, he was coming, and I didn’t have much time. Shutting the class room door, I opened the other one and ran to the freezer. Opening the door I could feel the cold air start to fill the room like a flood pouring over me. As I turned to go back to the hallway grunting could be heard just outside the classroom. I backed into the freezer pulling the door slightly closed and around the boxes left in the floor. Working my way to the other door I quietly pushed the latch to open the door. As the warm air from the class room started to pour into the crack another shriek was unleashed. This time it was coming from the class room I entered the freezer from. Gurrot must be in there, I could hear grunting now coming from the classroom as I started to squeeze through the crack I had made in the other door. As the last of me stepped out of the freezer, a large clawed hand, dark brown and knobbed wrapped itself around the edge of the other door. As the hand began to pull the door open, a small figure came into view. It was the figure I had come to know as the figure I had seen on the cave wall, and searing in pain on my left shoulder; Gurrot. Gurrot came much more alive seeing me at the other end of the freezer and started running towards me. Before he could get to me I slammed the door shut and shoved the pin into the door handle to lock it. The door began to shake as Gurrot reach the door; his large hands began to pound against it. I ran for the hallway as a shriek was let out, running into the other classroom the pounding was louder, still coming from the freezer. I quietly went to the freezer as Gurrot let out another shriek. The pounding began once again in a fit of blood lust, as I slammed the freezer door shut and shoved in the pin to hold the door locked. The pounding quit abruptly as it began once again at the door I just closed. As Gurrot pounded against the door he let out another shriek, it was then I noticed the hinges on the door start to loosen. I ran.
Racing for home, my mind was fluttering with thoughts of terror and fear as I tried to formulate a plan to rid myself of this accursed tattoo before Gurrot tried to dispatch my life once again. My lungs were starting to burn and my ribs ached, but I was finally home. I tore through the apartment looking for anything that might aid me removing the tattoo, it wasn’t long before I was looking at the only help I could find, staring back from the kitchen counter was a pack of gauze and tape from the first aid kit, the sharpest knife in the apartment a large butcher knife, and a small vise that uses a vacuum clamp to hold it in place. I grabbed a couple of white kitchen towels and threw them on the counter. As I stood there in the kitchen, still trying to catch my breath, a low and incessant shriek came from the distance. It could only mean Gurrot was free from the freezer, I didn’t have much time. Surveying the tools before me, it hit me that I didn’t have anything to burn the tattoo in once it was removed. Reached into the cabinet above me, I retrieved a large stainless steel mixing bowl, and below the sink the charcoal lighter fuel I kept for the grill and a lighter. Once again in the distance that incessant shriek could be heard, but only this time it was growing closer. The book said that once the tattoo was destroyed Gurrot would return to his slumber. I looked at the large butcher knife the memories poured back into my mind of all the times I have used it to cut meat, now I use it once again but yet unique purpose. I pulled my shirt off letting it drop to the floor; the tattoo was hurting like a hot branding iron had been stuck to my shoulder. I set the vise up and actuated the vacuum so the vise was sitting on the edge of the counter. Picking up the knife in my right hand I sat the blade just above the tattoo on my left shoulder, just then another shriek filled the air, Gurrot was almost here, the bringer of death is coming for me. Fear, pain, and terror filled my mind as I began to slide the knife back and forth cutting into my skin. As a flap of skin grew larger as I slide the knife back and forth the blood began to pour from the wound. A sweet smell filled the room, despite the pain I continued to cut back and forth, I soon had to lay the knife down. Just like cutting a layer of fat from a hunk of beef, the loose skin was causing problems with the cutting now. I laid the knife down and opened up the clamp, I leaned down and used my right had to slide the skin from the top of the tattoo into the vise. Carefully I closed the vise, I had to clamp it tight enough so it wouldn’t pull out, sharp intense pain shot through my arm and I tightened the vise down on the still living flesh. The pain was so intense fear of passing out before I had finished rolled through my body and I began to shake. My right hand reaches for the knife once again, but my hands are shaking so bad that I had trouble gripping the knife. Pulling slightly against the vise the skin grew tight and I began to cut once again. The blood on the knife made for a thick lubrication as the knife slide back and forth. I jerk around when a shriek came from the hallway; he was here outside the door. I hurried to cut the rest of the tattoo loose, the pain grew worse with each slice. My mind reeled with pain and a faintness that comes when you have lost a lot of blood, fear poured over me that I might pass out before I could get the tattoo burned. My arm burned with a searing pain like I had been branded as I finished cutting the last of the skin loose, I grabbed the skin in my left hand and released it from the vise. A loud slam came against the front door as I threw the skin into the steel bowl. Dousing the skin with charcoal lighter fuel I threw in a match. The bowl came to life with fire and the fuel and skin started to burn. Another slam came to the door and a great howl and shriek filled the apartment. Gurrot was here, death has come for me. The apartment filled with the wretched smell of burning flesh, there was nothing left to do. I grabbed one of the white towels and wrapped it around my arm as tight as I could mange. As the flesh in the bowl started to bubble and shrink the wails and slamming against the door increased in desperation, Gurrot knew what I was doing, he was trying to get to me before he lost his prey. Fibers of wood could be heard breaking with each slam against the door, and then it stopped. A black mass, that was all that was left in the bowl as the flames died down, then a long low shriek started in the hallway, as it grew the room started to vibrate and then silence.
I don’t remember the walk to the emergency room; being only two blocks away I didn’t see a point to call an ambulance. The yelling and people running around me seems only a bad memory now. The pain medication made me sleep a lot; I haven’t seen Gurrot anymore. Since I am no longer marked for death all I can only assume is that Gurrot returned to his slumber. The only time I thought I was still being stalked was late, the second night I was in the hospital, when I awoke with warm wet lips pressed against mine, waking to Lisa’s face, she scolded me for what I had done and asked why, but like with the police I avoid the subject. Lisa hasn’t left my side since she got back from her parents, she moved into my apartment the same day I got out of the hospital. I finished my thesis and now work for the university as a professor in anthropology. I have never told anyone the reason I cut the tattoo from my arm, and I never will.
