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AUTOPSY By Robert Hood |
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“Get away from me!’” she screamed. “Get away! Get away!” The blade whizzed past him, uncontrolled but deadly. He felt the sharp wind of its passing on his skin and automatically backed off. This gave her time to loosen her feet. In a moment she was standing, waving the knife at him and screaming hysterically, the operating table between them. “Calm down!” Flanagan said. “There’s no need for panic.” “No! No! No!” The subject shrieked, all her enormous energy focussed on that cry and on the knife she was waving around. “No! No! No!” “You must listen to me.” “Maniac! Get away from me! Get away!” She grabbed some of Flanagan’s tools with her free hand and flung them at him. He ducked and jerked out of the way, but something sharp and heavy caught him on the arm. Its heaviness hurt him and its sharpness tore his lab coat. But it was worth it. Weapons! She’d now provided him with weapons! She realised this at the same time as he did and as he bent to pick up a bone saw, she screamed and raced for the kitchen, which was on her side of the room. She was through the inner door before Flanagan could stumble past the mess. One, two, three, four ... like a gazelle she was gone. Flanagan realised he hadn’t locked the outer door. Once she’d escaped into the back yard, the energy her fear was pumping into her would send her flying over the fence, along the alley and off into the wild, blue yonder. Damn, damn, damn. Flanagan was far too big and heavy—too lifeless—to catch her. ... five, six, seven, eight … “Wait!” he yelled, knowing she wouldn’t even hear him. “Please, wait!” She’d got the door open as Flanagan entered the kitchen, was looking back at him, her face contorted into a scream. Beyond her, sky, a rough brick fence, shrivelled plants ... Something else too. Suddenly, as she flung herself through the opening, Nancy grunted and was thrown backwards. She hit the floor. The doorway darkened. A big, solid silhouette lurched to a halt there. Shadow slipped over it and away and Flanagan saw its flowery printed frock. “Mrs Evil-eye?” he said. The woman smiled at him, waiting on the doorstep. “Help me!” The subject screamed from the floor. “He’s trying to kill me.” “Yes,” said Mrs Evil-eye evenly, not looking down at her, but keeping her beady little eyes firmly on Flanagan. “Help me!” the subject repeated. “Be quiet, girl!” Sudden realisation that Mrs Evil-eye wasn’t outraged caused the subject to react violently. She screamed, inarticulate and hysterical, and slashed at Mrs Evil-eye’s legs. The knife sliced deeply, though there was no blood. Then the subject was pushing free and racing down the backyard path. The gate was open at its end. Did some part of Flanagan feel relief? “Wait!” Flanagan yelled again, moving to shove Mrs Evil-eye out of the way. But the woman froze him with a strong grip on his shoulder. “Let her go!” “Let her ...?” He couldn’t move. Nancy disappeared out the gate and Flanagan heard her pounding feet and screaming voice diminishing as she sped into the distance. “She’ll call the police!” “It doesn’t matter,” said Mrs Evil-eye, “There’ll be time for you to get away. She’s hysterical. There’s time for many things.” “But they’ll come for me.” “They would’ve come anyway. They’ve been visiting here, watching, while you were out. They were asking questions.” “Questions?” “You’ve given yourself away. Too careless, don’t you see?” Flanagan pulled back. “Then it’s over. I’ve failed.” Behind him, from the lounge room, he could hear the sounds of Re-animator still playing: shrieks like echoes of Nancy’s hysteria. “They’ll kill her!” Screams and cries. “Then I’ll give her life!” “Not failed,” Mrs Evil-eye said. Flanagan looked at his neighbour, saw her calm assurance, and was suddenly amazed. “You knew what I was doing?” he asked. “And you don’t mind?” “I told you—I can help.” “How?” “I have what you want.” She laughed, grabbing him. He struggled, raising the bone saw he’d been holding, wanting to strike her. Her frighteningly determined grip stopped him. “In your abattoir!” she said. Dragging him easily by one arm, even though he was taller than her and should have been stronger, Mrs Evil-eye took him through into the next room. She pushed him away from her as she blocked the passage past her, back into the kitchen. “Get your knives!” she growled, standing before him, legs apart, like a colossus. “What is this?” Flanagan said as he did so, unaccountably afraid. “My time here is finished too,” she said, as she tore open her frock. “People like us, we can only stay so long in any one place. Sooner or later they focus on you, they come for you.” Her chest was bare: large sagging breasts in an ocean of fatty flesh. “Here!” she went on, thumping her abdomen. “What you seek is here! Don’t you want it?” “How do you know what I want?” Flanagan said, his fingers gripping convulsively around the handle of a knife. She laughed. “Come, come! Before the police get here! Do it! Do what you want to do! It’s in here. The thing you’ve been looking for. It’s here!” Her voice gouged in through his ears, his eyes, his nose, reverberating in the bone of his skull. He cried out. “Cut me open! Dance in my guts! I won’t stop you!” Flanagan screamed and plunged the knife at her, believing. The blade split her between her breasts, smashing the bone and disappearing into the cavities beyond. A ghastly stench flooded around him—not the decaying, digestive stink of the living, but something more like a chemical foulness. Flanagan gritted his teeth and jerked the blade down, down, harder, all his weight on it. No blood, just flesh, bones, lumps of unidentifiable, heaving matter. “That’s it!” the woman screamed. “Now, reach in there! Deep inside! Before it gets away!” Her stomach gaped open, exposing a clutter of dark shadows and twitching innards. Still no blood. Flanagan plunged his hand into her, both hands, leaning in, so consumed by her frenzy that he was able to ignore the deathly smell. Yes, yes, there was something there—a creature. He saw its red eyes, like diamonds in the darkness, flash at him and speed away, upward into her chest cavity—an impression of reptilian quickness. “Get it! Get it!” His head was inside her now, pushing up through her ribcage. There! There it was! Flanagan grabbed, felt his hands close around it, felt it squirm with an almost painful vitality, despite the fact that it was cold and scaly. “I’ve got it,” he choked, coughing and wheezing. “Bring it out!” Mrs Evil-eye yelled. “Bring it out!” Her voice echoed through her, like a howl of wind. Then he was free of her, looking at the thing through wide, staring eyes as he held it in front of him. It squirmed and thrashed. Ugly, twisted, evil—a snake-like, demonic monstrosity. “It’s not what I was looking for!” he said, keeping his grip on it but staring at Mrs Evil-eye. “This is something else!” “Close enough!” She stood there, her chest and belly gaping, innards squirming everywhere, hanging out of her, wriggling on the floor. Kneeling, she began to shovel the fallen pieces of herself back in through the wound. “It may not be the life you were hoping for,” she said. “But it’ll have to do.” The thing suddenly leapt from Flanagan’s hands. It slammed into his abdomen so hard his body shot backwards, leaving the floor and crashing against the operating table. Despite the confusion, he thought he caught a glimpse of its tail disappearing into him like a fish into water, leaving only a few unsettling ripples which faded as he watched. “Come on!” said Mrs Evil-eye. She was standing over him, her pudgy hand outstretched. “What happened?” he whispered, dizzy with power. “You’ve got what you wanted, what else?” “What I wanted?” Was this what he’d wanted? He felt different, sure. In fact, increasingly different, as though a process were taking place which would change him utterly. But was it life? He didn’t know. It felt more like dying. It was different from what he’d had before—dark and powerful—but it didn’t make him soar. No, there was no sky in this vision, just the dry, crumbling power of the darkness. Life? Was it life? “What does it matter?” Mrs Evil-eye said. “What about you?” Flanagan gazed at the split in her that was closing up even as he watched. Mrs Evil-eye laughed again, dryly. “Plenty more where that came from, dearie,” she said. “Plenty more. Come on!” She dragged him to his feet. “Must go.” “To do what?” “Observe!” she said, patting him gently. “See the world! Eat people! That’s what I call living.” ... Eight, nine, ten, eleven … This is the way we’ll get to heaven ... Mrs Evil-eye grinned darkly. * * * |
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Author Biography: 
Robert Hood, once described in Aurealis magazine as "one of [Australia's] leading horror writers", has been responsible for raising the level of weirdness in this country's genre consciousness for several decades. His many stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies in Australia, US and UK, as well as online. His most recent collection is IMMATERIAL: GHOST STORIES (MirrorDanse Books, 2002). Other work includes the novels BACKSTREETS and the SHADES series, and with Robin Pen he edited the successful themed anthology, DAIKAIJU!: GIANT MONSTER TALES (Agog! Press, 2005). You can discover more about Robert at www.roberthood.net |
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"Autopsy" - © Copyright Robert Hood 1994
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