Shadowed Realms Issue 8

DECIMATED

By Lee Battersby

We live in a time of miracles. I understand this, just as I accept that sacrifices must be made to keep those miracles worthwhile.

One out of ten is chosen. We all know the odds. Nobody complains. The selection is random. Even if Anielle had not wanted another baby, I would have been chosen. I refuse to blame her. The birth did not push me from number nine. The selection is random. One more baby can’t make a difference. I know that. Everyone is punished in the end, one way or another. It is the price we pay, to live in a time of miracles.

I lay on the operating table. The doctor cannot help but talk.

“It’s always somebody you’ve known.” The scalpel descends. A flash of white runs across my eye. He waits for me to stop screaming before dropping my eyelid into a bowl.

“Don’t ask me how they’re found. Even if you only knew someone for a couple of months, fifty years ago, they can be picked.” Again the blade. Again he waits. “It wouldn’t be punishment if it were done by a stranger.”

You never really recognise the person chosen to be your Tormentor. That’s what they say. The chosen one will wear a hood, and you’ll never see the human beneath the ritual. I’ll know. I’ll recognise them. I just hope my Tormentor hates me. Somehow, that makes it easier.

I blink against the pain, and nothing happens.

“It’ll take some getting used to.” The doctor shrugs, and strips off his bloodied gloves. “I wouldn’t worry. It’s just the first part. There’s more to come.” He puts on a fresh pair of gloves, and leans over. “I won’t lie,” he says. “This is going to hurt like a bitch.”

Clamps slide into my eyes. Metal gouges a path across my bleeding flesh. I scream. Steel fingers catch the crook of my mouth and pull it wider.

“Told you,” the doctor says, and tugs at something behind my head. The clamps tighten. The corners of my eyes and mouth split. Skin draws back over my teeth, further, further. My eyes push out until I'm certain they will jump from their sockets, to be caught by my white-coated torturer. My scream becomes a gargle. A tube is inserted into my mouth, to suck away the drool that chokes me.

“Almost there.” A drop of wetness hits my left eye. Another hits my right. “Saline, to keep your eyes moist. You want to see what happens.”

I try to speak, to beg. My tongue flaps about my cavernous maw. A moan emerges, spoiled and retarded. Pincers grab the waving meat. Something hot pierces it, then my cheek, drawing the pieces of flesh together and immobilising them.

“Sorry about that,” the doctor says, leaning into my field of vision. “I should have warned you.”

He lowers a mirror over my head and tilts it so I can see beyond the end of the table. A door opens. A black-cowled figure enters, and stands at my feet, arms crossed within its sleeves. My Tormentor.

At last.

“You are to be punished,” the figure intones, head bowed. I cannot respond. My struggles force the clamps against my lips, splitting the skin further. Blood trickles. The tube sucks it up.

“We live in a time of miracles. Remember that. You have been chosen. Remember that. Your sacrifice is for the greater good. Remember that.”

I saw these words carved above the entrance of the building as they marched me inside. We all know them. We learn them by heart. I have never feared them. They terrify me now.

The figure raises its head and gazes at me. I see its eyes in the mirror, and choke, thrashing against my bonds. I recall those eyes. I recognise my Tormentor. The doctor appears, pinches a fold of skin between his fingers, and pricks it with a needle. My traitorous muscles relax. My Tormentor watches without comment, no satisfaction creasing her frame. I sag onto the table, eyes returning to the mirror. She stares back, and recollection flares between us.

They bullied her, the boys at school, because of her weight and her mismatched eyes—one blue, one grey, like a witch. Those eyes give her away now, and bring memory crashing down upon me. We held hands in private, kissed and fumbled in the bushland on the way home each afternoon. She loved me. I, in turn, liked her. I remember the way I stood aside, too afraid of opinion to help, the day we were discovered.

There were five of them. When they were finished, they rubbed bugs into her hair and groin. Then they walked away, laughing, leaving me untouched. And I ran, and never saw her again.

I understand what my punishment must be. I hope she has grown to hate me, and that whatever love she once had has fled.

She sees all this, and nods. The doctor leaves my side and walks to her. He carries a bucket.

“One hundred hours,” he says. She nods again, and approaches me. My mouth is wide open. My eyes cannot blink. She holds her burden above my head. We live in a time of miracles. I do not blame Anielle I have been chosen. I do not blame the baby. My sacrifice is for the greater good. I do not blame my Tormentor. Her name is Natalie. We live in a time of miracles.

She tips the container. The first of one hundred hours of buckets spills insects onto my face. They squirm and writhe, up my nose and across my eyeballs and onto the soft surfaces of my mouth. Tears keep my eyes moist. The vacuum sucks my throat clear. One hundred hours in the time of miracles.

And they bite. Oh, how they bite.

* * *

Author Biography:

Lee Battersby is the author of over 40 stories, and has appeared in magazines in Australia, the US, and Europe, including issue 3 of this very tome. You can also find him in the pages of Writers of the Future Volume 18, Tales of the Unanticipated, and the Wheatland Press anthology ‘All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories’, amongst others. His first collection is due any time now from US Publisher Prime Books. He was the first West Australian winner of the Writers of the Future competition, was awarded the 2003 Australian SF ‘Ditmar’ Award for Best New Talent, and has just been announced as one of the tutors for the next Clarion South workshop in 2007. He lives in Perth, Western Australia, with his wife Lyn, a variable number of children, and a bunch of weird objects. He is the only person he knows to own 2 Womble water bottle covers.