Poe's children: the new horror : an anthology - By Peter Straub Page 0,76

with Skarmus mumbling over me.

At some point, lights flash on. A tube is forced between the wires encasing my mouth and I am fed.

Brother Johanssen arrives, the jawscrews are loosened, I am allowed a moment of untrammeled expression.

“How are you, brother?” Brother Johanssen asks. “Are you uncovering a new body within your skin?”

“I have a new body,” I tell him. “I am utterly changed. I have given up evil and become a purely normal fellow.”

He shakes his head, smiling thinly. “You believe me so credible?” he asks. He makes a gesture and the jawscrews are tightened down, the mask re-initiated.

You must learn to deceive him, whispers Skarmus. You must master better the art of the lie.

Then we are up and outside and walking. The weights and baffles and mitts, always varied slightly from one day to the next. The restrictions, Skarmus’s constant tug and thrust as I walk. My body remains aching and sore, unsure on its feet.

Skarmus is beside me, a half pace behind. Brother Johanssen is somewhere behind, out of sight, the other brothers as well. I am at the center of a world whose sole purpose is to circle about me.

The Instruction: I am made to listen to Brother Johanssen, Skarmus still whispering in my ear. That which is wayward must be angled forward, the body surrendered for another, Brother Johanssen preaches. I have, I am told, been wandering all the years of my life in the darkness of my imperfect body. Only the brothers can bring me into light.

You cannot be brought into the so-called light, whispers Skarmus. You shall never survive it. For you there is no so-called light but only so-called darkness.

I fail to understand the role of Skarmus. He seems intent on undoing all that Brother Johanssen attempts. Together, it is as if they are trying to tear me apart.

The beauty of the world, Brother Johanssen is saying, objective, impersonal. For a body such as that which you still persist in wearing, an affront. Affreux. You must acquire a body which will live with beauty rather than against it.

There is only against, states Skarmus.

The Restriction: when I am inattentive, when I resist, when I follow Skarmus’s advice rather than that of the good brother, when I fail in my tasks and motions. The mask is tightened almost to suffocation, the flaps zipped down to block my ears, eyes, nose, the hands chained and dragged up above the head. The back of the rubber suit is loosened, parted, a range of sensations scattered over it or into it by devices I cannot perceive. At some point sweat begins to crease my back, or perhaps welts and blood.

It all revolves around not knowing. I cannot say if it is pain or pleasure I feel, the line between the two so easily traversable in the artificial distance from my own flesh. The dull thud coming distanced through my blocked ears, the flash of sensation flung across the skull at first and then barely perceptible, the damp smell within the leather mask.

“How are you, brother?” Brother Johanssen asks. “Have you found your new body?”

“I have a new body now, dear brother,” I say. I strain against the straps. “I am a changed man.”

He shakes his finger back and forth over me slowly. “I see you take me for a fool,” he says.

A brief flash through the stations, a day in the space of a moment, my mind at some distance from my body and the light goes off. I feel fingers in my hair. You cannot believe any of this, Skarmus says. You must not allow them to take away what you are.

Lintel, post, lintel with right. Lintel, post, lintel with left. The muffled blows the mitt offers with each strike.

A slow turn, the foot coming up. Stumbling to the next door, Skarmus clinging to one of my legs.

“You are not prepared for the Resurrection,” says Brother Johanssen, leaning benevolently over me.

You’ll never be ready, Skarmus whispers.

The chains tighten. I feel my back stripped bare. In the darkness inside my mask, I see streaks of light.

I open my mouth to speak. They are already screwing my jaw down.

A remembered ruin of bodies and myself panting among them, yet with no complete memory of having taken them apart.

I am different from anyone else in the world.

He is smiling, waiting for me to speak. I close my eyes. He pries them open, waits, waits. Finally lets them go, tightens the jawscrews down until my teeth ache and grate.

Skarmus falls