Chapter 12
Marlon is in extreme pain. He can’t see anything, just blackness, but the pain emanating from his wrists and ankles is terrible. He screams again, but no one answers. His throat feels like sandpaper from screaming and lack of water. He doesn’t know where he is, all he knows is pain. He has lost track of time since he came too.
Suddenly he hears a click and light burns his eyes. He closes them and can hear someone whistle and footsteps on a floor. He opens his eyes a little, and bright white light stings them.
"Great, you are awake, then we can begin, just let me get changed and I’ll be right with you." The voice says in a friendly tone.
Marlon manages to open his eyes and when he looks down, he realizes he is hanging about two feet off the floor. He looks up and to his sides, "what the fuck is this? Hey, you, get me down from here, it hurts."
His wrists and ankles are tied to metal rings on a wooden structure, above him is a noose made of thick rope.
"Hang on, " says the voice.
"Get me down now, please, it hurts."
The man comes back and he is naked, he walks up to where Marlon is hanging and looks up at him.
"I know it hurts, it always does, but don’t worry, I’ll give you something for the pain before we begin."
"Please, let me go, I beg you."
The man walks over to a table and picks up a syringe and an IV. He hangs the bag on a hook in the structure and connects it to Marlon’s wrist. Then he takes the syringe and without saying a word he plunges it into Marlon’s thigh.
"The injection I just gave you is a muscle relaxant with some pain reliever in it, and the IV is a saline solution to keep you alive, at least for a while."
"What are you going to do? Whatever it is, please don’t, just let me down, I haven’t done anything."
The man looks up at him and says, "no, you haven’t done anything, but I’m curious. I wonder if your skin makes the same song as white skin."
"Who the fuck are you, the KKK? What’s this racist shit, get me the fuck down now."
The man chuckles, and answers, "no, I’m not with the KKK, I have nothing against black people, or brown, or yellow for that matter."
He walks away and Marlon can see there are stitch marks on his back along his spine. He opens a metal cabinet and takes something from it. Then, on the way back he picks up a ladder, one of those small ones you have at home, two steps only. He walks around Marlon and places it on the floor, and then he steps up on it.
"Now, this is going to hurt a bit, well, a lot. But be brave, it’s for a good cause."
Something cold is pressed against his neck, just below the hairline, then a searing pain runs down his spine and stops just above his buttocks. Then he feels a warm liquid running down his back and dripping onto the floor. He looks down and sees a pool of blood forming, and he screams.
Kerry whistles as he takes hold of the black skin and pulls it away from the flesh a little. He cuts along it with his scalpel. It comes loose and he pulls at it again, and when the tearing sounds reaches his ears, the feeling running through his body is almost sexual, he shivers and moans.
Marlon lives for thirty minutes, and the last thing his mind registers is looking down and seeing his own skin hanging down below his waist.
When Kerry is done, he takes Marlon’s skin and lays it in a vat of salt water. Then he goes back to where the body is hanging. It’s just a red doll without skin. He can see the muscle tissue and the veins. He unties it from the construction after placing a large plastic sheet under it. When it falls down, he wraps the body in the plastic and on his way up, he grabs a chainsaw hanging on the wall.
When he comes back, he looks in another vat where a skin is floating. He picks it up and feels it, then nods his head. After dropping it back in the salt water he crosses the floor to a row of mannequins. They have no eyes or hair, they are white and sexless. He chooses one and rolls it over to a platform on the floor. He goes back to the vat and fishes up the largest part of the skin, the body. He carries it over to the platform and there, slowly and carefully, he dresses the mannequin in it. It’s not hard at all. The skin is like a jacket with the zipper in the back. He threads the legs first and then pulls the skin tight, then threads the arms, and finally pulls everything tight in the back. With a hand held sewing machine he sews the skin together, the stitches starting at the buttocks and going up the spine. He steps back and looks at his handy work, then nods contently. He walks around the mannequin and pulls and adjusts the skin a little, he cups the breasts and adjusts them too.
Back at the vat he picks up the skin forming the face and hair. The hair he will dry later and shave off replacing it with a wig. The eyes are also gone and will be replaced by glass.
He places the skin over the head of the mannequin and pulls it down. After a few adjustments he is pleased and continues to sew the head skin to the body skin. He steps off the platform and stands in front of his latest creation.
The face of the woman he had skinned in front of her husband a week ago is staring back at him from an eyeless face.
"Welcome to the family, Katie," he says before turning off the light. On his way up the stairs, he realizes it’s pizza night tonight. Hopefully his wife has ordered extra pepperoni.