Skin Beneath the Skin
by
I.
From the deepest depths of the cavern came the stench of it, where the rest of the hangings could not be seen. Mary needed only to look upward to see the beginning of the line of sagging skins which formed a perfectly aligned train of human flesh, stretching rottenly into the farthest reaches of the cavern she had fallen into, seemingly days ago. As cold and deep beneath the surface as the cavern was, it was not silent. No - it was all she could do to keep the scraping sounds from driving her mad as she ran; praying deep in her soul that the sharp edges attached to those sounds would never reach her.
They were called Peelers. It wasn't as though she didn't understand what the cavern housed, or what the process she needed to observe to get her into it would call up from whatever hells existed. She was a necromancer, already overly experienced with macabre sights. But then, that had always been from behind the protective bounds of her circles, her permanently etched designs of power over which no spiritual entity could move. It wasn't as though she didn't understand - but no, it was exactly that. Perhaps she ANTICIPATED something like this. But nothing as extreme.
It was really Marten's fault. He was the one who first brought the little wooden box he had purchased from the antique shop. Of course, he hadn't any understanding of what it was. To him, he had simply come across a rather unique puzzle box which had betrayed his senses for hours as he tried to solve it. At least, he assumed it was a puzzle to be solved. Nowhere over the whole device was there a seam. The intricate design did not betray any suggestion of being anything other than an interesting piece of decoration. But the shopkeeper had insisted the piece came from a crate that had been kept by a distant cousin of some French puzzle maker. It must be a puzzle, he reasoned ... what else could it be?
After giving up on the box, Marten had decided to purchase the piece anyway. After all, Mary had always loved antiques. In fact, she had a huge piece in her house which also seemed to defy function and reason. It had been left to her by her mother, but no explanation had been included as to its function. Her mother, Therese, had died never having opened the huge casket it had been delivered to Mary in after the reading of the will, oddly declaring the piece as the 'Orion Mechanism.' She simply saw it as a decoration and placed it prominently in her living room though it was strange and full of energy. She was adept enough to know that.
When he left, he looked at the package the shopkeeper had wrapped the box in and noticed an old tag on it - apparently the original label from the estate. He squinted at the oddly crabbed writing and read aloud "Immeasurable Sorrow; A Configuration."
Somehow, it all clicked together when Marten came over that Saturday to deliver the gift.
II.
Wet, sticky flaps fell over Mary's eyes as she struggled with her purchase on the cavern ceiling. The Peelers were so close now, and she had known instinctively that she would be caught if she stayed on the floor. A section of the cavern wall had caught her eye as she ran past it and as she followed the rough surface upward to the ceiling where the endless train of human (and other?) skins hung drying, she made a decision that certainly saved her own skin ... for the time being, at least.
Climbing the dozne feet to the cavern's ceiling was not terribly difficult. It was less round than it was boxlike ... like a huge shoebox. From the ledge she stood upon, the steel rods from which the skins hung were a good 10 feet away. She would have to make a leap of faith and pray to grab something solid. Well, solid enough. The mass of nearly dry flesh she desperately wrapped her arms around and dug her nails into smelled fetid. She almost blacked out, but somehow the sounds of scraping snapped her awake again. They were near. She swung her legs up and against the ceiling, bracing herself as she wrapped as much of herself in the skins as possible. Would they notice the break in symmetry of the flowing train of bodiless coverings? The juice of the fat still hanging from the rent flesh was making it hard to stay still, from falling.
Then they came.
She stared down into the crowd of them, dozens of gaunt figures, barely human in countenance. They were completely devoid of flesh, every one of them. Their bodies encased within the insanely bondage-like leather suits the first one she'd met had been wearing when he (she?) stepped for the first time from the door she had opened with the box.
(Free me of my fleshly cage ... free me of my fleshly cage ... free me of my fleshly cage)
Each of them wore the long, blood-caked aprons of black leather she remembered her mother's butcher wore when he used to carve her thighs open for her, those huge and bloody pork thighs. His, too, had human blood caked upon that shiny surface later. When he'd taken her mother's kindness for desire and carved her own thighs open in a manner no one had ever dreamed possible. Even in her death, he had found use for her and left ample evidence for the police to use in identifying him as the murderer.
But these were not men. Not truly. They clicked and scraped as they strode furiously down the tunnel. Some wore gloves from which protruded vicious skinning blades, others held large knives in hand, scraping them along the walls as if sharpening them impossibly razor thin. And she knew them. Each and every one of them. She had not known how to use the box, only read the diary extract she had found hidden within the wooden case it had come with. Somehow it opened a door, and summoned someone or something that could free one from their attachment to physical existence.
(Free me of my fleshly cage ... free me of my fleshly cage ... free me of my fleshly cage)
When it has first stepped through, she knew the irony of the words she had muttered as the puzzle was slowly deciphered and opened panel by panel. Even then the apparel was the same and there was no question as to the function of each piece of cutlery that hung from the great leather belt above the blood encrusted apron. She had seen some fucked up things ... but she lost her cool and dropped the box then. It had tumbled to rest at the thing's feet, and she started to cry.
III.
It was Saturday, and when the doorbell rang there was no doubt who would be at the door. Mary had first met Marten when she had driven into town to pick up groceries. In the 20 years she had lived in her house, no one had known she existed. Even the butcher that would give her mother and herself a name had not noticed the little girl watching as he sliced pounds of meat open, staring silently at her mother as he did so. After her mother's murder, she had tried to stay away from the town, ordering food for delivery (and any other item she could do the same with - necromancy came at a high cost to both the store of animals and herbs she kept below) when possible. But that day the delivery man was sick, and she had to brave the trip herself. Of course, this meant going to the farthest store from town, and that turned out to be Marten's. He'd taken care of her every need since then. Food, magick and sex...
It was pouring rain, and when the door opened Marten dove in without hesitation.
"Mary, quickly, it mustn't get wet." He shoved an old wooden box into her hands and motioned her to the burning fireplace. "It will dry more quickly there."
She gave him an odd look and began to walk to the fireplace with the box. Marten was drying his hair in his coat, trying to speak at the same time as walking. "Lemarchand ... dealer ... estate ... but I am not ... solve ... like?"
"What? Marten, I can't understand you. You bought this for me?"
"Yes. At an antique store in town. In fact, it only opened a few days ago. I was looking for something ... you know, your birthday is soon. I'll be out of town unfortunately, but I wanted to get you something before I had to leave. Happy birthday, by the way."
And he tripped clumsily on the edge of the Persian rug, revealing an impossible geometric design hand-hewn on the stone floor. He grasped out, quickly but grabbed Mary's sweater in his haste. The box flew from her hand, shattering on the floor.
They knelt before it, staring at the warmth of the glow. Partly from the puzzle box, yes, but also from two other places: the artifact Mary's mother had left her and from the Tenth Configuration she had etched into the floor. That one was for detecting when a presence had entered the room during or after her invocations. It never told her exactly what it was, but it could discern good from evil. If there was anything good in the room, her configuration did not detect it. From the artifact came a low grinding noise. The central cube humming lightly and glowing in concert with the puzzle box on the floor. Marten was aghast ... Mary was musing, staring at the edge of parchment tangled in the shattered wood of the case.
"Marten, the parchment. Quickly."
He snatched it up, franticly as the wood began to grow warm and the embers of a fire became to burn.
"What does that mean?" He motioned to a configuration on the floor glowing red ... slowly creating a burning mass from the remains of the case.
"It means that the gift you have brought me is not a tool for good. It also means that it's time for you to leave. Marten, thank you for the gift, but I really think you should leave now. I will tell you what I discover when you return, alright? Have a safe trip, huh?" She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
He complained the whole way, full of questions but never voicing concern for her safety. She was much stronger than he was and he had seen her deal easily with some pretty nasty demons - without her knowing, of course. She still did not suspect that he slipped in regularly and watch her during her invocations. She thought the sex was why he kept coming back, and that she wore him out each time, making it safe to leave him in bed while she locked herself in her chamber and utilized his stolen sexual energy. But he was growing stronger too ... and when he watched through the hole he had created long ago, he was not without notes each night he left there.
But tonight, he didn't argue too much. She should have been suspicious. She should've bolted the door. He shouldn't have returned.
IV.
It said in the diary that the puzzle box was one of many, each of a different configuration, each unleashing a different power. After reading the page, Mary realized the person who had written the document really didn't understand the box at all. All they had accomplished was to solve the puzzle and open the door to wherever. Whether they survived the opening or not she could not tell. There was no completion to the page and it was obvious that much was missing from the description of what it was that actually emerged from that doorway.
Maybe it really wasn't Marten's fault. She should have let it alone.
(Free me of my fleshly cage ... free me of my fleshly cage ... free me of my fleshly cage)
They came.
The box lay at its feet. She didn't dare move, the words she had been uttering becoming too clearly understandable. The figure didn't move, but she sensed the essence of a grin there in the muscles of the face, naked for all to see. There was nothing said. No questions asked. It merely stepped over the box and over her circle. She knelt there, naked, her body sweating with incredible stress.
It is inside your circle.
The doorway she had opened was the only light in the room. She focused on it a moment. Then the voice was in her head, and she jerked her head up to stare into the bulging eyes of the creature before her, its apron covered in gristle scraping her naked thighs.
We are the Peelers. You have summoned us. You desire freedom from your flesh. We can give you that. You will come with us now. Your freedom is within.
She paused only a moment - then she was running. Straight into the door, into the depths of the cavern, into the very place from which this thing has emerged. She knew it was the only way...
V.
The chamber door was easy to open. Mary had never installed modern locks on any of the doors and it was no effort for Marten ease the heavy bar on the other side of the door off of its cradle. Within, it was ice cold and there was a charnel smell which somehow reminded him of a butcher shop.
Ten candles sat about one of Mary's hand-hewn circles. They burned softly, yet still illuminated every corner of the room. It was not large, and when locked could easily make on claustrophobic. On the floor lay the puzzle box, evidence enough that she had been hard at work on deciphering it.
He sat for a moment in the circle. Closed his eyes. Strange, but felt as if he could hear something ... a voice? Soon, the box was in his hand and without even opening his eyes, he began to run his hands over it. Visualizing the points of pressure. The logical way in which to grip it to allow maximum pressure to them, and allow them to slide free.
(Free me of my fleshly cage ... free me of my fleshly cage ... free me of my fleshly cage)
And his eyes snapped open, the candles blown out in the gust of rotten air that blew from the opening before him.
She was Mary, that much he knew. But she was more naked now than he had ever seen her before. Every muscle was taut with alertness. Every fibrous part of her was stretched as she slowly knelt upon one knee. He could not stop his eyes from going there, to her sex. It glistened, moist and wet - blood red and exposed.
Yes ... even still you want it, Marten.
It was not that he sick, or deranged. If the circumstances were different, he would have been repulsed. But, he never could say no to her. Even as she began to skin him, his member spurting violently within her, he thanked her for her wisdom, for her lesson.
Oh, Mary ... how much you have taught me ... how little have I learned.
Even dead seed may sometimes sow a living thing. And a life born of death is a terrible thing, indeed...