Demons, Freaks & Other Abnormalities Read online

  Tomas sighed a deep growl, drool leaking from his jaw as his human bodily existence melted into that of the jackal, four legged, a coat of black fur on his back. Brett stared at the animal that once was Tomas and understood. Tomas was Meso, had most likely been for many years. Brett knew that he himself needed to shed all human qualities, allow the Mesomelian blood to completely consume his body, his soul.

  Clearing his mind, his monstrous legs became weak. He lowered his head and gazed at his appendages which were curling in towards his body, pads surfacing on his palms and soles. He again felt the bones in his torso reforming, now smaller and tighter, thickened sinews and tendons wrapped tightly around them. He closed his eyes and allowed the molten movement of his tissue to consume him and complete his new identity.

  When all bodily shifting ceased, Brett, now on all fours, took his first steps as pure jackal, panting, looking ahead to Tomas for support. He knew that the change was complete, the mad concert of transformation was over, and now he was jackal, through and through--for now--until it would be time to change back into Brett, human being with the blood of the Meso in his veins. He would learn, with Tomas at his side, to hunt as a jackal, and to live as a human when the time came.

  Tomas approached him, his wet nostrils quivering, his sharp jaws smiling. He barked, urging him on, then darted out of the tent into the African night, and Brett--half stumbling, half running, still awkward on four legs--followed him as best he could into his new territory, his new home, deep into the plains of Rwanda. In his mind he knew that he would wake someday as a naked, terrified man, but for now, he would enjoy his new life in this higher form, on all fours, howling sweet, eager, wild cries into the night.

  Five Minutes of Video

  It took me three days to get there. I remembered how I felt when I first arrived, all that driving having me so damn fatigued, exhausted to the point where I felt virtually colorless, my skin looking sallow and blanched. My blonde shoulder-length hair was all curled from a want of cleansing, and peering in the rearview mirror I could see that my eyes looked like empty pinpoints beneath my specs. But I really didn’t care. Appearance held no importance when you hadn’t slept much in three days.

  The emergence of my black Camaro stood evidence enough that a stranger was in Hutch Grove. The car was old, its framework rusted by a dozen New York winters. But it had gotten me to Kansas, and hell, that’s all that mattered right now.

  All eyes in and around the Burger King parking lot were cast on me as I stepped from the driver’s seat. I felt hopelessly out of place with my black denims, biker jacket, and military boots, especially in a town that measured your worth by how many pairs of Wrangler jeans you had, or how clean you kept the gun rack on the back of your pick-up.

  Fuck it. Out of place or not, I had a good reason to be here.

  I was hungry but also needed directions. I strayed into the Burger King and walked up to the only available register. The welcoming smile I received made me think at first that I’d been recognized. It never ceases to amaze me how many people remember me from the talk shows I’ve appeared on.

  “Hello, how can I help you?”

  I ordered a burger, fries, and soda. As the young girl gathered my meal, I noticed she carried a slight limp. I wondered if it had anything to do with...

  She returned, smiling as if life was a bowl of peaches and cream.

  “I was wondering...could you tell me where I could buy a map?” I asked.

  “Of Kansas?” Her smile went on, as if nothing at all could possibly be wrong.

  “No. Hutch Grove.” I kept the sentences short. I felt eyes on me and wanted to get back to the car.

  Her grin broadened. “Town’s not that big.”

  “How about a hotel?”

  “The Hutch Lodge. Just a few minutes up the road, behind the Supermarket.”

  “Thanks.” I hurried back to the car, thinking of her smile that seemed to say, everything’s just perfect. I’d believe it if I hadn’t already known about Hutch Grove’s odd secret. I ate in my car, watching the comings and goings of those choosing Burger King for lunch. An elderly man stopped a few feet from my car and peered at me with one squinting eye. His other eye appeared devoid of sight, the socket slightly smaller than its partner, the eyeball itself a stark crimson, as if gorged with blood. I ignored his glances and he soon moved away.

  Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of the Hutch Lodge.

  The proprietor at the motel seemed normal, so to speak, and as far as I could tell possessed a fair amount of personality and intelligence. I kept the conversation between us brief, limiting it to only necessary pleasantries.

  Once in my room I checked my equipment: camera, lenses, video camcorder, flash; everything seemed in working order. I loaded the film, checked out the sound. Fine.

  Ready to go.

  I’m a photographer by trade, an artist by heart. I started out my career with sculpture, then painting, but soon lost interest--and money. Like an addict needing to increase the dosage, or find a new kind of fix, I felt the urge to move on to something else, something bigger and better. Something more extreme. Photography had become the answer for me.

  At once my photos started selling, first through ads I placed in underground journals, then mostly over the world wide web. That’s when the dough really started rolling in. I charged nine-ninety-five a month, billed by phone or credit card. This would gain you complete access to one of five online libraries: men, women, children, animals, and--don’t ask me why--the most popular, babies. I realized quickly that I could make a hell of a living doing this. God bless the internet.

  Is this is a form of exploitation? There are many individuals who think so. I like to think of it as “creating awareness”. It exists, it’s out there. I’ve simply made it my job to find it and show it to the world. One talk-show host compared my art to pornography. I don’t doubt that there are those sick-minded individuals who get turned on looking at this stuff. I simply argue that in most cases it’s the curiosity factor that draws people in. Indeed curiosity is a form of pleasure, but shock value is a form of curiosity as well, just as the mystique of fetish is. They are synonymous with one another.

  My initial awareness of Hutch Grove came to me via the internet. One of my “fans” who’d purchased a membership from my website sent an e-mail saying he had a cousin who resided there and learned of a young couple who had two children that would make suitable subjects. He gave me the parents’ names, Hank and Evelyn Manners, and their phone number. I called and got Evelyn Manners on the phone. I explained myself and my work. After minimal coercing, I negotiated a fair price, then set a date and time for my arrival. Strangely enough my arrival date was two days before her due date. She was pregnant with her third child, which I found somewhat alarming.

  In the weeks that followed I conducted a great deal of research on Hutch Grove, gathering nearly fifteen years of medical and birth records. In the end, what I found astonished me. If correct, nearly eight percent of Hutch Grove’s population would make suitable subjects for my photography. The place was a virtual gold mine. Hutch Grove would make me rich, I hoped.

  I left my room at the Hutch Lodge at five o’clock, asked the motel clerk for directions to Wheatly Street. A few minutes later I pulled my Camaro up to the curb at house number 12 and started unloading my gear. It had started raining and the air smelled of freshly cut grass and weeds. I shouldered my equipment and made my way up the center walk.

  The house was rundown, dark and unwashed. Dirty plastic toys and shreds of sopping newspaper littered the front lawn, which itself was riddled with squirrel-holes and patches of dead brown crabgrass. Two small windows on either sides of the front door were taped vertically along the edges, hiding age-old gaps, and the gutters ran with rust, one dangling askew from the soffit. The front door was peeling with paint.

  I knocked, stooping beneath the overhang of the roof to avoid the rain.

  Mrs. Manners answered the door.
I knew from our conversation that she had just turned thirty, but her sunken cheeks and hunched posture proved to me that age shouldn’t always be calculated through the passing of time. She wore a sleeveless floral housedress, the top two buttons opened to reveal a patch of raspberry skin. Her distended belly pressed against the light fabric, extending it to gross proportions, pulling the hem far above her knees. She had her arms folded, as if afraid her baby would fall out.

  “Mrs. Manners?”

  “Hi,” she said, smiling thinly, shifting her heavy body. “The house is a mess right now. I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “No problem.” I knew to keep cool and calm with my subjects. Most of the time they’re not used to people coming around. The slightest bit of discomfort with the situation could send them off the deep end--it’s happened a few times. Then I’d have a heck of a time getting my money back. I even had a camera smashed on me once.

  She backed away from the door. “Please, come in.”

  The living room and kitchen, from what I could make of it, looked much like it did outside: toys and magazines scattered about, bits of food and scraps of cloth littering the couch, pieces of foam bursting through the frayed fabric like weird fungi. The air smelled rancid, like vegetables gone to rot. But I knew, it really wasn’t vegetables I smelled.

  It was them.

  Her children.

  “They each have their own rooms,” she revealed. I followed her down a short hall, watching her strain to keep her bloated body from tipping too far to one side. She hesitated momentarily, grasping her pregnant belly. “Little guy’s been kicking of late,” she grinned. We passed two closed doors and a messy bathroom before reaching the end of the hall.

  “This is Carol’s room. My first born.”

  I’d had all the notes on her kids. Carol, age eight. Eddie, age six. Both affected. I’d asked to see Carol first after she revealed to me that Eddie was far worse off. Save the best for last, I thought tactlessly. Didn’t care. It was my job. I had to make it entertaining. Otherwise I’d lose my mind.

  Mrs. Manners turned and looked at me with swollen eyes. I could nearly see myself in their glassy reflection. “I know you’ve paid me already,” she said, “and I appreciate it...but...”

  “Yes?”

  “...but you can turn away if you want. I’ll return the money. I’ll understand.”

  The look of horror on her face should have been my ticket out, but I declined. Odd. It seemed as if she were trying to spare me of having to go through with what I traveled so far to do, paid so handsomely for. I reminded myself that I’d seen it all before. That there was nothing to be reluctant about.

  For a minute I thought she was going to cry, then she opened the door and I went into Carol’s bedroom.

  “If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen...” Mrs. Manners shut the door behind me.

  And I was alone facing Carol.

  There are literally hundreds of ways a person could be deformed, starting from the most common shortcomings, such as harelips and limb deficiencies, to more serious conditions as dwarfism, Siamese twins, and Progeria. And then there are the genetic horrors, Thanatophoric Dysplasia, Cretinism, and Elephantiasis.

  I’d thought I’d seen it all. But here was Carol, an eight year old girl who should have been playing hopscotch with other children her age, going to school to learn her multiplication tables and spelling, was instead lying naked on her back in bed with malformations unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I could only stare, chilled and disheartened.

  It’s hard to decide where to start. She had only stumps for legs, one slightly longer and fatter than the other, each ending about mid-thigh where the skin clumped into a collection of mushroom shapes. She had no arms, and from her shoulders knots of twisted fingernails sprouted. A thick patch of hair covered a heavy glistening spot where her genitals were, running halfway up her torso like the fur on a cat’s belly. And then her face--well thankfully it was normal except for her ears which were smallish and slightly flapped over.

  She looked at me, grinned--not a smile nor a frown but a nondescript flattening of the lips, which were quite full and beautiful mind you--then turned away and stared at the stained wall. I placed my gear on the floor, removed my camera and started taking photos, wondering the whole time why on earth this girl’s parents would venture additional children when their luck had been so rotten. As a rule, I captured her being from every imaginable angle. I went through a role of thirty-six, then put away the camera and took out the camcorder.

  Pictures were a great way of revealing the truth, but nothing could tell a tale like five minutes of video.

  Ten minutes later I exited the room. Mrs. Manners met me in the hallway with a glass of water; she must’ve been reading my mind.

  “My husband and I tutor her ourselves,” she revealed, carefully sitting at a small worn dinette table in the kitchen, her full belly shaking and jiggling like gelatin. “She can’t go to school and none of the teachers will come here. Can’t blame them, you know? Carol’s the smartest of the two--she’s not affected in the head like Eddie--and we feel indebted to her. Yet still, it’s so frustrating. I mean, what’s teaching her gonna do? She’ll never be able to work.”

  I felt shaken. It was what she said. She’s not affected in the head like Eddie. While I was taking pictures of Carol I’d figured all along that I’d had the cream of the crop. The ultimate freak. But no, it got much worse, I remembered now. Especially if you didn’t have your wits about you.

  “You know,” she said. “I sure do appreciate the money.”

  “And I appreciate your time.” I was anxious now to continue my work, all the time thinking, she’s not affected in the head like Eddie.

  I rose from the table, camera in hand. Mrs. Manners led me to Eddie’s room. The door had deep scratches all over on the lower half, and I wondered if they had a dog. I heard a whimpering inside. I turned to look at Mrs. Manners, to get her approval to enter, but she had walked away. I figured this to be my green light.

  I entered.

  My eyes came to rest on a crib, and I thought for a moment that I’d had the wrong room, that perhaps this room had been arranged for her expectant arrival. After all, according to Mrs. Manners, Eddie was six years old. But I stayed--transfixed and suddenly nervous.

  The room was small, painted a dull shade of blue. The smell here was much worse than that of Carol’s room, the source of the odor I’d caught when I first arrived. I thought, how much worse, really, could it really get when you were so fucked up?

  I went over and peered into the crib.

  It was rough. I’d never seen such a distortion of the human form. The child was the size of a small dog, its limbs--I didn’t want to count, but there were more than four--protruding from one side of its torso. Prominent yellow nails poked out from the swelled ends at odd angles. Eddie’s head was the size of a grapefruit, if that, and completely hairless, the skin a torrent of wrinkles. Its mouth was no more than a tiny drooling hole where the chin bone should have been.

  Even still, the most horrible part were the eyes.

  Big, wet, and glistening they were, orbs almost cartoonish in nature and peering up at me in near wonderment--in prayerful contemplation of the stranger that had come into its room.

  I stared, dumbfounded, taking in the entire scene: sucking sounds, the eyes rolling away for the briefest moment only to return and recapture me. A slight bodily jostle. Then, repositioning of itself. A stream of flatulence. Limbs twitching. Eyes moving again, looking at me, looking at me, looking at me...

  I raised my camera and shot two rolls of film.

  ~ * ~

  Hank Manners had returned from work and was home by the time I finished with Eddie. He made a pot of coffee and I drank two cups, speaking with him not of their children but of the apparent rise of birth defects in Hutch Grove over the past fifteen years.

  “Must be something in the water,” he joked.

  We talked mostly of my bu
siness from that point on. I tried to explain it away as a form of art but I don’t think he bought that route, not as much as the Mrs. did. He grimaced and grumbled when the subject of my selling the photos came up, and I think it bothered him that pictures of his children--they were his children--would be available on the internet for anyone to see. I assured him that any and all details regarding their names and whereabouts would remain anonymous. When push came to shove, all he cared about was the money.

  “Why don’t you tell him, Hank?”

  The voice startled me and I turned to see Mrs. Manners standing in the hallway holding her stomach with both hands. I looked back at Hank Manners. He scowled derisively at his wife, a look that I interpreted as, shut your mouth Evelyn!

  “Tell me what?” Clearly they were hiding something. I had to get it out of them.

  “It’s the kids,” she revealed. Hank slammed a fist on the table. Tears welled in her eyes. “We have to tell him!” she yelled. “It’s not fair to us or the children. Or the others.”

  “What others?” I stood up and stepped halfway between Evelyn and Hank.

  “There are others like our children in Hutch Grove.”

  “Evelyn, damn you...” Hank stood, fists white-knuckled against the back of the chair.

  “I know about the others,” I said, wondering if I had missed something in my research. “Eight percent birth defect rate in Hutch Grove. I know.” Could there be something else? I shuddered. I could see it in her face. There were more secrets. And she was about to unearth them--much to her husband’s dismay.

  “No,” she sobbed, “no you don’t.” I heard Hank Manners pacing behind me. “Hank, I’m telling him, and you can’t stop me...” Suddenly the tears poured from her eyes. “There is a high occurrence of birth defects here. But...”