Skin on My Skin (6 page)

The putrid stink hit me first and then I saw the survivor’s lair was a mess. Mess may be an understatement. I mean, my own penthouse was pretty unorganized and cluttered, but this thing was a pigsty. Among the stacked boxes and crates were piles of garbage. Discarded food cans, old cigarette packages, empty whiskey bottles… the woman had done little over the years to clean up after herself. I worried that, in going into the apartment, I might catch some other disease besides the Preacher’s Plague. Still, though, among the debris, were treasures the likes of which I’d never run across in my years of looting the ruins. There were stacks liquor cases, all apparently unopened. Cases of beer and food tins were shoved against one wall. Another wall consisted of racks and racks of various assault rifles and pistols along with containers of ammunition and grenades. Cases of MREs dotted another wall along with cases of toilet paper and napkins. It was pretty much as I’d hoped it would be and then some. The scavenger had accumulated quite the collection of tradable merchandise. The risks were suddenly worth it, despite the woman crying and the dangers those cries represented. I couldn’t see her through the clutter and figured she was in one of the bedrooms off the main living room.
 

I took a deep breath and crawled over the threshold of the open door. The floor felt slimy and, again, I wished I’d figured out a way to lug my suit up to the twentieth floor. The dull wood floor creaked with my weight and I heard the shifting of bedsprings. Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. The woman had heard me. The sobbing stopped with a sudden intake of air, as if the woman was mortally frightened.
 

“Please, mister,” she said softly from the other room. “Just let me go. I won’t tell them where you are or what you’ve done. Please. I won’t even go back to them. I don’t want to go back there.”

I sat there, for a moment, perplexed. The woman certainly didn’t sound like the owner of the place. She sounded more like a prisoner. At least, from her comments, I knew that the actual owner of the place wasn’t around at the moment.
 

“I’m begging you. Just let me go.”

I crept further into the apartment, still apprehensive. The woman was young, maybe about my own age, and off to the right. I had to see her, see what she looked like and what condition she was in. I was on one hand scared to death that I’d be burnt alive by the Preacher’s Plague. On the other hand I simply had to know what was going on in this odd survivor’s lair. Why would someone keep someone else locked up? The dangers were too high and it didn’t make any sense at all. If you had survived this long, why keep what could kill you nearby? The curiosity weighed more heavily than the fear and I crept to the open bedroom door.
 

“Please sir,” the woman begged again. Her voice was broken, defeated. It spoke of years of anguish. “Just let me out of here.”

I tentatively looked around the open door and saw the massive old iron framed bed. It looked like something out of an old prison movie. At first I just saw the woman’s foot, lashed to the one of the poles. Blood had crusted around the chain restraints and her feet were dark, nearly purple with the lack of blood flow. I knew, right then, that I was too close to her. At any moment the Preacher’s Plague that coursed through my veins was going to light up. My skin would begin to blister and burn. My throat would swell, choking off oxygen to my lungs. My organs would heat steadily, boiling my guts from the inside out until that final moment when my abdomen popped open like a ripe sausage on a hot grill. I was prepared for that, so curious was I to see the woman. But none of that happened, not at all. I didn’t realize it, though, as I made it further into the room and saw her naked body.
 

She was secured at the hands and feet to the bed with long, rusty chains. The fasteners were too tight and had dug into her skin. Her body was rail thin and emaciated. Her skin was covered in bruises and she had multiple scabby wounds. She shifted and I got a better view of her small breasts and, despite the woman’s obvious torment, they produced a thrill in me. It was a thrill that powered over every fear and ounce of common sense that had kept me alive over the years since the Preacher’s Plague had rushed into our world. I crept in too far, though, and she saw me.
 

“Who are you?” she asked, leaning over the bed and staring into my eyes. Her face was dark and bruised, her blonde hair matted with sweat and grime. I wondered how long she’d been in the bed. I had no idea how to answer her. It was as if my mouth had quit working.
 

“You’re not him. You’re not that guy. Who are you?”

The woman did an admirable job of pushing back the tears. She stared at me fiercely.
 

Suddenly I wanted to run from the room, take the stairs leading down into the lobby five at a time, grab my suit and flee. There wasn’t any treasure in the world worth being this close to another human. But I wasn’t dying. My skin wasn’t even burning. There was something about her.
 

“Can you help me? Can you let me go?”

I backed out of the room slowly, afraid.
 

“No, please don’t go. I won’t hurt you. You won’t get sick around me. I’m a Toucher.”

It hit me suddenly. I got it. She was a Toucher. She had to be. I hadn’t ever believed in the Touchers before. I thought they were a myth to keep people coming to Club Flesh. But the woman tied to the bed in the other room was simple, undeniable proof. She didn’t carry the Preacher’s Plague. Proximity to her would not kill me. I peeked around the corner and watched the desperation in her eyes.
 

“Please help me get out of here. I’m begging you. I’ll… I’ll do anything for you. Anything you want.”

She wasn’t attractive, not in the emaciated and beaten condition she was in. Not like the girls in the stacks of porn movies I had back home. But she was real… flesh… that fantasy of having a real flesh and blood girl beneath me… it was almost too much to stand. She wanted me to help her and would let me do anything. I didn’t know what to do.
 

“I promise I won’t hurt you. And I won’t tell them. I’m not going back there anyway.
 

There? What was she talking about? Where was there? I couldn’t find my voice to ask her. I couldn’t find my balls to say anything to her.
 

“Please,” she begged again, the tears beginning to flow. “I will do anything if you get me out of there.”

Suddenly I heard the slow grinding of electric motors and the movement of an elevator in the shaft just outside the still open front door. I panicked, knowing exactly what the sound meant, and stood. The scavenger whose home I’d invaded was coming back. The guy who kept that woman tied to a bed, no doubt brutalizing her, was here.
 

“Hurry. He’s coming. Please get me loose.”

I stared at the hefty chains around here wrists and ankles and then noticed the pad locks. There was nothing I could do for her.
 

“I’m sorry.” The sound of my own voice frightened me. It was weak and scratchy, reflecting the amount of time that had passed since I’d actually used it. “I can’t do anything for you.”

“Fuck you then,” the woman spat, her fear and hurt boiling into anger. “I hope he finds you. I hope he cuts your balls off and shoves them down your throat. He’s coming and he’s not going to like it that you’re here.”

I weighed my odds. The scavenger would most likely be in his own suit. He would probably even be armed. He knew the layout of the apartment. He’d have every advantage. I turned to the woman once more.
 

“I’m sorry,” I said, again, unable to find the words to describe what I was feeling. It was hard putting that stuff into words. “I’m so sorry.”

I started for the stairwell just as the elevator door began to open. My escape was cut off. I turned, and darted further into the apartment. The only thing I could do, at that point, was hide.

I slumped down behind a pile of liquor boxes stacked near the opposite wall from the bedroom door and peered through the cracks left by their clumsy stacking. The scavenger pushed through the small doorway, squatting. His suit was immense, much bigger than the standard sizes I’d seen over the years. He looked like an alien mech from
Space Force Alpha
, intent on destroying the world. The immense .50 caliber rifle strung across his back did little to change the image of invading alien warrior. The suited man dropped a large green duffle bag of loot on the floor and then stared through the open bedroom doorway at the woman. He just stood there, staring, and I was sure he was going to be able to feel the vibrations of my heart thudding in my chest.
 

Don’t take the suit off, I silently begged. Please don’t take the damn suit off. I knew that, right then, we were close enough that if he did take it off, our mutual infections would touch off and, if we didn’t die, he’d know I was there. His burning skin would tell him.
 

I was also sure the woman was going to give me away at any moment. I hadn’t helped her, not that I could. She’d do it out of spite if nothing else. I had no idea what I’d do if she did. I had no idea what I’d do about the armed man in the massive suit. I could try and just run and I decided, right then, that’s what I’d do if it came to it. I’d just run and take my chances.
 

The man laid the massive rifle next to the duffle bag and began the slow process of removing his armor. I half expected some little alien thing to crawl out of the giant suit, like in an episode of Doctor Who, but it was just a man, the largest man I’d ever seen, with the absolute worst case of Plague scarring I’d ever seen, but just a man. He was naked under the bio-armor. Even beneath the multitude of plague scars, I could see his rippling muscles. Much of his body had been covered in tattoos which were now distorted by the mass of scars that riddled his body. This was a man who’d been up close and personal to the plague. His entire body was covered in the scars of old boils and blisters and, when he turned half sideways, I saw that his large penis was also scarred, turning it into some sort of twisted, brunt dildo. I’d heard of the survivors who didn’t care about the infection, who’d engage in sexual intercourse anyway. I couldn’t even imagine the act, an act where both partners were likely to die from the contact.
 

I panicked with each part of armor he pulled off, sure I was about to finally fall victim to the Preacher’s Plague. I kept feeling my bare arms, fingers rolling over my own old plague scars, searching for new signs of blistering. I guess he was far enough from me, across the large room, that it didn’t catch. Ten, twenty feet was often enough space. Maybe I’d been exposed enough both from my mother and my father’s contact, in those early days, that I had a certain level of immunity. I heard that too, over the years. It could take longer now than it did in the beginning. Maybe that’s the only way any of us survived as long as we have. We just handled it a little better than the rest.
 

I didn’t want to risk it, though, and hoped the man might move even further away. Maybe I could make a run for his elevator.
 

He never turned and looked in my direction, as I feared, and instead continued to stare at the woman strapped to the bed.
 

“Not again, not now,” the woman begged and I was still surprised she hadn’t given me up. Maybe she’d trade my presence for her freedom. “I’m all torn up inside. Look at me. I… I can’t keep this up.”

The man said nothing, but began stroking his disfigured member. I could imagine a devious grin on a face I couldn’t see and knew what was coming next. I was torn by the urge to run versus the urge to continue watching.
 

He strode into the bedroom and stared at the woman again. I wasn’t sure what he was doing then, but the woman whimpered at the sight of the disfigured monster and
 
he lashed out, slapping her hard across the face. She screamed out loud.
 

“Please, I just can’t do it again. You’re killing me,” she said between sobs. “Please don’t do this.”

He hit her across the face again and I shuddered when I heard him laugh at the woman’s discomfort.
 

“You’re killing me,” she insisted, but it was the sob of the defeated.

The man ignored her and the crawled onto the bed, between her legs. She only screamed out once more, as he entered her with his large, twisted penis, but then began to sob quietly. The man thrust hard and quick, violently, grunting with each stroke. Each time he pushed into her she whimpered a little more. I knew that, as he was distracted, it was my time to go. I quietly stood and started for the door. Not content to leave with nothing, I scooped up a closed box of liquor. I tiptoed to the door, only pausing for a moment to make eye contact with the woman. Her eyes pleaded to me, begging me to help her. I could, right then. I could shoot the man in the back. I could end her torment right then and there and she knew it. I could tell by the way she looked at me as he ground on her. I set down the liquor and aimed the rifle at the back of the man’s head. I was close enough that I felt the skin of my fingers tingle and burn and looked down in horror as the skin blistered. I’d gotten too close to the man. Our bodies were reacting to each other.
 

The only person I’d ever shot was my father. I’m pretty sure he was dead. He had deserved to die, though. This guy… I just couldn’t shoot him. This wasn’t my business and, as much as the woman’s flesh called to me, I couldn’t just kill him.
 

I mouthed my apologies silently to the woman, scooped up my case of liquor, and slid into the hallway, hoping he was scared enough not to have noticed the start of a few new blisters.
 

She cried out, again, and I thought she was going to finally give me away. She didn’t, though, and I slipped into the dark stairwell.
 

I ran down the stairs as quickly and silently as I could. I was convinced that, at any minute, the Preacher’s Plague was going to kick in and boil me inside out. That I’d survived the nearness of the other man, outside a suit, didn’t stop me from fearing every step I took was about to be my last. I took the steps two or three at a time, holding the box of liquor out in front of me like a totem. I regretted coming to the building in the first place and the box of booze, as valuable as it was, was going to do little to make up for the encounter.