Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Mr. Reilly’s Tattoo

Originally published in Fireside Magazine, Issue 18, December 2014

Mr. Reilly was my first patient. I was the only male CNA, and the nurses warned me that some patients would have a problem with it. Sure enough, when I knocked on his door he met me with a fierce glare.

“You’re a man.”

I started as though in surprise. “You’re right—I am!”

He didn’t smile. “You might be gay.”

I nodded. “I might. If I am, it isn’t contagious. Regardless, you can rest assured that you’re not my type.”

He gave a bark of laughter at that, and he let me help him with his shower.

One of the unexpected things about aging is what it does to tattoos. I saw a lot of misshapen anchors, illegible names, eagles like hippogriffs. I never saw anything like Mr. Reilly’s tattoo. It was a skull-faced grim reaper, hands reaching as though to tear out Mr. Reilly’s heart. That first time, it was entirely on the right side of his chest.

“What’s that for?” I asked as I helped him shower.

He gave that same bark of laughter. “That was a mistake. One I can’t fix.”

It was months later, after he got out of the hospital following a heart attack, that he told me more. I was cleaning the EKG tabs from his chest when I noticed that the reaper’s hands had reached his sternum.

“Is that—” I stopped, embarrassed. I was working towards my RN by then; fantasy was for children.

“Yes, it’s moving,” Mr. Reilly said. He paused, and I buttoned his pajama top. When I began to lotion his feet he started again.

“I loved a girl, before the war. She said she’d wait for me. When I was in Korea she sent me a letter that said that she was no longer free. I got roaring drunk, and woke up the next morning with the tattoo. My buddies said I’d gone to an old tattoo artist, told him that my girl was tearing out my heart, and damned if I’d let anyone but Death do that to me. He took my money and inked this on me. Back then the hands were at its side. They didn’t start moving for a few decades.

“The worst part is that when I got home I found out why Lorena had jilted me. She’d been dying, and hadn’t wanted me to know. Thought it was better, safer, for me to be angry than sad.”

He paused again, and I pulled socks on his bony feet to keep them warm. He looked up at me, and smiled. “Thanks, John.”

It was the first time he’d admitted that I had a name.

I saw him off and on after that, on weekends while I went to school during the week. There were three other men in the class of fifty, and Chris and I started dating. It was insane, both of us combining work and school and building a relationship, but somehow it worked.

Chris had been a tattoo artist, had gotten interested in helping people while injecting ink beneath their skin. I wanted to show him Mr. Reilly’s tattoo, but there were limits to the tolerance of the elderly. Suspecting I was gay and knowing it were two different things.

One day, though, Chris brought me to work, and Mr. Reilly brought it up himself.

“Is your young man coming to pick you up as well?”

I hadn’t lied directly to anyone about my sexuality since I was fifteen. “He is.”

“You bring him by, then. I want to meet him.”

It was almost like introducing Chris to my Dad. Like Dad, Mr. Reilly was cool about it. They talked for a bit, Chris’s old job came up, and Mr. Reilly paused a moment and then unbuttoned his shirt. “You ever see anything like this?”

“No, Sir,” Chris breathed.

I closed my mouth. The hands were reaching past midline, almost to the heart.

Mr. Reilly’s crooked smile said that he knew. “Don’t mess it up, Son. Boys, girls, I guess we’re all human first. Don’t give up on what you’ve got.”

I nodded.

A few months later, during my first shift as a brand new RN, one of the aides ran to get me. “John, Mr. Reilly’s worse. He’s calling for you.”

I knew that he’d never married, that a nephew was his closest relative. I went, hoping my presence would help.

He was sitting up in bed, gasping. “No hospital,” he said, his eyes fierce. “It’s going to be soon. I just wish…I wish my heart was going to Lorena, where it belongs.”

I got him nitro, held his hand, listened to his heart. The Reaper’s hands were curved now, into claws. When Mr. Reilly was calm, I left him, promising to return soon.

My first call was to Mr. Reilly’s nephew. The second was to Chris.

Chris arrived just after the nephew’s signed consent, and I explained what I needed him to do. He went in himself to explain it to Mr. Reilly, to get the consent there. Then he went to work, and I returned to med passes and vitals.

An hour later it was done. Mr. Reilly stared at the new tattoo, tears in his eyes; Chris had covered it with a clear dressing, so the heart was easily visible, with the words ‘Tom loves Lorena FOREVER’ emblazoned across it.

He grasped my hand. “Thank you. Now I’m not afraid to go.”

“There’s no hurry,” I teased gently. “I hear we’re having French toast for breakfast.”

He gave his bark of laughter, and closed his eyes. “We’ll see.”

The aide came to get me just at dawn, to do the pronouncement. I opened the pajama top to confirm the lack of a heartbeat, and then stopped.

The new heart was still there, but the hooded figure bore the face of a young, smiling woman. Hands, not claws, cradled the heart. The words, still in Chris’s flowing script, proclaimed: Lorena loves Tom. FOREVER.

The Princess in the Basement

Originally published by Diabolical Plots, June 2015.

I woke when the boy came through the window.

He looked about eight, all dark eyes in a brown face. “Don’t touch the floor.”

He startled. “Why not?”

“The monster under my bed will get you.”

He relaxed. “I’m too old to believe in monsters. You need a better lock for your window. And bars. Everybody in the neighborhood has bars.”

I tried to imagine bars on the window. Would it be more a prison?

“It’s not safe for you here. You need to go home.”

He shrugged, settling cross-legged on the dresser below the window. “My parents are fighting. I’ll go home in a few hours.”

It was dark outside. It was always dark when I woke. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Carlos. I’m the youngest. What’s yours?”

“I’m Jane. I’m the youngest, too.” Or I had been.

Carlos swung his legs. “You don’t talk like you’re from Boston.”

“I’m not, originally.” Was Boston even in England? Where had my curse taken me?

“What’s on your leg?” He hopped to the floor, and I cried out. Furst rumbled from under my bed, and Carlos jumped back onto the dresser. “What was that?”

“I told you.” I swallowed hard. “You need to go, now, Carlos. This isn’t a safe place for you.”

He opened his mouth, and one green claw came out from under the bed. It could have encircled a cantaloupe, or a man’s head.

“Go,” I repeated, and he went, out into the night.

I slept.

I woke when the man entered the window. Moonlight glinted against a knife in his hand. He slipped to the floor and Furst slid out from under the bed, scales glinting green. Furst unhinged his jaw, grasped the intruder with his claws, and swallowed him whole. The knife clanged against the floor, but the man never had a chance to scream.

I slept.

I woke when the boy came through the window. It was Carlos, grown older.

“I thought perhaps I dreamed it all, but you’re still here. I don’t think you’re any older. Is the monster still here, too?”

There was a tiny rumble from Furst under the bed, and I smiled reluctantly. “You shouldn’t have come back.” I hesitated, fighting curiosity. “How long has it been?”

“Four years.” He leaned forward, carefully. “There was something around your leg. I tried not to remember that, but I did.”

I shrugged. “There’s a monster under my bed, and you’re worried about my legs?”

He looked at me with the straight look I remembered, although his face had grown to fit the eyes. “It looked like a chain.”

I sighed. “It is a chain, Carlos. It’s mostly for show; I’m only awake when someone enters the room, and Furst won’t let me leave the bed.”

His brow wrinkled. “Furst?”

“It means Prince. My guardian, my jailor…my monster.”

He nodded as though that made sense.

“I’ll be back,” he said, turning to go.

“You sho—” I began, but he was gone.

I slept.

He was older again. He tossed me a small cloth bag.

“They’re lock picks. I’m going to teach you how to use them.”

I blinked. “Why?”

He shook his head. “Chica, it’s easier to get out if you’re not chained.”

I looked at the bag, at him. “How long?”

“Another four years. I had to learn how, so I could teach you.”

“Will you be hanged, if you’re caught with these?”

Carlos shook his head. “We’re not much on hanging people.”

He demonstrated the picks and I struggled to mimic him. The lock resisted my best efforts, but he only nodded. “I’ll be back,” he said again.

I slept.

The next few times he brought me locks to practice with. When I conquered the easiest, he replaced it with a harder one, and one harder still. I noted that his clothing changed—light clothing to heavy, then to light again. A mustache had grown in on his upper lip, then a small beard. He was man now, not boy. Furst would kill him without hesitation.

The night that I opened my manacle he carried a leather bag. I stared at my free ankle. “Now what?”

“Will Furst hurt you, if you touch the floor?”

“No, he’ll just carry me back to the bed.”

“Good.” He opened the bag, pulled out a hammer. “Catch.”

I caught it, then a box of nails. Last he sent the edge of a rope ladder. “You’ll need to nail this into the bed frame to anchor it.”

He demonstrated and I mimicked him, nail after nail. When I pushed against it, it held my weight.

Carlos waited as I pulled myself up onto it. A step, two—I slipped, and my foot brushed the floor.

Furst erupted, tail lashing, and gathered me up in his great claws. I smelled carrion on his breath as he set me gently onto my bed. My prison.

I was angry, suddenly, and barely waited for Furst to settle before starting again. One step, two, three, four. I slipped but held on grimly, regaining the rung with my bare foot. Five, six, seven…then Carlos caught my hand. I scrambled up beside him onto the dresser, then up, out, through the open window.

The night was cold but brilliantly lit with balls of fire perched on metal trees. Carlos closed the window behind us and led me to a strange low carriage without horses.

“Where are we going?” Should I have asked before? Did I even care?

“To my mother’s apartment. Mom always told me a woman didn’t need a prince to rescue her. She needed a friend, to help her rescue herself.” He grinned. “You already had a Prince, and he didn’t look like a keeper to me.”

No kiss, no guarantee that there would ever be one. No castle, no piles of gold. I sighed happily as he helped me into the carriage.