Timeline: Past
Point of View: Mitchell “The Travelling Skinner" Bohlman
Location: Everywhere
Mitchell Bohlman was just like any other man you’d meet on the street, or so he liked to think. He was just an average dude, really. He liked small talk, liked to shoot the shit. He smiled a lot, because life was good, and he had normal teeth that were a little yellow but not terribly yellow. He didn’t wear fancy clothes, opting to mostly wear bargain t-shirts and jeans, and had a pullover hoodie that he wore when it got a little cold outside. On the weekends he went to the nearest bar and talked to just about anyone he could find. During the weekdays he found any odd job that would give him cash. Often that was working on cars, which he was exceptionally good at. He liked to open things up, look on the inside, and then put it all back together.
But Mitchell had a secret.
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The first person he’d murdered had been his baby brother. He was ten years old at the time and wasn’t really sure why he’d done it. It might have been as simple as he wanted to. He saw the baby, just three months old at the time, old enough to coo and to smile, but not old enough yet to talk or walk. It was lying there in its crib one morning and he knew he was going to do it. Little Henry Bohlman looked up at him from inside the crib and smiled, it cooed, it wanted to be picked up, and Henry just wanted to know how the baby would react if he bent its tiny little arms all the way back behind its tiny head. When would the baby’s smile become a cry? At what point would it realize that its big brother was there to hurt, not to help? And then after that moment, would its arms snap satisfyingly like chicken bones, or would they bend all the way back like rubber until they dislocated?
Unfortunately it had been day when those thoughts came, and monsters could only exist at night. That's when the monster would always come out. At night is when the monster would sneak outside and find things to play with, like the neighbor’s cats that would wander into other people’s yards looking for mice. That first cat he'd found had been a real pleasure to split and unglove, exposing the cat’s true self underneath. It had yelped and hissed and scratched all the way up until he’d pulled its warm heart out from its chest and popped it like a fruit gusher. Late into the night, when he'd seen al there was to see, he’d folded the cat back together and buried it in the bushes between yards.
Baby Henry had to wait until night, too, because that's when mom and dad were asleep. When the night had come, he’d unplugged the baby monitor and stood over baby Henry, watching him sleep. He was rolled onto his side, his arms folded on top of each other in a ‘v’, and his mouth opened and closed slightly like a fish gasping for air. Oh, did Mitchell want to play then. He wanted to cut off each of those tiny limbs, all four of them, like he was taking apart a doll. Then he could remove the head and take a look inside at a pulsing brain.
Yet, he couldn’t do all that. The baby’s cries would wake mom and dad, and he couldn’t exactly take the baby outside and do it, either. It would wake the neighbors. Not only all that, but how could he explain what had happened when his parents saw what remained in the morning?
No, the monster wanted to stay hidden, wanted to remain in the dark, and so it had to be clever. It could still play, though.
Mitchell considered a blanket or pillow, but didn’t feel that that was personal enough. He wanted to look Baby Henry in the eyes as he took its life, wanted it to know who the monster was, wanted to see life explode into action in Baby Henry's eyes and then fade into nothingness. He wanted to absorb Baby Henry like he’d absorbed all those cats.
He placed his hand over Baby Henry’s mouth.
It woke up almost immediately (he’d learned from watching mom and dad that any slight movement would wake the baby after it had fallen asleep), but with its nose and mouth clamped shut, it couldn’t do anything at all. It laid there at first, confusion then recognition in its eyes as the moon light fell onto Mitchell’s face, and then it started to squirm. It was hard at first for Mitchell to keep his hands where they were, over the baby’s mouth. He had to follow the baby’s movements. He was worried his hand would fall off and the sounds would escape, the sounds that would alert the world to the monster’s presence. He dropped his other hand to the other side of Baby Henry’s face, holding it in place while his other hand sapped the life out of the little creature.
Baby Henry was crying, then, which was a new experience. The cat’s didn’t cry. They fought and they fought and they didn’t give up until death was inevitable. But Baby Henry was feeling human emotion, was feeling sadness and betrayal, was feeling pain, and so it had human reactions.
When its life fully faded, it grew still. Its remaining essence became Mitchell’s essence. It’s eyes were still, staring up into Mitchell, but still he held his hand in place.
Mitchell didn’t know how to feel feelings. He wasn’t sure if those accusing eyes should upset him or make him happy. Feelings seemed to complicate all experiences, and so he didn't really want them. Feelings made what had to happen to Baby Henry all the worse for Baby Henry, instead of just a survival instinct like the cats had.
Instead of any of those annoying feelings, Mitchell felt like a new man. He no longer had the monster and the cats in him, he had a whole other person in there now too. Mitchell was feeling strong, was feeling powerful. He wanted more.
First things first, though, was to get on with the day. He plugged the baby monitor back in and went back to his room. In the morning he’d pretend to sleep in through the noise, and then ask what all the commotion was about when he left his room. The good thing about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, from what he’d read in his older years at least, was that no one seemed to know what caused it.
In the morning, he did feel a little guilt. He didn’t like listening to his parents cry, and he had liked Baby Henry a little bit too. It would be the last time he’d hurt someone he knew.
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When he was fifteen, his father caught him hurting an animal. He’d been out back in the yard, late at night as he’d always done. He'd killed many animals up to this point but hadn’t yet dared killing another human being.
He’d captured a squirrel earlier in the day and had it trapped in a box waiting. When night descended, he crept outside and went to work on the creature. He’d cut a seam along its back and was pulling the creature out of its sack limb by limb. The small creature twisted and turned trying to get away, but he had a firm grip on its body. Its jaw had been snapped off so it only made breathy sounds, like air blowing between taut strips of leather.
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The porch light unexpectedly blinked on, and when he turned there stood his father. It was an odd moment, getting caught. His father had said nothing, only stood there and stared at Mitchell, blood dripping from his hands. The half-ungloved squirrel twisted on the ground, found its footing, bolted away from the light for a few steps before slowing and falling over, likely dead.
They stared at each other for some time. Mitchell finally said, “Hi dad.” The blood on his hands was drying into a sticky substance, and he wanted to go wash. He dared not move, though.
His father said nothing but started to approach him. He had a pair of slippers on, his robe flapping in the wind, as he walked toward his son. Mitchell hadn’t said much to his father in the years since Baby Henry had died, had noticed a distance growing between them, and that shrinking distance was making the moment uncomfortable.
“Dad…” He started to say, but realized he didn’t know what to say.
A few more steps later and his father stood before him. Mitchell could see his boxers and hairy chest underneath the robe, and for some reason he found that a little comical. He smiled but dared not laugh. He touched his thumb and forefingers together as he waited, the blood flaking off. He looked up into his father’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw in them. There was rage. Worse than the rage, a knowing.
“Dad…” He started to say again.
Before he could say anything, his father’s hands were around his throat and the wind was being squeezed from him. He tried to take in air, but it was impossible to do so. It felt as if his neck had collapsed, his father’s palms an iron vice grip. He tried to speak, but couldn’t, the only sound escaping being a tacking sound as his dry tongue flailed against his drying lips. He brought his hands up to his fathers hands and tugged, tugged and pulled, but his father was so much stronger than him. His father was gritting his teeth, forcing the boy to the ground, and Mitchell collapsed to the grass under his father's strength.
The world went black.
When he awoke, he was in his mother’s arms, and his father was being lead away in hand cuffs.
A few months later he was in the foster care system, his mother unable to look at him without thinking of her dead child and his father in prison for harming a minor. They couldn’t prove that he’d killed their baby, but they both knew now. His mother didn’t want to believe, but Mitchell knew she couldn’t unsee what his father had told her. She couldn’t unsee the blood on her son's hands.
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He had to behave himself all through foster care, and it was hard. He’d found things to play with, but he had to keep things more hidden than usual. Whenever he was caught with an animal again, he was “sent away” for a few months, and he didn’t like being “sent away.” It was too restrictive.
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At eighteen he became a free man. He was unloved and had no friends, but he was fine with that. The world was his oyster. He bounced around a towns frequently, had probably lived at least once in each state. He did cheap labor jobs to earn cash and hadn't ever owned a home (unless his 2001 Lincoln Town Car could be considered a home). He longed to see the inside of a human, living and squirming as they were freed of their skin, but hadn't yet felt the courage to try. He behaved himself, for the most part.
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Eventually, sometime in his early twenties, the need became too strong. His first kill was a prostitute. He had intended to use her for a quickie, but one thing lead to another. They were out of town, pitch black outside along a dirt road, just the two of them.
They'd gotten out of the car, and he'd surprised her. He’d duct taped her mouth shut and pushed her to the ground. He held her there as he tore a seam across her rib cage using a flat head screw driver from the floor board of the car.
She'd laid there after, under the stars, her roughly torn skin from navel to breast pulled apart and to the sides. She either bled out or passed out from the pain before he’d been able to free her arms from their leather captor.
Her name had been Krystal, or Kayla, or something. He’d left her there on the side of the road but took her phone with him and destroyed it in another town before daylight. He’d also taken his first souvenir: a small slice of her skin the size of a stamp. He'd put it inside a shoe box and hid it in the tire well of his trunk.
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He’d been lucky to get away that first time, but the kills grew more refined. He had a “tool kit” underneath the passenger's seat of his car. He grabbed people at night where no one could see him. Sometimes they were simply homeless or on the side of the road at a bad time. He didn’t discriminate: men, women, teenagers, children. They were all the same on the inside, when the blood and insides spilled.
He continued to travel across the states, making sure his pattern was random. He stayed on side roads, never going on the interstate or highways. He stuck with small towns and did small jobs for cash, car repairs when he could. He had no credit cards and always slept in his car. He made sure he was far away from a recent kill, never killing again too close to another.
He listened to the radio as he traveled, had come to find that he'd earned himself a nickname: The Traveling Skinner. He rather liked the name, but it also meant that small jobs were harder to find. Towns were becoming skeptical of new people, particularly small towns. He'd had to slow down, was unable to kill as frequently as he liked to. He couldn’t remember how many people he’d killed. He always thought that someday he'd count the slices of skin in the shoe box in his trunk and reminisce.
He'd been getting a little older, though. He was thirty eight and his body was starting to get aches when the bad thing happened. He was noticing subtle things that hadn’t been there before. It took a little longer to stand up. He’d feel a little fire in his knees, or his back seemed to resist the act of standing too quickly.
This is what he blamed it on when Grace, or maybe her name was Gabrielle, hit him over the head with her duct-taped fists and he melted to the ground unconscious.
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He woke up on the red planet, the sentient planet named Ctaolthost. He awoke outside of a tall city of blackened, moving walls. They shimmered hazily as they climbed higher into the sky, three to four times his own height. He turned away from the walls and behind him was the forest of red trees in the distance, the great, pitted plains, the mountain range just off the side of city, mountains that climbed high into the sky. He saw massive flying creatures in those mountains.
Then the walls opened and he’d turned to face those hive creatures, the massive monsters that humans had named the popolacs. They flowed out of the walls, two, four, six, eight in total. They seemed to examine him, and he realized that he'd been the first human they’d seen. He didn’t know that for sure, but it was a feeling he’d gotten, as their eyeballs turned to examine him, the piercing buzzing sounds as hundreds of those tiny eyes communicated in a language he didn’t understand.
They’d picked him up, screaming, and drug him through the city. It had been a maze of walls and buildings made of the same odd, moving material. Before he'd known what happened or where they'd taken him, he was at his first pylon. He didn’t know what it was then, but he knew now. They'd thrown him into the pit. He’d spoken with Ctaolthost. He’d been given the mission. He was returned to the red planet.
When he'd returned, his new form had been that of the popolacs. For a time he lived amongst them, spoke in their language, understood them. The Traveling Skinner was a shapeshifter, and he’d wear whatever skin he chose.
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He still didn’t understand how he’d returned to Earth. He’d awoken back on the planet one day, back in the form of a human. Maybe his brain healed after Gwendy, or Gina, or whatever her name had been had beaten him into the ground.
He returned to Earth and learned that The Traveling Skinner had been gone for a long time. Gabrielle, or Gloria, had fled her attacker, had told the police, but when they searched the area, nothing had been found but his 2001 Lincoln Town Car and his box of multi-colored skins. Mitchell had raged at the idea of that box being desecrated and studied, but there was nothing he could do about it.
He’d awoken in Charleston, and decided to stay there. He’d take a break from skinning for a little while. He had a new ability, and Ctaolthost had hinted at many more abilities, and Mitchell had grander ambitions now.
On the edge of town, he found a house he liked. It was a large farm house style home with a large yard. There was a storm shelter in the backyard that he could use for… many different things. He skinned the man that lived inside, an elderly widower that was waiting for his time to come. Mitchell gladly provided, and he wore the man’s skin and became a recluse. Mitchell's time would come, and when it did, he'd eliminate the competition.
When the popolacs came to Earth, he knew his time had come.