Anya F. Bloom -- By the Spine

The news blared from the corner of the bar. Another body found – no ID, nothing strange other than the fact that it had apparently been vacated some hours before, and the owner was not likely to be coming back. Well, nothing strange until it, like the others, ended up on the autopsy table in the coroner’s office, and the scalpel, plunged into and dragged through the chest in a Y-cut, revealed that the body had somehow been exsanguinated and all the blood replaced with ink.

“Another one, eh? There must be a story there,” mumbled an older woman a couple stools over.  She sighed into what looked like a whisky on the rocks, and I couldn’t help but think she was right. But no one knew what the story was.

The bodies had been rare occurrences at first. Stumbled upon behind an alley, in dark parking lots, maybe two a year. But then they became more frequent, found in odder places – the cereal aisle of the grocery store, or cars that did not belong to the now-corpses. Five years later we had all lost count of just how many bodies appeared. No leads had ever been uncovered. 

They were found everywhere, too. The San Diego Zoo, Central Park, that mansion used to shoot the outdoor view of Pemberley in that newer version of that Austen book, Tiananmen Square  – no law enforcement agency could decide if it was the work of an individual, or a cult. There was never any forensic evidence, never a witness even during the busiest times of day. The corpses were never identified nor did anyone ever seem to miss who they once were. No scientist, doctor, coroner, or mystic could even agree on how it was done. The ink was untraceable. No random large donations of blood had turned up at any blood banks. No dry cleaners reported a surge in odd stains. Over time, what should have been the greatest mystery of the century simply became normal. Commonplace. Even the most enthusiastic zombie-apocalypse conspiracy nuts let go of calling on citizens to arm themselves against the end of the world.

“That’s the biggest pity,” the woman spoke suddenly, startling the rest of us out of our cups. “There must be some sort of story there, and no one will ever know what it was. Everyone has a story.” She looked to be in her sixties, slender, a hard line for a mouth below inquisitive, prying eyes. Her furrowed brow accentuated the other creases on her face. She seemed to be challenging the rest of us to speak, a knight throwing down the gauntlet despite her almost-frail, cardigan-with-brooch-clad outward appearance.

The rest of the bar refused to meet her glare. “Just leave it alone,” muttered a man in the corner. “No one we know ended up a corpse, it’s nobody’s business.”

“But how would any of us know if we had?” I couldn’t help asking the question. “It doesn’t seem like anyone ever knows who they are. How would we know if we couldn’t remember for some reason?”

The woman zeroed in on me at that moment. “And how would someone wipe the collective memory of everyone who once knew a person?” 

I fumbled, not wanting to have her focused on me for any longer than was necessary. “It’s like you said, everyone has a story. So someone must know what that story is. So someone must be making us all forget the story, and not even want to really look for it.”

She stared at me for a full minute, sipping her drink slowly. Everyone else had turned back to their conversations and musings and were no longer paying attention. “Maybe you’ll be the one to figure this out then,” she said. 

I nursed a few more drinks at that bar, half-listening to the drone of the reporters on screen, the same speculation and discussions with panels of experts. I could not remember a time when there had been anything other than this on TV. It didn’t seem to matter much.

I got up to leave, maybe head to a different spot down the street. As I passed her, she put a hand on my arm. “Why don’t you wait a moment, walk an old lady to her car. It isn’t far.”

There was no way to avoid it. As we turned out of the doorway and ambled down several side streets she talked about the world she knew when she was younger. “I was in such a rush to grow up and find camaraderie in all the places adults could go instead of sitting in school, learning such pointless things. Now I am old and go where I please and the most genuine companionship I find is in my books.”

We made a sharp right down a street I didn’t know. I tripped on a loose stone. And then there was nothing.

I don’t know what happened. I slowly became aware of other forms stacked beside me on either side. It was silent, mostly, except for an occasional rustling. The blare of the television, the low hum of people muttering in their cups, the sounds of life were all absent. I couldn’t move. I didn’t even know if I was breathing. I swear I could hear ice clinking around a glass, and caught the faintest whiff of whisky.

I shuddered as the unseen hand grasped my spine, pried me open, and began reading my story.