Jump to content

603: The Disembodied Artist

From Split LongWays

Synopsis

Tallahassee Turner and Necronomidog creep silently down the creaky stairs to the lobby of the Couronne Creuse. They find it sprayed with blood. Rising from behind the desk is a hulking, muscular man more than six and a half feet tall, wearing a torn white shirt and holding a bloody, chipped axe in one hand and half of the night clerk, Michelle Casey, split long ways, in the other. In place of a human head he has the stitched, torn head of a horse, with a long spike jutting from its forehead, "like some kind of demonic unicorn." He throws Casey's remains against the wall, hacks the rest of her apart on the desk, and dips his fingers in the blood. Tallahassee fails his sanity roll and his intelligence check and falls into a bout of madness. He is back on San Juan Hill, charging a "Spanish unicorn" alongside Necronomidog, whom he now sees as Teddy Roosevelt, and emptying his pistol at it in only his hat, boots and underwear.

Woken by the gunshots and dog howls, Major Bakersfield and Grant Jameson grab their weapons, bang on the walls to wake Dr. Shrimp Puerto Rico and Devin Black, and rush downstairs. They arrive just as the Axe Man swats Necronomidog across the room with the flat of the axe. Jameson hits him dead center with his shotgun and drops him, and Tallahassee scoops up the wounded Necronomidog and flees into the courtyard. The Major puts three rounds into the horse head and finds that it is a real horse's head, sewn onto the man's shoulders with thick leather twine. As the Major starts cutting the stitches with his trench knife, the body twitches back to life and throws him into the wrecked front desk. Shrimp and Devin both fail their sanity rolls and drop their guns. Devin stabs the creature in the neck with his switchblade, and the Major blows the top off the horse head, but it keeps fighting. Shrimp's biology roll shows that the man's flesh is dead and rotting, its blood an old, brown sludge, and he shouts the news to the others. When Devin tries to pin the axe arm, the axe severs his right hand at the wrist. Jameson then fires his shotgun down the line of the spike, splitting the horse head open long ways and knocking the horn loose. Inside the horse's neck is a human head, and one of its eyes rolls up to look at him. The Major finishes it with a point-blank shot from his 1911, and it stops moving.

Tallahassee comes to on his knees in the courtyard, cradling Necronomidog. The dog survives with two hit points, but one of his eight legs is too badly broken to save, and he will be left with seven. Back inside, Devin receives first aid, and Jameson retrieves the spike, which turns out to be a broken-off piece of wrought-iron fence. The name "Otis" is carved into the axe handle near the head. On the wall behind the desk, the Major and Jameson notice an elaborate symbol drawn with a finger in Casey's blood. Comparing it with Corbitt's precise, almost elegant work on Necronomidog, Shrimp finds the creature crude and brutish, with jagged stitches and a horse head that looks ripped from the animal rather than cut. Devin phones Goodman Gray's people and gets the address of a doctor in the French Quarter who works off the books. Spending luck, Devin recognizes the symbol from the Ars Goetia, a book of demonology that he once saw at a meeting at Erastus Goddard's house. It is associated with one of the demon generals of hell, Amduceus.

The body begins to twitch again, its hand still locked on the axe. Tallahassee smears the symbol, and Shrimp blows off the axe hand with his shotgun. Devin and Tallahassee, still in his underwear, set out for the doctor with Necronomidog. When the Major tries to dismember the body with the axe, its other hand catches the handle in midair. As it sits up and tries to reattach its severed hand, the Major, Jameson and Shrimp, with his research kit, retreat into the misty night after Devin.

Funny Moments

  • Necronomidog's stealth is so good that the Keeper admits he should never have given it to Tallahassee: "I'm such a pushover."
  • "Did she at least finish her picture first?" The picture floats to the ground, unfinished forever.
  • Tallahassee's bout of madness casts Necronomidog as Teddy Roosevelt and the Axe Man as a "Spanish unicorn", a callback to an earlier slip of "unicorn" for "uniform."
  • "Why the long face?"
  • "Jameson, that's your solution to everything": Jameson wants to tug the horse head off.
  • The Major's answer to the eye staring at Jameson: "I poke him in the eye."
  • Jameson drops his eye patch on the creature: "You're going to need that."
  • The Major tries to save Necronomidog's broken leg and "accidentally tears it off." Shrimp suggests cooking it like a crab leg.
  • The hand is returned to Devin with the middle finger extended.
  • Devin needs a ride to the doctor and is told to "put some pants on first", but the advice goes to the wrong man.

Notable Quotes

Retrieved from "https://splitlongways.com/index.php?title=603:_The_Disembodied_Artist&oldid=882"