Credit: Justin Randall

THE CHINAMAN? OH YEAH, GREAT TATTOO artist, man, sweet work. I mean, look at this one here, see how perfect her skin is? He got her hair just that glossy blue-black, just like the sexy little china doll she should be." The voice is husky and deep, but cheerful. The kind of voice produced by a barrel chest, a lifetime of exposure to atmospheric pollutants, and an appreciation of the absurdities of life.

His language sits oddly in my ear. Though many still speak Archaic English, the accent and cadence have changed much over time, mixed as it is with my language. "Yeah, yeah, and check this one out, 'scuse me lifting my shirt like that. This dragon's my newest addition. Yeah, no kidding, had to lay on my stomach through eight packs of Marlboros. Worth it, though."

The door is as I found it, snapped off its hinges, lying at an angle against the concrete steps that lead upward to the surface. Two steel slabs protrude from square cavities in the wall, heavy doors open. Each holds a long place setting of ashy bones. There are four closed square doors; once white, now blackened. The acrid air is cold and still, inviting only explorers of history, like me.

"Who did the artwork? Hey, sorry, man. The Chinaman isn't in business anymore. Yeah, guess death puts an end to anyone's career, know what I mean?"

On a single metal table laced with holes, a steel box lies open. The machine and delicate ancient documents sit primly where I have placed them. Looking at the faces in the two-dimensional representations, I notice they haven't faded at all in this deep dark that they have occupied for so long.

It doesn't take much guessing to start the machine, though the fine motor skills required to hook the wires of my power pack to it are difficult. The small flat case of narrow black ribbon slots into the machine. Fumbling, pressing this switch and that one produces a voice speaking in the underground dimness.

"Heh, funny thing was, he wasn't even Chinese. Didn't look like it anyway, just a lanky guy with freckles. Like a college kid. I knew he was pretty heavy into tae kwon do, though. Spent his weekends breaking cement blocks in half. Pretty useful if you ever get attacked by cement blocks, you know?" There is a brief, uneven hiss-and-crackle from the noise machine. Accompanied by an echoing click, a lighter, feminine voice fills the room.

"I just saw Big Dog, like, three days ago? Sorry, I never called him by his real name, nobody did. Most people probably thought his folks named him Big Dog. Yeah, sorry, wow. He was sitting up there at the counter. Ordered pie and coffee. Cream, no sugar. He swore he had a sugar high from looking at me."

She giggles. There is a pause. Then her voice picks up its more serious tone once more. "There wasn't anything odd. I mean, he showed everybody that new tattoo he had all over his back. It was good. Real-looking, you know? Like the dragon had its claws stuck in him to hang on instead of being inked on with a needle. He must not have took care of it right because he asked for a band-aid later and I brought him one.

"No, Big Dog wouldn't hurt a woman. I don't know who did cut Doris up like that but it wasn't him. No way. I hope you find him OK; he's a sweetheart. He didn't do it, you'll see." Her voice cuts off and I study what might be her face on the document. The girl looks to be no more than 19 or 20 although I am terrible at estimating age.

Another segment of sound begins. "Recorded Thursday, 28 August 2008: Patient, Ingrid Jordan, white female, complained of an unknown skin condition. The dermis was free of lesions or inflammation but did show subtle dark splotches that blanched with the application of pressure.

"My expectation is that she suffered some trauma that caused deep bruising along her entire body. However, she has neither possible explanation nor complaints of any related aching but rather of a severe burning sensation.

"Prescribed topically applied cortisone cream and administered 800 mg of ibuprofen for pain..." The voice trails off for a moment, replaced by scuffling sounds. "What the...? Wendy, can you get me a band-aid? Surely it can't be that difficult to find a bandage for a small cut in a hospital..."

A different man's voice, younger, higher register, syncopated speech. "I'm tellin' you, this woman had to have been high on meth, maybe. Out of her freakin' mind-" An indistinct interruption emerges from background babble.

"Sure you can see more pictures, I can do just about any tattoo you can think of. Dragons? Sure, do a tonne of 'em.

"Anyway, I mean, she wanted a tattoo removed and, um, that's pretty normal. People get tattoo regret all the time, come in here, and ask me for a magic potion to make it all go away. So, she comes in here asking to have this tattoo removed and, I mean, she was talkin' normal and everything so if she was high it was pretty good stuff.

She said she got this tattoo from a friend of hers and I said, 'So he's a tattoo artist?' and she says no and looks confused. Well, at this point I guess it's an unlicensed tattoo, right? So maybe that's why she won't come clean.

"And get this- OK, yeah, we can do piercing, too. Yeah, check out these naval rings, you bring your girlfriend here for Valentine's Day, right?

"Sorry about the interruptions, man. Customers. You know. So, but get this now, I asked her just how big this tattoo was that she wanted to fade and how deep the ink was and this loony tune chick just dropped her dress, right there in the middle of the shop, man. This dragon tat went from her collarbone all the way down and wound around her to the ankle.

"She said she just got the tat, like two days ago, but there wasn't any Vaseline on it. No redness, no scabbing. Must be a new way of tattooing to leave the skin so perfect. And the colour was such a deep black with undertones of blue. I didn't know why she was upset about such a perfect piece of body art, except maybe it was too big.

"Only thing was, the artist that did her tat? He was a twisted son of a bitch. Got all the scales and everything perfect, the drawing was so good I swear I saw it move under her skin. Thing was, it didn't have reptilian eyes but human ones. That was just wrong."

A questioning babble.

"No, I mean, wrong. Like I felt totally uneasy looking at it. Pretty soon you could talk yourself into believing it was alive. I got her some cream for it pretty quick after that, I'll tell ya. Didn't want her to have to face this thing in the mirror every morning, know what I mean?"

Hovering over the machine, hunting the buttons to stop it, I'm afraid that it might stop playing for good. Did I hear what I think ... Before I can discover the button I need, the hiss breaks to a click, and a pleasant male voice speaks, words clipped tight with tension.

"I am afraid, as I add my account to the evidence gathered on this tape, that I may be witness to the impending extinction of man. It has been barely a month since the first case. The autopsy of 23-year-old Richard Tellar, a tattoo artist known as 'The Chinaman.' Since that time I have delved into this mystery, first as a curiosity then with deep apprehension.

"I have tried to make sense of the occurrences, interviewing people involved only to see their dead bodies brought to my morgue shortly after. Ingrid Jordan is the fourth. Her doctor, Dr. Jacob Westheim, M.D. is on the slab next to her, the fifth victim. The interval is growing shorter. It has been four hours since I examined their cadavers. My official report was as clear as I could make it but is inadequate to our current needs. Further measures will need to be taken although I'm not sure I have time to find out what those measures are.

"In Ingrid's case the dermis appeared to have been burned away to the hypodermis in a swathe from her neck, around her body, and continuing to her ankle. Three wounds across her throat are shallow and, unlike the case of Doris Marshall, do not appear to have been the cause of death. Her only other injury was a small cut covered by a bandage. She was the first victim so far whose body was mutated by this phenomenon. Her hands were slightly misshapen, the fingers and small bones longer than normal. Her face also appears to have undergone subtle structural change shortly before death.

"In Dr. Westheim's case, the dermis had been similarly burned away in a strip that started at the base of his spine, widened as it ascended his back, and draped over his left shoulder, leaving fatty tissue exposed. He had lethal doses of Demerol in his system.

"His hands were similarly mutated, as though a disease had lengthened and wizened the fingers. The nails were thick and very long. His face was also slightly misshapen, as though the jaw had lengthened."

I find myself glancing at my own hands, flexing them.

"My official findings as to the cause of four of the deaths are inconclusive. Doris Marshall had a similar raw patch on her skin but had died of multiple wounds similar to someone who had been mauled by a bear.

"Tests of Ingrid's blood reveal a significant departure in composition from typical human blood. Five vials sit before me on my desk, thick bands of an unusual serum settled in each one.

"Unfortunately, though I am always very careful in my procedures, I've cut myself. The wound on my knuckle looks like a small red mouth and I've disinfected and covered it. It was unexpectedly difficult. I dropped the bandages three times before managing to cover the wound.

"The pain in my hands and face is similar to that of arthritis and grows sharper by the quarter-hour. I can no longer hold a pen to write. Perhaps it is my imagination, but the pains seem to be spreading. I've taken three ibuprofen tablets and refuse to take more.

"The centrifuge holding my own blood has a minute and 40 seconds remaining in its cycle and, in spite of a growing burning sensation spreading across my back and over my left hip, I will wait. In spite of the blotchy markings appearing under my skin, I will wait. In spite of the pain, I will wait.

"Using materials at hand, I've prepared to end this outbreak. Every door is locked and sealed with layers of metallised tape. The entire morgue has been disinfected should I fail. The oxygen tanks I took from other departments wait, readied with other incendiary components.

"As I record this, I am filled with a deep terror. I don't want to commit suicide and burn the morgue, and very likely the hospital, over a paper cut."

His voice dribbles to a halt; the empty sound following it fills the room. After several heartbeats of skipping hiss there is a harsh sob and an echoing click as the button goes up on the noise machine. I sit still, mouth open, in shock. Our history has changed shape in an instant.

Scrabbling through the papers, I'm unable to read them, claws ripping the delicate film of organic material. Our ancestors lied to us! Our first contact had been neither diplomatic nor friendly. Then my eyes fall on words I can understand, the only ones. Characters in my own tongue, written at the end of the last document in a spiky hand in rusty red:

This blood burns in our veins be it of heroes, of gods, of demons. Tremble, for this hour is ours.

We weren't symbionts at all. We were parasites. We were conquerors.