Almost Anything: A Collection of Twisted, Short Horror Stories Based on Almost Anything by Matt Shaw

Author:Matt Shaw [Shaw, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

Ink

Kaisea Elliot’s colleague looked at her in disbelief as she tattooed her wrist with a little stickman. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked.

‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ She paused tattooing herself for a moment so as to “turn on” the sarcasm. ‘I’m playing the fucking piano.’

‘You know, if you want a tattoo, you could have just asked. I’m sure I could have squeezed you in for a quick appointment. Especially for…’ he leaned closer and laughed. ‘Fucking hell, and people actually pay for your work?’

‘Oh piss off.’

‘Seriously though - why?’

‘Because I just got this new gun and I wanted to give it a try before I let myself loose on a client with it. That and the fact I’m using this new ink I had imported.’

‘Oh? What’s this then?’ He reached over and picked up one of the recently delivered ink bottles. Immediately he saw the picture of the witch on the front of it and laughed. ‘Admit it, you just switched to this because it had a picture of a witch, didn’t you?’

Kaisea started to laugh. So he couldn’t see the “truth” in her eyes, she continued tattooing herself.

‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘Maybe,’ she said.

He put the bottle back down and looked at her wrist. ‘How is it?’

‘Gun? Good. Ink? Feels fluid. I like it.’

‘Price?’

‘Decent.’

‘Nice.’ He said, ‘Maybe I should give it a go too?’

Kaisea shrugged. ‘Up to you.’

‘Well anyway, you have yourself a fun evening, yeah? I’m off home. Got a fucking client coming in at twat o’clock in the morning tomorrow.’

‘What is Twat o’clock when it is at home?’

‘Fucking early. He doesn’t have long before he goes away so we have to do a couple of long-ass sessions. Still… What doesn’t kill us, or whatever the saying is.’ He grabbed his jacket from by his own tattoo station, slung it over his shoulder and headed out of the front door. Before it closed behind him, he quickly asked, ‘Want me to lock up?’

‘Nah. It’s cool. I’m just about done.’

‘Cool. Catch you in the morning.’

‘Yep.’

With that, he let the front door close as he turned and headed off into the rainy streets. Kaisea continued to ink the little stick-man on her wrist.

Kaisea often did little doodles on herself when practising with new products. She figured it was better to see how it all came out on herself than potentially fuck up a client’s skin. Career-wise, it was certainly the safest of options seeing as all tattooists knew they were usually just one bad piece of art from turning themselves into a laughingstock within the inking community.

The nice thing about the doodles were that they not only tested the products out but, they were small too. This meant that - later - when she wanted a bigger, more serious piece from a colleague, the little doodles were easy to cover. Although… She sat up straight and admired her handiwork with a grin on her face. Maybe she wouldn’t cover this little fella up? He was kind of cute looking.

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