Flesh-Colored Horror - Flesh-Colored Horror Original

Flesh-Colored Horror Original

• Originally appeared in "Monthly Magazine Halloween" May 1994

A woman named Momoko introduces herself as she walks down a street at night. A woman in a trenchcoat comes running by her, splashing her with something foul smelling a sticky, forcing her to get her hair cut. She's a teacher at a local kindergarten, and none of the students like her new haircut.

As Momoko is talking to one of her fellow teachers about her attack when a fight breaks out among the children. A boy named Chikara has scratched a boy named Yuta for not doing what he said. Chikara is bald, with no eyelashes or eyebrows, and his skin in transparently thin. He always looks angry. The other children run from him when he approaches, but Momoko tells the other teacher that although he's a trouble maker, he has a very beautiful mother and she hopes he'll look like her one day.

Over the next few pages Chikara is constantly getting into trouble. He rips the student's artwork off the walls, while explaining he's not tearing, he's peeling. He attacks the other students, asking if they'd like him to peel the skin off their faces. Eventually the day is over, and Momoko stands to wait for someone to come pick Chikara up. She meets Mrs. Kawabe, who she thought was Chikara's mother but is actually his aunt. Momoko asks if she can meet Chikara's mother as they walk to the Kawabe house, talking about Chikara's problems at school.

At Chikara's house, Momoko sees that the walls and furniture are all ripped and peeling, as though someone had been attacking them. Momoko meets Chikara's mother, who is soaking wet with a towel wrapping her hair up. She explains she just got out of the bath, and that they are always putting up new wall paper because Chikara rips it up. Momoko notices that Chikara's mother seems to have no expression on her face, but seems very loving and caring towards Chikara, and eventually leaves.

The next day Momoko hears that several parents have complained about Chikara attacking their children. Momoko goes to look for him and finds that he's ripped up the face of a young boy, both covered in the boy's blood. Chikara is expelled from the school, but continues to show up every day. Momoko tells him he can't come back but he says he doesn't want to go home. He follows her home one day and she invites him in, only to find that her father had already let himself in. He's a doctor, and when he sees Chikara he notices that the boy's skin is very thin, his fingerprints gone, and would need treatment. Momoko takes him home to his mother, although he screams and cries he doesn't want to go. His mother takes him in, but when Momoko mentions that her father is a doctor and said that Chikara should get looked at, she just laughs and says that Chikara would be a good looking boy very soon.

Inside Chikara's house, Chikara's mother and aunt are working over a large bubbling pot. Chikara's mother grabs him and jams a pipe in his mouth, telling him to remember to breathe through his mouth, and the two women begin to paint on the still bubbling hot goo. They cover him until he looks like a clay cut out, let it set, and then his mother begins to rip the stuff off of him. Chikara screams and cries. They wait awhile, but something is still wrong as Chikara's mother begins ripping and peeling the walls, screaming about how she wants to see him, and gets angry at the aunt when she says she doesn't want Chikara to suffer anymore.

Momoko's father leaves, telling her to be careful. While waving goodbye to him, Momoko hears a woman scream and rounds the corner to see another woman doused in the sticky goo and the trenchcoat woman running away. This time she runs after her and knocks her to the ground. It turns out to be Chikara's aunt, who tells her the terrible story of the goo.

Her brother in law, Chikara's father, had tried to invent a beauty potion for his wife, her sister. It worked - giving Chikara's mother the beauty she wanted. But in order to protect Chikara from his mother, who wanted to do the same thing to her son, his aunt changed the formula. Chikara's mother keeps using it on him and ripping it off, which is why his skin is so damaged. His aunt became angry, seeing him suffer so much, and began to take it out on strangers by dumping the leftover potions on them.

The next scene flashes to another woman in a trenchcoat. She approaches a man in a dark alley and asks him if she's beautiful, opening her trenchcoat a la the Flasher. The man screams, horrified, and runs away while she laughs.

Meanwhile Momoko has hauled the aunt back to Chikara's house, the aunt pleading for her to stay away. The other woman in the trenchcoat, Chikara's mother, slams Momoko in the head with a rock and she passes out.

Chikara's mother tells Momoko the story of her husband, the talented alchemist, and his search for eternal youth. He created a recipe and applied it to himself, but died of shock after seeing the result. She, however, thought he had found true beauty. Momoko, tied up on the floor of the kitchen, watches as Chikara's mother accidentally spills strong acid, one of the ingredients, on her leg. She hops around until her sister pulls down the zipper on her back - and her skin falls off, revealing her true 'beauty' - a skinless body with only muscles and tendons exposed.

Chikara's mother tells a horrified Momoko that this is what her husband found - a medicine that separates skin from muscles. It's true beauty, and she wants it for her son. She tells her sister to stick the skin back in the saline tank - where she keeps it to keep it from drying out, and the reason she always looks like she just got out of the bath. Chikara's mother leans down to examine the bottle of acid and realizes that her sister has filled it with plain water, ruining the recipe and keeping Chikara in his own skin. She demands to know where her sister hid it, and Chikara brings it out - only to dump over his mother's saline tank and douse her skin in acid, ruining it. Chikara's mother turns on her sister, blaming her and demanding her sister's skin. She reaches out and rips the face off of her sister - showing that she, too, had used the beauty medicine. Chikara runs to his mother and tears at her leg, pulling out muscles, and she falls to the floor. Her own skin ruined, the story ends with Chikara's aunt tearfully telling Momoko how she didn't know what the chemicals did when her sister convinced her to use them on herself three years ago, she just wanted to be beautiful. Then Momoko faints.