The Master of the Needle by David York

The Master of the Needle by David York

The needle had slept for years, buried in a box of someone else’s life. Dust and rust dulled its brass handle, but beneath the tarnish it still remembered the hum of skin, the rhythm of heartbeat. All it needed was a hand to wake it.

Robyn Little almost didn’t stop at the swap meet. She was running late, helmet still warm from the ride, the red Ninja ticking softly behind her as it cooled in the October sun. But she’d seen a post about an old tattoo kit for sale – “vintage stuff, from a dead guy’s shop”,  and curiosity was a hard thing to ignore when you were continuing to build your name in the tattoo world.

The seller was a middle-aged woman with nicotine-stained fingers and a folding table covered in garage leftovers. She didn’t know much about what she was selling.
“Belonged to my brother,” she said, squinting against the light. “He was into tattoos. Died a while back. Heart thing, I think. These were just in his stuff.”

Robyn sifted through a cracked plastic case filled with mismatched coils, bent armatures, and rusted screws. The brass needle assembly lay at the bottom, wrapped in an old paper towel, spotted dark from age. When she lifted it, the sunlight caught it just right, and for a moment, she could have sworn it gleamed.

“Ten bucks,” the woman said. “You want it, take it.”

Robyn smiled, handed her a crumpled bill, and tucked the thing carefully into her backpack. It was heavy, older than anything she’d used before, but it had character.
That night, back at her studio, she cleaned it, replaced the wiring, and set it beside her machine. The brass looked brighter already.

Outside, the wind pressed softly against the windows.
Inside, under the dim studio light, the needle waited… patient, hungry, and shining just a little more than it had that morning.

The next morning, the studio smelled of disinfectant and burnt coffee. The walls still hummed with the sound of last night’s machines cooling in their cases.

Dave pushed through the door, all grin and swagger. “Hey, Robyn – you got my new tat ready to be laid on some skin?” he said, leaning on the counter like he owned the place.

Robyn looked up from her station in the back. “Give me a few, Dave. Just about ready. Go ahead and take a seat by my chair.”

She already had the stencil drawn, clean and precise – a coiled dragon wrapping around a compass rose, something he’d wanted for months. She was more excited than she wanted to admit. The new needle sat in its pouch beside her setup tray, gleaming faintly through the plastic. Under the studio lights, it seemed brighter than it had last night – newer somehow.

Robyn snapped on a pair of black gloves, fitted the needle to her machine, and covered it with an antiseptic wrap. “Let’s do this thing, shall we?”

Dave glanced at the design when she laid it beside his arm. “That’s sick.”

“It’s going to fit perfectly with the rest,” Robyn said, admiring the lines of his older work – all hers. Her reputation was riding on this piece.

She dipped the needle into the black ink cup and started the outline. The hum of the gun was lower than usual, steadier. The needle glided across his skin as if it already knew the pattern.

Dave flinched once, then relaxed. “That’s weird. Doesn’t even sting.”

Robyn smiled, wiping away the excess ink. The wipe came away clean. No ink. No blood.

She frowned, swiped again – nothing. The skin was smooth, dry, and perfect. The black lines sank instantly into place, crisp and deep, like they’d always been there.

This needle’s magic, she thought, watching the dragon come alive beneath her hand.

Behind her, the fluorescent light flickered once. The hum of the machine deepened, almost like a purr.

“All done.” Robyn rolled her stool back and looked over the new tattoo on Dave’s arm. It was flawless – easily the best black-and-gray work she’d ever done. The dragon didn’t just sit on the skin; it seemed to hover above it, like heat off a blacktop – there and not there at all. The shading was perfect, so real she almost expected it to move.

Dave’s arm twitched, and for half a second the dragon stretched, its shadow spilling wider than his arm should allow.

Robyn jumped.

Dave laughed loud enough to echo in the small studio. “Gotcha, huh? So good you thought it was actually moving.”

Robyn let out a shaky laugh and shook her head. “Yeah, you got me, Dave.”

She stood, pulling a fresh wrap from the counter, but couldn’t help glancing back. The dragon’s eyes seemed to follow her now – a trick of the light, she told herself. She’d done such clean detail work that her mind was playing games.

She wiped the piece with antiseptic and covered it with wrap. “You know the routine,” she said. “Keep it clean, lotion twice a day, no scratching.”

Dave rubbed the bandaged arm. “Man, it itches something fierce. No pain, though. Not even a tingle.”

“That’s good,” Robyn said, though part of her wondered why there hadn’t been any bleeding.

He handed her a few folded bills, tucking his wallet back into his jeans. “Fastest one yet. Killer tat, Robyn. I’ll be back for the next one.” He grinned, zipped up his leather jacket, and gave her a wink before stepping outside into the cool October sunlight.

She watched through the front window as he stood outside the studio, match-light flickering across his grin, smoke curling up into the October sunlight – the kind of day that fooled you into thinking everything was fine.

Robyn turned back to her station, humming absently as she began cleaning. She wiped down the table, the chair, the floor – each motion automatic after years of repetition. When she reached for the tattoo gun, she froze.

The needle was spotless.
No blood. No ink. Not even a stain on the antiseptic wrap.
The brass head gleamed brighter than before – too bright, like it had been waiting.

She frowned, tilting it in her hand. It almost seemed to pulse when she breathed.

Robyn set it back down carefully.
The hum of the fluorescent lights deepened again, just for a moment. Then, silence.

& & &

Robyn sat back in her chair, rolling her shoulders until they popped. The hum of the studio’s neon sign leaked through the half-closed door. She had at least an hour before her next client.
She pulled open the drawer beside her station and sifted through a pile of old tattoo magazines, their covers curling at the edges, pages soft and yellowed from years of ink-stained fingers. One caught her eye – Inked Visions, March ‘97. She flipped through it absently, the smell of dust and rubbing alcohol mixing in the air.

Halfway through, past a full-page ad for a new line of sterilized inks, was a short article. “Master of the Needle: The Life and Legacy of Karl Mertens.”
The story told of a tattoo artist whose work was the stuff of folklore – designs said to move beneath the skin, muscles shifting as if the creatures breathed. Mertens claimed the secret was his machine and a “special brass needle” he’d found in Germany while serving overseas.

Some of his clients swore the tattoos seemed to walk off the skin.

There was a small photo – a grainy shot of Mertens, smiling beside his tattoo gun and some old sketches. Robyn leaned in. Her pulse gave a single, quiet thud.
The machine looked almost identical to the one she’d bought at the swap meet.

After her last consultation of the night, Robyn locked up the studio and rode home through the cool October air. The hum of her bike followed her all the way to her apartment – a sound that lingered even after she shut the engine off.
She showered, poured herself half a glass of wine, and collapsed into bed, the day still buzzing under her skin.

That night she dreamed of Dave, and the dragon.

In the dream, the studio lights were brighter than usual, white and humming, and she was finishing his tattoo. The shading was perfect, the dragon’s wings stretched wide across his forearm. But when she reached for a cloth to wipe away the excess ink, the dragon was gone.
All that remained was the compass rose – floating there, alone, as if the rest had slipped away.

She glanced up his arm – empty skin.
“Hey, killer tat, Robyn,” Dave said, grinning.

Then his grin broke. His eyes widened. He clawed at his chest, tearing at his shirt.
“Dave?” she said, reaching for him.

He crumpled, gasping. She dropped beside him, pressing down on his sternum, ready to start CPR – until his mouth opened wider than it should have.

Something moved inside.

The dragon – black and gray, slick as oil – uncoiled from his throat. It slid free, tongue to chin to floor, then lifted, wings unfurling, beating the air with a whisper. Its eyes found hers – and blinked.

Robyn gasped and sat up in bed.
Her hand shot out toward the empty air, catching nothing but the blue pulse of her phone’s notification light.

& & &

The next morning, Robyn sat at her kitchen table, one hand around her mug of coffee, the other scrolling through her phone. Sunlight cut through the blinds, slicing the room into narrow gold and shadowed stripes.

Her thumb hovered over the glowing notification – a message from Mia, one of her regulars. Hey, did you hear about Dave?

Robyn blinked, trying to shake off the last fragments of the dream – the flapping wings, the oily scales. She took another sip of coffee before opening the message.

He was found last night. They think it was his heart. EMS said he didn’t make it.

She stared at the words until they blurred.
Dave. Gone.

Her mind flashed to his grin in the studio yesterday, his voice – “Killer tat, Robyn.”
Her stomach turned. She set the mug down too fast, coffee sloshing over her fingers.

She wiped her hand with a dish towel, eyes drifting to the faint dark smudge along her knuckle. At first she thought it was coffee – but when she rubbed it, the spot smeared gray, like ink.

She froze.
Her workstation had been spotless when she left last night. She always cleaned everything, every time.

The image of the dragon slithering from Dave’s mouth shot through her mind, so vivid it made her breath catch.

“No,” she whispered. “Just a dream.”

The towel in her hand slipped to the counter. She stood there for a long time, the hum of her refrigerator the only sound in the room, the taste of bitter coffee thick on her tongue.

Then, from somewhere behind her – faint, almost imagined – came a soft metallic ping. Like a needle, dropped onto tile.

Robyn showered, dressed, and rode back to the studio. The dream was already fading, dissolving under the day’s list of clients, emails and prep work.
She parked the Ninja out back and walked to the rear door, fishing her keys from her pocket. Her hand stopped mid-reach.

A gray smear ringed the doorknob – a thin, swirling line, like something had slithered around it and disappeared into the keyhole. She leaned closer. The pattern almost looked deliberate.

Robyn ran her thumb across it. The mark came away easily, smudging across her skin. Ink.

She wiped her thumb on her jeans, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

Everything looked the same. The faint scent of lemon disinfectant lingered in the air. Machines silent. Counters clean. The steady buzz of the old mini-fridge in the back room filled the space.

She set her helmet on her workstation, moving through her routine: lights, signs, and speakers. The studio hummed to life.
Ronnie James Dio’s voice cracked through the quiet, belting out “the dragons and the children…”

Robyn smiled faintly at the coincidence, a brief thought of Dave passed across her mind, then she turned toward her station.

The smile froze.

Her breath caught halfway up her throat as her eyes locked on the desk. The stencil she’d used for Dave’s tattoo – the dragon – sat there in the same spot she’d left her helmet.

She hadn’t printed that design again.
She was sure of it.

And yet, there it was – black and gray lines, the dragon’s wings spread wide, its eyes sharp and knowing, as if it were watching.

Robyn picked up the stencil, staring at the dragon’s sharp eyes for a long moment before tearing the sheet in half – then again – until it was nothing but confetti in her hands.
The scraps fluttered into the trash can beside her workstation.

“Coincidence,” she muttered. “I must’ve missed it last night.”

She brushed her palms together and opened her day-timer. A new client was due within the hour. No time for weird dreams or superstitious nonsense.

Robyn pulled out the next design – a black desert scorpion, its tail arched high, a bead of venom poised to fall from the tip. The heavy lines and fine shading made her smile. Now that was a tattoo that demanded attention.

She reached for her toolbox, popped the latches, and lifted the tattoo gun from its padded slot. The new brass needle sat in its pouch beside it, glistening like it had just been polished.

Robyn frowned.
It wasn’t wet, but it didn’t look dry either – the surface seemed to breathe light, as if it were flexing beneath the thin plastic.

She tore open the pouch and held the needle up to the studio lights.
Perfect. Too perfect.

On instinct, she ran a fingertip along the edge to test its smoothness. The sting came quick.
“Damn it,” she hissed, jerking her hand back.

A single bead of blood welled up on her fingertip, bright against her skin. It touched the needle – and vanished.

The metal seemed to inhale.
The gleam along its length deepened, a pulse of brightness that shimmered once and settled.

For a heartbeat, she thought about throwing it across the room, maybe even grinding it under her boot. But then –

A hum, faint and low, filled her ears. It wasn’t the lights or the speakers; it was inside the sound of the shop, like the soft vibration of a living thing.

Robyn’s shoulders eased. The corner of her mouth twitched, then curled into a grin she didn’t quite recognize.

She ran her thumb along the needle’s shaft, slow and gentle, the way you’d touch something you loved.

& & &

Nelly arrived right on time. Younger than most of Robyn’s usual clients, but still old enough to sign for herself. During the consultation, she’d been dead-set on the scorpion. Something about her brother, Robyn remembered vaguely – a memorial, maybe.

“You ready for this?” Robyn asked, rolling her stool into place. “Still set on the scorpion?”

“Yep and yep,” Nelly said with a nervous smile. “Never got one this big before.”

Robyn’s grin flickered back. “You’ll be fine,” she said softly. “You won’t feel a thing. I’m sure of it.”

She directed Nelly to the reclined lounge chair, the one wrapped in crisp, antiseptic plastic. The stencil went on smooth, the design perfect on the first try. “That’s sweet, and deadly,” Nelly said, admiring it.

“Let’s do this thing.” Robyn said dipping the brass needle into the ink. The moment the machine started, the hum in her hand deepened, almost like a purr. The overhead lights brightened, blooming white across the shop.

The first touch of the needle made Nelly flinch. Then nothing. Her breathing slowed, her shoulders dropped. The needle moved across her thigh with impossible precision, slicing color into skin like it already knew the path.

Each wipe left the surface clean. No blood. No excess ink. Just perfect lines and texture that seemed to shimmer as they dried.

Robyn grinned. The gun wasn’t following her hand – her hand was following it.

Minutes later, she set the gun down and motioned Nelly toward the mirror.

“Wow,” Nelly breathed. “It looks alive… like it could just crawl right off my leg. And that shine on the venom drop – holy hell.”

Robyn smiled. “It’s killer. I’m glad you like it.” She laid the gun back on the tray, her fingers brushing the barrel in a slow, affectionate stroke.

She handed Nelly the care instructions and a small tube of lotion. “Twice a day. Don’t scratch. It’ll heal clean.”

“Oh, can I get your number and email?” Robyn added casually. “I like to follow up on new work.”

Nelly nodded, scribbled her info, then paused at the door. “Do they always feel this itchy? Like… like it’s moving under my skin?”

Robyn’s face stayed calm. “Yeah, they do that sometimes. Perfectly normal.”

Nelly laughed awkwardly, waved, and stepped into the bright noon sun. Robyn watched her cross the street toward the Sweet Frog, her gait already a little off – like she was trying not to brush something that wasn’t there.

Back in the quiet studio, Robyn cleaned the chair and wiped down the tray. The gun waited, gleaming. She lifted the needle in her gloved hand; it vibrated faintly, humming against her skin.

The brass was brighter now-polished, somehow reborn.

She started to slide the plastic cover back over it, then stopped.

“It needs to breathe,” she murmured.

She placed it back into its slot in the case, uncovered, humming softly to itself.

At first, Robyn felt a twinge of guilt, small and sharp, the kind that lives just under the ribs. She had the sudden urge to run across the street, find Nelly at the Sweet Frog, tell her to scrub the scorpion off before it decided to crawl.

But then the sound came again-soft, steady. A hum, but more like a purr. It slipped from the toolbox like sounds from under a door.

The noise worked its way into her chest, smoothed the edges off her panic. There’s nothing wrong, she told herself. It’s a tattoo, just ink and skin. A good tattoo. Her best.

“You’re right,” she said, not realizing she’d spoken out loud until she heard her own voice. “It’s fine. It’s a good tattoo. She’s happy.”

She opened the mini-fridge and grabbed a Red Bull. The hiss of the tab sounded too loud in the quiet room. The first swallow hit her throat like sugar and metal. She sat down on the stool and spun once, twice, letting the rush spread through her.

The hum kept going, low and even, somewhere behind her. It didn’t stop when she stopped spinning. It matched the pulse in her neck.

& & &

Robyn’s day passed in a blur of sugar skulls and starbursts, the kind of tattoos that paid the bills but didn’t feed the hunger humming under her skin. The hum itself never left the air. No one else seemed to hear it.

By nightfall, she was alone again, half-watching the clock, half-listening to Alice in Chains scream about flies while she ate popcorn from a Styrofoam cup. The magazine slid from her fingers, pages flashing ads and bright ink, until her eyes gave up.

The hum folded into the music. Then the music changed.

She opened her eyes. The heavy metal was gone, replaced by pulsing club beats overhead. Lights strobed red and violet. The shop was gone too – she was in a crowded room, shoulder to shoulder with laughing bodies.

At a table in the corner, three young women raised their glasses. Nelly sat among them, her bandaged thigh crossing and uncrossing. Robyn started toward them, but no one turned their heads; she could move through the crowd like smoke.

Nelly laughed, scratched her leg. A drunk staggered past, spilling something green into her lap. She cursed, stood, and fought her way to the restroom. Robyn followed.

Inside, the lights buzzed and flickered. The smell of vomit and cleaning supplies hung in the air. Nelly ran water over paper towels and pressed them to her shorts, then to the bandage. She stopped. The towel fell.

Her hands tore at the plastic wrap until the skin showed clean. Too clean. The tattoo was gone. Only a wet black dot, the venom drop, shimmered on her thigh.

Nelly’s breathing quickened. She clawed at her shirt, at her side. A ripple slid under her skin, moving upward like something swimming. Then stillness. The dot melted into her flesh. Nelly fell to the floor like a crumpled newspaper.

When she looked up again, her eyes were wide, glassy, and wrong.

The first movement came from her right eye – a bulge, then a crack of wet sound as a black scorpion forced itself through, glossy and alive, dragging itself free with its pinchers. It scuttled over her cheek and dropped to the tile with a dry tap.

The bass beat went on. Nobody screamed.

& & &

The bell over the studio door chimed.

Robyn jerked awake in her chair, popcorn on the floor, an older woman flipping through a yellow book of designs at the counter. The hum in the air hadn’t stopped.

Robyn blinked, the dream still sifting through her mind like sand through a hourglass. The older woman at the counter hadn’t noticed her jolt awake, or if she had, she was kind enough not to mention it.

“Hello there,” the woman said, taking a quick glance at Robyn from the yellow book of designs. Her voice was dry and cracked, a smoker’s whisper. “You do walk-ins, right?”

Robyn nodded, her throat tight. “Yeah,” she said, clearing it. “Walk-ins are fine.”
She pushed herself up from the chair, trying to shake off the fog of sleep and the image of the scorpion crawling from Nelly’s eye.

The woman smiled faintly as she flipped through the pages. Her nails were dull gray, the color of cooled ash. “Thinking about something simple. Maybe a butterfly, maybe a bird. Haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Robyn moved behind the counter, her hands working on their own-cleaning wipes, gloves, clip cord, setting up the tray. Muscle memory doing the thinking.

The hum, soft and constant was still there. It lived somewhere under the shop noise, under her skin. She glanced at the toolbox on the table. The lid seemed to quiver ever so slightly.

“You all right, dearie?” the woman asked, her tone light but eyes sharp.

Robyn blinked and forced a smile. “Yeah. Long day, that’s all. You decide what you want?”

The woman turned the book toward her, pointing to a sketch of a scorpion.

“Something like this,” she said. “I saw one just like it somewhere, don’t remember where, but it stuck with me.”

The words hit Robyn like cold water. The hum quickened, not louder but closer, like a breath against her ear.

& & &

Robyn sat with the woman, going over the design, placement, and scheduling a day and time for her to return. She didn’t tell the woman that the scorpion wouldn’t sit right on her skin. The flesh was too thin, too loose – like trying to ink a memory that didn’t want to stick. A simple purple butterfly would’ve been better.

When the woman finally left, Robyn let out a long, slow sigh. The day was done, and with it, the lingering image of Nelly’s empty eyes began to fade – just background static in her head.

She went through her nightly closing ritual: signs off, lights out, doors locked, every surface wiped clean. It was her exorcism – routine and holy. When she was satisfied, she rode back to her apartment, the hum still faint in her skull.

Tomorrow was clear. No sessions. Just a design to finish for Raymond, one of her regulars. He wanted a tarantula, something thick-legged, hairy, patient. Robyn already knew which needle she’d use, which one would do the job right.

She showered, changed into her nightclothes, and sank into bed. The phone pulsed with a new message, but she let it fade. No more drama tonight.

Sleep came heavy and soundless.

When she opened her eyes, she was standing in a tattoo shop, but not hers. This place was older, darker. Fluorescent light hummed weakly through yellowed bulbs. The air smelled of ink and scorched metal.

A man stood behind the counter, head bent over a sketchpad. She knew his face before her mind could place the name – Karl Mertens. The same man from the old Inked Visions feature, the one the article read, who’d vanished after that weird “ink possession” rumor years ago.

Robyn stepped closer, unseen, her boots silent on the scuffed linoleum. The music in the shop was old metal, possibly Black Sabbath, maybe, low and ghosted through blown-out speakers.

Karl didn’t look up. His hand moved quickly across the page, sketching something she couldn’t quite see. Robyn leaned closer.

It was a tattoo gun. Her tattoo gun. And the brass needle – her needle – gleamed faintly on the counter beside him, wet and alive in the dim light.

Karl smiled, just barely. “Perfect,” he whispered.

Karl transferred the drawing to a stencil, then rolled up his sleeve. His movements were brisk, mechanical – like he’d done this a hundred times before. He shaved a patch on his forearm, the razor whispering against his skin, and pressed the stencil down.

The image took perfectly. He picked up the gun. It began to hum in his hand, low, like a living thing waking from sleep. He touched the needle to his arm and began tracing the outline. After the first pass, he released his grip, but the gun didn’t stop.

The machine kept working, the needle gliding smoothly along the stencil on its own.

Karl watched it with a calm that felt wrong. His grin was small and patient, almost fatherly.

Robyn couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Even in the dream it felt too real – the smell of ozone, the slight flicker of the overhead lights, the faint buzz vibrating through the air like static before a lightning strike.

The tattoo gun finished the design. There were no ink cups, no wipes, no blood – just skin and movement.

Then dark red lines began to bloom from the tattoo, racing outward in frantic, branching veins – up his arm, across his throat, climbing his jaw.

Karl looked up from the gun, his eyes fixed straight on her.
“It will take you,” he said, his voice low and cracked, “like it took me.”

The gun in his hand began to scream – a higher, sharper hum that filled the room.

Robyn bolted upright in bed, gasping.

The hum was still there.
Only now, it was coming from her room…and it was louder.

 Half awake, Robyn thought she heard the hum again – low, steady, coming from somewhere near the foot of her bed.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark. Karl Mertens was standing there.

The tattoo gun hung in his hand, its brass needle gleaming faintly in the moonlight leaking through the blinds. Thin red lines spiderwebbed across his face and arms, glowing like veins filled with fire. His eyes…glassy and wet, locked onto hers.

He took a slow step forward. The hum deepened.

In his other hand, he held a straight razor. The blade caught the faint light, flashing once as he flicked it open.

Robyn tried to move, but her limbs felt pinned, paralyzed by the heavy fog of sleep. Karl crouched beside the bed, his smile stretched too wide. He brought the razor close, the edge whispering as it scraped across her skin.

She tried to scream, but no sound came out…only a strangled breath.

Then the pain hit, a small, quick burn on her forearm.

She screamed.

Her eyes flew open.

The room was empty. The hum gone. Just her own ragged breathing and the faint tick of the wall clock.

She reached for the lamp on her nightstand and turned it on.

The yellow light filled the room.

Everything looked normal – except for one thing.

A small patch of her forearm was bare, the hair cleanly shaved away.

She left the lamp on the rest of the night, sleeping in jittery, half-hour bursts. Every time her eyes closed, she saw the razor flash, the red lines, the look on Karl’s face.

When the first slivers of daylight pushed through the blinds, she gave up on sleep.

Her arm was the first thing she looked at. The small bald patch was still there, smooth, clean, undeniable. That part had been real.
The rest? She didn’t know. Maybe she’d nicked herself the night before and just forgot.
“Yeah, right,” she muttered, not even convincing herself.

She brewed coffee strong enough to wake the dead and got dressed. The ride to the studio helped clear her head, the air cold enough to sting her cheeks. She told herself to focus on Raymond’s design, on ink and line and shadow. If she could lose herself in the work, the rest of it would fade.

By midmorning, the studio smelled like cleaner, coffee, and lemon oil. She kept the front lights off so no one would think it was open, but the music was cranked loud – her favorite mix of grunge and heavy metal. The bass thumped through her bones.

And still, underneath it, the hum.

It wasn’t just a sound. It was a pulse – steady, low, coming from the toolbox on her station. It vibrated faintly through the air, through her hands, through her chest.

She forced herself to ignore it and went back to sketching. The tarantula’s legs curved perfectly, each line crisp and deliberate. But after an hour of hunching over the page, her neck locked up and her arm ached. She leaned back in her chair, eyes tracing the slow tick of the second hand on the wall clock.

Then the sting came – sharp, electric.

She looked down.

The bare patch on her arm was inflamed, red lines spidering outward beneath the skin. The welt swelled, rising like heat-blistered paint.

And then, impossibly, it started to form shape – lines crossing, tightening, becoming something deliberate.

The outline of a tattoo gun.
And the brass needle.

Exactly as she’d seen it in her dream.

Robyn pulled open the bottom drawer of her station, the one where she kept old tattoo magazines and reference books – relics from when ink felt like art and not obsession. She thumbed through the worn stacks until she found the issue she’d been looking for. Inked Visions, July Edition.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she flipped to the article. “Master of the Needle: The Life and Legacy of Karl Mertens.” The photo was small, grainy, like it had been photocopied too many times. Karl stood beside his station, a faint smile on his face. His eyes looked alive in the picture – almost too alive.

She pulled her magnifying glass from the pen cup and leaned close, moving it slowly across the page. Karl’s forearm came into focus, the skin pale against the cluttered background. And there it was – faint but undeniable – the tattoo of the brass gun and needle. Same arm. Same placement.

Her breath hitched.

She lowered the glass to look again, this time at the sketches scattered across his workstation. The photo was blurred, but the outlines were there – a scorpion, a dragon, and a tarantula.

She felt the hair on her arms lift. They looked… familiar.

Too familiar.

She tried to tell herself they were just common designs, stock images every artist had drawn a hundred times. But somewhere deep in her chest, a cold certainty was already forming.

She hadn’t just inherited Karl Mertens’ tools.

She was finishing his work.

The dream flashed in her mind like an old camera bulb – bright, hot, and gone in an instant. “It will take you, just as it took me.” His voice echoed in her skull, thin and electric. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.

She looked down at the half-finished drawing of the tarantula and felt an urge rise inside her – to tear it to pieces, to smash the needle, to end it all before it could reach her. The thought burned through her, wild and alive… until the hum swelled and smoothed it away.

Peace settled over her like a drug.

The tarantula will be the best of them all, she thought. Then it’ll be done.

She hunched over the sketch again. Her hand moved with mechanical precision, guided by something beyond her. The hum wasn’t just in her ears now – it pulsed behind her eyes, syncing with her heartbeat, each line she drew pulling her deeper into it.

When she finally looked up, the light in the front windows had dimmed to violet. The neon sign outside buzzed to life, casting pink and blue veins across the floor. Six hours gone. Just – gone.

Her body ached. Her lips felt split and dry. She stretched, and when she looked down at the drawing, she froze. The tarantula looked alive. The legs, the sheen, the depth – real enough to crawl off the page if it wanted.

A grin crept across her mouth, slow and wrong.
“Raymond’s gonna die for this one,” she murmured to no one. “That’s for sure.”

She grabbed a bottle of water from the mini-fridge, twisted it open, and drank until it was empty. The water stung her cracked lips.

On her way back to the station, she caught her reflection in the full-length mirror – and stopped.

Her breath hitched.

The face staring back wasn’t hers.

Karl Mertens’ red, glassy eyes blinked from the mirror, his skin webbed with faint red lines, his forearms covered in ink and scars. His mouth moved – but she didn’t hear the words. Only the hum.

The reflection of Karl Mertens moved first, then reached through the mirror.

Robyn froze. She should’ve stepped back, but her feet wouldn’t obey. The glass rippled like water, and his hand – pale and dead-looking – broke through, closing around her wrist.

The cold hit her instantly.

It wasn’t just cold – it bit. It sank through her skin, straight into the bone. Her breath hitched, and white vapor poured from her mouth. She tried to yank her arm back, but her muscles responded like they were underwater.

Karl’s glassy red eyes locked on hers, unblinking. His mouth didn’t move, but she could feel the words forming in her skull, vibrating behind her teeth:
It’s already begun.

He lifted his other hand and pressed it to the spot on her arm where the gun welt had been. The pain was immediate – sharp, freezing, alive. She gasped. Frost began to bloom under his palm, spidering across her skin in delicate white veins.

She tried again to pull free, but his grip tightened, cold smoke seeping from his fingers. It crawled up her arm, over her shoulder, licking toward her face. Her breath came in short bursts, every exhale a puff of steam.

Then the mirror began to freeze.

Thin cracks spread outward, frosting the surface until the reflection disappeared completely under a sheet of solid ice. The hum – the one she’d felt for days – screamed in her ears, then stopped.

The silence was absolute.

Robyn stumbled backward, landing hard on the floor, clutching her arm. It still burned with cold. Her teeth chattered as she looked back at the mirror – expecting to see Karl step through.

Nothing.

No ice. No frost. Just her own reflection staring back – wide-eyed, pale, and shaking.

& & &

The morning sunlight cut through the blinds in thin, bright knives, striping Robyn’s face and pillow. She groaned, rubbing her eyes until the blur of sleep burned away. For a long moment, she just lay there, watching dust move through the beams of light. Her ceiling looked too white, too still, like a blank page waiting for something to be written on it.

The night before drifted away, fog thinning in her memory. The shop. The mirror. Karl. None of it seemed real now.

She tried to think of the day ahead. Raymond was coming in for his tarantula tattoo. She frowned. Had she finished the sketch? The last thing she remembered was the sketch half done on the page, the spider’s legs trailing into nothing. But somehow, that didn’t feel right. It felt finished.

She got out of bed on autopilot – each movement a routine she’d done a thousand times: water, coffee, brew, cup, sip. The coffee scalded her tongue, bitter and grounding.

She looked down at her arm.
The welt was still there – angry, raised, and now tinted with faint color, bruised like something beneath the skin was bleeding through. The lines of the tattoo gun and needle seemed softer today, almost alive under the surface.

She touched it gently. It was warm.

Robyn finished her coffee at the kitchen bar, refusing to think too deeply. Stay in the moment, she told herself. Stay here. Stay now.

She walked to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and waited as the mirror fogged over. The hiss of the water filled the small space, comforting and constant. She stripped and stepped under the stream, letting it beat against her shoulders and face. The heat loosened the tightness in her body, steaming away the static in her thoughts.

For the first time in what felt like forever, she felt clean – empty of everything but the pulse of water.

When she finally turned off the shower, the silence that followed was too deep.

She dressed, grabbed her helmet from the counter, and reached down for her bag.
It wasn’t there.

Her stomach tightened. “Shop… it’s at the shop,” she muttered.

Then she froze.

A cold ripple moved through her gut, quick and sharp. The thought of going back to the shop made her skin crawl. She didn’t know why. There was no reason – just a sense, deep in her chest, that she’d left something behind that wasn’t hers anymore.

She swallowed, staring at the helmet in her hands.
She needed to go.
Raymond was expecting her.

So why did it feel like the shop was expecting her back too?

Robyn pulled the bike into her usual spot behind the shop and killed the engine. The silence afterward felt heavy. She took off her helmet, ran her fingers through her short black hair, and stared at the back door.

Her hand found the doorknob.

Then the memories flickered – grainy black-and-white frames jerking through her mind like an old film reel. She saw herself crawling toward this same door, heard her own voice shouting into emptiness… and another voice answering, low and wrong. The panic from last night bloomed fresh in her chest.

Then came the hum.

It started softly at the base of her skull, warm and gentle, spreading through her like honey in hot tea. The fear drained out, replaced by that deep, artificial calm. Her stomach unknotted. Her breathing slowed.

A small grin curled across her lips – too sharp to be hers.

She turned the knob and opened the door.

The smell hit first – lemons, antiseptic, and the faint tang of metal. The hum swelled in her mind, like a chorus welcoming her home.

Crazy Train blared from the speakers. The neon lights buzzed in the front windows, pink and blue bleeding across the dark shop floor. The overheads were still off.

Her workstation sat exactly as she’d left it – only now the tarantula sketch was finished. Every leg drawn, every hair inked in fine black lines.

Her movements turned mechanical. The hum smoothed every thought, every twitch of resistance. She watched herself from a distance – inside, but powerless – as her hands worked with calm precision.
Stencil. Tools. Tray. Gun and needle laid out, gleaming, ready.

She sat at the counter like a guard dog watching a gate. Waiting.

Somewhere deep inside, Robyn pressed against the glass, screaming soundlessly.

The thing inside her turned its attention inward. Its thoughts brushed hers, cold and gleeful.

Almost done, it whispered. Waiting is always the hardest part.

Then came the laugh – thin, shrill, echoing through her skull like metal scraping on metal.

Robyn saw Raymond coming up the walk, waving through the front windows before pushing the door open. His smile was real – warm, human.

Inside, Robyn screamed. She pounded against the walls of her own mind, but no sound escaped.

Her mouth – not hers anymore – smiled.
“Ready for the tattoo of a lifetime?” she heard herself say, followed by a short, unnatural chuckle.

The thing inside her turned inward. “Little does he know, huh?” it said, and the shrill laugh rang again, scraping through her skull.

“I’ve been waiting, counting down the days for this,” Raymond said, grinning.

Robyn’s hand slid the stencil across the counter. It didn’t matter if he liked it. He was getting it, one way or another, the thing thought.

“Man, Robyn, this is out of this world,” Raymond said. “Looks like it could walk right off the paper.”

“Let’s get started, shall we?” Robyn replied, that same crooked grin twisting her lips.

She motioned him over to the lounge chair wrapped in sterile plastic. Raymond sat, laid out his arm, still smiling.

Robyn wiped his skin clean, then began shaving the area. “So… are you afraid of spiders?” she asked, the razor whispering across his flesh.

“Guess you forgot,” Raymond chuckled.

Inside, Robyn flinched. You should know that already. You don’t, do you? Not as clever as you think, she told the thing.

It turned its gaze inward, its voice a hiss. “Does it matter, Robyn? He only sees you anyway.” The laugh came again – high, metallic, merciless.

“Sorry, Raymond,” she said aloud. “Been busy lately. You know how it is – everybody wants some.” Her laugh was hollow.

She pressed the stencil firmly against his arm, then peeled the paper away.
“How’s that?”

Raymond studied the purple outline in the mirror and gave a thumbs-up.

Robyn picked up the gun, dipped the needle into black ink, and lowered it onto his skin.

The hum started again.
Deep, steady, alive.

The brass teeth bit into his flesh, each puncture too deliberate, too hungry. A thin, metallic tongue followed behind, licking the blood and ink in delicate swirls.

Robyn stared.
It’s not even a needle… it’s alive.

Inside her head, she whispered, “It’s some kind of thing… creature… demon.”

“Aren’t you observant?” the thing sneered. “Although it’s a bit late for that.”

Robyn no longer felt the gun in her hand. She was just a watcher now, trapped in her own body.

Raymond lay there with his eyes closed, relaxed, smiling.

Inside her skull, Robyn screamed and clawed and begged. But the hum rose louder, swallowing every sound.

Robyn watched as the thing floated above Raymond’s arm – biting, licking, feeding – as it moved along the stencil in perfect rhythm.
There was nothing she could do but watch helplessly.

“Raymond! Open your eyes… look at the needle! Look at me, for Pete’s sake! Can’t you see it’s not me?” she screamed inside.

But Raymond just lay there, peaceful, lulled by the soft, hypnotic hum of the needle.

When it was over, Robyn’s hands – not hers anymore – placed the gun carefully on the tray, like a surgeon laying down an instrument after a successful operation. She wiped the excess ink and blood from his arm; the wipes came away almost spotless.

Raymond sat up and looked at his new tattoo in the mirror.
“Killer,” he said. “Absolute killer. That’s why I come to you, Robyn. You’re the best.”

Robyn’s voice smiled before her face did.
“Thank you, Raymond. They don’t call me the Master of the Needle for nothing.”

She wrapped the fresh ink in sterile plastic, then handed him the aftercare instructions.
“Apply the lotion twice a day, and don’t scratch it,” she said, her lips smiling while her eyes stayed dead.

Raymond nodded, pulled out his wallet, paid, and headed for the door.
“Guess I’ll see you later, then. Maybe for another one.”

“Not likely,” Robyn muttered under her breath.

He waved once more through the front window before disappearing down the street.

Inside her head, Robyn collapsed to her knees.
He’s going to dead before nightfall…she thought.

“How could you?” she screamed inwardly. “Why? Why do you do this?”

The thing turned toward her voice, its presence stretching and twisting in the dark.
“This is what I do,” it said, almost tenderly. “I’ve been here a long, long time. And when I’m done with you, I’ll have to wait for another one of you to come along.”

It paused. Robyn could feel it smiling somewhere behind her eyes.
“Like I said… waiting is the worst part. Feeding, though—”

A rasping laugh echoed through her skull.
“Feeding is the best part.”

& & &

Robyn dreamed again.
She was standing in a room she didn’t recognize – bare walls, flickering light, and the smell of metal and blood. Raymond sat in the center of the room, shirt off, his new tattoo glistening wet under the light.

“Raymond?” she whispered.

He looked up at her, confusion flickering in his eyes. Then the tattoo began to move.

The tarantula’s legs twitched.
The ink bubbled and peeled away from his skin, crawling up his arm in slick, writhing tendrils. Raymond screamed, clawing at it, but the sound twisted into a gurgle as the spider-shaped tattoo reared back and sank its fangs into his neck.

Robyn tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t move.
Raymond fell to the floor, eyes wide, froth collecting at his lips. The spider dissolved into his skin, leaving nothing but two small punctures on his throat.

She dropped to her knees beside him, sobbing, “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t – ”

The whisper came again.
“The cycle feeds.”

She jolted awake in her bed, drenched in sweat. The hum was gone. Just silence. For the first time in days, her head was empty.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text.

Katy: “Hey Robyn. Did you hear about Raymond? He’s gone. They say it was a spider bite. They couldn’t find the spider…”

Robyn read it twice, numb. Then her arm began to itch.

& & &

She rolled up her sleeve. The tattoo of the gun and needle was no longer just a welt. It had color now – dark brass and oily black – inked as if it had always been there.

She traced it with a trembling finger. The metal shimmered under her skin, almost alive.

A slow hum began, deep and low, like a heartbeat under the floorboards.

Robyn smiled faintly. “It’s done,” she whispered. “You’re full now.”

Her reflection in the mirror smiled back – only the eyes were wrong.

& & &

Two days later, the old woman returned and found Robyn in the tattoo shop.
She was lying on the floor beside her station, her eyes open, the faintest smile on her lips. The smell of lemon cleaner still hung in the air. The tattoo gun with a brass needle rested beside her hand, perfectly clean.

No sign of struggle. No blood. Just a finished tattoo on her arm – the gun and brass needle, complete and gleaming as if freshly polished.

& & &

A few months later….at a small flea market at the edge of town

“Yeah, my cousin did tattoos,” the man said, wiping dust off an old photo frame. “Real good work, too. Shame what happened to her.”

He sorted through boxes of her old sketches – spiders, scorpions, dragons, and set them on the folding table.

At the bottom of the box, wrapped in an old shop towel, sat a brass tattoo needle. Tarnished, worn, but heavy in the hand.

The buyer turned it over, admiring its craftsmanship.
“Man, they don’t make ‘em like this anymore.”

The man smiled faintly.
“Yeah,” he said. “That one’s got history.”

Somewhere deep inside the brass, so faint it could be mistaken for imagination, a hum began.

* * * * THE END * * * *

Copyright David York 2026

Image Source: Chu CHU from Unsplash.com