The Dragon Tattoo | SCP-021

Jamie had been out of prison for six hours when he walked into a dark bar off the highway. He was 32, carrying a paper bag with a rosary, a few hundred dollars, and the address of a motel. He ordered a Modelo, then another. The bartender poured him a shot of Jose Cuervo. “Welcome back.”

His arms were covered in tattoos—most of them done by Mateo Ortiz, his cellmate for 14 months, using a rig made from an electric toothbrush motor, a ballpoint pen barrel, tape, and a guitar string filed to a point. It hurt like a wasp sting. Mateo called them “scratchers.” Jamie loved every square inch. The Virgin Mary took up his entire chest, her face modeled on Mateo’s mother. Across his stomach, “Madre” ran in fat script for his own mother, whose funeral he missed.

A thin man in long sleeves sat at the far end of the bar, nursing a warm beer. He had white blotches on his neck and jaw. He kept staring at Jamie. When Jamie finally called him out, the man apologized, laughed, and came over. “It’s just your tattoos, man. Looks like the stuff my dad had.” Jamie, disarmed, showed him the Virgin. The man asked for a closer look. Then his hand closed on Jamie’s forearm like a vice. His sleeve rode up, revealing a dense mass of oval shapes on his wrist—scales. Were they moving?