Writing Prompt / Story Starter 32

Nobody knew his real name. Everyone just called him the Tattooed Man. It seemed like something of a misnomer to Stephen, though. He wasn’t so much tattooed as vandalised, defaced. The images scrawled onto his body looked like the work of a demented child. Only the demented child was the Tattooed Man himself, or so the story went.

Each of the images etched into his flesh was a portrait of one of his victims. He was no draftsman, so the faces staring out from his hide were variously bloated, palsied, cross-eyed or otherwise deformed. Lack of artistic merit was exacerbated by the fact that the Tattooed Man didn’t employ the tools of the professional tattoo artist; instead, he used broken glass, razor blades and ink bought from a stationery shop. His portraits were raw, swollen and angry with the threat of infection.