Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee

by Edward Lee

  "We'll take it from here," Clements directed. "Leave two shovels so we can fill it in. You guys get your asses out of here and get back to my place. There's two cases waiting on ice."

  Westmore distantly thanked them as they filed out of the graveyard and disappeared. Now the three of them stood in a troubling silence. We're about to open a grave. Who's in there? Westmore walked to the hole and looked down.

  "Connie, hold the light down here." Clements got in with a crowbar while Connie focused the narrow penlight beam. The coffin wasn't latched; Clements opened the lid with ease.

  "What do you think? Doesn't look like Hildreth to me...

  "It isn't," Connie said, squinting.

  Westmore peered in, a tall, lean man in his sixties, grayish hair, flesh sagging from a few weeks of putrefaction. "Same height and weight. Are you sure?"

  "It's not him," Connie insisted. "I know that guy-"

  "What?" Westmore and Clements said simultaneously.

  "Jesus. That's one of the rummies who lives under the 275 overpass. I'd see him all the time walking to the main drag whenever I needed to cop some crack." She turned away, waylaid by the sight. "Look and see if a bunch of his teeth are missing."

  Clements pried the jaw down with the tip of his shoe. "About half of 'em have fallen out." He looked at Westmore. "Satisfied?"

  "I guess." It clearly wasn't Hildreth. "A substitute body, same basic age, height, and build."

  "I'm waiting out here," Connie said, edging out of the graveyard. "This place is too fucking creepy."

  Westmore couldn't disagree. "Vivica told me that the obituary and autopsy report were faked by someone she paid."

  Clements kicked the lid closed, hopped out. "Fucker stinks."

  "But Adrianne said she saw a body in it."

  "Huh? You mean she went to the funeral?"

  "No, what I mean is she saw a body in the coffin when she was having an out-of-body experience."

  Clements grinned his hilarity in the moonlight. "You pin-head. She's probably the one who put the body in the coffin."

  "She's a one-hundred-pound woman, for God's sake," Westmore countered. "You're saying that she killed a bum to pose as Hildreth's corpse and then came out here, dug open the grave, and put the body in an empty coffin?"

  "Somebody did." Clements lit a cigarette. "I told you not to trust anyone in that house, and don't believe any of the psychic hokum they're spouting. It's bullshit."

  "The one I trust the least is Mack," Westmore said. "Everyone else seems pretty straight-up."

  "Lemme know when you wanna buy the fuckin' Brooklyn Bridge--I can get you a good price. Let's fill this hole in and get out of here." He grabbed a shovel, tossed the other one to Westmore, when Connie said: "Hey, Bart. I-I think there's something here ..."

  She was standing just outside the graveyard fence, to their right. Leaning over, she aimed the light, pushing at something with her foot.

  Then she yelped and leapt backward. "There's something there! I think it's a hand!"

  Westmore and Clements jumped over the fence, wielding penlights of their own. "Calm down," Clements said. "Where?"

  Teeth chattering, she pointing down.

  "Ground's soft," Westmore noticed at once. He dragged the blade of his shovel over the leaves on the ground, revealing tilled earth.

  "Someone's already been digging here," Clements said. "One of your cronies from that freakshow in there."

  Westmore thought back. "Cathleen claims she was raped by something right on this spot, the area right next to Hildreth's grave, she said."

  "She's fuckin' high. But there is something here. This dirt's already been turned once." He fished around some more with his blade. "What the ..."

  "What is that?" Westmore asked, squinting down.

  "It's a hand!" Connie exclaimed.

  But was it? In the narrow beams of light, they saw something that looked like a white glove. Clements knelt, picked up the glove, then muttered "Oh, my God," when something long and white came up along with it.

  Something like an arm attached to the glove.

  No one spoke; instead, Clements and Westmore gingerly dug at the area. Whatever lay beneath hadn't been buried deeply. It seemed more haphazard than a standard grave. A rotten meat-stench rose up, gagging them. All the while, Westmore was thinking. What are these things?

  They unearthed several bodies, but they seemed to lack features, even bone structures. Arms, legs, and heads, or facsimiles thereof. Westmore couldn't see well in the penlight beams ... but he didn't need to.

  "They're not human.. ."

  "Of course they are," Clements said, yet didn't sound convinced himself. "They're rotten corpses, stripped down. They look like floaters. Buried that shallow they'll rot down fast, build up a lot of gas."

  When Connie looked into the pit, she turned away, choking.

  "And the gas could be toxic," Clements went on, "and we're breathing the shit like a couple of idiots. Let's cover them back up quick." He started re-covering the paraffinwhite, glistening corpses.

  "How about let's not cover them back up," Westmore suggested. "Let's get out of here, call the cops or something."

  "Put some ass behind that shovel and help me out here." Clements frowned, throwing more dirt back into the pit. "We ain't calling cops or nothing like that. They would defeat our own purpose. I'm getting Debbie Rodenbaugh out of that house. You get a bunch of cops up here, then Vivi- ca'll call off whatever it is she and Hildreth are planning. That would defeat my purpose and yours." Clements poked Westmore in the chest. "You and me have a deal. I told you I'd help you dig up that grave, and you told me you'll let me in that house. Stick to the deal."

  Westmore saw his point, or at least he hoped so. In a few minutes they'd both re-covered the pit and also Hildreth's grave.

  They tossed the shovels into the woods. Connie looked nauseated when they were walking out, and Clements himself looked wrenched, his tough-guy veneer showing a few cracks.

  "He's right," Connie said, indicating Westmore. "Those things didn't look hu-"

  "They're dead human bodies," Clements insisted. "Between this heat and all the rain we had a few weeks agothey get that way. I've seen 'em. They're not fuckin' monsters that Hildreth brought here from some satanic sacrifice. The two of you are letting his whole Lucifer-worshiping guru shit bend your fuckin' brains."

  Westmore was too wracked by sight and stench to say anything. Of course, Clements was right, but he was still appalled by the look of the bodies.

  They traversed the property, back to the service road. "Are you all right?" Clements asked testily. "You look like you're gonna pike."

  "I feel like it."

  "Don't worry. All this shit's gonna be over tomorrow night."

  Westmore popped a brow. "What happens then?"

  "That's when you let me in that house, and I put an end to this. I'm getting Debbie out of there, and I'm finding Hildreth and blowing him away. You don't want to get your hands dirty, fine. Just let me in that house like you agreed."

  Westmore sighed. "All right. What time?"

  "Two a.m. on the nose."

  "Okay."

  Clements and the girl got into the car. "Tonight'll be the last night you spend in that house." He grinned in the moonlight. "Don't get yourself killed, huh? I don't want the next body I dig up to be you," he said and drove off.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I

  It's going to be a long one, Adrianne thought, wandering the house the next day at noon. At first she'd thought of strolling the grounds-it was gorgeous out-but a few minutes outside offered no release from the mansion's heaviness, that feeling of something in the air, something around her pressing down, watching. Outside was just as bad even in the midst of the grass, sun, and sky. Inside or out she couldn't get away from it. It's just me, she hoped, and came back in.

  Portraits and brooding marble busts stared at her in the main hall. When she got to the atrium, she could hear some of the others talking
from the kitchen, proceeding in some semblance of normal social interaction. Adrianne wanted no part of it. She liked the others but didn't want to be around them, couldn't. Other people were a distraction, es pecially before a jaunt. She had to focus. She had to stay in her zone.

  She wandered further up into the communications room, where Nyvysk spent most of his time. Playbacks on certain screens did not enthrall, frighten, or even interest her. Infrared figures and ion signatures of figures in rooms that were physically empty. She jotted a quick note down for Nyvysk, so at least someone would know what she was up to today:

  I'LL BE OBE-ING TODAY, PROBABLY ON THE ROOF. NOT SURE WHEN I'LL BE DONE -ADRIANNE

  She taped it to a monitor, then left.

  When she passed the office, she could hear Westmore in there typing, but she passed the room by without saying hello. She didn't want to talk to anybody right now, at least no one alive or on this plane of existence.

  The only entity she wanted to talk to was Jaemessyn, the temple's seeming gatekeeper.

  For she knew it was only through the Fallen Angel that she might gain access to Belarius.

  This is perfect, she thought awhile later. She'd been wanting to cone up here, just hadn't exactly found it until now After taking further flights of stairs upward, she stepped out onto a roof parapet. There was a sundeck, a lounge chair, and umbrella. Yes. This'll do fine .. .

  Adrian= lay down on the lounge chair, let herself relax. The umbrella shadowed her. What I am afraid oJ? she wondered after several minutes.

  Nothing over there could hurt her here.

  She swallowed one Lobrogaine tablet, closed her eyes, and began to say her preliminary prayers.

  II

  Westmore felt hungover the moment he got out of bed. Wait a minute, he thought. I don't drink. The awful feeling had to be the bodies he'd seen last night. And the stench, which probably was a little toxic, as Clements had warned. But at least he agreed with the older man now: waiting another day to report the bodies would work better. More time to find out what's really going on in this place. Westmore, by now, was cringing to know. Don't blow any whistles yet.

  Words kept nagging at him while he dabbled at his work, the voice of Faye Mullins ...

  They're gonna turn that house into a great big mouth that's gonna eat you.

  He cleared his mind. He plugged in one of the DVD's he'd found in the hidden library, stared dully at it. It seemed the same old thing, the same old smut. Men having sex with women for the sake of having sex, to verify the function of ejaculation externally. But more words itched at him:

  It's gonna suck you all doom and swallow you.

  He blinked and was suddenly staring with more intent. In the next vignette, he recognized the male "star" who was furiously copulating with a blonde who looked drugged out.

  It was Mack.

  There was an initial shock, but- Why should I be shocked? Mack had admitted that he'd been more directly involved with this business in the past. Pornography in L.A. All right. So what? just because the guy's done porn for Hildreth doesn't mean he buried bodies in the woods. Stay real. The scene switched, to the foyer downstairs. This time it was sex on the red-carpeted stairs, but when the svelte woman Mack was with turned around, Westmore almost fell out of his chair.

  It was Vivica Hildreth.

  Westmore needed to adjust to the impact. Seeing her like this-naked, obscenely posed, a patented sex-object--made him feel keenly aroused yet absolutely outraged at the same time. She was indeed a beautiful woman, as enticing nude as he'd imagined when he'd seen her clothed, close to perfect even in her cosmetic-surgery-embellished middle age. Reason returned very quickly, though. Westmore snapped up the cell-phone and dialed her number.

  When her voice-mail came on, he said very stoically, "Mrs. Hildreth, this is Richard Westmore. Right now I'm watching a porn disc with you on it. You're participating in an interesting little sex-scene on the stairs in the foyerwith Mack. I want to know why you lied. I want to know why you told me you've never been in the mansion before. I can't possibly do a job for you unless you're going to be honest with me. I want you to call me back and explain because right now I don't know what to think. I feel like a dupe that's being manipulated with money."

  Steaming, he hung up, lit a cigarette, and ground his teeth. What a sucker I am. But why would she he about never being in the mansion? He tried to calculate a purpose in the he but could think of none. When his phone rang, he almost dropped it by picking it up too fast. That was quick, he thought. Let's see what the queen bee has to say ...

  "Hello?"

  "You sound really happy to hear from me. I swear it wasn't me who killed your dog."

  Westmore frowned. It wasn't Vivica, it was Tom. "Sorry, Tom. I'm a little jacked out of shape here. Thought you were someone else."

  "Well maybe this info will un-jack you. I don't know."

  "You find anything else out about Hildreth?"

  "Nope, just more of the same stuff I told you the other day. Fuckin' guy pays his taxes and has some serious luck in the stock market. As for Vivica Hildreth, she's got no record, nothing in the way of a questionable history. Social climber from Sarasota, Florida. Hooked up with Hildreth in the mideighties. She's fifty-two. All she is is a pinkie-in-the-air gold digger. Looks like she found the right guy to dig on. Arm"

  "And what about Debbie Rodenbaugh?" Westmore rushed.

  "Hold your horses, I was just about to tell you. Deborah Rodenbaugh is a freshman right now at Oxford University, majoring in Art History."

  "Who told you that?"

  "The registration department, two an professors who have her as a student, the director of the Bodleian Library where she has a part-time job, and her."

  "What do you mean `and her?"'

  "I just talked to her on the phone, and by the way, the long-distance call to Oxfordshire, England, goes on your bill. Thirty-five fuckin' bucks, can you believe that?"

  "Yeah, yeah, fine. But you said you talked to her?"

  "Yep. It was about seven p.m. there with the time-change but I got her at her dorm, someplace called Lady Margaret u,n"

  Westmore felt riveted. "What did she say? What did she say about-"

  "Hildreth? She said he was an odd man, but was always very nice to her. Took an interest in her because she was an art enthusiast, like him. She worked for him for a year and a half, office assistant type of thing. She seemed genuinely mournful about his death when her aunt and uncle in Jacksonville told her about it, said she couldn't believe it. In her opinion he wasn't capable of an act like that, and he never seemed crazy. She'll be spending the summer here when the spring semester's over, said to feel free to call her anytime."

  Westmore listened, silent.

  "You get all that, buddy?" Tom asked. "The girl sounded for real."

  "Yeah, yeah," Westmore said. He blinked. "It's a relief."

  "In a little while I'm gonna take a crack at that other info you wanted me to do a search on, the numbers you found in the safe. I'll call you back in a few hours."

  "That's great, Tom. I really appreciate this."

  "No problem. You can buy me fuckin' dinner when I'm all done."

  "You got it."

  Westmore felt relieved and decompressed. Maybe I should call Clements? he considered. He had the ex-cop's cell number. No, better idea. There was still the mystery of Hildreth's missing body. Debbie Rodenbaugh was safe but maybe Clements was right about the rest. Something's still very wrong around here. He had till two a.m. tonight to glean more information. Clements thinks that Hildreth's somewhere in this house too. Maybe I can find him myself first ...

  Westmore left, setting out to do just that. He had all day to search the mansion's every nook, cranny, wall, and room.

  He made two critical mistakes when he left the office. One, he left his cell phone on the desk and, two, he didn't consider for even a moment that everything Tom had just told him might be a lie.

  III

  Three Adiposians s
tared up facelessly at the vessel that was now Adrianne. She stared back at the grotesque things, safe in her bodiless distance. Behind them, the Chirice Flaesc shined in sweat, its skin moving slightly, the veins running across its walls pulsing with vitality.

  I'm here, Adrianne thought. What now?

  "You've come to test me," a voice resonated. Again, the Fallen Angel's voice sounded like light, which was impossible; hence, this impossible domain. Jaemmysin appeared below, next to his mindless attendants-he'd stepped out from the temple's pillars of tense muscle, the penises for fingers Imp from a recent rape of a minor species of demon. Yet as terrifying as the figure was-the angled, beautiful face, and monstrous arms and legs grafted to his angelic body-Adrianne was not afraid. In her out-of-body state, she was a sparrow on a high branch, looking down at the pack of wolves.

  I've come to hold you to your promise, she proclaimed. You're monstrous to look at. But a liar, too?

  The Angel smiled, a rim of bright light within his black halo. I never lie. I never even lied to God, when I knew Him.

  Adrianne's eyeless gaze gestured the temple's closed doors. I want to meet-

  Jaemmysin interrupted, pointing a phallic forger upward. "Don't say his name."

  I want to meet the Sexus Cyning.

  "Open the doors for our polite guest," Jaemmysin commanded the Adiposians. "I grant her permission to enter and to come face to face with our Lord."

  The lard-colored things trod back, slapped their hands onto tendons that served as handles, and pulled. The temple's doors opened with a sound akin to grinding stone, even though they were composed of hot, living skin and muscle ...

  The Adiposians stepped back, and even if mindless, faceless, and soulless entities could not be capable of fear, they seemed terrified. They bowed and disappeared into wet orifices in the wall.

  Jaemmysin lowered himself to his knees.

  The most monstrous thing Adrianne could ever contemplate awaited, a mammoth penis pointing up from stout legs of gray skin and corded muscle. Adrianne's first impulse was to shoot away, to flee forever and leave the horrid place to its secrets.

  "The bold traveler," the strangely tiny voice floated upward. It reminded her of sticks being rubbed together briskly, an etching sound that somehow translated itself into words she could understand. "I am Belarius."