Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee

by Edward Lee

  On the large television before the couch they watched. The frame showed the corner of the room-empty at this point-in normal light. Suddenly, Nyvysk backed up into it, eyes wide and grim. In a moment, he was backed up into the corner, as if retreating from something.

  "It looks like he's afraid," Karen said, a hand to her face.

  "Afraid of what?" Mack said.

  "Maybe this'll show us." Westmore hit another switch, which overlayed the ion-scan. The screen turned black, except-

  The area in which Nyvysk stood glittered with luminous, dandelion-yellow dots. The dots were arranged to a vaguely human shape.

  "Those sparkles are Nyvysk?" Karen asked.

  "Yeah, or I should say they're a recording of the ions in the air that are changing their electrical charges by his physical body being there-"

  "And what's that?" Mack asked next, with some alarm.

  Another arrangement of lit dots entered the frame, also human-shaped.

  The shape slowly approached Nyvysk, then seemed to embrace him.

  And the shape that was Nyvysk collapsed.

  Westmore hit the normal-light button again. They saw Nyvysk lying dead in the corner, but they also saw-

  "What the hell is that?" Mack asked.

  A churning shape. It was black like a shadow yet it seemed to have some barely formed substance in it.

  Karen trembled. "It looks like one of the things that raped me. A discorporate, Cathleen called it. But that one on the screen is darker; it looks more solid, more shape to it."

  "Then Nyvysk was right about what's happening in the house," Westmore said. "The charge. It's getting steadily stronger, and I guess it'll be at its peak at 6 a.m."

  "The apogee," Mack said.

  "Yeah."

  All three of them looked at the clock. It was past 3 a.m. now.

  "That thing that killed Nyvysk," Mack asked. "Was that Hildreth?"

  "I don't think so. Hildreth was taller, wasn't he? I think whatever killed Nyvysk was something from his past that's lure now."

  Mack seemed more ill-at-ease than ever. "I'm not in it for this. Me and Karen-we just work for Vivica now. We're not signed up for shit like this. If the things in this houseghosts or whatever-can kill people that easily ... "

  "It could happen to us," Karen finished with a fret.

  "Maybe, but I don't think so," Westmore said. He eyed the ornate liquor cabinet across the room. Shit, I could use a drink now. "The mansion seems to be targeting the people it's in tune with ---psyrkic people."

  "Adrienne and Willis," Mack said.

  "But Nyvysk wasn't psychic," Karen said.

  "No, but he was a priest who used to perform exorcisms," Westmore said. "Or maybe I'm totally wrong and we're all screwed. But I'm sticking around till 6 a.m. You two want to leave, go ahead. I wouldn't blame you."

  "Let's stay, stick together," Mack suggested.

  Karen seemed Its enthusiastic but willing. "At least let's find Cathleen."

  But when the doors clicked open, and they all turned, they saw that Cathleen had found them.

  She walked silently into the room, her dress clinging by profuse sweat to her body's contours. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide as she looked back at them.

  "Cathleen," Westmore began. "What-"

  "I'm not Cathleen ..."

  "It's one of those trances again:' Mack said.

  "She's possessed," Karen whispered.

  Not possessed, Westmore remembered. "She's a medium. Someone else is speaking through her."

  "Hildreth," someone said.

  Cathleen moved closer. "No. He can't touch me now" As she moved, she seemed unstable, exhausted yet determined to do something. "At 6 a.m. Hildreth reopens the Rive."

  "The what?" Mack asked.

  "The doors of the Chirice Flaesc will open. But they won't open in Hell. They'll open here."

  "What happens then?" Westmore asked shakily.

  "Then what went in on April 3rd will come back out, six-hundred and sixty-six hours after she entered on the night of the slaughter."

  "You mean Deborah Rodenbaugh, don't you?"

  Cathleen nodded tranquilly. "The virgin, yes. The ultimate homage, the perfect innocence defiled. It's all a symbol, since time immemorial. Belarius will be done with her, and unless you stop him, he will have succeeded."

  Westmore stepped closer. "Succeeded at what?"

  "When the Rive opens, all becomes here as it is there. All becomes flesh. Hildreth was Belarius' disciple. He arranged everything, has been planning this for years. But the tether of my spirit is pulling me now I can't stay-"

  "Don't go yet!" Westmore shouted. "We need to know more!"

  Were the lights in the room wavering?

  "The house is getting stronger," Adrianne said through Cathleen's mouth. "Which means the things in the house are getting stronger."

  They stared back at her.

  "Hildreth is getting stronger ..."

  There was the faintest crackling sound. Then Cathleen's long bright-blonde hair lifted up as if by massive static.

  She toppled to the floor.

  "My God," Karen said.

  When Westmore and Mack went to pick Cathleen up, she shrieked, flailed her arms at them. "Get away, get away!" and with the outburst Westmore and Mack were thrown back. The chairs around the conference table fell over, the gauss-sensors blew ten feet across the floor, and several paintings dropped off the wall to the floor.

  "Cathleen!" Westmore shouted at her. "It's us! Relax! You're okay!"

  When Cathleen's eyes snapped open the screen on the television imploded.

  "Jesus!" Mack exclaimed. "What's that all about?"

  "She was coming back from the trance, and she was confused." Westmore helped Cathleen to the couch. "I guess she lost control of her telekinetic abilities."

  "Like in the office, when Hildreth was talking through her," Karen ventured.

  ..Y

  Cathleen's eyes were fluttering open; she brought a hand to her forehead when she looked around the room. "Oh, God. I didn't hurt anybody, did I?"

  "No, we're all fine. Are you?"

  Cathleen laved back, staring. "Adrian= found me ..

  "Yes. Do you remember what she said?"

  A pause, and then Cathleen said, "Yes;' and then she looked fearfully to the dock. "Two and a half hours:'

  "Did Adrianne say anything else to you, before she began communicating to us?"

  "I ... think so." Cathleen frowned. "Damn it, I can't remember."

  Westmore sat down and fit a cigarette. Mack and Karen both poured themselves strong drinks.

  "What do we do now?" Karen asked.

  "Wait," Cathleen said. "For the Rive to open."

  "It'll happen in the Scarlet Room. So that's where we're going," Westmore made the decision. "Right now."

  IX

  Clements had slipped into the office during his search. He shook his head when he saw Willis' body behind the desk. Poor stupid sap ... But true nausea swept over him when he errantly glanced at a lit computer monitor and saw-

  Holy mother of Cod, those sick, sick peces of slat!

  It was Debbie, leaning groggily up on a table after having her vagina closed by tiny chrome rings.

  I can't wait to kip Hildreth, my God, I just CAN'T FUCKIN' WAIT!

  Staying in the office would be fruitless, and so would examining more DVD's for evidence of Debbie. He'd seen all he needed to. At least it wasn't a snuff film, those sick fuckers ...

  Clements spun, drew one of his guns.

  Was that a chuckle he heard?

  Clements smiled. "If that's you, Hildreth-come and get me." He left the office, without a trace of fear, and began to check the rest of the house.

  X

  Connie was stringing, but it wasn't too bad now. She'd gone a week without crack-the longest since she'd first put the pipe to her lips. She was edgy, nervous, "crackbugs" crawling on her skin. But Clements had been right: a lot of the physical addiction was going aw
ay, leaving her only to deal with the psychological. She knew she'd be able to do it if he didn't abandon her.

  She'd never known a man like him. He doesn't want anything, not like the johns, not like every other asshole out there with a big line of bullshit ...

  Connie knew she shouldn't take her blessings for granted. This was her last chance.

  The nightsounds irritated her-crickets and spring peepers. It seemed too loud. And in spite of the night's humid heat, the moonlight on her face felt cold.

  She cast her eyes to the mansion; her gut twisted.

  Please be careful in there, she thought.

  She kept patting her pocket, to make sure the cell phone was still there. Clements and the others probably wouldn't be out for several hours. She wandered off the toad a bit, then began walking around the woodline without really thinking about it. Before she knew it, she was a third of the way around the outer grounds and found herself entering a path that descended into the trees.

  Where the- Oh, shit ...

  She'd wandered back to the cemetery without even realizing it. What is wrong with you, Connie? A week without sack has made you scatterbrained ...

  The last place she wanted to be was the cemetery. She remembered what they'd found last night. The bum's dead body in the coffin had been bad enough, but in the other hole? Those rotten ... THINGS. Connie didn't care what anyone said. They sure as shit didn't look human to her.

  So what was she doing?

  Instead of walking out of the graveyard, she walked around the gate, to the hole with the things. Could a dead human really look like that? Like big plastic bags full of butter, she thought, queasy. She didn't know what morbid curiosity caused her to do this but she did it just the same.

  She turned on her flashlight and shined it down into the hole.

  And stared.

  The hole was empty.

  And she would've doubted that anyone heard her scream as she turned around and found a naked woman standing right in front of her. The woman looked like she could've crawled out of a grave herself: gray skin sucked down tight over veins, ribs showing, belly sucked in. Her pubic bone jutted like someone with anorexia, and her eyes were so dark and sunken they could've been pits.

  "You should've gotten in that car and driven away," the woman said but by now decomposition had degraded her voice to a liquefied rasp. The woods sucked up Connie's next shriek and then the corpse standing before her-in life a locksmith named Vanni but in death a marionette of the abyss-shoved Connie into the empty hole.

  The corpse looked down, a bony silhouette before the moonlight, and then another figure was standing next to it, tall, erect, poised.

  Connie screamed once more when she realized it was Reginald Hildreth, and she screamed even harder when the four Adiposians began to climb down into the hole, faceless in their glee, lard-colored genitals inflamed.

  XI

  By 4:30, Clements had searched a good deal of the mansion's upper floors. He encountered no one, nor any trace of Debbie or Hildreth. If anything, the house seemed drab, incapable of whatever event it was that Westmore expected. At one point, he ducked into one of the parlors, at the sound of voices. Peeking through the door's gap, he spied Westmore and the others moving up the stairs at the end of the hall, probably on their way to this Scarlet Room where Hildreth had butchered most of the victims on April 3rd.

  He stood still, watched them disappear, and continued. Clements still didn't want to be seen, not yet, and not unless it was absolutely necessary.

  He'd already checked the Scarlet Room, one of the first places he'd searched. A red room-that was all. Nothing of interest, nor suspicion. Just some insane rich guy's obsession, Clements thought. What the fuck does that psychopath expel? It didn't matter, though. Clements knew deep down that Hildreth was in this house somewhere ...

  When he was done checking all the rooms on the third floor, he ducked back into the office and withdrew his cell phone. Better check up on Connie ... He dialed, waited, waited some more.

  Christ. Why isn't she answering?

  He could go back outside but he didn't want to chance that. Might not be able to get back in. Maybe the house frame was obstructing the cell's line of reception.

  That's what the problem is, he made the mistake of thinking.

  Clements made one more mistake before leaving the office-not a mistake as much as an oversight.

  He didn't notice that Willis' body was no longer behind the desk.

  X11

  Westmore parted the drapes and peered out the high, gunslit window for no real reason. The night stared back at him, tinged by moonlight that seemed brighter than it should be. Damn, I'm tired, he thought. He turned back around to see that Karen and Mack had already fallen asleep on two red-velvet couches. Cathleen sat at the red-veneered table in the room's rear. She could barely keep her head up.

  "What time is it?"

  "Quarter of five," Westmore said, looking at his watch. The Scarlet Room stood around them in its church-like appointment. But the room felt dead.

  "Why is it," Westmore began, "that the one room in the house that should feel the creepiest-and looks the most satanic-doesn't feel that way at all?"

  "Wait till 6 a.m.," Cathleen said. "Charges can change drastically."

  "Do you believe all this stuff about the apogee?"

  "I don't know" She rubbed sleep out of her eyes. "I guess we should, though. We've seen too much already."

  You can say that again, Westmore thought. "What should we do if-" but the rest of his sentence trailed off. Cathleen had fallen asleep.

  Westmore didn't want to fall asleep himself, in spite of his exhaustion. Was he too afraid of what he might wake up to? I just don't want to miss the stroke of 6 a.m., he assured himself.

  The others were all sound asleep now. Coffee would be a good idea, so he left the Scarlet Room, closed the doors quietly behind him. There was a coffee machine in the office, so he trudged down to the third floor. Only then did he wonder about Clements. If he'd found anything, he would've called. I wonder where he is by now?

  In the office he walked around the desk to turn on the coffee machine but stalled.

  Willis' body was gone.

  Westmore was uncomprehending. Who the hell would ... He was sure Willis was dead. None of the group could've moved the body because he'd been with them. Had Clements moved it?

  Why would he?

  Why would anyone?

  Impulse took him quickly down the stairs, into the South Atrium-

  Nyvysk's body was gone.

  He dashed to the kitchen and flung open the walk-in refrigerator.

  Adrianne's body was gone.

  This is supremely fucked up.

  Next he ran back to the foyer, ran up the steps to the second floor, turned at the landing to proceed to the third.

  And all the lights went out in the house.

  He stood now in total dark. The house ticked around him, and he felt a prickly static on his arms. Then-

  smack!

  Something cracked him on the head from behind. Westmore collapsed on the landing.

  Unconsciousness dragged his eyes closed. Before he passed out altogether, though, he saw the faintest light at the top of the stairs-light that was somehow dark-and in that light stood the image of Reginald Hildreth.

  He was smiling.

  X111

  Clements dialed Connie again, waited and waited. There was no answer. DAMN IT! Where is she?

  When the lights went out, he was shrouded by confusion more than fear. Was it a simple power outage, or had someone turned the power off deliberately? Suddenly Clements felt inept and lost.

  He didn't know the layout of the house at all. His flashlight beam took him down another strange hall, with grim statues and strange faces in portraits scowling after him. He knew he should go find Connie, but

  It was getting close to six o'clock.

  He followed another long hall. Two double doors. When he entered ...

&n
bsp; The room's murk was so dense it seemed to reduce the brightness of the flashlight by half. Where am I? Clements thought, stupefied. What is this?

  Nude, wax-white bodies had been suspended upsidedown in the center of the room. They'd all been beheaded.

  Barely able to think, Clements came forward. A numb instinct caused him to draw his gun, a large semi-automatic pistol. A round nearly went off when he stumbled, and when he looked down to see what he'd stumbled on-

  He moaned, sick to his stomach.

  It was Connie's head that he'd stumbled on, and when his eyes dragged up to the first hanging body, there could be no mistake. It was Connie's thin and very pale corpse which hung there.

  A sweep of the flashlight showed him more heads on the floor: Nyvysk, Willis, Adrianne Saundland, and their own stripped bodies hanging in vicinity. Madness, Clements thought. Hildreth is still alive. He did this.

  At least there was one relief. None of the bodies was Debbie's.

  The farthest wall back seemed to shimmer scarlet. Buckets sat on the floor; it was clear what had been done.

  He drained all their blood ... into those buckets. Then threw the blood on the wall.

  Next came a click! and an ear-splitting BANG!

  Clements fell to the floor. Pain shot across his head: the bullet had grazed his temple.

  But he wasn't afraid.

  He was elated.

  "Okay, Hildreth!" he shouted. "Let's go!"

  And then he opened fire.

  XIV

  Westmore's consciousness surfaced through a throbbing black fog. A steady pain beat in his skull-with a sound.

  A bell.

  No, a chime.

  He leaned up on the stairs when it occurred to him what the chimes were.

  The clock!

  The pendulum clock in the foyer. It was sounding 6 a.m. The

  He struggled up, against a strange gravity, then ran up the stairs, crossing one landing to the next. His shoes felt like bricks when he stomped down the hall and threw open the doors to the Scarlet Room.

  He hesitated a second, then plunged in.

  Only moonlight through the windows lit the room. The room stood empty, normal.

  And there was nobody in it.

  Karen, Mack, and Cathleen were gone. They'd been sleeping here an hour ago.

  And absolutely nothing was happening in the Scarlet Room.