House of Skin

by Jonathan Janz

  You’re going to let your fear of ridicule keep you from saving Paul?

  “Dammit,” she said. She flicked on her brights and turned toward Shadeland.

  The gravel road was pitted and dark, the woods on either side dense and overflowing. Her heart stuttering ominously, Emily bit her lip. Had she made a mistake? If Paul had lived there safely all these months, why would he be in any danger now? It was her they wanted, not Paul.

  Time to go home, Emily. Paul can take care of himself.

  She slowed, ready now to turn around and head back toward the state road, but there was little room to maneuver, and the last thing she needed was to get stuck in a rut and have to hike back to town. She thought again of Paul, of his obsession with horror movies and books, and remembered one of the novels he’d all but forced her to read. She forgot the name now, but it had scared the living crap out of her. The setting, she remembered, was very much like this. Deep in the woods, far from any living soul. The branches smacking the side of her car, her wheels jouncing on the primitive road all sounded like a tribe of demented cannibals. She resolved to never read another scary book again.

  Emily gripped the wheel tighter, thinking of the creatures that had nearly raped her, nearly killed her. She thought of the tongue poking around in her mouth, the penis befouling her skin. Damn you, Paul, she thought. Damn you for leading me to such a horrible place.

  The woods closed in on her bouncing car and she thought of the horror novel, the scene in which the main character had glanced at the rearview mirror and seen the killer staring at her from the backseat.

  “Oh God,” Emily said. The hair on the nape of her neck tingled. She willed her eyes to stay on the road, but knew she had to look. She thought of the leering faces in the walls, the vile laughter surrounding her.

  Emily glanced up at the mirror. In the gloom she could barely see the backseat.

  It appeared to be empty.

  Relaxing a little, Emily turned her attention back to driving and saw the woman in the white dress standing in the road, grinning at her.

  Emily screamed and wrenched the wheel. All she could see was the woman’s leer, the hateful blue eyes, as the Camry left the road and soared over the lip of the ravine, the front end dipping and heading for a huge stone.

  She opened her mouth to scream again, but the weight of the car crushed her on the rock. The car continued over, flipping and settling on its blown tires.

  Emily lay limp in her seatbelt, her eyes seeping blood.

  April 1990

  Julia looked up from her reading. Someone had knocked on the screen door. Setting her book of poems on the floor beside the rocking chair, she moved through the silent house. She hoped her mother had come home. She opened the screen door.

  And saw the bad woman in the hospital gown disappear into the woods.

  Julia looked down.

  Her mother lay in the grass below the porch, the skin around her face gone. She walked down the steps and stared at where her mother’s face had been.

  She saw her mom’s white skirt had been raised, her underwear taken off. Sticking out of her, only the circular handles visible, was a pair of scissors.

  Book Three

  Annabel

  Chapter Nineteen

  Paul ran to get it out of his system, the polluted way he felt after the automatic writing, if that’s what it was. He caught a glimpse of himself afterward, a shadowy reflection in a picture frame in the den. He’d glanced at his reflection first, not liking what he saw. Then, he pulled focus and saw what was in the photograph.

  In it were his uncle and a woman not his uncle’s wife. The lady looked an awful lot like Julia. Myles had an arm slung around the woman’s waist in a casual way, like he was used to doing it.

  What really caught his attention, though, was his own face, transposed on top of his uncle’s. Myles was shorter, a bit more compact, but absent of that, the resemblance was unsettling. Rather than lingering on it, he went on a run.

  Around him the shadows were marshaling over the forest. The droning whir of the cicadas swallowed the sound of his padding sneakers.

  Emily was gone, had probably been gone for hours. The only guilt he felt was at not feeling guilty. He knew he should, they’d been together for a long time before breaking up. Yet stripped of his needfulness, the relationship crumbled. Since he was no longer her project, there was really no need for them to pretend. He’d not been surprised to see the red car gone from the driveway, was actually relieved she’d come to the same conclusion on her own.

  What scratched at his thoughts was the new novel. It was a sequel of sorts to The Monkey Killer. He’d gotten a bit of the first notebook, the red one, down in type, read through it absently as he hunted and pecked. Annabel and Myles were again the main characters, though their relationship had begun to change in much the same way as Annabel’s relationship with David had.

  Paul had a hard time believing it was all true. Though he didn’t like to linger on the identity of the author behind the work, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was Myles, Annabel, or his own subconscious. Reason dictated the first two choices were outlandish. The notion of a literal ghost writer was the stuff of horror novels. Much more likely was the possibility of his cobbling together the elements he knew—Barlow’s story, the snatches of innuendo he’d overheard from his parents growing up, his own exploration of Watermere—and fashioning them into a coherent narrative with his own imagination.

  Then why did he feel so helpless? And why did he remember so little of the writing?

  He’d heard authors say they created the characters and let them do their thing. Was this how it felt? His characters were already created for him, their internal logic innate. Was it really that much of a stretch to suppose he was capable of recreating the past?

  And who was to say the novels were really true? Julia recognized enough of her father in The Monkey Killer to be enraged. That meant there had to be a dark pearl of truth in the narrative. Yet she didn’t believe the tale completely. Just the opposite, she refuted it, insisted he was telling lies about the dead.

  He thought of Julia as a child, how it must have been for her. No wonder she had trouble trusting people. The sight of her mother, brutally murdered, must have caused irreparable damage.

  Maybe he could help. It had taken the unfortunate episode with Emily to show him how much Julia meant to him, but the point was, he realized it now. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Wasn’t it possible she could forgive him?

  Feeling better, Paul chugged through the forest and wondered where the story would go.

  Julia was sitting on her porch when he emerged from the forest. She watched him approach and did her best to keep her expression neutral.

  He was looking at her now with an expression she couldn’t place. His face was thinner than when she’d seen him last, his body sturdier. His arms were fuller, roped with muscles that reminded her of the pictures she’d seen of her Uncle David.

  “Julia,” he began. “I—”

  But she cut him off. “I miss you,” she said.

  It stopped him.

  “I miss you too,” he replied. “I’m sorry about the things I wrote.”

  She nodded, moved closer. He seemed taller than before, and that, too, reminded her of David Carver.

  She said, “I’ve heard writers say that they have to write, they don’t really have a choice.”

  The way he gaped at her, she’d caught him off guard.

  “Is that true?” she asked.

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “As a matter of fact, it was like that.”

  “And I can’t fault you for wanting to make money.”

  “I didn’t write it for money.”

  She watched him for a moment. Then, she stepped onto the sidewalk. He stood up straighter now, and that too made him seem larger than before.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said. She laced her fingers behind his neck, liking the sweaty feel of his skin o
n her wrists.

  “Yeah?”

  “Very much.”

  She almost kissed him then, but waited, wanting him to do it. She felt him growing hard against her, felt herself go a little dizzy from wanting him. Their argument seemed very distant, her anger disproportionate to the situation. Standing here with him, the late summer air close and humid, all she wanted was to go inside, to give herself up to him, her windows open and the heat drowsing over them as they lay in bed.

  His frown stopped her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He wouldn’t meet her eyes as he said, “I think I’ve messed things up again.”

  She waited.

  “Remember me talking about an ex-girlfriend? The one I wasn’t very good to?”

  “Yes,” she said, pretending to think. “It was Emily, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right.” He grew shamefaced. “The thing is, I don’t know how to say this to you without ruining the moment.”

  “Then just say it.”

  “After you and I stopped seeing one another, a lot of time went by—at least, it felt like a lot of time.”

  “A month,” she said.

  “It felt like longer.”

  She waited.

  He said, “Emily showed up again.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she still with you?”

  He met her gaze then. “No. She went back.”

  “To Memphis?”

  “I guess so. She never told me.”

  “She just left?”

  He shrugged. “Things didn’t exactly go well. I realized how different things are now.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Lots of things. Like the way she always talks to me. I never noticed it before, but it’s more like a parent scolding a child than a man and woman talking to each other.”

  “So you broke it off?”

  His expression was pained. “Yeah, I did, but that’s not what I need to tell you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “While she was here,” he said, “last night…”

  Though she knew what was coming, had seen it all through the windowpane, she had to fight to keep her voice even. “Yes?”

  “We kissed,” he said.

  She sank her nails into her fingers.

  “You’re angry,” he said.

  She said nothing, waiting for the rest.

  “I’m sorry, Julia. I thought you and I were done.”

  Her nails dug, the blood wet on her fingers.

  He went on, “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but that’s all that happened.”

  She stopped. “You didn’t sleep with her?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know if I’m in love with you or not, but what I feel for you is more than I ever felt for Emily. I don’t say that to be cruel to her. I only mean you’re the one I think about all the time, the one I wish would come over and enjoy the house with me.”

  “The house,” Julia said.

  “Not the house itself, but the experience of it. The spending time there. Making it beautiful the way it used to be.”

  She felt her anger abating. “Close your eyes,” she said.

  He did. It gave her a chance to wipe her bloody hands on the seat of her black shorts.

  “Can I open them yet?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t I get a surprise or something?”

  “That depends on what else you have to say.”

  He said, “I screwed up and I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or be furious with him, but she must have smiled because he was grinning and moving in to kiss her. She put a hand on his chest to stop him, and then regretted it when he stopped, stared at her hand.

  “I cut it gardening,” she said.

  He took her hands, examined them.

  “There are cuts all over your palms.”

  She pulled her hands away, angry at being scrutinized.

  “You did that to yourself,” he said.

  She turned. “No, you did it to me by kissing someone else.”

  His eyes fell. “I know. I’m sorry. I’d take it back if I could, and if I’d thought there was still a chance to make things right between us I’d never have let her in my house.”

  She thought of the long nights, the mid-summer days she’d spent wondering about him. “You didn’t do much to get me back.”

  “When you left that night it seemed so final. I’ve never had anyone that mad at me.”

  “Wouldn’t you have been?”

  “I guess so, but it wasn’t like it was intentional. I didn’t realize you were related to Myles.”

  “Which brings up the question of incest,” she said.

  He smiled a little. “We haven’t had sex yet.”

  “Yet?” She cocked an eyebrow.

  “It can’t be incest if we haven’t consummated anything.”

  “But what if we do?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t Poe marry his second cousin or something?”

  “I hardly think we should use him as our model.”

  “Hell of a writer though.”

  She grinned despite herself.

  “Look, I’m probably going to regret this,” he said, taking her hands, “but I’m tired of leaving things unsaid. You and I didn’t see each other that long, but the time we spent together was wonderful. I shouldn’t need someone else to help me find myself, but that’s exactly what happened. It was like there was this other version of me I’d always wanted to coax into existence but never could. When we were together, I began to figure out how to bring that person out, to become more like him.”

  “You do look great.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s more a state of mind than anything, a way of looking at things. Before, I was so damned lazy, so weak. I hated myself because there was nothing about me I liked. I look back at the way I was and cringe. A self-pitying, do-nothing alcoholic.”

  That raised her eyebrows. It was the first time he’d talked about it.

  “It’s the truth. I had to lose you to realize how much you meant to me.”

  “And how much is that?”

  “A lot,” he said. “I know how lame that sounds, but it’s true.”

  He averted his eyes. Then, he seemed to decide something.

  “I was starting to fall in love with you,” he said.

  She couldn’t stop her mouth from falling open.

  “I don’t deserve another chance,” he said, “but I’d like one anyway.”

  As she stared at him there on the sidewalk, she remembered the way he’d looked in April, standing on the veranda at Watermere, staring out at the forest in her direction but not seeing her where she crouched. She’d watched him that way every evening, to take her mind off Ted Brand, speculating about him and whether or not, like Brand, he was concerned only with himself. The manuscript she’d read seemed to confirm her worst fears, and yesterday, when she saw him kiss his ex-girlfriend, she hated him. It was all mixed up inside her now, the rage and the lust, and beneath it, the tender feelings she had, the thought of a future together.

  “One more chance?” she asked.

  “Just one.”

  She pretended to deliberate. “And when were you thinking of seeing me?”

  He leapt on it. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “I’m reading a book.”

  “Eat dinner with me instead.”

  “Only if you get carry-out.”

  “Chinese?”

  “Extra fried rice.”

  “Done,” he said. He gave her hands a squeeze, backed toward the forest. “Give me an hour,” he called out and was gone.

  She stared after him, smiling. When she thought again of his Poe comment, her smile grew troubled. Poe had written a poem, “Annabel Lee,” that she didn’t like to think about. She’d read it first with her mother the summer of her death. Her mom had tried to skip ove
r it, going from “The Raven” to “Ulalume,” but Julia persisted, and Barbara Merrow turned pale as her daughter spoke the name. After much arguing, they read it together, read about the jealous angels conspiring to murder the beautiful girl named Annabel.

  But it was Barbara who died two months later, and it was no wind that took her.

  April, 1990

  A moment after they told him the news, Myles heard her laughing.

  Doc Trask, the spineless weasel, had shown up at his door with Sheriff Hartman. They were asking him where he’d been that day, who could vouch for his whereabouts. In truth, he’d been boning the hooker he’d taken to a hotel in the city, but he wasn’t about to tell them that.

  Then they told him about Barbara, and he’d come unglued.

  Though it wasn’t for show, his breakdown helped convince Hartman and Trask of his innocence. Now that he knew the story of his little Asian prostitute would keep him out of jail, he told them everything, right down to the club where he met her. The sheriff vowed to check his story, said it in such a way as to get a rise out of him, but Myles was too sick with the loss to muster much heat.

  He hadn’t really loved Barbara, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t miss her. She was an incredible lay, and she was the mother of his only child. Without her around, his plans for Julia would fall apart. Since he wasn’t her legal guardian, he might not be able to raise her, to groom her to take her mother’s place.

  He had no idea how, but he was sure she’d murdered Barbara Merrow. And when Annabel began to laugh, he thought the crazy bitch had slipped up, had finally incriminated herself by gloating within earshot of the sheriff and the coroner.

  The men asked if they could speak to his wife.

  Myles welcomed them in.

  On the way up to her stinking lair he wondered how she’d done it, how Annabel had finally rid herself of the one woman who had bested her. But when he opened the door to her room and saw her, he knew she would never be convicted of the crime.

  She looked embalmed.

  Seeing her lying there in the middle of the king-sized bed was like seeing an old wasp dying on a windowsill. Her emaciated limbs were waxen and bruised; her eyes were hollowed out cavities, the eyes of a skeleton. Her head lay on its side, facing them, and behind him Myles felt the sheriff and the coroner recoil, apologizing already for intruding on such a sickly creature.