House of Skin

by Jonathan Janz

  “He’s gone,” Barlow wheezed, “and you’ve taken his place.”

  “That’s right. I’ve taken his place.” He scowled at the sheriff, who was laughing again, harder now, and spitting up blood.

  He yanked Barlow up, yelled into his face: “Don’t laugh at me.”

  But the sheriff did. He went on laughing until Paul, sick with anger, let his head drop to the forest floor. He stalked back and forth, waiting for Barlow to stop. When the laughter had finally abated, Paul said, “You’re the reason it’s come to this, you know.”

  “She’s the reason.”

  “Julia?” Paul stood over him. “I don’t blame her for anything.”

  “You’re a fool if you believe that.” Barlow said. “But Julia’s not the one I’m talking about.”

  “Then you’re the fool.”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “I know all about her.”

  “You don’t know anything,” Barlow said, his voice rising.

  “I know I’m a published novelist. I know I’m enough of a man to keep a woman.”

  Barlow said, “She’ll keep you.”

  Paul pounced on him, raised his fist and slammed the sheriff in the nose.

  His hands over his face Barlow said, “Haven’t you noticed her changing?”

  Paul shook him. “Tell me what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying she’s not Julia anymore.”

  Paul froze, hands clutching the sheriff’s collar.

  “You haven’t even thought about it, have you?” Barlow said. “The stuff she’s done, the people she’s killed. That’s not her. Julia would never have done those things.”

  Paul’s face twisted into a snarl. “Crazy old bastard.”

  “She even looks like her now,” Barlow said, ignoring him.

  “I’ve heard enough,” Paul said and stood.

  Still holding onto Barlow’s collar, he dragged the larger man toward the water’s edge.

  “The same mannerisms, the same expressions.” Barlow’s voice rose, pleading now. “Last night she even talked like her.”

  Paul let go, Barlow’s head dangling over the water.

  “You know I’m right,” the sheriff said, a thick stream of blood drooling out of his mouth. “She’s either Annabel already or becoming her.”

  Paul watched him, eyes veiled. “That’s enough.”

  But Barlow went on, “Or maybe you’ve planted her seed in Julia’s womb.”

  “Shut up.” Paul straddled the sheriff, pushed down on the man’s forehead.

  “Listen to me,” Barlow said, voice panicked. Paul gazed into the sheriff’s white, wild eyes. “I’m trying to help you.”

  Paul watched his face disappear into the turbid water, which gurgled, the big white bubbles rising and bursting. Barlow seized Paul’s shirt, lifted himself out of the water.

  “Please,” the sheriff said, sputtering, “please listen to me…it’s Annabel…” He coughed blood and murky water. “Don’t you see that this is what she wants? If you’ll only—”

  Barlow’s voice was swallowed up by the water rushing over his face.

  “Fool,” Paul growled. He leaned back, avoiding Barlow’s flailing arms.

  The sheriff’s face breached the surface. Paul saw the man’s mouth forming words, but no sound escaped save the retching and gagging. Doubling his efforts Paul drove with his forearms, dunked the sheriff’s head again, and now the large man was beginning to weaken. His frenzied hands batted at Paul’s shoulders, fought in vain to loosen his grip.

  Paul grinned. He saw Barlow’s eyes under the surface, huge and frightened. Teeth bared, Paul held him there. He discerned his own image on the water, rendered brilliant by the charnel light of the moon. He laughed, for the reflection made it seem as if he were drowning himself, his own face. Then, Barlow’s hand splashed again and the illusion vanished.

  Paul held Barlow under.

  He pushed to his feet and stared at Barlow’s motionless body. He lifted the sheriff’s ankles and shoved them toward the water. His huge limp body somersaulting, the sheriff toppled into the brook. It was just deep enough to move him along with the current. He watched the sheriff’s feet disappear as the body floated around a bend. For a moment, Paul’s breathing slowed.

  Then, as if awakening, his whole body tensed.

  What the hell was he doing?

  “No,” he said. He took a step into the brook. Its depth surprised him. He tumbled forward, the cool water rushing over his mouth and eyes. He began to tremble. He splashed to his feet, the water chest high, and began running downstream, his muscles rendered useless by the water’s resistance. He flailed his way forward, thinking the sheriff might still be alive, he had to be, but Paul’s progress was negligible. As if in a nightmare, he felt the water pushing against his limbs, impeding him. He fell forward, the waters closing over his head. Under the surface he heard laughter, and he knew it was Annabel. He thrust forward and up, his hands breaking the surface. He opened his mouth to curse her for making him do this. He reached the water’s edge and heaved himself up, and through the coughing and gagging he cursed her, cursed Annabel for making him kill the sheriff.

  Lying on his stomach, he let his cheek rest on the wet grass. The coughing was under control now, and he could think more clearly. It hadn’t been like the automatic writing because he remembered everything, remembered the sheriff’s panicked eyes as Paul shoved him under. Yet it was like that in a way because he didn’t hate the sheriff, didn’t truly believe the thoughts that led to the confrontation.

  But Barlow was dead and Paul couldn’t take it back.

  He and Julia would have to go away. Barlow’s body would be found soon.

  Paul mashed his face in the grass and the mud. It smelled like a freshly dug grave.

  Soundlessly, he began to weep.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The late hours were hard on her.

  In years past Bea Merten had looked forward to the book sale. Staying up until midnight or beyond. Using her muscles more than she was accustomed to, loving the fact that she and Julia could do the work all by themselves.

  Bea’s expression grew troubled.

  She had no idea what it was Sheriff Barlow thought he knew about Julia, but she didn’t like keeping secrets from her, speaking furtively with the sheriff at her house rather than here at the library where they might be discovered.

  The questions he asked were about that lawyer, Ted Brand, who’d come to Shadeland but had never left. And then about the night of Independence Day, when she knew Sheriff Barlow’s deputy, that cretin Daryl Applegate, had disappeared.

  She’d tried not to think about it, but that was like not thinking about a pink elephant. The more you tried not to think about it, the more you did. She’d lost sleep lately, and trying to act normal around Julia was exhausting what meager energy she still had.

  Bea ripped off a rectangle of Scotch tape and stuck it on the sign. Careful to keep the sign level, she taped it to the front window. That done, she stood in the foyer, thinking of what else she could do to prepare for the sale.

  What she could do to avoid Julia.

  Bea thought of the younger woman down there in the bowels of the library, standing on the step ladder, pulling boxes of books down from the tall shelves where they kept the ones that hadn’t sold last year. Terrible work. It was always hot and muggy down there, and Julia had been at it for hours already. The girl was so helpful, so loyal. It wasn’t possible that Julia was involved with all that nasty business the sheriff kept calling about. Bea knew that Julia was no killer.

  So why was she afraid of being alone in the basement with her?

  Bea pressed a hand to her chest to calm her racing heart. She’d known the girl for going on six years. Julia was like a daughter to her. It wasn’t a stretch to say she loved the girl, but why on earth had she been absent so much lately, and why had she taken to wearing heavy makeup? In April Bea had asked her about the darkness around
her eye. Julia said she tripped in the woods.

  She was lying, Bea was certain. And why would she lie, if not to protect herself? Bea gazed down the wide staircase leading to the upper basement, where the children’s books were. Julia was under there somewhere in the lower basement, in the catacombs, sweating away.

  While Bea stood up here quaking in her shoes as though her assistant were Jack the Ripper.

  It was ridiculous. Julia had nothing to do with the disappearances, and Barlow had gone off his gourd. Smiling, Bea took a step toward the stairs.

  And screamed when someone knocked on the door behind her.

  She whirled, thinking it could only be the sheriff at this time of night.

  No one was there.

  The area outside the glass door was unoccupied. It was a bright, clear evening so there could be no mistaking it. Bea squatted to see under her homemade BOOK SALE sign.

  Nothing.

  Kids, then. Playing tricks on her.

  You’re two months early, she thought wryly. The practical jokes aren’t supposed to begin until October.

  Irritated at the way her chest was tightening, she flipped the lock on the door and pushed out into the warm night. Kids would be kids, but they should be smart enough not to play their tricks on an old woman with a heart murmur. She’d have to take an extra water pill before she went down to help Julia carry the boxes up.

  Bea stood on the porch steps and scanned the quiet street before her, the houses around the library. Nights like this always made her think back to her younger years. The courting and the secret kisses.

  It calmed her heart.

  Maybe tonight she’d wake up Bill when she got home. They hadn’t made love in months, seldom did anymore, but they still slept in the same bed. She thought of his warmth, the comforting way he looked at her.

  A susurrant breeze had begun; it caressed her skin. Bea sighed. She loved the night air, but there was work to be done.

  She grasped the door to go inside but stopped when she discovered what the kids had done to her sign.

  Angry now, she turned and scanned the bushes flanking the porch. She descended the steps and moved down the sidewalk, hoping to catch a glimpse of them, the white of an eye, the glint of malicious little teeth. I’ll teach them to write wicked things on my sign, she thought. BURN IN HELL, of all things.

  The words unsettled her, though she couldn’t say why.

  The memory came then, and though she tried to hold back the sick fear crashing down on her she could not. Bill and his dalliances. Her years of secret hurt, her pleasure at the whore’s affliction. The spray can her only means of retribution once the hideous woman had died.

  But they couldn’t possibly know about that, kids who’d not yet been born.

  Fists balled, she stepped off the sidewalk and onto the path that led between the library and the Catholic church. They’d be here, she was sure, hiding in the darkness, hoping she’d go back inside so they could wreak more mischief at her expense. Make her heart stutter the way it was now.

  From the corner of the building, where the bushes and dogwood trees nestled right up next to the brick, she noticed something gauzy and white. It fluttered in the breeze, sheer and delicate.

  Curious, she approached.

  As she neared she saw the patch of white disappear around the corner. She’d not let them get away. Their parents would see what they’d done to her sign, hear about how terribly they’d frightened her.

  Bea turned the corner and felt her heart seize.

  Her eyes widened in horror.

  Then a pale hand lashed out and removed her face.

  August, 1996

  The girl sat in the grass, reclining on her elbows.

  After a time, her grandmother’s window went dark.

  Instead of rising right away the girl tilted her head so the moonlight shone full on her face. Her hair swept the moist grass, the little dewdrops there absorbed by her raven tresses. She inhaled the night air, cool and crisp and tinged with the acrid smell of wood smoke. She passed a hand over her abdomen. She could feel herself changing, the pains that meant she was becoming something different. Rolling, she felt the ground massage her growing breasts, the muscles of her stomach. She pushed herself to standing and disappeared into the woods.

  Twenty minutes later she emerged from the gloom of the forest and stepped into the lawn. His car was gone, as she knew it would be. She clucked her tongue. A man his age and still visiting the city for its brothels and strip joints. She did not understand such things, but then, she’d never understood Myles Carver.

  Julia stared up at the third floor, at the black window near the left corner of the huge house.

  Not bothering to conceal herself, she took her time walking through the yard. In five years, she’d return. The house she and her grandmother were staying in would be hers and hers alone. She would escape the old woman and her strictures. Five more years and she could come here whenever she wished.

  Getting to Watermere had been difficult. Thirteen years old and no means of transportation meant convincing her grandmother to spend a few weeks in Shadeland. Visiting the place where her only daughter had been murdered had not sounded pleasant to Julia’s grandmother. But Julia was persistent, mentioning the trip more and more often as summer approached. Ultimately, the old woman acquiesced.

  She had planned on waiting until Saturday night to complete her mission, but Sheriff Barlow’s dinner invitation changed that. With him around she could not do what she needed to do.

  Julia moved up the porch steps.

  The front door was unlocked, as she knew it would be. Instead of using the front staircase the girl passed down the hallway into the ballroom. Her bare feet caressed the tiled floor. In the mirror over the bar she saw herself in shafts of moonglow, a tall, thin ghost of a girl.

  Without touching the banister she ascended the curved staircase. She focused on the steps ahead of her and listened for sounds in the old house. But she heard nothing save her strained breathing.

  She reached the third floor.

  Fighting the urge to enter the library, she fixed her gaze on a closed door at the end of the corridor. She moved toward it. When she reached the door she thought of the Poe story they’d read that year in school. The old man in the story had been innocent, the narrator insane. How different from these circumstances, she thought. How very different.

  Turning the knob she let the door swing open.

  The smell hit her. Cloying, fecund, it threatened to muddle her thoughts, shake her resolve. Steeling herself with the thought of her mother, of all that had been stolen from her, she strode into the room, careful to avoid the blankets on the floor.

  The figure lay on the bed, her wasted body covered by a thin nightgown, her face covered by a washcloth.

  Julia inched closer and stood over her.

  The sick woman’s body was like some dying insect’s. Segmented and discolored, the creature on the bed was a knobby relic.

  Julia took the hatchet from her waistband.

  She was about to strike when she thought of her mother. It would not do to slay this monster in her sleep. Julia would not deprive her of the pain she deserved. Reaching out, Julia lifted the washcloth.

  The woman’s eyes shuttered open.

  Annabel rose, her goblin’s grin even worse than her cadaverous insect body.

  Julia retreated, disbelief chilling her blood as the woman climbed out of bed, her insect arms and legs moving effortlessly.

  “I’m glad we’re alone, dear,” Annabel said and reached for her.

  Julia swung the hatchet.

  It tore through Annabel’s cheek. Julia stared in horror at the exposed teeth, the frothing gums.

  Annabel’s white jawbone leered at her.

  Her teeth clicking like a skeleton’s, the sick woman unbuttoned her nightgown until her shriveled breasts showed, the bones of her sternum and ribs tenting her white skin.

  “Here, darling,” Annabel said, of
fering her naked chest. The skeletal face nodded at the hatchet. “Put that here.”

  “Goddamn you!” Julia shouted and brought the hatchet down. It crunched through Annabel’s collarbone and stuck there, the blood spewing out around it a black flood in the moonlight.

  The dying woman chortled at her, followed her into the hallway as though the hatchet weren’t embedded in her chest. Annabel’s hands whispered out of the shadows, fell on Julia’s shoulders.

  “Oh God no,” Julia cried.

  She thrashed her head from side to side to rid herself of the grinning face hovering toward her, but the mad eyes loomed closer until the stench wafted over Julia, enveloping her.

  “First mommy, now daughter,” Annabel croaked.

  Julia felt the skeleton fingers dig into the meat of her shoulders. Her knees buckled. She tried to scream but no sound escaped as her back met the floor. The grinning woman landed on her. The blue eyes were avid as Julia reached up, grasped the handle of the hatchet.

  The dying woman did not react when the hatchet chunked out of her collarbone but Julia gasped when a long black forked tongue slid out of the bloody mouth and licked at her. Gasping with revulsion, Julia threw Annabel off.

  Julia stood and stared at the creature lying on her back.

  “Here,” Annabel croaked, touching the waxy skin above her heart. “Put it right here.”

  But instead, Julia brought the hatchet down between the woman’s eyes.

  The black blood spraying from her forehead, Annabel still laughed.

  To silence the woman’s laughter, to end the lunacy once and for all, Julia leaped on her, seized her by the throat. Again the tongue snaked out, licked at her face.

  Shoving away, Julia stared aghast at the laughing creature on the floor. She wanted to back away, to flee the house forever, but her determination was gone. In its place descended a suffocating dread. She’d been a fool to believe she could march in here and kill Annabel so easily.