Year's Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology

by C. P. Dunphey

  As they neared what looked to be a large building of gothic design, the horses, exhausted and with steam rising from their sweat-drenched bodies, slowed to a gentle canter.

  “Do you enter this place of your own free will, Mr. Gore?” called the coachman as they approached the gated entrance to the imposing mansion. Pulling the carriage up to a stop, he waited for an answer.

  The question, although delivered with a degree of thespian dramatics, was apparently a serious one.

  Perplexed, amused, and certainly not wanting to return through the forest, Evan replied emphatically that he was. The horses reared and neighed, reluctant to enter the grounds but a harsh whip to their bleeding rumps was enough encouragement to set them on their way.

  They passed beneath an arched wrought iron banner suspended between two ivy clad pillars on top of which oil fires furiously burned. It was just after they had passed through the gates that Evan allowed himself a giggle of irony. “Cedar . . .,” he muttered to himself. It wasn’t Cedar at all. The iron letters spelled the word SEDAH as though in reflection. Observed from within the grounds it read HADES.

  “Hades Publishing,” he mused with a chuckle.

  Frankes, it seemed, had a wickedly impious sense of humour.

  “Welcome to Hell,” Evan said to himself as they passed beneath the sinister sign and pulled up to the entrance of a grandiose gothic mansion. It was at that point that he noticed on the floor the decomposed remains of Lilith’s chapbook. The cover was shrivelled and the pages fast becoming a putrefied mess. It was as though the book had become a withered corpse.

  The coachman opened the door and beckoned him from the carriage, never once entering into conversation or looking him in the eye. As he lifted a small case from a wooden trunk at the rear of the carriage, and with darkness descending, he broke the uncomfortable silence and imparted a bit of friendly advice.

  “I recommend haste, sir; it is far from safe out here after night falls.”

  With a nod that he would, Evan turned his attention to the imposing building.

  A thick mist drifted down from the roof, descending like a ghostly veil and settling in folds at his feet. Suddenly feeling quite exhausted he stepped through the vaporous curtain and into a spacious entrance porch. The coachman seemed reluctant to follow and was, by his restive disposition, anxious to leave.

  With his eyes fixed steadfastly on the upper floors of the building the man climbed back onto his seat and took up the reigns. The horses stamped and snorted impatiently. What evil could the mansion contain that was scarier than returning through the forest? wondered Evan.

  With a whip crack lash of his whip the horses reared and the carriage trundled off into an enveloping mist, and for the first time, as Evan banged his fist on the sturdy front door, he wondered just what he’d got himself in to.

  The door creaked on its hinges and a young woman with lustrous, dark hair, ashen skin and a sombre manner ushered Evan in. It was a moment before he recognised her as Lilith, the quaint young lady that he’d met back in his apartment with Edmund Frankes. She seemed different somehow, as though nervous of him, not the confident, sultry maiden who had so cunningly seduced him into leaving his apartment.

  At first glance, she was a delicate creature but behind those eyes, there was a tough and resilient woman. The way she stared reached within . . . like inquisitive fingers probing and penetrating his mind.

  “You’ve hurt your ankle,” she said, “We’ll have to get that seen to. After all, we don’t want any blemishes on that lovely skin of yours, do we?”

  Leading the way, she gave him brief instruction as to his stay, warning that to wander beyond the perimeters of the grounds would be a foolish and very dangerous thing to do. He couldn’t help but think it sounded like a challenge. Meal times were announced by the resonant jangling of a bell but that evening, as an exception, food would be brought to him in an hour’s time. Having shown him the dining room and library she took him to his bedroom on the second floor and sat next to him on the bed. Gazing deeply into his eyes, she told him:

  “Beware of the Demon Bride; she wanders these corridors at night. She seduces men with her beauty and steals their souls with a kiss that sends fatal fire into their veins.”

  Evan couldn’t help but wonder just where the line between fantasy and reality existed in her peculiar mind. With stern expression, and probably a little too patronisingly, he said that he’d met women like that before but nevertheless, he would heed her words.

  His bedroom was a creaky-floored, oak-panelled room dominated by a four-poster bed. The décor was drab, the furnishings dark and the air tainted by the damp stench of mildew. Not quite the opulent interior he’d been expecting.

  On his way to the bedroom he saw that there were others present, but they were timid things, avoiding eye contact and maintaining their distance. There was something quite feral about the way they used shadows and dark corners from which to make their observations. According to Lilith their role was to maintain the running of the sprawling lodge. To be seen and not heard.

  For reasons he couldn’t quite understand, Evan felt immediately at home. Stepping across the threshold had been like a homecoming. From the moment he entered the building it was as though the outside world simply ceased to exist. Memories of his recent past faded and trying to remember things took more effort than it should, not that it bothered him. Rules and regulations had no part in his life anymore, and nor did social etiquette. Here he would allow Harry’s stories to flow through his mind and commit them to permanence.

  For the first few days he slipped comfortably into a daily routine. No more itching or aching in his back. There were no alcohol or drugs, and yet he was happier than he’d ever been. Words and letters continued to appear randomly on his body, but far from being concerned he was ecstatic and wore them proudly.

  By night howling winds and torrential rain would assault the fragile panes. Evan would bury himself beneath the lavish quilt and there he would listen to the ferocity of the raging storm with childish wonderment. When the storm made sleeping impossible he would sit upright with the bedding wrapped tightly about his shoulders and watch ferocious lightning storms as they lit up the savage land beyond the perimeters of the grounds.

  On occasion in the dead of night, through a moonlit gap beneath the door, he would catch glimpse of the movement of bizarre nocturnal creatures apparently attracted by his insomnia. The long shadows of beasts with spidery limbs and snapping claws would reach into the room. Sometimes he would hear mimicked voices of Lilith or Edmund Frankes attempting to lure him out. At other times the sound of ribald women making carnal suggestions that surpassed even his own debauch excesses would tease him, pound his door . . . and he would find himself quite tempted to investigate.

  One night, during a particularly violent thunderstorm, he woke to find Lilith in his bed. She slept in his arms and they fell into each other’s dreams. By dawn’s early light she was gone, and Evan was a spent man. He remembered asking who she was talking of when she had said, “they walk in darkness.” She told him, “. . . the people from the books of course.”

  From that moment on he found himself inexplicably drawn to the vast library and would spend hours poring over the intriguing volumes there. He would sit in the same place, always facing the window so that he could gaze at the desolate beauty of the sprawling grounds and let his thoughts drift there.

  Beyond the farthest fringes of the grounds he observed the forest through which he had travelled. Beyond that there existed nothing more than a hellish black void that instilled in him an overwhelming sense of desolation.

  Evan would use the precious daylight hours to explore the extensive grounds; one particular day he discovered a lake on the far side of which was a memorial tower in the midst of an arboretum. Gorse bushes with spiked thorns on which were impaled the bodies of small birds and field mice guarded access to the tower. To the rear of the lodge was a small graveyard for which he developed a part
icularly melancholic fascination. The gravestones were sculptured in the fashion of book covers and the inscriptions described those buried beneath as their authors.

  Evan resigned himself to a simple daily routine with no agenda except for his indulgence in books and gathering morbid tales in his head. It suddenly occurred to him that since leaving his flat he had been abandoned by Harry Speirs. But that was of no consequence, and as the days passed by, so recollections of his former life became faded memories.

  Evan woke unusually early one morning to find the door to his room wide open. There was a light spattering of rain against his window and a gentle rush of wind whistling about the frames. The air was crisp and he felt refreshed, his head clearer than it had been for a long time. His clothes had been taken and in their place what appeared to be a monk’s robe had been left. Having had a breakfast of fresh coffee, oak smoked kippers and toast that had been left on the dresser, he made his way to the library as instructed. The spacious corridors were unusually quiet and blissfully unthreatening by day. When he reached the library, he found Lilith waiting for him. She was more attentive than usual as though excited by something. Taking him by the hand, she guided him deeper into the library, every now and then glancing back with a mischievous grin on her face. Eventually they reached the locked door of the antechamber and in silence . . . they waited.

  Somewhere beyond the hefty portal there came the sound of restless movement. A fluttering at first, like a pigeon trapped in a small room, and then a stomping of feet and scraping of nails on a wooden floor. Someone or something on the other side was aware, apparently, that Evan was there. Playfully, Lilith pushed him forwards and the movement became more frantic followed by the sound of pounding on the door, but with such violence that Evan took a step back. Lilith laughed and, anxiously, Evan laughed with her.

  “Turn the handle,” she told him.

  He did as she said, standing back as the dark space within sucked at the warm air.

  The light was poor, but he could just about perceive movement in the background, like shadows cast against darkness.

  “Go in,” she urged.

  Obediently, Evan took a few timid steps into the chamber.

  Within the anteroom; there was an incandescent radiance like the flicker of a candle, but without any source. And the warm air was tainted by an aroma that he likened to that of a cheap brothel which, sadly, he knew only too well. There was also a feeling of great space about the chamber. Not just large, but massive, as if he was outside. From the periphery of his vision he could see there were immense walls of book laden shelves that extended far into the murky depths. But there was also restless, quivering movement on those shelves and he began to wonder just what Edmund meant when he described them as living books back in his apartment.

  Set on a table before him was a large book that at first had the appearance of an antiquated bible. As he got closer he saw that the cover was striated with swollen veins that were gently throbbing. Even more disconcerting was what looked like the impression of small bones pressing against pliable skin. The mere act of touching the cover caused an explosion of images and words in his head. Stories within the living book were playing in his head and indulging him in a fantasy that was as real as the living, breathing world outside.

  Lilith pulled him away and turned his face towards her own.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said excitedly “. . . one of our early works. A little primitive, but always popular with our clients.”

  Evan found it difficult to focus his eyes on her; her image was distorted like a shimmering mirage. Pulling gently at the buttons of her blouse and without once taking her flirtatious gaze from him, she took his hand and rested it back on the book.

  “Slower, this time,” she told him, “I can see it’s starting for you. Free your mind. Breath slowly, deeply, and you’ll enjoy the experience so much more.”

  The book beneath Evan’s palm began to pound in time with his own racing pulse as Lilith continued to undress.

  “Read me,” she said to him, “like a book.”

  In the ambient light, he saw that Lilith’s skin appeared to be mottled with bruises. But as she moved closer he noticed that the dark patches on her skin were in fact clusters of words. Beautifully inscribed prose covered every inch of her flesh. She turned slowly and brazenly, letting his gaze linger upon her. Her eyes guided him as did her fingers. She was a woman without shame, wallowing in his voyeuristic gaze as she explored the intimacy of her own body. But they were so much more than just words. They were images and sounds and odours.

  The woman was seducing him—that much was obvious; but there was something more, there was a look of iniquitous evil in the way she stared. She sucked at a finger and then traced it across his lips. Her saliva was sweet to taste, like a fine desert wine. He let it linger on his tongue, all the time watching her and wondering how this bizarre game would end.

  Lilith stepped away and in that fateful moment he saw that the writing had spread to his own body. Letters, like tiny insects, crawled over him, piercing the epidermis and burrowing and rooting into the deep layers of his skin.

  “Your skin is parchment and your blood is ink,” said Lilith.

  “Your skin is parchment and your blood is ink,” repeated the household workers as they emerged from the darkness that surrounded him.

  The stories that were in his head were being transcribed onto his body, slowly at first but as the metamorphosis progressed so the writing became frenzied and his skin fell into folds, rolling and crumpling onto the floor like a typewriter spewing out pages of living flesh. He thought he was hallucinating, like one of his acid trips in the good old days.

  At first he was quite euphoric, his eyes closed tightly as though in a state of ecstasy. But then the realization of what was happening hit him.

  “What’s going on?” he cried, looking around frantically before bringing his petrified gaze back to rest on Lilith. “Help me, Lilith, please,” he begged, “Stop this . . . this . . . stop this now!”

  Lilith stared back, unflustered by his appearance or his panic.

  “’ello, guv’nor,” cackled a familiar voice. “It’s your old mucka Harry Speirs ‘ere again.” But Harry’s voice was outside Evan’s head, not in it.

  Edmund Frankes moved into view with Harry’s voice coming out of his mouth, like a living ventriloquist’s dummy with rolling eyes and a manic stare. But it really was Harry’s voice. It really was a dead man’s voice coming from Edmund’s gaping mouth with no articulation of his vocal cords or tongue.

  Evan stared in disbelief, his mind struggling to make sense of things.

  “Dear old, Harry Speirs,” said Edmund having slipped back into his own dulcet tones, “One of our helpers from beyond the grave; his job’s done now, he’ll trouble you no more.”

  Fast becoming a broken man, all Evan could manage was a whimpering, “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “A very good question, Mr. Gore. Firstly, I can assure you it’s not personal,” replied Frankes as though they were chatting over a leisurely pint. “Let me explain it this way. Committing words to paper has always been man’s way of attaining a kind of immortality; and books are essentially a legacy of life, after death. At Cedar Publishing we have taken the process . . . a little further. I remember how you eloquently told me on your show that people like me were ‘pissing away our lives.’ Well now, Evan, you are experiencing first hand just how we—piss away our lives.”

  Pausing for thought, Edmund moved closer and stared chillingly into Evan’s eyes.

  “We take the publishing side of our business very seriously, Evan, and we do that very successfully. Here we commit our words not to paper or computer, but to flesh. Our clientele pays dearly to experience our books, and you are going to bring fresh blood to our esteemed collection. Interacting with our books is a particularly intimate experience, as you well know. The curator will be very pleased with our latest acquisition, and we love nothing more th
an to make our curator happy. And you get immortality in the bargain, so I guess it’s win, win.”

  Evan tried to move but beneath the ever-expanding weight of skin and blubber all he could do was sway somewhat comically from side to side like an overinflated Sumo wrestler. No longer whimpering, he began to cry hysterically, like an inconsolable child.

  “I . . . I’m famous for fuck’s sake,” snivelled Evan, “I’m a someone. People will come looking for me. You can’t do this.”

  Speaking was becoming increasingly difficult as his tongue swelled and filled his mouth. Panic set in when he struggled to draw breath but Edmund seemed unconcerned.

  “Oh, we’re all a someone, Evan. And of course, people will wonder what happened to the immensely talented Mr. Gore, but like Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, or as you probably know him, Lord Lucan, you will disappear without a trace. Old ‘Dickie’ became one of our more popular books, you might be surprised to know. But then again, the man did have a very sordid tale to tell. Perhaps our biggest coup is a certain Mr. Adolf Hitler who, as the conspiracy theories correctly speculated, did not commit suicide but took flight from his bunker in 1945 and escaped to Argentina. Thanks to our South American contacts, he ended up here on our extraordinary shelves having undergone his own Kafkaesque ‘metamorphosis.’ It can’t be said that we lack our own sense of ironic humour. And the list goes on, Evan: 17th century navigator, Henry Hudson; aviator, Amelia Earhart; satirist and writer, Ambrose Bierce. Our global list of contributors goes back centuries. We even have a children’s section,” he grinned. “People can be so careless with young ones, but they do make the most wonderful books.”

  “Leth mee . . . goo . . .,” begged Evan, “pleeth, juth leth mee goo . . . I wonth . . . tellth . . . aneebothee . . .”