Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee

by Edward Lee

  "Like something chose each of us specifically," Cathleen pondered.

  "Vivica?" Willis suggested.

  "I was thinking more along the lines of something like fate-or providence," Nyvysk said.

  Westmore wasn't inclined to believe that. "But it was irvica who chose us, right?"

  "Topically, yes," Nyvysk said. "But after all we've seen, hasn't the house changed since we've arrived?"

  "It's become more overt," Adrianne said, "as if it's grown, as if it's gained something by us being here."

  "Energy?" someone said.

  Westmore thought more on that, and remembered something Vivica had said. "When I met Vivica, she told me her husband was very sexually obsessed. He surrounded himself with sexual energy.,'

  "Of course," Nyvysk added. "He bought an adult movie company-"

  "And filled the house with porn starlets, people whose lives revolved around sex," Karen offered.

  Mack came back into the room still looking pissed.

  Willis: "And the target vision I had tonight in the office ... It was the most sexual vision yet. The woman, Vanni. I saw her having sex in that mirrored room-with Mack."

  Mack smirked, embarrassed. "Well, that did happen, I admit it. She came on to me, and-"

  "That's not the point," Willis said testily. "The point is the nature of the vision. It remained very sexual, and it was active, not passive. The locksmith woman knew about my sexual addiction-and its specifics. Then she showed me a vision of her own. For me, and for any typical tactionist, we see the past through the objects and/or people we touch. The past. But I believe this particular vision was showing me some aspect of the future."

  Nyvysk seemed suddenly concerned. "In what regard?"

  "The target-object activity began when I touched the safe," Willis continued, seeming fatigued and shaken. "I believe it has something to do with that piece of paper Westmore found."

  Westmore's eyes narrowed, mulling this over. We'll see, he thought, when I find out what all those numbers on it mean ...

  But Willis kept going, to emphasize what he'd revealed earlier, "And I saw that place, the same place Nyvysk defined earlier in the week. The same place Adrianne, Cathleen, and Karen saw."

  "The temple of flesh," Adrianne said.

  "The Chirice Flaesc," Nyvysk finished.

  The group sat in silence for several moments.

  Belarius, Westmore thought.

  The night grew heavy; most of the group was exhausted and went to their beds. Nyvysk, Cathleen, and Westmore stood out in the inner-courtyard for a final chat.

  "And Hildreth," Nyvysk was saying, "when he was speaking through Cathleen, referred to the future."

  Westmore was looking up at the moon. "An apogee. If I weren't so damn tired, I'd start doing some web searches tonight."

  "Do it tomorrow," Nyvysk suggested. "Get some rest. It's been a trying day for us all."

  Cathleen looked worn, pale-faced in moonlight. "It's all about sex. This house, Hildreth, and the thing that Hildreth and his people worshiped. This mansion truly is charged."

  "And we're increasing the charge evidently," Nyvysk said. "Hildreth chose this place specifically for its potential revenant energy, and the base of that energy is sexual. An ideal focal-point of worship for an entity as sexual as Belarius. Even in physical death, Hildreth continues to harness more and more of that energy for the system of his belief."

  "Decadence," Cathleen said in a low voice. "Unrepentant lust."

  "So this Belarius is solicited by lust?" Westmore said. "Am I getting that right?"

  "By lust and all sins of the flesh, which is why his very church is flesh," Nyvysk appended. "That energy renders power. The best way to revere the Chirice Flaesc is by homage through a place like the Hildreth House, a place where lust drenches the walls, where three weeks ago what took place was a festival of sexually-motivated murder, or-"

  "Sacrifice," Cathleen added. "Which only increases the mansion's charge."

  Nyvysk spared a rare chuckle. "I get the feeling I'm being manipulated. Do either of you feel that way?"

  "Oh, I do," Cathleen agreed.

  "Manipulated or paranoid as holy hell," Westmore said, watching drifts of cigarette smoke. Or maybe the teal person doing the manipulating is Vivica. Paranoid wasn't the word for Westmore now. Between all this and what he'd learned from Clements at the bar, he didn't know what to put the most faith in.

  "Time will tell, eventually," Nyvysk intoned.

  "I wonder how much time," Cathleen ventured.

  "Me, too." Nyvysk sighed, wearied. "I feel very weak saying this, but I'm almost afraid to go to bed, even as tired asIam"

  Cathleen made a dry laugh. "I'm not almost afraid-[ am afraid. And that's unusual for me."

  Now it was Westmore's turn. "Hey, I'm just a freelance writer. I'm too objective-or too stupid-to be afraid. So if I wake up with my head cut off, I guess I deserved it."

  He'd said it as an offbeat joke, to change moods. But Nyvysk and Cathleen both shot him silent, reproving looks.

  Skit. "Sorry"

  "Good night," Nyvysk said. "I'll see you both in the morning. With your heads."

  They finished their good nights and turned in.

  Back in his own cubicle, Westmore stripped down to his shorts, got under the sheets. One small light remained on in the atrium; he could see it through the gap in his curtains. Ordinarily it might bother him. But not tonight. Who'd left it on? Westmore wished that a few more had been left on, in fact. Then he chuckled to himself. Look at us. A bunch of adults acting like kids afraid of the dark.

  Each time sleep began to claim him, an image jolted him awake with a feeling in his gut like a glimpse off a cliff. Images of Hildreth, of the flesh temple, of the engraving of Belarius. Images of all the pretty faces he'd seen in the DVDs compared to the butchered remnants he'd seen in the autopsy photos.

  Images of Debbie Rodenbaugh.

  Shit ...

  Was this house really "charged?" They think it's alive with Hildreth's spirit-an EVIL spirit that's planned something for the future. Do I really believe that?

  He groaned. Maybe this haunted dump wants to make sure I don't get any sleep tonight.

  He got up and didn't even bother putting pants on. Everyone else was asleep-he could even hear the men snoring-so who would see him if he walked out in his shorts?

  I don't care.

  Next thing he knew he was browsing the atrium, smoking, restless.

  He could hear the clock ticking. Then it chimed 3 a.m. He turned and almost shouted when a figure walked by quickly.

  Adrianne, in her robe, looked bug-eyed at him. "You scared the-"

  "-shit out of me," Westmore finished, a hand to his heart.

  She raised a coffee cup. "I couldn't sleep so I heated up some milk."

  "I might try that too. Can't sleep at all." Then the delayed wave of embarrassment rocked him. Oh, shit, I'm standing here in myfickin' Fruit of the Looms! Blushing angrily, he said, "Sorry, I didn't think anyone was awake."

  "Relax. Just because I haven't had sex in ten years doesn't mean I'm offended by seeing a man in his underwear. Good night

  "Good night."

  She traipsed off and disappeared into her own cubicle. Smart move, Westmore. What a jackass.

  Between Nyvysk, Mack, and Willis, he didn't know who snored loudest. Jesus, guys. That sounds like a bunch of chainsaws.

  Then someone sleep-talked: "No ... God, no-"

  And silence. Someone must be having a nightmare. Then, someone else-Willis, he thought: "Stop, stop. Please stop...

  This house is spooking everybody. The air felt heavy around him, rich, the way high humidity felt, only the airconditioners were working fine. The house, at this hour, felt dense.

  When he was stubbing his cigarette out, he heard feminine moaning. It sounded impassioned, like a woman at the point of climax. It's Cadaken ... Westmore shook his head with a smile. Either she's playing with herself or she's having one hell of a d
ream. Nyvysk and Adrianne, he supposed, would suspect that it was the influence of the mansion rousing Cathleen, stimulating her.

  Westmore wondered.

  He slipped back to his own cubicle and went back to bed. At first he'd thought Nyvysk's cubicle idea was sillyespecially in a house so splendorous. Now, with that inexplicable denseness weighing down on him, he had to admit he was much more comfortable sleeping in the same room with the others.

  He continued to drift off through veils of vivid, unpleas ant shards of dream, then kept snapping awake. Belarius, ion signatures, and infrared silhouettes. Naked women with black, inverted crosses pierced to their nipples ...

  When he next snapped awake, he stared, his heart slowing.

  Someone stood in his cubicle, the human outline frozen.

  Westmore stared through more seconds of speechlessness, of dread.

  "I can't sleep," Karen said.

  All that dread poured out of him in a breath.

  "Come here," he said.

  He slid over on the bed, and she slipped in next to him. He couldn't even see what she was wearing, but it didn't matter. He leaned over her for a few moments, cupped her cheek with a hand, then kissed her. Their tongues touched, and they shared a breath ...

  Then they fell asleep in each other's arms.

  Westmore slept dreamlessly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I

  "Westmore, right?"

  Westmore stood duped at the wall opening with a sign that read: VISITORS: REMOVE ALL SHARP OBJECTS FROM YOUR PERSON. THIS IS A MAXIMUMSECURITY PSYCHIATRIC WARD.

  "Yes, I'm Westmore," he said. "I don't have an appointment but I was told-"

  "Quiet."

  A basket was passed to him, into which he placed his keys, pens, etc.

  "Wallet, too."

  "My wallet's not what I would call a sharp object."

  "There are nut jobs in here who'd love to get hold of your wallet."

  "What for?"

  "Credit cards."

  Westmore didn't get it. "How's somebody in a locked psychiatric ward going to use a stolen credit card?"

  "They cut their throats with them all the time."

  Jiminee-Pete. Westmore turned over his wallet, then walked through a metal-detector. Once out of the glare, he finally got a look at the person talking to him, a 30ish guy with a shaved head and all-business face, built like a fire plug. The tag on his pocket read WELLS - DIRECTOR OF SECURITY.

  Westmore was led down a silent, shiny-tiled corridor. "So you're the guy who knows-"

  "Quiet."

  Wells' boot-heels cracked down the hall. "What do you know about Faye Mullins? You know what's wrong with her?"

  "Actually, no. What is wrong with her?"

  "In normal-guy talk? She's all fucked up in the head from dope."

  "How about something a little more specific?"

  "CDS-aggravated monopolar schizoaffective schizophrenia and symbolized delusional psychosis with occult and sexual ideations."

  Westmore nearly hacked. "That's some diagnosis."

  "We've got her tranked down pretty well, she's usually docile," Wells informed. "She's usually not coherent, mostly just motor-mouth word salad. But if you're lucky, you might get something out of her."

  "She ever talk about anything regarding astronomy? Lunar apogees, anything about the moon or the sun?"

  "Mostly just fruitloop stuff about dope and gang-blowjobs. And blood."

  "I guess that makes sense," Westmore said. "References to blood."

  "Hell, yes it does. She's the only survivor of that psychoshow Hildreth was running up there."

  They passed several nurses stations and med stations, all heavily locked. Could there be many patients here? Westmore didn't hear a sound anywhere. He'd borrowed Karen's car to drive down. The outside of the place looked innocuous enough: a long complex of clean brick buildings, one-story each, and a simple entry sign that read DANELLETON CLINIC. The place looked more like an HMO or chiropractor's.

  Westmore's stomach jolted when one of the small doorwidows they passed was suddenly filled by a face: a man who'd apparently eaten his own lower lip off. Then he screamed blood-curdlingly.

  "Lemme eat ya, buddy! Lemme eat ya! Humans taste like horse if ya cook 'em wrong. But I'm a good cook!"

  Westmore gritted his teeth and walked on with shoulders hunched.

  "Don't mind him," Wells said. "He was the executive chef at a big restaurant downtown."

  Westmore didn't want to know which one. Several nurses passed without a glance, then Wells loudly unlocked a door. "You want me to have her restrained?"

  Westmore looked at him. "Is that necessary?"

  "Probably not."

  That makes me feel SOOOOOOOO confident. "No, don't do it. She'll talk more if she's at ease."

  "Cool. But I have to lock it behind me. Hit the button if she gets froggy."

  "Will do."

  Westmore was numbed when he stepped into the stark white room. The face that looked back at him he'd seen before, in the DVD's, but now it looked even more pallid, more plump-a visage of hopeless sadness. Faye Mullins wore a white linen gown, from which pale, heavy legs emerged, ankles swollen from medication-related edema and overall inactivity. Lusterless eyes blinked above drooping cheeks. Drab brown hair looked unwashed for several days, flecked with dandruff.

  "I saw you in a dream once," she said a second later, eyes widening on him. "You were getting off a bus, in the rain, and you went into a bar and got drunk until you were so sick."

  "A couple years ago, that was definitely me," Westmore said.

  "No, no," she hastened to correct. Her hands flew in a gesture of animation. "It was a dream of the future."

  "Ah, well, that sounds very interesting, Faye." She seems pretty coherent to me, he thought. He'd expected a babbling in-patient, drooling, staring off. The room was plain. White walls, white floor, white ceiling. White bed. "I'd like to talk to you if you don't mind."

  "There's another woman here who can fly puppies," she replied. "She has a special license to do it. She flies puppies like they're planes."

  Westmore's brow grew a serious ridge. "Ah, interesting."

  "We have to watch the football game because the future of the world depends on it, and on Slim Jims and wind chimes, the chimes with stars like my mother used to make for craft shows. Oh, and toilet paper. Don't forget! I'm talking the future of the world."

  Westmore nodded, remembering what Wells had told him about word salad and incoherence. "Oh, sure, I know. Slim Jims especially. Debbie Rodenbaugh likes Slim Jims."

  "No, she doesn't, you liar," Faye Mullins grinned dopily back at him. "She never eats pork or beef!"

  "Oh, that's right. But she likes wind chimes. She told me.

  Faye's voice lowered in tenor. "She only likes the kind with stars "

  "Stars, yes. I like them too." Then Westmore thought, Stars. Astronomy ... "Did she like lunar apogees?"

  Faye's face lurched forward on the obese, tube-like neck. "Huh?"

  "The moon, the sun, stuff like that? Certain points of an orbit? You ever take astronomy in school?"

  A pallid stare. Some silence. "I think you're trying to trick me."

  "I won't trick you. I'm an honest person, Faye. I'm not like the men at the mansion."

  Her stare focused. "What men? The Adiposians? They're not men."

  Westmore was thrown for a loop. Keep her talking! "No, I mean the men who did bad things to you. The men who raped you."

  "They didn't really rape me," she said. Her coherence was sharpening. "They'd make me use my mouth on them a lot." She blinked. "Is that rape?"

  "If they made you do it against your will, yes, it is."

  A fat chuckle. "Oh, it was against my will, all right. They'd make me do it to get them more excited for what came later in the Scarlet Room. The rituals. They'd hold guns to my head to make me do it, and knives. Yeah, I guess that is rape. But what I meant is they never had sex with me."

&nbs
p; "Intercourse, you mean."

  "Yeah, nobody ever wanted to 'cos they all said I was too fat and ugly. One of them, Jaz, he was the meanest. He'd always call me 'Wood-killer."' Suddenly she tossed her head back and forth, mimicking: "'I wouldn't fuck you if you were the last piece of ass on earth,' he'd say. Then he'd make me smoke crack or shoot up."

  Westmore tried not to envision the details of the evil that went on in the mansion. Just a bunch of evil peopk .. .

  "But he's in hell now, and I'm glad," she went on. "And so is Three-Balls and Hildreth. They can't hurt me anymore."

  "No, no, they can't."

  What next? He had to keep her talking or she'd probably lapse back into her gobbledegook. "Faye, do you know where Debbie Rodenbaugh is?"

  Then she said the strangest thing, which Westmore recognized, a quote:

  "`Let that hath understanding ..."'

  Westmore finished in his mind, --count the number of the beast.' I've read the Book of Revelation, Faye. And that line's pretty hokey if you ask me. The combination of the safe is a variation of six hundred and sixty-six."

  "So you opened ... the safe?" she asked with hesitation.

  "Sure. I found the piece of paper inside that has the secret on it."

  She shot a dirty, nail-bitten finger at him. "You're trying to trick me! You're lying."

  "About what?"

  "You didn't open the safe. You're just acting like you did--to trick me into saying something I shouldn't."