by Edward Lee
He turned at a start.
The clock could no longer be heard; 6 a.m. had come and gone, but next he was sure he heard a series of very distant sounds from somewhere deep within the house.
Gunshots. Downstairs somewhere.
And where were the others?
I don't think I'm up for a shoot-out, he knew, yet more shots resounded. It must be Clements. He had one gun-the one Mack had given him--end though he knew little of firearms, he managed to extract the clip to check the ammunition.
That asshole!
The clip was empty.
Now he was starting to see. He ran downstairs, more shots thudding. He stopped in the office because he remembered the pistol in the desk that he'd seen the first day. And when he pulled open the drawerrawer -
DAMN it!
The other pistol was gone.
What am I gonna do now? Spit?
But Clements had guns, and it was certain he was the one shooting somewhere downstairs. But a flickering caught his eye; he turned to look, saw that last DVD he'd checked out was still playing, on auto-replay mode.
It was Debbie Rodenbaugh. Earlier, he hadn't seen all of this segment: the beautiful young woman receiving a most extreme sort of genital piercing. But now he saw the rest of the segment, and the girl's face as she leaned up when the procedure was complete.
Deborah ...
The face of the piercer was never shown, but it was definitely a man. Westmore could easily tell by the arms and size of the hands.
Jesus Christ. What did they do to her? And why?
Sick thrills, in a house that thrived on sick thrills ...
Gunshots still rang downstairs somewhere. He made to leave but nearly shouted aloud when his cell phone rang.
He answered instantly, expecting Clements.
But it was not Clements who spoke.
"Have you figured it out yet?" a low, female voice asked.
"Who is this? Vivica?"
"It's happening now. The Rive is opening. Can you see it? In the Scarlet Room?"
"I just came from there!" he bellowed. "And jack-skit is happening! All this stuff about Hildreth opening a Riveit's BULLSHIT! And who are YOU?"
"They fooled you. They made you think the Scarlet Room is on the fifth floor. It's not. It's downstairs. The parlor on the fifth floor used to be green. They just put in red carpet and wallpaper."
"What!"
"The Scarlet Room is downstairs, and the doors to the Chirice Flaesc are opening now. You should be there ..."
"WHERE? Where downstairs!" Westmore shouted further.
"The South Atrium is the real Scarlet Room."
A breath locked in Westmore's chest.
"Hildreth turned it into a dolmen-with sex and blood and evil," the caller went on. "It's the only thing you didn't figure out. But you figured out the time, from the paper in the safe. You figured out the combination. It's the only thing that they didn't know"
"Who's they?" Then another question clicked in his head. "And how did you get my cell phone number?"
"Get down there," the soft voice urged. "When the temple comes to our world ... there's nothing more spectacular."
Westmore shouted so loud his throat went ragged. "Who ARE you?"
"Faye Mullins."
The survivor ... The girl in the psych uwrd ...
"Tell me everything you know!" Westmore pleaded. "I need to know NOW!"
The line went dead.
XV
Clements only had muzzle flashes to use for target acquisition. Someone was popping some serious caps at him. But it was too dark-and he was too keyed up on defending himself-to notice that parts of the room were changing.
When he emptied the clips of his .44 automatic---a series of heavy, concussive BOOMS-his unseen attacker stopped firing. Clements unshouldered his backpack and pulled out the sawed-off Remington pump. He drew a bead as best he could, watched over the sites, and waited.
"Don't shoot," a voice cracked out. "Listen."
"I'm listening, Hildreth."
"I'm not Hildreth. He's in there."
In where? Clements thought.
"You can't handle what's happening here. just leave. Get out of the house and leave. You're not worthy to go in. I am"
"Go in where? Stop bullshitting me, or I'm gonna come and get you."
"I'll tell you more if you swear you won't shoot."
Clements smirked, cheek pressed to the shotgun stock. "All right."
Footsteps clattered. Clements didn't want to give his position away by turning on the flashlight. But the moon was sufficient.
It was Mack who stepped forward.
You sleazy, lyin' motherfrcker ...
"You're in way over your head, but I've been part of this since Hildreth began to put the plan together. It all started on April 3rd, and it's ending now. Can't you see what this room is becoming?"
For a moment, Clements was tempted to look around the room to see what Mack was talking about, but then he warned himself, Don't fall for it. Don't take your eye off the site.
"Keep talking, buddy„
"This shit happening here isn't for you," Mack said. His pistol was stuck in his pants. "I'm the one who should go into the Rive. You wouldn't know what you're doing. Just leave. You'd never make it back out alive."
"What the fuck are you talking about, asshole?"
"just leave."
Mack stepped into a brighter slant of moonlight, and that's when Clements saw ...
Mack's arms were slick to the elbows with blood.
He's the motherfucker who killed Connie ...
Clements liked to think of himself as a man who kept his word, but right now that ethic wasn't making it.
"I promised I wouldn't shoot," he called out. "But fuck it," and then he squeezed off one 12-gauge round. The shotgun jumped in Clements' hands.
Mack's left arm blew off. He spun around, sending a plume of blood round in an arc, and then Clements fired the next round at Mack's head.
Mack collapsed.
Kiss my ass, you piece of shit. But what had he been talking about? Hildreth was in them? Where was there? And what the fuck uw he talking about-the ROOM changing?
Clements reached for the flashlight but by now there was no need. The room seemed edged now in firelight, the greatest of which appeared more like a pillar of light at the end of the room.
And the rest of the room ...
Good God.
The room was, somehow,, flesh, webs of what appeared to be skin branching out from the back wall that minutes ago was just an adorned wail. But now the wall throbbed as if alive, and at its center glowed a seam.
Clements stared a few moments more before he could comprehend even one-percent of what he was actually looking at.
There's doors, he realized. The lit seam was a gap between two high, rectangular doors composed of the same skinlike substance that was slowly crawling over the rest of the room. Sweat glistened from pores; fat blue veins beat heartily beneath the skin. As Clements strained his eyes, it occurred to him what the rear of the room was becoming.
It's a f tekin' temple ...
Columns of flesh could now be seen. And that hot, glowing gap between the doors was growing wider.
The doors are opening.
A tall figure stood within the furnace-like glow.
Hildreth, Clements knew
The voice reverberated. Clements wasn't sure if the echoic words rang in his ears or in his head.
"What you seek is here. Come in ... and take it."
Clements stood dumbstruck. Within the door, on a floor of beating skin, lay a naked woman: Deborah Rodenbaugh.
"Only a precious few in history have ever had this honor. Rise to that honor now, and step into our domain. Take Debbie out, back into the world from whence she carnethe world that awaits."
The idea of opening fire with the shotgun never struck Clements. He left the gun on the floor and began to step forward.
With each step forward, Hil
dreth seemed to step back, though his feet didn't appear to be moving, until eventually he faded away into the infernal light.
And something deeper in the temple gained form. A face, a visage so abominable, description in any human language was not possible.
And Clements entered the Temple of Flesh, the throne of the Sexus Cyning and the lord of all lust-Belarius.
XW
Westmore entered the South Atrium only with enough tune to we the doors of the Chirice Flaesc close completely. Beheaded bodies hung from the rafters like the most macabre decor. In some areas the atrium's green-velour wallpaper had peeled away, revealing the room's genuine blood painted walls that had been covered up to disguise the room.
This was the real Scarlet Room, and Westmore knew that the Rive had opened and closed in his absence.
Mack lay sprawled and still in the corner by the kitchen door, an arm gone, his clothes drenched by the vast pool of blood he lay in. Westmore made out the severed heads of Nyvysk, Willis, Adrianne, and Connie, all dearly the final sacrifices which triggered the Rive's opening, their blood drained and slopped on the walls in order to peak the charge of the mansion.
On the floor lay a naked woman, unconscious.
Debbie Rodenbaugh ...
She seemed intact, and Westmore could see her breasts rise and fall. She's still alive, he realized.
But Clements hadn't remained quite as intact after physically carrying Debbie across the threshold of two worlds.
He'd been cut in half, sternum-level, as the doors had closed on him. Deader than dead.
But he got her out.
Westmore flung Clements' backpack on, stuck the shotgun in it, then picked Debbie Rodenbaugh up in his arms.
Though the Rive was closed now, and the incarnation of the Chirice Flaesc come and gone, the mansion still retained some of its charge. Westmore could feel hairs on his arms and neck still sticking up. He stalked right out of the house, to the front court where the cars had been parked. Thank God I still got Karen's keys, he thought.
But then he stalled as he carefully trod down the front stone steps.
Where IS Karen?
He didn't think any of the bodies in the Scarlet Room were hers.
I can't just leave her here ...
But then he noticed something else.
Oh Shit!
All of the cars in the front court, including Karen's black Cadillac convertible, were-
Trashed ...
The tires were punctured, the hoods propped open to reveal missing sparkplug wires.
I'm gonna have to walk out of here.
Not much of a prospect. Carrying a hundred-andtwenty-pound girl three or four miles to the main road?
But when Westmore looked down more closely, he thought, No, no, no ...
He lay Debbie down across the car's closed trunk, because inside the car, in the back seat, lay Karen.
Please don't be dead ...
He opened the door, put a hand on her shoulder and lifted her up. Her head lolled.
No. Please.
Then relief swept through him when she roused. Karen hugged him when recognition came.
"My God. It was all true. The house ... was changing."
"Yes," Westmore said.
Karen stifled sobs. "I was so scared, I came out here to get away but someone wrecked all the cars."
"Mack, I think. He's dead, and so are the others. I think Mack used them for some sort of final sacrificial rite. But I found Debbie Rodenbaugh. We have to get out of here:'
He helped her out, and she looked astonished at Debbie's unconscious body. Westmore grabbed a light jacket from one of the other can and wrapped it around Debbie.
"We'll have to walk out," Karen realized. "And she's out cold. Come on, I'll help."
"You're right, it was all true," Westmore explained as they each shouldered one of Debbie's arms and began to hustle away from the house. "And the Rive that Nyvysk was talking about-it opened. And Debbie came out."
"You mean, she's been ... in there ... since April 3rd?"
"Yeah."
They trudged farther away. Westmore knew that the Rive was closed now, but there was still something emanating from the mansion. The house was like a battery not quite dead, there were still a few dregs of energy playing out.
"I saw things in there," Karen said. "I saw more revenants. I think [ even saw Hildreth's ghost."
"So did I. On the stairs. Then somebody knocked me out from behind. Mack, I'm sure." But as they approached the darkness of the woodline, he remembered ...
"What a minute! Clements' car!" he almost rejoiced.
"Who?"
"Never mind. There's an access road right over here-"
"Are you sure?" Karen asked.
"Positive. And there's a car there. If the keys are in it, we can drive out of here." "
.Ixes go!"
They were jogging now, carrying Debbie along. When they plunged into the narrow opening in the trees, Clements' dented Olds 98 sat silent in moonlight. Westmore passed Karen a flashlight from the backpack. Please, God, please, God ... "Check to see-"
Karen shined the light inside. She nearly squealed in delight. "The keys are in it!"
I guess I never really believed in God before. But I sure as shit do now, Westmore thought. Debbie was still unconscious; they lay her in the back seat, then Westmore jumped behind the wheel. Karen stayed in back, hauled the door closed.
"What ... ," Karen began, "happened to her? Between her legs?"
"They did some sick S&M job on her-Hildreth and his people," Westmore said. "Put chrome rings in her-"
"There's no rings ..."
Westmore turned around. Karen had the flashlight on, flashed it down on Debbie's pubis. The chrome rings that Westmore had seen closing her vaginal lips on the DVD were no longer there. They'd been removed, leaving each hole torn. Westmore gulped back some nausea. "Torn out," he choked. "It must've happened when-"
"When she was on the other side of the Rive ..."
Don't think about it, he ordered himself.
"Look, she's still breathing, her pulse is strong, and she's not bleeding. Let's just get out of here," Karen said.
"Yeah." Westmore touched the ignition. "You know, with our luck, the car won't start."
Karen didn't say anything.
Westmore turned the key, and the motor started on the first try. It was probably the most refreshing sound he'd ever heard. "The only thing left to do is go home."
"Yeah, but ... why is something telling me that this is too easy?"
Westmore put the car in drive. "Because it probably is," and then the Oldsmobile's rear tires spat dirt and gravel, and they lurched off.
Home, Westmore thought, wending through the narrow passage of trees. Clumps of Spanish moss dangled from low branches. Green lizards darted up tree trunks as the big car roared by. But around the next turn-
"Damn it!"
"Oh, fuck!"
Westmore slammed on the brakes.
A tree had been felled across the road.
"You were right," Westmore said. "It was too easy."
"Drive over it."
Westmore looked at the tree. It was about a foot thick but with sprawling branches. "I could try. But I might not get over it; then we'd be stuck. The car might bottom out, or we could lose the oil pan."
"Fuck," Karen said again. "I say try driving over it. Take the chance."
It seemed the best idea. But just as Westmore looked to back up, Karen screamed.
In the headlight beams, something had stepped into the road just behind the tree. Westmore's vision froze on it.
It wasn't human, yet it was something he'd seen before.
"It's one of those things," he murmured.
An Adiposian.
It stood tall, lank but globose in the hell-rendered fat that made up its atrocious physique. It had no face yet it looked right at them. The rimmed seam for a mouth gaped, showing a great fat flap of tongue. Between its legs hung
large, abominable genitals.
"One of the buried Adiposians!" Karen shrieked. "It was resurrected when the Rive opened, and it'll remain alive until the charge of the house is totally dead!"
It's one of those things Clements and I dug up last night, Westmore realized.
"Do something!" Karen screamed.
Westmore slammed the car in reverse, floored it, and turned around, then slammed the brakes again.
"Shit!"
They both looked out the rear window. In the back-up lights, they could see that another tree had been knocked down.
"We're trapped on the road!" Karen shouted. "And-"
Another Adiposian was behind them, slowly approaching.
Only one thing left to try, he thought and grabbed the shotgun. He jumped out of the car, trotted out several steps and stopped. The faceless thing continued stepping forward, and it was then that Westmore noted that is was afemak of the species. Breasts like bulbs of fat, with snot-colored nipples that stood erect in some abyssal excitement. The tongue licked drooling lips, and the thing's splayed hand stroked the fat cleft of its sex.
That thing has plans for me, Westmore realized. He didn't know from guns, so he shouldered the shotgun, aimed, and simply pulled the. trigger.
"Hurry up and shoot!" Karen's voice exploded.
Nothing happened when he pulled the trigger. Perhaps God was not looking out for him after all. An instinct caused him to grip the shotgun. He jacked the slide back, then forward, like they did on TV, and then he aimed again and squeezed the trigger.
BOOM!
"Jesus!"
The 12-gauge magnum load took the Adiposian's pale head clean off, splattering hot fat in a gust across the road. When it fell still, it seemed to deflate, the slop filling its skin emptying. The report slammed the shotgun butt into Westmore's shoulder; he barked in pain and was sent back against the Oldsmobile's trunk.
"The other one!" Karen warned next.
The first Adiposian had traversed up most of the road by now Westmore was more confident than afraid when he strode around the car, jacked another round, and-
BOOM!
-squeezed off another round into the featureless meat that was the thing's face. The Adisposian collapsed in a splatter. The most repugnant stench of Westmore's life filled the humid air.
He got back in the car. "That was almost fun," he admitted.
"What now? We're still blocked from both sides."