by Guy Adams
‘Hungry?’ Elizabeth asked Henry as they passed.
‘Not for that,’ he admitted.
There was a splash from the pool and a ripple of laughter. ‘A swim, then?’ she suggested.
‘Maybe,’ he replied, staring up at a man who had been stretched cruciform on a rack, partygoers surrounding him with thin, gleaming needles. ‘That’s just …’ He couldn’t find the words, though they would have been lost anyway as the man moaned when a woman reached up and slid a needle into the soft meat of his buttocks.
‘It takes all sorts, darling,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Who are we to judge?’
‘I guess.’ The human pincushion writhed, glistening in the faint light of the lanterns. He was a confused map of blood trails, the heads of the needles bristling from him like crime-map markers indicating the location of murder victims.
The pool was lit only from within, a shimmering blue light that played around its edges and exposed writhing, thrusting attendants.
Henry was at a loss to tell where one body started and another stopped. The partygoers had become one in the thin strip of tiles that bordered the water. Folded in and over themselves, every part of them was at play, glistening with spittle and sweat as they dragged themselves from one partner to the next.
Elizabeth jumped over them and dived into the water. Turning onto her back she swam back from the edge, beckoning to Henry with her finger. He watched her sail backwards, her legs parting and closing, parting and closing.
He stepped among the writhing people at the edge of the water, standing in the midst of them and feeling them, oiled and eager, rub up against him. Hands reached out, inviting him to join them, clutching at his legs, fingers reaching out to his erection in the hope of claiming it for themselves. He stood there for a moment, enjoying the tease, then stepped up to the water and jumped in.
He swam to Elizabeth who was, by now, pressed back against the far side.
‘Get inside me,’ she insisted, mounting him and flinging her arms around his shoulders.
She pushed them back into the water, Henry struggling to keep his face above the surface as she rode him.
‘The scorpion and the turtle,’ she whispered to him. ‘You know the story?’
He shook his head.
‘The turtle is swimming along the river and the scorpion asks him to carry him from one side to the other. ‘“But you’ll sting me!” the turtle complains. “If I did that we’d both drown,” the scorpion replies. “I promise I won’t hurt you.” So the turtle lets the scorpion climb on board.’ She rubbed herself against him, the water frothing around them as he tried to stay afloat. ‘Halfway across the scorpion stings the turtle. “Why did you do that?” the turtle asks as it dies. The scorpion shrugs. “I can’t help it,” he replies. “I’m a scorpion – it’s what we do.”’
Elizabeth gripped him tight, his legs fighting to reach the shallow end so that he could stand up. She pressed her mouth to his ear. ‘I’m a scorpion,’ she said, ‘and this is what I do. Will you let me sting you?’
‘Yes,’ Henry replied, having finally found the pool’s floor. He lifted her out of the water.
She bit his neck hard enough to draw blood and pushed away from him, swimming to the side of the pool and pulling herself out and into the midst of the bodies coupling there.
He followed, staying on his hands and knees, letting himself struggle against the tide of lovers. Lips found his, hands gripped and pulled at him as he pushed forward. He could lay no claim to who or what he was touching here in the blue-tinted shadows and he didn’t care. Someone took him in their mouth and he dallied a while, before deciding that he needed Elizabeth and pushing forward.
She had circled back around him, her hands gripping his shoulders and pushing him over onto his back, the others sliding out of the way to give him room.
‘I want to sting,’ she said, mounting him.
She rode him for a while, both of them being jostled by those on either side. Then Henry decided he wanted a say in matters and lifted her up and over so that their positions were reversed. His patience for teasing was at an end and he pounded aggressively at her, an attack as much as an act of love. A pair of hands reached out from the mess of lovers and pinned down her arms. He heard shouts of encouragement and was aware of hands at his rear, pushing him on. In his mind all these bodies had become one, a single creature folding in on itself to explore new sensations.
When they came it was to a murmur of approval and encouraged desire. He fell back from Elizabeth and he saw the other bodies fall in to replace him, like hyenas gathering around a kill. Henry let himself fall back into the water, wanting the cool, refreshing isolation that it offered.
He kicked back from the side and watched as indistinct shapes explored the woman he had just left, knowing full well that she was only too happy to be consumed.
If Harrison hadn’t hated actors before he certainly would have done by now. Keeping to the edges of the party, he had been working his way around the property, keeping an eye out for Elizabeth and Nayland. Neither of them were anywhere in sight, though it was hard to tell among the laughing, identical faces that littered the place. Everyone looks the same, he thought, sausages shat out of the Hollywood machine, same teeth, same hair, same jewels, same vacuous conversation. These people thought the world ended beyond the studios, a no-man’s-land of dust and emptiness. How quickly they forgot once they left the real world behind and existed in this vacuum of make-up and glitter. How could he ever hope to get a truthful answer out of any of them?
He looked at the buffet table and wondered if he could risk helping himself to a plate or two – there was nothing like a glimpse of food to remind you how long it had been since you ate. He decided against it. He couldn’t hope to blend in with this company – the minute the guests paid attention to his clothes he would be ousted as an intruder. Besides, he wasn’t here to enjoy himself, he was here to take the hosts to one side and demand that they answered some questions. The sooner he achieved that the sooner he could get out of there.
Giving up on the outside crowds, Harrison sneaked around the back of the buffet table and made his way into the house.
Patience was beginning to suspect that her time in the employ of Elizabeth Sasdy and Frank Nayland was coming to an end. Households were little empires, especially here: they rose and fell, had their moment in the sun, then faded away to dust. For all that her employers treated her as invisible, assuming she would simply function as directed regardless of what they said and did, she was no idiot. The acrimony and violence of the last few years was one thing, she could turn a blind eye to all that, it was the bickering of children and she had no interest in it. The last few weeks had been different. First there had been the disappearance of the maid – and still, for the life of her she couldn’t remember the girl’s name – then the sudden transformation of Elizabeth. (And had they thought she wouldn’t notice? Would simply shrug her shoulders and carry on? Of course they had …) Even that miracle hadn’t been consistent. Elizabeth went from flaunting herself to hiding herself, as if she could pass off such a clumsy subterfuge on her housekeeper, the woman who knew her better than anyone else. Whatever Elizabeth had done, what ever treatment she had endured, it was inconsistent and unreliable. That much was now obvious. It also needed regular attention, the constant day trips proved that. Both husband and wife moved around the place weighed down with their secrets, shared looks, silence and a perpetual sense of things unsaid. It was taking its toll on Nayland. Patience had always known he was a weak man, fragile and nervous, the cracks just waiting to spread. Now there seemed to be little keeping him together but alcohol and bitterness. Yes, the household empire was crumbling, the mad empress primed to set light to it all.
Part of Patience felt relieved by that prospect. The regular employment was good, obviously, and her savings were considerable after so many years in service. Still, this was no place to be. It was a poisonous house, a dangerous house. She had a strong sus
picion that the maid (Geraldine? Gemma?) had found that out for herself.
Things were crumbling. She just had to hope she could escape their collapse unscathed.
Moving through into the entrance hall, she caught sight of a man who clearly wasn’t a guest. (Patience knew people and this man, in his workmanlike clothes and with his awkward body language, was not someone who should be here.) Was this another sign of the impending collapse? She decided there was only one way to find out.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked, noting with some degree of pleasure the panic that crossed his face at being caught wandering around.
‘I was looking for our hosts,’ he said, pausing for a moment, clearly making a mental decision before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. ‘I’m with the police and I really need to ask them some questions.’
‘Tonight?’ She had been right, Patience decided: here was the man who might bring the whole empire down around them.
‘It is urgent,’ he insisted. ‘I would have waited until tomorrow otherwise.’
‘I’m surprised you got past the front door,’ she said, knowing full well that he hadn’t. The security at these parties was second to none.
Again he paused, clearly deciding how honest he should be. ‘I didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘The guy there refused to let me in so I came over the wall.’
His honesty was so unusual – these walls rang with falsehood and deception, she could scarcely remember the last time someone had been so direct inside them – that she decided to accept him. After all, if she wanted to survive the forthcoming collapse might he not be her surest way of doing so?
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you have your reasons, and who am I to stand in the way of the police?’
He noted her shift of mood, gave a half-smile and nodded. ‘Nice to meet someone who finally wants to help an officer out.’
‘I’d always do my duty as far as that’s concerned,’ Patience replied. ‘But it can be so difficult to know what to say, can’t it? To know if one should say something? When all you have are suspicions …’
She wondered if she was laying it on too thick. Her natural assumption had been that she would have to convince him that she was of use, that she might be someone whose testimony would make a difference. By the look on his face, though, she could tell that he was desperate for information. Her simple presence was enough to excite him without her dropping hints.
‘And you have suspicions now?’ he asked.
‘Things are not as they should be,’ Patience said. ‘There’s something wrong in this house – I only wish I could put my finger on it.’
‘Well, perhaps I might be able to help you do just that,’ he suggested. But he had no time to go any further because that was when the screaming started.
The sensation took some time to sink in for Elizabeth, her body a riot of post-coital feelings. The first clue that something was amiss came from a woman on her right.
‘My God!’ the woman shrieked. ‘What am I lying on?’
This was followed by people shifting all around her, their passion lost as they uncoupled and pulled themselves to their feet. The woman’s disgust was mirrored by others and Elizabeth sat up, looking over her shoulder to see what it was that had turned everyone’s stomach. There was nothing there. That was when it clicked, when the burning of her skin began to register and she held her hands up to her face. They were terrifying: the skin hung between the bones and the soft blue light of the pool passed faintly through the translucent flesh of her palms.
‘Not now,’ she whispered. ‘It can’t happen now.’ Her voice sounded like it belonged to a grave, a cracked, brittle thing that failed to convey properly the words in her head. A death rattle.
Elizabeth got to her feet, her legs unsteady, mostly because it felt as though she had several feet of rubber sheeting draped over her. Her breasts had poured themselves down her chest and the muscles in her arms were hanging down like leathery wings. It must match my mask, she thought, putting her spindly fingers to the bat mask that she still wore. A monster from head to toe.
A woman screamed, rubbing at her naked skin as if desperate to wipe any trace of Elizabeth away. The action was infectious, panicked yells and roars of disgust spreading through the small crowd as they pushed away from her and made a run for the exit from the garden, all lust eradicated.
Henry pushed himself out of the pool, scanning the crowd of people, trying to spot Elizabeth and failing. She reached out to him and he backed away from her, moving into the sideshow area that they had passed through earlier.
The general panic had spread here too, though those who dallied at the stocks and the buffet could hardly know what had caused such a change in mood.
‘Please!’ croaked Elizabeth, moving after Henry. ‘Help me, won’t you?’
He backed against the buffet table, dislodging the recumbent woman who rolled through plates of finger-food before running away across the lawn, her hair streaked with guacamole.
*
Fabio entered the pleasure garden just as most of the others were leaving it. He saw Henry – naked, of course, the young fool – and behind him a creature that he would scarcely have been able to believe in had he not seen its precursor earlier. By God, though, she had degenerated even further. Elizabeth now looked less than human, like something out of a Lon Chaney picture.
‘Henry!’ he shouted. ‘Get away from her! She’s dangerous, I tell you, she’s a killer!’
The young man looked towards him.
‘Fabio? I don’t … what is it?’
‘It’s Elizabeth, you idiot, the real Elizabeth!’
‘That’s not …’ Henry said, staring at the mask the creature wore. ‘That can’t be you.’
‘Of course it is!’ she insisted. ‘I’m just ill, I just need you to help me …’
Elizabeth stepped towards him and he tried to back away. But the table was in his way and it toppled to the ground, showering them both in crudités, cheese slices and whipped cream. A large gateau crashed to the floor between them and exploded out like the head of a suicide-by-shotgun victim.
‘But you’re …’ His face contorted with disgust. ‘You’re horrible!’
Elizabeth couldn’t bear to hear that, however much she might agree. She pulled herself towards him, her stare falling on the handle of the knife that had been used to cut the cake. She grasped its wooden handle, roaring wordlessly as she fell upon him, tearing at him with her yellow nails and a sharp steel blade.
‘I’m beautiful!’ she screamed. ‘The most beautiful thing you’ll ever see.’
Fabio made to move towards them, uncertain what to do but uncharacteristically determined not to leave Henry to his fate.
‘You,’ came a voice from his left and he looked up to see Nayland with a gun in his hand.
‘Frank! We have to stop her!’ Fabio shouted, ‘You can’t let her go on like this!’
‘You have no idea,’ Nayland replied. ‘No idea at all.’
‘I saw you!’ Fabio said. ‘I saw what she does … the girls … the blood …’
Nayland nodded. ‘It’s horrible,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s what she needs.’
He raised the gun and calmly shot Fabio in the head.
The fat man stumbled, the look of disbelief on his face turning to one of vague irritation as his legs went out from beneath him.
Elizabeth looked up from Henry’s torn features, a grotesque creature squatting on his bleeding corpse.
‘Oh, Frank,’ she said. ‘Look at what I’ve become.’
She stared down at Henry, his beautiful countenance now nothing more than a ruin of open wounds.
‘You’ll always be beautiful,’ said Frank, tapping at his temple with the still-smoking barrel of the gun. ‘In here.’
She looked back down at Henry as blood from his wounds pumped into the grass. Precious blood.
‘That’s not enough,’ she said. ‘Never enough.’
Elizabeth
buried herself in Henry’s body, rubbing herself against him in a disgusting reflection of their recent lovemaking. She smeared herself with his blood, not knowing if it would have the effect she craved but determined enough to hope.
When she raised her head again she was a vision of red. Meat hung from the wooden nose of her bat mask. The brutal countess, the very embodiment of her namesake.
‘Why is it never enough?’ she asked.
Nayland shrugged. ‘That’s life. Now run.’
Elizabeth did as he suggested, the new blood putting a spring in her step as it worked its limited magic on her decaying bones.
Harrison arrived at the garden in time to see the creature leaping through the bushes in the distance. He reached for his revolver, only then discovering its absence.
‘Shit,’ he said, aware that a shot had been fired and that he had little with which to defend himself. As it was there seemed to be no need. The man with the gun – Frank Nayland, he realised, recognising him from his photo – was turning it on himself rather than picking another victim. It suddenly dawned on Harrison whose gun Nayland was holding and a shitty night took one final plunge into despair. He’d be lucky not to lose his badge after all this.
‘Put the gun down, sir,’ he said, trying to keep his voice calm and measured. ‘There’s no need for anyone else to get hurt.’
‘There’s always a need,’ Nayland replied, though after a moment’s reflection he lowered the gun. ‘No point,’ he said. ‘I died a long time ago anyway.’
He tossed the gun to the ground and Harrison dashed forward to pick it up.
The detective looked around, taking in the two dead bodies and, bizarrely, the line of naked people chained to a set of old-fashioned pillories and stocks. As one they were thrashing, their gagged mouths choking on panicked pleas to be let loose.
‘What the fuck has been going on here?’ Harrison wondered aloud.
Elizabeth ran, feeling every extra burst of life that coursed through her as the blood began its work. She had no long-term plan, no idea how she was going to get out of the situation she had created for herself. None of that mattered. She was a creature of the now, an animal of instinct.