House of Skin, page 23
“I must’ve nodded off,” he said.
“For several hours,” she informed him.
“I have to go out tonight. A few more and off we’ll go into the Territories.”
“Can I help?”
“No, I’d best do this alone. But there is something you can do.”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember who our enemy is? The nosy one always prying intoother’s affairs?”
“Who could forget?”
“Pay him a visit.”
Cassandra decided she would. If a life had to be taken, then it best be someone who had no reason to live.
DELIVERANCE
* * *
“Soames.”
He’d heard his name spoken, hadn’t he? He opened his eyes and looked around. There was someone standing in the doorway. A woman.
He felt he could barely breathe because this was the moment he’d been waiting for.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name isn’t important.”
“No, why would it be?” he found himself saying. This woman was his assassin and did he really need to know who she was? The other patients in the ward were sleeping, drugged and still. Nothing would wake them. Not even his screams, if and when they came. Whoever this person was, she was slick. Getting in here like this and choosing a time of night when no one could be woken.
But why did I wake?
Because, he knew, even full of drugs, he rarely slept. His mind was constantly on edge, waiting for this moment.
“What do you want?”
“I’ve come for you.”
“Who sent you? The doctor? Was it the doctor?”
She laughed. “I’m afraid not. Another.”
He wanted to laugh, too, and he didn’t know why. Maybe it was because his life was such a dark and dreary mistake, such a comedy of errors. Only laughter seemed appropriate in this final hour.
“Another, you say.” He laughed again. “Yeah, why not?”
“It’s only fair.”
“So get on with it.”
She stepped forward, no malice in her actions, only necessity. Light was spilling in from the doorway, illuminating her. She was a lovely girl, this one … or was she? He was staring at her and knowing something was dreadfully wrong, but not what. Then he saw. It was her face. The very appearance of it. The flesh was wrong, discolored a bit, and the way it lay over the bones beneath … uneven, pitted. Make-up, he decided. She was wearing latex and paint and putty to conceal her identity.
If nothing more, he’d see that face before she snuffed out his life.
“Let’s see who and what you are,” he said under his breath. She leaned over him, not hearing a word. His hands were free now. They’d taken the restraints off this morning. His fingers hooked into claws and went at her face.
The woman uttered a mild gasp as his fingertips found seams and pulled strips of latex and globs of wax free. Oh, now that was a mistake, wasn’t it? Her skin—what there was of it—was leathery and shredded, sliced and gouged. The mutilated musculature beneath was stretched taut and bloodless over a finely proportioned skull. A living anatomy print.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said. “There’s nothing to be gained.”
“Dead,” he moaned. “You’re dead. Make me as you are. It’s all I’ve wanted. For so long, it’s all I’ve dreamed about.”
“Yes. No more pain. I won’t allow it.”
Her cold hands were on his shoulders now, tightening with grave rictus. He felt bones snap but there was no true pain, only release. Tears were falling from his eyes now and whimpers from his lips.
“It would’ve been easier dying at the hands of a pretty girl,” the skull said, an odor of heavy perfumes and sweet powders masking something terrible beneath.
Soames gaped and never really understood.
“But you chose this,” she cooed in his face, her tattered lips inches from his own, her breath sour and sweet and sickening. “A kiss before dying.”
Her decayed mouth pressed against his own and a strip of flesh ripped free and stayed on his lips. He never screamed; he was way beyond that. She suctioned her mouth over his and sucked the breath from his lungs until his eyes rolled back and his face was blue-tinged. Then it was over.
* * *
It was less than an hour before they found his body. The nurse never thought anything at first. In the dim light, he was a man sleeping in peace. Upon closer examination, his face gave the game away.
The nurse looked him over quickly and sought out her superior to announce a death on the ward.
She did this all very calmly.
For death was nothing new here.
* * *
After Cassandra had fixed her face, she returned to Eddy.
“It’s done,” she said.
“After all this time, he’s at peace.”
Eddy looked content, truly content. It was as if a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He closed his eyes and allowed himself the self-indulgence of a satisfied smirk.
“Did he take it well?”
“He didn’t fight. There was no violence. Just an end. He was anxious for it, the poor thing.”
“He’ll rest now.”
Eddy kissed her and they sat together for some time, contemplating the future. That and what it might bring.
Life was rich.
BOOK OF HELL
* * *
Lisa wasn’t sure why she’d come back to the house. There was curiosity, of course, and lots of it. But she’d thought the fear that had eaten her up since Fenn had dragged her away the last time would be enough to keep her away. Regardless, she was back, sitting in her car just up the street. Watching the house. Waiting, perhaps, for it to rise up and give chase.
She didn’t have the nerve to go in.
She only wanted to study it from afar and see if she could make sense of any of it. But there was no sense to be had and she abandoned such naïve ideas moments after pulling up to the curb.
It hadn’t been easy getting away.
The past two days since the incident at the House of Mirrors had been aggravating ones. Fenn had been with her every moment when he wasn’t on duty, feeding her soup and stroking her hair and lording over her like a big brother. And when he was gone, he seemed to call every thirty minutes to see if she was okay. She was beginning to find his constant doting as hard to take as the return of William Zero.
His heart was in the right place, but his constant vigilance was stifling. There was just too much to be done to be a prisoner of his affections. He knew nothing of what she’d experienced. The transmitter had failed due to mechanical difficulty just as her watch had when the Territories opened up. Her scientific bent of mind told her that two dimensions interfacing must have produced a prodigious amount of electromagnetic energy, forces that contemporary physics were probably ignorant of.
Fenn. Poor, dear, sweet Fenn. He was in love with her, his head filled with dreams of bright and happy domesticity. He saw a future for them. A house. Lives intertwined. Maybe even children. But it would never come to pass. She knew that just as she knew she did not love him. A simple tranquil existence was beyond her. Twisted desires and obscene appetites were wrestling for possession of her soul like dogs fighting over a juicy bone. There was no denying them. If she let him get closer, there would only be heartbreak for him.
If he discovered who she really was it would destroy him.
His attentions were flattering, but stifling and suffocating.
When he went back to the station after spending his lunch with her, she made her move. Even as she drove off into the afternoon traffic, she wondered if she was being followed by some of his men. It was the sort of thing he’d do, blinded by infatuation and burning with protective instincts. She saw no cars that seemed to be tailing her, but then, she doubted that she would have seen them.
She’d been parked for nearly an hour now and only one or two cars had passed. Fenn was probably worrying and ready to send out the Calvary now that she wasn’t there to answer his calls.
If he was half as smart as he pretends to be, he’d know exactly where you went. How you couldn’t keep away.
There was no denying what had happened at the house. She’d seen William Zero and what appeared to be the threshold of the Territories. She knew what purpose the mirrors served—they were doorways of a sort. Such things shouldn’t be and yet they were. Fine. She accepted that man’s knowledge of reality was rather limited. The thing she wanted to know was why Zero had returned. What did he want? Was it his son or was he back to start on a fresh binge of crimes? If that was the case, she would tell Fenn the truth and they would stop him. But could he be stopped? Something that appeared to have been dissected and yet lived? If being taken apart and reassembled hadn’t deadened the life in him, what good would police and bullets do?
The answers to these questions wouldn’t be gathered hiding in a car. She stepped out and kept her hand on the .38 in her pocket. She was going in, God help her. If she didn’t lose her mind this time, then maybe there wasn’t one to lose at all.
She marched up the steps and went in, leaving the door open for a hasty retreat. It was silent within, as she knew it must be. Her mind relived her last visit and she quickly shrugged it aside. She looked around downstairs, unable to go up just yet. Her breath came quick, her skin cool and clammy. She was afraid and it wasn’t a bad thing, it kept her vigilant.
Finally, she climbed the stairs, her heart filling her throat.
It seemed to take an eternity to reach the second floor landing and another to find the attic door. It was closed. Again, she wondered if she’d shut it or someone else had. Not that it mattered. She opened it and started up.
She knew she wasn’t alone long before she reached the top. It was a dread feeling that started in her belly and spread through her limbs. By the time she reached the landing, her legs threatened to collapse beneath her. A stink of death filled her nostrils and she soon saw why: there was a body lying mere feet from her. It reminded her of the animal bodies she’d seen—horribly wasted and stripped of flesh. But this one had been human. Man or woman, she couldn’t say. There was precious little left but ravaged bone and withered bits of clothing. She fought back an urge to vomit. It was something she needed to do, but she couldn’t allow it, not until she’d spoken with the man who did this.
The attic wasn’t swallowed by the Territories as before, perhaps the sunlight feeding in through the broken shutters and the fissures in the roof was keeping it at bay. It occupied only the full-length mirror now, a shifting curtain of black that was hypnotic in its very insane texture and promise. She could hear what it must be like in that awful place—screams, sobbings, cold laughter, a discordant singing of many suffering voices. That and the constant shriek of some demon wind that set her nerves on edge.
“Are you here?” she managed, moving no further into the room, afraid that the hungry vortex would suck her in.
“Yes.” A voice from the darkness beyond the glass.
“Show yourself.”
“Come and find me.” A peal of cruel laughter.
“No.”
She saw him now, walking towards the mirror, polluted mists the color of leaden ash swirling about him. He seemed very far away, despite how near his voice had sounded. It took him scant seconds to reach the attic. The physical laws were apparently quite different in that terrible place. He passed through the glass, the breach of worlds, with a subtle ripping sound as if two blankets charged with static electricity were suddenly separated. The good doctor was no more attractive than before, just a pieced together thing pretending humanity. He was wasted and festering, numerous incisions beginning to bleed now that he’d left the chasm where certain laws were suspended.
“You’ve come to see me, Lisa, and here I am,” he said.
“What,” she began, her lungs devoid of breath, “do you want here?”
Zero took a few steps forward, but no more. Drops of blood struck the floor at his feet. He smiled and she heard sutures, both within and without, popping their dusty seams. His eyes fixed her own. There was a cold and malignant appetite in them, particularly the yellow one which was like the eye of a rabid wolf.
He looked down at the leeched body. “A transient,” he explained, “looking for shelter.”
“You murdered him?”
“I was hungry,” he told her and said no more, as if that was explanation enough. And it was; she had no interest in the details.
Zero shook his head, as if mourning the bones before her or perhaps his own blighted soul. “A pity,” he said.
She felt nothing but hatred for him now, as she supposed she always had since learning of his true calling.
“My love for you never diminished,” he told her. “I kept it here.” He pressed two waxy fingers to his chest. The nails were dirty and ragged as if he’d been digging in the dirt. “I’ve kept it safe.”
Madness tickled her brain at the idea of this monstrosity pining away for her. Was this the reason he’d returned? For her?
“I watched you each time you came to this house. Through the mirror I saw you. Your beauty still takes my breath away. I’d almost forgotten how much I loved you.”
The impulse to retch was almost overpowering. How could such a thing know of love? The idea of this horror from a dissection table loving her was enough to make her sanity bleed and run.
“You … toyed with me that day, didn’t you? You left the cigarette burning downstairs.”
“A reminder. I thought then you’d know I’d come back.”
“Why did you come back?”
“For you, my love.”
No, she couldn’t accept that. She couldn’t accept him loving her or even thinking about her. It made her feel filthy, drained of hope and life. Her head reeled with dizziness and her stomach convulsed with nausea.
Her legs decided to run, but it was too late. He was already on her, Dr. Blood-and-Bones, the butcher of butchers. His left hand seized her arm and his right stroked her cheek with leathery fingers. The sutured, disjointed face closed in on her own, his gashed lips seeking a kiss. His teeth were like yellow nubs. She screamed and fought in his grip.
“There’s plenty of time for romance,” he promised, his breath like old meat.
He was terribly strong, stronger than anyone had the right to be. Her struggles were nearly useless. He dragged her effortlessly towards the chasm, whispering obscenities under his sour breath that she didn’t dare listen to. Her fingers lost their instinctive repulsion of him and saw only survival. They scratched over his mummified face and loosened flaps of skin and broke stitches. He shook his head frantically to keep her nails away, but she kept on, tearing and clawing until he dropped her at his feet with a cry of anger. She was preciously close to the mouth of the chasm and she could feel its pull drawing her over the dusty floor. Her foot was sucked into the mirror and she could feel the Territories crawling in infectious waves. The other side was freezing. She fought free and crawled out of harm’s way.
Dr. Blood-and-Bones was repairing the damage she’d done to his face, nimbly stitching himself back up. “You are full of life,” he said with something like joy. “Just as I remembered.”
Lisa found herself unable to move. The strength had been tapped from her limbs and she could only lay there and wait for his attentions. She recognized the physical and psychological signs, knowing she was either in shock or quite near to it. The sight of the peeled cadaver and the stink of its wormy decay made her stomach heave. The knowledge of what Zero said and what he intended to do completed the process. She vomited and the very action of it freed both her mind and her stillborn limbs.
She stood and faced her tormentor, her fingers pulling the gun from her pocket. It might not kill him, but it would definitely make getting her a difficult proposition.
“Come now, Lisa,” the ghoul said. “You’ve waited just as I have.”
“Get away from me.”
Zero took one defiant step toward her. He was maimed and bleeding from innumerable holes in his ruptured carcass. His desire was evident, it twisted in the air between them.
“Don’t you recall how it was?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, not sure if she was lying or telling the truth, “it was a living hell.”
“Hell?” he spat. “You don’t know what hell is. But you’ll learn soon enough.”
Visions were swimming in her mind. Of the afternoons they’d spent chatting and viewing old movies. Of the secret tryst they’d shared. Of the love she’d freely and desperately given and he’d taken. Of the way he really was and the way she thought he would be. Of the perversions he’d inflicted on her, twisting her susceptible psyche into one that could know no real love, only abuse and debased yearnings.
“You sicken me,” she told him point blank. “You used a naïve teenager, exploiting her at her weakest moment. You made me hate myself.”
He licked his lips with a leprous tongue. “I made you into the woman you are.”
“You made me become what I am. I studied the mind because I was so disgusted by my own. And then I found out about you, who you really were. A weak little man with a mind of filth, a butcher, a mur—”
“An artist.”
“Butcher. Nothing more,” she said. “I hated the memory of you then.”
“And now?”
“Pity. I only feel pity for you. You’re pathetic.”
“In time,” he said, edging closer, “you’ll feel differently.”
And now the time had come, her mind let her know. He was blocking the stairs and the chasm was directly behind her. He was working himself forward, by mere inches, hoping she’d retreat and be swallowed in the black throat of his world. But it wouldn’t happen. She stood her ground and prepared to fire. It wasn’t an easy thing to shoot another, surely not as easy as it appeared on television where bullet-ridden bodies fell with no remorse. This was reality and her sense of morality, of civilization, stayed her finger.
