Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee Read Free Page B

These were the
trimmings of Hildreth's madness, his offering, his gesture of
beckoning and worthiness. Faye knew that what he solicited
would indeed find him very, worthy. And she knew this too-from this point on, if she continued to search the
house instead of escaping, the things offered for her to see
would only get worse.

    When she found the door she was looking for, it seemed to
be no door at all but instead an oblong orifice rimmed by
something lip-like. The drugs made her see things all the
time, but was she really just seeing this?
    When she touched what should've been the door frame it
was soft, warm, wet. It was not wood.
    Total silence stood before her. More candles flickered
here, revealing inklings of the horror that had taken place.
She looked, vision surveying Hildreth's precious Scarlet
Room, and then she thought: They did it.
    Some of the bodies remained whole, others in pieces.
The center of the room was a pile of butchered nudity.
Limbs, heads, hands, and feet lay about the bloody accrual in
the middle: bodies. Faye could easily see the work-axholes in faces, ax-holes in stomachs. It occurred to her that
the bodies had been stacked deliberately for effect: a heaped
offering, a plea for invitation. Closer to the door at the rear
several buckets lay on their sides, glistening scarlet within.
And laying aside was the ax, as if dropped there.
    Leave, she told herself.
    But she couldn't.
    . When Faye finally stepped through inside, something
squished, something warm under the bottoms of her feet.
At first she thought it must be the carpet soaked from so
much blood but a downward glance showed her something
else altogether.
    It wasn't a floor she was walking on, it was raw meat, akin
to a vast slab of porterhouse. Veins branched out, thick as
garden hoses, and she could see them pulsing. Then she stuck her hand out to steady herself against the wall but what her
hand touched was not a wall anymore. It was skin.

    Hot, sweating, and flushed, skin full of excited nerves
which cringed for sensation. Faye walked along the wall,
running her hand, and as she did so it seemed to swell in her
wake, as if trying to touch back. She also felt subtle pro-
trudements: open eyes, faces, mouths with licking tongues.
They blinked at her wantonly. One mouth's tongue desperately shot forward, then the lips sighed and whispered,
"Please, please! Let us taste you!"
    Faye's long fat breasts hitched and her flab jiggled when
she stepped unbalanced toward the room's center. She
needed to see one more thing...
    The other door.
    It stood there, indeed, where it should be. Rimmed with
drooling flesh.
    The Rive, she thought.
    Yes, they'd really done it.
    But where was Hildreth?
    Then she looked in there and saw him grinning back.
    The police found her hours later, sitting at the end of the
mansion's twisting, mile-long driveway. Gibbering. Naked.
Insane.
    Faye sat now much in the same way, only in a different
place. No, it wasn't a nightmare. It was worse because it was
memory.
    The moon glazed the floor and a wedge of the bed in its
soft, ice-like glow.
    Movement caught her eye; when she looked up to the little window, a face peered in. They did often, never smiling.
    The door opened with a heavy click.
    "Come on, Faye. Time for your meds."

II
    Patrick Willis never traveled on planes. He'd stopped years
ago, when his mentalism peaked. It was mostly tactility
which triggered him, but packed so close, so close to all
those passengers-sometimes it was too much.
    Sometimes it was madness.
    That close to so many auras, he didn't need to touch them:
Too often their horrors came to him with hands of their own.
    So it was Greyhound from now on. At least the fares
were cheap.
    Half of the East Coast rolled by in the large window, like
a bright movie. All that beauty out there, he thought. Then he
looked around at the dozen or so passengers sharing the
coach with him. Yeah, lots out there but not