Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee

LEISURE
BOOKS

$7.99 US
$9.99 CAN
£5.99 UK
$14.95 AUS

"The living legend of literary mayhem. Read him if
you dare!"

-Richard Laymon, author of Endless Night

"Edward Lee's writing is fast and mean as a chain
saw revved to full-tilt boogie."

-Jack Ketchum, author of Peaceable Kingdom

"Lee pulls no punches."

Fangoria

"The hardest of the hardcore horror writers."

-Cemetery Dance

"Lee excels with his creativity and almost trademark
depictions of violence and gruesomeness."

Horror World

Something grabbed her. Not hands, not a person,
but something only semi-palpable, as if she'd been
seized by the air. When she snapped her eyes open,
she saw only a tulle-like veil of black.

Then she could see nothing; her eyes seemed to
close on their own, that or something like a hand
slipped over them. Chuckling tittered about her
head, dark, throaty noises of glee, but they were
muffled as if through closed mouths. Then, blind,
she was jerked off her feet, back arched, tousled
around. Now she was afraid. She tried to scream and
release the salt-fumes in the same action but-

Not fast enough.

Something slammed her chin up, something else
pinched her lips closed, then something like an
awful mouth full of dead breath but totally lacking
substance sealed over her nose and sucked all the
fumes out of her.

More guttering laughter flitted around her and the
ghost-mouth sucked and sucked, stealing all that
was left of her breath and everything that breath
contained, harder and harder until she grew numb
and the reversed pressure threatened to collapse her
lungs....

Other Leisure books by Edward Lee:

MESSENGER
INFERNAL ANGEL

EDMRRD LEE

LEISURE BOOKS

NEW YORK CITY

For Michael Slade, an utmost inspiration.

A LEISURE BOOK® February 2005 Published by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has reserved any payment for this "stripped book." Copyright O 2004 by Edward Lee

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law ISBN 0-8439-54124 The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. Printed in the United States of America. Visit us on the web at wynx

As always, I am in debt to more people than I can
sufficiently thank, but I'll try: First and foremost,
Tim McGinnis. Dave Barnett, Rich Chizmar, Doug,
Don D'Auria, Thomas Deja, Dallas, Teri Jacobs,
Tom Pic. Bob Strauss and John Everson for grueling
proofing burdens, and Erik Wilson for the
outstanding artwork on the hardcover. Kathy
Rosamilia, for lasting not one, but two novels
-~a
record. Amy, Charlie, Christy and Bill, Darren, Jeff,
R.J., and Stephanie. Archie and Mike, from
Header-thank God there are still some Yankee
fans....

"You should've just killed me," the girl said.

The man was shocked. These strange words were the first
she'd spoken in ...

Nine months .... he remembered.

"And I know you thought about it," she continued from
the lumpy bed. Her voice lowered. "I know you have that
gun. I know you've thought that maybe you should just
shoot me in the head and in the belly ... and leave."

Had he really? He wasn't consciously aware of it, and he
tended to be the kind of man who was always honest with
himself. You can lie to other people, but you can never really lie to
yourself. The lies always catch up.

My God. I hope that's not true.

He'd come all this way, covering all this time, to not kill
her, hadn't he?

The image of her was shamefully erotic. Spraddled on
the bed so cumbersomely, her nineteen-year-old flesh fresh and shining. All she wore were panties and a bra. He could
see the plush tuft of her pubic hair pushing outward against
the panties' fabric. The bra was too tight, given the extra
expanse of pre-natal growth; her breasts threatened to break
out. Her stomach distended pin-prick tight, large as a basketball, belly button popped out like a little white hazelnut.

The man averted his eyes from this glaring image, as he
had for all these months.

He spoke to the wall. "You're talking now. That's wonderful. Do you remember the last time you spoke?"

"No."

"After all this time ... what do you have to say? What do
you have to tell me?"

"Nothing," she said.

"Nothing?"

"All I remember is the house."

Clear across the country, he'd taken her. Anonymous buses
and fly-by-night motels. The man had never felt at ease with
her, even before she'd started to show The looks people gave
him, the desk clerks in the middle of the night, their raised
brows, as if to say, What's a man your age doing with a gid not
even tlwnty? Why are you bringing her to a place like this at this
hour? They were in Seattle now, the Aurora Motel; their room
looked like it was worth what he paid: $25.95 per night. He
knew that he had to keep it anonymous, places where no one
cared what name you wrote dawn in the check-in list. All
they wanted to see was cash. The looks were worse now. People looked at him as though he were the worst kind of pervert. One night not too long ago, he'd checked them into a
room in Needles, California, which turned out to be a flophouse for drunks, prostitutes, and drug addicts. He'd been
getting sodas from the Coke machine when a disheveled bald man in a crumpled suit approached him and said, "Hey, man.
I saw that cute little pregnant chick you brought in. I'm into
that too, you know? What's she charge for an hour?"

"Get away from me or I'll shoot you in the face ..."

The response sufficed.

It was just that the world, now, after all he'd seen, made
him absolutely sick to his stomach.

The world, he thought now.

He looked at the girl.

The whole world ...

"I'm sorry this place is so shabby," he said. He was ironing
their clothes on the patch-burned board he'd found in the
closet.

"They've always been shabby." Did she smile? She hadn't
done that in nine months either. "But I understand. You talk
to yourself a lot. You can't use your credit card, and all that."

"Yes."

"And you're pinching your pennies."

He smiled over a shirt. "That too."

"You're hiding me, aren't you?"

The man's smile wilted. "Yes."

"From them, right? From the people at the house."

He'd never slept in the bed with her, even though he
thought nothing would happen. He'd never done anything
to her, he'd never even thought of it. He'd never done anything wrong`

-except abduct her.

He'd sleep on the couch, or on the floor if there wasn't a
couch. The room he'd gotten in Seattle had a pull-out
couch- a luxury as far as he was concerned. Springs threatened to spear him through the mattress, and it stank. Thank God I'm not picky, he thought. The first night he lay awake
listening to the rush of traffic on the main road, and the rain.
He'd pulled the drapes closed; the room was nearly lightless,
and for a moment that sheer blackness made him think of the
past, of the house. If evil had a color, he knew what it was.

He didn't sleep even though he was exhausted. Instead he
lay back on that beaten mattress, looking up at the ceiling.
From the bed, he could hear the girl's rhythmic breaths. It
was hypnotic.

Then the breaths stopped.

The man's eyes froze open. He was about to lurch up but
then her voice grated out of the dark:

"I want you to kill me. Please do it. Wait till I fall back to
sleep. And do it."

The next night, she said this single word in her sleep:
"Belarius."

"Blonde hair doesn't work on you," she said the next
morning. He'd brought coffee, sodas, and donuts from the
7-Eleven several blocks down the hill. She ate leisurely on
the bed, watching TV, childlike in spite of the filled breasts
and distended belly.

"Why?" he asked, turning.

"You look like someone trying to not look like himself.
The hair color looks fake. It's too light."

He appraised himself in the mirror. "Really?"

"Reall
Y"

The man sighed. He pulled on his jacket. "I'll be back in
a little while."

"Where are you going?"

"To get a different hair dye."