Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee (43 page)

He hesitated a second, then plunged in.

Only moonlight through the windows lit the room. The
room stood empty, normal.

And there was nobody in it.

Karen, Mack, and Cathleen were gone. They'd been
sleeping here an hour ago.

And absolutely nothing was happening in the Scarlet
Room.

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.

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, Hildreth 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.

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-"