Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee (44 page)

"There's no rings ..."

Westmore turned around. Karen had the flashlight on,
flashed it down on Debbie's pubis. The chrome rings that
Westmore had seen closing her vaginal lips on the DVD
were no longer there. They'd been removed, leaving each
hole torn. Westmore gulped back some nausea. "Torn out,"
he choked. "It must've happened when-"

"When she was on the other side of the Rive ..."

Don't think about it, he ordered himself.

"Look, she's still breathing, her pulse is strong, and she's
not bleeding. Let's just get out of here," Karen said.

"Yeah." Westmore touched the ignition. "You know,
with our luck, the car won't start."

Karen didn't say anything.

Westmore turned the key, and the motor started on the
first try. It was probably the most refreshing sound he'd ever
heard. "The only thing left to do is go home."

"Yeah, but ... why is something telling me that this is
too easy?"

Westmore put the car in drive. "Because it probably is,"
and then the Oldsmobile's rear tires spat dirt and gravel, and
they lurched off.

Home, Westmore thought, wending through the narrow
passage of trees. Clumps of Spanish moss dangled from low
branches. Green lizards darted up tree trunks as the big car
roared by. But around the next turn-

"Damn it!"

"Oh, fuck!"

Westmore slammed on the brakes.

A tree had been felled across the road.

"You were right," Westmore said. "It was too easy."

"Drive over it."

Westmore looked at the tree. It was about a foot thick but
with sprawling branches. "I could try. But I might not get
over it; then we'd be stuck. The car might bottom out, or
we could lose the oil pan."

"Fuck," Karen said again. "I say try driving over it. Take
the chance."

It seemed the best idea. But just as Westmore looked to
back up, Karen screamed.

In the headlight beams, something had stepped into the
road just behind the tree. Westmore's vision froze on it.

It wasn't human, yet it was something he'd seen before.

"It's one of those things," he murmured.

An Adiposian.

It stood tall, lank but globose in the hell-rendered fat that
made up its atrocious physique. It had no face yet it looked
right at them. The rimmed seam for a mouth gaped, showing a great fat flap of tongue. Between its legs hung large,
abominable genitals.

"One of the buried Adiposians!" Karen shrieked. "It was
resurrected when the Rive opened, and it'll remain alive
until the charge of the house is totally dead!"

It's one of those things Clements and I dug up last night,
Westmore realized.

"Do something!" Karen screamed.

Westmore slammed the car in reverse, floored it, and
turned around, then slammed the brakes again.

"Shit!"

They both looked out the rear window. In the back-up
lights, they could see that another tree had been knocked
down.

"We're trapped on the road!" Karen shouted. "And-"

Another Adiposian was behind them, slowly approaching.

Only one thing left to try, he thought and grabbed the shotgun. He jumped out of the car, trotted out several steps and
stopped. The faceless thing continued stepping forward, and
it was then that Westmore noted that is was afemak of the
species. Breasts like bulbs of fat, with snot-colored nipples
that stood erect in some abyssal excitement. The tongue
licked drooling lips, and the thing's splayed hand stroked the
fat cleft of its sex.

That thing has plans for me, Westmore realized. He didn't
know from guns, so he shouldered the shotgun, aimed, and
simply pulled the. trigger.

"Hurry up and shoot!" Karen's voice exploded.

Nothing happened when he pulled the trigger. Perhaps
God was not looking out for him after all. An instinct
caused him to grip the shotgun. He jacked the slide back,
then forward, like they did on TV, and then he aimed again
and squeezed the trigger.

BOOM!

"Jesus!"

The 12-gauge magnum load took the Adiposian's pale
head clean off, splattering hot fat in a gust across the road. When it fell still, it seemed to deflate, the slop filling its skin
emptying. The report slammed the shotgun butt into Westmore's shoulder; he barked in pain and was sent back against
the Oldsmobile's trunk.

"The other one!" Karen warned next.

The first Adiposian had traversed up most of the road by
now Westmore was more confident than afraid when he
strode around the car, jacked another round, and-

BOOM!

-squeezed off another round into the featureless meat
that was the thing's face. The Adisposian collapsed in a
splatter. The most repugnant stench of Westmore's life filled
the humid air.

He got back in the car. "That was almost fun," he admitted.

"What now? We're still blocked from both sides."

Karen was right. The trees had barricaded them. "I guess
we'll have to walk out. But-"

"There's more than two of those things out there,"
Karen pointed out.

There'd been three or four in the makeshift grave. "I
know, I-" Then Westmore got the worst feeling in his
belly. He turned around, faced Karen.

"It was just me and Clements who dug those things up.
We didn't tell anyone."

" That?"

His eyes leveled on her in the dashlight. "How did you
know there were more than two of those things?"

"Shit," Karen whispered under her breath.

Westmore reached for the shotgun beside him but Karen
had a pistol to his head first.

"Don't even try," Karen said. "I swear to God I'll kill
you. Nothing can interfere. I'll take Debbie to Vivica's myself if I have to."

She reached over the seat and took the shotgun.

"You bitch," he said.

"Sorry. You don't understand. I didn't even think any of
it was real," she began. "Until the day after the first rite. I
was just going along with it 'cos I had to."

"Why? Why did you have to?"

"Hildreth and Vivica paid me more money than I've ever
been paid. And I had to protect my daughter. Shit, at first I
just thought I was accommodating the shits and giggles of a
nutty old man and his wife. But it didn't take me long to see
that they were for real. They killed or ruined anybody who
jeopardized Hildreth's plan for tonight, Beltane Eve, during
the apogee that celebrates Lucifer's fall. They killed Debbie's parents, they killed that bum to pass for Hildreth's
body. They paid people off, falsified court records, paid graft
to cops and newspapers. And they wrecked Clements' career. They fucked up a lot of other people, too, without
thinking twice. They didn't have to say it to my face, Westmore-it was clearly implied. My ass was in the ringer, too,
and if I didn't go along with the program I'd wind up in
the ground myself. I had to protect my daughter."

"Your daughter? The one at Princeton? What's she got to
do with this?"

"She's not at Princeton-I lied," Karen admitted. "She's
at Oxford, registered under a phony name."

"Debbie Rodenbaugh," Westmore figured.

"Um-hmm. And I know damn well if I ever even
thought about blowing the whistle on the Hildreths, or if I
stopped helping them-my daughter would be dead in two
minutes."

"So it was you and Mack, Vivica's people on the inside."

"That's right. And it was me and Mack who buried the
four Adiposians on the night of April 4th. They came through when the Rive opened, and they stayed alive for
several hours after the first rite, until the mansion's charge
was totally dead."

"So you and Mack killed the lock-girl, too, I guess. And
Willis and Adrianne and Nyvysk and-"

"Mack may have, I didn't kill anyone," Karen asserted.

"You just turned the other way."

She didn't respond.

"And what about Cathleen?" it just occurred to him. He
hadn't seen her body in the Scarlet Room. "She must be
dead too."

"She's with us," Karen said.

"What's that mean?"

"It doesn't matter, Westmore. She has uses that Vivica's
interested in. Forget it. Just drive me to Vivica's with the
girl. Then you can go. Vivica's not afraid of you-she actually kind of likes you-"

"Great."

"And if you start any trouble or tell anyone what happened here tonight, she'll simply have you killed. Just let it
be. The only thing she didn't know was the exact time and
date." Karen chuckled dryly. "But you solved that puzzle.
Mack told Vivica once you got all the information about
the piece of paper in the safe. In a weird way, you helped
fulfill Hildreth's plan more than anyone."

The observation didn't set well with Westmore. "What's
the rest of the plan? What was the purpose?"

"Her," she said, pointing to Debbie's still-unconscious
body. "Hildreth cultivated her. He'd already made his pact.
His instructions were clear. Debbie Rodenbaugh was exactly what they needed. A naive, innocent virgin. The first
rite on April 3rd opened the Rive to the temple of Belarius,
and then Debbie was put in to the Rive. She's been there since then. And six hundred and sixty-six hours after that
first rite was tonight. The Rive opened again, and-"

"And Debbie came out," Westmore realized. Finally he
understood the purpose of the chrome rings, which were
gone now. Belarius tore them out ... "And now she's pregnant.

"Yeah. So just forget it. Take me to Vivica's, then leave.
There's nothing you can do." She nudged the pistol against
the back of his head. "Or else I'll have to kill you, and I
don't want to do that, 'cos I always liked you, too."

Westmore saw now that the gun she wielded was the
same gun he'd seen in the office drawer. If she was sitting
up front, he could take a chance on grabbing for it, but in
the back seat?

I'd be dead in a second.

"So just drive. Step on it and drive over that first tree."
She smiled brightly. "You'll make it. You're good luck."

Westmore saw no options, but a moment later, one was
unfolded for him.

The window in the back door shattered inward. Karen
screamed through a rain of glass and several deafening shots
were fired upward. Gunsmoke filled the interior, and when
Westmore looked around into the smoky madness, he saw
that the other two Adiposians were indeed afoot.

They smashed the window and were pawing at Karen.

Her pistol thunked to the floor. "Help me!" came her
crazed shriek. "Westmore, help me!"

One of them had two fistfuls of her hair, and the other
had her throat.

"Help me!" she pleaded one last time.

"Not tonight," he said and floored the gas pedal.

As the car pulled off, Karen was pulled out. He didn't
care to look in the rearview to see what was commencing. The big car rocked down the road, barreled over the fallen
tree with a trounce. Westmore's head smacked the roof, but
the car cleared the tree without serious damage.

And then he drove away, with Deborah Rodenbaugh still
unconscious but still alive in the back seat.

Seattle, nine months later

Westmore's first hangover in almost four years was undoubtedly the worst of his life. Why do people drink? he
wondered. When he looked up from the bed, Debbie sat on
the decrepit couch, eating Pop Tarts and watching television. She wore a robe, her gravid belly like a great satchel in
her lap. He dragged on his own robe and grabbed his cigarettes. "Good morning-er, good afternoon."

"Try good evening," she corrected, eyes rapt on the TV.

She's got to be kidding. He opened the door and stepped
out. Beyond the shabby room's narrow portico, rain poured
in all of Seattle's glory. A glance down each side of the motel showed him no other lights on in any of the other rooms, as though he and Debbie were the only guests. It was
nighttime now

Jesus, I've been in bed twenty-four hours? That's what I call
sleeping of a drunk.

He felt irresponsible and useless; he was supposed to be
taking care of her. All the way through to-

He watched cars soar by in rain, the highway only twenty
yards from the front of the motel. The fast, gritty hiss of
tires helped blank his.mind but it wasn't much solace.
There's no more time to keep my head in the sand, he thought.
She's probably going to give birth by tomorrow.

What then?

But Westmore already knew the answer to that.

Horns blared on the highway just ahead, a near crash.
When a bus roared by-at probably sixty miles per hourits tires plowed into standing water and threw a great black
wave up from the street. Westmore stepped back inside and
closed the door.

A shower revitalized him to an extent. Bloodshot eyes
looked back at him in the mirror. Shit ... He thought
about shaving but discarded the idea when he noticed how
badly his hands were shaking.

Dark, moody piano music drifted from a small clock radio on the windowsill. It somehow made him feel less of a
failure. But he hadn't really failed, had he? He'd come all
this way and protected her, and his only foul up had been
one fall off the wagon. It could be worse, he supposed.

He knew he'd only fail if he lost his nerve after she had
the baby.

He'd brought his clothes in with him-he'd feel awkward dressing in front of her. Hungover like this, it took
some effort pulling his pants back on; he almost fell over in the bathroom's close confines. His pants hadn't fully dried
yet; he could feel his gun still stuck in the wet pocket. Eventually he combed his hair, brushed his teeth and gargled.
The next glance in the mirror was more inspiring.'At least I
don't took dead anymore.

When the piano piece ended, Westmore walked out of
the bathroom only to find a gun in his face.

"Sit down:'

Westmore obeyed. Mack had a sizeable pistol in his right
hand. He didn't have anything in his left hand because ... he
didn't have a left hand, nor arm. Scars streaked one side of his
face from 12-gauge pellets.