House of Skin (10 page)

Gulliver trotted along behind, keeping pace but not getting too close. He caught sight of his face once and was glad of it. Spider was made up like a ghoul. His face was painted bone-white, his eyelids and lips black. There was a reason to this madness and Gulliver planned to find out what.

So he tailed him.

“What the fuck are you up to now, Spider?” he said under his breath.

He kept a good half a block or more between himself and his quarry. If Spider found him following along, who could say what would happen? He was made up for something and Gulliver had a good idea whatever it was wasn’t pleasant.

It took Spider nearly thirty minutes to reach the warehouse district. He was moving slow, his stride confident and sure. He never turned. The idea of being trailed probably never even occurred to him.

He went to the water’s edge and stopped. He checked his watch in the glare of the rising moon. He nodded and looked about. His leather gloves shined like neoprene in the moonlight.

Gulliver hid in the shadows nearby, behind a row of shrubs. In the distance he could hear the throb and bustle of the city proper. Down here, it was quiet. There were warehouses and industrial sites dotting the waterfront, mainly failed and closed-up. It was a bleak and desolate place that would soon be bulldozed for urban renewal.

He heard voices and saw three figures approaching. There was female laughter and a low, even male voice. It was Eddy. He knew that much. He felt a tightness in his stomach, an expectancy.

There was talk and laughter as Eddy and Spider and the two women Eddy’d brought with him got acquainted. They were prostitutes by the looks of them. Was that what this was? Gulliver wondered. Just a little party and nothing more?

They walked off, chatting and giggling, the girls fascinated by Spider’s get up. It was high carnival to them, but that was only because they didn’t know Spider and the deadly machinations of his twisted mind.

Gulliver followed behind, keeping a safe distance.

Why am I even bothering?

He wasn’t sure, but he’d come this far and he wasn’t about to turn back now. If all they were going to do was a little fucking and sucking in the dark, at least he’d get some entertainment for his time.

They slipped through a gap in the gate of a chain-link fence that surrounded a former brewery. The place was empty and had been for … what? Twenty years? At least. Gulliver waited in the shadows until they were around the side of one of the buildings, then followed.

A loading dock had been forced open by vandals and he slipped in, hoping it was the way they’d come. It was huge inside, like being in some vast arena. Moonlight spilled in through the barred windows and he saw nothing but wood and rubble everywhere, the skittering of night creatures.

Then he heard a sound, a wet muffled noise.

He moved in its direction and stopped before a door. He heard voices: Spider, Eddy, but not the whores. Then another noise, like something heavy being dragged off. The voices faded in the distance. Gulliver stepped into the room. It was actually a corridor, he saw. There was no one in it, but he could hear them in the distance, laughing.

The floor was wet.

Moonlight glimmered off a smeared pool of something. A heavy, sharp odor hung in the air. Bile crept up his throat. Blood. A chill passed through him. He steadied himself against the wall. After a moment or two, he stopped shaking. Violent death was nothing new in this city, but he had never been this close to it before. It was garish and ugly and so very, very real. The stink of blood filled his nostrils, his lungs, his reeling head. He did all he could do to keep his stomach down.

He had to get away, to run, to hide. If they were to catch him so close to their crimes, it wouldn’t be a good thing. Yet, like staring at the aftermath of a car accident, he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t pull himself away. He had to see, some graveyard curiosity had taken control and it demanded to be fed. Even at the cost of his own life, his sanity.

He started after them, freeing his shoes from the blood with a sticky sound. His stomach rolled with dry heaves.

Their trail was easy enough to follow, a smear of blood in their wake. He followed along, careful not to tread in it.

The corridor ended at an open door leading outside.

He could smell the fresh November breeze and something else quite horrible. He could hear them out there, talking amongst themselves. He peered out the door. There was a courtyard hemmed in by the buildings. Something was unzipped and there was a rattle of metal instruments. Eddy and Spider were putting on black vinyl raincoats, buttoning them up. A lantern was lit.

Gulliver watched them, stooping down, selecting knives in the brilliant, dirty light, discussing the bodies at their feet. They motioned in the air with the knives, comparing cuts like two butchers and he supposed that’s what they were. What they did next was the thing that made him fall to his knees, the blood abandoning his buzzing head. They worked carefully. First stripping one body, then another, examining their prizes.

Gulliver crawled away down the corridor and threw up, collapsing face first in his own waste. He lay there like that for some time as reality spun out of control around him. In the courtyard, he could hear rippings and wet slashings as the knives did their gruesome work.

When he could finally think straight, he pulled himself up uneasily on all fours and wiped the vomit from his face with his sleeve. His brain was telling him run, but his body admitted it had no strength left.

He listened and it was quiet out in the courtyard.

Had they gone? Had they taken their victims somewhere else to work on?

There was hope. He had that much. If they’d left, then he could count himself lucky that they hadn’t gone back the way they’d come. But if they were still around, this ordeal was far from finished.

He stood and went back to the end of the corridor.

And heard something in the courtyard.

He pressed himself into a corner and the nausea took him again. This time it wasn’t a physical reaction, but one caused from cold, biting fear that swam through him. He covered his mouth with his hands so he wouldn’t make a sound and shook, tears pressing from his bloodshot eyes.

They were still out there, all right. He could hear the sliding sound of vinyl and rip of knives over flesh.

Though he knew it would forever damage him and suck the soul right out of him, he had to see. He had to go look to prove to himself that it was indeed happening. He moved over to the doorway again, the breath in his lungs making a rushing sound in his ears.

They were kneeling next to one of the bodies. The light gleamed off their wet raincoats, the blades in their hands. It looked like they were carefully slitting the corpse’s clothing free, but he could see that she was already naked, her legs long and bare, her breasts heavy, nipples standing stiffly like thimbles. Eddy and Spider whispered as they worked. Whatever it was they were doing, it was meticulous, painstaking work. As Spider carefully slit with what might have been a scalpel, Eddy began pulling a sheet of something free. It looked like a skirt with scarves dangling from it.

Jesus, they’re skinning her.

Yes, very carefully and very slowly, the whore’s hide came off in a gauzy membrane that the moonlight shined through. From what he could see—and surmise—they had slit open the woman’s scalp, slicing down her neck and between her shoulder blades and ass, cutting vertically down each leg and around the bottom of her feet. As Spider surgically slit connective tissue, Eddy peeled her like an orange. It was exacting work, very time-consuming. But they went at it with a sickening finesse, cutting and peeling, the skin coming free in a single silken veil with a sound like stripped packing tape. It took them an hour or more and Gulliver watched them, disgusted, yes, horrified, yes, but oddly fascinated by the process … and too terrified to move. The most delicate work, of course, was at the breasts, fingers and toes. They didn’t bother trying to peel the vulva and anus, they simply cut around them. Finally, they peeled the scalp and had their skin intact. At their feet was a raw, red husk.

As Eddy held the whore’s hide up proudly, Spider examined it closely by the light of the lantern. Gulliver could see the woman’s face, the ovals of her mouth and eyes, the flopping dark hair … like some ghostly hollow-eyed wraith from a horror film.

“Yes, yes,” Spider said. “Not bad, not bad … a bit crude and workmanlike in spots, but not bad at all.”

“It’s right then?” Eddy asked.

“Oh yes.”

Trembling, Gulliver tried to climb to his feet, but the blood drained from his head and his knees went to rubber. He slid down the wall and went out cold.

* * *

He woke to the sound of footsteps coming towards the door. His heart thudded weakly in his chest, ready to burst like an over-inflated balloon. His teeth sank into his tongue and drew blood. A whimper clawed up his throat. Again, he tried to get to his feet, but his knees went to butter and deposited him softly onto the floor.

The footsteps stopped and he heard someone sit on the stoop mere feet away from him. A match was struck and he could smell cigarette smoke.

“Messy work,” he heard Eddy say.

“But necessary,” Spider said. “It has to be done in just the proper way.”

Gulliver wanted to scream.

My God, he thought, they’re so damn nonchalant about it all. Like they’re cutting meat for a cookout.

He could hear Eddy drawing off his smoke and exhaling with a satisfied sigh, a laborer on coffee break.

“Why are you opening up her back like that?” Eddy inquired.

Spider was cutting with great effort, grunting and cursing beneath his breath. The wet sawing noise, like someone slicing frozen meat, was almost too much for Gulliver to bear.

“I’m exposing,” Spider panted, “her vertebrae.”

“Why?”

“Trust me,” he said, hacking and cleaving, “there’s method to my madness.”

He heard Eddy crush his smoke out and join Spider with a swish of vinyl. There was a rattle of instruments.

“This membrane’s hellish,” Eddy grunted.

“Try the post mortem knife,” Spider suggested, pulling something free with a wet snap. “There. Got it. Hand me the snips, will you?”

“I think you’ll have to sharpen these knives again for next time.”

And it kept on, this rather bored exchange as they cut and sawed and chopped and swore with exertion. After a time, Gulliver was desensitized to it all and he found his mind wandering. The most horrible part was the allusion to the next time. What sort of psychotic game were they playing here? And did they honestly plan to keep it up night after night?

I better get the police, Gulliver thought.

The butchering stopped and he heard the men wiping their hands and putting their knives away, stepping from raincoats.

“Help me with this,” Spider said.

“Around their feet?”

“Yeah, they’ll be easier to drag around like this.”

Gulliver couldn’t help himself. He peered out the door. They were tying lengths of rope around the cadaver’s respective feet. The lantern was doused now, but the moon was bright. It was terrible. The women were little more than ripped open sacks of meat, internals and musculature trailing wetly.

Ropes were knotted and fastened, instruments gathered up. Spider’s bag zipped shut.

“What are you doing with those?” Eddy asked.

“Just a couple of treats for later.”

“Any good?”

“If they’re seasoned properly.”

“You should try marinating them,” Eddy suggested. “It works wonders.”

Gulliver wanted to vomit again. Murder. Mutilation. Cannibalism. What sort of dark cycle had he put into motion when he’d introduced these two?

Spider and Eddy were talking in low tones, laughing amongst themselves.

They were fiends, ghouls. Deranged beyond imagining. They killed and slaughtered with no remorse. Men like that wouldn’t care to be interfered with. And if they were, murder wouldn’t be beyond them. If Gulliver wanted to get out and alive, now was the time.

More sounds now. They were dragging the bodies to the door.

Run!
Gulliver willed his legs, but they wouldn’t move. The best he could do was a slow crawl away from the door. He curled into a ball in a dark corner, prayers falling from his lips. First Eddy emerged, then Spider, stinking of sweat and blood and primal things. They passed right by Gulliver without noticing him, hauling their respective bodies down the corridor and away, blood and bits of flesh raining from them.

When they were out of earshot, Gulliver scrambled to his feet and dashed out into the courtyard. He searched the exteriors of the buildings and found no way out. This theater of suffering had no exits save the one he’d come through.

He had no choice then.

He’d have to follow them back out or hide somewhere until they were gone. It wasn’t much of a choice.

It took him some time to creep back up the corridor into the main chamber of the building. He had to move slowly, quietly, so he wouldn’t be heard. The consequences at hand were great and he’d never been a brave man. But he was cautious and if luck would just hold out …

He made it to the end of the corridor and opened the door. Blinding light exploded in his face.

But that wasn’t all.

The women were hung up before him, one by the feet, the other by the throat, back to back. Gulliver stood there, facing death, filled with it, his head reeling. A stink of blood and raw meat washed over him. The women had been gutted quite thoroughly, opened from crotch to breast. Most of the organs were gone, bone and bleeding muscle protruding at gashed angles. Their genitals had been severed free, replaced by gored holes. Their faces were grinning tissue and ligament.

The lantern was lit nearby, hissing with life, providing unwanted illumination. Their skins were tacked to the wall.

It was madness, yet there was a perfection about it all. These were not maniacal slashings, done out of lust or anger, but carefully plucked and dissected corpses. There was a method here, an insane one, but a method all the same. Both women had been mutilated in the exact, precise way.