Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee (37 page)

If he shown uµ

After several more hours of inputting notes, he fiddled
with some web searches of the numbers and information on
the slip of safe-paper. Only the word "apogee" yielded
many results but they were all endless and uselessly basic.
Knowing he was out of his league, then, he called again on
his friend Tom, who begrudgingly agreed to try some more
skilled searches.

Restless, he decided to prowl about. Tonight before midnight he'd have to find the hidden door that Clements'
bizarre companion had mentioned. She'd told him how to
get there, an area he'd already seen. And that's how you get
then, he thought, looking at the narrow red-wine colored
curtain in the office corner.

He went through, entering the network of shoulderwidth passageways lit by tiny mounted lights. The passages
seemed to lead around the mansion's outer walls, zigzagging
downward via several just-as-narrow stairwells. Eventually
he emerged into a plush but cramped library. This is it, according to the girl ... Oak bookshelves lined the wall; he began pushing and pulling on them. Along the way, he noticed
the strangest titles on the spines of the books, many of which seemed extraordinarily old: Cultes Des Ghoules, Terra
Dementata, Megapolisomancy, and many more. "Weird place,"
Westmore muttered. Something cloyed in the air but he
couldn't tell what it was. He felt watched but he knew it
was just atmosphere and paranoia. In a far corner, then, he
noticed a pale curtain, looked behind it, and saw the heavy
metal-braced door.

That's it, he knew.

Simple enough. A carriage clock showed him it was 8
p.m.; he had four more hours. He could go back to the office but all at once, fatigue assailed him. I guess I'm gonna
take a nag he realized, feeling old. But where? Not in his
cubicle, not with everyone else walking around.

Right here would do.

A long bench with plush upholstery and brass studs sat
beneath a framed canvas that was totally black. That would
have to do. Westmore lay down and fell asleep at once.

He dreamed that he was awake but paralyzed, on the same
cushioned bench he lay on now, in the same library. Figures
stood around him yet he couldn't turn his head to get a
look. Terror propped his eyes wide open; a figure stepped
over the bench---a naked figure, he could tell--and-

Oh, shit!

--and sat right on his face. Fat hung down, his face
compressed by it. He knew who it was, even before the
hand clenched his hair and twisted, and the voice spoke
very quietly:

"You're not allowed to say his name."

Over the roll of fat, he could see Faye Mullins' face looking down, deadpan.

"Now pay homage to him by giving succor to me with
your mouth. And do it right, or-"

click!

"-you'll meet him sooner than you think."

She'd put a gun to his head and cocked it. Westmore,
helpless, did as forced, his tongue roved upward against the
shredded flesh ...

"That's good," she complimented. Her broad hips fidgeted for better purchase. Hands-or things like handspulled his pants down on the bench, but he couldn't see
who or what was doing it. Then a mouth that felt inhuman.
Something much thicker and warmer than saliva worked
with the act.

Westmore was repulsed yet his responses would not obey
the commands of his emotions. His arousal was instantaneous, a bucking orgasm not far behind. He emptied himself
into whatever it was that fellated him, yet as he ejaculated, he
began to smother: Faye Mullins' groin completely covering
his mouth and nose. Meanwhile, Faye's own responses were
cresting, and the basest part of Westmore's fading conscience
wondered if he would smother to death first, or have a bullet fired into his brain when she climaxed. His lungs swelled
and swelled. He began to convulse.

Long moans swirled around his head as his face was vised
tighter but a second later, Faye went lax, moved back a few
inches, and his mouth and nose was cleared.

Westmore sucked in breath as she climbed off him. His
eyes followed the amorphous, nude bulk. She was walking
toward a half-circle table festooned with carvings. She
opened a tiny drawer in the table's front, looked in it, then
closed it. Then her gaze met his.

"Now you know how I felt every day," she said, grinning.

Westmore couldn't speak.

"Something's going to happen here," she said. Her voice
seemed to be reducing to a gurgle.

Westmore stared.

"You better not be here when it does."

Westmore shot awake.

All right, Westmore. Don't lose it. Don't be an idiot. That uws
not a discorporated molestation, for God's sake. That uws not a visitation, a psychic vision or any of that shit. It was JUST A BAD
DREAM.

Then he looked in the tiny table drawer and found several DVD's. No big deal, no big deal. So what? There's DVD's
all over this house. Coincidence!

Nevertheless he pocketed the DVD's. At the same moment, the carriage clock began to chime: twelve times.

Damn! I'm supposed to meet Clements outside!

Westmore rushed through the curtain, turned the locklatch, and opened the stout door. He stuck a pen in the door's
gap once he got outside. Twilight glittered beyond, a bright
half moon and stars like diamond chips spewed across the sky.
A pleasant heat radiated, but he reminded himself, It won't be
so pleasant when we're behind those shovels. He walked briskly
straight away from the side of the mansion, to the woods, then
walked slower toward the access road. He could barely see.

"Jesus, I thought you were stiffing me," Clements said,
buried in shadows. Connie stood with him, but Westmore
was surprised to see four other men there too, in jeans,
boots, and t-shirts. Each one had a shovel over his shoulder.

"Who are these guys?"

When Clements dragged off his cigarette, the heightened
glow of the ember tinted his face orange. "You said you
needed help digging a grave? There's the help. Younger
muscle. You and me both are too old for that shit."

Speak for yours f Westmore thought half-heartedly. In
truth, though, he was relieved.

Clements introduced the others: "Higgins, watch com mander for Florida SPD, and my cousin; Butler, assistant
deputy for county public safety, and my nephew; Skibiniski,
with the bailiff's office-he was one of my students when I
taught training blocks at the academy, and my other nephew
Jimmy Wells, who you met today."

The guy from the psych wand, Westmore thought of the latter. He traded nods with the others, then Clements said,
"Lead the way. Voices down, stick to the inside of the
woodline and try not to sound like the fuckin' Germans
marching to Stalingrad."

Westmore carefully led them around the property, to the
other side of the house, crickets trilling about them in a
sound that was palpable as the humidity. "In here ..." The
night sounds grew louder when they entered the dense
path.

Wells elbowed him. "Your girl was asking about you."

"What? Faye Mullins?"

"Yeah, about eleven o'clock. I was just getting off-shift,
helping one of the nurses give out the night-meds. Mullins
wakes up and looks at me and asks about you."

Westmore frowned. "What did she say?"

"Said she just saw you."

"Huh? Where?"

Wells chuckled. "In some library."

Where I was sleeping ... Westmore didn't let himself pay
it any mind.

"Then she said to ask you if you found the drawer in the
table."

Westmore's belly jumped.

Wells chuckled further. "These psychos are something,
ain't they?"

"Yeah . .

Westmore's eyes were still acclimating. "Anybody got a flashlight? Can't see where Hildreth's stone is, it's too dark."

But the younger men were already in the gates, combing
the stones with small focused penlights. "Right here," one
of them said.

"Let's stay out of their way," Clements advised, pulling
Connie and Westmore aside. The digging commenced. "I'll
bet they have this grave open in ten minutes."

Connie stood rubbing her eyes. She looked twitchy, miserable, her thin face even more pale in the moonlight.
Clements put his arm around her, gave her a pill. "Take another one now, it'll take the edge off."

She nodded, swallowed the pill, and washed it down with
soda.

"What's that?"

"Some prescription stuff that eases coke withdrawal. I
can get 'em anytime I want from my sister's best friend."

"Pharmacist?"

"Naw, she's the senior manager for county rehab services."
Westmore rolled his eyes.

It was actually less than ten minutes when Wells announced, "We're down to the lid, Bart. You want us to
open it?"

"We'll take it from here," Clements directed. "Leave two
shovels so we can fill it in. You guys get your asses out of here
and get back to my place. There's two cases waiting on ice."

Westmore distantly thanked them as they filed out of the
graveyard and disappeared. Now the three of them stood in
a troubling silence. We're about to open a grave. Who's in there?
Westmore walked to the hole and looked down.

"Connie, hold the light down here." Clements got in with
a crowbar while Connie focused the narrow penlight beam.
The coffin wasn't latched; Clements opened the lid with ease.

"What do you think? Doesn't look like Hildreth to
me...

"It isn't," Connie said, squinting.

Westmore peered in, a tall, lean man in his sixties, grayish
hair, flesh sagging from a few weeks of putrefaction. "Same
height and weight. Are you sure?"

"It's not him," Connie insisted. "I know that guy-"

"What?" Westmore and Clements said simultaneously.

"Jesus. That's one of the rummies who lives under the
275 overpass. I'd see him all the time walking to the main
drag whenever I needed to cop some crack." She turned
away, waylaid by the sight. "Look and see if a bunch of his
teeth are missing."

Clements pried the jaw down with the tip of his shoe.
"About half of 'em have fallen out." He looked at Westmore. "Satisfied?"

"I guess." It clearly wasn't Hildreth. "A substitute body,
same basic age, height, and build."

"I'm waiting out here," Connie said, edging out of the
graveyard. "This place is too fucking creepy."

Westmore couldn't disagree. "Vivica told me that the
obituary and autopsy report were faked by someone she
paid."

Clements kicked the lid closed, hopped out. "Fucker
stinks."

"But Adrianne said she saw a body in it."

"Huh? You mean she went to the funeral?"

"No, what I mean is she saw a body in the coffin when
she was having an out-of-body experience."

Clements grinned his hilarity in the moonlight. "You
pin-head. She's probably the one who put the body in the
coffin."

"She's a one-hundred-pound woman, for God's sake,"
Westmore countered. "You're saying that she killed a bum
to pose as Hildreth's corpse and then came out here, dug
open the grave, and put the body in an empty coffin?"

"Somebody did." Clements lit a cigarette. "I told you not
to trust anyone in that house, and don't believe any of the
psychic hokum they're spouting. It's bullshit."

"The one I trust the least is Mack," Westmore said.
"Everyone else seems pretty straight-up."

"Lemme know when you wanna buy the fuckin' Brooklyn Bridge--I can get you a good price. Let's fill this hole
in and get out of here." He grabbed a shovel, tossed the
other one to Westmore, when Connie said: "Hey, Bart. I-I
think there's something here ..."

She was standing just outside the graveyard fence, to their
right. Leaning over, she aimed the light, pushing at something with her foot.

Then she yelped and leapt backward. "There's something
there! I think it's a hand!"

Westmore and Clements jumped over the fence, wielding
penlights of their own. "Calm down," Clements said.
"Where?"

Teeth chattering, she pointing down.

"Ground's soft," Westmore noticed at once. He dragged
the blade of his shovel over the leaves on the ground, revealing tilled earth.

"Someone's already been digging here," Clements said.
"One of your cronies from that freakshow in there."

Westmore thought back. "Cathleen claims she was raped
by something right on this spot, the area right next to Hildreth's grave, she said."

"She's fuckin' high. But there is something here. This dirt's already been turned once." He fished around some
more with his blade. "What the ..."

"What is that?" Westmore asked, squinting down.

"It's a hand!" Connie exclaimed.

But was it? In the narrow beams of light, they saw something that looked like a white glove. Clements knelt, picked
up the glove, then muttered "Oh, my God," when something long and white came up along with it.

Something like an arm attached to the glove.

No one spoke; instead, Clements and Westmore gingerly
dug at the area. Whatever lay beneath hadn't been buried
deeply. It seemed more haphazard than a standard grave. A
rotten meat-stench rose up, gagging them. All the while,
Westmore was thinking. What are these things?

They unearthed several bodies, but they seemed to lack
features, even bone structures. Arms, legs, and heads, or facsimiles thereof. Westmore couldn't see well in the penlight
beams ... but he didn't need to.

"They're not human.. ."

"Of course they are," Clements said, yet didn't sound
convinced himself. "They're rotten corpses, stripped down.
They look like floaters. Buried that shallow they'll rot down
fast, build up a lot of gas."

When Connie looked into the pit, she turned away,
choking.

"And the gas could be toxic," Clements went on, "and
we're breathing the shit like a couple of idiots. Let's cover
them back up quick." He started re-covering the paraffinwhite, glistening corpses.

"How about let's not cover them back up," Westmore suggested. "Let's get out of here, call the cops or something."