Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee Read online

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  HIGH PRAISE FOR EDWARD LEE!

  "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

  THE UNSEEN

  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

  FLESH GOTHIC

  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

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  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....

  FLESH GOTHIC

  Prologue

  "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."

  Would they really be following him? Maybe we're both just paranoid, he considered. The bus jostled through rain. Beyond the dotted window, he saw drab gray buildings. A man in glasses and another man wearing a hard hat both looked at him at the same time. Yeah, I'm just paranoid, or maybe she's right. I used the wrong color hair dye and I look like a horse's ass. Several kids in the back were getting rowdy, profane even, but he scarcely heard them. Then a black man sitting in the front stood up, looked directly at him, and said, "It was me and Lou Rawls. They stuck us in that cage and didn't give us nothing but milk bottles and soup." Then the doors popped open and he stepped off the bus.

  He could've laughed. Lots of homeless people in big cities, lots of schizophrenia It was sad.

  At the next stop a blind man got on, tapping his white cane, eyes clouded over. He sat right next to him.

  "Hello," the blind man said, staring straight ahead.

  ..Hi,

  "I ... have psychic powers. Do you believe me?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Do you believe that some people do have such powers?"

  "I do. I believe that very much."

  The blind man chuckled. "I'm a seer who can't see." The clouded-over eyes turned. "You have a troubled aura." A pause, a sigh. "My Lord ... it's nearly black."

  The man had no response, for he did indeed believe in such things. How could he not, after a week in that house?

  The blind man's hands were trembling. His lower lip quivered. One crabbed hand reached over his head, desperately feeling for the bell-cord. "I-I have to get off, I have to get off."

  The other man just looked back, astonished. "What's wrong?"

  "None of it's your fault, so why are you jeopardizing yourself?" When the bus lumbered to a halt at the next stop, the blind man teetered up, cane tapping for balance. He looked at the other man again with those dead eyes and said, "You don't have much time."

  "For what?"

  "To kill the girl." He tapped away toward the open doors. "Kill her."

  Then he got off and the doors closed.

  He was never bothered by the prospect of leaving her by herself in the room for a few hours. She didn't talk about it, of course, but she seemed to know what might be out there. How much does she remember? he wondered, walking down the aisle of a CVS store. Worse questions occurred to him. What did she go through? What did she feel and see? What did she open her eyes to and took at?

  What looked back?

  The man could only pray that her trauma blocked out the memory.

  Damn it ... The pistol in his pocket had worked its way up, the tip of the handle sticking out. He pulled the side of his windbreaker over, then shoved the gun all the way back down. I gotta be more careful. He would never leave the gun back in the room whenever he had to go somewhere. He didn't want to leave her there alone with it.

  He bought a darker hair dye and a pack of cigarettes. The steady drizzle had never ceased. When he left the store he pulled up his hood. Across the street stood an Irish pub. The man felt locked in place, staring back at it.

  Damn it, he thought again.

  "Just one," he muttered to himself. "Just one would be so good..."

  "There's no such thing as just one," a voice peeped from behind him. He turned and looked down.

  What he believed was a young woman sat huddled in a brick tubby beside a fire hydrant. She was drenched, drizzle pattering on a holey rain jacket, whose traditional bright yellow had long-since turned brown. The man could barely see her face as she peered up at him, her open eyes half hidden by the hood. Rotten teeth like corroded pills showed through her smile.

  "One becomes twenty real fast," she said.

  "I know"

  "But you should go in and have one anyway, to celebrate."

  "Celebrate what?"

  Dirty hands outspread in the strangest glee. "This beautiful day!"

  "Oh, yeah? I'm from Florida so I guess I'm not really able to appreciate Seattle's brand of beauty."

  "It's a beautiful city if you look hard enough."

  "I'm sure it is," the man said.

  "I used to be beautiful ... "

  He could think of nothing to say in response, her plight obvious. She couldn't be more than thirty, but who could tell? Cheeks bloated, a splotched pinkness blending over the yellow of jaundice. Clinical alcoholic, he knew at a glance. She's turning yellow because her liver's shutting down ...

  "Where do you live?" he asked.

  "The King Street Shelter. When I can walk."

  The man faltered, fumbling in a pocket. "I have some money I could give you-"

  "No. I won't need it. I need a drink. Get me something to drink."

  The man felt wilted. "I ... can't do that. I'm sorry."

  "That's okay." The soiled smile still shone upward, her head craned. "But if you do go into that bar across the street, and I think you will-"

  "I won't," he said.

  "But if you do, drink one for me."

  Again, the man had nothing to say.

  Her expression changed, that exuberance-in-ruin darkened to something lusterless. "There's someone else inside me."

  "What?"

  "I'm supposed to tell you something."

  The last legs of the chronic drunk. Reduced oxygen to the brain, blood full of toxins, then psychosis. He humored her. "What are you supposed to tell me?"

  Her voice clicked. "Walk away. Leave her."

  The man's teeth came together. "Leave who?"

  "Don't kill her."

  The man stared.

  "Just go away somewhere. If you do that, you'll be rewarded."

  The man could say nothing. He simply continued to stare, rain tapping his hood.

  "Leave the rest ... to us."

  Then her face changed for the briefest moment, something that was no longer a face at all but just a [rumoring black hole within the hood.

  The man couldn't move.

  Her real face returned, the dying snide and eyes with no life left behind them. "'Bye," she said, and then produced an old-fashioned straight razor with which she calmly cut her throat to the bone.

  The man turned away as blood poured at his feet. Cars honked when he stepped off the curb; bloody rainwater splashed up on his jacket. He crossed the street and walked into the bar.

  "Come in here."

  The man wobbled in the doorway, rain teeming. Behind him, cars tore by on the highway, each a long, wet hiss.

  Her warm hand grasped his wrist, urged him back into the motel room, then she shut the door, sealing out the incessant noise of rain and cars.

  "You're drenched. You're ... "

  The man was nearly insensible, barely able to stand. All he could do was look back at her with huge, shamed eyes. He couldn't say anything, but he thought, I'm a disgrace.

  "You'll be all right," she assured him.

  The television was on, the sound low,
stiff-faced CNN newcasters reporting another U.S. Army helicopter being shot down by Iraqi partisans. Twenty-one dead.

  "Did you ... throw up on yourself?"

  The man didn't know She peeled off his jacket, sat him down on the bed, then began to undress him. She said nothing when she removed the pistol from his pocket. She laughed. "Didn't you go out for new hair color? Where is it?"

  "I-" He pushed wet hair back off his brow "I left it in the bar." .

  "You're such a goof."

  His vision was shifting, blurred around the edges. Her pretty face hovered like a warped bubble before his eyes. When she pulled off his sneakers, she paused, looking at the red tint. "Is that ... " but she didn't finish. She peeled off his socks, his jeans, his t-shirt. "Come on, help me. We've got to get you in the shower."

  "I don't think I can make it."

  "Yes you can, yes you can." She stood him up and with out hesitation peeled off his boxer shorts. His brain buzzed; he was scarcely even aware that he was standing naked in front of her.

  "One step at a time." She held his arm, guiding him to the bathroom where he stood blinking in harsh white light. The light hurt his head. Shower water hissed. Steam rose.

  Her hands gripped him tight around the waist. "In you go," she said. "Take your time. Left foot first."

  His own hand shot out to brace him against the tiled wall. Shame continued to seep into him. "I don't think I can make it."

  "Help me! I can't do it by myself!" Her patience finally lapsed. "You're not an invalid."

  He steadied himself, sat down on the edge of the tub, and carefully lifted each leg over. The water spraying down was hot, reviving. Jags of reason began to surface. More awareness and more shame.

  "Now stand up and wash yourself!"

  Careful, careful! he ordered himself. He couldn't have felt more embarrassed: a pale, naked middle-aged drunk. When he tried to stand up, he immediately slipped. His butt chunked the bottom of the tub.

  "Oh, Lord ... What am I going to do with you?"

  She slipped off her robe and stepped in wearing only bra and panties. He looked up like a disillusioned child as she bent over, grunted, and stood him up in the spray. Her hair fell down at once, to wet black lines. Expansive nipples darkened when the water drenched the bra. The large milkladen breasts wobbled erotically. The image blared, the great gravid belly full of life, the breasts, the dark tuft of pubic hair printing against wet panties. Her fecundity was truly beautiful yet he was at least happy with himself for feeling nothing erotic of his own. No lust, no desire, not even as her soft hands soaped him down.