House of Skin

MIDNIGHT MANIAC

At San Francisco General, Soames was dreaming.

He was at the House of Mirrors again and it was twenty years ago. There were mirrors everywhere. He was staring at several dozen reflections of himself. There was a stairway ahead, leading into the murk. He caught sight of a figure—a girl, he was sure it had been a girl—racing up the stairs on all fours. His heart hitched in his chest, sweat trickled down his back. He turned, feeling someone behind him.

There was no one.

The girl had looked like Gina. He’d gotten her for Zero. Was she the one Grimes said they were keeping in a cage? He couldn’t remember. Maybe it was just some kid… some other victim. He swallowed down his unease and followed, knowing, ultimately, that he was part of this. He could try to disassociate himself from the crimes of Zero and his little society all he wanted, but he was still part of it.

He saw the girl again.

She was paused at the top of the steps. She was panting like a dog.

Dear God, what have they done to her?

“Hey!” he said, climbing after her. “Come back here!”

He could see her waiting for him, veiled in murk. She was young, sixteen, seventeen, if that. And if his eyes didn’t deceive him—quite naked as well. Was it Gina? He couldn’t say. This poor thing looked mad, starved. What did that say? Was Grimes telling the truth?

“Listen, I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Come down.”

Silence.

She giggled softly and disappeared.

“Damn kids,” he said.

He continued up the steps. It seemed hotter on the second story, humid even, and a damp jungle heat seemed to drip from the walls. He took off his coat and slung it over his shoulder. Within a few minutes, he was sweating profusely. He was thinking of the girl as he began his explorations. Could it be Gina? He saw her eyes only once and he supposed, more than anything, that was what had brought him up here. There’d been something in them, a wet glimmer but nothing more. The eyes of a dog.

It was quiet upstairs, deathly so. Nothing stirred nor breathed. The floor, he saw, was jutting up in places, the tiles ruptured. There was an even, undisturbed layer of dust over them. Surely, the girl had come this way, but if she had, where were her footprints? Soames looked behind him, scanning the floor with his light. His own were in evidence. Where had she gone? It was vexing. She had to be here. He moved on, the air thick with dust, heavy and hot, hard to breathe. The mirrors were everywhere.

The corridor stopped and ran in both directions. He chose the left passage. It was as good as anything. There was a room ahead, without a door. It looked large. He heard a brief whisper of footfall.

“Girl?” he asked. “Are you here?”

Nothing. She had to be there, though.

“Girl? C’mon out, I won’t hurt you.”

He found himself unwilling to go farther. He couldn’t bring himself to cross the threshold into the room, yet he couldn’t go back. There was a mystery here that called to him and what it might say when he got face to face with it terrified him.

The room was huge, cluttered with shattered packing crates and lumber. The air was clotted with dust, the light barely able to penetrate it. She was here, somewhere. He knew it now. Some inner network told him so. It was unbearably hot now, his shirt plastered with dampness to his back. He tasted salt on his lips, sweat ran in his eyes. It was like a maze in there. He threaded his way around shadowy hulks. Furniture? Something was dripping nearby. He played the light around. He could hear a lapping sound like a hound slurping from a bowl of water. He smelled the girl before the light found her: a stink of yellow disease, suffering, and human waste.

She was squatted in a corner on a filthy rug, her back to him. Her nakedness was streaked with dirt, her hair full of dust and broken cobwebs. There were feces on the floor. Much of it dried and breaking apart, but some of it quite fresh and fly-specked. Some of it was smeared on the wall. It looked as if she had been painting with it, forming crude designs and barely recognizable letters.

An animal. Zero’s broken her down and is keeping her like a pet.

The horrendous stench and shit on the floor was evidence of that, as was the water bowl and a few well-gnawed bones and rotting scraps.

“Hey,” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”

She ignored him.

“C’mon, it’s okay… really.”

He went to her, reaching out and touching her shoulder. Her skin was clammy, more so like meat from a cooler. She looked up at him through greasy strands of hair, grinning with dirty teeth.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

It was Gina.

“Gina?” he whispered. “It’s me… Soames.”

She was humming a tune beneath her breath. Her eyes were empty, blank, and insane. Drool ran down her chin. When she tried to speak, all that came out was a guttural, grating noise almost like a dry barking. And the reason for that was quite obvious: they had cut her tongue out.

“My God,” Soames said under his breath. “My… God.”

She cocked her head to the side whenever he spoke her name. There was an association there, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. Like a confused puppy, she could only cock her head in confusion. Soames reached out to touch her and she started, baring her teeth. Her eyes were black and glassy.

“It’s okay, Gina. Really, it’s okay.”

She seemed to relax by degrees. Softening… but wary, still very wary.

“I’m your friend.”

Yes, I’m your friend that handed you over to these monsters. Such a good friend I am.

She nearly smiled as if the word “friend” was another good association, one that made her feel relaxed. She uttered a strange sort of cooing sound, reaching out towards Soames’ outstretched hand… then she shifted her gaze over his shoulder and her eyes went wide. She jerked away from him, whimpering and curling up in a ball like a whipped dog.

Soames turned and saw someone in the doorway. A tall, cruel-looking man in a dark suit.

Zero.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked. “I didn’t send for you.”

“I thought maybe…”

“You thought wrong. You trespassed and now you know about one of my little secrets.” His jaw was making a side to side motion as if he was chewing on something. “I’ve been looking for a new subject to put in the cage. You might do quite nicely.”

“Like hell I will.”

“Then you better leave… and Soames?” Zero said, fixing him with his dark simmering eyes. “Don’t get any misplaced heroic ideas about bringing the police into this. I’ve got enough on you to put you away for thirty years.”

Soames was angry and disgusted. He wanted to beat Zero down, kick him until he was bloody and begging for pity. He wanted to shout in his face, I might get thirty years, but you’ll fry in the chair at San Quentin! But he didn’t. And it wasn’t just what Zero held over his head, which was considerable, but the fact that he feared the man. There was an unmistakable sense of power and mastery to him, sadism and brutality. Yes, he might have been able to beat him down, but Zero would do something far worse to him and he knew it.

“You can leave now,” Zero said and it was not a polite suggestion.

Soames stumbled blindly for the door, his breath barely coming, his heart banging against the bars of his ribs.

Zero snapped his fingers. “Gina. Come to me. No… crawl to me. That’s a good girl.”

Gina slinked across the floor like some human worm, inching slowly forward, whimpering in her throat. Soames smelled a hot stink of fresh urine and knew she had pissed herself out of pure terror for her master.

Then Soames was out in the corridor, shaking and nearly delirious. There was the sound of Zero patting her head and what sounded like him scratching her. “There’s my girl. Now you need to learn to obey. You know I don’t like you showing yourself to strangers. You’ll have to be punished. You know that, don’t you?”

Soames made it to the stairs. Zero was going to kill her now and he knew it. He could hear a muted whimpering, but it wasn’t from Gina. It was coming from a door opposite him. The terrible sound of a man crying…

Soames woke up.

Just the same dream he had off and on for two decades now. A replay of that fateful night.

Tormented and beyond hope, he pressed his face into his pillow and wept.