“I told you to leave.”
She turned and Zero was blocking her escape route. He snatched her by the wrist and forced a wormy kiss on her lips. He shoved his book into her hand.
“Take this,” he said. “I don’t need it now. Call me anytime. You know I’ll be home. I’m always home.”
Cassandra looked at him and said, “You’re terribly dramatic, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “Would you like to come along, my pet?”
“Not likely.”
He shrugged. “Pity.”
Lisa fought from his grip and they fled through the door and into the night.
“We better get clear,” Cassandra said.
A sudden, horrendous explosion threw them down the steps and onto the sidewalk. The house seemed to fold in on itself, becoming insubstantial and finally vaporizing into a black mist that faded in the wind. Nothing remained but a smoking, blackened area to mark its passing into another world. Lisa thought she heard a peel of laughter from somewhere distant.
But maybe not.
ESCAPE
“Let’s go,” Cassandra said. “I haven’t much time.” She led Lisa to her car and gave her a few minutes to collect herself. “Can you drive?”
She nodded. She knew she was in a state somewhere near shock, but it would pass. Cassandra slid a cigarette between her lips and lit it. Lisa took great drags and began to cough. “My God,” she whimpered, “my God.”
When the tears had subsided, she drove them away.
“You know where I have to go, don’t you?” Cassandra asked.
Lisa did. Somehow she knew exactly where she had to go.
“We’ll be a long time in making sense of this,” Cassandra said. “But, time will pass as it always does, and reflection will soothe our souls.”
Lisa looked at her in disbelief.
“It will. In time, even the most horrible of events makes a certain sense.”
“Fenn’s dead. I don’t know how that makes sense.”
“He was tied up in this, too. His identity would’ve surfaced eventually. You didn’t kill him. The knowledge of who and what he really was did. Remember: he was Stadtler. He was a monster like Zero. And now you’ve put your past to rest. In the process you’ve healed a wound in this city that’s been open for far too long.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I am. In time you’ll really believe that. The guilt will ease.”
Lisa slowed and pulled through the gates of the cemetery. “Good-bye,” she said.
Cassandra got out of the car. “Till we meet again,” she called out as Lisa drove off.
Lisa was alone again.
Just like at the beginning.
She cradled Zero’s book in her arms and went back to the hotel. She’d wanted to write about father and son, but now she had a more important task in life: keeping the book out of the hands of the unwary and driven. Maybe in time it would fall to dust, but until then she was its guardian. She had only tears now and black memories that would haunt her to the grave. She was alive and that was something. The whimsical turn of the wheel of fortune had spared her. She would watch and wait now, guard against their return. Because they would open the chasm again. It was only a matter of time.
But it wouldn’t be tonight and that was enough for now.
About the Author
Tim Curran hails from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He is the author of the novels Skin Medicine, Hive, Dead Sea, Resurrection, Hag Night, The Devil Next Door, Long Black Coffin, Graveworm, and Biohazard. His short stories have been collected in Bone Marrow Stew and Zombie Pulp. His novellas include Fear Me, The Underdwelling, The Corpse King, Puppet Graveyard, Sow, and Worm. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as City Slab, Flesh&Blood, Book of Dark Wisdom, and Inhuman, as well as anthologies such as Flesh Feast, Shivers IV, High Seas Cthulhu, and Vile Things. Find him on the web at: www.corpseking.com
About the Publisher
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Copyright
WWW.COMETPRESS.US
A Comet Press Book
First Comet Press Electronic Edition November 2013
House of Skin copyright © 2013 by Tim Curran
All Rights Reserved.
Cover illustration by Amy Wilkins
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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 in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Also available in print: Trade paperback ISBN 13: 978-1-936964-39-0
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