House of Skin

BUTCHER SHOP

Lisa had known Gulliver little over an hour and she was doing everything she could to present herself as a tough, non-nonsense psychiatrist: cool, clinical, emotionless. She wanted him to sense no weakness. After all, he could’ve been some nut, maybe even an accomplice of Eddy’s leading her to God knew what fate. He had insisted that it be just the two of them. No police, no third parties. She either trusted him or he walked away… and if he walked away, she lost her connection—however tenuous—to Eddy.

She was hardly naïve, of course. She better than just about anyone understood all too well the depravity of the human mind and the violent demons hiding therein. Yet… something in her wanted to trust Gulliver. It wasn’t just the connection to Eddy either. Gulliver seemed like a gentle soul, one who was as frightened of what Eddy had become as she herself was fascinated.

So, going on intuition and nothing more, she allowed this strange man to lead her into an abandoned brewery. She was either tough and fearless or very fucking stupid.

She didn’t want to think about which one it was.

She picked Gulliver up over in Haight-Ashbury and he spilled his story soon enough… or, perhaps, a very bare bones version of it. Lisa had the oddest feeling that he was leaving most of it out. She didn’t tip him off to the fact that she knew about the brewery murders; the ball was in his court and she wanted to give him the space to bounce it in any direction he chose.

“Damn,” Gulliver said when they pulled up to the curb. “Look.”

The building was a crime scene: it was taped off and sealed. There were no police around. It was late in the day and they had been combing the scene since yesterday morning and must have called it quits. At least, for the time being.

“The cops know. They must have found the bodies.”

“Let’s go in anyway,” Lisa suggested, wanting to see. Whether that was professional interest, morbid curiosity, or something much darker hiding in the basement of her psyche, she did not know.

“They throw you in jail for things like that.”

“Let’s do it anyway.”

Good Christ, listen to yourself. You’re practically panting with eagerness.

Gulliver seemed to sense that and moved a little farther away from her on the seat.

“Well?”

He sighed. “All right.”

It was simple enough to get in. The doors were taped, but the windows no longer had any glass in them.

If the exterior of the brewery was unimpressive—a bleak stone monolith ravaged by time and weather—then the interior was another matter entirely. The floors were warped and cracked, the walls peeling, the ceiling punched with holes. It was like being inside a corpse. There was a singular air of bleeding decay and corruption, a creeping morbidity that seemed more appropriate to a mausoleum than a place where beer was once bottled.

“What an atmosphere,” Gulliver remarked. “They ought to film horror movies here. It’s even worse by daylight.”

“Like a morgue,” Lisa said.

“That’s appropriate because this is where it happened,” he said. “I wish I’d never followed them.”

“Do you know anything about this building?” Lisa asked.

“What’s to know?”

“This is where Eddy’s father and his little society butchered a few of their victims in the early days.”

“You’re just a wealth of knowledge, Doctor. You might have mentioned that before when I told you about this place.”

“Yes, I should have. I’m sorry.”

He ignored that, looking around. He was clearly disturbed by this place. “All this ambience at so cheap a price. I’m tempted to buy.”

Lisa grunted. She didn’t pretend to understand his sense of humor.

“It’s for sale, you know. Has been for years.”

Like most failed industrial sites in America, the brewery was an eyesore and as such, available for a song. The realtors were desperate to be rid of it. And especially so considering its ghoulish history. Atmosphere, it seemed, was cheap these days.

“This is where they were hanging,” Gulliver said with dread in his voice. They were stopped before a doorway. Hooks were suspended above. The floor was dark with what might have been dried blood. And a lot of it. “Right there. They were tied by the ankles with ropes… and strung up.” He was sweating.

Lisa said nothing. Dust twisted in the air and she could feel sawdust on her tongue with each breath. There was a stench of stale beer and pungent yeast in the air and something worse beneath it. The room they were in was huge and had probably housed vats at one time.

“Okay,” she said. “I believe you.”

“Quiet,” he said.

“What?”

“Ssh. I heard something.”

Lisa humored him and listened. Pale afternoon sunlight filtered in through grimy, broken windows. Motes of dirt and dust danced in the beams like flakes of snow.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Shut up,” Guliver snapped. His eyes were wide and fearful like those of a rabbit listening for a fox. He was shivering.

Lisa shrugged. “Just your imagination. This place could do it to anyone.”

He didn’t look convinced. “I heard something, I know that much.”

“Let’s get out of here then.”

“No. Not until I show you everything.”

Lisa shook her head and followed along. What the hell am I doing? she asked herself. This guy might be crazy. But she didn’t think so. He was frightened. Scared shitless, even, but not dangerous. The smart thing would have been to ask Fenn to meet them here in this charnel house. But she hadn’t done that and part of her was glad she hadn’t broken her promise to Gulliver of no cops. Another part, however, thought she was a damn fool.

What if Eddy and this Spider were still around?

Gulliver led on, through the door and down a hallway littered with debris, past a block of offices with grimy windows. “You notice anything strange?” he asked.

“This whole business is strange.”

“No, really. Old, abandoned places like this are always magnets for teenagers. Places to get drunk, high, cop a feel, get laid—whatever.” He looked around. “But not this one. No beer cans or wine bottles, no graffiti. Nothing. What does that tell you?”

“Only that most teenagers have more sense than we do.”

He faked a laugh. “I wonder what the reason is.”

Lisa didn’t want to think about it because there was something utterly wrong about it.

The hallway floor was streaked with blood.

“They dragged the bodies from out there,” Gulliver said, indicating a doorway in the distance.

There was a quick shuffling sound from the floor above. They both stopped this time. Gulliver looked pained. “I didn’t imagine that one.”

“No, I heard it, all right. Mice, probably.”

“Or rats.”

“Great,” Lisa said, hugging herself, her tough act long forgotten. “Rats in the walls.”

“What a dump.”

When Lisa thought of the atrocities committed here, it was almost possible to believe that the place could be haunted.

They moved on, the shadows deepening. Gulliver carried a small aluminum flashlight. He turned it on now. The light flickered and died. “Shit,” he said, banging it against his knee. “Pissing thing.”

“We don’t need to go any farther,” Lisa said.

“Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here.”

And they did, practically running from the place.

Fenn was outside.

He didn’t look happy. “What the hell is this?” he asked.

It took Lisa about five minutes to outline the whole thing to him. When she was done, he looked suspicious. He told her that one of the neighbors had called her plate in. When it was referred to him, he explained that she was working with him. He had covered for her, but from the look on his face it was obvious he was questioning that decision.

“So, you came out here with some guy you don’t even know?”

“I’m not a child,” Lisa snapped. “I don’t need your protection.”

Gulliver looked uneasy. “Listen, I’m not some freak—”

“That remains to be seen.”

“I don’t need this shit,” Gulliver said.

“But you’ll take it anyway. You’re a material witness to a double homicide.”

Fenn made Gulliver go through it all again.

“There’s something I just don’t understand,” he finally said. “Why on earth were you following them? What was your reason?”

“I just wanted to see what they were doing. I was worried about Eddy, I guess. Spider’s one crazy dude. Take my word for it.”

“I guess I’ll have to.”

Lisa didn’t like this at all. Fenn had changed from the warm, friendly man she knew into a cold, cynical cop. He was treating Gulliver like he was guilty.

“You were worried about Eddy, you say?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you lovers?”

“No!”

“But you’re gay, aren’t you?”

“Yes… no…”

“I thought as much. In my job it gets to where you can smell guys like you.”

Lisa was getting pissed. “Goddammit, Fenn. What the hell are you doing? He came to me of his own free will. He’s putting his life in danger by fingering Eddy. What in God’s name does his sexual preference have to do with anything?”

Fenn smiled cooly. “You’re too trusting, Doc.”

Christ, he’s a homophobe, she thought. Just great.

“You’re going to have to come to the precinct with me, Gulliver.”

He looked shocked. “Why? I haven’t done anything.”

“Routine questions, that’s all. As I said, you’re a material witness.”

“Shit,” he said.

“Listen, I’m not flying solo on this case, Gulliver. There are other people who’ll want to talk with you. It’s merely procedure.”

Lisa gave Fenn a dirty look. “I’m sure he won’t keep you long.”

“I’ll just bet,” Gulliver said under his breath.