Read Online Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee by Edward Lee - Free Book Online Page B

famous place ... and it's the only building on
the hill. Take a left onto Prospect Hill Road off 66th Street,
and that'll take you there. But once you get there, you'll
never be seen again."
    Nyvsyk's brow ridged.
    "It's haunted," added the girl.
    "We're kidding!" the guy said. He had a tattoo on his forearm that read NARRATION IS YOUR ENEMY
"There was a mass-murder there last month. Kooky rich
guy cut up a bunch of house guests with an ax:'

    Now Nyvysk smiled. "So I've heard. Thank you for the
directions." Nyvysk unconsciously diddled with the large
cross around his neck. "Let me leave you now with this:
'Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.'
Oh, and Go Devil Rays."
    .`Cool,,, the guy said.
    "Why are you going to the Hildreth Mansion?" the girl
asked.
    "I'm a demonologist and a technical paranormal investigator," Nyvysk said, and got back in his van and drove away.
    Five miles and a bridge behind him, Nyvysk spotted a tiny
roadsign on the thoroughfare for Prospect Hill Road. Then
he winced over a pot-hole, heard something clatter in the
back. Probably the influx tubes of the chromatograph, he feared.
Or my $50,000 barometer. Then he saw another sign: JCT -
STATE ROUTE 666. You've got to be kidding me, he
thought. He peered incredulous at the map and saw that the
road did indeed exist but thankfully led elsewhere. Then he
slowed in the right lane, watching for his turn.
    A Muslim-nineteen or twenty perhaps--was hitchhiking. Nyvysk's eyes locked, and he felt something tighten in
his chest. The hitcher reminded him of the young Kurd
who'd exorcized the woman in Nineveh, the boy named
Saved. The memory seemed to fog about his head: how,
when the rite was over, the boy smiled at the younger, slimmer, and much-less-shaggy Nyvysk. How their eyes had
locked. The silent invitation mouthed on the Kurd's lips
and how hurt those eyes had appeared when Nyvysk sighed
and turned away.

    Nyvysk touched his cross. Thank you, God, for giving me
the strength to never break my vows ...
    He knew it was completely disconnected but it seemed
that his quelled libido had been raging over the past few
days-since he'd gotten the letter from Vivica Hildreth.
    Everywhere he went now it seemed that lust was being
aimed at him from so many wide-open eyes.
    He bit his lip and drove on, watching the boy fade in his
rearview.
    He blanked his mind for quite a while.
    "This can't be it," he complained to himself later but
took a hard left turn anyway. He knew the interstate north
was coming up, and it didn't look like there was room for
too many more turns. The road wasn't on the map, either,
but there was a listing in the phone book. Maybe that couple
at the gas station are having a laugh on the old guy right now ...
But just as he'd lost his faith, less than a hundred feet up the
gravel road he'd just turned on to, the bent sign stood:
PROSPECT HILL RD. Why put the damn sign here! It
should be on the corner--you know-where people can SEE it!
Then another dissociated thought flicked in his head.
    Maybe they didn't want people to see it ...
    The road wound through a dense forest full of weeping
willows and very strange, very tall pine trees. He noticed
not one of the palm trees that Florida was known for. Spanish moss hung off branches of the trees which lined the
road, creating a green curtain. Who would put a house--a
mansion no less-in the middle of the woods? The road kept
winding upward, and seemed to grow more narrow.
Branches, like skeletal hands, scratched against the van's side
panels, and overhead, more, broader, branches reached across
the road, joining, forming a webwork tunnel that filtered out the sunlight. Nyvysk soon felt certain that he was on
the wrong road when he was at last emptied into a green
clearing surrounded by a ring of trees.

    And there the Hildreth Mansion stood, as if in wait.
    My God, it's huge...
    Nyvysk slowed, then stopped to stare at the place. What