House of Skin

Dedication

This book is for you, Grandpa. You survived the Great Depression, and you served your country in World War II. But your greatest accomplishment is your unwavering devotion to your family. Thanks for being a grandfather, a father figure, a role model, and a loyal friend to a boy who needed those things in the worst way. I love you dearly.
 

Acknowledgments
 

Every horror novel has a lineage. Some of the stories that made this one possible are the following:
Ghost Story
and
Julia
, by Peter Straub;
Earthbound
, by Richard Matheson;
She Wakes
, by Jack Ketchum;
All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By
, by John Farris;
She
, by H. Rider Haggard; and “Nona,” by Stephen King.

I’d like to thank Don D’Auria for his continued support and guidance. Thanks to Tim, Clay, and Pete for reading this book and helping me improve it. Thanks to my three incredible children for loving me and for being excited about my writing. And thanks most of all to my wife. We met the summer I began writing this novel. You believed in the story then and have never stopped believing. Thank you for that and for everything else. I couldn’t have done it without you.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

John Keats, “La Belle Dame sans Merci”

She will find him by starlight, and her passion ends the play.

William Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Before

She waited.

Book One

Julia

Chapter One

As he drew closer to her, Brand’s grip on the wheel tightened. She wasn’t a blonde, but she would definitely do. Girl had the body of a swimsuit model. Tall, curvy, athletic. Maybe he wouldn’t need to go to the bars after all.

Rolling down the window he said, “Excuse me, miss. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m sorta lost.” He leaned forward and looked up at her. From where she stood she’d be able to see his sports coat, his starched white shirt open a little at the collar. His Rolex.

She showed no sign of having heard, continued walking. He idled the black Beamer beside her and asked, “Did you know Myles Carver?”

That did it. She stopped and cast a sidelong glance at him.

“That looks like a yes.” He smiled what he hoped was a winning smile. Then his expression grew grave. “As you might have heard, Myles passed away last week. His nephew is arriving in town this evening to take possession of the estate.”

For the first time, the woman spoke. “Someone’s moving in?”

“That’s my understanding. My law firm, Walker, White and Brand, handled the Carver will, and since I’m our most junior partner it fell to me to drive down here tonight to drop off the key.”

She’d be impressed, he was sure, with his status as a partner at such a young age. They always were. And who could blame them? He’d been made a partner the previous fall and at forty-two, he was one of the youngest in the city.

The woman was watching him. He couldn’t read her expression, but even in the wan light of the April dusk he could see she was a stunner. Her long dark hair was parted in the middle and swept over her shoulders. The high cheekbones gave her an exotic look. And even from this distance he could see her green eyes glowing in the sundown light.

“Anyway, I’m a bit lost and I was wondering if you could help me find the house.”
 

In truth, he’d been there twice already. When the old man was still alive he’d insisted on Brand’s firm coming to him rather than the old man coming to the city. They would have balked had he not been willing to pay.

Maybe, Brand thought, the girl would want a tour of the place. If she’d never been inside the Carver House it would sure as hell impress her. Maybe he’d try to bag her right there. That would be a hell of a way to celebrate Carver’s demise.

She pointed down the road. “You follow this road through the stop sign, go about a mile and when the woods get really thick you’ll see an opening to your left. The house is down that lane.”
 

Brand was so focused on her lips that he caught little of what she said. They were full and pink and a little curved at the ends so that he couldn’t tell whether she were amused at something or annoyed at him for interrupting her stroll.

“Would you like a ride?” he asked, his right arm cradling the passenger’s seat.

“I walk home every day,” she said.

“Oh.” He laughed. “You look like you’re in great shape, so I’m not surprised.” He grinned deprecatingly. “I’m just really bad with directions. Since you know where I’m supposed to be going, maybe you could ride with me to the house. Then I could drop you off at your place. They’re in the same direction, right?”
 

She fixed him with an appraising stare. Was she wary of him or was she debating his proposal? Probably both, he guessed.

“I swear I won’t hurt you.” He raised his hands. “I’m harmless.”
 

The corners of her mouth rose slightly. “I suppose.”

He pushed open the passenger’s door and waited for her to get in. He extended a hand. “Ted Brand.”

“Julia Merrow.”
 

She shook his hand and nodded toward the road.

“My house is a couple of miles from Watermere by road, but only a mile if you go through the woods.”
 

Ted did his best not to grimace. Houses with names reminded him of
Gone with the Wind
and his wife’s weird attraction to Clark Gable.

“Straight here?” he asked when they came to the stop sign.

Julia nodded. She smelled like some sort of body lotion, but not cloyingly so. Just a hint of citrus that reminded him of a tropical drink on a hot day. He breathed it in, turned to her.

“So where were you walking home from, Julia?”

“The library.”

“You go there to read?”

“I work there.”

“And how is that?”

She shrugged. “Fine.”

She wasn’t much of a conversationalist, he decided. It was a good thing she was so good-looking.

Ted chuckled. “Carver’s nephew is a strange guy.”

“Why do you say that?”
 

“I don’t know,” he said. “He couldn’t move in any other time but tonight.” He checked his Rolex to make sure she’d seen it. “He won’t even get there until one or two in the morning.”
 

“What’s wrong with that?” she asked.

Talking to this girl was like extracting a splinter.

“Nothing’s
wrong
with it, I guess. It’s only that it seemed strange to me that he couldn’t wait until tomorrow for one of us to meet him there. I mean, the guy calls as we’re closing the office and insists we drop off the key tonight because he’s got to move in immediately.”

“Maybe he’s excited.”

“Obviously.”

“I’d be excited.”

He softened his tone. “Yeah, I could see that.”

For the first time, she was growing animated. “Watermere is lovely.”

“Yeah.” He gave her the smile. “It is very nice.”

“Nice? It’s
sublime
. The ballroom and the marble foyer. And the master suite.” Her green eyes blazed.

“I like the library myself,” he said, going with it.

“I do too,” Julia said, and as she said it she actually touched his arm.

Bullseye
, he thought.

“Yeah, the fireplace and the paintings…”
 

“And the books,” she threw in. “Have you ever seen so many wonderful books? They make me feel like Belle in
Beauty and the Beast
.”
 

He grinned. “It
is
like that, isn’t it?”

He hated that fucking movie. Ever since Linda bought it for the twins, he swore it was on twice a day. He ever got the makers of it alone, he’d kick their asses.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been to Watermere,” she said.

“You’re welcome to go in with me.”

Her eyes flared brighter, then grew doubtful.

“I thought you were just dropping off the key.”

Brand winked. “I’ve got time.”

Paul left Memphis for the last time.

He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable because his cargo shorts kept riding up. He cursed himself for allowing Emily to talk him into the Civic, a car he was sure had been designed by dwarfs. His lower back a tangle of knots, he tried to mold his six-foot-two body to the seat. But no matter where he rested his rear end, his head was still too near the roof and his knees were too close to the steering wheel.

He wiped his brow. Though still only April, the southern air was humid, stifling. He rolled down the window and willed the outside breeze to cool him.

Squirming, he realized he needed to urinate.

Some day he’d conduct a study on the correlation between violent crimes and the amount of urine in the bladders of the perpetrators. There had to be a connection. People could talk all they wanted about childhood traumas and full moons goading men to violence, but his money was on the need to piss. Nine times out of ten, when he got annoyed with anything—a bad driver, an inextricable knot in his tennis shoes, a movie director who joggled the camera so much you couldn’t see what the hell was happening—it had something to do with the tingly burning in his abdomen.

It was the reason that despite the cooler temperature the outside air brought on, he still found himself on edge. He needed a bathroom. As if in answer, a green sign proclaimed GAS ONE MILE.

He checked the gauge: three-quarters full. No matter. He’d empty his bladder, load up on caffeine and be on his way.

Not for the first time since he passed the city limit sign, a sense of unreality washed over him. He was leaving the only life he’d ever known, the only people and places familiar to him, driving ten hours north and beginning a new life in a house he’d only seen in pictures. Had anyone, he wondered, ever done this before? Was he, as Emily claimed, insane for going through with it?
 

Signaling a left turn, he made his way off the interstate and pulled into the gas station.

A longhaired guy working the counter stared at him balefully. Copious tattoos, faded blue by time and God knew what wear and tear, grew like ivy on the man’s veiny arms. The pendant on the guy’s necklace was a skull with curled horns and long fangs.

Paul realized he’d been staring.

“Help you?” the man asked. His tattooed hands held a
Hustler
magazine. From where Paul was standing, he could see two women in the upside-down picture locked together like a Yin and a Yang. The attendant’s eyes followed Paul’s gaze to the picture. When he glanced up again, Paul could see the maze of blood vessels webbing the man’s eyes and a prurient grin wrinkling his lips.

“No thanks. I just need to use your bathroom and get some coffee.”
 

“Coffee’s over there,” the man nodded to Paul’s left. “Bathroom’s outside.”

“Do I need a key?”
 

“Yeah. Might need a gas mask too.” The man grinned, revealing a mouth full of coffee grounds. As Paul took the key dangling from a wooden club, he realized the coffee grounds were tobacco.

He went around to the bathroom and was assailed with one of the worst odors he’d ever smelled. It was as if the smell of human shit had been distilled and blended into the dingy white paint. Even the pink urinal cake gave off a fulsome stench. Managing to void his bladder while stealing quick breaths through his mouth, Paul stumbled out of the bathroom and gasped for air. After depositing the club on the counter and receiving a grunt from the attendant, he poured himself a large Styrofoam cup of coffee and grabbed two Mountain Dews. As he checked out, he threw in a bottle of caffeine pills, as well.