estate. I have to get buzzed in, and then driven up to the front porch because it would have taken me at least fifteen minutes to hike it. Even the taxi driver is gobsmacked.
I'd like to say it looks like a haunted house with lightning exploding in the sky above it, but it doesn't and it's not. Christopher is waiting for me when we arrive. He comes to the taxi and pays for it before I even have a chance to take the money out of my wallet.
There is an awkward moment of silence between us just after we greet each other that makes me realize just how excited I am. His gaze is intense, like he's desperate to tell me something, and he looks different somehow. Rawer, more alive. It's an animalistic look that turns me on, and I wonder if he’s aware he’s giving it to me.
His lips are so plump and sexy I can’t help but imagine myself biting them and then licking up all the blood that spills out of them like juice from a squashed berry. Sometimes, when I look at people, I imagine what they look like either fucking or dead. Sometimes both.
He takes my hand and pulls me back to reality.
"Your house is fucking massive", I say, as he leads me to it. That makes him laugh, and it does a good job of breaking the tension.
"Come on. I've never shown anyone this before in my life, I can't wait to share it."
The excitement is palpable. We’ve barely stepped foot inside the house before I’m being whisked urgently through it.
Through the porch, into the beating heart of the property, past the kitchens, out towards the back and then down, first through a locked wooden door that looks like it leads to a cupboard, afterwards through a trapdoor in the floor that takes us down even further by a stone cut spiral staircase deep into the shadows beyond.
It’s insane.
My palms are sweaty. My heart is beating wildly. I fear for a moment I won’t be let back up but I know now if I’m not, it’s too late for me to avoid it.
"Are you ready?"
We are deep underneath his estate. The space that spreads out behind us is like a vaulted car park. In front of us is a thick, harmonica style metal door, cut professionally into the brick work. Beyond that lies the truth.
I nod. I wonder if I should ask him something else, like, "are you ready?" but the words don't come to me.
I'm breathing hard. I'm excited. Christopher takes a key out of his pocket. The matted fur of the rabbit paw has grayed and hardened. He slides it into the lock, turns the bolt and pulls it out.
"I haven't been down here for a while", he says, and then pushes the door wide open.
Chapter 15
Maude
T his place is like a museum. For a long time neither one of us says anything. There are lights that hang overhead, the kind you'd find in an aircraft hangar or a nuclear bunker, or a secret underground museum filled with artifacts that shouldn't still exist. Christopher has enough money to have this whole thing tiled and lit properly, the fact he hasn't makes me think it's an aesthetic choice to add to the ambiance.
The artifacts are set out as though left for someone to come and play with, rather than kept behind crystal display units or boxes out of reach of visitors. Not that there are any. Christopher has made it clear that I'm the first one.
There are dresses from victims. Photographs of corpses left on tables taken from murder scenes. I have no idea how he's got his hands on the stuff.
There are spaces divided lazily in a kind of chronological order so as I walk through it, the light from above just enough for me to see - more so as my eyes get accustomed to it - I see sections of lives from the women Bone has killed, year by year. It's incredible.
The amount of stuff he has here is truly shocking. I turn to look at him, to ask something I'm not able to, and all he does is smile encouragingly, excited by my excitement, his arms open to lead me further into his dungeon, where the light doesn't reach and the cockroaches and God knows what else climb up the walls.
Dolls,
Rachael Slate
Mick Jackson
Sahara Kelly
C.J. Duggan
Wendy Moffat
Deanna Chase
Colee Firman
Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Mary Daheim
Mukul Deva