Hell House by Richard Matheson Read Free Book Online Page B

machinations. Flowing wine and bedroom-hopping. All of it induced by Belasco and his influences .
    "What he did, in this phase, was create a parallel to eighteenth-century European high society. It would take too long to describe in detail how he did it. It was subtle, though, engineered with great finesse."
    "I presume that the result of this was primarily sexual license," Barrett said.
    Fischer nodded. "Belasco formed a club he called Les Aphrodites. Every night—later, two and three times a day— they'd hold a meeting; what Belasco called his Sinposium. Having all partaken of drugs and aphrodisiacs, they'd sit around that table in the great hall talking about sex until everyone was what Belasco referred to as 'lubricous.' Then an orgy would commence.
    "Still, it wasn't exclusively sex. The principle of excess was applied to every phase of life here. Dining became gluttony, drinking turned to drunkenness. Drug addiction mounted. And, as the physical spectrum of his guests was perverted, so, too, was their mental."
    "How?" asked Barrett.
    "Visualize twenty to thirty people set loose upon each other mentally—encouraged to do whatever they wanted to one another; no limits set but those of imagination. As their minds began to open up—or close in, if you like—so did every aspect of their lives together. People stayed here months, then years. The house became their way of life. A way of life that grew a little more insane each day. Isolated from the contrast of normal society, the society in this house became the norm. Total self-indulgence became the norm. Debauchery became the norm. Brutality and carnage soon became the norm."
    "How could all this . . . bacchanalia take place without repercussions?" Barrett asked. "Surely someone must have— what's the expression?—blown the whistle on Belasco?"
    "The house is isolated; really isolated. There were no outside telephones. But, just as important, no one dared to implicate Belasco; they were too afraid of him. Once in a while, private detectives might do a little probing. They never found a thing.
    Everyone was on their best behavior while the investigation was taking place. There was never any evidence. Or, if there was, Belasco bought it."
    "And, during all this time, people kept coming to the house?" Barrett asked, incredulous.
    "In droves," said Fischer. "After a while, Belasco got so tired of having only eager sinners in his house, he started to travel around the world enlisting young, creative people for a visit to his 'artistic retreat—to write or compose, paint or meditate.
    Once he got them here, of course—" He gestured. " Influences ."
    "The most vile of evils," Florence said, "corruption of the innocent." She looked at Fischer almost pleadingly. "Had the man no trace of decency at all?"
    "None," said Fischer. "One of his favorite hobbies was destroying women. Being so tall and imposing, so magnetic, he could make them fall in love with him at will. Then, when they were in the deepest throes of adoration, he'd dump them. He did it to his own sister—the same one he'd assaulted. She was his mistress for a year. After he rejected her, she became a drug addict and the leading lady of his Little Theater Company. She died here of an overdose of heroin in 1923."
    "Did Belasco take drugs?" asked Barrett.
    "In the beginning. Later on, he started to withdraw from all involvement with his guests. He had it in mind to make a study of evil, and he decided that he couldn't do that if he was an active participant. So he began to remove himself concentrating his energies on the mass corruption of his people.
    "About 1926, he started his final thrust. He increased his efforts at encouraging guests to conceive of every cruelty, perversion, and horror they could. He conducted contests to see who could come up with the ghastliest ideas. He started what he termed 'Days of Defilement,' twenty-four-hour periods of frenzied, nonstop depravities. He attempted a literal enactment of