The Beast House (28 page)

“Look at that sucker go,” Nora muttered.

Tyler stepped on the gas. She drove slowly past Beast House, staring at the grounds behind its fence, at its dark front porch, its windows. It looked bleak and deserted. She could hardly imagine anyone actually entering such a place at night.

Abe and Jack could be in there right now, she thought. Sneaking through pitch-black rooms and corridors, knowing they’re late and trying to hurry…

Or maybe lying torn and dead, two more victims of…

No!

They’re okay. They’re all right. They’re fine. They have guns. They’re trained soldiers. Marines. Leathernecks.

Beast House fell out of sight as she followed the road’s curve up the wooded hillside, but her mind stayed inside the house. She spread open curtains and stared at maimed bodies, wondering which were wax, which flesh, which Abe.

“There it is!” Nora blurted.

Tyler’s eyes fixed on the Mustang. It was parked off the road just ahead. Its lights were out. She gazed through its rear window as she swung behind it. Nobody seemed to be inside.

“Shit,” Nora said. She reached over and patted Tyler’s leg. “Just sit back and try to relax. They’ll be along any minute.”

Tyler killed the headlights and shut off the engine.

“I’ve got an idea,” Nora told her. She opened the glove compartment and pulled out the Automobile Club guidebook. “This’ll help pass the time. Turn on the overhead light.”

Tyler twisted the headlight knob. The ceiling light came on. Nora flipped through the pages. “Let’s see, now. Shasta. Here we go, Shasta Lake. It’s here! The Pine Cone Lodge. My God, it’s got five diamonds! The place must really be something, huh? Expensive, though. One person, fifty-five to sixty bucks a night. Two people, one bed, sixty-five bucks. Forty-five units. Twelve miles north of Redding, off Interstate-5. One and a half miles south of Bridge Bay Road turnoff. Overlooking Lake Shasta. Open all year. Spacious, beautifully decorated rooms with shower/baths, cable TV, fireplaces. Heated pool, whirlpools, free boats and motors. Fishing, water-skiing. It doesn’t exactly sound like a dump.”

Tyler shook her head.

“You think you’ll stay on there?”

“If he asks me to,” she muttered. “Damn it, where is he?”

“Look, it probably took them ten or fifteen minutes just getting to the house from here.”

“Let’s go over.”

“To the house? Are you nuts?”

“You can wait here if you want.”

“Christ, girl!”

Tyler turned off the light and opened her door. Before she could shut it, she saw Nora crawling across the bucket seats. She waited beside the car until her friend climbed out, then hurried across the road.

“We’re hardly dressed to go traipsing through the woods.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’ll get runs in your stockings.”

Tyler stepped down the steep bank of a ditch, her sandals sliding on the dewy undergrowth, tendrils clutching at her ankles.

Nora skidded, landed on her rump, and picked herself up. “Shit. Have you flipped or something?”

Without a word, Tyler leaned into the opposite slope and started to climb.

“If you’ve got it into your head to go inside the house, forget it. For starters, we’d never make it over the fence.”

Reaching the top of the embankment, Tyler clasped Nora’s hand and pulled her up. She stepped through dark spaces between the trees.

“Besides, we haven’t got guns. They’ve got guns. Not that I’d go in there if we did have…” Nora’s voice faltered.

From down on the road to their left and far ahead came the quick, slapping sounds of feet racing over the pavement. Tyler’s heart lurched. She stared through the pines at the moon-spotted road.

“It’s them,” Nora whispered.

As hard as she listened, Tyler only heard one set of footfalls. Fighting an urge to cry out, she darted back to the edge of the ditch. Poised above the drop-off, she gazed down the road and saw a single runner dashing up the center line. She groaned as she recognized Jack’s blocky figure.

“Oh Jesus,” Nora muttered.

Tyler threw herself down the embankment, stumbled through the growth at its bottom, scurried up the other side and lunged onto the road.

“Jack!”

The man kept running closer with short, choppy steps. He flapped an arm at her. “Get in your car,” he called.

“Where’s Abe?”

“At the house. He’s all right. I’ve gotta meet him in front.”

“What happened?” Tyler asked.

“Later.” He hunched over the Mustang’s door, shoved a key into its lock, opened it and climbed in.

“He said Abe’s all right,” Nora gasped, coming up behind her. “Told you…there was nothing to worry about.”

“Something happened,” Tyler said. Her near panic, she realized, had subsided into frustration.

They stood by the road while Jack swung the Mustang into a U-turn. As it shot off down the slope, Tyler raced to her car. “Get in back,” she ordered. Jerking open her door, she flicked up the lock button for Nora.

The instant her friend was inside, she spun the steering wheel. The Omni made a tight circle, its headbeams sweeping the edge of the woods.

“Douse the lights,” Nora said.

She killed them, remembering that Jack had kept the Mustang dark as he sped down the slope.

“Geez, this is exciting.”

“Something must’ve gone wrong.”

“Stop worrying. Abe’s all right.”

“I’ll stop worrying when I see him.”

“You must really have it for that guy.”

“I do,” she said.

Hurtling around the curve at the bottom of the hill, she saw the Mustang’s dark shape glide to the curb. It stopped in front of the ticket shack. She glanced at the grounds behind the fence, but saw no one.

Where’s Abe? her mind screamed.

Jack leapt from the car. He left his door open, dashed around the front, and flung the passenger door wide.

Tyler steered in behind the Mustang. She hit the brakes. Her Omni skidded to a halt inches from the rear bumper. She jumped out, and took two quick steps before she saw, over the hood of her car, Abe come staggering from behind the ticket booth with a body slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

Without room to step between the cars, Tyler crawled across the hood. She swung her legs down and rushed to Abe’s side.

The girl he carried, wrapped in a blanket, was a blonde with hair hanging down over her face. Crouching, Abe lowered her feet to the sidewalk. Though she seemed conscious, her legs buckled. Jack grabbed her beneath the armpits, and the two men helped her into the Mustang’s passenger seat. Jack shut the door as Abe turned to Tyler.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded.

“What happened? Who’s she?”

He shook his head. “I’ll go back in your car,” he said. “Quick, let’s get going.”

The sudden harsh knocking on Gorman’s door sent a jolt through him, reminding him of last night when Marty and Claire had startled him from sleep. His calm returned when he realized it must be Jack and Abe. He checked his wristwatch. Eleven ten. They’d been gone for an hour and forty minutes, so they must’ve spent at least an hour inside Beast House shooting pictures.

“I’m coming,” he called. He closed Captain Frank’s scrapbook, and slid it into a drawer of the lamp table. Before going to the door, he switched on his cassette recorder and pocketed it.

The man waiting under the porch light was neither Jack nor Abe.

“Captain Frank!” Gorman said, and forced a smile. “I’m glad you’re here. You must have come about your book.”

The old man looked angry.

“Come in, come in. I’m sorry I didn’t manage to get it back to you this afternoon, but the copy machine at that shop was out of order. They told me they’d have it repaired before tomorrow morning, so…”

“Where is it?”

“Safe and sound,” Gorman said.

With a wary look in his eyes, Captain Frank followed him around the foot of the bed and watched as he removed the volume from the drawer. “I’ll take it now, Mr. Wilcox,” he said.

“If you wish.”

“The fellow at the front desk, he says your name’s Hardy.”

“It’s true that’s the name I registered under.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Hardy. Wilcox, you see, is my pen name, my nom de plume. I use it for my byline when I write for People.”

“Is that so?” He sounded skeptical. “I think you aimed to steal my scrapbook off me.”

“Nonsense. I had every intention of returning it to you.”

“Aye. Maybe yes and maybe no.” Captain Frank pulled a scuffed leather wallet from a rear pocket of his Bermuda shorts, took out the pair of fifties, and held them toward Gorman.

Gorman stood motionless, the scrapbook in both hands. “I take it, then, that you don’t wish me to write the article.”

“Now I didn’t say that, did I?”

“I can’t write your story if you refuse to let me use this.”

He shook the volume. “It’s a treasure, and I realize it must be priceless to you. I most certainly had no intention of purloining it. I would have returned it to you, this afternoon, if I’d had any inkling you might suspect me of such treachery. Is it my fault that the copy machine malfunctioned?”

“I don’t ‘spect so,” Captain Frank admitted. He looked almost contrite. “All the same, I want you to take your money back and let me have the book. I just don’t feel right, letting it out of my hands. I tell you what, I’ll take it home with me and you come along tomorrow, if you’re still of a mind to write this up. I’ll drift on over with you, and we’ll get us a copy made.”

Gorman made himself smile. “That sounds perfectly reasonable,” he said. He handed the book to Captain Frank, took the money and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “I do apologize,” he said, “for inconveniencing you in this way. If I’d had any idea…”

“No, no. That’s just fine.”

“Would you care to join me for a drink? I’m afraid I haven’t any beer on hand, but does a martini sound agreeable?”

The old man’s eyes gleamed. “Why thanks.”

“Have a seat,” Gorman told him.

As Captain Frank lowered himself onto one of the twin beds, Gorman turned to the dressing table. He uncapped a fresh bottle of gin, and watched its clear liquid splash into the beaker from his travel bar. His hand trembled.

The bus is an arsenal, he thought. I could get myself shot, sneaking in there. With enough martini in his system, however, the old bastard ought to sleep like the dead.

Gorman added a dash of vermouth. He slowly stirred the mixture.

Like the dead.

He knows my name. He’ll make trouble if I rob him of his precious scrapbook. Assuming, of course, he doesn’t wake up and shoot me.

A pillow over his face while he’s sleeping in a drunken stupor…

It seemed too risky.

Gorman wanted the scrapbook. Photocopies, however, would serve almost as well.

If he goes into the store with me, he might find out I lied about the machine breaking down. He might rebel, at that point, and refuse to cooperate.

He’s an old man. The authorities in this podunk town might simply assume he died of natural causes. A pillow over the face in the wee hours…

Or he might commit suicide.

Gorman saw himself in the dark bus, taking the revolver from under the driver’s seat, pressing it against the sleeping man’s temple and firing.

No, no, no. Neighbors might hear the gunshot.

It was worth considering, though. If he could get away unobserved…

He filled two of the motel tumblers nearly to their brims, and turned to Captain Frank. “Here you go,” he said.

“Thank you, matey.”

Gorman sat on the edge of the other bed. He sipped his martini. The old man took a hefty swallow, and sighed. “Ah, that does hit the spot.”

“Drink up. There’s plenty more where that came from.”

“Did I tell you of the time I took the tour?”

“The Beast House tour? No. When was this?”

“The very day Maggie Kutch opened it up for folks. I was just a lad. I shined shoes over at Hub’s barber shop for better than two weeks, saving every penny and just waiting for Maggie to start the tours. Nobody in town talked about anything else, once it got out what she was up to—with the dummies and all. My mother, she said it was an abomination against God.” He took another long drink. “I knew she’d throw a fit if she found out I aimed to visit the place, so I kept it to myself and went over to go in with the first bunch. You’ve never seen such a crowd. Half the folks in town was there, lined up to buy tickets. I knew right then word’d get back to her. I just about gave up on the idea, but I just had to go in. The thing of it was, you see, I half expected to find my father inside.”

“He was dead by this time?” Gorman asked.

“Aye. But I knew it was Bobo done him in, and I figured Maggie might have him in wax. I just had to see for myself, you know.” He swallowed a mouthful of martini. “Well, my father wasn’t there. I ‘spect I should’ve been glad, but I wasn’t. Damnation, he belonged in there! He deserved it. Bobo was his in the first place. He found it and brought it to town and it killed him. If anybody was gonna be on display like that, it should’ve been him. When the tour got done, I stepped myself right up to Maggie Kutch and said, ‘Where’s my father?’ She gave me a smile that made me want to smash her face, and said, ‘Why, son, I hear he run off with that tart from Wanda’s.’”

“Wanda’s?”

“That was a local house of ill repute. Well, everybody on the tour laughed fit to bust. I ran off. It was all I could do to keep from crying, having me and my father shamed that way in front of everyone.”

“That must have been awful for you.”

“Aye.” He drank all but a shallow puddle, stared into the glass, and finished it off. “If that weren’t bad enough, I got a whipping for my trouble. Reverend Thompson, he saw me go in with the others and wasn’t he quick to tell on me? Mother, she laid into me with a switch so I couldn’t sit down for a fortnight.”

Shaking his head as if in sympathy, Gorman stood up. “Let me freshen your drink for you, Captain.” He took the man’s glass to the pitcher and filled it. Sitting down again, he said, “Tell me about your seafaring days. You must have seen a lot of the watery part of the world.”