Just past her door, the corridor stopped at a blank wall. In the other direction, it led past several doors. Most were shut. Near the far end was a banister. Janice took the bulb from her mouth and started toward the stairs, walking fast. She was fairly sure this level of the house must be deserted. Otherwise, someone probably would have responded to the commotion by now.
Deserted, maybe, except for Sandy’s mother and the baby who must be locked in one of these rooms. As she hurried past the closed doors, she wondered about setting them free. Too dangerous. If she started opening doors, God only knew what she might run into. Once she was clear of the place, the cops could take care of the rest.
She came to the first open door. She glanced in as she stepped by it with two quick strides. The room was dark and silent.
One down, two to go.
She rushed by them both without incident. As she reached the banister, she flinched at a sudden knocking sound from behind. She had expected it, but it startled and unnerved her.
“He-e-elp!” Agnes yelled. Her voice was muffled. “He-e-elp!” Lemme out!”
Holding her breath, Janice started down the stairs. The area below was dim with blue light. She crouched to see under the ceiling. At the foot of the stairs was the foyer. And the front door!
The open area to the left was dark. To the right was the arched entryway to a room. That room was lighted blue. A dark curtain draped its wall. She saw a few scattered cushions covered with glossy fabric like satin, but no other furniture. She kept her eyes on its entry as she hurried to the bottom of the stairs.
The front door was no more than ten feet ahead. If she went to it, though, she would be in full view of anyone inside the room.
Sandy had claimed the key wouldn’t fit.
Janice decided not to chance it. Eyes on the blue room, she eased around the newel post and tiptoed up a dark passage that ran between the staircase and wall. She followed it toward the back of the house and entered a room with a slick floor. This, she guessed, must be the kitchen. She closed the swinging door and felt along the wall for a switch. She found it. Blue light filled the room.
She stepped past the stove. Along the far wall was a sink, a long counter, cupboards above and below, but no door. Near the sink was a knife rack. She set down her bulb and key, her remaining half of the soda can. She selected a paring knife and a long knife with a serrated edge. She slid the paring knife into her panties. Its blade was cool against her hip. She clutched the long knife tightly in her right hand, and stepped to a closed door beside the refrigerator.
It wasn’t locked. She pulled it open. Shadowy stairs led down to a blue lighted cellar. She pulled the door shut behind her. The air felt chilly. Shivering, she looked down at the blue carpet on the cellar floor. She saw a few scattered cushions.
Please, she thought, let it be empty.
Let there be a tunnel.
She took a deep shaky breath, and raced down.
The cellar was not empty.
With a gasp, Janice stopped abruptly. She squeezed the railing and stared through the dim light at the three figures.
They were against the wall. Two men and a woman. Naked and motionless. Their heads were drooped strangely. Janice took a step backwards up one stair before she noticed that their feet weren’t touching the floor.
“My God,” she muttered.
She descended the rest of the stairs. Slowly, she approached the bodies.
Corpses, she thought. They’re corpses.
One thigh of the woman was missing big chunks as if bites had been taken.
From the chest of each body protruded a steel point.
They’re hung up on hooks.
Janice felt sick and numb. She moved closer. Her legs were trembling.
All three bodies were badly torn, sheathed with dry blood that looked purple in the blue light.
She raised her eyes to a face, and slapped a hand against her mouth to hold in a scream.
One eye was shut. The other stared down at her. The tongue was lolling out. In spite of its contorted features, she recognized the face. It belonged to Brian Blake.
She looked at the face of the man suspended beside Brian.
NO!
Then at the woman.
IMPOSSIBLE! NO!!
Backing away, shaking her head, she stared at the faces of her parents. She fell to her knees. She covered her face.
From behind Janice came the metallic clack of a door latch. She twisted around and looked at the top of the stairs. The door to the kitchen swung open.
Jack, standing in the doorway, snapped a photo of the stairs leading into the cellar of Beast House. “Okay,” he whispered.
Abe turned on his flashlight. He stepped past Jack and started down. Halfway to the bottom, he stopped. He leaned over the railing and shone the beam into the space below the stairway. Nothing there. He leaned over the other side. A steamer trunk against the wall, but nothing else. Turning slowly, he raised his beam to the corner and swept it around the entire cellar. Along the walls, he saw a collection of old gardening tools: shovels, a rake and a hoe. Shelves, mostly empty but some lined with canning jars. Little else. The dirt floor was clear except for a few stacks of bushel baskets.
“Looks okay,” Jack said.
With a nod, Abe stepped down the rest of the stairs. He turned around and aimed his beam at the steamer trunk. Its latches were in place. “Get whatever you need,” he said, “and let’s go.”
Jack, at the foot of the stairs, took three shots. Abe kept his eyes shut against the quick bursts of light from the flash.
“Let’s go.”
“Hang on. I want a look around.”
Abe gave him the flashlight. As Jack started to wander the cellar, he gazed up the stairway at the door. He imagined it swinging shut. If someone came from above and locked it…
“Over here,” Jack said.
“What?”
“That hole Gory talked about.”
Abe hurried across the dirt floor and joined Jack beside a crooked stack of bushel baskets. The hole at his feet was roughly circular and almost a yard in diameter. It didn’t go straight down, but dropped away at a steep angle in the direction of the cellar’s rear wall.
Abe covered his eyes. Jack took a photo.
“That’s it,” Abe said. “Let’s go.”
“Take this a minute.” Jack handed the camera to him.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Hang onto it.”
Crouching, Jack aimed the flashlight into the hole. He lowered his face close to the edge and peered in.
“The girls are waiting,” Abe said.
“I know.”
“We’re already late.”
“A couple more minutes won’t make that much difference.” Lying down flat, Jack started squirming head first into the hole.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Abe muttered.
“I won’t go far.” Jack’s voice came up muffled.
“The fun part,” Abe said. “will be backing out.”
In the last glow before the light faded out, Abe fell to his knees and clutched a cuff of Jack’s jeans. Then he was in darkness. Looking over his shoulder, he watched the dim patch of gray at the cellar door.
They could be up there, right now. They could be on their way out of the house.
He yanked Jack’s cuff. “Come on.”
Jack was no longer moving.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” His voice sounded thick as if he were speaking with a pillow over his mouth. “Goes on and on,” he said.
“Come out of there.”
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“Something up ahead. Looking at me.”
Abe felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. “What is it?”
“Let me get closer.”
“What is it? Is something coming?”
“It’s not coming. Huh-uh. It’s…an owl head. No owl, just its head. Man, the
re’s all kind of bones and shit down here.”
“Great. Time to leave.” He grabbed Jack’s ankles and started to drag him out.
Moments later, light appeared in the hole—a glowing rim around Jack’s shoulder. His head appeared. Abe kept pulling. Jack worked his way backward, elbows shoving at the clay.
Then he was out.
“Infuckingcredible,” he said. “I could only see about twenty feet, but you oughta see all that shit. Bones all over the place down there.”
“Human?”
“Nothing that big. Maybe dogs, cats, squirrels, raccoons. Smaller stuff, too, like from mice or rats. Why don’t you take a quick look?”
“Thanks anyway.”
“I wonder if I could get a picture of that stuff. Worth a try, huh?”
The quick, soft sounds of footsteps rushing down the stairs sounded more animal than human.
Janice pressed herself against the moist clay wall of the tunnel and stared into the blue light. Her heart felt as if it might smash through her ribs. Her breath came in harsh sobs. She clutched the knife with both hands, blade toward the cellar, and held her breath.
She only glimpsed the beast as it passed the tunnel entrance. Her knees sagged. She braced herself against the wall to keep from falling. Her stomach lurched. She swallowed the hot, bitter fluid that rose in her throat.
This—or one like it—was the thing that had raped her. Its claws had ripped her flesh, its snouted mouth had sucked and gnawed her breasts, its penis had been deep inside her and she could still feel the hurt from it.
This—or its brother—was the thing that had murdered her parents and…
She heard a wet, tearing sound.
Pushing herself from the wall, she stepped across the tunnel. Shoulder against the cool clay on the other side, she eased her head past the corner.
The beast, hunched over slightly, had its back to Janice as its claws tore flesh and muscle from her mother’s thigh. She watched, too stunned to move, as it raised the dripping load to its mouth.
A corner of her mind whispered for her to flee, to make good her escape while the creature was busy eating.
No, she thought. I can’t.
The sound of its chewing made her gag. She covered her mouth and ducked out of sight, but she could still hear it.
Jesus. It’s Mom. It’s Mom the thing is…
And then she ran.
She wasn’t quiet about it. She knew she should sneak but she couldn’t, she rushed across the carpet and a savage growl rumbled from her throat and the thing heard her and looked around with scraps of flesh hanging from its mouth and it looked at her with blank pale eyes as if it didn’t give a damn and kept on chewing as it turned and swung a clawed hand at her face. She ducked and rammed the blade into its belly. It roared, spewing the food onto her hair and back. Staggering away, it smashed against her mother. The body’s legs splayed out with the impact. The arms jumped. The head wobbled. The spike slipped out of sight as if sucked into the chest hole, and her mother dropped onto the beast, driving it to its knees.
Janice stepped back, staring at the tangled bodies, half convinced for a moment that her mother was somehow alive. Then the beast, down against the wall with the knife still embedded in its belly, grabbed her mother by the throat and groin and hurled her. The corpse flew at Janice, hit the carpet at her feet, and rolled toward her with flopping arms and legs.
Janice leaped out of its way, spun around, and raced back into the tunnel.
She should have kept on stabbing, damn it.
She cried out in agony as her shoulder slammed against the wall of the tunnel. She bounced off, collided with the other wall, and fell down sobbing. Quickly, she got to her feet. She stumbled onward, one arm out to feel her way, going slower now that she realized the tunnel had turns. Her right hip burned. She felt a warm trickle down her leg. The paring knife in her panties must have cut her during the fall. She pulled it out.
Except for her own sobbing and gasps for air and the slap of her feet on the hard earth of the tunnel floor, she heard nothing. If the beast was coming after her, it must be far back.
Maybe it was too badly hurt to follow.
It can see in the dark, that much she knew from the diary.
She wished she had burned the fucking diary.
None of this would’ve happened. She’d be safe in her bed at the inn and Mom and Dad would still be alive. How had it gotten to them, anyway? They must’ve come looking for her. God, she wished she’d stayed home. It was all her fault. She wished she’d never heard of Brian Blake or Gorman Hardy. They got her into this.
I got myself into this.
I got Mom and Dad killed.
But I can save myself. I can save that woman—Sandy’s mother and the baby—if I can just get out of here. Get help.
Get to Beast House and out to the street. Get to the cops.
The wall went away from her knuckles. She felt blindly with both hands, discovered that the tunnel turned to the left, and hurried through the blackness.
What if there’s a locked door at the other end?
There won’t be. There can’t be.
What if the other beast is waiting up ahead?
No.
What if Wick or Maggie or Agnes or Sandy or all of them reach Beast House first and cut me off?
I’ve still got a knife, she told herself. I’ll rip them up.
And then her thoughts froze as she heard gasping, snarling noises from behind. She rushed on, driven by terror, heedless of the possible turns ahead. The sounds grew louder as she ran. She pumped her arms hard, stretched out her legs as far and fast as she could. Her lungs ached as she sucked breath. All her wounds burned as if their edges were splitting open from the strain. She winced as her right arm scraped a wall. Without slowing, she changed course toward the center.
Now the beast was very close. From the sound of its rattling growl, it could be no more than a yard or two back.
Her left side hit a wall. The blow twisted her. She slammed the moist surface, bounced off it, and fell. She landed on her back.
Staring up into the darkness, she couldn’t see the beast. But she heard a dry hissing sound that was almost like laughter.
Something wet and slimy forced her legs apart. The T-shirt tugged at her, lifting her back from the ground for a moment before it came off her shoulders. She let its sleeves shoot down her limp arms. She felt the points of claws slide down her belly. Her panties were ripped away. Something warm splashed onto her belly, her chest. Its blood.
She felt its hot breath on her face.
“Bastard!” she shrieked, and drove the knife upward. It punched into the thing’s flesh. She jerked it out and stabbed again as the beast wailed in pain. Then it batted her hand. The knife jumped from her numb fingers.
From just beyond her head came a scraping sound like wood sliding over dirt.
The beast clutched her shoulders, its claws digging in Squirming, she rammed a knee into the thing. It kept it grip and knocked her leg aside. Its penis thrust against her thigh.
Its face, just above her own, was dead white and shiny like the flesh of a slug. Saliva spilled onto her from its wide mouth. She wondered why she could suddenly see its face and before she could figure it out the face jerked wildly upward.
The roar that blasted her ears sounded as if the world were exploding.
One of the creature’s eyes was a shiny hole.
A side of its snout flew apart.
Its jaw disintegrated.
She turned her face away as what was left of the beast’s head dropped onto her.
In the silence, Janice’s ears rang.
A man’s voice said, “Holy shit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“How’re you doing, ladies?” the barmaid asked.
“I could go for…” Nora started.
“I think we should leave,” Tyler interrupted.
“They said we should wait here.”
“I don’t care
.” She got up from the table.
Nora shrugged at the barmaid. “Guess that’s all,” she said. She joined Tyler, and they hurried through the dimly lighted cocktail lounge. “What’s the rush, kiddo?”
“I can’t stand waiting any longer. They said they’d be back in an hour.”
“So they’re twenty minutes late. Maybe it took them longer to get in than they planned.” In spite of the reassuring words, Tyler heard tension in her friend’s voice.
She pushed through one of the heavy wooden doors and held it wide while Nora followed her out. She took a deep breath of the chilly night air. Stopping by the antique carriage near the entrance, she gazed toward the road. No cars passed.
Nora wrapped her arm across her breasts, apparently cold in her filmy orange blouse. “Why don’t we go back in and have another drink? They’ll be along pretty soon. I’m sure they’re all right.”
“Are you?”
“Sure. Come on, it’s better than standing out here freezing our tails.”
“I’ll go crazy if I sit still any longer.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t they come?”
“They’re probably on the way, right now.”
Tyler caught her breath as headlights brightened the road. She stared through the trees, and sighed when the vehicle sped past. Just a pickup truck.
“Let’s take the car,” she said.
“Okay. At least it’ll be warm.”
They followed the walkway to the courtyard.
“Have you got your keys?” Nora asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to change first?”
“No.”
She rushed to keep up with Tyler’s quick pace. “What’s the big hurry? We’ll probably just pass them on the road, anyway, and have to turn around.”
“At least we’ll know they’re all right.”
“We could miss them, you know. If they parked on a side road…”
“We’ll turn around and come back if we don’t spot the car.” She unlocked her Omni, dropped behind the steering wheel, and reached over to flip up the lock button for Nora. She keyed the ignition as Nora climbed in. When the door thumped, she shot the car backwards.