Friday Night in Beast House

  ‘But I didn’t…’

  ‘Ralph!’

  ‘Okay, okay. I didn’t hear nothing.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Dip.’

  ‘Julie.’

  ‘Have a nice day, folks,’ said Edith.

  ‘Thank you.’ The father’s voice faded as he said, ‘Sorry about the disturbance.’

  That was a close one, Mark though.

  Then he thought worse.

  What if Ralph tells Thompson what he heard? Instead of passing it off as a figment of the kid’s imagination, she might put two and two together.

  They’ve probably browbeaten the kid into silence, Mark though.

  The chances of Thompson hearing about the groan were slim to none.

  But he waited, listening, so tense he could hardly breathe, ready to scurry deeper into the tunnel at the first sound of trouble.

  If it’s going to happen, he thought, it’ll happen soon. In the next five or ten minutes.

  He looked at his wristwatch.

  12:41.

  Only six minutes since my groan!

  He lowered his face onto his crossed arms, took a deep breath and almost sighed. But he stopped the sigh and eased his breath out quietly.

  It’ll be all right, he told himself. Nobody’s going to come down here looking for me… unless I make more noise!

  Sounds sure do carry through here.

  He wished he’d gone farther into the tunnel before stopping. Too late, now. He didn’t dare to move.

  Only twelve forty-one. Maybe forty-two by now.

  Five hours to go before the house closes.

  Five hours and fifteen minutes.

  Time enough to watch five episodes of The X files. Ten episodes of The Simpsons. You could read a whole book if it wasn’t too long.

  Five hours. More than five hours.

  Almost one o’clock, now…

  I haven’t eaten all day!

  He suddenly thought about the two ham-and-cheese sandwiches in his pack. A can of Pepsi in there, too. He felt the weight of them against his back, just above his buttocks. He could get to them easily, but there would be noise when he unzipped the pack… more noise when he unwrapped a sandwich… and how about the PUFFT! That would come if he should pop open the tab of his Pepso?

  Can’t risk it, he thought.

  I’ll have to wait. After six, I can have a feast.

  Soon, his stomach growled.

  Oh no God, no!

  No comments came.

  His stomach rumbled.

  Maybe no one’s there right now, he thought. Or they’re all listening to the audio tour.

  People with headphones on, whether listening to music or talk radio or the Beast House tape, always seemed to be off in their own little worlds.

  ‘Monstruo!’

  Jeez!

  ‘Buenas dias, Monstruo!’

  That’s enough, he thought. He lifted his head, stared for a few moments into the total blackness, then began squirming forward, deeper into the tunnel. He moved very slowly and carefully. Except for his heartbeats and breathing, he heard only the soft whisper of his windbreaker and jeans rubbing the dirt.

  As the guy topside yelled what sounded like, ‘ No hay cabras en la piscina!, Mark realized the voice was giving him cover noise. He suddenly picked up speed.

  ‘Don’t you saaaay that,’ protested a female voice. ‘He think you loco, come up ‘n bite you face off’

  ‘He fuckin’ try, I kill his ass.’

  ‘You so tough.’

  As the male grumbled something, Mark halted and lowered his head. He had no idea how much farther into the tunnel he’d squirmed. Another six feet? Maybe more like ten or fifteen.

  No way to tell, but the voices from up top were muffled and less distinct than before.

  Time to eat!

  He rolled onto his side, unfastened the plastic buckle of his pack belt, and swung the pack into the darkness in front of him. Propped up on his elbows, he found the zipper. He pulled it slowly, quietly.

  The voices far behind him were barely audible.

  How about some light on the subject?

  He took out a candle and a book of matches.

  Lunch by candlelight.

  He would need both hands for striking a match, so he set the candle down. Then he flipped open the matchbook and tore out one of the matches. He shut the cover. By touch, he found the friction surface. Then he turned his face aside, shut his eyes and struck the match.

  Its flare looked bright orange through his eyelids.

  An instant later, the flame settled down and he opened his eyes.

  The tunnel, a tube of gray clay, was slightly wider than his shoulders, but higher than he’d imagined. High enough to allow crawling on hands and knees.

  In front of him, the yellowish glow from his candle lit a few more feet of tunnel before fading into the darkness.

  He picked up his candle. Holding it in one hand, he tried to light its wick as the match’s flame crept toward his thumb and finger. Just when the heat began to hurt, the wick caught fire. He shook out the match.

  The candle seemed brighter than the match had been.

  Bracing himself up on his right elbow, he reached forward and tried to stand it upright on the tunnel floor. He tried here and there. Each time, the ground was hard and uneven and the candle wouldn’t stay up by itself.

  He reached out farther and tried another place. Just under the dirt, something wobbled.

  A rock, maybe.

  If he could get it out, the depression might make a good holder for the candle. He worked at it. The object came up fairly easily.

  Someone’s eyeglasses.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mark planted the candle upright at one end of the slight depression the glasses had left behind. When he let go, the candle remained standing. It was wobbly, though. He packed some dirt around its base and that helped.

  Then he picked up the unearthed glasses. Braced up on both elbows, he held them with one hand and brushed them off with the other.

  The upsweep of the tortoise-shell frame made him suppose the glasses had belonged to a woman. The lens on the left was gone, but the other lens seemed to be intact. It was clear glass, untinted.

  Except for the missing lens, the spectacles seemed to be intact. Mark unfolded the earpieces. Their hinges worked fine. He looked more closely. Dirty, but not rusty.

  How long had the glasses been down here? A few days? A month or two? A year?

  How the hell did they get here?

  All sorts of possibilities, he thought. Maybe a gal was hiding down here the same as me.

  But why did she leave her glasses behind?

  Easy. Because they got broken.

  No. If you lose a lens, you don’t throw away the whole pair of glasses. You keep them and get the lens replaced.

  She might’ve lost them.

  What, they fell off her face?

  Fell off her face, all right. While she was being dragged through the tunnel…

  Mark’s stomach let out a long, grumbling growl.

  He set the glasses down, reached into his pack and removed a ham-and-cheese sandwich. He opened one side of the cellophane wrapper. As he ate the sandwich, he peeled away more of the cellophane, keeping it between his filthy hands and the bread.

  He decided not to bother with his Pepsi. It would’ve been too much trouble. Besides, his sandwich was good and moist.

  As he ate, he wondered what to do with the glasses. Leave them where he’d found them? He couldn’t see any purpose in that. He might as well keep them.

  And do what? Take them to the police?

  You found them where, young man?

  In the beast tunnel.

  In the WHAT?

  Yeah sure, he thought. Thanks, but no thanks.

  But they might be evidence of a crime.

  Might not be.

  What if I show them to Officer Chaney?

  Show them to her in private, like ?
??off the record, and we can work on the case together?

  He imagined himself coming down into the cellar late at night with Officer Chaney to show her where he’d found the glasses.

  They both have flashlights. At the edge of the hole, she hands him a jumpsuit. She has another for herself. Don’t want to get our clothes dirty, she explains. Then she starts to remove her police uniform.

  Like that’ll happen, Mark thought.

  What’ll really happen, I’ll end up getting reamed for being down here in the first place.

  I can at least show the glasses to Alison, he decided. She’ll probably think they’re pretty interesting and mysterious.

  Done eating, Mark used the cellophane to wrap the glasses.

  He put them into his pack.

  Then he reached out, pulled the candle from its loose bed in the dirt, and puffed out its flame. A tiny orange dot remained in the darkness. Slowly, the dot faded out. He waited a while longer, then found the wick with his thumb and forefinger. It was a little warm. Squeezing it, he felt the charred part crumble.

  He returned the candle and match book to his pack, then zippered the pack shut, slid it out of the way, and settled down to continue his wait.

  Though he tried to relax, his mind lingered on the glasses.

  There hadn’t been a beast attack in years. The last two situations had taken place all the way back in 1978 and 1979. In Janice Crogan’s books, The Horror at Malcasa Point and Savage Times, Mark had seen photos of all the women involved: Donna Hayes and her daughter, Sandy; Tyler Moran; Nora Branson; Janice herself, and Agnes and Maggie Kutch, of course. From what he could recall of the photos, he was almost certain that none of the women wore glasses. Maybe sunglasses. One snapshot had shown Sandy Hayes, Donna’s twelve-year-old daughter, in sunglasses and a swimsuit.

  She disappeared!

  She was never seen again after the slaughter of 79.

  Had she been wearing prescription sunglasses in the photo? Could these be her regular glasses? Had she been dragged away by a surviving beast and lost them here in the tunnel? Or maybe lost them while escaping through here?

  Difficult to picture a cute little blonde like Sandy -who’d looked a lot like Jodie Foster at that age -wearing such a hideous pair of tortoise-shell eyeglasses.

  Besides, she’d vanished almost twenty years ago. These glasses couldn’t have been in the dirt of the tunnel for that long.

  If they’re not Sandy’s…

  They could’ve ended up in the tunnel in all sorts of ways, mark told himself. But they obviously suggested that a woman had been down here not terribly long ago. And that she hadn’t been able to retrieve them after they fell—or were knocked—off her face. Meaning she was probably a victim of foul play.

  Someone must’ve dragged her through this very tunnel.

  Someone, something.

  A beast?

  They’re all dead, he reminded himself. They were killed off in 79.

  Says who?

  Chapter Twelve

  Mark lifted his head off his arms and gazed into the blackness.

  What if they’re wrong? he thought. What if one of the beasts survived and it’s in here with me? Just up ahead. Maybe it knows I’m here and it’s just waiting for the right moment to come and get me?

  Quit it, he told himself. There isn’t a beast in here.

  Besides, even if there is, the things are nocturnal. They sleep all day.

  Says who?

  The books. The movies.

  That doesn’t make it true.

  Into the darkness, he murmured, ‘Shit.

  And he almost expected an answer.

  None came, but the feat of it raised gooseflesh all over his body.

  I’ve gotta get out of here.

  Can’t. I can’t leave now. Not after all this. Just a few more hours…

  In his fear, however, he decided to turn himself around. No harm in that. He would need to do it anyway, sooner or later, unless he intended to crawl all the way back to the cellar feet-first.

  He took hold of his pack.

  Is everything in it?

  He thought so, but he didn’t want to leave anything behind.

  Just a quick look.

  He unzipped his pack and found the matchbook. Open it. Plucked out a match. Pressed its head against the friction surface.

  Then thought about how it would light him up.

  And saw himself as if through the eyes deeper in the tunnel… eyes that hadn’t seen him before… belonging to a man or beast who hadn’t known he was here. But knows now.

  Don’t be a wuss, he told himself. Nobody’s down here but me.

  Who says?

  Anyway, I’ve got everything. I don’t have to light any match to know that.

  We don’t need no steenkin’ matches!

  He lowered the zipper of his windbreaker, then slipped the matchbook and the unlit match into his shirt pocket.

  Now?

  He shut the pack, pulled it in against his chest and began to struggle to reverse his direction. The walls of the tunnel were so close to his sides that he couldn’t simply turn around. He didn’t even try. Instead, he got to his knees in hopes of rolling backward.

  The tunnel ceiling seemed to low. The back of his head pushed at it. His neck hurt. His chin dug into his chest.

  As he fought to bring his legs forward, he almost panicked with the thought that he might become stuck. Then he forced one leg out from under him. Then the other. Both legs forward, he dropped a few inches. His rump met the tunnel floor and the pressure went away from his head and neck and he flopped onto his back. He lay there gasping.

  Did it!

  Would’ve been a lot easier, he supposed, just to crawl backward. But he’d succeeded. It was over now.

  What if I’d gotten stuck?

  Didn’t happen. Don’t think about it.

  He still needed to roll over, but he didn’t feel like doing it just yet. Lying on his back felt good.

  If I’d brought my Walkman, he thought, I could listen to some music and…

  My headphones!

  He touched his head, his neck.

  The headphones were gone, all right. The loss gave him a squirmy feeling.

  Where are they?

  He knew for sure that he’d been wearing them when he ran into Thompson near the front door. And he’d kept them on when he went down into the cellar. And when he’d said that stuff to the little girl. But what about after her father went after him?

  He didn’t know.

  He tried to remember if he’d still been wearing the headphones when he dived into the hole.

  No idea.

  He sure hoped so. If he’d lost them in the tunnel, no big deal; he would probably find them on the way out. But finding them wasn’t his main concern.

  If they’d fallen off his head before the tunnel, then someone might find them in the cellar and put two and two together.

  Someone like Thompson.

  But she’d already been down in the cellar looking for him. If the headphones had been there, she—or that girl’s asshole of a father, Fred—probably would’ve found them.

  I lost them down here, Mark told himself. It’s all right. They’re here in the tunnel somewhere.

  With the small pack resting on his chest, he raised his arms and put his folded hands underneath his head. His elbows touched the walls of the tunnel.

  I’ll probably find them on my way out, he thought. And if I don’t, no big deal.

  Someone’s coming into the tunnel next month… or next year… or twenty years from now might find them and wonder how they got here and wonder if they’d fallen off the head of a victim of the beast.

  Little will they know.

  The truth can be a very tricky thing, he thought.

  A voice, muffled by distance, called ,Heeeerre beastie-beastie-beastie!’

  Dumb ass, Mark though.

  ‘Heeerre, beastie! Got something for you!’

  He imagined
himself letting out a very loud, ferocious growl. It almost made him laugh, but he held it in.

  A while later, he thought about looked at his wristwatch.

  But he felt too comfortable to move.

  Why bother anyway? It’s still way too early to leave. It’ll be hours and hours.

  Hours to go…

  A couple of years ago, Mark had memorized Frost’s poem, ‘Stopping by the Woods on a snowy Evening. Now, to pass the time, he recited it in his mind.

  He also knew Kipling’s ‘Danny Deever’, by heart, so he went through that one.

  Then he tried M The Cremation of Sam McGee, but he’d only memorized about half of it.

  After that, he started on Poe’s ‘The Raven’. Somewhere along the way, he got confused and repeated a stanza and then it all seemed to scatter apart… dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to scheme before… scheming dreams… dreaming screams upon the bust of Alice… still is screaming still is screaming…

  It had been a raven. He thought for sure it had been a raven at first, but not anymore. It was still a very large bird, but now it had skin instead of feathers. Dead white, slimy skin and white eyes that made him think it might be blind.

  Blind from spending too much time in black places underground.

  But if it’s blind, how come I can’t lose it?

  It kept after Mark, no matter what he did. He felt as if it had been after him for hours.

  It’ll keep after me till it gets me!

  Gonna get me like the birds got Suzanne Pleshette.

  Peck out my eyes.

  Oh, God!

  Mark was nor running across a field of snow. A flat, empty field without so much as a tree to hide behind. Under the full moon, the snow seemed almost to be lighted from within.

  No place to hide.

  The awful bird flapped close behind him. He didn’t dare look back.

  Suddenly, a stairway appeared in front of him. A wooden stairway, leading upward. He couldn’t see what might be at the top.

  Maybe a door?

  If there’s a door and I get through it in time, I can shut the bird out!

  He raced up the stairs.

  No door at the top.

  A gallows.

  A hanging body.

  Gus Goucher.

  Maybe not. Gus belonged on the Beast House porch, not out here… wherever out here might be. And Gus always wore his jeans and plaid shirt, but this man was naked.