People gasped.
Owen’s heart jumped.
Darke jerked stiff and squeezed his hand.
Then some screamed and others shouted, ‘Look out!’ and ‘Behind you!’ and a solitary female voice shouted out, ‘Duck!’ as a shiny white hairless creature rushed down through the darkness at the top of the stairs.
The beast!
Lynn looked over her shoulder, saw it and shrieked.
Dana plowed through the group, shoving people out of her way.
Someone – Owen didn’t see who – flung open the front door to escape.
The beast pounded its way down the stairs, dead white and shiny, all muscle and teeth and claws – and penis. Erect, it tilted up like a broom handle.
Two stairs above Lynn, the creature lurched to a halt and lifted its head off.
Clyde, hair mussed from the full-head mask, smiled down at his audience. ‘Welcome to Beast House!’ he called out.
Dana abruptly stopped at the foot of the stairs.
Many of those who remained in the foyer began to laugh with relief, clap loudly and mutter.
‘Bravo!’ Bixby called out.
Darke looked up at Owen, smiled and shook her head.
‘Pretty cool,’ Owen said to her.
‘I almost wet my pants,’ Darke said.
‘A tough guy like you?’
She grinned.
Several people began to snap photos of Clyde and Lynn on the stairs.
Off to the side, Vein looked around, raised a single black eyebrow at Owen and Darke, then bent down and slid the knife into her boot. Nobody seemed to be watching her. She stepped closer to Owen and Darke. ‘I knew it was a fake-out,’ she said.
They both laughed.
Lynn was now standing with Clyde on the same stair. Holding the hideous white head under one arm like a football helmet, Clyde nodded, grinned and waved.
Lynn held up both arms. ‘Would somebody like to go outside and try to bring back our runaways?’
‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘Thanks, Phil.’
Owen had seen Phil around. A normal-looking guy with a nice-looking wife. Though Owen hadn’t spoken to either of them, he’d noticed Phil’s unusual hair. Black with a patch of white near the front, it had reminded him of Cotton Hawes, one of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct cops.
‘I’ll go with you,’ Phil’s wife said. She was husky and had a pleasant face. Wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and boots, she looked as if she belonged in the woods somewhere. She followed Phil out the door.
‘While they’re gone,’ Lynn said, ‘the rest of you can take a couple of minutes to relax.’ She grinned. ‘Glad to see that you’re all still standing.’
‘That was a dirty trick,’ said the camel sweater man, chuckling and shaking his head. ‘I loved it.’
‘I almost pooped,’ announced Arnold.
‘You’re crude, dude.’
‘Huh-huh.’
‘Get a load of the schlong on that guy.’
‘That’s crude.’
Phil and his wife came back in, followed by the woman in the tennis whites and her husband. With a big smile, the man waved at the group. ‘Just stepped out for a breath of fresh air, everyone.’ He gave a thumbs-up to Clyde. ‘Nice job, fellow. Sure put one over on me.’
‘Are you both all right?’ Lynn asked.
‘Oh, fine,’ the man said.
His wife said nothing, but glowered toward Lynn and Clyde.
‘All in good fun,’ Lynn said. Then she took a deep breath and said, ‘Last call for bailing out of the tour and getting a full refund. Any takers?’
A sour look on her face, the tennis woman muttered, ‘Biff?’
‘I’m staying,’ he told her. ‘If you want to leave, be my guest. You can wait for me in the car.’
‘What’ll it be, Eleanor?’ Lynn asked.
The woman almost snarled. ‘I’ll stay.’
‘Very good,’ Lynn said. ‘The tour starts now.’
Chapter Fifty-Five
The Strangeness of Beasts
Heart still racing from the scare of what she’d thought was a real attack on Tuck, Dana rubbed her sweaty hands on the sides of her shorts. The pistol had been halfway out of her pocket by the time Clyde had stopped and pulled off his mask.
My God, what if I’d shot him?
Tuck should’ve warned me, she thought.
Probably didn’t want to ruin the surprise.
‘This is Clyde,’ Tuck announced, slapping him on the back.
‘Hi, everyone,’ he said.
‘He’s a regular member of our staff, and our favorite beast. Some of the ladies like to say it’s type casting.’
Clyde chuckled, then raised the ugly, snouted mask and pulled it down over his head.
‘Behold a beast,’ Lynn said. ‘This is what they actually look like. Not quite like the ones they show in the movies, is he? The movie beasts are almost pretty compared to the real thing. And of course, they never let you see this.’
Tuck gave the jutting shaft a flick with the back of her hand. The gentle blow made it sway from side to side. A few people chuckled. Some made sounds of dismay. An impish smile appeared on Tuck’s face.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘it’s not real. Like the rest of the suit, it’s made of synthetics. But every detail of the suit is accurate. According to people who know, its appearance and texture is almost exactly like the actual beasts. Down to the slightest details. Note the sharp claws on its hands and feet. Note its teeth – in both mouths.’
As she wrapped her right hand around the shaft, just about everyone in the group either groaned or snickered.
‘Go for it,’ Dennis said.
‘I’m sure that most of you have heard about this,’ Lynn said. With her left hand, she pointed at the blunt head of the penis. Stretched across it was a mouthlike orifice that seemed to be frozen in a snarl. ‘There are passing mentions of it in Janice Crogan’s books, but it’s one of those things nobody wants to dwell on . . . no pun intended.’
After a pause, there came a mixture of laughs and moans. Dennis and Arnold elbowed each other, chuckling. Eleanor shook her head. Owen and Darke laughed. Monica, standing close behind them, looked as if she might be smelling something sour.
‘This . . .’ Tuck said, ‘is obviously the beast’s most unusual feature. But it’s something you don’t hear much about and you certainly never see it in any of the movies. You never hear about it on the day tour, either. This is the beast’s deep, dark secret.’
With her left hand, Lynn withdrew an eight-inch long flashlight from a front pocket of her shorts. ‘I’ll light it up for you.’ She thumbed the switch, then shined the bright beam on the mouth. ‘Why don’t you come over here, one at a time, and take a closer look if you’re so inclined?’
Nobody took her up on the offer.
‘I know you all want to look. Dennis, Arnold, you guys wanta break the ice?’
‘Bitchin’,’ said Arnold.
‘Cool,’ said Dennis.
As they made their way toward the foot of the stairs, Lynn resumed her talk. ‘The beast comes equipped with quite an impressive mouthful of teeth. There is also a forked tongue. On an actual beast, the tongue extends about two to three inches, but our replica doesn’t do that. You’ll only be able to see the very tips of it.’
Dennis leaned forward for a close look. ‘Whoa, dude,’ he muttered. He stepped aside. While Arnold inspected the mouth, Andy and Alison Lawrence stepped up behind him to await their turn.
‘We’re not entirely sure about the functions of the second mouth,’ Tuck went on. ‘We don’t know, for instance, whether the creatures are able to consume food with it, or breathe through it. We do know that they bite.’
A few people winced.
‘Charming,’ muttered Eleanor.
More people lined up to inspect the mouth.
‘They bite and suck. And taste. As Lilly Thorn wrote in her diary, “This orifice and tongue
enabled him not only to titillate me in the extreme, but also heighten his ardor by the taste of my juices.”’
‘Awesome,’ Arnold muttered.
Dana had read that section of the diary. The portions dealing with the beast had been printed in Janice Crogan’s first book, The Horror at Malcasa Point, and photographs of the actual diary pages had appeared in the second book, Savage Times. Tuck was telling her nothing she didn’t already know.
Regardless, Dana found herself pressing her thighs together. Doing that, she felt her soreness and stickiness and stopped thinking about the beast. She was suddenly back in the museum with Warren. In the dark. Wrapped around him, enveloped by him, feeling him everywhere.
After a while, she realized she was missing the show.
Tuck still stood beside Clyde on the third stair, shining her flashlight on the costume’s nasty little mouth while people from the tour stepped up for a closer look.
‘. . . said to be great lovers,’ Tuck was explaining. ‘Because of their wild ways, their unbridled lust, the staggering size of their penises and the mouths, women were known to lose all interest in normal men after having a close encounter with a beast. That’s what happened to Lilly Thorn, the woman who built Beast House.’
Dana wondered if she should take a look at Clyde’s costume.
Why not? Might as well go whole hog.
She stepped forward.
‘As soon as everyone’s done,’ Tuck said, ‘I’ll take you downstairs into the cellar and we’ll have look at the place where, in a sense, it all began. In the meantime, any questions?’
‘What about female beasts?’ Monica asked, smirking. ‘Or aren’t there any?’
‘We know that females existed on Bobo Island when the Mary Jane landed there in 1901. In the battle that took place between the ship’s crew and the beasts, however, all the females were slaughtered. Only Bobo, an infant male, was brought back to the States. All the subsequent beasts are apparently his descendents.’
‘From human mothers?’ asked Eleanor, sounding a bit skeptical.
‘That’s correct.’
‘If that were the case,’ said Andy, ‘it seems that the first offspring should’ve been half human.’
‘Genetically speaking,’ added his wife, Alison, nodding in agreement.
‘And if that one mated with a human female,’ Andy continued, ‘their child ought to lose about three-quarters of its beast traits.’
‘I know,’ Tuck said. ‘That’s generally the way it’s supposed to be. I completely understand. In fact, though, there hasn’t been any noticeable change in the physical appearance of the beasts since Bobo came to town almost a hundred years ago. Maybe there’ve been changes that nobody noticed, but nothing obvious.’
‘From a scientific standpoint,’ Andy said, ‘it seems impossible.’
Tuck grinned. ‘And yet, it’s true.’
‘Aren’t their offspring ever female?’ asked Connie.
Next in line, Dana watched Professor Bixby step forward to view the mouth.
Do I really want to see this thing? she wondered.
Hell, no.
Then how come I’m standing here?
‘. . . in Malcasa Point?’ Tuck said. ‘Not that we know of. If there have been females . . .’ She shrugged. ‘In certain present-day human cultures, you know, female infants are commonly destroyed at birth. Because they aren’t considered socially convenient.’
‘That’s not so,’ blurted Eleanor, sounding distressed. ‘I don’t believe that for a single minute.’
‘I’m afraid it is true,’ said Alison, coming to Tuck’s defense.
‘India, for starters,’ Andy pointed out.
‘Exactly,’ said Tuck. ‘In present-day India, there’s wholesale slaughter of female infants. Apparently, they’re considered a burden on family finances.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Eleanor insisted.
‘But true,’ Tuck said. ‘Anyway, I only brought it up to indicate the possibility that the beasts may have practiced something along those lines – killing the females at birth. That could explain why we’ve never seen any around here. Or maybe something else is going on.’
At last, Bixby moved on.
Dana stepped closer to the stairs. Standing in front of Clyde, she crouched slightly. Tuck still shined her flashlight on the mouthlike orifice. The opening was rimmed by thin, white ridges . . . lips? The teeth looked sharp. The tongue, just inside, was bright red.
What would it be like to . . .?
Dana found herself blushing.
The rigid, half-open mouth suddenly darted at the tip of her nose.
She gasped and lurched backward.
‘Hey!’ Tuck snapped. She gave Clyde a quick jab with her elbow.
‘Very funny, Clyde,’ Dana said.
Quiet, muffled laughter came out of the beast mask.
As Dana hurried away, Tuck asked the group, ‘Any more questions?’
‘I understand that the beasts are bi-sexual,’ boomed Bixby.
‘I’d say that’s an understatement,’ Tuck answered. ‘They appear to be omnisexual. To be crude about it, they’d screw the crack of dawn. If there isn’t a suitable orifice for the purpose, they’ll create one with their teeth. They’ve been known to chew their way in.’
‘Oh, dear God,’ blurted Eleanor, sounding appalled.
‘Is everybody done inspecting Clyde’s anatomy?’ Tuck asked. ‘He will be accompanying us on the tour, so you’ll have plenty of other opportunities to observe his peculiarities.’
‘The beast’s peculiarities,’ Clyde corrected her.
‘Those, too.’
‘Lynn’s nothing if not amusing,’ Clyde announced. ‘And she’s rarely that.’
Tuck said, ‘He only thinks I won’t fire him.’
Keeping her flashlight on, she stepped to the bottom of the stairs. ‘We’ll be going down to the cellar, now. I’ll lead the way. Everybody stay close behind me. Dana will take up the rear.’
Tuck stepped around the newel post and disappeared into the hallway alongside the staircase. Hanging back, Dana watched the others follow her. Clyde waited on the stairs. His white, hairless head swiveled as he looked from the group to Dana. After all the tourists had crowded into the hallway, he stepped down to the first stair.
Dana motioned for him to go ahead.
He stayed. ‘Ladies first.’
‘Lynn wants me to take up the rear.’
‘I always go last.’
‘Okay,’ Dana said. ‘Whatever.’ She followed the others into the hallway.
Clyde hopped off the bottom stair and came after her.
The hallway was murky with remains of light from the foyer chandelier. The tourists in front of Dana were pressed close together, slowly shuffling along.
Clyde prodded her in the rump.
She jerked her head around. ‘Stop that,’ she whispered.
‘My reputation precedes me.’
‘Keep that thing away from me.’
He poked her with it again. ‘How would you like it in you?’
‘Knock it off.’
‘If you’d like to just make a little detour into the employees’ restroom . . .’
‘No thanks.’
‘The next best thing to getting it from a real beast.’
She stopped, turned sideways, and shoved her face up close to the twisted snout of his mask. Seething but trying to sound calm, she whispered, ‘Listen to me, Clyde. I’m not interested. Okay? So just keep your damn prick to yourself, keep your mouth shut and leave me alone. Please.’
He laughed softly. It sounded strange through the mask. ‘What if I don’t?’ he asked, his voice smirky and taunting. ‘You gonna tell on me to Lynn? Think she’ll fire me? She wouldn’t dare.’
‘Just leave me alone.’
‘Sue me for sexual harassment?’
‘Maybe.’
He lifted a pale hand and clutched her left breast. Through the fabric of her shirt and bra, the point
s of the claws were sharp against her skin.
She bashed the hand away. ‘Touch me again and you’ll be sorry.’ She whirled around and hurried up the hallway. It was deserted in front of her. The tour had moved on.
She heard Clyde close behind her.
With each stride of her right leg, she felt the pistol bump against her thigh.
Just forget about that, she told herself. I can’t shoot him for pawing me.
Eve probably would.
Eve!
Why isn’t she here?
Dana found the tour group inside the dark kitchen. They were gathered near the open pantry door, where Tuck stood with her flashlight. Its beam swept toward Dana and lit her.
‘Thought maybe the beast had nailed you,’ Tuck said.
‘Nope. Everything’s fine.’
Clyde stepped through the doorway. Tuck shined the flashlight on him. ‘Staying out of trouble?’ she asked.
He waved. The claws of his beast hand cast long, hooked shadows on the wall to his right.
‘Okay,’ Tuck said. ‘Before we descend into the cellar, let me tell you that the audio tour is loaded with lies and half truths. It’s based very closely on the original tours given by Maggie Kutch, and Maggie had a lot to hide. You already know most of this if you’ve read Janice’s books. Have any of you not read either book?’
More than half the people in the group raised a hand.
‘That’s fine. If you’re only familiar with the audio tour and haven’t read either book, then you’ve been misled about a lot of things. During the course of tonight’s tour, I’ll be telling you what really happened.
‘Let’s start at the beginning – with the beast’s first foray into the house. On the night of August second, 1903, it supposedly came wandering out of the hills, just happened to stumble upon this house, came in and slaughtered Ethel Hughes in the parlor. Then it ran upstairs and murdered Lilly’s kids. Lilly managed to escape by climbing out her bedroom window. That’s the way Maggie always told it. But that’s not how it happened.
‘The real story begins more than two months before that bloody night in August. On the night of May eighteenth, Lilly went down into her cellar to bring up a jar of canned fruit – and made a startling discovery. Two of her jars were broken. A third was empty. She’d had a visitor. A hungry visitor.