Gorman got to his knees and watched Captain Frank descend the wooden ladder. The moment the man was out of sight, he pulled out his pocket recorder. The tape was still running, but it must be near its end. The old geezer had talked for the better part of an hour – and what a story he’d told! Gorman couldn’t have been more delighted. Everything was going his way. Everything! His fingers trembled with excitement as he ejected the tape’s tiny cartridge, flipped it over, and slid it back into place. He returned the recorder to his jacket pocket. He grabbed an empty plastic ring of the six-pack. The two remaining cans clanked together at his side as he walked carefully toward the ladder.
He approached it with growing alarm. The ascent had been bad enough, but he suspected the descent would prove worse. The ladder was simply propped against the end of the bus, its highest rung level with his waist. What if it should tip over as he attempted to clamber on?
Gorman Hardy, noted author of Horror at Black River Falls, fell to his death . . .
Captain Frank was down below, gazing up at him.
‘Would you mind holding the ladder for me?’
The old man shook his head as if he pitied Gorman, then stepped under the ladder and clutched its uprights.
If you’re such a stalwart fellow, Gorman thought, why are you terrified of going after the beast? A screwy old fart, all right. And a coward. But his story was gold, and Gorman’s fear subsided as he wondered about the man’s book. Carefully, he mounted the ladder. It wobbled slightly. The rungs creaked under his weight. His legs felt weak and shaky, but finally he planted a foot on the solid ground.
‘And you’re still in one piece,’ said Captain Frank.
Gorman forced a smile. He followed the man through a litter of beer cans alongside the painted bus. ‘Did you paint this mural?’
‘That I did.’
‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Would you mind if I took a picture?’
‘Help yourself. I’ll just step inside and . . .’
‘Stay here. I’d like you in the picture, too. The canvas and the artist.’
Captain Frank nodded. He moved to the open door of the bus as Gorman set down the beers and stepped away. In the viewfinder, the old man looked like a crazed tourist: Huckleberry Finn straw hat, red aloha shirt flapping in the breeze, plaid Bermuda shorts, spindly legs with drooping green socks and tattered blue tennis shoes. He held an arm out, a finger pointing at the mural.
Gorman took a few more backward steps to fit in the entire length of the bus, and triggered the shutter release. ‘Marvelous! Now step over that way.’ He waved the old man to the left. ‘There. Right there. The ancient mariner and the albatross.’
‘You know the poem?’
‘Certainly. It’s one of my favorites.’ He moved in close and snapped the shot. ‘Wonderful. Thank you.’
‘Hope they turn out.’
‘Shall we have a look at this book you mentioned?’
‘Right this way.’
When the old man turned away to mount the steps, Gorman switched on his recorder. He retrieved the beers, and followed. He found Captain Frank in the driver’s seat.
‘Look here, matey.’ With a sly wink, he whacked the sun visor. It flipped down. Secured to its back with duct tape was a sheathed knife. He tapped a fingernail against the staghorn handle. ‘I’m ready for it, see? Just let old Bobo make a try for me.’ He pushed up the visor, hunched over so his chin rested on the steering wheel, and reached under the seat. He came up with a western style revolver. ‘My hogleg,’ he announced. Thumbing back the hammer, he stared at the weapon as if it were a stunning woman. ‘This darling’s an Iver Johnson .44 magnum. She’ll knock Bobo ass over tea kettle.’
‘Is it loaded?’ Gorman asked.
‘Wouldn’t do me much good empty.’
Gorman held his breath as Captain Frank lowered the hammer. When the revolver was safely stored away, the old man stood up. He stepped through the gap in the faded, split blanket draping the aisle. Gorman followed.
The rows of windows along both sides of the carriage had been painted over, tinting the dim light with hues of red, blue, green and yellow. A few, fortunately, were open to admit untarnished daylight and the fresh breeze. The original seats had been removed to make room for a strange assortment of furnishings: a cot with a rumpled quilt, a straight-backed wicker chair, a single lamp and several steamer trunks of various sizes, some standing on end, all cluttered with the odds and ends of Captain Frank’s reclusive life. On the trunk nearest the cot, Gorman saw a copy of Peter Freuchen’s Book of the Seven Seas, a Coleman lantern, a crushed beer can, and a revolver. He spotted three more weapons as the old man lowered himself onto the cot: a double-barreled shotgun suspended from an overhead luggage rack by a pair of misshapen wire hangers, a saber propped against a metal partition near the side exit doors, and the butt of a pistol protruding from the open face port of a deep-sea diving helmet atop one of the trunks.
‘You’ve got quite an arsenal,’ he said.
‘Yessir. Just let Bobo come. I don’t care where I’m at. Here?’ He snatched the revolver off the trunk and jabbed the air with its barrel as if taking hasty aim at a host of intruders. ‘In my galley?’ He swept the gun toward the rear of the bus, where a second blanket draped the aisle just beyond the side exit. ‘I’ve got a .38 Smith and Wesson by my stove. I’ve got a Luger in the head. I don’t care where I am, I’m ready. Just let Bobo make a try.’
He put down the revolver on the floor by his feet. ‘Have a seat, here, matey,’ he said, and patted the cot.
Gorman peeled the plastic rings off the remaining beers. He gave one of the cans to Captain Frank, and sat down beside him. He popped open his can while the captain cleared off the trunk. The beer had lost its chill. He took a few swallows and wished he’d had the foresight to bring along a bottle of gin for himself.
The old man opened the trunk and lifted out a battered, leatherbound volume that looked like a family photo album. He closed the trunk, and set the book on its lid midway between himself and Gorman. Leaning forward, he flipped open the cover.
‘Fabulous,’ Gorman said.
‘My father, he did that. He wasn’t the artist I am, but he done the best he could.’
The pencil sketch, creased and smudged as if it had spent a lot of time folded in someone’s pocket, showed a snarling, snouted head.
‘That’s Bobo,’ Captain Frank said. ‘My father, he drew it aboard the Mary Jane on the return voyage.’
Gorman stared at the head. It was a frontal view, not much more than an oval with slanted eyes, a half circle to indicate the snout, and an open mouth revealing rows of pointed teeth.
‘Not a hair on it,’ the captain said. ‘Not even an eyebrow or a lash. And skin as white as the belly of a fish. Like an albino. Just no color at all, except for its eyes. My father, he told me its eyes were as blue as the sky.’
He turned the page. The next sketch, a side view, showed the creature’s blunt snout. Except for the snout, the head looked almost human. Where the ear should be, there was a circle the size of a dime. ‘Where is its ear?’ Gorman asked.
‘That’s it. Nothing to it but a hole with a little flap of skin over it. That’s to keep stuff from getting in. My father, he said Bobo could open up that flap like an eyelid and hear as good as a dog.’
‘Incredible.’
Taped to the next page was a sketch of the beast standing upright. From waist to knees, its form had been obliterated by pencil marks as if someone had scratched over it in a fit of temper. The lead pencil point had even torn through the paper, rucking up an accordion wedge that had subsequently been smoothed down flat.
‘What happened here?’
Captain Frank shook his head. He sighed. ‘My mother did that. She was an awful prude, God rest her bones. I never got a chance, myself, to see the drawing before she ruined it.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Gorman said. He studied what remained of the creature. Except for the claws on its f
ingers and toes, it appeared remarkably human. The shoulders and chest were broad, the limbs thick as if heavily muscled. One arm was longer than the other, but Gorman assumed that to be a fault of the artist. ‘Do you know the size of it?’
Captain Frank took a drink of beer and rubbed his mouth. ‘About three feet tall. That’s what it was when my father got rid of it. ’Course, now, it wasn’t much more than a year old, then. He said the full-grown ones they killed on the island were better than six feet.’
Gorman nodded, and Captain Frank turned the page. He expected another sketch, perhaps a rear view of the creature, but found instead a newspaper clipping. The handwritten scrawl at the top of the page read, ‘Clarion, July 21, 1902, Loreen’. The article’s heading was printed in bold type.
MALCASA CHILD SLAIN BY COYOTE
Loreen Newton, three-year-old daughter of Frank and Mary, was savagely attacked and slain in the yard of her parents’ Front Street home. Alarmed by the child’s screams . . .
Gorman shook his head as if dismayed, and turned to the next page without finishing the story. Taped to its center was the child’s funeral notice. He didn’t bother reading it. He flipped the leaf over, and unfolded the full front page of the Clarion’s August 3, 1903 edition. He stared at the stark headline:
THREE MURDERED AT THORN HOUSE!
‘This is wonderful,’ Gorman said.
‘My father, he’s the one saved these early articles. I’m the one added on, after he was gone, and put them all together here.’
After glancing at the four columns of small print, Gorman refolded the page. Subsequent articles described the capture, trial, and lynching of Gus Goucher. Then Gorman found another folded front page of the Clarion, this one recounting the slaughter, nearly thirty years later, of Maggie Kutch’s husband and children. After a few follow-up stories, Gorman came upon a clipping about the disappearance of Captain Frank’s father.
‘Here’s where I started keeping them,’ the old man said.
Gorman scanned a story about the opening of Beast House for tours. Then he flipped through page after page of articles detailing the disappearances of towns-people and visitors, two or three for each year. ‘That’s a lot of missing people,’ he said.
‘It’s just the ones that got reported. I figure there’s plenty more, folks nobody missed.’
‘And you suspect the beast was responsible for all this?’
‘Maybe not all,’ Captain Frank admitted. ‘Some of those folks maybe just run off, or got themselves lost in the hills, or drowned. There’s no telling how many, but I’ll wager Bobo got his share of them.’
‘Why was nothing done about it? This must be fifty or sixty missing persons over a twenty-year period.’
‘Well, sir, the police, they didn’t see anything so strange about it. Lord knows, I told them time after time it was the beast making off with those folks. Did they listen? No, indeed. They seemed to think it was normal, losing a couple folks a year.’
‘Acceptable losses,’ Gorman muttered.
‘And they made up their minds, way back, that I’m just a loony. I can’t even get them to listen to me anymore.’
‘Have you showed this to them?’ he asked, tapping the scrapbook.
‘Sure. Like I say, they think I’m loony.’
Gorman came upon another full front page of the newspaper. This one dealt with the attack in 1951 on Tom Bagley and Larry Maywood. After follow-up stories came more pages with clippings about disappearances. Finally, near the back of the book, he found articles about last year’s slayings of the Ziegler father and son, and patrolman Dan Jenson.
He reached a blank page.
Captain Frank took a swig of beer. ‘That’s all, till tomorrow’s Clarion. I’ll be adding whatever they print on this business you told me about – the Crogans and your friend. They’ll go in, sure enough.’
‘You’re pretty confident Bobo got them?’
‘I’d wager on it, matey.’
Gorman nodded. He gently closed the book, and stared at it. ‘This is a very impressive document, Frank.’
‘I always felt it’s been my duty to keep a record of all these goings-on.’
‘How would you feel about making it public?’
‘Public?’ The old man raised a bushy white eyebrow.
‘I’d like to write up your story. Are you familiar with People magazine?’
‘Aye.’
‘I’m a staff writer for People. Maybe you saw my piece on Jerry Brown?’ There must’ve been a piece on Brown recently, he thought.
‘No, I . . .’
‘Well, that’s all right. The point is: I find myself shocked and amazed by what you’ve told me this afternoon, by the information in your scrapbook, by the very existence of a monstrosity such as Beast House, by the seeming indifference of the local authorities to what appears to be a seventy-five-year string of disappearances and grisly murders. With your cooperation, I’d be willing to do a feature article that exposes the truth of the situation. With enough public awareness, the authorities will be forced to take action. The story, of course, will focus on you.’
Captain Frank frowned as if thinking it over.
‘What do you say?’
He sighed. ‘I’ve always planned to take care of Bobo myself.’
‘So much the better. If you can do that before the story’s printed, we’ll include your account of the hunt and photos of you with the body.’
‘I don’t know, Mr . . .’
‘Wilcox. Harold Wilcox.’
‘I don’t know, Mr Wilcox. It does sound like a fine idea. Mighty fine. What’ll I have to do?’
‘Nothing, really. Just leave it to me. You’ve already given me sufficient information. Of course, I would need to borrow your scrapbook, at least long enough to have its contents photocopied. I’d be more than glad to give you a receipt for it. There must be a copying machine somewhere in town . . .’
‘Over at Lincoln’s Stationery.’
‘Fine. I could have it done this afternoon and get it back to you . . .’ He paused. ‘Would tomorrow morning be convenient for you?’
‘I do hate to let it out of my hands.’
‘You’re welcome to come along, if you don’t trust me.’
‘Oh, it’s not that I don’t trust you, Mr Wilcox.’
‘I could probably get it back to you this evening, if that’s preferable.’
Captain Frank chewed his lower lip.
‘I tell you what. Suppose I leave a deposit with you? Say a hundred dollars. You keep my money until I return the book to you.’
‘Well, that sounds fair enough.’
Gorman removed a pair of fifty-dollar bills from his wallet. ‘Do you have some spare paper so we can write out the receipts?’
‘I don’t guess we need to,’ Captain Frank said, and picked up the money. ‘You just take good care of this book for me, and I’ll take good care of your money.’
They shook hands.
With the scrapbook clamped under one arm, Gorman left the bus.
On his way through town, he spotted Lincoln’s Stationery. He grinned, and kept on driving.
21
Tyler, sitting on the edge of the bed, rolled a stocking up her leg. As she clipped it to the straps of her black garter belt, someone knocked on the door. ‘Who is it?’ she called.
‘Me,’ came Abe’s voice.
‘Just a minute,’ she said, and quickly started to put on the other stocking. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Very.’
‘Poor man.’
‘That’s me.’
She finished with the stocking, and rushed to the door. Staying out of view behind it, she pulled it open. Abe stepped into the room. ‘That was quick,’ she said as she shut the door.
In the ten minutes since he left he had changed into navy slacks and a powder blue polo shirt. Tyler had managed to blow-dry her hair and begin dressing.
‘I just couldn’t stand being away from you,’ he said.
> She stepped into his arms and kissed him. His hands roamed down her back, curled over her bare buttocks, pulled her closer against him. ‘Nice outfit,’ he said after a while. He fingered a strap of her garter belt.
‘Glad you like it,’ Tyler said, and hugged him hard as Dan forced his way into her mind. Dan, who had given her the first one, gift-wrapped, during cocktails at the White Whale restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf. It was red and frilly with lace. He’d added a pair of nylons to the box. Without his asking, she’d excused herself and put them on in the restroom. And now he was dead, his savaged body on display – not his body, she reminded herself. Just a wax dummy.
‘What’s wrong?’ Abe whispered.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
He took hold of her shoulders and eased her away. He stared into her eyes. ‘I know what’s bothering me,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Tomorrow.’
She moaned.
‘I don’t want to leave you.’
‘We could stay another day.’
‘I’d like to, but that would only be putting it off.’
‘Let’s keep putting it off,’ Tyler said through a tight throat. Her eyes felt hot. Then they filled with tears. She lowered her head as the tears started sliding down her cheeks.
‘When do you have to get back for your job?’
She shrugged.
‘Do you have to get back for your job?’
She looked up at him. ‘Do you want me to starve?’
‘No. I want you to come with me.’
‘You do?’
‘Of course. I . . . I think you and I . . . I guess the thing of it is, I love you.’
‘Oh, Abe.’ Sobbing, she threw her arms around him. ‘I love you so much.’
For a long time, they held each other. When Tyler finished crying, she wiped her eyes on the shoulder of his shirt and kissed him.
‘Well, now that’s settled . . .’ he said.
‘What’ll we do?’
‘Join Jack and Nora at the Happy Hour.’