“You made it,” Lynn said.
"Hi, everyone!” Dana called out.
"Dana!” Dennis yelled, waving furiously.
“The main babe!” yelled Arnold.
"Lynn’s the main babe,” Dana told him. “I’m just here to help out. I hope I didn’t delay things.”
“We were just about to start,” Lynn told her. “Tell you what. I’ll lead the way. Why don’t you do me a favor and take up the rear? Keep an eye out for stragglers.” Facing the group, Lynn said, “We should all stay close together after we enter the house. That way, everyone’ll be able to see and hear what’s going on. Also, we’ll be less likely to lose any of you. Every now and then, stragglers get picked off.”
Owen heard a few quiet laughs.
“I assume she’s kidding,” Eleanor muttered.
"Anybody has any questions, wait till we’re inside. It is a little nippy out here.”
With that, Lynn rushed up the porch stairs. Several people moved quickly to let her by. Owen heard keys jangle.
He and Darke turned around to face the door.
Darke pulled her hand out of his pocket. Taking hold of his hand, she looked up at him. “I’ve been wanting to do this for so long.”
“Me, too,” he said.
“I can’t believe I’m finally here.”
Neither can I, Owen-thought.
She’s here, all right, Here with me. And it’s not a dream.
Better not be.
Holding Darke’s small, warm hand, he stepped over the threshold.
Lynn must’ve turned on a light as she entered; a chandelier cast a murky glow through the foyer.
She made her way forward to the main stairway, climbed to the third stair, then turned around. “Welcome to Beast House,” she said.
Dana shut the door.
“Now, I know you’ve all seen The Horror. I’m going to assume that you’ve already taken the self-guided audio tour, and that some of you have read one or both of Janice Crogan’s books. If you haven’t, you’ve put the cart before the horse. The Midnight Tour is like an advanced class. We’re really not here to rehash the basic stuff. But it’s not exactly a class, either. We’re here to have a good time, and we hope to give you an experience that you’ll always remember and look back on with pleasure.
"During the next two hours, we’ll be exploring the entire house. You’ll see places that aren’t shown during the regular tours. And you’ll hear things that aren’t said on the tapes. I want to give you a few warnings along those lines. In the course of the tour, we’ll be visiting both the attic and the cellar. There are a couple of fairly steep stairways involved. If any of you have problems with climbing stairs, you might want to bow out before we get started. The same with anyone who is easily offended. This tour isn’t meant for prudes. I’ll be telling you things that any normal person would find shocking and revolting. That’s the point of the tour—to give the uncensored truth. You probably knew that before you shelled out your hundred bucks, but in case you weren’t paying attention, I’m warning you now. It get’s nasty. I don’t hold back. So you’d better bow out if you’re afraid of what I might say.
“If you do quit the tour now, we’ll refund a hundred percent of your admission price.”
“A hundred percent?” asked the man with the mustache and camel sweater. He sounded surprised.
“I know,” Lynn said. “You’ve already had the picnic and seen the movie. But we don’t want anyone on the tour who shouldn’t be here. It can ruin it for everyone.”
“That’s certainly generous,” said the man’s wife—the one with the great eyes.
"It might sound generous. The thing is, nobody has ever taken us up on it. By the time we get this far, nobody can stand to back out.”
Tourists chuckled and nodded.
“One final warming. Some people find the tour to be extremely stressful. Since you’re here, I figure you enjoy being a little frightened. You should prepare yourselves to be very frightened. Anybody pregnant?”
Owen saw several of the females shake their heads.
Beside him, Darke’s head shook.
He heard a snigger, probably from Monica.
“We’re no doubt all pregnant with expectation,” said Bixby.
“Oh, duuuude,” Dennis said. It came out like a moan of despair.
"Bail out, Boxboy,” Arnold suggested.
“Bugger off,” Bixby responded.
“Huh huh.”
"Booger off.”
Lynn raised her hand. "Okay,” she said. “I take it that nobody is pregnant—with child. That’s good. We had a gal one time who got so excited on the tour that she went into early labor. We’ve also had a couple of heart attacks. If you have any history of high blood pressure or heart disease, you’d be better off not taking the tour. Anybody with trouble along those lines?”
She waited. Heads shook. No arms were raised and nobody spoke up.
“Are you sure? I don’t want anybody pitching over on us.”
“Looks like we’re all fine ’n dandy,” said the stocky guy who was married to the woman in the tennis costume.
“Okay. One last thing before we start. If any of you do experience physical or emotional trouble during the course of the tour, please speak up. I’m sure Dana will be happy to escort you outside.”
"What sort of refund then?” asked the man in the camel sweater.
“After the tour has actually started,” Lynn said, “there will be no refunds at all.”
“When does it start?” asked Clive.
“I’ll count to five. While I’m counting, you can all decide if you really want to go through with this. One.” She paused for a second, then said, "Two.” A few moments later, "Three.”
As she said, “Four,” quick thumps erupted in the darkness behind her.
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 scblong 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-six
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 botb 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 a 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 titilate 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 bog.
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 off-spring should’ve been half-human. ”
"Genetica
lly 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 noticable 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.