She turned to Clyde.
“Get up,” she said.
He pushed himself to his knees.
Sandy saw that the big, fake penis was broken and dangling.
She walked toward him.
He raised his arms.
“I give,” he said, and smiled nervously.
She shot him in the face.
The blowback splashed her belly and breasts.
She watched him topple backwards.
Then she sighed and lowered the pistol.
And stood there.
I’d better go back to the others, she thought. But her body ached everywhere and she felt too weary to move.
Chapter Sixty-one
A FIGHT TO THE DEATH
Crawling through the narrow tunnel, Dana tried her best to keep up with Eve. Each time she raised her head, however, the naked legs and rear end of her friend were farther away.
She was tempted to call out, “Slow down.”
But it would be a waste of breath.
Eve wouldn’t slow down and wait for her; she was a woman an a mission, out to save the day.
Dana kept on crawling, sweating, huffing for air.
When she raised her head again, Eve was nowhere to be seen.
In front of her, the tunnel slanted upward.
Must be almost to the top.
Eve was probably out already.
On knees and elbows, Dana struggled up the slope. Why wasn’t any light coming in from the cellar? Maybe she was farther away than she thought.
Through the ringing in her ears, she heard people shouting.
Suddenly, her head was out of the hole.
What’s...?
The cellar wasn’t dark, after all. It glowed with red, flickering light that came from the Kutch tunnel.
Just as she realized that the barred iron door stood wide open, someone dashed into the tunnel.
Eve?
Dana only caught a glimpse before the woman raced out of sight.
It has to be Eve, she told herself. A naked gal running off with a pistol in her hand. Who else could it be?
Besides, nobody else on the tour had a figure like that.
Had Clyde taken off through the tunnel?
She shined her flashlight around, looking for the white costume. Her beam showed people sprawled on the floor, others huddled together, a few hurrying this way and that.
No sign of Clyde.
As Dana crawled out of the hole, someone rushed at her from the left. She flung up an arm, expecting a blow. Her arm was grabbed. “The shit hit the fan,” Tuck said, pulling to help her up. “Clyde went nuts. He busted the light and started clawing everybody. It was fuckin pandemonium around here.”
On her feet, Dana said, “Where is he?”
“Took off through the Kutch tunnel. Eve went after him.”
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
Dana shined the light on her.
The left side of Tuck’s face looked red and swollen. A path the width of a large hand had been torn straight down the front of her uniform shirt from her left shoulder to her waist. Her bra was still intact, however. She didn’t seem to be scratched. The long flap of torn shirt hung almost to her knee.
“Clyde did that?” Dana asked.
“Sharp claws. It’s okay. He pretty much missed. Look, I need you.” Tuck squeezed her arm. “We keep some spare bulbs down here.”
“Let’s go get em.”
“I already did. Come on.” She led Dana over to a steamer trunk. Bending down, she lifted one end. “Just light my way.”
Dana raised her flashlight, swept it here and there, and found the dangling light fixture. “Here we go.”
Tuck dragged the trunk into position directly beneath the fixture, then climbed up.
Dana shined her flashlight on the jagged remains of the bulb. “Careful you don’t cut yourself.”
“Have you got a rag?” Tuck asked.
Dana plucked a handful of fabric out of the left front pocket of her shorts. Too late, she realized it was Warren’s underwear—her souvenir from last night in his car. She handed it to Tuck, anyway.
Holding the good bulb in her mouth, Tuck balled up the underwear. She held the fixture with one hand. With the other, she shoved the bunched briefs up against the sharp remains of the broken bulb.
As she twisted it, Professor Bixby stepped closer to watch.
The base came loose. Tuck tossed it away, handed the underwear down to Dana, then took the fresh bulb out of her mouth. Twisting it into the fixture, she said, “This is how many tour guides it takes to screw in a light bulb.”
Suddenly, the bulb flared to life, filling the cellar with light.
“Good show!” Bixby proclaimed.
Dana shut off her flashlight and looked around. She saw Phil dead on the dirt floor just behind the tunnel hole, his throat ripped open. No sign of his wife, Connie. No sign of Andy or Alison Lawrence, either. Eleanor was on her knees, stuffing her folded tennis sweater underneath the head of her husband, Biff. He’d been ripped down the chest. His knit shirt was shredded and bloody, but he was conscious.
Dennis and Arnold seemed to be missing.
Off to the right, Owen lay facedown, bare to the waist. Vein’s black leather jacket was spread on the floor underneath him. Darke, on her knees beside him, used both hands to press a cloth against his back—probably his own shirt. She held a red-handled pocket knife in her teeth.
A few feet away from them, Vein had Monica pinned to the floor. In black satin bra, leather short-shorts and boots, Vein sat on top of Monica like a punk Dracula groupie, pressing a knife to her throat.
“Vein?” Dana called. “What’s going on?”
“She stabbed Owen.”
“Who stabbed him?”
“Monica.”
Darke met Dana’s eyes. Unable to talk because of the knife in her mouth, she nodded her head up and down.
“I did not,” Monica protested. “They’re lying bitches. She stabbed him. She was jealous!”
“He’s hurt pretty badly,” Vein explained. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
Tuck jumped down from the trunk. “Whatever the hell Clyde did upstairs—other than locking us in—I’m damn sure he didn’t call for an ambulance or cops. If we can’t bust the door open, we’d better...”
Tuck’s voice stopped.
Heads turned.
From somewhere down the Kutch tunnel came a chain of gunfire. Muffled and far away, the shots crashed together so fast they almost sounded like heavy cloth or canvas being ripped down the middle.
“Holy shit,” Tuck said.
“What is that?” Dana asked.
Bixby, eyes wide behind his glasses, said, “Machine gun.”
“That can’t be good,” Tuck muttered.
The weapon went silent.
“Could Eve’s gun sound like that?” Dana asked.
Bixby shook his head. “If you mean the nude lady with the pistol, I’m afraid not.”
Tuck stared at the entrance to the Kutch tunnel. “Eve’ll be okay,” she said. “Nothing can stop her.”
Suddenly leaping away from her injured husband, Eleanor blurted, “We’ve gotta get out of here!” and raced up the stairs.
“Can’t get out that way,” Tuck called to her. “The door’s locked.”
“Maybe we should go see what happened with Eve,” Dana suggested.
“Where’d everybody else go?” Tuck asked.
“I don’t know.”
“They went chasing after Eve,” Bixby explained. “Oh, perhaps half a dozen of them. Including those teenagers.”
From the direction of the Kutch tunnel came a single, quick bam!
A smile spread across Tuck’s face. “That was Eve’s gun,” she said.
They listened for more shots.
And heard a low grumbling noise that sounded very much like the growl of a vicious dog. But it didn’t seem to be coming from the Kutch tunnel.
> It came from somewhere in the cellar.
Dana twisted around.
Out of the hole in the floor protruded a hairless, snouted head. It swung from side to side, pale blue eyes darting about.
Tuck yelled, “SHIT!”.
This can’t be happening, Dana thought. Clyde was the beast.
Who’s THIS?
The shiny white mouth writhed as it bared its teeth.
And Dana knew this wasn’t anyone in a beast suit.
She felt herself shrivel inside.
This had to be the creature that savaged Warren, that snatched Eve and ripped and fucked her and left her handcuffed in its lair—that devoured those other two poor people.
No. Eve’s beast was Clyde. It bad to be. The cigarette stink, the keys...
As if it were in no hurry at all, the creature began to climb out of the hole.
“What’s going on down there?” Eleanor called from the stairway.
“We’ve got a beast,” Tuck said. She sounded strangely calm.
"I say,” Bixby muttered.
“A what?” asked Eleanor.
In a loud, firm voice, Tuck said, “Tine to scram, everyone! Go for the Kutch tunnel! Run like hell!”
Bixby twisted around and raced for the Kutch tunnel.
Eleanor came rushing down the stairs, tennis skirt flouncing around her thighs.
Darke let the knife fall from her mouth. “I can’t leave Owen..”
“Stay put,” Vein said. “You, too,” she told Monica as she climbed off. Knife in hand, she turned toward the rising beast.
Suddenly free, Monica scurried up and dashed for the Kutch tunnel.
Vein whirled, flipped her knife and caught it by the blade, then cocked back her arm to throw it.
“No!” Darke yelled. “Don’t! You’ll lose your knife!”
Vein lowered her arm.
Monica sprinted into the tunnel, Eleanor racing in dose behind her.
The beast now stood on the cellar floor in front of the hole, flexing its claw-tipped fingers as its head turned slowly. It seemed to be studying each of the four women. Its growl sounded like a loud, rumbling purr.
Clyde’s suit had been a good replica.
But this was no costume; this was skin. Snow-white skin that rippled with muscles, that gleamed with a sheen of slime. The teeth of this creature were yellow. The mouth drooled.
Unlike Clyde’s suit, it had no permanent erection.
The erection grew as the creature stood there, eyeing the women. Grew longer and longer, thickening and rising.
It had the mouth, all right.
The shaft pointed at Tuck. The mouth bared its teeth and flicked its forked tongue at her.
“Oh, shit,” Tuck murmured.
Dana glanced over at Vein and Darke. “Get the hell out of here, gals. Carry Owen with you. Or drag him. Just get out of here. Now!”
“Go with ‘em,” Tuck said.
“Me?” Dana asked. “No way.”
“I’ll keep the thing busy.”
“Bullshit. You go.”
“Not me.”
“Not me, either,” Vein said. “Three of us, one of it.”
“Four of us,” Darke said. She patted Owen’s rump, picked up the folding knife, then stood up.
Roaring, the beast suddenly launched itself at Tuck. She held her ground and drew back a fist.
Dana lurched in from the side, swinging her flashlight like a small club. The head of the flashlight bounced off the creature’s brow.
Snarling, the beast whirled toward Dana. A paw swept by, knocking the flashlight from her hand. As she backstepped to get away, the thing came at her.
Tuck leaped at it.
A powerful arm bashed Tuck across the chest. She seemed to explode off her feet.
As she soared across the cellar, the beast clutched Dana’s shoulders. Claws digging in, it thrust her backward and down. She slammed against the cellar floor. Straddling her, it ripped at her clothes. She punched at it, but her blows seemed to have no effect. Quick claws scratched and furrowed her skin as they tore off her shirt and bra and stripped off her shorts in a matter of seconds.
She glimpsed a blur of motion from her left as someone dived onto the beast.
The running dive snagged it off her.
She rolled onto her side and saw Darke on the floor under the back of the beast, right arm across its throat, left arm across its chest. In her left hand was the pocket knife. She raised the knife and brought it down hard.
Striking the chest of the beast, the short blade folded in and clamped shut on Darke’s hand. She squealed in pain, but kept her left arm across the throat of the beast and wrapped her leather-clad legs around its thighs.
It thrashed on top of her, its erection thrusting at the air, mouth snapping.
As Dana struggled to get up, Vein rushed in and dropped to her knees at the heads of Darke and the beast. She raised her knife high, clutching it with both hands. No little pocket knife that might fold on her, this was a dagger with a rigid, eight inch blade. She plunged it down toward the chest of the beast.
The creature slapped it from her hands.
The knife flew at Dana. Before she could move, an inch of its blade entered her just above her left breast.
The creature’s next blow ripped off half of Vein’s face and knocked her head sideways. Face flapping like a bloody rag, she was suddenly looking behind her back. She tumbled toward the cellar floor.
Dana grabbed the knife and pulled it out of herself.
She stumbled to her feet.
“Hurry!” Darke gasped from beneath the beast.
Knife raised overhead, Dana dived between its legs. She expected to land on its penis, but she’d thought it would give way under her weight.
It didn’t.
Rigid as a tent pole, it pounded her in the belly and punched her breath out. Folding over it, she tried to drive her knife down into the beast’s chest.
Both her wrists were suddenly grabbed.
Instead of mauling her, the beast pulled her arms straight out past its head, stretching her as all of her weight bore down on the stiff, upright shaft.
Though Darke still had an arm across the beast’s throat, the thing started to make a hissing sound that seemed like laughter.
The mouth that was shoved so hard against Dana’s belly suddenly bit her.
Crying out with pain and horror, she bucked fiercely and flung herself aside.
She fell to the cellar floor, but the beast stayed with her, gripping her wrists. They rolled, and suddenly it was on top of her, Darke somehow still clinging to its back. Seemingly unconcerned by Darke, the beast planted its mouth on Dana’s mouth, forced her lips open and thrust its tongue in.
The other mouth no longer bit her belly.
It had moved lower.
Now, she felt it between her legs.
Licking, nibbling.
NO! she cried out inside her head.
She chomped down hard on the beast’s tongue, but her teeth wouldn’t sink in. The tongue was too solid.
Dana suddenly heard a crashing sound—like someone smashing through a door.
The beast jerked its tongue from her mouth and turned its head.
Footfalls began thudding down the wooden stairs.
“what’s going on?”
It was a man’s voice.
Warren’s voice.
“Help us!” Darke yelled.
“Oh, my God!” Warren blurted.
With a roar, the beast sprang off Dana. As it scurried over her body, she reached up with her left hand and caught hold. The shaft was slippery, but she held on tight.
The beast didn’t stop, didn’t seem to care.
Darke on its back, Dana dragging beneath it, the creature scampered across the cellar floor, roaring, apparently eager to pounce on Warren.
As Dana was dragged between its legs, she pulled at the slippery rod with all the strength in the left arm, raising her head and back out of the cel
lar dirt, pulling herself higher, higher.
Then she plunged the knife into the creature’s belly and ripped downward.
His front opened like a shiny white bag, spilling blood and intestines onto Dana’s face.
A woman cried out “NO!”
The beast bellowed in agony.
As it fell headlong, Dana let go and dropped against the cool dirt.
“Oh, God, no!”
Eve?
Rolling onto her side, Dana wiped some of the mess away from her face and saw Eve rushing forward, naked, a tommy-gun in her hands.
Ignoring all else, Eve ran toward the beast.
It was sprawled on the floor, head against the bottom stair.
Darke was climbing off its back while Warren stood on the fourth stair, his mouth hanging open as he gaped at the carnage.
Eve, sobbing, squatted next to the creature. She set her tommy-gun aside, then reached down with both hands, clutched the beast by one shoulder and turned it over.
It flopped onto its back.
Eve hunched over it, weeping as she caressed its hideous face.
“Eve?” Dana said. “What’s wrong?”
One of the sobs suddenly sounded like, “Huh?”
Eve’s back straightened.
“What’s wrong?” Dana asked again.
“Nothing.” Eve looked at her with wet red eyes, wiped tears away, and gave her a trembling smile. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said. I’m fine.” She gave the beast’s face a rough smack with her open hand, then picked up the tommy-gun and got to her feet. “I guess somebody’d better find a telephone.”
Chapter Sixty-two
SUNDAY MORNING
1. Tuck’s Long Distance Call
“Sorry to disturb you, Janice, but I’m afraid we had some trouble last night on the Midnight Tour.”
2. Visiting Hour—Owen
Waking up in a hospital room, Owen found Darke sitting beside his bed. “Hi,” he said.
She smiled softly at him.
Her clingy, black silk blouse was gone, replaced by a black T-shirt that seemed to be a few sizes too small for her. Seeing her in the T-shirt, nobody would mistake her for a guy.