The Cellar

“The story, more or less, reactivated the nightmares. I had them constantly for several months following my…encounter. Doctors suggested psychiatric treatment, but my parents wouldn’t hear of it. Perceptive people that they were, they considered psychiatry to be the pursuit of fools and madmen. We moved away from Malcasa Point, and my nightmares rather quickly lost their intensity. I’ve always considered it a victory of common sense over quackery.” He smiled, apparently delighted by his wit, and indulged himself in another taste of coffee.

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “we weren’t entirely able to leave the incident behind. Every now and then, an eager journalist would track us down for a story on the miserable tourist attraction. That would always start the nightmares again. Every major magazine, of course, has done the story.”

“I’ve seen a couple of them.”

“Did you read them?”

“No.”

“Lurid bunk. Reporters! Do you know what a reporter is? ‘A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.’ Ambrose Bierce. The single time I did allow one of those scavengers to interview me, he twisted my words so that I appeared a gibbering idiot. He concluded that the encounter had unhinged me! After that, I changed my name. Not one of those bastards has tracked me down, so far, and I’ve been free of nightmares about the beast until now…now that it’s killed again.”

“It?”

“Officially, since the time of the attack on the Lyles, it’s been a he, a knife-wielding maniac, something on the order of Jack the Ripper. Each attack, of course, is a different killer.”

“And it’s not?”

“Not at all. It’s a beast. Always the same beast.”

Jud didn’t try to conceal the expression of doubt he knew was beginning to appear on his face.

“Let me refill your cup, Judge.” 4.

“I don’t know what the beast is,” Larry said. “Perhaps nobody knows. I’ve seen it, though. With the exception of old Maggie Kutch, I’m probably the only living person who has.

“It is not human, Judge. Or if it is human, it’s some kind of unspeakable deformity. And it is very, very old. The first known attack occurred in 1903. Teddy Roosevelt was President then. That’s the year the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, for heaven’s sake. The beast killed three people that year.”

“The original owner of the house?”

“She survived. That was Lyle Thorn’s widow. Her sister, though, was killed. So were Lilly’s two children. The authorities blamed the atrocity on a mental defective they found on the outskirts of town. He was tried, convicted, and hanged from the house balcony. Even then, apparently, cover-up was the order of the day. They had to know the fellow was innocent.”

“Why did they have to know that?”

“The beast has claws,” Larry said. “They’re sharp, like nails. They shred the victim, his clothes, his flesh. They pierce him to hold him down while the beast…violates him.” The cup began to clatter against its saucer. He set it down on the table and folded his hands.

“Were you…?”

“My God, no! It never touched me. Not me. But I saw what it did to Tommy there in the bedroom. It was too…overcome…to bother with me. It had to finish with Tommy, first. Well, I put one over on it! The window gave me some nasty cuts, and I broke my arm in the fall, but I got away. I got away, goddamn it! I lived to tell the tale!”

He managed another drink of coffee. His trembling hand set the cup back down on the table. The drink seemed to help restore his calm. In a quiet voice, he said, “Of course, no one believes the tale. I’ve learned to keep it to myself. Now I suppose you think I’m mad.” He looked at Jud, despair in his weary eyes.

Jud pointed toward the newspaper clipping. “That says eleven people have died in Beast House.”

“Its facts are correct, for a change.”

“That’s a lot of killing.”

“Indeed.”

“Somebody should put a stop to it.”

“I’d kill it myself, if I had the courage. But God, to think of entering that house at night! Never. I could never do it.”

“Has anybody gone in after it?”

“At night? Only a fool…”

“Or a man with a very good reason.”

“What kind of reason?” Larry asked.

“Revenge, idealism, money. Has a reward ever been offered?”

“For killing it? Its existence isn’t even admitted, not by anyone but old Kutch and her crazy son. And they certainly don’t want it harmed. That goddamned beast, and its reputation, is their sole source of income. It’s probably all that keeps the town afloat, for that matter. Beast House is no Hearst Castle or Winchester House, but you’d be surprised how many people will pay four bucks a head for a guided tour of an old place that not only boasts a legendary monster but that also was the scene of eleven brutal murders. They come from all over California, from Oregon, from every state in the union. A family driving through California can’t pass within fifty miles of Malcasa Point without its kids screaming to tour Beast House. Tourist dollars are the lifeblood of the town. If somebody were to kill the beast…”

“Think of the tourists its carcass would bring,” Jud suggested, grinning.

“But the mystery would be gone. The beast is the heart of that house. The house would die without it. Malcasa Point would follow close on its heels, and the people don’t want that.”

“They’d rather have the killing continue?”

“Certainly. An occasional killing does wonders for business.”

“If the town is that way, it doesn’t deserve to live.”

“A perceptive man your father was, naming you Judgment.”

“You said you would kill the beast yourself, if you could.”

“If I had the courage, yes.”

“Have you ever thought of hiring someone to do it for you?”

“Who could I hire for a job like that?”

“Depends on what you’re willing to pay.”

“What’s a good night’s sleep worth, eh?” The grin on his hollow face looked grotesque.

“You might look upon it as a contribution to humanity,” Jud said.

“I assume you know someone who might be willing, for a large sum of money, to enter the house at night and dispatch the beast?”

“I might know someone,” Jud told him.

“What would it cost?”

“That depends on the risk involved. He’d have to know a lot more before making a firm commitment.”

“Can you give me a rough idea?”

“His minimum would be five thousand.”

“His maximum?”

“No maximum.”

“My funds aren’t bottomless, but I believe I’d be willing to invest a considerable portion of them, if necessary, in a project of that type.”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Larry said.

“Why don’t the two of us drive up the coast, bright and early, and pay a visit to Beast House.” 5.

The two cups of coffee didn’t keep Jud awake when he got back to his apartment. He fell asleep at once, and if he dreamed at all, he remembered none of it when the alarm clock blared at 6 A.M. Monday.