The Beast House

“We’ll all go,” Claire said.

“Just give me a minute to get dressed,” said Gorman.

They found the Mercedes just above the curve leading into town from the south. Marty swung in behind it. He took a flashlight with him, and shone it through a side window. With a shake of his head, he came back down the road to Claire and Gorman. “Nobody there,” he said.

“That young lady has a lot of explaining to do,” Claire muttered.

“So does Brian,” Gorman said. A million dollars worth, he thought.

They followed the road to the bottom of the hill, then crossed a ditch to the corner of the Beast House fence. Marty took the lead, trudging through the underbrush alongside the fence, playing his flashlight beam over the wooded slope on the right. “Janice!” he yelled.

Claire tugged his shoulder. “Don’t,” she said.

“Janice!”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that!”

“There’s nobody to hear it but them.”

Gorman saw the woman look through the fence bars at the house. “I just think we should be quiet about this.”

Now Gorman found himself looking at the house—at the darkness of the porch but especially at the windows. It seemed to have so many: a bay window directly across the yard from him, a casement farther along the side, three sets on the second story, a single high attic window just below the peak of the roof, a pair beneath the tower’s cap. All were moonless and black. Malevolent eyes, he thought, recalling the words he’d spoken into his recorder that afternoon. He’d been waxing eloquent, then—spewing drivel. But now it was three o’clock in the morning and he suddenly wished he were back at the inn, snug in bed, because the windows did, in fact, seem to be watching him.

He forced himself to look away from them. He stared at the weeds ahead of his feet, at Claire’s back, at the beam of Marty’s flashlight sweeping over bushes and rocks and trees on the slope. And he felt like a man walking down a dark street, stalked by stealthy footsteps, afraid of what he might find sneaking up on him if he should dare to glance over his shoulder. He had to look. He searched the windows. Though nothing showed through their blackness, his skin went tight and crawly.

Tomorrow, if he took the tour, he would have to go inside. The thought of it chilled him. Perhaps he should forget about it, simply abandon the project. After all, tonight’s disaster had diminished his and Brian’s possible returns by half.

Half of a gold mine, he told himself, is considerably better than no gold mine at all. The book would be a winner, he had no doubt of that. After Horror, his reputation alone would insure tremendous sales. But the Beast House story had tremendous potential. It could easily surpass the success of Horror. He was a fool to consider giving it up. He would simply have to keep a stiff upper lip and take the tour.

In daylight, the house wouldn’t seem quite so forbidding. Besides, Brian would be along. Probably several sightseers, as well. And certainly there couldn’t be any danger involved.

“Marty!” Claire gasped.

The man had suddenly broken into a run. He raced around the corner of the fence. Claire took off, chasing him. “Marty!” she called. “What is it?”

He didn’t answer.

Gorman hurried after them both, reaching the corner with a few strides, then slogging along the rear section of fence.

What craziness is this? he wondered.

But he certainly did not want to be left behind.

As he tried to catch up, he felt a familiar but longforgotten mingling of despair and humiliation. The residue of childhood “games” in which he had too often been the victim. Hey, let’s ditch him! Let’s ditch Gory! C’mon, let’s lose him! And off his pals would go, trying their best to leave him behind, lost and alone.

Gorman knew in this case that he was not being ditched. Marty had seen something. But the awful, desperate feelings remained and tears blurred his vision as he struggled to keep up with the runners. “Wait up!” he gasped.

They didn’t wait.

But suddenly they stopped.

Gorman grabbed a bar of the fence to halt himself. Gasping, he wiped the tears from his eyes.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Marty muttered.

Claire staggered away, bent over, and started to vomit.

Marty was aiming his flashlight upward. Gorman followed its beam to the top of the fence.

Brian’s legs hung down, one on each side. He was naked. He was on his back. The body looked as if it had been slammed down hard onto the pointed uprights. Gorman’s sphincter went cold and tight as he saw where one of the spikes had penetrated. The other bars had entered in a straight line, the final one piercing the back of his skull. His left arm drooped strangely. Gorman realized it had been broken backwards at the elbow.

Marty’s light skittered down the length of the fence. Gorman followed its quick course. There was not another impaled body. The man turned toward the hillside. “Janice!” he yelled. His beam swept over the weeds and bushes, and stopped on something about thirty feet up.

A rumpled blanket. Scattered clothes.

Claire shrieked out her daughter’s name and lunged toward the slope. She scrambled up it, falling to her knees, crawling, getting her feet under her and scurrying higher. Marty raced after her.

Gorman stayed where he was. He watched them for a moment, then turned his gaze to the body. He ached as if he could feel the spikes in himself. He wanted badly to run, but the thought of fleeing, all alone in the dark, filled him with dread. He was shaking. He clutched a bar of the fence to steady himself. The cold iron was wet and sticky. He jerked his hand away and stared at it. The smears looked black in the moonlight. He raised his eyes to Brian’s body.

Suddenly, he didn’t feel so terrified.

With his clean right hand, he reached into a pocket and took out his cassette recorder. He switched it on. “I am standing, as I speak, beneath the body of Brian Blake—my friend, my associate, the man who survived the horror at Black River Falls only to meet a hideous death at the hands of the Malcasa beast. He met his fate in the dead of night, while…”

“Hardy! Goddamn you, get up here!”

He nodded, and backed away from the fence. Before starting up the slope, he slipped the recorder into his pocket without turning it off. If only he’d had the presence of mind to record everything from the moment Marty and Claire entered his room! Of course, he’d had no way of knowing at the time that the encounter would lead to such a marvellous tragedy.

Brian slaughtered by the beast. And in such a grisly fashion. It was almost too good to believe. The book would skyrocket!

Not only that, but Brian wouldn’t be around to collect his share of the proceeds.

Incredible!

Now, if only Janice’s body is up here, nicely mutilated…The parents will demand her half of the profits, but perhaps their claim wouldn’t stand up in court.

“Look at this, you bastard!” Marty snapped, shining his light on the ground. Gorman recognized Brian’s jacket and Hush Puppies. He saw garments all over the ground: a sweatshirt and brassiere, cowboy boots, jeans, panties. The tangled blanket was dark with blood.

“Apparently,” Gorman said, “they must have been…”

“Shut up!”

Claire was a distance away, sobbing as she searched through bushes.

“I’m sorry,” Gorman said. “Honestly, though, I had no idea they…”

“You got her into this, goddamn you! I’ll kill you if she…”