“This was 1951. Tom Bagley and Larry Maywood, a couple of youngsters twelve years old, broke into the house after dark. They should’ve known better, both of them. They’d come on the tour plenty of times, and heard me warn more than once that at night the beast prowls the house. I ‘spect curiosity got the best of them. Curiosity killed the cat.”
“Satisfaction brought it back,” mumbled the girl who’d stepped on Tyler’s foot.
Maggie heard the comment, and smirked. “Didn’t bring back Tom Bagley,” she said. The curtains slid apart.
The girl gasped and took a quick step away. Jack, behind her, protected himself with a raised forearm, gently nudging her to a stop.
The cowboy said, “Oh, wow.”
The wax body on the floor was mangled, its clothes torn open, a tatter of underpants draping its buttocks. The skin of its back was scored with scratches. Its neck was a pulpy stub. Its head lay nearby, eyes wide, mouth contorted in agony.
The other boy, about to raise the window, was peering over a shoulder at his dismembered friend. His face, oddly mashed and cracked, was somehow more unnerving to Tyler than the grisly remains on the floor.
“These two,” Maggie said, “were in the house for a long spell, nosing around. They’d tried to pry open the nursery door. They’d gone up to the attic. But they were snooping here in this room when the beast found them. He struck down Tom, and Larry ran for the window. While the beast was tearing up his friend, Larry got away by jumping. ‘Cept for me, Larry was the only soul ever to see the beast and live.”
Maggie smiled strangely. “Now there’s only just me. I hear Larry got himself killed in an accident last year.”
“What’s wrong with his face?” Nora asked.
“Took a spill,” Maggie said. “We tried as best we could to patch it up. Didn’t do too well, did we? We got us a whole new head on order, but it ain’t come in yet.”
She closed the curtains, and the group followed her out of the room. Hobbling past the top of the stairs, she stopped in front of the curtains that blocked the corridor. “Here’s our last exhibit of the tour,” she said. “We just got it in this past spring. It’s in a mighty inconvenient spot, but here’s where it happened so here’s where the display had to go or it just wouldn’t be right.
“It happened just last year, back in the spring of ‘78. We had us a family name of Ziegler on the tour— husband, wife, and their boy about ten. Well, the boy he got spooked on the tour. Started crying and carrying on, so his folks took him off before we finished up. From what the mother said later, the father was mighty annoyed with the boy. Thought he hadn’t acted manly. The last thing he wanted was a sissy for a son, so he dragged the youngster back here after dark.” A corner of Maggie’s mouth curled up. “Wanted to show him there weren’t nothing to be afraid of. Only he was wrong and the boy was right. They broke in the back door, and they got just to here before the beast got them both.”
She yanked the pullcord. The front section of curtains flew open.
The boy was facedown, shirt torn from his back, his neck mauled.
The man sprawled beyond him was torn up, his severed arm lying across one thigh.
On the floor between them was a man in the shredded tan uniform of a police officer. His throat was torn out. Tyler stared at the grimacing face. She blinked as the corridor darkened. A stark blue aura flashed around the body. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard Maggie. “A patrolman name of Dan Jenson, making his rounds…”
“Tyler? Tyler?” Abe’s voice.
She opened her eyes. She was sitting on the floor, someone holding her from behind, her head down between her knees. She felt dizzy and nauseated. People were whispering. Raising her head, she saw Nora crouched at her side. Nora squeezed her hand. It was numb as if shot with Novocaine.
“You’ll be okay,” Abe said from behind. That was him clutching her shoulders. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get you out of here.” His hands slid under her armpits, and he lifted her. She glimpsed Dan’s body again before Abe turned her away. No, not his body. A wax figure. But Dan.
Abe’s firm hands guided her toward the stairs. “I’m okay,” she muttered, shaking her head. He held her upright and loosened his grip, but stayed behind her as if prepared to stop another fall. “I’m okay,” she said again. He came around to her side, and took hold of her upper arm.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His eyes looked sad and worried.
“I…” She looked back. Nora and Jack stood next to Abe. Down the corridor, several in the group were staring at her.
“We shouldn’t have come,” Nora said. Her face was drawn with misery. “Tyler, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you…Jesus, who would’ve thought…?” Her chin started trembling, and tears filled her eyes.
Tyler squeezed her hand. Then she rubbed her own forehead. The skin felt cool and damp. “I want to get out of here,” she mumbled.
She thought, I’m going to throw up.
She started down the stairs, Abe hanging onto her arm. “Hurry,” she said. Four steps from the bottom, she lunged free of his grip and raced down. She dashed across the foyer, past the rabid-looking stuffed monkey, and yanked open the door. Glaring sunlight blinded her. The porch reeked of decayed wood. She hurled herself against the railing, leaned far over it, and vomited onto the brown grass.
“Some folks can’t take it,” Maggie said. “We get them every so often. Most’ll just drop out of the tour along the way, but I’ve had maybe a score faint on me, one time or another. They ain’t always women, neither. I’ve seen big, burly fellows keel over like they’d been poleaxed.” She grinned. “Just figure you got a little extra excitement for your money.”
She closed the curtains. “That’ll conclude our tour for this morning, folks.” Gorman stepped aside to let her pass. He followed close behind her. Over her shoulder, she said, “Now don’t forget to visit our gift shop downstairs, where you can purchase your illustrated booklet on the history of Beast House and choose from our assortment of souvenirs.”
At the bottom of the stairs, she swung her cane to the left. “Just down the hall there.”
Glancing that way, Gorman saw a wooden sign a short distance up the corridor. It read Souvenirs, and pointed to an open door. He hesitated while Maggie limped outside and several of the tourists stepped around him. He intended to visit the gift shop, but he didn’t want to lose Tyler and the others.
An interview with Tyler would be marvelous.
He stepped to the threshold. Tyler, along with her three friends, was already out near the ticket booth, heading away. Maybe he could catch up with her at the motel.
He went to the gift shop, and was vaguely relieved to find others inside. Behind the counter stood the gawky, grim-looking fellow who’d taken the tickets and introduced Maggie. As the man rang up a sale, Gorman reached into his pocket and switched off the cassette recorder.
He certainly hoped it had picked up all of Maggie’s spiel. It should’ve worked fine, he assured himself. After all, it was brand new and identical to the one he’d discarded.
He should check the tape, however, as soon as possible. If, for some reason, it hadn’t operated properly, he would have to repeat the tour. He hoped to avoid that.
For the others, the displays must have seemed like grotesque curiosities—the work of a disturbed imagination, a sham to draw tourists. Gorman, however, knew better. For him, the mutilated mannequins seemed no less real than Brian’s body impaled on the fence.
Brian.
Pausing by a shelf of ashtrays and plates, he glanced around at the cashier.
That old geezer, certainly, would be incapable of sticking Brian up there. The same went double for Maggie. Only someone with extraordinary strength could have accomplished that feat, or taken him down again. These two might very well, however, be accomplices. According to the diary, the beast had lived with Elizabeth Thorn for a
