The Beast House (32 page)

Captain Frank, on his knees, slid the long blade of a knife up the girl’s sleeve and sliced through the fabric. He rammed the knife into the dirt floor. “Gotta turn her,” he muttered. “See her back.”

“Yes,” Hardy said. “There might be an exit wound.”

“Un…” Janice gasped. “Under.” Her right arm lifted off the dirt and fell across her breasts. She pointed with a finger at her armpit.

Captain Frank eased her left arm away from her side. “Here,” he said. “Came out here. Nicked her arm, too.” He plucked a wadded red bandanna from a pocket of his Bermudas, pushed it against the wound, and drew her arm down to her side. “That’ll hold it.”

“We’ve gotta get her to a hospital,” Nora said. She looked over at Tyler. “That policewoman. She can use one of the car radios. Have her call in for an ambulance.”

“But Abe.”

“He can take care of himself, damn it.”

“I’m going on over, mateys,” Captain Frank mumbled. “You can keep my Coleman.” He yanked his knife from the ground and stood up.

“I’ll stay with Janice,” Hardy offered. “I’ll tend to her wounds. Nora, why don’t you go out and see to an ambulance?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

Hardy knelt beside Janice. Nora took his hand and placed it against the entry wound. “Keep a firm pressure,” she told him. With her clean hand, she stroked the girl’s forehead. “You’ll be fine, kiddo. I’ll be back in a few minutes, and we’ll get you out of here.”

As she rushed toward the cellar steps, Tyler entered the tunnel. In the dim light from the lantern, she stepped around the body of the beast. She followed Captain Frank into the darkness.

Jack, his back to the front door, curled a hand around the knob and tried to turn it. “Locked,” he whispered.

Abe nodded. So they wouldn’t be opening the door to let Lucy in. She was good with a gun. She might’ve been helpful. He considered shooting out the lock, but the noise would give away their presence.

So far, they had checked out the kitchen, the corridor and the dining room. All were lighted blue like the cellar. Though they’d been constantly alert for an attack, so far they’d seen no one. The house seemed deserted.

Maybe everyone had fled. Abe doubted that Kutch and her group could have escaped through the tunnel to Beast House. There may, of course, be another way out—a tunnel at the back, perhaps leading toward the beach. That was possible, though Abe hadn’t noticed any other exit in the cellar.

More likely, they were still in the house.

He gazed up the stairs.

Then, from the left, came a quiet sound like a girl sobbing.

Crouching, Jack edged sideways toward the arched entryway. Abe stayed close to him, stepping silently backward, keeping the rear covered.

The walls of the room were draped, from ceiling to floor, with blue curtains. A chill crawled up Abe’s back. His eyes raced along the heavy folds, searching for bulges, for feet protruding beneath the lower edges. He saw nothing to indicate another presence, but kept scanning the curtains as he followed Jack.

The room was bare of furniture. Its carpet was cluttered with pillows and cushions of shiny blue fabric—some alone, others piled up.

He heard the sobbing again.

It seemed to come from behind a waist-high heap of pillows near the end of the room. Abe aimed his revolver at the center of the mound and sidestepped closer as Jack headed around the far side.

“Over here,” Jack whispered, and knelt out of sight.

Abe sprang past the pile to regain his view of Jack, and saw a girl lying face down on the floor. She was naked. One arm was bent close to her head, the other out of sight beneath her body.

Jack, on one knee near her head, had his .45 aimed down at her. “Don’t move,” he whispered.

The girl sniffed.

Abe kicked into the mounded pillows, sending them flying until he could see the floor.

The girl lifted her face off the carpet. “Help,” she said in a choked voice. “Please. I’m hurt.”

“Get your other hand where I can see it,” Jack said. “It better be empty.”

“Can’t. I…my arm’s broken.”

Abe pivoted for another quick scan of the room, then dropped a knee onto the girl’s spine. Her back arched. Her head jerked back. He slammed the barrel of his revolver against her upper arm, jumped aside as she cried out, and used his left hand to tug the arm out from under her. She held a small caliber semi-automatic. He rapped her knuckles with his barrel. The pistol fell.

Now she was crying for real.

“Bastards!” she gasped. “Stinking bastards!”

“Watch our tails,” Abe said.

Jack straightened up.

Abe shoved his revolver into his pocket. He twisted the girl’s arm up behind her back.

“Let go! Asshole! You’re gonna die!”

He yanked the belt from his trouser loops, forced her other arm up her back, and lashed them together.

“Where are the others?” he asked.

“You’ll find out!”

“Upstairs?”

“Fuck you!”

He tugged the revolver from his pocket and picked up the girl’s pistol.

“That belt won’t hold her long,” Jack said.

“If she gives us any more grief, we’ll kill her.” Abe stood up. He planted a foot on her back and shoved. “Did you catch that, Tiger?”

“Fuck you!”

“Let’s go,” Abe said.

“Upstairs?” Jack asked.

“You got it.”

Janice felt the hand go away from her chest. She pushed the palm of her right hand against the wound, and opened her eyes. Gorman Hardy was kneeling over her. “Wha…”

“We’ve got to get out of here, Janice. We’re in danger if we stay.”

“Huh?”

“The beast, I saw it move.”

She turned her head and looked toward the tunnel entrance. All she could see of the creature were its clawed feet. They looked motionless.

A cry leaped from her as Gorman tugged her arms, raising her back off the dirt. She stiffened her neck to stop her head from swaying. The wound burned as if a white-hot poker had been driven through her body and was still there. The sodden rag dropped from under her arm. Warm blood trickled down her breast and side.

She slumped forward, head between her knees. Gorman let go and stepped behind her.

“Try to stand up,” he said.

She felt him against her back. His hands clutched her sides, and she writhed as one of them pressed against claw scratches. He moved his hands lower. “Is this better?” he asked.

She nodded.

She drew her knees up and shoved her sneakers against the dirt as he lifted.

As she straightened, her balance shifted backwards and they both staggered. Gorman gasped behind her. One of his hands flew up and clenched her breast.

“Sorry,” he said, and moved the hand down.

He turned her toward the stairs.

Her legs felt warm and weak, but they held her up as Gorman guided her along. She looked up the steep stairway. “Can’t,” she murmured.

“It’s all right. I’ll hold you. We’ll be up at the top in a jiffy and out of here.”

In a jiffy. He sounded almost cheerful.

With her right hand, she gripped the wooden banister. She placed a foot on the first riser. Gorman clutched her hips, and lifted. She struggled up the first stair, the second. Then a wave of dizziness hit her. Her legs folded. She fell against the railing and hugged it.

“Goddamn it,” Gorman muttered.

“I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t. Let me…wait for Nora.”

“Do you want me to leave you here alone with the beast? I tell you, it’s not dead!”

“Don’t leave me.”

She tried to push herself away from the banister. Gorman pulled at her shoulders, and she cried out. He eased her forward onto the stairs. Slowly, bracing herself with her good right arm, she crawled higher.

“That’s good,” Gorman said. “That’s a lot better.” He stepped around Janice and climbed above her. “Almost there,” he said.

Three stairs from the top, another dizzy spell hit her. Her stomach convulsed. She lunged forward, pressing her head between the planks, and vomited through the gap behind them. When she finished, she lay there gasping and sobbing.

“Quick!” Gorman said. “My God, it’s sitting up!”

She jerked her head free and looked down at the tunnel entrance. From this angle, she couldn’t see the beast at all.

Neither, she realized, could Gorman.

She raised her face, blinking tears from her eyes. “You can’t…”

“Damn you!” he bellowed. “Come on!”

She raised her arm toward a higher step. He grabbed its wrist with both hands and tugged, jerking her up and forward. Her cheek hit the edge of the landing. He dragged her. She scraped and bumped over the remaining stairs. With a final yank he threw her onto the landing.

“Okay,” he said. “Up.”

She couldn’t force herself to move.

Gorman stepped over her. He planted a foot beside each hip, and clutched her sides. A finger dug into the bullet hole under her arm, stunning her with a bolt of pain. He lifted her. First to her knees. Then to her feet. As she tried to lock her knees, he swung her around and pushed.

She plunged head first. She seemed to fall forever, a scream swelling in her chest as the stairs below drifted up at her. She flung an arm across her face. The arm went numb. The plank it hit burst apart. The top of her head skidded across the next one as her legs flew high and swung down. The edges of planks slammed her back and buttocks and legs. They scraped her back, bumped her head as she slid. Then she came to a stop, her rump on the cellar floor, her back against the stairs.

“My goodness,” said a voice above her. “You fell.”

She brought her head forward, feeling a dim sense of relief that she could move it. Her legs were stretched out across the dirt. They seemed to belong to someone else. A sneaker had been lost in the fall. She wiggled her bare toes.

“But you’re still alive.” She heard footfalls on the stairs. “You must be part cat. Are you part cat, Janice? You’re harder to kill than your mother was. A regular Rasputin.”

Across the cellar, near a stack of bushel baskets, a hand reached out of the ground.

Out of a hole in the cellar floor.

A dead-white hand, smudged with dirt but glistening in the lantern light. A hand with long, hooked claws.

Janice tumbled forward as something—Gorman’s foot?—thrust against her back. Grunting, she sprawled face down.

Gorman rolled her over.

He straddled her, sat on her belly, smiled down at her “Unfortunately,” he said, “you broke your head in the fall.” He gripped both sides of her head. “I’m not sure I’m strong enough for this, but we’ll give it the old college try.”

She drove a fist into his side. He grunted and his face twisted.

“Oh, you’re a tough one.” He started to smile again, but then he looked up and his mouth sprang open. A shadow fell across Janice. The beast stood above her, reaching for Gorman. He sucked in a loud breath and flung out an arm to ward the thing off. His other hand went to his hip. Lifting her head, Janice saw him try to tug a revolver from his front pocket. He jerked the gun free as the beast’s hands clamped the sides of his head. With strength she didn’t know she possessed, Janice flung her right arm across her body, grabbed the rising barrel, and tore the gun from Gorman’s hand.

The beast lifted him by the head. His feet swept past Janice’s face. His shrieks hurt her ears.

She rolled over. Braced on her elbows, she turned the revolver around and cocked it.

The beast still had Gorman by his head. He waved his arms and kicked and screamed as it shook him. Then it flung him against a section of shelves. Wood splintered. He fell sprawling to the floor under an avalanche of jars. “Shoot it!” he cried in a choked voice. He staggered to his feet. He stumbled backwards as the crouching beast lurched closer.

Janice fired.

The slug knocked a leg out from under Gorman.

He flopped onto his back. The beast sprang onto him. He let out a piercing scream as its snout thrust into his groin, snapping and ripping. Soon, he was only whimpering. The beast raised its head and seemed to stare at him for a few moments. Then it scurried up his body, opened its mouth wide, and bit into his face.

Janice watched.

She watched until Gorman no longer groaned and whimpered, until the convulsions stopped shaking him and he lay motionless.

The beast climbed off him. Its body was smeared with Gorman’s blood. It turned toward Janice and stared at her.

Its penis thickened and grew and stood upright.

She fired.

The bullet whined off the stone wall beyond its head. Hunched over, the beast hesitated. Janice aimed at its chest. As she squeezed the trigger, the creature lurched aside. It sprang across the cellar floor toward the tunnel where the other beast lay dead. Janice swung the pistol, fired again and again. Then the hammer fell with a dry clack. The beast vanished into the tunnel.

Tyler stopped abruptly when she heard the sound—a single pop that surged down the tunnel from behind. “A gunshot?” she whispered.

“Aye,” said Captain Frank.

She stood motionless in the dark, hanging onto the old man’s hand, and wondered what it might mean. Nora had a pistol, but had left the house and probably wouldn’t be back yet. That left Gorman. Who—or what—had he fired at?

“Trouble back there,” Captain Frank said.

“Yes.”

“Let’s not poke.”

With a nod that he wouldn’t see in the blackness, Tyler pulled his hand and led the way forward. Her shoulder bumped a wall. She stepped to the right, and kept going.

Another gunshot resounded through the tunnel, followed soon by a quick flurry that all ran together and might have been three shots or four.

What’s going on back there?

“Lord,” muttered Captain Frank.

Tyler stood still. She listened for more gunfire, but heard only the thump of her heartbeat and the old man’s quick breathing.

“Strange business,” she said.

His hand was hot and slippery in her grip. She kept hold of it, and started walking again. She swept the pistol from side to side ahead of her, feeling for walls. Her knuckles brushed moist clay. She turned slightly away.

She wished they hadn’t left the Coleman lantern behind.