Friday Night in Beast House (6 page)

When children shouted, some mothers seemed to find it cute but others scolded. „Hush! And, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ And, ‘Quit that!’ Sometimes, immediately after shouting a cheerful,
‘Hiya, beast!’
or
‘Betcha can’t catch me!’
into the holes, kids cried out ‘OW!’ Some squealed. Others began to cry.

A couple of times, Mark heard mothers warn their kids, ‘The monster’ll come out and get you, if you don’t behave.’

Mark listened to it all, sometimes smiling, sometimes angry, often grinning as he imagined himself springing up out of the hole at them.

Oh, how they would scream and run!

Except for the shouts, most of the voices weren’t very loud. Some, so often that Mark couldn’t make out the words, formed a soothing murmur. He found himself drowsing off. It hardly surprised him, considering that he’d spent most of last night lying awake.

He fell asleep without realizing it, listening to the voices, his mind often wandering through memories and fantasies but eventually taking a subtle turn into dreams that seemed very real and sometimes wonderful and sometimes horrid. Then a shout would startle him awake. Sometimes, he woke up frightened, grateful to the shouter. Other times, the shout came just in time to prevent Alison or Officer Chaney or Thompson from coming naked into his arms and he woke up aroused and wanted to kill the shouter.

He never knew quite how long he’d been asleep.

Though he wore a wristwatch, he tried to avoid checking it. The more often you check the time, he thought, the more slowly it goes by.

So he waited and waited.

At last figuring that it must be at least three o’clock in the afternoon, he raised his head and pushed the button on the side of his watch. The numbers lit up
12:35

He groaned.

‘
I heard it!
’ a kid yelled.
‘I heard the beast!’

Chapter Ten

‘You didn’t hear shit,’ said someone else. The kid’s sister? 'Watch your tongue, young lady.’ Her father? ‘I heard it, Dad! I heard it groan! It’s the beast! It’s in the hole! ‘There’s no such thing as beasts, dipshit. ‘Julie! ‘So sorry.

The boy said, ‘It made a noise like,
uhnnnn
.’ Oh, sure.’ ‘You just didn’t hear it, cause of your earphones.’

A moment later, the father said, ‘It doesn’t appear that anyone else heard this groan of yours, either.’

‘It’s not
my
groan, it’s the
beast’s!
And they’ve
all
got earphones one! Everybody’s got earphones on! There’s a
beast
in the hole! We gotta
tell
somebody!’

‘Is there a problem?’ Asked a new voice. It sounded like a middle-aged woman.

‘I heard a beast in the hole!’

‘Really? What did it say?’

‘Didn’t say nothing.’

‘Anything,’ the father said.

‘It went,
grrrrrrr
.’

Now the kid’s going weird, Mark thought.

‘Edith?’ Another new voice. A man.

‘This young fellow says he heard a growl coming from the hole.’

‘Havent heard anything like that, myself

‘You had your earphones on,’ the boy argued.

‘I’m afraid my son has a very active imagination,’ his father said. ‘At home, he has a monster under his bed and another one in his closet and…’

‘Don’t forget the green monster in the basement,’ the sister chimed in.

Thank you thank you thank you, Mark thought.

‘But I
heard
it. It came from the hole.’

‘
You’re
the hole.’

‘Julie!’

‘Just kidding.’

‘Come on, kids. We’re disturbing everyone. Let’s go.’

‘But
Daaaaad
.’

‘You heard me.’

‘Don’t be too hard on the boy,’ said the voice of Edith’s husband. ‘An imagination’s a good thing to have.’

‘But I didn’t…’

‘Ralph!’

‘Okay, okay. I didn’t hear nothing.’

‘Anything.’

‘Dip.’

‘Julie.’

‘Have a nice day, folks,’ said Edith.

‘Thank you.’ The father’s voice faded as he said, ‘Sorry about the disturbance.’

That was a close one, Mark though.

Then he thought worse.

What if Ralph tells Thompson what he heard? Instead of passing it off as a figment of the kid’s imagination, she might put two and two together.

They’ve probably browbeaten the kid into silence, Mark though.

The chances of Thompson hearing about the groan were slim to none.

But he waited, listening, so tense he could hardly breathe, ready to scurry deeper into the tunnel at the first sound of trouble.

If it’s going to happen, he thought, it’ll happen soon. In the next five or ten minutes.

He looked at his wristwatch.

12:41.

Only six minutes since my groan!

He lowered his face onto his crossed arms, took a deep breath and almost sighed. But he stopped the sigh and eased his breath out quietly.

It’ll be all right, he told himself. Nobody’s going to come down here looking for me… unless I make more noise!

Sounds sure do carry through here.

He wished he’d gone farther into the tunnel before stopping. Too late, now. He didn’t dare to move.

Only twelve forty-one. Maybe forty-two by now.

Five hours to go before the house closes.

Five hours and fifteen minutes.

Time enough to watch five episodes of
The X files.
Ten episodes of
The Simpsons.
You could read a whole book if it wasn’t too long.

Five hours.
More
than five hours.

Almost one o’clock, now…

I haven’t eaten all day!

He suddenly thought about the two ham-and-cheese sandwiches in his pack. A can of Pepsi in there, too. He felt the weight of them against his back, just above his buttocks. He could get to them easily, but there would be noise when he unzipped the pack… more noise when he unwrapped a sandwich… and how about the
PUFFT!
That would come if he should pop open the tab of his Pepso?

Can’t risk it, he thought.

I’ll have to wait. After six, I can have a feast.

Soon, his stomach growled.

Oh no God, no!

No comments came.

His stomach rumbled.

Maybe no one’s there right now, he thought. Or they’re all listening to the audio tour.

People with headphones on, whether listening to music or talk radio or the Beast House tape, always seemed to be off in their own little worlds.

‘Monstruo!
’

Jeez!

‘Buenas dias, Monstruo!’

That’s enough, he thought. He lifted his head, stared for a few moments into the total blackness, then began squirming forward, deeper into the tunnel. He moved very slowly and carefully. Except for his heartbeats and breathing, he heard only the soft whisper of his windbreaker and jeans rubbing the dirt.

As the guy topside yelled what sounded like, ‘
No hay cabras en la piscina!,
Mark realized the voice was giving him cover noise. He suddenly picked up speed.

‘Don’t you saaaay that,’ protested a female voice. ‘He think you loco, come up ‘n bite you face off’

‘He fuckin’ try, I kill his ass.’

‘You so tough.’

As the male grumbled something, Mark halted and lowered his head. He had no idea how much farther into the tunnel he’d squirmed. Another six feet? Maybe more like ten or fifteen.

No way to tell, but the voices from up top were muffled and less distinct than before.

Time to eat!

He rolled onto his side, unfastened the plastic buckle of his pack belt, and swung the pack into the darkness in front of him. Propped up on his elbows, he found the zipper. He pulled it slowly, quietly.

The voices far behind him were barely audible.

How about some light on the subject?

He took out a candle and a book of matches.

Lunch by candlelight.

He would need both hands for striking a match, so he set the candle down. Then he flipped open the matchbook and tore out one of the matches. He shut the cover. By touch, he found the friction surface. Then he turned his face aside, shut his eyes and struck the match.

Its flare looked bright orange through his eyelids.

An instant later, the flame settled down and he opened his eyes.

The tunnel, a tube of gray clay, was slightly wider than his shoulders, but higher than he’d imagined. High enough to allow crawling on hands and knees.

In front of him, the yellowish glow from his candle lit a few more feet of tunnel before fading into the darkness.

He picked up his candle. Holding it in one hand, he tried to light its wick as the match’s flame crept toward his thumb and finger. Just when the heat began to hurt, the wick caught fire. He shook out the match.

The candle seemed brighter than the match had been.

Bracing himself up on his right elbow, he reached forward and tried to stand it upright on the tunnel floor. He tried here and there. Each time, the ground was hard and uneven and the candle wouldn’t stay up by itself.

He reached out farther and tried another place. Just under the dirt, something wobbled.

A rock, maybe.

If he could get it out, the depression might make a good holder for the candle. He worked at it. The object came up fairly easily.

Someone’s eyeglasses.

Chapter Eleven

Mark planted the candle upright at one end of the slight depression the glasses had left behind. When he let go, the candle remained standing. It was wobbly, though. He packed some dirt around its base and that helped.

Then he picked up the unearthed glasses. Braced up on both elbows, he held them with one hand and brushed them off with the other.

The upsweep of the tortoise-shell frame made him suppose the glasses had belonged to a woman. The lens on the left was gone, but the other lens seemed to be intact. It was clear glass, untinted.

Except for the missing lens, the spectacles seemed to be intact. Mark unfolded the earpieces. Their hinges worked fine. He looked more closely. Dirty, but not rusty.

How long had the glasses been down here? A few days? A month or two? A year?

How the hell did they
get
here?

All sorts of possibilities, he thought. Maybe a gal was hiding down here the same as me.

But why did she leave her glasses behind?

Easy. Because they got broken.

No. If you lose a lens, you don’t throw away the whole pair of glasses. You keep them and get the lens replaced.

She might’ve
lost
them.

What, they fell off her face?

Fell off her face, all right.
While she was being dragged through the tunnel…

Mark’s stomach let out a long, grumbling growl.

He set the glasses down, reached into his pack and removed a ham-and-cheese sandwich. He opened one side of the cellophane wrapper. As he ate the sandwich, he peeled away more of the cellophane, keeping it between his filthy hands and the bread.

He decided not to bother with his Pepsi. It would’ve been too much trouble. Besides, his sandwich was good and moist.

As he ate, he wondered what to do with the glasses. Leave them where he’d found them? He couldn’t see any purpose in that. He might as well keep them.

And do what? Take them to the police?

You found them where, young man?

In the beast tunnel.

In the WHAT?

Yeah sure, he thought. Thanks, but no thanks.

But they might be evidence of a crime.

Might not be.

What if I show them to Officer Chaney?

Show them to her in private, like ‘off the record, and we can work on the case together?

He imagined himself coming down into the cellar late at night with Officer Chaney to show her where he’d found the glasses.

They both have flashlights. At the edge of the hole, she hands him a jumpsuit. She has another for herself.
Don’t want to get our clothes dirty,
she explains. Then she starts to remove her police uniform.

Like
that’ll
happen, Mark thought.

What’ll really happen, I’ll end up getting reamed for being down here in the first place.

I can at least show the glasses to Alison, he decided. She’ll probably think they’re pretty interesting and mysterious.

Done eating, Mark used the cellophane to wrap the glasses.

He put them into his pack.

Then he reached out, pulled the candle from its loose bed in the dirt, and puffed out its flame. A tiny orange dot remained in the darkness. Slowly, the dot faded out. He waited a while longer, then found the wick with his thumb and forefinger. It was a little warm. Squeezing it, he felt the charred part crumble.

He returned the candle and match book to his pack, then zippered the pack shut, slid it out of the way, and settled down to continue his wait.

Though he tried to relax, his mind lingered on the glasses.

There hadn’t been a beast attack in years. The last two situations had taken place all the way back in 1978 and 1979. In Janice Crogan’s books,
The Horror at Malcasa Point
and
Savage Times,
Mark had seen photos of all the women involved: Donna Hayes and her daughter, Sandy; Tyler Moran; Nora Branson; Janice herself, and Agnes and Maggie Kutch, of course. From what he could recall of the photos, he was almost certain that none of the women wore glasses. Maybe
sunglasses.
One snapshot had shown Sandy Hayes, Donna’s twelve-year-old daughter, in sunglasses and a swimsuit.

She disappeared!

She was never seen again after the slaughter of 79.

Had she been wearing
prescription
sunglasses in the photo? Could these be her
regular
glasses? Had she been dragged away by a surviving beast and lost them here in the tunnel? Or maybe lost them while escaping through here?