The Midnight Tour (6 page)

“There you go,” Owen whispered to Monica. “Liz.”

“But the
real
highlight of 1932 was the opening of Beast House. The Victorian style house had already been standing for thirty years, but as a private home. It took Maggie Kutch to turn the place into one of America’s most bizarre and infamous tourist attractions.

“Beast House had been built in 1902 by Lilly Thorn, widow of Lyle Thorn. Lyle, the leader of the Thorn Gang, was an outlaw known throughout the west during the latter years of the nineteenth century. You name it, he did it. He robbed banks, stage coaches, and trains. He rustled cattle and horses. It’s said that he committed so many murders and rapes that nobody could keep track of them all. The brutal massacres of several entire families in the Arizona territory have been attributed to Lyle Thorn and his gang, but that’s mostly speculation. Some people think the massacres were the work of Apaches. Nobody knows for sure. Nor does anyone know the fate of Lyle Thorn or his gang. Their depredations simply stopped in the early 1890’s. We can only assume that he and his band of cut-throats came to a sudden, violent end.

“On their way to the end, however, they worked up a ton of bad karma. Lyle must’ve passed it on to his wife and children, and I think it all ended up in Beast House.

“As I mentioned, his wife’s name was Lilly. They were Lyle and Lilly Thom. But nobody around Malcasa Point ever saw Lyle. He had apparently ‘bought the ranch’ before Lilly and the kids ever showed up in town. The boys were named Sam and Earl. It’s believed that Lyle was their father, but nobody knows for sure.

“Anyway, Lilly and the two boys arrived in town in early 1902. And they were loaded. Apparently, Lyle’s life of crime had been very lucrative. Before you know it, Lilly had a crew hard at work building her dream house.

“And they all lived happily ever after in the dream house until August 2, 1903, when the beast came up out of the cellar and ran amok, committing wholesale slaughter on her family. You’ll hear all about that on the tour, though, so I won’t get into it now.

“For now, we want to skip ahead about twenty-eight years. During most of that time, the Thorn house stood deserted. Nobody wanted to live there because of the killings. But in 1931, the Kutch family bought it and moved in. Maggie Kutch lived in the house with her husband, two little girls, and her baby son. For just about two weeks. Then one rainy night, her entire family was brutally slain by what she described as a ‘raving, white beast.’ Maggie was the only survivor.

“You might think that Maggie would’ve left town after such a tragedy. But she stayed and built a home for herself directly across the street from the old Victorian. Her new house was a fortress made of brick. And it didn’t have a single window. You’ll see it today. Unfortunately, the tour doesn’t include the Kutch house. Maggie’s daughter still lives there, so it’s off limits.”

A blonde kid a few rows ahead of Owen raised his hand.

“Question?” Patty asked.

“Yeah. If Maggie’s whole family got slaughtered by the beast, how come she still has a daughter?”

“Good question. What’s your name, friend?”

“Derek.”

“Well, Derek, here’s the thing. Maggie gave birth to this daughter
after
the massacre. This one—her name’s Agnes—was born several years later.”

“But you said her husband got killed by the beast.”

“He did. Later on, though, Maggie met someone else. This new man in her life became Agnes’s father.”

“Oh, I get it. Okay. Thanks.”

“Thank you for asking, Derek. Now...” Patty frowned. “Let’s see, we’d just gotten Maggie moved into the brick house. Nobody quite knew what she was up to...why she would want to live there, right across the road from the house where the beast had murdered her family. That place was abandoned, boarded up. Some of the town-folk thought it should be torn down or burnt. At that time, they called it Massacre House. They said it was a blight on the good name of the town.

“But it remained standing, and pretty soon, large, mysterious crates began to arrive. The crates were carried up the porch stairs and into Massacre House. Can anyone tell me what was in them? Lab equipment for godless experiments? Or maybe...”

Derek raised his hand. Before Patty could call on him or anyone else, he blurted, “I know what they had in them! Wax dummies of the dead guys!”

“That’s right. Wax dummies of dead guys
and
gals. At the time, however, nobody had any idea what might be in the crates. They didn’t get their answer until the summer of 1932. First, a ticket booth went up. Then a few signs. A sign at the top of the ticket book read,
BEAST HOUSE.
Another sign gave the times and prices of the tours. Back in those days, a tour cost only twenty-five cents. That’s a far cry from what they’ll be charging you people today. But a quarter meant something back in 1932. A lot of things did.

“Maggie put up one other sign before she opened Beast House to the public. My favorite. It was painted in red letters on an old wooden door. Unfortunately, it disappeared years and years ago. But you can see photos of it in Janice Crogan’s Beast House Museum on Front Street. It goes like this.
BEAST HOUSE!
THE LEGENDARY, HISTORICAL SITE OF GHASTLY, MONSTROUS MURDERS! NOT ONE, BUT MANY! SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES THE ACTUAL SCENES OF BRUTAL, BLOODY BUTCHERIES WHERE THEY HAPPENED! FEAST YOUR EYES ON AUTHENTIC REPRODUCTIONS OF THE BEAST’S RAVAGED VICTIMS—AS THEY WERE FOUND, IN THEIR ACTUAL DEATH GARMENTS. HEAR THE TRUE TALES OF THE BEAST AS TOLD BY ITS ONLY KNOWN SURVIVOR, MAGGIE KUTCH, PROPRIETOR OF BEAST HOUSE AND YOUR PERSONAL GUIDE.’

Patty grinned and said, “Love it. Plenty of the townfolks didn’t, though. They tried to stop Maggie from opening the house, but she wasn’t someone easily stopped and the first tour of Beast House took place, as scheduled, on July 1, 1932.

“Only a few people showed up for it. They were mostly locals. Some were the very people who’d protested against the place. Apparently, they were eager to see just how bad it really was. According to newspaper accounts, what they found was worse than they’d expected. The good folks were shocked and outraged. Several fainted. Others ran from the house, shrieking.

“Now that they’d seen the tour, they considered it an offense against human decency, God, motherhood, and good taste. One published report called it ‘An obscene display of vulgar savagery unfit for the eyes of civilized human beings.’ An editorial went this way: ”Has our community now sunk into such a mire of depravity as to find entertainment in the lewd and gory depiction of scantily clad murder victims such as can be found in every corner of the blasphemy known as Beast House? For shame!’” Grinning and shaking her head, Patty said, ”I like that, ’For shame!’”

“Those people
hated
Beast House. They kept trying to shut it down. They couldn’t manage that, but the town did pass an ordinance prohibiting children under the age of sixteen from going in.

“As the weeks went by, though, a funny thing happened. Local merchants began to notice they had more money in their cash registers at the end of the day. Pretty soon, it dawned on them that the extra cash had come from the pockets of strartgers. There seemed to be a regular flow of visitors coming into town. They spent money at the gas station, the cafe, the ice cream parlor, the pharmacy, the grocery store. You name the business, and out-of-towners were spending money there. And what was behind this influx of visitors?”

“BEAST HOUSE!” a girl shouted, beating Derek to the punch.

Derek frowned over his shoulder at her.

“That’s right!” Patty said. “Beast House! People were coming to Malcasa Point from nearby towns and farms, even all the way from Marin County, San Francisco and the East Bay, just to take the Beast House tour. But they didn’t only take the tour; they were spending their money all over town. Suddenly, nobody had a bad word to say about Beast House and nobody wanted to shut it down anymore. Also, the restriction against kids was removed. Everyone was allowed to take the tour, regardless of age.

“Ever since then, Beast House has been drawing visitors to Malcasa Point. Not always in great numbers, though. For the first couple of decades, the numbers were pretty low, especially by today’s standards. Some old records show that somewhere between thirty and fifty people per week were taking the tours.

“But Beast House’s popularity grew during the 1950’s, probably because a couple of kids broke in one night and ran into trouble. According to the survivor, the trouble was a beast. He escaped, but his friend wasn’t so lucky. You’ll hear all about it during your audio tour of the house, so I won’t go into the details. Because of the attack, however, interest in Beast House really surged in the fifties. Then it tapered off a little, but not very much. The House continued to pull in a steady stream of visitors until 1979.

“Everyone
knows what happened in ‘79. If you didn’t know about it, most of you wouldn’t be riding on this bus today.”

“And wouldn’t that be a shame,” Monica whispered.

“To make a long story short, in 1979 a lot of very nasty business hit the fan. And the fan was Beast House.”

Several passengers chuckled.

“It’s all on the tour and in the books and movies, so I won’t pile the details on. Suffice it to say that the summer of 1979 was a
festival
of disappearances, abductions, rapes, rescues, and brutal murders.

“To top it all off, the actual corpses of three beasts were discovered after the smoke cleared in ‘79. Two of them quickly disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The third body, though, was preserved by a taxidermist. It was displayed at Janice Crogan’s Beast House Museum for several years until it was stolen in 1984. The museum still has photographs of it, and they can also be found in both of Janice’s books.”

Someone near the back of the bus must’ve raised a hand, because Patty nodded and asked, “Question?”

A man said, “Is it true that the stolen beast turned up in some sort of a freak show?”

Patty grinned. “And your name is?”

“Marv.”

“Well, Marv, you’re probably speaking of the Hairless Orang-utan of Borneo. It wasn’t exactly in a freak show, but in an exhibit called Jasper’s Oddities at the Funland amusement park.”

“Where’s Funland?”Derek asked.

“It’s in Boleta Bay,” Patty explained. “On the coast just south of San Francisco.”

“And it’s got the beast?”

“Well, it
bad
a creature on exhibit that
might’ve
been a beast. I saw it a long time ago, myself.”

“So did I,” said a man sitting a few rows ahead of Owen. “Name’s Wayne. Do you think it was the actual beast, or some kind of fake? I heard it was a fake.”

“I can’t say for sure. Nobody can. Like so many other things that have to do with Beast House, it’s a mystery. And it’ll have to stay a mystery, because a positive i.d. was never made and the so-called, Hairless Orang-utan of Borneo disappeared in about 1988.
All
the Jasper’s Oddities exhibits vanished one night, and the building was demolished shortly after that.”

“Did Janice Crogan ever get a look at the Hairless Orang-utan?” Wayne asked.

“No, she never did.”

“She should’ve taken it back,” Derek said. “If it was
her
monster and somebody stole it...”

“I talked to Janice about it, and she told me that she was glad to be rid of the thing. She didn’t want it back. When she was keeping it in her museum, she had to face it every single day. It was an awfully vivid reminder of those terrible experiences she’d had in 1979. Also, she told me that it didn’t smell terribly fresh.”

“Oh, yuck,” said the same girl who had cried out “BEAST HOUSE!” a few minutes earlier.

“And what’s your name, young lady?” Patty asked.

“None of your beeswax.”

“And what an unusual name that is,” Patty said. “Do you have a nickname? Wax?”

“Try Bitch,” Owen whispered.

Monica rolled her eyeballs upward.

“Her name’s Shareel,” said the man sitting beside her.

Probably her father.

“Thank you,” Patty told him. “And thank you for your comment about the odor, shareel. According to Janice
,
the odor was faint but
very yucky
. She said it smelled like a dead rat.”

Shareel went, “Ooooooo.”

“Apparently, that’s what happens if taxidermy isn’t done just right.”

“This is disgusting,” Monica whispered.

“Yeah,” Owen said, smiling.

“Don’t tell me you
like
it.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

Patty pointed to someone and said, “Yes, Marv?”

“What can you tell us about its apparatus?”

She grinned and blushed. “It’s
apparatus?”

“You know.”

“I certainly know, all right. But we don’t talk about that.”

“It’s in the books.”

“You’re right. It’s in the books. Not in the movies, though, and not on our tour. Not on
this
tour. If you’re really curious about that sort of thing, we do offer a special, adults only tour of Beast House. Maybe some of you have heard of it. The Midnight Tour? It’s quite an event. Saturday nights only. A trip through Beast House starting at midnight, with our best guide leading the way. It’s a hundred dollars per person, but the price includes a picnic dinner on the grounds of Beast House—with a no host bar for the drinkers among you—followed by a special showing of
The Horror
at the town movie theater, and finally the special, unexpurgated tour in which you learn all the stuff that’s too nasty for our regular tours. If any of you are interested, you can make reservations at the ticket office.”

“They only have it on Saturday nights?” Marv asked.

“That’s right. One night a week.”

“Does the bus go out to it?”

“There isn’t any special run for the Midnight Tour. What people sometimes do, though, is come in on the Saturday morning bus, spend the whole day, do the Midnight Tour, stay overnight at one of the motels in town, then catch the Sunday afternoon bus back to San Francisco. If you don’t have your own car, that’s about the only sensible way to do it. Imagine what it’d cost for a cab ride.”