The Cellar

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 1.

“It’s a turnstile,” Jud said. “Climb over it.”

Roy shook his head.

Jud prodded him with the knife, and Roy swung a leg up. Larry, on the other side, helped him over by pulling one of his tied arms. Jud heard an approaching car. He vaulted the turnstile, grabbed Roy, and pulled the big man to the ground. The three of them lay close to the ticket-booth wall.

Jud heard the car slow. Its tires crunched gravel. Crawling forward, he peered around the corner of the ticket booth.

A police car.

It was stopped across the road, but Jud could hear the quiet idle of its engine. A few moments passed. Then it made a U-turn, drove slowly by the ticket booth, and headed off.

They dragged Roy to his feet and led him up the lawn. They hurried alongside the house to the back. There, they climbed the porch stairs.

The broken glass in the back door had neither been replaced nor boarded over. Sliding the knife into his pocket, Jud reached through the opening. He lowered his fingers down the door crack until he found a bolt. He tried to draw it back. It was stuck. He jerked. It snapped back with a clatter that filled the silence.

“That probably woke it up,” Larry whispered.

Jud pushed open the door. He stepped inside, pulling the hooded man. Larry, following, shut the door without a sound.

“Where to?” he whispered.

“Let’s take this off, first.” Jud removed the belt from Roy’s neck, then pulled off the pillowcase. The man’s head jerked as he looked quickly around.

“This is Beast House,” Jud told him.

He made noises through his nose.

“I’ll take off the gag. You’ll live a bit longer, though, if you stay quiet.”

Roy nodded.

Jud tore the adhesive tape off Roy’s mouth, and pocketed it. He strapped the spare belt around his waist, and tucked in the pillowcase so it hung at his side like a white sash. He planned to leave nothing behind.

Nothing but Roy.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he whispered.

“That where the monster lives?” Roy asked, and laughed.

“That’s where it usually attacks,” Jud said.

“Yeah? You believe that shit?”

“Shhhh.”

Jud stepped out of the kitchen. He flicked on his flashlight. Ahead was the entrance hall, its stuffed-monkey umbrella holder guarding the front door like a grotesque sentry. He put his light away. With his left hand, he reached under the back of his shirt and pulled the Colt automatic from his belt.

“What’re you guys, trying to scare me?”

“Shhh,” Larry repeated.

“Shit.”

At the foot of the stairs, Roy said, “I smell gas.”

“That’s from last night,” Jud whispered.

“Yeah?”

“A woman was killed,” Larry said.

“No shit? You guys do this all the time?”

“Shut up,” said Jud.

“I was only making conversation.”

They started up the stairs, and last night’s horrors filled Jud’s mind: Mary Ziegler, dead, diving down at him; the liquid sounds she made rolling across his back; the awful stench of the beast. He looked toward the top of the stairs, half afraid he would see her there again.

“Anybody got a smoke?” Roy asked.

“Shut up.”

They reached the top of the stairs.

“Okay,” Jud said, “lie down.”

“What?”

“Lie facedown on the floor.”

“Fuck you.”

With a sudden kick, Jud knocked the left leg out from under Roy. The man sat down hard.

“Fuckin’ bastard.”

“Face down.”

Roy obeyed.

“You just wait, motherfucker. I’ll gut you like a catfish. I’ll cut off your cock and jam it down…”

“In there,” Jud whispered to Larry, pointing to the door several feet from Roy.

“Alone?”

“Just a second.” Jud knelt. “Okay, Roy. You just lie here quietly. I tell you what: If you make it to dawn alive, I’ll turn you over to the cops.”

“Fuck you.”

“But the only way you’ve got a chance is to stay real still, and real quiet. Maybe you’ll be lucky, and the beast won’t notice you.”

“Fuck you.”

“We’ll be right over there, where we can keep an eye on you. If you try to sneak off, I’ll have to dump you. Any questions?”

“Yeah. What’s your name? I like to know a guy’s name before I gut him.”

“My name is Judgment Rucker.”

“Shit.”

Jud went to the door where Larry waited. Jud opened it. He flashed his light up its narrow stairway, to the door high overhead. “This’ll be good,” he whispered. “We can sit on the stairs.”

They stepped inside. Jud put his flashlight away. He pulled the door toward him until only a crack remained. Eye close to the crack, he could see the shape of Roy lying on the dark corridor floor.

Jud switched the automatic to his right hand. With his left, he removed Roy’s knife from the pocket of his parka. He patted the parka, feeling the good weight of his spare ammo clips.

“Judge?” Larry whispered. “Will we actually let the beast have him?”

“Shhh.” 2.

Donna wanted to turn around, wanted to go back to Beast House and wait there for the men to finish. As she was about to make the turn, however, car headlights flashed on her rearview mirror. The car drew quickly closer. Donna thought she could see a light rack on its roof. She checked her speedometer. No, she wasn’t speeding.

Sandy looked back. “Uh-oh,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna pull over?”

“Not unless he wants me to.”

“Why’s he so close?”

“He hasn’t got manners.”

The police car stayed on their tail all the way to the Welcome Inn. It followed them through the entrance, then angled left and parked beside the restaurant.

Sandy made an exaggerated, “Whew!”

“I guess he was just hungry,” Donna said. She pulled into the parking space of Cabin 12. “Let’s give him a minute to get inside.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll go back for Jud and Larry.”

“Jud said half an hour.”

“We’ll be a little early.”

She backed up and headed out of the parking lot. With a glance at the police car, she saw it was empty. The policeman was nowhere in sight. She turned left.

“If we’re early,” Sandy said, “can we go in?”

“Are you out of your tree?”

“Maybe we can help Larry and Jud.”

“They’ll be fine without our help.”

“I’m not scared of the beast.”

“Well, you should be.”

“We can take Jud’s rifle in with us.”

“Bullets can’t hurt it. Weren’t you listening on the tour?”

“Sure.”

“Maggie said her husband shot it.”

“Hunh-uh. She only said she heard shots. He probably just missed.”

“Well regardless, we’re not going anywhere near that house.”

The town seemed empty as Donna drove through it. A few cars sat in front of closed stores, as if deserted by drivers seeking shelter from the darkness. Street lights cast their glow on barren corners. The traffic light blinked a steady yellow caution.

Donna swung left across the road and pulled into a parking space in front of Arty’s Hardware. The headlights glared off the display window. She shut them off. “Can you see the house?” she asked.

Sandy peered out the side window. “Just the front yard.”

Donna, looking out the far side of the car, could see little except the front of the fence and the ticket booth. “I guess I’ll get out,” she said.

“Me too.”

“Okay.”

They shut the doors silently and met in front of the car. Their tennis shoes were quiet on the sidewalk. At the corner of the hardware store, they came to the wrought-iron fence.

Between the wall and the fence, a narrow walkway ran to the rear of the hardware store. A low picket gate blocked entry. Donna opened it, and they stepped into the gap. Close to the store wall, she felt well hidden from the street.

Sandy took hold of her hand.

Across the lawn, Beast House stood silent. Its board siding, washed by moonlight, looked as pale and dead as driftwood. Where overhangs and balconies dropped shadows, the black made caverns deep into the house.

Donna looked at the dark bay windows. She lifted her eyes to Lilly Thorn’s bedroom windows, then along the bone-gray wall to Maggie’s window, the one Larry had used for his escape so many years ago. In her mind, she could see the wax figure just inside, struggling to raise the window.

“What time is it?” Sandy whispered.

Donna tipped the face of her wristwatch to catch the moonlight. “Eleven-twenty.”

“They’re late.”

“That’s all right.”

“What if they don’t come out?” 3.

“Fuckin’ shit!” Jud heard panic in Roy’s voice. “Holy fuckin’ shit, there’s someone coming! Guys? Damn it, you guys!”

Jud knelt, leaving space above him for Larry to see through the crack. Shifting the pistol to his left hand, he wiped his sweaty palm on a leg of his jeans. Then he pulled out his flashlight.

“Guys!” As if giving up on them, he muttered in a low voice, “Oh Jesus.”

Jud heard a stair creak.

“Hey, who are you? Huh? Can you help me? There’s these two guys, they tied me up. I mean, I’m not trespassing. I been kidnapped. Can you give me a…oh shit. Oh shit! GUYS!”

Jud heard soft, brittle laughter.

“Oh God.” Roy was starting to cry. “Oh God, sweet Jesus!” He sobbed. “Oh Jesus, get it away! Get it away!”

Behind Jud, Larry moaned in horror.

Roy shrieked as the beast sprang. Its pounce seemed to knock out his wind, cutting his outcry short.

Jud shoved the door open. He aimed his flashlight. Flicked it on. The white, snarling thing on Roy’s back snapped its head around to look. Bleeding flesh hung from its teeth.

Behind him, Larry screamed.

Before he could raise his automatic, Larry shoved him. He tumbled into the corridor. Larry, still screaming, leaped over him. Jud raised his flashlight. He shined it into the slitted eyes of the beast as Larry rushed it. He saw Larry swing. Saw the machete flash. Heard the thud of it and saw the white, hairless head tumble into the darkness. Blood spouted from the neck stump. The torso flopped onto Roy’s back. Jud heard the muffled thumps of the head dropping from one stair to the next.

“I killed it,” Larry whispered.

Jud got to his knees.

“I killed it. Dead!” Larry swung the machete down like an ax, chopping into the dead creature’s back. “Dead!” He hacked it again. “Dead dead dead!” After each word, he struck.

“Larry,” Jud said softly, standing up.

“I killed it!”

“Larry, we’re done in here. Let’s get out…” Behind him, Jud heard a savage snarl. He whirled. His flashlight reached up the attic staircase. The door at the top stood open. He dropped his beam to the massive, white back of a creature plunging down the stairs.

He snapped the trigger. His Colt roared, flashing as it bucked. A howl tore his ears. The beast took him backward, slamming him to the hallway floor. He jammed the gun muzzle against its side and shot. Another screaming howl. Then the weight was off him. He rolled to his stomach. The flashlight was still in his left hand. He found the white thing lunging at Larry, though two holes in its back poured blood. Larry raised the machete high. A sweeping arm caught the side of his face and raked the skin off. The machete fell.

Dropping the flashlight, Jud pulled the knife he’d taken from Roy. He scurried forward. In the dark, he saw the dim figure of the beast swing around, clutching Larry. Jud sidestepped. As his foot passed through space, he knew that he’d overstepped the top of the stairway. He dropped his knife and tumbled into the darkness. 4.

Donna listened, aghast, to the muffled outcries and gunshots coming from the house. She glanced down at Sandy. The girl stood transfixed, mouth gaping. At the crash of glass, she swung her eyes to the house in time to see a window of Maggie’s bedroom explode as a body burst through it, head first.

No, not a body. The wax figure of Larry Maywood.

But it’s screaming!

Moonlight glowed on the white hair of the plunging man. Another figure tumbled through the window. She watched it spin, its arms and legs frozen, and knew this one was only wax. Larry’s scream stopped with the first thud of impact.

Without a word, Donna shoved open the low wooden gate and pulled Sandy behind her to the car. “Inside. Get inside.”

“But Mom!”

“Do it!”

As Sandy got into the car, Donna hurried to the rear. She opened the trunk. Leaning in, she pulled a road flare out of its wrapper. She stuffed it into her rear pocket. Then she unzipped a leather case and slipped out Jud’s rifle. She slammed the trunk lid. Pushing the rifle bolt forward, she watched a long, pointed cartridge slide into the chamber. She forced the bolt down and rushed to Sandy’s window.

“Keep the doors locked and windows up till I get back.”

The girl gazed as if her mind were far away, but she locked the door and began rolling up her window.

Donna ran for the ticket booth. 5.

Halfway down the stairs, where Jud lay clutching a baluster, he heard the smash of glass and Larry’s scream. Jud started climbing. The white creature appeared above him. It leaped. He fired once, point blank, before the claws hit his hand and tore the gun away. With an anguished screech, the creature shoved past Jud. It staggered down the stairs. Leaning over the bannister, Jud saw its pale shape moving toward the kitchen.

He hurried to the top of the stairs. Patting the floor near the bodies of Roy and the first beast, he found his flashlight. He turned it on. By its light, he found Larry’s machete. He ran up the corridor to Maggie’s bedroom. His light showed a broken window beyond the toppled, papier-mâché screen. Then it picked up a headless torso. He was crouching over the body when he realized it was only the wax figure of Tom Bagley, Larry’s boyhood friend.

Jud ran to the window and looked down. Two sprawled bodies on the ground. A woman kneeling by one.

Donna.

“Is he alive?”

Donna’s face tilted up. “Jud, are you okay?”

“Fine,” he lied. “Is Larry alive?”

“I don’t know.”

“For God’s sake, get help. Get him a doctor. An ambulance.”

“Are you coming down?”

“I’m going after the beast.”

“No!”

“Get Larry help.” He pushed himself away from the window and crossed the room to the dresser. Shoving the machete under his belt, he tugged the top drawer open. The dead husband’s Colt .45 automatic was just where Maggie had left it. Depressing a button, he dropped its empty clip. He took the oversized, twenty-shot clip from his pocket and rammed it up the handle. It locked into place. Priming a cartridge into the chamber, he ran from the room.

In the corridor, he stepped over the bodies and rushed downstairs. He ran into the kitchen. His flashlight picked up blood on the floor. He followed its trail to the pantry, through an open door, and down a flight of steep wooden stairs to the cellar.

The moist cellar air was chilly and smelled of earth. Sweeping the area with light, he saw stacks of bushel baskets, shelves laden with dusty canning jars. Out of curiosity, he abandoned the trail of blood and stepped closer to the baskets. Behind them, just as described in Lilly Thorn’s diary, he found a hole in the dirt floor.

He returned to the dark blood spots on the dirt and followed them to the right where they stopped in front of an upright steamer trunk set flush against the wall. He saw quickly that the trunk was latched shut. The beast couldn’t have hidden itself inside.

Two gunshots came, faint with distance. For a moment, he worried. Then he realized that Donna must have fired his rifle to draw attention, to draw the police and help for Larry.

Setting his flashlight on the dirt floor to the right of the trunk, he tucked the Colt into a pocket of his parka. He slipped his fingers between the trunk and the wall, and pulled. With a gritty scraping sound, the trunk came away from the wall. A rope handle dangled from the back of the trunk. The rope was dark with wet blood.

Where the wall should have been, Jud found a tunnel. Picking up the flashlight, he entered it. 6.

Realizing that Larry was dead, Donna ran to the front door of the house. She used two shots to blast apart the lock of the door. Even then, she had to throw her shoulder against the solid wood several times to smash it open. She stepped into the entry hall. “Jud?” she called.

She heard no answer. She heard no sound at all. She called him again, louder this time. Still, no answer came.

Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, she slid the road flare out of her rear pocket. She twisted off its cap. Reversing the cap, she rubbed its striking surface against the end of the flare. At first, there was only a spark. On the second stroke, the flare sputtered to life, its brilliant blue-white tongue casting a glow that lit the entry hall and much of the stairway. Slowly, she climbed the stairs. She continued climbing, even when the light of her flare illuminated the bodies at the top: Roy face down, the nape of his neck mauled to red pulp; a strange white creature on Roy’s back. When she saw the stump of its neck, she gagged. Turning away, she threw up.

Then she resumed climbing. She reached the top of the stairs and stepped over the bodies. She walked down the corridor to Maggie’s bedroom, took one step inside, and called out, “Jud!” She crossed the hall to Lilly’s room, and again called to him. Again, she got no answer.

She returned to the head of the stairs. Even with the beast lying dead at her feet, she felt an icy reluctance to venture down the corridor to the other rooms. “Jud!” she yelled. “Where are you?”

When no answer came, she walked quickly down the narrow hall. She shoved aside two of the Brentwood chairs marking the future Ziegler exhibit. At the far end, she stepped into the room to her left. The flare cast fluttering light on the walls, the rocking horse, the twin beds, and the wax figures of Lilly Thorn’s slaughtered children. “Jud?” she asked quietly. Nothing in the room stirred.

Crossing the hall, she twisted the knob of the nursery door. When it didn’t give, she remembered Maggie saying it was always kept locked. She kicked it twice. “Jud?” Then she muttered, “Damn it.” She looked for a safe place to put the flare. Crouching, she propped it against the wall. The wallpaper began to blacken and curl. Standing, she unslung the rifle and shot through the crack where the lock tongue entered the jamb. She recocked it. Then she nudged the door with her shoulder. Feeling it give, she picked up the flare. She slung the rifle over her shoulder and shoved open the nursery door.

“Jud?” she called. She stepped into the room. Her flare lit an empty cradle, a playpen, a doll house nearly as high as her waist. It also lit buckets, a mop, three brooms, a carpet sweeper, and a table littered with sponges, rags, furniture wax, cleaning fluid, and window polish. Apparently, the nursery had been taken over by Axel for storage.

Donna backed out. She hurried through the corridor, past the Brentwood chairs, and stopped near the bodies. She gazed at the door to the attic. It stood wide. “Jud?” she called up the stairs.

She began climbing the stairs. They were very steep. The walls seemed close, as if they were pressing in on her. She hurried. Above her, the door stood open. She climbed to it, and hesitated before stepping inside. “Jud, are you in here? Jud?”

She ducked through the low doorway. In the circle of light cast by her flare, she saw a rocking chair, a pedestal table, several lamps, and a sofa. She stepped away from the door. Moving sideways, she squeezed between the table and sofa. Ahead stood a weaver’s loom. She skirted to the left of it, swung a leg over the high roll of a rug, and stumbled to keep from stepping on a hand. Catching herself against a chair, she whirled around, saw wild hair, wide-open eyes, torn shoulders and breasts.

Not Jud, thank God.

Mary Ziegler.

From ankle to hip, little except bones remained of Mary’s right leg. Donna turned away, doubled over, and vomited. Her stomach, already empty, kept convulsing, wracking her with pain. Finally, it stopped. She wiped the tears from her eyes and started back toward the door.

She stepped over the rolled rug. She pressed sideways between the table and the sofa. Then, just ahead of her, the door slammed shut.