Read Online The Cellar by Richard Laymon - Free Book Online Page A

on the tour.”
    “Can we?” she asked, delighted.
    “Shoulder to shoulder, we’ll confront the awful beast.”
    “I’ll smash it with my purse,” Sandy said.
    As she approached the line at the gate, Donnasaw the man turn casually to his nervous friend and start talking.
    “Look.” Sandy pointed at a wooden clockface near the top of the ticket booth. The sign above it read, “Next tour departs at,” and the clock indicated ten. “What time is it now?”
    “Almost ten,” Donna said.
    “Can we do it?”
    “All right. Let’s get in line.”
    They stepped behind the last person in line, a pudgy teenage boy whose hands were folded judiciously across his belly. Without moving his feet, he swiveled enough to cast a critical eye at Donna and Sandy. He made a quiet “Humph,” as if insulted by their presence, and swung his shoulders toward the front.
    “What’s his problem?” Sandy whispered.
    “Shhhh.”
    Waiting, Donna counted fourteen people in line. Though eight seemed to be children, she only saw two who might qualify for the “children under twelve” discount. If none of the others had complimentary tickets, she figured the tour would net fifty-two dollars.
    Not too shabby, she thought.
    The man from the cafe was three from the front.
    A young couple with two blond girls stepped up to the ticket booth.
    “That makes sixty-four,” Donna said.
    “What?”
    “Dollars.”
    “What time is it?”
    “Two minutes to go.”
    “I hate waiting.”
    “Look at the people.”
    “What for?”
    “They’re interesting.”
    Sandy looked up at her mother. Even with sunglasses hiding most of her face, Sandy’s skepticism was obvious. But she sidestepped out of line to check the people more closely.
    “Fiends!” someone shrieked from behind. “Ghouls!”
    Donna swung around. Crouched in the middle of the street, a thin pale woman pointed at her, at Sandy—at all of them. The woman was no older than thirty. She had the trim, short hair of a boy. Her sleeveless yellow dress was wrinkled and stained. Dirt streaked her white legs. Her feet were bare.
    “You and you and you!” she screeched. “Ghouls! Grave sniffers! Vampires, all of you, sucking the blood of the dead!”
    The ticket-booth door slammed open. A man ran out, his gaunt face scarlet. “Outta here, damn you!”
    “Maggots!” she shouted. “All of you, maggots, paying to see such filth. Vultures! Cowards!”
    The man jerked his wide leather belt free of its loops, and doubled it. “I’m warning you!”
    “Corpse fuckers!”
    “That about does it,” he muttered.
    The woman scampered backward as the man rushed her, belt high and ready. Stumbling, she fell hard onto the pavement. “Go ahead, maggot! The ghouls love it! Look at ’em gawk. Give ’em blood! That’s what they’re here for!” Rising to her knees, she ripped open the front of her dress. Her breasts were huge for a woman so small. They swung over her belly like ripe sacks. “Give ’em a show! Give ’em blood! Tear my flesh! That’s what they love!”
    He raised the belt overhead, ready to bring it down.
    “Don’t.” The word shot out, quick and sharp.
    The man looked around.
    Turning, Donna saw the man from the cafe step out of the line. He walked forward.
    “You just stay put, bud.”
    He kept walking.
    “We don’t have need of interference.”
    He said nothing to the man with the belt, but walked past him to the woman. He helped her to her feet. He lifted the dress, covering her shoulders, and pulled it gently shut in front. With a shaking hand, the woman held the torn edges together.
    He spoke quietly to her. She thrust herself against him, kissed him wildly on the mouth, and sprang away. “Run! Run for your lives!” she yelled. “Run for your souls!” And then she dashed away down the street.
    A few people in the crowd laughed. Someonemumbled that the madwoman was part of the show. Others disagreed. The man from the cafe came back and stood silently beside his