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

friend in the line.
    “Okay, folks!” called the ticket man. He walked toward them, threading his belt through its loops. “We ’pologize for the delay, though I’m sure we can all appreciate the gal’s dilemma. Three weeks back, the beast took her husband and only child, tore ’em to ribbons. The experience unhinged the poor gal. She’s been hangin’ around here the past couple days, since we started doin’ the tours again. But now here’s another woman, a woman who passed through the purifyin’ fire of tragedy, and came out the better for it. This woman’s the owner of Beast House, and your personal guide for today’s tour.” With a grand, sweeping gesture, he led the eyes of the crowd toward the lawn of Beast House where a stooped, heavy woman hobbled toward them.
    “Do you still want to do it?” Donna asked.
    Sandy shrugged. Her face was pale. She had obviously been shocked by the hysterical woman. “Yeah,” she said, “I guess so.”

C HAPTER S IX
1.
    They passed through the turnstile, and gathered on the lawn in front of the old woman. She waited, ebony cane planted close to the side of her right foot, her flowered dress blowing lightly against her legs. In spite of the day’s warmth, she wore a green silken scarf around her neck. She fingered the scarf briefly, then spoke.
    “Welcome to Beast House.” She said it reverently, in a low, husky voice. “My name’s Maggie Kutch, and I own it. I began showing the house to visitors way back in ’31, shortly after tragedy took the lives of my husband and three children. You may be asking yourselves why a woman’d want to take people through her home that was a scene of such personal grief. The answer’s easy: m-o-n-e-y.”
    Quiet laughter stirred through the group. She smiled pleasantly, turned, and limped up the walkway. At the foot of the porch stairs, she wrapped a spotted hand over the newel post and pointed upward with the tip of her cane.
    “Here’s where they strung up poor Gus Goucher. He was eighteen at the time, and on his way to San Francisco to join his brother working at the Sutro Baths. He stopped here on the afternoon of August 2, 1903, and split firewood for Lilly Thorn, the original owner of the house. She fed him a meal in payment, and Gus was on his way. That very night, the beast struck for the first time. No one, but only Lilly, lived through the attack. She ran into the street screaming as if she’d met the devil himself.
    “Right away, the town got up a posse. It searched the house from cellar to attic, but no living thing was found. Only the torn, chewed bodies of Lilly’s sister and two little boys. The posse tromped through the wooded hillside yonder and found young Gus Goucher fast asleep.
    “Well, some of the townspeople recalled seeing him by the Thorn place that afternoon, and figured this was their man. They gave him a trial. Weren’t no witnesses with everybody dead but Lilly, and her raving. They judged him guilty quick enough, though. A mob broke him outta the old jail, that night. They dragged the poor lad to this very spot, whipped a rope over the balcony post up there, and hoisted him.
    “Course, Gus Goucher didn’t kill no one. It was the beast done it. Let’s go in.”
    They climbed six wooden stairs to the covered porch.
    “You can see this is a new door, here. The original got shot up, three weeks back. You probably saw it on the news. One of our local police shotgunned the door to get inside. He’d of been better off, course, staying out.”
    “Tell me,” asked the critical boy, “how did the Zieglers get inside?”
    “They got in like thieves. They broke a window out back.”
    “Thank you.” He cast a smile toward the rest of the group, apparently pleased with the service he’d performed.
    “Our police,” Maggie Kutch continued, “spoiled an antique lock we had on the door here. But we did preserve the hinges and the knocker.” She tapped the brass knocker with her cane. “It’s