“With his pistol ready, Joseph snuck out into the hallway. I stayed in bed and listened. The rain had stopped by then, and the house was real quiet. I heard Joseph’s footsteps out in the hall. But then he started to go downstairs. That’s when I figured I’d best not just lay there. So I climbed out of bed and went out into the hall. I didn’t much like the notion that me and the children were left alone, you see.”
“At this point,” Janice interrupted, “Maggie put away the pistol and led her group of tourists out of the bedroom and into the hall. She brought them to the top of the stairway, where you are now standing.”
Maggie’s voice returned.
“I was right here when gunshots came from downstairs. BOOM! BOOM! And then Joseph, he let out a scream fit to send shivers up a dead man. Lord, it turned my blood cold. But Joseph, he no sooner quit that awful scream than I heard feet thumping and scratching over the floor downstairs. They were bare feet. I could tell that from the sounds they made. And I could tell they had claws. It was the claws that made the scratching sounds.
“The sounds came from downstairs, but they were rushing closer. And I knew they didn’t belong to Joseph. I thought maybe a bear had got into the house. But I’ve never been so wrong.
“I was scared solid. I stood here at the top of the stairs and I wanted to scream and run down the hall and get the kids out, only I couldn’t move.
“Then the thing was on the stairs. I couldn’t see much of how it looked, on account of the dark, but I saw how it stood upright like a man. It made snorty, laughing noises and hurried up the stairs. I still couldn’t run off, much as I wanted to. And then it got to the top and leaped on me and threw me down on the floor.
“It ripped at me with its claws and teeth. I tried to fight it off, but I didn’t stand a chance. It was so much bigger than me, and stronger than any man I ever seen. I pretty much counted myself a dead person, but all of a sudden my little baby, Theodore, started crying in his nursery. The beast heard him, climbed off me and went scurrying down the hall. It was going after Theodore.
“I was all scratched and bit and bloody, but I got to my feet and chased after it. Had to save my baby.”
Janice’s voice returned. “Maggie now led her tour group down the hall to the closed, locked door of the nursery. It is Station Six...”
Monica clicked off her player, looked Owen in the eyes, and raised her eyebrows.
Owen continued to listen.
“...the last door on the right, directly across from the boys’ room. You may now turn off your tape players and resume listening when you reach the nursery’s open door.”
He shut off his player.
“Beat you again,” Monica said.
“Yes, you did.” He decided to leave it at that.
“So now we have to walk all the way back to the other end of the hall again?”
“Looks that way,” Owen said.
“How stupid is that?” Monica said. “We just came from there.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“What am I supposed to do, wait here?”
“It’s an option. Whatever you want.”
“This is all so incredibly lame. And perverted.”
“Well, I’m sorry. But you don’t have to go through with the rest of it.” Owen didn’t want to start anything, so he tried to sound pleasant and sympathetic. “You obviously aren’t enjoying any of this. Why not just call it quits? You could stop listening and go on outside and wait for me. I’ll be along pretty soon. We can meet out by the ticket booth, or something.”
“So then you can tell everyone what a party-pooper I am?”
“Huh? Tell who?”
“Oh, you know who. The usual suspects.”
“Huh?”
“Henry the Great, for instance. The fabulous Maureen. Jill, of course. And all the rest of your cronies.”
“My cronies? Jeez, Monica. They’re just my friends. Cronies? And I’d hardly go around announcing to the world that you ducked out of the Beast House tour. I mean, why would anyone care?”
“Oh, they’d care all right. It’d just give them one more reason to laugh at me behind my back.”
“Nobody laughs at you.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Anyway, I won’t tell a soul. Why don’t you just go ahead and wait outside? I don’t think there’s much left. I’ll be down in a few minutes and then we can go somewhere and have a nice lunch. How does that sound?”
Monica hoisted a single, thin eyebrow. “Trying to get rid of me?”
“No. Of course not.”
“So you can go sniffing around for that blonde?”
“Huh?”
“You know who I mean.”
“I just want to do the rest of the tour, that’s all.”
“Nobody’s stopping you,” Monica said.
“Fine. So, are you coming, or do you want to wait for me outside?”
She fixed her eyes on him. Beautiful, violet eyes. But they looked as if they could see into Owen—knew him and found him pitiful and amusing and comtemptible. After a few moments of silence, Monica said, “I believe I will wait outside, thank you. And I guess I know where I stand.”
Owen grimaced. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m in the way. So I’ll just go on outside, and you go on ahead and enjoy the tour.”
“Monica, for...”
“See you later. Maybe.” She cast him a mean twitch of a smile, then whirled away and trotted down the stairs.
Owen opened his mouth, then shut it. He felt sick inside as if he’d just caused an ugly accident.
It’s not my fault, he told himself.
Other people were climbing the stairs, but he watched Monica on her way down. She descended the stairs with haughty stiffness. Her pony tail, mounted high on the back of her head by the girlish pink bow, bounced and flipped like the tail of an arrogant dog. She didn’t look back at him.
If I don’t go after her...
She wants me to miss Beast House!
Or maybe I’m just supposed to beg her to come back so we can finish the tour together.
Who the hell knows?
I’m not going after her.
He watched Monica walk out the front door. Then, still feeling sick, he turned away and started walking down the hallway toward the nursery.
How could she do this to me? We spent all that time coming here, and now she wants me to miss it.
A fucking power play.
Well, I’m not going to play along. The bell with her and her stupid games.
Owen joined a small group that was gathered just outside the nursery door. The door was open, but a cordon was stretched across the entrance to keep people out. Peering between a couple of heads, he glimpsed an old rocking horse on the floor, a wooden chest, and a cradle.
He adjusted his earphones, then thumbed the Play button.
Janice’s voice said, “Maggie never allowed tourists to see the nursery. She always kept the door closed and locked. When I purchased the house, however, I brought in a locksmith.”
She knew how much I wanted to see this stuff. Why couldn’t she just go along with it?
“...in a jiffy, and we discovered that nothing had apparently been changed since the night when Theodore was killed.”