The Boogens

by Robert Weverka

  When you were a child they told you there was nothing to be afraid of. That noise in the dark was just your imagination. But as you hid under the covers, you knew something was there . . . watching, waiting for a chance to strike. Well, it’s really there . . . and you’re next.

  The

  Boogens

  A strange town is cloaked in a century-old mystery . . . an unspeakable horror too terrifying to be believed. Now the mystery explodes and the horrifying terror is unleashed again.

  You are alone . . . the house seems deathly still. And then . . . there is something moving in the basement.

  It could be nothing . . . just your imagination.

  Or this time, it could be . . . THE BOOGENS.

  “Sometimes a burrowing gopher or mole would venture too deeply below the ground and become suddenly confused by the maze of tunnels. Within moments it would hear the soft rustle of movement then the rapid raspy breathing of the hungry excited creatures. The orange luminescence of a dozen pair of eyes would become visible on all sides. Within seconds the animal would be shredded and devoured, the last spatterings of blood sucked clean from the dusty earth.”

  The old Summit mine was being reopened.

  A horror is set free by the very people who would be its victims.

  THE BOOGENS

  A Bantam Book / August 1981

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1981 by Taft International Pictures Inc.

  Cover art copyright © 1981 by Taft International Pictures Inc.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

  For information address: Bantam Books, Inc,

  ISBN 0-553-20209-X

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a bantam, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Preface

  Normally, they slept eighteen to twenty hours a day. In the permanent darkness, they formed huge masses of somnambulent bodies, stirring intermittently, the cavernous silence broken only by the soft rasp of breathing and an occasional snort or low-throated gurgle. They found food in the underground pools or by grubbing for whatever they could find in crevices or under rocks.

  Sometimes a burrowing gopher or mole would venture too deeply below the surface and would be devoured in a frenzied instant. Other times, a raccoon or beaver might find itself too far from home, suddenly confused and disoriented by the maze of tunnels and the total absence of light. Within moments it would hear the soft rustle of movement and the rapid breathing of hungry, excited creatures. And then the orange luminescence of a dozen pairs of eyes would become visible on all sides. Within seconds the animal would be shredded and devoured, the last spatterings of blood sucked clean from the dusty earth. And then the shadows would move off slowly into deeper tunnels, settling in one of the lower chambers, gurgling softly, curling around each other and drifting quietly back into their half-numbed sleep.

  During storms, the intermittent crackling and rumbling of thunder made them restless. At first they stirred uneasily, those on the outer fringe pressing closer, sometimes climbing over the others in an effort to escape the vibrations. As the thunder drew closer, they trembled and slithered from one side of the chamber to the other. Then they moved into one passageway or another, sliding over each other, fighting to escape into the narrower tunnels. If the storm continued, they grew frenzied. They gurgled and squealed and tangled themselves into slimy masses or scuttled off in all directions.

  When the storms passed, they gathered once again into mountainous lumps of slime, oozing yellow liquid over each other. Exhausted, their hunger pangs heightened by the frenzied activity, they fell into charged and fitful sleep.

  1

  Once he reached the eleven-thousand-foot Kramer Pass and the highway started down again, Ken Myer finally began to think he was going to make it. All the way up from Denver the old Pontiac had been sputtering and coughing and groaning like it was on its last wheel. But now, as if breathing a sigh of relief, it gathered speed and zipped smoothly down the highway.

  Not quite believing it yet, Ken held his breath and listened closely through the next half minute. Then he smiled easily and pushed his Massey-Ferguson hat a couple of inches higher on his forehead. He settled back and tried the radio again. For the past half hour the only station he had been able to get had been the one in Beaumont, Texas, with some preacher predicting the end of the world in the next forty-eight hours. The only way it could be saved, Ken gathered, was for all the preacher’s listeners to mortgage their houses, hurry down to the post office and send him the money. If nothing else, it showed a lot of faith in the efficiency of the postal system.

  Now he could get nothing but static. Not surprising, he supposed, at one o’clock in the morning. He turned off the radio and switched on his windshield wipers. For the past half hour there had been intermittent sprinkles. Now it was starting to come down steadily.

  He smiled as he straightened his back and pulled his shoulder blades together. He was going up to see the elephant again, and for some reason he felt good about it. The elephant was the name for the big white house the family owned up near the mining town of Summit. Thirty or forty years ago, when his father had inherited the place, he presumed it was called the white elephant. But over the years the name had been shortened.

  Ken’s great-grandfather Abner had built the place back in 1897, when he had been superintendent of the mine up there. The old man had died sometime in the twenties, and as far as Ken knew, none of the family had ever used it much since, Ken’s father had inherited the place in the early sixties, and then two years ago, when his father and mother had moved to California, his father had handed him the keys and the deed to the property. At least he had smiled when he did it. “Now you can pay the taxes for a while.”

  Ken tried to remember the last time he had been up there. It was at least four years ago—probably just after he graduated from high school. His dad had wanted to take a look at it, to see if it was still there, and if the roof might need patching. So they had spent one night in the ancient Summit Hotel, which wasn’t in much better shape than the house. In fact, nothing in the whole town of Summit was in much better shape than the house. Every building in the town was at least seventy-five years old. And from what Ken could see, the population consisted of only a dozen or so old prospectors sitting on the porches of broken-down houses. Their presence, along with a few barking dogs, was the only thing that kept Summit from being an authentic ghost town.

  It had been the arrival of the last tax bill that had prompted Ken to put an ad in the paper offering the place for rent. When a girl called him the day after the ad appeared, he could hardly believe it. He explained to her that the place was not a mountain cabin, but an ancient Victorian house almost eighty-five years old, but she seemed delighted with the idea. She had wanted it for three people, and they would be coming up some time tomorrow.

  So Ken had to make the long drive up there to turn on the heat and electricity and get the place ready. He just hoped it wasn’t too dirty and he wouldn’t have to do a massive housecleaning. But the odds were against him.

  He had gotten a much later start into the mountains than he had intended. He and a good friend, Mark Kinner, were planning to go over to the Gunnison River and do some fishing over the weekend; they had sat around Mark’s apartment making plans, drinking beer and telling each other fishing lies until well after ten o’clock. Ken hoped he could g
et the house ready, get some sleep and be back late in the afternoon to head out for Gunnison.

  He squinted closely at the road sign coming up. Bealton 6 miles, Summit 14 miles. He swung the car onto the narrow road and switched on the bright lights. The rain was coming down harder now, making it hard to see. But there wasn’t likely to be much traffic along here at this hour.

  The road dropped into an aspen-covered valley, and five minutes later he passed the turnoff for Bealton. Then the road wound down the side of a broad mountain and started climbing again. Ken glanced at the dashboard and groaned. Trouble again. Outside it was raining and the temperature was probably in the low forties. But his water gauge was right on the border of the danger zone.

  Christ, he muttered softly. That’s all he needed, to be stranded out in nowhere with no sign of any other traffic. The car sputtered and coughed a couple of times, but it kept on going.

  Through the last half mile of the upward grade, he gritted his teeth and said some prayers. The engine jumped and vibrated, and the needle crept well into the danger zone. But he made it to the crest of the hill.

  Summit was at the far end of the valley, in the mouth of a narrow canyon that climbed another five miles into the mountains. At the near end of the valley was a new development called Pineglen. The last time Ken had been up here, the bulldozers were tearing up the land and they were just starting to build a couple of big condominiums. Now there were about fifty of them and two or three ski-lifts on the mountains to the north.

  He could see the dim lights of some bars and dancehalls as he skirted the south side of town. But neither of the two gas stations he passed was open. And now that he was on flat ground, the car was running a little more smoothly. He glanced back at Pineglen and sighed. There was nothing more lonely than a remote little town on a rainy night.

  The road curved around the south side of the valley and then began the gradual climb toward Summit. Ken looked at the temperature gauge again and held his breath. It couldn’t go any higher; it was pushing against the top.

  Two minutes later, on a stretch of emptiness that was a mile short of Summit, the end came. The first indication was a sudden hissing sound under the hood. That was followed by a gasping from the engine, and then an explosion of steam that billowed out in all directions. The engine clunked heavily and then quit.

  “Damn,” Ken muttered. He kept the car in the middle of the road, coasting forward for another quarter of a mile. Then he eased it over to the grassy shoulder at the side and let it roll to a stop.

  He sighed and stared out at the rain for a minute, remembering what the mechanic had told him two weeks ago when he had found water in the oil. “Got a leaky head gasket, I’d say. Might go a couple thousand miles more, but I wouldn’t count on it.” Just another sharp mechanic trying to con somebody into a major overhaul job. But Ken had been too smart to fall for something like that. He’d fixed it up fine with a fifty-nine-cent can of Plugs-All—guaranteed for the life of the car. That was exactly how long it had lasted.

  He could walk to Summit easily enough, but there was not likely to be anyone there who could help him. And the house was two miles up the canyon past the town. There didn’t seem to be any choice.

  Before he had left Mark’s apartment he had made a couple of ham sandwiches and put them in his backpack. He took the pack out of the back seat now and zipped it up tight. Pulling the straps over his shoulders, he tightened his hat low over his face and stepped out into the rain. He locked the car, stuck his hands in his pockets and headed up the road.

  There was some kind of irony in the whole thing, he reflected. He was going to make some money by renting the elephant. But it was going to cost him three times as much to pay for the trip up here. Maybe he should have left well enough alone.

  The first thing he came to in Summit was a gas station, but it looked like it had been closed since the depression. He started to walk on, then paused and looked at the telephone booth on the corner. There wasn’t much chance of his getting back to Denver tomorrow afternoon. He ought to let Mark know. He stepped into the booth and called collect.

  “Your head gasket?” Mark said after Ken explained the situation. “Christ. Is there anyone up there who can fix something like that?”

  “I doubt it,” Ken said. “At least not very fast. It’s really disgusting the junk they put out in Detroit these days. That car’s only got a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it.”

  Mark laughed, but then got serious again. “What’re you gonna do?”

  “Well, my first inclination is to puncture a hole in the gas tank and throw a match under the car. But I guess I’ll hike up to the house and get it ready. Then first thing in the morning I’ll see if somebody can tow the car back to Pineglen. Then I can just leave it there and hitch a ride back to Denver. If I’m lucky maybe I’ll be there by four or five in the afternoon.”

  “Listen, if I didn’t have to work tomorrow, I’d come up and get you.”

  “Forget it. No problem.”

  “Okay, buddy. If you want me to pick you up somewhere when you get down, just give me a ring.”

  As he walked on, the only life Ken could see in Summit was a bare light bulb burning on the porch of the hotel. The rest of the place looked like it was totally abandoned. The last time he had been up here, there was a bar and a small general store operating. He remembered the store because his dad had tried to be friendly and strike up a conversation with the owner. All he got in return was a brooding stare and a few grunts—along with some unsolicited advice for them to stay away from the old mine shaft up by their house. The only thing the warning accomplished was to arouse their curiosity and send them over to the mine to have a look. But it was all boarded up, with another warning from the local sheriff in front.

  Colorado had dozens of towns like Summit, some of them completely abandoned, others, like Summit, still occupied by a few old diehard miners and prospectors. Still others were coming to life again now that gold and silver prices were so high.

  Once Ken was beyond the outskirts of town, the road narrowed to little more than a single lane of asphalt with thick stands of pine trees on both sides. In the solid darkness, only the brief flashes of lightning gave him any hint of where he was walking. A mile or so from town, the Hatcher Mine Road turnoff finally arrived. In a burst of lightning he spotted the crooked sign and started the long climb up the slippery mud. When he reached the fork where one of the roads turned off to the mine shaft, he knew he was halfway there. He took the road to the right and slogged on, thoroughly soaked now. He was either going to drown or die of pneumonia, he decided.

  He breathed a sigh of relief as the silhouette of the house finally showed against a flicker of distant lightning. It stood at the edge of a broad pad on the mountainside, its high-peaked roof and trimmings of gingerbread and latticework making it look like some kind of fairy-tale castle in an evil forest.

  He jogged the last hundred yards, then scrambled up the creaky stairway to the protection of the porch. As he unlocked the door and moved inside, lightning cracked somewhere in the woods above. The boom of thunder shuddered through the house, then rumbled its way higher into the canyon. He stood inside the door for a minute and caught his breath, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. It seemed even colder in the house than it was outside.

  The main electrical switch, as he recalled, was in a little cupboard just outside the back door. The gas inlet valve was in the basement next to the heater, and all the cleaning gear was in a kitchen closet. Electricity and gas first, he decided. Then maybe he could find some towels and dry himself off.

  He moved cautiously across the dark living room and through the kitchen. Outside the back door he found the cupboard with the fusebox and flipped the switch. When he returned to the kitchen and turned on the light, the refrigerator was already humming. He tossed his hat on the table, went into the living room and turned on a few lamps.

  The place didn’t look as dusty as he had feared. He smi
led with amusement as he looked around at the furniture. The two sofas with their lace antimacassars looked like something out of a silent movie. Next to them were two tasselled lamps, and at the far end of the room was an old roll-top desk. If nothing else, he could probably make a small fortune selling all the furnishings to an antique dealer.

  He switched on the hall light and opened the door to the basement. The light switch was on the wall at the side, but nothing happened as he flicked it up and down. He moved cautiously down the wooden steps, fumbling through his pockets for a book of matches. He made a mental note to search around and see if he could find a new light bulb after he got the furnace lit.

  At the bottom of the stairs he struck a match and looked around. The room, apparently gouged into the mountain, extended about fifteen feet toward the back of the house. The foundation walls were all rock, the flooring of heavy planks. The place was damp and musty and thick with cobwebs. One wall was piled high with cartons, and some old lumber was stacked at the other side.

  He struck another match and moved across to the heater. He found the gas line coming out near the bottom and followed it to a valve at the rear wall. Instead of a handle that could easily be turned, there was nothing more than a flat piece of metal with a hole in it extending from the valve. It was too tight to turn with his fingers.

  Damn, he thought. He would need a screwdriver or a pair of pliers. He struck another match and glanced around. Then he frowned and held his breath, listening.

  A strange gurgling sound was coming from somewhere beneath the planked floor. Running water? Or some kind of animal scratching at the planks? Rats? He felt a little sick. Last summer he had worked in a warehouse with rats the size of small dogs. He never had gotten accustomed to it.

  He struck another match and searched through his pockets. He must have something he could use to turn the damned gas valve. He brought out his keys and frowned at the largest one. It was the key to his apartment. He would probably ruin the thing. But he didn’t want to make another trip down here. He knelt close to the valve and struck another match. He jammed the narrow end of the key into the hole. Then he froze.