The Boogens Read online

  Victor nodded and slipped out from behind the wheel. From the trunk of the car he removed four five-gallon cans of gasoline. He carried two of them to the porch steps and returned for the other two. Opening the cans, he sloshed the gas around one side of the house and then the other. He brought the cans back to the trunk, tossing a lighted match into the dirt in front of the porch.

  A five-foot length of flame erupted in the rain. A moment later the flames raced to the sides of the house, and the entire base went up. Victor closed the trunk and slid behind the wheel again.

  “It won’t kill them all,” Blanchard said quietly, “but maybe it’ll drive them back into the mine for a while.”

  “I hope so, sir.”

  Blanchard fitted a cigarette into his holder as he watched the flames grow. A sickeningly sweet odor was now drifting down from the house, and the writhing tentacles could be glimpsed through the windows. Blanchard smiled coldly.

  God, how he hated those things. Every morning when he swung his shriveled legs out of bed, he had a painful reminder of the damage they could inflict. The ones that had attacked him had been no more than five or six inches across, but there had been dozens of them, all clamped to his legs and over his groin, their yellow poison eating into him.

  When Victor had finally found him in that mine shaft, Blanchard had been mercifully unconscious and as close to death as a man could get. And now he was an impotent cripple. He was lucky, the doctors in Denver had said. He was lucky that the upper part of his body had been buried in enough debris to keep the creatures from feasting on nothing more than his legs and genitals.

  That was the price he had paid for the gold. And that was the gold that Tolivar and Lucas wanted him to share with them, the gold that Tolivar suggested he might have to pay back to the owners of the Hatcher mine. He would be happy to give the gold back—or share it with anybody—if in return they could make his body whole again.

  Well, it didn’t matter now. The Boogens would soon be spilling out of every hole in that mountain. Blanchard didn’t care. He had sold his house and all his property in Pineglen; the papers had all been signed in Denver last night. He would be gone, and it didn’t matter to him if those monsters spilled out all the way down to Bealton or across the Rockies to Denver.

  “Shall we go, sir?” Victor asked.

  Blanchard nodded. “Don’t forget that car over by the mine entrance.”

  “No, sir,” Victor said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  As they moved quietly down the road, Blanchard peered off at the mountains to the west. It looked like the skies were clearing. A few shafts of sunlight were breaking through. It might turn out to be a nice day after all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  CHARLES E. SELLIER, JR. is President of the successful production and distribution company, Taft International Pictures, Inc. In addition to his executive responsibilities, Sellier performs as an on-line producer and writer for Taft Theatrical and Television projects.

  Sellier has authored such books as Hangar 18, The Lincoln Conspiracy, In Search of Historic Jesus, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and In Search of Noah’s Ark—all were followed by successful film productions produced by him. In his 19-year film-making career, he has also produced many other theatrical films including Beyond and Back, The Brothers O’Toole, The Bermuda Triangle, The Fall of the House of Usher, Mountainman, The Outer Space Connection, The Mysterious Monsters and Earthbound.

  Dividing his writing and theatrical film production activities with television programming production, Sellier, with typical enthusiasm, created and produced the Classics Illustrated series of two-hour special films for N.B.C. which included the classic stories, The Last of the Mohicans, The Time Machine, The Deerslayer and The Incredible Rocky Mountain Race. He has also produced and created the popular Grizzly Adams, Mark Twain’s America and Greatest Heroes of the Bible series.

  Sellier makes his home in the historic silver-mining town and now renowned skiing area of Park City, Utah in the rugged Wasatch mountain range.

  ROBERT WEVERKA was born in Los Angeles, California, and attended the University of Southern California, where he received a B.A. degree in economics. Until 1969, he was president of a Beverly Hills advertising agency, Weverka & Associates, Inc. With the publication of his first novel, One Minute to Eternity (acclaimed the best suspense thriller of the year), he moved to the mountain community of Idyllwild, California, to devote full time to writing. Since then he has authored seventeen novels and numerous scripts. Among his other novels are The Sting, The Waltons, Sherlock Holmes—Murder by Decree, March or Die, Hangar 18 and The Magic of Lassie.

  For the past two years, he and his wife Ethel have made their home in Hemet, California. Their five children are all in college: two sons and a daughter at the University of California, a son at Cal Tech and a son at the University of Madrid.

  Table of Contents

  Back Cover

  Preview

  Titlepage

  Copyright

  THE BOOGENS

  Preface

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS