The Midnight Tour

He nodded.

“How come?”

He shrugged, then took a drink. “The place suddenly got to me.”

“Got to you how?”

“Just... realizing that all those people had really died in there. That it wasn’t make-believe. I’d always thought of the place as...like a carnival funhouse. But then it all turned real in my head and I couldn’t stand to be inside it anymore.”

“What made that happen?”

He shrugged again. “Just happened,” he muttered. After another sip of margarita, he said, “Anyway, Janice didn’t want to lose me, so she offered me the snack stand.”

“She gave it to you?”

“It pretty much amounts to that. She gets a small percentage of the profits.”

“But you actually own it?”

“Right.”

“That’s pretty cool.” Dana sipped her margarita. Then she reached over and put a hand on his back. She moved it lightly, sliding the silk fabric against his skin. “So,” she said. “Now that I know you’re a big, successful business man, tell me your deepest, darkest secret.”

She couldn’t believe she’d asked.

“Do I have a deep, dark secret?” he asked.

“Oh, I bet you do.”

And maybe it’ll tell me why you stopped things in the kitchen. Any normal guy...

“What makes you think so?”

“Everybody has at least one deep, dark secret,” she said. “I want to know yours.” Her hand continued to roam his back.

“What’s yours?” he asked.

“I asked you first.”

“I wonder if the fire’s still going.”

Dana saw no flames, but that was normal. Warren stepped away from her and lowered an open hand close to the grill. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

“I’ll tell you mine,” she said.

He turned to face her, but stayed near the fireplace. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to. I want you to know me. Do you want to know me?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have to tell you my deepest, darkest secret.” Her heart was pounding fast. Her voice sounded as if it were coming from someone else.

“You don’t have to. You’re not completely sober.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Tomorrow, you might wish you hadn’t said anything.”

“No. I’ll tell you mine and you tell me yours.”

“I’m not sure this is such a great idea, Dana.”

“Hey,” she said. “After I tell you the worst, it’ll all be uphill. Everything about me’ll be better. Know what I mean?”

“I think you should wait till some other time.”

“No. Now’s...”

“I don’t even know your favorite color yet, and you wanta tell me...”

“Blue. Royal blue.”

“What’s your favorite song?”

“When I was fifteen, I had this terrible crush on my English teacher. Mr. Johnson. I I guess he was about thirty, and...”

“Don’t tell me this now. You’re half drunk, and...”

“Mr. Johnson had a wife.”

“I got attacked in Beast House,” Warren said.

“What?”

“About two years ago.”

“Oh, my God!”

She hadn’t expected this.

“How?” she asked. “What happened?”

He drank his glass empty and set it down on the fireplace.

“If I tell you, you’ve got to keep it a secret. You can’t tell anyone. Not even Lynn. Do you promise?”

This is serious.

“I promise,” Dana said. “But you don’t have to tell me.”

“Now you tell me.”

She smiled and almost sobbed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to force you into...”

“It’s all right. I’d have to tell you sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.”

“Are you sure?”

Nodding, he said, “What happened, we came up a couple of tape players short at closing time. Janice and I did a search of the house, but we couldn’t find anyone. She was pretty upset about it. We’d been having a lot of trouble with that sort of thing. Players missing. People staying overnight. Vandalism. I figured, this time, they wouldn’t get away with it. So I went in by myself at around midnight. Didn’t tell anyone. I just snuck in, figuring I’d probably catch a couple of teenagers, scare the hell out of them, then make them clean up whatever mess they’d made and throw them out.

“But I couldn’t find anyone. What I did find ... You know the iron door down in the cellar?”

“Yeah.” Dana lifted her glass and noticed it was empty.

“Can I get you a refill?”

“No. Thanks. What about the door?”

“You know how it’s always padlocked from the Kutch side?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the padlock was off. It was down on the tunnel floor, and the door was ajar.”

“Jeez.”

“What I thought was, maybe these jokers had reached through the bars and picked the lock so they could go through the tunnel.”

“Pay a visit to old lady Kutch?”

“You bet. Everybody wants to see what it’s like inside her house.”

“Including you.”

“I used to,” Warren said. “And that night was my big chance. It was perfect. The lock was already off. I had a responsibility to find the intruders. They’d given me a great excuse in case I ran into Agnes at the other end.”

“And you did it? You went through the tunnel?”

“I never got the chance. I opened the door a little wider and bent down to pick up the lock, and...I guess I hadn’t been exactly alone down there. I got jumped.”

He unbuttoned his bright silk shirt and took it off.

Dana stared at the scars on his shoulders.

He turned around.

“My God,” Dana murmured.

The nape of his neck, his shoulders, his upper back...a tangle of scars as if he’d been mauled by a pack of raging cats.

He turned to face her again. Looking miserable, he said, “That’s why I...stopped things in the kitchen. You