The Midnight Tour

Dana grinned and said, “Sure.”

“No, it’s the truth. We came here on vacation when I was a kid. I think I was probably about six years old.” ,

'Six? What year would that’ve been?”

He frowned. “Eighty-one? Let’s see. I’m twenty-two now, so if I was six then...that’d make it sixteen years ago and this is ninety-seven, so...”

'Yeah,” Dana said. “That’d make it eighty-one. A year after The Horror was published.”

“You’re right! Turns out, my mom was crazy about that book. That’s why we came up here. She couldn’t wait to take the tour. So it was summer vacation, and Dad had two weeks off and he drove us all the way up from Santa Monica...”

“Thirteenth Street.”

'Right. I’ll never forget that trip. We came up the coast highway and stopped at some motel in Carmel. That made no impression at all, but then we stayed two nights in Boleta Bay and spent one whole day at Funland. I thought that was great.”

“Cool place,” Dana said.

“I loved it. I never wanted to leave. They had to drag me away in tears. But the next day we drove straight through San Francisco without even stopping, and ended up here. The minute I saw Beast House...1 didn’t even know anything about the place. But I just...felt as if I’d been looking for it my whole life...”

“All six years.”

“Yeah. I know, it sounds weird. It felt weird. I felt as if I’d arrived home. Almost as if I’d lived here before and forgotten about it.”

“That is a bit odd,” Dana said.

“Maybe in a past life...”

“Do you believe in that stuff?”

“Not really,” Warren said. “But I have no idea why I had such a strong affinity for the place.”

“Maybe it reminded you of some other house.”

“That’s possible. I don’t know. But it gets stranger. The next day, we went on the tour.”

“That’s pretty heavy stuff for a six year old.”

“I loved it. But the odd part was, I felt like I’d been in the house before. I knew the layout.”

A chill crept up Dana’s spine.

“The hallways and rooms...they were all familiar to me. I even knew which door led to the attic and where to find the entrance to the cellar.”

Dana muttered, “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. Afraid not.”

“That’s creepy.”

“It didn’t seem creepy to me. Not at the time, anyway. Mind if I have a fry?”

“Help yourself, Spike.”

He smiled and reached over and took one of Dana’s Beastly Chili Fries. Heavily laden with chili and melted cheese, it drooped on the way to his mouth. Some glop fell off, but he caught it with his other hand.

“Slob,” Dana said.

He poked the fry into his mouth, then ate the fallen chili and cheese out of his palm.

“What did your parents think?” she asked.

“I didn’t make a big deal out of it.” Warren wiped his face with a napkin. “I just asked if we’d ever been here before, and they said no, so I let it drop. But I do remember that I begged and begged to go on the tour again. Dad wanted no part of that, but Mom sort of wanted a second look, herself. So Dad and my brother took off. I think they went to the beach, and Mom and I went on the tour again. The details are kind of fuzzy. But I’ve always remembered it as one of the best days of my life. And I always wanted to come back.”

“Looks like you made it.”

“Yep. The year I turned eighteen, it was adios to the People’s Republic, hello to Malcasa Point.”

“And you’ve been working here at the snack shop the whole time?”

“Well, I started as a guide.”

“And moved on to bigger and better things?”

He smiled. “Something like that.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Uh-oh, break’s over.” He sucked on his straw for a while, then got to his feet. “It was really nice talking to you, Dana.”

“Same here.”

“See you around, okay?”

'Sure.”

Turning away, he tossed his cardboard container into a nearby trash barrel. Then he smiled over his shoulder and headed for the snack stand. He wore the tan shirt and shorts of a guide. They were faded like Tuck’s. He seemed to be carrying his wallet in the left rear pocket of his shorts. It made a flat bulge. The pocket on the other side appeared to be empty. Its flap was buttoned down, and the fabric curved smoothly over his buttock. His legs looked strong and tanned. His socks were very white. His brown leather hiking boots looked dusty and scuffed as if they’d been on plenty of trails.

After he was gone, Dana took another bite out of her Red-Hot Beastie Weenie. It was no longer very hot, but it still tasted good.

It tasted just fine.

It was perhaps the best-tasting hot dog she’d ever sunk her teeth into.

I’m afraid we don’t serve hot dogs here.

Oh, man.

Take it easy, she warned herself. You don’t even know the guy. Maybe he’s some kind of kook.

There’s gotta be something wrong with him. You don’t just run into a guy like him out of the blue and it turns out that he’s as fine as he seems to be.

He didn’t have any rings on his fingers.

But maybe he’s going with someone.

Or gay.

Or dying of some horrible, incurable malady.

Or insane.

He did seem to have some rather odd and spooky notions about Beast House.

Won’t hold that against him.

I’d like to hold myself against him.

She set down her wiener and started to work on the fries and smiled remembering how Warren’s fry had bombed his hand.

Chapter Fourteen

SANDY’S STORY—August, 1980

Lib continued to sleep and snore while Sandy drove north on Pacific Coast Highway. Eric, in his basket behind the passenger seat, was probably snoring, too. Sandy couldn’t hear him, though. Too much noise came from the night air rushing in through the broken windshield, from the heater blowing full blast, from the car’s engine and from Lib’s snoring.

Every once in a while, another vehicle came along. Some approached from the rear, others from the