The Midnight Tour

Nobody in the hallway.

Through the roaring in her own head, Sandy realized that the scream had stopped.

She lurched to a halt at the bathroom’s open door.

The wet cloth unpeeled itself from her belly, tumbled, brushed her left thigh and fell to the floor.

The shower curtain was shut. She couldn’t see through it. So she raced across the floor and threw it wide open.

Lib was standing in the shower stall, feet wide apart, knees bent, clutching Eric with both hands as if she’d braced herself and caught him in mid-leap.

She was breathing hard.

Water still sprayed from the shower nozzle.

Lib’s naked body was smudged with bruises. Bruises the size of a fist. The size of an open hand. The size of a knee. Others the size of a bite, a pinch. Brown ones, purple ones, green ones, yellow ones.

She’d been beaten up plenty, over a long period of time.

Tonight must’ve been once too often.

Eyes fixed on Eric, she didn’t look at Sandy.

After a while, she drew Eric in against her chest. As she cradled him, her eyes met Sandy’s. “What is he?” she asked, her voice soft.

“My kld.”

“Yer pet?”

“My baby. I’m his mother.”

“No poolin’?”

“No fooling.”

“Well, I’ll be.” Shaking her head, Lib gently stroked Eric’s back. “Sorry. I screamed like dat. Da little shit scampered in, ya know, and scared da hell outa me.”

Nodding, Sandy lowered the revolver. “Don’t call him a little shit,” she said.

“What’s his name?”

“Eric.”

“Hiya, Eric. I’m Lib. Dat’s short for Libby.” To Sandy, she said, “Can he talk?”

“No.”

“He’s sure an ugly little pucker. What’d his dad look like?”

The same as him. And he isn’t ugly.”

“Cute-ugly.”

“That’s better.”

“Is he human?”

“Sort of.”

“Looks like he’s part sometin’ else. Like a bald monkey, or da creature prum da Black Lagoon or sometin’. But cute. Cute as a button.” To Eric, she said in baby talk, “Yes, you are.”

Then she kissed his forehead.

“You can’t tell anyone about him,” Sandy said. “He’s my secret. And now he’s your secret. He’s the last of his kind—at least I think . he is—rand they’ll kill him if they ever find him.”

“Who? Who’d wanta kill him?”

“Damn near everyone. To them, he’s a monster. A beast.”

Lib’s eyes widened. “Is he one ob dem Beast House beasts?”

“His father was.”

“Holy smokin’ Jesus. Ya tellin’ me dey’re real? I always piggered dey was made up. Like Martians, ya know? Or werewoops or sometin’.”

“They’re real. You’re holding one.”

Shaking her head slowly, Lib eased Eric away and lifted him in front of her face. “Look at ya,” she said to him in a gentle, lilting voice. “Just look at ya. Wowy, wowy. I sure wish I’d known yer old man.”

“Do you promise not to tell on us?” Sandy asked.

“Sure. Cross my heart an’ hope to die.”

“If you tell, you will die. I’ll see to it.”

“We’ll be a pamily, da tree ob us.”

Pocketing the revolver, Sandy stepped over to the shower stall. She reached out for Eric. Lib passed the child gently into her hands. “See ya later, baby,” she said.

Sandy saw tears in the woman’s eyes.

“Are you all right?”

“Nebber had me no pamily bepore.”

Feeling a tightness in her throat, Sandy smiled at Lib and said, “I don’t know if we’re quite a family yet, but I reckon we’re partners.”

“Pards.” Lib sniffed, then reached out and squeezed Sandy’s shoulder. “Pards to da end.”

Chapter Ten

THE DAY TOUR II

After the brilliant sunlight, the gloom inside Beast House made Owen feel as if he’d stepped into a dark closet. He took off his sunglasses. That helped.

“Good morning,” said a guide who was waiting inside the doorway. The nameplate on the front of her tan shirt read SHARON. Blonde, blue-eyed, slender and deeply tanned, she was the best-looking guide so far. “Station Number Two is just inside the parlor there, but feel free to wander anywhere.”

“Thanks,” Owen said.

As they crossed the foyer, he noticed people starting up the stairway and others wandering into a narrow corridor beside the stairs. A couple came out of the parlor. He recognized them from the group in front of the porch. He thought they’d been on the bus, too, but wasn’t sure. They didn’t act as if they recognized him or Monica.

Which didn’t surprise him.

Put a set of earphones on someone, he’d noticed, and the rest of the world pretty much disappears. Everything goes away except the sounds inside the person’s head.

In the parlor, Owen found half a dozen people standing near a plush red cordon, gazing at the body on the floor. He couldn’t find a sign to confirm that this was the second station of the tour; maybe someone was standing in front of it. But Janice on the tape and Sharon had directed them here. Also, some of the tourists looked like those who’d been gathered near the porch stairs.

Monica didn’t seem to be in doubt. She thumbed her cassette player into action. Owen went ahead and turned his on.

“Welcome to Station Two,” said Janice’s voice. “You should be in the parlor, where Ethel Hughes was the first to die on the night of August 2, 1903. That’s her body, stretched out on the floor beside the couch.”

Owen stared at the wax figure. It was sprawled on the floor, one leg up, its foot still resting on the seat cushion of the couch. There was terror on Ethel’s face. She looked as if she’d died in the midst of a scream. Her white gown was bloodstained and shredded. Its tatters hung down her body, showing skin that had been savagely torn by claws and teeth.

Owen was surprised by the near nudity of the figure. The way the gown was ripped, Ethel’s breasts were bare except for the nipples. Her hips and legs were exposed. Only a few dangling strips of white cloth saved her from being completely naked below her waist.

“Ethel was the sister of Lilly Thorn.” Owen heard Janice saying through his earphones. “She actually lived in Portland, Oregon.

“Earlier that summer, Lilly had sent her children away to stay with Ethel, so that she could be alone in the house. She’d apparently wanted privacy in order to indulge in certain adult behaviors that are beyond the scope of our tour.”

After a brief pause, Janice’s voice continued. “On about June 29, Ethel returned to the Thorn house with Lilly’s two children. She then stayed on, possibly planning to attend Lilly’s wedding to the local doctor. Here’s Maggie to tell you about it.

“‘Ethel Hughes, Lilly’s sister, was in this very room on the night of August the second, 1903. She’d come down for Lilly’s wedding, which would’ve been the next week if tragedy hadn’t suddenly struck down their plans. Tragedy being the beast. Nobody knows how it got into the house, or where it come from. But it snuck up behind the couch and took Ethel unawares while she was busy reading her Saturday Evening Post. It jumped her and ripped her up till she looked just like you see her—all torn and dead.”

Janice’s voice returned. “The Post that Ethel was reading at the time of the attack was found on the floor near her body, exactly where you now see a later issue of the same magazine. The original Post stayed here in the parlor for many years while Maggie ran the tours. For the sake of preserving it, however, it has been moved to the Beast House Museum. The gown worn by Ethel is also on display at the museum. What you see here is an exact duplicate of the original, identical down to every rip and blood stain.

“This is the original figure of Ethel Hughes, created in wax by Mssr Claude Dubois in 1936. The work was commissioned by Maggie Kutch. When placing the order for this and the figures of the two boys that you’ll see upstairs, Maggie included photographs of the murder scenes, plus morgue photos of the corpses. She asked that the positions of the bodies, and all the injuries, be recreated with complete accuracy of detail.

“Generations of visitors from all over the world have stood where you are now standing and gazed down at this very replica of Ethel’s ravaged body. This mannequin has also been seen in several popular films of The Horror series, which were based—sometimes very loosely—on my books about Beast House.

“Before we go on to the next station, I’d like to point out that the information we’re presenting in this tour is based almost entirely on the tours given by Maggie Kutch from 1932 to 1979. Now, Maggie didn’t always tell the truth—far from it. She knew much more than she ever told. When I bought this place, I made the decision to stay with Maggie’s version for a couple of reasons. First, even though it’s full of lies, it is the authentic Beast House tour. I wanted to give you, and all our visitors, a taste of how it might’ve been, many years ago, to be guided through the house by the woman who created the attraction in the first place. Second, the actual truth about Beast House isn’t suitable for family entertainment. If you want to know the actual, true details of the history of Beast House, you’ll find it in my books or on the Midnight Tour.

“And now, a few more words from Maggie. When she’s finished, it’ll be time to turn off your recorders and proceed to Station Three at the top of the stairway.

“‘After the beast got done murdering Ethel,‘” Maggie said, “‘it went on a rampage around the room. It knocked over this bust of Caesar, breaking off his nose. See, there’s his nose on the mantle.”‘Owen spotted the nose. Though it was out of reach beyond the cordon, it looked dirty, as if it had been handled too often by people with grimy fingers. He was surprised that nobody had stolen it.

“‘The beast just run amok for a while, dashing some figurines in the fireplace, turning over chairs. See this rosewood pedestal table? The beast threw it out the bay window over there. Must’ve made a mighty loud noise, all that glass getting smashed to smithereens.

“‘I reckon the racket likely woke up everybody in the house. Lilly’s room was right above us. Maybe she got out of bed, and the beast heard her. It scooted out of here and went running for the stain.’”

Owen heard a click as Monica hit the Stop button of her player. His own player hissed quietly for a moment before he shut it off.

He and Monica had eased their way closer and closer to the cordon as those ahead of them finished listening and wandered off. Now, they stood at the rope.

Owen had been able to see Ethel all along, but this was as near to her as he could hope to get. Without stepping over the cordon.

He stared at her.

And tried to imagine her real. Tried, in his mind, to transform her like Pygmalion or Pinnochio into a human with soft, smooth skin.

But he couldn’t make it happen.

Too many distractions. The other people in the room, especially Monica. And how Ethel’s gown barely covered her.

Owen wished a breeze would come along and blow some of those tatters aside.

Instead of making Ethel turn real in his mind, he pictured himself climbing over the cordon, kneeling over her, and peeking underneath the loose shreds of her gown.

Get off it, he told himself. She’s a dummy.

Even so...

Monica nudged him with her elbow and whispered, “Let’s go, Owie.”

He followed her to the door. They stepped aside to make room for a couple of people trying to come in, then headed for the stairway.

Sharon, some distance away, was greeting new visitors. She had her back to Owen and Monica. Her blond hair hung down in a thick braid.

“That was certainly tacky,” Monica said.

“What was?”

“What do you think? Ethel. Good God. I didn’t know this was going to be a peepshow. No wonder you were so eager to come here.”

They started to climb the stairs.

“Nothing you couldn’t see on any beach,” Owen pointed out.

“In France, maybe.”

“Anyway, she’s just a dummy.”

“It’s pretty funny, they give all that lip service about keeping the dirty stuff out of the tour, then they show us something like that.”

“I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“You wouldn’t.”

At the top of the stairs, a sign on the wall read Station Three. “Here we go again,” Monica muttered, starting her player.

Owen thumbed down the Play button on his machine, and heard Janice’s voice.

“After finishing its brutal attack on Ethel, the beast ran out of the parlor and scurried up the stairs, leaving a trail of blood to mark his way. Ethel’s blood. Look down, and you’ll see stains on the floor. They’ve been copied from crime scene photos, and match the stains found on the hardwood floor the night of murder. Follow them to Lilly’s bedroom and listen to what Maggie had to say.”

Monica, head down, followed the red stains. Owen walked behind her. His tape hissed, wordless for the few seconds that it took to reach the doorway of a bedroom.

“‘We’re just above the parlor here,’” Maggie explained. “This is Lilly Thorn’s bedroom. That’s her on the bed.’”

He entered the room behind Monica.

Only a few tourists were here. They were scattered along the length of the cordon, so Owen had a fine view of the bed.

Sitting upright on it was the figure of a young woman dressed in a pink nightgown. Eyes wide, mouth agape, hand to her mouth, she looked to Owen like a star of the silent screen demonstrating terror.

“‘All that commotion from downstairs woke Lilly up,‘” Maggie continued. “‘She must’ve known something mighty awful was going on. Must’ve known she and her boys were in danger. But instead of running to save the kids, she climbed out of bed and shut her door. See that dressing table there? She dragged it over in front of the door so the intruder couldn’t barge in. Then she climbed out her window. It would’ve been a long fall to the ground, but there’s a bay window just below this one, and she dropped down on top of it. From there, it was an easy jump. She landed on her lawn and run away into the night.’

“Lilly made good her escape,” Janice said, her smooth voice replacing Maggie’s gruffness. “She escaped with her life, but not with her sanity. The wax figure that you see on the bed, done by Dubois, was based on a photograph that had been taken of Lilly at the time of her marriage to Lyle Thom, the outlaw, several years earlier. This nightgown is an exact replica of the one she...”

“And the original can be found at the Beast House Museum,” Monica said in a sing-song, mocking voice that interferred with whatever Janice was saying on Owen’s tape.

She pushed her Stop button.

Owen frowned at her.

He looked around. Though some people were entering the room, nobody stood nearby. Monica’s mimickry had probably disturbed nobody but Owen.

“Cut it out,” he whispered.

She flashed her teeth at him.

Owen stopped his machine. He studied it, found the Rewind button, and pressed it.

“You’re not going back?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“That was the end.”

“I wasn’t to the end yet when you interrupted. You made me miss stuff.”

She rolled her eyes and muttered, “You’re kidding.”

Owen thumbed Play. Maggie said, “‘from downstairs woke Lilly up. She must’ve known something mighty awful was going on.’”

He’d rewound way too far.

As Maggie went on, he thought about hitting the fast-forward.

Don’t, he told himself. Just listen to it all again. So what if it takes a while? Monica can just wait. She should’ve kept her mouth shut.

He met her eyes.

She frowned.

“I rewound too far,” he explained.

“Good going.”

“This may take a minute.”

“Wonderful.”

“Shhhh. I’m trying to listen.”

“Cute move.”

“You don’t have to wait for me.”

“You can really be a pain sometimes, do you know that?”

“You’re going to make me miss stuff again. Then I’ll have to rewind.”

She clamped her lips shut and glared at him.

Owen wished she would leave. He wanted to concentrate on the tour without any distractions—especially without the negative distractions provided by Monica. She was ruining it for him.

His tape reached the part that he’d missed.

As Monica had already told him, the original nightgown worn by Lilly on the night of the attack was on display at the Beast House museum.

“You may now go down the hallway, and resume listening when you come to Station Four.”

He stopped the tape.

“All done?” Monica asked.

“Yep.”

“You’re sure you didn’t miss a single precious word?”

“I think that’ll do it.”

This time, he led the way. Though he walked slowly toward the door, he didn’t look back to make sure that Monica was staying with him. It made him feel rude, but he didn’t care.

If it offended her, good. For years, he’d been looking forward to Beast House. Now he was finally here, but Monica wouldn’t let him enjoy it.

Big mistake.

And she thinks I’m actually going to marry her?

When hell freezes over

He waited just inside the doorway while a family with three kids made their way into Lilly’s bedroom. Everyone in the family wore earphones. Even their girl, who appeared to be about eight years old.

It didn’t seem right, bringing a kid that age into a place like this.

People are so damn queer, he thought.

But what’s really the harm? If the kid ever lays her eyes on the TV news, she’ll see a lot worse than this.

When the door was clear, Owen moved into the hallway and stepped aside to avoid a man carrying an infant

The baby didn’t wear earphones. Owen smiled.

For just a moment, he pictured a kid of his own—but it was a girl and it looked like Monica.

No way, he thought.

My God, she could be pregnant right now for all I know! Who’s to say she isn’t? Condoms leak.

He wished he could simply close his eyes and make a wish and Monica would be gone...

“Oh, there’s nothing much to see up there, anyway. But the attic isn’t particularly safe. That’s why we don’t allow anyone up the stairs.”

Owen glanced at the person who was speaking.

A guide.

He started to look away.

She caught him looking and smiled.

He smiled back.

She turned her eyes away from him and resumed talking to a couple of teenagers who had stopped near the attic door. On the wall beside the doorway was a large number 7.

Owen kept moving.

He stared at her as he walked by.

Then he turned his head to look over his shoulder at her.

“Don’t break your neck,” Monica said.

“Huh?”

“God almighty.”

“Huh?” Facing Monica, he raised his eyebrows. “What’re you talking about?”

“You know damn well.”

“What?”

“That dumb blonde in the guide suit back there.”

Was I that obvious?

“What makes you think she’s dumb?” Owen asked, trying to sound amused.

“Just one look at her.”

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t get that good of a look.”

“Sure you didn’t.”

“I was trying to see up the attic stairs,” he said.

“Uh-huh, sure. She’s not that hot, you know. If you ask me, she sort of looks like a horse.”

Yeah, a gorgeous thoroughbred.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I hardly saw her.”

He wished he’d had a better chance to see her.

She works here, he told himself. She’ll still be around when we come back this way. Station Seven.

She’ll probably be a big disappointment. Nobody can be that terrific. And even if she IS that terrific, I’d never stand a chance with her.

Guys like me don’t even exist...

“Where you going, Bozo?” Monica asked. “We just walked past Station Four.”

He stopped, looked over his shoulder, and saw the 4 painted on the wall of the hallway. “Ah,” he said. Then, trying to smile at Monica, he said, “Thanks.”

With a smug smile, she said, “I think you’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached.”

“Maybe.”

He pressed the Play button.

He expected Janice’s voice, but Maggie’s came on instead. “When the beast couldn’t get into Lilly’s room, it turned around and came prowling down the hall this way, looking for someone to kill. It sniffed its way along like a bloodhound.”

Owen glanced toward the attic door, but too many people were in the way and he couldn’t see the guide.

What if she’s gone?

Never mind, he told himself. Just ignore her and enjoy the tour.

Sure.

“It smelled Lilly’s kids,” Maggie was saying. “It tracked their scent all the way down the hall, and found them in their bedroom. This is it, right here. Come on in.”

While Owen waited for a man to step out, Maggie’s voice was silent. He imagined her leading a group of tourists into the room, making sure they were all inside before resuming her speech.

“Here we are,” she said.

Beyond the red cordon were twin, brass beds. The covers were thrown back and rumpled. The sheets were bright in the sunlight coming in through the windows, but spattered with dark stains.

The kids lay sprawled in the space between the beds. Their night-shirts had nearly been torn from their bodies. Shreds of the bloody fabric draped their buttocks.

“This is the bedroom where the children slept,” Maggie said. “But I ‘spect they were wide awake when the beast came after them. All the commotion was downstairs and way at the other end of the hall, but this ain’t a real big house. And it’s real quiet in the middle of the night. Noise carries. So they likely heard the beast slamming things around and pounding on their mama’s door and roaring out its rage. If they heard it, they were too scared to move. All they could do was hide under their covers, the way kids do, froze up with fear and hoping it was just a bad dream and maybe it’d go away. Only it wasn’t no dream, and it didn’t go nowhere. It come for them.

“Earl was ten years old,” Maggie said. “His brother, Sam, was only eight. They were both still in their beds when the beast got them. See the blood^? They must’ve started off on their beds and ended up on the floor. Right there, that’s where their bodies got found.”

Maggie stopped talking. Owen expected Janice to come on. But a couple of seconds later, Maggie’s voice returned. She said, slowly and low, “Imagine how scared they must’ve been, those little fellers. They likely reckoned it was the boogeyman.

But I bet they figured everything’d turn out all right and they’d get saved at the last minute. Only they didn’t get saved. The beast got them.

“It didn’t kill them right away. That would’ve been a blessing. We can’t really know what all went on here, but there’s reports of town-folk hearing the screams of children in the night. Far-off screams that went on for good long time. Nobody could figure just where they were coming from, but afterwards, they knew. It was Lilly’s boys crying out in horror and agony while the beast tormented them.

“It’s said that Lilly heard their screams when she was running down Front Street, and that’s what unhinged her mind.”

The tape went silent again for a few moments. Then Janice came on and said in a solemn voice, “With the deaths of Lilly’s two sons, the rampage ended. The beast vanished, and its crimes were placed on the head of poor Gus Goucher. Nobody knew that there was a beast. Only Lilly, perhaps—and she had been reduced to manical babbling.

“Which may or may not have been faked.

“If your curiosity has been aroused, I suggest that you read my books and take advantage of the Midnight Tour. You’ll be surprised and maybe even shocked by what you learn.”

She paused for a moment or two, then started talking again. “After the attack on Lilly Thom’s family on that horrible night in 1903, the house was abandoned. Nobody lived here again for twenty-eight years. Then, in 1931, it was purchased by Joseph Kutch. He moved in with his wife, Maggie, and their three children. But they were in the house for only two weeks before the beast struck.

“You may now move on to Station Five. Turn right just outside the door, and go down the corridor until you come to the top of the stairway. There, you’ll hear Maggie begin to tell you about the night that the beast attacked her family.”

He clicked the Stop button.

Monica looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “Done?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Are you sure you don’t want to rewind^? Maybe you missed a word or two.”

“It’s fine,” he said. He turned around and started across the room.

Already picturing the tall, beautiful guide.

Get a good look at her, this time.

When he reached the doorway, he stepped aside and gestured for Monica to precede him. “Ladies first,” he said.

She gave him a look as if she knew exactly why he wanted her ahead of him. With a smirk, she halted and said, “Age before beauty. You go first.”

He shrugged. He smiled. “Okay. Just thought I should offer to protect your rear.”

“My rear’s fine.”

“The beast likes to jump people from behind.”

“Sure.”

He stepped past Monica, turned right in the corridor, and walked slowly.

Slowly so she wouldn’t sense his eagerness.

Slowly to give himself plenty of time for his inspection of the guide.

Already, his mouth was dry, his face hot, his heart pounding hard and fast.

He could see the attic door up ahead.

But so far, the guide was still out of sight. Too many people clutteced the hallway.

Why can’t I spot her? She’s taller than most of them.

No she isn’t, he thought when he spied the pretty, young guide who was standing near the attic door. She isn’t that tall or that beautiful.

How the hell did I...?

After a moment of shocked perplexity, he realized that this was not the same guide he’d seen earlier.

He felt a surge of relief.

Mixed with disappointment.

Where is she? Where’d she go? Maybe went on a break. Maybe she’s gone for lunch.

What if I don’t get to see her again?

As he approached the replacement, he heard her talking to a small group of people who were gathered near the open attic door. “The attic’s never been part of the regular tour.”

He stopped to listen.

“It’s just not very safe. I do take people up there during the Midnight Tour every Saturday night. But that’s a small, carefully supervised group. We can’t leave it open for the general public. There aren’t floorboards everywhere. Also, there’s a lot of clutter. Too many places where the beast might be lurking.” She grinned.

According to the nametag on her chest, she was LYNN.

“We don’t want to lose anybody,” she said.

Owen wanted to ask where the other guide had gone, but he didn’t dare.

Monica would flip out.

“If we wait here long enough,” Monica whispered, “maybe she’ll turn into the beauty queen.”

“Very funny,” Owen told her.

He started walking again.

Where is she?

He stopped at Station Five, in the corridor a few feet beyond the top of the stairs.

Monica, stopping beside him, thumbed the Play button on her player.

Owen started his tape.

What if she’s gone for the day? What if I never see her again?

I can’t let that happen, he told himself.

“We lived sixteen nights in this house,” Maggie said, “before the beast struck.”

Chapter Eleven

SANDY’S STORY—August, 1980

Sandy carried Eric down the wobbly stairs in his travel basket—a wicker bassinet with a closed lid and handles at both ends. Worried about the slippery steps, she moved slowly and carefully. She sighed with relief when her feet met the ground. She set down the basket.

Together, she and Lib lifted the stairway and shoved it inside her trailer. Lib stepped out of the way. Sandy swung the door shut.

Turning around, she found her new friend picking up Eric’s basket by its two handles.

“We gonna keep him in dis?” Lib asked.

“We’d better. In case we get stopped.”

“Poor little pucker.”

“I don’t think he minds. It seems pretty nice and cozy in there. And he’s got his favorite dolls.”

“Can he breet okay?”

“Sure. All kinds of air gets in. He’ll be fine. Let’s just put him in the back seat.”

Sandy hurried ahead and opened the back door. Then she took the basket from Lib and lowered it onto the floor in front of the seat. It was a fairly tight squeeze. The wicker made dry, crackling sounds. Sandy figured that the tightness was good for Eric’s safety in case of a crash.

She stepped back and shut the door.

“I guess I’ll drive,” she said.

“How come?” asked Lib.

“You’re drunk as a skunk.”

“Well, dat ain’t nebber stopped me.”

“You polished off the whole bottle.”

“It weren’t pull in da pirst place.”

“Anyway, you aren’t in any shape to drive. Even if you weren’t polluted, you just got the crap pounded out of you and half your teeth knocked out.”

“Hap ob ’em? Nah. Lots, dough.”

“Go on and get in. You can drive later if you feel like it.”

“Who says I wanta?”

Sandy shrugged, then opened the passenger door. When Lib was in, she shut the door and hurried around the front. She climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Ya ebber towed sometin’?” Lib asked.

“No,” Sandy said, and started the engine.

“Here.” Reaching over, Lib pulled the shift lever backward from Park to Low. “Try dis. And go slow.”

Sandy put on the headlight, then eased down on the gas pedal. Engine racing, the car began to move forward. She could feel the weight of the trailer and hear the rattling sounds it made as it bumped over the ground behind them.

She pictured Slade’s body rolling and sliding around in the back bedroom, spreading his mess like a blood-soaked mop.

Maybe they should’ve done something with it.

At least, maybe, tied it down or thrown it into the shower stall.

But they’d both been clean and wearing their Blazing Babes shirts by the time Lib had said, “Ya gonna let me get a look at yer stip?”

“My what?” Sandy asked.

“Yer stip. Dat guy ya killed.”

“You want to see him?”

“Sure. Where’s he at?”

“Why don’t we just get going?”

Lib’s puffy eyes narrowed. “How I know ya really got a stip?”

Sandy suddenly understood: Lib needed to see the body, needed to know for certain that she hadn’t lied about killing Slade.

We’ve both got to be killers, That’s what makes us partners.

“Okay,” Sandy said. “You wanta see him, you can see him. Come on.” She lowered Eric into his travel basket, then hurried down the hallway. Lib followed, bottle in hand.

Sandy slid open her bedroom door, flicked the light switch, then stepped back. “Help yourself,” she said. “But be careful not to step in any blood.”

Lib took a step into the room. A moment later, she spotted the body on the floor to her left. Sandy saw her back straighten. Then Lib crouched down. Her head shook slowly from side to side.

“Dis guy’s massacerated.”

“Huh?”

“What’d he do to ya?” ,

“For one thing, he threw Eric across the room. And he tried to rape me.”

“Dis guy’s deader ’n fried shit.”

“Yeah.”

She looked over her shoulder at Sandy, and smiled. “Yer a mighty bad little dude, Chany.”

“He had it coming.”

“What’re we gonna do wid him?”

“I figured to leave him in the room, here, and wait till we’re someplace far away. I want to make his body disappear, you know? Someplace where it’ll never be found. The thing is, there might be people who know he came looking for me tonight. Maybe if we both vanish off the face of the earth...”

“Suits me pine,” Lib said. “Let’s all banish.” Standing up, she put her hands on her hips and seemed to be studying the body. “We get to moobin’, he’ll start to roll around. Wanta anchor him down or put him someplace?”

“Nah, that’s all right. We’d get all messy. Let’s just finish up and go.”

At least he’s confined to the bedroom, Sandy thought as she drove slowly down the hillside, trying to stay in the ruts.

I shut the door, didn’t I?

Sure I did.

In her imagination, though, she’d left the bedroom door wide open and she pictured Slade tumbling through it, rolling into the hallway, his bloody mutilated corpse somersaulting down the whole length of the trailer.

Probably didn’t happen, she told herself. And if it did, the harm’s already done.

Just try not to let the trailer flip over or you’ll REALLY be in trouble.

In spite of the low gear, they were picking up speed on their way down the slope.

“Carepul,” Lib said.

Sandy eased down on the brake pedal for a few seconds and watched the speedometer needle sink. When she let up, it started to climb. So she put on the brakes again, squeezing the speed down, the needle dropping from 20 to 15 to 10. By the time she reached the edge of the paved road, she’d slowed almost to a stop.

The road looked empty, so she made a slow, right-hand turn. Then she shoved the shift lever to Drive and started to pick up speed. Cool air, smelling of the woods and ocean, blew straight into her face through the hole in the windshield.

“Made it,” Lib said, and patted her leg.

Sandy took a deep breath. She felt relief about coming down the hill without mishap, but now they were on a real road—where they were sure to be seen, sooner or later, by people in passing cars.

Maybe by cops.

A squirmy tightness came into her stomach.

“I don’t know how far we’ll be able to go,” she said. “The way this car looks, we’ll be stopped by the first cop who sees us.”

“Just tell him we hit a deer.”

That didn’t seem like a bad idea. Vehicles crashed into deer fairly often in this area. That sort of accident might explain the damage to the car.

“But I don’t have a driver’s license,” Sandy explained.

“Huh?”

“I’m driving. No matter what we tell him, he’ll want to see my license. And I don’t have one.”

“I got one.”

“But you’re smashed. And if he takes one look at you, he’ll know somebody pounded the crap out of you. If we get stopped, we’re sunk.”

The single headlight caught a sign by the edge of the road:WELCOME TO MALCASA POINT

POP. 2,600

HOME OF THE LEGENDARY “BEAST HOUSE”

PLEASE DRIVE WITH CARE,

WE LOVE OUR CHILDREN.

Then the speed limit went down to 35.

Sandy took her foot off the gas pedal until the needle dropped to 30.

Turning her head slightly to the left, she stared out across the moonlit field at Agnes’s house.

Home.

I’m going to miss it so much. And Agnes.

She ached to turn into the driveway.

One more look around. It might be my last chance forever. And give Agnes a last kiss before I go. I might never see her again. She might be dead by the time I ever...

“Place sure looks spooky at night,” Lib said.

It’s not spooky, it’s home.

She frowned at Lib, but saw that her friend’s head was turned toward the right, toward Beast House.

So her frown became a smile. “You oughta try being inside it in the middle of the night.”

“Tanks but no tanks.” She faced Sandy. “So, is dat where you met Eric’s padder?”

“He was known to hang around in there.” She turned her head for a final glimpse of Agnes’s house. Her throat suddenly felt thick. Tears welled up in her eyes.

How can I just drive away like this and not even tell her goodbye or thanks or ANYTHING. She’s the only person in the whole wide world who loves me.

Except Eric.

And a whisper came as if from a malicious twin caged in a corner of her mind, What about Mom?

No! Fuck her! She hates me! I hope she’s dead.

The twin whispered, No you don’t. You miss the bell out of her.

Bullshit!

“Uh-oh,” Lib said.

Sandy came out of her thoughts and spotted the trouble.

Several blocks ahead of them, a car with bright, twin headlights was making a left-hand turn onto Front Street. Squinting, Sandy tried to see if it had a light rack on top.

She couldn’t tell.

But if it does...

“Hang on,” she said.

She hit the brakes and made a hard right. The force of the turn pushed her sideways against her door. Lib swayed toward her, but didn’t fall. In the rearview mirror, she saw the trailer swing around behind them. It stayed up.

A growl came from Eric’s basket.

“It’s okay, honey,” Sandy said loudly, trying to sound confident and calm.

She raced toward the end of the block. At the corner, she turned left. She eased over to the curb, stopped, shut off the engine and killed the lights.

“If it comes,” she said, “we’ll duck out of sight.”

They waited.

Sandy’s heart thudded and her mouth felt dry.

Lib made a quiet, throaty laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Da pour ob us. Poor cop’d tink he popped in on a puckin’ horror moobie, huh? Couple ob dames on da road widda butchered asshole in da trailer and a baby monster in da backseat.”

“Eric isn’t a monster.”

“Tell dat to da cop.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to,” Sandy said. “Not yet, anyway.”

Reaching forward, she twisted the ignition key and started the engine.

“Tink it’s sape?” Lib asked.

“Yeah. It would’ve been here by now.”

She put on the headlight, then pulled forward, steered onto the road and picked up speed.

She wished she was back on Front Street. This might be her last time in Malcasa Point. It didn’t seem right to miss all the old, familiar places along the main road if you wouldn’t ever have a chance to see them again.

Better to be safe, though.

Anyway, who says I can’t come back?

It’d be too dangerous, she told herself. Especially after tonight.

But I could come back. If I wanted to badly enough.

Ahead of her, the road dead-ended. She turned left and returned to Front Street. Waiting at a stop sign, she looked back at the town. There were no cars on the move. She saw no one. Some of the shops were lighted, but none seemed to be open.

The lone traffic signal, a flashing red light, blinked on and off and on again.

“Whatcha waitin’ por?” Lib asked.

Sandy shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. Then she turned right and put downtown behind her.

When she drove past the Welcome Inn, she tried not to look at it. But her eyes strayed over.

At the sight of the motel, memories rushed in.

Mom...

And that dirty rotten Jud. He’d seemed like such a good guy, at first...

And Larry. Poor, funny Larry.

She felt an emptiness inside. And a hurt.

They’d all betrayed her.

Well, not Larry. But he would’ve, probably. Just never got the chance.

It had all been so exciting, right at the start. A little scary, but fun, too. Taking off with Mom, so early in the morning. The all-day drive up the coast. Then the fog and the crash and Axel Kutch coming to the rescue. Their first night at the Welcome Inn. And the next day, going on the Beast House tour for the very first time.

Those had been such great times.

Only three years ago.

But it sure felt like longer. It felt like eons. She’d still been a kid. She’d still loved her mom...

She felt a tightness in her throat.

Screw it, she thought.

“Y’okay?” Lib asked.

“It’s just...you know...I’m going to miss some stuff around here.”

“Yeah?”

“A lot of stuff.”

“Ya don’t gotta leabe. Ain’t nobody holdin’ a gun to your head.”

“I wouldn’t have to, except for that Slade. He wrecked everything.”

“Reckon he paid por it.”

Tears in her eyes, Sandy looked across at Lib. “I just wanted to be left alone, you know? That’s all I ever wanted. I had my job and my baby and Agnes and everything till those damn movie people came along. They ruined it all.”

“It’s the shits, honey.”

She took a very deep breath and exhaled slowly, letting the air puff out her cheeks and hiss through her pursed lips. When it was gone, she took a normal breath and said, “Well. I guess we’ll be fine, anyway. And maybe it’s for the best, you know? Might be kind of fun, settling down someplace new. Maybe it’ll turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to us.”

“Don’t count on it.”

Sandy glanced at Lib and laughed.

Then Lib patted her on the thigh. “Just gotta take stupp as it comes. Eben a bed ob roses got torns, and dare ain’t a garden nowhere dat don’t hab its share ob turds. You gotta watch your step, dat’s all.”

“We’ll both have to watch our steps.”

“But dat don’t mean we can’t hab pun.”

“Hab pun—will travel.”

“Puck you.”

Laughing, Sandy blurted, “Puck you!”

“And da horse ya rode in on. How’d ya like it ip I busted out yer teet?”

“My teeth?”

“Yet teet!”

“My what?”

“Yer choppers, ya little shit.”

“Then I’d be talking like you, Lib, and neither one of us’d know what was going on.”

“Dat’s real punny. Dat’s hilarious.”

Sandy grinned at her and said, “You know what?”

“What?”

“I’m already habbing pun.”

Lib gave her leg a gentle squeeze and said, “Me, too.”

With that, they seemed to run out of things to say. Lib settled down in her seat and lowered her head. Sandy turned her attention to driving.

She wasn’t exactly sure of her location.

Definitely on Pacific Coast Highway, somewhere north of town.

But not very far north.

Five or ten miles?

Though she’d traveled this section of road several times before, she couldn’t remember being on it at night. In the darkness, nothing looked very familiar.

On the other hand, it all looked sort of familiar.

The right side of the road was bordered by densely wooded hills. On the left, across the narrow pavement, was a guard rail and a rocky shoreline and the ocean itself. The ocean looked black, but it didn’t go far. Some distance out, maybe a mile or two, it vanished under fog.

The fog stretched across the ocean like a low range of soft, white hills. Under the light of the full moon, it looked whiter than fresh drifts of snow.

Beautiful, Sandy thought.

Not so beautiful when you’re in it, though.

She sure hoped it would stay offshore.

Probably will, she told herself. It’d usually be in by now if it was coming.

She found herself remembering how it had come in during the afternoon that she and her mother were fleeing up the coast highway. The way it had reached up over the edges of the road like the tendrils of a ghostly sea creature testing the pavement, then silently crept all the way up, covering their car and the highway and the hills until all the world seemed gray. Until there was no longer a road to see, and they’d gone off into a ditch.

What if the fog had stayed offshore? Sandy wondered.

We wouldn’t have crashed. Maybe Mom would’ve kept on driving all the way through Malcasa Point. We never would’ve spent the night at the Welcome Inn or gone to Beast House the next day.

And everything would’ve happened differently from then on.

A lot of people might still be alive, she thought. Mom and I might still be together.

Or maybe Dad would’ve caught up to us.

Screw it, she told herself. The fog did come in and we crashed and it all happened and there’s no way to change it. And who’d want to change it, anyway, even if you had the chance?

Dad probably would’ve nailed us. I’d have spent the last three years dead.

There wouldn’t be any Eric, either.

“It’s funny how stuff goes,” she said.

Lib’s only comment was a soft, rumbling snore.

Chapter Twelve

THE DAY TOUR III

“Only sixteen nights,” Maggie said, her voice low and gruff through Owen’s earphones. Then it came after us. It came right up these stairs.”

Several tourists were on their way up the stairs. Owen, Monica and the others at Station Five stepped back a little to let them by as Maggie continued to talk into Owen’s ears.

“It was on the night of May seventh, 1931. Me and Joseph, we were in our bedroom just down the hall. We didn’t use Lilly’s room, as my husband figured it’d bring us bad luck. So we had the room across the hall from it. Our girls were way down at the other end of the hall, in the same room where Lilly’s boys got themselves slaughtered. They didn’t have no problems with it. Fact is, they claimed it was haunted by the little fellers, but liked ’em just fine. Now my little baby, Theodore, he was snug in the nursery. That’s at the end of the hall, too, but over on the right. I keep the door locked and you can’t go in. I don’t let nobody in the nursery. It ain’t part of the tour.

“Anyhow, it’d been a stormy, wet day—May seventh—but the rain slowed down after dark. We had our windows open. I recall how nice and peaceful the rain sounded when I was laying there in bed. I listened to it for a good long time. But it got hard to hear, ‘cause of Joseph’s snoring.

“By and by, I fell asleep, myself. I must’ve been sleeping light, though, ‘cause long about midnight I heard a noise. It sounded like it came from downstairs. Sounded like breaking glass. It was loud enough to wake up Joseph, too. Well, he jumped out of bed real quick and quiet and hurried over here to the chest where he kept his pistol.”

“This portion of the tour,” Janice’s voice broke in, “used to take place in Maggie and Joseph’s bedroom. She would walk over to their dresser, pull open a drawer and take out her husband’s old Colt .45 automatic.”

“This pistol!” Maggie announced gleefully. “Joseph kept the chamber empty, ‘cause of the girls, but he had a clip in it, all right. So he had to work its top like this.” Owen heard a harsh metallic chick-chack, and pictured old Maggie grinning as she jacked a round into the chamber. “It was awful loud, that noise. In the dark, like that. In the silence.

“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.”

I don’t go around and ruin things for her.

“...furniture was here, along with the baby’s rattles and stuffed animals.”

It isn’t fair.

“...cradle where he was sleeping...even his blood stains on the floor.”

I’ve wanted to come here for years. Seen all the movies, read the books, and now finally I get a chance to come and she’s gotta wreck it for me.

“...if the door had been locked and never opened again after that awful night.”

Thanks a hell of a lot, Monica.

“...nursery presents a gruesome and disturbing sight, I decided that everything should remain just as it was.” she’ll probably be pouting for the rest of the trip.

“...what Maggie...”

Like it’s all my fault. Like I’m some sort of asshole. And I’m gonna be stuck with her pouting and giving me grief all week. Maybe she’ll want to call the whole trip to a halt and fly on home tomorrow.

Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

“...I saw the awful, pale beast drag my little baby out of his cradle and fall upon him.”

It’s Maggie. Shit, I’ve missed...

“...beyond my power to help him.”

Hand trembling, Owen shut off the player. He pushed the Rewind button.

As the tape hissed in his ears, a couple in front of him moved on, leaving the doorway clear. He stepped up to the cordon. Now he could see the entire nursery.

A rocking horse, its paint faded. Wooden blocks on the floor. A stuffed bunny, gray with dust and age.

Blood.

Dry blood, dark brown, all over the cradle and quilt.

A rag doll in the cradle, arms and legs spread, mouth a surprised O, cloth body stained all over. It looked like a mop-headed victim of a thrill killer.

The hardwood floor in front of the cradle was darkly stained.

On the flowered wallpaper six feet behind the cradle was a splatter pattern of blood that made Owen wonder if the beast had swung the baby around, maybe by its feet, after ripping it open.

There didn’t seem to be a wax figure of the infant.

Good thing, Owen thought. The nursery was bad enough without that.

Good thing Monica isn’t getting a look at this. She’d really flip out.

He could just hear her. Oh, Owie, how can you stand to look at this? There must really be something wrong with you. Maybe you need therapy. Has that ever occurred to you? I think you should definitely see someone about your problems.

The problem is you, honey.

Owen laughed softly.

A woman near his shoulder turned her head and frowned at him.

Blow it out your ass, lady.

“Sorry,” he muttered, trying to sound contrite.

She looked away.

And Owen suddenly realized that his tape player was still rewinding.

Shit!

He pressed the Stop button, then the Play.

Maggie’s voice.

“...got done murdering Ethel, it went on a rampage around the room. It knocked over this bust of Caesar, breaking off his nose. See, this...”

Owen shut it off.

He stared at the player.

How the hell far back...? That’s in Ethel’s room. Right at the start of the tour!

He sighed. He almost felt like crying.

Thanks a lot, Monica.

He pressed the Fast Forward button.

Now it’s gonna take forever. And she’ll be down there waiting for me, getting madder and madder...

He shut it off.

Then he stepped away from the nursery door and started making his way through the crowded hallway.

Heading for the stairs.

Because it was over.

He wouldn’t be able to enjoy the tour, anyway. Not with Monica in his head.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to come back again-without her—and get to go on the tour without having it ruined.

Owen walked out onto the porch of Beast House. The bright sunlight hurt his eyes and made him squint.

Monica, standing near the end of the porch, saw him and tilted her head sideways. Then she hurried over to him. “That didn’t take so long,” she said, sounding quite cheerful.

“Nope,” Owen said, and pulled off his earphones.

They stepped past the hanging body of Gus Goucher and walked down the stairs.

“So,” Monica said. “Was it everything you expected?”

“It was fine.”

“Great! I’m glad at least one of us had a good time.”

“Yeah.”

She took hold of his hand as they walked toward the ticket booth. He didn’t pull it away.

“Look at all these people,” she said. “Don’t they know what they’re letting themselves in for?”

“Probably not,” Owen said.

As they neared the booth, he saw that the person handing out tape players to arriving visitors was the guide he’d seen by the attic stairs.

The tall, fabulous blonde.

The tight cold knot inside his chest suddenly seemed to start melting.

My God, look at her.

“Oh, great,” Monica muttered. Apparently, she too had recognized the girl. “King Kong.”

Owen felt no anger.

He stared at the guide. She was sure large, all right, but she had a very good figure. She looked great in the tan blouse and shorts that seemed to be the uniform for Beast House guides.

Her bare arms and legs were softly tanned. Unfortunately, she wore sunglasses. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he. had no trouble remembering how they’d looked upstairs in the house—deep blue and intelligent and sensitive.

Though busy handing out tape players and giving instructions to a family of four, she flashed a smile of big white teeth at Owen and Monica. In a smooth, friendly voice, she said to them, “I’ll take those from you in just a moment, okay?”

“Fine,” Owen said. He felt weak.

He watched her until the family headed off toward Beast House. Then he and Monica stepped toward her. “Sorry you had to wait,” she said, taking their players and headphone. “I hope you enjoyed the tour.”

“It was very nice,” Owen said.

She wore a red plastic name plate above her right breast. It read, DANA.

“Did you come from far away?” she asked.

“We took the bus over from San Francisco.”

“Really? How was the ride?”

“Long,” Monica said. “Endless and...”

“It was fine,” Owen said, shooting a hard glance at Monica.

She gave him back a smug smile.

To Dana, he said, “The guide on the bus—Patty—she was really good.”

“Glad to hear it. So, do you think Beast House was worth the trip?”

“I sure thought so,” Owen said.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Monica shaking her head.

“I thought it was really great,” he added.

“Terrific,” Dana said. “Well, I hope you both enjoy the rest of your day.”

“Thank you. You, too.”

“So long, now.”

“Bye,” Owen said and hurried away from her, dragging Monica by the hand.

Chapter Thirteen

THE SNACK STAND

I wonder what their problem is, Dana thought as she watched the couple hurry away. The guy had seemed awfully embarrassed and uncomfortable about something. Girlfriend troubles, probably. The girl with him had looked smirky and mean.

She remembered seeing them upstairs, earlier.

The gal had seemed unpleasant even then. Maybe she was one of those people who hated the place.

Dana had spotted a few of those, already. You could tell just by looking that they found the tour disgusting and horrible.

Hard to imagine they’d simply stumbled into the situation. How could they not know they were walking into a houseful of grue-some, nasty stories and exhibits?

Some of the visitors had probably gotten pushed into giving it a try. Maybe a friend or spouse or child had desperately wanted to do the Beast House tour, so they’d gone along, wanting to be good sports.

Lousy idea.

The tour was hard enough on people when they knew what to expect and wanted it—or thought they did.

Dana supposed that it turned out, for many, to be worse than they bargained for.

Sure was worse than I expected.

Even though Dana had pretty much known what she was in for, she hadn’t lasted very long upstairs. She’d been fine for a while. But the hallway had become hot and stuffy later in the morning. And crowded. With every minute that passed, more and more people had packed themselves into the narrow spaces.

Some were arguing with each other. Little kids demanded this or that in whiny sharp voices. Mothers snapped at the kids. Fathers issued orders and threats. Babies squealed and bawled.

Along with the noisy mob and the heat came the odors. The air smelled heavy with them. In addition to the musty aroma natural to the old house, the air had grown thick with the pungency of sweet perfumes and aftershave lotions and sour sweat. You could smell food on the breaths of some people. Others reeked of stale cigarette smoke. Now and then, Dana even caught whiffs of farts.

Eventually, she’d found herself suffocating, dizzy and nauseous. Each time she blinked her eyes, everything in sight had flashed with rims of bright, electric blue. Slumping against a wall, she’d snatched the radio off her belt and called for Tuck.

Dana was pulled out of her thoughts by the approach of a couple of teenaged boys. Smiling, she said, “Welcome to Beast House, guys.”

One smiled in a shy way, and the other said, “Thanks.”

“May I see your tickets, please?” The boys handed them over, and she ripped them in half. Giving half a ticket back to each boy, she said, “Be sure to keep your stubs, okay? They’ll get you half-price admission to the Beast House museum over on Front Street.”

“Is it any good?” asked the larger boy. He was tall and gawky, with stringy brown hair that fell past his shoulders. Dark blue sunglasses hid his eyes. He wore a T-shirt that read HOWARD STERN—KING OF ALL MEDIA.

“It’s a must,” Dana told him. “A lot of the actual stuff is over there. Like some of the real clothes the victims were wearing—all shredded and bloody.”

“Oh, cool,” said the Howard fan.

“Way cool,” said his buddy, a short and chubby fellow wearing a Beavis and Butthead T-shirt.

“You guys are gonna love this stuff,” Dana said, then turned away to take down a couple of tape players.

“I love it already,” the Howard fan said.

His friend cackled.

Dana turned around. “Here you go, fellas.” She gave them the players. “Hang these around your necks by the orange straps. It’s a self-guided tour. The tapes are all rewound and ready to go. Just wait till you get to the front porch.”

“Where that stiffs hanging?”

The Beavis and Butthead fan cackled and blurted, “Stiff! He said stiff!”

Dana laughed and shook her head. “Right. That’s Station Number One, where the stiff is hung.”

“Hung, hung, hung!”

“When you get there,” Dana said, “go ahead and press the Play button. That’s this one right here.” With her forefinger extended, she touched the oblong button on top of the Howard fan’s player. “And this is the Stop button.” She pointed it out on his friend’s player. “After the porch, you go on inside and proceed from station to station. The tape will always tell you what to do.”

“I know what I want to do. Heh-heh.”

“Right,” Dana said. “Maybe some other time. Anyway, feel free to take as long as you wish with the tour. When you’re finished, just bring the tape players back to me.”

“Back to you! Back to you!”

“Please excuse my pal,” the Stem fan said. “He’s a retard.”

“Everything’s cool, guys. Just have a good time in there. And don’t let the beast get you.”

Side by side, the boys walked away from Dana, nodding, nudging each other with elbows, glancing back at her and grinning.

“You’re a natural, babe.”

Surprised, Dana turned around and found Tuck smiling at her from the corner of the ticket booth.

“Hey, how’s it going, boss?”

“Better and better. You were great with those guys.”

“Horny teenagers are my specialty.”

Tuck laughed. “How are you feeling?”

“A lot better.”

“You look fine now. Looks like all you needed was some fresh air.”

“I’m really sorry I crapped out on you.”

“No problem. About ready to grab yourself some lunch?”

“Guess so.”

“I’ll take over for you here.”

“Okay. Fine. Sure you can do without me?”

“No problem. The big rush is over. Anyway, this place can almost run itself—except for the ticket booth.” She glanced around. Then, leaning close to Dana, she said in a hushed voice, “Clyde’ll be going to lunch as soon as Sharon gets here. You might want to take off now and get a head start.”

Dana laughed softly. “Okay. Where does he usually eat lunch?”

“Up the street. Usually at Sarah’s.” .

“So if I go to the snack stand...?”

“Comes highly recommended.”

“See ya,” Dana said, and hurried off. But she slowed down when she found herself closing in on her two teenaged friends.

They stood at Station One near the dangling feet of Gus Goucher, their heads tipped back.

Just my luck, Dana thought, they’ll want to join me for lunch.

Nah. They’re here for the tour, not to bit on me.

Yeah, sure.

Instead of staying on the walkway, which would lead her straight to the boys, she cut across the lawn. This was a more direct route, anyway.

The grass silenced her footfalls. Earlier, it had been wet with dew. Now, it was dry. It felt thick and soft under her shoes. She took a deep breath, savoring the warm smell. A smell of summer.

The scent reminded her of when she was a kid and school was out and she had the whole endless sweet summer ahead of her. For a moment, she felt that way again. But then it slipped away. Like the ghost of the girl Dana, long gone, sweeping through her and giving her an instant of childhood again, then rushing off, snatching it away and leaving an ache for what had been lost.

She sighed.

That’s life, she thought.

Someone yelled, “Hey, Dana!”

She looked over her shoulder.

Both the boys, still at the feet of Gus Goucher, were now turned toward her, smiling and waving.

She waved back and yelled, “Have fun, guys. See you later.”

One of them said something to the other, who nodded eagerly.

Then they started walking toward her.

“Go on back,” she called and waved them away. “Enjoy the tour.”

“Can we come with you?”

“Sorry. Not where I’m going.”

They stopped and looked at each other.

One called, “Going to the John?”

“We’ll, like, supervise.”

“We’ll guard the door.”

“I don’t think so, guys. Thanks, anyway. Bye-bye, now.”

They waved, then turned around and started back. By the time Dana reached the walkway at the corner of the house, they were again staring up at Gus.

She smiled and rounded the corner. It was flattering that they’d been so interested in her, but she certainly didn’t want to spend her lunch break with a couple of horny, awestruck teenagers.

Dana made her way to the rear of the house. Though the eating area was fairly crowded, she spotted a few vacant tables. There were short lines of waiting customers in front of the snack stand’s two windows.

If I hit the john first, I might not get a table...

She needed to pee, but that could wait till after she’d eaten.

She started toward one of the lines.

If I don’t go to the john, it’ll make me a liar.

Besides, she really bad to wash her hands before settling down for lunch.

God-only-knows what I’ve been touching.

So she turned away from the line and made a detour to the restroom. It was well-lighted, clean, and the air had a lemony scent. A few people were washing up at the sinks. Two of the four stalls were vacant, so she picked one and stepped in.

When she was done at the toilet, she went to the row of sinks and washed her hands with hot water and soap. She dried them with a paper towel, then kept the towel in her hand so she wouldn’t have to touch the door handle.

Outside, she tossed the paper towel into a nearby trash basket.

As she walked toward the snack stand, she checked out the table situation. There seemed to be more vacant tables than a few minutes ago. And only three people were waiting at the snack shop windows.

Standing back a few feet, she studied the displays listing menu items.

There was the Original Beastburger, the Cheese Beastburger, Bacon Beastburger, Chili Beastburger, and the Double-Decker Monsterburger Deluxe. If you weren’t in the mood for ground beef patties, you could get the Red-Hot Beastie Weenie.

Dana grinned when she read that one.

She spent a couple more minutes enjoying the menu and trying to make up her mind. By the time she was ready to order, nobody was waiting at the window on her left. She stepped over to it.

Ducking down slightly to see inside, she smiled at the guy behind the window and said, “Hi.”

“Oh, hello,” he said. “You’re Dana, right?”

“Yep.”

“I’m Warren.”

“Hi, Warren.”

Whoa! she thought. Who’s this? And how come Tuck didn’t mention him?

“How’s your first day on the job?” he asked.

“Well...iffy. I almost upchucked upstairs...”

He smiled and shook his head and Dana couldn’t believe she’d said that to him. She blushed fiercely.

“Other than that,” she added, “it’s been great.”

He laughed and said, “Well, don’t worry about it. Everyone feels squeamish their first day. You’ll probably be fine.”

“Thanks. I hope so.”

“So, what can I get you?”

“I guess the hot dog.”

His smile grew. “I’m afraid we don’t serve hot dogs here.”

“Oh. Okay. So then, I guess I’ll have one of those...uh...Red-Hot Beastie Weenies.”

“Excellent choice.”

“You make everyone say that?”

“Maybe not everyone.”

“Just the new kids?”

“Just the ladies.”

“That’s cruel.”

He laughed softly. “Maybe a little. Most people seem to have fun with it. Especially me.”

“They’re pretty cute names. Who came up with them?”

“Ohhh...I don’t know. Me, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Pretty sure. Anyway, so far you’ll be wanting one Red-Hot Beastie Weenie? Anything else?”

“I’ll have some of those chili...” She checked the menu again. “An order of Beastly Chili Fries with cheese. And a medium Creature Cola.”

“Got it.” He hit a few keys on the register.

When the price came up, Dana reached deep into a front pocket of her shorts, pulled out a handful of bills, and gave Warren a ten.

He counted the change into her hand, then said, “I’ll bring it over to you when it’s ready.”

“Where’ll I be?” she asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you. You can’t go far.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Smiling, she turned away from the window and went in search of a table.

She found a small round table that was meant for two, but somebody had taken away one of its chairs.

Nearby, a larger table had a group of five seated around it. A man, a woman, and three kids.

That’s where my extra chair went.

Doesn’t matter, she told herself. It’s only me.

Still, she felt a little irked about it.

She thought about finding a chair to replace it. But Warren might notice, might think she was getting a chair for him. That’d be pretty embarrassing.

So she went ahead and sat down and frowned at the empty place across the table where the second chair was supposed to be.

Then she looked at the family.

She suddenly remembered them from inside the house.

And smiled about how the little girl, a cute blonde maybe five or six years old, had kept asking for her freedom. Let go my band, let go my band. Pleeeease. The mother, fairly patient, had explained, We don’t want to lose you in bere, honey. There’re so many people. And the kid had insisted, I’// be fine. I won’t go way. Please, let go my hand. Not whiny, but sounding quite calm about the situation. I bet you’re scared I’ll break something, but I won’t. Kimmy does not break things.

Nifty kid, Dana thought.

Right now, the girl was frowning as if deep in thought as she nibbled on the tip of a French fry.

It seemed like a pretty nice family—even if the father had swiped Dana’s chair. The kids hadn’t been acting up very much in the house, and they were behaving fine, now. They appeared to be confident and happy, too.

It’s because their parents treat them like humans, she thought.

She’d seen so many parents who didn’t.

Everywhere she went, she saw horrible parents. At grocery stores, at malls, at public parks, this morning during her first hours in Beast House—but most especially at the swimming pool where she’d worked so many summers as a life guard. So many awful parents.

Some seemed to make it a point of honor to let their kids run wild. As if discipline might taint the self-esteem of the little charmers.

When Dana saw that, she wanted to kick their asses. The parents and the kids.

Other parents acted as if their children were criminals—snapping orders at them, berating them, jerking their arms, pinching them, swatting their little butts, smacking the backs of their heads. As if they thought life’s greatest reward was a river of tears running down a child’s face.

Dana always felt like crying when she saw that sort of thing.

She also felt like kicking the shit out of such parents, and hugging their kids.

It made her feel wonderful to see a family like this one.

I wouldn’t mind having kids like those, she thought.

You get the kids you deserve.

Or maybe none at all, if you don’t play your cards right or if you have bad luck.

“Found you,” Warren announced.

She turned and smiled at him.

He set a green plastic tray down on the table and slid it toward her. The Red-Hot Beastie Weenie and Beastly Chili Fries with cheese were in red plastic baskets lined with paper. There were two Creature Colas.

“Is one of those for you?” Dana asked.

“Yeah. Thought I’d take a little break. Windy’s holding down the fort.”

“If you can find a chair...”

“No sweat.” He hurried to a nearby table where a heavy, bearded man was sitting with a husky woman. They both wore black T-shirts, black leather trousers, and grim tattoos. They looked like outlaw bikers.

The table was big enough for four people, but nobody else sat there. One of the extra chairs had already been taken.

“Mind if I borrow this?” Warren asked the man.

“It’s a free country, Spike,” the fellow said, grinning and friendly. “Help yerself.”

“Thank you,” Warren said. He lifted the chair and hurried back to Dana’s table.

She grinned at him. “Sit down and make yourself comfortable, Spike.”

Laughing softly, he sat down. “I don’t even know the guy.”

“Maybe you remind him of someone.”

“An old pal from the cell block?”

They both laughed.

“That’s mean,” Dana told him. “He seemed like a perfectly nice guy.”

“Yeah, he did. He probably is a nice guy.” Warren reached out and took his soda off the tray. He set it in front of him.

As he tore the wrapper off his straw, he said, “That’s one thing about working here—you meet all kinds. Most of them turn out to be pretty friendly. Even the ones who look like Manson Family wannabes.”

“You’re pretty friendly,” Dana said.

He stabbed the straw through the crossed slots in the plastic lid. “No good reason not to be,” he said. He slid the straw down deeper. It rubbed the edges of the cross and made squawking noises. “So, you’re from Los Angels?”

“Afraid so.”

“Why do you say that?” Keeping his eyes on Dana, he sucked some soda up his straw.

“You know,” she said. “Los Angeles. Disaster City, U.S.A. Riots, earthquakes, shootouts, mudslides, fires. It’s embarrassing to be from a place like that.”

Nodding, Warren gazed at her and sipped more cola.

She used both hands to pick up her Red-Hot Beastie Weenie. It was darkly grilled, at least two inches longer than its bun, and looked delicious. The aromas of the spicy hot dog, onion and tangy yellow mustard made her mouth fill with saliva.

Though she wanted to take a big bite out of it, she went on talking. “Whenever I’m on a trip and tell people I’m from L.A., I get these weird looks. Like there must be something wrong with me, living in a place like that.”

Warren took his mouth away from the straw. “You won’t get any weird looks from me.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it.” She smiled at him and bit a crusty end off her wiener.

As she began to chew, Warren said, “I’m from the People’s Republic of Santa Monica.”

Her jaw dropped. But she shut it quickly, chewed and grinned. After swallowing some of the food, she blurted, “That’s even worse!” and was delighted that no bits of semi-masticated frankfurter flew from her mouth.

Warren laughed and shook his head. “You’re telling me. It’s a real embarrassment.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks,” he said. “So where-abouts do you live?”

“Over near Rancho Park. How about you?”

“Well, I grew up in a house on Euclid.”

Dana grinned at him and said, “I like to call it Thirteenth Street.”

He laughed. “That’s so stupid!” he blurted.

“Me?”

“Them. It used to drive me nuts. Changing a street’s name so it won’t be Thirteenth? I mean, it’s smack dab between Twelfth and Fourteenth, what the hell do people think it is? Everybody knows it’s Thirteenth Street!”

“Right! Isn’t it nuts? Like skipping the thirteenth floor in a high-rise!”

“Exactly.”

“Not that I’m superstitious or anything,” Dana said.

“Yeah, me neither.”

“But let’s get real.” What’s the matter with me? I’m running off at the mouth like a nincompoop! “It’s not the fourteenth floor, it’s the thirteenth floor. So, you’re, what, avoiding all the bad-luck baggage of thirteen by not calling it that?”

“It’s bull,” Warren said.

“Total bull. Thirteen, shmirteen.”

“People gotta get a life.”

Nodding briskly, Dana took another bite of her Red-Hot Beastie Weenie. Then she shrugged and tried to smile.

“Anyway,” Warren continued. “Let’s see.” He sucked some soda up his straw and swallowed. Then he raised his head, nodded slightly, and said, “I got a little carried away.”

“Me, too.”

“anyway, I grew up on Euclid...”

“Thirteenth Street,” Dana said through her mouthful.

A grin split his face. “Cut it out, Dana.”

“So sony.”

“Anyway, now I live here.”

“In Beast House?”

“Sure.”

“Where?” she asked, and finished swallowing.

“Over across the street. I’ve got a little cabin in the woods over there.”

“Neat!”

“It’s not bad.”

“So you live in town permanently?”

“So far.”

“How did you end up here?”

“Oh, my Lord, I’ve ended up.”

“You know what I mean,” Dana said.

“Yeah. But you may think I’m a little nuts.”

“There are worse things.”

“I just...You’ve heard of the call of the wild, haven’t you? Well, I suffer from the call of the Beast.”

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 front.

The first time it happened, Sandy wanted to pull over but there were guard rails on both sides, trapping her on the pavement. So she clenched the steering wheel, held her breath, and drove on toward the glare of the headlights. If it’s the Highway Patrol...

I’ll say a rock broke the windshield, she told herself. No, officer, I don’t have. a driver’s licence. I know I’m too young to drive, but Mom fell asleep at the wheel a while ago and we almost crashed. We couldn’t just pull over...not out here in the middle of nowhere. We were afraid it wouldn’t be safe. So we thought maybe it’d be all right for me to drive just for a few minutes while Mom took a little nap. I know it was terribly wrong officer, and I’m sorry, but...

It wasn’t a Highway Patrol car.

A pickup truck shot past her, and kept going.

After that, approaching vehicles didn’t bother Sandy nearly so much. She still grew somewhat tense, but she gave little thought to pulling over.

She had her story ready. It might work.

it wouldn’t even be necessary, though, unless they got stopped by cops. And so far, there’d been none. Maybe the cops were all home asleep, or patrolling a real highway like the 101, over to the east. If you wanted to speed, that’s the route you’d take, not this narrow, winding road along the shoreline.

Sooner or later, of course, they were sure to get stopped.

Their luck couldn’t last forever.

She doubted it could last much past sunrise. In the light of day, there’d be a lot more traffic. Everyone would notice the gaping hole in the windshield. Everyone would be able to see Sandy, too, and realize she looked too young to have a driver’s license.

A cop was bound to drive by...

But dawn was still a few hours away when Sandy spotted an unmarked dirt road that looked promising. Small and dark, it led into the woods like the mouth of a secret mine. Glimpsing it as she drove by, she had doubts about its size. It looked awfully small, and the trailer was fairly large.

It’ll be perfect, though, if we can just fit in.

There was no traffic in sight, so Sandy eased down on the brakes, brought the car to a halt, and started backing up. The trailer went crooked. She muttered, “Damn,” and stopped. Then she pulled forward and tried reverse again. This time, the trailer cooperated. She backed her way well past the turn-off before starting forward. As she neared it again, she swung so wide that she entered the south-bound lane. Then she steered for the dirt road.

Leaving the pavement behind, the car bounced and shook.

Lib snorted and woke up. “Huh?” she asked. “What’s goin’ on?”

“We had to get off the highway,” Sandy explained.

Entering the woods, she drove very slowly. She heard the leafy crunch of the tires, and scratchy, squeaky sounds that probably came from branches scraping against the sides of the trailer.

“I guess we fit,” she said.

“Huh? Yeah.”

“I wasn’t sure the trailer’d make it.”

“Where we goin’?” Lib asked, still sounding groggy.

“I don’t know. Just in here. This looks like it might be a good place to hide. I figure we shouldn’t do any traveling in broad daylight.”

“Yeah,” Lib muttered. Then she moaned and said, “Shit. I peel like I got myselp pounded to det widda baseball bat.”

“I bet you do.”

As Sandy drove deeper into the woods, Lib gently fingered her mouth, inside and out. Now and then, she winced. After a while, she started to weep quietly.

“You’ll be okay,” Sandy told her.

“Shit. it hurts. Hurts like puckin’ hell. And I’m gonna be so "puckin” ugly, ain’t no pella ebber gonna wanta look at me...Not as I were much ob a prize bepore.” She let out an odd, honking snort.

Sandy reached over and squeezed her leg. “Everything’ll be fine, Libby. We’ll get you some new teeth and you’ll look better than ever.”

“Yeah? Well...” She sniffed. “Ya got anudder bottle ob dat bourbon someplace?”

"Nope. Sorry.”

“Gotta get me some. I peel like shit.”

"There’s plenty of aspirin and stuff in the trailer.”

“Dat’d help.”

Just ahead, there seemed to be a small open area. It would probably be a better place to stop than here, where the trees pressed in so tightly. Sandy said, “Hang on just a minute,” and drove on into the clearing.

There, she eased the car to a stop. “I guess we’re probably far enough from the highway.”

“We gonna stay here?”

“For the time being.” She shut off the engine and headlight. The heater stopped blowing warm air against her legs. In the sudden silence, she heard a breeze sifting through the trees. The car’s engine made quiet pinging sounds. “Does it look all right to you?”

Lib turned her head slowly. “Mighty damn puckin dark out dare.”

“All the better. I want to get rid of the body. This looks like it’d be a good place for it.”

“We gettin’ out?”

"I am,” Sandy said. She opened her door, stepped outside, then eased her door shut.

On the other side of the car, the passenger door opened and Lib climbed out.

“Take it easy when you shut the door,” Sandy told her in a hushed voice. “We don’t want to wake up Eric.”

“Tink he’s asleep?”

"Pretty sure. He wouldn’t be this quiet if he was awake.”

‘Yeah?’

“Oh, yeah. He’s a real little hellraiser.”

Lib shut her door gently. “Gonna leab him in de car?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Sandy walked past the rear of the car and alongside the trailer. Reaching high, she opened the trailer door. The makeshift wooden stairway should’ve been right there, but she didn’t see it. Leaning forward, she raised her arms and felt around in the darkness. Nothing.

“What’s up?” Lib asked.

“I’m going in.” Sandy swung up a knee, planted it on the door sill, and climbed into the trailer.

“Where’s da steps?” Lib asked.

“Don’t know. Must’ve scooted off someplace. I’ll find ’em for you.”

“Dat’s all right. One ob us oughta stay out here and keep an eye on tings.”

“Chicken.”

“Dat’s me.”

“They’ve gotta be here,” Sandy muttered.

“Don’t go lookin’ por dem steps on account ob me. Only ting I want’s some aspirin.”

“You gonna make me do all the work? Climb on up.”

“You’re in da way, honey.”

“That can be fixed.” Sandy started to crawl away from the door and put a hand down on something that felt like a face. Gasping, she jerked her hand back.

“Y’okay?”

“Guess I found Slade.”

“What’s he doin?”

“Not a hell of a lot.” Gritting her teeth, Sandy slowly lowered her open hand again. But not all the way. She stopped it slightly above where the face should be, then poked at the darkness below with her forefinger. The tip of her finger didn’t touch anything, so she eased her hand downward ever so slowly.

Her fingertip met a sticky surface. She shoved gently, wondering what it was. The surface felt solid, but yielded slightly. Exploring a bit more, she discovered a small curve. Something feathery brushed against her fingertip.

Lashes?

“Uck!” Her hand leaped high.

“What?”

“I touched his eye! Jeez! His bare eye!”

Lib laughed.

“Keep yuckin’ it up, babe, ‘cause here he comes.”

Having a very clear idea about where Slater’s face should be, Sandy spread her hands and reached forward and down. She encountered damp, sticky fabric. Had to be his shirt. Patting her way to both his sides, she found his armpits. Then she grabbed hold and reared back. He scooted toward her just a little. She crawled backward and gave him another tug. He moved another inch or two.

Crawling farther, she felt the door sill beneath the toes of her shoes. On the other side of the sill, the floor went away. She kept pulling Slade until her knees felt the sill. Then she let go of him and climbed down.

“Can you give me a hand?”

“Sure.”

Side by side, Sandy and Lib reached into the trailer. Each grabbed one of Slade’s armpits. When they pulled, he slid toward them. He came along fine until he was out just more than halfway down his back.

Suddenly, his torso tipped downward and his legs flew up.

Lib gasped.

Sandy blurted, "Look out!”

As Slade’s legs swung down, both women scurried for safety. But Lib didn’t move fast enough. Before she could get clear, Slade’s left shoe crashed against the top of her shoulder.

"Ow!” she cried out. Grabbing her shoulder, she stumbled backward.

Slade piled into the ground beside the trailer. He came to rest on his knees, rump up, face in the grass. Sandy didn’t like him in that position, so she rammed him in the hip with her foot and he toppled over sideways.

-You okay?” she asked Lib.

“Shit,” Lib said, rubbing her shoulder. “Dis ain’t my night.”

“Your shoulder isn’t broken or something, is it?”

“Naw.”

“Still works?”

“Reckon.”

“Wanta just help me drag him into the trees? Then you can go inside and take some aspirin and hit the sack, or something, if you want to.”

"Dat sounds good.” She came over and looked down at Slade.

“Which end you want?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I’ll grab his peet.”

“His peter?” Sandy asked, sounding shocked. “Don’t do that!”

“Hardy har har.”

“Why don’t you grab his feet, instead? I’ll take his arms.”

“Kick your ass prom here to next Sunday,” Lib muttered.

Laughing softly, Sandy crouched over Slade and took hold of his wrists. Then she waited while Lib bent down and clutched his ankles. “Ready?” she asked.

“Heabe ho,” said Lib.

They both stood up straight, stretching Slade and raising him off the ground. Sandy sidestepped quickly, turning him. Then she started to trudge backward, lugging him away from the trailer. Lib followed, holding up his legs.

“Sure is a hebby son ob a bitch,” Lib muttered.

“Maybe you ladies should set him down.”

At the sound of the man’s voice, Lib made a quick squeaky noise and dropped Slade’s feet. Sandy, shocked, bent down slowly. When Slade’s head rested on the ground, she lowered his arms and folded them across his chest. Then she stood up straight.

She and Lib, standing at opposite ends of the body, turned this way and that, trying to spot the source of the voice.

The man was not to be seen.

Sandy felt as if a vicious thug were kicking her in the heart.

“He’s down,” Lib called, sounding almost breathless.

“Now,” the man said, “stick your hands up.”

“Is that you, Marshal Dillon?” Sandy asked.

“Stick ’em up!”

She and Lib raised their arms overhead.

“Okay,” the man said. “That’s good. Now step back away from the body and keep backing up till you get to the trailer.”

Moments later, they were standing side by side, their backs against the side of the trailer, their arms still high.

A few yards straight in front of them, the trunk of a tree seemed to grow wider.

Someone was gliding out from behind it.

Someone as dark as the night.

When he stood separate from the tree, he switched on a flashlight. The stark white beam slanted down at Slade. It moved slowly up and down the mutilated body.

“Who killed this man?” he asked, swinging the beam over to Sandy.

Squinting, she turned her face away from the glare.

“Not me,” she said.

The light jerked away from her, then jabbed into Lib’s eyes. “Not me,” Lib said.

“What happened to your face?” he asked her.

“I got beat up wid an ugly stick.”

“How about some straight answers, ladies.? You might think this is all funny as hell, but I don’t see the humor. You’ve got a dead man here. So what’s the story?”

“Are you a cop?” Sandy asked.

“No, but I’ve got a gun.” He turned the flashlight onto his own right hand. It was clutching a big, dark pistol. The barrel was aimed upward, not at Sandy or Lib. “You’re on my property. I want to know what you’re doing here.”

“Isn’t it pretty obvious?” Sandy asked.

“Cut out the wisecracks.”

Sandy shrugged.

“We just wanted to ditch da body,” Lib told him. “Dat’s all.”

“Suppose we just throw him back in the trailer and drive away?” Sandy suggested. “How would that be? I mean, we weren’t trying to unload him on you in particular. We don’t even know you. We just wanted to get rid of him, that’s all.”

"How’d he get killed?”

“He attacked me,” Sandy said.

“Uh-huh.”

“He was trying to rape me, all right? So I fought back. And I won. I had a knife handy, or maybe I’d be the one who ended up dead.”

He swung his light toward Lib. “How do you fit in?”

“She...”

“I’m asking her, not you. What’s your name?” he asked Lib.

“Bambi,” she said.

“Bambi? Like the deer?”

“Yeah. I got opp lucky. Day almost called me Tumper.”

That’s Thumper,” Sandy explained..

“What happened to your teeth, Bambi?”

"He knocked ’em clean out my head,” she explained, nodding in Slade’s direction.

“Is that before or after he attacked this one?”

"Charly,” Sandy said. “I’m Charly. Like in Charlie’s Angels.”

"He beat me up pirst,” Lib explained. “Den he went apter Charly.”

“He’s my dad,” Sandy explained. “Bambi, she’s my stepmother. He was always beating the shit out of us and...you know, messing with me. So tonight I was ready for him and I got him with my knife.”

The beam of light swept down and returned to Slade’s body.

Sounding appalled but calm, the man asked, “This is your father?”

“Yeah. Dirty rotten son of a bitch.”

“You killed your own father?”

“Sure did. And I’m not sorry for it, either. He got what he had coming.”

The man slowly shook his head from side to side.

Keeping his light on Slade, he said, “If what you’re telling me is true, it sure sounds like self-defense. So why are you trying to hide the body? You should’ve just called the cops right after it happened and admitted everything. Nobody’s going to blame you for trying to defend yourself like that.”

“Guess I was scared,” Sandy said. “I’ve got a little baby, you know? I was scared they might take him away. I mean, I’m only fourteen, and...”

“You’ve got a child?”

“Yes sir. And he’s the daddy.” She jabbed a finger toward Slade’s body. “He’s my baby’s daddy and my daddy, too.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Dey’ll take away little Eric por sure,” Lib said. “Dem polks at Child Welpare. Dat’s how come we had to run opp and why we gotta hide da pucker’s body.”

The man was silent for a while. Then he asked, “Where are you from?”

“Noplace much,” Sandy told him. “Last couple of months, we’ve just been on the road.”

“You live in this trailer?”

“Yes sir,” Sandy said.

“Where are you heading?”

“Noplace. Just figured we’d keep on going, and hope for the best.”

“What kind of money do you have?”

“A few bucks. You want it?”

He lowered the pistol. “I’m not sure I believe everything you’re telling me,” he said. “But you two...It’s pretty obvious you’re in a jam. I’d be glad to help you, but I don’t want to end up like this guy.”

“Are you fixin’ to attack us?” Sandy asked.

“Not likely,” he said.

"Den it ain’t likely we’ll kill you,” Lib told him.

“Mom’s right,” said Sandy.

“In that case... Maybe you’d like to be my guests. I’ve got a cabin just up the road a piece. You could probably use some food and a good night’s sleep.”

“Got anyting to drink at dat cabin ob yours?” Lib asked.

"Just about anything you might want.”

“Hot damn! Let’s went, honey!”

The man said, “My name’s Harry. Harry Matthews.”

“I meant her,” Lib explained, swinging a thumb toward Sandy.

“I like to call my girl honey. But maybe I can call you honey, too, ip you treat us right.”

“Fine. So let’s take care of this body, first. Then we’ll go on up to my place.”

Chapter Fifteen

A VISIT FROM CLYDE

All afternoon, Dana’s mind dwelled on Warren. She thought about the way he’d looked and the things he’d said. She wanted to know everything about him.

Tuck, no doubt, would be able to tell her plenty.

But Dana was afraid of hearing it. The guy just couldn’t be as wonderful as he seemed. He must have some sort of awful flaw.

After a talk with Tuck, she might want nothing more to do with him.

We can’t talk about him here, anyway, she told herself. I’ll wait till after work.

During a slow period in the middle of the afternoon, she was leaning against the side of the ticket booth, daydreaming about Warren, when Clyde stepped around the corner. He was carrying a stool with a padded seat.

"Interested” he asked.

“I don’t want to take your seat,” Dana told him.

“I’ve still got one.” He set down the stool for her.

“Well, thanks.”

As Dana climbed onto it, Clyde watched her closely. Though he wore sunglasses, their lenses weren’t dark enough to hide the direction of his gaze. He mostly watched her breasts and crotch.

She was used to that sort of thing.

Sometimes she found it flattering, sometimes exciting. Often, though, it seemed like an embamssing invasion of her privacy and annoyed or disgusted her.

Long ago, she’d discovered that her reaction depended on who was doing the staring.

Though Clyde was certainly handsome—well over six feet tall and built like a Mr. Universe contestant—she didn’t care much for him.

“So,” he said. He folded his arms across his massive chest and looked her in the eyes. “How’s it it going?”

"Okay.”

“First day on the job.”

“Not bad,” she said.

“You have a little trouble upstairs?”

“No big deal.”

“Lynn pulled you out.”

“I just wasn’t feeling very well. I needed some fresh air.”

“Where have I heard that before?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Happens to everyone. Well, not everyone. But just about. It’s hard to last all day in there, especially for a beginner. I’ll tell you your symptoms. Cold sweat, faintness, nausea, a sense of suffocation. Tell me I’m right.”

“You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Did you barf?”

“No.”

“Plenty do. You probably would’ve, except you got out in time.”

Dana tried to smile pleasantly. “Well,” she said, “I’m glad I didn’t.”

“You know what it is?”

“What what is?”

“Purely psychological.”

“Ah.”

Nodding, he pulled a pack of Camels out of his shirt pocket. He held it toward Dana.

“No thanks,” she said.

He took one for himself and lit it up.

“See, you tell yourself it’s just a house. You’re just a tour guide in a house full of dummies...That includes the tourists. The dummies.”

She smiled and nodded.

“So, you tell yourself nothing is going on. But plenty is going on. It’s not just a regular house with dummies inside. You know what really happened there, and you can’t hide from it. The more you try to hide from the reality of the place, the more your subconscious works on you.” He nodded briskly. “You know what that does to you?”

“What?”

“It screws up your entire system. Your whole internal organic structure knows where you are. So you don’t breathe right. It’s like you’re afraid to take a deep breath when you’re in there, like the air is full of disease because of all the death and decay. And you don’t want to suck it into your own body. Do you see what I mean?”

"Sure,” she said.

A guy this handsome, she thought, shouldn’t be cursed with such nutty ideas.

“So, see, what you’re doing to yourself, you’re giving your brain a case of air starvation. You know why you feel like you’re suffocating in there?”

“Why?”

“‘Cause you are. You’re trying subconsciously to hold your breath, see?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Does that make sense to you?”

“Sure.”

“‘Cause, subconsciously, you don’t want to be breathing the fucked-up air inside that house.”

“Right.”

“You get it?” he asked, the cigarette bobbing between his lips.

“I get it.”

“See how it’s all in your mind?”

"Yeah.”

“Now. Do you know how to fix it?”

“By breathing?”

“Absolutely. But it ain’t that easy. See, your subconscious has a mind all its own.”

This time, Dana’s smile was genuine.

Clyde smiled back at her, looking very pleased with himself.

“You can’t just order your subconscious mind to let you breathe. Doesn’t work that way. What you’ve gotta do is come to terms with Beast House.”

“Come to terms with it?”

“Absolutely. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, you know.”

She managed a chuckle.

“Denial’s behind all your problems.” He took a deep drag, then removed the cigarette from his mouth and pointed it at her. “What you need to do is accept Beast House.”

What a load, she thought.

She said, “Ah. Okay.”

“And it’ll accept you,” he added.

She nodded.

“I can help you with that.”

“You can?”

“You want to get over it, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“You almost have to get over it. You’re a Beast House guide. How can you be a guide if the place makes you sick?”

“Wouldn’t be easy.”

“I just so happen to have a foolproof treatment. Are you interested?”

“I guess so.”

“Good. After work, we’ll go and have dinner together and get started.”

“Started?”

“On your treatment.” He tossed the cigarette stub to the pavement and mashed it under his shoe.

“During dinner tonight?” Dana asked.

He flashed a smile. “Everybody has to eat. How about the Carriage House restaurant? Have you ever eaten there?”

“No, but...”

“It’s the best eatery in town. The only place in town where it’s possible to get a decent dinner.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” she said, shaking her head and trying to look apologetic. “Not tonight.”

“It’ll be on me.”

“Well, thank you. That’s very nice of you, Clyde, but I’ve already made plans for tonight.”

“So?”

“What do you mean?” Dana asked.

“Make new plans.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“It wouldn’t be right.”

Smirking, he shook his head and looked as if he pitied her.

“Well,” he said, “it’s your life.”

“I can’t go back on my word. I’m sorry. Maybe some other night.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “This might be your only chance.”

Lord, I hope so.

Dana shrugged, frowned slightly and said, “Well, if it is, it is. That’d be up to you, I guess.”

“Once bitten, twice shy.”

“Nobody bit you.”

With a smile that didn’t look very friendly, he said, “You’re making a very big mistake, you know.”

“I guess I’ll just have to live with it.”

“You don’t have to live with it. Just blow off this other guy while you’ve still got the chance.”

“Can’t.”

“Who is he?”

“Nobody. None of your business.”

“It’s Warren, right?”

“It’s not Warren.”

Wish it was.

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s not.”

“You don’t want to go out with him.” Clyde lit up another Camel. “He’s a loser.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“He’s a fag.”

Heat rushed to her face. “Shouldn’t you be back in the ticket booth?”

“And sell tickets to who? You see any customers lining up?”

“Not at the moment.”

“And you won’t. Nobody ever shows up this late.”

“Well, you don’t have to stand here.”

Grinning, he said, “You don’t want to go out with a guy like Warren.”

“I already told you, I’m not.”

“So, then, you’ll come to dinner with me tonight?”

“No!”

Smiling languidly, he blew smoke into her face. “Why not?”

“I—have—a—previous—engagement.”

“Still?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

“With Warren?”

“No.”

“With who?”

“None of your business.”

“A mystery date.”

“Right. That’s it. I have a mystery date.”

“Where’s he taking you?”

“I don’t know. He’s going to surprise me. And if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. None of this is your business, Clyde. You really oughta learn how to take ‘no’ for an answer. Now why don’t you please drop it?”

Smiling with the cigarette pinched between his lips, he held up both hands as if surrendering. “All right,” he said. “I’m dropping it

“Thank you.”

“It’s your loss.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Going out with some pathetic loser when you could be going out with me.”

“I’ll probably regret it.”

“You’ll definitely regret it.” The smile still on his lips, his eyes went hard.

Dana felt a little cold and shaky inside.

That sure sounded like a threat. The creep just threatened me.

He turned away and stepped out of sight around the rear corner of the ticket booth. A moment later, the door banged shut.

Dama took an enormous breath, filling her lungs. She blew the air out through her pursed lips, then hopped up onto the stool.

She felt a little sick inside.

In her mind, she saw the sneer on Clyde’s face as he said, He’s a fag.

Warren’s gay?

That figures. That just figures.

Unless maybe Clyde was lying. Wouldn’t put it past him.

What a prick. I wouldn’t go out with him if...

The hell with him. What about Warren?

Warren hadn’t seemed gay. You couldn’t always tell, though.

They didn’t all prance around, flipping their hands in the air and rolling their eyes and talking like flamboyant broads. Many did, but certainly not all of them.

Tuck’ll know, she told herself.

Might be nice if he is gay. Then we can just be friends, and not...

Damn it! just when you think you’ve met...

Off in the distance, the front door of Beast House swung open. Five or six people stepped out onto the porch and started down the stairs. A couple of them were taking their earphones off.

About time, Dana thought. Customers.

She hopped off the stool and waited for them.

When they arrived, she chatted with them and took their players. After they left, she rewound all the tapes, then returned the players to the shelves behind her stool.

The shelves were nearly full. Only a dozen or so players were still out.

She glanced at her wristwatch.

4:35

In less than half an hour, ticket sales would stop for the day.

But the house would remain open until 6:00, giving everyone time to complete the tour.

This could get boring.

She hopped up onto the stool.

Well, I’d rather be bored than have Clyde out here bothering me.

She supposed he was right about one thing, though: how could she spend the summer as a Beast House guide if the place made her feel ill?

I’ll just have to get over it, she told herself.

Won’t get over it by standing out here in the fresh air and sunlight. Why not go back in for the rest of the afternoon?

It seemed like a good idea.

She reached down for the walkie-talkie on her belt. But instead of pulling it free, she rested her hand on its warm plastic top.

I oughta stick this out. Tuck’s already had to change stuff around because of me. Let’s not cause any more trouble.

After this, she thought, I’ll bring a book to read.

The time passed slowly.

At five o’clock, Clyde closed the ticket booth. He came around the rear corner. “So, have you changed your mind about dinner?”

“Sorry,” Dana said.

“Your loss. I’ll be taking off, now. One of the perks of working the ticket booth, you get to leave an hour early. Have fun.”

Nodding, she said, “Bye.”

Clyde winked, stepped past her, then gracefully vaulted the tumstile and headed toward town. Not looking back, he waved.

Immediately, Dana felt a pleasant sense of lightness, of freedom.

Amazing, she thought, how one person can mess up your outlook.

He’s gone, now. Enjoy it.

And enjoy it she did. It was one of those great afternoons when the sun is hot but a cool, moist breeze is blowing in from the Pacific. Seagulls squealed. She thought she could smell the ocean and the beach and the candy smell of suntan oil.

She pictured herself strolling barefoot along the beach, Warren by her side.

But if he’s gay...

Doesn’t mean we can’t stroll on the beach together, she told herself.

Sure wouldn’t be the same, though.

It made her feel cheated.

It gave her a tight, unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Instead of being eager for six o’clock to arrive, she started to dread it. Because she might have to face Warren, and she would definitely be facing Tuck.

Tuck would know the truth about him.

And Dana wasn’t so sure she wanted to find out.

I don’t have to ask.

As closing time approached, however, she began to have new worries.

The shelves where she stored the tape players were nearly full. But not quite.

They had three empty spaces.

By six o’clock, the three players had still not been returned.

Chapter Sixteen

SANDY’S STORY—August, 1980

“I’ll go and get a shovel,” Harry said. “Why don’t you ladies wait for me here?”

“Aren’t you afraid we’ll leave?” Sandy asked.

“Leave if you want You’re not my prisoners. But if you stay, I’ll help you bury the guy. And you can spend the night at my place. I think you two could use a little rest.”

“Dat’s for damn sure,” Lib said.

“While I’m gone, maybe you should strip him. We’ll take his clothes and stuff back to the cabin with us and bum everything.”

“Done this sort of thing before?” Sandy asked.

“Just common sense. His body might get found someday. Better if it can’t be identified.”

“Yeah, that’s probably we,” Sandy said.

“Want the flashlight?” Harry asked.

“Don’t you need it?”

“I can get by without it.” He handed the flashlight to Sandy, then said, “I’ll be back in about ten minutes.”

“Okay, see you.”

“Bring us someting to drink, huh?”

“I’ll see what I can find.”

After he disappeared into the woods, Sandy could still hear his footsteps for a while. The crackling, crunching sounds finally faded out.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“About what?” Lib asked.

“Him. Harry.”

“Yum yum.”

tom serious.”

“Me, too.”

“He’s seen Slade. And us.”

“Guess he aims to help us.”

“Do you really think so?” Sandy asked.

“He’s goin’ por a shovel.”

“Maybe he’s going to call the coups.”

“Nah,” Lib said. “Ip he was gonna do dat, he would ob made us go wit him.”

Sandy supposed she was right about that. The guy certainly hadn’t acted as if he wanted to have them arrested. He’d actually seemed shocked by their story, and sympathetic. But maybe he’d been too sympathetic, too eager to take their side.

Maybe he had something up his sleeve.

“I tink he’s gonna help us bury da bastard.”

“Why would he want to do that?” Sandy asked.

“He’s a guy. We’re a couple ob babes. What da you tink? Probably wants to get in our pants.”

“If he tries anything with me,” Sandy said, “I’ll kill him.”

“Well, don’t kill him till apter da hole’s dug.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Shine dat light down here,” Lib said, and crouched over Slade’s body.

Sandy lowered the pale beam.

“Dat’s good. You just hold it dare, and I’ll strip him.”

First, Lib removed Slade’s wallet. Hardly giving it a glance, she tossed it to Sandy.

Sandy caught the wallet.

“Myting good in dat, we’ll split it pipty-pipty, okay?”

“Sounds fair,” Sandy said. She stuffed the wallet into the back pocket of her shorts.

Lib searched the rest of Slade’s pockets, but didn’t take anything out. Then she removed his boots, his socks, and all the rest of his clothes. She stuffed his socks, underwear and ascot into his boots. After laying out his trousers on the ground, she spread his bloody, torn silk shirt along the legs and rolled them up together.

“Dare,” she said.

“Don’t forget his wristwatch and rings.”

Lib took them. “Dese oughta be wort a pew bucks,” she said.

“We’d better just get rid of them.”

Standing up, Lib asked, “Gib ’em a toss?”

“Not here. Later.”

“Okie-doke.” Lib dropped them into the pocket of her Blazing Babes shirt. They made the silk bulge and sag over her left breast.

Sandy swept the flashlight down Slade’s body for a final check.

“How da hell many times you stab dis guy?” Lib asked.

“A few.”

“Damn sight more dan a pew. Whoo! Hope you don’t nebber get mad at me!”

“Just be good to Eric and you won’t have to worry about it.” Sandy shut off the light.

“Hey, dat boy, he’s aces wit me.”

Soon, Harry returned. Though he walked in darkness, he carried a lantern. It made quiet squeaking, clinking sounds as it swung by his left side. A shovel and pick ax, resting on his right shoulder, clanked together with each step he took.

“Hello, ladies,” he said.

He crouched and set down the lantern. Using both hands, he lifted the tools off his shoulder and lowered them to the ground. “Brought you some refreshmmts.” he said. The front pockets of his trousers were bulging. He reached in and pulled out two cans. “A beer for you, ma’am,” he said, stepping forward and handing a can to Lib. And a Pepsi for you, Charly.” He gave a cold can to Sandy.

“Thanks,” Sandy said.

Lib popped open her tab and took a long drink. Then she sighed. Then she said, “You’re a lipe-saber, Harry. Nuttin’ beats a cold brew, and dat’s a pact.”

“Glad to be of service,” he said. Then he turned away, squatted over his lantern and worked on it until it came alive, hissing like a bag of snakes and filling the clearing with brilliant light.

“Jeez, that’s bright,” Sandy said.

“It’s supposed to be,” Harry said.

“What if somebody sees it?”

“Not much chance of that.” Rising, he picked up the lantern by its wire handle and turned toward the body. His back stiffened. He muttered, “Holy shit.”

Sandy couldn’t blame him; Slade looked awful. She supposed he’d been no prize to begin with: soft and pudgy, his figure shaped like a bulb. In the glaring light, however, his dead skin was bluish-gray, his blood purple, his wounds raw, pulpy lips that looked wet and slippery.

“You must’ve really hated him,” Harry said.

“Yeah,” Sandy said. She sipped her soda, then added, “He wasn’t easy to kill, either.”

“Well, let’s get him under ground.”

Harry picked up the shovel. Carrying the lantern low by his side, he wandered the clearing with his head down. Every so often, he paused and jabbed the shovel against the ground. Then he stopped near a far edge of the clearing, set down the lantern, and stomped the shovel in with his foot. “Somebody want to bring me the pick?”

Sandy hefted the pick off the ground. With Lib by her side, she carried it over to Harry.

“Don’t need it quite yet,” he said.

Sandy let the pick fall to the ground.

Sipping their drinks, she and Lib watched Harry cut a shallow rectangle with the edge of his shovel. Then, slab by slab, he removed small sections of the surface soil along with the weeds and grass growing out of it. He set the slabs aside. When he was done, he had a three-by-six bed of bare earth. He started digging, piling the loose dirt at the opposite end from where he’d laid out the sod.

“Is there something we can do to help?” Sandy asked.

“Not at the moment,” he said. “Thanks, though.”

A while later, he climbed out of the shallow hole. He took off his shirt, dropped it to the ground, and grabbed the pick ax.

In the hole again, he swung the pick furiously, ripping into the earth. Sandy watched his muscles bulge and slide under his tanned skin. Soon, in spite of the night’s chill, his back was shiny with sweat.

Switching to the shovel, he scooped out heaps of loose dirt and rocks.

When he paused to rest, the grave was knee deep. He was gasping for air. His hair was wet, matted down and clinging to his head. His dripping skin gleamed in the glare of the lantern.

“Hand me my shirt?” he asked.

Before Sandy could make a move for it, Lib snatched it off the ground. Instead of taking the shirt to him, she stepped backward. “Whatcha want it por?”

“Just hand it over, okay?”

“Not ip you’re gonna put it on.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I just want to wipe off my sweat.”

“Reckon I’ll let you hab it, den.” With that, she stepped forward and gave it to him.

“Thanks.”

Lib and Sandy both watched closely as he mopped the perspiration off his face, his broad shoulders, his chest, his belly.

“Dat’s hot work, ain’t it?” Lib said.

“I’ll say.”

“Betcha’d feel better ip you took opp dem pants.”

He let out a short, breathless laugh. “Well, thanks for the suggestion. Think I’ll keep them on, though.”

“Chicken.”

“Cut it out, Lib,” Sandy said.

“Don’t he look hot?”

“I’m sure he is hot.”

“I’m fine,” Harry insisted.

“You’re mighty pine,” Lib told him.

“Well, thanks. You can hold this for me,” he added, and tossed his shirt to her. Then he hefted the pick and began swinging it again.

The next time he stopped to rest, Lib tossed the shirt to him without being asked. As he wiped his dripping body, Sandy said, “Isn’t that about deep enough?”

“Not even up to my waist, yet.”

“Pretty near,” Lib said.

“How deep are you planning to make it?” Sandy asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Deeper than this.”

“Maybe we should dig for a while,” she suggested.

“It’ll go quicker if I do it.”

“Bullshit?” Lib blurted. “I’m stronger dan ten men!”

With that, she stepped to the edge of the grave. Stopping there, she waved a hand furiously at Harry. “Outa my way! Make room por da best dang gnbe-digger ebber walked da planet!”

Gazing up at her, Harry shook his head. “Why don’t you just wait up there, and I’ll...”

She jerked open her Blazing Babes shirt and pulled it off.

Twisting sideways, she flung the shirt to Sandy. Bare to the waist, she threw her arms high and leaped into the grave.

Harry scurried backward to get out of her way.

She landed on her feet, stumbled, bumped against the steep dirt wall of the grave, pushed herself away from it and stood up straight. Turning around, she gave Sandy a thumbs-up. Then she faced Harry.

“Howdy!” she blurted.

He shook his head. He glanced up at Sandy and shook his head some more. Then he said, “Howdy, Bambi. Maybe you should climb out, now. We can’t really get any digging done with both of us in here.”

“You get out and I’ll dig,” she said.

“It’d be better if you got out.”

“Come on, Mom,” Sandy said.

“Tink I can’t dig? I’m strong!” Stepping up close to Harry, she raised her right arm and brought her fist toward her face like a bodybuilder posing. “See dat bicept?”

“Very nice,” Harry said.

“Peel it.”

“What?”

“Peel my muscle.”

“She wants you to feel it,” Sandy translated.

He made no move to feel it. “I’m sure it’s a fine muscle,” he said.

“You damn betcha. Gib it a peel.”

“Thanks, but...”

“Den how ‘bout peelin’ my tits?”

He glanced up at Sandy as if looking for another translation.

“She wants you to feel her tits.”

He grimaced. “I know, I know. I figured that out.” To Lib, he said, “You really shouldn’t be doing this in front of Charly. I mean, come on. This is embarrassing. Why don’t you just climb on out of here and let me finish digging...”

She threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around his back and squeezing herself against him.

“Mom!” Sandy cried out. “Stop that!”

“Leab us alone, dear.”

“Let go, Bambi,” Harry pleaded. “Come on. Please. This isn’t the time or the place.”

“Good as any,” she said, and slid down his body until Sandy could only see her head and hands. Her hands started unfastening Harry’s belt.

“Quit it, Mom.”

“Go away. Less ya wanta come in and join us.”

“Hey,” Harry said. “That’s not...”

“Not enup room por tree ob us, anyhow.”

Harry grimaced up at Sandy. “I’m sorry about this.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s...”

“Mine!” Lib cried out, and jerked his trousers down.

“Hey!” Harry gasped. “Don’t!” But he didn’t try to stop her. He just stood there, naked down as far as the hole’s edge allowed Sandy to see.

She saw plenty.

“Niiiiice!” Lib said.

Though Harry scowled and shook his head, he made no attempt to cover himself. To Sandy, he said, “You really shouldn’t be watching this.”

“Aren’t you gonna stop her?”

Lib let out a laugh.

“I don’t know how I can stop her without...”

He gasped and arched his back as Lib’s fingers slid around him.

“...hurting her,” he finished.

“Hurt me wit dis, big boy.”

“What about the hole?” Sandy asked.

“Mine comes pirst!” Lib cried out, and laughed. Harry laughed, too.

“Great,” Sandy muttered. Then she turned her back on them.

Through the hiss of the lantem, Sandy heard Harry moan.

“How’s dat peel?”

“Mmm.”

“Come on down here.” A short while later, Lib said, “Get dese opp me, homey.”

“My pleasure,” said Harry.

Lib grunted a couple of times, then said, “Yeah, dat’s good. Mmmm. Nice and cool.”

Then came lots of moaning and sighing. Sandy stood there.

She thought about walking away. But she stayed. She wanted to listen. It was embarrassing to hear such things. But the sounds excited her, too. She could so easily picture what was happening—easily feel Harry’s body on top of her.

It could be me down there. I’m ten times better looking than Lib.

Shit, she’s ugly as sin with her mouth all busted up that way.

How can be even stand to touch ber?

So who’d wanta make it with that jerk, anyway? He’s that damn eager to screw anything that moves ... The hell with him.

The hell with Lib, too. What is she, some kind of nympho? She doesn’t even know the guy.

Lib suddenly cried out, “No. Stop! Yeeee! Dare’s sometin’ squirmy under me! Shit! Get opp! Get opp!”

Sorry, sonny What is it?”

“I dont know!”

“Probably just a worm or something,” Harry said.

“What do you expect?” Sandy called. “Scmwing in a grave?”

“Shut da puck up! Get down here, Harry. You get on da bottom,’n I’ll take da top. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“That way,” Sandy called, “you get the worms, Harry.”

“What are you, standing right there?”

“Sort of. But I’m not watching.”

“Why don’t you take a little walk?”

“I’m fine right here.”

“Den just shut up,” Lib said.

“It’s a free country.”

“You’d better go away, Charly.”

“Mom, don’t you think you’d better warn him?”

“Wam me about what?” Harry asked.

“The diseases.”

, “You’re cruisin’ por a bruisin’, bitch.”

“What diseases?” Harry asked.

“She’s lyin’. I ain’t got nuttin’.”

“You name it, she’s got it. If I had a whang, I wouldn’t let her anywhere near it.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Lib said. “She don’t know what she’s talkin’ about. She ain’t my daughter, por one ting.”

“Mom!”

“She don’t hardly eben know me. She’s just sayin’ dat shit ’cause she wants to stop you and me. She’s jealous. She wants you. She’s up dare all hot an boddered, creamin’ her pants.”

“Like hell,” Sandy said.

“She’s not your daughter?” Harry asked.

Shut up, Mom!”.

“I only just met her tonight.”

“So who’s the dead guy?”

“Some puckin’ movie director.”

“Lib!”

“He’s not her father?”

“Nah.”

“You’ve both been handing me a pack of lies?”

“I’ll tell you all ‘bout da trute apter we...”

“Maybe you oughta get off me,” Harry said. “I think we’d better...”

“You want her?” Lib asked. “You want Charly?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Me pirst. You can hab her apter you get done wit me. I promise. She gibs you any shit, I’ll eben hold her down por you.”

“But...”

“Less you don’t want her.”

“I don’t know. She’s just a kid.”

“Dat don’t matter.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, here. Let’s just stop so I can try to figure...” He stopped talking and moaned.

“Yesssss,” Lib said.

“Uh. God. Oh.”

“All de waaaayyy.”

“Mmmmm.”

“You like?”

“Oh. Yeah. God.”

Sandy stepped to the edge of the grave with the lantern. All she could see of Harry were his legs. He seemed to be stretched out on the bottom of the grave, his trousers around his ankles. Lib’s jeans and shoes were down there, too. She was naked and on her knees, hunched over him, gasping and groaning as she moved up and down. Her back and buttocks were dirty.

Sandy set down the lantem.

She raised the shovel high and swung it down hard.

Striking the back of Lib’s head, it rang out like a bell.

Lib flopped down on Harry.

“Hey!” Harry gasped. “What’s going on? Bambi? Bambi? What the matter?”

“I think the shovel hit her,” Sandy said.

“What?”

“I hit her with your shovel.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Who, me?”

“My God, Charly!”

Harry’s hands came out from under Lib. Grabbing her by the upper arms, he tried to push her up.

Sandy tossed aside the shovel and leaped off the edge of the grave. She landed with both feet in the middle of Lib’s back.

Harry grunted.

“You all right?” Sandy asked.

“Uh!”

“You won’t be!” Arms out for balance, she jumped up and down on Lib’s back. Each time she landed, Harry let out a noise as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.

After five or six jumps, Sandy bent her knees and sat down on the edge of the grave, her shoes still planted in the middle of Lib’s back.

“How are you doing, Harry?” .

He moaned.

Leaning forward, Sandy stared down into the hole. She could see the back of Lib’s head. She supposed that Harry’s face must be directly under Lib’s face, but the light didn’t reach down that far.

“How was she, Harry? Was she to die for?”

He didn’t answer.

Standing again, Sandy put her weight onto her right foot. With her left foot, she stomped the back of Lib’s head. She felt the collision with Harry’s face. She heard it, too.

“Did that hurt?” she asked.

Nothing.

She turned, stepped on Lib’s buttocks, then on the backs of her legs. At the foot of the grave, she squatted over Harry’s trousers. She found his pistol in one pocket, his wallet in another. She stuffed them into the pockets of her shorts, then climbed out.

Leaving the lantern, shovel and pick by the side of the grave, she hurried over to the body of Marlon Slade.

She bent over, grabbed his ankles, raised his legs, and dragged him across the clearing. It was tough work. By the time she reached the edge of the grave, she was sweaty and huffing for air.

She dropped his feet.

Then she picked up the lantern and crouched over the grave.

Harry’s legs were still stretched out between Lib’s legs.

She was still on top of him, hiding most of his body. By lowering the lantern into the hole, however, Sandy could see more. Harry’s right arm lay against the bottom of the hole at an angle away from his body. Lib’s left breast drooped between his arm and his side just under his armpit. Her face was pressed against the side of his head.

Sandy could see a little of Harry’s face.

His left eye, the profile of his nose, his lips and chin.

There was a lot of blood.

As she stared down at Harry, his eye blinked.

“Hello, Hany,” Sandy said.

He groaned.

“You still in her?”

His lips moved slightly, but he said nothing.

“Was she worth it?”

He said, “Uhhh.”

“You two belong together.”

“Heh...”

“What?”

“Help,” he murmured.

“Maybe Bambi’ll help you. She’s very accomodating.”

With that, Sandy stood up. She stepped away from the grave, set down the lantern, then squatted beside the body of Marlon Slade.

“Char... ?”

She tumbled Slade into the grave.

Then she filled it in.

Chapter Seventeen

NO-SHOWS

When Dana saw Warren striding toward her across the front lawn of Beast House, she hopped off the stool and raised a hand in greeting. Her heart was pounding fast.

“You made it through your first day,” he called, still a distance away.

“Pretty much.”

“How’d it go?”

“Lunch went great.”

He grinned. “Mine, too.” He stopped in front of her. Looking a little embarrassed, he pushed his hands into the front pockets. of his shorts and tilted his head to one side. “Anyway, it was sure nice to meet you.”

“Same here.”

“A fellow Southern Californian.”

“I’m no fellow,” Dana pointed out.

His grin widened and he blushed. “No, you’re sure not. Anyway, I’ll probably be seeing you around.”

“Probably at the snack stand tomorrow.”

“Hope so.”

Looks like he’s not gonna ask me out. Okay.

“Well,” he said, “I guess I’d better get going.”

“Okay. You walking?”

“Yeah. My place is just over there.” He pointed across the street toward the wooded area just north of the old brick Kutch house.

“Your cabin’s in the trees there?” Dana asked.

“Yep.”

“Do you have an ocean view?”

“Not much of one. You can see just a little water through the trees.”

“Sounds neat.”

“It’s not bad.”

You’re not much of a hint-taker, pal.

“Anyway,” he said, “I guess I’d better get going.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

“See you.” He turned away and opened the iron gate next to the turnstile. On the other side of it, he glanced back and smiled again. “Take it easy, Dana.”

“Thanks.”

He started walking away.

“Hey, Warren?”

He stopped and turned toward her.

“You wouldn’t want to stick around for a few minutes, would you? I might have to look through the house. We’ve got some no-shows.”

He stared at her, frowning slightly.

“Three players didn’t get returned,” she explained.

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish.”

He lifted an arm and checked his wristwatch. “It’s only ten after. They’ll probably turn up. Some people don’t pay much attention to what time it is.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Lynn’s still here, isn’t she?”

“She’d better be. She’s my ride.”

“Anyone else?”

“I guess Rhonda’s still around. Clyde took off at five, and Sharon left a few minutes ago.”

Nodding, Warren scowled toward the house. “I guess I can wait a while...at least till...oh, here comes Lynn.”

Dana looked over her shoulder and saw Tuck trotting down the front porch stairs.

“So,” Warren said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Dana swung her head around in time to see him smile, wave, and turn away. Trying not to let her surprise and disappointment show, she smiled back at him. “Okay,” she called. “See you tomorrow. Bye.”

“Bye.”

She watched him walk to the edge of Front Street. His head swung from side to side as he checked for traffic. Nothing seemed to be coming. He ran across the street, then turned to the right and walked quickly along the dirt shoulder. With each stride, pale puffs of dust drifted up behind his shoes.

“You met Warren,” Tuck said.

Dana turned around. “Yeah.”

She felt herself tighten inside.

Don’t ask.

“We’ve still got three tape players out,” she said.

“Three?” Tuck wrinkled her nose, pivoted and stepped closer to the shelves. Standing in front of them, she planted her hands on her hips. The breeze fluttered her shorts and blouse, and swept her long hair sideways. Streamers of hair blew across her face, but she made no attempt to brush them away.

What’s taking her so long? Dana wondered.

The edges of the shelves were marked with red numbers spaced six or seven inches apart. Above each number, there was room for one cassette player and headphone set.

Returning the used ones, Dana had been careful to fill each place in order.

There were spaces for 150 of the listening machines.

All the shelves except one were completely loaded. But that final shelf was empty above 148, 149 and 150.

It shouldn’t take a major study to figure out that three players were still out.

“Tuck?”

She turned around, frowning at Dana through her blowing blond hair. “Looks like we’ve got a problem,” she said.

“You look worried,” Dana told her.

“I was just inside. I thought everybody’d cleared out. If three people are still in there, they must be hiding.”

“Doesn’t this sort of thing happen all the time?”

“Not exactly all the time. And I’m particularly not thrilled that it’s happening on top of the Ethel situation.”

For a moment, Dana didn’t know what Tuck meant. Then she remembered how they’d found the Ethel that morning—the gown ripped where it wasn’t supposed to be ripped, the mannequin’s breasts and vagina exposed.

“You think there might be a connection?” she asked.

“Hope not.” She frowned. “I suppose Clyde’s long gone.”

“He took off at five.”

“Yeah, he does that. Times like this, I sort of wish we had a whole staff full of tough guys.”

“I shouldn’t have let Warren leave.”

“That’s okay. He wouldn’t have been much help, anyway. Who is still here?”

“Just us and Rhonda, I guess. Maybe the girl who works with Warren at the snack counter...”

“Windy? She would’ve left by now. Same with Betty.”

“Who’s Betty?”

“Runs the gift shop. You haven’t met her yet?”

Dana shook her head.

“Sweet little white-haired gal.”

“Oh, her. I think I might’ve seen her leaving. She went through the side gate.”

“Probably with Windy. They ride together.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Guess it’s just the three of us,” Tuck said. She pulled the walkie-talkie off her belt, raised it to her face and thumbed the talk button. “Rhonda? Do you read me?” She released the button.

For a few seconds, her speaker buzzed and crackled. Then Rhonda’s voice came out. “I’m here.”

“What’s your location?”

After a long pause, she said, “The restroom.”

“Are you going to be long?”

“Well...Son of. What’s going on?”

“We’ve got three no-shows.”

“Three.”

“Yeah. Anyone there in the John with you?”

“Of course not! Cripes!”

“I didn’t mean that.” Grinning, she added, “You’ve got a dirty mind, Rhonda.”

“I do not!”

Tuck laughed. Then her grin faded and she said, “When you’re done, take a look around for our stragglers. Check both restrooms, the eating area, the gift shop. I’ll come around and lock up later, but we need to find our missing customers. Okay?”

“I can’t go into the men’s restroom,” Rhonda said.

“Sure you can. Just knock first. Nobody’s supposed to be in there, anyway. Dana and I will be going on into the house.”

“Do you want to wait for me?”

“Negative on that. Tell you what. When you get done there, come on out to the front of the house but don’t go in. Just keep your eyes and ears open and get ready to call for help.”

Rhonda didn’t respond.

“Did you get that?” Tuck asked.

“Maybe you oughta not go in,” Rhonda said. Even through the static, Dana could hear the tension in her voice.

“We’ll be fine. Just do what I asked, okay?”

“Okay. Well, be very careful.”

“That’s a big ten-four, darlin’.” Smiling, she gave Dana a nervous glance and returned the walkie-talkie to her belt. “Probably nothing to worry about,” she said.

“If there’s nothing to worry about, how come you’re so damn worried?”

“Me? Ha ha! I laugh at danger!”

Dana laughed and shook her head.

“Let’s go,” Tuck said. “It is a good day to die.”

“Very amusing.”

Side by side, they started walking toward Beast House.

“Probably just some kids screwing around,” Tuck muttered.

“But they didn’t return their players,” Dana said. “So they must know we’ll come in and look for them.”

“Maybe that’s what they want. A little game of hide and seek.”

“You don’t suppose...” Not wanting to go where the sentence was leading, she ended it.

“What?” Tuck asked.

She shrugged. “Never mind.”

“Come on. Give.”

“Well...They won’t, you know, try to jump us?”

“That’s why I’m bringing you along, Bullwinkle.”

Dana lurched sideways, ramming Tuck off the walkway. Tuck stumbled through the grass, but didn’t fall. “Hey! Hey! Take it easy on the kid, huh?”

“I’ll pound your butt for you.”

Laughing, Tuck returned to the walkway. “You’re such a hard-ass.”

“What do we do really?”

“If we get jumped?”

“Yeah?”

They started to climb the porch stairs. Dana glanced at the dangling body of Gus Goucher. Swaying and turning ever so slightly in the breeze, it made quiet, creaking sounds.

“Probably won’t happen,” Tuck said.

“But what if it does?”

“You fight them off, and I’ll run for it.”

“Seriously. I mean, what if it’s three guys, and they’re just waiting for us?”

“Are they cute guys?”

“Oh, very funny.”

Tuck hurried across the porch. As she pulled the door open, she said, “It’ll be fine. Probably. You go first.”

“Me?”

“Size before beauty.”

“Bitch,” Dana said, but she was smiling as she stepped over the threshold. She felt strange: amused, jittery, excited, but not terribly frightened.

Tuck came in. Instead of shutting the door, she swung it wide open and kicked a doorstop under its edge. “In case we need to get out fast.”

“Great.”

Tuck grinned. Then she shouted, “HELLO, EVERYONE! ITS PAST CLOSING TIME! ITS TIME FOR YOU TO LEAVE! PLEASE COME OUT NOW FROM WHEREVER YOU’RE HIDING, AND EXIT THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR.”

After her shouting, the house seemed very quiet.

Dana and Tuck stood in the foyer. They didn’t move. They didn’t talk. Dana barely breathed.

She wished she could see.

The sunlight coming through the doorway was so bright that she could hardly make out anything in the shadowy areas beyond its reach.

“Can you see?” she whispered.

“Not very well.”

“I feel like I’m half blind. Maybe we oughta shut the door.”

“And cut off our escape route?” Tuck asked.

“I’ll protect you.”

“Oh. In that case...” Tuck turned around, kicked the block clear and eased the door shut, squeezing out the sunlight.

Murky gloom swallowed them.

“Fine,” Tuck whispered. “Now we can really see.”

“It’ll be okay. We just need to wait for our eyes to adjust.”

“In the meantime...WE KNOW YOU THREE ARE IN HERE. NOW, PLEASE COME OUT. WE’RE NOT GOING TO LEAVE UNTIL YOU COME OUT. OR UNTIL WE FIND YOU. WE WILL FIND YOU. WE’LL BE CONDUCTING A ROOM TO ROOM SEARCH—AND I KNOW ALL THE GOOD HIDING PLACES. SO MAKE IT EASY ON EVERYONE AND JUST COME OUT NOW.”

For ^a while, they listened.

“At what point do we call for the police?” Dana whispered.

“At no point, if we can help it. This is probably just a prank. But if it turns into something worse...”

“Hi!”

They both jumped.

Suddenly, laughter came pouring down from the same direction as the voice. A couple of vague, blurry figures were visible at the top of the stairs.

The laughing stopped.

“Very funny, fellows,” Tuck said. She sounded more cheerful than annoyed.

She’s probably too relieved to be angry, Dana thought.

I sure am.

“Come on down, now,” Tuck said. “It’s time to leave.”

“Yes, ma’am,” one said.

“Are we, like, in trouble?” asked the other.

“Not so far,” Tuck told them.

They started down the stairs. They were about halfway to the bottom when Dana recognized them.

“My buddies,” she said.

“Yeah,” said the one in the Howard Stem T-shirt. “Hi, Dana.”

“We’re really sorry,” said the Beavis and Butt-head fan. “We didn’t mean to, like, cause any trouble.”

“What did you mean to do?” Tuck asked.

“You’re both such a couple of babes...”

“Yeah,” the other agreed. “Real babes. We just thought, you know, like we’d sort of hang out in here.”

“We were hoping maybe you’d show up.”

“So we’d have a chance to, like, pop out and scare you half to death.”

“Maybe get you to scream.”

“Real nice,” Dana said.

“We weren’t gonna do anything.”

“Nothing bad.”

“Figured it’d be cool to scare you, you know?”

“And, like, maybe you’d get a kick out of it?”

“It’s fun to get scared.”

“Up to a point,” said the other.

“Yeah. Not too scared. Just fun scared.”

Dana shook her head.

“Like when you go in a spookhouse?”

“Only we thought it’d be better not to.”

“Sort of.”

“Yeah.”

“What you said about three people.”

“Freaked us out.”

“Cause there’s only like two of us?”

“So that’s when we figured we’d better come out, you know?”

“Like, who’s Number Three?”

“Creeped us out.”

“Big time.”

“Freaky.”

“So that’s how come we quit and came down.”

“We appreciate it,” Tuck said. “Thanks for not making us hunt high and low for you.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Dana said.

“You’re welcome. But it was like, shit, you know? Who else is in here?”

“And what if he’s hiding where we are?”

“Like, same room, different corner.”

“Did you see or hear anything?” Tuck asked.

“just you.”

“We didn’t see Number Three.”

“Or hear him.”

“Or smell him.”

“Or her.”

“Or it.”

“But we, like, felt the ambiance of a third party.”

“Creeped us out.”

“But, not, like, that much. I mean, we hereby volunteer to help you search for the missing party.”

“Right. We’re scared, but we’re not chicken.”

“We’ll be your body guards.”

“Thanks,” Tuck said. “If you want to be a real help, though, why don’t you go on outside? Rhonda’ll be coming along pretty soon and she might be worried about us. Just tell her everything’s all right. Then you can either take off, or stick around for a while if you want to see who we turn up.”

“Rhonda?”

“She’s another guide,” Tuck explained.

“She a babe?”

“A major babe,” Tuck said, grinning. “She has a tendency to get nervous, though. So it’ll be really nice if you keep her company till we come out.”

“We can do that.”

“Sure. Happy to.”

“Okay,” Tuck said. “Thanks. One other thing.”

“Anything you say.”

“We’re, like, at your service.”

“Stick close enough to the house so you can hear us if we call for help.”

“You gonna be calling for help?”

“Probably not. But you never know.”

“Sounds to me like you definitely need body guards.”

“We’d be happy to oblige.”

“We’d guard your bodies with our lives.”

“Or die trying.”

Dana laughed softly. “You guys are okay.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

“What’re your names?”

“I’m Arnold Anderson,” said the boy in the Howard Stem T-shirt.

“I’m Dennis Dexter?” said the Beavis and Butt-head fan, lifting his voice at the end as if asking whether this was his name.

“A.A. ’n D.D.,” said Arnold. “That’s what we call ourselves.”

“And you’re Dana and Lynn,” said Arnold.

“That’s us,” Tuck said. “Big D, Little L Anyway, nice to meet you guys.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” said Dennis.

“A great pleasure,” said Arnold.

“You’re, like, sure you want us to leave?”

“Yeah. Keep Rhonda company and stand watch outside.” Tuck stepped over to the door and opened it for them. Looking out, she said, “I don’t see Rhonda yet, but she’ll probably be along any minute. See you later, guys.”

They headed for the doorway.

“Just shout if you need us,” Arnold said.

“We’ll come and save you,” said Dennis. “We’ll, like, kick ass.”

“Sounds good,” Tuck said.

“Bye, guys,” Dana called after them.

Chapter Eighteen

THE SEARCH

As Arnold and Dennis trotted down the porch stairs, Tuck shut the door. “Okay! That’s two down, one to go. Now we’ve got the odds on our side.”

“I liked it better the other way,” Dana said. “What sort of person would want to hide out alone in a place like this?”

“Maybe he isn’t hiding,” Tuck suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe he dropped.”

“Oh, terrific.”

“Passed out, tossed a heart attack, popped an aneurism...Let’s start upstairs and work our way down.”

Dana nodded and followed Tuck to the foot of the stairs.

Staying close to each other, they started to climb. “I won’t shout any more,” Tuck said.

“Glad to hear it.”

“Unless we hit trouble. But if it’s BIG trouble, let’s just run like hell. Know what I mean?”

“sure.”

“Like if a psycho starts coming down the stairs at us with a chain saw? We run. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Or if a big white beast tries to nail us...”

“We run.”

“Right.”

“I get the picture. Thanks.”

When they reached the top of the stairs, they stopped and looked both ways. In each direction, the dim, shadowy hall looked deserted.

“You go that way,” Tuck said, “I’ll go this.”

“Bite me.”

“Don’t you want to split up?”

“Sure. We’ll split up and I’ll wait for you outside.”

“Ah. Well.Never mind.”

Staying together, they turned to the left, walked in silence to the end of the corridor, and entered Lilly Thorn’s bedroom. Dana waited just inside the doorway, keeping watch while Tuck hurried through the room, glanced here and there, checked inside the armoir and finally sprawled on the floor for a look under the bed.

Getting up, Tuck brushed her hands off against each other and shook her head.

They crossed the hall to the bedroom Maggie Kutch had shared with her husband. It contained Maggie’s original furniture. But there were no wax figures of Maggie or any other member of her family. The exhibit showed a twelve year old boy, Larry Maywood, raising the window and looking over his shoulder in horror. His pal, Tom Bagley, lay mangled and bloody on the floor. Dana knew their story well. These two local boys had been avid fans of the tour. And they’d grown too curious. Late one night in 1951, they’d broken into the house to search for the beast. And they’d supposedly found it. Or it had found them.

Larry had escaped through the window, but poor Tom...

Dana glanced at Tom’s severed head. It rested on the floor near his shoulder. Facing her. Staring up at her.

She looked away from it.

For a few seconds, she watched Tuck performing the search. Then she just bad to look at Tom again.

He was still staring at her.

Of course he is. If he stops staring at me, that’s when I’d better start worrying.

He gave her the creeps.

She kept trying to look away, but Tom’s gaze kept pulling at her.

At last, Tuck finished the search. As she came toward the door, Dana quickly stepped out into the hallway.

Tuck frowned at her. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Not getting nauseous or anything?”

“So far, so good. I just didn’t like the way Tom was staring at me.”

Tuck grinned. “He loves the pretty girls.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“Has great eyes, doesn’t he?”

“They’re awful.”

“That’s what I mean,” Tuck said. “He upsets lots of people. They always get the idea he’s staring at them. So, are you ready for the attic?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Dana followed Tuck down the hallway.

Arriving at the entrance to the attic, Tuck unhooked one end of the plush red cordon and eased it down gently against the door frame.

“Chances are,”she whispered, “we’ll find our missing tourist up here.”

“Oh, good.”

“They love to hide in the attic.” Tuck reached up and clutched Dana’s shoulder. Holding on, she raised a knee and pulled off her shoe. After taking off the other, she whispered, “Lose your shoes. We want to take him by surprise.”

“How’ll I kick his ass if I’m barefoot?”

“Toe his ass.”

Shaking her head, Dana grabbed Tuck’s shoulder. As she pulled off her shoes, she noticed that she was trembling. And sweaty. Her blouse clinged to her back. Her panties were sticking to her buttocks and groin. The feet of her socks were soaking wet.

“You all right?” Tuck whispered.

“A little scared.”

“I can take care of this if you wanta wait here for me.”

“No. We stay together.”

“You sure?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

“Well, I’ll go up first.”

“Okay.”

Tuck started climbing the stairs. Danafollowed close behind her. The stairway was narrowand steep. Dana had seen plenty of it, that morning.

It was Station Seven.

Every tourist had stopped in the corridor and gazed up the dim stairway while listening to the story of Maggie Kutch’s flight for safety with her kids, the beast in hot pursuit.

Dana must’ve explained, at least twenty times, that the attic was off limits for reasons of safety.

But not off limits for us.

At the top of the stairs, Tuck reached out and turned the knob. Dana heard the latch click its release. The door creaked as Tuck pushed it open.

On the other side was darkness.

Instead of entering, Tuck reached around the corner. Her hand came back holding a flashlight. She showed it to Dana.

With a smile, she gave it a twirl. Then she thumbed its switch.

As a beam of bright light shot out, she stepped through the doorway.

Wait!

Dana rushed up the last few stairs and into the attic. She lurched to a stop behind Tuck, bumping her gently, then putting a hand on her shoulder.

Breathing hard, heart pounding, she watched the pale tube of light swing across the darkness. It lit galaxies of floating, swirling motes. It lit support beams, a sofa, chests of drawers, steamer trunks, chairs, lamps, tables...

A man.

Dana gasped.

“Just a dummy,” Tuck whispered.

With the flashlight, she quickly pointed out a couple of other mannequins. “They used to be exhibits,” she explained. “Stay here a minute.”

Dana nodded and stayed.

Tuck started roaming the attic, playing the beam of light this way and that, making shadows leap and spread.“Doesn’t look like our missing tourist is up here,” she said. “Gotta make sure, though. When we leave, I’ll lock the door. If he’s in here, he’ll be trapped. All night long.”

“That’d be pleasant,” Dana said.

“Yeah. Wouldn’t it be? This place even gives me the creeps. I guess because the beast killed Maggie’s little girls up here.”

“You come here with the Midnight Tour, don’t you?”

“Sure do. It scares the crap out of everyone.” She laughed softly. “I guess that about does it,” she said, and started wandering back toward the door.

Dana watched her approach.

And watched the attic behind her.

Half expecting a shape to come lurching suddenly out of the darkness.

Hurry up!

“I don’t know which is scarier,” Tuck said, “the attic or the cellar,.”

“Let’s just get out of here”

Almost back to Dana, Tuck switched off the flashlight. Dana stepped sideways through the doorway and climbed down a couple of stairs. Head up, she watched her friend return the flashlight to its place just inside the attic.

Tuck stepped out and pulled the door shut.

Its latch clicked.

Dana watched her.

“Let’s go,” Tuck said.

“Don’t forget to lock it.”

“Oh, it doesn’t lock.”

“You said...”

“That was just a fib in case our friend was listening.”

“You aren’t going to lock it for the night?”

“Can’t. The lock’s broken. Has been for years.”

“Maybe you should get it fixed.”

“Maybe.” Tuck laughed softly, then started down the stairs.

Dana turned around and hurried to the bottom, glad to be putting distance between herself and the attic.

At the bottom, she picked up her shoes and stepped out of the way.

Tuck hooked the cordon in place.

They both started putting on their shoes.

“Sorry I forgot to warn you about the dummies,” Tuck said.

“That’s all right. What’re they doing up there?”

“Just hanging out.” Finished putting on her shoes, Tuck stood up. “Actually,” she said, “they’re former exhibits. One’s the cop...”

“Dan Jenson?”

“Right. He was moved to the attic back in ’79 after they busted him up. Then when Janice bought the place, she put the Zieglers up there with him. She needed to get them out of the middle of the hallway. Caused too much traffic conjestion. Ready to go?”

“All set.”

“Next stop,” Tuck said, “the nursery.”

This time, Dana waited just outside the door while Tuck ducked under the cordon and hurried through the room.

Tuck found nobody.

They continued down the corridor to the room where Lilly’s boys had been slain. Again, Dana waited while Tuck did a quick search.

“So that’s it for up here?” Dana asked as they returned to the stairway.

“That’s about it. The other doors are all kept shut and locked. Nobody can get into any of them without a key. So, I guess our boy must be downstairs.”

“Or girl.”

“It’ll be a guy,” Tuck told her. “Girls never pull this sort of crap. Not by themselves.”

“Never?”

“Hardly ever.”

“You saying girls are chicken?”

Tuck grinned. “Maybe not chicken. Maybe just smarter.”

“I’ll go along with that.”

Laughing, they started to descend the stairs.

“How often do you have to go through all this?” Dana asked.

“Pain in the ass, huh?”

“A major pain.”

“It gets easier the more often you do it.”

“I hope it’s not every afternoon.”

“It varies. We’ll sometimes go two or three weeks without a problem. Then again, sometimes it might be two or three days in a row.”

“I could do without it completely,” Dana said as they reached the bottom of the stairway.

“Rhonda’s probably right outside. I can get her to finish up with me, if you’d rather...”

“Trying to get rid of me?”

“It’s your first day. You’ve done plenty.”

“I’ll stick with you,” Dana said.

“All right, good deal. Let’s see how Ethel’s doing.”

Dana followed Tuck into the parlor and watched her scurry about in search of the missing tourist.

“Are you sure we started with a hundred and fifty players?” Dana asked. “Maybe we were one short...”

“Nope. I checked, myself. We started with a hundred and fifty players in full working order.”

“So one is definitely still out.”

“Yep.” Pausing, Tuck stared down at Ethel. “She still decent?”

“Semi-decent.”

“Good enough. I’d sure like to get my hands on whoever was in here screwing around with her.”

“Better be careful what you wish for,” Dana said.

Tuck came out. Together, they crossed the foyer and entered the dining room. They both glanced under the table, then split up to walk around it. They met again before stepping into the kitchen.

As they searched the kitchen, Dana said, “What if we can’t find him,”

“If we can’t, we can’t.”

“Does it ever happen?”

“Now and then.”

“Somebody just disappears?

Tuck grinned at her. “Now and then.”

“Oh, terrific.”

Off to the side of the kitchen was a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Dana opened it and leaned in. She glanced at the old-fashioned toilet, bath tub and sink. In one corner stood a water heater. On the floor was a modem electric space heater. There were plush purple rugs and matching towels.

But no tourist.

“Make sure nobody’s in the tub,” Tuck said.

Dana groaned. Then she stepped through the doorway.

Tuck had pointed out the special “employees only” restroom yesterday, but this was the first time Dana had entered it. The air smelled like fresh, scented soap. Murky light filtered in through the window curtains.

A breeze came in with the light, filling the curtains and lifting them gently.

Turning her back to the window, Dana stared at the bath tub.

It looked very old and very large. It was nestled in shadows. against the far wall.

From where she stood, she couldn’t see all the way to its bottom.

If somebody’s hiding down there...

How ironic to pee my pants a few steps away from a toilet.

Fear growing in her belly, she rushed toward the tub.

And saw its bottoms.

Empty.

“All clear,” she called out. Then she added, “I think I’ll take advantage of the john while I’m here.”

“Help yourself.”

She returned to the door and shut it, then stepped over to the toilet.

This was really much nicer than the public restrooms out back.

Seated on the toilet, she found herself staring at the tub.

You hardly ever see them that big, she thought.

A green bath mat was draped over its side.

A bath mat?

“Hey, Tuck,” she called out, and realized she’d used the wrong name. “Lynn? Does somebody actually take baths in here?”

No answer came.

Dana felt a tremor of dread.

“Lynn? Answer up.”

Silence.

“Very funny,” she called.

Nothing.

“Damn it, Lynn!”

Still nothing.

“You just gonna stand out there and pretend you’ve disappeared?”

Lynn didn’t answer.

“Okay,” Dana said. “Great.”

As fast as she could, she finished at the toilet. Holding her shorts up with one hand, she hurried to the door and pulled it open.

Tuck wasn’t standing there, looking pleased by her prank.

Nor was she sprawled on the floor, bloody and dead.

Dana stepped out.

Tuck didn’t seem to be in the kitchen at all.

Heart thudding, Dana buttoned the waist of her shorts. She pulled up the zipper. She buckled her belt.

In the room behind her, the toilet went silent.

Dana heard only her own quick heartbeat and breathing.

“Tuck!” she shouted.

“I’m in the cellar!” Tuck called. Her voice, sounding far away, came through the open pantry door at the other side of the kitchen. “Be right up!”

Dana hurried to the pantry and looked in.

At the back of it, the cellar door stood wide open.

Dana walked slowly to the open door. Stopping, she peered down the steep wooden stairway. In the darkness near the bottom, the beam of a flashlight flitted this way and that. She couldn’t see Tuck, though.

“Are you all right?” she called down the stairs.

“Fine. Just thought I’d check down here and save you the trouble.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I thought the beast had gotten you.”

“Not this time,” Tuck said.

“Anyone down there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you coming up?”

“In a second.”

“Come on up now, okay?”

“Do you wanta come down?”

“Not particularly,” Dana admitted.

“Didn’t think so.”

“But I will if you don’t come up.”

“Okay.Here I come, ready or not.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Tuck stepped into sight. She smiled up at Dana, then switched off her flashlight and started to climb.

“It’s beginning to look like we’ve lost a tourist,” she said.

“What do we do about it?”

“Not much. We’ll go ahead and lock the place up. And we’ll check the parking lot before we leave, see if a car’s been left behind.”

At the top of the stairs, she shut and locked the cellar door.

“Should we tell the police?” Dana asked.

“Tell them what? That one of our tape players is missing?”

That a person is.”

“Somebody might’ve just absconded with one of our machines. It happens.”

“Have you had people. disappear?”

“While taking the tours?”

“Yeah.”

“Not many,” Tuck said, and grinned.

Chapter Nineteen

IN HOT WATER

That night after supper, after reading, after watching some television, Tuck left the room and Dana flipped through channels.

She was feeling groggy. She wondered whether to go to bed now or try to stay up for the eleven o’clock news.

Nothing much of interest seemed to be on the TV.

If she tried to read some more, she would undoubtedly nod off.

Tuck came back into the room. She had changed into a white terry cloth robe.

"Going to bed?” Lynn asked.

"Going for a dip. Want to join me?”

“Are you kidding? It’s freezing out there.”

“It’s not freezing. Anyway,I’m going in the hot tub, not the pool.”

“The hot tub?”

“It’s great on chilly nights like this.”

“Sounds pretty nice,” Danaadmitted.

“Nothing like it. I’ll get us a bottle of wine and meet you out there. We’ll celebrate your first day on the job.”

“Celebrate that I survived it.”

“Exactly.”

Dana shut off the TV.

“I’ll grab a couple of towels, too,” Tuck said. “But make sure you bring something warm to wear for afterwards. A robe, or something. Otherwise, you’ll freeze your tail on the way back in.”

Tuck hurried away.

Dana trotted upstairs. In the guest bedroom, she turned on the light and pulled off her sweatshirt and shivered.

This is nuts, she thought.

Should be fun, though.

She took off the rest of her clothes, tossed her socks and underwear into the hamper, then opened a dresser drawer. She’d brought three swimsuits with her from home: a skimpy white bikini and two red tank suits left over from her days as a lifeguard.

The bikini was meant for a special occasion—maybe an outing on the beach with just the right guy.

As If that’s likely to happen.

Shivering, she pulled out one of the red suits, stepped into it, drew it up her body and slipped her arms through the shoulder straps. When she had it on, she looked at herself in the mirror. The suit was thin and tight. It showed everthing. On lifeguard duty, she used to hide it under an official T-shirt and shorts so that she would only be seen in it during emergencies.

Not much for warmth, either.

In the mirror, she could see the goosebumps on her bare arms and legs. Her nipples were hard. They showed through the clinging suit as if she wore nothing but a layer of red paint.

At the closet, she put on a robe. She wrapped it snugly around’ her body and tied its belt as she left the room.

That’s a lot better.

She hurried down the stairs, then turned around and walked over to the sliding glass door. On the other side of the glass, the pool area was well lighted. The water shimmered, clear pale blue with gentle ripples.

From the hot spa near the corner of the pool, steam drifted into the air. Dana couldn’t see much of the spa itself—or Tuck. A patio table and chairs stood in the way. But a couple of large, folded towels were stacked on top of the table and a white robe was draped over one of the chairs. Dana figured that Tuck must’ve arrived.

She rolled open the door and stepped out. Her feet met cold concrete. Night air drifted up beneath her robe, chilling her legs. She slid the door shut, then hurried toward the spa.

Furniture no longer blocking her view, she saw Tuck shoulder-deep in the steaming, frothy water. A bottle of red wine and a couple of glasses stood on the concrete just behind her. She waved at Dana through the pale vapors.

“It’s cold out here!” Dana called.

“Not in here. Hurry it up.”

Quickly, Dana pulled open her robe, slipped it off and swung it over the back of a patio chair.

“Suits are optional,” Tuck said.

“I opt to wear mine,” Dana said.

“Suit yourself.”

The spa was circular, about eight feet in diameter, and constructed of tiles that matched the nearby swimming pool.

Tuck was slouching against the opposite wall. Through the steam, Dana saw that Tuck’s head, neck and shoulders were above the water’s surface. The rest of her body was submerged but well lighted from below, quivering and trembling with the undulations of the water. Though the view was obscured by bubbles, she appeared to be wearing a bikini made of something that resembled doe skin.

“Suits optional, huh?” Dana asked. “You’re wearing one.”

Tuck grinned up at her. “Never said I wasn’t. Just wanted to familiarize you with the house rules.”

“Any other rules I should know about?”

“Don’t piss in the water.”

“Lovely.”

“Yep.”

Standing on one foot, Dana eased the other down into the water. And jerked it out. “That’s hot!”

“That’s the idea.”

“You trying to boil us alive?”

“Moose soup.”

She tried again. This time, the water didn’t hurt so much.

She lowered her foot deeper. The swirling heat climbed her shin and calf and wrapped around her knee. Then her foot met the smooth tile of the seat. Standing on the seat, she committed her other leg to the water.

“See?” Tuck asked. “It’s not so bad. It seems a lot hotter than it really is.”

“By contrast with the frigid air?”

“Exactly.”

With a step forward, Dana dropped to the bottom of the spa.

The hot water rushed all the way up to her waist. Flinching rigid, she gasped, “Iiii-ee!”

Tuck laughed. “Pussy,” she said.

“Are you sure it’s supposed to be this hot?”

“Just wait till you’ve been in it a few minutes, you’ll be wanting it botter.”

“I doubt that,” Dana said. Raising her arms, she eased herself down slowly, grimacing and hissing as the water climbed her belly and back and breasts. After her rump met the seat, she lowered her arms. Then she sighed with relief.

“Feels great, huh?”Tuck asked.

“I’m not so sure.”

Already, however, the heat was beginning to feel cozy rather than painful. And she began to feel the tickle of bubbles, the rub and caress of the water’s currents.

“It’s not so bad,” she said after a while.

“Ready for some wine?”

“Sure.”

Tuck stood up, turned partway around, and picked up the wine bottle.

“That’s a neat swimming suit you’ve got on,” Dana said.

“Thanks.”

“Mug Tarzan?”

“Mugged Jane.”

When the glasses were full, Tuck picked them both up and turned around. Dana started to rise. But the air felt awfully cold where she was wet, so she stayed low and hobbled to the middle of the spa. Tuck handed a glass to her.

Instead of returning to her original seat, Dana made her way to the left and sat down closer to her friend.

“Here’s to the start of a great summer,” Tuck said.

“I’ll drink to that,” Dana said.

They clinked their glasses together.

Dana took a sip. The wine tasted heavy and fruity and tart.

“Good,” she said.

“This is the life, huh?”

“Not bad.”

“All we need is a couple of guys.”

“To ruin it,” Dana added.

“Ooooo.”

“You know what I mean. This is nice the way it is. Get a couple of guys in here, they’d start acting rowdy. They’d be yucking it up and grabbing at us. Trying to feel us up...”

“Get our suits off,” Tuck added.

“Exactly.”

“Doesn’t sound that awful.”

“Maybe not.” Dana sipped some more wine. “Depends on the guys, I guess. So, who would you like to have in here?”

“Nobody you know.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ichabod Bibsdiddle.”

They stared at each other. Tuck nodded and frowned solemnly for a few seconds, then let go. When she finished laughing, she said, “I don’t know. I don’t have a boyfriend. Not at the moment, anyway. I can’t even think of any guy I’d really like to kiss, much less...”

“Didn’t you just say you wanted a couple of fellas in here with us right now?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So, who would they be?”

“I don’t know.” Tuck frowned for a moment, then answered, “Guys who aren’t dickheads.”

“And they are to be found...where?”

“Ah, they’re somewhere. I don’t know. I’ll meet one someday. I have every confidence.”

“Guys must always be hitting on you.”

“Oh, sure. Not a day goes by. Hardly an hour goes by. But most of them are yucks. Weirdos, creeps and jerks.”

“But not all of them...”

“No, no. There are some really cool guys who come on to me now and then. And they always turn out to be visiting from Juno or Milbourne or some other place a zillion miles away.”

“Maybe you’re just too picky.”

“Ha!”

“What about the locals?” Dana asked.

“Give me a break.”

“There’s not one guy in all of Malcasa Point you don’t consider a loser?”

“Nobody I’d want to go with.”

Heart pounding faster, Dana asked, “So, what’s the matter with Warren?”

“Ah-ha! Warren! I knew you’d be getting around to Warren. Surprised it took you this long.”

“So, what’s wrong with him”

“Did I say something was wrong with him?”

“Well, I guess you lumped him in with all the other losers and ne’er-do-wells in town. What’s his problem?”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“Sort of. All we really did was talk for a few minutes at lunch. And I saw him when he left work. I haven’t gotten a chance to know him yet, but he seems like a nice enough guy.”

“Oh, he’s nice, all right.”

“Is he gay?”

Tuck blurted out a laugh. “Gay? Warren? Where’d you get that idea?”

“Clyde said he is.”

“Oh. Clyde. Clyde would. Clyde’s a shit. He’ll say anything. He probably told you that because he wants you.”

“Well, he ain’t a-gonna get me.”

“Just never believe a word out of Clyde’s mouth. And don’t let him get you alone. He’s not only a liar, he’s a sneak. I wouldn’t put anything past him. Especially where you’re concerned. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re about ten times better looking than most gals. He’d probably do just about anything for a whack at you.”

“Terrific. Thanks for the warning.”

“He’s already nailed every gal on the staff.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Well, not Betty.”

“You?”

“Oh, yes. Even me.” Tuck grimaced, then tipped up her glass and gulped it empty. “How about a refill?”

Dana finished her wine. She handed the glass to Tuck.

“How did he manage that?” she asked.

“Smooth talking, flattery, claims of undying love.” Tuck stood up, turned, and started pouring. “Booze,” she said. “A kiss here, a sneaky hand there. One thing leads to another. You know how it goes.”

“Afraid so.”

“My main problem was, I believed all his garbage. I trusted him. Make sure you don’t.”

“Not a chance.”

“Don’t believe a word out of his mouth.”

“Did he get Rhonda?”

“You bet.”

“My God. The poor kid. She seems so...innocent and vulnerable.”

“She never knew what hit her.” Tuck handed a full glass to Dana. “I’d even warned her about Clyde, but she went for him anyway. He lured her, caught her, fucked her and dumped her. The same as he does to everyone.”

“He won’t get me.”

“Just never let your guard down.”

“If he tries, he dies.”

Tuck laughed and shook her head.

“If Clyde’s done all this stuff, how come he’s still working here? Shouldn’t you fire him?”

“I’d love to. But he pretty much behaves himself on the job. He saves his big seductions for after hours. And he hasn’t broken any laws that I’m aware of. He just employs the standard, old-fashioned, tried and true methods of seduction. So far, at least. I’ve discussed the situation with Janice, but she won’t fire him.”

“Has he nailed her?”

Janice? Hey, bite your tongue. You’re talking about my dad’s wife, pal!” She stopped smiling. A moment later, she said, “I can’t imagine Clyde has gotten to Janice. For one thing, he’s probably afraid to try. I mean, she is the owner. If he nailed her and dumped her like he does everyone else, she’d can his ass in a heartbeat. Besides, even if he had the guts to make the try, I bet he’d strike out. Janice really loves my dad. There’s no way she’d let any other guy touch her. And she can be tough as nails. You know the stuff she’s gone through. She takes shit from no one.”