The Midnight Tour (20 page)

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.