The Midnight Tour (25 page)

“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.