Free The Beast House by Richard Laymon

shaking.
    From a cottage on the left, a dog began to yap. A gaunt man appeared behind the screen door. Nora raised a hand in greeting. The man stood motionless, a dim shape through the screen, staring out at them.
    “Charming,” Nora muttered. “Let’s hear some ‘Dueling Banjos.’”
    They passed a clapboard shack with boarded windows, then came upon a wheelless bus propped up on cinder blocks. They paused to stare at the mural painted on its side: a ghost ship with tattered sails becalmed on a glaring sea. A human skeleton clung to the helm. A giant albatross floated before the ship, an arrow in its breast. Above the bus’s door hung a sign carved in driftwood: captain frank.
    “Interesting neighbors your Dan has,” Nora said.
    They continued down the gloomy road to its end, where a path led toward a small, green-painted cottage with a screened porch.
    “That must be it,” Nora said.
    Tyler’s heart pounded hard. “I don’t see a car anywhere.”
    “Maybe he’s not home yet.”
    They walked down the path. Tyler followed Nora up the porch steps. Nora knocked on the door, then pulled it open. Except for a swing suspended from its ceiling, the porch was empty. That seemed odd to Tyler. Similar cottages she’d known as a child while vacationing with her parents always had porches cluttered with gear: fishing rods, a tackle box and minnow bucket, a fishnet, an old Coleman lantern, a refrigerator well stocked with soda and beer, hooks on the walls draped with rain slickers and beach towels. There was none of that.
    “No doorbell,” Nora whispered. “I’ll let you do the knocking.” She stepped away from the door and sat on the swing. Its chains creaked and groaned as she pushed it into motion.
    Tyler rapped lightly on the door. She waited, then struck harder. “I don’t think he’s home.”
    “It’s only about four thirty,” Nora said from the swing.
    Tyler cupped her hands to a glass pane in the door, and peered inside. She could see no more than the kitchen. “Maybe Barbie Doll gave us the wrong address,” she said.
    “I doubt it. She was flaky, but not stupid.”
    “Well, nobody’s home.”
    “Shall we wait, or try again some other time?”
    Tyler shrugged. Though disappointed, she also felt relieved; her eagerness to meet Dan was mixed with such anxiety that she was almost glad they had failed. “It might be a long wait,” she said. “Cops have weird hours. He could’ve just started a shift, or something.”
    “Then you want to leave?”
    “We don’t want to keep you from the Happy Hour.”
    “I’m perfectly willing to wait.”
    “No, let’s go.”
    They left the porch and walked up the path to the dirt road.
    “Maybe,” Nora said, “we can check a phone directory when we get back, make sure we do have the right address. You might even give him a ring, unless you’re intent on making a surprise appearance.”
    “Yeah, that’s an idea.” A phone call, she thought, would be much easier on the nerves. That way, at least, she might find out how he stood. They could arrange to meet, regardless. Even if he was married or engaged or there was some other reason not to renew their relationship, she still would like to see him again.
    “Ahoy there!” a man called.
    Seated on a lawn chair atop the strangely painted bus, a beer can raised in greeting, was a white-bearded man. He wore a ragged straw hat, a Hawaiian shirt, and plaid Bermuda shorts.
    “Captain Frank?” Nora asked.
    “At your service, mateys.”
    “We’re looking for Dan Jenson,” Tyler called up to him. “He lives at the end of the road?”
    “Not anymore.” Captain Frank chuckled softly. “No indeed.”
    “He moved?”
    “You might say that.”
    “Do you know where we can find him?”
    “Can’t find him anywhere tonight. Try tomorrow, if you’re of a mind.”
    “Where?”
    He tilted the beer can to his mouth, then crumpled it and tossed it down. It landed on the layer of pine needles beside his bus.