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Westin Heights was a picturesque seaside town in northern California, once a fishing village that had transformed into a haven for those seeking to escape the hectic pace of the San Francisco forty miles south. The town had exploded with dozens of custom built mansions of the Silicon Valley Elite dotting the soft rolling countryside. Where fishing was once the main occupation of the townspeople, it was now CEO or Stock Broker. But all picturesque and rich towns have terrible secrets and Westin Heights was no exception. It was Friday night and several of the kids from Westin Height's High has gathered at the spacious home of Alexander and Kimberly Collins for a laid back evening after watching their football team once get again get massacred. " I want to know what is the deal with that weird locked gate by the beach" said Clover Chu, spinning her empty bottle of beer around in her hands. " That is the road that leads to the Land of Lights" said Kim. " What's that?" asked Clover. " Laurel, why don't you tell the story, you always do the best job of it" said Heather Duncan, Kim's best friend. " Yah, you certainly have the look for it" said Derek Hagan. Laurel Sterling, sitting comfortably in Alex's lap, she was dressed in baggy black jeans, a black tank top, and a white button down shirt that had Psychiatric Ward written on the back and Patient # 5440741 on the pocket. She flipped Derek her middle finger and said, " Okay, because she is new I guess I will tell you the story" the goth girl said, " about twenty years ago there was an amusement park underneath Beacon Point on the Beacon Point Beach called the Land of Lights. It was the place to hang out aside from going into San Francisco. You could get score just about anything from the carnies that worked the games there. Probably half the high schoolers in those days lost their virginity on that beach. Every weekend everybody was there and almost every day in the summer. Then in the mid 80s kids started to disappear. At first it was the dropouts or other fringe loser kids so nobody really noticed, they just assumed they'd run off or committed suicide by jumping off Beacon Point. Then a cheerleader disappeared. Alex, what was her name?" " Cassi Morley" said Alex, " you can see a picture of her still hanging in the trophy case." " Yah, she disappeared and it caused quiet the scandal, one thing you will learn about this town is that they love to do nothing but gossip" said Laurel. " Yah like you dig chicks" said Derek. " Fuck off" said Laurel, " you made me lose track, yah this town loves to spread rumors, especially about how some jocks really like showering with their teammates. It was believed that Cassi had been too amorous with one football player or another had just run to SF for an abortion. But a week passed and she never showed up. Finally her parents began to make noise and the police decided to look into it. They looked everywhere, followed all kinds of crazy leads but they couldn't find any sign of Cassi, it was like she had found this little hole to crawl into and escape the world. Finally people came to terms with the fact that she'd run away and were almost ready to put it all behind them when two 12 year old girls disappeared from one of the girl's bedrooms with her parent's downstairs. There isn't anything else that could make a town panic like that. The entire town came out and started scouring the county looking from the two girls. They couldn't find a thing, even after reward posters and national media coverage turned our little town in a page 1 feature. Weeks later a fisherman, yes at that time we actually had them here, found one of the girls out beyond Beacon Point. It was awful, she'd been repeatedly violated, tortured, and before her throat was slit, the sick fucker slit her cheeks open giving her this sick smile. " With the girls still only missing it gave the town hope that they might be found alive or ransomed, but when one was dead the fact hit them hard they were both dead. The town fell apart, everybody buying every gun and extra lock they could and turning their homes into fortresses. Kids weren't allowed to go outside unless two parents were watching. The entire place was so gripped by fear you couldn't escape the feeling that any second somebody was going to come through the wall and steal you away. The town was besieged by this fear for months until he made a mistake." By now Laurel had everyone in the room under her spell, no one moved or even dared breathe. With the exception of Clover everyone had heard this tale a hundred times from a hundred different people but Laurel had the skill to make them all virgins once again. " In SF the cops raided this big time fence and nabbed a shit load of stolen loot. Among the loot were a pair of diamond earrings and a necklace that belong to Cassi Morely. The cops didn't have to sweat the fence long with the spectre of at least two rape murder charges before he spilled the name of who fenced them. He was known as Smiling Jack. " Smiling Jack worked at Land of Lights, he ran the haunted house, Nightmare House. He gained his nickname from his distinctive scars that decorated his cheeks, a memento of a bar fight gone wrong they say, he had his cheeks slit open from lips to jaw. The sheriff, the state police, hell every cop for 50 miles descended on the Nightmare House at Land of Lights. Jack wasn't there but they found his real house of horrors. They found the remains of four other victims, including the other 12 year old in his basement torture chamber. They also found a map with a bloody thumb print on it. When the police went to the empty field on the map and dug the entire field up and they found 25 more bodies including Cassi Morley. Some of the bodies they found dated back to missing persons from the mid 70s so old Jack had been a busy boy for almost a decade and nobody had caught on until then. They were all violated and tortured until he grew bored with them, he would then slit open their cheeks and then slit their throats, draining their blood to drink. The scandal was immense, every carnie at Land of Lights was run off, many people wanting to charge them with the crimes, if they couldn't get Smiling Jack they would settle on using the others as sacrificial lambs to cleanse the town of their terrible memories. That fall the entire amusement park was boarded up and the gates locked but they never found Smiling Jack. Some say he went elsewhere and continues his murderous crimes, but many believe that Jack returned to his roost after the heat died down and is still out there to this day." The entire room was dead silent, only the soft crackling of the fire behind Alex and Laurel was the only thing breaking the silence. " Holy fucking shit" said Clover, " why the fuck haven't they burned that place to the ground?" " Can't" said Alex, " not that they don't want to but the entire Beacon Point and Beach are private property and nobody is willing to come forward and admit they own the land. So the entire amusement park just sits there are rots waiting for a real good earthquake to destroy it once and for all." " Has anybody every gone down there?" asked Clover. " Every few years somebody dares somebody else to go the gates of the Land of Lights, I doubt anybody has gone that far" said Kim, " there was a rumor some years back when we were all in middle school that somebody had taken a picture of the park and in the picture is the figure out a man standing in the shadows of one of the carnie games." " Nobody I know actual saw that pictures" said Heather. " But there was one girl" said Charlotte Beck. " That is pure bullshit" said Alex. " Oh here we go again" groaned Laurel. " Somebody did?" asked Clover. " She didn't go down there" said Derek. " She went" protested Kim, " I know she did." " Sis, just because a cheerleader runs off doesn't mean she was snatched up by Smiling Jack" said Alex, " cheerleaders are just as screwed up as we are." " Who?" repeated Clover, hoping this time somebody would hear her. " Alex, you just don't believe in the legend that is why you don't believe, but she did go" said Laurel. " WHO!" shouted Clover. " Marilyn Janos" said Alex, "she was the head cheerleader when we were freshmen. The rumor goes that she went out there one night on a dare and never came back. She is the other girl in the other picture in the trophy case at school." " Its true" said Heather, " I knew her, and I was there for the dare. It was at Tessa Offhauer's party, Marilyn took a flashlight and one of those walkie talkies. She never came back." " We also tend to forget that Marilyn loved making drama" said Alex, " she was in deep shit for fucking the music teacher, Mr Insen. She took off, probably doing porn right now." " I think she went" said Laurel, " Alex here doesn't believe in ghosts. He is a spoil sport when it comes to this sort of things." " You know" said Kim, " tonight is the night she went." " No shit" said Laurel, " god that was a long time ago. I know what Alex and I were doing." The entire group laughed, " She was a bitch" said Charlotte, " after she broke up with my brother, she spread a rumor that he was gay. That fucking rumor is still around these days." " She was a total bitch" said Heather, " and a slut. I remember in swimming and diving she came on to me. She was trying to use the fact that she was a senior and she thought she was the biggest shit ever to live her to get me to be some one night fuck toy." " Total slut" said Kim, " but disappearing like that." " Now that is weird" said Seth Anderson, more interested in Charlotte's mini skirt than the story, " I mean if she did run off to SF, I know somebody would have seen or heard from her. I mean all the porn we watch, if she was making it we would have seen her by now." " What does everybody think here?" asked Clover, " I mean honestly." " She's dead" said Alex, " wound up in a situation where her good looks and daddies money got her killed." " I think she's dead too" said Laurel, " from what I can't say." " I think it was Smiling Jack" said Kim, " she tempted fate going in there." " Me too" said Heather, " if Marilyn did survive, she would have come back to rub it in our faces. No way would Marilyn leave a chance to make herself better than all of us." " I do too" said Charlotte, " that place is seriously evil." " I think she is some rich old man's fuck toy, lives in a mansion and is fucking the pool boy" said Seth. " I think she is probably working a street corner in SF" said Derek, " bet she ain't pretty no more." " I know she is dead" said Jill Berman, who until now had been totally silent for the entire story, " I saw." " What?" asked Kim, " how do you know?" " The night after she went" said Jill, " I was watching her house from my room. I saw her parents packing up her stuff while talking to the sheriff and their attorneys. Everybody was really agitated and they were arguing like mad. The next day the room was empty and nobody spoke of her again." " See, I knew she was dead" said Kim, " it had to have been in the park, there would be no other reason to hide all of this." " I agree" said Alex. Everyone turned and looked at him as if a purple dwarf had just popped out of the top of his head to utter the line, " I'm not saying it was Smiling Jack, but I'll buy that she did die in the park. Maybe an OD, maybe killed by someone, maybe she killed herself" said Alex, " that place is nothing but bad karma, but I still think it lacks an undying serial killer named Smiling Jack." " Then why not make a big deal about it?" asked Laurel, " give them more ammo to tear the entire place down. There is something else to her disappearance than just a cut and dry murder or suicide." " This is wild" said Clover, " I mean we had nothing like this in Seattle, sure we had the requisite haunted house in the neighborhood but not our own Michael Myers." " We're just lucky" said Alex, " god after all the times this story has been told at every slumber party, Halloween party, and around every campfire it is a wonder somebody hasn't made some cheap slasher movie out of it." " Freddy and Jason didn't torture their victims for weeks beforehand" said Laurel, " or rape them, nobody in Hollywood wants that level of honesty in their movie monsters." " And on that pleasant and uplifting note" said Charlotte, " I'm beat and going to go home and go to bed." " You sure you don't want anybody to make sure you get into bed okay?" asked Seth. " Thank you for the offer but I'm not drunk enough for that" said Charlotte, " night." The party slowly broke up until it was just Alex, Laurel, Kim, and Clover. " See you two tomorrow" said Laurel, " now that we got rid of them we can get down to our Friday night fun." Laurel led Alex upstairs and into his bedroom. " Tonight wasn't that bad" said Alex, wrapping his arms around Laurel. " Derek was still a prick" said Laurel, " and Heather kept giving me those snotty looks. Alex you have some real classy friends." " But I have you" said Alex, turning Laurel around, " and that's all I need." Laurel slipped her two shirts off and kissed Alex. They shed their clothes as they kissed their way over to Alex's bed where Laurel pushed Alex on to the bed before climbing on top of him. Kim and Clover laid on Kim's bed gently kissing while listening to the floor board under Alex's bed creak. Kim insisted on waiting until Alex and Laurel were engaged before taking Clover up to her room. It bugged Clover but she understood this wasn't Seattle, while it might be close to San Francisco it was still small town America and this kind of activity was frowned upon. " Sorry" said Kim sheepishly as the pair got undressed, " I don't mean to be so secretive about the whole thing." " Its no problem" said Clover, " I don't expect you to write it on a big billboard or anything. We only have one year left and then we go to college were we'll have a dorm room all to ourselves." Clover gently rubbed Kim's bare back, " Let's just relax and enjoy our evening" she purred. Kim stretched out and let Clover rub her back, from her sore neck to her butt. Kim loved Clover, she'd never really felt comfortable being naked around anybody until she met Clover. Clover rolled Kim over and started to rub the front. Kim giggled as Clover started to tickle her ribs. Kim playfully hit Clover with her pillow. Clover tackled Kim, and the pair began to roll about the bed kissing and tickling each other. Laurel cuddled up against Alex and draped one arm across him. " Kim is gay you know" said Laurel. " No kidding" said Alex tracing the tattoo on Laurel's back, " I've known for awhile." " How?" asked Laurel, " I didn't figure out until tonight when I watch them mess around before everybody came over." " She is my twin sister" said Alex, " and besides she is terrible at keeping secrets." " God Trent would have a coronary if he ever found out" said Laurel, " losing her was bad but if that homophobe learned it was Clover, shit." " You actually think he would hit her?" asked Alex. " Yes" said Laurel, " that guy is a psycho, I'm still pissed at Kim for even going out once with that creep." " Then we just have to keep our mouths shut" said Alex, " she just has to keep it a secret until she goes to college, then her and Trent will never see each other again." " Yah, but if we figured it out pretty soon somebody else might" said Laurel, " rumors spread fast in this town." " They're cautious" said Alex, " is it just me or are you looking for a reason to kick Trent's ass?" " He deserves it" said Laurel, " that prick has called me a dyke more times than I can count, but when I call him a fag I get a week of detention." " Just leave him alone and he'll soon lose interest" said Alex. Kim and Clover woke up as the first rays of the sun slipped through the window onto their naked flesh. They were laying in a heap along with most of the bed sheets on the floor. " That was fun" said Kim, laying on Clover's stomach. " I think we made a bit of a mess though" said Clover. " It was fun though" said Kim, " you are more creative than I expected." Clover planted a big kiss on Kim's lips before getting up and heading towards the bathroom. As Kim watched Clover walk into the bathroom her phone started to ring. She managed to untangle herself from the pile on the floor and plucked the receiver off her nightstand. " Hello" she said. " Kim, now before you say no, hear me out" said Heather. " Absolutely totally fucking no" said Kim, " there is no way in fucking hell we're going. I've lived 17 years and I plan to live at least 17 more. If you go, you go alone." " Please" whined Heather, " this the ultimate Halloween stunt, we will be the talk of the town." " Yah because we'll be found in tiny bits all over the amusement park" she replied. " I already convinced the others" said Heather, " if you don't come it just won't be the same." " You convinced everybody, even Jill?" asked Kim. " She was the first person to say yes" said Heather, " I don't know but she'd been acting like a space cadet lately." " Okay, but I'm not going with Alex" said Kim, " this will finally give me the chance to show him Smiling Jack exists when he starts chasing everybody with a machete and hockey mask." " Okay, call me back when you convince him" said Heather, " neither way meet us at the gate at 3 pm. Bring any refreshments or party favors you want." " Sure" said Kim, " 3 then." " Alex" purred Laurel, " I had an idea." Alex looked over at Laurel, she was working her cuteness for all it was worth. " You want to go to Land of Lights" he said. " You gave me the idea last night" said Laurel, " I'm going to write a book about it, and I want to go to take pictures, you know twenty years later and does the evil still exist." " And when he comes out an attacks us, we can make our own Blair Witch Project" said Alex. " Do I sense a little bit of cynicism from you?" asked Laurel. " Nope, not in the least" said Alex, " it will be fun." " Like rock climbing, snowboarding, or putting your head in the lion's mouth" said Laurel, " wanna see if the others want to come?" " Absolutely" said Alex. " We're going?" asked Clover. " That is what Heather wants to do" said Kim, " you won't have to come." " Somebody has to keep an eye on you" she said, stroking Kim's brown sugar locks, " besides I love this kind of stuff." The pair walked into the hall and saw Alex and Laurel exiting their room. " Morning" said Alex. " We have something to ask you" said both Laurel and Kim at the same time. " You first" said Laurel. " We have an idea for a Halloween adventure" said Kim. " Land of Lights?" asked Laurel. " Yah" said Clover. " Us too" Alex said, smirking, " twins huh." " Twins indeed" said Kim, " Heather wants us all to meet at the gates at 3." Heather listened to the phone ring, over and over. She was impatiently pacing about her room listening to each ring. Finally Derek picked up his cell phone, " Where the hell where you?" asked Heather. " It took longer than I thought to get a hold of Trent" said Derek, " I told him of your plan to get Kim and him back together and he jumped at it. He and his buds are going to come to the park at 8 like you planned." " Great" said Heather, " you wanna come over, help get me all excited for tonight?" " Sure I'll be over in an hour" said Derek, " I want to gather some party favors for tonight." " Good idea" said Heather, " I'll see you in an hour." Derek hung up and let off a long and loud groan. Jill slowly lifted her head from his lap, " Sorry babe but we have to be quick" he said. " Its okay" said Jill, " I love every minute your with me." Jill crawled up on Derek's bed and let him get on top of her. Poor Heather if she only knew how much Derek loved me thought Jill, and how we running off together at the end of the year. Jill and Derek had dated freshman year in high school but grew apart sophomore year and Derek started dating Heather. Over the summer the pair started hanging out a lot more and rediscovered the love their shared. But to keep his social status Derek kept up his relationship with Heather but spent more time in Jill's bed than with Heather and she didn't know a thing. Afternoon slowly became evening as the sun slowly began to descend towards the ocean painting the entire ocean orange and red. Alex walked into his father's study and opened the left top hand desk drawer. Inside was his 357 revolver he kept for those kind of emergencies. Alex wasn't going to start buying into the whole Smiling Jack legend, it was just that a legend but he wasn't sure what was lurking out in the rotting amusement park. He wanted what his father sold by the millions, insurance and instead of a piece of paper he wanted something concrete. Alex picked the pistol up and clicked open the cylinder and looked at all six shiny brass shell casings. He gave the cylinder a spin and with a flick of the wrist snapped it close. Guess dad forcing him to go to the shooting range just might pay off after all. Alex slipped the pistol into his waistband and chuckled to himself, this whole idea was silly but if Laurel wanted to go he knew he could never say no. Alex walked up to his bedroom and heard the shower running. He poked his head into the bathroom and watched Laurel finishing her shower. He'd caused a great deal of shock in school when he started dating Laurel. He was one of the wealthiest and popular guys in school, cheerleaders and other popular girls threw themselves at him but he chose Laurel, one of the school's freaks. But Alex had more in common with the girl with the smart mouth and the big ghost tattoo on her back. They'd shared one creative writing class together and had been paired up for a project. The first night they planned to work on the project turned into their first date and now two years later it was still true love. " Hey" said Laurel, flicking water at Alex, " quit staring you perv." " It was such a nice sight" said Alex, " you all wet and flushed like that." " I would have invited you in but we have to get going" said Laurel, " we have a lunatic to photograph." " Yah" said Alex, " my biggest fear is meeting a rabid raccoon there." " Don't worry" said Laurel, wrapping her arms around, " if we run into a rabid raccoon I'll chase it away." Kim and Clover met Alex and Laurel in the garage. " Ready?" asked Kim. " I got my big flashlight and camera" said Laurel, " one for beating Smiling Jack with, the other for taking his picture." " Doesn't she seem a bit overly excited to be meeting a serial killer?" asked Clover. " She is always that way" said Kim. " Cut through the several feet of cynicism and you'll find she is just as excited and scared as the rest of you" said Alex. " And what about you?" asked Laurel, poking Alex in the side. " I know nothing is there so there is nothing be scared of" said Alex. The foursome climbed into Kim's Jeep and backed out of the garage, down the long driveway and into the street. " So what was the first time you heard the story?" asked Laurel as they drive to the Beacon Point Road began, " for the intro to my book." " First time I heard the story was last night" said Clover, " kinda excludes me I think." " The first time I heard it was at Tommy Blake's party when I was 9" said Alex, " he moved away a couple of years back but we were there and his older brother, Tony or something, he was a real creep and decided to scare all of us kids by telling us the story of Smiling Jack and by the end he had all of us convinced that Smiling Jack was going to come get us that night." " I was at one of Heather's slumber parties when I was 10" said Kim, " I think it was Jill who told us. We were all sitting in the living room in a circle, doing each other's hair, listening to music, and Jill starting telling us the story. By the end we were all so freaked out that when the house creaked we all screamed waking up everybody else up in the house and getting in all sorts of trouble. How bout you Laurel?" " You'll love it" said Laurel, " I was first told the story hanging out with my sister in the cemetery when I was 7. We'd snuck in to play with the Ouija board to see if we could raise any spirits. It was a total bust but we ended up sitting on some tombstones and she told us the story. She is really the one who influences my version of the story the most." " I'm starting to understand you more and more" said Clover, " ever consider therapy?" " I'd probably drive the psychologist nuts" said Laurel, " besides if I became sane I would be totally boring." " True" said Alex, " I prefer her crazy." ************************** Continue To Part 2 |