The Ghosts of Royal Cactus
Chapter One
By Missy

SERIES: Goosebumps!
SUBSERIES: Ghosts of Royal Cactus
PART: one of five or so for this arc
Author: Missy
Email: lasfic@yahoo.com
RATING: PG-13 (For language and possible memories that are a bit explicit) and
PAIRING(s): L/L; S/C; S/R

DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask (Please Email Me), but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

DISCLAIMER: Laverne and Shirley, of course, not my property and belongs to its creators.

CATEGORY: Epic Drama
CANNON/SPOILERS: Pre-Reunion Show Cannon; set five years after the series' conclusion.
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Can Laverne trust Lenny? A return to an old disaster causes them to wonder if they were meant to be together. Also, Squiggy and Rhonda hear wedding bells.
NOTES: The first chapter in the fifth portion to this series, "The Ghosts of Royal Cactus"

****

"How much longer ta California?" Lenny asked his girlfriend, dripping ice cream across their only map.

"Len!" She whined, yanking it away from his vulnerable hand, "Yer th' one with the map!"

He groaned, glancing down at the labeled route, then back up at the flat highway before them, "Boy, we shoulda taken th' interstate last time!"

Laverne regretted, privately, ever saying she found Lenny's driving sexy. She wasn't wrong; being with him was beautiful, but being cooped up in a cheap rental car for almost a week wasn't as appealing as she'd imagined. They were, after all, several years too late to be one of the kids of their generation, traversing the country to 'find' themselves. Laverne already understood who she was, and that person was pretty poor, after eating at Jack N The Box every day for six days.

They were, finally, closing in on Nevada; she recognized the dusty, dry atmosphere, could almost taste it on her tongue by now. Blurred cacti and dusty sagebrush caught the corner of her eye as they sped past. As though by mystical route, the city of Las Vegas rose, an oasis in the middle of the desert, just as Bugsy Segal had arranged years before.

"Len," she whispered, as the car breezed from desert to cement, "We ain't got enough money ta stay here!"

"Aww, c'mon Laverne! I got enough dough for th' both of us." She knew that wasn't true; he had been doing odd jobs for Carmine to make the rent, mostly because he had been cramming for end-of-semester examinations. Thankfully, now that he was on winter break, they were free to go wherever they wanted to.

He parked the car and told her to stay put, that he'd check and see what the going rate was for one room at the nicest hotel available to them, the StarDust. Two minutes later, he returned, downtrodden.

"We don't have enough ta stay here." He said, pulling out of the lot.

They continued driving westward, exiting Las Vegas. Lenny's eyes were drooping; Laverne's were, too, and she wasn't about to drive the next hour to California.

"Len, pull over, or we're gonna get killed," She yawned, widely.

"That a motel up ahead?" He asked, catching her yawn.

"Yep." He pulled into the lot and parked.

"Good. An' it looks like a dump. It'll cost us a nickle flat."

They crept into the motel's lobby; the place, with it's deathly yellow and pink interior, reminded Laverne of something hauntingly familiar. It looked like, but couldn't be, that awful motel.

"Len," She whispered, "Where are we?"

"Nevada," He replied, and for the first time in her life, it actually appeared that she had asked him a question that was beneath him. He leaned against the counter, and one look into his eyes told Laverne how very tired he seemed. He smacked his fist down onto a bell, bringing a short, hairy man to the desk.

"Hello, welcome to the P..." His eyes bugged out, "Oh no! No! Not you two!"

The young couple traded an odd look, "Us?" Laverne asked.

"The two kids who trashed my motel and then stiffed me," He glared at Lenny, "Where's your oily little friend?"

Lenny shook his head, "Gettin' married in California." He was, at this point, too tired to take offense at anything the proprietor said. Laverne, however, was mortified.

"A bigamist!" He shook his head, "And his little wife was the nicest one."

"Look," Laverne said, her voice sounding a bit weak. "You gotta be..." Her eyes widened, "This ain't Royal Cactus, Nevada, is it?"

"No, lady, it's Disneyland," He snapped.

"Boy, yer a real dope," Lenny giggled, punch-drunk from lack of sleep, "Disneyland, I've been ta. They have a great big Castle rightOW!" Laverne cut off her fiancé's speech with a swift kick to the shin.

"Sir, we're very tried, and we do," She reached into her pocketbook and withdrew an envelope of change, jingling it temptingly in the face of the grumpy jerk. They were the last remnants of the two weeks of salary they had accumulated just for that trip, "Have enough money to pay for a night."

His beady eyes widened, and a slow grin spread across his face, "All right," He said, his eyes never leaving the cash, "But no funny business. Don't wreck the plumbing. And don't rip the tags off of the pillows this time!"

Laverne smirked, knowing that Lenny had probably done just that. Through slit eyes, Lenny grabbed the key and they continued down to their room.

***

"This is it." He said.

"Wait...don't this look familiar too?" Laverne asked.

"La-Verne!" He whined, sticking the key into its lock, "All these rooms look alike!" He shoved the door open, and his jaw dropped as they walked into the room.

It was the exact same place. Exactly.

"Wow!" Lenny said, looking up at the ceiling, "They couldn't plaster over Squig's writin'," He traced Squiggy's handwriting with the tip of his middle finger, "See? 'Squiggy wuz Here'."

"Don't mustard fade after awhile?" Laverne asked.

"That ain't mustard." Lenny said.

Laverne groaned, throwing herself down on one of the beds. It was going to be the longest night of her life, not because of Lenny's innocence, but because of the memories that haunted the place.

It was the only place in which her control had been nearly removed, when her friendship with Lenny was almost wrecked.

The only time he hadn't taken a 'no' from her as an answer.

She shivered, burrowing against the blanket, remembering only that she had been frightened of him for the first time in her life. The only time.

So far.

"Vernie?" He asked, sitting down on the bed, "You OK?" She pushed him away, turning into a ball; and, like a wounded kitten, he backed off. "I'm gonna go shower...we were on the road a long time...An' you keep sayin' I should." He was babbling; ducking into the bathroom, he closed the door behind him, leaving Laverne to her thoughts.





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