Hundreds of years ago, some family homesteads a little plot of farmland for themselves. The dimensions of the house itself are laid out and blessed, and a ritual is performed to keep evil from crossing into their home. The house is surrounded with books and eventually, after the home itself crumbles, the area is covered in water.
The spirits of the family remain, however, living in the house, as evil begins to attack them in the form of an old drowned man who tries to break through the wooden bookshelves.
Eventually, the waters recede and the Santa Cruz Boardwalk is built over the site of the house (guess this particular evil was unaffected), and one day the site of the house, now decayed so that the bookshelves are hardly even recognizable, breaks through the ground and up into a cotton candy booth. I'm at the Boardwalk, and observe this with some amusement and curiosity, but then I go into this large ballroom where I know I will be in danger of being killed (I don't recall from what).