“So what’d you do? I mean, I know what you did, but how?”
“I think I said I was in the goth scene. I guess you can tell I never really left it. When I was with Aaron he tried to ‘straighten me out’ as he put it, but I’m just a dark kind of girl. I always liked horror movies and I found some good friends, after Aaron went to jail, who liked to watch them. The bloodier the better was my motto. I still had those fantasies about killing people. Mostly had them about killing Aaron, but I never thought I would do it even if I got the chance. That’s a pretty big commitment, killing someone. You have to belong to that shit, you know?”
Calvin nodded. Yeah, he knew.
Hazel continued, “I found the Hall of Hell flyer with a VHS tape of all things. A VHS tape! I didn’t even have a VCR anymore. But there was something so fucking intriguing about it that I went to some thrift shops until I found one. I’m guessing you went through the same thing, right?”
“Pretty much,” said Calvin. “I already had a VCR. I’m kind of a horror film buff. I actually found the flyer here at the front door. Ghastly gave me the tape.”
Hazel nodded. “I didn’t meet him until the night of the Hall of Hell, but I watched the tape… a lot. Too much. Obsessively. Fucked with my head, but I kind of liked it, you know. After the Hall of Hell I started the program. When I found out that I needed to kill someone in order to advance toward being a Gorehound, I knew who to target.
“I called Aaron and he was genuinely surprised to hear from me. He sounded calm and he apologized for everything he had done to me over the years. He sounded sincere, I have to say, but after what he’d put me through I couldn’t care less. Fucker could be a saint, a goddamned deacon at his church he was so reformed and I would have done what I did to him. I was still scared of him. I was afraid he was putting up a front to get me into his clutches so he could finish me off. I figured he must have been furious with me for putting him behind bars like I did, so I asked if he wanted to meet in the park. It was public enough to be able to get away if he became abusive. On top of that, I had my self-defense training and figured if push came to shove I could knock his ass down and run away. I wasn’t about to let anything happen to me. Not again.
“We met at Balboa Park and I played the part of his long lost lover. It was hard. He seemed to have changed and I think he might have been off-put by my style. I had gone back to dressing the way I liked while he was locked up. Fucked up thing about it was that he couldn’t have been sweeter. I never dropped my guard, though. I figured he was trying to get my trust again, like he’d done so long ago when we were in high school. For a stupid girl there would have been a honeymoon stage and then the abuse would begin, tempered with apologies and maybe flowers or something. Next thing you know, stupid girl is back in the same old abusive relationship. Not me. I lured him away from the crowd, down into the canyon and I killed him. Simple as that.”
“How did you feel afterward?”
“Like it didn’t last long enough.”
Calvin harrumphed. Hazel raised her eyebrows as if offended. “He deserved more.”
“Sounds like it.”
“How about you? What’s your story, Cal?”
Cal. That’s what Ronnie called him.
Calvin clenched his teeth and willed Ronnie out of his mind. He wasn’t ready to talk about it, and yet he knew it would be a great release. Might help him deal with this incredible life change he was going through.
“Well, It’s all convoluted to tell you the truth. I… I don’t really know how it happened, it just sort of did.”
Hazel wrinkled her brow and smirked. “What, you didn’t plan it out or anything. You just spontaneously killed someone?”
“Kind of. It was my neighbor Celia. She’s a total slut—”
“Was.”
“Huh?”
“Was a total slut. You killed her, right?”
Calvin nodded. “Yeah, right, she was a total slut. I lured her into my apartment. Didn’t take much effort. A box of rubbers to Celia was like a steak to a pitbull. We drank some shots and one thing led to another.”
“You fuck her first, is that what you’re saying?”
Calvin detected something akin to jealousy in Hazel’s voice, but that couldn’t be, could it? They shared a kiss last time he was here, but that was nothing.
“No. I wouldn’t touch her with two condoms on. I mean I…”
Just what did he do? He didn’t remember killing her. All he knew was what he saw on the video, and even that was grainy and weird like some old silent film discovered after collecting dust for a half a century or so. He could tell her those details, but it wasn’t right.
“I don’t remember killing her. Must have blacked out.”
“Holy shit. You’re lucky you didn’t get pinched. Killing someone in an apartment is some risky stuff.”
Calvin shrugged and shifted in his seat. “You have anything to drink in here?”
“Like a beer or something?”
“Like anything. I’m parched.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ve been remodeling a little bit. Ghastly said it was all right, so, you know, gotta find something to do while I’m hiding out here. I picked a few things up yesterday. Turned the ticket booth into a little kitchen. Found a small microwave in the storage closet. I think the closet might have been used as a break room back when this place was in business. C’mon, follow me.”
Hazel walked through one of the openings and through the adjoining room toward the front door. She flipped up a section of counter that was on a hinge like at a diner and they both slipped into the ticket booth.
“Unfortunately there’s no fridge or ice, but I have some water and a few warm beers.”
Calvin accepted a water and drank half of it in one guzzle. “Needed that. Want to show me around? I see you’ve put together some shrines. Your favorites?”
Hazel raised her eyes and nodded. “You could say that.” She grabbed a warm beer. “I’m gonna have one of these. Follow me and I’ll give you the grand tour, free of charge.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Two days since leaving Calvin’s apartment after walking in on him and Celia, Ronnie saw his name on the news.
She was sitting at her desk in her room studying for a test with the TV on in the background. She hadn’t been paying attention to the various stories until she heard the name Calvin. Even then she thought it was just a coincidence, but she glanced at the TV anyway, mind still cramming information she hoped would come in handy for the exam. Her eyes returned to the textbook before what she saw on the TV registered and then her head swiveled like it was freshly greased, just in time to see his picture on the screen.
“Calvin Lawson is a person of interest. He hasn’t been seen for at least two days. If you know any information that may lead to his whereabouts, police would like you to call CRIMESTOPPERS at—”
Ronnie grabbed her remote and scanned the other news channels for more information on the story. She caught the entire story from the beginning and that’s when she heard that Celia was found dead in Calvin’s apartment.
The floor dropped from beneath her. It felt as if gravity had been sucked out of the room with a vacuum. Ronnie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Calvin? Really? Was he even capable of doing such a thing?
Her fingers flew across the laptop keyboard entering commands in the form of words, searching for information. The story was so fresh that the details on the news were about as up to date as anything she found on the Net.
She felt a compulsion to go to his apartment just to see if it was all true. How could it be? How could…?