“What do you think? Pretty good idea, right?”
Calvin hesitated, took a deep breath. He didn’t know what to say to her. Here he was trying to come to grips with the fact that he’d killed his neighbor and had become a fugitive, and now this. No matter how much he tried to “go with it”, he had this niggling feeling that there would be a series of knocks on the door, the kind of knocks that could only come from the clenched fists of the law.
Hazel stood up and stepped out of the coffin. For being in the presence of a man she had only just acquainted herself with sexually, she was comfortable with her body and chose not to put on so much as her panties or a shirt. She walked through a door and into one of the galleries where she had created her shrines. Calvin knew which one she was going to, and he knew she was dead serious about her proposal.
She came back a minute later with a stack of photos in her hand. “Have you ever seen those picture people take of their kids in a bathtub or something when they’re adults that mimics the exact same shot from when they were kids? Or sometimes people have an old picture of their grandparents in front of a memorial or stature or something and they take one of their own in the exact same pose?”
Calvin nodded. “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, that’s what we should do. I could get a guy down here in a heartbeat.”
She handed over the pictures. It felt strange to be holding the very photos Calvin remembered so well from when he was a disgruntled teenager, hanging around a place like this the way other kids frequented the mall. It was almost as if he could feel some kind of power radiating from the images. The naked woman posed with a dead man’s head between her legs, which actually reminded Calvin of that 80’s movie Re-Animator.
“We could recreate each one of these photos,” Hazel said.
“We could, but should we? I mean, should we be bringing someone down here to murder? We’ve got to keep a low profile as it is.”
“This is a safe place.”
Calvin wasn’t so sure, but was reluctant to express his doubts. The look on Hazel’s face said she had no qualms whatsoever, as if she had been engaging in this kind of behavior all her life and found murder and mutilation as safe and comforting as Sunday dinner or a warm bath.
“How are you going to get someone down here without someone else seeing you?” Calvin said. “There are a lot of people outside. There’s a fucking pub next door. Someone’s bound to see you.”
“Chickenshit?”
Calvin rolled his eyes and tossed the pictures onto a chair. “I know I’m supposed to just go with it, but I don’t feel good about this.”
So much for concealing his doubt.
“I do. I feel fucking great about it.” Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you wanted to be a Gorehound.”
Calvin didn’t like the way things were turning. What the hell did Hazel feel she had to prove? Was this all about her training, her conditioning? Was she trying to impress Mr. Ghastly?
A sudden wave of nausea crashed over Calvin like an unexpected breaker in the shallow of the beach. He closed his eyes, feeling faint, and willed the awful feeling to go away.
“I don’t know,” said Calvin. “I need a moment to think. Alone.”
He turned and walked into the room just off of the entryway and the ticket booth. He was surrounded by scenes of death like absurd deities to the Gods of the Macabre. It wasn’t that such grisly scenes bothered him, but that the shadow of doubt Hazel created with her absurd idea of fun was beginning to cause a thread of paranoia. Pull on the thread and everything could come unraveled, and then what? He was in deep. Murder deep. By now his apartment was swarming with police, CSI, detectives, you name it. There was no going back, but the resolve he had felt during the bus ride downtown was beginning to fade, and that was frightening.
Why did she have to start up psychotic things like recreating those crazy pictures? Why was she so eager to spill more blood? And why the hell did she think they could get away with it?
Calvin wasn’t sure how long he’d been alone, lost in thought, when Hazel came in. She was dressed and had her purse stung across her shoulder.
“I’m going out,” she said. “Not sure what you’re gonna do, but…”
“What are you going out for? Your face is probably plastered all over the—”
“No one knows my face. I wasn’t stupid enough to kill someone in the place that I live. I’m outta here. I’ll see you later.”
After a good five minutes staring at the door, Calvin returned to the room with the chairs and sat down. Hazel leaving like she did made him nervous. That constant fear of the police pounding on the door intensified, as if she would double cross him. She had a point though. It had been stupid to kill Celia in his apartment, but he couldn’t do anything about that now. He just wished he had a TV with cable so he could watch the news.
Calvin lifted his head and looked at the TV he had taken out of the upturned coffin. He didn’t see a coaxial cable where the coffin had been leaning against the wall.
The urge to watch the news intensified. He was probably the big story. If he could learn anything about the investigation he would be able to find out if hiding out here was a good idea. What if his image was caught somewhere on a surveillance camera or something? What if someone recognized him from the trolley?
The TV came to life. A screen of fuzz blared its harsh rhetoric and then turned solid blue. Bright white letters that said PLAY flashed on the screen and then the blue was replaced with an image that caused Calvin to tilt his head questioningly. Once what he was looking at registered, he shifted to the right and looked straight into the lens of the camcorder Mr. Ghastly held up to his eye.
“How are you, Calvin?” Ghastly asked.
Calvin was taken aback. He swallowed hard. Ghastly was well over six feet tall and cloaked in black like he was wearing a shadow for clothes. One eye was winked closed and the other looked through the camera.
“Okay. I guess.”
“Hm. You guess.”
Calvin swallowed again. Nerves caused it to feel like he had a mouth full of cornstarch.
Mr. Ghastly removed the camcorder from his eye. His face was as pale as the belly of a catfish, his nose large and twisted, perhaps the result of vengeful knuckles. The sadist grin on display was enough to set Calvin’s marrow on deep freeze, and those eyes...
“I had high hopes for you,” said Mr. Ghastly. “And after what you did last night I thought for sure you had the balls to be a Gorehound, but… now I’m not so sure. In fact, I’m not sure at all. Hazel, on the other hand, now there’s a gal who has the taste for blood. I don’t have to worry about her one bit. I’m almost confidant enough to allow her to forgo the test, but then again I would just be taking something pleasurable away from her.
“But I have to wonder, Calvin, if you will find the test as pleasurable as she will.”
Ghastly paused and Calvin thought that he should say something to reassure the domineering man that he indeed had what it took to be a Gorehound, whatever that was. He certainly didn’t know if he had what it took. He didn’t even understand what the hell he was getting himself into.
“What if she gets herself caught?” Calvin said. He kind of sounded like a whiny child blaming one of his friends to get out of some kind of trouble. It was pathetic.
“She knows what she’s doing. This is a safe place. Here you can do whatever you like. No one knows about this place, I can guarantee you that. Not even back when you were but a demented teenager could anyone else see, or did anyone else know of the Museum of Death. Don’t you worry about Hazel.”