Eternal suffering.
Hell.
The door to the Museum of Death opened.
Mr. ghastly shifted and watched Hazel as she walked in. She had a grocery bag in one hand with what appeared to be a jug of wine and snacks. The general somberness she radiated as she shuffled into the room vanished when she saw Mr. Ghastly.
“Well hello there,” she said. “So good to see you.”
“Ah, Hazel. So pleased to see you again. Looks like you brought some party favors, yes?”
She shrugged. “Just a bottle of cheap wine, some cigars, chocolate.”
“Interesting combo,” said Ghastly.
Calvin was relieved to see that she had come back alone, but he wasn’t about to say anything. He wasn’t there to bitch and complain like an unruly child. Not anymore, at least.
“I know most people like cheese with wine,” said Hazel, “but I’m not most people.”
“Good,” said Mr. ghastly. “At least you have something to celebrate with, because tonight is the party.”
Calvin had been looking at the ground, thinking more than engaging himself with this weird passing conversation. His head shot up when he hard Ghastly’s comment.
Hazel set the bottle of wine on a chair and looked around with an expression that said: party… what party?
“You see, you’re the only two who have made it this far, so the party is more of a private affair. Drink and be merry, my little Gorehounds in training. I must go, but I will be back later. We have a few things to talk about. For now, I want you to celebrate making it this far.”
Mr. Ghastly turned and walked through the doorway into the next room, fading into a wisp of nothing and swallowed in darkness.
“Care for a drink?” said Hazel, as if she wasn’t the least bit alarmed that Mr. Ghastly vanished like some mythical b-movie effigy.
The wine was some kind of Cold Duck piss that would give an old wino a boner. Calvin would have preferred another beer or better yet some rum or whiskey the way he felt, but beggars shouldn’t be choosers.
“Yeah,” he said. “I can definitely use some of that.”
Hazel unscrewed the cap and frowned when her venture into the toils of cheap wine were spoiled by a cork. “Gotta corkscrew?” she asked. “A Swiss army knife?”
“No. I might have something in my backpack.”
“No worries. I have a knife.”
“You don’t want to cut the cork up. It’ll fall into the wine.”
“Yeah, but it’s better than no wine at all, isn’t it?”
From her purse, hazel produced a kitchen knife with a blade half the width of your average paring knife. She stuck the blade into the apex of the cork and softly plunged it, delicate enough not to push the cork in. Once the blade was deep enough to have penetrated the entire cork, she began twisting with such finesse that Calvin figured she’d done this before.
The bottle made a dull pop when Hazel finally used her fingers to pull the cork the rest of the way out after shimmying it with the knife. Hazel took a swig, licked her lips and passed it to Calvin. He took a swig, grimaced down the sulfuric flavor that tasted like a headache and passed the bottle back.
That’s when someone knocked on the door.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
There was one police car parked outside of Calvin’s apartment building when Ronnie drove by after school. She figured the door to his apartment was sealed with police tape. The cop in the car was probably positioned there in case Calvin returned. Detectives could be scouring the place for clues (not like it was Scooby Doo or something), though it was more likely they had done that thoroughly in the hours after Celia’s body was discovered.
When Ronnie thought of Celia she felt a pang of guilt. She’d always hated that girl and secretly she’d even wished the worst on her. Terrible to think that of someone, but when the threat of violence and sickness aren’t evident, one’s hatred can become a wrecking ball. She couldn’t help but wonder if she’d still have felt sympathy if Celia had been murdered elsewhere. Ronnie probably would have said that it wasn’t shocking considering Celia’s proclivities. When the body is found in her Ex’s house, on the other hand, well, that changes everything.
It was hard to believe any of this really happened. Even through Ronnie had decided to end her relationship with Calvin, her love for him had been strong and so very recent that she had a deep connection that caused this all to be very troubling. She wanted to forget, to just turn her back on Calvin and what he was involved in, but the unsettling mystery of his disappearance weighed heavily on her mind. What if he was looking for her?
Going to school was supposed to be something to take her mind off of everything she had been through, but coming off of her interrogation at the police station it would have been better to just go back home. Her mind had been so far from her studies that she’d been little more than a shell sitting in a chair listening to professors that better resembled the muffled horn voice of Charlie Brown’s mother than a master scholar. If there was anything important to take from any one of her courses today, she missed the opportunity.
As Ronnie pulled up to her house she wondered what her mother thought of all this business with Calvin. Sometimes people commit heinous crimes and all of the sudden everyone comes out of the woodwork saying that they suspected he was a little strange or that it didn’t surprise them that he murdered the girl. She sincerely hoped that wasn’t the case, though her mother tended to be wary of men as a general rule. If ever Ronnie was dating someone her friends or family thought was a pervert or raging homicidal maniac she sure hoped they had the decency to address her with those concerns before an unfortunate event occurred.
The neighbors had taken up the street parking in front of the house, so Ronnie had to park her car two houses up the block. She hoped this wasn’t an indication that the neighbors were having another one of their legendary birthday parties. It seemed like everyone in their family had a brood of kids and when they partied, they tended to disregard their neighborhood with loud mariachi music (sometimes even a live band) and quite a din of drunken talking that could only be reproduced or rivaled at a boisterous bar. You could see their parties from outer space, no doubt.
Ronnie put the car in park and sat there for a minute as so many thoughts rushed through her head. It would be one of those melatonin/Benadryl nights as far as sleep was concerned. Maybe even a Nyquil sleeping pill, though she avoided them at just about all costs. They tended to cause unbearable drowsiness the following day. Either way, she was going to have to take something just to stop her mind from thinking so she could get some decent rest. She had a full day of classes ahead of her tomorrow.
Ronnie stepped out of the car and slammed the door. She paused at the thumping of bass and whiney echo of a typical mariachi horn section. She groaned and then turned toward the trunk for her books when an all-too-familiar voice said, “I’ve finished the sculpture. You should come and see it.”
Lance stood on the sidewalk at the rear of her car. She must have been too preoccupied with her thoughts to have not noticed his approach.
In the soft light of dusk Lance looked menacing. He wore some kind of green coat that was almost big enough to be classified as a trench coat. After what happened in Columbine all those years ago with the so-called Trench Coat Mafia, Ronnie had always been kind of frightened by large concealing clothes. Could be hiding anything under there.
Ronnie became aware of the fact that her mouth was agape. She closed it, swallowing hard and taking a deep breath. “I really don’t have time right now,” she said. “Maybe some other time.”