Ronnie loved Calvin. That’s why her little freak-out yesterday over a gross video was so abrupt and uncharacteristic, because that’s exactly what Cal’s apparent joy in seeing the broken foot video over and over was: uncharacteristic. Up until then, she wouldn’t have thought him to be the type to salivate over something like that. She knew he liked horror movies, but gleefully watching a real person in pain was something else.
Then there was the other picture he’d dug up, the one with the man laying in a pool of his own blood. Where did that come from? It was as if he knew where to find it, like he had actually been to that website before.
Now for the voice of her inner reasoning, the one on the right shoulder: Perhaps he had. Maybe he had done research for an essay or book report or something. Maybe.
It was unlikely, and that was something she was going to have to talk with him about, but not tonight. What was it her mother used to say? “Men aren’t perfect, and it’s too easy to nit pick on them, so sometimes you have to swallow your pride and deal with it. They’re from Mars, after all.”
Ronnie smiled as she swiped two fries through a glop of ketchup. She mouthed the words “men are from Mars”. That was one of her mother’s favorite sayings, and it said just about everything that was unexplainable about the opposite sex. When Ronnie was a little girl and a boy did something she couldn’t understand—you know, the way boys indicate that they like a girl by making fun of her or trying to get her to eat a mud pie—her mother would simply say “boys are from Mars” and that would seem to make sense of it all, as if they really were from another planet. As she grew older and was stood up by a boyfriend or broke up with one, her mother (a bit older, but still using the same four words of eternal wisdom) would say, “Men are from Mars,” and that would always put a smile on Ronnie’s face.
In the bathroom Calvin pulled the piece of red paper from his pocket as if it were a golden ticket from a Willie Wonka chocolate bar. He read the inscription:
Come to the Hall of Hell! Saturday night @ midnight!
A place of everything lacking, everything wished and dreamed of. This is the new Museum of Death! There is plenty to do: games, videos, a photo gallery, and attractions. The admission is free with this flyer! You’re invited to bring one friend, but that’s it! You musn’t tell anyone else about this event, for it is strictly invitation only, and YOU have been invited!
Directions:
The Hall of Hell is currently located behind the abandoned Ralphs grocery store on Wintergardens Ave. in Lakeside. Present this flyer to security and you will be shown in.
He read it three times before pocketing the elusive invitation. Calvin knew he would go, but he couldn’t bring Ronnie with him, and he would certainly like to invite a guest if for nothing else than comfort in going to this strange attraction, but who?
Calvin knew Lakeside, but only faintly. It was a small sleepy little hick town in east San Diego County (if San Diego could even have a town that qualified as a hick town). He wondered how such an amusement would be set up. Was it a big top like a circus, or just some open field with wagons and booths like a carnival? With a name like the Hall of Hell, it left much to the imagination, not to mention the exclusivity of guests by invitation only.
Back in the café, Calvin sat down with Ronnie. She seemed a little more upbeat than when he’d left, but his mind was elsewhere. He could see the gothic script of the flyer, could read the words as if they were floating in the air.
“Are you listening to me?” Ronnie asked.
“What?”
“I asked you if you wanted to go see a movie Saturday night. I could come over afterward and stay at your place.”
Saturday night!
“Sure, sounds great, but I don’t think Saturday’s good for you to stay the night.”
Her smile collapsed. “Why?”
Calvin had to muster up his reserves if he was going to get through this one. The mere hesitation in his response was the sure indicator that he was lying, or at least holding something back, but he couldn’t think of anything sufficient as to not allow Ronnie to stay over at his house Saturday night.
You have to think of something! THINK OF SOMETHING!
“I’ve got to work.” Calvin blurted the words out unconvincingly.
Ronnie wrinkled her brow. “Saturday night?”
Calvin was an electrician’s apprentice and working at night was something he had never done before, but the next lie came as easy as the last one, though he stammered a bit.
“We’re doing this place, a restaurant.” He blurted out the word restaurant a bit too forcefully as if the idea had just sprung to his mind, which it had.
“A restaurant?”
“Yeah, a place in Lakeside called the 67 Diner. They close at midnight, so that’s the only time we can get in there to rewire the place.”
Now he was getting used to this lying thing. That last one came out quite naturally.
“Well, that makes sense,” Ronnie said, but there was something in her eyes that told another story.
“We could still see a movie, though. How about that new one, what’s it called, the new Tim Burton movie.”
“Oh, yeah, I know that one. Isn’t it a remake of an older movie?”
“Yeah, I think so. Let’s see that one.”
“Sure.”
“You can come over to my place anytime and we can get a bite to eat before we go to the show. Afterward, I’ll probably have to go home and get a few hours of sleep before work, though.”
Ronnie nodded. The lie came as natural as speech itself. Ronnie was believing his story, though he detected the slightest morsel of doubt in that simple gesture. He would just have to mind his Ps and Qs Saturday so he didn’t forget his lie in progress. It really was so much easier to just tell the truth, but in a strange situation such as this one, the truth would hurt.
After dinner, Ronnie dropped Calvin off at his house and then went home. She had to wake up early for work the next morning and declined his offer to come in and watch a little TV.
He was actually relieved that she wanted to go home. There was a peculiar red flyer in his pocket that was calling to him, and he couldn’t wait to get into his apartment, pull it out, and read it again.
And that’s just what he did, all the while watching scenes of murder and death via the unmarked, mysterious Death’s Door video, narrated by the haunting voice of I. B. Ghastly.
Once again, some kind of macabre spell washed over Calvin turning time into something nonexistent, as if time was a waist of time and nothing mattered but the images filling the unused storage in his brain through the gateway of his eyes.
Chapter Five
It was after midnight. Calvin had been dozing, Ghastly’s voice droning into his dreamy mind like a hypnotic self help tape. Mutilation, murder, suicide, death.
The front door was locked. Bass rumbled from the apartment next door. The neighbors were Calvin’s age, but never invited him to any of their parties. Not that Calvin would go, but an invitation would be nice, just to know he wasn’t completely out of the loop.