“Don’t worry, Cal. You’re safe here. You were always safe here.”
It wasn’t until now that Calvin realized the way Mr. Ghastly seemed to read his mind. It should have shocked him right from the start, but then again, a lot of things he was taking with a grain of salt should have shocked him, like he’d somehow been conditioned for this kind of madness.
“I don’t have a lot of time before I must retire, but I want to give you something.”
From behind the ticket counter Mr. Ghastly produced an old shoebox and removed the lid revealing a pile of Polaroids. He shuffled through the photos mumbling and grunting before choosing one.
Looked around the museum, Calvin thought about what I.B. Ghastly had just said about always being safe here. Did that mean he was welcome to come and go as he pleased?
“Here,” said Mr. Ghastly, handing over a solitary Polaroid from his collection.
Calvin took the picture and looked at it, almost repulsed at the gruesome image. It was a butchered body, what looked like a woman. The photo seemed authentic, perhaps because it was a Polaroid. It could have been a police crime scene photograph, but it was a little too sloppy.
“Is this… ?” was all Calvin could say.
“It is yours, Cal. Take care of it. Keep it with you always, and when you’re feeling uncertain, look at it. It will help you. It will guide you.”
Ghastly placed the closed shoebox beneath the ticket booth. “You are safe here, but never remove anything from the premises. These artifacts of the dead,” Mr. Ghastly gestured his hands as if showcasing the room, “are not meant to leave here. Do you understand?”
Calvin nodded.
“Only that photo I have given you is yours.” Mr. Ghastly started for the door.
Calvin wanted to ask him about the photo—who is it? Is it real? When did it happen?—but he couldn’t articulate properly. “But…” he said, along with random syllables and fractured words that made him sound like an idiot.
“I have to leave,” said Mr. Ghastly. “Here.” He held out a half sheet of bright red paper. Calvin took it and grinning after reading the heading. Ghastly said, “Be sure to bring a friend.”
Before Calvin could say or ask anything further of Mr. Ghastly, the ominous man was up the stairs and seemed to dissipate into some sort of unseasonable blast of fog.
Calvin flew up the stairs and onto the sidewalk, photo in one hand, flyer in the other, but the hearse was too far down the road for him to chase after, and then it too seemed to just fade into the ethers.
The flyer was for the next Hall of Hell, this time in an abandoned warehouse downtown. Calvin looked at the Polaroid again, a feeling deep in his gut telling him it wasn’t right. Police photo or not, it wasn’t right. There was a smudged bloody fingerprint on the white strip at the bottom where the police would have written perhaps a number or word relating to the crime to catalogue the photo as evidence.
It’s real!
Calvin dropped it, suddenly afraid of the photograph. It was a killer’s photograph. A piece of a crime, a murder. Photographic snuff.
Then again, it may have been evidence in a case, a photo discovered at the scene of the crime, and, Calvin rationalized, it wouldn’t be unusual for a museum such as this one to have acquired memorabilia from famous crime scenes. Hell, if it hadn’t been for someone torching his house, Ed Gein’s belongings would have been auctioned off after he was caught.
It was five in the morning and Calvin had a good walk ahead of him to get back to El Cajon—he would have to pick up an early bus. The urge to further investigate the museum was strong, but day would break soon enough. His eyelids felt like lead weights. He needed sleep.
All the way home fears began to seep into Calvin’s peripheral vision, taking him back to the frightening experiences from the movie theater and the restaurant last night.
From alleyways lurked beings with flesh melting off the bone. He saw several homeless folks, but they were corpses shrouded in tattered clothes, faces green and rotten, eyes cataract as they watched Calvin pass by.
As the sun began to rise, the visions became worse. Now people were on their morning jogs, but they were all dying, some of them collapsing from heart attack, and others suffering spontaneous bullet shots that came from unseen guns. Hands reached from runoff drains and out of the bushes adorning well-manicured yards as he passed through a nicer part of town. Gardeners became crippled with disease and lay on freshly cut lawns in agony.
By the time Calvin arrived at his apartment he had taken the Polaroid from his pocket, half crazed from the visions he’d been dealing with. Everyone around him—the old man who walked this time every morning, Mrs. Frazee locking her door on her way to work, and every person in every car that passed by—were dead or dying in this living Romeroesque nightmare.
Calvin examined the photo, considered how distraught and depraved his mind was becoming, and he couldn’t believe he had accepted such a morbid gift. What if Ronnie found it? What would she think? What if it is evidence? What if this is a setup?
The photo is free, Cal, Mr. Ghastly whispered in his ear, voice deep and soothing in its absurdity. His words were like verbal fingers massaging the folds of Calvin’s brains. Look at the blood. It’s free. Look at the body. The soul has been freed. We are all just matter concealing a soul that wants to be freed. Don’t you see that?
Calvin looked around again. Mrs. Frazee was gone. So was the old man. There were other morning walkers who replaced them. They were normal, healthy human beings. Only then did Calvin realize he’d been holding his breath. He exhaled like hydraulics on a city bus.
…And when you’re feeling uncertain, look at it. Isn’t that what Mr. Ghastly said?
With his mind cleared, at least for the moment, Calvin opened the gate and went into his apartment. He suddenly felt used up as if he could just collapse on the floor and sleep for a day or two.
He made it to the bedroom, stripped down to his boxers, pulled the covers up to his chin…
…And put Death’s Door on the TV before falling into slumber.
Chapter Nine
Ronnie had called Cal twice, but his phone must have been turned off. Probably tired from his night at work, keeping it off to sleep in peace. She would just have to wait until he turned his phone on and called her back.
That meant she had to sit and think, which was normally a good thing, but ever since Calvin showed her that picture on the Internet, that… dead guy, she’d felt a pang of uncertainty. On top of that, Cal had been cold and reserved ever since she’d stormed out of his apartment, as if she’d done something wrong. How did he expect her to react to something like that?
Ronnie understood the inevitability of death, but chose not to think about it. When it was her time, then she would face that subject, and only then.
Hopefully in my sleep after a full life and hoards of children and grandchildren.
Wouldn’t that be nice? How very perfect. If only life had such a gleaming silver lining to it. No, that’s probably not how it will end at all. I’ll probably have a few children, one of them turning to drugs when life becomes too real and he can’t bear to face responsibility; my husband gets a heart attack at forty-two from all the grease that’s coursing through his arteries as a result of a trans fatty fast food diet; I come down with kidney failure and have to take dialysis and miss my daughter’s wedding because of severe sickness, then comes the cancer that leaves me emaciated and weak and on the verge of suicide, death swooping in to alleviate my misery just as I cannot bear to acknowledge what life has become.