There was no way Ronnie was going to admit that she was jealous of Celia, but that’s exactly what it was. Girls like her had this sultry way about them that tended to attract the opposite sex. So many men were idiot pigs. See a flash of cleavage and too much makeup and they become helpless the wiles of the skank. Some men were such pigs they were attracted the very idea that a girl was loose, like she didn’t carry diseases or something.
Calvin wasn’t that type of guy, but Ronnie worried about his proximity to Celia. She’d noticed the way Celia looked at Calvin whenever they walked by, the offhand comments she made. Ronnie knew she shouldn’t worry about the bitch, but she couldn’t help it. What kind of girl lived with two men? The kind who likes a good gang-fucking, that’s who.
Ronnie banished her thoughts, ashamed that she had allowed them down such a dark path. She liked to have sympathy for her fellow woman whenever possible, but Celia rubbed her wrong and that was something she couldn’t shake. For all she knew there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for Celia’s behavior. Maybe she had a crush on Calvin and had a ridiculous way of showing it. Maybe she wasn’t as bad as her reputation depicted.
Maybe you’re making excuses, Ronnie thought. You know that if she didn’t have roommates she would have tried to lure Calvin into her apartment.
And she knew that Calvin would have turned her down, perhaps too politely, because he tended to be that way. One of the things Ronnie liked about him, though at times she wished he would just express himself when faced with confrontation. Maybe if he told Celia off she would leave him the fuck alone.
Ronnie brooded on her life as she readied herself and eventually made it to her afternoon courses. She did her best to forget about Calvin and focus on her studies, deciding that she would call him after her second class to see if he wanted to have dinner later.
After finding a choice parking spot at Grossmont Community College, Ronnie got out of her car and made her way onto campus.
Even in the afternoon there were a lot of students, considering how difficult it was to get into just about every curriculum they offered, so it was no surprise that she didn’t notice the man who was following her.
Chapter Sixteen
There was an intense moment as the two of them stared at one another before Calvin recognized the woman standing in the hollow of the upright coffin. It was clear when she smiled that she too recognized him.
However mischievous was a sinister grin. Her fair complexion gave her the waxy tone of a corpse waiting for autopsy, however there was something about her that was more alive than what Calvin saw in everyone else, including his own girlfriend.
“What are you doing here?” Calvin asked.
“I could ask you the same thing, but maybe I know why. Are you here for the same reason I am?”
Fucking riddles. “Not sure. You wanna come out of there?”
Hazel stepped out of the coffin. It must have been fixed to the wall to have been able to support her without tipping. That had probably been a precaution back when it housed a TV.
Hazel gave a coy smirk. “I knew there was something about you.”
She wore the same clothes she’d been wearing when Calvin saw her yesterday at Balboa Park. Black skinny jeans and a tight black Motorhead shirt with the helmeted toothy demon that was their unofficial mascot. She had ripped fishnet stockings on her arms and tattered black and white chucks. Her lips were done up in dark red lipstick and she wore enough black makeup around her eyes to give her a feral raccoon sort of look, though Calvin supposed it went well with her ghostly getup.
Calvin didn’t know what to say. His mind kept flashing back to seeing Hazel lead that man into the canyon. The feeling that he was in the presence of someone dangerous played around in his mind, yet he couldn’t deny a sort of attraction to Hazel not only of the flesh, but the soul, as if he could see deep into the complexities of her dark heart, and he liked what he saw.
“This is a safe place,” Hazel said.
“So I’ve been told.”
She nodded. “Mr. Ghastly?”
“Who else?”
Hazel flashed Calvin a sly sort of expression. “So why are you here?”
Good question. Why was he there?
“I… I’m not sure exactly.”
Hazel nodded slowly. “You here looking for me?”
Calvin thought about this for a moment. The Museum of Death hadn’t been his conscious destination when he left the house this morning, but there was no denying that he seemed to be guided here.
“I was going to Balboa Park, but I ended up here.”
Hazel’s eyes widened. “Balboa Park, no less? Why ever would you want to go there today?”
Calvin decided to shift their conversation. “So why are you here?”
“Avoiding my question, are we? I think you know why I’m here, don’t you?” She slanted her eyes. “I thought you were here for the same reason, but now I’m not so sure.”
“It’s a safe place, right? I’ve been here before. A few weeks ago. Thought I’d drop by since I was in the neighborhood.”
“Expect to find me here?”
“No. I thought maybe Ghastly would be here.”
Hazel crossed the diminutive room and flipped through some pictures resting atop a foldout chair—photographs of serial killers and mutilated victims.
“You killed him, didn’t you?” Calvin asked.
Looking up from the pile of photographs Hazel smirked. “Aren’t we astute.”
“I saw you at the park yesterday.”
“Oh yeah. You spying on me or something?”
“No, I was there with my… girlfriend.” Calvin could have punched himself for stammering just then. Why the hell did Hazel make him so nervous?
Her face brightened. “Your girlfriend, huh? How sweet. Did you watch?”
Calvin shrank back. “Did I watch? What do you mean?”
“Me. Did you watch what I did to him?”
“No. How could I?”
“Oh, yeah, your girlfriend. So she’s not into this stuff then, is she?”
“You mean the death stuff?”
“Ding ding ding, you got it.”
“No.”
“So how’s that going for you?”
Calvin’s eyes darted away from Hazel’s. That was the million-dollar question he’d been asking himself for the past two weeks, though he wouldn’t really admit to it. Probably had something to do with the way he felt in Hazel’s presence, that feeling that they shared something he didn’t even share with Ronnie, something that was of great spiritual importance.
After an extended moment of silence following her last question, Hazel dug into her small black leather purse and pulled out a crisp Polaroid. She extended it to Calvin. He took the picture and looked at it.
“Recognize him?” she asked.
Nodding, Calvin said, “You take this?”
Hazel’s assuredness seemed to falter just then. It was only a minor hesitation, but Calvin noticed it and it made him feel better about himself. Maybe she wasn’t the hardened murderess he thought she was.
“I take it you haven’t started the program yet,” she said.
“What program?”
“To be a Gorehound.”
The flyer Calvin had grabbed at the Hall of Hell flashed in his mind. He’d forgotten all about it.
“No, I haven’t.”
“You really should. It’s enlightening. You’ll feel free, truly free for the first time in your miserable life. Is your life miserable, Calvin?”
He didn’t lead what he would have referred to as a miserable existence, but then again he couldn’t exactly call his life a bowl of peaches and cream.