Let it go.
A throbbing in his pocket took his attention away from the mirror. Calvin sank his hand into the fabric of his pants and pulled out the Polaroid. He looked at the face of the dead woman and he could swear she spoke. Her voice wasn’t clear at first, but the more Calvin focused the more he could tell what she was saying.
Her voice was soft and cryptic and kind of wheezed like she was speaking through a torn trachea bubbling with mud or coagulating blood. “You must give yourself to it. That is the only way to join. Once you let it all go and give yourself to it, you won’t have reservations. You have to—”
A sound ripped Calvin from his deep concentration. He dropped the photo. Voices echoed through the door. Female voices. Celia’s and…
Ronnie!
“Oh shit.”
Calvin open the bathroom door to a living room that was on the verge of what would have been one hell of a cat fight were Ronnie and Celia to have gotten into it. Ronnie was furious. Calvin had never seen her like this. He thought she was going to grab Celia and rip her head off.
“It’s not what you think,” Calvin said, instantly grabbing the attention of both girls in his apartment. It was just about the stupidest thing he could have said and he regretted those words about three and a half seconds after they left his mouth.
“It never is, is it?” said Ronnie. She was furious. “I should have known. No, I did know.”
Celia was on her feet and looking for a fight. She probably figured that she could stand up for Calvin and get Ronnie out of the picture, have him all to herself. Or maybe she liked confrontation and drama.
“Look, bitch,” said Celia, “you don’t like it, you can get the fuck out. There ain’t nothin’ going on here, yo. Fuck. You kidding me here.”
Celia slipped into what must have been her more natural lingo, what she probably used around her roommates. She’d always had that chola swagger. Calvin had even wondered whether her roomies were gang bangers.
Ronnie was visibly shaken, probably by not only the situation at hand, but the threatening tone in Celia’s voice.
“No need for violence,” said Ronnie. “I’m done here.” She looked into Calvin’s eyes. “And I’m done with you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
After Ronnie slammed the door Calvin sort of blacked out. It wasn’t the alcohol—he hadn’t drunk enough for a blackout. He really wasn’t sure what it was, but it happened.
He came to later. His eyes burned like he hadn’t slept in days. The throbbing headache was a direct result of the vodka. Didn’t take much for him to have a hangover, and mixing beer with vodka was a bad move.
Lifting his body and propping his torso up with his elbows, Calvin discovered that he was in bed. It was dark. The illumination of his VCR display cast a green light on the room that reminded him of the zombies on the cover of Return of the Living Dead. It was 3:24 in the morning.
Calvin rubbed his eyes and blinked several times, trying to remember what happened, how it was he ended up in the bedroom. Had he slept with Celia? No, he was sure that hadn’t happened. There wasn’t enough booze in the world to get him to stick it to her.
She must have gone home, but he couldn’t remember. The last thing he remembered was Ronnie slamming the door as she left.
Ronnie? What the fuck was she doing here?
The tape that was hanging out of the VCR’s mouth sucked into the device. The TV came to life, filling the room with a quick burst of static and then a bright blue screen that bounced as if the video needed to be tracked, or maybe the tape had a nasty kink in it.
Staring blankly at the TV, Calvin felt an all-encompassing calm spread over him. Something about the TV and its jittery image grounded him, took away the questions that were haunting him at this absurd hour.
The jumpy blue screen changed to a title card like those from old silent films with a decorative border interwoven with skulls and bones. The title card said: Girl Problems starring Calvin and Celia. Filmed in Terrorvision. An I. B. Ghastly production.
He should have been horrified, yet Calvin watched as if he’d been expecting this film. As if he had known it was waiting for him in the VCR where Death’s Door II had been. As if his and Celia’s names weren’t cause for concern.
Let it go.
The title card was replaced with a familiar image. It was Calvin’s living room and the stars of this one-reeler were engaged in some kind of macabre dance. Celia looked afraid and enthralled all at the same time, and Calvin, well, he looked like a shark in the moment before lumbering onto its prey. His eyes were dead, determined. It was a struggle, played out in jumpy black and white. Missing frames caused the duo to flicker forward. A hair flickered around the upper right hand corner of the film like the tail end of an ornery sperm.
Their strange dance turned psychotic and now Celia was scared. She scratched at Calvin as he struggled to grip her neck, but she wouldn’t let him. She was determined to live.
Calvin watched the odd film and wanted popcorn. He watched as, on the film, Celia scratched his left arm. His hand went to that very arm and his fingers traced raised flesh.
He continued watching as he and Celia struggled. His hand clenched into a fist and he smashed her in the face several times until she fell down. She put her hands to her face and wormed around the floor. Calvin stood over her. He looked around for something. Drops of black blood fell onto the carpet from her broken nose, spilling from between her clasped hands.
Though it was a silent film, Calvin could hear her cries and pleas in his mind. He could hear her whimpering sobs and feel the burn of her deep scratches on his left arm.
The Calvin on the film left the gaze of the camera. He went either into the bathroom or the bedroom. Celia collapsed. Her hands drew away from her face revealing a bloodied mess. Her nose gushed. Black wetness coated her face and began to soil her shirt.
Calvin returned with a pair of scissors and a belt.
The real Calvin glanced at his stationary desk, to the coffee mug that held his pens and pencils and…
On the film, Calvin knelt down and wrapped the belt around Celia’s neck. She attempted to stop him, but she was too weak. He slipped the end of the belt through the buckle, then pulled it tight. Her hands went to the loop of leather around her neck. She couldn’t get her fingers in before he pulled and her head came back violently. She then grabbed the length of belt between her neck and Calvin. Her hands were so slick with blood that she couldn’t get a decent grip. Calvin positioned the belt so that he was behind her and then he yanked it, pulling her head back like someone training an unruly dog. He yanked again and soon enough she was on her hands and knees.
Real Calvin watched the film with wide, expecting eyes. His breathing accelerated, his mouth watering as if he was in for a treat. When the grisly finale happened Calvin didn’t so much as flinch. His grin grew wider and a soft chuckle reverberated out of his throat.
On the film Calvin held the scissors out with one hand about a foot away from the back of Celia’s head. He then yanked the belt repeatedly, pulling her head into the scissors. At first the thrust of her head batted the scissors back, her skull too hard to puncture. Calvin held them firm and continued the assault until he found a soft spot, or perhaps attacked the same area enough to fracture the skull. After that, the scissors broke through and the back of her head turned into a gaping hole of chunky pudding.