I awoke just as the lights came back on, less than a minute after blacking out.
Good, I wasn't out long.
Above me strange patterns came into being and took shape on the ceiling. The shapes were puzzling to me, seemingly random scribble of black and white, although they did seem familiar. From a speaker in the one way mirror wall across the room, I kept hearing my name being called, but chose to ignore it, continuing to lay there motionless, and try to get my vision to refocus. A moment after the speaker went silent I started to recognize that which had become visible on the walls and ceiling. Somehow the static electricity ball, the flashing light, and the liquid barium in my belly had conspired to create an x-ray of my guts, which were now somehow imprinted on the walls and ceiling.
How does that work?
I'm not gutless after all!
The floor vibrated from the stomping of many feet. Loud voices came through the door. I found my legs and stood, wearily. All around x-rays of my digestive system sparkled with the brilliance of a negative photo. I unplugged and picked up the lightning ball; prepared for battle. The bolt on the door slid rustily aside; the door was flung wide.
I stood in the center of the room, brandishing the metal sphere, as the horde of party goers flooded in. Close to a dozen of them carried writing utensils and other art implements. Surprisingly, they didn't attack, rather, they began tracing my guts x-ray and defiled it artistically. I just stood there, dumbstruck.
Behind the initial glut of rabid artists came Lady Vintage and her personal assistant, the door man.
"Mr. Grimm are you all right?" she asked.
Now that I could see her in full light, she wasn't as old as I had originally thought. Despite her fashion sense, she obviously had an advantage over women of the Victorian era: modern make-up and skin care. The combination of current product and antique clothing belied her true age, but she probably wasn't over forty.
"I'm good," I answered, "You?"
She apologized and explained how this had never happened before, but she was quick to acclaim the way the x-ray turned out. Apparently, my violent expulsion from the center of the room elongated the image and gave it a unique appearance. Her art minions were all over it.
"Well, I am going to go and make use of the facilities, excuse me." I left the room, returning to the large ornate foyer the party had previously been in, and took inventory of the newly reshaped scene.
Only half of the party remained in the dimly lit room. A few people were indulging in beverages, debating the ramifications of modernism, or gorging on deli trays. I, on the other hand, felt the need to empty the contents of my stomach into the first vomit catching contraption I could find.
The room was still dark, and feeling my way through it I found what I assumed to be a large plastic garbage bin. I grabbed the edges of it and leaned over. My haste and desperation to find something to puke into coupled with the darkness obscuring my vision resulted in me peering into something that was definitely not a garbage bin. I starred into a well, totally a fake one, and in the water at the bottom of it, starring back, was a glowing green human face.
The face smiled and shouted, "Good evening! How are you tonight?"
Artist's conception.
I answered by pouring liquid barium from my mouth into his. I couldn't tell if my vomit had actually hit him, because the water at the bottom of the well was disturbed so much that the green face was distorted beyond recognition. The green face was under the surface of the water, probably behind a protective covering, and I assumed that his voice had come from some hidden speaker somewhere. I didn't care, though, and decided to find a new place to do my business.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor balcony and ducked into a nearby hallway. Sure enough, a gang of females all spilled out of one room at the end of the hall. Across from the door they had come from was the men's room. Inside said room I cleaned myself. I even debated jumping out the window, but decided it was safer to not climb two stories.
As soon as I opened the door a disquieting gaze met mine: the eyes of Lady Vintage.
"May we speak a moment?" she asked me, with one arched eyebrow and pursed lips.
"But of course," I responded, trying to act more well mannered than I truly was.
She escorted me to the railing overlooking the now well lit party below. Once again the party was in full force as the attendees busied themselves with meaningless chatter and merry making.
Lady Vintage leaned with her back against the rails and spoke, "The crucible, what was your interpretation?"
"I thought it a nice read. The movie wasn't bad either. A suitable allegory for the ills of hearsay, misguided fervor, and religious oppression, among a slew of other applications. Miller was once married to Monroe, you know." I smiled.
"Jangling the keys to the kingdom..."
"The three rooms you solved." She looked displeased.
"Oh, yeah. Well, to tell you the truth, I don't have a clue as to what that was about. There was a connection?"
Now she looked even more displeased, and spoke again, "Hellscapes, forbidden love, and painful food flavoring, you don't see a correlation between them and our mission here?"
I leaned with my elbows against the railing next to her and shook my head, "You lost me."
"It relates to our future endeavors."
I shrugged.
She crossed her arms, leaned in close, and whispered, "Who are you Mr. Grimm?"
I pulled the slip of paper that led me to this place from my pocket and said, "I am just a pizza dude that stumbled upon this note at the Laundromat. Don't ask me why, but I just had to follow this mystery to its conclusion."
She backed away from me and opened her mouth in shock, that or she was trying to determine if she could eat me in one bite, "Amazing."
She cleared her throat and called the attention of the party. The voices of the mass silenced and all looked up at us. I waved. She then relayed our conversation to the party. The mob looked awed.
Why didn't I just climb out the window when I had the chance?
I totally should have.
"This way Mr. Grimm, please." She led me towards the doorway I had first seen her emerge from, which led to another long hallway. Behind us followed the doorman and the party. At the end of the hall was another set of stairs which took us to a third floor hallway. The doorman and party waited at the top of the stairs while Lady Vintage led me to a room. She opened the door and asked me to enter once again into a dark room.
What is with the dark rooms?
She closed the door behind her as she entered and gave life to the lights. The room was large and the walls were covered in shelves from floor to ceiling. You would have assumed it to be a library, were it not for the glass jars filled with severed human heads that occupied the spaces that should have been reserved for books. All kinds of sharp and deadly murder weapons sat on displays pretty much anywhere a human head wasn't. The displays and other assorted furniture were all made of bones, human or animal I couldn't tell, and a man-sized chute was mounted in the wall, no doubt a place to dispose of headless corpses.
Everyone has a room full of these, right?
I thought about how I had gotten here, which inevitably led me once again to the point where I was thinking about how I had gotten here all over again.
Luckily, Lady Vintage snapped me out of a paradoxical narrative loop by speaking. Unluckily she said, "Mr. Grimm, your head please."
To Be Continued...
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