It was 2 AM. It was also too early for my doorbell to be ringing. In my silk blue pajamas and slippers, I shuffled to the front door. It was Mike. Mike was my best friend from high school who never grew out of his punk phase.
I turned the porch light on and opened the door and said to him, “Dude, do you know what time it is bro?”
“Pack a bag quickly. I have to get out of here, and you need to come with me.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you on the road. Now, get a bag and let’s go!”
I went back inside, letting Mike come in. My girlfriend, Beth, was up now, “What’s going on?”
I replied, “Mike wants me to come with him somewhere. I’ll be home in a couple days.” I got my bag and gave Beth a kiss good bye.
I got into Mike’s refurbished 1987 Mustang. He came over and told me, “You’re driving.” I was puzzled, but did as he said.
I turned out of the driveway and started driving. I still didn’t know where I was going. “So, Mike?” What’s going on bro? And where am I supposed to drive to?”
“Just drive. Anywhere for now, just get out of town.”
Either he just lost his girlfriend or we’re going on a roadtrip. He get’s on these weird, out-of-the-blue ideas every once in a while, but something didn’t feel quite right. He wasn’t telling me something.”Mike,” I began, “Is something going on? Something doesn’t seem right about this.”
“You have no need to worry Paul.”
I angrily snapped, “Yes, I do! If you want me to take you on this trip to an absolutely unknown destination, you better cough up some information Mike!”
“Alright,” he paused, “It’s Heather. I found her dead in the garage.”
I slammed on the breaks, pulling onto the shoulder, “She what!”
“You heard me!” Mike yelled with sorrow. I pulled out and started driving again, “And I need you to stick with me. I need you to take us to Java Jo.”
“Our old high school hangout? That old crap shack? Is that thing still standing?”
“Yes, I actually have cleaned it up a bit.”
“Well okay then,” I accepted.
We were quiet for the hour drive to the hangout.
We pulled up to the old shack that had once been our old high school hang out. All our friends hung out with us there. Where we jammed to hair metal, watched MTV, and hid our cigarettes.
We’ve grown since then, like everyone does. We’ve put all the stupid things we did behind us.
The shack you used to be a old gardening shed with rusted old tools when Mike and I found it. We refurbished and painted it then, but now, after 15 years, Mike hasn’t gotten rid of the past, at all, and cleaned it up.
I walked inside, letting the memories arise again. The shack almost looks like it did 15 years ago.
Black and white checkered floors, yellow walls, and all the music posters we collected as kids, such as, Kiss, Van Halen, and Motley Crue.
All our records and the small amount of CDs lines the newly put in shelves. MTV recorded on VHS tapes were stacked neatly all over the ancient TV. The VCR had been replaced several times. The first one got thrown out the window when our friend Daniel went on a drunken rage. The second and third broke when my old girlfriend and I got into a few fights. She threw both of them at me; that was before Beth.
I sat in one of the old looking recliners that we picked up a few years ago for 50 bucks for a set of three.
“So explain to me what happened. Tell me everything.” I started.
He tossed me a Coke in a glass bottle, our favorites since we were kids. He began, “I got up and everything was fine. Heather was eating breakfast and all was good.”
“Okay, so what happened next?” I interrupted anxiously.
“Well I went to the studio,” Never letting go of being a punk and into music we grew with, Mike became a low-budget producer, “And had a great time, like I always do. Then I went on lunch break,” he paused to take a sip of Coke, “So I went home to have some lunch, but when I got inside, Heather wasn’t anywhere. So I to the garage to see if she left with the other car, but when I opened the door,” he paused and sighed, “I found her dead. She killed herself.”
I stayed silent. I didn’t know what to say or do. After about 10 minutes, I said, “I’m sorry bro. It wasn’t your fault. How about we watch some MTV. I’ll play the one with Lita Ford and Ozzy singing ‘Close My Eyes Forever’”
He just sighed. I popped in the tape, and eventually we were both yelling the lyrics at each other’s faces of ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’.
We eventually pulled the cots out from the closet. We kept them in the shack back then in case if we needed to escape hectic life at home. We both crashed with the TV on.
I woke up to the smell of bacon and fried breakfast potatoes. “Mike, when did you get that food?”
“But we got here at like four this morning, and partied until six, and it’s eight right now.”
“I went at about six-thirty, I couldn’t sleep, and you were drooling in your sleep, so I thought I should get some food for breakfast.”
“Well, whatever, I’m starving! Give me some food!”
We ate and watch an old recording of Headbanger’s ball on MTV. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to work today; I needed this day to relive the past for a moment, but I’d have to do it alone for a while because Mike had to go to work. I told him that he should take a day off after what had just happened. He told me that he was fine and needed to finish a new record and he left.
For being with Heather for three years, he seemed really calm about her death.
About a half an hour after he left, Mike texted me: ‘I’m being framed for Heather’s death. I’ll be back in an hour.’
‘Oh great,’ I thought to myself, ‘That is the last thing he needs right now.’ As I waited, I decided to take a look around. Admiring the life I once lived. As I was finishing my round, I tripped over the rug. When I got up, I saw a door, a door I never had seen there before.
Curious, I opened it up. Now I know this hadn’t been there before. A staircase was below me. I followed its leading steps down to a damp, dark cellar. I felt for a light switch but found none. Then I hit my head on a light bulb on a chain.I pulled the string that touched my face.
Work benches lined the walls of the small, shallow room. The weird thing about it was all the tools. There was something wrong with them; they were broken and fused to make unusable, creepy looking tools.
As I walked to the back wall to the last workbench, the sight was appalling in some odd way. It was a framed picture of Mike’s girlfriend, Heather. The odd thing was it looked like it had been smashed by a hammer.
As I continued looking, I saw it. A bloody hammer. Then everything clicked and became clear to me! Mike killed Heather, no doubt about it! I had to get out of here! I couldn’t be around him. What if he came for me next?
I shut the light off and got out, shut the door, and replaced the mat. I turned around to see that Mike had watched me the whole time.
I hesitated, “Oh, Um,” I paused, “Hi Mike.” Mike just began to give me a homicidal grin, no words.
He came clean with a creepy chuckle behind his voice, “I had to killer her, Paul. I don’t expect you to understand. You see, I didn’t tell you the whole story.”
‘Well obviously, dumb-a**.’ I thought sarcastically.
“You see, that day I went home for lunch? She was home, but when I got upstairs, I caught her. Heather was in our bed, our bed, with another man! So I took out my switchblade and cut his arm as he hopped out the window, and Heather began to run.
She was almost in the car, in the garage. Then I took a hammer and killed her.
And now that you know the truth,” he took out a hatchet that was in his back belt loop, “It is time for you to die.”
As he said ‘die’ I ran to the door shoving him into the TV and losing another VCR. I ran out the door and ran into the woods, knowing I couldn’t take the car and he couldn’t get the car though the forest.
As I was running, I started to hear gunshots chasing behind me. Mike had a gun.
I got cornered between a patch of trees that were too densely packed.
Then I squeezed my eyes tight, incredibly tight.
I heard the shot, but I felt no pain. I opened my eyes to see Mike shot dead in front of my feet. Standing with a shotgun and a stern, focused face was Beth.
I ran to her, and with that blackness took over my eyesight. Coolness look a rush over me. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t open my eyes, nothing. The last thing was her words, “You cheating liar.”