Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso

by Jeff Vrolyks

from his and smelt the sour scent of beer.

  “Take a look down there,” she said. “If you fall, you’re dead. Get back over here this instant.”

  “You get back over here this instant!” He said and chuckled, side stepped again.

  “I’m only going to tell you once, Chris. Either you get over here and cross the bridge correctly, or this evening I pack my things and move out of your apartment. Your choice. I’m not playing, either.”

  “Jesus,” he said with a screwed up face. “What crawled up your ass today?”

  He threw one leg over, then the other, and together the four crossed the bridge.

  Epilogue

  Julie awoke to the sound of knocking on the apartment door. She mumbled to Chris to get the damn door. He ignored her. The knocking continued. She got out of bed a little pissed off and put a robe on, looked through the peep-hole and was surprised to see her brother-in-law standing there. She opened the door.

  “Jeff. What brings you by? What time is it?”

  “It’s like six in the morning. Can we talk?”

  “Six in the morning? Holy cow! I didn’t know there was a six in the morning.”

  “Is Chris inside? Sleeping?”

  “Yeah, of course he’s sleeping. It’s six.”

  “Look, there’s something I need to talk to you about. Last night Anna told me that you were going to Lake Matthews today. Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad I caught you before you left. Listen, Julie, don’t bother asking me why I think this, I just do. Okay?”

  “What? What?”

  “I have this memory, or idea, or presentiment, or I don’t know what it is. But I feel it, Julie, with every fiber of my being. I don’t want to scare you more than you need to be scared, but know this: if there’s a bridge named Devil’s Crossing, and Chris tries to get you to cross on the outside of it, don’t do it. Don’t do it!”

  “Devil’s Crossing,” she said thoughtfully. “Yeah, I know that bridge.” She nodded at me. “I won’t cross on the outside, got it.”

  Afterword

  The title Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, was conceived from the three parts of Dante’s Inferno: Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante travels through hell, into purgatory, and finally into heaven. This story is but a product of that idea, a trip from the hell of Jeffrey’s one true love slipping away into the heaven of redemption, of second chances.

  Jeff Vrolyks

  If you enjoyed this story, the author recommends Reflection, and coming soon: The Great Gray Superhighway, a psychological horror. You can contact him at jeffvrolyks@gmail.com, where he eagerly awaits your comments or a friendly hello, and vows to email you back!—yes, as a new and independent writer he is desperate for your attention and groveling isn’t beyond him. Visiting southern California??? Invite him to Starbucks where you will generously purchase him a steaming cup of bean and listen to him rant on about his passion for writing and comment on your nice sweater. The only thing he loves more than writing novels is discussing them!

  About the author:

  Jeff Vrolyks lives with his wife of 7 years Christy in Simi Valley, California. He is a new writer, in that he recently discovered a passion for writing and has been pumping out stories since. He was in the Air Force for a four year stint (cargo aircraft crew-chief), worked in the beer beverage industry, automotive industry, and in the oil fields on drilling rigs. In his mid-thirties, he fully expects to enjoy several more jobs in different fields. His turn ons include thunderstorms in the forest, rainy sunsets at the beach, and glowing reviews from you. His turn offs include driving in Los Angeles, working-out in an over-crowded gym he has no business being in, and receiving scathing reviews from people intolerant of foul language and violence.

  Find him on Facebook to be kept current on upcoming releases.

  Reflection: Sample Chapter

  They continued up to the next commercial break. Melinda, spry and peppy, sprung off the couch from an unlikely position, scampered off to the kitchen to make popcorn and refill her Doctor Pepper. Howard hadn’t been paying attention to the movie, had instead been pondering and finally made up his mind. He got off the couch and went to the kitchen.

  “I’ve been thinking.” He startled her. “Maybe I do want to know. I can’t live knowing that I did something so profoundly consequential but have no memory of what it is. It was fine when I was oblivious, but not anymore.”

  She punched in a minute-forty on the microwave, then stared off into space. Torn, she said, “I don’t think you… really? Howard,” she exhaled, “this isn’t something like remembering a word stuck on the tip of your tongue. You won’t feel better afterward, you’ll feel worse. Much, much worse.”

  “I know. I’ve thought it through. Tell me.”

  She considered it further. He let her think it through uninterrupted. The microwave beeped. She ignored it and went back to the couch in the den—Howard followed.

  Howard sat with a leg on the floor, the other folded in front of him. Melinda faced him sitting Indian-style. “I remember it perfectly, but some of the specifics, like the wedding anniversary, that stuff I got in bits and pieces from Mom and Dad after the fact. I was nine-years-old, you were thirteen. We lived in the old house, the one out in Agoura Hills. It was Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary weekend, fourteenth anniversary or something, doesn’t matter. But it does matter that is that it was their anniversary, because where do they always go?”

  “They did go,” Howard corrected, “to Palm Springs.”

  “Yeah. Friday evening, come back Sunday evening. Remember who used to babysit us?”

  “Vaguely. Margie, or Margaret—”

  “Margo, yep. I remember her very well. More than I’d like to, but that’s another story. She was our next-door neighbor. I use that term loosely, next-door neighbor. Do you remember the size of the freakin properties in our neighborhood?”

  “I do. I remember that house. I loved that house.”

  “It was a really nice house. That year you had turned thirteen. Howard the young man. Legally you didn’t need a sitter at thirteen, and we didn’t have one that weekend. Any of this sounding familiar? Ringing a bell?”

  Howard shook his head, but felt his pulse accelerating.

  “Saturday afternoon you went to the baseball diamond at the park down the street.”

  “It was baseball.”

  “No, Howard, trust me, it wasn’t. Just listen. So you and your five buddies were going to practice a little. I think they were your friends on your school baseball team. You had to take me with you, naturally, and I don’t remember much of this part to be honest; most of this is what you told Mom, Dad, the police, yadda yadda.”

  “The police?”

  “Gees, what do you think happened? A cat got ran over?”

  He broke eye contact with her, gazed unseeingly around the room, cycled the possibilities, the unknown degree of horror and tragedy.

  “So you guys threw the ball around, fielded some pop-flies, whatever, and two other boys showed up. They were a little older, one was just a little older, the other was done with high school. They were playing catch, and you asked them if they wanted to put a little game together. I don’t know what you could possibly play with eight people, but that’s beside the point. You guys didn’t know the two kids, but thought they were cool. And after an hour or so on the ball-field, we all walked back to our house, including the two new boys. The mistake of all mistakes, but how were you to know? You had invited them over for drinks and food, or something. You were thirteen so it probably wasn’t beer. Lemonade and chips, most likely. I tagged along behind you guys. I do remember seeing Margo in her front yard walking her stupid beagle. She was staring at you boys like you were chocolate on a heavy-flow day.”

  “What?”

  “She was drooling over you boys,” Melinda said plainly. “There’s a story behind that, but again, I won’t get into that.”

  “So the eight of
you and kid-sister had the house to ourselves. You played host. I went up to my bedroom and did whatever it was that nine-year-old Melinda liked to do in her room—probably watched The Lion King on VHS or tried to squeeze a little fun out of a bunch of Care Bears that I was outgrowing.”

  “I thought you said you remembered it perfectly?”

  “Jesus, Howard, I was nine. I may fill in the blanks here and there, but there aren’t a hell of a lot considering I was a kid who still thought babies came from storks. I’m doing the best I can, give me some credit. And I do remember it perfectly. We haven’t gotten to the it yet. I’m trying to paint a picture for you, help you to remember. I can get straight to the meat and bones of it if you prefer?”

  He apologized, asked her to continue.

  “Okay. I’ll try to do a better job remembering.” She muttered, “For the guy who doesn’t remember a damn bit of it.”

  “Melinda…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry. I may not recall exactly what I was doing in my room, but I sure remember the face that peeked through the gap of my door, and the sound of his voice whispering my name.

  “At nine-years-old you trust everyone; life hasn’t yet shown you what it’s capable of. It smiles at you, smiles, smiles, big smiles, and then BAM!—it raises that upper lip and bares those rows of razor sharp teeth; a fucking Great White shark. That’s real life, brother. The Jaws of Life, if you will. But these Jaws of Life don’t cut through twisted steel to extract crash victims; they cut through trusting kids to extract innocence. And to think, the worst thing that ever happened to me before that day was Barbie’s hair getting caught in the scissors. I joke, but this is no joke, Howard.

  “It startled me. A face wedged in the cracked-open door. I recognized him as the oldest boy in your group. Less. Lester Cobb. He was old enough to have sideburns that stretched below his jaw and a sharp raspy face. He had this warped grin;” she demonstrated with a sort of Elvis pout, with a little Jack from The Shining thrown in; “dark hair combed back, a greasy lock dangled mid-forehead down to his nose. It’s called a devilock—justly named—and from the Misfits, a popular band that use to wear devilocks. I know this because Lester had a Misfits Skull tattoo on his forearm and every time I see a stupid punk ass kid wearing that Misfits Skull tee-shirt, which is way too often still to this day, I am reminded of that bastard. His eyes were probably dark brown, but if you said they were black I’d believe you. It may have just been the shoddy lighting of a single lamp and closed blinds. Regardless, his eyes sharpened on me. I didn’t understand this stare, but I knew it didn’t feel right.

  “Lester whistled at me. The kind you do to a dog, only quieter. He whistled three or four times, and between each he’d flash that pouty grin, that excited pouty grin. I think I may have, just the slightest bit, peed myself.

  “Maybe we have a sixth sense and can sense certain kinds of danger, because Lester Cobb shouldn’t have alarmed me the way he did. It was strangeness. I knew strangeness, it’s a nine-year-old’s duty to appreciate strangeness, but it was the wrong kind.

  “You know why I think it bothered me to the degree that I decided to scream for you? This man, kid, whatever, scared me from his face alone. Yeah there was presumably a body behind the face, one that I wasn’t being shown, but why the hell wasn’t I being shown? Why just a face? Was there something to hide? Something monstrous?”

  “But you saw him at the baseball field,” Howard said. “You saw that he was normal.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did. But the man who was glaring at me wasn’t the same guy who winked at Margo when she was ogling you boys. It’s hard to explain; he was the same guy obviously, but he changed, like your stupid transformers that you used to make me play with you. The man in the door had this cunning, baleful expression. He had transformed.