Styrofoam Throne

by David Bone

  “Fair enough. But don’t leave me hanging.”

  Viktor clutched his stomach and ran off.

  I started doing it just as he said when I quickly got backed up. Janice looked through the service window, saw me managing different piles of burning food, and exploded.

  “What in God’s name are you doing? Where’s Viktor? I’m getting killed out here!”

  “He’s squirtin’ dirt in the toilet,” I said, chopping up hash browns and trying to pretend like I had it under control. I didn’t have it under control.

  “You’re ruining everything!”

  It wasn’t the first time Janice had told me that.

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “I dunno,” I said. I was too busy juggling blackened chicken sandwiches, pretending to know what went inside a Denver omelet, and staying the fuck away from the deep fryer. It was a cauldron of hell that would bubble up and take a bite out of you if you got anywhere near it.

  “Well, go get him!” she said, like it was all my fault.

  I abandoned the grill and knocked on the bathroom door. No answer. I knocked again. No answer. I yelled his name a few times. No answer. Finally, Janice came and opened the door with her keys. She was still looking at me like this was my fault. When she opened the door, a foul odor poured out and there was Viktor—asleep on the toilet. I started laughing, which pissed Janice off even more. She slapped Viktor’s face and he woke up like he didn’t know where he was. It made me laugh even more. He hadn’t even flushed before falling asleep.

  “Jesus Christ, you fucking Russian. You’re going to get us closed down.”

  “Ya ya ya! I’m coming!” he said while getting up, exposing his penis and toilet contents. Janice and I couldn’t have turned around fast enough. Still buckling his pants, Viktor returned to the pile I had created and deconstructed my work as if I had explained it all to him in great detail. He was pretty damn good at his job when he wasn’t shitting himself to sleep.

  The next morning, I awoke to the rooster-precision timing of Janice’s screams in the kitchen.

  “Donovan!”

  She yelled it every morning as if venting her frustration at my existence. Normally, this ritual would be completed with the sound of my door opening and a bathroom flush, or me yelling, “I’m up!” and going back to sleep, which only made things worse. But today I had a different plan.

  A third scream barreled down the hallway with Janice and burst into my room.

  “Goddamn it! Get. Up.”

  Janice wasn’t a morning person, and having to drag someone else through the first hour of the day never made it better.

  A scaly rash had broken out over my arm from the grease trap and gray dishwater.

  “Check this rash out. I’m sick, I can’t go.”

  “Pssffft! Viktor’s got the flu or a cold or something every other week. People don’t stop making dirty dishes just because you’re sick. For the last time, up.”

  “I’m serious. I think I’m gonna barf.”

  She disappeared. For a moment I thought it was a silent, frustrated goodbye—but seconds later, she came back with a salad bowl and threw it on the bed.

  “Here.”

  “What am I gonna do with this?”

  “I’ll tell you what you won’t do. You won’t puke all over my car. Two minutes and we’re going.”

  “I seriously don’t think I should go. What if I barf at The Roost?”

  “We’ve got plenty of bowls there too.”

  I realized it would take more than claiming a fever and possible leprosy to make my summertime dreams come true, so I temporarily relented.

  “Okay, let me go to the bathroom.”

  “Alright, but I don’t want to hear any sloppy lotion sounds. Make it quick.”

  In the bathroom, I opened the medicine cabinet and reached for a small brown bottle, slipping it in my pocket.

  As we got in the car, Janice glared at me.

  “Where’s the bowl?”

  “I think I can make it.”

  “That’s what I thought. You look fine. Except for that stupid haircut. Or lack thereof.”

  “Fuck you and The Roost. This is it,” I thought over and over.

  I was staring out the window on the way to work when I saw the official Castle Dunes hearse going in the other direction. I had to hide my smile when Janice looked over at me. The hearse had “Follow me to Castle Dunes!” painted on the back and sides in dripping blood. I’d see it around town every now and then. It always felt like the car was a celebrity. I guessed it was the owner’s or something. Whoever it was, he seemed like the luckiest dude in all of Dunes. That hearse could have said, “Follow me off a cliff!” and I would have. Especially if it was written in dripping blood.

  When we showed up, Viktor was already prepping the day’s food.

  “Viktor, can you make something for Donovan?”

  “Sure, what’ll it be?”

  “The Trucker Special,” I said.

  “Wowee, big! Coming up.”

  Janice looked sideways at me as I felt the act slip. It didn’t matter, the plan was in motion.

  “What? I’m hungry.”

  The Trucker Special was the biggest item on the menu. Four eggs, four sausages, four bacon strips, four pancakes, half a pound of hash browns, and two pieces of toast. I don’t know why they stopped at the theme of four when they got to the toast.

  I sat at the counter while Janice started tending to the regulars.

  “More coffee, hon? Some jelly, sweetie?”

  I only heard this tone in her voice when I eavesdropped on her at work. These strange regulars were “sweetie”s and “hon”s, and I was an earsplitting scream.

  The Trucker Special arrived in front of me without a word from Janice. I began eating the dish chunk by chunk, working my way through sets of four at a steady speed. The struggle came with the pancakes.

  I shoved as many breakfast items as I could into my mouth and quickened the pace when Janice turned her back. I could tell she was beginning to sense something was up when she shot a look across the counter.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  My mouth was too full to answer. I tried to respond but egg yolk ran down my chin and I flashed the rest with an open smile.

  Some old guy said, “Boy’s gotta eat. Sure didn’t get to be six foot five on Cracker Jacks.”

  Janice patronized him with a smile.

  A man staring at his oatmeal added, “Wish that was me. Last time I got that plate was over ten years ago and I think parts of it are still inside me.”

  Everyone stopped to pay attention to the last detail. The man tried to cover his tracks with a hearty cough followed by a “’Scuse me.”

  “I’d like to bet he can’t finish the rest in three minutes,” another old guy chimed in.

  I ate and ate until I had one final stab of pancake, sausage, egg yolk, and syrup left. Janice fixed her eyes on me as I devoured the last bite.

  “Okay, now get to work.”

  “Can I have a water?”

  “Jesus.”

  Janice turned around to the service station and poured a glass of water from the pitcher. At the same time, I slipped my hand into my pocket and brought the small vial out from underneath the counter. It was ipecac, the medical world’s solution for inducing vomit. I unscrewed the top and thanked Janice for the water. I faked like I was coughing as I downed the entire vial, chasing it as fast as I could with the ice water. The desired effect began rumbling in my stomach way sooner and more intense than I thought it would.

  “Hunnnnggaaaaaah!” Vomit exploded out of my mouth in all directions. Every bite I had just taken was now painting the counter and the walls, and splattering nearby patrons of The Roost.

  “Oh, God, it’s on my legs!” one of the regulars yelled.

  “What the hell?!” Janice screamed as she ran to the back for a bowl.

  I had never taken ipecac before, so I didn’t really know w
hat happened other than that it made you barf. That was happening, yes—but to my increasing horror, it wasn’t stopping.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. Even if I did I wouldn’t be able to do anything amid the flood coming out. Janice returned with a large bowl. When I looked up from my hands and knees, I puked again—covering the bowl, Janice’s apron, and her shoes.

  The scene was too much for the regulars to stomach. Utensils fell loudly to their plates. People bumped their tables trying to get up and away. They yelled things like “Land’s sakes!” and “My word!” or “Heavens to Betsy!”

  I could only look up for brief snapshots before returning to my own puddle, unable to halt the process I brought on myself. I had blown through the Trucker Special and was beginning to see bits from days ago. The skeletal remains of lettuce. An “X” and “Y” from alphabet soup. A sausage pellet.

  By now, I was struggling to get enough air when I lost my grip on the vial I was hiding. Janice saw it fall to the floor and grabbed it.

  “Ipecac! You little shit!”

  “Janice, your boy’s sick.” Don, a regular, stood up for me. “Go eas—ah, God, the smell!” and before Don could finish his defense, he ran outside and disappeared.

  “He took ipecac! It makes you do this!” Janice was now on the “other level.” “Get out! I never want to see you again!”

  My strength was gone, but I managed to make it to the door while dry heaving and burping up pink and yellow spit.

  “You bastard!” Janice yelled as she threw my empty plate past me, shattering the glass door and sending me tumbling into the parking lot.

  3

  I wandered down the road with a quivering gut. My shirt was stained with a V-shape of puke from my neck down. I wiped my slimy hands on the grass by the side of the road and belched an encore. My guts were hollow but I felt bigger. Finally something came up from my stomach that wasn’t puke. Pride.

  “I’m free,” I thought, even though I knew that freedom would only last until later tonight—when I’d have to go home. The home provided by the place I’d just flooded with vomit. I told myself I could sit there and trip out about it or I could keep walking away. “Had to be done,” I told myself. “Fuck The Roost.”

  I checked every pay phone I came across for change. Nothing. I looked up the road and saw the new Castle Dunes billboard, in the same spot every year. The sign always featured a more terrifying, decayed version of Dracula than the year before, pointing the way down the street with one hand and beckoning you closer with the other. “Castle Dunes! More screams! More gore! More terror than ever before!” it read in dripping letters.

  The three seventy-five for a Castle ticket stressed me out. I knew where I was going, I just didn’t know what I’d do once I got there. I wasn’t sure if I could solve my problems by going to the Castle but I could definitely escape them. And since I was already living in the moment today, a temporary escape was a completely credible solution.

  I’d spent past summers watching droves pour through the Castle gates and swore that the legend was true—fewer people came out the back than went in. I wanted to be one of the people that was never seen at the exit. Last summer, I saw a girl I liked from school go in. I immediately went to the back of the Castle, from where the rest of the pier extended, and waited for her. Would she come out giggling with her friends with attention-grabbing fake screams or would she be drenched in tears? I figured, somehow, I’d get to the bottom of her cool.

  But she never came out. I sat there for two hours and recognized some terrified faces from the ticket line but not hers.

  The next school year, I approached one of her friends.

  “Hey, whatever happened to Tiffany?”

  “Ew, get away.” She was not impressed with the guy-wearing-a-cape-and-asking-about-her-friend combo.

  “Is she dead?” I said, really trying to be sensitive about it.

  “What is the matter with you?!”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said while maintaining a respectful tone about her passing.

  “Her parents moved up north.”

  “’Cause she died in the Castle?”

  “Oh my God, you’re such a frickin’ weirdo.”

  Later that night, I asked my mom if the Castle killed people who went through it. She said, “Yes.”

  I no longer thought the Castle killed people but I didn’t put it past the place. The closer I walked to it, the louder I could hear the “Toccata.” When I arrived in front of the Castle, I hit the same bench where I sat every year and gazed at the dominating structure. It projected a glow of ominous strength. Its giant, iron gates separated me from the “living, breathing nightmare!” that was my dream. Behind the gates stood five towering stories of stone and mortar. Looking closer at the exterior, I noticed some damage to the fake masonry. There were now exposed patches of plywood and drywall where the building’s foundation met the sand. Last winter, a pretty brutal storm rolled through Dunes and the Castle’s much-needed repairs went ignored. I hadn’t been to the pier since it opened for the summer. I took a deep breath and soaked up its cool shadow. It was still early in the day and not many people were around yet. I was at evil-themed peace.

  After a while, I got up and checked out the rest of the pier for new stuff. Extending out behind the Castle, the pier was packed with an array of games and junk food. I went over to the arcade, Circuit Circus, to watch people play games. Two older teens were playing one called Joust and drank from oversized soda cups they kept at their feet. I walked up behind them.

  “Take off, dude. We’ve got this all day,” the tall, blond one said, nodding to the row of quarters lined on the bottom of the screen. I stopped counting them after twelve.

  “I just want to watch.”

  “Jesus Christ, is that your breath? Get the fuck out of here,” said the stockier one with a buzz cut.

  He reached for his soda between rounds and took a big pull.

  “Dude, I gotta piss,” he said.

  “Yeah, me too. Hey, we’ll let you watch us play if you guard our spot real quick.” The blond dude made it seem like a threat.

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t lose our spot.”

  The two dudes left for the bathroom while I looked over their game. And money.

  At least sixteen quarters. At least. Sixteen divided by four is four. Four dollars right there. Three seventy-five to get into Castle Dunes . . .

  I looked around and didn’t see anyone paying attention. I cupped one hand under the row of quarters and slid my finger across the bottom of the screen in one sweeping motion. With a fistful of coins and sweat, I ran out of the arcade, past the carnival games, and straight to the Castle ticket counter.

  A frowning girl in white face paint, blackened eyes, and a druid robe sat behind steel bars separating tickets from customers.

  “One ticket, please.”

  She counted the quarters in impatient silence, tore off a ticket, and threw it at me with the change. I let the change roll down the entrance ramp as I ran up through the iron gates.

  Another pale-faced, druid-robed employee took the ticket from my trembling hand and tore it with his teeth—spitting the other half back at me and swallowing the rest.

  This was already awesome.

  I was ushered into a foyer-type room that had a fake fireplace with a portrait of Dracula above the mantel. Even though it was dark, you could tell the room details were kind of dingy. A small group of customers, young and old, was already gathered in front beneath the portrait. The druid at the door closed it and the lights went out.

  A recording came on with sounds of crashing thunder and rain. In a flash of strobe lights, the actual Dracula appeared where the portrait had just been. The small crowd screamed and hollered. It was him, the Dracula from the commercial. He had on the same frilly, white Victorian shirt with the medallion swinging from his neck. There were some changes though. His hair wasn’t entirely black. He had about a quarter-inch of blond root
s showing and now looked too buff to be evil. Dracula pounced onto the mantel and whipped his cape at the crowd.

  “We’ve been expecting you!” he said in a bad Transylvanian accent. It was hilarious even though I was expecting to be scared. But it wasn’t just terror I came for, this stuff also made me laugh. Shitty or great, it was all horror to me and I loved it.

  “Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Prince of Darkness, the King of Castle Dunes, and the last thing you may ever see! You may call me Dracoooolya. Kneel at my throne that is Castle Dunes and obey these rules!”

  My jaw hung in anticipation. It was awesome but not what I’d expected. Dracula comes out and tells you rules?

  “First, keep your hands and feet to yourself or you might not get them back. Second, do not touch my stuff. I killed a lot of people to afford this place—and I don’t need you messing it up. Third, if any of you ladies are wearing perfume on their neck, please wash it off. I do hate the taste. Go now, before I get hunnnngry,” he said, eyeballing a girl in the front.

  I thought my face was going to shatter from smiling so much. Dracula couldn’t miss me in the crowd and interpreted it as mockery.

  “And you! I promise we will meet again and I’ll wipe that smile off your living face.”

  Dracula disappeared behind the mantel in a poof of smoke, thunder, and strobes. A druid ushered the group through a hidden door that led to the rest of the self-guided tour.

  From the first room on, nothing was watered down. Evil things jumped out at me from crusty jail cells, graveyards, and mazes. I was stoked by its full-on approach. Gore dripped from decapitated heads, zombie guts spilled out of their chests, upside-down crosses were planted on nuns’ faces, and gallons of blood red paint ran down the Castle’s brick walls throughout.

  I got to one room where two female vampires were sitting on a bed covered with red silk sheets, holding hands. They claimed to be Dracula’s lovers.