Frank Klus - Azaleas Don't Bloom Here

It was quarter past two and she’d been on the computer for about forty minutes. It would shut off in twenty minutes and she’d have to schedule another sitting, and possibly wait another hour. Oh, dear . Everything is a dead end. Wait! What’s this? She started reading an article in the Old Chicago News about a Fernando Menendez who died under mysterious circumstances. Picture, oh picture, she mumbled. Please be a picture . Then she saw a picture of the dead man. Oh, how horrible. I need a picture of him alive. Oh, come on now . Then, Yes! Oh, yes. Oh my God, I think that’s him. Oh, I just can’t be sure.

She printed out the article with the picture. The picture was bad enough on the screen. It was worse printed out. She remembered that she hadn’t checked the date. She perused the article again and found it. Only a few weeks ago.

Ten minutes left. She went back to the search engine and typed ‘Sandra Menendez’. There were about a hundred references. She thought she was getting warmer, and then the internet cut off. She was out of time.

About forty minutes later she was back on another machine. She typed ‘Sandra Menendez’ in again, and after about a half hour she was nowhere. Nothing about her was in there; just a bunch of junk files like ‘find Sandra Menendez’, ‘read about Sandra Menendez’, ‘we found Sandra Menendez’. All were dead ends. Then she remembered the two dreams when she was in jail and went back to the search engine.

She typed, ‘Sandra Menendez in jail’. She struck pay dirt. There was an article about Sandra Menendez being released from jail by Commandant Jaydan Casimir.

Oh my God! Jay! Her heart was beginning to race now. She printed out the article. Now she was feeling fearful. Did I live some other life? She felt confused, nervous, and not sure if she wanted to know any more. She decided she didn’t, and ran out of there.

The dreams were coming every night now, and they were getting more insightful. The flashbacks came and went, and were largely like a snapshot of some event in her memory. She began going out after Jaydan left, exploring her dreams. She went to the fortress and the Old Chicago police and asked if they had a police record on her. They didn’t. She dreamed she was in Joliet Prison so she called their personnel office to see if she was there. They wouldn’t release that information. She answered an ad on the internet telling her that they could find any police record on her, but they couldn’t. What to do ? muttering to herself.

She thought about asking Jaydan about it. If somehow I was in jail, and Jay got me out, and there was a Fernando that I knew, would Jay acknowledge it? Would he insist that I take the sedatives again? She decided to wait to see if the dreams and flashbacks would unveil new information. She didn’t have long to wait.

Hell House? It was a flashback. She began to remember a dream she had a while back. She didn’t understand it and just forgot about it. She dreamed she was in a medical clinic of some kind and hooked up to machines. There was a lot of pain involved, but she dismissed the dream. After all, she reasoned, she never liked medical clinics or hospitals. Was this a real fear? She couldn’t remember ever being in such a place before. Was this an irrational fear? I had never had irrational thoughts about anything before. She decided on the library again.

She typed in ‘Hell House’. She was disappointed. There were mostly references to books and movies with Hell House in it. There were religious references; even a motel, an amusement park, and a gift store—nothing that helped her.

There wasn’t much time left. She was about to give up when she saw a strange reference to Jaydan Casimir. There wasn’t much else, but once again, her husband became front and center with her dreams. Why? What is going on?

Another week passed and another week of dreams, then a few flashbacks. It was sweet dream week when most of her dreams were about Fernando. A strange familiarity began to develop in Sandy’s mind. The dreams began to seem more real than they did before, while, at the same time, her life with Jaydan Casimir seemed less real.

The phone rang. It was Bev. “Oh, hi, hon. I’m glad I got you.”

“What’s up, Bev?”

“Nothing too much. Just a message to relay to Jay.”

“Oh! Let me get some paper…. Okay. What’s the message?”

“The Alt House will close in two weeks.”

She repeated the message. “Is that anything like Hell House?” She didn’t mean to mention it. It just blurted out.

“Oh, you know about Hell House?”

“Yes.”

“Well, of course, you’re Jay’s wife. Why wouldn’t you know? As a matter of fact, they’re pretty much the same thing, but Hell House in Old Chicago got destroyed. That’s where they were treating Eugene Sulke until his friends engineered his escape.”

“Jay tells me a lot of these things, but I haven’t paid much attention. Is that what they sometimes call the House of Pain?”

“Well, I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of that name before, but there’s certainly a lot of pain going on in there.”

“Thank you, Bev, I’ll relay that message.”

I didn’t mean to ask her about Hell House. Should I be even more reckless? I’ve gone this far, and so how about a little closer to the edge?

“Lightning Squad Headquarters, how may I direct your call?” came the voice at the other end of the line.

“I’d like to speak to Dennis O’Reilly please. This is Mrs. Jaydan Casimir.”

“Of course, Mrs. Casimir. I’ll put you through.”

“Hello, Mrs. Casimir. What can I do for you?”

“Hello, Mr. O’Reilly. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to forward a message to you that I received from Mrs. Beverly Miller. She said that Alt House would be closing in two weeks.”

“Well, I’m glad you did call me. Your husband is out of the office and this is information that we need right away. I’ll make sure he gets the message.”

“Thank you, Mr. O’Reilly. While I’ve got you on the phone, I’m wondering if I could ask you something?”

“Sure, anything. What is it?”

“I’ve been trying to remember if I was ever in Hell House before?”

Dennis was silent a moment. “Uh, not that I know of Mrs. Casimir. Why do you ask?”

“Well, Jay talks about it sometimes and it seems I’ve been there, but I guess I was mistaken.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Jay tells me a lot of things, but I have such a silly head; it goes in one way and goes right back out. Is it true they can change a person?”

“Well, I’m not sure if I should be talking about this, but since that crazy guy selling behavioral changes on the children, I guess it doesn’t matter. Yeah, they can change people’s behavior. If you’re interested, I can give you the address of that guy’s website. It’s toughlovecamp.com.”

“Thank you, Dennis. Would you do me a big favor?”

“Sure, Mrs. Casimir.”

“Please don’t mention our conversation with my husband. He’ll think, ‘Oh sure, she can talk to you about this stuff, but she can’t talk about it with her own husband?’”

Dennis smiled. “Oh, sure, Mrs. Casimir. I understand perfectly. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Can they change memories?”

“They can pretty much do whatever they want.”