The Sushi Bar at the Edge of Forever

By Calvin McMillin

The realms of fantasy, horror, and noir converge in The Sushi Bar At The Edge of Forever, this eclectic short story collection from author Calvin McMillin.

A ghostwriter wishes to break free of his bestselling horror series and reveal his true identity to the world, but he soon learns that plagiarism can have ghastly consequences...

A beautiful tourist is offered a shot at fame from a world-class modeling agency, but a disturbing incident buried deep in her past may hold the key to surviving the audition...

A private detective visits a sushi bar and strikes up a conversation with a mysterious stranger, a fateful encounter that will cause him to question not only his sanity, but his very existence...

These and other exciting tales make up The Sushi Bar at the Edge of Forever, a spellbinding collection of six pulp stories that will plunge you headlong into a surreal world of mystery, menace, and the macabre. From Pro Se Productions

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pro Se Press
• Release date: Mar 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310335785

Book preview

THE SUSHI BAR AT THE EDGE OF FOREVER

by Calvin McMillin

Published by Pro Se Press

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

Copyright © 2016 Calvin McMillin

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Broken Hearted

Model Behavior

The Ghost Writer

Oriental Flavor

The Other Twin

The Sushi Bar at the Edge of Forever

Acknowledgments

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For Mom and Dad.

Broken Hearted

I

By all accounts, it was an otherwise typical Monday afternoon at the very pinnacle of spring. Alvin Goh, a student in his final semester of study at the National University of Singapore, was rushing across the library lawn, as if he were somehow terribly late for an appointment. Although he did indeed schedule an important meeting for that day, Alvin had arrived on campus a full fifteen minutes too early.

His hurried behavior was the direct result of, shall we say, a private matter. Although he had never actually been diagnosed by a physician, Alvin nevertheless believed he suffered from a spastic colon, a medical condition more commonly known as irritable bowel syndrome. He also believed, quite incorrectly, that he possessed an abnormally small bladder, a physical handicap which required frequent trips to the toilet, no matter how much or how little Alvin actually drank. With these two erroneous beliefs cemented in his mind, the boy made an effort to familiarize himself with every known public restroom on campus. In fact, this was only the beginning of Alvin’s master plan. Privately, he hoped to one day amass an encyclopedic knowledge of every public toilet in all of Singapore. Exact locations, relative sizes, precise number of stalls, varying levels of cleanliness—these and other details were of the utmost importance to young Alvin. This paralyzing phobia amounted to an embarrassing psychological quirk that few around him seemed to know about, much less understand. Even Alvin himself had to admit that his obsession bordered on madness.

And if he truly thought about the matter with any seriousness, he would immediately trace the origin of this peculiar problem to a single cause—a traumatizing childhood incident, one that occurred in front of his family and friends, no less. Alvin was barely eight years old when he accompanied his family on a short vacation to the neighboring country of Malaysia. While dining at an outdoor hawker stand across the street from the bus terminal, he couldn’t stop thinking about all the pirated DVDs he hoped his parents would buy for him in Johor Bahru, a city quite unfamiliar with the term copyright infringement. Of course, his parents could afford to purchase the genuine article at any reputable DVD store in Singapore, but for little Alvin, there remained an illicit kind of pleasure in getting something for practically nothing, especially through less-than-legal channels. Excited about his prospects, Alvin mindlessly chomped away at his plate of char kway teow, a greasy local dish he had long considered his favorite. The smell and taste of those stir-fried flat noodles amounted to pure heaven on a plastic plate. Little did he know the veritable hell that awaited him across the Causeway.

Before everyone in Alvin’s party boarded the tour bus for Malaysia, the adults made sure that all the children used the public toilet first. They all complied, as the children were well aware of the risks if they didn’t. Not only did the tour bus lack a toilet, but the Johor-Singapore Causeway that connected Malaysia to its southern neighbor was prone to traffic jams, sometimes lasting up to two hours. Better safe than sorry, one of the aunties was heard to say. Don’t want any accidents.

Alvin was by no means a disobedient child, so he had no problem complying with the wishes of his elders. But then again, he drank so much Sarsi at lunch that it wasn’t like his obedience was anything close to a conscious decision. The boy had to pee—and bad. After relieving himself in a rather unsanitary public restroom, he soon found himself in the back of a comfortable, fully air-conditioned tour bus. Along with the rest of the children, he started chattering away, telling ghost stories, and dreaming of all the fun he’d have on this little daytrip to a country he’d heard so much about, but never had a chance to visit.

The trip initially seemed to be going well, until sometime later, when the bus reached the epicenter of the causeway. At that precise moment, Alvin’s dreams turned into a nightmare. One instant he was playing with a couple of school chums that had tagged along for the ride, and the next, he was doubling over in pain. To say that Alvin’s favorite dish—so tasty beforehand—was not agreeing with him would be quite the understatement. It was not just disagreeing with him; it was staging a vicious, full-scale rebellion against his lower intestine. Like a warning shot fired from within, Alvin’s stomach rumbled violently, and then—before he could utter a single word to anyone, let alone rush to the front of the bus to ask the driver to stop—it happened.

Alvin lost control of his bowels.

First came a strange sensation of relief, which was soon followed by an overwhelming sense of shame, as the hot, gritty wetness became devastatingly real. Despite the air-conditioning on the bus, Alvin’s brow became caked with sweat, and he turned gravely silent, praying that none of his cousins would realize what had happened. But his prayers weren’t answered that day. The smell was just too powerful for the other children to ignore.

"Busok!" one of Alvin’s cousins cried out, waving his hand in front of his nose. So smelly, lah!

A chorus of Ewwwws! erupted in the back of the bus, punctuated by uproarious laughter as Alvin was immediately deemed the culprit. Childish taunts in both Hokkien and English soon followed. Somewhere in the midst of this unbearable humiliation, another of Alvin’s cousins, the five-year-old he only knew as Ah Boy, ran to the front of the bus and tapped his father on the shoulder. Pointing a chubby accusatory finger back at his cousin, he exclaimed, Daddy! Alvin go pangsai!

With that simple, not-so-innocent comment, the alarm that had previously been confined to back of the tour bus quickly spread like a virus to the rest of the passengers. Instinctively, Alvin looked to his parents for support. But when his eyes met theirs, he didn’t find the compassion he had expected. Instead, he only saw palpable embarrassment mixed with rising anger. Rather than be sympathetic to their son’s plight, Alvin’s parents scolded him mercilessly. And they weren’t the only ones. His grandparents, uncles, aunties, even the bus driver—all of them seemed to take a perverse pleasure in heaping mound upon mound of shame on poor little Alvin’s shoulders.

"Ai yo! Why you not go to the toilet before you get on the bus, ah?"

"Why you so careless?"

"Why you so stupid, leh?"

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Why?"

Looking heavenward, Alvin asked God the same question. He received no reply.

Truth be told, the only people on the bus who kept quiet were Alvin’s two classmates from primary school. His best friend, Jackson Yeo, didn’t say a single negative word. Alvin and Jack, as he preferred to be called, had been pals for as long as they could remember. While Alvin came from an upper middle-class background, complete with a nice house, two successful working parents, and a maid; Jack came from rougher, working class stock. Unlike the comparably posh home inhabited by his friend, young Jack lived in a cramped flat with his father, a widower who worked long hours driving a lorry for a local import/export company. Jack was deeply embarrassed about his financial standing, but it didn’t matter to Alvin one bit. Maybe that’s why he didn’t laugh when Alvin had his little accident. Even at so young an age, Jack knew the meaning of true friendship.

Alvin’s other classmate, Anna Koh, didn’t think what happened to him was very funny either. She was the most popular girl in school—cute, precocious, and undeniably charming. But best of all, Anna possessed a good heart. Of course, Alvin had a schoolboy crush on her; he wasn’t the only boy in the class who did. Anna liked him, too, although to what degree, he could never be certain. Like some pint-sized stand-up comedian, he would go to such great lengths to make Anna laugh. Whether it was telling long, drawn-out jokes, making silly faces, or just generally acting the fool, there was nothing Alvin wouldn’t do to see her smile.

But now the joke was on him. Unlike Alvin’s relatives, little Anna did her best to comfort him, but at that moment, no one in the world could have made him feel better about what had transpired. He had been absolutely humiliated, not just in front of his family, but in front of the prettiest girl in the entire school. It didn’t matter to Anna, but he didn’t know that. After cleaning himself off and changing clothes at the first available public toilet, Alvin mainly kept to himself during the remainder of the trip, leaving Anna and Jack to fend for themselves.

A week after returning from Malaysia, Anna left Singapore seemingly for good. Her father had been reassigned to Taiwan by his employers at Yu Industries, so he moved the entire family overseas during the summer holiday. And with little fanfare, the once tight-knit trio of Alvin, Jack, and Anna was no more.

II

To say that the bus incident scarred Alvin for life might be a bit of an overstatement, but there may be a grain of truth to it. Ever since that fateful day, Alvin developed a phobia about travelling in vehicles for long periods of time. He came to despise public transportation and petitioned his parents to allow him to have a car when he reached legal driving age. They, of course, denied him this luxury due to the exorbitant cost, so he had no other alternative but to make use of public buses and the Mass Rapid Transit System. As a result, he became a bit of a homebody, going out only to attend school or special family functions. When he finally went to university some years later, he convinced his parents that he should move out of their house and live in one of the fancy new campus dorms. He told them he needed to be in close proximity to his classes so he’d never be late. His true motivation, however, had nothing to do with punctuality and everything to do with having a room on campus, complete with a private toilet. In so many strange and varied ways, Alvin, an otherwise normal young man, had drastically altered his lifestyle due to an irrational fear that—someday, somewhere, somehow—he might have another terrible accident. His motto? Better safe than sorry.

But it wasn’t enough just to have his own dorm room on campus with a private toilet. Alvin also had to track down and document the whereabouts of every toilet in every building on campus. During his first semester, he investigated them all one-by-one, rating each in terms of size, cleanliness, and approximate number of users per day. Ideally, he preferred to carry out his business in the best facilities that the university had to offer. Privacy and cleanliness became absolutely crucial. Too much walk-in traffic at a single location and neither of these objectives could be achieved.

In Alvin’s humble opinion, the absolute best bathroom in the entire university system was located in the basement of Stamford Hall, one of the oldest buildings on campus. The newly furnished Lee Kwan Yew Centre had been erected last autumn so a number of the basement offices had already been relocated to the new building’s ultramodern fourth floor wing. As a result, very few employees still maintained offices on the B1 level of Stamford Hall. The Office of Scholar Development, however, was the lone holdout, at least for the time being, as the construction of its new home had yet to be completed. Only two faithful employees remained in the basement—the program’s director, Professor Harold Lim; and his plucky secretary, Eunice Beng. Due to the scarcity of employees, men’s room traffic on the basement floor was practically nonexistent. At least, that’s what Alvin had observed in the last year or so.

Not long after entering NUS, Alvin began to have regular meetings with Professor Lim, so he had made frequent use of the nearby restroom facilities. And yet, in all his brief visits there, he had never witnessed a single soul using the loo. The basement toilet, then, became a prime spot, a virtual Shangri-La, where a man could truly be alone with his thoughts. In fact, Alvin liked the place so much that even if he simply had to pee, the men’s room in the basement of Stamford Hall became his toilet of choice. If he had a gold star rating system, this would be a five-star toilet in his book.

But the toilet’s relatively secluded location was not the only reason that no student ever seemed to use it. There were, of course, the stories people told—namely, about what supposedly happened there many years ago. During their first semester as roommates at NUS, Alvin and Jack would often hear scary, funny, or just plain bizarre stories from other students about supposedly true things that happened at the university. Of course, all of these tales were related to them in secondhand form at best, always happening to some friend of a friend, an uncle’s neighbor’s cousin, or some other highly dubious source. Despite their less-than-credible reputation, these stories were extremely fun to tell and even more entertaining to hear. The most memorable story Alvin and Jack ever heard was one that involved the basement toilet in Stamford Hall. A young girl died there. Of course, that’s only the beginning of the tale.

The dead girl in question, apparently distraught over a bad breakup, took a kitchen knife and not only stabbed her cheating ex-boyfriend to death, but hacked up his new lover as well. Immediately after committing the murder, the aggrieved young lady took a bus to school, walked to the B1 restroom in Stamford Hall, and killed herself in the handicapped stall. The ceiling in the restroom was oddly low, so the girl was easily able to attach a rope to one of the pipes overhead. Using the back of the toilet as a place to stand, she threw a hastily-tied together noose around her neck and, sometime shortly thereafter, stepped off the toilet and into oblivion. According to the story, the girl’s ghost continues to haunt that restroom to this very day. Believers claim that you can actually hear the dead girl swinging from the rafters, her feet gently tapping against the side of the toilet with each progressive sway of her incorporeal body.

The story spooked most people who heard it. But considering that no names were mentioned, Alvin was always skeptical about the tale’s validity. However, the story didn’t end there. A full decade after that terrible murder-suicide, a seemingly harmless girl named Mary Teo supposedly developed a crush on her best friend, Susan Ong. However, when the object of Mary’s affection cruelly rejected her advances, the girl became mentally unhinged. Nothing terrible happened initially, as her journey into madness turned out to be a more gradual descent. Four months later, Mary murdered Suzie’s boyfriend in a jealous rage. When Suzie came home and stumbled upon the gruesome scene, the formerly meek and mild Mary Teo proceeded to slit her best friend’s throat from ear to ear. As with the previous killing spree, the murder weapon was a kitchen knife. Although the similarities between the two incidents were obvious, Bloody Mary (as the students called her) would never get a chance to explain her motivation, as the next day, the janitor found her dead body in—yep, you guessed it—the basement toilet of Stamford Hall. She had hanged herself from a pipe jutting out just above the handicapped stall.

According to police reports, mere days before the murder, the same janitor who found Mary’s body, allegedly saw her sobbing in that same exact stall where she committed suicide. Based on the janitor’s statement, the police automatically assumed that revenge was Mary’s motive. Of course, the crime’s eerie similarity to the earlier murder-suicide was dismissed as either a case of a) a deranged woman using an earlier tragedy as inspiration for her own crime or b) just plain coincidence. But the rumor mill was churning out a very different story, suggesting that Mary was possessed by the dead girl’s ghost and infected with some kind of supernaturally enhanced jealousy that consumed not only the lives of Suzie and her boyfriend, but her own life as well.

That’s the story anyway.

Told in forbidding tones late at night, this was the kind of edge-of-your-seat ghost story that frightened most first-year students. But after some serious reflection on the topic, Alvin came to doubt the veracity of the second story as well.

First of all, he would say whenever anyone would try to tell him some version of this particular ghost story, let’s forget that I can find no record of this story on the Internet. Let’s leave that aside for now. What I’m more concerned about is the fact that in Stamford Hall, the restrooms for men and women happen to be on alternate floors, so there’s no ladies room down in the basement. It’s on the first floor. There’s only a men’s room on B1, so the first suicide story just doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny.

Naturally, whenever Alvin would dare to undermine the integrity of ghost stories like these by citing a bothersome contradictory detail, the storyteller would invariably mount a quick defense. "Ai yah! Why you lai dat, Alvin? Chin chai! Chin chai! Of course, it’s a men’s room now! That’s ‘cos girls wouldn’t dare use it after two suicides and the rumors of a ghost. So stupid, you! The university couldn’t let a good toilet go to waste, so they turned it into a men’s room and covered the whole thing up!"

A university cover-up? While this explanation was altogether possible, Alvin