The Halloween Project 2025 – Story 4: Door 18

Jessie loved Calavera Cucina.  It was just the type of restaurant she always wanted to work for.  Cool and hip, a menu filled with interesting and exotic entrees.  Green chili burgers, carne seca, enchilada montada, and Native American fry bread sopapillas delighted the customers.  Las Cruces was an awesome city to live in, only 14 miles to the border of Mexico, with a varied and diverse population.  The restaurant was packed, not only on weekends, but every day. 

Her boyfriend, Chef Miguel, lorded over the kitchen and cuisine like a conquistador.  It had taken him many years to build up his resume, experience, and money to finally open his own restaurant.  And now he had, and Jessie was a part of it.  Hostess, waitress, prep cook, reservationist, busser, clean-up, she did it all.  And she loved it.  They shared a love of food, fine wine, music of all kinds, and a bed.  Life was very sweet.

Miguel’s best friend, Emiliano, served as sommelier at Calavera Cucina, as it was known among locals.  With his huge frame and strong arms he doubled when needed as a host.  A joking, knowledgeable wine expert, he claimed his mother named him in utero after drinking an entire bottle of Saint Emilion.  If that didn’t produce a laugh, he would suggest that he was, of course, a saint.  The Cucina was stocked with a remarkable wine cellar.  The wine list, along with food that paired perfectly with the deep reds that Emiliano loved, made the restaurant a mecca for the Las Cruces “in” crowd.  Friday and Saturday evenings were a carnival with Miguel creating something new, innovative and different every Saturday.  The kitchen stayed open until midnight, the bar always packed, until 3.

Jessie had fallen for Miguel’s quiet nature and handsome visage from the first.  They had been together for six months, and things were moving fast.  She liked him, maybe loved him, but discerned a quieter, darker piece of Miguel that he kept hidden.  Sometimes in the kitchen or in the apartment, when left to himself, she could sense a depth, maybe a lingering anger or hurt that he refused to reveal.  As far as family was concerned, Miguel presented as if he had arrived on the scene fully grown.  The only piece he shared was that he was born in Nicaragua.  No talk of parents, siblings, relatives.  Jessie passed it off, trying not to raise issues where there might be none.

Calavera Cucina, housed in an old bank building, had over 300 diners on a typical Saturday.  The efficient, well-run, front and back of house was a moving organism in constant speedy motion.  The staff loved each other like a well-grown family, except for the occasional worker who never really fit.  Usually an outsider, someone young, unattached, a newcomer from Guatemala or Panama.  They lasted a week or two, then were gone as quickly as they appeared.

Every Saturday around 10 o’clock Miguel would descend into the sub-basement two floors below leaving his trusted crew above to handle the last covers.  He had a personal kitchen, well stocked, cold storage, dumbwaiter and privacy.  There he would concoct meals that he sent up to special tables via the dumbwaiter.  Staff were not allowed downstairs.  Not to re-supply, stock or take inventory.  Locked doors intervened on the floors above. 

Only select guests received these meals.  Jessie often looked askance at the small tables far in the back where these dinners were served.  Men, only men, mostly in their 50’s and 60’s, sat close in at these tables, huddled over steaming plates.  They spoke a multitude of languages, English, Spanish, Garifuna, forms of Creole, and Bribri, even Mayan.  They ate their meals, paid in cash, and slipped quickly away.

When Jessie and Miguel returned to the apartment in the early morning on a Sunday, Calavera Cucina finally returned to pristine quiet, Jessie asked, more than once, “Miguel, what are you making downstairs?  What is it you serve those,” she hesitated, “gentlemen?’

”Delicacies.  Rare, unique delicacies.  It feeds their particular appetites,” and that was all he would answer, despite the fact that curiosity piqued Jessie’s interests and she asked often.  Too often.

”Just tell me what are the recipes?  What kind of meats?  How do you prepare it?  What spices?  Where did you come up with these dishes?”

”Jessie, Jessie, Jessie,” he responded, “Let me have my one mystery, my one little piece of the unknown universe.  Please!?”

She asked Emiliano a dozen times, “‘Emiliano, what is he preparing down there?  His secret room?”

”Jessie,” he would respond, “I don’t know and I really don’t care.  Those men he serves are different.  Just let them be.  Let Miguel be.”

She knew better than to persist until late one October Saturday.  She waited until Miguel re-emerged from his secret kitchen.  After he stopped in his office, she waited.   Miguel made his way to the raucous bar.  He settled in next to regulars and ordered a Smoked Old-Fashioned, his favorite.  Banter and laughter reigned.

Jessie approached the office door, always unlocked with Miguel’s “open door’ policy to the staff.  She made her way to the heavy oak desk in the corner, searched quickly through the drawers, and came upon a set of keys.  Tucking them in her pocket, she moved quietly, first to the basement, then unlocked the sub-basement and made her way down into the darkened underground.  She used her phone as a light.

Door 18 loomed directly ahead.  She flashed the keys in silence and tried several until one fit.  The lock, smooth and swift, snapped and she pulled the heavy door.  One step inside and she studied a perfect kitchen, complete with two refrigerators, sink, stoves, pots, plates, and a virtual library of knives.  One wall held an extensive wine collection, mostly red.

Two other doors and a freezer beckoned deeper in the room.  The first two were standard; a small bathroom and a closet of cleaning products.  All perfectly organized, intact, and scrupulously clean.  Jessie stepped to the freezer and pulled the heavy latch open.

The light switch was on the outside of the door, and she flicked it quickly.  Her eyes adjusting, she noticed shelves with various bottles and containers.  No labels appeared.  At the farther end, the freezer room took an angled turn to the right.  There hung hooks with various meats arranged in strict order.  Not beef, not chicken.  Closest to her was a pig’s head, three turkeys, followed by several rabbits, what must be squirrels, one entire carcass of a lamb, and beyond that…were clearly…

Arms and legs.  Human arms and legs.  At least a dozen.  A torso with no head.  Jessie’s blood ran colder than the freezer.  A voice called from behind her, and she turned.

”Jessie.  I told you not to come here.  Never to come here.  Why didn’t you listen to me?” He paused for a long time, with no movement or sound, save for Jessie’s shallow breathing.  Then Miguel said, “Can you speak Mayan?”

”What?! No,” she said, voice breaking.

”Now you have to stay,” he said. 

She looked directly into his deep brown eyes and saw nothing.  No love, no care, no emotion, nothing.  Footsteps came rushing down the stairs.  Behind Miguel, a taller, larger figure silhouetted in the light.  Words found her.

”Emiliano!  What is this?!  Help me!  Please!  Emiliano!”

Emiliano spoke slowly, ”Jessie, what did I tell you? I said, ‘Let Miguel be,’” as both men stepped back, slammed the freezer door, and turned out the light.