by Jeff Vrolyks
Chapter Twenty Six
I made it to Lake Arrowhead Inn at 3:45PM. It had been snowing from below three-thousand feet, rain before that. Fortunately my truck was four-wheel-drive. I had no idea where I was going from here. I asked God to give me the answers, but they weren’t coming. What did come was a pervading drowsiness. After unpacking my few things, and hanging my tux on a hanger in the closet, I lay on the bed face down above the covers. I fell asleep almost at once.
It was the only dream I ever had in which I knew I was dreaming. Thus so, I was inclined to believe it was a vision from God. My trip then began making some sense, being that I was at a masquerade party. That explained the tux and frog mask. So this must be a premonition, I decided. I was on the bottom floor of a large house, partying with two dozen kids. They were getting snookered, some smoking pot, and all laughing and having a merry old time. I was standing in the middle of the room observing the party, alone, dressed exactly as I had been before falling asleep on my Arrowhead Inn bed. I saw a man seated at the table, alone, wearing a tux and frog mask. That was me! How odd, that I would be seeing myself. It’s because it was a vision, I reminded myself.
It didn’t take long to conclude that this wasn’t a place of God, but teeming with Godlessness. I could look past the underaged drinking and smoking and maybe even the pot, but someone had cocaine, and a couple went inside the bathroom to have sex, and a guy was getting a girl off with his hand for all to see.
A boy was walking toward the other side of the room. I was in his path. I tried to move out his way but wasn’t in time: he stepped through me as if I wasn’t there. A girl in canary yellow was looking in my general area. I waved at her. She didn’t wave back.
There was a man standing by the fire wearing all black, save for a bone white mask with slight rouge on the cheeks. I was mesmerized by his sight. An unnerving sensation of foreboding seized me. Was this man the reason I was here? My gut said yes. I turned to better face him, scrutinized him. A man in a Raggedy Andy mask chanced by him, complimented him on his costume and clapped his shoulder before walking away. A man in a jester mask approached him, put a foot up on the stone footing of the hearth, and spoke to him while swirling the liquid in his cup. I stepped closer to eavesdrop.
“I’m happy with the turn-out,” Jester said to him. He scanned the room approvingly, took a sip of his tonic. When his gaze swept by me, I noticed his hazel eyes. They alarmed me. There was a familiarity to them. I had seen them before. Was he… Paul?!
“Check that out,” Jester said to him and nodded to a spot behind me. I looked back and saw a man in a lion mask molesting Black Cat. Black Cat, who by all accounts was purring. I gaped at the boldness of the lascivious couple. Her legs were damn near doing the splits. His hand obliquely touched her so that the others could better see. A man in a pirate mask encroached on the couple, snapped with his cellphone a picture of a finger’s conquest in her smooth-shaven anatomy. I could just imagine the photo circulating on the internet and hoped she wasn’t a minor. Or drugged. How on earth could anyone allow themselves to be put on display like that? I was heartbroken for her.
I returned my focus to the duo before the fire. The man in black grinned through me at the girl on the bed. His dark eyes had fire-light dancing in them. It didn’t dawn on me that he was facing away from the fire, making that reflection impossible. I had a sinking feeling that this man was a supernatural being. Demonic. But demons aren’t visible to us. That Paul was friendly with him—if this truly was Paul, which I was fairly certain he was—was hardly surprising.
I recalled the incident seven years ago in my Sunday school class. The one that quickly got out of hand after I sent Trouble to the corner. Fourteen was too old to be sent to the corner, but he did as I commanded, though I suspect he wouldn’t have if he didn’t want to. He wanted to be the center of attention, and by being sent to the corner in a ceremony of reprimand he achieved that. He had called Tinkerbelle panty girl, having recently given her a wedgie. Freddy came to her defense like the good boy he was, and that’s when something happened that I hadn’t remembered in years, but it was something that I revisited frequently following the incident, and that was Paul looking up to the vacant air beside him, attentively, and grinning at that nothingness before telling Freddy that God hates kids who kill their hamsters. Paul inexplicably knew that Freddy’s hamster died; just as he knew I had taken Marie under the bridge at the dry riverbed; just as he knew I’d be showing up at that same spot to rescue Tinkerbelle and devised a trap to overpower me. Was the man standing beside Paul responsible for that knowledge? I believed so. And why I felt that why had little to do with rationalization and a whole lot to do with intuition.
I looked over my shoulder to the circular table, where the real me was seated. Me in the flesh was watching with a soured expression Lion fondle Black Cat. Then he (me) fixed on the man with fire flickering in his eyes.
I returned my attention to Paul. Jester. He was watching what was taking place on the bed, as were several others. His eyes never left the opened gift under Black Cat’s dress when he said out of the corner of his mouth, “You said she’d be here. Oh well, huh? Lucky her, I guess.” Paul took a sip, swirled the cup again. “I could have Norrah come down here. Wouldn’t that be better? That way I could watch.”
I looked to the man with white plastic horns attached to his broad-rimmed black hat, expecting him to respond to Jester. But he didn’t. Let’s be honest here, the man was masquerading as the devil in disguise, and for all I knew, he was the devil. I didn’t honestly believe that, but I did believe he was something evil. Devil was glaring icily at Black Cat, his grin so wide that his yellowish teeth bared. That coupling of wide energized eyes and maniacal smile instilled a fatal dread in me, as it would anyone.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Paul said.
Yeah, you’re right? I thought. I had been staring at that toothy grin; he hadn’t uttered a word. In fact, he hadn’t uttered a word yet to anyone that I was aware of.
A moment later Paul said, “Fuck no I don’t! Better safe than sorry.” A pause. “I know, I know. You’re right. You’re always right.” He sipped his drink staring at Black Cat.
A few seconds later Paul looked over at his friend suddenly, brow raised. “Now? Give me a sec. I’m enjoying watching that dude check that chick for ovarian cancer.” He laughed. Devil did not. But Devil did appreciate the lewd exhibition taking place on the bed, hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since it began, hadn’t given that maniacal smile a rest.
Paul reluctantly took his eyes off the girl and faced his friend, said, “Are you sure?” His gaze was at the fire-glowing half of Devil’s masked face, whose dreadful expression seemed to be painted on, save for the dancing reflective flames on his dark irises.
Paul inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly with a nod. He set his cup on the hearth and headed for the stairs, stealing a quick glance at Black Cat on his way, adjusted the tight crotch of his pants.
I was amid the beginning of something momentous, there could be no doubt.
Devil slowly removed his hat—a tactician in no real hurry, as his rewards are in his work, not their outcome. My breath caught, not from anything material but from a sense that something portentous was unfolding. He dropped the hat to the stone hearth, peeled back his white porcelain mask and discarded it. I don’t know what I was expecting to see—a demonic visage; evil personified, perhaps—but I didn’t imagine this man would look unassuming. He was your ordinary Joe in appearance, with the exception of his foreboding expression. It was the expression of a mad man and a deviant. One with a unique array of talents soon to be exercised, soon to be on display for all those unfortunate enough to witness them.
Masquerader number twenty-five tugged one glove off his (black?) hand, then the other. His nails were clawish, lustrous, and jet black.
Ordinary Joe was ordinary no more.
