Behind The Horned Mask: Book 1

by Jeff Vrolyks

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  As I drove aimlessly over a recently plowed road, I did a lot of thinking, some introspection. How important was it that I was right here, right now? How did this all come to be? I hadn’t even heard of Lake Arrowhead when I daydreamed it two days ago. I had just been caught gandering at Deborah’s chest, embarrassed but not too embarrassed to inhibit me from having a vision. I was driving up the mountain, the sky gray and ominous, snowflakes sifting down, not yet dumping. The bird on the Arrowhead sign. The same species of bird that was outside my hotel room, a magpie. Was it an omen?

  I gasped and instinctively hit the brakes, cutting loose the back end of my truck, which slid out and threatened to send me into the snow bank curbing the side of the road. I released the brake and gassed it a little, just enough to regain traction to propel me away from the looming snow bank. My heart raced, but not from sliding on the road. I needed to make a phone call, but it would have to wait until I got off the road. I needed to focus on driving if I didn’t wish to get in a car accident.

  I had the epiphany less than a mile from the place of destiny, Norrah’s home—though I didn’t yet know the home owner to answer by that name. Thankfully it was near, because I was busting at the seams by the time I parked toward the end of the cul-de-sac. The idea that caused me to nearly crash was eating at me, and wouldn’t subside until I could speak with Tinkerbelle.

  I left my truck idling, heater on high, as I phoned Brooke.

  “Hello,” she said, upbeat. “If you’re wondering if I’m going to the hospital, I am. My friend’s sister is on her way to pick me up.”

  “That’s good to hear, but not why I’m calling. What did Pie look like?”

  “Pie? I told you, she isn’t real. Like you said, she was my subconscious.”

  “Does the subconscious mind manifest itself? It doesn’t, not if you’re mentally healthy, which you are, and were back then. Pie wasn’t all inside your head, was she?”

  In her hesitation was the answer, confirmation.

  “I don’t know,” Brooke said unconvincingly.

  “Don’t be shy about it. What did she look like?”

  “Why? Why do you want to know?”

  “Because, Brooke, I believe I know your little friend Pie. She isn’t as imaginary as you think. Did she have brown unkempt hair and bright green eyes, eyes that almost seemed to glow?”

  Brooke inhaled sharply.

  “May I take a stab at guessing how her name came to be Pie?” I didn’t wait for a response. “I’d wager that’s not her name, but a nickname. I’m thinking her name is Magdalena, or Maggie, and from that you thought it would be cute to call her Magpie, and eventually you shortened it to Pie.”

  “Yes! That’s exactly what happened!”

  I exulted with a fist pump.

  “She’s real?” Brooke asked. “But she can’t be real!”

  “I don’t know how I missed that earlier. Maggie had wanted me to remain you kids’ Sunday school teacher, insisted that it was God’s will. It was my calling, though I shunned it. It’s hardly surprising that she’d have you try to convince me of the same thing, knowing how much I adored you. Unfortunately it didn’t work. I can only guess at the fatal outcome of what I did, of abandoning hope on Paul.”

  “Paul was hopeless, you couldn’t have changed that.”

  “Says you. Says me. But God thought otherwise. Maggie thought otherwise. Anyway, I’m here at the party now. I’ll have to let you go.”

  “Party? What party?”

  “I don’t know, a masquerade party.”

  “Whose? What are you doing there?”

  “No time to explain things. Actually, I couldn’t explain things anyway. I’ll fill you in later. I just had to call you to verify that your Pie is my Maggie. Very cool. I knew in my heart of hearts that Maggie was real, even though my dear friend Abbey couldn’t see her. I knew she was real, but by you sharing with me what you did verified her existence to me.”

  “Magpie is real,” she said dreamily. “She’s an…”

  “You can say it. She’s an angel. I’ll talk to you soon. Take care, Tinkerbelle.”

  I ended the call and quit the engine. There were several cars lining both sides of the dark street. I was parked behind a yellow late-model Pontiac GTO. Not the kind of car you want to drive in a snow storm. The only light in the area came from a frosted-glass fixture on the porch of a house fifty yards away. There was a house directly to my right, but it was nothing but a hulking shadow, no lights on inside. I stepped out of the truck and closed the door, adjusted my bow tie, set forth toward the music, which was faint at this great distance.

  I nearly fell on my ass from the shock that was a voice bellowing, “Hey! What are you doing!” just a couple feet from my ear. I flinched, looked to the yellow car beside me. A guy in a Batman mask and girl in a Catwoman mask were laughing hysterically inside the GTO, the driver’s window cracked open, and now rolling down fully in a hum.

  “Sorry, dude,” Batman said. “Just messing with you.”

  I smelled the strong skunky stench of marijuana emanating from the cabin.

  “You scared the crap out of me,” I said.

  “Sorry, bro. Hey, want a toke off this? It’s good shit.” He offered the joint.

  “No, I’m fine. I, uh, already smoked some earlier.”

  “Sweet. See you inside, man.”

  I recommenced pacing toward the house, feet already turning into popsicles through the thin soles of my wingtips, padding across a fresh inch of snow blanketing the asphalt. I stopped and turned my head, observed Batman handing Catwoman the joint. She held it to her mouth: the tip glowed a hypnotic orange. I returned to the open window of the GTO, stooped down.

  “Hey, can I ask you something?” I said.

  “Shoot.”

  The girl coughed violently as she passed the joint back to her date.

  “Is Paul hosting this party?”

  “No, Taylor is. Oh wait… no, you’re right. Paul is hosting this party, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” the girl replied. “Why?”

  I mused for a moment. “What’s he like? Paul.”

  “You don’t know him?” He puffed the joint.

  “He’s a dick,” Catwoman opined. “Not really, but kind of.”

  Batman coughed, said, “No, he is a dick, you’re right,” and coughed some more.

  “A sexy dick, though,” the girl said and grinned devilishly, slid provocatively her tongue over her upper lip, then laughed at her date’s reaction.

  “You bitch!” Batman said and laughed with her. “I don’t care. So what, girls like him.” He looked me in the eyes and said, “Doesn’t matter though, bro, because you know what? Brandy here is going to bed with me tonight, not him. Am I right, man?” He was smiling proudly at me.

  “Yeah,” I said with feigned enthusiasm. “You’re right. Right on, right on. So how long have you known Paul, and where’d you meet him?”

  “I don’t know, a few months now I guess. At a frat party. He goes to the same school we do: University of Redlands.”

  “He isn’t a student there,” Brandy (a.k.a. Catwoman) informed. “At least that’s what Marissa told me. He just pretends to go there.”

  “Really?” Batman said bemusedly. “Why would he do that?”

  Brandy shrugged, gestured for her date to pass the joint back over. He did, and she wasted no time ripping a toke off it.

  “How do you know him?” Batman asked me.

  “Same way. At a party,” I lied. “Does Paul ever talk to you about, I don’t know, religion or anything like that?”

  “Fuck no,” Batman said grinning up at me. “The only time he mentions God is when he says goddamn.”

  Brandy howled laughter, a laughter amplified by THC.

  As much as I hated that word, I had to admit, it was pretty clever. I humored with Batman.

  “I’ll let you guys go,” I said. “See you inside.”

  “Yep. H
ey bro, did you forget your mask?”

  “Oh yeah. Thanks.”

  I returned to my truck, unlocked it and got fully inside and closed the door, appreciating the warm cabin air. I watched as Batman and Catwoman got out of the Pontiac parked directly in front of me and slowly sauntered down the white street, careful not to slip. He pinched her ass: reflexively she jumped and swatted his hand away. He laughed and did it again. I shook my head at them with a grin.

  My toes were numb. I decided to start the engine and crank the heat up to defrost my feet, turned the knob to floor-mode and kicked off my shoes. My daytime running lights activated with the engine, illumined the street a great deal before me, reflecting the snow’s blinding whiteness back at me. I wished I hadn’t turned my truck on (or more specifically, that I didn’t have daytime running lights). The stoned couple twenty feet or so into the beaten track of my headlights looked back at me. It was a spotlight for some new shenanigans. Batman took advantage of the situation by reaching down to the hem of Brandy’s dress and pulling it up. While laughing, she slapped his hand and shrieked. He tried again, with the same result. She flipped him off before flashing me anyway, defiantly, pulling her dress all the way up to her stomach and doing a full circle. She wore a white thong. What bothered me about it wasn’t the immorality of the act, the unvirtuousness, but that I couldn’t look away from what I was seeing, her remarkably alluring figure. It was Satan working on me, enticing me, tempting me, and I was succumbing to temptation. Only a piece of forbidden fruit that ripe could stray me from the path of righteousness. If hell was to be occupied by a multitude of women looking and dressing like her, Satan could do worse than making pamphlets with her on the cover, posed just as she was a second ago, turning a circle with her dress above her waist, little white cotton panties (white, the symbolic color of purity; fashion’s moral irony) on display for any discerning viewer to imbibe with utmost gratitude. Like it or not, the image would be forever tattooed in my memory.

  She lowered her dress to both my relief and dismay. Batman gave me a thumbs-up and cheered, “Yeah! What an ass, huh? Remember what I said, bro! Tonight she’s in my bed, not Paul’s!”

  Upon mention of Paul, Catwoman lifted the skirt of her dress to just below her waist and gyrated her hips, miming intercourse with Paul.

  I gawked at her. This was a new breed of people to me. Wholly unabashed and shameless. Proud, even. Bodies not temples but drive-through’s. They were children in heat. I wondered if it would be so bad if something horrible did happen to these kids tonight. Did God not scourge the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the same reason? Maybe sometimes the slate does need to be wiped clean.

  You’re a hypocrite, man, Paul had once said to me. He was right, I am a hypocrite. I’m supercilious, looking down on these kids like I’m better than them. But what had I done just twenty short seconds ago? I watched fervently Catwoman’s exposed body in all its splendor, those milky long slender legs and full glutes, and it aroused me. Additionally, in my dream I watched Lion fondle Black Cat. I was aghast, yes, but that didn’t stop me from staring at the act, did it? Not at all. I’m a hypocrite, plain and simple. For the first time in my twenty-eight years, I admitted that to myself.

  The heat was doing more than defrosting my toes, it was cooking my feet, and it felt sublime. I slipped my feet back into my wingtips and quit the engine once again. It was time.

  I was heading toward the side of the house, where I had seen the superheroes go a minute ago. The front window (the middle of three stories) had blinds which were open, kitchen lights on. I looked inside as I walked, stopped when I spied a woman. She had just entered the kitchen from a larger room, and was now pouring wine into a glass. She was older than Batman and his luscious date, around my age, dressed plainly enough that I surmised she wasn’t there for the party, but instead was the presumable home-owner. She glimpsed me through the corner of her eye, looked over at me directly. I resumed my pace at once. Peeping Tom? Sure, why not. I was feeling like a real jerk. She assuaged that feeling with a smile and wave at me. It wasn’t a polite smile but a sincere one. What a lovely woman, I thought. I waved back before disappearing behind the corner of the house, descended the slope using the wall for support, lest I slip on the snow and fall flat on my butt. The snow was deep here. I used the tracks of the preceding guests so I wouldn’t be walking through deep powder.

  The music was getting loud as I neared the back of the house. I lowered the frog mask from the top of my head to my face. There was a patio under the second-floor deck free from snow, but not free from guests. I rounded the corner to meet the company of a boy and girl.

  “Hey guys,” I said coolly.

  “Hey,” said Bunny. “I got to pee.” She went inside, leaving the door open.

  “What’s up, Frog?” Mouse said buoyantly, as if I was an old friend instead of a stranger.

  “Not much, amigo.” I had to raise my voice to contend with the music. “How goes it?”

  “It goes, it goes. Cold as shit, huh?” He sipped from his red cup.

  “Yeah it is. Is it any warmer inside?”

  “Yeah, body heat, the best kind,” he said. He reached out to shake my hand, saying, “I’m Dust—” He cut himself off. “Whoops. I keep forgetting we aren’t supposed to use our names. I’m Mouse. The pee’er who just went inside is my girl, Bunny.”

  “Bunny, huh? Nice.”

  “My little Playboy bunny, she is.”

  “How’s the party?”

  “Just got here ten minutes ago, but it seems cool.”

  “Sweet,” I said. “I haven’t seen Paul in years; can’t wait to see how he’s been.”

  He nodded, sipped his drink. “Years, huh? You’re the first guy I’ve met who’s known him longer than… longer than this spring semester, I guess.”

  “Is that so?”

  “He’s the new guy on campus, so to speak. Everyone talks about him. Chicks dig him. He’s with a new chick every time I see him, and they’re always knock-outs.”

  “Knock-outs, huh? Like Bunny? And Catwoman?”

  “You think they’re hot?” Mouse asked with a twitch of his brow.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that about your girlfriend. That was rude of—”

  “Dude, don’t worry about it,” he said with a disarming grin. “I take it as a compliment. And yes, Brandy is gorgeous. I mean Catwoman.” Under his breath he said, “What I wouldn’t give for ten minutes alone with that.”

  “Really? But you have Bunny. If you don’t mind me saying, she’s a perfect ten.”

  “Oh yeah? Thanks, man. Yeah, she’s smokin’, but Catwoman is different. Strange always trumps been-there-done-that. Know what I mean?” He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

  I nodded, though I’d never relate to him, couldn’t empathize in the slightest with how he felt, which was jaded. Jaded to have won the affection of a gorgeous woman who was racking up the miles on the odometer and about due for a trade-in on a new lease. Or a Certified Pre-Owned, like Catwoman. Hell, maybe Mouse and Batman could trade pink slips. I looked over the railing to the blackness of forest. The girl returned outside, draped a limp arm over Mouse’s shoulder, grinned intoxicatedly at me.

  “Feel better?” I asked.

  “Much. Froggy. I’m going to eat some frog legs tonight. What say you to that?”

  “Ouch…?”

  The couple laughed.

  “I’ll talk to you guys later,” I said and headed for the door. “Be safe.”

  “Always,” Mouse said.

  I stepped foot inside and for a moment was overwhelmed by déjà vu. It wasn’t déjà vu, but something similar. It was the sensation of having been in this room, even though I hadn’t. It was from my dream. It was more confirmation that I was on the path of destiny. For better or worse, I was where I was supposed to be. I gazed around the room, taking in the sights of diverse masqueraders. There was Black Cat, laughing with Canary. I wondered if she had already been excavated the
re on the bed, or if that was yet to come. I remembered seeing myself seated at that small circular table, watching Lion do what he did, and decided that the deed hadn’t yet occurred.

  I appreciated Black Cat’s physical beauty, and as I surveyed the room I appreciated the good looks of boys and girls alike. Maybe it was the formal attire, but I didn’t think so. Paul had invited the cool crowd, it seemed, which almost exclusively consists of beautiful people. I was an outsider looking in, in every aspect this evening.

  What is Paul planning for you all, I wondered. A better question was what does Paul’s friend plan for you all? Whatever it was, they were in on it together, those two. In my dream Paul had said he should get Norrah to come downstairs, that way he could watch. The lovely lady upstairs whom I peeked at through the window must be Norrah. What could it mean that she should come downstairs, that way Paul could watch? Watch what? Watch Black Cat get molested? That was my own flaring hormones talking. No, it wasn’t that. He was to go upstairs and not bring Norrah down. It was a puzzle I couldn’t solve, not enough pieces in place.

  “You French, Froggy?” said a guy at my side. He wore a mask with colorful feathers and glitter. A showgirl’s mask.

  “No, why?”

  “You know, they call the French frogs.”

  “Oh.” I put my hand out and said, “Name’s Aaron.”

  “No names, comrade. No names.” He shook my hand.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Dude,” he said, “I’m looking to score some E. Got any? Or know anyone who does?”

  “What’s E?”

  He grimaced. “Never mind.” He walked away, clapped the back of Raggedy Andy and got to work needling him for a possible source of the drug ecstasy.

  There was Pirate, Elephant, Bulldog, Raccoon, Princess, Fairy… I began counting them without reason. Thirteen on that half of the room. Canary, Black Cat, Leopard, Catwoman, Jester, Devil… there were nine on the other half. Behind me, outside on the patio, was Mouse and now Phantom. Twenty five total, including myself.

  I threaded through the crowd to the table, slid a red cup off the stack and poured myself a cup of tonic and ice. A loud rock song played. Some people moved to the beat, something less than dancing. The cigarette smoke from outside wafted in. I smelled something not cigarette smoke, something sweeter. Pot. I sipped my tonic as I ambled across the room, grinning and nodding at anyone who made eye-contact with me. I then met eyes with Jester. Paul. His were welcoming, grinning at me. He knew damn well who I was. I’d rather he frowned at me. We were still fixed on one another when Butterfly—her mask a colorful glittery spread of four wings—tapped my shoulder, stealing my attention away.

  “Yes?” I said to her.

  “Toby?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey,” I said in an undertone, “do you know who that guy is by the fireplace?”

  “What?” The music was too loud to conduct any kind of surreptitious conversation.

  I stepped into her. She moved her cup away to accommodate my closeness. I put my mouth to her ear and said, “Do you know who that guy is by the fire? Standing beside Jester. With the horns.”

  She looked in that direction, which was around me. She pressed her mouth against my ear. I felt her wet lips nuzzling my ear, sending a tingle down my spine, which felt far more pleasant than I’d have guessed.

  “I don’t know,” she murmured. “I like his mask, though.” She lapped playfully at my earlobe.

  I felt it in my groin, pulled back from her. She wore a wry grin. It went well with what she then said: “Want to take me upstairs?”

  I swallowed dryly. “For what?”

  She had just taken a sip of her cocktail when I said it. She laughed and spit out some of the drink.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “So am I.”

  She turned away from me, spied a friend and raised her hands in the air, grinded her hips in a kind of dance move. “Canary…” she drawled.

  I took a deep breath before risking a glance at Jester. He was watching me still. Probably hadn’t stopped since first laying eyes on me. Continued wearing that same pleased expression, one I loathed to no end. Beside him Devil glared at me. His wasn’t a pleased expression. I looked away at once, thought it would be a while before I revisited his image again. How impossibly sinister his presence was, irrationally so.

  There was now a song playing that people were intimately familiar with the lyrics. The sum of them sang along. With my back to Paul and his cohort, I stepped to the nearest window, beside the small table laden with booze, and looked outside the dark windowpane. Phantom and Mouse were just beyond the patio, standing on a bank of snow, looking up to the deck above us, conversing with Norrah.

  The wash of yellow light from that upper deck fanned twenty or so feet into the forest before being swallowed up by dark impenetrable night. Phantom and Mouse stood a couple feet apart, facing me, their cheerful faces gazing up at Norrah.

  My eyes doubled at what I descried between them, well beyond them: a little white ghost of a personage blending in perfectly with the snow, save for her dark hair and green reflective eyes, standing at the farthest reach of the light, between the trunks of two large pines.

  I set my cup on the table and rushed to the open door and stepped outside. The cold air hit me like a tangible object.

  A woman laughed above me, a soothing musical laughter. “We’ll see,” she said. “What are your names? I’m Norrah.”

  “Phantom,” Phantom said.

  “Mouse,” the other said. “We can’t give our names, it’s the rule.”

  “Okay, Mouse and Phantom,” said the woman above, invisible to me. “Maybe I’ll come down for just one drink in a few minutes.”

  “Right on,” Phantom said.

  The two masqueraders flanked me and went inside, closed the door. I was now alone, save for the woman on the deck above me. The sliding glass door opened and closed. I was now absolutely alone, in the physical sense. But not in the spiritual sense. Down the snowy slope, between the pines and catching very little light was Magdalena.

  “Hi,” I said nervously at her.

  Her melancholy expression was wooden. Her white dress billowed with the wind, as did ribbons of her brown hair. One lock of hair caught at her cheek, tip whipped around her chin and flitted like the forked tongue of a snake. She wore no shoes, stood barefoot on the snow. As if she weighed ounces instead of pounds, she remained on the surface of the powder.

  “Aaron, Aaron, Aaron,” she said disappointedly. The music did nothing to obscure her voice. Nor did the distance separating us. I couldn’t be sure her voice wasn’t all inside my head, even as I saw her mouthing the words. “Are you losing your way, and so soon?”

  “No,” I contended. “I mean I… I don’t know. Maybe I am.”

  I hung my head in shame, glimpsed up and was relieved to see her turn a smile.

  “Let’s chat, shall we?” she said.

  I went through the narrow division of rail, up the steep bank of snow preceding the descent, crunching down into it. I stood in place momentarily. The coldness of snow rushed through the leather of my shoes, numbing my toes almost at once. I continued on, stamping a single set of tracks into the snow, not wondering why there wasn’t a second smaller set of tracks leading to her. I arrived before her, stopped. From her shadowy visage shone green lambent eyes, a source of light all their own.

  “You are not so unlike the others,” she began.

  I didn’t need to ask what she meant. I was ashamed, nodded in agreement.

  “Another hour or so and might I find you upstairs with… who was she? Butterfly?”

  “I wouldn’t do that. Look into my heart and see for yourself.”

  She nodded with marked satisfaction. “What you thought earlier,” she said, “about Sodom and Gomorrah, and wiping the slate clean. Very perceptive.”

  “Oh no. Please don’t tell me that’s what’s going to happe
n.”

  “And why shouldn’t it?”

  “Because they don’t deserve that!”

  She stared silently at me, green eyes glowing dimly, churning with supernatural energy.

  “I’ll do what I’m supposed to, but please don’t take them away,” I said desperately.

  “Are you pleading with me or with God? I am not He. It is His decision to make.”

  “Then why am I here? What purpose does it serve for me to be here? Am I to be one of those punished for sinning?”

  “God is punishing no one. It isn’t He who has designs against your peers. It is another. And as you know, there exists free will, even for the most wicked and debased among us.”

  “Paul’s friend,” I surmised. “Devil.”

  “God and God alone has the power to act against it. But why should He interfere?”

  I dropped to my knees—my warm knees melted the snow around them, soaking my slacks with freezing water—and prayed my hands together, looked up at the pitch black sky and swaying boughs of pine needles.

  I prayed, begged God to keep these kids safe. I won’t relate all my pleas, but there were many. The voice of God is our subconscious, and my subconscious showed me the path to walk. Gave me direction. I was tasked, and obliged to take up that task. It is such a deeply personal thing, the words I received from God, that I could in no way violate my conscience by repeating them to you my reader. They were words between He and I, and shall remain in confidentiality. But this sacred vow I took shouldn’t affect the following pages, I’ll see to that.

  I was on my knees in the snow, weeping in my hands. Upon saying Amen there was a hiccup in time, a disconnect between what I had been doing and what I was now doing. I was at the back door, looking down at the knob. I touched at my knees, the fabric of my slacks dry and warm. I glanced over my shoulder: Maggie was gone. I checked my wristwatch: 8:52 P.M. I’d step inside to make it twenty-five masqueraders in the room of destiny.

  ###

  If you enjoyed this story, check out the author’s other novels. You can contact him at jeffvrolyks@gmail.com, where he eagerly awaits your comments and vows to email you back!

  About the author:

  Jeff Vrolyks lives in Simi Valley, California. He is a new writer, in that he recently discovered a passion for writing and hasn’t stopped since. He was in the Air Force for a four year stint (cargo aircraft crew-chief), worked in the beer beverage industry, automotive industry, and in the oil fields on drilling rigs. His turn on’s include thunderstorms in the forest, rainy sunsets at the beach, and glowing reviews from you. His turn off’s include driving in Los Angeles, working-out in an over-crowded gym, and receiving scathing reviews from people intolerant of foul language and violence.

  Find him on Facebook to be kept current on upcoming releases.