A while later I spotted a crooked object on the path. As I got closer, I realized a cracked branch had fallen across the pathway, blocking the way. Something about how it was placed seemed a bit too perfect for it to have been accidental.
Somebody had put it there.
Zach.
He was nearby, waiting for me. My mouth went dry. I felt knots in my stomach. Something inside reminding me it still wasn’t too late to go back to my car. Somehow I knew if I crossed that branch, there’d be no turning back.
Ignoring those feelings, I forged ahead. My footsteps crunched as if I were walking on a forest bed covered in potato chips. Those damn boots. Why’d I wear them? Sure, they make my legs look good and toned, but I wasn’t trying to impress Zach with my hot legs, was I? No. I was there to kill some people with him.
And I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do that. I wondered what Trish had worn for Seth. I pictured her wearing something like my outfit and felt heat rush through me. Plus, Seth had seen me leave the house with it on.
Stupid Jody, I told myself. You’re not on a date.
No wonder Seth had looked so sad when I left.
But it was too late now. Wasn’t like I could change my clothes or wrap myself in a shawl.
My boot came down on a twig, snapping it with a sound like a shotgun blast. I briefly considered taking my boots off. It would make my approach a lot quieter. With my luck, I’d only make it a few steps before stepping on something sharp. Or even worse—a snake! I could feel the stinging bite of teeth on the ball of my foot. Also with my luck, it’d be venomous. Picturing myself lying in the woods, slowly choking to death from my swelling throat, I decided the boots would stay on, regardless of how much racket they made.
Reaching the felled branch, I stepped over it without hesitation. I walked deeper into the woods. Trees were close enough to touch, but whenever I tried focusing on any particular one, I became disoriented from the impenetrable dark all around. Felt like I was trying to walk with my eyes shut.
A big hand snatched my wrist.
“What the…?”
I was yanked forward, spun, and jerked against something hard.
“Listen…” was all I managed to say before the palm of a large hand covered my mouth. I heard heavy, muffled breathing in my ear. Felt warm putters on my cheek.
Against the sweaty palm pressed against my lips, I uttered something that somewhat resembled, “Zach?”
The hand slowly moved away from my mouth, as did the arm reaching over my shoulder. I wiggled away from the big arms, slapping at them as they lowered.
“Asshole,” I said.
Turning around, I opened my mouth to say more obscenities, but the words turned to a cough. Standing before me was very large man. I had to look up to see the generic white hockey mask covering his face. It had two vertical slits for a mouth, a pair of small holes at the nose, oval-shaped gaps for the eyes, and was acned with various others all over the face. He seemed to be dressed in mechanic’s coveralls, a one-piece that connected at his midsection with long sleeves. I knew he had to be sweltering inside the thick fabric. I was barely wearing anything at all, and I was sticky with sweat.
“Are you Zach?” I asked.
His head tilted to one side, as if studying me. Then it straightened, nodded once.
“Okay. Why didn’t you just tell me, then?”
The head tilted in the opposite reaction.
I smacked his chest. “Oh, knock that shit off. I know you can understand me. We’ve been talking through email for weeks. I’m Jody.”
His head leveled, the dark holes of the hockey mask leering at me. I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me.
I gulped.
“You were much more talkative online,” I said. “One of those guys, huh? Get in the presence of a woman and you suddenly forget how to speak?” He began to turn around. I grabbed his shoulder. “Wait a second. This was your idea to meet here. What are we going…?”
He spun around. His shoulder jerked from my hand. Gasping, I stumbled back. Zach stepped forward, pulled the mask up to the top of his head. Now it looked like he had a white face growing from the crown of his skull.
“Would you be quiet?” he said. “They’ll hear your loud-damn-mouth.”
Though damp with sweat, I recognized the handsome face, broad jaw and cleft chin. Tips of his hair hung into his eyes, which he moved out of his way by flinging his head to the side.
“Who’ll hear me?” I asked.
“The family I’m watching. Now, damn it, play along.”
“I get it. You’re in the middle of it, right?”
“Right. They’re camped out just over there.” He turned, pointing to his right. All I could see were more trees and a lot more darkness. “They’re not asleep yet.”
“Ah. What are they doing?”
“Just hanging around the campfire, telling ghost stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Stories about me, mostly, though they’re getting the facts all wrong. They think I’m some psychopathic farmer who chopped up his family with an ax. Sometimes people think I’m an ex-camp counselor, out for revenge because a prank some kids pulled on me left me horribly scarred.”
I laughed. “Idiots.”
“Agreed.” He held up his hand. It looked like he was saluting. He stared down at me for another moment. “Leaving me hanging?”
“Oh. Whoops.”
I had to jump to return the proffered high-five. Our hands made a soft smacking sound when they connected. Zach snatched his back, and held the other hand to his mouth. His index finger rose in front of his lips in a soundless shush.
Nibbling my lip, I nodded and hoped he recognized my apology.
He nodded back. Quietly, he said, “Follow me. I have a spot over here where I watch the campers.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“How many have you killed out here?”
“Just a few in this spot. I try not to echo locations too often. Makes it harder for them to pin down where I might attack.”
“Oh. Keeps you mysterious and unpredictable?”
“Exactly.”
Zach turned around and started walking. He might’ve been floating above the ground, for he made no sound as he moved. I seemed to find every stick and pinecone the trees had shit onto the ground.
I followed Zach to a small gathering of trees with drooping branches that offered just the right amount of seclusion. Crouching, he motioned for me to join him. Something about going under there with a mysterious guy sent up red flags inside me.
It’s fine, I told myself. You’re here to work together. Nothing to be afraid of.
Crawling on all fours, I joined him.
“We do this again,” he said, “you better not wear those boots.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t expecting…this.”
“Well, now you know. Wear something with flatter treads.”
I huffed through my nose. Already, he was pissing me off with demands. Killing should be spontaneous, not planned down to what kind of shoes you had to wear. But he was also right. These boots weren’t something I should’ve worn to traipse all over the woods. Something flatter, without heels.
Zach stared through a gap between the branches. I followed his gaze, seeing what he was spying on.
An RV was parked in large clearing, a tent erected off to the side of it. An awning had been stretched from the side of the camper, held up on stilts. Chairs were organized underneath, around a card table that had a cooler underneath. The whole area was awash in golden light from the campfire. There I saw a man sitting in a camping chair, leaning forward and moving his hands as he talked to two teenage girls. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it must’ve been terrifying from the appalled looks on the girls’ faces.
The man’s hair was short, his face similar to the two pretty girls. Their dad, I assumed.
“Is that all of them?” I whispered.
“No. On
e more’s in the RV. I think she went in there to feed the baby.”
My stomach flipped. “To what?”
“Feed the baby.”
“There’s…a baby?”
Zach looked at me. From his dark clothes, the hockey mask looked as if it were floating. The eyes were dreary chasms that showed an emotionless pit behind them. “Is that a problem?”
It shouldn’t have been problem, but it was. The dread that reeled through me made me feel sick and weak inside. Seth and I had never…killed a baby. We’d never wanted to, either. Sure, we’d slaughtered a lot of people without putting a scratch on our consciences. We were also the kind of couple that whenever we saw somebody out with their baby, we smiled and laughed. Sometimes we even stopped to spout off gibberish that only the baby could understand. Once a woman had even let me hold her young son, and the short stint the child was in my arms, I’d never felt more at peace.
The gentle smell of his hair. The soft, flabby skin of his arms. The chubby hands that kept opening and closing around my finger had left warmth swirling in my chest.
Holding that baby had…soothed me.
“Well?” Zach said.
Nibbling at my lip, I slowly shook my head.
“Good,” Zach said, facing the campsite again.
While Zach observed the storytelling, I quietly shrugged out of my backpack. Sitting on the ground, I put the backpack in my lap and opened it. My new mask sat on top, staring up at me. Holding it by the cheeks, I pulled it out and stared at it. I didn’t like this one. Seth didn’t like his new one, either. No matter how hard we’d tried to make the new ones resemble the old ones, we failed. Plus it didn’t fit right. It felt too tight against my jaw, and squished my nose. Maybe I’d get used to it, but I doubted it.
“Terrible mask,” I heard Zach say.
Looking up, I shook the hair out of my eyes and saw him watching me from over his shoulder.
He shook his head. “Looks like it was made by a kid with no artistic ability.”
“Thanks a heap,” I muttered.
“Burn that thing when you get home. I’m surprised your husband let you out of the house with something like that.”
“Our old masks were ruined.”
“If they looked anything like that one, consider it a blessing.”
I was tempted to remind him how many times Trish had complimented the pictures of our masks on the Something Violent site, then decided not to bother. For one, he wouldn’t give a shit. And also, I shouldn’t have to convince Zach of anything.
Hell with him, I thought. I could be wearing a pair of panties over my face and he’d still have no right to badger me for it.
Asshole.
I slipped the mask over my face. It trapped the muggy air inside, pressing uncomfortably against my skin. Trying to readjust it several times did nothing to ease the discomfort of having it on. Didn’t matter how uncomfortable it was, I wasn’t about to take it back off. Zach would probably have something smart to say if he realized how much I hated wearing it.
We watched the family for a while as the dad and his two daughters took turns telling stories. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. The dad was very animated, often using his hands to emphasize his points. It looked like a good time. My family never did anything like that. I wondered if Seth’s had. It was easy to picture the people I saw in Pappy’s photo album that night, sitting around a campfire, while Seth’s father tried to scare his children with make-believe horror stories.
Little did this family know—a true horror story was waiting in the shadows, watching their every move.
After a while, the door to the camper slowly swung open. A pretty woman in a pink robe climbed down the metal foldout steps. Her big, springy hair was pulled behind her head. With each step, the back of her head bounced and swayed. In one hand she carried a plastic bag that looked stuffed full of cotton. In the other, skinny metal sticks glimmered in the firelight. As she made her way to the campfire, I realized what she really had—marshmallows and skewers.
Great. This night just isn’t going to end.
As the mom joined her family, I turned my head to steal a glance at Zach.
He was gone.
Shit!
Looking around, I saw no sign of him. I was alone in the woods.
“Zach,” I said in a loud whisper. Maybe he couldn’t hear me. “Zach!” That time I’d raised my voice. I listened for a response that never came.
“Damn,” I muttered.
How had he snuck away without my realizing it? Surely I would’ve heard him.
Didn’t hear him when he snuck up on me.
The man could move in stealth, sure, but he had been just beside me a minute ago. Wasn’t he? I had no idea how long he’d been gone.
No idea where he went.
Getting on all fours, I patted the ground. Not really knowing what I expected to find, I felt all over, crawling in circles. Couldn’t even find a footprint. Even where he’d been watching the family in hunkered silence didn’t seem disturbed. The ground was cool and soft. Not even a cracked leaf.
It was as if he’d simply turned to vapor and floated away.
Maybe he had, for all I knew.
I briefly wondered if I should go look for him. Shaking my head to answer my thoughts, I crawled back to my spot and stared out. The family was now altogether, minus the baby. The lady I assumed was the mother titled back her head and laughed. Even with distance between us, it was a booming sound. I saw how the father looked at his wife. The expression that swam over his face was filled with love and admiration, the kind I’d caught on Seth’s face more than once.
Not so much lately, I reminded myself. He’d barely looked at me since we’d left the Wilsons’ shack. After his embarrassing incident with the woman, he’d stopped looking in my direction completely.
My throat tightened. My eyes started to itch. When I rubbed them with the back of my hand, I felt wetness.
Great. I was crying. All it took was seeing the dopey look on a man-in-love’s face.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Using the bottom of my shirt, I dried my eyes. When I looked through the trees again, I spotted Zach on the far side of the camp.
My heart lurched.
Jumping back, I let out a Yah! and fell on my ass. The landing jammed my spine, making my neck pop. Numb currents flowed down my arms.
How the hell did he get over there so fast?
Scrambling forward, I peered through the trees again. The family laughed and chatted as if nothing had happened. Well, I suppose nothing had happened. I looked at the spot I’d noticed Zach. He was still there, between some trees, his attention turned toward the camper.
Toward the baby that was probably sleeping inside.
My stomach gave a sickening twist. I blinked my eyes and Zach was gone.
His plan unfolded in my head so quickly it took my breath. Most likely, Zach would sneak into the camper. He’d get the baby to start crying. That would draw the mother inside.
No, it’d be the dad.
I could see him telling the mom to hang out by the fire while he went inside to check on their infant child. And once he got inside…
Wham!
Zach would strike. Time would pass without the dad’s reappearing. Somebody would go check on him, only to find his dead body. Then Zach, hiding in a dark corner, would strike again.
He can’t!
Standing up, I brushed the leaves and pine needles off the seat of my skirt. I was about to start walking, but stopped. Where was I planning to go? More importantly—what was I planning to do?
Stop him?
What the hell made me want to stop him?
I heard the daughters’ laughter and realized they were part of the reason. The other was the baby. But more than that, it was that damn dimwitted look the man had given his wife.
What the fuck?
Hadn’t I come out here to assist Zach? Hadn’t this been my plan all along? Go out and ki
ll with somebody else, so Seth and I might feel some sort of rejuvenated passion?
I stepped over to the tree, leaning against it. The bark felt rough and jagged against my shoulder and arm. I didn’t care. Looking through the branches, I spied Zach making his way to the camper. The family, too wrapped up in each other, was oblivious to his movements.
I wanted to shout: Pay attention, you stupid assholes! Don’t you see the guy in the fucking mask stalking toward your camper?
Even if they happened to notice him, they wouldn’t be able to stop him. Zach, I assumed, was a force none of them had ever experienced in all their lives.
Zach was almost at the fold-down steps. A few more feet, he’d be inside, setting his predictable plan into motion. No way would I make it over there in time. Not without somebody seeing me.
That’s it! I thought. Then I slapped myself hard across the face.
Though it hurt, my hand seemed to take the worst of it. Then I remembered I had on my mask. Snatching it off my face, I threw it down, and slapped myself again. This time my face lit up in a stinging blast. Tears poured out of my eyes. I whacked myself harder this time, stumbled against a tree. The bark scraped my skin, cutting me. Even better, I thought, to be bleeding. A nice touch would be a torn shirt. Grabbing the stomach of my tank top, I pulled it open as if it had snaps holding it together. The fabric ripped, showing my navel between the fringy mouth.
For the finishing touch, I threw a fist at my nose. Chickening out at the last moment, I ducked my head to the side. My fist whopped the corner of my eye.
Good enough.
Looking like a ruined mess, I took a deep breath.
Then I ran out of the woods, screaming.
26
Jody
“Help me!” I shrieked as hard as I could. As I exited the woods, flapping my arms above me, I glanced at the camper. Zach, standing on the top step, the door handle gripped in his hand, turned to look at me.
The women’s screams rose above my own. The dad, looking panicked and confused, jumped out of his chair. The backs of his legs knocked it over as he started to run toward me.
I checked the camper again. Zach was gone. He might’ve gone inside. I doubted it, though. He probably snuck back into the woods to watch what I was doing. For all he knew, this could be part of my act.
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