The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Party of Five, Chapter 17

Previously: "Party of Five, Chapter 16" 

There's a gratifyingly large number of comments (well, four) on your last chapter when you log in at lunch. One is from Sean, congratulating you on the overall quality of the story, while the others (no less pleasing for being short) re just exclamations about how creepy the final moment in the previous chapter was. During study hall, writing as if you had a gun to your head, you are able to push out another.

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THE FRONT DOOR TO THE CABIN was just closing as Tanya parked the car. She killed the headlamps and waited for the porch light to come on. She muttered, "Figures" to herself when it didn't. She grabbed the sack of groceries and got out.

"What are you doing?" Alfie had snapped when she'd asked Susie for the extra set of car keys; then, "I wasn't talking to you!" when Tanya said she wanted to drive down to the corner grocery to pick up some milk. Tanya had the impression he wanted to grab the keys back from her after Susie had handed them over.

He had been in a weird mood ever since he and Susie got back from the caves. The two of them had spent most of the day hiding out in the bedroom behind a closed door, but there had been no frolicsome noises as there'd been last night, and when Alfie (shirtless) emerged to raid the refrigerator, there'd been a sour look on his face, and he'd turned a hard, cold, and searching eye on Tanya as he popped the top off a beer. After chugging back most of it while holding her eye, he'd belched and said, "That wasn't very sexy of me," and when she shrugged he'd said, "But I bet you'd like to give me a chance anyway." She'd suppressed a shudder and gone outside.

Tanya wondered if it was on account of those escaped convicts. Maybe Susie and Scarlett are putting the screws on him to leave the island early, and Alfie was just upset at having to cut the vacation short, and not just letting his inner douchebag show. God, she hoped that's what it was. In fact, it was for news of the escapees that she had really gone down to the store. One of the deputies near the ferry had brusquely informed her that there had been no further developments.

Tanya made a point of putting on the porch light when she went in, and locked the door behind her. The living room was empty as she crossed to the kitchen, but she heard voices from down the hall. After putting the milk away, she went in search of the others.

The voices were coming from the master bedroom, whose door was open. "There's other people on the island, you know," she heard Susie say.

"We don't have time and we don't have a choice." That was Doug, and there was a hard, impatient tone in his voice that Tanya didn't recall ever hearing before. "Killer says we have to finish this tonight. The cops are just too close."

"Alfie says we should fuck Killer over," Susie said. Her tone was ugly and sneering. "Leave him up in the caves for the cops to find."

"I only said it that one time, right after the cops came by," Alfie retorted in a cold voice. "And I also told you we're cutting out that 'Alfie' shit. When we get to town you guys are gonna start calling me—"

"Were you going to fuck me over too?" Doug said. His voice was hard. "Sounds like you were, when you had that fucking brain wave—"

"You'd'a found someone else to skin. Don't tell me you're in love the one you walked back here in."

"I can do something with it."

"And Killer's gonna have to do something with that hot little number we're gonna be bringing him. God damn it!" Alfie's voice was haggard. "He's waited this long, he can wait until I—"

All of this passed faster than Tanya could process, and was so absorbed that she didn't hear the bathroom door open behind her.

She jumped, though, at Scarlett's voice: "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to eavesdrop?"

Tanya whirled, her mouth agape. Scarlett stood there with a leering smile twisted onto her face. Her shirt was open and her bra was missing, so that her boobs bobbed free. Their tips were swollen and red.

Footsteps sounded behind, and Tanya whirled again as Alfie—a fell expression on his face—and Doug piled into the hallway. They glowered at her.

Tanya stepped back, staring with mounting horror.

"Who?" she stammered. "What—?"

She flinched and came to life, though, when she felt Scarlett's fingers on her arm. She tore away and ran for the front door.

Feet pounded behind, and a cry tore from her throat as she felt a hand grabbing for her. She banged into the front door, sobbing as she tried to pull it open, but vise-like arms were about her, and she was wrenched around and held tightly. A hot breath enveloped the side of her neck as she was lifted off her feet, and her glasses tumbled off. But she could still make out the faces of Doug, Scarlett, and Susie as they clustered in front of her.

"Well, well," Susie gloated. "And just where did you think you were running off to, 'little sis'?"

Alfie gripped her tight while the others fetched clothesline from a drawer to bind her ankles and wrists, and a t-shirt, torn into rags, was rudely stuffed into her mouth and bound there with a gag. Then she was thrown face down onto the sofa and Susie sat on her, pinning her down by the neck with one hand, while the others argued over what to do with her.

We have to take her to the caves. On that they agreed. Also, that "Killer" would have to make do with her skin. What troubled them, though, was how to get her out of the cabin without being seen and stopped.

Cold sweat poured off Tanya as she groped to the only, though horrible, conclusion that made sense. These were not her friends. These were the convicts who had escaped from the Super-Max prison. They had been hiding in Skinwalker Cave, and—Tanya nearly vomited as she struggled both to frame and avoid the thought—they had killed her friends and her sister and were now wearing their skins.

And she would be next. Though, terrible as that was, it hardly seemed worse than what she now knew had already befallen the others.

They finally agreed that they would take her out after it had gotten darker, and that they would drive her in the SUV to the base of a different trailhead, which would be an easier route up to the caves. Doug—or rather, the one who now wore Doug's face and skin—was the last holdout to this plan, for he warned that he and Killer had seen the cops exploring that trail earlier in the day, and that it might still be under surveillance. Alfie cursed him out hard, saying that if he wanted to take the safer but harder route, then he could be the one to haul her ass up the face of a cliff.

Tanya struggled when they moved her into the back of the SUV, but it did no good, and she tried shutting her mind against the horror that she knew was to come as the car growled up the road. Please let the cops find me, please let them find me, she prayed, though she also wondered how she could convince them as to the truth of the situation if they did stop the others. But the trail turned out to be deserted, and Alfie carried her, slung like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder, up a dark and steep trail.

It was pitch black inside the caves, and Tanya, jostling on Alfie's shoulder, couldn't even make out the floor. Eventually they came into a room lit by torchlight, and she was flung onto the floor. She blinked up through the last of her tears into the leering faces that clustered over her.

"Fuck," spat the older man standing in their midst. He had a hard, ugly face, whose skin was stretched tight over his bones, and black, oily hair. "This is what you brought me?"

"It's not like we had a fucking choice, man," Alfie spat. "Five of them and five of us, and she's the last. Besides, she overheard us talking back at the cabin, she knows everything that's going on."

"Gimme your skin, then," the man growled. "It should'a been mine anyway."

"I told you, we can't do that, Killer," Doug said. "After you tear a skin off, no one can wear it again. And we don't have time to find you another one. Cops'll probably come searching this place in the morning."

The one called Killer cursed again.

"Well then," he said, "prep our little coney for skinning." He turned away with obvious disgust. "Maybe I'll use her to get a better skin later."

Tanya was flipped onto her face, and the cords binding her were sliced away. Her arms and legs were frozen and numb, though, so she could only shiver and and shake all over as her clothes were stripped from her. She did let out one last scream, however, as she was lifted and dropped into a pool of water. It filled her mouth and lungs, and she was shuddering with one last, racking cough when the knife slid across the front of her throat.

Ten minutes later Killer was binding hislong, thick tresses back into a ponytail. That done, he shook his new boobs to settle them, and pulled his tight t-shirt so it bound more comfortably to the curves of his breasts and belly. Doug, with a twitching smile, handed him a pair of slanty-eyed glasses, which he slid on.

"Okay, boys and girls," he purred. "The cops want everyone off the island. And who are a bunch of law-abiding little lambs like us to argue?"

He twirled and on swaying hips marched for the cave exit; the others, grinning to each other, trailed behind.

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At work, you notice Sean checking his phone a couple of times, but you resist the urge to ask what he's checking up on. It's probably not your story, and he wouldn't tell you if he was.

Next: "Party of Five, Chapter 18" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"