The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Stonerhenge

Previously: "My Friend the Guinea Pig" 

You're not real keen on spending the afternoon with Caleb, as the morning's conversation has reminded you that he can be pretty goddamned sharp. There's a good chance he'll be too smart to go along with you and your "experiment"; and if it goes pear-shaped, he might ream you out good.

So the idea of using one of the school's many stoners as a guinea pig suddenly seems like a good one.

You'll have to wait for the school to clear out a little first, so you park yourself in the library with some homework. There are other students in there, but most of them you don't know, and they're preoccupied with their own work, or with each other—

The guys and girls who are getting kissy-faced are the most annoying, and you move so as to turn your back on the most demonstrative of them.

—but as the clocks hum the library slowly empties out. You've finished your English reading and have made a good start on math when you look up and see that it's almost four-thirty, and that there are only four other people left.

None of them is a stoner, though. So you pack up your stuff and amble back into the school proper.

* * * * *

You start your search for a test subject by making a circuit of the school. Westside High is laid out something like a tic-tac-toe grid, with multiple wings intersecting each other at right angles.

You start by following the main corridor—with its display cases of class photographs and pictures of famous alumni, trophies, winning science experiments, and other stupid whatnot—past the Nurses' Office, the administrative offices, and the cafeteria. You turn left into the English wing and glance inside a few of the classrooms as you lope along, but the teachers are busy with their own work and don't look up as you pass.

The English wing intersects the long, broad central corridor where most of the lockers are located, and you turn left again to cruise up it. Three guys pass you going the other way, but they're in shorts and muscle shirts, and you carefully avoid looking them in the face. Not all the jocks at Westside are sadistic muscle heads, but enough of them are that it's best to make yourself invisible when any are nearby.

Instead of proceeding out the exit at the end of the corridor, you make another left, down the Social Studies wing. Mr. Walberg's door is closed, but the light is on, and you pause to peer in through the window in his door.

The crusty old bastard is sitting at his desk—a doughy man with thinning hair and a gray, walrus-like moustache that trails almost to his chins. He's writing something in long-hand, and as you watch he lifts his head and says something out loud. You shift your position, and see that he's not alone. Dane Matthias is slouching in a desk in the middle of the room.

Dane Matthias and Mr. Walberg. What a pair. It's not hard to read that situation. The teacher is gruff and sarcastic in even his best moods, and every time he looks in your direction you feel yourself straightening up under his frown. Dane, on the other hand, is the guy whose picture ought to appear next to "stoner" in the dictionary. He is never without a goofy, vacant grin under his flyaway platinum hair, and his wardrobe consists entirely of flannel pajama bottoms chopped into sloppy shorts, dirty t-shirts, fuzzy slippers, and a filthy sports jacket.

Dane would be the perfect test subject. You could talk him into anything.

But he's busy with detention at the moment, so you press on.

Your path has taken you back to the library, but you turn right and continue on to a set of double doors that open out next to the Music building. The ground between it and the school proper is deserted, but on rounding the corner of the auditorium you step into a wide patch of ground where it's not uncommon to find clusters of students relaxing in ways that no authority would approve of.

It's presently deserted, but from farther on, in the direction of the portable units, you hear faint voices. You set off in their direction.

There are eighteen portables, arranged in a double row in the shape of a horseshoe. They are old, ratty and abandoned, and the school grounds would be much improved if they were hauled away. But maybe the administration leaves them in place because otherwise the problem students wouldn't have a place to cluster, and would make more trouble for everyone else.

You wend your way between portables and come out in the central quasi-courtyard. Your sphincter loosens when you see who is seated there. You'd back up, but they've already seen you. So instead you slowly walk forward to meet them.

* * * * *

"Ay," calls Justin Roth. His voice is a deep, raspy baritone made raspier by the smoke from the cigarette he's got between his lips. Under his heavy eyelids, his eyes glint.

You shrug, and settle stiffly onto the grass with him.

Roth doesn't have a bad reputation, not exactly. But you've always had the impression that people of your type—meaning the kids who come from good homes, who try to stay out of the worst kinds of trouble, and who are just trying to get through school without too much hassle—are best off staying away from him. He has a wrestler's physique, which by itself would make him physically dangerous; worse than that are the rumors that he has ingested more drugs, of the hardest and most dangerous kinds, than the next hundred hardcore users put together. Martin Gardinhire once spelled out the implications to a study group: "Justin'll wake up one morning with three dead girls in the back seat of his car, and no memory of where he put their heads."

And he'd issued that warning because some of the girls at the table were groaning about how seriously hot Roth was. Like, "I become pregnant just looking at him" hot.

But despite his reputation you'd still take his company over that of his companion: Jamie Rennerhoff.

Justin may be dangerous in potential, but Rennerhoff is a giggling little psychopath who hangs out with actual skinheads. He's no bigger than you are, and in raw feats of strength you're pretty sure you could hold your own against him. But he probably fights dirty—he seems like the sort to keep a razorblade hidden in a pocket.

What really makes him scary, though, is his grin. When he unfurls it, the corners of his smile will practically touch his earlobes, and every one of his teeth, even the back molars, will be visible. Basically, he looks like the Joker when he smiles, and he knows it too, and he plays it up every chance he gets.

Like right now. His eyes glitter with malice as he grins at you.

Justin takes another drag on that cigarette as you settle onto the grass, then holds it out to you. You hesitate, then shake your head. Rennerhoff giggles as Roth exhales a long stream into the air. "So, the fuck are you still doing on campus?" Justin asks.

"Just hanging out, killing time 'til, you know," you say. "And you guys?" You don't look at Rennerhoff when you say it.

"Hangin' out," Roth rumbles. "Plannin' my next hunting trip."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He stretches his legs. "Gonna head up into— Nngh." He waves a hand at the horizon. "Stay out four, five days, come back with a deer."

You do a rough calendrical calculation in your head. "When's this?" you ask. "Thanksgiving?"

"Nah. In a week or two."

"Um ... We don't have a vacation until Thanksgiving."

Rennerhoff laughs. Shrilly, like a jackal. Roth gives you a sidelong look. "So?" he says.

"Oh, I get it," you say. "So, uh, your folks gonna take you out of school or something so you can go?" You feel the folly of the question even before Jamie laughs again.

Roth grinds the cigarette out on his hip, leaving a burn mark on his jeans. "No."

"Oh." There seems nothing else intelligent to add, but you add a thought anyway. "Well, I guess that's kind of cool."

"You think?" Roth drops his head back against the wall of the portable with a thunk. His eyes are bloodshot, and you wonder how wasted he is, and on what kind of fucked-up chemicals. "You wanna come with?"

"Who, me?"

"Why not? You don't hunt?"

"Uh, no. I mean, I've never even really been out in the wilderness." You lick your lips.

"Well, that's too bad." Roth grunts. "You should try it some time." He rubs deeply at an eye and mumbles something.

You catch Jamie grinning at you. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

With a deep sigh, Roth clambers slowly to his feet. "I'll catch you guys around," he says, and brushes himself off. "Wear orange, so I don't— Uh—"

He trails off, then without a backward look he shuffles off on a rolling gait, like a cowboy who just got off a boat.

Rennerhoff stretches out on his side and props himself up on an elbow. "Jesus, you believe that fucker?" he gasps. Then he chucks a chin at you. "Ch'upto now?"

* To put the mask onto Jamie: "Butterfingers" 
* To go looking for someone else: "Five Final Chances" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"