by Sergio Gomez
Varias Caras traced her lips with the precision of a toddler trying to color inside the lines. The lipstick got as high up as her nostrils and as low as her chin.
Ignacio (this was all Ignacio, Varias Caras was gone) sat back with a big, proud smile as he admired his work. After a few seconds of that, he gathered up all the supplies and stashed them in the satchel. His hand came out with a small mirror in it that he held up to Nadine.
The application of the makeup was awful, but even worse than that was the gaunt face staring back at her. Her skin was paper thin, tinged yellow, and stretched tightly over her protruding bones. Her eyes looked sunken into her head. She could see dark shadows around them in the spots where the blue-red dust wasn’t covering. The hair on her head was stringy, and greasy, and patches of it were missing. Nadine wanted to scream, because it was like staring at the face of a monster, but she didn’t because she didn’t want to anger Varias Caras.
Besides, it wasn’t a monster she was looking at. It was herself.
Ignacio moved the hand mirror away from her and put it in the satchel with the rest of the beauty products.
“You like? Now, we both pretty,” Ignacio said, smiling.
Nadine watched him return from the Butcher Room with a large cardboard box with pieces of metal jutting out the top of it. She watched Varias Caras carry the box several feet down the same wall Nadine was chained to, just barely still under the glow of the torches, and set it down.
Varias Caras went through the box, chucking the pieces of metal into a pile in front of him that looked like nothing but a bunch of scraps. Then he pulled a chain out of the bag, and Nadine realized what was happening.
It was a disassembled set of restraints, just like the ones keeping her.
The second chain clanked as it hit the top of the pile. Varias Caras got up, went over to the shelf where he kept his chainsaw, and grabbed a hammer and a box of nails. He returned to the wall, picked up a metal part, and started nailing it to the wall.
He spoke to Nadine between bangs. “Tomorrow Mamá’s birthday. I bring another Barbie back. We have party.”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Maybe have to let you go,” he said, shaking his head. “I cannot take care of two Barbies. You understand?”
Bang. Bang.
Another girl? Oh God, he’s bringing someone else to this barn. The realization broke Nadine’s heart in a way she didn’t know was possible. He was going to capture another innocent person, and subject them to…this. Someone out there, in the world Nadine was sure she’d never see again, was living the last moments of their life before being brought into this hell. And she was powerless to help the girl—couldn’t even warn her about it.
Nadine surprised herself by sobbing. The sobs came out so loud they could be heard over Varias Caras’ hammering.
He stopped, and without looking at her he asked, “Why are you sad?”
She didn’t respond, just continued to cry. Ignacio dropped the hammer on the floor. His mind completely changed tracks, and he went over to Nadine, crouching in front of her again.
“Why do you cry?” he asked again.
Nadine wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands. Her chains clinked.
“Nothing… nothing…” she muttered.
She’d been trapped here long enough to know her captor’s temperaments. She could feel his mood change without having to see his facial expressions. As large as he was physically, the energy he exuded was just as large, and right now, she could feel him getting angry. That seemed to be his default response for not understanding things, to get angry at the situation.
Nadine tried to get ahold of herself in hopes of stopping the impending anger, but she couldn’t. This was too much.
“You stop! You stop crying!” Varias Caras jumped up to his feet. He started stomping around like a child who’d just had his video games taken away from him. “Stop! Stop!”
The more he screamed and commanded her to stop, the harder it was for her to comply. Unlike a child, his temper tantrums scared her. Nadine felt the ground underneath her shaking, and she cried harder.
“Stop! STOP!” He covered his ears with his hands and shook his head to muffle the sound. The noise was too much, and he was too uncomposed to control his hearing sensitivity like he usually could. “YOU STOP RIGHT NOW!”
But that didn’t work, and he decided it was time to give her a reason to cry. Like Papá had done to him.
He pulled out the knife from his back pocket and crouched down in front of Nadine. Ignacio grabbed a handful of hair from the back of her head and brought her face inches from his. She was so close to him she could smell the musk of the leather mask.
“Stop or I cut!” Varias Caras warned.
Nadine nodded, sniffled, and stopped crying. She’d used up all her energy by now, anyway.
The quiet in the barn returned, and Varias Caras waited to see if it was a permanent thing or if she was going to start up again.
After a minute or so, he was satisfied. He stood up and put the knife back in his pocket. He started back to finish setting up the restraints.
Nadine looked at the handle of the knife sticking out from his back pocket. If only she could get her hands on it… But no, he was too far away for her to even attempt anything like that. Besides, where would she go? She had no idea where she was, and with no practice moving quickly on the nubs of her legs, she might never get out of the woods alive.
There was nothing she could do except sit here, listening to him build the capture device for his next victim.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Chapter 25
As it turned out, Gavin managed to convince Brooke, Vanessa, and Fletcher to skinny dip when they got to the lake. Fred and Noelle resisted his silly idea, and Wayne was forbidden from joining them, so the three of them were sitting on a towel on the lake bank.
“Hurry up! It’s nice and cool in here!” Gavin yelled out at the girls who were still in the bushes.
He was the only one in the water, floating like a stray buoy in the middle of the lake. The moon hung over the trees, bigger and brighter than any of them had ever seen it. Its light turned the surface of the lake almost mirror-like, reflecting the surrounding willow trees on its rippling water.
“Hold on! Gosh, so impatient,” Brooke said, but the girls were laughing.
The truth was, they were all relieved to be out of the woods and now they were in better spirits.
“You trying to catch some flies there, bud?” Noelle said to Wayne, who was staring at the girls with widened eyes.
He couldn’t see anything from this angle, but the fact that he was this close to naked college girls was unbelievable enough for him. Noelle’s words only managed to half-snap him out of his trance and he continued to stare at the girls as he jumped to his feet.
“Uhh… I gotta go take a leak,” he said, and started for the trees without waiting for a response.
“Can you tell he’s Gav’s brother?” Fred said.
They both watched him disappear into the shadows. And disappear was exactly the word they were both thinking, because once the darkness swallowed his flashlight’s beam, there was no more trace of Wayne Briggs.
“You think you should go with him?” Noelle asked.
Before Fred could answer, Gavin yelled at Fletcher and drew their attention that way. At the last second, Fletcher had chickened out and was coming into the lake with his underwear on.
“Nah, I think he’ll be okay,” Fred said. “The Briggs brothers are loud enough that if he screams, we’ll hear him all the way out here.”
Noelle laughed, and a silence fell between them. But out here, underneath a willow tree by the lake, there was nothing awkward about it.
“It’s so pretty out here,” Noelle said after a minute or so.
She was staring up at the starry sky, a view that often stole the breaths of the city-dwellers and suburbanites that ventured out this far into the woods.
“Ye
ah,” Fred agreed, staring up at the moon looming over them. “It’s almost as pretty as you.”
As soon as the words escaped his mouth, his face flushed red. He was sure Noelle was going to laugh at his lame attempt at flirting, but she surprised him by giggling.
“Oh, is that so?” she said. “Is Fred Meyers hitting on me?”
Flustered, Fred straightened up and tried to sober. “Uh, yeah. Maybe.”
Great recovery, idiot. The voice scolding him in his head sounded a lot like Gav’s.
Noelle slapped him on the shoulder. “It’s too bad you didn’t make a move sooner.”
Fred felt his heart sunk and his balls shrivel up into his body, so much so that they seemed to be meeting in the pit of his stomach. “Huh?”
“I’m kind of seeing someone… We decided to make things official just yesterday, before our camping trip. I’m sorry, Fredster.” Noelle saw his spirits were down and pecked him on the cheek. It didn’t do anything to pick him up, but it was worth the try. “We can still be friends, right?”
You snooze, you lose. Gavin’s voice again. Then his own: God fucking damnit.
“Friends,” Fred muttered. “Yeah, friends.”
Friends forever.
Wayne couldn’t see shit even from where he was now. The bushes covered the girls up completely.
He got his hopes up when they started for the lake, but they ran too fast for him to get any details. The girls jumped into the lake and swam into parts deep enough that their bodies were obscured by the water.
Bummer.
The best he got was the colors of their nipples, and tried to masturbate to that, but couldn’t focus. There were too many distractions out here. Gavin kept yelling and every time the wind rustled the bushes, he was sure it was someone about to sneak up on him and see what he was doing.
Oh well. He’d wait until they were back at the cabin to rub one out.
Since he was already holding onto his dick, he figured he may as well take a piss. Wayne finished with that, then started back to join the others.
They got tired of swimming twenty minutes later. The skinny dippers headed back to the bank, dressed in wet clothes since the only towel they’d brought was the one Noelle and Fred were sitting on. They stood up and handed it over to the girls, each using one end of the towel to dry their hair.
Gavin sensed something going on between Noelle and Fred—he’d known Fred long enough to know all his tells—and he made a mental note to remember to ask him about it later.
“Well, well, you guys missed out on a rad experience,” Gavin said to them.
“Yeah, wet socks sure are an experience,” Fred replied.
“How’d the mosquitos treat you two?”
“Okay, boys. Settle down,” Brooke said. She picked the map off the ground and started leading them to the trail they’d come from.
“Wait, where’s Wayne?” Gavin said.
As if the question summoned him, Wayne emerged out from the bushes. “I’m here!”
“Oh,” Gavin said, then pointed at the front of his cargo shorts. “Your fly’s down.”
The girls all laughed.
Wayne’s face burned hot with embarrassment, and he looked down at the front of his shorts. Indeed, his zipper was all the way down, and even worse the gold seemed to be glowing underneath the moonlight.
“Uh, uh—shit—” he said, fumbling to zip it up. “I was taking a piss!”
But no one cared about his explanation. They had all moved on from the moment and were packing up. As reluctant as they were to hike through the darkened path again, they were ready to get back to the cabin.
Chapter 26
A few miles away from Lakewood Cabin there was a smaller, less extravagant—though just as secluded—cabin in the woods. Emeril opened the rickety cabin’s door, half expecting the squeaking hinges to rip right off the wall.
That didn’t happen. Instead, he was greeted by a blast of musk and dampness that seemed to have been trapped for far too long.
“Whoa, dear Lord,” Emeril said, swatting the air away from his face as if that would somehow combat the smell. “Smells like someone’s wet shoe.”
Molly came up from behind him, holding the tripod in her arms. “Beggars can’t be choosers, Emeril.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said, flipping the switch on the wall next to him up.
A bare bulb hanging from the middle of the cabin turned on, and Emeril went inside. Molly walked past him and set the tripod on a table in the kitchen. The table was so old she was worried for a second it might turn to dust.
She turned to Emeril, who was inspecting a hole in the roof. “Making you wish we would’ve called Andy Cameron for one of his cabins?”
“I think dealing with him once was enough,” Emeril said, smiling at her.
It was true, but Emeril also knew this was the only cabin within distance of the location they were scoping out. There was a reason Lakewood Cabin was billed as the ‘most secluded cabin in PA.’ Besides this dilapidated cabin, their other options were all places to set up tents.
All things considered, Emeril felt better with four walls between them and the dark woods outside. Even if the structure looked about ready to collapse with a strong gust, he’d take his chances on that. Cannibals or no cannibals out there, these parts were the stomping grounds of wild animals.
Molly was thinking the same thing and stopped at the doorway when a question she’d been meaning to ask dawned on her. “We’re going to these locations during the day tomorrow, right?”
“Yes,” Emeril said. “Why?”
“No reason,” Molly said. “Just, maybe we’d have a better idea of where we’re going during the day, is all.”
“Mm-hmm,” Emeril agreed. “Also, less dangerous.”
“It’s like you read my mind.”
“Yeah,” Emeril said, suddenly feeling like he needed to sit. He settled into one of the chairs in the kitchen area.
“You okay, Emeril?”
Emeril nodded, and put his palm up in a gesture that said, “don’t worry about me.” But to Molly, he looked like he was in the middle of having a heart attack. She stepped closer to him and reached out to him.
“No, please!” he barked.
Molly stopped and brought her hand back like Emeril might take a bite out of it. “You sure you’re okay?”
He was breaking out in a sweat now, but he nodded to Molly. He needed to hold strong… “C-can you just get me some water?”
“Yeah, sure,” Molly said and charged out of the cabin. She grabbed a water bottle from one of the packs they had in the back of the Subaru and hurried back inside.
Something was going on with him… something strange. Something that didn’t feel physical or mental or even physiological, but otherworldly. Like an earthquake was happening inside of him. Emeril could feel his insides trembling. They seemed to move unrhythmically and independent of one another.
He grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself. It didn’t do him any good, but whatever was happening ceased in the same moment. His breathing came back to him. Emeril shook his head hard and felt the beads of sweat roll down his face.
He focused and realized that he felt lighter than ever. Like a weight had been lifted off his chest.
Molly came back into the cabin, unscrewing the cap on the water bottle in her hands. Relief washed the concern off her face as she saw the color returning in Emeril’s face.
“Here,” she said, handing him the water bottle anyway.
Emeril took it and gulped almost half the bottle down in one go. With his forearm, he wiped at his mouth. “Thank you, Molly.”
“You okay?”
He nodded.
“You sure? Maybe we should go to a hospital—”
“No, no. Must’ve been the humidity of the place,” he lied.
“Okay,” Molly said, not entirely convinced. “Yeah, it is muggy in here.”
She looked him over once more, then started
back outside. “I’m going to unpack the rest of our stuff.”
“I’ll be there in a second,” Emeril promised.
Molly went out of the cabin, leaving him in the kitchen by himself again.
Emeril was feeling odd still, but he had to hold strong. They were close to uncovering something in these woods. Now that his mind was clearer, he realized that’s what the odd sensation he experienced had been. Something in these woods was touching a hidden sense—something Emeril only presumed he had until now.
That’s why he couldn’t describe what it was to himself, because he was like a newborn seeing light for the first time or taking in his first breath out of the womb. More than ever now, he knew the supernatural was real, and they were on the verge of finding concrete evidence to back up years of his presumptions.
He had literally felt it trembling through his body a moment ago.
He had to hold strong. He was close to catching his white whale.
Chapter 27
“What’re you doing up so early, Fredster?” Gavin said, joining Fred on the porch. They were both leaning against the banister now.
“Oh, uh, just couldn’t sleep. What about you?”
Gavin popped the tab on his beer can and took a sip. “The wind kept smacking a branch against a window all night. I was ready to go cut that fucking tree down last night.”
They both looked at one another, and both burst out laughing. Gavin had made a big deal about staying in the master bedroom himself, since this whole camping trip was his idea and the rest owed it to him and all that. The others, not wanting to argue with him, let him have it even though it meant sharing rooms with the others. In a cosmically funny twist, it turned out to be the most disruptive room to sleep in.
“Karma gets you once again,” Fred said.
“Whatever,” Gavin responded. He took another drink of his beer and let the quiet between them clear the humorous mood before changing the subject. “You gonna tell me the real reason you’re up early? Something happened by the lake, didn’t it? With Noelle?”