Unmasked

by R. Saint Claire

  The place probably won’t open for another two hours, she thought impatiently. She considered waiting, but it was already drizzling. Deciding to return to the lodge before Karla noticed her missing (and maybe return later with Warren) she flipped up her hood and reentered the woods just as a steady rain began to fall.

  The realization that she was not alone on the path hit her suddenly, bathing her body in a cold sweat.

  “Hello?” her voice ricocheted off the trees. The footsteps stopped dead. Jenna felt her scalp tingle.

  She turned and headed down the path, quickening her pace. The earth beneath her feet was so slippery she almost fell, and she grabbed onto a slender tree and whirled around it in time to catch a dark figure—a flash of black with yellow boots and carrying something in its hand—ducking behind a boulder.

  Sensing the danger instantly she broke into a full run, flying down the path as fast as her feet would take her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that the figure—its face obscured behind a black ski mask, a wooden canoe paddle clenched in its hand—was moving too, not quite running, but walking quickly in a nearly crouched position, low with the determined grace and purpose of a lion on the hunt.

  Jenna bounded through the grass towards a clearing, expecting to reach the lodge any second, but when she got there she realized with a tightness seizing her throat that she’d miscalculated. She was on the bluff above the lake—trapped.

  As she panned the landscape for an escape route, her foot slipped on the wet grass and in a topsy-turvy moment of sheer awkwardness—arms fanning out in a wide arc—she went over the edge of the bluff releasing a short cry as she somersaulted twice down the steep hill and landed hard at the edge of the lake, her lower body smacking against the shallow water and knocking the breath from her.

  She lay silent for a moment hearing nothing but the soft plash of water moving against the imprint her body had made on the bank. Surrendering to the gravity of the soft earth, she observed, as if from a distance, first the gray sky above her (the soft rain hitting her face) then she tilted her eyes down to her legs submerged in the muddy water.

  Anything broken? No, everything seemed to be working. Except my legs! Paralyzed? She thought, tripping off a fresh wave of panic. No, her knees could bend all right, but her legs were definitely stuck.

  She craned her neck over one shoulder to look for her pursuer, but saw nothing but tall grass waving slowly in the wet breeze. Back to her legs she realized they were caught on a submerged branch…or something. With a grunt, she scooted her ass up the sharp incline. Something gave way. Her legs were free, but her sneaker had come off in the effort. As she knelt to retrieve it from the muddy water, a dark object bobbed to the surface.

  It took Jenna several seconds to register that it was Mitch’s head she was looking at—swollen to twice its size, the features distorted, dead eyes staring blankly at her, the thick lips set in a twisted, silent scream. A mordant stench, like that of a dead animal she’d found on the side of the road once, awakened her senses.

  She kicked the horror back into the water, and crawled on her hands and knees along the lake’s edge. When she reached the path, she righted herself and ran, screaming, to the lodge.

  * * *

  After the unnerving therapy session that left him shaken, Warren had retreated to the abandoned section of the east wing. Passing by the old office again, he tried the door. It was locked, but the keyhole appeared easy to pick, and he planned to return to it later when there was less chance of someone (like Jan or Dr. Weiss) snooping about.

  The east wing corridor, dark and stifling, had been untouched by the recent refurbishments. Heavy drapes covered the windows and the dusty wall sconces were dim or unlit.

  It figures Karla was too cheap to renovate the entire building, he thought, wondering if she bought it as an investment or was just renting it for the month.

  Deciding to get some air, he circled back through the lounge and ignoring Chrissie’s inquiring look, swiped his book from the side table, and headed out to the front porch.

  It was raining hard now. He pulled the deck chair away from the railing and noticed a few sticks of broken furniture in the corner of the porch. Assuming it must have been caused by the storm, he sat down, put on his reading glasses, and opened the oxblood leather book to the place he’d marked the previous night.

  Ostara, named after the Teutonic goddess of Spring, occurs on the Vernal Equinox, the period in the pagan Wheel of the Year halfway between the Winter and Summer solstices, and always following a full moon. Commandeered throughout this millennium by the Christian faith, Ostara is commonly known throughout all of Christendom as Easter: the resurrection of Christ. For the heathens, it was a symbol of renewal, of eternal Spring, of fecund Nature and sexual abundance between the gods and goddesses that, in effect, harmonized the energies of Earth after a hard winter. The shadows of this ancient world are evidenced by our lingering traditions, in both the Christian and secular realms, of bunny rabbits and egg hunts, childish treacle to our modern times, but also potent symbols of fertility to the heathens. Water drawn on the morning of Ostara was thought to have particular potency, a quality some believed helped the imbiber to retain eternal youth.

  Halfway down the page, a distant scream coming from the woods had pricked up his ears. He took it for a goose—a goose about to be murdered perhaps, but a goose nonetheless. Then he spotted Jenna running wildly across the lawn wearing only one shoe and immediately knew this was more than a sprint from the rain.

  He threw down his book, leapt from the porch, and caught her in his arms where she collapsed in great, heaving sobs.

  Bolts of lightning shot across the lake, followed by a deafening clap of thunder as Warren half carried her to the front door. From inside the lodge, Karla observed from the window her brother and sister’s danse macabre on the wet lawn, and a tiny smile twitched in the corners of her mouth.

  Warren led Jenna inside, kicking the door shut behind him and shouting, “Get her a glass of brandy! Quick!”

  “There’s no liquor here,” Karla said calmly.

  “I know you’re stashing it somewhere. Now get it!”

  Jan, who had setting up the afternoon tea service, sidled up to Karla protectively. As Warren led Jenna to the sofa, Karla whispered something to the young man in his native German, causing Jan to leave the room quickly. Warren caught the exchange, but focused on Jenna. Chrissie, in workout attire, rushed in. “What’s happened to Jenna?”

  “She’s lost her mind, that’s what happened,” Karla quipped.

  Jan returned with a glass of brandy. Jorgé entered behind him.

  “Chrissie, the glass!” Warren snapped.

  Chrissie took the glass of brandy from Jan, who then retreated quickly from the room.

  Warren held it to Jenna’s gray lips. She drank slowly, the color returning to her cheeks with each sip. Chrissie picked up a wool throw from a chair and placed it around her shoulders.

  Warren, seated next to her on the sofa, put down the empty glass and picked up her hands, warming them in his. “Darling, what happened?”

  Jenna’s voice caught in her throat. She pushed past it. "I...I..." The truth was too horrible to speak.

  “Yes?” Warren insisted, squeezing her hand tightly.

  “I..I saw Mitch.”

  “You saw Mitch? Where?”

  “I saw him…I saw…his…body!” Jenna said, her voice caught in her throat and became a sob. “In the lake. He’s dead! There’s a killer out there! My God! He was following me in the woods!”

  Warren pivoted his head towards Karla. “Call the police!”

  She stepped forward. “I can’t call the police, Warren. There is no phone here.”

  Warren stood. “Just like there’s no alcohol? You’re a lying bitch!”

  Dr. Weiss entered from the west wing, followed by Jan.

  “I heard screaming. Is something the matter?” His voice was quiet, commanding.

  Karla pointe
d at Jenna and said, “My sister’s hysterical. She thinks she saw Mitch’s dead body in the lake.”

  Dr. Weiss approached Jenna, looking down at her as if observing a child. “Well, if that’s what she thinks she saw, perhaps we should investigate.”

  “Perhaps we should call the police, you dumbass!”

  Dr. Weiss locked his pale, fish-gray eyes on Warren's. “There is no need for insolence. We will go out and take a look before we come to any rash conclusions.”

  Warren pointed at Karla. “I know why she doesn’t want to call the cops.”

  “Oh, why is that?” Karla shot back.

  “Because she doesn’t want any publicity unless she controls it!”

  “Enough!” Dr. Weiss’s voice cracked through the room, silencing everyone. “We will look, then we'll decide…Jenna.” His tone softened as he leaned down to address her. “Do you think you have the strength to take us back to the lake to where you think you saw your brother?”

  Jenna looked down the length of Dr. Weiss’ large frame, her eyes landing on his black, spotless shoes. Her own feet next to his were soaking wet, her white gym sock caked in mud. She nodded weakly.

  “I’ll get you some sneakers, Jenna.“ Chrissie said, popping off the sofa.

  * * *

  From the west wing, a secret door in the wall opened a crack, and someone watched as Chrissie jogged down the hall to her bedroom. Her ponytail bouncing, she reappeared a moment later carrying a pair of sneakers and headed back towards the lounge.

  To the accompaniment of hoarse, muffled breathing, the machinery inside the door creaked, and the crack closed shut on a pair of intense eyes, darting wildly within the blackness like shards of cut blue glass.

  9

  Dr. Weiss, Karla, Jenna and Chrissie (her arm around Jenna’s waist) stood on the bluff with a gray panorama of sky behind them, and watched as Warren and Jorgé scrambled to the bottom of the hill.

  Still dazed from the shock and the large quantity of brandy she had drunk at Warren’s behest, Jenna pointed blankly to a spot at the lake’s edge where the grass was flattened.

  Warren looked up, observing the pitch of the incline from his angle, and thought, She’s lucky she didn’t kill herself. He scanned the flat expanse of lake and spotted Jenna’s white tennis shoe floating in the shallow water. He retrieved it with a twig and held it high so the others could see.

  Jorgé in his tight jeans and suede shoes, obviously unaccustomed to trekking in the wild, made half-hearted stabs at the grass with a stick. Warren rolled his eyes at his uselessness, then squinted back to the group and shrugged.

  Other than the shoe, they found nothing out of the ordinary. Grateful to be relieved of the expedition, Jorgé turned to head up the hill as Warren bent down to the water’s edge to wash his hands. Something stuck. Thinking it was algae, he tried to fling it off, but it clung to one hand. Then with a start he realized the thing he was looking at: the delicate webbing like a nylon stocking with black hairs woven through it was Mitch’s hairpiece.

  Stunned, about to shout up to the group his discovery, he hesitated when he noticed how Karla and Dr. Weiss stood apart from the others—the silhouette of their heads forming one dark shape.

  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and folded the hairpiece inside it, noticing with a pang how the dark red stained the white linen.

  “Going for a swim, Warren?” Karla’s words echoed down from the bluff, followed by her signature sarcastic laugh.

  “Coming.” Warren turned and started back up the hill behind Jorgé who was slipping and cursing his way up the steep incline.

  “Your Italian shoes are getting soggy, Jorgé. Better watch that. Missy don’t like spending money, you know,” Warren taunted him.

  Jorgé’s response was a deft middle finger shot in Warren's face.

  “Nice ass,” Warren countered. I don’t trust any of these assholes, he thought. Before I reveal anything, I need to talk to Jenna—alone.

  Jenna, still pale, looked down from atop the bluff and said to Chrissie, “But he was there. I know he was.”

  Chrissie patted her shoulder sympathetically.

  “Better get her to bed,” Karla said. Chrissie nodded and gently guided Jenna down the hill.

  Dr. Weiss, having exchanged his white doctor’s coat for a khaki field jacket, peered through binoculars as Warren and Jorgé reached the top of the bluff. “There’s nothing here,” Dr. Weiss said in a steady voice.

  “Well, maybe the body went back under the water,” Warren suggested, panting from the climb.

  “Perhaps.” Weiss turned cold eyes on him. “but highly unlikely.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?” Warren persisted.

  Karla and Jorgé exchanged an annoyed glance.

  “If your brother drowned in the past twenty-four hours, the natural gasses emitting from the body would cause it to float. And as you can see…” Dr. Weiss panned his heavy arm across the vista. “…there is nothing.”

  “I know this lake better than you, Herr Doctor. There are all kind of roots and shit under that water a body could get stuck on. I think we should call the police, let them drag the lake if they have to.”

  Karla shot back. “You’re an idiot, Warren! Mitch didn’t drown. He took off with Anne because he couldn’t handle it. Jenna’s cracking under the pressure too, and I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  Karla linked arms with Jorgé and headed back to the lodge. Dr. Weiss hesitated for a moment. “Are you coming, Warren?”

  “Be there in a minute.” Warren continued to stare out at the lake, and thought, Jenna’s right. Mitch’s body was out there somewhere. A chill ran like cool fingers up the length of his spine. Karla knows the truth, but why is she covering it up?

  He knew with absolute certainty now that Mitch was dead. He walked slowly back to Wolf House behind the others, and tried hard not to cry.

  10

  Jan quietly cleared the dishes from the barely touched buffet as Warren, Chrissie, and Karla—wearing the evening clothes Karla insisted upon—sat in the lounge and stared at each other in tense silence across the crackling embers of the center fireplace. To Warren’s great relief, the plan to watch Body Parts had been postponed until another night.

  He remembered that film shoot well, in fact he’d spent the past twenty years trying to drink away the memory of it.

  It began, as many dramatic stories do, in Hollywood.

  Karla had performed well enough in her motion picture debut, a silly comedy where she was only required to play herself, but Body Parts was her first dramatic role, and she was nervous. She’d hired a private acting coach, but she wanted Warren there for moral support, meaning she needed a personal slave. Having no other prospects, he took the job; so with a seat in coach and the promise of a $600 a week salary, he flew to L.A., happy to have his failed college attempt behind him.

  Karla put him up in her $15,000 a month Malibu rental. In the midst of a cold East Coast winter, Southern California was something out of a dream, but he spent little time at the beach house as Karla demanded his presence by her side, and the more insecure she felt the bitchier and more demanding she became.

  The day before principal photography was to begin, Warren finally met the famous Italian director, Casper Volpe. Within weeks the two men would become lovers. And so marked a period of his life from which Warren had never fully recovered.

  Interrupting Warren’s private thoughts with a bored exhalation, Karla said, “Well, our little group has certainly gotten dull. How's our patient, Jan?"

  "She was sleeping when I checked on her," he replied, picking up a tray and heading towards the kitchen.

  "Good.” Karla took a sip of her herbal tea. “Rest is the best medicine.”

  “As are meaningless platitudes,” said Warren.

  Karla shot him a look over her teacup. Chrissie sighed, appearing uncomfortably out of place in her sparkly navy gown with an exaggerated bow perched on one shoulder.

  Warren wa
tched the Tiffany chandelier throw colored shaped against the vaulted ceiling, and soberly reflected on the events of the day. Mitch’s hairpiece, now dry and stiff inside the blood-stained handkerchief, sat in the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. He planned to show it to Jenna in the morning when she was better, and wasn’t taking any chances leaving it in his room for sticky-fingers Jan to discover.

  Jorgé, who had disappeared after dinner, now entered the lounge carrying a tray with a crystal brandy decanter and four snifters.

  “Oh goodie, refreshments!” Warren arched his eyebrow at Karla. “I knew you were hoarding it somewhere.” Swiping the decanter from the tray, he poured himself a generous helping. He lifted his glass in a mock toast, and then downed three-quarters of its contents in one gulp. Jorgé sat down in the chair opposite Warren and poured himself a glass. Remembering his manners, he paused to address Chrissie.

  “She doesn’t drink,” Karla said.

  “Why don’t you let her decide,” Warren said.

  Karla rolled her eyes in Chrissie’s direction, questioning. Chrissie shook her head, no.

  “Fantastic!” Warren said, pouring himself another full glass. “More for me.” He drank it down, settling back into the sofa.

  Karla smiled, her head curiously bent towards her brother as if studying him.

  He was starting to feel the effects of the brandy already, a warm comforting feeling that he relaxed into gratefully. “What?” He said from the depths of the sofa cushions.

  “Nothing. Glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Karla said with a slight smile, and then turned to Chrissie. “How are you, darling?”

  The crease between Chrissie’s eyes had deepened in the past few hours, and she was quieter than usual. “I’m okay. Just worried about Jenna.”

  “So am I,“ Karla said with a soft, sympathetic sigh.

  “I’m worried about her too," said Warren staring straight at Karla, the brandy fueling his courage. “Oh, and our dear twins as well. Heard from them?”