Unmasked

by R. Saint Claire

  Feeling a sudden, overwhelming affection for her, Warren took Jenna by the shoulders and said, “Give your favorite brother a kiss!” Their mouths met in the dark with a loud smack.

  “Hmmm,” he said, licking his lips. “You taste just like coconut.”

  * * *

  By the light of the hurricane lamp, Jenna and Warren found flashlights with fresh batteries in the kitchen, and with cautious waves to each other, they set off in opposite directions towards the lodge’s west and east wings. Jenna to find Karla, Warren to the basement where he was positive he’d locate Chrissie and Anne, hopefully finding them both alive.

  * * *

  Deep within the bowels of the basement, Dr. Weiss, massive in his white coat, arched over the gurney where Chrissie lay. He pawed at her soft cheeks with his huge hands. When she flinched at his touch, he clucked his tongue as if to soothe her. His gesture had the opposite effect as Chrissie, just waking from the sedative he’d given her earlier, panicked at the sight of the I.V. attached to her arm.

  “Please,” she whimpered. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  Seemingly oblivious to her discomfort, Dr. Weiss continued to stroke her face dispassionately, as if examining a lab specimen, at one point grabbing her cheek and pinching it hard between his fingers till she winced in pain.

  “You have very thick skin, Chrissie. You don’t smoke, do you?” He asked in his thick German accent.

  “N-No,” She stammered. “I never have. I don’t believe in smoking. I don’t drink either.” See what a good girl I am. Things like this don’t happen to good girls, do they?

  “I can tell you’ve taken very good care of yourself.” He brought his monocled eye closer to examine her plump pink skin. “You have excellent blood flow to the epidermis…perfect tissue to work with.”

  Tissue to work with? Realizing with a start that her hands were bound tightly to the sides of the gurney, she struggled to free herself.

  “Oh my God! What’s happening?”

  She heard the snap of latex gloves, and watched as his enormous figure, partially silhouetted by the intensity of the lamp above, prepared a fresh syringe.

  “There’s no use fighting it. Relax and go to sleep.” Any pretense of tenderness had left his voice and mannerisms; his movements were efficient now, all business.

  Dr. Weiss moved to the side, the light blinding Chrissie as she whimpered. “Please! Please, let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  Dr. Weiss held up a syringe, light glinting off the gold rim of his monocle. “Of course you won’t tell anyone.” His dull, fish-gray eyes blinked in rapid succession. “Who would you tell, eh?” A small chuckle started in his throat, then gained momentum as he threw back his head and laughed, his large gut heaving up and down like a grotesque clown.

  “Please!” Chrissie begged, tears now streaming down her soft, red cheeks. “All I want is my family back.”

  “Someday in heaven you will all be together,” he said glibly.

  A faint glimmer of hope shone in Chrissie’s half-closed eyes. “Do you really believe that?”

  The overhead light flickered. “No, I don’t believe in heaven…only science.”

  A roll of thunder shook the stone foundation as he reeled back and plunged the syringe deeply into Chrissie’s thigh. She screamed so loud he clamped his gloved hand tightly over her mouth and held it there until her body fell limp.

  Chrissie’s last thoughts were of Karla, and how kind she had been for trying to reconcile all of them, and she prayed that someday—even if she couldn’t be with them--her family would be whole again.

  * * *

  Warren followed the echo of Chrissie’s scream down the east wing corridor and came to another staircase leading down to the basement level. The familiar blue light emanated from the small glass panel in the door at the bottom of the stairs. He threw his weight against it and turned the knob. It was locked.

  He went back up the stairs, and casting his flashlight in a wide arc he discovered a sideboard table, one of the lodge’s many antiques. He opened the slim top drawer and his hand rested on a skeleton key. He ran to the door and tried it. Miraculously, it turned.

  He entered the basement. The smell of stale Lysol gave him an immediate headache, and the noticeably cooler temperature made him regret not changing his soiled dress shirt for a sweater. His shoes squeaked as he walked across the waxed linoleum floor, forcing him to tiptoe. He didn’t want to set off any alarm bells on his way to rescue Anne and Chrissie.

  But where were they? The basement spread out before him like a labyrinth. As he surveyed the hallway, he noticed there were sheets of blue plastic covering the recessed fluorescent ceiling lights, explaining the odd color, and he could detect in the background the faint hum of a distant generator. So that's what keeping the lights on.

  Warren tried a few doors; all were locked except for one that opened a small office where the counters and floor were littered with file folders and old x-ray films. He noticed the light box on the wall and switched it on. It hummed, flashed a few times, then lit up an x-ray image of a skull: teeth clamped in a frozen grin, empty sockets and holes where eyes and nose should be.

  He picked up a file folder from the desk, opened it, and found a stack of glossy photographs—all publicity shots of Karla spanning different stages of her career from fresh-faced starlet to sophisticated chanteuse. One unflattering photo highlighted the soft jowls forming on Karla’s jawline and fine wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. It was marked by one giant black X from corner to corner. Other photos, particularly the more recent ones, were similarly defaced.

  With a chill, Warren realized that whoever marked up these photos hated Karla with a passion, and he guessed that it had to be Dr. Weiss.

  He wouldn't be the first person murderously obsessed with her, Warren thought, recalling some of Karla’s former boyfriends and how they reacted when she ditched them. One or two were even arrested for drunken threats and destroying hotel lobbies and such.

  Then there was that crazy Canadian comedienne: Savonne Russell.

  She was Karla’s best friend for a time—although no one retained that honor for long. For awhile they appeared together on TV talk shows, dressing alike, singing duets, and pretending to be lovers for an amused audience. Only for Savonne it wasn’t a joke. Warren had liked Savonne and found her to be truly talented and hilarious, but he recalled with a tinge of guilt how he too had joined the chorus of laughter when she humiliated herself by copying Karla’s style (the short, bleached hairdo did nothing for her horse face), and flying coast-to-coast to follow Karla’s every move, progressing into jealous, often drunken, scenes—some of which made the tabloids. He recalled one blurry photo depicting the comic, passed-out drunk on the sidewalk outside Karla’s Beverly Hills mansion shortly before she was arrested for stalking. Warren guessed there were a hundreds of Savonne’s out there—a virtual Greek chorus of Karla’s victims—each with his or her own painful story.

  In truth, there were a thousand reasons to hate her (he had a few himself), but she didn’t deserve this. No one did.

  He set the photos down, left the room, and continued to search for Anne and Chrissie, his heart pounding with a sense of urgency and a growing fear that it might already be too late.

  * * *

  With the aid of a flashlight, Jenna had no trouble returning to Karla’s suite through the hidden panel in the wall, but when she got to the door it was locked. She pounded on it, shouted their names, but there was no response. Putting her ear to the door, she heard the muted bass of hip-hop music, and what sounded like the soft hum of a shower running.

  Frustrated, she headed back to the east wing and easily located the set of stairs and the door Warren had left ajar.

  With its blue light and sterile milieu, the basement seemed like another world, as if she’d stepped into a 1950’s science fiction movie. A row of closed doors greeted her coldly on each side of the hall. She randomly picked the door closest to her
and slowly turned the knob.

  It opened to what looked like a small, disheveled office. On the desk she discovered a stack of binders. She opened one and gave a sharp intake of breath when she saw what it contained: horrific images of patients with severe facial injuries and deformities, including a man who lacked a lower jaw and a young woman whose nose had collapsed into her skull. One man’s face was completely normal except for a chunk of missing flesh in one cheek, exposing the side of his upper jaw and teeth.

  Swallowing hard, she closed the binder and picked up another one. Covered in plastic sleeves were images of common cosmetic procedures: minor adjustments performed on average looking people--mostly women. Chins were lifted, added to or subtracted from, lips pumped, bumps on noses shaved down to narrow slopes. Many of the patients had that overdone appearance of some celebrities and wealthy New York women Jenna would see shopping on Madison Avenue sometimes, evidenced by surprised expressions, barely-there noses, and preternaturally plump lips.Many of them looked better in the before photos, Jenna noted. For all of her own insecurities about her looks, she was suddenly happy she’d never gone that route.

  She put the binder back on the desk, left the room, and continued cautiously down the hall.

  * * *

  Dr. Weiss removed his monocle and wiped it with the corner of his lab coat. From the slump of his massive shoulders to the bags under his eyes, he appeared exhausted. He turned to address a shadow on the other side of the makeshift operating room.

  “What about you, my dear. Do you believe in science?” The answer came in the form of a hoarse, guttural growl. Dr. Weiss chuckled softly to himself, then gestured across the room with an impatient, latex gloved hand.

  Jan, wearing a white surgical gown and mask, wheeled into the light another gurney on which lay a frail figure, tightly draped in a white sheet, the face completely obscured by bandages. He placed it next to the now unconscious Chrissie.

  Dr. Weiss replaced his monocle and puffing up the bellows of his broad chest said, “Let’s proceed then.”

  * * *

  Warren was tired. Every hallway looked the same, and when he found himself back at the same x-ray room it was clear he was walking in circles. He stopped in the intersection of two hallways, wondering which way to go. Then he spotted a letter “A” painted at the top of the wall. Mentally visualizing the architecture of the lodge, he recalled there was a second hallway, running parallel to this one (the “B” hallway he reasoned) that was once used to access the servants’ quarters: a drab series of rooms facing the back lawn.

  With new energy in his step, Warren turned down one of the offshoot halls and located the “B” corridor, then headed west, back towards the center of the lodge. He noticed a room ahead with its door ajar and slowed down his steps to a soft creep.

  He silently cursed himself for not bringing a weapon of some kind—a baseball bat—anything. Well, it is too late for that, he thought as he sidled up to the door and cocked his ear to it. Except for the sound of his own breathing and the low hum of the generator, it was silent as a tomb.

  He entered the dark room lit only by the bluish hue of the x-ray projectors that lined one wall. In the center of the room was a gurney on which a body lay covered by a white sheet, a mask of dark blood had seeped through the sheet forming an oval over the face area.

  His stomach turned. Afraid to approach and yet compelled to do so, he moved in closer. He could tell from the curves of the body that it was female, and also deceased; one hand hanging lifelessly outside the sheet revealed gray, swollen skin.

  A horrible odor hit him at once. He gagged and pulled his neckline of his undershirt over his nose. Fighting an intense instinct to flee, he moved closer to the body. Not wanting to, but knowing he must, he tugged at the sheet with trembling fingers. The dried blood stuck like a paste. He pulled harder and the sheet gave way.

  Frozen to the spot, he stared silently at the space that had once been Anne’s beautiful face. He recognized the ash blond hair, set in soft waves framing two blue eyes now glazed and milky, popped open wider than he had ever seen them, two small holes where her nose had been, and a set of grinning teeth within bloody shreds of tissue atop white bone. The incongruity of the image did not register in his brain. What am I looking at? he thought, as the room spiraled around him, darkening at the edges as he spun into a near faint.

  A high-pitched wail coming from behind him broke the trance.

  He turned to see Jenna, white knuckles where her hands clasped the doorframe, her eyes impossibly wide.

  Within seconds Warren slammed the door on the horror and dragged Jenna down the hall.

  * * *

  Dr. Weiss looked up from his work. “Jan!” he barked.

  “Ja, Doktor.”

  “I can’t concentrate with this noise! Take care of them, will you? And that body down the hall is starting to stink. I want it out of here tomorrow. There’s the acid.” He gestured towards several glass bottles on the counter. “Verstehen sie?”

  “Ja,” Jan said, heading out the door. In his hands, he held a wooden canoe paddle.

  Dr. Weiss ran a latex gloved finger along Chrissie's cheek. “Such young, healthy tissue—it must work.” He shifted his attention from Chrissie to his second patient.

  “It will work,” he said, planting an uncharacteristic kiss on the tightly bandaged head. The patient was completely immobile except for the blue eyes that darted frantically around the room with each shallow breath.

  He injected a full syringe into an I.V. line attached to the patient's arm. The hyperactive eyelids blinked rapidly a few times, and then closed.

  Dr. Weiss sighed, then picked up a small pair of scissors and began cutting away the bandages, his mouth curling in revulsion, as he tended to the dubious task.

  * * *

  They began to stir from the floor where they’d both collapsed. Warren lifted Jenna’s trembling chin and whispered, “We need to get out of here, now.”

  Jenna nodded numbly, and they helped each other to their feet.

  He pointed down one of the halls that intersected the “A” hallway. They could retrace their steps back to the door he’d left open, then out the front of the lodge where they’d hike up to the road and try to wave down a car.

  Warren’s head spun in a cyclone of thoughts. It should be close to dawn by now. It was too late to save Anne, perhaps Chrissie as well. And Karla? That bitch is the ultimate survivor. Fuck her. But still…could they reach her before they left the camp…warn her perhaps?

  Jenna sensed his dilemma and said, “I think we should go back to Karla’s suite one more time, at least. I could never forgive myself if she ended up like…” She couldn’t continue.

  Warren squeezed her shoulder. “Okay,” he said, “But if she doesn’t answer the door, we’re out of here. At least we know we tried.”

  * * *

  Dr. Weiss resumed the surgery: slicing around Chrissie’s hairline, ears, and under her chin. He detached the flesh and placed it in a tray of clear liquid, then picked up a prepared syringe and shot it into the I.V. tube.

  He watched and waited impassively for the line on the monitor to flatten, indicating that Chrissie was dead, then he moved his attention to the other patient lying motionless on the gurney.

  * * *

  They reached a section of hall narrowed by several gurneys lined up against the wall, forcing them to proceed in a single file. Warren, walking in front, heard a smack and a groan behind him. He turned in time to see Jenna falling to the floor and Jan coming at him with a raised paddle.

  He heard, rather than felt the blow to his head, and by the time he understood what was happening everything went black.

  14

  Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty pretty…Jenna remembered how their mother would sometimes wake them at the camp singing along to the sparrows’ sweet morning song. Hearing it again, a peace she hadn’t known since childhood blanketed her for a moment. Then the pain in her head and its accompan
ying nausea brought her back to the confused reality of the present.

  Rousing herself from the cool, dirt floor with a groan, she saw that she was inside the boat shed. A sense of panic cut through her confusion as she scanned the cramped interior for Warren. She spotted him a few feet away, coiled atop a stack of orange life preservers. Too weak to stand, she crawled over to him, and was relieved to see his chest rising and falling beneath his stained tuxedo shirt. She rustled his shoulder and saw the egg-sized lump on the side of his head. Her touch to her own head confirmed that she had one to match it.

  Warren blinked his eyes open, groaned, and said, “I suppose we’re locked in here.”

  Jenna nodded, wincing at the pain any slight movement of her head caused.

  Warren used the stack of life preservers to steady himself and got to his feet, then tried the door knowing it would be locked. It was, and he leaned against it as if the mere effort of standing had exhausted him. “And to think I thought that twit Jan was hot.”

  “He kept us alive for some reason,” Jenna said, palming the wall to right herself.

  Warren nodded. He looked around the small shed at the moldy lifejackets and foam rubber floatation noodles stacked like giant Pixy Stix in the corner, their original bright candy colors faded to a sickly gray.

  Jenna caught a whiff of fresh grass, and without thinking pulled the thin cord from a dusty venetian blind. Jan had taken pains to secure the door, but not the open window that now greeted them like a bright emerald rectangle punched out of the rough wood.