It began with simple procedures: Botox injections to tame the natural expressions that caused the skin to crease, then a brow lift, fat grafting to fill her thinning cheeks and lips, and finally a full facelift that had gone terribly wrong. Her rare blood type had been the culprit. The idiotic Beverly Hills surgeon had been too busy starring in his own reality show to notice that the fat tissue he had placed under her skin to create youthful plumpness was rejected, causing her head to swell like a pumpkin and the delicate nerves to rip from their tethers. A revision surgery made it worse. Necrosis set in, and most of her facial skin had to be cut away to save her life. It cost her a fortune to assure gag orders from medical personnel, and for two years she went into hiding at a private hospital in the Swiss Alps. It was during her agonized isolation that she began to concoct a plan.
She’d met Dr. Weiss at a Paris symposium a decade ago. Depressed after her divorce, Karla sought spiritual enlightenment through Ostara. Its claim to be the secret to eternal youth also had its appeal, and Karla invested heavily in the organization. After the botched facelift, Dr. Weiss was by her side in Zurich, providing emotional support and the promise of a complete face transplant. He had been successful twice before, but there were complications in Karla’s case. He told her it was possible, but they would need tissue that closely matched her DNA, thus the ruse that brought her siblings to this isolated place.
They’d tried first with Anne, but Karla's tissue had rejected it. Warren and Mitch were intended as backups in case extra tissue was needed; when Mitch’s blood tests revealed a diseased liver, he was quickly dispatched by Jan. She could live with Anne’s face. Although older than she would have liked and a smoker, which had damaged her skin somewhat, Anne looked the most like Karla. If that didn’t work, she’d settle for Chrissie, at least Chrissie was young. There was also Jenna. Jenna wasn’t beautiful, but with cleverly applied make-up and additional surgeries, maybe she could be.
After she made a full recovery, Karla planned to have both Weiss and Jan killed by her German bodyguards. The last thing she wanted was for this story to come out, especially one that included multiple murders—and the fewer people who knew, the better. But now Dr. Weiss was dead, and along with him died any chance for a new face. Killing him had been a rash decision, motivated by rage.
“What’s wrong mother? Did your operation not take again?” Bianca asked cruelly.
Karla’s only response was an agonized groan from behind the latex mask.
Adopting the heartless, mocking tone of young Karla in her prime, Bianca imitated her mother’s grunts. “I can’t understand you. God, you’re a mess.” She kicked her bare foot into Karla’s frail hip, nearly knocking her off the bed. “You should’ve stopped at the first surgery years ago. You didn’t look good, but at least you weren’t a fucking freak! Thank God we’ve never seen what you look like under that mask. I’m sure George here would lose his boner forever, right lover?”
Bianca reached out to stroke Jorgé’s thigh. “Did I say lover? Well, as you can see from your oh-so-rude interruption that we’ve been balling under your nose for years…even when you had a nose.” Bianca tittered with laughter.
The cruel sport of taunting her mother gave her a rush she couldn’t quite explain. She was bored, tired of the sham. The camp was stifling, and the constant strain of playing the role of the great Karla left her exhausted. Even sex with Jorgé had become routine.
Her mother had promised her enough money to get away from her forever. She had a first class ticket to Greece already booked for the end of the month. She would join her father at his villa with his new, young family.
If she could only get Karla to sign over the money she was promised, maybe she and Jorgé could arrange…an accident, or better yet get her to kill herself. It wouldn’t take much to push her over the edge now, she thought as she ran her hand further up her lover’s thigh, causing the bulge inside his tight black underwear to stiffen.
“Check out his boner, mother,” she whispered.
Karla pointed her masked face towards the bed.
Bianca’s voice was saccharine sweet, and her eyes wide with feigned innocence. “You still want to fuck him, don’t you?” she continued stroking him to a full hard-on. “But I doubt if he could get it up for you the way he did for Jenna.”
Karla expelled a hoarse grunt that whistled through the mouth hole of the mask.
“Yup. He fucked your ugly sister. Funny, how she’s so much more beautiful than you now.”
A prolonged groan echoed from behind the latex mask. Invigorated by her mother’s agony, Bianca stubbed out the cigarette, rolled off the bed, and approached Karla as if she were inspecting an injured animal she had just run over—intentionally—with her car.
“Why are you covered in blood, Mother? Did you try to hurt yourself? Aw, another suicide attempt to make us all feel sorry for you?” Bianca loomed over Karla, mocking her with a sarcastic tone of concern. “Are you depressed?”
Karla could only nod her masked head in response. Bianca crouched and whispered in her ear, “Why don't you just do it this time?”
Karla groaned, bending forward, her hands covering her ears.
Bianca stepped back, looking down at her with laughing contempt. “Christ. It’s no wonder my father hates you. Maybe you were attractive, once, but look at you now!”
Karla’s groan became a muffled screech.
“I can’t understand you, you freak!”
Bianca circled the room a few paces, ramping up for a fresh assault. She lit another cigarette, sucked in then expelled a long stream of smoke, and turned back towards the tiny, huddled figure in black.
“Here’s the thing, bitch! I held up my end of the bargain whether you got your new face or not. That was our agreement! Remember? I studied your voice, the way you move, suffered through every stupid movie you ever made. To think you ever tried to be an actress! You're a fucking joke! I’ve had enough of this shit! I want my ten million dollars, and I want it now!”
Jorgé, bored with the domestic scene, perked up suddenly. He had no idea Bianca was getting that much. He was promised only $100,000 for his participation, but this new revelation changed the game. He enjoyed fucking Bianca—who wouldn't? But she annoyed him to no end, and this verbal attack on Karla was getting to be too much. He had once been Karla’s lover, and there had been some genuine affection between them, at least in the beginning. Now, he was tired and wanted out of the entire thing, but not before he squeezed Bianca for more cash.
“Babe, lay off,” he said, giving Bianca’s toned thigh a swift kick. He didn’t approve of her tactic, and not only because he had some pity for Karla, but he suspected that the old girl wasn’t going to give up without a fight. An additional concern was the scalpel still clutched in Karla’s hand; he reasoned that blood on her hands hadn’t come from anything self-inflicted. She had attempted suicide in the past (after the first plastic surgery disaster) but then it was pills, and she hardly took enough to do any real damage. It had been more of a pathetic cry for help.
“Shut the fuck up!” Bianca’s shot him with fierce blue eyes that were eerily identical to Karla’s. He backed off, positioning himself near the edge of the bed for easy egress from the room.
Colombian born Jorgé was a hustler by trade, but real violence revolted him. As his eyes scanned the room for his trousers, he noticed that Karla had rolled onto the floor and was now curled up in a fetal position. He counted ten paces to the door, but he’d have to step over her, and the thought of her scalpel slicing into his bare legs gave him pause.
Bianca stubbed out her cigarette, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, as Karla’s frail body racked with fresh sobs. “Don’t worry. I’ll pay off what’s left of your idiot family and shut them up for good. I’ll make sure your legacy lives on. You will be remembered forever as the world’s greatest, most beautiful star!”
At the word star an electrical charge passed through Karla's broken body, sparking sudden vigor into
her enervated limbs. And with incredible dexterity and speed her arm shot out, sweeping the scalpel in a wide, glimmering arc that grazed Bianca’s thigh. A stream of bright, red blood flowed down the length of her leg.
The energy in the room shifted, and suddenly Karla was on her feet, assuming the stance of a Kung Fu warrior. Clutching her wound, Bianca backed up to the bed, fear in her eyes, and toppled onto Jorgé who scrambled to escape.
Why didn't I leave these two bitches to fight it out while I had the chance? He thought. He looked around the messy room for a weapon and reached for the lamp, but Bianca had a hold of his arm. He pushed her off him roughly, and she rolled onto the carpet with a soft cry. He went for the door, but Karla was one step ahead of him. With the aid of gravity, the scalpel fell in a straight downward thrust, slicing deeply into the muscled flesh of his forearm. A ribbon of red blood splashed across Karla's latex mask.
Bianca screamed, “Why don’t you kill her? Kill her!”
Ignoring the pain in his arm, Jorgé lunged towards Karla, aiming for a low tackle, but slipping on a satin sheet that had pooled on the floor, he lost his balance and fell to his knees.
Taking the advantage, Karla's upturned blade found the side of his neck, slicing through his jugular vein. His hand went to the wound, the blood pulsing hot and wet through his fingers.
Karla stood above him, the scalpel readied for a second attack; his fist came up, missing her chin it landed squarely on the mask, which disengaged and flew into the air, bouncing off the wall behind her.
Whatever remaining strength he had in him dissipated at the sight of his former lover’s true face: a twisted mass of scar tissue stretched tightly over bone, two black elongated holes edged in red where a nose should be, and a slit for a mouth twisted into a lopsided, lipless grin. His dark eyes rolled back into his head, and with a groan that bubbled from the gaping hole in his neck he fell forward and bled out, twitching and thrashing, onto the wine-colored carpet.
Bianca cowered in the corner; all her haughty, youthful bitchiness now replaced by the pure, silent terror of a frightened child, her round open mouth panted shallow, terrified breaths and whimpered, “Mom…Mommy, please don’t hurt me.”
Karla moved towards her, the scalpel raised above her head.
“Mommy! No!”
Then, a series of horrific screams, followed by dead silence.
* * *
“Karla?” Warren whispered as he and Jenna entered the darkened room. They were answered by an ominous silence accompanied by the coppery scent of blood.
Jenna pulled the drapes apart, exposing a grim tableau: Jorgé lay face down on the floor and the figure on the bed: a small mound of feminine curves and two bare legs, white and still, protruding from beneath black satin.
Warren slowly pulled the sheet away, cocking his head when he saw the long, brown hair emerge. “Is this? Karla?” He yanked the sheet hard, revealing a gaping bloody hole that was once a face, only unlike the surgical precision of what had been done to Anne and Chrissie, here the edges were raw and jagged as if a knife had hacked the flesh away in a violent frenzy.
Within seconds he was on his knees retching—dry heaving as there was nothing in him—onto the carpet. He could hear, but couldn't see that Jenna was on the other side of the bed doing the same.
* * *
Behind another secret panel, accessible only through the game room by rotating the base on which the stuffed white wolf stood in a frozen pose—teeth bared and ready to attack—was a large suite of rooms where the real Karla resided.
She now stood before a large amber tinted mirror wearing a dress she had pulled from Bianca's wardrobe: a black, fluted silk Valentino evening gown with a plunging neckline and sheer chiffon sleeves.
The steamed bathroom mirror softened her appearance to where she could barely discern in the reflection that covering her face was her own daughter’s jagged-edge flesh, still warm and held in place by one of the blond wigs Bianca had used to imitate her. She added a smear of lipstick to the whitening lips, then picked up a can of hairspray and gave her coiffure a quick allover spritz.
Then after one final, lingering glance in the mirror, Karla left the bathroom and her suite of rooms and headed down the long west wing corridor to the kitchen, where she threw the bloody scalpel into the stainless steel sink and began rummaging through the drawers in search of something with a bit more heft. She still had work to do.
16
By the golden rays of the afternoon sun, Warren and Jenna were able to piece together at least some of what had happened. On the writing desk they discovered the documents detailing Bianca’s travel schedule to Greece, the same one Jenna had caught a glimpse of the other night.
When was that? Jenna thought, trying not to look at the bodies now covered by black sheets. Her mind was quicksand; if she followed one thought too thoroughly she'd be pulled into the muck forever. Concentrating on facts alone helped her to focus. It was Bianca all along, impersonating Karla—that was a fact, but why? Where was the real Karla? Dead like the rest of them? And if so, where is her body? Just thinking about it made Jenna’s head swim till she was hit by another wave of nausea.
She decided it was best to leave it for now—some authority could figure it out later. She would cooperate as much as she could to help them get to the bottom of it, although there were some things she would never tell, like the fact that it had been her young niece and not her sister who had watched her in the steam bath with Jorgé—more than just watched.
“Bianca Volpe,” Warren whispered from across the room. “The white wolf.” He ran his finger over the embossed sigil of Bianca’s diary: a white wolf howling in the wild. He’d found it in the secretary drawer. It described each day they had spent at White Wolf Camp, carefully detailing the techniques she had employed to impersonate her famous mother. It had helped that she looked nearly identical to Karla as a young woman.
The blond hair, mature wardrobe, and heavy makeup had aged her, but Bianca had achieved the rest through her meticulous study and imitation of Karla’s personality, voice, and movements. Warren had never met Bianca, and she was rarely photographed. Still, he should have guessed that it was impossible for even Karla to look that young. Warren had noticed it in her hands that day during the therapy group; the incident was even noted in Bianca's diary. From her detailed entries in carefully controlled penmanship, Warren could see how much like her mother she was.
Closing his eyes tightly, feeling weak, without the energy to move he thought, Food would help. A drink might be better. Tappy’s Tavern! Even those hicks would have a telephone.
He dropped Bianca’s diary on the desk and picked up Jenna’s hand and said, “We’re walking out of here.” Jenna didn’t need convincing.
They turned to the door just in time to see Karla rush through it—blond hair and chiffon gown flying, a meat cleaver raised over her head, the death-mask of Bianca’s face—a blank inscrutable horror—coming straight for them. Instinctively Warren ducked, but Jenna didn’t move fast enough; the cleaver found her shoulder and sliced into it. She fell to the floor, her mouth wide open in pain as Karla raised the blade for another swing, cold blue rage flashing through the slits of Bianca’s eyeholes.
From his crouched position, Warren picked up the Tiffany lamp and, swiping it upwards, clocked Karla square on the chin, throwing her head back at a sharp angle. He assumed from the sound her neck made, like the snapping of a pencil in two, that he had killed her. He dropped the lamp to the carpeted floor causing the canted beam of the light to spill across Karla’s crumpled body now lying motionless on the floor, her limbs twisted and limp like a doll’s.
The mask of Bianca’s flesh mask, slipping a little out of place, revealed a peek of the hideous truth beneath it. Karla needed a new face, and she needed us to get it. Selfish to the end, he thought.
Too numb to feel anything about what he just did, he quickly got to the business of dressing Jenna’s arm with the white towel he found on th
e floor, then pulled her to her feet and half dragged her from the lodge.
* * *
They made it across the lawn and past where the pier had once jutted into the lake, but halfway up the path Jenna collapsed like a marionette whose strings were suddenly cut.
Patting her face and trying to get her rolling eyes to focus on his, Warren said, “I’m going to get help.”
The white towel dressing her wound was red with fresh blood. “No, I’ll come with you,” she said, clinging to him.
“I’ll be right back,” Warren said. “Now just sit there, and try…” Try not to die, he thought gravely as he kissed the top of her head.
Then taking a moment to catch his breath, he started up the path towards the road.
* * *
From inside the darkened suite where Bianca and Jorge’s bodies were starting to swell in the late afternoon heat, Karla sat up and opened her eyes.
17
“Motherfucking in-bred pricks!” Warren screamed into the locked front door of Tappy’s Tavern. Walking around the clapboard roadhouse, he spotted a phone booth and opened it hopefully. A silver cable that once held a receiver hung there like an uncoiled snake.
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