Dr. Morbid's Castle of Blood (Masks)

by Hayden Thorne

  “Have a good life, jerks. Best regards from Arachnaman and his little brother.”

  Damn it. Mom and Dad were going to ground me for this.

  * * * *

  “It’s no use, Freddie. She can’t hear you. We’re completely cut off,” Peter said, glancing back over his shoulder to look at Freddie, who’d decided to improvise a new mask. Apparently he was able to do this still, but he couldn’t “access” his other already-made masks. I guessed that he had some weird archive somewhere as part of his powers, where he stored all of the masks he created and practiced superhero work in. Or something. For now, he could only make something up on the fly, which wasn’t really a good thing for my emotional and mental state.

  “I had to try,” Freddie said, trotting behind us.

  “You sure did,” I said. “That’s like trying with all guns blazing. Couldn’t you have made up a mask that wasn’t so—you know—disturbing and gross?”

  “I needed all the lung power I could get,” Freddie said. He probably rolled his eyes if he had any. He’d decided to improvise a mask that was nothing more than a pair of oversized human lungs connected to a huge mouth, and attached to the bottom of each lung was a leg and a foot. I mean, I suppose Freddie needed to walk to stay with us, right?

  One would’ve thought that the fact that the lungs’ feet were shod in high tops would’ve eased the bizarreness of the mask, but it didn’t. The whole thing was still disgusting. Freddie thought that he needed nothing more than a mouth and lungs in order to holler as loudly and as frequently for Althea, which, naturally, didn’t work. His mask also towered above us at about ten feet tall—that’d be the best estimate I could make without horfing my breakfast all over my boyfriend. And when he yelled, he really yelled, which said something about the effectiveness of a mask that was just—yikes. Not only did the rest of us lose partial hearing whenever he opened his massive yap and hollered for Althea, random monsters emerged from the shadows to attack us, though I suspected that they came out of their graves or pits or whatever to shut Freddie up. It was kind of obvious when they slithered out and went straight for him, only to be ass-whupped by the heroes via some pretty basic levels of super powers.

  Unfortunately they wouldn’t let me do anything, even when I was armed with a knife. That bit was very annoying. Maybe they couldn’t help themselves whenever they treated me like a fragile little treasure that needed protecting; that might’ve been a built-in feature in their genetic makeup. Still annoying, though, no matter how I looked at it.

  “Dude, you look like something cooked up in a laboratory by a scientist who’s on bad crack,” I said, turning back around when I felt a tug on my hand.

  Peter was walking a couple of paces ahead, our hands joined, while before us went Wade and Ridley, who’d just gotten over a massive guilt trip for not reading the scroll when he got it. It took us upwards of ten or fifteen minutes of taking turns keeping him from having a breakdown and banging his head against a tree till he passed out.

  “So do we follow the path? That’s all we need to do?” Wade asked without looking back.

  “Might as well,” Peter said. “I’m sure Althea will get us out of here, but I think we need to continue with the game till our powers are fully restored, and we can help her bust our way out of this.”

  “Agreed,” Wade said, giving Ridley a reassuring pat on the back when he slumped again, his head bowed, his feet dragging, and looking like a really tragic picture of tortured Catholic guilt. Or whatever religion required massive blows to its followers’ conscience till they all collapsed and went crazy or stupid from extreme repression.

  I held the knife in my other hand, sometimes raising it to remind myself that I wasn’t helpless this time around, even though my friends treated me like some girly princess. I’d definitely kick as much CGI monster ass as I possibly could, earn points and advance (if everyone would freakin’ let me!), and pick up better weapons along the way. At that moment, we were walking through a cursed forest that had stray monsters attacking us left and right. They were few and far between, which was cool, but we all pretty much knew that there’d be huge groups of ghouls and whatever lurking out there, waiting for us to show up. At the very least, every dead witch, troll, or werewolf littering the path meant a point or two racked up by us.

  Or at least I guessed that we were all amassing points as a group. If we did individually, we’d all be screwed once the really hard fights came.

  “What’s-his-face said that there’s a way out,” Wade mused without breaking her stride.

  “We don’t need to worry about that,” Peter replied. “Once we get a lifeline from outside, we just need to punch a hole in the game and leave—so to speak. Then bust O’Keefe—if that’s his real name.”

  “How do you know it’s him?” Ridley asked.

  “Who else can it be? He zeroed in on me. He went to Althea with the game, and I seriously doubt if he really overheard her asking anyone about owning one. Like he said, he has mind-reading powers.”

  I looked at him as we walked side by side. “Do you believe him, though? Do you think he’s Arachnaman’s brother?”

  “Can’t say for sure. Althea should get the Sentries and Trent to help and figure out who’s what and all that. My only concern right now is for everyone to get out of this.”

  I heard the sound of hurried footsteps behind, and I dared a look back. Freddie was once again normal, which was a pretty loose word to use when referring to Freddie Jameson. “Yo,” he panted, slapping me between the shoulders before overtaking me and Peter and joining Wade and Ridley in the front. Which was ten different shades of awesome, of course, seeing as how my little personal space with Peter wasn’t going to be messed with.

  I sighed as I trudged onward. This was going to suck. If Mom and Dad were to hear about this little adventure I got myself into, I’d be grounded for an entire lifetime. Maybe two. Or three. If I didn’t make it out and became a permanent fixture in the game, it wouldn’t matter. They’d take the game home and ground me all the same for being a part of an evil conspiracy to brainwash kids into a lifetime of stupidity and slobbery, knuckle-dragging, monosyllabic grunting. What a life.

  I gave Peter’s hand a squeeze. “Aren’t you glad this isn’t your birthday gift?”

  He chuckled, returning the pressure. “Was this your original plan?”

  “Pretty much. I was hoping to buy you a game, have Althea tweak it for maximum playing enjoyment or whatever the hell it’s called, and then give it to you. I mean—you’ve got everything you need. I wanted to give you something that’s unique and specially made for you. Turned out to be a stupid idea. I guess I need to work more on that skill.”

  “Hey. Come here.” He stopped and gave my hand a tug, bringing me close for a kiss that lasted longer than I expected. When he pulled away, he was smiling. “Thank you. Yeah, I’ve got everything I need. It’s right in front of me.”

  “You’re so sappy.” And hot. He was in full Calais gear. If he’d let me, I’d climb up his body and fuse myself with him like that, though it’d make us look like incestuous conjoined twins who were connected in the happiest parts of our bodies. I really should write a novel about my experiences. I was sure that a thousand or more other gay boys out there would totally feel my pain, and I could somehow make their lives better by suffering horribly in mine.

  “I know I am. Come on. I’m itching to kick monster ass, so I can properly celebrate my birthday with you.” Heads up! Peter said “properly.”

  “Oh, bless you.” It was my turn to hurry forward, dragging him behind me. Motivation rocks, people. I, of course, ignored the very real possibility that Peter’s definition of “properly” didn’t run along the same lines as mine. But being sixteen and sexually frustrated was like mega-sized blinders or whatever you called those things that people put on horses’ heads to keep them from getting all distracted and stuff.

  In fact, I was so motivated (read: absolutely, positively sexually frustrate
d) that after five more seconds of walking, I had to shake off Peter’s hand and hurry off the road. Nothing was happening to us, and it was starting to piss me off. We needed to earn points and level up! Besides, I was getting so damned bored with the game by now, I wanted to get out and have pizza, and I wanted to do my boyfriend till I passed out from loss of body fluids.

  “Eric? What—hey, where are you going?” Peter called.

  I didn’t bother looking back at him. I had bigger things to worry about. I also tried to ignore Freddie saying, “Oh, great. He’s using himself for monster bait. What the hell did you say to him, Peter?”

  I held my knife with two hands, raising it in front of me. I mean, yeah, yeah, totally Freudian, but also really, really inspired, know what I mean? “Come on, come on, get your rotting asses out of bed!” I yelled. “I gotta earn myself some points!”

  “Peter, you fix this.” That was Wade, by the way.

  “I don’t know what I said, I swear!” That was Peter, the big, clueless, lovable dill weed.

  “No, no, don’t worry!” I called back, glancing behind me and grinning. “I can handle this! The more points we earn, the faster we get out of here!” That ten-second look back yielded some pretty interesting visuals. Like, my superhero friends all standing in the middle of a forest path, confused and staring at me as though I’d sprouted a dozen penises all over my head and made me look like the porn version of that Pinhead monster thing in those Hellraiser movies.

  Just off to my right, I heard the rustling of leaves and branches, and I steadied myself. One-to-one combat with, what—another zombie? A witch? A skeleton? A werewolf? Oh, I was ready for it. My friends might have all the kickass abilities and I only had a real-unreal knife, but I wasn’t going to lie around, being fed grapes, while everyone else beat the living crap out of monsters to earn the group more and more points. I suppose I also wanted to prove to Peter that I could easily defend myself and everyone else when push came to shove.

  Okay, screw it, I desperately wanted those points, so we could bust out of the game, and Peter and I could celebrate his pre-birthday thing the proper way as defined by me. Served him right for planting that idea in my skull.

  I was also getting very hungry by then.

  The forest really wasn’t a forest in the extreme sense. That is, we were surrounded by endless clusters of trees, but there was a lot of space in between them that allowed plenty of artificial sunlight to shine through and help us find our way around. And since it was a video game, the main path that we were following was completely unhindered by shadows and stuff.

  “Eric!”

  “Let me take care of this and help us earn points! I want to get out of here as much as you do!” Man, Peter could really be a major dud in the excitement department. I mean, seriously.

  The rustling quieted down, and a figure emerged from the shadows. Finally! I pinched my mouth into a tight line, furrowing my brows in concentration. Oh, this was going to be great. I could show my genetically altered friends that I could fight my way out of things.

  “Gwwaargh…” A low groan that reminded me of those zombies earlier cut through the silence. Cool. I was poised to slaughter the undead. I wished I studied the details of the game before we started because I wanted to know how many points I could rack up, killing something that not only wasn’t real, but was also already dead.

  A figure appeared, stumbling into the sunlight, its glassy stare fixed on me. “Gwwaargh…” Pinkish drool dangling off its red mouth, the monster came after me, baring its rotting gums. It reeked of death and destruction, and it definitely wanted me for dinner.

  Unfortunately it was also about a little over a foot tall, a bald, naked, and disgustingly bloated carcass of—of something that was a little over a foot tall. Its skin was of a bluish-whitish-gray hue that was also riddled with open sores that looked like marks of decay. Was it a zombified baby? It sure as hell looked like it.

  I stared at it, drop-jawed, as it teetered over to me and then latched on to my right leg with an undead groan, wrapping its dough-like arms and legs around my shin while fastening its mouth onto my knee. I continued to stare it as it tried to gnaw away at my kneecap, and I lowered my knife.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, sighing. “What the hell’s this crap?” I turned around and pointed at the zombie baby that was fused to my right leg, groaning and chomping my jeans. “How many points does this stupid little thing have?”

  “This game has zombie babies?” Wade asked, blinking. The heroes continued to stare at me, confused.

  “Apparently,” I said, glancing down to shake my head at this little monster thing that was fighting a losing battle against my leg. “Dude, get off. You can’t eat me alive if you don’t even have any teeth yet. Come on, I don’t want to waste my energy cutting you up, when you’ll only be earning me, like, one point at most.”

  “I think it likes you, Eric,” Freddie said, frowning.

  “I’m not babysitting this thing! Peter, take note—this is what fatherhood is all about. You really want one of these when we finally settle down?” I pointed at the rotting, bloated baby. I guess the great thing about being stuck inside a video game is that the unreality helped during moments like this. That little monster thing kept gnawing away at my leg, but I didn’t feel any drool soaking my jeans. If I did, it would’ve pushed me over the edge, and I’d be feeding the next troll we came across with zombie baby kabobs.

  “Not while you and that thing continue your bonding moment like that,” Peter said, visibly wincing.

  “Dude, are you going to kill it, or not?” Freddie asked. The grimace on his face spoke volumes.

  “Gwwaargh…nom…nom…nom…slurp…slobber…nom…”

  I sighed, rolling my eyes. “This isn’t worth it. So stupid,” I grumbled, turning around and hobbling back toward the trees where that toothless thing came from. I glanced down and poked the top of its head with my knife, taking care not to break the skin even though it was totally fake. I wanted to play it safe and make sure that I didn’t end up with zombie baby gore all over my jeans. “Come on, kid, get off. I’m sure your undead mom’s out there somewhere, looking for you.”

  “Gwwaargh…nom…nom…slurp…”

  “Tsk.” I sighed, dropped my knife, and pried the damn thing off, mildly grossed out by the coldness and softness of its arms when I grabbed hold of them and pulled them off my leg. The little monster kept groaning and hissing as it fought against me, trying hard to get itself back on my leg. I held it up and away from me while it kicked and slobbered, its face twisting in what was probably hunger.

  “Sorry, man. You’re not worth the trouble.” I reminded myself one last time that this wasn’t real, so I tossed the baby up, waited for it to fall, and then kicked it like a soccer ball at just the right point. It let out a grunt, still growling and hissing as it flew off back into the shadows, a pretty gross-looking bundle of undead flesh tumbling in the air.

  I stood for a moment, listening for it to land somewhere, and it eventually did. Slightly muffled sounds of leaves shaking and branches breaking followed, and then came the inevitable thud as the little monster landed. Safely, I suppose. It actually let out a soft “Oof!”

  I stooped down to pick up my knife and then trudge back to my friends, who just waited for me. “Well, that was a real disappointment,” I said, sulking. “I was hoping to get some fighting experience under my belt, but…” How embarrassing was that? I looked at Peter, frowning. “Do you still want to have kids down the line?”

  He looked at me and then past my shoulders, most likely to stare in shock at where I’d just punted that little monster like a pro athlete. “Um…not if that’s how you’ll be dealing with annoying kiddie behavior.”

  “Oh, that’s how it’s going to be, all right,” I grumbled as I took his hand and led him away, following the others. “And I was being gentle and forgiving this time.”

  “Yikes.”

  “You know, Peter, I have a feeling that
I’m going to be a way stricter dad than you.”

  “Yikes.”

  Chapter 7

  RPG Lesson Number 4,887,302: skeletons were a bitch to kill. About ten minutes after that dumb zombie baby “attack,” we were again ambushed by monsters—this time a small group of skeletons. The good news was that I was finally allowed to fight, and it was obvious that the heroes decided that they should feel sorry for me after that pathetic and embarrassing confrontation I had with an undead infant. So I fought alongside my buddies, who were using whatever basic powers they’d earned so far. In their case, they were easily mowing down skeletons.

  The bad news for me was that, while I was armed with a knife, it was kind of frustrating swinging away at a flailing skeleton, unable to get points off it because my knife didn’t have much to go by but bones, which weren’t massive enough to be easy targets. My knife’s point kept shooting through those spaces in between ribs, and in those few times when I aimed for the skull, my knife went into an eye socket, which was useless and made me wish that the skeletons walked around with eyeballs that I could stab.

  As it was, I had to stop, sighing, and stare at the skeleton that was flailing its arms wildly, trying its best to decrease my life points by injuring me with its bony fingers. Yeah, right—like skeletal appendages scraping my skin actually meant life-threatening injuries and stuff. I didn’t even feel any contact from its attacks. It touched me here and there, scratching and clawing, but I felt nothing—no pain whatsoever. It was all like fingers made of soft rubber pawing away at me, and that was it. I even looked down at my arms to find my sleeves with no holes or gashes anywhere. No sign of injuries or blood that would’ve freaked me out. But that was how things went, I guess, when you had real people going against unreal monsters.

  That said, trying to kill skeletons was still a real pain in the ass, and since I couldn’t get my attacker to stand still enough so I could hack away at it till its life points were gone, I decided to tackle it to the ground, feeling a bid creeped out over the fact that while I could do that, the knowledge of its unreality continued to smack my awareness. I let out a yelp and threw myself against the damn thing, pulling it down to the ground, and we both thumped against that weird plastic-y grass, rolling a couple of times with me ending up on top, straddling it, and hacking away at its chest. It was really too bad that there was no way for us to tell how many points were being deducted with each blow. I think it would’ve helped us out a good deal by making us conserve our energy throughout the fight and not stay on Full Blast Mode from start to finish.