The Masquerade

by Rae, Alexa

  I racked my brain for last Thursday and remembered that was the night Shiloh and I closed together. The night the four of us sang obnoxiously in the square. The night I thought someone was watching me. He was the figure standing on the sidewalk. I didn't have to question it, I already knew. But what did that mean? Why were they looking for me? Above every question that aroused the one protruding in my mind was the obvious.

  What were those creatures chasing me?

  I moved closer to the door until my hands were lightly touching the frame. I pressed my ear to the wood and tried to hold myself still without shaking. I didn't want to draw attention to myself. I wanted answers and I worried if I didn't pry I was never going to get them.

  "What exactly was your plan? Tell those royal flesh eating shit wipes about her to buy us some time and then what? If we don't hand her over we're done."

  "I didn't have a plan!" I heard Ben shout. It was pure silence before he spoke again. His voice was lower. I had to hold my breath to catch his words. "I was going to give her to them. When I found her my phone was already in my hand. But," he made a noise that sounded like something derived from exhaustion, "I couldn't do it. She was different. She is different."

  They were quiet again. My hands began to shake violently. I stepped away from the door to avoid making a sound. Ben was like them. He had to be. The many allusions to an unknown danger that shadowed him suddenly made sense. What did that mean? Why did he want from me?

  The only thing I could grasp was that he used me. Was there any part of our time together that was real? Was it all a scam to let my guard down? I could feel a weight drop in the pit of my stomach. I swallowed but the lump seemed to harden in my throat. I moved away from the door until my back was against the wall. I trailed, with the heels of my feet against the baseboards, along the wall until I reached the window closest to me.

  I didn't have a plan, but I knew I couldn't stay wherever I was any longer. Everything I knew or everything I thought I knew had changed. I wasn't sure of the ground I walked on. I didn't want to see Ben. It hurt to picture his face in my mind, to hear his voice, knowing I'd allowed him in. I let him see parts of me I kept hidden from the rest of the world because I trusted him. I was an idiot.

  I tip toed to the window. The lever on the pane was unlocked so all I had to do was give it a shove. I waited until I heard their voices floating into my room again before I made my move. I pushed the bottom part of the window up. To my surprise, it slid with ease. The cold air rushed into the room. I shivered, feeling the chill against my cheeks when I proceeded to lean out of the window. I peered below and sucked in a deep breath when I realized I was on the second story. The drop wasn't going to be pleasant but I could make it work. I'd snuck out of my bedroom window plenty of times to know a trick or two, although I wasn't wearing shoes, which would be a setback.

  I looked over my shoulder and scanned the dark room for my shoes and found a pair of large black combat boots instead. I quickly put them on and laced them tight. There was a large space between my toes and the tip of the boots, but it would do. I moved one step at a time to the window and swung my leg over before I could change my mind. I ducked underneath the pane and swung my other leg over. There wasn't much of an incline. If I was careful I could slide and hang off the gutter before jumping.

  Pushing back the fear of falling, I slowly slid down the tiles of the roof. My hands gripped the windowsill until the last second before I let go. I was able to walk slowly down the roof until I stood before the gutter just above the first story. It was still a drop, but I could make it.

  I sat down and pushed myself off the edge. I was airborne for a second before my feet hit the ground, my knees bent, and my hands in front of me. A loud thump followed my drop and I winced immediately, hoping they hadn't heard. I didn't want to find out if they had.

  I shot up to my feet and took off running. My head was dizzy within seconds. A sharp pain settled in my chest that made breathing difficult and an arduous run. My neck ached and screamed in pain and my eyes brimmed with instant tears. I thought fresh air would have made everything better, but now I was suffocating; the pain, the events of the day, the lies, it all made running back into the depths of the woods horrible. I had no idea where I was going. What was I running back to?

  I heard voices seconds after I entered the woods. Panic struck my chest and I threw a glance over my shoulder to find that the house I'd seen earlier was the same house I was running from. I tried to pick up my pace, but I could feel myself lagging.

  "Ella!"

  Ben's voice struck the night air, like one of his many screams. A gasp left my throat and I used my hands, already cut and bruised from before, to grasp trees for guidance.

  "Ella wait!"

  He was right behind me. I barely heard his footsteps pounding into the gravel until I felt his breath on my neck. I started to leap forward, but his large arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back in mid air. He captured me against his chest and held me in a tight grasp that was impossible to wriggle myself out of.

  "Ella," Ben pleaded.

  "No," I told him, "Don't."

  The first sob ripped out of my chest and I felt my eyes begin to water. I shook my head that was already clouding with contradicted thoughts after hearing his low voice, easing the pain just as quickly as causing it. I wanted to melt into his embrace while part of me wanted to smack him. I hated him. I loved him.

  "Ella, you need to calm down. You're going to faint again." Ben said calmly.

  It wasn't until that moment that I became aware of my body's convulsions. I was making desperate attempts to gasp for air. I felt as though the walls of my throat were closing in. My body shook in his. I needed him to let me go, but there was another part of me that felt I would die if I lost that connection between us.

  "Breathe, Ella," he murmured into my hair. "Just breathe."

  "Stop." I let out another gasp. "Let me go," I begged him. My hands tried to pry his arms off my waist, but he didn't budge. A wave of frustration flushed over me, adding to the confusion and suffocation I felt. "Please, just let me go."

  "I'm not going to hurt you, Ella." His voice is steady and his grasp on me tightened making me immobile. "I will never hurt you." I tried, but I couldn't force myself away from him. He wouldn't let me go until he was sure I wouldn't try to leave. "You're safe with me. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

  I thought of the men who chased me, the monsters. He knew them. I was positive I heard their voices arguing with Ben inside the house. They hurt me and it was because of Ben. Ben was one of them. I didn't understand and the more I tried to think about it the harder the pressure in my head became. What was happening to me?

  "What are you?" I said through my teeth.

  His voice remained unaffected. "You know."

  "Are you like them?" I questioned him. My shaking finally subsided, but my voice still quivered. I'd managed to calm down and I hoped that would give Ben enough reason to let me go.

  "Yes."

  I stilled in his arms. "Let me go."

  "No."

  The next emotion on the list was anger and it infected me like poison. I flung my right arm back in an attempt to smack him. My bandaged shoulder screamed as I strategically used the same arm to hit him with. My arm didn't swing back very far, before he caught my wrist in his hand.

  "Don't do that." He warned me, pulling the arm back down and crossing it over my chest. "You're going to rip your stitches."

  I frowned and calmly glanced down to my shoulder. "Stitches?"

  "Your bite was deep. Cam likes to leave marks," he said, his voice hardening.

  Cam? It didn't take me much more than a few seconds to realize he was referring to the lead guitarist of The Masquerade. The outstanding guitar player, famous for his solos, bit me. His face, falling apart in front of my eyes, hours before was unrecognizable. The other man...

  As if reading my mind, Ben continued, "Max was the other one."


  I replayed the events in my head. Each time they became more difficult to fathom. The Masquerade band members, the greatest rock stars of all time, were monsters. It all made sense, their shady lifestyle, their spontaneous concert dates, their unknown backstory. The secret, the missing piece, the darkness Ben alluded to, all fit together now and I wished, I wished more than anything that it didn't. This wasn't the secret I was expecting.

  "They were so fast. I couldn't fight them off." I stated, my voice abnormally calm. "They were eating that girl."

  He didn't hesitate. "Yes."

  "They're not human," I swallowed feeling the blood slowly drain from my cheeks, "And neither are you."

  "No," he wasn't trying to comfort me anymore. His voice was rough like it had been chipped away from years of tragedy and violence. "I'm not."

  "You eat human flesh?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh," I drew a small shaky breath. My mind registered his answer, but my body seemed frozen in time. I was numb, unresponsive to his touch. "I suppose you do this because you have to?"

  "To appear human, yes I have to, but it's still a choice I make to take another's life."

  "You mean if you don't feed, you will look the way Max and Cam did."

  The image of their broken, disoriented faces haunted my memory. It stung every nerve in my body. Any emotion I felt throbbed with an unfathomable pain that was foreign to me. The measures they took to appear human were morally wrong. They were wrong in every way. Ben was wrong.

  "It depends on the amount of time we go without feeding. What you saw earlier was minor."

  "What are you?"

  I felt him shrug and the crane of his neck when he turned his head. "The movie industry has us labeled as zombies."

  "A zombie," I repeated as if the word was spoken in a dream that I would surely wake up from. "Are you going to kill me?"

  His arms suddenly released me. My body jerked as though I was finally awakened from the trance I had fallen under. He was in front of me within a second that my eyes missed completely. His eyes bore into mine, the topaz overwhelmed by the sapphire blue.

  "I will never hurt you." He told me, his voice harsh.

  I shook my head. "What is all of this? The things they said about me. Why were they looking for me?" The questions poured from my mouth as they came to me. "What am I to you, Ben? Was I just some other human being to feed on?" My voice was breaking, but the anger was still evident. "Why did you come here?" Ben's eyes darkened. He opened his mouth, but I cut him off again. "I want the truth, Ben. No more lies."

  His eyes glazed over with torment. They lingered on something behind me. I watched the muscle in the hard line of his jaw lock. When he spoke, his low voice was distant. "I was going to kill you last year." His eyes, blazing with fire, flashed to mine. "I picked up your scent at the concert. It's hard to distinguish individual smells at shows. Everyone is stuck together and breathing down each other's necks. They're sweaty and they tend to form one odor, but I singled you out right away."

  "I knew I wanted you from the second I looked into your eyes. There was something different about you. You were whimsical and innocent and angelic and I wanted to destroy it," he paused to gauge my reaction. I kept my face composed as I listened, but my heart was pounding in my chest. His first few words were stained in my mind.

  He was going to kill me.

  "I heard you sing over other tone deaf fans and it made me want you even more. Your voice was enchanting and I found myself missing a few beats in my own songs just so I could listen to you. When you left the concert early I was pissed because I figured I'd miss my chance to hunt you down. I was outside, after the concert, when I heard you scream. I heard you begging that asshole for your life and I took off, following the sound of your cries."

  "The monster in me just wanted to save you from that waste of space so I could have you for myself, but there was another part of me that was ready to rip out whoever's throat, caused you pain." He exhaled. "You know what happened next. I pulled him off you. I was prepared to sink my teeth into your skin right then and there, but there was something holding me back."

  He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Every time you spoke to me, you bought yourself an extra moment to live. And I'm not like that. When I kill, it's fast and it's quick, and I show no mercy." His eyes met mine. I could see the pain seeping into them now.

  "There was something about you that made me give you more time. I was finding excuses to let you live. When I realized he hit you I was seething with anger and it frustrated me because you were just some little human girl. I finally pushed back the hesitations and was ready to kill you when I got another whiff of your scent." He exhaled and stopped as though he was trying to find the correct words. I waited, ready to listen. I wanted to hear all of it. No matter how unreal it seemed.

  "Our sense of smell goes further than a specific blood type like A positive or B negative. Every human's blood is unique, but there are some that stand out over others. There are a select number of people in this world who carry a specific blood type, one that is a delicacy to zombies. By select, I mean very few of the dead will ever come in contact with a human like this. It's the most rare and uncommon blood type, which makes these humans more desirable. The blood isn't just for taste. It gives us virtual indestructability. Just one drop in our veins and we're stronger, faster, and we can last for months without decomposing."

  He suddenly stopped and stared at me intently. "You carry that blood type." Something in my stomach dropped. I watched him, my eyes wide. He continued slowly, "Your blood saved your life that night. If it weren't for the smell I would have killed you. When I realized who you were I forced myself off you and left you in the alley to get the guys. I planned to share you between the five of us, but with every second that passed I lost confidence in my decision. Your face haunted my mind. Everything about you made me wish I wasn't a monster. I wanted to be better, to do better, and before I knew it we were in a different city."

  He took a step forward, one that I allowed. He didn't touch me though. He kept his hands to his sides, but his eyes were filled with apprehension. He was scared I would run.

  "Ella, I never told them. I couldn't do it. I didn't care what your blood could have done for us. I hoped I'd never see you again because the thought of your death on my hands was unfathomable."

  I frowned. "If you never told them then how do they know about me?"

  His eyes hardened when they dropped to the ground. "Three weeks ago I fucked up. I hadn't eaten in a while and I was close to decomposing. I knew it would happen on stage and I didn't care. I was reckless and stupid, but I'm selfish. The adrenaline kicked in after a few songs and I lost it. I exposed the monster to the audience and they freaked." He narrowed his eyes. "It wouldn't have been a big deal if the Undead hadn't been at the show."

  "The Undead?"

  "The original group of zombies," he explained. "They're the hierarchy. They set the standards for the rest of us. They're ancient, which makes them much stronger than the younger ones like us. We have to obey their laws or they track us down and eliminate our existence. There aren't many laws and I managed to break their most important one. To remain secret from the human population, which means no exposure to any human, and I exposed myself to hundreds within seconds."

  "There are hundreds of Undead spread across the world and there are always a few that keep tabs on our band. We walk on a thin line in their books because we're famous and in danger of constant exposure. They hate us and they've been waiting for a reason to come after us. After that show they threatened to kill not only me, but my band members. There's no negotiating with the Undead. Once you're on their list, you're done. I didn't care about my future but I was desperate for them to excuse my brothers."

  "The Undeads sole reason for existence is searching for humans like you. I knew if I told them I about you that they'd let us go as a trade. So I gave up your name and told them I'd find you and bring you to them." His jaw
locked again and he let out one sharp breath. "I told them you lived in Georgia, but that was all I knew. They gave me twenty days to find you and bring you back to them, but" he cleared his throat "I didn't mention that I already knew where you were."

  My eyes snapped to his, the shock contorting my features. My heart raced in my chest as I searched for the words to respond. "What did you say?"

  "I followed you home that night. Two girls dropped you off at your house and then your ex-boyfriend stopped by," he ended the last sentence in a low growl that left me frozen. He heard me fight with Eli. "You never told anyone about me which had me intrigued. I assumed you would tell your friends about your encounter with a famous rock star, but you said nothing. I didn't believe it at first, but it made me want to learn more about you."

  He leaned his head back. His eyes followed the stars above our heads when he continued to speak. "I left that night because I knew I could never know you. I liked being a monster and you would change all of that. You're so perfect and pure. I'm the complete opposite of everything you are and I knew if I got involved I would ruin you while trying to change myself and I couldn't handle that." His eyes fell back to mine and he ran a hand through his tousled hair. "So I went back to my band and focused on what I do best, music and murder."

  I stared at him with wide eyes while his words sank in. He gave me everything, all at once. He didn't hold back the dirty details and he didn't take it slow. My chest was growing heavy and I found breathing difficult. I was confused, angry, flattered, and scared. I wanted to run, but I wanted him to come after me.

  "That night in the graveyard on Halloween," I said as I recalled the memory. "You really did see that man, didn't you?"

  Ben stared at me. "I ripped his head off."

  My jaw dropped. I wasn't ready for that. I tried the words in my mouth, "You killed him."

  He shook his head. "We're dead, Ella. Someone else took his life. I just finished the job and stashed the body before you had the chance to open your eyes."

  "Why?"