Kevin Lucia's Blog, page 19

The Mask, Chapter 13

6.
October 10th, 2019
11:00 AM

As soon as Conroy stepped out of his truck into The Golden Kitty'sempty parking lot, he felt something off. He'd just come from his A. A. meeting in Booneville, feeling the usual peace and determination he always felt after his weekly connection with those who had walked similar paths as he. That peace fled, however, soon as he stepped onto the asphalt, replaced by a crawling sense of malign unease.
Something was wrong. He could feel it in the air. He turned and looked over his shoulder, at the treeline bordering the far edge of the parking lot. He saw nothing in its shadowed depths, yet he felt something lurking in there, regardless. Watching him. Waiting.
The Golden Kittyopened at two. Girls started dancing at one, which meant they started arriving around 12. The club's "manager," Rob Kittering (Lancing's lazy nephew) would show up anywhere from 12 to 2, depending on how bad of hangover he'd been sleeping off from the night before. Which meant it was up to him to get the club open and everything ready, despite it not being in his job description at all.
That suited Conroy just fine. When he'd returned to work after recovering from his accident and getting right with God, he saw that as part of his new mission. Kittering was "the manager" but Conroy was really in charge. It was his responsibility to make sure The Golden Kitty ran like a tight ship, and run like a tight ship it did.
He scanned the treeline once more. Nothing moved there. Even so, he felt sure something was lurking just beyond the trees, in the darkness. He stared for a few more minutes.
Nothing.
He  gave himself  a shake  and turned away, muttering a prayer as he did so. He didn't have time to get the willies. He had to get The Kitty ready to rock  and roll.
*
All Saints Church  11:00 AM
"It's been a rough week. I'm not going to lie, I've been tempted to drink a few times. Especially Monday night. Something happened at work....."
Julie paused and shook her head, trying not to think about those two weirdos - maybe Jody and Jack Riley Jr. -  wearing masks and trying to get into The Golden Kitty. Cassie was right; they'd just been weirdos in masks. That's all. What was there to be freaked out about?
Even so, the unease they'd spawned had clung to Julie all week, especially at The Kitty. Even though they hadn't shown up since, she expected them to, almost every minute of every night, right to the end of her shift. If she was dancing, waitressing, even giving a private dance out back. Every single minute, she expected to see that mask looming above her, its mouth unhinging and spreading wide enough to swallow her whole face...
"Julie? You okay?"
Julie came  back to herself. Sitting in a metal folder chair with others in a circle, in one of All Saints' Sunday School classrooms. Her A. A. meeting, her  weekly lifeline to sanity. She'd needed it more than ever, today. 
She brushed hair out of her eyes and flashed a bright, fake smile at Father Ward, the group's leader. "Sorry. Like I said, it's been a rough week. Anyway, some jerks showed up at work Monday. Didn't do anything because security threw them out. But it spooked me, bad. Don't know why. I've been on edge all week. It's a good thing my sponsor lives right next door...or..." 
She shrugged. "Why knows? Anyway, it doesn't help that booze is pretty available where I work. My sponsor wants to me find another job somewhere else because of that. But I don't know where I can make the same kind of money, so for now..."
She spread her hands, and looked at everyone in the group, offering another fake smile. "Anyway, that's my story for this week. Thanks for listening."
Thank you, Julie, the group murmured. Father Ward himself said, "Thank you for your honesty, as always, Julie. Now." He addressed the group. "Let's start talking about the Trunk'r Treat we'll be holding here at All Saints. I'm going to need some volunteers to..."
Father Ward's voice faded as Julie caught the gaze of a man sitting in the circle across from her. Weathered face, in worn but clean clothes, with shaggy but combed salt-and-paper black hair and bushy but decently kept salt-and-pepper beard. Marty, she thought. She smiled at him and nodded, and he nodded back. 
However, she could see it in his eyes, and the  set of his jaw. While everyone else had bought her sunny smile after daydreaming about those guys in masks, he hadn't at all. He'd seen right through it...and knew, somehow, how terrified she still felt. She wasn't sure if that made her feel better, or worse.
*
She wasn't consciously avoiding Marty, but even so, she cringed inwardly when he approached her as she was helping herself to the donuts and cider Father Ward had provided for this week's meeting. She'd sensed he'd been able to look past her cheery exterior, and seeing as how her shift at The Kitty began in two hours, she didn't want to think about those two in the masks, at all.
With no preamble, he stuck out his hand and said, "Don't think we've ever talked since you started coming. Marty."
She accepted his handshake, and was pleasantly surprised to find it firm and confident, though not aggressive or overbearing, like some men's handshakes were. Despite the group's confidentiality pledge, she'd never shared her employment at The Kitty, for obvious reasons. However, she sensed in Marty's handshake the kind of man who wouldn't treat her any differently if he knew what kind of "work" she  did.
"No, I don't think we have. Julie." She pumped his hand once, squeezing it for good measure before releasing it. As she did, something occurred to her, and she blurted out without thinking, "Hey. Aren't the guy who camps out at Shady Acres in the summer, then bunks down in the old train station during winter?"
She immediately covered her mouth, kicking herself for being so bold. "Omigod. I'm so sorry. That was too personal, wasn't it? I just thought I remembered you talking about that at one of our last meetings."
He smiled, and she saw in his eyes a good-natured humor.  "No, it's fine. I was talking  about it at the last meeting. About how I was getting ready to move up to the train station for the winter."
At the last part, she noticed a shadow pass over his expression, there  one moment and gone the next. As if  he'd just thought about something he'd been trying to keep at bay. Just like her and the weirdos in masks. "It work out okay? You all settled?"
That shadow passed over his face again, and stayed a bit longer as he shook his head. "Uh. No. Doesn't look like I'll be staying there this winter. Will have to find other accommodations."
She saw it then, flickering in his gaze. The same thing he'd probably seen hiding behind her fake smile. Fear. An unreasoning, cloying fear. "Oh. That's too bad. Why?"
He gave her a smile almost as fake as hers had been. "Wild animals," he said vaguely. "Looks like some have moved in. Have to find a new spot."
She nodded, sensing he was telling the truth...but not all of it. "Oh. Sorry to hear that." And then, before she could stop herself, she also blurted out, "If you ever need a couch to sleep on, somewhere warm...I don't mean to sound too forward, but I've got room, and..."
She stammered and trailed off, cheek glowing hot. She sounded like an idiot! Even worse, she sounded like a desperate woman trying to con a man into her bed, which she wasn't doing at all!
All Marty did was smile, however...though she thought his cheeks might've reddened slightly, also. "Thanks for the offer. But I'll manage. I always do."
"Right," she nodded too hard, hard enough to sprain her neck, if she wasn't careful enough. "Right, because you've got that whole free-living, independent thing going on. Right. I get it."
She clammed up, suddenly feeling foolish, or, even worse, stupid. Silence fell between them. Suddenly, there was nothing left to say. Whatever impulse had brought him over had obviously faded, and she certainly didn't want to make any more of an ass of herself than she already had.
He took a cup of cider, and a donut. Nodded at her and said, "See you next week." She nodded back, and she felt relieved (and also a little disappointed) as he turned and walked away.

The Mask, Chapter 12

12.
October 10th, 201910 AM
Conroy Ortega finally got right with God and Jesus four years ago, as he lay recovering from a two car accident in Utica General Hospital. A bouncer who'd been working for The Golden Kitty about five years, five days prior, Conroy had been driving to work in the middle of a rainstorm when the accident happened.
Just twenty-four hours before that, he'd been stink-ass drunk as he'd driven home from The Kitty (a lithe and deviously playful stripper named Candy along for the ride) with the slow, exaggerated care of an experienced alcoholic drunk driver. That night, he'd made it home to his apartment in Booneville without incident, and Candy and he spent the rest of the night "entertaining" each other in varied and wildly diverse ways.
On the night of the accident, twenty-four hours later, Conroy had been - through a stroke of good luck, or, as he came to think of it later, God's Will - sober as a Puritan minister in a Nathanial Hawthorne short story. He'd just been late, was all, having overslept from he and Candy's torrid exertions the night before, and that morning. 
Also, as he sped through the storm, driving too fast on rain-slicked roads, he'd been arguing with Candy about their "relationship." Ironically enough, he wanted something formal and official, he wanted to be her "guy." Candy was more of a "flavor of the month" kind of girl. That month the flavor had been anything vaguely Hispanic; and she was already jonesing  for something new.
He'd never seen the little Escort drift from the off ramp of the Route 28 North overpass, right into his path. Because he didn't like to think about that night, Conroy couldn't remember what had happened in the Escort. Someone was having seizure or something, that much he remembered. In any case, one minute he was calling Candy a "bitch-ass hoe who'd played him," the next minute looking up and jamming the brakes as Candy screamed and the Escort filled his vision. 
He'd T-boned the little car. Despite his seat-belt, the impact jerked him forward, and slammed his forehead against the wheel. Everything went black. When he woke up, he was in Utica General, and according to a stern but compassionate Dr. Fitzgerald, he'd suffered a Grade 3 concussion. Candy had suffered from a dislocated shoulder, from where the seat-belt jerked her at impact.
Miraculously enough, the drive of the Escort - someone named Rachel, he thought - survived the accident with a mild concussion and a sprained wrist.  Her son - an autistic boy - hadn't been so fortunate. He'd somehow been ejected from the vehicle, and died on impact.  
Conroy spent three weeks recovering from his concussion. He suffered persistent headaches and eye aches, periodic memory loss, mild speech lapses, and slippery emotional control.  He would break down into soul-wrenching sobs or rage uncontrollably, at any given moment.
Toward the end of his three weeks at Utica General, his headaches subsided (he still got migraines occasionally, and if he didn't take a tablet Imitrex immediately, it usually knocked him down for the count for several hours), his emotions smoothed out, and he was delivered with the fortunate news that it wasn't believe he'd sustained any lasting or severe brain injury. He was eventually discharged, with certain concussion protocols he had to follow (no television, no reading, plenty of rest and sleep) for a few more weeks.
He was also discharged a changed man with a rejuvenated belief in God and the saving power of his son, Jesus. Raised in a moderately Catholic home, Conroy was familiar with the trappings of faith. But over time he'd drifted. A subtle thing, one thing leading to another, until he felt sure that faith as a sham, and if God did exist, he didn't give a damn about humans.
Over the course of his hospital stay, Father Ward - a childhood friend of Dr. Fitzgerald, who liked to volunteer in the chapel at Utica General - met with him almost daily. He didn't even talk with Conry about God or Jesus or the Bible for almost about a week. He simply got to know Conroy. It was Conroy who finally opened door, by asking Father Ward how he could believe in a God who allowed terrible things to happen.
Four years later, Conroy Ortega no longer  drank or smoked, and he read his Bible every day. He attended Sunday evening mass at All Saints in Clifton Heights, the only the night The Golden Kitty wasn't open. Every Thursday morning, he attended the local A. A. chapter in Boonville. 
But even though he no longer allowed himself to mingle intimately with the girls at The Kitty, he continued to work there. Over his time there, he'd gotten to know all of them - intimate liaisons or not -  as the real people they were. To other Christians, strippers and  those who associated with them were the  lowest of  the low, the dirtiest of  all the sinners. Conroy, however, saw in every single one of them sparks of what made  up the best of humanity. As far he understood the Bible, God's grace was for everyone.
Protective of them even before his new-found faith, Conroy decided to take - very  literally - the advice Father Ward had given him in the hospital after the accident. Bloom where you are planted. For better or worse, he'd been planted at The Golden Kitty.
And in those girls, he'd seen both  the best and worst humanity could offer. Far as he was concerned, faith wasn't supposed to paint everything in black and white. It was supposed to help people better navigate the gray of the world.  
So he stayed at The Kitty. Declared the girls hands-off to him and the other bouncers (woe to the bouncers who didn't listen). Petitioned the owner  (an out of town sleazeball by the name of Peter Lancing) for better changing facilities for the girls, and a higher cut from their tips. And he wouldn't tolerate grabby customers on his watch.
Quite simply, the girls and the other bouncers at The Kitty had become like family. And, contrary to popular media, he didn't believe religion and faith should make everyone in the family the same, or make them pursue their lives the same. It should pull them closer together, because once you decided God wants to love, how can you not then in turn want to love others?
Conroy knew most Christians didn't share his views. Most Christians - even  those he encountered at mass, or at A. A. - seemed more concerned with controlling others lives, telling  and lecturing others how  to live, and putting their efforts behind elected officials who would then try and legislate how others should live.
Conroy wanted no part in that circus. He wanted to keep studying his Bible and growing in his relationship with God, and if the only point in saw in doing that was for him to grow in his love to others. To the best of his ability, he would serve others and wash their feet, just as Jesus did to his disciples.
His only radical move upon his return to faith were his cross tattoos. Almost immediately upon his release from the hospital, he'd gotten two cross tattoos, one on each shoulder. Every week after that, he got another. On each wrist, forearm, and anywhere else he could fit one. At the time he couldn't have said why he needed them, or why he heeded the compulsion to get them. He'd felt driven to have the instrument of Christ's torture and the symbol of his triumph over Death tattooed on him in as many places as possible, and heeded that drive, without question.
Never once did he think that instead of serving as protection, his tattoos might serve as bulls-eyes, instead.

The Mask, Chapter 11

11.
October 11th, 20196:00 AM
They were one. They were one, yet they were growing, spreading, consuming. They were hungry, always hungry, and they always needed to feed, consume, and spread. Take everything into them, make everything them, until nothing remained but them.
They didn't know where they came from. Didn't know what made them, or what they were made for, if they were made for anything, or made by anything, or if they'd just began. Long ago, they'd woken from sleep, hungry. They fed, and spread and made more, until something made them sleep again.
Sleep in darkness.
Wake and feed.
Go back into the darkness and sleep, until it was time to wake and feed. They were  awake, now. They would feed, spread, and become more, until something made them go back to sleep. Only...
This place was...different. They didn't know where they'd come from or been, but in the places they'd been before, something always made them go back into the dark and sleep, eventually. 
Here, however...felt different. It felt strange here. Darker here than other places. They thought it might be a very long time before anything made them go back into the dark and sleep. In fact, maybe...maybe they could keep feeding, and keep spreading here, wherever  this was, and never have to go back into the dark and sleep, ever again.
But part of them had been hurt by the thing which had always hurt them before. They didn't know what it was or what it represented, they only recognized the burning agony when it touched them. Whatever it meant, it was not them, was opposite them. Always, wherever they'd been before, the thing that hurt them eventually helped drive them back into the darkness, until they slept once more.
Twice they'd been hurt by it, here. They knew by instinct, by seething fluid images which weren't memories but thousands of sensations and feelings which pulsed and swirled through them all, that while they couldn't touch what hurt them, they could touch and hurt that which bore what hurt them. They could find the bearers of what hurt them, while they couldn't feed on the bearers or make the bearers part of them, they could end them.
They seethed and pulsed and flowed together, without number, without end. In this place they'd found away from the other things, they joined with each other, melting into each other, becoming one with another, pulsing, throbbing, being. Soon it would be time to feed, and they would separate and go out and feed, so they could return to this place they'd found, and become one.
They had much to feed on. Things which lived, and things which did not. It preferred things which lived,  but could still feed on things that did not. 
However, they wouldn't just feed. While some of them went out and fed, others would find the things which bore that which hurt them, and would end them. After they hurt them.
They didn't feel happiness, delight, or joy. They felt hunger, satiation, and the burning agony when they touched the thing which hurt them. But what pulsed through them now, as they thought about feeding, and thought ending the bearers of what hurt them, was the closest they came happiness, delight, and joy.
They would feed.
They would end those who hurt them.
But for now.
They were one.

The Mask, Chapter 10

10.
October 9th, 20194:00 PM
Sheriff Baker sat at his desk and stared at the yellow notepad before him. Since October 4th - five days ago - he'd filled it with more notes, but none of them made any sense, or connected together in any meaningful sort of way. Even  so, he read the ones he'd made since Sunday once more.
There had been two more incidents at Hillside Cemetery like the one Jud had shown him Sunday afternoon. Corpses disinterred, and - as best as they could tell - the remains devoured by something (they still didn't want to admit the human-like teeth marks found on all the bones). 
Jud was getting hot in his britches, demanding Baker post guards at his cemetery, because if not, he'd sit up with a shotgun and take care of matters himself. Somehow, he'd been able to talk Jud  down with promises of a watch as soon as he could get Mr. Phillips and the Town Board to approve overtime pay.
The second notation was his most recent visit to the Riley farm, Monday afternoon. This time, he found no one. In addition to Joan and Jasper, Jody and Jack Jr. weren't around, either. Neither was the truck they'd been working on. 
The whole family's absence complicated matters. He'd been about to call both county and state police and officially list Jasper Riley as a missing minor. But now, with the whole family gone - vehicles gone, also - he knew neither the staties nor the county boys would go for it. They'd point out the whole family being gone, suggesting they were on a trip, or maybe even running out on their various debts.
This morning, he'd finally tried calling Margaret Seaver's only living relative, Connie Williams. No answer at her home phone, and her cellphone went straight to voicemail. Until he heard back from Ms. Williams, that was now a dead end, also.
Baker slapped the notepad and exhaled noisily. His head hurt, and he was tired. He was about to call it a night when his smartphone rang. He picked it up, saw it was the forensics department from Utica PD, and answered it right away. "Hey, Jeff," he said by way of greeting. "What do you have for me?"
Clifton Heights didn't have forensics equipment or forensics personal of their own. The Town Board had claimed for years they were looking into expanding the police department's budget to meet that need, but it hadn't happened yet, and Sheriff Baker wasn't holding his breath. 
Until then, they'd worked out an agreement with Utica PD to send crime samples to their forensics lab. Given the strangeness of Clifton Height's cases, Jeff Anderson and Baker had gotten to know each other very well, if only via telephone and email.
"What I've got for you is an enigma, my friend. This is one of your weird cases, isn't?"
"Yep," Baker replied glumly, "starting to look that way." "Well, I'm afraid it's not going to get any less weird. You were right - in a way - in thinking that lump of stuff you found was hardened rubber. But our tests didn't find any synthetic chemicals or compounds. What we found was a base of polymers made  up of the organic compound isoprene and several forms of polyisoprene, most abundantly, elastomers."
Sheriff Baker frowned. "English, Jeff. You know me. Barely passed my science classes at community college." "What I'm saying is this: yeah. it's rubber. Of a kind. But not MAN made rubber. This is organic, Chris."
"Wait. Organic. You mean like...alive? Like from something occurring in nature?"
"Depends on your definition of 'alive,' but yeah. And this stuff, Chris? I have no idea how the hell it got to Clifton Heights. Because this stuff comes from across the world. Like Thailand across the world, my friend."
Sheriff Baker clucked his tongue with his teeth. "Well," he said, "shit."

The Mask, Chapter 9

9.October 9th, 20193:00 PM

Connie Beth Williams (only sibling to Margaret Ann Seaver, formerly Margaret Ann Williams) hated Clifton Heights almost more than any other place in the world. And here she was, back here, driving down Trace Avenue toward her sister's house. It was the last place she wanted to be; yet it was a place she had to be, right now.

Margaret hadn't called Saturday night, which she'd been doing every Saturday since Stephen died. Connie had called Margaret multiple times since, with no answer. Last night, she decided to drive back to her accursed hometown, and find out what the hell was going on. Margaret hadn't ever missed her Saturday call, and even if some bizarre circumstance had caused her to miss it, she always returned her calls. Always.
Something was wrong.
Connie and Margaret were the only children of John and Hester Williams, both long passed on in a retirement community down in Florida. Connie had never seen fit to marry (she'd dated several nice men she'd liked over the years, none of them, however, worthy of giving up her independence). 

Margaret had found Stephen's extended family amicable in a distant sort of way, and - as she'd always predicted to Connie - after Stephen's death, after the heartfelt condolences and pies and covered-dish meals, the Seaver clan simply didn't have much to do with her anymore. Hence the Saturday night calls. They were all either had left.
Connie cursed Clifton Heights as she drove down Trace Road. Far as she was concerned, anyone with an ounce of common sense got the hell out this town as soon as possible. Soon as she'd graduated high school, Connie left for college in Utica, four years later graduate school in Philadelphia, and then afterward, settled in Pittsburg. Soon as her parents retired, they moved South. First to Tennessee, then eventually to Florida.
Margaret, however, attended two years at Webb Community College, living at home those two years. She finished out her Education Degree at Utica College...but still lived in Clifton Heights, commuting back and forth. She landed a job almost immediately at Clifton Heights Junior High. As soon as she did that, she said "Yes" to Stephen's marriage proposal. She completed her Masters Degree online, and settled into life as a seventh grade science teacher at Clifton Heights Junior High, with her construction-working husband.
And, even worse...she'd seemed happy here. Content. She and Stephen never ended up having kids, and because of that, Connie was always after Margaret to move down near her. Whenever she heard of openings in the Pittsburgh school districts, she always emailed the details to Margaret.

Margaret, of course, would thank Connie and promise to look over them over. After awhile, however, Connie understood that as reflex reaction, nothing more. Though she couldn't fathom anyone enjoying life in the weird little town of Clifton Heights, it seemed that Margaret liked it just fine.
Though she'd regarded Stephen well enough because he'd taken care of Margaret and Margaret had loved  him, Connie felt a perverse kind of joy in the wake of Stephen's unexpected passing. At last, perhaps she could convince her sister to move. Before Margaret became just another Clifton Height "statistic." Another citizen who'd "left town suddenly" without telling anyone. Or "died mysteriously," or any of the other ambiguous endings which befell so many townspeople.
No such luck. Margaret said, like always, she'd give the matter some thought. In the end, it never went past that. And the odd thing was, though Connie could recall very clearly all the strange events which had occurred during their childhood, Margaret's remembrance proved hazy at best. It was like, soon as Connie moved away, the blinders fell off and she could see Clifton Heights clearly for what it was: the Adirondack's equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle. But because Margaret still lived there, it seemed like it always had: a nice enough town, filled with nice people.  
And now it seemed very likely that Margaret had become that "nice enough" town's next victim.
As she finally pulled up to 456 Trace Road, the ranch home Margaret and Stephen had lived in their entire marriage, Connie's heart sped up. Despite the lawn looking a bit overgrown, everything seemed very normal. Except the curtains were drawn, and Margaret's car wasn't there.
She pulled into the driveway, parked her car and shut it off. She thought for a moment about calling the local police, but instantly dismissed the idea. Margaret had given her a key at Stephen's funeral, so she didn't need anyone to let her in.

And besides, even though slow and dull Sheriff Beckmore couldn't still be in office, any man foolish enough to work as sheriff in this  town wasn't someone she could rely on. She would wait to see what she found inside, and then, if she had to...call the county or state police. Someone who knew what the hell they were doing.
Fearing the worst, Margaret got out of the car.
*
Her fears seemed confirmed the instant the front door swung closed behind her. The air tasted stale. As if no one had lived there for days, the windows closed the entire time. Everything seemed in place, however, except for at the kitchen table, where she found of a pile of graded essays, next to an empty tumbler and a half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker.
Her worry deepened. Not at the Johnny Walker, but at the essays left on the table. Margaret was nothing if not a meticulous, organized educator. She'd never leave students' papers in such disarray. 
She felt a powerful urge to leave the house and dial 911 immediately. Went so far as to pull out her smartphone, but she went no further.
Connie moved slowly down the hallway leading to the bathroom, Margaret's bedroom, and the guest room. Something smelled bad that way. Got worse the farther she got. Something rotten, certainly. Something...dead.
She stopped before the bathroom door, which was open a crack. She sniffed experimentally, jerked back and gagged as her stomach curdled. In there. Something dead and rotting, in the bathroom.
Stop now, a voice clamored in her head. Call the police, even  the local police, it doesn't matter! Right no one knows you're here, and if something happens... 

And yet, she didn't call. Instead, she placed her hand flat against the bathroom door and, bracing herself and holding her breath, pushed it open. She stepped inside, turned slightly right, saw what lay in the bathroom sink, rotting....

She stared. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sounds came out past tiny squeaks. Her throat clenched, and she couldn't breath. Her hands started shaking, and her phone fell from nerveless fingers. She knew she had to bend over and pick it up, call the police, right now, but she couldn't. The shaking had spread from her hands, up through her arms, and into her whole body. It took every scrap of willpower to keep herself standing, and to keep from screaming.
What lay in the bathroom sink defied description...at least, that's what her conscious mind clamored. It looked like ground meat, like hamburger...but the flesh was the wrong hue. That, and though she wasn't sure, what lay clumped in the sink looked...regurgitated. Thrown up. And the clumps of hair, which looked like they were striped white and orange...
Bile burned the back of her throat. She covered her mouth with a fluttering hand and moaned. She didn't want to recognize the pulped and regurgitated mass in the bathroom sink, but she knew...she knew...

One of the cats.

Tufty.

The bathroom door creaked all the way open.

Connie spun, and finally shrieked when she saw what was standing in the doorway. The stout body - wearing a dress which was now ripped and torn, and soiled - was Margaret's. She knew, because they shared the same body type. But the face...

Connie gazed in horror at the rubber mask (which  didn't look like rubber at all, more like diseased flesh) her sister was wearing. Wild stringy black hair, bulging eyes, and a wide, gaping black mouth. 

It was a mask. A horrible, terrible mask, and she didn't know why Margaret would be wearing it, except when she looked down that wide black mouth it didn't look like a mask, because she thought she saw an oily, slick tongue wriggling back there...

"M...margaret. Margaret? What...what the hell..."

The thing she called Margaret tipped its head. Regarded her for a moment. And then sprang forward with a quickness and agility Connie couldn't believe Margaret possessed.

Margaret's right hand darted out, closed around Connie's neck, and slammed her back into the wall hard enough to shake several pictures off their hooks, sending them crashing to the floor.

Connie clawed frantically at Margaret's grip, digging her nails in and raking them across flesh, but it didn't feel like flesh, exactly. It felt like she was digging into rubber-like substance which didn't tear, but gave, and then sprung right back.  
She wasn't thinking about that anymore, however, as Margaret plunged other hand, fisted, into Connie's gut, tearing past muscle  and flesh, cracking against her rib-cage.

Agony worse than anything she'd ever felt exploded from her guts. She tried to scream, but Margaret's hand on her neck squeezed  tighter, causing something in there to snap and crackle.
Margaret's other hand dug around Connie's wet insides. Grabbed hold of something, and yanked. Had Margaret not been crushing her trachea, Connie would've vomited blood and viscera everywhere. As it was, thick fluids clogged her throat and flooded her nasal passages. She felt the blood leaking out her nostrils, down over her lip...

Everything dimmed, the light fading with, (blessedly), the pain. But before she went away completely, she saw the thing dressed like Margaret but wearing a hideous mask...

not a mask

...hold up a handful of long, glistening, shiny ropes of flesh, which had been pulled from her guts... 

intestines

my intestines

...and stuff them, in a wad, down the yawning black gullet of what couldn't be a mask, because it was chewing and swallowing as Connie's lights winked out for good.   

Chapter 10

The Mask, Chapter 8

8.
October 8th, 201911:00 AM

"Julie. Julie? Hey, Jules! Wake, up girl! It's time for your Tuesday accountability check. C'mon, sleepyhead. Let's go."
Julie Lomax opened her eyes. Everything looked blurry and smeared. For a moment, she didn't know where she was. The ceiling didn't look like her bedroom's, even though it did look familiar, somehow. She closed her eyes, rubbed her face, and mumbled behind her hand, "Gimmaminute."
She rubbed her face hard, one more time, and opened her eyes again. This time, she recognized a series of blotchy water stains in the far right corner of the ceiling. In the living room. She'd fallen asleep on the futon in her trailer's living room.
For a brief moment, cold panic gripped Julie's heart. She didn't remember falling asleep on the futon. She'd been tired; it'd been a rough night at work, especially because those weirdos who had showed up, but even so. She remembered sitting down with a Sprite, intending to unwind before bed...
Nothing.
"Jules?" The voice sounded concerned. "You okay?"
For another breathless second, she didn't answer. The trailer was dry. It had been dry for almost a year now. She came straight home from work, hadn't stopped at the Mobilmart on Haverton; she knew she hadn't. And yet, when she glanced fearfully at the small and dinged coffee table before the futon, she fully expected to see a glass of moonshine, a bottle of vodka or whiskey, or even several beers...
Nothing except the Sprite can. 
"C'mon, kiddo." The locked door to her trailer rattled. "You're freaking me out a little."
Julie reached out a trembling hand. Picked up the Sprite, and, terror clutching her heart, brought the can's mouth to her nose. She sniffed, certain she'd catch the sweet whiff of schnaps, or the stinging scent of whiskey or moonshine...
Nothing but Sprite.
"Julie!"
"Yeah," she called as she rose off the futon on slightly shaking legs, her voice cracking with relief. "Yeah, hold on. I'm fine, Cassie. I'm fine."
Of course, maybe she should've said sober instead. She certainly was sober. Fine, however? She wasn't sure about that, at all. She hadn't been fine for awhile. She wasn't sure when she would be fine, if ever. And after last night's strangeness, fine seemed a long way off. For now, sober would have to do.
*
"I swear to God, Cass. I really truly believed I'd fallen off the wagon, for a minute. Totally expected to see bottles of booze on the coffee table."

They both sat in Adirondack chairs on the small porch attached to Julie's trailer. Cassie was dressed in jeans and a red and black-checkered flannel shirt over a white t-shirt. Julie in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt. Mugs of  coffee steamed in their hands. 

It was noon, but because they both worked the evening shift last night - Cassie at the Webb County Assisted Living Center, and she at The Golden Kitty - it was their mid-morning. At least she was off until The Kitty opened up again tonight. Cassie had the 2-10 shift at The Skylark Diner tonight, then had an overnight shift at the Living Center, then worked at Arcane Delights, the used bookstore on Main Street, from 11 - 5 tomorrow. How Cassie did it, Julie had no idea.

Julie sipped from her coffee and swallowed. "Really, Cass. For a second there, I thought I'd gone on a bender last night without even knowing it."

Cassie offered a small, knowing smile. "It happens. You're only a little over a year in your recovery. I think sometimes the fear of slipping felt worse than actually slipping itself."

"You slipped when you got sober?"

Cassie nodded, her smile fading slightly. "A few times. Nothing major, thankfully. But falling off the wagon always hurts, no matter what. Nothing to do but get back on again."

Julie nodded, but she didn't like the idea of Cassie Tillman slipping during her recovery. If someone like Cassie struggled getting sober, she didn't hold out much hope for herself.

Until a year ago, she and Cassie had only been casual friends. They'd attended Clifton Heights High together, shared a few mutual  friends, saw each out on the town occasionally, and that was all. Julie wasn't sure when she first realized Cassie and she both lived in the Commons Trailer Park, but they would see each other coming and going, say hello, and that was it.

A year ago, Julie tossed back one too many shots of whiskey and moonshine at a "private party" she'd been dancing for. The rest of the night ended in an indistinguishable blur. She had no idea what happened. No idea what she'd done, who she'd done it with, or even worse, how many she'd done it with. The next day she found herself face down in her own vomit on the ground outside her trailer.

She didn't remember much of what happened next. Someone had apparently called Cassie (why Cassie and not 911, Julie had never figured out), and Cassie had gotten Julie cleaned up, inside, and somehow managed - despite her three different jobs - to take care of her for the next two weeks. She took her to Dr. Fitzgerald at Utica General, got her checked into the detox unit, and when she was released, got her hooked up with an AA group which met at All Saints every Thursday.

Cassie had never shared much about her own personal battle with alcohol. Just that she'd walked the same road, and knew what Julie was going through, and what she had to face, and pledged to walk through it with her. Julie didn't care that Cassie had been a little secretive about her own struggles. Far as she was concerned, if it hadn't been for Cassie, Julie probably would've drank herself to death by now.
"So," Cassie said with no preamble, "how was last night? What did you have to drink?"

Julie sipped her coffee and swallowed again. "Water and Gatorade. That's all."

Cassie sipped her own coffee, swallowed, then said, "Did you want to drink last night?"

Julie nodded freely, because that kind of bald honesty was the only thing which had kept her sober so far. "Hell yes. Bad. Worse than usual. Probably why I crashed so hard when I came home last night. I never thought wanting to drink so bad and saying no to myself over and over could be so...exhausting."

Cassie tipped her head. "It is. It's a mental and spiritual exhaustion which eats away at your resources. I know this is a touchy subject...but that's why you really need to consider different employment. Staying sober doesn't happen through white-knuckling in the face of temptation on a daily basis. It happens through intentional choices to maintain healthy boundaries."

Julie sighed. "You're right. I know. It's just..." she waved at the rows of trailers lined up in their regimented plots, waved at their tiny patches of grass, poor excuses for lawns. "You know, all the time I danced at The Kitty, I never once saved the money I made. I've been doing that for a year, and I've almost got enough money to buy a small house."

She looked at Cassie. "I dropped out of high school. Have no job skills. I'm twenty-seven. I know staying at The Kitty puts my sobriety at risk, especially because that creep who owns the place, Lancing, would rather see me drunk all the time and open to 'freebies' for him and his buddies. But where else can I make this kind of money?"

Cassie tipped her head, as if deciding to table the discussion for a later date. "Why were you triggered last night? What set you off?"

Julie shivered at the memory and cupped the coffee mug closer to her body, as if she could draw warmth from it. "These...these two guys came to the club last night. Actually...I think it might have been Jody and Jack Riley Jr. They both have matching skull rings, and I thought I recognized those on their fingers."

Cassie frowned. "What did they do?"

"That's the thing. Nothing. They just stood in the foyer at the front desk where you pay cover. Stood there, staring, their arms hanging all weird. Like they were puppets, and their strings had been cut, or something. Anyway, that wasn't the worst part."

"What was?"

Julie clutched her mug even tighter. "They were wearing these masks. These weird masks with stringy black hair, big bulging eyes, and huge, gaping mouths." She shivered again at the memory. "God. It looked like they could bite a person's face off, those mouths."

"That's all they did was stand there? That's it?"

Julie shook her head. "You don't understand, Cass. You couldn't see their eyes, or their real mouths...but it was like, you knew they were staring at you, and knew their real mouths were open and drooling behind their masks."

"How'd they get in?"

"They didn't, not really. They came through the open door and stood there, staring, and I think Lydia - it was her night to collect cover - was so spooked she couldn't do or say anything. And the weird thing is...if she had gotten into the club, I think maybe no one would've stopped them. Everyoe would've let them walk right by, they would've been so freaked."

Cassie grunted. "What stopped them?"

Julie took another sip of her coffee, found it had cooled and grimaced at the taste, and set it into her lap."Thank God Conroy was working last night."

Cassie smiled a little enviously.  "Isn't he the big biker with crosses tattooed all over him?"

"Yep. A cross on each shoulder, on his forearms, on the back of his hands, on the inside of each wrist, and I think one on his chest and his back. Not to mention the big gold cross necklace he wears around his neck."

"I love it that your lead bouncer is a 'born again Christian there looking after the girls' spiritual welfare.'"

"Honestly? He doesn't drink, he's the perfect gentleman, he won't let the other bouncers touch us, he never touches us, and he's the first one to toss a rowdy customer. And I mean literally toss. That's the kind of Christian I can get behind."

Cassie glanced at Julie coyly over the top of her mug, eyes glittering. "Or on top of."

Julie slapped Cassie's knee playfully. "Stop."

"So what happened?"
 
Julie shrugged. "It was weird. Soon as they saw Conroy coming toward them, they turned and just about ran out the door. It wasn't just that they were afraid of Conroy - I mean, his biceps are as big as my head, so I get it - it was almost like...like they didn't want him to touch them. Like he had something they didn't want to catch? I dunno. It was weird."

"And that bothered you all night? How long were they there? Sounds like only ten to fifteen minutes."

Julie shook her head. "Yeah, but that stayed with me all night long. All I could think of for the rest of the night was how they looked at me and the other girls. Like...like..."

Julie drew her knees up to her chest, feeling colder than ever as she remembered those bulging eyes, and wide, gaping mouths. "Like they were hungry," she whispered. "Like they were hungry, and we were what they wanted to eat."

The Mask, Chapter 7

7.
October 7th, 201910 AM
Up until 1981, the Adirondack Railway served fifteen towns in Adirondack Park. Clifton Heights was one of them. Started in 1887, the railway stretched from Remsen to Utica. It transported everything from freight, to livestock and, starting in 1950, passengers. 
In 1981, most of the railway was shut down as changes in state and local infrastructure found them being used less and less. Budgets became strained, and upkeep too expensive. The tracks laid dormant until 1992, when the Adirondack Railroad Society petitioned New York State and Adirondack Park to restore sections of track running from Thendera to Minnehaha. The motion was approved and the tracks restored, becoming a tourist experience known as the Adirondack Scenic Railway, offering scenic train rides.
Clifton Heights, about forty-five minutes from Thendera, was originally named as a stop on the scenic railroad's tour, and renovations began on its decommissioned depot - Webb Station - on the southern end of town. At the time, the Clifton Heights Town Board believed the scenic railway would bring more tourists and therefore more business to town. 
Unfortunately, for one reason or another (as often happens in Clifton Heights) renovations of the depot continually stalled. The projected timeline had to be adjusted when, upon start of renovations, it was discovered that rot and water damage was systemic and far worse than originally estimated.  
Also, the renovation crew struggled through regular equipment malfunctions, accidents, and mishaps. Stories began to circulate that workers didn't like the depot for reasons they couldn't identify. Many would quit with little notice, or they simply never returned. Wilder stories claimed contractors and electricians thought they heard voices when working there alone.
For two years, the Adirondack Scenic Railroad ran around Clifton Heights as work on the depot floundered. Eventually, in 1994, the ASR decided to shorten their tour and bypass Clifton Heights until the town could finish renovations on Webb Station. That decision served  as an anticlimactic death knell to the depot's restoration, and the project was scrapped not long after. Nineteen years later, it became the winter home of town vagrant, Marty Haskel.
Marty's story was neither tragic nor uncommon. A football star for Webb County High (one of the best outside linebackers ever to play in Section 3), Marty didn't think much of classes, homework, or the value of formal education in general. Pursing a college football career was never a consideration. When he turned eighteen and realized he'd never pass enough classes to graduate, he quit school and started looking for a job.
The first one he landed, he stayed at for twenty years. Lineman at the Clifton Heights lumber mill. Marty had been drinking since he was old enough to occasionally nick one of his Dad's beers without the old man noticing, but it wasn't a problem, not at first. Gradually, however, it consumed him from the inside out.
No sad or tragic event turned was the cause. For whatever reasons (perhaps not even known by Marty himself) the linesman keep drinking a little more and a little harder every year. To quote a phrase used often by Clifton Heights old timers, "Marty usta to hold the bottle, now the bottle holds Marty."
No horrific accident caused by on-the-job intoxication led to Marty's firing. His boss, Sheldon Temple, simply wearied of him coming into work late on Monday mornings with a hangover, or not coming in on Mondays at all. When he did fire Marty, he did so through an apologetic phone call, one which Marty received amicably, understanding Sheldon's reasons perfectly. 
And of course, the events which led him to living in Webb Station fell with the mundane predictability of dominoes. Over the following year, Marty landed and lost three jobs in a row. Working garbage disposal, on the Webb County road crew, and finally, a can and bottle sorter at The Can Man, the bottle and redemption center outside town. Bills went unpaid. Pick-up truck repossessed. Finally came eviction from his apartment above Chin's Pizza and Wings on Main Street came last, after not paying rent four months straight.  
He'd started bedding down in the old Webb Station after his eviction. In an ironic turn, his father had been one of the contractors who'd worked on the station's ill-fated and doomed renovation. He'd never believed the stories of voices and that the renovation had been cursed; had told his son repeatedly they were stories made up by union joes who just wanted to get paid more.
In his time living in old Webb Station, Marty had never heard  any voices, or anything outside of the ordinary. All he cared about was the shelter it offered from weather, in which case, it suited him just fine.
Somewhere along the line, Marty sobered up and stopped drinking entirely. No one knew how, or could pinpoint exactly when it happened. Regulars at The Stumble Inn simply saw less and less of him, until eventually, they realized with a start they hadn't seen him drunk and leaning against the bar in months. Word spread gradually, and when people noticed Marty about the town, they noticed his generally cleaner and sober appearance.
However, for reasons of his own, Marty never chose to find another steady job. During the summer and spring, he managed almost daily employment bailing hay with three different farmers. Every Saturday, he cleared brush and deadfall around the Commons Trailer Park, out on Bassler Road. 
When the carnival came every year, for a week, Marty cleaned the grounds before and after opening. During the winter, he shoveled the front walks of several older Clifton Heights residents. Handy with small engines, he fixed lawnmowers, tractors, and other small engine vehicles for a decent fee. Local small engine mechanic and retired Methodist minister, Jeb Hawkins, let Marty use his garage on Loughlin Road for his jobs.
Thus, Marty earned enough money to buy a decent pup tent, a sleeping bag, and several changes of seasonally appropriate clothing. Once a month, he brought his clothes to the laundromat on Main Street. He even opened a savings account at Clifton Heights Federal Credit Union, though sympathetic overlooking of the bank's "occupancy" requirements by a considerate clerk was needed. A kind word from Sheriff Baker greased the wheels considerably in that regard.
He fished and hunted by bow and arrow...though only in season, and every year he even bought a proper hunting and fishing license. Saturday nights he splurged and bought dinner at The Skylark, and his funds allowed for a moderate biweekly grocery budget.
Marty never again bothered to pay for lodging. No one knew or understood why. During the warmer months, he camped in the farthest plot at Shady Acres campground by Clifton Lake, in exchange for clearing camping plots of debris.
When the weather started to cool and move toward winter, he pulled up stakes and camped out in Webb Station. Sheriff Baker knew all this, and technically, if he wanted to, could've booked Marty for vagrancy and forced him to clear out. Instead, he simply checked in on him over the course of winter, and one year let him have a Coleman propane lantern and stove which he didn't use anymore.
Today, Marty was making his first trip to the depot to set up for the winter. Shady Acres was closing down for the year, and the nights had taken on a chill. He'd packed all of his belongings - including his tightly rolled pup tent and sleeping bag - into an oversized hiking backpack with a rig to carry the sleeping bag and tent, and hiked his way to the depot. Cars and trucks honked as they passed, and he offered them all his usual spare nod. 
He first heard the strange sounds as he was about to enter what had been the ticket waiting area. It was a soft, sucking sound. A liquid squelching sound. Like someone trying to pull a boot out of muck. He paused, the sounds turning his stomach, and sending an instinctual shiver through him. Whatever was making that sound was something wrong. He knew this deep inside. Something not right, something unnatural.
It had never before occurred to him that, during the warm months when he camped at Shady Acres, something might move into his winter home and displace him. That realization hit him forcefully as he stood just outside the doorway to the ticket area. Something had indeed moved in, and this was no longer a place he could stay. Just standing there, as those wet puckering sounds filled his ears, he felt the change in the air. This place was no longer his. It belonged to something else.
Deep conflict waged inside Marty as he stood there listening to something ooze, smack, and suck. To survive as he did required mettle and resolve. To have endured alcohol withdrawal here in the dead of winter and all alone that first year necessitated bravery and fortitude. To say sober had required resilience. 
In many ways, he'd decided not to find regular housing after getting sober merely because he'd become proud the resilience he'd developed. He was afraid that comfort and ease (even if it was just the comfort and ease of a roof over his head) might inevitably lead him back to the bottle.
He didn't back away from things easily.
And yet, Marty had lived in the rough for the past six years, and not only that...he had lived in the rough of Clifton Heights, of all places. He, perhaps even more than Sheriff Baker, understood the strangeness of his town, having many times had to endure it alone. He'd done that, however, and was still here, simply because he'd learned discretion and wisdom. In some cases - especially in Clifton Heights - avoiding unnecessary precariousness was an essential survival skill.
So he resolved his conflict quickly. He backed away from those awful sounds (which he couldn't help thinking sounded like a blasphemous infant nursing at the breast of something monstrous, or some shapeless creature consuming gelatinous muck, or something toothless gumming and sucking on dissolving flesh), and carefully made his way out of the depot, into the woods. 
He would find somewhere new to spend the winter. Even if he came back later and the depot proved to be empty, he could feel the taint in the air and would never be able to shake it, and he'd never be able to stop hearing those terrible sounds in that building. Whatever lived there now had turned the depot into Its place, no longer fit for him...or anything else, for that matter.

The Mask, Chapter 6

6.
October 6th, 201911:00 AM
Sheriff Baker sat in his JEEP, which was idling on the side of the road, out front of Hillside Cemetery. It was a little colder than normal, so he had the heat on, but even though it felt warm in the car, he couldn't seem to shake a chill deep inside.
It was because of the weirdos in masks.
Whatever he'd been expecting to get out of Scott Carter yesterday morning, (he'd been directed to Scott when the evening custodian at Clifton Heights High, a Tom Barton, told Baker he'd seen Scott and Jasper leave school that Thursday), that hadn't been it. He'd expected Scott to say they'd gotten into some sort of disagreement and split up, or that Scott would be evasive about the matter. It was somewhat refreshing to hear someone speak so bluntly for a change, but Scott was new to Clifton Heights. The town's casually evasive manner towards its strangeness obviously hadn't yet rubbed off on him, yet.
He also hadn't been expecting (though he didn't know why he was surprised, after all this time) that the people Scott had seen would vaguely match the descriptions of Lester McDonough and Margaret Seaver. Scott had been far away so he wasn't sure, but when Baker had related the descriptions of both the missing people, he'd seen the the light of recognition in Scott's eyes. Though he lacked any real proof, (as usual), Baker felt sure that on Thursday afternoon, Scott Carter and Jasper Riley had seen the missing Lester McDonough and Margaret Seaver, standing on the other side of Black Creek Bridge, both wearing identical, weird rubber masks.
Scott hadn't been able to tell him much else. Only that, spooked by the two strangers wearing masks, they'd split up. Jasper went home the back way to hopefully avoid the "weirdos," and Scott visited Handy's Pawn and Thrift to wait them out...although Scott said that, right after Jasper left, he turned to look for the two strangers, only to find them gone.

Baker had felt a particular chill cling to him since, because it seemed dreadfully clear what happened to Jasper Riley. The problem, of course, was the same as always: lack of any real evidence. 

After talking to Scott, Baker had gone to Black Creek Bridge, and then walked up Kovac Road to the bike bridge over Black Creek. He'd found precious little. Nothing on Black Creek Bridge. The only thing which looked mildly suspicious on Kovac Road was a small blob of rubber. It looked like it had melted, then hardened again. Thinking of the masks, he'd put gloves on and scraped it into an evidence bag, not holding out any real hope of its potential importance.
He'd then returned to what remained of the Riley farm. It hadn't been the picture of health when Jack Riley had been around, but after he'd disappeared (Baker was one of the very few who suspected the boozing and cheating handyman hadn't run away but had instead become another Clifton Heights causality), it had fallen into complete disrepair. The only thing living in the barns these days were rats and stray cats. The house looked like it was barely standing.
Of course this time, unlike Friday afternoon when Baker made his initial visit, Joan was nowhere to be found. Two of her elder sons, Jack Jr. and Jody, had been working on the engine of an old 72 Chevy pickup when Baker stopped by. They were ignorant of their mother's whereabouts, and blithely unconcerned, also. 
Baker knew why, as most folks around Clifton Heights did. Since Jack ran off/disappeared, Joan had taken to spending frequent nights up in the hills, trading favors for moonshine and venison. When he'd asked them if they'd seen their mother recently, or if they knew where she was, both Jack Jr. and Jody had shrugged and shook their heads. Jody offered a noncommittal grunt, and Jack Jr. had mumbled through lip jammed with chewing tobacco, "Hell if I know."
Baker spent the rest of the day driving aimlessly around Clifton Heights, looking for anything strange or out of place, though he had no idea what he was looking for. Something he'd gotten very used to working and living here, which spoke volumes. 
With Meg attending college down in Binghamton, New York (he took a vague sense of relief in her being away from Clifton Heights), he ate dinner at The Skylark Diner. Because Father Ward and Gavin Patchett were both out of town, it proved to be a quick affair, and then he was back on the road. 
He again visited both Lester McDonough and Margaret Seaver's homes. Based on the build-up in their mailboxes, they still hadn't returned home. He walked around both homes, checked their backyards, jiggled the front and back doorknobs, to no avail. Frustrated, he returned to his JEEP, checked in with the station (Deputy Shackleford was on call), and then went home to a thin sleep shot through with confused dreams about people lurking in the shadows, wearing odd rubber masks.
Baker zipped his coat up, grabbed his hat off the seat next to him, and shut the engine off. Reluctantly (preferring to be at Sunday morning mass instead of here, and that was saying something), he got out and headed for the entrance of Hillside Cemetery, where caretaker Jud Collins waited for him impatiently.
If he could ID McDonough or Seaver himself, witness them wearing masks and behaving in the eerily threatening way the Carter kid had described, that would give him cause to force his entry into either home. As it stood, however, he had no idea where either of them were, and had no cause to break into their homes.
And now here was this. Jud Collins had called him on his personal cell as he was dressing to attend mass at All Saints. Something about vandalism at Hillside Cemetery, and that it was urgent he come. Baker had tried to point out to Collins that he was off duty. Freddy Potter was on call; surely he could handle some graveyard vandalism. He had several times before.
But Collins persisted. It had be Baker, and no one else. He tried not feel annoyed at Jud. The retired engineer had, for the most part, done a very capable job after long time cemetery caretaker Whitey Smith left town without telling anyone (different year, same song) shortly after his wife died.
Even so, as he drew near the short, wiry man (who seemed to practically vibrate with impatience), he couldn't help but feel he'd much rather have dealt with the calm, ever-steady Whitey.
"All right, Jud. I'm here instead of at church, on my day off, no less. Who painted their initials on gravestones this time?"
Jud Collins shook his head, bouncing on his toes. So far as Baker knew, Collins had always been an engineer, spending most his adult life working behind a desk. Despite that, the man possessed a powerful vitality and force of will which he expressed in emotion and body. The way he bounced on his toes, shoulders always squared, chin thrust out, eyes defiant, made him look like a bantam-weight boxer willing to take on all comers, even those twice his size.
"No way, Sheriff. Uh-huh. This is ain't no piddly shit like that. You know I wouldn't call you at home to handle something like graffiti."
Baker came to a stop before Collins and rubbed his hands to keep them warm. He didn't like Collins' expression, didn't like that chill inside him, which had nothing to do with the weather, didn't like where this was headed, at all. "And you're sure Deputy Potter couldn't have come out here to take your statement and get some pictures? He has plenty of times before."
Another, almost violent headshake. "No sir. Deputy Potter is a nice a enough boy who couldn't find his own ass with two hands and one of those new-fangled smartphones. And Shackleford's just an arrogant sunnuvabitch who just wants you to screw up so he can take your place."
Baker shrugged and offered a lopsided smile. "He IS Bob Phillips's nephew, after all. Can't fault him for his ambitions."
"Whatever. That toy soldier's got a pole the size of a log stuck up his ass. No, I hate to disturb your Sunday morning, but it had to be you, Sheriff."
Baker sighed, his stomach twisting into greasy knots. He'd been hoping this to be a trivial matter completely unconnected to his latest weird mystery, but there seemed little hope of that now. He gestured up the hill. "Lead the way, then."
*
"Now you see what I'm talking about, Sheriff? What in the blazin hells does something like this?"
Baker stared at the sight before him, momentarily speechless. Collins hadn't been overreacting, this was above and beyond tagging headstones with initials and personal trademarks.
"At first I thought someone was just playing a really mean-spirited Halloween prank. But then I looked closer...and damn it all, Sheriff. That dirt don't look spaded or shoveled up. It looks like something dug it up. With claws or paws or..."
Collins trailed off, and Baker finished the caretaker's sentence with, "Hands. It looks like someone dug these up with their hands."
They stood facing an open grave. As Collins had said, and as Baker now agreed, it didn't look as if someone had shoveled the grave out in an orderly fashion. It looked like someone - or something, or somethings - had dug the grave open with something like claws, or even hands. And the casket?
The latches had been broken off. The casket opened. And its corpse? Dragged from its resting place and torn apart, its bones scattered in the piles of dirt. 
Baker glanced at the dates on the grave's headstone. "Jud. This...body was buried only two weeks ago. Stan Greely. Died working at the mill. Buried only two weeks ago, Jud."
He turned and met the caretaker's deeply troubled - and yes, there it was - afraid expression. "I don't know much about this sort of thing...but shouldn't there have been....something of the body left? Some flesh and muscle, if even it was starting to rot?"
Even though he didn't want to, he knelt and examined the mounds of dirt. "All I see is bone. Could animals have done this before you found it?"
Jud stepped forward and knelt next to Baker. "Maybe. Depends on when it happened last night. But here's another thing. Take a closer look at those bones. You know how a ham bone looks like after a dog's been after it, yeah? All jagged and gnawed to hell? Take a close look at those marks, Sheriff. What do those look like to you?"
Baker squinted. Bent closer, looked at the marks...and then sucked in a sharp breath. "Shit. Are those...?"
Jud Collins nodded. "I think so. Like you, I ain't no expert...but those are  people teeth marks, Sheriff. I'd bet my life on it."
*10 PM
Despite his best efforts, Scott hadn't been able to go about his weekend like always after Sheriff Baker's visit Saturday morning. Up until the moment Baker had showed up, and until the moment he'd told the sheriff about the weirdos wearings masks, he'd been able to pretend, at least, that the world wasn't getting weird.
Now, it proved almost impossible. Especially the way Sheriff Baker had questioned him about their appearance; coming very near the mark when he'd asked if one of them looked tall and "lanky," as Baker had put it; the other shorter and stouter. Scott had answered honestly that even though it had been hard to tell from their distance, he thought so. The look in Sheriff Baker's eyes at his answer made Scott wonder if the sheriff knew, or at least thought he knew, who those weirdos were.
What matters worse was how Mom hovered around him all day Saturday afternoon, not letting him out of sight, and then dragging him to Clifton Heights Baptist - which she'd been attending since they moved here - Sunday morning. She acted as if he'd been targeted by serial killers, and forbid him to go anywhere both days. Also demanded he stay home while she worked the evening shift Saturday and Sunday.
Normally he couldn't give two shits about what Mom demanded, but truth be told (though he hated to admit it), he still felt spooked by the whole thing. Of course, the only person he'd really hung out with since moving to Clifton Heights was Jasper, so there was no point in going out anyway. This, like not visiting Jasper's farm Friday, served as a much better excuse for heeding his mother's wishes.
The worst part was, he couldn't work up any desire to watch horror movies like he normally did on the weekends. Either every movie he'd tried on Netflix last night had been lame, too corny, or too intense (which was out of character for him, and further evidence of how spooked he was). He'd tried and bailed on four movies before he turned in at 10, a personal record in early bedtimes for him, over the past year.
After church this afternoon, like yesterday, Mom had kept him hopping with chores all afternoon. When she'd left for work again, she'd levied the same demand about him staying home. He'd pretended he didn't care, acting as if he'd go out if he damn well pleased, but he didn't have any more desire to go out tonight than he had last night.
After Mom left, he'd settled down and tried to watch a DVD movie he'd ordered from a Pennsylvania-based  indie horror production company called Realsplatter. A post-apocalyptic Christmas tale titled Dreaming of a White Doomsday. However, despite have very good production values and great suspense for an indie film, Scott still had a hard time paying attention.
That annoyed him. He thought he would've really enjoyed the film if the circumstance had been different. The whole thing with the weirdos wearing masks and Jasper disappearing had ruined it, and though he felt like a shit for thinking that, he couldn't seem to not be angry at Jasper for disappearing, even after the movie was over, and he was in the shower.
As he toweled afterward, a glint in the bathroom mirror caught his eye. It was the necklace he'd been wearing since coming to Clifton Heights, really Gothic-looking cross. It had been the first thing he'd purchased at Handy's. 
Mom hated it the first time she saw it. He couldn't helping goading her about it, especially because it was, after all, a cross. Shouldn't a newly born-again holy roller like her appreciate it? She'd merely scowled and changed the topic to her favorite and reoccurring tune, his poor recent grades and choice of friends.
The flash of spitefulness he felt toward his mother soured his stomach. He didn't want to think about any of this, any more. He didn't care how distracted he was. He'd hit the couch and try to watch at least one more horror movie, and dammit, he'd enjoy it. He'd nick one of Mom's beers to try and relax.
He pulled on his boxers, thought about taking his cross necklace off, then deciding to hell with it, he left it on.
*
He was dreaming, and it was a weird one. He and Jasper were in the living room, which was weird, because Jasper never came over to his house, ever. Also, they weren't really doing anything. He was laying on the couch, the television showing nothing but hissing white static, while Jasper stood in the front doorway, hands hanging to his sides, not saying a word.
He asked Jasper, Where you been, dumbass? (at least he thought he asked that, it sounded like it in his head, though he hadn't felt his mouth move, or hear his voice). Your fucking vanishing act ruined the whole weekend, even brought the sheriff to my house. With a sneer, (at least, it seemed like a sneer in his head, though his lips and mouth never moved), he asked, You been hanging out with Marcus in Utica, smoking pot and getting lap-dances from those stripper-whores you're always dreaming about? Jasper didn't say anything.
He just stood on the front doorway, and something else weird? In his dream, there was some light in the living room (he'd fallen asleep with a table-side lamp on, and the TV was still on, throwing ghostly white flickers), but the shadows fell just right on Jasper's face, so Scott couldn't see it. And the way he stood still, without saying anything, made Scott think he was talking to a mannequin.
And then, a whisper. Not a voice, exactly. Not Jasper's voice. But a whisper, a feeling, coming from Jasper, to him. 
Your  fault. It's your fault. You left me. Your Scott's fault. You have to pay.
What the hell do you mean? It was your idea to split up!
Again, Scott thought this, he didn't speak it. For some reason, in his dream, he couldn't move. He lay pinned to the couch, and he couldn't speak, only think his words.
Jasper's whole body twitched. Then, it (why it?) took one halting step forward. And then another, and another. While Jasper (it?) staggered toward the couch, the accusatory feelings of betrayal intensified. 
No, no, I'm sorry, Scott whined now (without using his mouth or any words), I didn't mean to leave you behind, you said you wanted to go home the back way, I didn't leave you, I didn't...
Things flickered, like a filmstrip jumping its track. Jasper abruptly was standing above Scott. Bizarrely enough, though he could see everything else of Jasper, his face was still cloaked in shadow.
Jasper leaned down over Scott. Scott squirmed on the couch, but still couldn't move. The glow of the television behind Jasper threw even more darkness onto his face, but as Jasper leaned closer, Scott thought he could hear something liquid shifting on Jasper's face, like mud or slime sloughing off.
A terrible, chemical burning smell filled his nostrils, similar to what he smelled when he once accidentally threw an old pair of rubber wading boots into a garbage fire from a box he'd thought full of only cardboard and paper waste....
Melting, burning rubber.
A rubber mask.  With a Herculean effort, Scott thrashed upward, off the couch. He bumped chests with Jasper, pinning the metal Gothic cross between them...
Something screamed. Not aloud, but in his head, and it didn't sound human, or like anything should sound. He heard something sizzling, and now the sickly-sweet smell of burnt flesh made him want to vomit, as the scream in his head ululated, ranging up and down in strange pitches that made him want to clap his hands to his head and scream also...
*
Scott woke from his dream when he thumped off the couch and onto the floor. He jerked upright and threw his hands out, to push Jasper off  him...
Nothing.
He scrambled to his feet and turned a quick circle. Alone. He was alone. Jasper wasn't here; he'd never been here, he'd just been having a very bad dream. Served him right for have two of Mom's beers, and watching Ghoul, based on the much better novel by Brian Keene.
Even so...a dream. "A fucking dream," he muttered. "That's all. Just  a..."
The skin on his forearm prickled into cold bumps. He turned slowly, and gaped at the open front door, through which wafted a chill October breeze....

The Mask, Chapter 5

5.
October 5th, 20198:30 AM 
"Morning, Scott. I'm Sheriff Baker. Now listen. You're not in any kind of trouble. I just have a few questions I hope you can help me clear up, and none of them involve you directly."
Scott shifted uncomfortably on the couch, hands clasped tightly before him. Though his shenanigans over the past year had been limited to not doing schoolwork, maintaining a generally surly attitude to both his parents and his teachers, cutting class and sneaking cigarettes and booze, he knew he hadn't done anything bad enough to warrant a visit from the town sheriff. 
At least, he didn't think so. He was pretty sure you couldn't get arrested for underage smoking, and the only time he drank was sneaking beers when his mother wasn't home, or out behind Jasper's ramshackle barn. No, Scott knew he wasn't in trouble. That's not why Sheriff Baker had come to visit him on a Saturday morning.
It had something to do with Jasper. Scott knew it, even felt it, deep down. Jasper hadn't come to school Friday. That in itself wasn't strange. Jasper cut school all the time, especially Fridays. That was when his older cousin Marcus - who lived a life Jasper dreamed about in the "big" city of Utica -  was always hanging around, and it was easy to persuade Marcus to get them beer from the Mobilmart out on Haverton Road.
But Jasper usually called him the night before, to say Marcus was in town, or he'd meet up with him on the way to school. Scott hadn't heard from him at all. When third period rolled around (they had that crusty old fart, Mr. De'Angelo, for Social Studies), he expected to see Jasper sitting in the back like always, smiling his customary shit-eating grin. 
Jasper hadn't been there. Hadn't been in gym, science, or studyhall. When school let out, Scott set off toward Jasper's house. Seemed unlikely, but maybe Jasper had actually gotten sick, or something bad had happened, and he actually had a legitimate excuse for missing school.
Scott's nerve gave out around the library, however. He ducked into Handy's Pawn and Thrift again, instead. The shopkeeper had recently gotten a whole box of horror comics from the eighties, and Scott wanted to look through them. That served as a handy excuse for not going out to the Riley farm to look for Jasper, though he had other aversions, ones hiding just beneath the surface of conscious thought. 
Though he'd never admit it to anyone, Joan Riley, Jasper's mother, made him nervous. He didn't know why. Every time he came over to see Jasper, Mrs. Riley (who insisted he call her Joan), always seemed drunk. She always looked at him oddly. Giving him long, lingering gazes which made Scott squirm in ways he understood instinctively, but refused to consider directly.
Jasper's dad had run off years ago, and though Jasper spoke occasionally about "Mom's boyfriends," none were ever around when Scott was over. That also made Scott nervous, though he wasn't sure why. He also didn't like how Jasper's mother always found reasons to touch him on the shoulder, the elbow, or the small of his back. Her touch made him squirm just as much as her weird looks.
Another reason why Scott elected to visit Handy's instead of going to Jasper's place? He hated to admit it, but he still felt creeped out by those freaks in masks they saw Thursday afternoon. A part of him still thought maybe Jasper had been having him on and it was all a prank, but another part of him remembered too clearly the look of real fear in Jasper's eyes. When he stopped in front of the library and Black Creek Bridge was in sight, he half-expected to see those masked figures again, waiting for him there, just like Thursday.
"Jasper's missing," Scott blurted out, "isn't he?"
Sheriff Baker played it very cool - every inch the professional cop - and just tipped his head. His eyes widened slightly, however, and Scott knew that not only had he scored a hit, he'd also surprised or impressed the sheriff. For some reason, he hoped it was the latter. "Now why would you say that?"
Scott shrugged. "Jasper wasn't in school yesterday. If he's planning on skipping school, he usually tells me first, so we can skip together. We hate that fucking place, y'know?"
"Scott!" His mother scowled. Standing at Sheriff Baker's right shoulder, she was a tall, willowy brunette with tired eyes and a worn face. At one time, Scott would've said she look pretty. Now, after the divorce and the move, she just looked exhausted. Scott knew his behavior the last year had contributed to that. No one would probably believe him, but that often made him feel very bad.
His mother touched Sheriff  Baker on the shoulder - not unlike the way Joan liked to touch him on the shoulder, which made Scott feel weird in an entirely different way - and said, "Sheriff, please excuse my son." She shot him a glance that was the very definition of the cliche if looks could kill. "In the last year or so, he's developed quite the attitude."
Sheriff Baker waved it off, smiling, eyes twinkling. For some reason, that warmed Scott to the man immediately. "No worries. When I was Scott's age, I didn't much like school either." A serious expression replaced his smile, however, as he added, "When was the last time you saw Jasper? And where were you?"
Scott thought. "I think...3:30, 4:00 Thursday? And we were heading out to his place to hang out..."
"To smoke and drink, I've no doubt," his mother muttered, managing to look disgusted and sad, all at once.
Sheriff Baker held up a hand, and his mother fell silent. "So did you ever get there? His mother called yesterday morning. Said he never came home."
"No. We split up. He went the back way to his house, down Kovac Road to the bike bridge over the creek. I decided to check out the thrift shop."
Sheriff Baker flickered  a small grin. "Handy's, huh? Quite a place, isn't it? That shopkeeper's a really interesting fellow. Doesn't seem like the guy to run a shop like that, does he? Knows just about everything about everything." He paused, grin fading slightly. "Why'd you go to Handy's instead of the Riley place?"
 Scott opened his mouth, but for some reason, paused. He didn't know why, but he definitely didn't want to say anything about Mrs. Riley, and he also wasn't sure about telling Sheriff Baker about the two people in masks. He didn't exactly think the man wouldn't believe him, but the thing was so bizarre...he wouldn't believe it if someone told him. 
But the timing of events seemed impossibly coincidental. Jasper and him run into two weirdos wearing masks, the weirdos start walking toward them, they split up, the weirdos disappear, Jasper doesn't come to school the next morning. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots. 
Also, Scott had really gotten into horror movies over the last year. He spent all weekend watching them on Netflix and Vudu when before, he used to do homework and chores. He knew this moment well. This was when the kid who doesn't trust adults because he's been burned and hurt and blah blah blah doesn't tell the authorities a crucial piece of information that only leads to a ton more people getting killed, maybe even him.
Fuck that noise, he thought, and said, "It was because of the weirdos in masks."
*
10 AM
Joan Riley sat on the front porch of her decaying old farmhouse, sipping Wild Turkey from a jelly glass. She'd been drinking since she rolled out of bed around nine. Normally she waited at least until noon, and then she started slowly, on a few beers with lunch. But when she'd forgotten, for a moment, about the circumstances and called for Jasper to get his ass out of bed and started on his chores, only to hear silence in return, reality came crashing down on her, and she decided the hell with it, and proceeded to get her drunk on earlier than usual.
The world knew hundreds upon thousands of women like Joan. At one time, she had a body and face all the boys (and a good number of the men) in her hometown of Booneville wanted to get a hold of. Even a teacher or two. She remembered this one Math teacher in eleventh grade, a short, wiry middle-aged man with a busy mustache and receding hairline. She didn't have to do any homework that entire year, because of their "extra credit" sessions after school.
She'd had it made. All the boys wanted her, all the girls hated her because of it. All she had to do was find the right guy who had enough money, and didn't treat her too bad, and she'd be on easy street. 
Of course, that never quite happened. The "right guy" either pissed his money away, or started beating on her, pissed his money away AND started beating on her, or ended up doing something stupid and getting sent to jail (that had happened to her twice). Suddenly, she was in her mid-thirties, married to a farmer and "self-employed mechanic" (Jack Riley had been a wizard with anything mechanical...when he wasn't drunk, high, or whoring around), with three kids, and one on the way.
Jack took off after she had Jasper. Why, she never figured out, but in all fairness, at that point she didn't much care. When she discovered that, with the children she still had, as a single unemployed mother with no job skills, she could cobble together an existence out of food stamps, food banks, and welfare (and whatever she could get from Clifton Heights hill men who'd gotten tired of their wives), she settled into the half-life she still lingered in today. She'd found that with just the right amount of whiskey and boot-leg moonshine, almost anything could be tolerated.
Which was why she felt so confused about how she was reacting to Jasper's disappearance. More than likely, Jasper was off drinking, smoking, or raising hell. Took after his father, sure enough. The thing was, he usually was doing all that with Marcus, and Marcus hadn't come around this weekend. Where was he, then?
She thought maybe he might be with that new boy he'd been hanging around, but they usually always came here, so they could drink and smoke out behind the barn.
Joan took a sip of her whisky, smiling in a lazy, contented way as she thought about Jasper's new friend  - Scott, or Steve? Whatever,  he reminded her so much of Jack. The way Jack had looked and moved, back when he'd been fit and mostly sober, and so finely crafted, he set a girl's heart and mind racing. 
She liked Jasper's friend because of how he reminded her of Jack; liked the way he looked, and she liked looking at him, too. A dim part of her thought that was wrong; she being old enough to be the boy's mother, but that part had gotten weak and listless, like a limb left in a cast too long. It barely protested anymore when she stared at the boy just a little too long, thinking of doing things with him that she shouldn't be thinking, or finding excuses to touch him lightly here or there, on the arm or shoulder, or his back.
Out of nowhere, a sudden wave of revulsion crested inside her at the lascivious train of thought. Her she was, sitting on her front porch, with her boy out missing somewhere - maybe hurt, or kidnapped, or worse - and all she could do was think unspeakable thoughts about a child.
She tossed back the rest of her whiskey with an angry gulp. Winced slightly at the fire which burned down the back of her throat. Steadied her grip on the arms of her chair, to push up so she could stand, go inside and get something stronger, some of that hill-brewed hooch she got in "payment" for her "company...."
She stopped, arrested in place, at what she saw standing in the driveway, not five feet from her front steps.
It was Jasper.
It had to be. She recognized his worn jeans, his scuffed engineer boots, and that rock t-shirt with the sleeves torn off (what the hell kind of name for a rock band was Danzig, anyway). She knew it was Jasper, it had to be, except she didn't run down the steps toward him, she didn't call out his name, didn't move, because of...of the mask he wore.
It looked hideous. Long stringy black hair which looked disturbingly real. Bulging eyes which poked out opposite directions. Gray rubbery skin which looked diseased. And worst of all...a gaping black mouth which looked wide enough to swallow her head, whole.
"Jasper? What...where have you been? Why are you wearing that...that horrible thing?"
Her son said nothing. He just stood there, the mask's idiot bulging eyes staring, hands hanging slack, next to his sides. The longer she stared at the mask's yawning black mouth, the more certain she felt that, if he could, Jasper would be screaming.

"Jasper? H-honey? Where have you been? Is...is that mask you got yourself for Halloween?"

No answer.

No sound. Save her own rasping, wheezing breathes, her heartbeat thudding against her ribcage, and a slight wind rustling the trees.

She forced a smile, faking upbeat, good cheer. "Well, if it's for Halloween, it's certainly a horrible looking thing. Makes my heart pound just to look at it."

Jasper remained silent. For a moment, Joan wondered idly if perhaps Jasper was silently laughing behind that hideous mask, barely holding in his usual horse-like laughter at her fright. Any moment, he might lose it, starting barking and breying like a donkey, whip that mask off, and and crowing over the way he was making her almost piss her pants. In fact, a part of her was desperate for this, and was willing to endure any indignity from him, should that happen.

Seconds passed. Minutes.

It didn't. He just continued to stare at her silently, only...was he now swaying? Back and forth, like hay or goldenrod in the wind? Her fear escalated to near-panic levels, and she stoked her anger to try and bury it. She stood straight, scowled, and spoke in what she hoped was a firm, authoritarian voice. "All right, Jasper. You've had your fun You get that damn fool thing off and get yer ass in here. I ought beat it black and blue for the worry you've  caused me. I had to call the police. Had to beg that stuck-up smarty pants Sheriff Baker just to come out here last night and poke around a little, him all the while giving me the stink-eye, like I was a horrible mother. That's all cause of you, hear me?"

Nothing. Still Jasper stood still, the mask's bulging eyes staring, its gaping mouth howling silently. Fear clamored inside her and clawed at her heart, so she let her anger loose full bore, to try and push it aside. She dropped her empty jelly glass, bawled her hands into fists, and let the fire burn white inside her, just so she wouldn't feel so damn scared of a stupid dollar-store rubber mask. 

She took a step forward, growling, "Don't you be thinkin I'm scared of you with that mask on, or that you're too big for me to give a whipping to, Jasper Lowell Riley." Her hands moved to unfasten her belt, which she'd used on just about all her boys, at one time or another. "When I got done with you, won't be able to walk straight for a...."

It happened so fast, her eyes couldn't track it. Something dull grayish-silver flashed past her eyes from behind her. She felt little, at first, past a stinging line across her throat. Then, the stinging turned to burning. And she couldn't breathe. No matter how hard she gasped, she couldn't seem to get any air.

She tasted blood in the back of her throat.

A hand grabbed her by the hair, and yanked her head back. Something cracked dully, and now, her neck and her chest felt very warm and wet, while her fingers and toes got very cold. And still she tried to breath. Gurgling, spitting bloody bubbles from her lips.

Her bowls let go, about the same time as her bladder. While the one hand held her head back, the other grabbed her shoulder and pushed her down. She thudded onto her knees bonelessly, only those hands keeping her from falling over, face-first, into the dirt.

Jasper loomed over her, bending close. He gently took her face into his hands - oh so gently, so lovingly, in a way none of her sons had, not even Jack had, back in the good days. And she saw that she, indeed, had been right. The mask's mouth opened, wider and wider, its stretching blackness filling her world. 

She felt no fear, however. Oddly, a sense of peace. As that black mouth stretched impossibly wide and oozed rather than closed over her head, even  as she felt her skin burning and maybe even dissolving, she didn't fear, or hurt, at all. She felt herself join something inconceivably vast and all-encompassing, becoming part of an all. As the mask consumed her, as her very being become one with it, she rejoiced in the pain, and the burning, and the dissolution.

The Mask, Chapter 4

4.
October 4th, 20198:00 AM
Sheriff Chris Baker hung up his smartphone, sat back in his chair, folded his hands behind his head, closed his eyes, and sighed. As it happened with a mercurial rhythm as regular as the tides, something odd was once again afoot in his town. And also, as always, he had no hard facts to back up his feelings. Just a few odd occurrences which didn't seem connected, and an uneasy intuition lingering on the back of his neck. Like cold fingers tapping out an unknowable message in alien Morse code.
A widower, he and his daughter Meg moved to Clifton Heights seven years ago, when he took the sheriff's position through a special appointment by the Town Board. That had seemed odd enough in its own right; town sheriff usually being an elected position. Appointing a sheriff by committee wasn't unheard of, just unusual.
At the time, he hadn't cared. He'd just wanted to find a quiet town to settle in, a nice place he could raise his daughter while trying to recover from his wife's untimely passing. And for the most part, Clifton Heights had turned out to a nice town. Mostly. People were friendly here, and they looked out for each other. It wasn't a perfect town; he knew such a thing didn't exist. But Clifton Heights seemed nice enough, all the same.
It didn't take long for him to understand why the Town Board conducted a committee search for a sheriff, rather than hold elections. In the past seven years, he'd discovered Clifton Heights wasn't a town of black and white, but a town shifting shades of gray. Good people lived here. The town was financially sturdy, having so far avoided the withering decay striking down so many small towns across the country.
But odd things happened here. Unexplained things. People went missing with frightening regularity. Children and teens ran away. Hunters died in accidents. Though violent crime didn't run rampant, per se, Chris felt sure - should he actually want to make a comparison - he'd find their rate of mortality through "violent means" would be higher than the surrounding towns.
The odd thing - the part Chris still couldn't fathom - was how the town dealt with these strange happenings. They didn't ignore them, exactly. They reported on them in the newspaper, and they talked about them in public. But memories seemed extraordinarily short in Clifton Heights. These "sad and tragic" events passed from the public conscious quicker than they would in other towns. When he couldn't solve a case, most everyone, from top down, simply thanked him for doing his best.
And then things settled down. Got quiet. Became peaceful and downright normal, for long stretches of time. Until it started again, and it usually started like it was starting today: a few weird stories which didn't seem connected...until the whole thing blew apart.
He opened his eyes, sat forward, and pulled the notepad he'd been jotting on closer. It always began like this. Always. He'd recognized the pattern after about three years here. But no matter how often he sensed things getting weird, he was never quite able to head events off at the pass.
He tapped the first item on the list. Three days ago, a custodian at Clifton Heights Junior/Senior High, Lester McDonough, had apparently left work before school started, without telling anyone. No one had seen him leave. No had noticed him missing, in fact, until partway through the morning, when his tasks had gone undone.
Calls to his small house on Gatto Road hadn't been returned, despite threats of firing him. Principal Stedman had finally called Baker this morning, asking him to check in on McDonough. Despite his annoyance at an employee simply not coming to work, Stedman actually sounded slightly concerned. It wasn't like Lester McDonough to simply walk out of work and disappear.
Right, Baker thought as he tapped Lester's name with his index finger. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that in this town, I could've retired three years ago.
He'd sent Deputy Potter out to McDonough's house on a drive-by. Everything looked in order, except that McDonough's car indeed wasn't in the driveway. Potter had knocked on the door to no answer, and best as he could tell by peering through the front windows into the den, nothing appeared amiss. Without probable cause or anything else to go on, Baker really didn't have any reason to break into McDonough's house.
Weird, yes. That an employee who hadn't missed a day in three years would suddenly walk out of work without a word, vanishing, apparently skipping town. Odd and out of character...but nothing else.
Dammit.
It always started like this.
He moved his finger down to the second item, also connected with Clifton Heights High, and part of the same call with the beleaguered Principal Stedman. Margaret Seaver, widowed fifty-five year old seventh grade science teacher, had missed two days of school in a row without calling in. This was also highly out of character, and calls to her home had - like those to McDonough's - gone unanswered.
Potter had gone to Seaver's house after McDonough's, and found things just as normal..eerily so. Everything seemed in order (though her car was gone, also), and when Potter knocked on her door no one answered. When he looked into the window, just like at McDonough's, everything seemed fine. No signs of struggle, or anything out of place.
Two people who worked at the same place but had little to no interaction with each other had up and vanished. And neither of them had family in the area, or even in the state. No one to miss them any time soon.
That last bit bothered Baker more than he wanted to admit.
When he'd suggested (only partly joking; it had been known to happen) that perhaps McDonough and Seaver had been carrying on a secret relationship and had flown the coop together, Stedman sputtered and acted is if merely the thought of it mortally offended him. 
When he asked Baker what he was planning on doing, Stedman got even huffier when Baker told him: nothing, until something else happened. All he had at the moment were two adults who up and left without telling anyone, and no signs of foul play existed anywhere. He had absolutely no reason to force entry into either of the homes.
He sighed and moved his index finger to the last item on the list, the one which admittedly bothered him the most. Jasper Riley had never come home from school the night before. Joan Riley calling him had been odd enough. Usually, other people called him about one of the Rileys, not Mrs. Riley calling out of her concern for one of her sons.
Her hand-wringing concern about her son's whereabouts seemed even odder. He hadn't been caught yet, but Jasper was a Riley. Which meant he spent most his time hell-raising all hours of the night, drinking, smoking pot, and while probably not getting laid yet, at least rounding the bases pretty quickly for his age. Baker would expect that his mother was used to Jasper keeping whatever hours he felt like.
She'd been frantic, however. Claiming Riley never spent the night out, and that she had an "awful bad feeling somethin's happened to ma boy." Baker assured her he would look into the matter. 
A call back to a very perturbed Principal Stedman yielded no results. When Baker asked him if he'd had any idea who'd seen the Riley boy last, Stedman retorted it was highly unlikely the boy had actually spent the whole day in school, seeing as how skipping out early happened to be the only thing he was good at. When Baker than asked for a likely list of Riley cohorts, Stedman sputtered that he had no idea, "keeping track of that white trash's social circle isn't on my daily agenda."
Knowing that Stedman had close ties to chairman of the Town Board, Bob Phillips (the man he responsible for this job, after all), Baker forced himself to thank Stedman for his time, and that if he thought of anything which might help, to not hesitate to call him. He also promised to keep his eyes open for anything relating to his two missing staff members.
Baker sighed again. He'd go out to both McDonough and Seaver's house himself, see if he could turn up anything Potter hadn't. Then, he'd visit Joan Riley in person, scout around there, also. Maybe visit the school today, get a line on who might be palling around with Riley these days, who might've seen him last.
And that was about all he could do at this stage.
Like always.
He grunted, stood, grabbed his trooper hat off his desk, and headed out to make what he already knew would be futile rounds.