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
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
No comments have been added yet.
