The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Dee's Domicile

Previously: "The Story with Sydney" 

You quail at the thought of being caught by an apparent psychopath like Dee. But some bantam-like need to protect Sydney keeps asserting itself. It leaves you feeling impaled through the chest. I could die if I went out to his place to snoop around! vies with Could I live with yourself if I didn't?

Finally, you compromise. There couldn't be any harm in just driving by his place.

And if you stopped and got out and looked around, and went up to the front to peer around when it looked like he wasn't home— Well, there'd be no harm in that, and if he caught you you could tell him you came out to talk and were waiting for him.

"I'm gonna go meet someone," you call to your dad as you pass the open doorway into his study.

"Be home before your curfew," he says.

Missing your curfew, you glumly reflect, will be the least of your troubles if you can't get away from Dee's place by eleven.

* * * * *

Dee's place turns out to be up near the college campus, in the "student ghetto" part of town. All the houses are small and squalid, with tired, unmown lawns, and patios heaped over with old couches. Said furniture is not without utility, though, for as you prowl the streets you see there are lots of parties being thrown in the front yards, and the air thumps with music and the shouts of burly guys hoisting beers.

But Dee's house is dark, and the driveway is empty. You slow and pass it at a crawl, peering out at it anxiously. Then you drive around the block and pass it again.

Fuck it, you think as you pass it a third time, or fuck me. You jerk the wheel to the side and park a few houses down, at the tail end of a row of cars that go with one of the parties. Your breath is coming in quick, painful spurts as you hike your way back to Dee's place.

The lawn out front seems lusher than the neighboring yards—the grass is longer, and the shrubs that front the house burgeon beneath the windows. The house itself is low, and the dark, blank windows are sunk beneath the brow of the eaves. There's a filthy mat in front of the screen door.

With a sense that you're taking your life into your hands, you softly knock on the door.

There's no answer, not even to the third knock.

You step off the porch and into the shrubs to peer in through a dark window. The blinds are lowered, though, so you can make out nothing inside.

Vexed, you pace the front yard, feeling exposed and vulnerable to the watch of the neighbors. What do they think I'm doing here? you wonder. What do I think I'm doing here? What kind of a place does this look like, and what does it tell me about Dee?

It suggests nothing inconsistent with his story, that he is a refugee from another dimension, tramping the country looking for ley lines. It looks like the house of someone who has neither the money nor the inclination to linger in one place.

But that's just the outside. What would the inside tell you?

On a hunch, you search for a house key under the mat or just inside the flower beds. No luck.

Then, hardly believing what you're doing, you go around the side and vault the low cinder-block wall that separates the back yard from the front.

If anything, the backyard is weedier than the front, and the tree branches close overhead, blotting out the sky and smothering the air with the scent of dusty leaves. There's some broken lawn furniture on the back patio, and an old grill. You bark your shins on a stool that was huddling in the dark.

A sliding glass door would give entrance. Idly you pull on the handle.

To your amazement—and terror—it opens with a soft rumble.

Your lungs seem to collapse as dry, musty air wafts out to envelope you.

You would really get it in the neck if Dee caught you breaking and entering his place.

But he's not home, and there seems every chance that you could hear the engine and see the lights of his truck through the front windows if he returned, giving you time to run out the back and get away.

And the longer you hesitate, the sooner he will return. With a hard gulp of fear, you dive into the house and pull the sliding door just barely shut behind you.

You can't put on a light, but you pull out your cell phone and by its feeble glow you glance around. Gradually your eyes adjust to the deep gloom.

You're in a small dining room just off a tiny kitchen, with a wobbly table with a laptop and some books. This dining area merges seamlessly into a larger room where a much larger table is covered over with even more books and papers. You rifle through these, and find a mix of math and physics textbooks and some ratty paperback novels.

There's a living room dominated by a dumpy sofa, like an old bear, and a stand on which rests a small flat-screen TV. In the kitchen you find some old pizza boxes and plastic cups that smell of beer or soda. There are crusted-over dishes in the sink, and the trash is half full. The refrigerator contains milk, orange juice, a bottle of Pepsi, some hot dogs and—to your surprise—a lot of fresh vegetables.

A small laundry room comes off the kitchen and leads into a dank ,empty garage that smells of oil, grease, and grass cuttings.

You're back in the living room and wondering if you have time to investigate a hallway that likely leads to the bedrooms when the screen door opens and a key is loudly shoved into the deadbolt. Your heart explodes in your chest, but your legs are rooted to the floor as the door opens and a tall, shadowy figure steps inside.

Please don't turn on the lights! you pray with a fervor so hard it would cause the Earth to wobble on its axis. Please don't see me! Just give me a chance to bolt before you put on the lights—

A switch flicks on, flooding the room with a jaundiced yellow light. You are only feet from, and face to face, with—

It's not Dee, which is a relief. He's taller than Dee, with dark hair and hard eyes and a full mouth. His t-shirt drapes over a deep, massive chest, and the air seems to dive out of the way as he pushes into the house.

But even though you are standing more or less in front of him, he doesn't react to your presence, but just brushes past to throw a heavy backpack onto the book-strewn table.

Then he walks right past you again to stand in the doorway and bellow into the darkness. "Get your fucking ass in here, Joe! You're being a sex pest again!"

You'd run for the back door while his back is turned, but you are paralyzed from the waist down.

"Joe!" the small giant shouts into the darkness again. "I'm starting a countdown! You don't want me to hit zero while you're still outside!" He trudges back into the house, again barely missing you with his wide shoulders.

You manage to take one step back, but are again arrested by the sound of the screen door. You grin with terror as Dee steps inside.

But is it Dee? The form and face are right—a strong kid about your age with golden hair and a wide, open countenance—but the expression is all wrong. Dee was all sneering contempt, but this kid—Joe is his name?—has a merry expression, and his eyes and smile glint. Okay, yes, he swaggers like Dee, but it's a playful swagger where Dee's was threatening.

"She was into me, Frank!" he exclaims as he brushes past you—like the other, all uncomprehending of your presence. "She was the best chance I've had of scoring since—"

"Since Friday over at Catherine's. What was her name? Alexandra?"

"Alexa. And if you're keeping track—"

He stops and looks around with a frown—his eyes raking blankly over and past you—and sniffs the air.

"Foo!" he says. "Trash needs taking out!"

"I told you that this morning, Joe."

"So why didn't you do something about it, Frank?"

"I did. I told you it needed taking out."

"Oh! That was a request in the form of an assertion! I thought—"

"Take the trash out, Joe. That's a threat in the form of an imperative." The one called Frank is unloading the backpack, and you are fascinated and horrified to see him spreading Sydney's occult equipment over the table.

"Ooo!" chortles the one called Joe. "Heap-big hunka-hunka-man-muscle make heap-big talk, make to call down thunder if— I'm taking it out, I'm taking it out!" he cries as the other turns a deep frown at him. He hustles into the kitchen, from where you hear the rustling of a plastic sack.

"And bring the truck back around, park it in the driveway," Frank adds as Joe—who sticks his tongue out at the other as he passes behind his back—stalks to the front door with a trash sack slung over his shoulder. "They don't want it parked in front of their place."

"I told Christine I'd be back to get it!" Joe stops directly in front of you to protest. "If I go move it now and don't stay she'll—!"

"So stay at the party and bring the truck around later."

Joe hesitates. "Really?"

"Sure. I can handle this myself." He's shoving aside books to make way for what looks like a large chart.

Joe groans. "You'll fuck it up, Frank! Like you fuck everything up! Like you fuck me up every time I get a chance to—"

Then he's out the front door.

You glance at Frank. His back is to you. This looks like your chance to bolt.

Next: "The Eavesdropper" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"