Behind The Horned Mask: Book 1

Behind the Horned Mask

Complete Edition

A Novel by Jeff Vrolyks

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Jeff Vrolyks

Prologue

Let me begin by stating that I am not a writer—a conclusion you’d have arrived at on your own soon enough. I know no tricks of narrative nor do I have an extensive vocabulary, but I do know an editor (wink). I once lost a spelling bee trying to spell vakation. Writing isn’t my thing. Policing is. But when Norrah and I debated which of us should put this thing into words, her persistency in it being me won her the day. We haven’t put much thought into what might become of these pages, if anything, but we both agreed the events of late needed to be put on paper, and we’ll let fate or destiny take it from there. I should add that I have spoken with a couple others, and they agreed to write some things regarding this ordeal as well. To what extent I’m unsure of at this moment. So it looks like this is going to be a collective effort. I have the honor of leading off. And probably wrapping it up.

You probably don’t know me, so let me introduce myself as Jay Davis. Having been in the Marines before becoming a cop, I have long been accustomed to being called Davis, not Jay. Cops and military folks insist on calling people by their surnames, and I’d love to know why. For a while they were calling me J.D., but it didn’t stick, didn’t grow roots. Norrah calls me Jay unless she’s feeling particularly feisty or when I’ve gotten into some kind of shit.

If within the last year you’ve watched the news or listened to the radio, or have friends to chew the shit with about current events, you know who my girlfriend Norrah is. Norrah Petersen with an E, she’s Danish. She’s the one who’s given interview after interview on any number of news channels, news magazines, newspapers. I’d bet dollars to donuts that most of you have made up your minds that Norrah is a lunatic. Or insane—I’m not sure if the two are the same thing. How could someone so sane-looking and pretty be so batty? I can tell you sincerely that she is completely sane, and has never told a lie that I know of. Everything you’ve heard her say is the truth. What was alleged to have happened at her house indeed happened. I was there that day, was one of the first cops to arrive on scene. That was the day I met Norrah. It was that first week of the news-frenzy that Norrah and I began dating. Well, I say dating but it wasn’t dating. As you can imagine dating wasn’t something she was suitable to engage herself in during that time, but we were something. Come to think of it, maybe we were nothing more than new friends, but we had a kind of intuition that hinted that we had found someone more than a friend, it just needed time to blossom, and blossom it did. Did I mention that I’m not a writer? I apologize in advance for running off on various tangents during the narrative, I don’t know any better. I’m also ruthlessly apologetic. I learned that trick back when I was a teenager working some customer service gig at Sears: apologize and apologize often, it works.

I suppose I should start at the beginning and assume you have no knowledge of Norrah and the shit that happened a year ago. Some of the details I learned second-hand from Norrah, so keep that in mind as you’re reading personal details of her history and recent experiences, as I wasn’t a part of her life until the day that the twenty-three people went missing. Funny thing about that, the number twenty-three almost begs to have the word the before it. Without the it’s just a number; with it becomes the greatest unsolved mystery of our generation. The twenty-three who went missing.

Lake Arrowhead is a mountain town of ten-thousand or so people, located in the San Bernardino mountains in southern California. The elevation is around five-thousand feet, and it snows a few months out of the year. People unfamiliar to this region might find it hard to believe that folks shovel snow a few months out of the year right here in southern California. But it does snow, and it was snowing on that fateful February 14th, Valentine’s Day. And on top of that, it had been colder than a whore’s heart for the week leading up to it. Being a cop I see a lot more work when it’s sub-freezing, as a lot of dumbasses drive the speed limit on roads with black ice, and I inevitably wind up having to fill out paperwork because of it. Fun fact: there are ten times more fender benders up here in the winter than there are in the summer. Ten times!

Norrah’s house isn’t on the lake, but she has a great view of it. It’s a grand old three-story house at the end of a cul-de-sac, no neighbors too near, fairly remote, and is great if privacy is your thing. There are no houses behind her for a quarter mile, just untamed pines and underbrush and a steep hillside declining from it, eventually reaching the deep-blue lake.

From the driveway you enter the second floor—the bottom floor can almost be termed a basement. Being that the home is on a hillside, the front of the bottom floor is underground while the back isn’t and has windows affording a view of the lake, and even has remote access. The top story is Norrah’s bedroom, a pair of guest bedrooms, and a bathroom. The second floor is a large living room with its back wall a series of large windowpanes, a deck where you can sit and sip wine while admiring the beauty of Lake Arrowhead. Norrah could suntan on that deck naked with no chance of being seen, other than by me. I keep trying to get her to do just that because she’s both pasty and looks marvelous naked. I’m sure Norrah will just love to know I wrote that.

Let me give you a brief history of how Norrah came to live in this house and why Paul was a tenant therein—Paul Klein is another name you’ve been inundated with on the news. The house was bought by Norrah’s grandparents Jack and Dolores back in the 80’s, a kind of retirement home, and when her grandpa passed away ten years ago it was too much house for just her grandmother (2,600 square feet). Norrah’s parents had been living in Denver by then and had no interest in moving back to southern Cal. So when Dolores decided to move into an old-folks community, she let Norrah live there. The house isn’t quite paid off yet, but it was bought at a time that real estate was laughably cheap, a mortgage of under a grand, so it was a sweet deal for Norrah. When Dolores dies, the house will become her granddaughter Norrah’s.

When Norrah first moved in she was working at the only grocery store in Lake Arrowhead, Stater Brothers—there was Jansen’s Market as well, but it was small. She rang up groceries. She’s thirty now, so that would make her around twenty at the time. After so many years of being a checker I guess she came to the grim realization that if she didn’t get an education she’d be doing that shit for the rest of her life. Six years ago she began taking night classes at a community college down the mountain in Yucaipa, about a forty minute drive from her house. Only taking two classes at a time, it would take her nine or ten years to get that vaunted bachelor’s degree, and as I write this she is still a couple years away from attaining that goal. Because she was taking classes she worked less hours, though not much less. Her expenditures were higher because of the insane prices at the gas pump, and tuition and books. She lived alone in a large house, so it seemed like a good idea to find a roommate to share the expenses with. The house is ideal for such an arrangement, being that the bottom floor can be accessed without stepping foot into Norrah’s living area. It is somewhat of a basement, though I don’t know of too many basements in which there is remote access; keep in mind houses up on the mountain are on slopes, so while the bottom floor is underground at the front of the house, they are typically above ground in the back—did I mention that already? There is a hatch that can be lowered over the portal of the stairs leading down to the bottom floor, and when Paul moved in that’s what she did. It gave the façade of the bottom floor being an apartment, separate from the upper stories. There is a bathroom down there, but no kitchenette. Just a hot-plate and a microwave on a dresser, a little mini-fridge. The bottom floor is a studio apartment; the only door other than the backdoor is that of the bathroom. Norrah charged him four-hundred a month, just under half of her mortgage payment. He had been living there for three months when the event this story is engendered from took place.

I judge Paul Klein to be about twenty or twenty-one years old (I can’t say that with any degree of certainty). When he interviewed with Norrah to take residency in her house, he had said he was going to college at the University of Redlands, or U of R. That was a lie. He also said he was working part-time at Papagayo’s, a Mexican restaurant. That was also a lie. Turns out much of what Paul said was bullshit. Paul is a big mystery in most aspects. He’s a good looking kid, the kind of smile that girls are eager to revisit, the kind of charming witticisms that makes girls giggle, and exceedingly well-spoken for a kid so young. The damned thing about Paul Klein is that when detectives began investigating his history following the disappearance of the twenty-three, they found nothing. Not jack shit. It was as though he didn’t exist prior to moving into Norrah’s. And other than the registration and insurance papers on his Dodge Ram, and his Wells Fargo bank account, there are no records of his existence, not even a social security number. Being that he wasn’t a suspect of foul play against the missing people (I’ll elaborate on that later), he got by without having to prove much of his past. I don’t like Paul, disliked him from the moment I met him, and can’t put a finger on why exactly that is. Maybe it’s because his smile looks phony to me. Something doesn’t jibe with him. I’m not the only one who feels that way about him, though most don’t. Most gobble up his bullshit wholesale. Norrah didn’t feel the same way about him or she wouldn’t have let him in her house, but I suspect she was lured in by his good looks, though she won’t admit it. When I pester her about it she blushes and changes the subject, so you be the judge.

February 14th was the day it happened. By February 15th Lake Arrowhead was a town that most American’s were knowledgeable of. By February 21st a respectable percentage of the world had heard of Lake Arrowhead. The largest unsolved mystery of all time, many people say, and not just because kids disappeared. That kind of stuff happens. If it was only that, it would merely be a big mystery, and not a mind fuck.

I was patrolling highway 18 when I got the call from dispatch. Never when dispatch calls do you think this is the time that everything changes, that this call is the one that you’re going to be writing a damned book about. I took the call indifferently, how was I to know? I was the second officer to arrive; Fred Guthrie the fat ass had just pulled up when I got there. An hour later every cop on the mountain was there. Twenty-three people gone missing under highly unusual circumstances will do that. The F.B.I. didn’t arrive till the next day, as people aren’t considered to be missing until twenty-four hours have passed. Instead of telling you what we found (or didn’t find), I’m going to recite Norrah’s story for you, a story which she’s told me time and time again. I will make no exaggerations whatsoever and will confer with her often as I write the particulars. I honestly wish she’d write this shit. But I’ve come to love her, and there is little I wouldn’t do for her. So here it goes:

Part 1:

Chapter One

A man with red skin, horns, and a tail walks into a pub on Halloween, sits at the bar. Impressed, the bartender whistles and says, You take your costuming serious, huh?

"I do," the man replies.

"Well it’s a special occasion, so why not, eh?"

"It is. It’s the only day all year I don’t have to wear one."

The weather forecasters had gotten it all wrong, as they often do. I swear, it could be twenty-one degrees out and they’ll predict a low of thirty-three. Or they will say eighty percent chance of snow when if they stuck their damned heads outside they’d see that it’s already snowing. I digress. The storm that was due to arrive on Monday night, February 15th, had arrived Saturday night, the evening before Valentine’s Day. Two feet of snow dumped on the mountain like Jack Frost took a massive icy shit, blanketing the San Bernardino forest with holy whiteness. Cal Trans is great at clearing the roads, and come Sunday morning, cars didn’t need chains to traverse the winding mountain roads. That Valentine’s Day morning Norrah was getting ready for work at Stater Brothers when her bottom-floor tenant Paul Klein lifted the hatch and entered the living room. It wasn’t off-limits to him to be above the basement floor, but it was understood that his place was down there and her place was up there, and there was little-to-no need for him to come up. Occasionally he did come up, but always with a good reason—to pay rent (always on time), to offer to chop some of the logs flanking the side of the house into firewood, to drop off a couple bottles of red wine his friend got for free from work (sample bottles from a wine rep), and the last and most consequential occurrence of his upstairs intrusion was on the morning of Valentine’s Day.

Norrah had just shut off the blow-dryer in her bathroom of the third floor when she heard Paul bellow, Hello-hello!

Norrah cinched her robe’s belt and took a couple steps down the top flight of stairs when she saw him, and stopped. Hi, Paul, she said with her charming smile—she really is a cute little devil, and that smile makes me fall in love with her all over again every time I see it.

Morning, Norrah. I was hoping we could talk for a few minutes. I know you’re leaving for work soon, but it’s kind of important.

Uh… okay.

She went downstairs and took a seat at the dining room table. Paul sat opposite her. He wore black slacks and a dark blue golf shirt. His black hair was slightly wavy and always looked wet. He looked like he belonged in any number of teen-heartthrob movies. It was easy to smile at him, easy to get a little lost in his hazel eyes. He’s the kind of guy that you find yourself telling too-personal things to in hope that he’ll reciprocate a juicy nugget of his own. She felt uncomfortable wearing nothing but a bath robe, just a little tug on her cloth-belt away from being nude before this good looking boy, but it wasn’t by her design: he came up to see her. She crossed her legs under the table and asked how he was doing.

Just great, thank you. I’ll make this quick, since you have to leave here in, he checked his wristwatch, what, fifteen minutes? She nodded. I have a huge favor to ask you. I know I said I wasn’t going to have many people over, and I respect your wish of quietude here—quietude, who the hell says quietude?—but something’s come up. There are some guys I go to school with, and every year on Valentine’s Day there’s a party. A masquerade party. It was going to be at Taylor’s house this year; he lives just a few miles from here. Something came up and the place is a no-go. We all had our hearts set on having the party up in the mountains; you know, cozy snow, roaring fire, forest; and being that your house is so near Taylor’s, it seemed like a good logistical alternative. So I—

How many people are we talking?

Not many. I believe something like eight guys and their dates. Maybe a couple others, but I don’t know for sure. They’re all students of University of Redlands, good considerate guys and girls. I trust them all. We won’t be rowdy, you have my word.

From what time till what time?

Paul looked up and away, considered it. Eight till about one or two in the morning. We’ll have the music turned down by midnight.

I suppose it would be all right, if it’s a one-time thing. Don’t get in the habit of having get-togethers here. It’s not that I don’t trust—

Paul held up a hand to stop her, grinned sidelong, and said, No need to say it. I haven’t been here long, I don’t expect you to trust me. But we’ll keep the party downstairs, so there won’t be any reason to worry about things breaking or stuff getting stolen. And being that the nearest house is what, fifty yards away or better?—I doubt anyone will know we’re here other than you.

All right, Norrah said, it should be fine. I work the early shift tomorrow so I’ll be in bed by eleven. If you could keep it down at around that time I’d appreciate it. I sleep on the third floor, but can still hear music from down below. Do that for me and we have a deal.

Awesome.

One other thing. Would you mind parking your truck on the street or farther to the right on the driveway from now on? It’s a big truck, not a big driveway.

Consider it done. Paul stood and extended his hand. She shook it with a smile and left the table, went upstairs to dress.

Early that evening Norrah was driving home from work when it began snowing again. Just a light snow, more of an afterword to the storm that landed last night. She parked her Camry on the driveway beside an Infinity sedan she had never before seen, in the place of Paul’s usual Dodge truck. She wondered if he traded it in. She went inside and locked the door behind her. Paul must have heard her arrive because he went upstairs through the open hatch shortly after. He was dressed in black tuxedo pants and a white dress-shirt with a red bow-tie. Was he really going to wear a tux tonight? She wondered. He asked if she had any scotch tape he could borrow, and some tacks and a hammer. She had tape and a hammer but no tacks, sorry. He thanked her and waited for her to collect the two items. When she handed them over he said, You should come hang out with us tonight, if you’d like.

Her brow arched. Me? She considered it was more of a polite gesture than an honest invitation. She was thirty, while he presumably wasn’t old enough to buy booze yet. But maybe he was. He possessed that youthful appearance that lasts a lifetime, like Dick Clark had. She considered herself to be a young-looking thirty, and guys did check her out when she was checking them out (groceries, that is) but still… they were college kids and if the others looked anything like Paul Klein, they could do a lot better than Norrah—her words, not mine; if you ask me, Norrah is the best any man could do. Thanks, but I don’t think that would be a good idea.

Suit yourself, but you’re welcome to join us. He turned and took a couple steps down the stairs through the portal while adding, Might be a single guy or two. They’d be all over you.

Wait, she said after him. He stopped and looked back, only his shoulders and head remained above the landing. What do you mean by that?

Oh I don’t mean anything like that. I’m sorry, that sounded suggestive. I just mean you’re an attractive woman and they’d appreciate it. That’s all.

She nodded slightly. That’s sweet of you to say, but I don’t believe that. You guys be safe down there. You have my cell phone number, so call or text if you need anything and I’ll bring it down.

Sweet. You’re the best, Norrah.

She grinned and went upstairs to change into some lounge-wear. Sweats and a sweat-shirt, her most comfy socks, and tied her hair into a pony-tail. She nuked some Lean Pockets in the microwave and poured some iced tea, mulling over the idea of a masquerade party. It was intriguing, a masquerade party. And on Valentine’s Day, of all days. Weren’t those kinds of things only on Halloween? She wondered if they’d be wearing costumes or just a mask. Every instance of masquerading she had heard of or read about was mostly just a mask. She remembered watching The Count of Monte Cristo, and there was the carnival in Rome, taking place sometime in the early 19th century, and those people had those little masks that were attached to a stick and held up against their faces. She supposed some of them were fastened to their heads by a string going over their ears and tied at the back. They were partial masks, covering the forehead and nose but not the mouth. She doubted this was the type of masquerading her tenant had in mind, but who knew? In her memory of that movie’s carnival, the people were classy, dressed formally, and it was a regal occasion, a big deal. Could college kids put together something so tasteful? It seemed more likely they would wear costumes. She could see in her imagination a girl dressed as Elvira, tits popping out of her low vee-cut shirt, and another girl with a less desirable figure dressed as Snow White or Cinderella, the fabric at the waist threatening to bust at the seams. She pictured a college boy wearing a Spiderman mask. Peter Parker. Maybe he’d try to get a chuckle out of the dames by calling himself by his porn-acting name Peter Pork-her. Perhaps a muscular boy would flaunt his rippling beefcake by going shirtless and painting his torso green, and pretend to be the Incredible Hulk. The more she considered the possibilities, the more curious she became about this party.

Norrah remembered her sleep mask. One of those black deals that sleepers wear when they are forced to contend with an unchecked morning sun. She had been one such sleeper at a younger age, but had since gotten blinds put up over her window and put to rest the use of a sleep mask. What