Skeleton Mask

Ron Tatum

          

   No one spoke. Then one by one the group got into the cab of the pickup. Shane walked back over one last time. He picked up the mask the one piece of evidence and held it in his hand. The skeleton seemed to look back at him, mocking him, goading him to do the right thing.

 

    The next morning Shane awoke his head pounding. He lay in his bed staring at the poster of a swimsuit model pinned to his ceiling. He rubbed his head and tried to shake of the fuzzy feeling but the combination of the punch to the head and a six-pack was taking its toll.

 

    Shane rolled out of bed and head downstairs. He was midway down the steps when he heard his mother talking to someone at the door. Shane came down just far enough to see who was standing in the door. It was the sheriff. Panic gripped Shane. In haze the night before he had crawled up to his room and stuffed the mask in the steam truck in his closet. He knew that neither Terry nor Jason could be trusted to dispose of the one piece of evidence properly. He felt his heart thunder in his ears.

 

    Shane was about to turn and head up the steps when his mother called out. “ Shane, I was just about to come get you.” Mrs. Bartlet looked horrified.

 

    Shane went down the steps supporting himself on the rail like an old man. He came the to the screen door his hair matted to his hair like a boy that had a little too much fun the night before. The sheriff gave a half crooked smile and nodded.

 

    “ Shane, I need to ask you something?”

 

    The pulsing in his ears was now a roar.

 

    “ Where you with Terry Arbor and Jason Tate last night?”

 

    Shane furrowed his brow. There was no sense in lying.

 

    “ Yeah, how come?”

 

    “When you see them last?”

 

    “ ‘ bout two this morning, why?”

 

    The sheriff lowered his head.

 

    “ They found the boys this morning along with the Barclay girl…Tina.” The sheriff cleared his throat. “ They were all dead. They were hanging from a tree on Sumnter road, they were all wearing masks taped to their faces.”

 

    Shane did not here the rest of what the sheriff said. He nodded along in bewilderment. Finally the sheriff patted him on the shoulder and his mother walked the stunned boy back to his room. She offered to make him a sandwich, asked a few questions about the night before then as was the nature of the Bartlet home she left the boy to be alone with his thoughts.

 

    Shane sat in his room with shades drawn. He nibbled at the sandwich his mother brought him then fell asleep in the afternoon. When he woke up night had settled on the small town. His room was pitch black. He flipped on the small reading lamp next to his bed and squinted against the dingy yellow glow.

 

    He looked at himself in the full-length mirror on the closet door a mere shadowy figure in the dimly lit room. Why had this happened? Who could have done it? No one even knew about John Plumber’s body yet. He stared at the closet. He felt a gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He had to get the mask out of the house.

 

    Shane went to his closet and opened the door. He knelt down at the steamer trunk, opened the hasp and raised the lid. He removed a couple of shoeboxes with baseball cards and comics then pried at the lip of the false bottom with a butter knife he kept in the bottom of the trunk. The piece of wood popped up. He squinted in the dim light of the lamp near his bed. A few swimsuit magazines, firecrackers, a couple of hard to find comics but the mask…the mask was gone.

 

    Shane shut the trunk, crawled out of the closet and rose to his feet. There was a weird feeling at the nape of his neck. He closed the door and looked in the mirror.

 

    In the dark a tall shadow stood behind him. In the faint light he could see the skeleton mask.

 

    The voice was gravelly but Shane recognized it instantly, “ I never killed no little girl.” The voice said. “ But, I’m gonna kill you. The bible say a sin of omission same as a sin o’ commission.”

 

    Shane tried to scream but before his mouth was open he felt a hand clasp his mouth. He struggled as the mask came over his eyes. Shane smelled that strange vinyl smell of the Halloween mask and the glue from duct tape as it clasped over his mouth. He struggled but the arms that held him were too strong.

 

    The blackness of slowly unconsciousness enveloped him. From over his shoulder he heard the voice from behind the mask repeat, “I never kill’d no little girl.

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