Page 142 of When Darkness Calls

My huff is childish, but I do it anyway. “I don’t know what to draw. All of yours are so cool, and I’m blanking. How did you decide what you wanted to do?”

“We didn’t. You did,” Cade says absentmindedly from a few feet away, his paint brush is held in a light grip as he presses it to the mask, following the lines he sketched.

I lean back, face scrunching up. “No, I didn’t. How could I have?”

“You did. The night Marlene died…” Grays murmurs.

A solemn pause flows through the air as everyone’s mind goes back to that night.

“We were arguing about horror movies, and you went on this long rant about deeper meanings and whatever. Said everyone could relate to the monsters, that they teach us about what it means to be human.”

Slowly, the memory of what happened earlier that night comes back. It was just us three hanging out while we waited for Mom to come home from buying Gray’s birthday present. We were going to surprise him later that night once everyone was able to get to the house. His birthday was a few days before.

Cade continues, “You said you could tell which monsters were like each person and I bet you couldn’t—”

“And I said you were like—”

“Dracula,” he finishes, flipping his mask toward me. The faint sketchy lines are intricate, some have been glossed over in shining wet, crimson paint, but I can see it clearly. The outline of a skull with sharp fangs.

My eyes widened in awe. “Holy shit, Cay. I didn’t know you could draw like that.”

He chuckles. “I didn’t either really. I always doodled and sketched when I was bored back in middle school, but then in high school I was so focused on baseball I just kind of stopped. But then when we made the masks, I remembered how much I enjoyed it. I try to do it every so often when I need to clear my head. It helps.” Cade finishes with a dismissive shrug.

I look around at each of the guys watching me. “So, yours is obvious. Does that mean the rest of you—”

Keegan turns his mask. “Frankenstein.” The area above the right eye has already been painted in a deep green.

“Wolfman,” Alex says, showing me the dark red swatches down the middle of his mask. They look like claw marks.

Nick raises his, a deep muted purple brushed around the edge of the left side, but the light hits the surface perfectly for me to see the grotesque, monstrous smile—sharp teeth and all—he had drawn. “Jekyll and Hyde.”

My head turns to Grayson and his mask with the deep, black void eyes that have somehow taken hold of my mind and soul. “Invisible Man.”

He grins. “I wasn’t much of a fan of his goggles. They’re not my style, but I think I did pretty good making it my own.”

The longer I stare at it the more I can see the differences in this one than the last. It doesn’t look as rushed and the smears look more intentional. Swift, faint, barely-there, diagonal lines that fade into white. Spaced out in a way that first glance looks accidental, but then they begin to make a larger picture.

My finger traces just over the wet lines as I say, “Like the wraps.”

“Like the wraps.”

Words fail me at this moment. I truly don’t know what to say. All I can do is float in the rush of emotions. My love, gratefulness, appreciation. Respect. I respect the hell out of each of them for the love, support, and family they have given me, but more than that, I respect their choice to wear the masks in the first place.

Cay leans back onto his palms. “When we decided to do this, we didn’t have any ideas either. It really was a spur of the moment thing. We talked forever about what to do, and it was all just talk. None of us planned on taking it any further. Then Grays saved that woman.”

“I was running around town one night when I couldn’t sleep. It was really late and I cut through an alley just off Main Street when I heard someone scream. I don’t know who she was, I haven’t seen her again, but I found her face-down behind a dumpster on one of the side streets. A guy was kneeling on her back with a switchblade pressed against the back of her neck. Her purse had been dumped out, stuff scattered all over the ground. My guess was he was gonna rob her and leave, but…he didn’t. And by the time I got there, it was obvious what he was going to do next. The only other time I came that close to beating someone to death was when I found you last year, Dani.”

His eyes burn with regret, an apology sitting just on the tip of his tongue. When my hand sides into his, his fingers close over the back in a vise. As if he fears I will let go.

Keegan shifts forward in the recliner, resting his arm on the tray. “He showed up at Alex and Nick’s place while we were playing video games, covered in blood, muttering about saving the town. I called Cay and we all talked about it after we got him cleaned up. The masks were Alex’s idea.”

“Yeah, cause, while he was super heroic, he did nearly kill that guy, and the woman saw his face. He’s lucky she didn’t tell the cops what he looked like. Kenneth only extends his kindness as far as plausible deniability can go,” Alex says, rolling his eyes. “So, I went and got the masks. Alex and Cay found the paint in our garage. And Grays told us about what you said.”

“It seemed like as good an idea as any,” Nick adds.

“And it was a reminder,” Grayson says to me. “By painting something inspired by your words, the mask could remind us of what we were doing it for. It meant something to us, beyond just keeping our identities hidden, because it came from you.”

For a moment, we sat. I let Grayson’s words sink in. As weird as it is to say, the mask is a reminder, but also a hope. A hope that maybe one day Shadow Grove won’t be such a dark place. They’re doing this for the town and its people, but also for me, for themselves.