The Masqueraders (previous chapter 3)
Frank stood staring at the people staring back. The slight roaring of the flames in the background was the only noise.
“Um.” Frank breathed. “Hi there.”
No one spoke back to him.
“Uh, I’ll just, um, go.”
He poked his thumb behind himself. Still no reaction. Barely a blink. Frank was severely freaked out, so he started backing away slowly, occasionally tripping over a pile of leaves or bottles. Even when he was about twenty metres away, he could still see the group of people staring blankly at him. Like statues.
Frank started to get pretty scared, so he turned on his heel and bolted off in a random direction. Bushes whipped his neck and face as he ran, but Frank couldn’t give a damn, he just wanted to get away from the creepy statue-people. He skidded before turning a corner, gasping from lack of breath, looking about wildly to see if anyone was around. Frank jumped violently as he spotted a group of youths walking down a path nearby the woods Frank had just escaped from; but he quickly calmed down as he spotted a bright pink head and a pair of hands making grabby signs at him as they drew closer.
“Hey, Frankie!” Squealed Amy, running forward and tackling him in a hug. Frank grinned at Gerard sarcastically, who had made a whistling noise as soon as Amy had spoken.
“Hey there Amy.”
“Where have you been? Don’t you know it’s dangerous for little boys like you to go out in the dark?” Jasmine snickered. Frank scowled at her slightly, before looking a little worried again.
“I was just going to where I normally hang out, but…” He trailed off, biting on his lip ring, which had started to get pretty cold as the night went on. Gerard looked at him curiously.
“What happened?” He asked softly.
“Nothing happened, as such, but… you guys heard of the Masqueraders?”
The four people in front of him exchanged glances quickly.
“Everyone’s heard of the Masqueraders, Frankie-boy.” Hummed Michelle. She stepped forward and put her hand on Frank’s shoulder.
“Why? Did you see something?”
Frank shook his head, as if to clear his head. After a minute, he started talking.
“I saw… I heard an argument. A light-hearted one, like. But then something inside the building exploded, and all these people came out, and they looked just like the Masqueraders that I’ve seen at town late at night. And then when they saw me, they just went all… still. Like, they were breathing and all, but they just stood in the same place, staring at me.”
Under her breath, Frank heard Amy whisper something, to which Gerard nodded; but he couldn’t quite catch what she said.
“Well, that’s kinda creepy, huh Frankie? Did they do anything else?” Asked Michelle in an annoyingly fake tone of voice. Frank looked at her suspiciously, before answering,
“No. That’s when I ran off.” He pulled his sleeves over his hands a little, fingers getting a little numb.
“You cold, Frank? You want another hug?” asked Amy earnestly.
Gerard laughed and started walking forward, ignoring the rest of them. Frank’s eyes followed him, then looked back to the girls frowning.
“Don’t worry, he does that. It’s the silent way of him saying he’s bored.” Frank bit his lip ring, and then decided to follow Gerard quickly. To be honest, he was pretty bored too. They walked for around ten minutes in a silence, which Frank thought was awkward but Gerard thought was quite comfortable. Still without speaking, they both made their way towards a tree that was known throughout the town.
It was an ancient tree, and it’s huge branches extended at least ten metres each way. Due to the thickness, proper seats had been carved into some branches nearer the top. Gerard made his way up quickly, wheezing a little as he moved faster; Frank decided to see if he could climb up using only his arms, so it took a little longer. The older of the two watched in amusement as Frank struggled to get up the last step, and offered his hand. Frank pulled himself into a seat across from Gerard, and they sat staring around at the various inscriptions on the tree around them. The sound of the street below was blocked out almost completely, and Gerard’s vague humming became a part of Frank’s mind for some time. At last, Gerard spoke up.
“I know who fancies you.”
Frank looked at him in surprise. He had got a sudden flashback from being in sixth grade, surrounded by his friends. A group of girls stood nearby, and they were all flicking their hair at him. He remembered the same words spilling out of his best friend’s mouth, Matthew. He remembered Matthew grinning insanely at Frank as he shook his shoulders, trying to get it out of him. When Matthew finally told him who it was, Frank was kinda bored of the subject. But he still asked out Alice, because she was sort of pretty and calm and clever.
She had only dumped him three months ago.
“Frank? You with me?”
Frank looked back at Gerard, realising he had been staring at a leaf with his mouth dangling open. Ah well. At least he still had nice breath from the Skittles.
“Yeah, I’m with you. So who fancies me?”
Gerard grinned insanely. Uh oh, deja-vu.
“You know, I can’t be bothered to tell you now.”
Frank growled a little, his lip curling.
“You have to tell me. Otherwise you’re just being mean and bitchy.” Gerard feigned a look of hurt, and slipped down onto the branch below.
“Oh, so I’m bitchy now, am I? Well, I can be bitchier. I’ll see you later, Frank.” He proceeded to jump levels down, occasionally swearing as he narrowly missed a branch. Frank watched in irritation. As Gerard reached the second branch to the floor, Frank dived directly down and landed straight on his stomach.
“Oh my good god, lemmings.” Stated Gerard in a deadpan tone, looking up to the sky, back to Frank (who was gasping in pain), back in the sky.
Frank shot a withering look at the former, and shuffled to his feet.
“You tell me, and you tell me now.” He warned, getting closer to Gerard with every word.
“Uhhh… no.” Gerard grinned again and started skipping away.
“GERARD! Get back here, now. WHO FANCIES ME?” Frank whined a little at the end of his sentence, making it sound a little less threatening and more like, well, a whiny lemming.
Wait.
“What noise do lemmings make, Gerard?” He hummed slightly as he caught up with the taller boy. They looked at each other, as if the answer was written in Sharpie across the foreheads. It wasn’t.
“I honestly don’t know, Frankie.” Gerard replied. Frank made a disappointed ‘oh.’ noise, to which Gerard smirked.
“ Wait, I think I do know actually!” He gasped after a minute.
“Really?
“Yeah!”
“Well, lets hear it then.”
“Well, I think they probably go, eeeehhh, I’m called Frankie, ehhhhh, let’s jump off stuff, ehhhhhh… D’ya think?” Frank scowled up at Gerard as they crossed the sidewalk, annoying a pavement artist.
“I’m not a lemming.”
“Oh Frankie love, you are. You are, you are, you are. From now on you shall be known as my little lemming buddy and I shall carry you around in a lemming bag and I shall entertain myself by watching you jump off of stuff and laugh.”
There was a long silence after Gerard’s little speech. Frank was struggling desperately to come up with a decent retort, while Gerard delighted in Frank’s troubles. Just as Frank had thought of something mean to say about Gerard’s trousers (which he loved but he just couldn’t be mean to anything else, it was all far too Frank-esque), Gerard broke into song.
“Oh Frankie! You are my lemming! You are my lemming, my lemming, my pal! You jump off of stuff but you don’t look that rough! You’re my lemming, my lemming, my pal!”
Frank looked at him in utter shock.
“Are… are you actually kidding me?”
Gerard seemed to think about that for a minute.
“Uh… no, I really don’t think so. I think the gang would love it. I think the gang would want me to record it on my phone and send it round the school, don’t you?” Frank twitched angrily, narrowing his eyes at Gerard. Sure, he had a good voice, but that stupid song was still utterly humiliating.
“Ah, quite grimacing at me, you know I’m just messing.” Gerard sighed. He flicked a bit of hair over his eyes, looking down as he did so. Frank bit his lip again. Gerard noticed, and raised his eyebrows.
“What’s up? My sexy hair too much for you?” He beamed. Frank scoffed, before saying,
“I was just wondering why you all wear your hair like that.”
There was a pause, and Frank saw Gerard’s mind working.
“Well Frankie, the thing is, you don’t wear hair. It grows. If we wore it then that would mean that I could pick it up-” Here he grabbed a fistful of hair, “-And just sort of turn it around. Because I’m wearing it, see? And if I can do that with my jacket then I can do it with my hair, if I’m wearing it.”
Frank had pretended to have fallen asleep as soon as he realised Gerard was going to make another long sarcastic speech, and made snuffly noises as he pretended to wake up.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Gerard. I guess I must have just dropped off, I don’t know how, your story was so fascinating.”
Gerard curled his upper lip slightly, and they set off back down the dark road, Frank making sure their shoulders bumped every so often so that he was sure he wasn’t alone.
“So… are you actually going to tell me why you have your hair like that?” Frank hummed. Gerard didn’t answer for some time, and Frank was wondering whether or not he was deaf in his left ear. But as he was going to repeat his question, Gerard spoke up.
“I don’t get what you mean. Loads of people have their hair like this, it’s a normal style.” Frank nodded, but he ploughed on, determined to figure out all the weird behaviour and sneaky looks.
“Yeah, sure, but why do you all have it over your eyes, why everyone in your little group? Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”
“No, not really. Have you seen the cheerleaders? They all have their hair exactly the same and I don’t see you complaining.”
“That’s because I’d get the shit beaten out of me if I dissed one of the jock’s girlfriends.” Frank could see Gerard’s pale face bobbing slightly, an amused look gracing his features.
“I guess so. But… we’re just like them. Well, obviously a lot less popular and gifted, but we just have a style that fits us so we wear it like that. You don’t see us going all weird when Amy turns up every other Friday in an outfit pretty damn similar to all the cheerleaders; that’s because it suits her, in the same way that those rainbow jeans she had on today do.”
Frank ‘hmm’d a little in agreement. Another silence fell over the pair, in which Frank stealthily slipped his right hand into one of Gerard’s coat pockets. He was sure that his fingers would fall off pretty soon, so he may as well save at least five. Gerard gripped on to his freezing hand, warming it up quickly. Though Frank seemed to have settled, he was still curious about the group. They just weren’t… normal. There was just something about them that scared him, a bit. Like they weren’t the same as everyone else Frank had ever met. Every lunch he had spent with them over the last few weeks had made that clear.
As Frank realised that they were walking down his road, he didn’t bother asking Gerard how he knew where he lived, and stopped behind a tree so that his mom wouldn’t see him holding hands with a guy. She knew he had been out with a guy before, but she’d still go insane and want to meet Gerard, even if Frank told her they totally weren’t interested in each other. Well, maybe Frank thought Gerard was kind of sexy; he wasn’t planning on doing anything. And he had a big bet that Gerard was straight as the day is long.
“Gerard, just one last question?”
Gerard pressed his lips up in a smile, inviting Frank to go on.
Frank paused to take a deep breath.
“You are… you know. Um. Normal. Like, human. Right?”
Frank regretted his words instantly. Human? He didn’t know where the human bit had come from; of course Gerard was human, he could see him standing there with his angular face and his thick coat and his wavy-straight hair. Stupid word-vomit. Gerard would probably laugh now, mocking him for being an idiot. He would say something about how Frank needed to get his head checked out. He would give him a noogie or something, before running off and avoiding ‘that weird Frank guy’ for a while.
“No.”
Gerard’s answer pushed through Frank’s thoughts.
“What?”
“I said, no. I’m… we’re not… one hundred percent human.”
Frank could only stare on in shock.
.