#the b's

“Got any change?” he asked.

Without looking at him, Bonnie replied, “Not really. I prefer spending the little money I have via credit card. It seems counterintuitive, but it somehow works for me. I spend less when I’m not sure how much I have left.”

“He didn’t ask for spending tips, he just asked for a little change.”

The voice seemed strangely familiar.

“Well, I don’t have any, okay?”

The face looked familiar, too. So much so that Bonnie said, “Belinda, is that you? I didn’t recognise you with that green hair and your, ahem, new look.”

“Belinda? Who calls you Belinda these days? This is Bindy. And she’s a proud fuck up, just like we all are,” the man in Bonnie’s way howled.

“Don’t scare her like that, Buck. Bonnie is a delicate soul.”

“Bonnie. Another potential B for our exclusive club. Wanna join the ‘Five B’s’, make it the ‘Six B’s’ instead? Bindy has been lonely lately, and you’re kinda her type. For some reason, she likes bookworms.”

“Shut up, Buck. Don’t listen to him, Bonnie. He’s just trying to get a reaction out of you. Besides, I’m not even looking for someone new. I’m perfectly fine on my own.”

Belinda paused for a moment before she smiled and added, “But Buck is right about one thing. This will be a pretty lonesome weekend for me. Alone in the woods with two couples. We’re going on a little trip, you know. A weekend getaway in the hinterland. Billy knows the owner of what he calls an oasis in the mountain woods. Don’t try to explain to him that an oasis is always situated in a desert. He’s hell-bent on using the phrase.”

“It sounds cool,” said a small guy with a half shaved head. He was sitting next to a lanky man with long bleached hair who said, “It fucking does, babe.”

They were both wearing skinny jeans with holes at the knees and a The Clash T-shirt. That generally seemed to be the uniform look of the group.

Bonnie looked at the ground as she said, “An oasis in the forest is indeed an oxymoron. Unless, of course, he’s referring to the secondary meaning of the word ‘oasis’ as a refuge. Then it’s perfectly fitting. Either way, I wasn’t gonna say anything.”

“Of course not. You never wanted to hurt anybody’s feelings. So I’m sure you won’t hurt mine when I ask you now if you’d join us on our little trip?” asked Belinda with a slightly shy yet beaming smile.

Bonnie looked back down at the floor as she answered, “I already have plans for the weekend.”

“Do they involve other people, or will you be alone in your apartment watching sad movies all day long?” said the young man called Buck, who was still standing much too close for Bonnie’s comfort.

“Not sad movies but a good book will be my companion this weekend,” she replied, looking up defiantly. “Plus, I have a paper to finish. I’d rather stay in.”

“Oh, come on, Bonnie, live a little,” said Belinda. “How often have you stayed in a mansion? And the two of us will have a lot of time to catch up while these four keep each other company.”

“Keep each other company? We’ll fuck each other’s brains out. At least Billy and I will. I don’t know about these two prudes,” said the tall guy with the bleached hair while pressing his boyfriend’s hand.

“Who are you calling a prude?” The girl with the pink short hair grabbed the buttocks of Buck, who grunted with what seemed delight.

“Stop your squabbling,” said Belinda, “you’re scaring my friend off. Please, come with us, Bonnie. I promise you they’ll behave. It’ll just be like old times, when we were the Two B’s, just that it’s now the Six B’s.”

Bonnie smiled while her thoughts were racing. It would indeed be nice to spend some time with Belinda, Bonnie had missed her quite a lot over the years. And her story-filled mind craved an actual adventure in real life. But she also really needed a quiet weekend alone, it had been a stressful week.

Plus, her feelings were a little hurt. Back in the day, the Two B’s had only been the two of them, Belinda and Bonnie, nobody else was allowed in the club. That had been the rule.

Apparently, that wasn’t true any more.

Bonnie felt hurt on a deep, personal level. It even went so far, that it ruined the treasured memory of something she had never shared with anyone, not even Belinda.

Because Bonnie had always thought of the Two B’s as the “To Be's”, a reference to Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be”. Every time they had called themselves by their club’s nickname, Bonnie couldn’t help but think of that famous line: to be, or not to be, that is the question.

She cynically thought that in terms of their friendship being unique, the answer had to be a “not to be” after all. That realisation made Bonnie pretty sad and stung quite a bit, but then, to her surprise, her thoughts turned somewhat angry.

Billy, Bobby, and Becky weren’t even names that started with a B, there were just nicknames that started with a B. Those certainly weren’t their birth names. Unlike Belinda and Bonnie, those were proper B-names. And Buck, what kind of name was that? Was that even his given name or just some random word he called himself?

Bonnie didn’t care to find out. The more she thought about it, the more she was looking forward to her time on the sofa with a good book in one hand a an ice cream cone in the other.

* * *

Three hours later, Bonnie got out of the one car they had all shared, thinking that she really needed to work on her ability to say “no”. She had been cooped up in the middle seat in the back of the car with Belinda to her right and Buck and Becky to her left.

Those two had been sharing a seat and had been furiously making out for the whole drive. Sitting next to them had been uncomfortable to say the least.

After everyone had stepped out of the car, the others walked over to the lawn. It was lined with a row of greyish white stones of all different shapes and sizes. The five youths lifted various of the little rocks and put them down again, getting more and more frustrated with every stone.

“Are you sure that’s our way in, jackass?” said Bobby.

“Yeah, blockhead. It has to be under one of these stones. The stone’s fist-sized, that’s all I know, ahem, I mean, remember,” replied Buck with a sideways glance at Bonnie.

“Good thing you brought me with you then because I just found it.” Becky put down a small rock and handed the key over to Buck.

“Everything’s better with you around, baby. Who would I screw if you weren’t here?”

“Yourself,” interjected Bobby, which made everybody laugh. Even Bonnie couldn’t stifle a chuckle.

Bonnie entered the house last. Its big, impressive entrance hall had a marble floor, and two wide hallways branched off to either side. But what really caught Bonnie’s eye was a long polished wooden display table with beautiful stone sculptures on top. All three of them were about the size of a wine bottle and depicted dancing fairies. The car keys were hanging from the forearm of the middle one, and it almost looked like the keys were a part of the sculpture’s attire. Behind the table, a broad, polished wooden flight of stairs went up to the upper floor.

Becky and Buck were already stumbling up the stairs. They were half tripping, half making out, as they moved towards what was probably the bedrooms, scattering the house key and several items of clothing all over the steps.

From her left, Bonnie heard Bobby howl, “Jackpot. There’s a lot of expensive-looking booze in the liquor cabinet.”

“Then let’s get shit-faced. There’s not even any reception out here, so we’ve got nothing better to do anyway,” was Billy’s answer. It was coming from the same direction.

Bonnie went the other way, down the hall to the right. There was a door not far down the corridor labelled “Guest Bathroom”. From there, the hallway continued around a corner to the left. Bonnie turned the corner and suddenly stood in a wide kitchen.

It had a country-style wooden look, and a long row of windows straight ahead directed the view to a huge and well-kept garden.

There was also a row of smaller windows to Bonnie’s right, where the stove and sink were located right next to the fridge. The refrigerator was currently open and half of Belinda’s body seemed to be lost in the vast space it opened up into. Bonnie had never seen a fridge this huge in all her life.

Belinda had a disappointed look on her face when she closed the large silver door.

“It’s turned off. There’s nothing in there.”

“Well, there’s always the cupboards,” said Bonnie with a smile.

Half an hour later, the house was filled with the lovely smell of a hearty home-cooked meal that mostly consisted of canned food. Bonnie and Belinda had both always had a knack for cooking and used to cook together quite often, so they managed to create a rather delicious meal even though they had no fresh ingredients at hand.

Becky put the first two plates of noodles with “tomato sauce à la surprise” on the long wooden table. It had eight chairs to go with it and was clearly meant to host rather big and fancy dinners, which made it perfect for their party of six.

Buck and Becky entered the room and joined Billy and Bobby on the white sofa that was standing not far from the kitchen counter, which served as a room divider.

Buck sneered at Bonnie as he said, “We wanna eat our lunch over here, sweet Miss Proper.”

“If you make breaking conventions a rule, it becomes just another convention. But have it your way, Mister Rule Breaker,” said Belinda while bringing two plates over to the group situated around the coffee table.

Bonnie followed Belinda’s example and took the two plates she had just put down on the big table with her when she joined the others. There was hardly any room for the plates since there were already a half-empty bottle of expensive vodka and six shot glasses on the coffee table, but they managed to make it work somehow.

They sat around the small glass table, most of them sitting on the floor and putting their food and drink on the couch, ground, or their laps.

The lovely alcove by the windows looked like a mess after they had finished their meal. Becky had managed to spill tomato sauce on the delicate white fabric of the sofa, but no one seemed to care. Buck just flipped the cushion over, and that was that.

Bonnie was piling all the plates and cutlery into a tower of dirty dishes and was about to carry them to the kitchen, when Buck insisted on everyone sharing a toast. He was smoking a cigarette, using a gorgeous small ceramic bowl that had been sitting on the windowsill behind him as an improvised ashtray.

“But I don’t drink. I’ll just wash the dishes while you guys go ahead,” said Bonnie.

“What’s one drink, dear Miss Proper? I’m sure you can handle that much,” roared Buck.

“It’s not that I can’t handle it. I just don’t like the taste of alcohol.”

“Just one shot. It’s over quickly, and then you can wash it down with a tea or whatever it is that you do enjoy the taste of.”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you a chicken or what? One shot won’t even make you drunk. And I will be offended if you say no and that goes for the others too.”

They all seemed to agree, judging by the chorus of voices that followed. Bonnie was fed up with being treated like a child by most of these people, most of all Buck. So she took the shot glass he handed her and emptied it in one big gulp. She didn’t cough and didn’t even bat en eye as she put the glass back down on the table.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to wash the dishes. I don’t like living in my own filth.”

“Damn, woman. Maybe you have a backbone after all,” said Buck as Bonnie was already walking over to the sink, balancing the tower of dishes in her hands.

After Bonnie had put the dirty dishes in the sink, she noticed Belinda behind her, bringing over the shot glasses and the defiled ceramic bowl. In the background, the others were climbing out the window behind the sofa they had just sat on, trampling all over the couch while making their way to the lovely garden, completely ignoring the big slide door only a few paces away from them.

“They’re nice people once they warm up to you. It just takes them a while to let someone new in,” said Belinda while putting the glasses and bowl into the kitchen sink.

While Bonnie was still thinking about how to respond, Becky shouted from the garden, “Are you coming, Bindy? You can bring your friend.”

“Scratch that. Let little Miss Proper wash the dishes. She can join us once she’s done,” added Buck.

“Real nice people. I’m sure you’re right about that,” said Bonnie. “But I actually agree with Buck here. I prefer doing the work before play. So you guys go ahead, I’ll catch up with you later.”

“You sure? Thanks. Honestly, I’ve been dying to explore the garden. There’s this ominous slope and I want to see where it leads.”

“You go have fun, Belinda. But be careful.”

Belinda rolled her eyes and smiled as she squeezed Bonnie’s hand. Then she walked over to the sofa and climbed out the window.

Bonnie could see the others through the kitchen window while she was washing the dishes. They were standing over by the drop, looking down towards the unknown. Buck put his hands on Billy’s shoulders, pushing him forward as if he was trying to shove him over the edge, but then pulling him back. This earned him a not so soft punch in the stomach by Bobby, whose long blonde hair was blowing in the wind.

Bonnie focused on the dishes again and was a little startled when there was a soft knock on the window in front of her. Belinda smiled at her through the glass and beckoned Bonnie to follow her as she passed through to the right, following the others to a covered veranda. Bonnie couldn’t see what was over to that side because there was a waist-high wooden fence obstructing her view.

She could only see rays of golden late-afternoon light passing through the narrow slits in the fence and shadows dancing in those beams as the others moved behind it.

Being done with the dishes anyway, Bonnie decided that it was time for the fun part to begin, so she went over to the sofa, sighed at the bootprints on it and climbed out the window, too. She walked over to the wooden veranda through an open door in the fence, joining Belinda who was standing in front of a metal cage.

Belinda was staring intently at whatever was in there while grabbing Bonnie’s hand. Bonnie squeezed her friend’s hand as well and turned to see what was in the cage.

At first, she thought it was a big dog that seemed to be hiding in the shadow of the fence. But as her eyes adjusted to the darker environment of the cage, she saw that it wasn’t. The creature was much more humanoid and seemed to be squatting while its hands touched the ground. It looked completely dishevelled and seemed to be wearing scraps. In fact, the more she looked at it, the more Bonnie realised that “it” was the wrong pronoun to use. This was a woman, hiding in the shadow of the calf-covered cage. The scraps she was wearing barely covered the most delicate parts of her body.

Her face seemed to be scarred, like someone had cut her mouth open towards her ears and left a thick brownish-pink scar.

“Is that …? Is she …? Where are the others?”

Instead of saying anything, Belinda pointed her free hand at a little shack in the big cage. There were muffled noises coming form that direction, but Bonnie had almost no time to notice them because the dirt-covered woman started crawling towards them. She was moving in a strange way that didn’t seem human and was weirdly choppy.

“Are you okay, Miss? Do you need help?”

Belinda squeezed Bonnie’s hand and shushed her. The woman in the cage was still moving slowly towards them, demanding all their attention with her strange not-quite-human looks and movements, when the others suddenly burst out of the shack and came running towards the cage’s door, which had been ajar the whole time, unbeknownst to Bonnie. The terror in their eyes sent shivers down Bonnie’s spine, who took a step back, ready to run. But Belinda was still clutching Bonnie’s hand, and as Bonnie tried to pull her back and away from the cage, Belinda was frozen in place, staring at the woman crawling in the cage.

Bonnie’s gaze followed that of Belinda, and she froze as well. As the woman slowly opened her mouth for an unnatural hiss, not only her lips parted but the scar tissue also gave way to reveal an unusually long row of pointy teeth.

Bonnie stood there mesmerised, and she barely noticed how Belinda let go of her hand, screamed, and stared running, calling for Bonnie to follow.

The others had reached the cell’s door and pushed it open, so that it slammed against the metal frame of the cage, startling Bonnie into action.

She ran off the veranda and onto the lawn, perceiving that the others had already gained a lot of ground and were running towards the slope that was the natural border of the property.

“The drop is too steep,” screamed Belinda while considerably slowing down her pace.

“I’d rather take my chances crossing the river down in the valley than staying here with the family’s freaky pets,” shouted Bobby.

“Me too, babe,” were Billy’s words as he ran over the edge and disappeared quickly.

Becky fell onto the lawn and gave a little scream, which made Buck turn around and help her up before he dragged her behind him towards the edge. They had almost left Bonnie’s field of vision, holding hands, running as fast as they could, when two shadows showed up behind them, seemingly out of nowhere, and threw them to the ground.

Two monsters looking similar to the woman with the scarred cheeks except that they were apparently male, loomed over the two lovers on the ground and howled in a way that made Bonnie’s blood freeze. She had come to a standstill next to Belinda, staring helplessly at the scene.

As the two monsters lowered their huge mouths towards their victims and ran their claws into the lover’s backs, another shadow ran past them and down the slope in fast pursuit of the two young men.

Bonnie, suddenly aware of her situation, tore her gaze from the ghastly scene in front of her, and pulled Belinda towards the window of the villa.

“Come on, Belinda, we’ve gotta get to the mansion and barricade ourselves in there. It’s our only chance. We can call the police in there. There must be a land-line phone somewhere.”

Her words actually reached Belinda despite her frozen state, but they had the opposite effect of what Bonnie had intended.

Belinda suddenly turned on her heel, violently broke free of Bonnie’s grip, and started running towards the slope, following the others to what could only be seen as certain doom. With her friend out of reach, Bonnie screamed at the top of her lungs, “Belinda, what the fuck! It’s this way!”

As if shocked by Bonnie’s sudden out-of-character profanity, Belinda actually turned around and started to move towards the villa instead.

Bonnie had already reached the window and was climbing in when the unnatural hiss from before came from the veranda. She turned her head just in time to catch a glimpse of the woman who had mesmerised both her and Belinda, before Bonnie slipped through the open window and into the parlour.

Standing on the sofa, Bonnie was holding the window open, ready to slam it shut as soon as Belinda joined her.

Bonnie watched her childhood friend run towards her, with the two dead bodies lying on the ground behind her. The monsters that had been feasting on them had finally let off and were now heading for the slope instead, joining the chase of the boys whose screams were echoing in the vale.

Belinda was getting closer to the window, and Bonnie felt a wild, almost fiery hope growing in her chest. But then she noticed the two lovers in the background getting up from the ground.

Those two looked at each other with animal-like eyes, and their faces moved in towards each other as if they were about to kiss. But instead, they sank their teeth in each others flesh, biting the others neck with animalistic delight and ripping out pieces of muscle with long, pointy teeth. As they slowly ate each other with pleasure, their mouths tore open all the way to their ears, showing an unnaturally long row of teeth ready to devour each other as well as anyone else.

Bonnie screamed a very high-pitched, long cry as she saw that carnal display of consuming love, which drew the attention of everyone around. Belinda turned her head mid-run, which made her lose her balance and stumble, and the monsters that had been Becky and Buck only mere moments ago looked up from their bloody embrace.

They looked at Bonnie for a moment and then focused their attention on Belinda. Their desire for prey must have beaten their lust for each other because they both stood up in almost perfect synchronisation, moving in a strangely choppy way.

Belinda, who had fallen onto the ground, shrieked at the sight of them and then started crawling towards Bonnie and the safety of the mansion. As their eyes met again, both young women saw a terror in the other’s gaze that was beyond anything they had ever seen before.

Bonnie waved her left hand in a frantic motion and yelled, “They’re gaining on you, Belinda! You won’t make it in time crawling. Get up and run!”

Stumbling to her feet, Belinda accelerated her run while the monsters got closer to her as well as the window, making Bonnie’s heart pound faster and faster with every step they drew nearer.

With their inhuman speed, the two monsters had almost reached her when Belinda made it to the window. Bonnie wrapped her right hand tightly around Belinda’s forearm, ready to pull her in when the look on her friend’s face suddenly made her stop.

Belinda’s eyes went from alight with hope and adrenaline to black with despair and pain in an instant. She looked down at her own belly and tears ran down her cheeks while she tried to suppress a groan.

Bonnie’s eyes followed those of Belinda and arrived at her belly, where she saw a thin red line form from Belinda’s chest to her navel. It erupted into a gaping hole, spilling blood and little bits onto the windowsill and all over the white couch. Little droplets got sprayed all over Bonnie’s blouse, face, neck, and forearms, making her feel strangely wet and warm.

Looking into her friend’s terrified eyes, Bonnie saw the monsters bloody faces coming ever closer and their clawed hands gripping Belinda’s torso.

Without a conscious thought, the hand that had been ready to pull her friend to safety now pushed her away instead when Bonnie drove Belinda into the two monsters while she slammed the window shut with her other hand.

The expression in Belinda’s eyes went from sheer terror to utter disbelief as she realised what had just happened. Bonnie had slammed the window shut before the three outside hit the ground, and she was already on her way to the kitchen when the two monsters started feasting on her childhood friend.

When Bonnie arrived at the entrance hall, she could hear claws scratching against the front door. Panicked, she looked around and saw the key still lying on the stairs. She grabbed it as fast as she could and ran to the door, practically throwing herself against it as the doorknob started turning.

The sudden impact must have startled the monster, giving Bonnie enough time to shove the key into the hole and lock the door. She silently cursed the fact that she couldn’t just walk out the front door and drive off back to civilisation to get away from this nightmare and maybe even get help for the others. Perhaps there was a way to reverse this transformation. With science and medicine being as advanced as they were nowadays, there was still some hope, wasn’t there?

The scratching at the door started again and was followed by loud banging noises. Horrified, Becky ran over to the display table and took the car keys from the arm of the dancing fairy. Then she walked past the sculptures and took a running start, so that she ascended the stairs two steps at a time.

While running upstairs, Bonnie couldn’t help but notice that whenever someone went upstairs in a horror story, they usually ended up being the next victim. But she obviously had no other choice. Bonnie suddenly knew what it was like to be the character the reader or movie-goer cursed at for doing the stupid thing.

At the top of the stairs was a big open space filled with many beautiful works of art: more sculptures, several old as well as modern paintings, and even the furniture clearly consisted of artisan pieces. There were several doors, and on instinct, Bonnie opened the one that was straight ahead.

She entered the master bedroom. Sweeping the room with her gaze for a way out, she couldn’t completely ignore its beauty. The wide open space of the gabled bedroom held a gorgeous light-coloured wooden desk and chair, and a big closet to go with it.

There was a canopy bed with untidy bedclothes – this was most likely courtesy of Becky and Buck – and behind it, the room opened up to a balcony that went along the whole length of the room, overlooking the garden. Bonnie recognised the balcony as a possible way out, but then again, the garden wasn’t at all where she wanted to be.

A little door to the left caught Bonnie’s eye when she was scanning the room. She went over there and opened it, which was how she found herself in the master bathroom. She hardly noticed the bathtub, toilet, and towel racks, but instead focussed her attention to the dormer window next to the washbasin.

Following her instincts once more, Bonnie climbed out the window and onto the roof. The sun was slowly setting behind the gable as she started her ascend. The tiles were easier to navigate than she thought, so that she reached and straddled the house’s topmost point in no time.

Now, all Bonnie had to do was to climb down the other side of the roof and find a way down the facade of the building on the other side to get to the car. She figured that that shouldn’t be too hard because from up here, she could overlook nearly everything.

Scanning the area, Bonnie’s heart sank, and her newfound enthusiasm went as quickly as it had come. Even though they hadn’t spotted her yet, she could see the monsters everywhere. There were several in the garden, two of which looked like Bobby and Billy, who must have been caught down the slope and came back up to join the others.

Other monsters, some of the original cage dwellers by the looks of it, were circling the premises. Even up on the roof, Bonnie could still hear someone banging against the entrance door, making it infinitely harder to reach the car.

Yet that was still her best bet. If she could divert their attention somehow – maybe by throwing a roof tile to lure them away from the door and the car – she might be able to escape. Feeling hope’s spark kindled once again in her chest, Bonnie made her way down the other side of the roof.

She had only swung her leg off the gable to begin her descend when she heard a scratching noise behind her. She froze mid-motion and then slowly turned her head towards the noise. Even in her despair, Bonnie had to smile. It was always the harmless-looking ones.

The woman from the cage lifted herself up the edge of the roof as if it was no feat at all, and then pulled up Belinda in one smooth, sweeping motion. Both of them stared at Bonnie with eyes filled with hunger.

Slowly but surely, and with her gaze fixed on the approaching monsters with their long rows of teeth glistening in the setting sun, Bonnie started climbing down the roof towards the car and towards freedom.

To be, or not to be, that is the question that would be answered for Bonnie shortly.