Chapter 91 – The Familiar Smiling Cat – Erica Henson

The destruction of the school's ‘Meredith Solidarity ChatCat’ group left a great rift in the student body. Before Valentina created that group usage of the ChatCat application was limited only to a handful of students. Now, practically everyone had an installation of it on their phones, laptops, or computers. Being invited into one was now a basic part of initiation into any school clique or club. Talking about things going on in varying ChatCat servers was becoming a normal part of our school life.

Valentina's ChatCat collapsing created a sort of power vacuum for other people to push their own ChatCat group as the next big thing. Every clique, no matter who their group was, or what it was about, dreamed of being the overwhelmingly popular group. It wasn't outlandish of them to think that either. There was a constant flow of people hopping from one ChatCat group to the next. People were having difficulty replacing what they lost.

On one hand, the old ChatCat group had just about every student from our school and there was never a shortage of people to talk to. On the other hand, the chat always moved too fast to hold any sort of intimate conversation without losing track of what was being said. Furthermore, the student council employed a hands off approach when it came to moderation and group development. There were no separate chat channels in the Meredith Solidarity group. There weren't any voice chat priveledges to the members. This practically ensured that the second generation of school ChatCat groups would have massive improvements in the interface quality of life for the students joining them.

The star model of these second generation ChatCat groups was a group called 'Megan's Media'. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Megan's preexisting presence on the internet helped catapult her ChatCat group ahead of others when Meredith Solidarity fell. She could essentially use her vlog as her personal advertisement platform and grow her group from there. While her gossipy group was stupid in its conception, it demonstrated exactly what a ChatCat group should be. She had multiple chat channels for different topics. She had an optional voice chat channel for people that wanted to talk that way. She also promoted moderators to help manage discourse between members and to help ensure that her opinions were the only valid ones.

On its own, this methodology wasn't a big deal for other groups to adapt. It was, however, the second most popular group’s adaptation of these same attributes that was worrying. The Society of Sisters expanded massively in the wake of the student council's ChatCat deletion. The Society of Sisters were faced with a choice of maintaining strict anonymity, or easing their rules to allow for a greater influx of members. In the face of competition from other ChatCat groups vying for attention, the Society of Sisters decided to ease their rules of who got in and who didn't. They could no longer afford to enforce rules about recognizable ChatCat names, questioning each member that joined upon their arrival, and looking into that individual's public profile to search for hints of deception.

That was how I got in.

Before, they wouldn't allow accounts that were too recently created. Now they had so many members that something like that would be impossible to police. I changed my screen name to something that hopefully wouldn't be recognized by anyone that knew me. Once I was in I took the opportunity to look around and I was actually impressed by what I saw. They were clearly organized about the design of their ChatCat server. Not only did they have the features that Megan's group had, but they also had premium ChatCat server features such as custom avatars, emojis, and interface styling. They had an artist make relevant art for them alongside their 'Black Cat' interface theme.

On Friday morning there was a special announcement over the intercom. Holly announced that we'd be having a spirit week before Thanksgiving break. To accommodate this, we'd spend next week preparing for the event. This meant that students would be given time to work on decorations and designs to go up in the hallway during spirit week. Everyone in my class was excited to hear the announcement, the implication being that this would give them time to goof off in class without repercussion.

Another group, however, had far more devious plans than just messing around in class. The Society of Sisters called for an emergency meeting to talk about the upcoming event. Sofi, I assumed going by the fact the user was speaking with authority, said that she wanted as many people as possible to meet her after school to talk about her spirit week idea. Going by the room number I could tell that this was a room far out of the way, tucked away in one of the more remote wings of the school. It seemed that she was continuing to avoid using the Occult club's usual hallway.

During lunch I went to the student council room to try explaining what was going on to them. Of course, I was immediately kicked out by Valentina. Luckily, Holly and Lilith agreed to talk with me in the main section of the library. Neither of them wanted to spare the time to go to Sofi’s meeting themselves since they still had another student council meeting to attend after school. I took it upon myself to volunteer for that duty.

"Are you sure you don't want to take Zoe with you?" Holly asked. "Is this really something you should be doing alone?"

"Zoe's still working on a promotional article for the whole spirit week thing. I don't want to bother her with this right now."

"Maybe I should just skip the student council meeting..." Lilith said in a quiet voice, as if she were asking herself.

Holly gave Lilith a chastising look.

"We're the ones planning this upcoming event, remember? It was hard enough getting Sam to stay with us. Don't you run off too." Holly said and then turned to me. "We'll be too busy to deal with Sofi for a while. I just hope Alyssa's alright... Mabye you could take her with you, Erica?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't know about that. I mean, I hardly know her. Besides, the last time Alyssa tried to confront her it didn't end well. I don't want to have to babysit her while I'm there. My plan is just to sneak in and hide in the back somewhere. I should be in and out without anyone noticing."

"Make sure you tell us everything that happens in detail!" Lilith said. "I want to know everything, word for word, line for line, no matter how mundane it might seem!"

Holly laughed lightly.

"Give her a break, Lilith. She's going there as an observer, not as a transcription machine."

"It's okay, I understand." I said. "There's only one thing I need before I go."

"What is it?" Holly asked.

"I'll need a new mask." I said. "They already recognize the mask I wore to the fall festival. Do either of you have a spare mask that I could borrow?"

"Are you kidding?" Lilith asked in disbelief.

"You don't have any?" I asked.

"More like, we have far too many." Holly said. "Until this whole Society of Sisters thing started up we were giving out leftover masks here in the library. There should be a bag of them somewhere around here..."

"It's over here," Lilith said.

Lilith ran over to the checkout table and reached for something beneath it. It was a gray canvas bag that seemed to be half full.

"We had leftover masks during the fall festival." Holly said. "On top of that, a lot of girls just tossed their masks to the ground whenever the festival was over. We put them all in the bag."

"It was a pain in the ass to clean up after them." Lilith grumbled as she brought the bag over. "Honestly, some people only think about themselves. I wouldn't have helped if it weren't for the fact that Ms. Sampson gave us time off from class to do it."

I reached into the bag and pulled out the first mask I came into contact with.

"This will do." I said.

"A sheep...?" Holly and Lilith both asked at the same time.

"What...? Is there anything wrong with that...? Sheep are cute, aren't they?"

Lilith smirked.

"It's just, you strike me more like a sneaky snake or a trickster fox type of person."

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"Now you're just being rude." I said as I prepared to leave, "I'll message you both on ChatCat sometime tonight. You can tell Val and the others whatever I find."

"Good luck." Holly said.

"Don't let us down fox girl!" Lilith said with her smug smirk still on her face.

I put Lilith’s stupid comment aside to focus on my goal. Now that I had my costume I just needed to get into position the moment school ended. When it was over, I grabbed the fall festival robe from my locker. I went into one of the bathroom stalls to perform my little superhero transformation jig. No one else was in the bathroom at the time so no one was able to see that it was me beneath the mask. With that done, I headed over to the room indicated in the ChatCat message. People gave me funny looks as I walked down the hall in my fall festival robe and sheep mask but otherwise didn’t say anything. Eventually, I ran into other girls dressed in a similar getup to me.

The interesting thing about the meeting place was the fact that it wasn’t as isolated as I suspected it would be. Apparently this hallway had several rooms where after school activities were taking place. In fact, it was so populated that plenty of girls were moving from room to room talking with their friends or working on hallway posters for the recently announced spirit week. This was one of those times where I seriously had to give props to the student council. This new club system was working out nicely. Seeing the school alive like this after classes had officially ended was somehow inspiring. Before, this otherwise dull looking hallway would’ve been empty and void of life.

Yet, here was the Society of Sisters abusing everything that was built. Outside the door there were two girls in masks and robes greeting people as they came in. I gave a curt ‘Hello Sister’ before shuffling in behind a group of other masked girls. I thought that the two girls standing outside were meant to stop anyone without a mask from entering. I was wrong. Apparently there were girls being let in without any sort of costume at all.

In fact, I was in the minority by coming in mask and robe. I recognized Sofi’s black cat mask near the front of the room, moving amongst the crowd and greeting these unmasked people. I suspected that these unmasked members were merely here for preview purposes and the masked girls were committed members of the core group. That put me in the precarious position of potentially bringing more attention to myself than I wanted. Assuming Sofi was aware of whom her masked friends were, this small fact could make me stand out despite my mask and robe.

"Welcome! Welcome, everyone!" Sofi said, trying to get the full attention of the chattering group of girls. "I wanted to talk to you about the reason I invited you all here today and take ideas for the upcoming spirit week!"

She wasn't making an attempt to hide her voice in any manner. It was clear exactly who was talking by the time she said 'Welcome'. Sofi had a very distinct, airy voice that made her sound younger than she actually was.

"We'll be making some spirit week designs of our own, but the only spirit we'll be talking about is that of the Killing Cat." Sofi said. "I had the idea when I saw a few girls working on motivational posters to go up in the hallway. We can do the same, but use it to disseminate the truth of the Killing Cat."

This sounded like an attempt at producing propaganda. A handful of girls started clapping before being quickly cut off by a girl in a bird mask.

"But how are we supposed to get away with something like that?" The girl asked. "The moment any teacher sees what we're hauling through the hallway they'll stop us no matter what."

"Ah, but here's the beauty of it, we'll hide the designs under something more mundane!" Sofi said.

She turned to a piece of paper that was on the table at the front of the room. She lifted the paper up above her head for everyone to see. On one side of the paper was the Meredith School logo. Sofi flipped the image around in her hand, showing a far more sinister image. The image was of a black cat peering through the darkness with bright red eyes. While everyone wooed at the flashy artistic display, I trembled a little upon recalling the glowing blue eyes of the Killing Cat mask.

"That's a clever trick." One of the girls said, "But what should the messages say? I mean, what else could be said to change things?"

Sofi clearly didn't have a thought out answer for this question. I was grateful to see that one of the girls in attendance was able to stump her.

"Well, I was thinking that we could put some messages about the Killing Cat and say that the vice principal's ritual helped stir up the spirit's anger."

"That won't do." The masked girl immediately responded.

A few of the girls whispered amongst themselves as Sofi was once again stumped for a response. This girl challenging her was brave to call Sofi out like this. I was glad to see that people weren't just accepting Sofi's ideas at face value.

"The student body will never fully accept the true story of the Killing Cat. Instead, we should moderate the message for their tastes." The masked girl said, "We should be more direct and to the point. We just need to tell people that Ms. Sampson straight up killed Malorie Noelle and tell them that she hired an assassin to deal with Ms. Logan and Vivian Hale."

My jaw dropped. This girl was saying this in such confidence that I was absolutely stunned at what I was hearing. The rest of the crowd clapped and even Sofi began to slowly nod her head as she considered the idea.

"The Matriarch did say that Ms. Sampson was the cause of the problem." Another masked girl noted. "We just need to focus on dealing with her any way possible. For that, we just need to convince people that Ms. Sampson was out for vengeance against her former friends for some reason. We could tell them that they had some sort of falling out."

"How should we frame that...?" Sofi asked the crowd.

Several members of the crowd began shouting out ideas and others started speaking amongst themselves. This was utterly mind-blowing. I had imagined all these paranormal girls to be mouth-foaming idiots but that was clearly a mistake. They were seriously talking about a way to incriminate Jackie without needing to introduce a paranormal factor. The Matriarch's plan, whatever it was, might actually work if this was the case. Given that all these girls were volunteering ideas to help incriminate Jackie rather than question the whole setup was proof that the Matriarch was a herder leading a bunch of sheep.

I took this general distraction as an opportunity to shift amongst the groups of girls in attendance. Maybe I would recognize or at least be able to later identify some of the unmasked girls in attendance. That would give me a look into how wide-spread the Matriarch's influence was throughout the school. It would be one thing if it were all girls like Sofi, but another if otherwise seemingly normal students were involved. Unfortunately I wasn't having much luck placing the names of any of the girls within the group. There were a few that I could recognize as being from some of my classes, but I wasn't familiar enough with any of them to recall their names.

There, as I was moving down the varying lines of girls trying to identify any of them, I found someone that caused me to stop in my tracks. Behind the groups of shouting girls, several feet away from the closest person, in a secluded corner at the back room, was a girl in a nightmare inducing mask. It was the mask of the Killing Cat. I froze up upon seeing it. Clearly the person beneath the mask had yet to spot me because they seemed intent to go on watching Sofi writing ideas on the whiteboard at the front of the room. Images of the dying Ms. Logan and the horrifying sounds of Vivian Hale's last screams flooded my thoughts. A confusing mixture of anger and fear flooded my mind as I thoughtlessly moved to intercept this masked figure.

The fact that she could be carrying a weapon beneath her robe didn't even compute in my mind until it was too late and I was already committed to the task. She was remarkably slow to react once she saw me making a bee line straight towards her. She started to back away, placing herself into the corner, as I rushed towards her. I practically through myself into her, violently grabbed her by the collar, and pushed her deeper into the corner. From close up I was absolutely sure that this was the same mask I had seen on the night that Vivian Hale died. To my surprise I was actually able to overpower her quite easily. She was nothing without her knives!

"I finally have you!" I shouted, "How dare you use me like that! How dare you wear that mask here! Do you think I'm some sort of idiot you can just use and ignore?!"

"What...?" The girl shouted.

I shook her back and forth in a fit of rage.

"Don't try to play pretend it didn't happen! I was there! I was there both times! You got too cocky by coming here! And now...!"

I ripped off her mask unceremoniously, hellbent on learning the true identity of the killer. Only, the girl beneath the mask looked genuinely frightened. This could be an act, of course, but the tears rolling down her cheek looked hard to fake. By the time I got her mask off everyone had noticed me confronting this person. Two of the nearest girls pulled me off of the girl in the corner. I tried to pull her mask with me but a third person slapped my hand away.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" One of the girls asked as they pulled me away.

"It's her!" I shouted, "It's her! I know it is!"

I fought to wrestle myself free of their grasp but they wrestled me just as hard until I was down on the ground.

"What's going on back there?" Sofi asked as she came rushing over.

"This girl just attacked Emily for no reason!" One of the girls said.

"What...?" Sofi asked as she came around.

The Killing Cat mask girl, Emily, as her friend called her, walked forward and nodded.

"I didn't do anything to her, I swear!" She said while crying.

"She's the Killing Cat!" I shouted, still trying to break free from my captors. "That's the mask I saw on the night that Ms. Logan was killed!"

This caught their attention, but most of all it caused Sofi to kneel down beside where I had been restrained on the floor.

"Wait a minute... Who are you?" Sofi asked.

Before I could say another word in my defense Sofi managed to lift my mask up enough to see my face.

"Erica...!" She hissed, "I should've known you’d come and stick your nose in things again!"

"Sofi, listen to me!" I shouted, hoping she'd listen to reason, "You know that I was with Ms. Logan on the night that she died! Everyone knows that I was the one to come in and tell Ms. Sampson! That...! That is the mask that I saw that night! It has the exact same glowing eyes and mouth stitching that I remember."

Sofi looked over at Emily.

"This...?" Emily asked, removing the mask to show everyone the simplistic lighting system plugged into a single battery. "This is something my friend gave me. She said that she found it in the school cafeteria one day."

"You're lying!" I shouted and looked at Sofi, "Sofi, I know you're involved in this too somehow! Don't think this means you're off the hook!"

Sofi glared at me.

"I think we've heard enough from you!" Sofi said and looked between the girls restraining me. "Get her out of here. Lock the door behind you."

Just as Sofi asked, the three girls tossed me out into the hallway in full view of everyone. They walked back in and slammed the door in front of me. A few random people passing by tried to help me up but I pushed their hands away. I needed to reclaim my dignity myself. I stood up and wiped myself off before stomping away angrily. I had no idea who that Emily girl was but something strange was going on here. My information gathering on the Society of Sisters wasn't going to stop here.