The Mask Maker

The old man thrashed through his workshop. Fear danced up and down his spine causing his limbs to tremble under its weight. He screamed the scream of a thousand faces, and it was as though every mask he had made was screaming in terror along with him; it was a hauntingly grim orchestra. One scream stood in a beautiful spotlight among the others. A soprano. She was trained and tortured, and she was once stolen. He followed the beautiful scream she made and as he drew closer the rest fell to a stiff silence. There she was. Her face was smooth and porcelain. Her cheeks had been kissed by roses and her lips were red as blood. The edges of the face were brittle and dry, and her eyes were hollow and forgotten. But he remembered her now. He remembered her entrancing siren call when she hit her marks and how the crowds would rise in thunderous applause when she bowed. He remembered the muffled sound that struggled to breech the confines of her throat as he wrapped leathered hands around it.

He watched children pass by in their monstrous costumes, some gasping at the enchanting woman on his face. He followed Elm to Fleet and followed the jagged concrete slabs laid out in front of dive bars filled with adults behaving as children all in their own monstrous costumes they attempted to pass off as seductive. As he approached the old district he caught a familiar scent bursting in the breeze. It was warm, and buttery, and the faintest smell of char attempted to mask it. There, standing proud in front of him, his old home. The majestic Midas Theatre. It’s facade just as he remembered it, burnt to rubble. Its gold adorned mahogany doors laid in dust on the scorched earth, it’s gold handles scattered like firewood.

He pushed through the grand doorway and into the lobby, he gazed up at the crystal chandelier now replaced by the October glittering sky. He nodded to the doorman as he continued down his usual path through the side door that led backstage. Tonight was the opening of their newest play. Some kind of murder mystery in the vein of an Agatha Christie novel, perfect for Halloween and the cold months ahead. The play was to be set in a masquerade party, and he had spent months working on the elaborate masks for the players. It was his proudest work. He opened the door to his office where they all stared down at him in various looks of fear. His cast. Their faces all hung in plaster upon his walls, his secret project. But there was something not quite right about them. There they were, staring at him with hollow eyes, but they were not his cast. He could not figure out how to truly capture their countenance.

He couldn’t stand looking into the patronizing faces. He knew they were judging him, laughing at him. He loved them, and they looked at him as a spider. He focused on the woman on his desk, the real star of his project. Various photographs of her hung on the wall about, some from news articles, some he took himself from a distance, and some he stole from others. The face laid among his materials was not her. He began to scream and cry and plead with her face to be her. A sudden gasp caught his ear and he turned to find her, standing in horrific beauty in his doorway. She was framed in a Victorian styled velvet green dress and gold accented corset that raised her bosom mere centimeter from her chin. In place of her usual charming smile was a stabbing expression of shock resting on that sharp chin. Her eyes were wide as they studied the surroundings and the non-consensual photographs of her on the wall. As she turned to run, he leapt like a spider to prey. He wrapped his hands around her throat desperate to keep the scream buried deep inside her chest. She flailed under his weight, slapping his hands and clawing at his face, but eventually her limbs grew weak and succumbed to gravity. Her eyes remained open but stopped moving, and her chest stopped taking in the air.

He scurried off her corpse not realizing at first what he had done, then he saw his opportunity. The perfect mask lay there in front of him ready to be worn again. He grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her into the room. He propped her up in his desk chair and laid her head back before grabbing a knife and digging it into her temple. He raised the flesh into the light and grinned with pride at the perfection of his new mask. He pressed it to his face and secured it with the same thin black ribbon that once held up her dancing raven locks, fastening it back in his own tufted grey hair. As he wandered through set a ring of gasps and screams echoed through the rafters. The recently waxed stage parquet stage seemed to glow as he stepped center stage into the warmth of incandescent light. He simply smiled at his audience before being thrown to the ground. The man knelt on his back while screaming for someone to find the lead actress before the haunting sound of terror screamed back in reply. The old man managed to break loose and disappear into the depths of the rafters amidst the chaos.

Not even a day had gone by before there was a riot outside the theatre. There were screams and chants and calls for the old man’s death. Then the flames began. They were introduced by a thin layer of smoke rolling under the theatre doors. The flames then slammed at the frosted glass on the doors before they finally gave way. As the fire broke in everything quickly succumbed to its heat. The fire ragged and roared across the velvet furniture and up the art deco papered walls before colliding with the ceiling like a rolling orange ocean. It crawled across the ornate tiling and broke out into the rafters and began bleeding onto the stage. The old man threw what he could into his trunk in a violent rage. He gazed upon her face laid neatly on his desk once more before turning his back on it. He swung open his office door only to be met with a brilliant blue light that poured over his face. It felt like a million needles pressing into his skin at various degrees and paces. He dropped to the floor and wept at the sight of his end.

 “Rise!” An echo demanded of him. A shadow now stood in the doorway surrounded by elongated and charred creatures.

 “Have you come to take me away?” The old man wept and spit as he spoke.

 “Take my hand and you will see.” A long and burled hand reached out of the blue and the old man took it with grace. The door closed and they catapulted into a sea of foggy blue light. The old man now laid upon a large stone surrounded by these creatures. Every part of him knew he should fear these beings and yet he had never felt more at home. The large shadow approached his side. Its eyes, magnificent golden lights, pierced his soul and suddenly he felt the world collapse around him. Two creatures came to either side and grabbed at the man’s chest and ripped it open. They then did the same to the shadow setting lose a creature similar to the others but a quarter of the size. It crawled out of the shadow’s chest and into the old man’s where it vanished into his veins. The old man opened his eyes to a cold stary sky and barrels of smoke above him. He rose from the ashes to find his office in rubble, but one thing seemed to remain. A gentle face lay just in the distance, smiling back at him.

 The shadow had told him nothing that night, but he knew a part of it lived inside him that he needed to keep alive just as it kept him alive. He vowed to the demon that every Halloween, when the veil was thin, he would feed and offer up a fresh soul in return for its dark gift. He gazed around now at the ruin he once called home. He turned to find a door standing before him, upon it a golden plaque that read ‘Prop Master’s Office’. A blue glow shined from behind it that brought back that fear that danced upon his corpse. The door swung open and standing among the hoard of charred creatures was the shadow that approached him all that time ago with this dark gift.

 “Have you had enough?”

 “Eight decades. You’ve gifted me eight decades of bringing my art into the world. I think I’m ready for something new.”

The shadow reached out and the old man clasped hands before disappearing into the brilliant blue void.