Unmasked

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Placing a hand on Lucas’ shoulder, Arkwright said, “The front of my shop houses the masks of the common person. Mind you though, there is nothing common about their deaths. But for those less common in society’s eyes, those history has deemed worthy of the title famous or infamous—those, I keep here.” As he spoke, he pointed to the area toward the back of the shop.

  Arkwright helped walk the still-stunned Lucas to the select group of the masks at the far end of the room. Compared to the masks at the front, these ceramic vessels were by far the most weathered. Each was displayed on a stand blanketed with red velvet and encased in a large bell jar. Individual lights shone down from above, illuminating each mask and its accompanying fancifully engraved nameplate.

  Lucas read the name of the first one he saw. “Elizabeth Stride … why do I know that name?”

  Arkwright smiled. “She was one of the Canonical Five from the Whitechapel murders.”

  “A victim of Jack the Ripper?” Lucas asked.

  “Very good. I see you know your history of the macabre quite well.”

  Suddenly, Lucas’ eyes lit up in realization of what her memory might reveal. “Did she see—”

  But having seen that look on countless faces before, Arkwright was quick to intercede. “Unfortunately, no, she didn’t see him coming. He approached her from behind. Some mysteries are not so easily given up, it would seem.”

  Lucas moved on to the adjacent mask and read the nameplate: H. P. Lovecraft.

  “Oh,” he said, “this one I know for sure.” He adored reading anything he could get his hands on written by this famous author. As he reflected on all of his favorite tales, he started to reach for the mask then stopped. “Wait, didn’t he die from …”

  “Yes … very sad, indeed,” Arkwright said. Seeing Lucas’ hesitation in taking the mask, he added, “But I wouldn’t.”

  Lucas withdrew his hand and went on to the next mask. There he saw a name that did not look familiar. “Who’s this guy? Albert Fish.”

  Ever the enthusiast, and with a little sprinkle of showmanship, Arkwright said, “Ah, very few can manage to peer through the eyes of that mask. Not for the faint of heart.” As he spoke, he lifted the glass dome from over the mask. “But I can tell you are a brave soul,” he added, gesturing toward it. “So by all means, don the mask and witness the notorious Moon Maniac.”

  Moon Maniac? With a moniker like that, how could I not try on this mask?

  Lucas carefully lifted the delicate mask to his face and readied himself. He peered through the eyes and thought, Here goes noth—

  “Hamilton Albert Fish,” a booming voice declared.

  Lucas could see he was in a room with people staring at him. Their faces were cold, some with burning eyes that pierced him with their hatred.

  What’s going on here? Lucas felt nervous; he was perspiring, his heart racing. The air was thick with the scent of cleaning solution and old sweat. A man next to him was holding a thick black piece of fabric. Lucas’s sight looked down to witness his arm being strapped tightly to a wooden chair.

  Oh God, no.

  Then that booming voice said, “On this 16th day of January, 1936, witnessed by Warden Lawes, you shall have a current of electricity pass through your body with such amount as to cause your death. May God have mercy on your soul.”

  I’m in the fucking electric chair!

  Then a voice spoke, coming from the person he embodied. “I’ve tasted children from every state in the U.S.”

  With that, the man holding the black fabric slipped it over Lucas’ vision and all went black. Behind the curtain of darkness, he could hear heavy, panicked breathing, then he felt his whole body seize, his ears pop, and his nostrils fill with the smell of rendering pork fat—

  Lucas ripped the mask from his face.

  Arkwright, standing inches from him, said with a smirk, “An electrifying memory, is it not? Albert Fish—known by his moniker the Moon Maniac—was an American serial killer who had a most unique and unsavory palate.”

  “He ate kids?”

  “It would seem—”

  Arkwright was interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing, coming from a small room in back that was tucked behind drawn curtains.

  “Would you excuse me? I’ll be but a moment,” Arkwright said as he left to answer the call.

  Lucas carefully put the mask back in its place and replaced the glass dome.

  What horrifying treasures await behind the next mask? He peered at all the glass-domed masks, each a face staring back at him; their hollow eyes the witness of death’s various handiworks. As he considered which mask to choose next, something caught his eye. Beyond the domed specimens he spied a small wooden box, its lid open, its interior lined with plush black velvet. Inside sat a pristine, almost polished-looking white mask.

  I wonder what this one’s all about? There was no nameplate with it and he wondered why it was way back here, separated from the others. He could hear Arkwright was still talking on the phone in the back room. If I hurry, I can put it on and have it back in its box before he returns. Then, with equal parts excitement and terror, he grabbed the mask and held it to his face.

  What he saw was no skyline, no battlefield, no vision of some far-off place to which he had been swept away by the mask’s memory. Instead, what he saw was the inside of the shop, the very one he was standing in. His view turned and he saw that Arkwright was standing before him, an expression of panic and anger worn across his face.

  What event is this? And why does Arkwright look so angry?

  “I can’t believe I let you take her from me,” Arkwright said.

  Her? Lucas had no idea to whom ‘her’ referred to, but by the look on Arkwright’s face, she must have been very dear to him. Clearly this guy had come between Arkwright and the woman he lov—

  But then Lucas’s train of thought halted. He suddenly remembered the nature of the masks and the inevitable conclusion to the interaction unfolding before him. Looking into Arkwright’s eyes, he thought, I wouldn’t think you capable of … you couldn’t … kill?

  Arkwright continued, “Well sir, you have taken from me more than I can bear to lose. You will take no more. This ends now!”

  Lucas saw the look in Arkwright’s eyes and though, Oh God, he’s actually going to do it. He’s going to kill this person.

  Then Arkwright lunged at him and wrapped his hands around Lucas’ throat. Arkwright squeezed with all his might, and Lucas could feel the oxygen drain from his body, his lungs burning as they cried for the life-giving air they so desperately needed.

  This man is a murderer! Someone stop him!

  But it was already too late, for this was only an echo of the actual event that took place. He couldn’t believe it—the nice, timid shop owner who looked too frail to harm a fly had murdered some poor soul, and for what? Jealousy over some woman? Then the thought hit Lucas straight in the gut; to witness what he was seeing also meant that Arkwright had captured this memory, this death, with a mask, the very mask Lucas was wearing right now. Disgusted, he tore the damned thing from his face.

  Just as he did, Arkwright emerged from behind the curtain and approached him. “I’m sorry about that—”

  “I can’t believe you!” Lucas shouted.

  Arkwright froze.

  “I saw you do it, with my own two eyes. At first I didn’t really believe that you would … but that’s what the mask always captures, doesn’t it? A death.”

  Befuddled, Arkwright said, “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “I saw your fight with that poor fool over a woman. He took the woman from you, and you killed him in an act of revenge. Strangled him with your—and then—you being so damned obsessed with these fucking masks, you placed one on your victim’s face, just so you could add another to your collection.” Lucas waved the mask he had just been wearing wildly in the air. “Oh, you wouldn’t put it with the ones that are on display for all to see, mind you. No, you put it here with the ones you hid
e in back, the ones that keep your horrible secrets,” he said, pointing to the table where the empty box still sat. “The ones you keep in those—wooden boxes.” Then Lucas threw the mask he had been waving about back into its velvet-lined wooden container.

  “You’re making no sense,” Arkwright said consolingly. “Now, please calm down.”

  “I won’t calm down!” Lucas shouted. “I saw you kill that person, because he took away somebody you loved.”

  “I’ve never intentionally hurt, or for that matter killed, anyone in my life.”

  Lucas’s eyes darted around the room, and a hundred empty eyes behind white faces screamed out to him for justice. How many of these masks are of his own doing? He picked up a mask off a nearby stand and cried, “You’re sick!” He threw the mask to the floor.

  “No!” Arkwright screamed.

  The mask shattered, sending pieces scattering to hidden places throughout the shop.

  “What have you done?” Arkwright asked.

  Lucas grabbed a second mask, and then another, sending them to the same fate as their previous companions. Shards of white ceramic danced like shattering ice across the marble floor. Then he turned his attention to Arkwright’s bell-jarred masterpieces. He placed both of his hands securely on the glass confines of Elizabeth Stride’s mask.

  Arkwright’s eyes pleaded as he cried, “No.”

  Then Lucas shoved with all his might. Both mask and dome struck the floor and exploded on impact.

  Arkwright dropped to his knees, his hands cupping the shards of porcelain as if somehow this action would magically fuse the broken memory back to its original design.

  Lucas stepped over to the next dome and placed his hands firmly on Lovecraft.

  Arkwright quickly left his grieving spot and the remains of Ms. Stride to stop Lucas from causing any further destruction. “I implore you to go no further with your intended action,” he said, his voice wavering hoarsely, his eyes brimming with tears. “You have already destroyed many of my masks. Now you want to destroy my beloved Lovecraft? I will not allow it. I sat idly by as you smashed forevermore the last memory of Elizabeth Stride. I can’t believe I let you take her from me. Well sir, you have taken from me more than I can bear to lose. You will take no more. This ends now.”

  Upon hearing those words, Lucas froze, overwhelmed with a wave of déjà vu. Then it hit him. The mask—the memory was of—

  But it was too late. Arkwright was already upon him, his hands wrapped tightly around Lucas’s throat. He stared helplessly into the shop owner’s eyes as a dark tunnel slowly closed in around his vision. His arms flailed as he desperately tried to pry away the man’s fingers, then dropped to his sides. His legs kicked for a moment. Then they too grew still.

  Arkwright released his hold and stood up, wiping the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. He straightened Lovecraft’s display, then took a cloth from the counter and wiped the fingerprints off the glass dome. Then he looked down at Lucas and said, “How dare you take from me that which I hold closest to my heart? How dare you destroy my craftsmanship, my masks?”

  Staring at the lifeless body before him, he slowly shook his head, then turned his attention to the mask sitting in the open wooden box on the table. “I’m not sure what you think you saw,” he said as he retrieved the gleaming white mask from its mahogany confines. “The masks that I keep in these boxes are blank.”

  Then he slowly lowered himself to the ground and knelt beside Lucas. “But I suppose you were right about one thing,” he continued as he placed the mask on Lucas’s face. In response, the mask’s eyelets glowed a soft blue as they captured Lucas’s last memory. “It turns out that I did kill someone after all.” Then with great care, he placed the mask back in the wooden box and closed the lid.

  Ed Burkley is a psychologist and author who lives on the outskirts of Saint Louis, Missouri. His short fiction has appeared in Weirdbook, Year’s Best Body Horror Anthology, Spooky Isles Book of Horror V1, and Strange Lands (Flame Tree Publishing). He does his best work with a cup of chai to refresh, a Norwich Terrier on his lap for comfort, and the much-needed support from his far better writer wife. More information can be found at edwardburkley.com.

  The Quota

  Tom Howard

  Azzed lay back in the padded chair while the succubus covered his crimson skin with peach-colored makeup. With a brown tunic and the black wig, he could be any number of fantasy creatures. They didn’t pin back his pointed ears. Having his tail coiled and bound felt uncomfortable enough.

  “Aren’t you going back up a little soon?” Stell asked. “I thought you got a break between collections.”

  “Yeah,” Azzed said. “Spyrax’s disappearance made us miss our quota for the month, so we’re working overtime.”

  Stell nodded and glued down Azzed’s bangs again. In the heat, wigs tended to slip off. “With old Spyrax gone, you’ll be back on top again.”

  Azzed squirmed to relieve the pressure on his tail. He wouldn’t mind being the number one soul collector again with his photo on the boss’s wall. He was good at his job, smart and ambitious. The other collectors envied his skill and the number of mortals he outwitted each quarter. Hell would be half-empty without him.

  Stell surveyed her work. “Azzed, you always use the same con. I’d love to make you up as an alien sometime.”

  “Fairy tales are a better scam. I’m not trading peach makeup for gray.”

  “Yeah, but you could keep the tail.” She removed the cloth around his neck that protected his costume.

  He stood and examined himself in the mirror. “Thanks, Stell. It looks great.” He smiled, revealing his square white teeth, a false set to cover his pointy ones. His eyes, red with black cat irises, were hidden by warm brown contacts with pupils as large as a cow.

  When Stell scurried off to help a boogeyman out of his costume, Azzed pulled out the list of that day’s proposed contracts and read it in the scarlet light.

  Decades used to pass between the signing of a soul contract and cashing it in. These days, the boss couldn’t wait for people to die of accidents or old age. As soon as they signed the contract, Azzed whisked the signee’s soul away to the nether regions. No one noticed the number of people walking around soulless.

  Azzed liked collecting the younger souls. The teenagers and pre-teenagers proved more gullible than their parents, and they made his stats look good. He didn’t follow through with the promises of the contract, only had them sign on the line. The legal department ensured the loopholes were large enough to drive a hearse through.

  By the third contract of the afternoon, Azzed was coasting. The teenagers jumped at the opportunity to escape their boring lives of video games, inattentive parents, and pointless homework. They wanted to be secret princes or princesses, rich and pampered. Like taking candy from a baby. Azzed thanked movies and television, two of the boss’s better ideas.

  He perched on the eaves of an unpainted house and watched his next customer come home from school. Blonde and thin, she wore a patched and faded dress. She carried a stack of books and didn’t wait for her two younger brothers to catch up with her.

  Azzed smiled as he followed her inside. His faint shadow flitted against the nicotine-stained walls, unnoticed by Maggie May Jones, a twelve-year-old destined to become a burden on society. Her little brothers dawdled behind her, torturing some poor dog or seeing what trouble they could get into.

  “Maggie May,” her mother called from the bedroom, “is that you?”

  “Yes, Mom.” Maggie May’s shoulders sagged, but she didn’t put her books down. With the piles of clutter on the hand-me-down furniture, she might never find them again.

  “How are you feeling?” Maggie May asked.

  Azzed had done his homework. Maggie May’s mother suffered from a long list of imaginary ailments including headaches, food allergies, and bad nerves. Most days she didn’t leave her bed. Maggie May said she didn’t know how her mother survived on a pack of unfiltered Camels an
d a case of Coke a day.

  Azzed knew. Some of the boss’s best servants had splotchy souls, making life miserable for everyone else. Maggie May’s mother would live to be a hundred at least.

  “I’m still seeing black spots,” her mother replied from the parents’ bedroom.

  “Do you want me to call the doctor?” Maggie May asked.

  “No. Those quacks want me to sign over my body to science when I die. Would you check the beans?”

  “Sure, Mom.” Maggie May stirred the pot on the stove, keeping the stack of books in her arm. She added more salt.

  Azzed scorched them a little. After all, he was a demon.

  “I’m going to change, Mom,” Maggie May shouted and took the back stairs—a ladder nailed to the wall—to her small room in the attic.

  Azzed, a shadow, followed her.

  She removed her school clothes, hung them up, and put on a t-shirt and jeans. “If I hurry,” she told Bellweather, the old one-eyed cat who shared her tiny room, “I can finish my homework before putting out supper for Dad.” He came home late after long shifts at the local factory.

  Azzed watched as Maggie May regarded the homework resting beneath Annabeth of Falcon Peak, her favorite book and Azzed’s key to her contract. Azzed didn’t understand readers, but their fantasies provided a convenient hook.

  “I know I’ve read it many times, Bellweather.” She picked up the book. “But the exciting adventures of a sorceress-in-training call to me, but if I read one tiny paragraph, I’ll be pulled into a world of fancy balls and handsome princes and never finish my math.”

  Maggie May sat on the edge of her cot and petted the cat. “Maybe just one quick chapter, the one where Annabeth saves the handsome prince from the clutches of the swamp beast.”

  She opened the book, and with a flash of light and a pop of imploding air, Azzed appeared. Maggie May muffled a scream and pulled her legs up on the cot. Bellweather hissed and darted under the bed.

  Azzed smiled with his fake teeth. “Do not be frightened, Your Highness. The book sent me to rescue you.” He bowed.