Mask

Prologue

Italy-1629

His son lay dying before him; not yet old enough to grow the beard of a man, but crumpled in agony all the same. In the orange glow of the shrinking candlelight, the man tried to find some glimmer of hope, but all he could see was his only remaining child, immolated into a heap of ash. He reached out his hand and caressed the burning forehead of the young shape before him; the breath of whom felt wan and hollow as the night began to drop around them in an apathetic shroud of darkness.

The boy let out a delirious whimper and the black circles beneath his gray, clammy brow fluttered open to reveal eyes clouded by fear and the disease coursing through his veins. He was overtaken by a fit of coughing. Bloody phlegm bubbled out of his throat, between his cracked lips, and down his chin. The man wiped the discharge from his son's mouth as best he could with the threadbare sleeve of a shirt that was already coated with the child's dried vomitus.

A gust of bitter cold blew through the drafty cottage and the man turned his wary gaze to the small window that he sat under. He heard a thin scraping noise, as if someone were dragging the tip of a sword along the loose stones of the road. There was nothing outside, save for the tiny track of land that he had dreamed would someday be a farm; a farm productive enough to support his budding family. The plague changed those dreams into nightmares. He had already buried his wife and young daughter. The man had lost what little motivation he had and the farmland was left to feed the rotting remains of his household. The cottage was barren and empty, save for the cot, a chair, and the small table with the candle. Now he watched helplessly as his son lay covered in black boils that seared with malady and the fires of Hell. His son's right arm was barely visible underneath the bulbous sores.

The heavy knock reminded him that he had sent for help several hours ago as his son's condition began to deteriorate. The man stood up and took the short steps to his door. There was a long creak as the heavy wood swung gingerly on the hinges. On the doorstep stood a figure at least eight inches taller than he and wearing a heavy leather cloak, tied coarsely at the waist. A gloved hand held tightly to what appeared to be a long, thin walking stick. The outline of the stranger was hidden amongst the shadows of nightfall. A dirt encrusted mask clung to the stranger's head and peered out from underneath a wide, flat brimmed, felt hat. It covered the entirety of the stranger's face and the only feature that resembled a human being were the considerable eyeholes, covered by rose tinted lenses. An ample beak stretched outward from the mask and gave the wearer the appearance of a man-sized vulture, waiting to feast on the poor carcasses that could not afford proper burial.

The man knew that the stranger at his door was a plague doctor, but the towering figure in front of him seemed more an agent of Death than of medicine. The plague doctor stepped forward and the man gave way, allowing access to his son on the cot behind him. He felt a shudder ripple through his body as the figure in black swiftly brushed passed him without a glance. In the silence, the man could hear the plague doctor's laborious inhalations echoing inside the mask as if, with each intake, the plague doctor sucked away the room's remaining clean air.

The plague doctor raised the thin, round stick from beside his heavy leather cloak, which the man could now tell was coated in wax as it shimmered in the light of the candle's weak flame. He watched as the shaft was used to prod his son's decaying arm. The man made a move toward the plague doctor in protest, but was hushed into submission by a quick turn of the beak and the lifeless holes staring down at him. The plague doctor continued his limited examination, turning the boy over with the wooden rod. More boils and sores were seen down his son's bare back. Some were leaking blood, while others leaked pus, creating streaks of auburn and yellow down the protruding spine.

The plague doctor finished with the examination rod and returned it underneath his cloak. He turned to look at the man, slowly and deliberately. The man was held momentarily in the black gaze of the creature standing before him, for that was what the plague doctor was: a creature hatched in the fires of the Black Death. As the plague doctor extended his gloved hand from the cloak, the man could see the fingers end in sharp points. He did not want to know what talons the plague doctor really had. The man reached down and grabbed a small pouch of coins from underneath the cot. He gave the pouch to the plague doctor. The coin purse was accepted and placed within the cloak. The beak turned from the man to his son. A biting cold rushed through the thin walls of the cottage and the man felt his skin breakout in gooseflesh as he waited for the plague doctor to continue.

Tenere, the plague doctor ordered. The voice was surprisingly clear but deep and hollow as if coming from the depths of some unknown abyss.

The man did as instructed and held his son. He continued to hold his son even as the plague doctor produced a small, thin blade. The man watched as the plague doctor cut into the boy's arm, scraping away and slicing through flesh both diseased and untainted. His son began to thrash in his arms, screaming in a high-pitched wail not heard since the boy was barely able to walk. The man could only keep his eyes open long enough to see the orange mixture of pus and blood flow down his son's arm. The rose tinted lenses glimmered more clearly as the plague doctor leaned over his son's flaying form. In the swaying candlelight beside him, the man could see the eyes behind the lenses, and he spent the rest of his days haunted by their glow.

The screaming would go on through the night and past the gray dawn, for the bleeding had only just begun…

Part One

August

One

I don't love you anymore. I want a divorce.

The words swirled and floated about my brain, bouncing off the surfaces of my skull, not unlike the quickly diminishing ice cubes in the eight ounce glass of bourbon that I held in my hand. I gripped the tumbler tighter as I took a swig. The live wires that were my nerves began to subside and the shuddering of my hands began to quell.

Ellie had spoken the words ten hours prior in the purple sky of 5:00 a.m. The first rays of sunlight were yet to reach through our bedroom window. The picture of us on our wedding day reflected the slow-rising sun, but our portrait gazed back at me; a headless suit holding an equally decapitated white dress. The illumination of the blue sky started to peek through the darkness and touch the foot of our bed, as if it were a foamy tide creeping upon us.

I had never been able to sleep with even the slightest ounce of daylight on my face. That morning was no different when the black night began to shift into blue. I rolled over onto my left side and my wife of eleven years was looking me square in the face, her auburn hair conveniently tucked behind her head. I sometimes wondered if she slept at all during that particular night. She looked as if she had been waiting some time for this precise moment.

I don't love you anymore, she said plainly and without emotion, which was her approach to most matters, great and small.

I wished I could tell you that her declaration hit me like a sledgehammer or some other over used cliché, but in truth, at that exact hour of the daybreak, all I could think of was, that's an odd thing to say.

What, or some proximity thereof, fell out of my mouth and onto my pillow.

I want a divorce.

For whatever reason, the D word brought me to attention.

Why? I said indignantly. Blood began to circulate more rapidly toward my face and sleep was losing ground to anger.

I'm not happy, she said again flatly, as if she were running lines for some play that I did not know I was cast in. I've tried, but I'm not. I haven't been for a long time.

I reached behind me with my right hand and turned on the lamp next to me. It was a quaint little number fashioned after Snoopy in his Joe Cool guise with sunglasses and shit-eating grin. Ellie gave it to me as a birthday present. I couldn't remember which birthday, but I had it next to me on my night stand ever since.

The light hitting her face showed me just how pale she was; not just pale but stony as well. Her features were more like cracked and fading marble than the soft warm flesh I fell in love with.

What's wrong? I asked, in what I thought was a calmer tone but a tightened diaphragm told me otherwise.

She didn't say anything for a moment; she just stared into my scrunched and sleepy face. It wasn't a blank stare. I could see the computations calculating the best possible way for this conversation to proceed behind her eyes, the color of fresh grass even this early in the morning.

Everything, she said after a tense moment. She may have been up all night, but in all of that contemplation she did not apparently prepare a speech.

'Everything' is kind of vague, Ellie, I accused. And that is what I do instinctively. Accuse the accuser has been my go to self-defense mechanism for a majority of my life. Responsibility is something to be avoided at all costs. Responsibility is how people take advantage of you. That was one of the many unintentional lessons of my childhood.

Can you be more specific?

Ellie shrugged, and by doing so the cracks in her facade grated against each other like some sort of biological tectonic plate. Her mouth turned downward and the hard roundness of her cheeks swelled. She told me once that specific gesture was one she made at her most vulnerable. One she made a lot as a teenager when snickers of Smelly Ellie followed a shy girl with hand-me-down sweaters and a constant craving for Baby Ruth bars.

We will set up an appointment to see Sheryl when we get back from Florida, okay? In the recesses of my gut, I knew seeing Sheryl was just prolonging the inevitable, but I felt we had to play the notes if our marriage was indeed going to have a proper requiem.

Ellie shook her head slowly, Wil, I don't want to be with you.

Before I could properly digest those words, a frantic knocking came a'rapping and a'tapping at our bedroom door.

Are you guys awake? Is it time to go? I heard these words vaguely as if they were coming from outside and down the driveway.

It's not time to go yet, Sam, Ellie said without taking her eyes off me.

You should try to get some sleep, I said. I kept my voice light, but held her gaze intently.

But I'm not tired! This statement was followed by a sigh so distraught with emotion that it penetrated through the wood of our door. Can I come in? Like most ten year olds, Sam had already opened the door three quarters of the way before an answer was given.

Sam, sweetie, Ellie began beside me, why are you dressed this early in the morning?

And why are you wearing the suit you wore to Auntie Jodie's funeral?

Indeed my son stood in our doorway wearing a button up shirt, tie, and blazer. Unfortunately, Aunt Jodie's funeral had been the previous April and Sam had put an inch or so between his socks and his pants. As well as he had been able to straighten his clip-on tie, with his shirt and line up the seam, his hair had been untouched by neither comb nor brush. Brown tufts of hair protruded from his head in various directions as if his follicles were making a desperate escape from the scalp itself.

I really don't understand why you guys are still in bed, he chided as he crossed his arms. His eyes were like his mother's, wide and piercing, but blue instead of green. Thankfully they did not penetrate as deep. Not yet anyway.

Our plane leaves at 8:30 a.m. and we need to be there by six. That is what the airline told us, he said this with a flourish of his arms and an encumbrance in his voice more common in defense attorneys than boys of his age.

Fine, you convinced us, Atticus, I said. I slapped my hand down on the comforter in front of me, Now go comb your hair before you give yourself an aneurysm.

Sam turned on his heel and headed down the hallway toward the bathroom.

You should go help him, Ellie said.

I turned to her, not entirely sure how to proceed.

Can we at least enjoy this weekend? I asked her as I swung my legs off the right side of the bed.

I will try.

Two

The drive from Marlow to Portland only lasted a little over ninety minutes, but it was enough time for the sun to come into full bloom over the Willamette Valley. I tried to take Ellie's hand as we merged from Salem Parkway onto I-5 north. Her hand recoiled from my fingertips as if they were sharply burned by the presence of my skin.

Your hands are cold, she said. She massaged the top of her hand, tending to a wound much deeper than the tendons on the surface.

I checked the rearview mirror and saw the top of Sam's head, brown hair combed, but still probing the surroundings of his skull. He was transfixed by his DSI, one of the more recent mobile gaming devices that occupied the shrinking attention spans of pre-adolescents everywhere. He wanted an iPhone, but Ellie and I had been trying to hold that beast at bay for as long as we could.

The freeway was relatively quiet at 5:45 in the morning. The a.m. rush hadn't quite started yet and so we passed through the Outer Rim territories of Wilsonville and Oregon City in a blink. As we entered Multnomah County, we saw the white, jagged, peak of Mt. Hood standing silent vigil.

There was a traffic signal at the top of the exit ramp and I sat behind the wheel of our Prius, waiting for the light to turn. A light breeze blew through the trees. The branches bent and swayed, but the red glaring eye of the stoplight held rigidly still. I could feel a heat slowly pooling between my eyes as I stared at the light. Despite my best psychic efforts, non-existent as they were, the red eye hung mute and unwavering, refusing to let me move.

Wil? Ellie's voice brought me out of the enchantment of the traffic light.

What?

She didn't respond as she nodded her head abruptly at the window on my left.

A panhandler's face was mere inches away from my window. I quickly turned my head back to the front. I hoped the gesture would have been a strong enough hint, but in my travels, I had yet to meet a more aggressive breed of beggar than those which haunt the gateways of the Oregon interstate freeway system.

There was a gentle, but persistent tapping on the window. I looked at Ellie pleadingly.

Do we have a dollar?

She flashed a frown before digging in her purse. She gave me the cash and I lowered the window.

The face on the other side was a barren wasteland of caked dirt and porous, ruddy, skin. Tendrils of hair, that was once black, hung about the face like overgrown kudzu vines protecting some primordial piece of nature untouched by man. The eyes, which may have been an overcast blue, widened and became slightly less glazed at the sight of the green paper in my hand. A smile scratched itself across the man's face; a dry, scaly tongue slipped between the lips.

What I remembered most about that encounter, and what would keep me awake till my eternal sleep, was the peeling away of the chapped and blistered lips, like a mortician's sheet. The teeth were broken and dead, planted firmly in black, rotting gums. A pus filled discharge seeped from the roots of teeth still alive. In between the shards of decaying enamel were small morsels of chewed flesh and meat that I can only assume were from the previous meal, however long ago that might have been.

I handed my dollar over to the stubby fingertips outside my window.

God bless you, the face said. The words brought with them a foul odor of Kentucky Deluxe mixed with something rancid.

The panhandler nodded once more and shuffled back to the cardboard sign on the side of the road.

Three

Sir?

I looked up to see the flight attendant leaning ever so slightly across my wife. Or soon to be ex-wife as it was.

Can I take that from you? she asked, pointing at the empty cup in front of me.

Oh. Right, I replied more alertly, How much longer 'til we reach Dallas?

Maybe two more hours, she smiled mechanically as she spoke. Her bright face was beginning to show the wear of constant flight, but somehow the lines around her eyes didn't impact her natural good looks.

Can I have another Crown? Straight up please?

Of course.

I handed her my plastic receptacle and as I did so, her finger brushed against mine and it felt soft and warm, despite the frigidness of her exterior.

Ellie stirred in the seat next to me, but remained asleep, her ear plugs burrowed deeply into her ear canals.

Sam had never ridden on a plane before and was quite excited during takeoff. He kept his nose against the window and didn't move until we had been in the air for almost an hour. Once the window revealed nothing more than the tops of clouds, he went back to slaying anime monsters on his DSI.

When I was your age, they used to let kids go up and see the cockpit, I said. We sat toward the middle of the plane which always made me nervous, as did the front and back.

Would they let me go see the cockpit? Sam asked with a mild curiosity.

I don't think they do that anymore. They might think you're a terrorist.

Oh. That sucks, Sam said. He plugged his earphones back in.

With my son transfixed by sixteen-bit vampire slayers to my right, and my wife deeply enchanted by the Xanax she took before takeoff, I fingered the already dog-eared copy of Sky Mall nesting in the seat pouch in front of me. I began to compulsively twist my tongue back and forth in my mouth as I waited for my drink to arrive.

Four

After a brief stop in