Ch. 2 / Pt. 2 : When They Wear the Mask
Bob-Bob’s-son, recently divorced and more recently unemployed, had moved into a new condo mere months before the lockdown. There, all white-walled and half-unpacked, the days melted viscously into each other. Bob woke up, applied for as many jobs as the job sites showed him, and did housework. Sometimes he put something on the television, sometimes he didn’t. The thing on the television didn’t matter. Increasingly, Bob knew, he didn’t matter.
He woke up. He clicked around the job sites. He paced. He cleaned up the small messes he’d made the day before. Half the boxes sat unpacked. Once in a while he’d call someone, but few people answered. A dozen years earlier he’d played video games as a hobby but everything he found online now seemed alien to him. And who would he play with? Most of his friends had drifted apart into family.
Sometimes he put something on the television, sometimes he didn’t. He never knew what to watch. He never cared. Before the divorce, he’d let Veronica choose all the shows. On Saturday mornings, Sadie chose. He thumbed the remote control through an endless library. None of it struck him but sometimes he put something on.
Eventually, he went to sleep. Later, he woke up. He clicked around on job sites. He paced.
they will whisper your name—
He stopped pacing. Had he heard something from his bedroom?
Standing on the tile where the condo kitchen became the condo dining room, Bob stared through an open threshold at his bed. Faint light leaked in through slanted blinds. He squinted at the dimness, trying to make out the shape of his bedside lamp.
they will whi s p e r…
The next thing Bob remembered, he stood in front of his bureau, his mattress at his back. He opened the top drawer—as he’d planned to, he thought—and found Uncle Nick’s mask inside. Bob had found the mask with a handful of other objects, miscellaneous trinkets, but he couldn’t recall them anymore. He’d taken the mask. On his first trip back to the condo that day, he’d taken only the mask.
Breathing hard, Bob picked it up out of the drawer. It held his gaze with vacant holes.
Bob had had a lot of time to think…
Just as the scarlet fantasy tendriled up from the back of his mind, Bob pushed it down again. Clearing his throat, he settled the mask back in his bureau. He paced. He cleaned up the small messes he’d made the day before. From the piled, half-unpacked boxes strewing the condo, he procured a box he and Veronica had never gotten around to opening. Inside, he found a knife block. He put it on the kitchen countertop.
Eventually, he went to bed.
That night, the dreams started.
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