Ch. 16 / Pt. 2 : When They Wear the Mask

Whiteheads rolled into themselves and died and crashed against the rocks dead. Bob splashed cold Atlantic over his body, his grizzled face. When had his beard gotten so thick? When had his hair grown so disordered? The salt textured everything. The whiteheads rolled into themselves and died. The ocean breeze shivered gooseflesh across Bob’s arms and back, the temperature at dark dawn shaking him to his bones. A few yards away, his last set of stolen clothes, a couple cans of beans and tuna, the Mask, and their knife waited stashed in an oversized backpack, hidden under stones. Bob splashed freezing water against himself. The whiteheads rolled and died.

Bob coughed his throat clear. He hadn’t spoken in—(we don’t talk until the—)—how long? Hours? Days? He shook the sea out of his coarsened hair and shook his way along the rocks. Behind him, the Atlantic chewed the coast, eating its way inland. The whiteheads rolled…

Still shuddering from cold, Bob stood next to the backpack and used his palms to slick wetness from his skin. The cool breeze sliced through him. As the sun rose, Bob used a pair of stolen boxers to dry off his genitals before pulling them on. The dampness made the fabric stick to him. He pulled the rest of the clothes from the pack in a tangle and dressed in snarling frustration. Beads of moisture sucked at random patches of fabric, sticking them to him.

He growled at the sea and the sea growled back, eating its way inland. Whiteheads crashed against the rocks, dead.

Backpack slung over one shoulder, flannel overshirt half-unbuttoned, Bob backed away from the water. Dawn glittered across the waves like light refracting over a cracked mirror. Or a window. 

Bob had always felt some great unnameable presence beneath the seas surrounding his hometown. When the Oceanrest Fog started brewing in the western bay, or in the broad harbor along the peninsula’s southern swath, the feeling intensified; and that morning, far off to Bob’s right, thin mists rose from the coast like an omen. 

Pulling on the backpack’s other strap, Bob stepped cautiously backward, ascending (descent) the beach back toward the treeline. Several yards uphill, he halfway tripped on a loose foothold. Stumbling, he yelped. In the nothing that followed, a rush of embarrassment went warm-hot-cold through him. He searched for witnesses but saw none. Still somehow embarrassed, he turned his back on the nonsense meteorology and finished the climb as quickly as he could.

It took nearly two hours to hike back to the fringes of Squatter City, but Bob made the trek even knowing what he’d find on the other side. As expected, packs of uniformed police roamed the rubbled streets, homeless eyes tracking them with prey-animal wariness. Soon, some badge or another would break their way into his stolen sanctum—their stolen sanctum—and he and the Mask still had too much to do to go down now.

Nearly five miles separated their treehouse northeast of Denton from the borders of Squatter City, most of it up- and downhill through the woods. Still, the treehouse provided them with shelter until they could acquire more suitable accommodations. As soon as Bob confirmed the growing police presence infesting Squatter City, he and the Mask began the trek.

Dawn had warmed into full afternoon by the time they reached their destination.

Under the shade of the structure’s half-roof, Bob curled up on the floor with the backpack serving as a pillow. He clutched the Mask and the knife to his chest and slept fetal around them.

He awoke as twilight darkened to night, his body electric with purpose.

Somehow, he’d already donned the Mask.

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