The Masked Officer

The ballroom filled with men in tailored suits, women in tight dresses, champagne flutes and caviar and lobster toast on silver platters served by men in white blazers, and energetic whispers about the The Masked Officer.

Ronald stood in the corner of the ballroom sipping a beer and avoiding the gravitational pull of the New York elite. His thoughts split between his upcoming drive home from New York State across the bridge to New Jersey. To Jenny and the kids and their homework and bedtime. The other half of his thoughts went to the woman who worked in accounting down the hall at the office, the way she smelled when she walked by his desk or needed his approval on those quarterly reports.

 And there she was, staring at him, walking like she knew she was being watched. Her eyes looking at him in a way that every man wants to be looked at. Respected. Desired. And the curves in that dress, dear God. She flashed a smile.

“Standing over here alone like a loser?" Victoria said.

“I don’t do well at holiday parties,” Ronald said.

“I’ll keep you company.”

“Think I’m going to leave.”

“Stay. I want you to stay,” she whispered.

“Need to get home.”

Victoria brushed his hand. “I saw you come in. I’ve known about this place since I was a kid. Have you heard of the Masked Officer?

She grabbed his hand and stepped over the rope leading down a long hall. He stole a look at her, the flash of leg in her black dress rewarding his decision to follow her.

A ballroom. A bright chandelier. Musky air. If you closed your eyes you could imagine parties from hundreds of years ago. Women in long skirts with their breasts for all the world to see. Broad-shouldered men in military uniforms carrying ceremonial swords.

“Imagine all the people who have walked in this room,” Victoria said in amazement. “I could live in a place like this.”

“I’d puke,” Ronald said.

A smile crept up on Victoria’s face. “Dance with me.”

A dance. That’s all she wanted, perhaps to be like a debutante. Victoria’s eyes were like a child desperate for attention.

“Like this,” she said, sliding into his arms and pressing her chest into his.

“Do you feel like royalty?” Ronald said, smelling her perfume.

“Your wife is seriously so lucky.”

“Tell her that.”

 “Look at the ceiling,” Victoria said. “Like a dream.”

The ceiling, which displayed elegance more suited for a cathedral, showed high-society ballroom dancers moving among clouds. Each person in the mural distinctly detailed as though the artist wasn’t simply filling a painting, but instead knew each person that danced on the ceiling. As you strained your neck to look up, you could hear the giggling and flirting, and the timed steps of the waltz and two-step.

A cold breeze swept across the ballroom, slamming the doors. Ronald felt his chest tighten, and the images on the ceiling made Ronald wonder if anyone were watching. “I should leave.”

 “Don’t you know the story of this place?”

“Really, its-”

“During the war an illness swept across this part of the state and killed everything in it’s path. The country-side, the crops, the plants, the people.”

“The estate?”

“The family quarantined here.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Dad was a Civil War buff.”

Ronald walked to the other side of the ballroom, his eyes still tracing the ceiling. In the corner of the ceiling was a man in a blue military uniform standing with his shoulders back and his chest high. He possessed the eyes of a man who was confident but gentle. And beside him, a woman gazing at him, and three children at her side.

“He was a Colonel,” Victoria said. “Colonel George Adams.”

“So what happened?”

“The sickness got into the estate.”

Ronald swallowed, imaging what he would have done. If Jenny got sick. If the kids got sick. It dawned on him that he’d no recollection of how long he and Jenny had been gone for. Time had slipped away with Victoria, and the estate had been silent and consuming, as though with each step and each second they traveled deeper into a timeless fog.

“Lets do one more room,” Victoria said, pulling at his hand.

“How long have we been gone for?”

“Don’t you want to find out what happens?”

“Can’t you just tell me?

“It’s more fun if I show you.” 

They walked into the library. A majestic collection of books lined the walls, and a spiral staircase led to a second floor with more books, and maps, and a small study area. The air was cold as they walked further into the library, and what little sunlight remained struggled to shine through the old windows. The room was silent and still, though their breathing and voices echoed throughout the entire chamber.

“He kept journals as they quarantined,” Victoria said.

“How self-important,” Ronald said. “Who really has anything to say these days?”

 “He had something to say.”

“What?”

“That he wanted love.”

“Love?”

“Isn’t that what we all want?

“What?”

“Love.”

Victoria spoke with ecstasy, as though the air itself had turned her into a lovestruck pet enamored with the promise of family. She pulled a book out, wiping away dust from the jacket.

“I could spend a lifetime here,” Victoria said.

“So what happened?”

“With that? Oh, sorry.”

“Are you okay? You look sick.”

“He killed the servants.”

“Why?”

“He blamed them for letting the illness into the house.”

How long they had spent in the library Ronald didn’t know. He paced up and down the creaky floors, eying the stacks as though they were some foreign entity, the touch of which might further the fog that enveloped his mind. But Victoria went from stack to stack and book to book, furiously searching and mumbling to herself. It sounded as though the words George and Colonel George and Georgie were coming from her mouth.

“Here it is,” Victoria said, her hands shook, and sweat dripped from her pale face.

“What?”

She flipped through the pages so quickly that a cut formed on her index finger. Sucking the blood from her finger, she stopped. “Here.”

She read from the pages. His writing was pretentious but sincere. A man who loved his wife and children, who had no answers, and was about to lose everything. He detailed the killing of the servants. How he murdered them while they slept. How he hid the bodies in the panty.

“Isn’t that so romantic?” Victoria said. “What would you do for your family?”

“I don’t know if I’d do-”

“You wouldn’t do anything and everything for your family?” Her voice bounced off the wooden floors and shelves and her breath blew the dust from the books.

She continued reading, and on the last page she got to the mask. The wooden and blood stained mask that he wore to hide the scars and the burns of the illness from the children. He hated himself for the way his kids looked at him. His wife, her beautiful red hair and a laugh that’d bring smiles to the most spiteful of men, had left him. In his final words of the journal he pitied himself.

“What happened to her?”

“She left him. Then the sickness got to the kids, and well…”

“Awful.”

“She never should have left him.”

An object stood on the desk near the entrance of the library. Propped up like a trophy. Victoria walked with a reverence reserved for those visiting the Wailing Wall or a church. She picked it up and examined it. The wooden object had holes cut out for the eyes but lacked a mouth and nose. She put it on her face and laughed as she nodded her head back and forth. Back and forth. It looked as though Victoria’s body had disappeared, and all that remained was the mask, moving back and forth.

Surely by now the party had ended. He pictured Jenny putting the children to sleep. Max and Emma and Brittany asking where Daddy was. He’s on his way home, Jenny would say, he’s on his way home. The innocence of the kids making them ignorant to pessimism in her voice. But he couldn’t leave Victoria, not now. Pushing her to leave now might drive her to insanity.

Ronald stood facing the window. He didn’t move. His chest tightened. His fingers trembled. “Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t turn around.”

“Are you playing games with me Ronald?”

“He’s in here.”

“Who?”

“The Masked Officer.”

His soft reflection showed through the window onto the second floor. He wore no mask, but the window concealed any meaningful depiction of his face. His reddened eyes stared at Victoria, as though she had something he wanted. He stood hunched over, his boiled hand clutching his sword.

“We need to run.”

“I want to see him.”

As she turned around, the reflection disappeared. Ronald fell to the floor. Tears streamed from Victoria’s eyes. 

“Oh why did you tell me not to look?”

“I’ve had enough. We’re leaving.”

“We need to find him.”

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

Her face adopted the expression of a petulant child. She slapped him. “You don’t care about me. If you did you would have left her for me years ago.”

“Where’d you get that stupid idea?”

“I saw the way you looked at me when we left the ballroom. You’ve wanted me since that night in Midtown. I bet you never told your wife about our little secret,” she said, letting out a small giggle. She walked out of the library without looking back at Ronald, still holding the mask in her hand.

They headed down a long hallway, and when they arrived at the master bedroom Ronald stood at window. You could imagine on a brighter day the sun setting and the light coming through the window, the breeze from the Hudson gently pushing on the windows, and the view of the garden bringing peace to your soul.

“What does the Officer want?” Ronald said.

“A new wife.”

Victoria continued to speak, but exactly what she was saying Ronald didn’t know. He imagined Jersey, how he longed to be there. The traffic, the smoke, the attitude. He wanted to be home. The kids undoubtedly in bed. Jenny asleep with the light on.

“Kiss me,” Victoria said. 

“Your sick.”

“How about now?” Victoria said, placing the mask over her face.

Ronald fell back, slamming his head against the bedpost.

How long Ronald was out for he didn’t exactly know. Only that the world had gone black when he fell, and when he woke his head was heavy and his skin was cold. There were no sounds, only the gentle flirtatious giggles coming from the bed. Was he dreaming perhaps? Had he made it home and not remembered. Where was Victoria?

He vomited as he stood up, but not because of the concussion he surely suffered. No, he vomited because on the bed he saw two figures. On the left hand side was Victoria, and on the right side was a deformed body, whose face was concealed only by the mask Victoria had held just before he fell.

The naked body moved closer to Victoria. The Masked Officer. The sickness spewing from his mouth onto the white bedsheet. Ronald grabbed the bedpost to steady himself.

Victoria continued to stroke The Officer's mask, until finally, she removed it, revealing a boiled and burned face. She closed her eyes as the Officer perked up his crusted lips, and a blackened tongue invaded Victoria’s trembling lips.

She choked on the black drool, the sickness now spilling from her own mouth. But their mouths remained entangled. There was no love, only desperation.

He watched her from the bed as his naked body swathed her. Her mind no longer belonging to her, but to the house, this house which entrapped your mind into a thick fog. And when Victoria rose from bed she stared at him.

“You can stay here with us just like you were always meant to.”

The Masked Officer stood next to Victoria. Every crevasse and wrinkle and boil visible under the moonlight. He opened his palms, as though to welcome him into his arms.

“Come back, please.”

“I can’t leave now. I always wanted to be in a place like this. But you can stay too,” Victoria said. As she spoke, boils in her face appeared. Small at first, they grew quickly, emitting a mucus that produced a horrid smell.

Ronald’s mind went straight to the kids. Of Max and Emma and Brittany. Reading to them. Of cooking for his wife and lying next to her in bed. The decision had been made for him. He had to leave. At the corner of the master bedroom was a small staircase.

He descended the staircase, listening for the footsteps of Victoria as she chased after him. Her voice, how sweet it had been this morning when he went by her office, sounded like notes of death pushed into the air.

A wooden table sat in the middle of the room. Behind it, a large sink and a stove and an oven. The thick air pressed down on him and Ronald felt as though the weight of the estate was crashing down on him.

“Come back to bed,” Victoria said. “Just like we used to.” Her footsteps down the staircase were measured and quiet.

“Don’t say it,” Ronald said.

“I don’t need to tell you again what’s down there,” she laughed.

“What?” Ronald said.

And there they were. The cooks and the kitchen maids preparing the food. Their uniforms pressed. They moved with urgency and precision, as though preparing for a large dinner. The bustling kitchen had come alive, and yet it’s denizens carried the burden of death with each step. Their deformed and sickly faces still visible behind the masks.

“Won’t you join us for the celebration?” Victoria said.

“What celebration?” Ronald said.

“The Officer has finally found someone,” Victoria said.

Ronald led out a sickening and regretful chuckle. A laugh meant only for someone who had resigned themselves to an unnecessary fate.

Ronald climbed the stairwell at the other end of the kitchen, momentary losing the watchful gaze of Victoria. He went through the dining room. A magnificent table. The candles lit. The table set. Two violin players seated in the corner. As he walked toward to the next room, he heard the distinct loud clatter of chatter and footsteps moving around the ballroom.

Perhaps time had not gone as fast as he remembered. Maybe he’d open the doors and see the people at the office of whom’ s name he couldn’t remember, but perhaps now he’d take the chance to get to know them. Of who they are and what they want out of life. And beyond the driveway, his car and the trip home to Jenny and Max and Emma and Brittany.

But when he opened the door to the ballroom, he saw men in blue military uniforms and women in hoop skirts. A sea of wooden and blood-stained masks looked at him. The ceiling mural had disappeared, replaced only by a webbing of cracks that traversed the length of the ballroom. The images that had been there only hours ago had transposed and turned to life on the ballroom floor. He recognized the images, the people, now moving in front of him. Behind the crowd of masks stood The Masked Officer, and next to him Victoria, and the three children by her side.

The crowd of masks walked closer to Ronald. A quick snap locked the doors to the ballroom, and somewhere a sword was pulled from its sheath.