There is evil in all of us.
Yes, I have heard the saying that those who follow their heart, are also bound by their fear, their weakness, their evil. What if you abandoned all the former? What if all you had left was the dark spark of twisted thoughts?
You’d probably say that’s impossible. We all feel guilt, or shame, or something that tells us, “Woah there, let’s slow things down at least.” Sometimes it’s people we hurt who tell us that to our face.
So, what if you abandoned that part of yourself? What if you abandoned your face?
It happened two years ago. A trip across America with my two friends, Harvey and Ethan.
We drove down a road, went through a forest, over a hill, and found ourselves heading towards the town. That is as much as I can recall. I’d like to give specific directions, but we only found it because we got lost. We started in Pennsylvania and wanted to drive through Ohio and Indiana that day, so it was somewhere around there.
With a bad sense of direction and poor map reading, it is easy for a group like us to end up in all sorts of places. We thought we had arrived at our next stop, but we could tell from a distance the town was a little too old-looking to match the description.
“Finally, I’m starving,” Harvey muttered. “Gonna grab a burger or something - maybe a killer sandwich.”
Ethan looked at him with frustration, before returning his eyes to the road. If you had been in the car with us, you would have heard a lot of grumbling from Harvey.
“Dude, eat the pretzels,” he said. “They’re not going to kill you!”
“I beg to differ. These gluten-free pretzels suck, it feels like I am eating dirt - I could choke to death.”
“Why don’t you find out?”
“Seriously, we could have just got regular pretzels! It would have been cheaper and there would have been a lot more!”
“Shut up and eat the pretzels anyway,” I told Harvey. “Drink some water and save us from your whining. You’re older than us and you still act like a spoiled child.”
I saw the town sign coming up. I had been hoping to see a sign for some time, just so I could pin down where we were on the map. Only, it wasn’t what I expected. There wasn’t a name, only four words.
Here, you are free.
I’ve read cheesier signs outside small towns. Something to make people stop and take a photo. I would have thought it was a conservative-leaning town, but I didn’t see the American flag to add to the message of freedom.
Still, I thought about those words as the buildings flanked the sides of the car, feeling anything but free. It was when we slowed down in that town that I realized there shouldn’t be a town. The road we took, at least according to the map, didn’t have any towns, attractions, or even weird little villages.
It should have been a straight, open country road.
As you can expect, a fight broke out when I mentioned this. It started with me, as I was the one with the map, but eventually, it was just between my friends. Those two had been at each other’s throats for a while and our trip had only just begun.
Harvey and Ethan argued with each other while I took a look around, surveying the town. The buildings weren’t in the best condition and without signs of movement, the town seemed to be abandoned. I opened the door and stepped out onto the road, deciding to explore and see if the town was as empty as it looked.
The others followed suit, their interest growing with mine.
“Stanley, maybe we should just drive back,” Harvey suggested. “Nobody is here and I didn’t see a gas station either.”
“Maybe we can ask for directions,” I suggested.
“Who are you gonna ask? Casper the Friendly Ghost?”
“And who are you gonna call?” Ethan interrupted. “Ghostbusters! Doot doo da doo da doo!”
“Doot doo doo doo da doo!”
We slowly split up, looking at the town closer. The buildings were a little old, vintage-looking places. Even the houses looked like something out of Rockwell paintings. I also noticed that the lawns were neat, which didn’t make sense if the place was abandoned.
It was then that I saw the flickering of light. It was coming from inside one of the houses. I walked over to it, looking through the window, and saw it was a box TV in a dim living room. It seemed to be playing a still picture of a man in a chair, the lines on the screen indicating the age of the tape - old. I was so focused on the video, I didn’t notice the man in the room until he waved at me.
I was frozen in place.
The man who stood in the corner of the room wore a pastel shirt, a tie, pressed trousers, and smart shoes. Yet, his unruly, elbow-length hair, perfectly framed the disturbing mask he wore. It was a rabbit mask, scratched and aged. As the man walked towards the window, I walked backward. As he neared the window, I could see the dirt, the grunge, and the stains that covered the shirt and trousers.
Worst of all, I saw how the mask was set in the man’s face. Flesh covered the edges, overlapping. It was as if the man had never taken the mask off for many years and he simply grew around it. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears as the man stopped in front of the window. With one glaring look from behind the mask, the bunny man closed the curtains sharply.
My breath got caught in my throat. I choked on my sudden inhale, coughed, and decided to go back to the car. Turning on the spot, I ran straight into another masked stranger, this time a woman with a skull mask.
I stumbled, falling at her feet. She looked down at me, hands at her side, without even a flinch of fear or indication of hesitation.
I shook a little as I pushed myself up, shocked when the woman placed her hands on my arm and helped me up. She didn’t say anything, she only stared at me for a moment while I stared back like a fish out of water. After that, she walked away, going about her business - as were many others. The town was alive with masked people, dressed like they were stuck in the 1950s.
I didn’t care for the act of kindness from the woman or the appearance of the local population - I was mentally done. It was time to go. I jogged back to the car, finding only Harvey in the front seat with his cell phone.
I could see he was filming all the masked people coming out of their homes and walking around. The people bought papers from sellers, they drove old cars, they did everything anyone else would, but there were subtle differences. Nobody spoke, they only stared at each other. Whatever meaning they conveyed, it seemed to be understood, as some would part happily while others would storm off.
A surreal play right before our eyes.
“These freaks,” he said in a hushed whisper. “I was walking down that street, the one with the blue house and these four kids were playing - ugly old masks on their faces. They were kicking this thing on the ground, and it looked…I don’t know, I think it was something dead. They just stopped and-”
“Where’s Ethan?” I asked.
Unable to provide a real answer, both our hearts sank. That could only mean one thing. We needed to find him, so we left the car to search for our friend. We kept our distance from the masked people, walking up the main road and looking for Ethan’s clothes. We walked by the old stores and buildings, without a sign of our friend. It was only out of pure desperation that I suggested we ask one of the townsfolk.
After all, weird didn’t always mean dangerous.
I approached the most normal-looking person we could find and asked him if he had seen our friend. The man stared at me, his eyes unblinking behind a disfigured mask. The masked man was alone, Harvey and I weren’t weaklings, but he still made us squirm. With our patience running thin, we almost walked away, but then the masked man pointed at a street. With nothing else to go on, Harvey and I marched onwards, growing more uncomfortable by the minute.
“Maybe it’s like a festival,” Harvey suggested. “Kinda makes you feel naked being here without a mask, doesn’t it?”
I agreed with him, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. There was a feeling that the silence gave. It was like being someplace familiar. It almost reminded me of a library. People walking around, not speaking, but you knew they were there. You could hear the chairs creak, the thump of books being placed on top of each other, and the chatter of formal shoes as people walked between the shelves.
It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, you know?
Further down the indicated road, Harvey heard a scuffle between two buildings. I didn’t at first, but when he mentioned it, we turned to see Ethan running out from the shadows, his clothing cut and blood beginning to stain it. We marched forward to help but immediately froze when we saw the masked men behind him with knives.
Ethan stumbled between us, looking back at his assailants. The masked men didn’t stop, their bloody kitchen knives at the ready to finish what they started. I know I said we weren’t weaklings, but the fear in Ethan’s eyes was infectious. These men were armed and clearly insane. We didn’t stay to fight, they simply ran for the car.
It was only when they turned down the road they parked their car on did they realize it had been moved.
“No way,” Harvey said. “No fucking way.”
I heard panic slip into his voice. I couldn’t blame - I could barely speak. We spun on the spot, looking for our car, but not seeing it. In the middle of town, surrounded by those people, it suddenly felt like an overwhelming nightmare.
Looking back, I saw the masked men with knives were still walking towards us, while the other masked people didn’t seem to notice or care. With the masked men so close, ready to strike, we had to do something. Harvey had the right idea. With one panicked kick, keeping his distance as much as possible, he brought one of them to the ground. I heard a funny pop when his foot connected with the masked man’s knee. The kick was effective, but also a little awkward. Harvey’s phone fell out of his pocket and was crushed by the next knife-wielding maniac who charged him.
With one already on the ground, I had enough encouragement to help. Not that I had much choice, the other man was charging me. I did the same thing, avoiding a frantic swipe. The thought of dying crossed my mind, but it didn’t stop my kick and the several kicks that followed.
Even now, I shake thinking about the panic going through me. I didn’t hold back, I just kept kicking, aiming for places I thought I could break - mostly the knees and ankles. I didn’t need to do so much, he was already…disabled and disarmed.
I then heard a yell, snapping me out of it. Harvey was caught by surprise as the last one drove a knife into his shoulder. The pain only urged Harvey to act more aggressively too, He reached forward, grabbing the man’s mask, fingers digging into flesh to curl under it. Placing his foot against the masked man, he pulled and kicked at the same time, wrenching the mask painfully from the assailant.
Behind the mask was a face no longer human.
Having only slits for nostrils and a mouth which was crossed with stitches of flesh, as if the lips were growing into each other, the unmasked man screamed with horror before we had time to scream in disgust. He was not scared of us, as we soon discovered.
All around us, the masked people turned and homed in on him.
We backed away from the man as the whole town seemed to come out of the woodwork and moved towards the unmasked man, who crumpled to the ground. The people surrounded him as he writhed on the ground. He tried to cover his pale, underdeveloped face with the mask, but it kept falling off. More townspeople surrounded the unmasked one and a silent signal triggered them all.
It was like piranhas swarming a piece of bloody meat.
Unable to see beyond the backs of the people, nor wanting to, we had only the screams to understand the unspeakable things they were doing to him. In that burning light of day, with no reason to stay, we decided to jog towards the town exit. It was there we found our car, parked at the very edge.
Standing by their car was the woman with the skull mask - the same one who helped me up.
We didn’t approach her. Ethan was badly injured and Harvey was worse off. It would be up to me, but my bones felt like jelly. Yet, the woman didn’t attack, she didn’t show fear. Instead, she held out the car keys for us to see and threw them towards us. They landed on the road at our feet, Ethan reaching down to pick them up.
The woman walked away from the car, towards us and then towards the town sign. Harvey and Ethan climbed into the car, keeping their distance from the masked woman. I could see Ethan’s smile as the engine revved up.
I stood at the door to the backseat, hearing Harvey’s pained breathing as he pulled the knife from his shoulder and Ethan went to work in binding the wound with a shirt.
As messed up as it sounds, I hesitated to get in the car. The masked woman was standing there, one hand holding the wrist of the other. She seemed scared and anxious. The way she looked at me…I don’t know. She didn’t seem like them at all. The mask she wore wasn’t embedded in her face.
“Stanley, get in!” Ethan yelled.
There was sadness in her eyes as she saw me slip into the car. Like hope had just died inside her. The masked woman turned around and began walking towards the town. I continued where Ethan left off, attending to Harvey’s wound. He was so pale.
Ethan turned the car around and I looked out the back window. I looked at the woman, and then the sign.
Here, you are free.
We followed the road until we reached the next town a couple of hours later. After a visit to the hospital, we all agreed the trip was over and we were going home. We talked about it a lot on the way back, taking the same road we took back with anxiety in our hearts. If we saw the town again, we would put it in reverse and find another route…but we didn’t.
We didn’t see any other roads, or towns, or anything. It was just as it should have been - a straight, open country road. We made it back without incident and completed our return drained and damaged.
After these two years, we don’t talk about it anymore. Even Harvey just tells people he got the scar on his shoulder in an accident - the girls he meets don’t care much for the truth. I think about it a lot. More than anything, I think about her a lot. I feel I’ve missed something, something important.
It’s not the fear, the trauma, the pain that I will keep the town of masks grounded in my mind as reality. It will be her that keeps that memory alive.