1

I dropped the head in my hand. It wore a cheap mask, nothing like mine, nothing like the legend he was trying to live up to. I knew the story well. “The Masque of the Red Death” was actually one of my favorites. My own career as The Masquerade had nothing to do with it; that—just like this night at the church—was just a delightful coincidence.

The arrival of the Red Death, dressed in a mask that I liked to think was similar to my own, instilling fear in all of the revelers, was the best part of the story. The pathetic costume worn by the actor whose head lay at my feet did not do it justice.

I killed the director first. He deserved it for ruining an integral part of a classic story and also for scripting the trite bullshit I had heard on stage. A blow to his temple did the job, opening up his cranium, severing the cords that kept him alive and dropping him where he stood. The actors on stage dispersed, with some of them running for me and the main doors and most of them heading backstage. It didn’t matter where they ran because all of the doors were locked. I had already been backstage, I had already been outside. They were trapped like animals in a slaughterhouse, and they were about to become meat.

There was a good chance they would be scrambling for their phones, desperate for the little devices that held their world on five-inch screens, but when you rely so much on something so small, you’re always going to be let down. I had disabled the Wi-Fi and placed a signal blocker by the door. No messages would be sent, no phone calls would be made. It’s amazing what you can learn and what you can buy on the Internet.

“And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death,” I told the woman by the door.

She fell to her knees and threw herself at my mercy. Pleading with me to spare her life, which I had zero intention of doing. I disposed of her quickly, the only form of mercy I was willing to grant.

I followed another as she darted for the backstage area. They were scrambling around backstage, trying the doors, trying their phones, their faces bleak, their voices shrill. They had their chance to band together and plot against me, they had their chance to find weapons and attack me, but such is the nature of the human race that they immediately sought help from others and refused to help themselves. I put pay to a timid stagehand who still bore the acne scars of youth and was probably only 110 pounds soaking wet. He was all skin and bones and the axe cut through him like a chicken carcass.

“He had come like a thief in the night,” I continued, swinging again, this time planting the axe into the spine of someone who tried to flee. They twitched and convulsed like a merry bunny before flopping to the floor. The others ran away again, back into the main room, hopping over the recently deceased and rushing past me without making an effort to stop me. I followed them, enjoying my moment on life’s biggest stage.

“And one by one dropped the revelers.” The axe swung again, the tip of its deadly blade catching the edge of a young actress’s skin, penetrating deep, bleeding instantly, and sweeping in an arc as it carved a red-raw smile on her terrified profile. “In the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of their fall!”

The woman with the second smile dropped and clutched her face, her mouth open in a silent scream, her cheek open in a yawning bellow. I bent down until my face was inches from hers, until I caught the heat of the empty scream that tried to escape her mouth.

“Rather apt, don’t you think?”

She looked at my face, at the blood-red mask, at the deep-black eyes set inside the sockets. She didn’t reply, she just stared. I stood, ending her nightmare with another swing, this one across her neck.

Someone was waiting for me as I turned around, a cane held aloft above his head. He flinched when he saw me, when he realized his chance to strike unseen was gone.

He had seen the woman at my feet, no doubt a friend or a lover. He was shaking, his arms trembling, unable to move, unable to strike. He seemed to be seconds away from losing control entirely and releasing both his bowels and the blunt object.

“Well, are you going to hit me or not?”

He swung for me, but I knew it was coming and I moved quickly. With his arms held up, he couldn’t protect his chest as I rammed the axe into it. It made an odd sucking sound as it penetrated his skin, breaking his ribs before wedging in place.

He dropped the cane, using his hands to grab the axe. The blood was gushing out of him at an extraordinary rate, the life leaving his eyes, yet a small part of him was fighting a final, pointless battle, desperately trying to pry the axe free. With what was probably his final exertion, he ripped the axe out of his chest. I thanked him, took it from his hands, and then left him to die.

“What was the next bit?” I wondered aloud. “Ah, that’s right: and each died in the despairing posture of his fall.” Another was trying to escape, clawing at the door, banging and kicking with all of his might. He didn’t turn around as I approached, didn’t see me as I drove the axe into the back of his skull, immediately silencing his wailing and his banging and leaving him propped against the door in a dull and rigid pose. “How fitting.”

There were three others standing in the middle of the room. This was the moment for heroes, for macho men looking to impress, but the only man of the three was the one who looked the most reluctant, the most scared. He reminded me of Darren Henderson all those years ago, trying to use his female friends as human shields. This one hadn’t resorted to that yet, but he was certainly thinking about it.

“Please,” one of the women said. “Don’t do this.”

I stopped, opened my arms, and gestured to the room around me, a carnival of chaos. “But I have already begun. I can’t stop now. The show must go on, right?”

She came at me and took me by surprise. I didn’t have time to get the axe ready and she managed to land a disorienting punch, knocking me off guard. But I righted myself before she could do any more harm. I grabbed her by the throat with my free hand and held her there, my grip tightening as she tried to pry it free.

I turned to the other two, a man and a woman who were standing back, looking lost. Moments like these truly bring out the worst in people. When families and friends are not involved, there is no altruism, no sacrifice. They look after themselves and would happily see another die if it meant they could live for a few moments more.

“Are you not going to help her?” I asked them, squeezing tighter. “You can save her from this pestilence. You can be the heroes.”

They looked at their friend, at me, and then back to her. She was kicking, desperate to break free but unable to do so. Her face was turning red, her eyes growing wider as I continued to tighten my grip.

I pointed the axe at her friends. “You can be the remedy!” I told them. “You can help her, help yourself, help the fucking world!”

And still, they didn’t move.

Their friend’s face turned blue, then purple. Her fingers, previously digging into my hand, loosened as she lost her strength. Her eyes began to roll back into her head, but she was doing her best to stop them, to retain consciousness and see out her demise.

“You disgust me,” I told her friends.

The woman of the two turned and ran, but not before uttering a strangled scream. The man turned to watch her go and then turned back to me and his dying friend. He was clueless, lost, realizing that his death was imminent but unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

The woman grew limp in my hand and I let her go, watching as she flopped to the floor like a puppet on severed strings. The man tried to fight me. He held up his fists, realizing the only way to survive was to defeat me, but his fists were no match for my axe. I hacked at his hand first, removing it from his wrist but for a few strands of skin. He screamed, his eyes wide, staring in horror at his dangling hand. I aimed for his arm, hacking it off at the shoulder, before delivering several similar blows to his neck, decapitating him and showering myself in his blood.

The woman, the last one standing, had managed to break a small window at the back of the room and was trying to crawl out of it. It was a tight squeeze, and with pieces of jagged glass protruding out, it wasn’t a comfortable one either. She winced and groaned as she tried to snake her way through, the glass puncturing her skin and ripping it open. She was doing most of the work for me. Realizing I didn’t need the axe for this one, I stood behind her and waited.

When she got two thirds of the way through, with her legs dangling in front of me and her torso on the other side, I put the axe down and grabbed her by the feet. She had been relatively quiet until that point, no mean feat considering how much blood she had lost, but as soon as she felt my hands on her ankles, she screamed and she kicked.

I battled with her for a few moments before finding a grip. Then I pulled, dragging her back through the window. The screams were long and tortuous, and with each incremental movement, they increased and intensified. When she had finished and when I had dragged her back into the room, there was very little of her left. Many of the broken shards had been ripped out of the window frame and were now embedded in her, but the ones that had remained had done the most damage. They had torn deep into her body and were decorated with chunks of her flesh, colored with her blood.

Her screams softened when she looked herself over and realized how close to death she was. She was bleeding out, incapable of moving, incapable of breathing for longer than a few moments. I picked up my axe and headed backstage, grinning and mumbling to myself as I went. “And the flames of the tripods expired. And darkness and decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

The show was over but the encore would follow.