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The Masked Man

Kelli Landon

    “Where have you been?” Kim asked me upon my return to the bar. “It’s been over twenty minutes.”
    “I was just having some fun with the knight,” I said, adjusting my devil horns.
    “What do you mean by fun?” she asked.
    “Oh Kim, you know what I mean,” I answered, unable to hide the satisfying smile from my face.
    I’ve always been a shy person. I’ve never been able to go up to someone and talk just out of the blue. Halloween night always made me feel different in a way I’ve never felt before. It was my favorite night of the year, especially since I was actually able to have my fantasy come true with the guy I had a crush on.
    “Where is he now?” Kim’s eyes wandered the smoky bar.
    “He had to leave. He said he was in a hurry to get back on the road.”
    “Was it Chris?”
    “I told you it was.”
    “Yeah Mandy, but you didn’t know that for sure because of the mask.”
    “But, as you know when you’re doing it with a knight, the metal eye piece keeps moving up and down, so you can see his eyes most of the time.” I laughed, remembering the all too fast moment in the backseat of my car.
    “No, I don’t know that,” Kim said in a firm voice.
    “Oh sorry, I forgot. You haven’t done it with a knight.”
    Just then our friend, Debbie, returned with a glass of white wine.
    “You took a long time in the bathroom, Mandy,” she said.
    Debbie wasn’t the brightest of people. Her platinum blonde hair stood out so everyone assumed the truth about her.
    “Yeah, long line,” I said, giving Kim an eye roll.
    “Halloween is great. You can be anything you want,” said Debbie. “I’m not gonna be a fairy again. My wings are getting heavy.”
    I was trying not to laugh. We only took Debbie along because we wanted more people to go out with and nobody wanted to dress up. We could talk her into anything.
    “Is my hair okay?” I asked anyone who was listening.
    “You look great as the fiery temptress you are,” said Kim holding out her foot long cigarette holder.
    A fairy, a flapper, and a fiery temptress. What a combination, I thought.
    “So, did Chris say when the band was gonna be back together?” Kim asked.
    “We didn’t talk about the band. We had other things going on.”
    “What band is that?” Debbie asked.
    “Eardrum Decay,” Kim answered.
    “What kind of name is that?” Debbie’s eyes almost popped out of her head.
    “Believe me, there are worse names,” I said.
    “Well, I’m not a bar hopper so I’m not up on all this local stuff,” said Debbie as she took a sip of her wine.

    “We know,” I said.
    “So, where is this Chris?” Debbie asked.
    “He’s gone,” I said. “I was talking to him outside.”
    “So, you like him?”
    I caught Kim in my peripheral vision trying not to laugh as she looked around the bar.
    “Yes, I go to all their shows, but they lost their drummer.”
    “Why?”
    “I dunno,” I said.
    “You know them, right?”
    “No, she just likes Chris,” Kim butted in.
    “Yeah, I like him, but I’m not good with talking to guys, so I can’t just go up to them and strike up a conversation.”
    “But you talked to him tonight,” said Debbie.
    “Right, I did.” I talked to her like she was a five year old. “Only, I’m in a costume.”
    “So?” she said in a bimbo sort of way.
    “Debbie, when you are in a certain outfit, you feel more confident.”
    “Oh,” she said with a clueless look.
    “Hey Mandy,” Kim said with a freaked out look on her face. “Look over there.”

    I turned to see a guy in a vampire cape. Aside from the white makeup and fangs, he looked like Chris.
    “You gotta be kidding me,” I said.
    “Isn’t that Chris?” Kim asked.
    “It could be.” My heart started doing flip flops. “But he said on their website that he was gonna dress as a knight in honor of heavy metal.”
    “Maybe he changed,” said Debbie.
    I lost my patience in a split second as I turned to her. “You are so dumb!” I said, louder than I realized.
    “Mandy!” Kim said as if she were startled. “Calm down.”
    “I will not calm down!” I yelled as I rose from the table. “Who was it that I was with,” I looked at my watch, “a half hour ago?”
    “I don’t know,” said Kim. “Maybe Debbie’s right.”
    I couldn’t believe my ears. “There’s no way that he would leave, get out of that knight costume, then come back as a vampire that quick!”
    “You never know,” Kim said.
    “Maybe it’s a practical joke,” said Debbie. “And I’m not dumb by the way.”
    “I gotta find a way to ask him,” I said. “I should, shouldn’t I?”
    “How else are you gonna know?” Kim asked.
    “But I like living in the fantasy that I had him.”
    “Was it any good?” Kim asked.

    I gave a shrug of my shoulders. “Could have been better.”
    “What is she talking about?” Debbie asked Kim.
    “Nevermind, Kim,” I said with a wave of my hand. “It’s a lost cause.”
    I walked over to Chris to ask him the stupid question about the knight.
    “Weren’t you here earlier?” I blurted out as soon as I approached him.
    “No, just came from another bar,” he said as he turned, exposing his fangs. “Hey, aren’t you that girl who always comes to our shows?”
    “Uh, yeah,” I said as my heart pounded, both from fear of the knight and the excitement that he remembered me. “When is the band gonna start again?” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
    “A couple of weeks,” he said.
    “Okay,” I said like a dork and headed back to the table.
    “Well?” Kim asked with anticipation.
    “It wasn’t him,” I said, trembling. “What am I gonna do?” My mouth went dry. “Who was the knight?”
    “I told you to find out for sure if it was him!” Kim blurted out.
    I buried my face in my hands as I felt the stickiness of my fiery red makeup.
    “I gotta go to the bathroom,” Debbie announced as she headed toward the ladies room.
    “Good, she’s gone,” I said as I took a deep breath. “I’m so scared, Kim.”
    “Look, maybe it was someone you like, but have never talked to.”

    “Chris is the only one like that!” I snapped.
    “Calm down,” she said.
    “What if it’s someone I hate? What if my pill didn’t work? Even worse, what if he’s a relative?” I felt sick with that thought.
    “Keep your voice down!” Kim said. “Look, I don’t think that’s the case, so just stop jumping to conclusions.”
    We sat there for another half an hour, trying to figure out this whole thing with Debbie being lost as ever. We dropped her off, then drove around to other bars and scoped them out. We never found the knight. Finally we decided to call it a night and go home.
    Kim drove as we listened to the radio. “You can stay with me if you want,” she said.
    “Thanks,” I told her. “I don’t wanna be by myself tonight.”
    “We’ll find out who he is,” she said. “I bet he’s gonna pop up any minute.”
    Just then we heard a news bulletin on the radio.
    The newscaster reported, “Two female students from Flatsville University were found dead tonight. The students are aware of a campus killer and are taking precautions to avoid any danger. Police are still searching the area for a guy in a knight costume. Again, if you have just joined us...”

    My heart about jumped out of my chest as I stopped listening. My breathing started to increase with every horrible thought I had of the two minutes of anonymous sex I had earlier.
    Kim turned to me as she drove down the dark road toward her house. “Are you okay?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” I answered, but I knew that I wasn’t okay.
    “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “If he was a psycho killer, you wouldn’t have gotten away from him.”
    “You never know,” I said as I felt a panic attack come on. “Maybe he hadn’t had it in a while and I was the one who turned him on in between murders!” I was outraged. “The one night in my life I do something wild and look what happens! I get lucky with a psycho!”
    “Hey, it was a one time thing and it’s over,” she said, turning into her driveway. “You were innocent in this. Don’t beat yourself up so much.”
    I wanted to believe she was right, but in a way I wasn’t exactly innocent. I felt horrible. The best night of the year turned out to be the worst night of my life. It was also the night I learned that having a fantasy come true isn’t always what it seems.

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