Masks

When halloween comes around, people don masks and pretend to be monsters. But real monsters wear masks all year round.

Content warning - This story contains content that may be uncomfortable or distressing for some readers. Find more details here.

“Just leave it! Come on, we’re going to be late, it’s fine.”

Richelle, caught in a pool of light from a streetlamp halfway between their gate and the taxi, cast a fretful look back at the front door of their house. Dan, one leg dangling over the taxi’s doorframe, the rest of him already securely seated, scowled at her around fake fangs.

“I just—“

“For god’s sake, Rich, just get in.”

Everything was fine. That was what she told herself as she hurried over to the cab, heels clacking like firecrackers on the sidewalk. Everything was fine. She forced herself to think it, and picked imaginary lint from her black bodysuit with shaking hands. The streetlights cast lurid shadows over the interior, bright, dark and back to bright again as they drove. It was all fine. Fine, fine, fine.

Dan looked immaculate stepping out of the taxi, all swirling cloak and carefully made-up cheekbones. His dark eyes stood out against his artfully pallid face, and Richelle’s heart stumbled a little at the sight. Ba-dump ba-dump trip.

Her feet followed her heart, and she fell against him, clutching at his chest for support as he adjusted his flowing cape.

“Careful!”

“Sorry! Sorry.”

Dan sighed, pulling her hands away from where they were crumpling the faux silk of his costume and rested them on his shoulders instead. His lips brushed hers in a gentle kiss. Richelle tried to deepen it, an apology and a plea for reassurance that was over too soon as Dan pulled away and patted her on the backside.

“Glad to see we didn’t need any last minute costume changes,” he grinned and slung one arm around her shoulder. A carved pumpkin leered at Richelle from atop a fence post as she leaned into the embrace. Face creasing in a small frown, she looked questioningly up at Dan.

“Huh?”

“Don’t look so glum, Rich!” His fingers traced a wrinkle near the corner of her mouth, then booped her gently on the nose. “You fit into it in the end, even if it was rather a squeeze.”
Richelle’s hand, the one not wrapped around Dan’s waist, moved self-consciously over her stomach. She’d thought she was doing so well. She’d lost weight, was working hard at the gym, dieting was doing wonders. Her fingers prodded at her stomach, trying to find the flab.

“I suppose.” Suddenly tonight didn’t seem like such a fun time.

The door opened, music and light flooding out in a slice of vibrant life that cut through the clinging shadows. Richelle felt it went right through her, as though she was made of cloudy glass, all pastel colours and dirty shades smeared thin and translucent. A fake. Then reality tilted back the right way, and she was solid and true again, just in time to smile at the homeowners. It felt forced. Their smiles were radiant, like their house and their lives, and hers was just a pale imitation in faded watercolours.

It didn’t seem to matter, in the end. They made appreciative noises over their costumes - Richelle’s whiskers and tail, Dan’s embroidered cape - and handed over candy. A few treat size Snickers went into Richelle’s bag, since Dan hated them, and he got a handful of gummi brains and fangs that matched his false choppers.

And it was a brilliant smile that he gave at every house. Every time she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye, Richelle’s heart gave a little flutter. When he spotted their friends further down the street and tugged her over, she trailed behind him feeling like the tail of a comet, dragged along in the wake of something greater than herself that gave some of its shine and sparkle to her drab existence.

“Oh, nearly didn’t make it at all,” Dan was saying when she refocussed on the conversation. “Poor Rich was worried about her costume. Thought it made her look fat.”

Reality came back down, settling in her gut as though Richelle she had swallowed a family of hedgehogs. She fought the urge to tug at her bodysuit again, and tried not to think about how the elastic fabric was clinging in all the wrong places. She hadn’t said anything, hadn’t even thought it, but was it?

Richelle could feel everyone’s eyes skimming up and down her figure, assessing. It felt like year 12 formal all over again, or any time she’d walked home past a building site since she was twelve. The hedgehogs indulged in a quick tussle somewhere around her duodenum.

“Nothing I couldn’t talk her out of, ahaha!”

“Or into, judging by that outfit,” Yvonne whispered in Richelle’s ear, draping arms over her sleek-suited shoulders. “Puts the rest of us to shame, Richie.”

“I dunno,” Richelle muttered, fiddling with the rings on her fingers. “I feel so huge in it.”

“Nonsense, lovely! You look right speccy tonight. Now, what was the plan for our sugar raid tonight again?”

Richelle opened her mouth to respond, then stopped as strong, familiar hands pulled her against Dan’s warm body. His voice vibrated through her in a pleasurable shiver, and she leaned back and surrendered herself to the sound.

“Aw, don’t be asking her complicated questions like that. You know I’m the brains in this operation.”

She could hear the smile in his voice.

Yvonne snorted, flicking a strand of mermaid-pastel coloured hair out of her face.

“Leadership of our high school orienteering championships says she’s better qualified to plot our route than you.”

Richelle managed a half-hearted shrug as Dan hugged her tighter, and she didn’t meet Yvonne’s eyes. She offered a placating smile, instead; it didn’t really matter who was in charge. It seemed to work, or the siren song of sugar was too strong to resist - either way, within minutes of small talk and a brief argument over whether to hit North or Short Street first, they were off in a laughing, smiling mob of trick-or-treaters determined to rot all their teeth straight out of their heads. The advantages of being adults - staying out late and eating whatever they damn well pleased.

With flushed faces and sugared lips, Richelle and Dan clambered out of the taxi. She stole one kiss, then another, laughing as Dan struggled to disentangle his arm from his cape, suddenly gone rogue and attempting to become a straightjacket.

The laughter died, leaving her lips corpse-cold and her chest tight, when she went to open the front door and it swung open at her touch. The wood around the lock was splintered.

“Dan?” Her voice cracked and broke, her heart was pounding and all the dread she had tucked away earlier that night came back and blew a hole through her gut like a wrecking ball.

“What’s wrong, Ri— Holy shit. What the fuck?!”

There was an empty patch on the wall where the TV had been. Consoles vanished as if they’d never been there. The cordless mouse was all that was left of the work computer, and a charger for one of the laptops - hers or Dan’s was a moot point. Jewellery was missing from their room. Wallet, purse, no longer where they had been.

“Oh god.” Richelle slumped into a kitchen chair - not everything was missing, even though it felt like it - and stared at the microwave clock. 2AM.

Dan sat heavily next to her, thumping his head onto the table.

“I thought you locked the door when we left, Rich.” His voice was muffled by the wood of the table.

“I did!”

“You obviously didn’t. How could you be so careless, Richelle? I can’t believe you didn’t check it.”

Her gut dropped out through the bottom of her feet, sinking deep down past the crust and into the mantle where the lava and the heat immolated it. She, she— had she checked, she’d meant to but she had, she— Richelle’s throat worked soundlessly for a few seconds, the words catching on what felt like sandpaper. All hot and scratchy silence. Eventually, she managed to speak.

“Sorry, Dan.” She blinked away a few tears beading her lashes.

“Aw, come here Rich. Don’t cry. Here.” Dan’s arms around her made everything seem safer. Bulwarks against her swirling emotions, penning them in like tides crashing against a wavebreak. Richelle buried her face in Dan’s chest and tried to stop the tears threatening to spill hot and sharp from her eyes. “You’re lucky I love you anyway.”

“I love you too,” she whispered to the steady sound of his heartbeat. Everything would be fine.