Photo by Rodrigo Rodriguez on Unsplash
UNMASKED!
It’s Masquerade
Time to find your disguise
a costume and mask
for we’re all on parade
better be wise.
Make your decision
judiciously
or your deepest secret will
show through.
On New Year's Eve
the truth is visible
and oh, so clear.
If it’s deviousness
horror or evil you profess
it’ll be obvious
to those dead and most dear.
So cover yourself
strategically
or give yourself away.
Just remember that ghosts of
the murdered departed
are also looking
to make their creators
pay!
Entertainment Tonight covered the entire story. From the day
they met to the day she was reported missing. Her grieving husband, an up and
coming movie producer, shed tears for the camera. The search for the young
actress he’d taken for a wife went on for weeks, months, and years, but no
clue, no corpse, no answer.
Ten years later, during the Emmy ceremony, Donavon Fagen,
movie producer, celebrated with close friends, and for a moment, he thought he
caught a glimpse of her. Yet, he knew better. She was dead. Fagen pushed his
thoughts of her aside and ordered another drink.
Alone at night, her whispers woke him.
“I’ve searched and searched the Earth for you. You, who took
my soul for your own. You, the demon who stole my innocence and brutally took
my life. You left me in the desert with all the others.”
Donavon switched on the light, walked to his patio door, and
stared out over the desert. Why was she haunting him now?
The next morning, he saw her reflection in his bathroom
mirror. On the movie set, he spotted her in the crowd of extras. He began to
drink earlier and earlier every day.
Her whispers became more graphic.
“Their skin shrivels in the scorching sun. Yet mine is still soft
and supple. Their eyes were plucked out by the buzzards, and their innards were
devoured by numerous beasts, but I am whole. Perfect in my grave of graves.
Their bones were bleached, scattered, and sandblasted, but the evidence of your
wrath remains. Spirits all, and how they hate you, my love.”
Donavon began to sleep with the lights on, but the daily
visions occurred, as did the nightmares.
The night of the Hollywood Masquerade he wore the costume of
the Marquis de Sade during a dance with a beautifully dressed La Senorita
Spanish Flamenco Dancer. While dancing a slow dance she pulled him close and whispered
in his ear, “Giving me repose in my own special grave does not lessen my
heart’s desire. Revenge is my guaranteed destiny. I’ve wandered for years in
search of you, my creator. Your evil is written on my bones. I’ll never forget your
true essence. Those dark eyes, an abyss. Black holes with no light or
reflection. Those sharp, pearl white teeth dripping blood after each searing
kiss. I remember how your flesh showed years of decay, and how your claw-like
hands burned my skin as you stole the last breath in my lungs. You’ve covered
your evil well, but now I’ve found you, marked you. Unmasked on the night of a Masquerade,
I alone see true.”
He tried to pull away, but she held him tight, and then suddenly,
she was gone like a wisp of smoke. Several glasses of whisky couldn’t stop the
tremors as he searched the room, but she was nowhere in sight. He sighed in
relief.
A friend drove him home and finally with more whisky and a
sleeping pill, he wiped away all the ghosts, but even unconsciousness couldn’t
stop the whispers.
“I alone know your darkest secret. Killing the virtuous allows
your survival on the Earthly plane. Stealing my love guaranteed your existence.
And I, a naive bride, was blinded by what I thought was love and devotion. But
my dear, soon the world will know the truth.”
Donavon, wide awake now, got out of his bed and opened the
patio doors, but it wasn’t a cool breeze that greeted him. She
stood before him, just as he’d last seen her.
“Join us,
dear husband. We’ve come to claim our right.”
He screamed.
Then screamed
some more,
but to no
avail
as each of
his victims
took back
what he stole
until
finally, she kissed him
and took his all.
*****
January 2nd
Detective Grant arrived on the scene shortly after the
discovery. “What do you have, Officer?”
“Donovan Fagen, movie producer. The coroner says heart
attack, but if you ask me, that expression on his face says the man died from
pure terror.”
“How?”
“My guess, all his victims. Look around, the place is a bone
field.”
“And the girl, who is she?”
“His former wife. The young actress that disappeared ten
years ago. Why he chose to uncover her grave, we’ll never know. But she’s well
preserved.”
“Lots of killers enjoy visiting the graves of their victims,”
Detective Grant said.
“His undoing this time. His other victims are scattered.
It’ll take a while to figure out how many, but he’s been killing for a very,
very long time.”
“Fools, so many fools,” a young girl spoke, but none stood in attendance.
They all heard the voice, then the sound of a young woman’s
giggle, but the only people on-site were the officers removing the bodies.
A whoosh and the hot, desert breeze lifted the sand and
swirled it in dust devil form that danced across the desert before all grew
quiet again.
The Detective felt the hair on his body stand on end. “Maybe
you’re right this time, Sergeant. Maybe this serial killer found that the
spirits of the dead don’t lie quietly on New Year's Eve. I’d say justice has
been done.”
960 Words
Yolanda Renée © 2020
Happy New Year!
***
