9/5/23 - History Of The Monster Masks
It is entirely possible that a record of these events is not in my best interest. Nevertheless, I find myself wanting to catalog my experience. I’ve never been as much of a writer as Grandfather was, but I did always enjoy reading his journals. Perhaps someday this will provide another with that experience.
I moved in with Grandfather when I was sixteen I was told how awful and disgusting he was all my life. It only ever made me want to spend more time with him. We saw him once a year or so, but usually, it was just a fight about how much longer he had before a nursing home was necessary. I have faint memories of him telling my father he never appreciated his work. Never understood the importance a collection like his would have for future generations.
I wasn’t allowed to see said collection of course, despite how badly Grandfather wanted to show me. The house fire was the only reason I ever did get to see it. There was no question of who would become my legal guardian after my parents were gone, Grandfather and I were all that was left of my bloodline.
I was transferred to a private high school closer to his home. We spent weekends and nights reading or talking about everything he wished he could have told me as a child. I learned how truly ungrateful my father was. He had all this knowledge at his fingertips and never dared to just ask about it. I still remember the first night I walked into Grandfather’s study and asked what he was doing. The weary grin that crossed his face etched into my mind. He looked near tears when he said “I’ve been waiting decades for someone to ask me that.”
That was the same night I got to see the collection. The entire second floor of his home was wall-to-wall covered in specimens. Most of which were collected by him in his youth. Faeries pinned like bugs, sea creatures not found in any textbook floating in formaldehyde. Wonders that would dazzle anyone of any age. I was enamored.
After my graduation, Grandfather told me I was welcome to continue staying with him. He said no college could give me the education he could. I was inclined to believe him, so I started learning his craft. Stacks of journals, years worth of research. All this and more, but with one gap. One section of his collection was missing a centerpiece. All around it was decorated. Glimmering blue scales, jars of lake water dated from different decades, sketches, and blurry photographs… but no creature.
When I asked him it was the first time I watched his expression truly sour while talking about his collection. He told me he could never catch it, the monster in the lake. He always believed in it more than most. He didn’t understand what he was doing wrong. He had done everything short of draining the whole damn lake, which he would have done if he could. The need for it clawed at him day and night. He wanted it more than anything in the world. He had to prove it was real.
I loved my Grandfather, but this desire led to foolish actions. After the diagnosis, he knew the time to complete his collection was running out. I remember the night he finally took drastic action. I was twenty when words in a voice I had never heard crept through the old wood of the house. A voice accompanied by the stench of sulfur. “You may look all you desire, but never speak a word”.
I stayed still in my bed until I heard a scream. I ran upstairs to find him, threw open the door, and stopped short. Candles, smoke, sigils on the floor, and the fading silhouette of something red. None of that mattered. The only thing that did was Grandfather, now looking at me with five eyes instead of two. None of them were where they belonged. That space was taken up by two gaping holes.
He began crawling towards me, but much to my dismay he pushed me aside. His aged, shaking palms reached up toward the formerly empty display shelf. Tears of unabashed joy streaked down from each eye. I turned to look and sure enough, a full taxidermied display. The lake monster Grandfather had hunted all his life was finally his. I found myself laughing as I sat beside him on the floor and planted a hand on his shoulder. I didn’t need to ask if it was worth it, being damned to observe but never to speak. He’d spoken all he needed to, his collection was complete. He could die a happy man.
We both knew he wouldn’t live long. IV was the best way to get him the nutrients we could, but that wasn’t enough. His body shriveled even more. The weight of a century of work and a deal with the devil caught up to him. We did get almost one more year together, even though those final days were the hardest. The last was unforgettable. He grabbed my wrist with what little strength he had and nodded to my notebook. I put the pen in his hand and watched as he scrawled those words into the parchment. “Preserve me.” I was more than happy to oblige. I stayed by his side until he passed, and then I got to work. I had what I needed. I knew this would be his final with. What more could a collector want than to be the first piece in someone new’s collection?
I’d be lying if I said removing his face was easy. Taxidermy’s always harder when you loved the animal.
After I pinned it up to dry I had the thought that led to everything else. A collection dictated by my own creation would be quite the homage. I went to the lake creature with a scalpel and got to work. I found myself thinking about where the monster had come from, the lake. It was free there, probably happy I disagreed with the method of collection anyway. I wouldn’t have dreamed of taking it from Grandfather while he was alive, but that thing was barely rightfully his, regardless of the price he paid. Specimens should be hand-collected. He ran out of time, he didn’t earn it. Regardless, now he could be with it forever. I laid the angler’s face down with Grandfather’s and turned in for the night. I didn’t sleep. All I could think about was the absolute waste of stopping at just two. It couldn’t be that hard to track it down. Demonic flesh would be a hell of an additive to an already interesting collection.
How hard would it really be to find it?
The first article I found was fresh, posted only a few days after Grandfather’s death. An entomologist went missing outside of town, supposedly on the hunt for some rare insect. The story felt too familiar not to follow up on. I packed a supply bag, waited a few days, left some flaming distractions for the police on the opposite side of town, and drove to the edge of the woods.
My trek started early in the day, dew soaking the edges of my pants as I made my way through the brush. I soon found myself tuned into the disturbing and rapid increase of buzzing. Not the pleasant hum of cicadas or the chirp of crickets, the sound of an infestation. I followed trails of clawed-up dirt across the forest floor as the noise somehow got louder. It hit its peak when I saw the net lying on the ground, a few spare bees climbing around it. My eyes followed the handle down to the hand loosely curled around it. As expected, the entomologist lay slumped against a tree.
They clearly found something and someone they shouldn’t have. Their eyes bulged from their sockets but did not seem relieved by my arrival. I believe they knew it was far too late for anyone to help them. I knelt down beside them and watched the compound eyes emerging from anywhere they could bite through. Bees, ants, spiders. I had never seen so many types of insects in one hive together. They wearily let go of their net and pointed a finger toward a thin pathway in the grass. I stayed with them for a few moments, perhaps out of morbid curiosity, until their eyes rolled back into their head and their tongue slowly protruded from their mouth. I expected maggots or something equally slimy to come pouring out. Instead, I was met with the pleasant surprise of a butterfly.
I waited until their chest fell still before removing the scalpel from my satchel. The removal of their face came with a few creepy crawly friends of course. Those were easy enough to pin and attach later. I tucked the new addition to the collection in my bag and moved in the direction they had pointed.
It wasn’t long before I found the broken-down shack tucked into a heavily wooded area. It looked abandoned, but I could smell the sulfur. I opened the door and stepped inside. The whole structure was charred but clearly lived in. It felt almost domestic. I made my way through, scanning the first floor with little success of signs of life, so I moved upstairs. I heard labored, heavy breathing only halfway up and drew the knife from my belt. The balcony’s door was wide open.
The source of the breath seemed human enough from behind, it was when my footfalls made the floor creak that I saw whatever this was only used to be human. It turned slowly towards me, gently spinning a ring on its finger. I would say it looked at me, but it had a similar problem to Grandfather. Two large holes in place of eyes, only these weren’t just holes. Inflamed gums lined with teeth, breath moving through them. It wheezed like an inbred dog. The pain it lived in was more than obvious. I wouldn’t call what I did murder by any means. The poor thing was aching for death by the time blood dripped down through the boards of the balcony.
It was only when the fingers stopped twitching I heard its arrival. I set my bag and new find down when smoke billowed out towards me. I turned towards what I knew would be there. It towered over me, but its eyes weren’t paying me any mind. It stared at the corpse beside me instead, taking a weakened step back. I realized as it continued to back away from me that although it had done unimaginable things, it didn’t do this. The thing I had slain was more important to it than I could possibly have known.
I moved towards it, silent as it verbally panicked, mumbling a name I didn’t care to know as I backed it into the bathroom. It fell and looked up at me through its brow with some mix of rage and deep-rooted regret. That daunting red form felt so weak now that it was tangible. It felt like shooting a fish in a barrel. More like it relinquished its life to me than I killed it. An unsatisfying end to something I had been so excited to complete. It was disappointing. I stripped it and walked back to the car rather dejected.
The infernal being’s death was so unsatisfying. The last thing I want is to follow in Grandfather’s footsteps, chasing a final piece until you’re in death’s clutches. What’s the point of learning your elder’s crafts if not to improve upon them?
I spent the next few days cleaning each face, hanging them to dry, and adding what I felt was a good final touch. Straps. One thing Grandfather had never fully considered was the benefit of producing your own collection. You can commodify it. Making the faces into masks seemed like the natural next step.
I’m now reckoning with the consequences of this plan, which is why writing things down feels like the right thing to do. I have no plans of leaving behind a warning, only a record. The masks are proving more sentient than expected.
The teeth of the demon’s companion always look… irritated, shifting. When I stare at the entomologist for too long it whispers “don’t open your mouth” . I can hear them after dark especially. This information will stay in my private journals for now, especially considering I have found a buyer. Some wet behind the ears oddities shop owner practically begged to sell them for me. If I’m lucky he’ll be foolish enough to buy the next batch as well. He doesn’t have to know what I’ve done.
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