The Face Behind The Mask

18

The man navigated his vehicle along a dirt access road, the car's suspension squealing over the bumps and ruts. Up ahead was a small, windowless cinderblock maintenance shed. Tall weeds, intermingled with wispy brown reeds, had grown up along the walls before they died, their narrow dried leaves curled into spirals.

He got out of his car and listened for approaching vehicles. From somewhere in the distance, he heard the quiet steady hum of traffic. He looked around. Nobody would come out here. No one would make the effort to go off-roading on some narrow forgotten trail to check that intruders hadn't broken into a rundown old maintenance building.

This was a good location. Not too far away but far enough that no one would hear loud voices. Or shouting. Not even screaming.

He learned from last week's scouting trip that the metal door was secured with an old padlock. He came prepared. With anxious determination, he approached the building with a crowbar in hand.

He jammed the crowbar between the door and the rusted clasp and worked the tool back and forth. The old steel clasp and the padlock held tight despite his furious efforts. With renewed vigor, he made a second more desperate attempt. In the process, he pinched his fingers between the metal bar and the door. He yowled, thrust his fingers into his mouth, and walked off the pain, mumbling a string of curse words. With cheeks flushed from exertion, he launched a final assault until the old lock finally surrendered with a shriek and dropped to the ground.

He returned to his vehicle, popped the trunk, and tossed the crowbar inside beside a cardboard box labeled 'pet odor controllers.' He inspected his injured fingers, scowling at the cracked fingernails and the darkening skin beneath. He'd accidentally scraped off a layer of skin on his middle finger, not so deep as to draw blood to the surface, just deep enough to burn. He grabbed a bulky flashlight.

He was startled when a squirrel rustled through the vegetation behind him, scurried across the road, and climbed a nearby tree. It was just a squirrel. One, single squirrel perched on a tree branch watching him. He hated dirty rodents.

He lugged his flashlight to the building and strained to pull open the heavy door. The rusted hinges cried out. The door scraped the ground. He peeked inside, wincing at the punishing odor of mildew. He shone the flashlight across the concrete floor and discovered an assortment of retired hand tools resting against the wall, spiderwebs connecting the long handles.

It would take some effort but he was willing. He could make it work.

He returned to his vehicle and grabbed a handful of air fresheners from the box. The strong pine odor overflowed his trunk and spilled out into the bone-dry air.

........

With her laptop open on the dining room table, Skyden was an inactive Zoom meeting participant, merely an observer. For the past twenty minutes, she watched and listened to Josh and Peyton making their case to Tony that his team was cramming too much text into their digital marketing.

Tony leaned forward, his head filling his quadrant of the screen. "We need to say our products are a hundred percent American-made and we've been in business for twelve years. None of our competitors can make those claims."

"I get that," Josh replied. "But we don't need to go through the whole manufacturing process step-by-step."

Yes, we do."

Grayson was not invited to the meeting and in his place was Tony's admin, Gloria, who couldn't figure out how to unmute. Skyden occasionally watched her moving her lips and nodding in agreement with her boss.

"Nobody's gonna read all that copy," said Peyton.

Tony raised his voice. "That's your job."

Gloria nodded.

Peyton threw her hands up in frustration.

Lori stepped in to referee. "Let's everybody take a deep breath, okay?"

In the reflection of her computer screen, Skyden saw something go past the window behind her. She turned, removed one of her earbuds, and listened. She sat there, her eyes locked on the window, hoping a face wouldn't appear.

She got out of her chair when she heard the sound of something bumping the garage door. She raced across the living room and through the mud room and locked the door separating the garage from the house.

When she returned to the living room, she saw someone standing on the front porch. She couldn't breathe. She watched the doorknob, certain she'd locked the front door. She heard the familiar clatter of the mailbox and with it came relief. She crossed to the front door and saw the mail carrier stepping off her porch. When Skyden opened the door, he gestured toward the driveway and said, "Looks like your trash can lids came loose." He squinted as a gust of wind nearly stole the baseball cap from his head.

"Thanks," she said and removed the mail from her mailbox with a tight grip. The neighborhood was trying to take a stand against the invading wind that was busy toppling trash cans, and rolling metal and glass containers across the pavement.

"Skyden!" A familiar voice cut through the racket. It was a neighbor, Beth, retrieving her bird feeder from the street. "Tell Kelsey I'm still up for a jogging partner." Four months ago, Beth became a mother of two. She was determined to get back into shape, or what she imagined being in shape might be for a mother of a toddler and a recent-born.

"Kelsey's taking some time off," Skyden hollered from the porch, her hair whipping across her face.

Beth cupped her hand to her ear. "What?"

Skyden shouted, "I'll let her know," and then took refuge in the house.

........

Later that afternoon, a man in a blue shirt and a matching hat pointed to the window above the driveway. "You know, if you had a couple of cameras out front here, maybe one there and one over there, you would've gotten an alert when those trash can lids rolled across your front lawn." He offered a reassuring smile. "You could see your whole front yard from the comfort of your home."

Skyden's attention shifted to her son getting out of Jonas' mother's car. She waved as the car drove away and Brick approached. "Hi, Mom," he said.

She smiled and watched him enter the house.

"Give it some thought," the man said. He handed her a project quote from his folder. "I mean, what price do you put on peace of mind?"

"Right," she said. "Thanks." She followed her son into the house. The man climbed into his truck and started the engine.

"How much do they wanna charge you for a few cameras?" Brick asked, his head in the refrigerator.

"And some security lights, too."

He emerged with a deli bag of sliced turkey and a bag of Swiss cheese and set them on the counter. "You could order some cameras from Amazon."

"Your dad and I would like to get this done as soon as possible."

"If you order them now you could get them in two days. They're cheap."

"But then there's installation and the setup."

"Mom, come on." Brick took a loaf of bread from the cupboard. "Anybody could do it. You download an app to your phone and you're done."

She unfolded the paper and reviewed the quote.

Assembling his sandwich, he said, "Those guys are ripping you off."