"Death Wears a Mask" by C S Jones
Death Wears a Mask
by C S Jones
Venice, 1630
As night falls, a lonely gondola floats silently down the Venetian canal, dragged purposely along by the sole figure stood atop.
Dressed head to toe in his black, wax coat and coveralls, with his mask’s pointed beak loaded with an assortment of herbs to cover the city’s stench of waste and rot, Doctor Lorenzo Matteo cuts an imposing figure as he slowly emerges from the mist that lazily drifts across the water.
Plague has laid siege to Venice, decimating and ravaging, leaving anyone who encounters it to experience a fate even more agonising than death, itself. Expiration wasn't a question of if, but simply when.
Lorenzo's latest journey into this dead city had been riddled with its usual melancholy—as it had ever since it was deemed necessary to isolate from the rest of the world, some two months ago. A cruel, yet necessary decision that he accepted without so much as a murmur, despite hunger and loneliness becoming his own plague. The patient Lorenzo was due to see didn't have long, and for the majority of his tenure, he felt less like a doctor, and more like an undertaker.
Once ashore, he carefully disembarks, his view limited through the tiny glass eyeholes of his mask, and, after hitching his boat to the empty dock, makes haste to his next call.
With the day’s sun, a distant memory, bodies litter the cobbled streets. Some are to be collected in the morning, while others are left to rot. The dead are no good to him and as he passes, each footfall is deafening—a drum, whose beat punctuates his isolation. Houses line either side, lurching over, wanting nothing more than to crash down and bury him and this diseased tomb. No matter how used to it he is, the night will always terrify him.
Lorenzo picks up his pace, the rhythm of his steps thrown off by the tapping of his cane, when he spots a light in a house he believed to be deserted. Inquisitiveness gets the better of him, and he approaches. Without pause, he taps his cane against the doorframe.
A young boy opens the door, no more than a crack. A slit of light escapes into the night. “Y... yes?” he says to the figure twice his size.
Lorenzo knows he must appear intimidating. Given how he's dressed, there's no way he can't be. “Child,” he says, though his words are muffled by the mask. Still, they are gentle. “I do not believe I have stopped by this house. I thought it to be deserted?”
“No, sir. It is just me and mother. We've been keeping away from everyone, but our neighbours, they are not well. I saw one, a boy younger than me. We used to play together. He was covered in sores. He wouldn't speak, just kept throwing his head against a wall over and over. Another man had black marks all over his face and body. They were leaking everywhere. He wanted to get in, but mother chased him away. But now she is sick. She woke up this morning with those same black marks and has now locked herself in her room. I don't know what to do.”
Lorenzo lowers to one knee. “She was only taken sick today? Child, I am a doctor. I have been tending to the sick since the day this plague poisoned our homes. Will you let me in, so I can help her?”
The boy winces and peers around towards a room behind him. “Mother says I’m not to let anyone into our home. Especially at night.”
“A wise woman she is to say so. But I only wish to help her. This plague, it takes so much, so quickly. I fear if I leave it any longer, she may not survive.”
The boy whimpers. There's a moment Lorenzo worries he won't let him in, but finally, he relents.
“Is she through there?” Lorenzo asks, indicating to a closed door at the back.
“Yes, she is in bed. She will not allow me in. I want to see her.”
“She may have saved your life. Wait in here, I won't be long.”
The door is latched, but it's an easy obstacle for Lorenzo to overcome. Inside, the woman lies on the bed, sweat soaking her body. Barely conscious, her face covered in those black blotches, Lorenzo can see all too well just how sick she is. His heart quickens. It’d been a long time since he encountered someone this fresh. Tentatively, he approaches the bed and uses his cane to lower the woman's sheets. He grimaces when he sees her body is already peppered with sores. Just unripened fruit, he tells himself, and takes another step forward. He wants to help. There’s a possibility she can still be saved. But he’s so hungry. It'd been so long since he's seen someone this fresh. He removes one glove to reveal long, alabaster fingers and traces the curves of her body. She shivers, unable to understand what’s going on as Lorenzo slips out of his coat and removes his overalls and mask to reveal a pallid, scrawny being who's long-fanged mouth salivates at the freshest flesh he has witnessed in such a long time. A shuddering gasp escapes him as he leans over her pulsating jugular.
“Her situation is grave,” says Lorenzo to the boy as he pulls the door shut behind him. “I believe you should find a relative or friend to take you in. I fear she will be dead before the night is out.”
“I don’t have anyone. Only my mother. I am alone, sir,” says the boy, tears forming.
Lorenzo stops before the entryway. “Then no one will miss you?”
The boy weeps. “No.”
Lorenzo closes his eyes. He is still so hungry. An idea darkens his mind and he peers out into the night. Death had taken his city long ago. What did one more body matter?
He pushes the door closed.