Al Bruno III
There was a stately manor on the outskirts of River City. It had once hosted parties for the rich and powerful, but no one of consequence had visited in a decade. It had been the birthplace of business ventures and philanthropic endeavors, but the leaders of both had long since stopped paying their visits and respects.
Now it was just a home. The home of an old man, dying and alone.
Rob Raymond was content with that. After all, he had lived an amazing life, full of adventure and excitement. He had always thought he would die young and in a blaze of glory, like so many of his contemporaries, but he had outlived them all.
Rob spent most of his time in his study reading, listening to music, and occasionally sleeping in his favorite chair. When he was hungry—and that was a rare thing now—he would shuffle down to the kitchen, open a can of whatever was handy, and eat it uncooked. There had once been servants to wait on him hand and foot, but Rob had sent them away with generous severance packages and glowing recommendations..
On the last night of his life, Rob wandered through the darkened study wearing his silk pajamas and thick purple bathrobe. For a time he lingered there, his eyes moving from the library to the long-cold fireplace, then to the tasteful paintings and first-edition books. But one of those books wasn't a book at all. He pulled it from the shelf, and the entire bookcase swung around to reveal a wall of mementos.
Rob paused before each one, smiling or frowning in remembrance.
…a black gauntlet festooned with wires and missing a finger.
…a framed newspaper page. The headline CRIME SPREE ENDS IN DEATH hovered above a grainy black-and-white photograph of two dark figures lurching off a rooftop.
…the bronzed skull of a gorilla.
…a wall of medals.
…a green scarf with a drop of blood.
…a framed photograph of old friends gathered around a round table, all but one of them looking at the camera.
Rob lingered over that photograph until finally he took it down and stared long and hard at the long-lost faces. His friends, like his adversaries, were all gone now. His wife had passed away years ago, and his son hadn't spoken to him in years. Rob's adopted daughter tried to keep in touch, but she was always traveling, always busy.
And that was just as well, wasn't it? Would he really have wanted them fussing over him at this stage, trying to make amends for long-forgotten disagreements? What good would that have done? Some things were better left alone.
A loud crash from downstairs and the sound of shuffling footsteps shook him from his thoughts. The manor's long-unused intercom system crackled to life. A voice, resonant and achingly familiar, filled the study.
"You could not wait for death, but I found you. Oh, I found you."
Rob's skin prickled. Something stirred in his gut, a mixture of fear and something else, a sensation he hadn't experienced in years. Then came the laughter, echoing through every room of the house.
The keepsakes and mementos would do him no good now. Rob swung the secret display case back into place and turned on his slippered heel, searching for something to defend himself with. There was nothing, not even a fireplace poker or a half-empty bottle of watered-down brandy.
But he always kept one thing close at hand. A reminder that he had once been something more than what he was now.
Rob pulled the cowl from the pocket of his bathrobe. It was silken and black. He slipped it over his head and felt it settle into place. When he wore it, he could see in the dark and breathe in conditions that would kill a normal man. He still didn't know where the fabric had come from or how it had been created.
With his features hidden, he felt his old confidence returning. The mundane agonies he had endured for so long seemed to fade away.
He was ShadoMask again.
"Are you hiding?" The voice on the intercom said. "Be honest now. You were always a little scared of me, weren't you? No shame in that. I was always a little scared of you."
The door of the study splintered and fell open. Figures shambled inside.
ShadoMask charged, paying little attention to anything beyond the positions of his attackers. They were just shapes to him, obstacles to be overcome. Weakened as he was, every swing of his arm and every sweep of his leg pushed him closer to nausea and exhaustion. The room seemed to tilt sideways around him.
Chuckling echoed through the manor.
"Do you like them? They're hand-picked. I went to so much trouble."
ShadoMask realized that no matter how much force he put behind his punches and kicks, his adversaries remained silent. Impossibly silent.
They weren't even breathing.
Then he began to recognize them.
...there was the American, fourteen years dead from a car crash but still dressed in red, white, and blue.
...the crime lord Dragonfist stood an arm's length away. He had died in the electric chair almost a generation ago, but here he was, blind and stumbling.
...Merlin Man waited just outside the doorway. His gadget-laden top hat was gone, and his costume was in tatters. He reeked of the grave. They all did.
"What have you done?" ShadoMask whispered. Then his voice rose to a shout. "Reddeath! What have you done?"
His old adversary purred at the sound of his name.
"The black scrolls of Nephren-Ka, old friend. I finally managed to liberate them, finally managed to have some real time alone with them. Oh, such marvels I have seen. Such marvels..."
The Reddeath had always been obsessed with the black scrolls of Nephren-Ka. He had committed atrocities in his pursuit of them, but ShadoMask and the other great heroes had stopped him every time.
ShadoMask had been there when the crimson-cloaked menace fell from the gondola of an invisible zeppelin decades ago. At the time, it had seemed like the end of an age. And perhaps it was. Over the following years, more and more of his friends and enemies would disappear from the world. The ideals they had once fought for—freedom, fairness, and the rule of law—would gradually give way to politics, surveillance, and monetization.
Then there was the cancer. It had manifested suddenly, gone into remission twice, only to return again. Rob had found himself withdrawing from the people he loved most, pushing them away rather than allowing them to witness his decline.
"Do you think this is what it's like? To have your life pass before your eyes?"
With a cry of rage, ShadoMask charged through the doorway into the hall, where long-lost friends and enemies crowded around him. They closed in, but he fought back, sending them tumbling down the stairs in groups of three and four.
"I'm right on the doorstep, old friend," the Reddeath called. "Can you reach me? Do you want to reach me?"
ShadoMask had to laugh. "Oh, I'll reach you all right."
But there were so many shapes bearing down on him.
…the Silver Claw, his head drooping at an obscene angle, his pirate suit hanging off his tattered frame. His own henchmen had turned on him after growing tired of his increasingly elaborate nautical-themed crimes.
…the Brat, with his faux schoolboy outfit and wizened expression. He had retired after a long prison sentence, even written a self-published memoir about his life of crime, only to shoot himself in the face when the venture left him bankrupt.
…the teen wonder Arachni-kid, his features forever young, the track marks on his arms hidden beneath his gaudy costume. He had shown so much promise.
…Mr. Nice Guy, whose smiley-face costume seemed even more ludicrous in death. He had been a failure at fighting crime, but his child-safety videos were still shown in schools all across the globe. A heart attack had claimed him while he answered fan mail. Rumor had it he was found with a beatific grin.
…ShadoFace, the would-be dark reflection of ShadoMask. His imitation cowl had been fashioned from an unstable synthetic fabric that eventually burned and disfigured his face. He spent his final years in an asylum.
…Julie was last, still dressed in her funeral finery, still wearing the wedding ring he had stolen from a temple on the moon. The sight of her caused her husband to falter. She attacked, and with cold, clawing hands, tore the cowl from his face.
Rob was weeping as he knocked her aside. She tumbled down the stairs, and he heard the sickening crack of her bones breaking as she disappeared from sight.
The Reddeath was leaning in the doorway. Even in his blood-colored robes and skull mask, he seemed sickly. “Look at us,” he said, “rags and shadows.”
Unlike the horror movie clichés none of the bodies Rob had fought his way past stirred, that part of the game was over. He charged his old adversary, his bathrobe fluttering around him.
Then the pain flared up, not the constant mundane ache of the cancer, but a bolt of cold fire that bloomed out of his chest and ran down one of his arms leaving it numb and useless. He cursed, vowing that it would not end like this.
He forced himself to keep moving towards his enemy.
One step…
Two…
Three…
His legs failed him, and he collapsed at the Reddeath's feet. Rob couldn't catch his breath, and his vision was darkening. The Reddeath loomed over him, his head cocked in curiosity and anticipation.
Rob managed to speak one last time. The words surprised them both.
"Thank you."
