Mason Edward Dantis

"'Don’t worry yerself. I spent a lot of time hollerin’ in here… most of them outside walls are stone, can’t hear a damn thing. But we’ll move into the basement tonight.'""- Mason Dantis to his guests in Life After: The Basement"Mason Edward Dantis is a major character in Life After: The Basement.

By the time of Life After: The Basement, it is implied that Mason has been holding his daughter Tracy captive in his basement for several years before he captures Eric Matthews and Mia Muxworthy.

Appearance and Character
Mason has graying brown hair and a gray beard. He wears thick glasses and a flannel shirt with suspenders overtop.

Given the amount of locks, well-crafted barricades, and blacked out windows in his house, Mason would at first seem to have adapted to the zombie apocalypse, but when it's revealed that he has a basement rigged to hold, torture, and sexually assault numerous people, it becomes clearer that he shares in the calculated concealment of a great many infamous serial killers. From when he's serving drinks to when he's preparing to act on his sadistic impulses, his gaze is entirely banal.

History
Very little is known about Mason's past; it is heavily implied that he has been holding his daughter Tracy in captivity for several years, and that Jimmy is the product of incest with her. He also has a young woman turned zombie chained up in his basement; it is heavily implied that she is local college student Rachel Dobowitz, whose disappearance in September of 2004 was a huge local story.

Life After: The Basement
Two months after the zombie outbreak in Newtown Square, Mason leaves his house to engage several zombies, finding himself shocked to encounter Eric and Mia. After they dispatch the zombies, Mason invites them inside, where they marvel at his thorough barricades.

When he leaves to get them something to drink, Jimmy enters the room, seemingly putting Mia at ease. After he returns, Mia details she and Eric's conspiracy theory that the dubious construction of an understaffed wellness center in close proximity to a multinational business conglomerate with ties to state and federal government agencies has something to do with zombies coming to life in Newtown Square. Mason listens dispassionately, waiting for their drugged beverages to kick in. After they pass out, Mason drags Eric and Mia into the basement, puts them in cages, and returns to the first floor until the drugs wear off, arming himself with a pistol in an ankle holster.

When Mason returns to the basement, he unlocks Eric's crate, tases him, and drags him into a back room with a furnace. Though exactly what happens in the back room is uncertain, Eric screams throughout the entirety of his absence. His penis is severed, and the smell of burning meat fills the basement, strongly implying that Mason is searing his flesh and raping him. When a commotion in the next room draws Mason's attention, he returns to find Rachel in front of him on her hands and knees, having been freed from her restraints. With his bloody erection sticking out of his boxers, Rachel turns and bites off his genitals before he can react. In a rush of panic and anguish, he pulls his pistol and shoots wildly, killing Mia with an errant shot before Eric emerges from the back room and stabs him between the shoulder blades with a red-hot poker. Before Mason can recover, Eric grabs the pistol and executes him with a shot to the back of the head.

Life After: The Void
Tracy ultimately escapes with Jimmy to Thomas Massey high school, where she is welcomed by Jeff Grey and John Anderson. Having been bitten by Rachel, Tracy commits suicide, leaving Jimmy with the group alongside a suicide note that would seem to reference Mason. Later, when Jeff encounters Jimmy in the school hallway, Jimmy tells him that "daddy" used to insist that he stay inside.