Maskaphobia?

I am in desperate need of some help moms!!

Over the Summer we were in Gimli enjoying a fabulous family outing with Jared's sister and her little guy when he stopped to have his face painted. After a few moments he emerged as Batman with an almost identical mask across his eyes. When Ivy finally saw him, she had a full on meltdown and acted in a way that I had never seen before.  My just two year old was shaking in horror literally clawing her nails into my back.  For the remainder of the afternoon she wouldn't go within 50 feet of Magnus and went crazy even when she could see him in the distance. Needless to say, it did not make the rest of our day very enjoyable.

Her fear of masks and people's faces being covered up has only escalated since.  She goes from being a happy-go-lucky child to unbearably scared in an instant. We have talked a lot about Halloween in the last few weeks trying to ease her fears as we make light of her favorite Disney Junior characters on tv being covered up in their costumes. Yes, it's just tv, but we're trying to prepare her that on Halloween night, there will be masked kids all around.  We make sure to tell her that it's all for fun and that these people are not scary. 

Brenda, our daycare provider, takes Ivy with her to a stay and play program at her boys school while they are in Kindergarten. She just texted me to tell me that Ivy had a huge, full fledged melt down at both the drop off and pick up of the older kids this morning.  It makes me so sad for her because it's her last day of daycare for the year and I want her to have some fun tonight as she has been over the moon about practicing her trick-or-treating skills. 

She is a child who is fearless of so many other things, yet this one sends her into a tailspin.  Has anyone else dealt with their kids being scared of masks? I beg of you to shed some advice if you have any.