Warning: contains violence and abuse.
In the evening Frank decided to drive to the store. The car rumbled quietly down the pale gray road, the leather seats and wheel were a bit cold, a commercial for razors played on the radio, a slight weird smell wouldn't go away. A car shot by, making him flinch. They looked like they were going over the speed limit. He drove through brown and gray neighborhoods and past groups of towering green oak trees, stopping when a traffic light flashed red.
His shoulder itched like he felt someone watching him. He glanced to his right. The two women in the car next to him might've been looking at him, but they were wearing sunglasses so it was hard to tell. The traffic light turned green and he kept driving, reaching the store parking lot and climbing out of his car. Geese honked as they flew overhead in "v"-shaped groups, looking like small black silowhettes. The parking lot was gray and slightly bumpy. The air smelled like exhaust. The store was pale brown.
Frank walked inside the crowded store. The other shoppers looked at him oddly. Something was different about their eyes.
A few aisles of the store were decorated for Halloween because it was the beginning of October. The decorations were mostly gray and black. There were cute bat and skeleton stuffed animals, disgustingly realistic werewolf masks, bags of candy, and small red bags of plastic eyeballs. The eyeballs were designed to look like they had various objects impaled in them.
Frank walked through the aisles, picking up bread, eggs, and milk. Then he walked to the Halloween decorations. Maybe he could buy some for his house. Nothing too expensive. He picked up a bag of eyeballs, feeling as though he was being watched.
He glanced over to see a worker watching him with wide eyes and eyebrows drawn together. The worker lifted up the corners of his mouth. "Can I help you, sir?"
Something was odd about this worker's face too. Oh, he had no eyelashes. Some cancer treatments take away your eyelashes as a side effect, don't they? he thought. But the guy still had eyebrows and hair on his head. That could be makeup and a wig.
"I was just buying some Halloween decorations. I don't need any help."
"Oh. Isn't it nice how the decorations are made from human body parts now?"
"No. That would be disgusting!"
"Excuse me?"
"You know. If they were actual body parts." He had to be joking.
"They are." The worker looked annoyed.
"That wasn't a joke?"
The worker sighed and fidgeted with his hands. "No."
Frank felt very cold. He looked at the bag of eyeballs and it slipped out of his hand as he felt himself gag.
"Hey, try not to drop the merchandise. If you break it you pay for it." The worker picked up the bag, examined it for damage, and set it on the shelf with the others. "Are you okay sir?"
"No! That's un-"
"Lower your voice!" The worker almost lunged toward him, then started glancing around at the other customers. "You don't want people to notice you looking like that."
"Like what?" Did I forget to wear pants?!, he thought, glancing down. No, he was wearing pants. And a gray shirt. And pale blue shoes. His appearance seemed completely normal. "I don't know what you mean."
"You don't know?!"
"No!" The man crossed his arms. "Is this some kind of joke?"
"No, and be quiet!" The worker glanced around again. "Go get information. I'm sure you'll find some. Hide your face." The worker forcefully turned up the corners of his mouth and walked away, saying "Hello ma'm! Need any help?" to another customer.
Should I believe him? Frank thought. No, of course not! That was a prank or something. Like on a show I saw once. About pranks. He checked out and left the store, irritated by the odd looks people gave him. I'm not the one telling people the Halloween stuff is made from human body parts!, he thought. And why do none of them have eyelashes?! Is it some sort of trend?
He darted through the parking lot and climbed in his car, heart pounding and hands clammy. He started driving. The edge of the sky was smeared with glowing pink and orange from the sun setting. He glanced at it when it appeared between the trees and houses, hoping it would calm him down.
There was his house, pale brown in front of a group of trees. Overgrown remains of gardens were on either side and a tricycle lay in the slightly overgrown lawn. He felt relieved. With the weird worker gone, he was back to the comfortable and familiar.
He walked inside. The air was warm, a little stuffy, and smelled like baking cookies. The kicthen glowed with golden light. The dining room table was covered in drawings alongside an open box of crayons. His wife walked into the room and greeted him with a big smile. He hugged her.
"Hi, sweetie," he greeted his daughter. She was staring out the screen door, her young face set in a deep frown. "What's wrong?"
The daughter glanced at him and his wife. "I dunno, just tired I guess." Then she stared back out the screen door, her eyes growing wide and her hands trembling. The man looked outside into the dark backyard and saw movement.
"Who's that?" Maybe 'what's that' would be more appropriate. The movement was so deep in the shadows of the trees that he couldn't tell if it was human or not. He watched. Whatever it was seemed to be pacing back and forth on the edge of their backyard, and he saw an occasional glint of red. As his vision adjusted he realized the red glint was from a pair of eyes, maybe reflecting the light from their house, like in photos where people's eyes turn red from the camera flash. Whatever it was was holding something in its hands (paws?) that was dripping, and occasionally it would take a bite out of the thing and the liquid was smeared on his mouth and chin. "Looks like he could use a napkin!" Frank announced, forcing his voice to sound cheerful. "I'm going to close the glass door too, okay sweetie?" His daughter glanced at him, then at her mother, who stepped up to her and smiled broadly. "Because it's getting chilly outside." He glanced outside and the thing at the edge of the yard stared back, its mouth dripping dark red. He slammed the glass door shut and reached in his pocket, no keys. Where are the keys? He glanced around, heart pounding at a horrible tempo. But there is barely any chance that whatever was outside is dangerous, of course. He spotted the keys on a cabinet on the other side of the room.
"Time for bed," his wife said cheerfully behind him, probably to his daughter.
"But I'm not tir-"
Wait, he didn't need keys to lock the door from inside the house. Frank locked the door and breathed a long, calming sigh. "Well, I'm going to do taxes." No response. He turned to look. His wife and daughter weren't there.
Oh, she had gone to tell her daughter good night. He felt eyes burn into his shoulders and walked through the house, checking to make sure the front door was locked. And the windows. He closed the curtains and ran upstairs, throwing himself into bed with a THUD.
Wait. He didn't make that sound. That sound didn't even come from his room. Did it come from my daughter's bedroom? he thought. I hope she's okay. He listened. Wind in the trees, the neighbors TV, crickets, a faraway owl-other than the normal nighttime sounds there was a faint, human-like one that steadily continued. It sounds like my wife! he thought with a burst of relief. She's probably reading a bedtime story. He hugged himself, hands clammy. He tried to only notice the soft white blankets wrapped around him that were becoming warmer. Bedtime story. Bedtime story. Bedtime story.
"Oh, there you are!" His wife's voice startled him. He looked up, suddenly embarrassed that he was curled up under the covers like a child.
"Hi."
"Hi." She climbed into the bed next to him. She was wearing dark red pajamas. "Are you okay?"
He shrugged.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Well, um. Your freckles."
"What?" Her smile faltered for a second.
"Don't you have more freckles than that on your face?"
She laughed. "I'm wearing makeup!"
"But you don't like makeup."
"I'm trying to wear some to try something new" She shrugged, and the man watched her shrug. He pulled at the collar of her shirt, exposing her shoulder.
"What are you doing?"
"Just wondering what happened to the birthmark on your shoulder. What, did you put makeup on that too?"
"Oh...I-"
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"
"You're overreacting!" The woman yelled, her voice getting fainter as he ran down the stairs, not stopping until he was on the neighbors porch. Wait, was he overreacting? I mean, sure, his wife had a twin sister. And that one time she wore a dress to the family reunion, one that exposed her shoulders enough to show that she didn't have a large bumpy birthmark there like his wife. But breaking into his house and pretending to be her?! That's ridiculous!! I mean, sure, his wife talked about how the twin sister needed lots of therapy because she seemed to throw herself into whatever was "cool" to a harmful extent. But breaking into people's houses and pretending to be their wife wasn't "cool".
"Hey."
He almost jumped out of his skin. Someone was standing right in front of him, in all black with bloodshot eyes, hands and mouth smeared with red liquid.
"Do I know you?"
"You will." The person pointed a small knife at him.
"I'm calling 911."
The person started laughing.
The man typed 911 into his phone.
"The number you are trying to reach is not in service." The robotic voice was calm.
Okay, he typed it wrong. He typed again. Read it to himself, checking-yes, 911.
"The number you are trying to reach is not in service."
He typed again, checking-911. Didn't work. He tried again. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911.
"How's that working for you?" The person in black asked, breaking into laughter again.
"It's working." He tried to sound certain. "The cops are coming."
"Suuuuurrrreee." The person giggled, then finally became quiet.
911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911. 911.
"Wanna feel my knife collection?" The man leaped backward. The person in black was standing so close now that their head was almost on his shoulder, their breath smelled like metal and rotting meat. "I've got it with me." The man backed away, bumping into the side of the house. "Feel the knives in you." The person hummed quietly and walked closer.
"HELP!!!" The man screamed at the top of his lungs.
Click. The porch became flooded with light. The man squinted in the wonderful, painfully bright light as the front door slammed open.
"You again?" His neighbor sighed and stared at the person in black. "I'm trying to sleep."
"He's trying to kill me!" The man said.
"Oh, come on!" The neighbor waved his hand at the person in black, who flinched away and skipped off the porch.
What happened next was a blur. The man was led inside and given a cup of water, he sat on the couch staring into his cup, at the textured plastic surface of the cup, the clearly transparent water, while half listening to the TV: "No response from any world leaders. Sadly more and more evidence suggests that they have been eliminated, along with our police force, by a group who is resorting to extreme measures to 'purify' the ones they refer to as 'hairy eyes'."
This show's creepy, he thought in annoyance, glancing at the screen. It was the news.
"...still unknown is what the 'purification' consists of, but fear of it appears to be causing people all over the nation to shave their eyelashes..."
"Do you watch the news much?" His neighbor sat on the couch next to him.
"Not for a few days."
His neighbor roughly grabbed his face, yanking it toward him. The neighbor reached toward his eye and the man cringed and squeezed them shut, feeling the neighbor stroke his eyelashes with a fingertip. "You're a Hairy Eye. You work for the Devil."
"No." He barely processed what the neighbor said, his head spun...world leaders...police force...gone...
"You won't be working for him after I purify you." The neighbor let go and strided into the kitchen. The man heard rustling. "Now, if you move I will throw you onto the sharp rocks outside and purify you there."
Frank stood up slowly, quietly. He could creep out the door. The hinges didn't squeak.
"You moved."
He'd never heard so much anger in a voice. The neighbor stood in the kichten doorway holding a safety pin. Then the neighbor grabbed him, lifting him off the ground, nails digging in his flesh, face set in rage and gritted teeth, "I TOLD YOU NOT TO MOVE!" And he was flying through the air, there was a CRACK, sharp pain through his back, odd numbness. Do I have legs? He wondered. No feeling in them at all. But what an odd question to think when the neighbor was crouched over him shaking with fury, screaming "DEVIL!!" And the safety pin went right through his eye. No resistance at all, it was scraping the back of his eyesocket in a half second. Pain. He was screaming and gasping like didn't know how to breathe. Then the safety pin was yanked out, blood flowed warmly over his face, and the pin was in his other eye. Screaming. The pin roughly yanked out.
"I have removed the devil!" Footsteps fading in the distance. Footsteps approaching.
"Hello!" Metal-and-rotten-meat-smelling breath in his face. Warm liquid on him. Blood? Dripping on him, covering his face. "Can't get help now?" CRACK. More warm liquid. Laughter. Laughter fades away.
"Why didn't you react?"
Hands roughly feel his back. Sudden pain. Screaming. "Oh, your spine broke."
Stabbing in his arm. Laughter. So much pain. So much warm liquid...so much...the last thing he ever felt.
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