Secret Face

Here stands a serene lake. A thin veil of mist emanates from the flat surface of the motionless water; nothing disturbs the liquid equilibrium. The water appears dark in the evening light, an effect which is amplified by the ever-so-slight shadow cast by that grey blanket of vapour. This darkness creates an apparition of inevitability, it looks to me, like such a subtly sinister visage could only form at this present moment – fate, one could say, unexpected and cruel in every regard. The shores of the lake are clear-cut from the blackness of the water, and appear almost white, for the sand is marred by branches and other such woodland debris. And the water, too, is not a complete and total black; the glinting, dimming sunlight creates a flashy cascade of almost kaleidoscopic reds, oranges, and yellows. Colours of power, are they not? Abstract representations of an unattainable abstract goal. The sky appears as a deep red, an almost bloody colour in the usual sunset, piercing the...

The mire invites all. In between the creeping of behemoth abominations and the glow of the will-o-the-wisps is a beckoning miasma of guilt, one which is universal in its reach and confrontational in its perversion. Its opaque waters are paved over with souls lost in their unconscious affinity for this endless field of bile. Soothing sounds of sentiment reverberate through twisted tree towers, spiralling inward into a pervasive symphony of idle cacophony. Civilisations lost lie forgotten in that bleak froth of oblivion. It is on the outskirts of this desolate sea of detritus where we gather, forlorn in our desolation, desperate to escape that hellish carnival which plagues our homes. We evaded the piercing eyes of those seven diabolical brothers on the thirteenth night of their daemonic debauchery as we ran with great speed away from their blasphemous rituals. We knew not where we would end up in our adrenaline-fuelled haze, but for the first time since the carnival arrived in town,...

It’s been one of those days, hasn’t it? Not a single thing’s gone right; you know the feeling, and you know it well. But that’s okay; you’ll be home soon. You have the most foolproof plan to turn your mood around after such a day: loop Phil Collins’ hit ‘In the Air Tonight’, crack a beer, and sit back with Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street with your beloved hedgehog Silver. Just the thought of such a perfect combination makes you smile in anticipation. Ascending the stairs to your apartment, you think that you can feel some vague sense of dread in the air tonight, but you quickly shrug it off. You unlock and turn the handle on your door; the wind stops blowing, birds stop chirping, somewhere, a man is drinking a cup of coffee; he pauses with the cup on his lips. You open the door.

The carnival never leaves town. Every night harlequins dance across the shadowed streets and into nondescript houses in search of their next captive audience. Behind the walls of mirth are seven secret sentences which weave words of pure, unbridled hate into a creed of brutality. At the gate stand seven brothers, bound by blood to their grotesque work masquerading as the spreading of joy to the town’s children. Seven carnival tents stand arranged in a circle, forming a spellbound ring in which happiness is slain for sport. Every night, no different from the other; every scream, no different from the previous; every show of force, no different from the next. Shrill sounds, what passes for music, fill the air about this circus of bereavement. Tones of pain reverberate around every street corner, gracing tonnes of concrete with their misery. Black, white, and red jesters jig a hellish jig to the beat of insane drums, to the piping of blasphemous flutes, to the breaking of bones. Water...

The city is a lady. A very . . . slender lady. Not as slender as me, though; they never are. Now, what if I told you that I had no face? That I was eldritch beyond any man’s understanding? Would you believe me? No? They never do. ‘Tis true, though; I live up to my given name well – tall, pale, and faceless, but I digress. They call me the slender man, though if anything I’m more of a Slender Capone than a mere slender man – mob boss extraordinaire, that’s me. West side of Atlanta’s my turf, see? No one here would dare cross me, lest they feel the heat on the street – I’m quite the fan of Phil Collins, see – and everyone knows what happens to those who are unfortunate enough to earn my ire. I’m not going to tell you, though; maybe you’ll get to see for yourself. We run drugs around here. Some call us the worst plague to ravage Atlanta’s youth; others, the saviours of downtrodden men. It makes no difference to me. Drugs pay well, and when I am well-paid, everyone else is happy. If I’...

The day started normally for that peculiar man, with him rising at the first light of the sun. He dressed in his usual suit and bowler hat, always ignoring the green apple perpetually levitating mere centimetres from his face. No one knows why that fruit spectre exists, or why it afflicted that particular man, but, after the initial shock on this day seven years ago of its first appearance, he grew to accept it as just another queer circumstance of life. He tried to remove it, of course, but no matter how he flayed that delicious orb, it always gravitated back to its perch, ever-so-slightly touching his nose. Spectators of his visage would invariably double-take at the sight of him, but he would pay them no mind; he has learned how to live with this phantom appendage, and so will everyone else, too, eventually. He travelled his usual route in to his office, as he has since long before his strange happenstance occurred. It has never interfered with his productivity; he has remained ...