Saving Face

Was it my terrified imagination, or did the sooty black cloud drifting past unfurl into the strange looking man standing with his back to me in front of the drawing room fireplace?

He wasn’t there five seconds ago when I ducked into this dank smelling closet, cowering in fear from the blood curdling scream that still echoed through the empty rooms of this half rotten mansion.

“Why don’t you step over here and let’s have a chat?” the man spoke, turning to face my hiding place behind the partially closed closet door.

 “You should know better than to try and hide from the likes of me. There’s no use; it can’t be done,” he stated.

I could not tear my eyes from his face. Or the place where his face ought to be. The space above his neck seemed to rapidly change from one set of features to another, like a slide reel stuck on fast forward.

I eased open the door and took a few tentative steps toward him.

The closet door immediately banged shut behind me, causing the house walls to shudder violently. Blackened dust rained down from the ceiling boards, covering the toes of my sneakers as my body began to tremble from head to toe.

“Over here,” the man demanded, pointing his index finger to a spot directly in front of him.

I took a deep breath to try and calm my nerves. Every fiber of my body was screaming for me to turn and run, but I forced myself to move toward the strange man.

There might still be a chance to capture what curiosity and greed had tempted. The lure of easy money caused me to enter this abandoned house— the opportunity to capture something extraordinary on film.

“Nicely done,” he purred as I stood before him.

His face continued to transform from one set of individual features to another. His voice, a deep baritone and smooth as silk, lagged behind each face like a film out of sync with the sound.

Only the outline of his tall, slender, black clad body remained static. He was dressed in what appeared to be an old-fashioned woolen suit, complete with a waistcoat and gleaming black boots. I could see the heavy gold chain of a pocket watch dangling from his vest.

“Has the cat devoured your tongue?” he drawled, emphasizing the word tongue.

I shook my head, unable to utter a reply.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said. “Why would you?”

I lifted my palms, attempting to form an excuse in my blank mind that might appease him.

“Answer!” he bellowed, and one of his faces paused on the most terrifying features I had ever seen.

A scowling visage of pure evil, its bloodshot eyes yellow green and glowing, grinned suddenly, revealing sharply pointed, dangerously long yellow fangs.

It loomed closer for a moment, then vanished as suddenly as it appeared. Then, images began to shuffle so rapidly that his strange head seemed to blur into a furious, gray, flickering fog.

“I made a mistake, I apologize. I was only curious; everyone says— I will leave.” I spoke rapidly, taking a step backward.

“Everyone says a great many things, but no one knows anything for certain. Now do they?” he mocked.

A stony, judgmental face appeared, paused, and shook accusingly back and forth before the faces began to switch and blur again.

“Curious? You know how that ended for the cat; no more tongues for him. Or is curiosity the reason he catches so many tongues?" He chuckled.

“I’m sorry, it was a mistake. I shouldn’t have intruded.” I said, desperately calculating how many steps from where I stood it would take for me to reach the safety of the front door.

“How did you hope to satisfy your own curiosity?” he mocked, pointing toward the camera dangling from a strap around my neck.

 “That won’t work, you know. It never does, but it amazes me that you foolish creatures will always continue to try,” he mused.

I nodded. “I’ll leave and never come back, I swear.”

“Bargaining.” he mocked. “It always comes first. But you see, it never works.”

I tried to take another step backward, intending to bolt and run, but my body would not move. Some unseen force froze me in place and welded my feet to the floor.

“This is where I’d shake my head, but which one?” he laughed, out of sync with the rapidly changing faces.

“Sorry, I'm so absolutely not sorry, but you owe me one. This is the price you pay for trespassing.” a mocking face appeared, smirked, then vanished.

I desperately tried to jerk my feet free, but all I managed to do was twist my torso helplessly from side to side.

The man stepped forward and grabbed hold of my face with ice cold hands that seemed to plunge themselves into my very being.

A scream erupted from my throat. I felt my mind begin tumbling away from me as I tried to hold onto consciousness, but I was spinning out of control faster and faster. And then my body fell away from me.

“Wow, this is a nice camera!” The boy reached down and picked it up from the cracked and dusty floorboards, holding it out for the others to see.

“Nice!” All three children crowded around to examine it. “The battery’s not dead; maybe there are some cool photos.” they hovered over the tiny screen and tapped the arrow to flip through each image.

“It’s nothing but a bunch of faces. Bummer. It must have belonged to somebody who takes portraits for a living or something.”

“Yeah, but I bet we can sell it anyway! Just take out the memory card and toss it.”

“Dude shouldn’t have wandered off and left his camera behind in this creepy old house. Sorry, not sorry. It belongs to us now!” they giggled as they tromped back out the sagging door and into the bright sunlight.

“They’re just children. Even I have standards.” the man laughed from a dark corner of the room as my face momentarily flickered into view.

 And then I was gone, my face a single one among a carousel of thousands.

“Cat got your tongue again?” he laughed.