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    The Faces
    The Faces
    The Faces
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    The Faces

    By Douglas Clegg

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    About this ebook

    The Face of Nightmare...
    What if you could hide behind a mask? In this dark novella from award-winning author Douglas Clegg, a costume party opens the door to horror. Are they watching you? Nothing goes right for Harold until he finds the mask from the old-time comic strip. Joe Face and his family had nice smiles no matter the worst that life could throw their way — in the funny pages. But in the real world, someone — or something — begins following Harold at night, turning his life inside out and showing him...
    The Face of Horror

    Genres: Psychological Horror, Weird Fiction. Magical Realism.

    Dean Koontz says this author’s fiction “can chill the spine so effectively the reader should keep paramedics on standby.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDouglas Clegg
    Release dateNov 29, 2019
    ISBN9781944668389
    The Faces
    Author

    Douglas Clegg

    Douglas Clegg is a screenwriter, poet, and the author of dozens of novels, novellas, and short story collections. His fiction has won the Bram Stoker Award and the International Horror Guild Award. He is married to Raul Silva and lives near the New England coast, where he is currently writing his next work of fiction.

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      Book preview

      The Faces - Douglas Clegg

      1

      The Store of Last Chance

      F ills me with absolute dread—this whole Friday night business, came a substantial baritone.

      The voice held its own amidst an unexpected quiet that arose within the chaotic clinking of cups and locust chatter of the after-work crowd on a peculiarly warm and breezy October evening, not quite dark.

      If you sat nearby you might notice the man who spoke these words—dressed in the forgettable office attire of the moment, hair smoothed back from ears, uncomfortable look on face.

      "Harold, come on. Dread?" The woman across the table didn’t even glance up from her newspaper.

      Harold checked the dark depths of his coffee cup then moved up to her face, past shoulders, to the man sitting at the next table behind theirs.

      You know I’m no good at small talk, Margaret, Harold said.

      Margaret looked out the window onto the street as someone handsome passed by unaware. Her gaze returned briefly to Harold before settling back to the papers.

      "Everything we talk about is ‘small talk,’ she said. You’re being ridiculous."

      So I’ve heard. He took one last sip from his cup before setting it down. People pretend too much as it is at those things. They ask questions but don’t wait for answers. It’s irritating.

      "That’s called being social. It’s a party. It’s fun. It’s getting out. It’s free drinks." She reached across the table to pat his hand as if he were a big baby.

      One could not help but feel that she did all this by rote, as if this woman could comfort him in her sleep, an old habit, a go-to, even a tic.

      Margaret mentioned a terrible story from the papers, someone got attacked four blocks from here, over by the old warehouse and then look, you’re going whether you like it or not, and I can’t wait to see what Roger wears, he’s always good with costumes, all of this nearly in the same breath.

      Harold made a back-of-throat grumble. I hate that the sun goes down so early this time of year. I wasted the entire summer.

      "It definitely gets dark too soon—what time is it? Margaret checked her watch. We should scoot."

      She turned and signaled for the bill.

      How do I look? she said.

      Same as three minutes ago.

      My eyeliner usually needs a pick-me-up about now.

      You look fine, Margaret, he said. Fresh as a daisy, Daisy.

      I’m nobody’s Daisy.

      Roughly the same age as Harold, Margaret had a white streak through thick black hair chopped short. She wore a wildly oversized cable-knit sweater with a string of pearls hanging down from her neck.

      Harold again looked over her shoulder to the table beyond.

      Something in my hair? Margaret asked.

      Huh?

      You keep looking back there.

      I really think we’re being observed, Harold whispered.

      By the famous ‘him’?

      Told you not to look.

      "You did not, Margaret said. Nobody cares enough to watch the two of us, believe me."

      "He’s always just there."

      Maybe he knows you from somewhere.

      She glanced behind her chair in that way one might when pretending not to look.

      Harold had wondered if this might be a forgotten classmate from college or even someone seen in a crowd downtown.

      He rarely forgot a name or face but couldn’t place this one at all—outside of having seen the guy once or twice before at this particular café.

      Yet he recognized something subliminally familiar about him.

      Perhaps someone of note?

      Politician? Local celebrity? A face from a morning news show?

      Perhaps his face was just an ordinary one. Nothing remarkable about it other than overall blandness, even with his very slight smile.

      Not unpleasant.

      Perhaps he’s not even eavesdropping. May just be sitting there lost in thought.

      Harold would’ve examined the stranger's face a bit longer, but Margaret tugged him back to their purpose.

      Look, we’ve got maybe forty minutes before everything closes.

      It was her turn to pay the check. She muttered about poor service and not getting that promised third refill.

      Let’s just skip it, he said.

      Skip out on the tip?

      No, I mean this whole thing. We can go to a movie or something instead.

      You’d never go anywhere you’re supposed to if I wasn’t around, Margaret said.

      Minutes later, she nudged Harold along the sidewalk toward a series of shops just at the turn in the road.

      Imagine. He glanced up and down the block. An entire street of stores selling other people’s trash.

      "Isn’t it great? We could find all kinds of

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