The Faces She Wore

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. I stopped, out of breath. Snow swirled around me, the flakes in front of the window reflecting the yellow light. I’d been hoping to enter the cabin for a bit of warmth, a break from the vicious wind and snow. I’d used the cabin before as shelter on my winter camping treks in the north woods, but tonight it appeared someone had arrived before me.

New owners? Or maybe there was another idiot like me trekking through the forest on this cold, cold night.

I crept up to the window, my snowshoes silent in the howling wind. Pine boughs shook. Snow stung the area around my eyes and nose not covered by my black ski mask. I needed to look inside.

Crouching low beneath the cabin’s window, I slowly raised my head, just enough so that my eyes peeked over the windowsill. The candle flickered, throwing wavering shadows against the cabin’s inner walls. There was no furniture, save for the table with the candle, and an old rocker that continued to rock despite nobody sitting in it. Perhaps someone had stood up from it recently.

I shivered and squinted. The candle had burned down to a nub, the dirty yellow wax spreading over the rough wood of the table. I cupped my hands against the window to get a better view, but my breath froze as soon as it touched the glass. The shadows inside grew, moving hypnotically against the walls. A trick of the candle’s wavering flame.

I rubbed my frozen breath off the window with my gloved fist. I strained my eyes watching for movement. Nothing but shadows. I stepped back.

I heard a single crunch of snow behind me. It barely registered before a bare hand slipped beneath the bottom of my balaclava and covered my mouth, while another hand, cold and large with long fingers, grasped my throat and squeezed.

My heart quickened. Perspiration dripped down the back of my neck. I struggled, but whoever had me in their grip was much stronger than me.

Their grip tightened and the world turned black.

* * * * *

My daughter, Shelly, and I had passed this cabin before. An old Cambodian man named Sokha once lived here. The few times he saw us pass by, he’d open his door, call out to us, and invite us in for tea. He told us stories of his life in Cambodia and how he escaped the Khmer Rouge. Once, he lifted his shirt to show us the scars of five bullet wounds on his chest, He’d been the only one in his family to escape.

* * * * *

When I came to, I realized I was tied to the old rocking chair I had seen earlier. My ski mask, snow jacket, snow pants, boots and thick gloves were gone. Shadows swirled around me, my own distorted shadow among them.

I felt a cold breath on the back of my neck, but the duct tape wrapped around my forehead and attached to the top of the rocker prevented me from turning my head. Duct tape covered my mouth. Rope bound my calves and arms to the chair. Panic set in. I strained to breathe through my nose.

“What do you want?” The voice was feminine, even a bit childish, but there was a rasp to it that raised goosebumps on my arms. All I could do was grunt through the tape.

Sharp fingernails combed through my grey. thinning hair. “Cat got your tongue?”

I grunted again, struggling against my bonds.

Long boney fingers appeared in front of me. I shut my eyes tightly as one of the fingernails grew closer. I felt a sting as it slid along my forehead between the duct tape and my eyebrows. a line just below the duct tape, just above my eyebrows. Blood collected in my brows and dripped into my eyes. I blinked frantically, trying to see clearly. I tried to scream, but there was only that awful, desperate grunt.

The stranger’s hands drew back. I heard the heavy sound of boots thud on the cabin floor. I blinked and squinted, trying to drive away the trickle of blood in my eyes. I sensed a shadow hover over me.

“Let me wipe the blood away,” the same voice said.

I froze as a cloth swept over my eyes, wiping at the blood on my forehead and eyelids.

“Better?”

Tears helped washed away the remnants of blood. The cloth swiped across my face again. I could see.

What surprised me most was what stood before me.

It was a girl, and at first glance, I believed her to be no older than twelve. Her hair was blonde and curly. She wore a white blouse and a thick lemon-yellow skirt that stretched to just below her ankles. The heavy boots I’d heard clomping across the floor must’ve been hidden beneath the dress.

But her hands.

Large hands with long fingers tipped with the sharp nails I’d felt slice my brow. Her hands dropped below her knees. She reached toward my face, and in one quick motion, ripped the tape from my lips. I tasted blood.

“What – wh – ” I tried to speak.

She raised a finger to her lips. “Shhh…” She patted my chest. “Don’t talk,” she rasped. “I know what you’re thinking.

“Who are you?” I asked, anyway. “Who else is here? Where are your parents?”

She smiled. What would have been a sweet smile on anyone else looked menacing on her.

“Don’t talk,” she insisted. She grabbed the roll of duct tape from the folds of her skirt and held it up to my face.

I got the hint.

“Fast learner,” she said.

Then she leaned in close, her nose touching mine. “You interrupted me.” She placed her hand over my mouth and said again, now enunciating each word. “You – interrupted – me.” Her teeth were smooth, white and shiny, but her breath smelled like rancid meat.

I tried not to gag.

Her smile grew, exposing more teeth. Too many teeth.

She snapped her mouth shut. Nodded. “Let me show you something.”

She turned her back to me, as I strained against the tape and rope that bound me. She lifted her white blouse, exposing her back.

Tattoos. So many tattoos, all of them faces, male faces on her back done in black ink. They were so detailed, so life-like. I counted nine of them, starting from the top of her neck down to beneath the waistband of her skirt, where two pairs of black, inky eyes peered out.

Now I knew she was older than what I had first imagined. Perhaps much older.

Keeping her back to me, she turned her head, turning it further than was humanly possible. “Do you like them?” she asked.

Were they moving? Were her tattoos moving? The faces?

I got my answer when one of the faces opened its mouth to scream. No sound came out, but still, this girl, this woman, this creature, reached behind herself and swatted at it as if swatting a pesky mosquito.

The other faces, the other tattoos, stopped moving.

She turned her head and faced forward, looking away from me, thank goodness. But the ropes wouldn’t budge as I renewed my effort to loosen them. The tape around my forehead was wrapped too tight, as well. There was no wiggle room to take advantage of.

I looked closer at her blond, curly locks. The hair was dull and lifeless, thinning in places. Was she wearing an old wig?

There were more tattoos. I could see them through the thin curls lilting atop her scalp.

But these tattoos weren’t faces. What were they?

Gravestones?

“Impressed?” She continued to face away from me, one of her hands slipping into the depths of her skirt. She pulled out a scalpel, the blade clean and gleaming in the candlelight. From elsewhere in her skirt, she produced a jar of black ink.

My throat grew dry. My eyes widened in terror.

“Not for you,” she rasped.

* * * * *

The last time my daughter, Shelly, and I hiked through these woods together, the typically frigid January had grown mild. Barely any snow to speak of, and the weather was unusually warm. When we reached the cabin, Sokha, our old Cambodian friend, was no longer there. He’d left a message on the cabin door, however, written in big black-marker letters.

TEA INSIDE. HELP YOURSELF.

The door was unlocked, the furniture gone save for that old wooden rocker and the rough-hewn table pulled up to the window. On the table was a box of tea and two clean mugs waiting for us. We took the tea and mugs with us as we hiked the rest of the way to our campsite. We heated water in a tin coffee pot over a small campfire and steeped the tea in the mugs. It tasted wonderful. As we snuggled in our sleeping bags, protected by our tent, a pack of wolves serenaded us from nearby. It was the best winter camping trip we’d ever had.

* * * * *

Now, all these years later, my hair was grey. I no longer had the stamina I once had.

And this girl, this woman, this creature in front of me, bowed her head. She dipped the scalpel into the jar of black ink. Her arm, the one holding the scalpel, stretched. To my horror, a new joint popped into existence in the middle of her forearm. It twisted and bent unnaturally backward. She reached easily to the center of her back. Her other arm, the one holding the ink, stretched and twisted behind her in the same way.

The paused as her scalpel dripped ink onto the floor, each drop audible on the wooden slats.

She slowly pressed the scalpel against one of the tattoos, of the man who had silently screamed earlier. With shocking speed, she sliced the blade of the scalpel into the face, maneuvering the sharp instrument with horrifying precision. Blood dripped from the lines she carved, lines that quickly filled with ink.

Now a new image formed, replacing the face beneath it. I could not believe what I saw, and I did not want to ponder its meaning

She went on to the other faces, one after another. Her large hands, fingers, arms, and extra joints, twisted this way and that, moving quickly, turning each face, one by one into a gravestone. Gravestones upon which I could now clearly read names and dates of birth and death. Each gravestone was of a similar shape, made of granite – and yes, the detail was so great I knew they were granite.

When she finished, she dropped the scalpel to the floor. Dropped the now empty jar. It shattered at the hems of her skirt.

She slowly turned, dropping the blouse back over her body as she did so. The grin on her face remained, as if it had been there the whole time.

She lifted an elongated finger to her lips and drew closer to me, bent over so her face was inches from mine.

“Now you know what happens to interlopers,” she whispered. She looked down at the floorboards, then back up at me. “These floors,” she rasped, “hold much more than the dead.

My mouth opened, yet I could not speak.

“Are you an interloper?” The colors of her pupils changed from red to orange to purple. “Interlopers belong beneath the floorboards.” She stomped one booted foot on the floor.

I hear the hollowness beneath the wood.

She slapped my right cheek. “Are you an interloper?”

I shook my head, trying to say no, but that one simple word was stuck in my throat.

She stared into my eyes, her insane grin growing.

She screamed, “Are you an interloper?”

I clenched my eyelids shut and finally managed to croak out, “No.”

She stared at me for what felt like an eternity. Then she nodded. Her grin faded. “We shall see.” She bent over and picked up the scalpel from the floor. She cut my bonds slowly, staring into my eyes. She peeled the duct tape from my head. She drew a long, bony finger to her lips. “Shhhhh,” she whispered. “Shhhhh.”

With a sudden lunge, her huge, bony hands reached for my throat and squeezed.

The world went black once again.

* * * * *

I awoke on a bed of snow. The wind had died, the clouds had cleared. I saw stars. Moonlight. I recognized the area. It was near the cabin. That cabin. Sokha’s old cabin.

Or at least where the cabin should’ve been.

I shivered. I slowly rose, glancing around to make sure I was alone.

I walked back the five miles to my SUV, the walk nearly silent. I heard no howling wolves. I heard nothing but the occasional thud of snow as it dropped from pine boughs. Each time, the sound startled me, reminding me of the thud of a boot on a wooden cabin floor. A floor with a hollow space beneath it.

Finally, now in the driver’s seat of my SUV, I turned on the overhead light and looked in the rearview mirror.

Bruises in the shape of long fingers surrounded my throat. One cheek showed the bright red marks of a hard slap. There was the narrow razor-like slice just above my eyebrows, the blood congealed and crusty.

I’d hoped it had been a dream.

And now I wondered as I sat in the driver’s seat, as my hand shook of its own accord, shaking the set of keys it held, as I tried fitting the right one into the ignition – I wondered if my face was now a tattoo on her back.

Had I been an interloper?

How soon would it be until my face – if it was now on her back – how soon until she had the urge to change it into a gravestone? An intricately rendered gravestone in black ink? A shaded granite stone with my name, the date of my birth and death, carved into it?