The closet immediately got a lot more crowded as a bunch of faceless crowded in for this special occasion. You see what was special about it wasn’t that I was trapped in a closet, that I had killed two different human things in the last couple of hours, or that there was a slow but steady booming from the door separating me from what wanted to eat me. Nope, what was special was that this was the first time I had ever asked the voices for anything other than for them to shut up and go away. This was the first time I had ever allowed myself to think of the faceless as more than just a burden to be lived with. This was the first time I had ever said please to them.
Apparently, when dealing with your own insanity, please really is a magic word. Who would have thought right? Now this wasn’t a large closet, it was a little deeper than I expected and was just long enough I could lie down and have about an inch from the wall to my body on either side, but somehow all the faceless found a way to fit, even if they only showed themselves from the shoulders up. I looked around at all of them as they floated, stood, and hung from the ceiling silently appraising me to see what I would do next. There were quite a few faces I knew from my constant verbal jousting, and a whole lot of them that I didn’t.
Towards the back of the crowd was where most of the unknown and infrequent fliers of Crazy Brain Airlines were congregating and I saw The Soldier standing there at parade rest with several other soldier looking guys doing the same. Close by was the one faceless that kind of scared me, I called him the Psycho. He was the one who was always screaming about hurting humans, setting shit on fire, and just some very not nice things. The shit he was always yelling about was nightmare level scary and I tried to drive him away as much as I could. I often thought of kittens playing, puppies running after kids, and watching the water flow past on a calm river near my cabin. Psycho hates this shit and usually leaves after a few minutes of talking about lovey and calming stuff. I imagined him flinching a bit as I looked at him and this thought crossed my mind, but he didn’t leave and wasn’t talking so I let him stay, after all, this was an all hands on deck emergency.
I decided right then that we needed some ground rules to keep this constructive so I quietly spoke to myself, them, whatever, you get it.
“Thank you all for coming. I know we don’t always see eye to eye and that before now I have often tried to keep you all as far away as possible. This is mostly because some of you have seem to take a particular delight in messing with my head.” I started slowly, quietly.
I saw a few nods and murmurs of assent.
I continued slowly “I have never asked you folks for anything, mostly because I was somewhat able to function on my own.”
There were a few nods from some, a few head shakes in the negative from others and more murmuring but they settled down quickly.
“I am not trying to take you for granted here and I am willing to listen to your views and advice on this matter.” I started as the quiet started to crank up into a manic building of speech from all corners, drowning each other out in their attempts to be heard.
I quickly held up both hands, closed my eyes, and lowered my head refusing to continue until they all lapsed back into silence again.
I looked up “I am willing to listen BUT,” I held up a finger and with a stern look to prevent the mob of voices from rising again “we must have some order in how we do this or it’s going to end up like every other time you guys all want to be heard. I think we can all agree that you want to be heard, that I am willing to listen, and that we need to do this in a way that allows you each to be heard by me yes?” I queried with short glances at the most opinionated faceless I was familiar with. I saw nods and heard more murmurs of assent from the crowd in general.
“Alright,” I started, pausing to think about it “how about this then. I am the leader, we all know that even if you don’t like it, because I have the ability to make the ultimate decision but you have all just been promoted to my council. Everyone has a say, everyone gets a vote, but I ultimately get the final say. I will announce a topic and anyone that wants to voice an original opinion not already covered can raise their hands. I will pick you, one at a time, to share your thoughts and once everyone has gotten a chance to be heard I will call for a vote of hands and then decide. Fair?”
I waited a few minutes as the faceless were looking at each other, I knew they were communicating in a way that I could not follow so I waited patiently for a response. The Soldier snapped to attention and raised a single hand over his head with a fluid, crisp movement and holding it there perfectly still while he stared forward into the distance. I noticed the rest of the crowd quieting down quickly and started darting glances between me and him as they waited to see what would happen next. I reached up to rub the stubble on my chin as I called
“Yes soldier?”
The Soldier dropped his hand to his side and barked out “Request for clarification sir!”
This was a little more formal than I expected but I responded with a simple “Please continue soldier.”
The Soldier barked again “Sir, are you aware that there are three groups of what you call “faceless” that you are currently able to interact with?”
I sat digesting what he said and was vaguely concerned over his use of “currently able to interact with”, but I had not been aware there were groups.
I responded “No soldier, I was not aware of this. Why?”
He quickly nodded once, a sharp up and down movement of his head before barking “Sir, we need to be able to make decisions quickly. Giving each faceless a voice in a time of calm is fine, but during times of crisis it could be the difference between life and death.”
I turned this over in my head and could not fault the logic. I mean we had been sitting here talking for at least a good 5 minutes since I first said please to them.
I nodded and asked “I assume you have a recommendation on how to resolve this soldier?”
Another sharp nod of assent as he stated “Yes sir, I recommend you have each group of faceless elect a representative for their group. This will allow the rep to quickly figure out what their faction would like and present it to you. This will allow you to have three quick options, a simple 3 vote system, and all faceless will get a voice. It also allows you to deal with a single faceless on most occasions and will let you make requests of any faceless causing concern through their leader in the future sir!”
Finished with what he had to say he snapped a salute in my direction and then returned to parade rest, hands clasped tightly behind his back.
I looked around the small closet and simply asked “Does anyone disagree?”
I saw no further raised hands, simply head nods and murmurs of assent.
I nodded again to myself and said out loud “I have decided to implement The Soldier’s idea. I assume you all know which faction you belong to so when each faction leader and faction name is chosen please stand in front of me and raise your hands again.”
Hearing a louder babbling of voices, none of which I could make out, I sat back against the wall and wished that I knew if Ginny was ok. I started thinking about the things I knew about Ginny, things that would help me try to check on her. I knew she worked at the library Thursday through Sunday in the afternoons. I knew her favorite meat was a thick rare steak, that her favorite fruit was an apple, and that she had dropped out of college to come home and take care of her grandmother when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I knew that she had a small red Honda Fit “smart car”, that she lived a few miles from here near the only gym in town, and that she was an avid sport shooter. She had even ranked in the top 3 of the State for the last three years running. I knew she was 25, her birthday was a month before mine, and that she was ten years younger than me. I knew she didn’t have a boyfriend or any other living family.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
My train of thought was interrupted, the babbling of the faceless dying off in the closet, the only remaining sound the occasional booming on the door. Looking up in surprise, I had expected it to take a lot longer for all the faceless to settle into any kind of order, I saw that there were indeed three of them standing there with their hands raised waiting. From left to right I saw The Soldier, standing at rigid attention with hand raised high, next was Fat Loudmouth standing there with a slouch and his hand half raised. I couldn’t see his face but I could FEEL him smirking at me, and finally was the most unexpected of the three. The Psycho. He was quiet so far today, standing somewhat straight with his hand raised high.
I pointed to The Soldier first asking “Alright you first, what do you prefer I call you?”
He quickly dropped his hand back to attention, taking a step forward and barking out “Sir, you can continue calling me The Soldier, sir!”
I nodded and he took a step back as I pointed at Fat Loudmouth and asked “What about you?”
Still feeling his smirk, he belched and drawled out “Well mister “leader” you can call me amazing, all the other ladies do!” He finished with an elbow into the ribs of The Soldier standing next to him. Continuing with a laugh he said “I don’t give a damn what you call me dipshit, call me Fats if you like since it’s close to what you always think about me anyways.”
He finished with what I assumed was another annoying smirk. I stared at him for a minute before he backed down a bit and stepped back grumbling quietly to himself about “Dickhead leaders.” And “Stupid idea anyways”.
Lastly I turned and looked at The Psycho. I was trying to figure out what I should say to him as I felt him silently appraising me. He scared me, his methods scared me, his words scared me, and I was more scared that he was part of a faction of others that must think like he does.
I finally broke the silent appraisals going back and forth with a terse “What about you?”
He nodded and responded with a simple reply of “Call me Killer.”
I simply nodded as he stepped back into line with the others. Sitting forward with my legs crossed on the floor I outlined our current issue simply to the “Council”.
“Alright folks, we are trapped in a closet with at least one of those humans outside pounding on the door. It’s locked and seems to be holding up pretty well but who knows for how long it will keep trying to get in or how long the door will last. I have light from that one bare bulb” I continued pointing at the ceiling light fixture “but unless there is a gun or knife in here somewhere that I missed we have no weapons. We don’t know why humans are suddenly going cannibal, if we might go cannibal too, or how wide spread this is. I want to check on Ginny while in town, if possible, and then check on my parents on the way home. We might want to think about arming up before heading home too but our most immediate concern is the bastard banging on the door and what to do next. What do you guys think our options are?”
Killer immediately raised his hand and starting speaking in a low flat tone. “Look around the closet. Find or make a weapon. Throw the door open, timing it so that it happens the next time it hits the door, to knock it down. Bash, stab, stomp, burn, and kill it until it stops moving. Then make more weapons. Kill more of them. Kill all of them. You can’t save them but you can kill them and have some fun too.”
He quickly stepped back before I responded. Well, he might be nuts but he did raise a good point as I looked around me. It was a normal entryway closet filled with coats and shoes, a small old style vacuum cleaner with a bag in the corner, and looking up I saw a small shelf that I hadn’t closely looked over. I moved from sitting into a low hunched over standing position so I could poke my head over the top of the shelf and immediately saw a couple of motorcycle helmets.
These triggered a thought see, I don’t remember riding motorcycles but somehow I knew that most people who did tended to like wearing gear to help protect against road rash and road debris being kicked up into them. Moving the helmets I saw a pair of men’s leather gloves and grabbed them. They were a nice soft black leather, well broken in, and thick. These would help protect my from the biting bastards I thought to myself as I quickly slipped them onto my large hands.
I heard The Soldier sound off with “Sir, I recommend looking for a leather jacket and riding pants in that rack of hanging coats as well!”
I responded with a nod and by sitting back down to reach above my head and move them across the metal rack. I stopped with a sudden flash of insight as Fats piped up with,
“About time you started using your head dipshit. That bar that all this stupid shit is hanging on would make a pretty good weapon to bash the sick fucks in the head with eh?”
He finished with a long scratch of his armpit to really drive the point home I thought in disgust. But he was correct as I had just realized the bar in the closet would make a pretty good weapon if I could break it free. The bar was at least 6 feet long, steel, and didn’t sound hollow from a quick testing knock on it. It was a really solid bar of metal. I started pulling hangers of coats and sweaters off the rack on one end and found it was just loosely set into a notched frame attached to the wall and could easily be removed. Things were starting to look up indeed! I kept removing hanging coats, still looking for more motorcycle riding gear but didn’t find anything else that would fit. I quickly pushed all the removed clothing down as flat as I could get it under me so I would be less likely to trip over it and then pulled the steel bar down from the notches it loosely sat in.
The bar pulled free easily and as I took a closer look at it I found it to be about 1.5 inches thick and just over six feet long. It was going to be a little unwieldy and was heavy as hell, but it wouldn’t take more than a single good swing to crush a skull, break an arm or leg, and it had enough weight behind it that I could easily use it as a barricade across something if I needed to.
I could see Killer out of the corner of my eye and hear him gently singing to himself “A killing we will go, a killing we will go, hi ho alright let’s go! A killing we will go.”
I turned to look at him as he shrugged and started humming a tune instead. I understood what he was trying to imply even if I didn’t like it. I was going to have to get out of here but I didn’t want to go at night. I remembered how the monsters at the gas station had reacted to the sunlight streaming into the front of the store. They moved with the darkness and seemed to freeze in the actual sunlight. I didn’t really notice it before but now I was thinking about it more carefully. If they were moving around a lot in dark spaces and the sun stopped them for some reason, is that why I didn’t notice anything until I got near town? Maybe that’s why I didn’t start seeing them wandering around outside until the sun had dipped behind the hills.
“What do you guys think?” I asked aloud looking at the faceless.
The Soldier immediately responded with “Never enter an enemies preferred battle ground unless you have to, it’s better to force them to fight in areas that you have prepared and in this case with the sun literally at your back.”
I nodded and looked at the other two.
Fats just nodded and said “Don’t look at me, I just hope all the sexy ladies haven’t turned into those freaks. Don’t die until you get one though. I wanna watch you two doing the nasty.”
I didn’t bother to even roll my eyes as I turned to Killer.
He shrugged and simply said “I just want you to kill them all. A smart predator always attacks prey when they are at their weakest. We are the predators, so we set the time line to kill, maim, burn, crush, and kill some more.”
Again, a creepy little bastard but he wasn’t wrong. I glanced at my watch, it was only around 10pm, I had been in here at least five hours by this point and was tired from the work I had done on my homestead earlier in the day as well as from all the adrenaline fueled spikes in my blood pressure from when I came to town.
I looked around at the Council and said “Thanks for all the help guys. I mean it. I really appreciate the advice and I have decided I am going to try and get some sleep until after the sun is up tomorrow. I figure if the sun is up I can deal with the one outside the door first then move out into the street to use sunlight as a possible defense. If they really do stop in sunlight then I can use that to my advantage and figure out where to go from there, probably grab a car and start looking for Ginny as I make my way over to my parents place. If they aren’t stopped by the sun, then at least I will be in a more open area where I have choices I can make about how and where to move from there. Understood?”
They all nodded in agreement and for the first time ever, without reading a book, all the faceless faded away leaving me alone in the closet with just my own thoughts to keep me company. I reached up and grabbed the pull string on the light, turning it off with a double clicking noise. I settled down onto the coats on the floor, grabbing a large women’s fur to keep warm. I lay there, basking in the silence of no faceless, and ignoring the booming sounds of the monster hitting the door. I slowly drifted towards sleep with thoughts of finding Ginny and what I would do next bouncing around in my very battered and very broken mind.