Every night, I'm haunted by the form of a little boy hunched atop my dresser. He stays hunkered there, wearing nothing more than a pair of tighty-whities and smiles at me. The little boy stays that way for hours and watches me as I lay in bed. Initially I believed I was experiencing some really strange night terrors, but I know for sure that I am fully awake when this happens. Then my mind wandered to the possibility that I was merely hallucinating. I no longer think that is the case either.
He would giggle his child's giggle when I would awaken from my deep slumber and then he would set about his nightly ritual of tingling my spine with his impossibly still muscles.
Nights passed and finally, he did something that sent me reeling. He took a straight razor from the back band of his underwear and unfolded it slowly, letting the twinkle of the moonlight coming in through the window reflect off it. He would roll and twist the thing in his hands, toying with it and laughing. My mouth would go dry, unable to let out a peep.
The little boy holds it above his head and then brings the blade down in a swift whistling arch. I must jump at this little demonstration because he is amused by my reaction. He follows this up with a broad smile then presses the end of the blade to his temple, dragging the laceration downward, underneath his chin, up around again to his other temple, then across his hairline until the bloody line meets the beginning. The boy follows this with a messy job of circles around the eyes and mouth. He does this all with a steady wrist. He folds the razor as his face drip drops its red nectar onto the floor below and he puts the blade away.
"Do you like masks?" asks the boy.
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I refuse to speak. Or my mouth refuses to cooperate.
He presses his fingertips along the line the razor created and wiggles his nails beneath the skin, prying the flesh up. I can hear the popping protests of the tissue. He peels off his face and holds it out in front of his chest as an offering. When I recoil and squint my eyes, he flattens his palm and places the face out over it meticulously. He tosses the thing like a pie and it smacks and sticks to the opposite wall of my bedroom.
I watch the face slide down my wall, leaving a trail in its path.
When I look back to the dresser, the boy is gone.
This has been what my nights consist of and I don't know how much longer I can take it. My wall is covered in the macabre outlines of at least thirty faces. The skin has some quality to them so that they are impossible to remove from the wall. So, the drooping faces look on forever as I am unable to pry them from the drywall.
I awoke, sure he would be waiting to conduct his game of scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. But he wasn't there. I relaxed, my breathing felt normal, my eyes grew heavy once more. As I rolled onto my back, my heart caught in my throat.
The little boy was perched on my headboard, staring down at me with that twinkle in his eye. No. The twinkle wasn't in his eye. He was brandishing his straight razor in front of a wicked smile.
He cut his face off and held it out in front of his chest, directly over my face as I looked on in abject terror.
"It's your mask!" spit the boy through dribbling blood.
I don't know how, but the courage lingered in me to jerk from the bed. I darted down the hall, out the door, into my car, and shot up gravel rocks as I floored it out of my driveway.
When I worked up the courage to return home, I examined my bed. There's an irremovable face on my pillow. The skin mask grew strange and knotty roots so as to better cling to the fibers. I shudder to think what would have happened if he'd dropped it on me.