The Faceless Read Free

you.”
    “He’s twenty-one. Go after a sheep if you put a skirt on it.”
    “So? He’s got standards. Some lads wouldn’t bother with the skirt.”
    “Well, you’ve always got Kev.”
    “Oh, stop it.”
    “Come on . Just imagine that beard tickling you.”
    “ Eva .” But Jayne was already giggling. It was catching, too; Eva could feel it bubbling up in her. “ Honestly . And you a married woman.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Oh. Shit. Did I say the wrong thing?”
    Eva forced a new smile. “Forget it.”
    “’Kay. Change the subject.” Jayne nodded at the window; it was white with fog. “Lovely weather we’re having. Shit! ”
    “What?”
    Kev bustled over. “What’s wrong?”
    “Someone was looking in. Bloody perve–”
    Something whacked hard against the window. She turned and saw it. A hand, splayed out flat. A moment later another slammed into place alongside it, so hard the pane cracked across. Between the hands, through the mist, what might have been a face began to take shape.
    Someone screamed. Eva turned and saw a figure standing in the corner; tall and thin, clad in a black, tattered cape. A soft cloth cap hung down and shadowed its face.
    A dark shape hovered in the air beside it like a shadow projected onto mist. Another appeared beside it. And another.
    “Oh fuck.” Jayne had grabbed Eva’s forearm; her fingers sank in like claws. “What the fuck? What the fuck are they?”
    The shadows were moving. One moved to bar the door. What good would that do? It was a shadow. But it was thickening, growing darker, more solid. They all were. There were a dozen in all, thin black tattered shapes, like the one advancing on them. Liz had stopped screaming; instead she stood rooted, face white, lips trembling, eyes fixed, even when it stretched out an impossibly long, clawlike hand towards her.
    The room wasn’t cold anymore, Eva realised. It was warm; hot even. Strange she should notice that. And then the first of them was in arm’s reach, and as it reached for her she saw what it had for a face.
    She screamed – everyone else was, even Kev – but then the warmth became searing heat and the world was suddenly made of fire.
     
     
    “O I, S ARGE ?” R ENWICK turned in her chair. “Where’s me brew?”
    No reply. At the window, Stakowski was still, leaning forward.
    “Mike?”
    He turned and looked at her. No smile, no glint in his eye. She went over to him. He pointed. In the distance, she saw it: an orange glow, brighter than the streetlamps, flickering ever brighter through the fog.
    It took her a moment to realise what it was. And as she did, behind them, her phone began to ring.
     
     
    THE TESTAMENT OF LANCE-CORPORAL CUTHBERT WINTHROP CONCLUDED kept my head down literally down so no-one saw lasted another thirty years like that thirty fucking years gin helped gin and whisky but thats what finished it in the end cause of death cirrhosis of the liver and then howling into the dark the void howling we are all here all howling no peace no peace even in death no peace for us none
     
     
    I N THE A LMA Street living room the clock ticked. Almost midnight. Martyn sat staring at the TV as he had for the last hour; saw nothing.
    Get up. Do summat. But couldn’t. Like having flu. Couldn’t so much as get up. Every little job was suddenly massive. A monkey on your back; gripping tighter, squeezing harder, never letting go.
    Eva’d be in the pub now, sipping a Britvic orange juice with her girlfriends, that ponce of a tutor. And that pretty-boy model – Christ, he wasn’t even thinking about him. Eva was everything. Even more than Mary. He knew it shouldn’t be like that, but it was. And Eva still turned heads. Men still looked at her. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t cheat. Would she?
    The doorbell rang. Relief; she was home, and getting out of the chair was suddenly easy. The bell rang again.
    As he turned the handle he remembered: Eva had a key. Why ring the bell, then? But the door was