AncilChapter 25: The Faceless
Sara and I quickly got ready to go outside in search for her missing siblings. Even though we needed to find them as soon as possible, I made sure to still take some time to prepare for the journey. It would be useless if we both left the house at night without any proper preparation. While I gathered boots, supplies, lighting and weapons for the venture Sara was shouting her siblings’ names out the window in hopes that they would hear her and come back. It didn’t work so our next choice was to go outside and actually look for them. I decked Sara out with a pair of shades and a pair of boots like the one I had on. I armed myself with a cutlass and Sara with a kitchen knife, then we made our way outside.
We decided to leave our shades off for the time being since it was so dark outside, so much so that we couldn’t see a thing. Luckily however, I had two torchlights which gave us some sort of light to work with. Outside was also extremely quiet with only the sound of chirping crickets and the slight rustling of leaves beneath our feet being heard.
We made our way into the forested areas around the house but found not even a trace of the children. We searched everywhere and found nothing. But while searching I had the sudden idea to check the school. It was a hunch but we both agreed to follow it. I wasn’t too eager to go back to the school especially after almost being killed by huge corbeaux but then again I also wasn’t eager to leave the house earlier. So we were already pushing limits.
We reached the school safely without any sign of a jumbie. We did hear faint groans but that was the most evidence of the undead that we got so we knew they were around us. But if we couldn’t see them then I also assumed that they couldn’t see us either. It wasn’t as though they had infrared vision or something.
We got to the school and it seemed to be overrun by the smell of rotting flesh which was a huge contrast from our first visit. We kept alert as we walked through the school gate and down the hill into the abandoned parking lot.
While walking down the hill we spotted a little girl standing completely still in the ray of the torchlight. From behind she looked like Saraya and Sara was about to run to her but I held her back and told her to wait.
“Saraya,” I started. “Where are your brothers?”
She didn’t respond.
“Where are your brothers Saraya?!” Sara asked, raising her voice a little.
The little girl seemed to have heard Sara because she slowly turned around exposing her face, but it looked like no face I had ever seen before. She had no nose, eyes nor ears. All that was left of her face was a twisted apparition spiraling into a small hole in the middle, as though someone took a screwdriver and screwed her face until it became disfigured without tearing. The sight of her caused me to cringe in fear. She slowly walked towards us but she walked very strangely. Her feet didn’t leave the ground and she somehow moved by just shuffling them along. There was also something really strange about her feet. They were pointed backwards.
“Shit!!!” I exclaimed. I couldn’t tell if the little girl was Saraya or not but I recognized the clothes that she wore and the hair on her head was very similar to Saraya’s. I had a strong feeling that it was Saraya but I held on to the hope that it wasn’t and I was sure that Sara did too. I was considering the chances that she was just a hallucination like the no faced girl that appeared on top of the Red House and in San Fernando.
“It could be a hallucination. Maybe some of that powder is in the air,” I said to Sara.
“You really think it’s a hallucination if both of us are seeing it?” Sara said.
“I really don’t know. But I’m sure we will find out soon enough.”
The little girl kept shuffling towards us and as she did so long claws began to protrude from her fingertips and the hole in the middle of her face began to open up exposing long shark like teeth. She hastened her shuffling as she got closer causing me to tighten my grip on the cutlass in my hand. I was about to swing it at her but Sara held me back and said, “Let’s just tie her up or something………That’s my sister.”
“Not anymore,” I said, attempting to attack the little girl again. But before I was able to attack her Sara pushed me to floor causing me to drop my torchlight. The torchlight shut off as it fell causing the place to become pitch black. I blindly moved my hand quickly across the ground in order to find the torchlight in a stream of cold sweat and heavy breaths but to no avail. I continued to hear the shuffling of the little girl but it seemed to have slowed down a bit. I finally found the torchlight. It refused to turn on at first but after hitting it a couple times it flashed back to life in a blinding ray of light. I quickly got up and examined the area. I didn’t see anyone in the beam of light and I wasn’t sure if it was because my hands were shaking uncontrollably or because no one was actually there. I tried to keep calm but fear gripped me and refused to let go.
