Musings of the Diseased || Oneshots

The Faceless Killer || Original

I sat across from the sketch artist, wringing my sweaty-palmed hands beneath a heavy blanket. Images of spattering blood and noodle soup guts flashed through my mind, accompanied by screams and a wind chime laugh. An ax blade also glimmered in my memory, swung with great force and impossible stamina again and again. I saw the killer, saw their face, and that's why I was in the police station reliving the scene.

"Alright, I'm ready," said the artist, twirling her pencil between her fingers. "Let's begin. Tell me all the details you remember."

"Well, uh," I said, throat dry. "The lighting was pretty bad. And, uh, their features were... unremarkable." The artist nodded, tapping the end of her pencil on the desk with a tic, tic, tic. "Their nose was thin, I think. Almost beaky. Uh, the face was pretty round, on the whole, though. Cheeks like a baby."

Now the sketch artist took to the paper, drawing the rough shape of a head and filling in the features I'd described. Mesmerized, I watched her pencil trace arcs back and forth as she shaded in the cheeks, then sharper lines for the bridge of the nose. I forgot where I was, only awakening from my trance when the artist snapped her fingers in front of my face.

"Oh! Uh, sorry," I said. The artist nodded, smiling to put me at ease. "It doesn't look exactly right, but I'm not sure what's different. I guess we can fix it later." I paused. "Their lips were pretty thin, and I saw their, uh, teeth." My vision clouded at the terror of the memory as I fiddled with my fingers, picking at the nail beds I'd accidentally exposed with nervous bites. "They smiled at me. Their teeth were really shiny. Sharp, too. Like polished knives." I noticed the artist raise an eyebrow as she started to block in the lips on her drawing.

I tapped my fingertips on the edge of the desk as tension expanded in my chest. The lips in the drawing were pressed together in too severe an expression– the killer had been smiling softly as if recalling a good dream before they'd flashed their crocodile grin at me. I told the artist, and she started to fix it.

She finished with the lips, then looked back up at me. My brain felt like a scrambled egg at this point, but I tried to remember more. "Uh, their hair was pretty short. Also choppy. Didn't look like it was done with scissors, not that that's important." The artist started on a shape at the top of the head, drawing and redrawing it until it looked as messy and coarse as I remembered it. "They had a pink bow in it, too."

As the artist added in the bow, I took a look at the face and frowned. "Wait, this isn't right at all," I said. She stopped drawing in the middle of a line forming the knot at the bow's center, turning her attention back to me. "The nose was shorter and flatter. And their lips weren't that full." The artist started on the necessary changes, frowning slightly.

When she was done, I looked again. "No, that isn't it either." I tapped a finger to my chin. What exactly was different? "Oh, I think they had freckles."

The artist started adding in dots on the cheeks, forming constellation patterns that scratched at my brain, trying to dig up a memory. It didn't dispel the nagging itch that the face wasn't what I'd seen. "Actually, uh, maybe they didn't. Something's wrong..."

The sketch artist nodded, then dug into a bag I hadn't noticed before near her feet. She produced several black-and-white mugshots and laid them all out in front of me, fanning them like a magician's deck of cards. "I'm not saying it was any of these people, but do any of their faces jog your memory? Any similar features?"

Starting with the photo on the far left, I scanned each one. The crease on my forehead deepened as I progressed through the lineup. Despite the diversity of the subjects, not a single photo looked anything like the smiling killer with the pink bow. I nearly threw the last photo back at the artist. My breathing had accelerated, and TV static danced behind my eyes as the murderer's light laughter replayed over and over again in my head, taunting me with each repetition.

Sensing my distress, the sketch artist spoke. "Hey, it's fine if you don't completely remember. That's normal. How about you try to describe the eyes?"

I blanched. Their eyes... My subconscious self had tried to forget, yet I remembered the twin glimmers set in the sockets of their skull and how they'd bored into my very soul like a hive mind army of termites.

I started to explain, my tongue heavy in my mouth. "Their eyes were pink. Bright magenta." I looked back at the drawing, a realization taking shape just out of reach as I held my head in my hands. "And they glowed. I felt... I felt something looking into them." Now I was shivering. I pulled my knees up to my chest. "It wasn't normal."

The artist tried to console me, but I didn't hear what it was she said. I didn't know what was happening for a while, but I found myself in a different room of the police station when I returned to reality. A disinterested cop was watching over me, though not very diligently– he didn't seem to notice when I shakily got to my feet. After a few seconds, I feigned a cough to get his attention.

"Oh, you're up. You can go," said the cop, his eyes never leaving his virtual game of solitaire.

"What about the sketch?" My voice cracked and warbled as I asked.

The cop shrugged. "You've done what you could. Leave that monster to us."

Suddenly, I knew the missing piece.

I nearly tripped over my feet several times on the way out, but by the time I got to the lamplit corner to hail a cab, I'd found my footing. A few stars peppered the sky, the most that ever appeared in such a light polluted city. A tendril of dread continued to curl and uncurl in my stomach, but was there anything I could do?

Plenty of cabs roamed the streets at this hour, and I was able to get a ride within five minutes. Still swaddled in my fleece blanket, I rode in silence the whole way home. I counted out the fare and tip and extended my hand to give it to the driver.

They turned to accept the money, and as those brilliant pink eyes met mine, a mischievous smile formed upon their thousand inhuman faces. I don't know how I found myself on the sidewalk, having been too shocked to move, but as I stood numbly on the curb, the being winked at me. "Be seeing you," it said as it pulled the cab away, leaving the street as empty as if it had never been.