The Color of Your Eyes

Chapter 50: Marking

Marvin hated the woods. He hated how isolated this place was. He hated the smell of animal droppings around. Furthermore, he hated the crows that were watching them every time they had to take walks around to check the perimeter of their hideout. But most of all he hated having Ronan teasing him during their entire work hours about the legend of the man without a face.

Ronan was adamant that the disappearance of a young girl that has just been found, was proof that the man without a face really exist.

"He comes to claim vengeance, on those who wronged him, by marking the door of his victims with real blood, in the shape of a raven!" Ronan exclaimed with dramatic gestures as they were having a smoke outside.

"No shit," Marvin mumbled. "There is no way that shit is real."

"No I'm telling you, man, I know someone who knows someone, who saw the mark of the raven, just recently in two places. And just before then, that young girl Anna or Hannah or whatever her name is disappeared."

"But the cops found her," Marvin said, trying to look as cool as a cucumber even though he felt a knot in his stomach.

"Yeah, they did, but what I heard from someone, is that the girl is so shocked, she lost the ability to speak. The only words she could say were ravens."

"BS," Marvin flicked his cigarette.

"No, I swear, this is all real," Ronan gestured towards the surrounding woods. "Why do you think Mike chose this place? There are countless people who disappeared in the forest, never to be found. I tell you, I bet there are hundreds of bodies buried somewhere by a psychopath, and they are still buried out there somewhere. If you want to hide from the cops, you stay here."

Marvin cursed under his breath that now after the talk, every time he has to check the perimeter, he had to look over his shoulders. He already had a bad, eerie feeling before when he started to work here for Mike, but now he felt like he was being watched, which was ridiculous, knowing there are in the middle of nowhere.

Suddenly he heard rustling beside him. Marvin stopped in his tracks and tried to see where the sound of that source came from. He saw a bush on his left side started to move a little. He took out his gun and pointed it toward the bushes.

Slowly he inched closer, trying to get a glimpse of the culprit. Just before he was about to crouch and take a peek, a squirrel came out running. Marvin gasped and almost fell backward, cursing at himself.

"Fucking animal," he hissed as he put his gun back into his pocket. He turned around and was faced with a grisly face.

"Shit!" he stumbled backward and fell on his back, as he looked up he heard laughter, and he saw Ronan taking off his hideous clown mask.

"You should have seen your face," he laughed hysterically as he clapped on his knees.

"Fuck man! You know I could have shot you! Stop screwing around! Mike already was pissed because you tried to be handsy with the hostage. I swear you try this one more time and I will shoot your balls-"

Ronan stopped laughing as his eyes were glued to something behind Marvin who was still going on about his antics.

"And then what? Do you think I wanna be stuck in this good-for-nothing-forest? Besides, you have the wrong mask on dumbass. The man without a face has a scarecrow face-"

Ronan started to look pale.

"And don't get me started on you being all sneaky with the hostage. You think I don't know what you're trying to do? I know we are all bored here, but that doesn't mean you can just go off doing whatever you want. Mike already warned you, and if you don't stop, we are all going to get into trouble-"

Marvin realized the other man wasn't paying attention to him.

"Oh great, now what? You think I'm stupid? Stop pretending and put your other mask on. You know that the instruction was to wear our masks all the time. Hey man, are you even listening? What are you looking at?"

Marvin turned around and he almost stumbled backward again. He looked at the backdoor of this building, where they just had a smoke break twenty minutes ago.

On the door, with color as red as blood, was the image of a raven.

"The man without a face... he is real!" Ronan gasped and he trembled.

"Ronan you idiot! Stop it with these jokes!"

The other man shook his head.

"It wasn't me! I swear!"

Marvin looked at the image in disbelief. "But if it wasn't you... then who did this?"