The Harbinger - Short Story

      A boy stands alone in the bustling streets of a small town. Leaves scatter across the cobbles on an invisible wind, the kind only autumn can bring. He shivers, feeling a damp cold settle deep into his bones as the murky lights of the townhouses surrounding him brighten against the ever present darkness.

Hallowe’en is nearing, and people everywhere fuss about the streamers and fake cobwebs clinging to their every doorway. The jack o’lanterns glow with candlelight from their perches on the front steps and his eyes flit interestedly toward them. He stares, remarking the thick lines of paint marring the pumpkins’ surfaces and noting just how rough the skin would feel if he was to reach out and touch one. 

A pet catches his eye. It is alone, like him, and sits between two houses. Its beady eyes catch the lamplight and stare ominously across the street to where the boy stands in the partial shadow of a looming building. He doesn’t look away, however, and neither does the pet. Suddenly, it twitches - a ghastly sort of twitch which has its whole body convulsing jerkily. But the boy simply observes. He watches on as the pet’s eyes bulge unnaturally and it collapses to the ground, dead, a single line of saliva leaking from its half open maw.  Still, he is not shocked nor disturbed by this - strays die all the time from strange diseases here. And so he walks on.

*

People avoid him as though he is invisible, as though the darkness perpetually clings to his small frame wherever he goes. Though he is never bothered, not by the townsfolk, not by the flickering lights, and not by the hobbling shadows. His gaze again wanders back to the jack o’lanterns sitting prettily among the colorful decorations, like beacons against the night. Their glow reflects in his eyes, a fire so scorching it appears almost unearthly. And as if in a trance, he strolls slowly towards one, observing the melting candle wax dripping from its mouth.

But before he can get any closer, a tall, pale figure steps in his path. He looks up into the wide, haunted eyes of a woman whose appearance seems oddly familiar even though he can’t place where he has seen her before. Her long, limp strands of hair hang raggedly around her sharp, angular cheekbones as she leans forward - her eyes going impossibly wider. 

In discomfort he takes a step back, angling his head away from the lady and instead at the decor of a nearby house. His gaze flits to a porch - again in search of a pumpkin - when his eyes meet another stranger’s. And then another’s. And another’s.

The town is suddenly watching him with eager eyes, all seemingly tired yet glimmering with a shine of interest in their hollow-like depths. Oddly too, they seem taller than before. Lankier and skinnier in that way only teenagers are when they hit a growth spurt - almost disproportionate. He remarks their blank stares and waxy, nearly transparent complexions in the night. The attention is strange, something he’s not used to experiencing, and so he tries for a broad smile. 

In unison, the townsfolk smile back at him.

*

  The antique store he enters is musty. Dust lines the shelves housing random assortments of junk and the air is stale, as though no one has ever bothered to open a window. Around him, stained glass cases stand proudly amongst the chaos of cardboard boxes overflowing with old and ripped Hallowe’en costumes. He briefly surveys the items when the outline of a face gives him pause.

  It is vaguely shaped by the cracks and holes in the wall, appearing to the boy like a twisted, bony visage stranded in pain - as though in an eternal scream. Its eyes are black pits of nothing, horrendously surrounded by varying shades of gray veins while its mouth stays a gaping hollow empty of any teeth. Surprisingly, he doesn’t react, only looks on with a faint sense of curiosity as the feeling of deja-vu consumes him once again.

  Then the lights go out.

  Darkness embraces him with velvety arms, suffocating him until he stumbles against the rough wood of a bookshelf. The texture of aged leather runs under his fingertips as he begins to roam intently around the case for any sign of a candle or oil lamp. Abruptly, the wood dips inward at an awkward angle, and that’s when he feels another face.

  It’s similar yet different to the one he saw previously drawn into the wall. This one is hideous. Though the contours remain eerily the same, a touch of splintered woodgrain has him imagining teeth. Rows upon rows of them from how deeply he feels the gashes in the surface and sharper and sharper they become, enough to cut steel. They are like razors brushing his palms as he runs them down the length of the shelf, and suddenly, he feels a prick on his finger.

      At that moment, the lights come back on.

  Narrowing his eyes at the sudden brightness, his vision comes to focus on the tiny speck of blood blooming on his thumb. He watches closely as it grows, streams down his palm, and finishes by splattering silently on the floor. And just as quickly as his focus had left him, it centers back to an antique displayed dully on a glass shelf. Picking it up, he walks toward the counter - a high table at the back, seemingly as rickety as the planks beneath his feet. 

  Slipping a bill out from his jacket pocket, he carefully places it on the polished surface, along with some coins, and heads back towards the door.

  Just as he’s leaving though, he thinks he sees a white, skeletal hand drawing the curtains to the back room open ever so slightly - to reveal a pair of large black holes tracking his every move.

*

  The night air is cool, crisp, full of the sweet scent of Hallowe’en candy.  Doors open, happy smiles are exchanged, and children skip down the block eagerly, excited for their next sugar fix. The festival is at its peak, alight with eerie lanterns and spooky decorations as the townsfolk cheerily participate in games set up in the square and kids continue their merry trick-or-treating.

  And that’s when they begin to twitch. They contort horrifically, their fragile limbs seeming to snap in every direction as their mouths hang agape in pure torment. Their eyes scrunch in pain as their jaws lock in a silent scream, and as one they fall to the ground. As one they writhe and flail their spidery arms and legs. As one their hollow, sunken eyes glaze over. And as one they stop moving, dead.

  The boy slowly looks around at the carnage now surrounding him and pulls out his newly purchased antique. It is a mirror; his mirror, and at the bottom his name is spelled. As he gazes into the glass, a grin promptly splits his face - revealing a twisted reflection of the boy he had pretended to be. Hollow cheekbones; pale, translucent skin stretched taut on his face; long, greasy black hair framing his lipless mouth full of rows and rows of pointy teeth he knows could cut steel. And finally, empty, soulless obsidian eyes.

  Suddenly, his too long body begins to twist and shrink into something more innocent - a little girl. And just as before, a leisurely, macabre smile extends across her too large mouth when she remarks the remnants of the chaos.

  And so the child walks away, leaving only death in her wake. Candles snuff out as a phantom breeze blows through the still town like a ghostly caress, smothering the light in shadows wholly unpredictable. Nothing moves. Nothing breathes. Only the trace of a nightmare, reflected back at her no matter where she had gone, is what is left of the townsfolk who had faced her all night long. The Harbinger.