#but i finally got around to pollishing it up a bit

[fastidious-and-a-mess]

Empty.

I see them everywhere. Everywhere, all the time, every day. They follow me, I think. I don't know what for, but I don't dare to contemplate their reasoning, or else my mind will wander to places of such horrors I think it might drive me mad, if I'm not mad already. I saw the first one exactly 17 days ago, I’ve been keeping a careful count. It was the same day, maybe even within the hour, I can’t quite recall, that I received the notice letter.

It was pinned to the front door of the house I’d been renting for nearly a year. My rent had been missed one too many times and I was no longer allowed to stay. I begged and pleaded and tried to reason as much as I could, the shop wasn’t doing well, they couldn’t get people their paychecks on time, if I could just have one more week, but it wasn’t enough. They gave me three days to remove all of my belongings from the house. “Where to?” I tried to make them understand. “I have nowhere else.” They told me that was not their concern, I needed my things out by Thursday or they’d fine me, so I had no choice. 

I called Allison, my daughter, and I asked her for help. Ever since She had gone off the college so many years ago, she had no issue expressing her disappointment in me as a father, and it hurt. She never really approved of me or my choices, called my art awful and ugly, told me it would never sell. And she was right. I was never well-off enough to support myself, and I relied on her help more than I’d like to admit. When I called her, asking her to let me move into her house, she was understandably reluctant. I begged and reasoned with her the same as with the landlords. Eventually, though, she gave in. She didn't understand my position or sympathize with me, she simply gave in to my pleading. 

It was when I was loading the boxes full of my few belongings into her car that Wednesday when I saw it.

It was standing behind a tree in the forest across the street, a figure, it looked like a man. It wore a black pinstripe suit and brown loafers. Something appeared off about it, but I could not recognize it at first, as the trees shadowed it from view. I found it somewhat unsettling, that a man I believed I did not know would be staring at me, not moving at all or making any sound, just standing. Soon enough though, my attention was drawn elsewhere when Allison called to me from the house and I quickly forgot about the off-putting encounter.

The next time I saw them was two days later. It was already dark outside, a result of the changing seasons. Allison was still out at work and would not be home for a few hours more, so all that were in the house were me and Allison’s cat. She works for a successful businessman as the manager of his accounting branch. I was always proud of her for that, she had found a way to make a living that made her happy. I think I'm lying to myself when I say I don't envy her for that.

Anyways, I was alone with her cat and I had just finished dinner. I was putting my dishes in the sink when I glanced through the window that spanned above the counter looking into the backyard, and I froze. There they were, two of them this time. I suddenly remembered the creepy moments from the other day as I realized that one of them was the same man from the forest. Except, now that I had a clear view with the light from the house and surrounding houses, I could see that it was not a man at all, and neither was the figure next to it. They were dressed the same way, with fedora hats now, staring directly towards me. If staring was even the right word for it, for they had no eyes. No faces at all. I realized this is what must have been so off-putting about the man from before. I tried to brush it off as teenagers pulling some mean prank, but it seemed to me too real to be masks. “Just the lighting, of course they’re masks,” I told myself, but I was unconvinced. 

It continued like this for a few more days, I would see them wherever I was, at least one, usually more. Allison never believed me, I believe she simply thought it was the consequences of being an old man, dementia or paranoia setting in, or both Or maybe she thought I was just going mad, I wouldn’t blame her either way. The first few days I ignored them, tried convincing myself it was a prank, that they’d give up as soon as they realized they wouldn’t get the reaction from me they were looking for. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me, I told myself, and I was starting to buy into the “paranoia of an old man” belief Allison harbored myself, but I just couldn’t completely convince myself. Eventually though, I decided I had had enough. I gave up on the theories, the more I saw them, the more real they became. About a week after seeing them I decided to go to the police. Allison tried to talk me out of it.

“They’ll never listen to you,” she said, “they’ll just tell you you’re seeing things and send you off. And they’re right, Dad. They don’t have faces, they aren’t real! Please, I really don’t want to have to deal with bringing the police into this.”

She was right again, of course, but I didn’t listen to her. I just couldn’t bear it any longer. So the next day, exactly one week after the first time I saw one of those things, I went to the police. The receptionist, one Dorothy Riggs according to a pin on her chest, didn't take me very seriously, but she put me through to an appointment with a man named Officer Palmer. "He'll get a kick out of this," I heard her mumble to herself when she sent me down the hall, and she took a long drag from the cigarette dangled loosely between her fingers.

I knocked on the open door frame of the room down the hall to which Ms. Riggs had directed me, "Excuse me? Is this Officer Palmer's office?" 

"Yes sir, it is. You're speaking to him now," a tall man with broad shoulders and a face that has seen age but chosen to ignore it was standing in the room, flipping through some papers. His graying blond hair was cut crisply and a goofy smile sat upon his stern jaw. "What can I do ya for?"

"I'm being followed," I began, careful to not lead too strongly and drive him off. 

"Well now, isn't that exciting? Can you tell me what he looks like?"

"They, actually, it's a group of them. They all wear the same clothes, like out of a detective movie from the 50s, with suits and loafers and even the hats."

"That doesn't really help me here, sir. I can’t do anything with clothes, give me something useful. What are their faces like? Body types, hair cuts, stuff like that." He sat in his chair and pulled a new file folder out of his desk and began filling out the various documents it contained. "I never got your name."

"Smith, sir. Roger Smith."

"Thank you, Roger. Now, their faces."

"Well, uh, that is the thing," a sense of dread washed over me as I tried to recall exactly what the things looked like, something seemed to be keeling my mind from putting together the whole memory, and it frightened me to my core. "They didn't have any."

"Excuse me? No faces?" I could tell I was losing him, I had to make him believe me, I had to get him to help. 

"Yes sir, no faces."

"Ok, Roger. I'm going to need you to quit wasting my time here. If you're lying to me, you better come clean right now or I'm kicking you out of my office. I have better things to do." His tone changed quickly, from lax and humourous to something much more stern and unforgiving. 

"No, Officer, please, I'm telling you the truth. People without faces are following me and I don't know who they are or what they want. Please, sir, help me," I pleaded.

"I don't have time for this. Get out," he stood up, tossed my file into the garbage basket, and started towards me to lead me out of the room back into the hallway. 

"But pl-"

"Nope. I have more important things to deal with than a paranoid old man. Get out of my office."

With that, he kicked me out and I left the station, back at square one, still totally helpless and alone.

Across the street, much to my distress, stood the largest group of those things I've ever seen, ten or fifteen at least. It filled me with such a sensation of horror and helplessness that I had never felt before in my long life. I knew something was coming, something very bad, and there was nothing I could do about it. 

That catches us up to now, as I'm sitting in Allison's living room recounting the story to myself alone while Allison is once again working late, and I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm not losing my sanity. I look out the back door, made of sliding glass, where I saw the pair of them only a few days ago. It feels like eons. The dusk is starting to set in, so I can't see clearly, but I know there's something moving in the darkness of my daughter's backyard. The only light on now is a small table lamp on the end table, casting blackness into the corners of the room and leaving the yard abandoned by the light. I hope whatever is out there is her cat, but I fear the worst. As it comes into the small amount of light trickling from the house, I realize it's not one thing, but a group of those faceless creatures so much larger than I've ever seen. I've never seen them moving before either, just standing, unnaturally still, and the sight of their movement is something so horrid I can barely stand it. They move with such an artificial stance, so unnatural and void of life, I could hardly even process it. The fear paralyzes me. They keep coming, there are so many, oh my god there are so many. And they don't stop walking. 

They don't stop, keep walking, all the way to the door. They don't stop there either, no, they start pounding. Pounding so loudly on the door, so hard, it begins to crack, and I feel my very soul crack with it. Overwhelming terror fills me up to the brim and I know. I know now. I know what they want. It's me. They want me and there is nothing I can do about it. 

The door shatters and they pour into the living room, some of them stumbling over each other or falling flat, all of them clambering towards me. Their movement is hasty now, erratic. I scream, loud and hoarse, but there's no one around to hear, or care. 

They're coming closer now, only a few feet of time left in my life, I know, then it will all be over.

And I am powerless to stop it. 

They're right in front of me now, reaching out with white and pale and almost plastic looking hands, reaching towards my face. 

Only a few inches left. 

And now they're on me. I can feel their hands, their skin is cold and the contact is empty.

Oh god, they're all over.

Their hands cover my face and I feel myself becoming empty. Everything fades to black, first my vision, and then my very soul, my life, until there is nothing left. 

I scream again, but there is no one and nothing but the empty.