No Face

It's the middle of the night, and I hear a noise outside. It's not loud enough to identify, just loud enough to wake me. I sit up and look around, but my husband is still sleeping.

I get out of bed and peek out of the window. Nothing looks out of the ordinary.

I go out into the hallway and stand in front of my son's bedroom door.

Silence.

I carefully crack it open, not wanting to wake him in the middle of the night. He's sleeping soundly. He's thrown the covers off, and he's curled up for warmth, so I pull the blanket up over him. He relaxes. I look around the room, in the closet... nothing.

Maybe I didn't hear a noise. Maybe it was just a dream.

Just in case, I quietly sneak down the stairs, looking around the corner into the living room to see if anyone is there. The room is quiet and unoccupied. Even the air conditioner is not on.
I tiptoe into the kitchen, checking out the bathroom on the way by. No one is there in either room. Upon opening the door and looking, I also find the utility closet unoccupied.

I hear the floor pop quietly over my head, and realize I never looked in the upstairs bathroom.

Quickly but quietly, I rush up the stairs, turn, and reach around the door frame to turn on the bathroom light. The room is unoccupied.

I am now so creeped out that I look behind the door, even though there is not room for anyone to be there, and behind the shower curtain, even though it is translucent and if someone were there, the shape of a body would be visible through it.

Satisfied that there was no burglar waiting in the bathroom, I turn to head back to the bedroom.

Instead, I catch my reflection in the weirdly positioned mirrors over the sink. One is on one wall, and the other is on the perpendicular wall. There is about a 3 inch space between each mirror and the corner. This creates a strange effect between the mirrors, wherein if you are standing in the wrong place, just the outside of your head is reflected. The mirrors are just close enough together to make that appear really creepy, as if a faceless copy of yourself lurks behind the glass. I always move, so that I can see a normal reflection.

I move, and the reflection that moves with me is not normal. It has no eyebrows, eyes, nose, or mouth. There is just a forehead, and a chin, and blank flesh in between, framed by a long, stringy copy of my hair.

I get goosebumps on my arms. I just know this thing is going to come out of the mirror and get me.

I back toward the door. The reflection advances, instead. I bump into the door, and jump, startled, and my hands fly up in front of my chest. The thing in the mirror jumps, too, and its hands also fly up. They look just like my hands, even down to having my rings, except that my fingernails are short and clean, and these hands have long, ragged, claw-like fingernails with grime on them like it's been using it's hands to tunnel through dirt.

The faceless thing's hand reaches toward me. When it gets to the mirror, there is a scratching sound, like a tree branch scraping a window. The fingernails tap on the glass. I can barely breathe. Maybe it's trapped in there.

No such luck . The thing pushes lightly, and a hairline fracture crisscrosses the reflection side of the glass. The monster is going to break through.

Regaining my mind, I step out of the bathroom and slam the door shut, planning to wake my husband and grab a weapon to fight this thing. Instead, I immediately have to fight to keep the door from opening back up. There was nothing in the bathroom when I ran, but now something is pulling the door from that side. Each time it cracks open, I can see that the monster is further out of the mirror.

I need to grab something, now... but nothing is within reach. I try to scream for my husband. All I can manage is a squeak . I have to give up on the door. I pound open the bedroom door, intending to grab the first thing I find, but then the faceless monster comes out of the bathroom and heads for my son's room.

NO!

I'm terrified, but I can't let this thing hurt my baby. I grab at the back of the monster's head, and get a fistful of hair. Pulling, I slam it into the door behind me. It lets out a muffled squeal, and I momentarily wonder how it's doing that with no mouth or nose.

Oddly, I can still hear my husband snoring. The noise hasn't awakened him.

The thing lashes wildly back at me with one arm, hitting me right in the face and knocking me down. It's really strong. It jumps over me and heads for my son's room again. I grab at its copy of my shirt. The shirt rips and comes off, revealing a back as featureless as the face, unlike my freckled skin. You can hardly even tell where the shoulder blades are.

I grab at the shoulder, dig my fingers into the skin, and shove the creature down. It falls to the floor, facing away from the room. Its hand shoots forward and grabs my ankle, fingernails digging in like teeth. I raise my other foot and slam my heel down on its faceless head, and I hear another muffled squeal. It lets go of my ankle and claws the foot on top of its head, as I put my full weight on that foot to step over it.

I hear crunching noises and a muffled scream, and my foot sinks a bit as I transfer my weight to the thing's head, then I am on the other side of it. I turn and kick it in the ribs, only to find that it has none. My foot sinks into the soft flesh of its torso.

The creature scuttles away from me on all fours, heading back toward the bathroom. For a moment I think it's running away, but then it launches at me like a runner starting out of the blocks. I brace myself, for the impact, but it still manages to shove me against the frame of my son's bedroom door.

I shove back, pushing the monster away from me. It stumbles backwards and falls down the stairs. The motion is weird, like a beanbag flopping over and over until it reaches the bottom. At some point, even the pajama pants have disappeared, and I can see bruising all over the pasty, pale skin. Slowly, the creature begins to crawl back up the stairs on its hands and feet, with its body arched like a cat and it's un-face turned to me. There are big, splotchy bruises all over it, and areas on the head are cut and bleeding.

At this point, I realize the scariest thing about this creature is that it has no face. I mean, its claw-shaped fingernails are nasty, and it's pretty strong, but except for not having a face, it isn't any scarier than a burglar. Everything in my entire being wants to turn and run away because it's creepy, but I know if I don't fight, it's going to get my son, so instead I close his door behind me and brace myself for battle.

When the monster gets close to the top of the stairs, I kick it in the un-face. It grabs at my ankle, misses, and goes sliding back down the stairs. Slowly, it begins climbing again. I kick it again, and it falls again. This time, it takes a different tactic, and climbs up the wall. It begins ascending across the sloping ceiling above the stairs. Now, I can't reach it. I'm sure it's planning on crawling into my son's room that way, where it will drop on him from above.

Now, it's scarier than a burglar again. It can defy gravity. It's some kind of a faceless, supernatural monster. I don't know what it will do to my son, but it feels like it's going to be something awful. I rush to his room before the thing can get there, but how am I going to stop this thing? Then, I remember my walking sticks. They're long and wooden. I can reach it with them, even if it is on the ceiling. They are at the bottom of the stairs. I have to hurry.

I run down the stairs, ducking as the monster takes a swipe at me as I pass. Right afterward, I wish I'd grabbed the hand instead, but it's too late. I reach the bottom, grab one of the sticks, and run back up until I reach the monster. It's right in front of my son's door, climbing down far enough to reach for the handle. I whack it in the head with my walking stick .

There's a mushy, cracking sound, and the stick opens a gash along the side of the head. The hair falls off like a wig. The monster falls with a muffled scream, and I stomp the hand nearest me. It tries to get up on its knees, and I bring the stick down on it again, knocking it back to the floor.

Over and over, the stick falls on that pasty, featureless skin with repeated sick, squishy thuds. As I continue battering the monster, I step over it to get between it and the door again, and begin kicking it toward the bathroom.

I know I've won when it covers its bleeding head with its hands. It crawls away from me, and I let it go, ready to strike again if it makes another attempt to get to my son.

I chase the monster into the bathroom, where it returns to the mirror, crawling back into it with pained, jerky movements. Once the last of it goes through the glass, I take my stick and break both panes. I'm not having this thing come back.

Turning to go get a broom, I hear laughter, and I notice that my reflection in the handle of the door has no face. I realize that it can come back any time.

The terror of knowing that strikes me right in the chest.

I have to admit, after dreaming this, I had to get up and go check on my son. On the way back, I had to check out the bathroom, and make sure the door was kept closed.
Ugh! Those mirrors totally creeps me out!