Prologue
Two brothers stood together in a graveyard that had become home to both their parents. The boys were mournful but no longer grieving their loss, both of the men had been coming to this grave for eighteen years. Sean and Devin had been orphaned in a house fire when they were young. Devin had been six, just old enough to still remember his parents. Sean barely remembered being led out of a burning house by his brother at the age of four.
To Sean his only parent was his Aunt Paula, she was the only woman that he could remember raising him.Devin, on the other hand, had been known to look at the picture of his mother that hung in Paula’s front hallway. Devin did miss his parents but as time has gone on the sharp pain has become a dull ache that is felt once a year as he stands by his brother in a cemetery.
The tall thin man, that watches from within the trees, is no relative. His presence screams malice and forces fear into the bravest of hearts. This creature could be doing something much worse to the clueless young men standing a short distance away, but he has resolved to just standing there, watching them. He has been watching them for years, soon it will be time for action once again. Sean, the little brother, does not remember this man from the tragic day his parents died in that fire, but Devin has him seared into his memory.
Two little boys played upstairs with toy trucks, their voices mixed with the sports program and cooking as all of the sounds drifted down into the cellar through the vents. The thin man from the cemetery stood in the dark, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. As he stood the room started to smell heavily of propane gas. Before the smell could drift upstairs through the various cracks and vents, a spark ignited the whole lower floor into an inferno.Fire shot through the vents and licked out from under the basement door, quickly working to consume the home above. The thin man was not affected by the flames, even as they danced on his arms and snapped across his face. He walked through them with calm strides and then started up the steps. With each step the man took the fore grew. Screams were heard as he set one black shoe clad foot on the middle step. If he could have smiled, he would have. His face was void of features, save for two shallow depressions where eyes should have been. The rest of the bleached white skin was a coating of twisted and knotted scars.
Though he held no eyes of his own, he could still see. Already he could see what was happening behind every closed door in the house he was intruding in. He wasn’t imagining what was going on, he knew. He could feel every movement, see the shadows as they stirred. The boys were stunned mute by the flames that climbed up their wall and devoured their curtains with roaring appreciation. Their mother had dropped the mixing bowl that held the basic ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, flour, sugar, salt and egg splashed across the floor and the cabinets as the woman shrieked at the flames licking the floor. Dear old dad was closest to him, the middle aged man had started to get up to fetch the boys. The creature on the steps absolutely could not have that. That old man was not going to ruin his game with the children. One moment he was in the basement on the steps, the next it was standing in the corridor blocking the father’s way from his still stunned kids. Though he had no mouth, he could still laugh at the horrified face of the man he was looking down upon. This was such fun!
This man was no man, not even close, one look at the head that had no face would be proof enough of that. The still laughing faceless creature grew rapidly with the sound of popping joints and ripping flesh from bone until he was twelve feet tall and scrunched over in the hallway. His blank face observed the terrified man from inches away. Slowly he lifted his hand as the male was about to gather the courage to scream. When the father opened his mouth to shriek four slender fingers shot into his mouth and slipped down his throat. The monster wiggled his fingers inside the man’s throat, he was smiling on the inside, With the now muffled sound of cracking he elongated his fingers in order to fit them farther down this struggling man’s throat. The digits continued to elongate until he felt a rapidly throbbing organ near his fingertips. Thrusting his hand farther into the warm blood slickened body of the man he closed four fingers around a heart and pulled it out of the man’s chest cavity, up through his throat, and out of his mouth. The creature watched as the man saw his own beating heart before passing away with wide terrified eyes. Another laugh came from the inhuman killer as he dropped the heart onto the tan carpeting.
The sound of crunching and leather folding accompanied the thing shrinking back to the size of a normal man. It took six long strides and opened the door to the boy’s bedroom. He held out a blood covered hand to the older boy, crimson fluid drying quickly with the heat of the flames. Devin took hold of the offered hand as well as grabbing his little brother whom was still fixated on the burning curtains. The thing led the boys out of the house and into the yard where neighbors were starting to appear. It left them when they were safe and went back into the house to find their mother. When he found her he took her and the body of her husband and vanished.
