Nameless Dark: A Collection, The [S.S. Col.] by Grau T.E

Author:Grau, T.E. [Grau, T.E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction
ISBN: 9781590214633
Publisher: Lethe Press
Published: 2015-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Mr. Lupus

A straight razor scraped across soapy flesh, taking with it stubborn gray whiskers and leaving behind a slug trail of scarlet. Blood shot to the surface and dotted the patch of new skin. It was thin and bright. Certain fluids quickened while the rest of the machine slowed.

“Blast,” the old man muttered, rinsing the blade under the faucet and holding a towel to his cheek. He fussed over the metal with his fingers, wiping off the blood and making sure it was sucked down the rusted drain in a spiral of water, taking it to God knows where, but hopefully far down river.

He blinked into the mirror as he worked, noticing the sag of his eyes that were once a dark, commanding brown but were now gauzy hazel, tinted with the jaundice of misspent age. His hair was wild, shooting sidewise in wisps of silvery white. A bird cackled strangely from the landing outside the bathroom window, and his mind drifted to thoughts of blood oranges and tropical flowers. The playful laughter of his wife as she reclined naked on a white chair set incongruously in the middle of a primal Malaysian jungle, unsullied by cartographers and the grim industrialists pulling their strings. How pale she looked amid all that exotic darkness, how like an untamed thing born out of the dripping milk of the moon. She was never like that, but here she was. Like that. And so was he. Naked. Savage. Adam and Eve, prancing through a hidden shard of unwritten Eden. They were to live forever there, together, before he lost her to the woods.

The man returned the cutting edge to his face and paused. He gazed at the entirety of his face, features he hadn’t recognized for decades, and then moved the blade to his neck, lining it up with dozens of light scars running across his throat. He paused there for what felt like a second lifetime.

He set down the razor on the sink top and the old man shuffled into the hall, twisting off the electric light as he left. Fluttering wings beat against the bathroom window.

In a stuffy bedroom that smelled just as it looked, he sat heavily on the bed indented on only one side of the mattress and pulled up bright green stockings over sagging calves. He felt ridiculous, as he always did this time of year. A clown hawking treasures to monsters. Pearls before little pink piglets. The man slipped into stiff spat boots, purchased new for the season, buttoned them up tight, and rose to his feet. He stretched out his arms inside the garish peddler’s frock and etched on a toothy smile. “Ta-da!”

Heavy heels clomped down the staircase, slowing as they made their way to the bottom. Casting aside a velvet drape, the old man emerged into a show room packed from floor to high ceiling with toys and novelties of every stripe, size, and level of handicraft. He moved through the store on the groove worn into the old floorboards, passing by hundreds of frozen eyes.

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