The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Game Night
by Elaine Pascale

“We go out and give him beer,” Pete Pavlovik said, “It’s a game to try and find him walking Rte. 351 in the dead of night.”

The officer nodded his head while taking note of Pete’s words. “And you call him no-face man?”

“Yes sir. He has no face, no face at all. He burned it off grabbing an electrical wire when he was a kid. No one did anything for him. They don’t around here. They figure it’s ‘God’s will’.”

“Besides you guys, who ‘play games’ with him, does he have any friends? Any family anyone knows of?”

“Nope. Not that I have heard about…I mean, he had parents…but they are long gone. He has no one but himself.”

“And his interactions with others have been…companionable?”

Pete scratched his head. “Sure. Sure. He’s a good guy. He has a sense of humor about it. People make a game of it. Another game involving him, I guess. They pick him up and drop him off some place new. He has no eyes so how would he find his way back? But he always does. He always finds his way back to that shack by the old water pipe.”

“And that pipe, do others go near that pipe?” the officer asked.

“No. Not even when we were kids. It smells real bad. Doesn’t bother no-face though. Lives right beside it.”

The officer scrolled through his notes. “So, you’re saying that the last time you saw him was three nights ago. You and your friends gave him some beer, which is something you normally do. He didn’t get in your car, you just drove away and left him with the beer, and you haven’t seen him since?”

“That’s right.”

“And you don’t know anyone who messes around with that pipe? No one talks about it in town or anything?”

“Nope…wait…are you saying…did you find him in that pipe? His body or something?”

“Nope.” The officer wiped his brow as if trying to wipe away a thought. “We did find a lot of faces, though…missing people…another game involving him, I guess.”

Fiction © Copyright Elaine Pascale
Image courtesy of Rie Sheridan Rose

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