Short Story - DEATH FACES

I was inspired by a beautiful piece of artwork on Instagram by my colleague Jeff Stokely. He is working on a project: THE SANDMAN UNIVERSE: DEAD BOY DETECTIVES, and when I saw this image, my brain went FZZT.

The mini-story I’ve written has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE COMIC BOOK SERIES, rather is was just inspired by this gorgeous image:

Without further ado…

DEATH FACES

Leslie wore his death face perfectly. He didn’t mind it. In fact, it pleased him. It was handsome. Special. Not everyone was lucky when it came to their shadow selves. Not everyone remained beautiful, like he did. Leslie’s key change was that his coloring inverted during his shift. His hair went from ebony black to stark white, as if the shock of his transformation had stolen all pigment away. The boy’s normal eyes, brown like hot tea, crystalized into a swirling, arctic blue. Whatever clothes he was wearing recast themselves, t-shirts becoming button-up suits and vice versa. Leslie's face remained the same, though, and that’s what really mattered. When the sky bloomed with the second moon and his doppelganger stole his body, people still knew who he was. Wide eyes, button nose, cherub cheeks.

He was Leslie.

He was Leslieshade.

It kept him a good boy.

Jaqueline, though, became completely other—the worst kind of death face possible. Her beauty faded to deep gray skin, like stormy clouds writhed over all her surfaces. Her lovely locks became oily strands that clung as if they were always wet, drawing ink stain lines across her cheeks. Her youthful flesh hollowed out, leaving her long bones visible and making her seem frail, even though she was anything but. She was unrecognizable. Terrifying. 

Doppelgangers like that only caused trouble. People did bad things when no one could tie their shadow self to their day self. Secret things. Shameful acts they’d never commit if the sun had burned their death face away and left them bare to the world. 

Even though he wasn’t supposed to, Leslie knew Jaqueline’s other face. Shifting is the most private thing in existence, but he’d happened upon hers. He’d watched her royal demeanor hunch and crackle, her bones realigning themselves while she let out high pitched whimpers, ones that sent icicle spiders skittering through his veins. 

Leslie knew he wasn’t supposed to watch, but maybe that’s why he did. And maybe it was that same voyeuristic curiosity that made him follow her shadow self as it slinked along back-alley walls.

Maybe yes, maybe no, but one thing was for sure. Leslie’s unforgivable prying that night did not go unpunished. Watching his stepmother, traipsing along in her black shadows, he saw it. He saw it so clearly it was burned like a brand into his blue/brown eyes. He heard it. The screams. The wrenching grunts. The popping squelches. The sensual sigh of pleasure and the last gulps of satisfaction. 

He’d never unsee it. He’d never unknow it.

Jaqueline’s doppelganger was the Waiting Wraith from the red-night newspapers…

The one who ate people’s eyes.