Face Eaters of Chicago

It’s been 958 days since the Face Eaters arrived in Chicago, and I was pretty sure one was behind me. A hulking black shadow—half spectral, half… alien? I didn’t even know what to call them except for ugly and terrifying.

The first rule of surviving the Face Eaters: make sure they didn’t know you could see them.

The second rule was to run fast.

The third rule was to find a door.

The initial week they arrived, it had been absolute carnage, and for some reason, no one else could see them the way I could. They ignored me. People were taken by surprise after their spawn into the city, as a trail of faceless bodies sprawled on the streets, strewn about with only a smooth curve of nothing where their features had been. Then, we learned to stay inside. Shut your doors. And if a friend came knocking, be sure to ask a question only they would know.

No one left their homes for a month after their arrival.

See, the Face Eaters steal your face—your body. Some of the bastards even delighted in carrying them like trophies, floating inside their dark spectral forms as masks from each victim. The more faces they consumed, the larger their shadow, and the more bodies they could disguise themselves in.

The one behind me had to have eaten over twenty people with how the lamp posts darkened in its presence. It stretched high enough that I couldn’t see anyone else on the sidewalk behind me when I checked—and I wasn’t about to check again. Not until I rounded the corner ahead at least. I could trust my instincts instead, since they were firing on all cylinders. Goosebumps fleshed on my arms any time one was near. A white dot blinking on my watch showed, yes, indeed, one of those fuckers was tailing me.

Everyone in the city knew to stay indoors when the sun hit the horizon since it was their feeding time. They couldn't feed a second before sunset for some reason no one had figured out yet. They vanished throughout the day when the sun was highest in the sky, and Chicago awakened. The energy of the city was half as active as it had been (for obvious reasons), but the bustle of life continued. I did briefly hear whispers of a rogue gang of civilians that had tried miserably to take down the Face Eaters some months after their arrival. My friend Jeanie told me they tried to trap a group of them on a Red Line train car. It backfired. The beautiful Chicago spirit, squashed like a bug on the L tracks.

I’d thought about joining them. Maybe help contribute to what remained of society, until I’d heard the noise the Face Eaters make when they’re about to feed. A sharp snap of ligaments tearing apart.

And any human caught walking out alone past sundown was either stupid or one of them.

Thankfully, I was just stupid, with a sick sister at home who desperately needed her insulin—because yes, the apocalypse apparently halts for no mere mortal, and diabetes continued to be a pain in the ass.

We’d been rationing our stores of insulin for too long, skimping on doses, and when Eve’s face had paled to a sickly gray this morning, though she argued she was fine, I’d called her a terrible liar.

Which meant that I had to race out of the apartment so she could at least get her evening dose. A real one.

Jeanie and I had made a plan to get to the pharmacy as fast as we could. The pharmacist warned us on the phone we’d be cutting it close, and she’d been right.

Jeanie and I knew each other as acquaintances from the classes we both took together at a massage school downtown, but the Face Eaters had a weird way of bringing people together. We kept busy the last 955 days by completing small errands for our terrified neighbors—especially the elderly. Mr. Sharp up in Andersonville. Seventy-four year old Betty Neuliep, right around the corner from our place in River North. The terrified Ms. Partridge who always made us extra muffins in exchange for the delivery, along with cash.

It was normal routine for us to meet up, grab food or medications and toiletries for them, drop everything off, and head home before sunset.

We ran into each other one morning downtown around day 3, and instantly bonded over the chaos--you know, the trauma of still being alive at the end of the world. After Mom died, Jeanie made sure my sister, Eve, and I were taken care of. She brought us groceries, cleaned the entire apartment, and even cooked us dinner a few nights in a row. I actually couldn't get her to leave the damn apartment for the first week--partially because of the fact I just didn't have the energy to do anything but lie in my bed and stare at the wall.

Most days the grief felt endless.

And Jeanie knew that. She'd always been more intuitive than me. More in tune with Eve, too. One of the nights after Mom died, I found them cuddled up on the couch, underneath one of our old crocheted blankets, mouths open in a deep sleep.

I was sure she loved Eve as much as I did.

We'd been inseparable ever since, even if her snort-laughs were absolutely atrocious.

She lived only a couple of streets over from me, so we split at our normal spot tonight at the riverwalk.

But this was cutting it too close for comfort—even for me. Sunset was 7:27PM, and you didn’t want to be caught out a second after.

7:08PM flashed on my watch face, right next to that persistent, blinking white dot.

I adjusted the hood of my jacket tighter around my head. Most of the Face Eaters ignored me, unless I smelled like another person, and after helping Eve back into bed this morning, I knew I must be drenched in her scent.

Which meant I could no longer move through this city unseen, like I normally did.

Each footstep sounded too loud—not even the birds were squawking like usual as I hurried down Michigan Avenue past an old Nike store.

The streetlights continued to turn with no cars around. And walk signs be damned—I never obeyed them before, and I wasn’t about to start now. Not when the sun was nearly touching the horizon.

I dared a glance over my shoulder to see the shadowed form had kept its pace, only twenty feet behind me. It wouldn’t try to follow me into the building, would it?

I sprinted.

My body hurled towards the apartment’s revolving doors, and I barreled into the nearest stairwell. I was not about to share an elevator with that thing.

My footsteps echoed through the stairwell as I landed on the second floor, then the third.

I peeked over the railing.

A black, floating mass of faces had already started its ascent towards me. The emergency lights of the stairwell dampened, enveloped by darkness.

Shit. I forgot to close the door to the stairs.

Every muscle in my legs erupted in flames as I continued up to the fourth floor, then the fifth, my chest heaving by the time I burst onto our apartment floor and sprinted towards the door.

I fumbled with the keys in my hands, and dropped them just as the metal door to the stairs closed with a slow creak, and the Face Eater slipped through the final crack, its mass pouring into the hallway.

I grabbed the keys from the floor and jammed the right one into the lock, twisting, opening, and slamming the door shut with a hard grunt.

I turned every lock, and backed away, chest heaving.

The only good news about those damned things was that they couldn’t enter unless they were in their physical, bodied form. As a specter, they were unable to manipulate the physical world, so any building with a door became a fortress—except I'd just messed that up twice. But unless it planned on changing into its physical form and banging on my door all night—which, hey, that beats death by face-eating—we would be fine. Probably.

My breathing finally steadied, and I headed to the back bedroom clutching the pharmacy bag.

“Took you long enough,” Eve said from underneath the cream duvet. “It’s practically sunset! What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking,” I started, “that if one of us dies, I’d rather it be me. Preferably going out in a blaze of glory, rather than you rotting from your immune system and pancreas.”

I tossed the bag on the bed.

Eve stuck out her tongue. “Well, we’re both dead if you die. So, cut the theatrics next time, alright? Did Jeanie get home okay?”

“She’ll text me when she does like always. I’m sure she’s fine. Want some dinner?”

“Yep, but only if you promise you won’t burn the chicken again.”

I gaped. “That was one time. Mom never got around to showing me how to cook chicken, you know. I can make a mean Chef Boyardee, though. Straight out of the can!”

Mom had been dead for 850 days. She had her face stolen one night when she was caught out after sunset. Nobody knows the exact location, but when she showed up at our door the next day, unable to answer our predetermined questions, I’d almost sobbed myself to death in the shower so Eve couldn’t hear.

Eve threw a pillow at my head—which thankfully missed. “Go. You’re being annoying today. And thank you for risking your life for my pancreas.”

“You’re welcome. One burnt chicken, coming right up!”

She groaned as I turned out of the room and headed straight for the peephole in the front door.

A never-ending darkness of floating faces nearly filled up the entire view. One of the faces in its spectral form floated forward, stuck in a silent scream.

I recognized that face. The small nose, the dark brown eyes. It was my neighbor Angelica.

Dammit. We hadn't seen her in a few days but no one expected she was eaten.

And it seemed like the cursed thing wouldn’t shift into its physical form to knock—which meant it knew we’d need to come out eventually. I wonder if that's how it got Ang.

A shiver racked down my spine.

I turned from the door, and a buzz vibrated from my phone.

7:21PM. Jeanie.

I clicked answer. “Hey! Did you make it home okay?”

But from the other end of the phone, wind whipped through the mic. Jeanie was huffing air, the sound of frantic footsteps running. A mix of static and wind distorted her words. “I’m—going—make it home. My—. I—keys.”

I plugged a finger into my free ear so I could hear better. “You’re what? You made it home?”

“No!” She yelled. “I’m not—to make it home! I’m around the corner, coming into—building now.”

My pulse sped up. “No! Jeanie, no. Do not come up here! It’s not safe!”

“What? I—the service in your building—up—”

7:22PM. CALL FAILED.

“Is everything okay?” Eve yelled from the back bedroom.

I sucked in a deep breath. “Everything is fine.” I paused, weighing my options. “Shut the door and do not come out unless I tell you. Do you remember our questions?”

“Lou, what are you doing?”

I nearly screamed, “I said shut the door and do not come out! Do. You. Hear. Me?”

A moment later, the door to her bedroom clicked shut.

I steeled myself—this was my girl. My best friend who helped me survive this nightmare. The least I could do is yank her into my apartment before that thing had time to change its form, or slip in here…

Right?

Would that put Eve at risk too though?

I didn’t know how long it took them to change forms. And I didn’t know if it was still out there.

I lifted my watch.

7:26PM. One blinking white dot in the hallway.

I shook out my hands, rolled my neck, and undid the top lock on the door with a clunk.

And undid the next.

And the next.

My fingers brushed the cold hardware of the last lock.

The stairwell door creaked open--a familiar sound--followed by sprinting footsteps down the hall, and then panicked knocks pounded against the wood.

“Lou! Louisa, it’s me. It’s Jeanie. Let me in! Please! Your middle name is Patrice, your mom is—“

A sharp noise, like ligaments snapping, made me drop my hand with a start from the final lock.

I sank down against the door, my hands covering my face as Jeanie’s cries and pleads sounded from the hallway.

And then stopped.