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YOU’D BETTER SMILE WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE A FACE

New York City

Shalaya Copeland had a definite strategy for moving through the city. She set the volume on her music low so she could hear something if she really had to, but when some fool yelled out, “Damn, girl, you got a walk,” she just kept moving like she didn’t hear it. The kind of music Shalaya listened to kept her moving fast too. Not running and not shuffling, because running made you a target, and slowing down was an invitation for people to pitch something or grab something or beg for something. Some tourist might even try to be friendly.

So, it took a while for Shalaya to notice the man without a face. New York City was full of faceless people after all; they just usually had noses and ears and mouths. But Shalaya was a dental hygienist and spent enough time looking at mouths and noses anyway, especially during allergy seasons. It was why Shalaya liked to walk outside during her lunch break. She had grown up in a house full of yelling and got tired standing around in one place getting fat and old and talking about TV shows just to be saying something. The white boy from UPS who was always trying to get her to talk to him called her an introvert.

“Better than being a pervert,” Shalaya had shot back.

“You sure about that?” he’d asked with a slow smile that wasn’t too bad, but Shalaya just kept walking. He made those tight brown shorts look good, but Shalaya knew a dog when she saw one. And that dog got a lot of bones. She’d rather go home and snuggle up to her circulating fan and some Japanese cartoons until she met somebody real.

What was all that noise up ahead? It took a while to get through because Shalaya was listening to some Colonel Loud song about California and mostly feeling it. But the noise was loud and growing louder.

Shalaya almost stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, but it was lunch hour. She was in the heart of the city, and people got nasty if you clogged up its arteries. Shalaya moved to the side and put her back against the window of a beauty parlor. Up ahead of her, the sidewalk crowd was parting in a weird way, like it was giving birth. But what emerged wasn’t any baby. Some man without a face was walking in Shalaya’s direction, people scrambling to get out of his way. He wasn’t lurching or anything. He was wearing a pretty sharp suit and carrying a briefcase like there was nothing unusual going on. Shalaya didn’t see as many briefcases now that everybody was keeping their business up in a clou—WHY DIDN’T HE HAVE A FACE?!?

Shalaya wasn’t the only one trying to figure that out. Other people with the same question were crowding around her. Some shaggy guy who looked like a grown-ass narc trying to go undercover in a high school was leaning against her patch of wall, talking loudly though Shalaya didn’t know who the fool was talking to. The phone he was holding up was dead. “It’s gotta be some kind of advertising stunt.”

Some tourists—two well-fed retirees in white baseball caps and sunglasses—turned around with those “Gosh, isn’t New York somethin’?” looks on their faces. “Advertising what?” the woman asked. She was having trouble with her phone too.

“Maybe there’s a new Magritte exhibit at the Met,” the know-it-all replied. Shalaya almost told him that the picture he was thinking of wasn’t faceless, that the painting was of a guy hiding behind an apple, just to let him know that everybody wasn’t as stupid as he was acting. But other voices began chiming in as the faceless guy got closer.

“…latex …”

“…gonna get sued …”

“…creepy …”

“…no signal …”

Finally, the faceless guy walked past, but the opening he left behind filled up with rushing crowd before Shalaya could shoulder her way through the clot of people around her and make a move. And she wanted to move. If it was some kind of publicity stunt, Shalaya didn’t want anything to do with it. And if it wasn’t a publicity stunt … she really didn’t want anything to do with it. Probably was a publicity stunt, though. Some new horror movie or protest group or fools trying to go all viral.

The sound of car horns was getting louder, and when she took her eyes off Mr. Faceless, Shalaya saw why. A traffic light was flickering on and off, and the cars weren’t playing nice while they tried to work out who went through the intersection next. And that was just too much weirdness right there. Shalaya started angling her body to go back to the subway and saw some big white guy with receding hair in a T-shirt and shorts making his way toward the freak, yelling angrily.

Despite herself, Shalaya settled back against the window.

The faceless man wasn’t slowing down, and the beefy loudmouth—you could tell it just by listening and looking at him—grabbed the faceless man by the shoulder and spun him around. What happened next made every part of Shalaya’s body weak at once, like she was going to just collapse into a puddle. The faceless man’s head cracked open, like one of those plastic eggs that people put jelly beans in for Easter baskets. A pale seam appeared where a mouth ought to be, and then the whole head tilted back and revealed teeth way longer and sharper than any set of teeth had a right. A crazy long tongue was flicking around in that mouth like a snake.

The beefy guy backed away, but it was too late. The freak didn’t even slow down. It reached out casually and made a swiping motion like it was parting a beaded curtain, only the nails it had been keeping clenched in a fist were extended now. The loud-mouthed guy reeled away screaming. His face was covered in blood. He reached up and wiped at the blood with his palm, and it was like he was wiping a chalkboard clean. The blood was smearing and disappearing, and so were his eyes and nose. Other people were yelling too, but Shalaya barely heard them. She had managed to clear herself an opening, and Shalaya turned and staggered away on legs that suddenly felt like stilts. Lurched like a stork until she got her balance and didn’t look back. Shalaya just kept on walking.