From deep within the folds of lengths of velour drapery that smelled of mothballs, the faceless man rose from his crouched and concealed position and pressed his face to the window. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen, wondered whether his eyes had deceived him. Squinting, he looked again to be sure and found that, to his delight, his original perception held true; Gabriel James had left Melissa Martin’s home.
Moments earlier, he had looked on in horror as Gabriel, accompanied by a man of short stature, had marched up Blackstone Drive and onto the Martin property. Terrified, he had watched, certain that Gabriel had returned to take Melissa away. If that had happened, he would never get to meet her, to become her friend. He had traveled so far, endured unspeakable hardships and experienced countless disappointments almost exclusively at the hands of human beings. All of his suffering would have been in vain had Gabriel taken Melissa from him. But he had not.
The faceless man smiled revealing his pointed teeth. The torment he’d withstood would at last be rewarded. He had withstood so much, persisted in the face of innumerable individuals who sought to hurt him. Procuring a home next to Melissa’s for surveillance purposes had been among the many ordeals he had braved to be near her, so close to friendship. He shivered as he remembered what he’d been through.
He had hidden in the wooded area behind the homes in Melissa’s neighborhood and watched, waiting to see whether a welcoming person stood out from the rest, someone who would invite him into their home and understand his objective though he could not explain it. But few people milled about in the evening and by day, the street was virtually deserted.
After two days of deliberating and wrestling with his overall distrust of all humans, the faceless man, about to give up, spotted an elderly woman stepping out of her home and onto her porch to retrieve her newspaper. Someone had callously thrown it in the bushes that hugged her entryway. He had watched as she toiled and labored to get down her steps and then strained to reach her paper. All the while, he had noticed how her kindly face never pursed in anger; she never shouted an explicative, just grunted softly. With a tuft of wooly, white hair perched atop her head, doughy skin that was deeply lined, she looked soft and gentle like a rumpled pillow, worn but wonderful. And her house bordered Melissa’s.
The elderly woman turned out to be a disappointment as all other had that he’d encountered. Her appearance was not representative of her personality. He had not been particularly shocked to find she was cruel.
He was shocked, however, when she first attacked him with a mop, and then a rolling pin. She swatted and whacked with speed that contradicted the network of creases that marked her skin. She had beaten him with vigor.
The faceless man had tried to calm her, make her see he did not intend to harm her, that he simply needed a place to rest and spy on her neighbor, but the inability to speak complicated matters. He’d had no choice but to shove her off of him; she simply would not stop hitting him.
He had learned many things since leaving Dr. Franklin Terzini’s laboratory. Among those many things, he had discovered that elderly people such as Melissa’s neighbor were brittle. They were brittle and mean.
Her meanness and brittleness had been her demise.
He felt a shiver pass through him once again as he recalled his interaction with the old woman, how she had been so unpleasant, so hurtful toward him. Tears began to threaten as he felt genuine pity for himself.
He fought back his sadness, refused to shed one more tear for the cruel and despicable people of the Earth. He would not fret, had no time to. He had more intriguing things to think about, to dream about. Melissa Martin was in his field of vision. Gabriel had left without speaking to her. He had simply watched her as the faceless man did, only closer.
But Gabriel would undoubtedly return. Surely creations like them could never turn their backs on someone willing to accept them, to embrace them.
The faceless man resolved to act immediately. Delaying would only give rise to opportunity for Gabriel to take her from him. He would not allow that to happen. Melissa would not only be his friend, she’d be his savior. She would deliver him from a life of loneliness and isolation, of torture and ridicule. He had seen her benevolence in action, had witnessed her magic. A boy had been to her house at the same time as Gabriel. He was tall and long-limbed with black hair that prickled unnaturally from his scalp. He had come to her sad and broken, had cried to her. She did not scream or curse or attack him with mops or kitchen tools. Melissa embraced him and made him feel better. He was certain she would do the same for him.
The only obstacle that remained was finding a way to explain his feelings to her, to make her understand he wanted friendship and acceptance, that he wanted love. Thus far, surprising people with his friendship had not gone as he’d intended. As it turned out, human beings did not favor surprises.