The mask wore my face.
But it wasn't mine anymore.
It sat perfectly on the scarecrow's slumped body, nailed to the porch like a grotesque warning. My skin—or something stitched to look like it—smiled with that same crooked tilt, the scar above the eyebrow, even the chipped tooth I never got fixed.
But it blinked.
And when it whispered—"One must always carve"—it wasn't sound.
It was something inside me.
Something old. Something buried.
Nathan stood behind me, frozen in the hallway. I saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes, the way his hands twitched like he wanted to carve the image into memory.
Or maybe like he already had.
I stepped between him and the scarecrow.
"You're not taking him."
The mask tilted slightly.
And then... it grinned wider. I didn't know masks could do that.
---
The sky split open.
A thunderless crack, like the bones of the world snapping under unseen weight. Wind howled through the Hollow, and the jack-o'-lanterns lining every fence post burst into flame.
I turned to Nathan.
"Go to the basement. Now."
"But—"
"Go!"
He didn't argue. He ran.
I stepped outside, the Carver's blade still clutched in my hand.
The wind hissed around me, dry and sharp like dead leaves scraping over headstones. And then I saw it. At the end of the street.
A figure.
Not walking. Not running.
Drifting.
The Carver.
---
He looked taller now—inhuman. A dark silhouette against the firelight, his apron blackened and slick, dragging behind him like a funeral shroud. His blade—twice the size of mine—shimmered with something oily. His mask, once crude and stitched, now looked sculpted. Like it had grown.
And in his other hand?
A second face. A child's.
Still bloody.
Still smiling.
He was closer now. No footsteps. Just the air trembling with each inch he crossed.
The street around me lit up in orange fire.
Porches burned. Pumpkins screamed.
And the town watched from behind closed curtains, eyes peeking through slits, unmoving.
They let this happen.
They wanted it.
---
I raised my knife.
He paused.
Just for a second.
Then he stepped forward, dragging his blade in a long arc across the street, carving a line in the asphalt that began to smoke.
A challenge.
---
The Carver charged.
He moved faster than a man. Faster than something with flesh and rules.
I barely blocked the first swing—his blade slammed into mine with a shriek of metal and bone. My arm jolted from the impact. My shoulder screamed. But I didn't drop it.
The force of his attack knocked me back into the porch. Wood cracked behind me. I stumbled, rolled off the steps, and landed in the dirt.
He didn't speak.
He didn't breathe.
He just attacked again.
---
I dodged left, slashed blindly with my knife. It scraped across his apron, peeling away a flap of skin beneath it—stitched to cloth, sewn from past victims.
Underneath... I saw names.
Burned into the skin. Names of the children the town had sacrificed.
And at the very bottom—still fresh—was Nathan's.
I screamed and lunged forward.
Our blades met again, but this time I didn't fall. I drove the point of mine toward his chest—right where a heart should be. It didn't pierce. It sank. Like stabbing into wet clay.
He grunted.
Then backhanded me across the yard.
---
I hit the ground hard, coughing, ears ringing.
The world spun.
But I still held the knife.
And as I pushed myself to my knees, I heard something behind me.
Whispers.
Not from the Carver.
From the scarecrow.
"Take the mask," it said.
---
I turned.
The scarecrow's body sat motionless now.
But the mask—the one made to look like me—was no longer nailed on.
It rested at my feet.
Waiting.
---
I didn't think.
I put it on.
The moment it touched my face, the world split.
---
I was somewhere else.
A butcher's shop. 1890.
Flies swarmed the windows. Hooks hung from the ceiling, some with meat, some with… worse.
And there he was.
The Carver.
Younger. Human. Crying.
He stood over the body of a little girl—his daughter—her throat slit. On the wall beside her, the word LIAR was carved in blood.
Behind him, the town council. Men in top hats and robes.
"You knew the rules," the mayor said. "Your blood was too low. The Hollow does not allow bastards."
"She was my daughter!"
"Not pure. Not marked. And now you are."
They left him.
And in the silence, he picked up a knife.
And carved his own mask.
---
I tore the mask off with a scream.
I was back in the yard.
The Carver stood inches from me, watching.
He had stopped moving.
I understood now.
He didn't kill because he wanted to.
He killed because they taught him to.
---
I held the knife up between us.
"If you take him," I said, "you become them."
He tilted his head.
"I'll take his place."
Nothing.
"Just let him go."
Still nothing.
Then—he pointed again.
But this time…
At the house.
---
I turned.
The door was open.
And Nathan stood there.
But not my brother.
His eyes glowed with the same orange fire as the Carver's.
He raised a hand.
And called him.
> "Father."
---
The Carver turned slowly toward him.
Then dropped the blade.
And knelt.