Alex Grecian - Devil's Workshop

He didn’t mind it when the police and the doctors called him that. He had no other name he preferred. In fact, he didn’t think of himself by any name at all. He simply was.

But he knew that someday he would find his family again and they would open their arms to him and gather him up, and they would lean in close to him and whisper his true name in his ear. And then he would remember everything that had been good before they died and left him alone.

Finding them was the trick. He had tried many times with no success. But his father had always said (and these were words he did remember), “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

And so the Harvest Man did try again.

He had his ether and he had his plague mask, to protect himself from the spirits, and he had his blade. It was long and curved and sharp. He had found it in a little store next to the apothecary where he had taken the ether and the mask. It was not as long or as curved as his old blade, the blade the policemen had taken away from him, but it was just as sharp and he liked it.

He crept to the attic door, opened it a crack, and listened. The family downstairs was still eating their evening meal. They were talking and laughing just exactly the way a family should. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could hear the love in their voices. He had chosen a good house. They were a good family.

He wondered what their names were.

He pushed the attic door shut again, careful not to make a sound, and crept back over to the wall. He sat down and crossed his legs and rested his back against the wall. He closed his eyes. There was nothing to look at, only the same dusty joists and cobwebs and dark corners that he had seen in other attics, in different houses.

But this time would be different. He could feel it.

All he had to do was wait until they fell asleep, and then he would go downstairs and use the ether and take his time. He would use the blade on their faces, he would carve away what didn’t belong, and this time he was confident that he would find his family under those unfamiliar features.

He imagined the faces of his family smiling at him and he smiled back at them. The Harvest Man crossed his legs and relaxed and waited in the attic for the people downstairs to stop making noise.

He was a patient boy.