The Stranger in Red

The tall red-cloaked stranger was suddenly sighted among their number as they gathered on the village green but no-one could say how long he had been there. He moved through them as effortlessly as the wind, and a cold shiver coursed down the spine of every soul there present. He seemed to be everywhere and nowhere and his proximity froze the blood of those he brushed past. His coming was unheralded and its motive unknown, but all knew that it was because of him that they now found themselves there.

A growing whisper rose among the assembled folk as heads turned to see where the cloaked figure passed, and somehow each of them knew that he or she must win his favour if they were to escape the dreadful end that was now impressed in their mind though they knew not the when or the how. The crowd suddenly began to move as one body, a wave of persons united by a common purpose.

The eerie hooded figure moved slowly over the ground, more floating than walking, its long red cloak billowing as it went, and there was no halting its motion though many instinctively tried as its presence was sensed close to them. They could see the red cloaked figure, but not the man; they felt its proximity, but could not lay hold of it; they looked upon its face but saw nothing save a dark void.

A cry went out that the mysterious apparition had halted in their midst for some purpose and they pointed to the spot. Heads whirled round to fix the stranger and a hush descended as the crowd held its breath as one. The red-cloaked figure appeared to shimmer and glow and then, just as suddenly, they all instinctively surged towards it, sensing this might be their last chance. Eyes strained to make out the stranger's face and hands stretched out to feel its emanations.

As day turned to night, the strange aura about the figure grew visibly more intense and seemed to radiate out. Those closest to the stranger moved nearer to enter his energy field while others pushed forward to join them. Those behind struggled to get closer even while the shimmering glow emanating from the stranger fanned out to take in more and more of the crowd. Commotion ensued as the people further back vied with each other to share the presence among them.

Even as the crowd pressed in around the shimmering presence, appearing to brush its red cloak and hem it in on all sides, their hands met in the middle and their bodies clashed in the space that barely a moment ago had been occupied by the cloaked and hooded stranger. Terrified voices rent the air and the crowd surged back, attempting to disentagle itself and re-group. Somehow they knew they must not lose sight of the red-clad apparition that had come amongst them this day, though none of them knew the reason.

Suddenly a cry went up as the unknown stranger was sighted moving among their number again, freely and untrammelled, just moments after he seemed to be inescapably pinned down by the jostling crowd. Once again they turned and surged in its direction, determined to keep the stranger within their midst until they had secured safe passage from the darkness that now enveloped them and would, they now knew, draw their last breath from them before the night was out.

As the circle began to close in on the spectral figure which made no move to escape, one person advanced from the crowd and stood before it and, with tremulous voice, addressed it for the first time since its fateful appearance: "Your Excellency, we beseech you to intercede for us." For a moment there was unbroken silence, and then the hooded figure turned to the speaker, saying: "Why do you call me 'Your Excellency'? I have no title." At this, the man suddenly lunged forward in an act of brazen impetuosity, pulling the hood off the stranger's head.

A strangled gasp of horror escaped from the man's lips and echoed around the crowd as more of them now beheld the countenance of the shadowy red figure. For the face they saw there was none other than... their own! Each man and woman saw their own face staring back at them. But with one difference. Blood oozed out of every pore of that face, swollen fat with disease.

As the onlookers remained frozen to the spot, another voice from the crowd was heard to ask in a faltering manner: "Who are you, Sir, if not our Saviour? Why do we see our very own face in yours? What can this mean?" In a slow and deliberate rasp of a voice, the faceless figure answered back, saying: "When you look into the face of Death, you see yourself. For each man makes his own heaven and his own hell." In a final effort to ward off a grim fate, many cried out pleading for mercy. But the reply that met their pleas chilled their very blood: "Why should you people be afraid to die? Your souls have been dead for a long time."

At this the onlookers were immediately struck down by a malignant plague that cracked their skin and caused blood to ooze from every pore of their swollen bodies. They fell to the ground, writhing in agony, and their wails were heard in the surrounding countryside. Those who heard them barred their doors and blocked their ears, trembling with fear at what they heard on this death-ridden night.

Of the gaunt red-cloaked figure there was no trace save the evidence of his deadly work to show that he had passed that way.

P.S.  I am of course indebted to Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy" (1842) which was later turned into the film "The Masque of the Red Death" (1964). and from which I have here drawn inspiration.