The Pale Harlequin

The rain from the previous night had cleared up, leaving a damp, heavy silence over the suburbs. In a different house, miles away from the tragedy that had struck Elena’s friends, four new girls—Martha, Naomi, Karen, and Molly—were gathered in a sunroom-turned-den.

The mood was already jittery. Naomi had been scrolling through her phone when her face had turned pale.

“Did you guys see the news?” Naomi said, “That girl from the next town over…Elena. They’re saying that she was the daughter of that maniac, Samuel Thorne. She killed her whole slumber party, and now, she’s in custody.”

Molly shivered, pulling a fuzzy blanket up to her chin.

“I don’t want to talk about Thorne. That’s too real.” Molly said.

“That’s the problem with stories lately.” Martha said softly, sitting cross-legged, her long auburn hair tucked behind her ears. “People get so caught up in the legends that they forget that the real monsters don’t always come from bloodlines. Sometimes, they’re just…accidents of pure, chaotic evil.”

“You have that look on your face, Martha.” Karen noted, narrowing her eyes. “The ‘I have a story’ look.”

Martha nodded, and said,

“It’s about a man named William Whitaker. He wasn’t a father or a husband. He was a void. People called him the ‘Pale Harlequin.’ He had skin the color of parched earth—tan and leathery—but his hair was shock-white, like a dead man’s wig, and his eyes…they said his eyes glowed with a flat, milky white light.”

The girls leaned in, the shadows of the den lengthening as the sun dipped below the horizon.

“Whitaker wore a pristine white clown suit,” Martha continued, her voice becoming clinical and rhythmic, “Oversized green buttons, massive, green flapping shoes that made a wet slap-slap sound when he ran; but the mask was the worst part. It wasn’t rubber; it was porcelain, frozen in a wide, jagged grin that never reached those empty eyes. On St. Patrick’s Day, sixteen years ago, he found a target. A young woman with hair the color of a setting sun—bright orange-red—wearing a simple green dress. She was just walking home from a celebration. She didn’t know that Whitaker had been watching her from the sewers for weeks.”

Martha’s voice dropped an octave, describing the night in graphic, terrifying detail. She spoke of how Whitaker carved a path of carnage through the town just to reach this woman. He didn’t just kill people; he dismantled anyone who stood between him and the woman in the green dress. A security guard was found folded into a locker; and a taxi driver was discovered with his own steering wheel used as a garrote.

“He cornered her in an old industrial basement.” Martha whispered. “The smell of oil and old blood was everywhere. He toyed with her. He used a long, curved blade—a butcher’s tool. He caught her once, right at the end, slicing deep into her ankle so that she couldn’t run anymore.”

“What happened?” Naomi asked, breathless.

“He underestimated her.” Martha said, a strange pride flickering in her eyes, “She didn’t scream. She fought. She found a heavy iron pipe and she didn’t stop until the porcelain mask was shattered and William Whitaker was nothing more than a memory in a white suit. She killed him in pure self-defense. However, the trauma…that kind of fear doesn’t leave you. It stays in your bones. It lives with her every single day.”

Molly let out a long breath, and said,

“Okay, Martha, that was intense; but Whitaker? I’ve never heard of a ‘Pale Harlequin.’ It sounds like a movie plot.”

“It’s true.” Martha insisted, her eyes flashing, “Every word of it is true.”

Karen laughed, reaching for a bag of chips, and said,

“Sure, Martha, and I’m the Queen of Sheba. It’s a great story, but nobody survives a guy like that without it being in every history book.”

“I’m telling you, it happened!” Martha said firmly.

Just then, the door creaked open. Martha’s mother, Susan, stepped in carrying a tray of cold sodas. Susan was a kind-faced woman with the same striking auburn hair as Martha, though hers was streaked with a bit of gray.

“I thought that you girls might be thirsty.” Susan said with a warm smile.

As Susan set the tray down on the low coffee table, she leaned over, her capri-style pajamas riding up slightly. Naomi, sitting on the floor right next to Susan’s feet, froze. There, etched into the skin just above Susan’s left heel, was a thick, jagged, silver scar—the unmistakable mark of a deep, ancient blade wound.

The girls went silent. The clinking of the ice in the soda glasses seemed deafening. Susan smiled at them one last time, patted Martha on the shoulder, and slipped out of the room, closing the door softly.

Naomi looked at the closed door, then she looked back at Martha, her voice was trembling.

“Martha…when exactly did you say that story happened?” Naomi asked.

Martha looked at the floor, her expression unreadable. She paused for a long, heavy moment before replying,

“It happened sixteen years ago.”

A cold realization washed over the room like ice water. Naomi, Karen, and Molly exchanged terrified glances as the math clicked into place. Martha was sixteen years old.

The “Pale Harlequin” had hunted a woman in a green dress sixteen years ago. That woman—Susan—had survived, but she had been marked. Nine months after that night of blood and porcelain masks, Martha had been born.

The girls stared at Martha, wondering if the “accident of pure evil” that she mentioned hadn’t died in that basement after all, but had simply found a new way to live on.

Credit: Noel Haynes II