By the Skin of His Teeth
A short horror story for the TiF Sociable
The demon prowled the edge of the park.
It was a few hours before sunset on a spectacular July day. Children played in the golden light of the afternoon sun. A mellow breeze blew through the trees, setting the leaves rustling in a mid-summer symphony. A pair of birds flitted overhead, their sweet song a fitting accompaniment.
It was idyllic. The kind of scene that might pop up in one of the demon’s stories. The kind he wrote for children; the kind their parents read to them at night; the kind that wove twisted little spells that echoed in the children’s dreams.
The kind that sent them wandering straight into his waiting jaws.
He slunk closer to the playground on stork-like legs. His guise wasn’t perfect. His joints were a little too loose, his limbs a little too long.
But it was serviceable enough as skin suits go.
Nearby, a child shrieked, making him salivate. He hadn’t caused that wonderful sound. Not yet. It was just part of the game the little wild things played. But he loved the sound of it nonetheless.
He smiled. It was not the smile of a monster. In fact, quite the opposite. He had made sure of that. And all the humans who wondered about his presence in the park decided he was harmless.
All of them save one.
He felt a set of eyes on him and turned to look, keeping his borrowed face neutral. The gaze belonged to a lone old man watching him from a stair-step vantage point, a little green kiosk nestled on the stone wall next to him.
Unperturbed, the demon flashed him his most charming smile. He knew from experience this was a smile that melted hearts, put minds at ease, unlocked doors, and beckoned you closer.
The old man, however, didn’t seem disarmed by the demon’s grin. He only stared harder, taking a drag from a cigarette and letting the smoke go on a measured breath.
Strange.
The demon sauntered over, slow, like a stork stalking a stream. He mounted the steps, hands slung in pockets, eyes upturned, smile stretching his red lips wide.
The old man took one last, long pull on his cigarette, then stubbed it out. He did not return the demon’s smile.
“Beautiful day,” the demon said.
“Certainly is.”
Drawing up next to the kiosk, the demon saw it was full of books and he snorted a little to himself.
Fitting.
“This is charming,” the demon smiled, hand indicating the bookseller’s setup. “I haven’t seen one of these stands outside of Paris.”
“Just trying to enlighten our little corner of the world,” said the bookseller.
The demon drew nearer, running a too-long finger down the spines of faded old volumes.
“Wonder if you have any of mine,” the demon said. “I’m an author, you know.”
He spoke through his smile, words squeezing past his perfect white teeth.
“You don’t say.”
“Yes, children’s books, as a matter of fact.” He tilted his head in the direction of the playground as if this statement explained his proximity to it.
He glanced back at the old man. The bookseller regarded him with owlish eyes, and the demon felt something squirm somewhere in the folds of his brain.
“None of my little books among these old tomes, I’m afraid.” He flashed that same gleaming smile again. The bookseller only pressed his lips together into a flat line.
“Right. Well then, I best be off,” the demon said, cheerful, nonchalant. But inside, his black blood pounded through his veins. He had a sudden need to be away from this man and his piercing stare. “As a matter of fact, my editor is expecting pages soon. Don’t want her disappointed. Lots to do. Procrastinator, you see. But I always manage to get it done. By the skin of my teeth.”
The demon was prattling. He knew it, but for some reason he couldn’t stop talking. The bookseller only stared.
“Okay, well then. See you some other time.” The demon backed away. “Maybe I’ll bring you a stack of my books. Get them into the hands of these little heathens, eh?” tilting his head once more in the direction of the playground.
“By the skin of your teeth,” said the bookseller, but the demon didn’t hear him. He was already halfway down the block, the summer sun making his skin suit sweat.
That night the demon sat down to write, quill and ink before him. The magic never worked as well if he didn’t scratch the words out by hand.
But the story remained lodged in his brain. A splinter he couldn’t quite dig out.
He put his hands to his head, raked his fingers over his face, pulling the skin into an exaggerated frown. His jaw clenched and his teeth squeaked under the pressure. One of them, an eyetooth, began to ache.
The demon breathed out, rubbed at his temples. His skin suit felt tight. He wanted to claw it off, but it would take him months to fashion another one half as good.
The pain in his tooth graduated from a throbbing to a stabbing. He grimaced and brought his fingers up to his mouth. The tooth came away in his hand.
The demon reared back surprised as the tooth began to jump and wriggle, popping in sudden bursts as it expanded in size. It sprouted five humps. Two elongated into arms and two into legs. The fifth continued to bloat, becoming a bulbous head with staring black eyes and a rough gash for a mouth.
The tooth creature leaped down from the demon’s hand and raced across the paper. Then it took up the quill and, in a childlike scrawl, wrote
Once upon a time
The demon stared, alarmed, unnerved. Another toothache began and the process repeated itself. The second tooth creature wrote
There was a naughty little imp.
The demon stared at the words, eyes wide, mouth throbbing as the little creature joined his fellow on the side of his desk. Then the demon’s mouth filled with sudden searing spasms. He doubled over his desk and eight more teeth slipped between his lips, snapping and popping, forming limbs and strange, blank faces. They wrote
He did many terrible things
In the dark
When no one was watching
And during the day
No one suspected
Because he was very good at hiding
Behind cheerful stories
And friendly smiles.
The demon gasped and choked as thick black blood gushed from his gums and down his throat. Pressure built behind his eyes until he thought they might burst. Instead, seven more teeth exploded from his mouth, hitting the desk in quick succession, like hail spit from the sky. As before, the teeth popped and cracked into creatures. They took up his quill, and one after another they wrote
But there was one
A seller of stories
Who knew him for what he truly was
For like recognizes like
And the bookseller owed a favor
To one more powerful than he
And when the debt was called in
The bookseller knew exactly what to do.
The demon, pain-addled and furious, threw out his arm, trying to knock the infernal teeth from where they perched, one atop the other, on his desk, but another wave of pressure stayed his hand and four more teeth erupted from his mouth.
The naughty little imp was
A hack, a poser, a leech.
Everything he’d done
He’d done by the skin of his teeth.
The demon screamed and snarled. He closed his mouth, locked his knuckles over his lips. But he felt more teeth pop free from his gums and burrow through his cheeks, slice through his fingers. Once out of his mouth, the teeth creatures kept writing their story, even as the demon’s clumsy hands tried to crush them, throw them, tear them apart.
Barely squeaking by on false charm and sordid smiles
That’s the way he told tales, sold stories
Bewitched children with words
The way he’d gotten away with murder.
The demon howled, black blood dripping from his face. His mouth. And as he screamed, out slipped the final six teeth.
He was brash and bold in the way only the ignorant can be
He didn’t know that some parents would sell their souls
For a chance at retribution
And so it seemed only fitting
That his day of reckoning would come
By the skin of his teeth.
And now the little creatures, pearly white hides glistening, stood in front of him. One row on top of another in a ghastly parody of a mouth. They rose up and opened wide, forming a gaping maw, an opening to a black abyss.
The teeth bit.
The demon screamed.
The teeth chewed.
The demon fell silent.
The teeth smiled.
A huge thank you to
for organizing the Sociable, a live storytelling event coming up today, March 28th, at 10am PST and 1pm PST. Listening to stories is a hallmark of human culture. It’s an honor to be a part of that tradition here on Substack!And many more thanks to
and for their insightful edits!Enjoyed By the Skin of His Teeth? I’d love it if you'd like, comment, or share to let me know!
Want more? Find my other dark fantasy and horror stories here, including the folk horror tale of a werehare, The Angel’s Share.
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SO good! What a great story, Garen.
Excellent! The demon got no more than he deserved. Your story brought to my mind some of the supernatural tales of Isaac Bashevis Singer, and now I’m off to rifle my library for a book I haven’t read in many years. And I must listen to your reading. What a treat!