LordPeter List Literary Contest

A chill clutched Harriet as she looked around the dance-room. On the surface, all was glitter and splendor. The orchestra played a lush, romantic waltz. The single pair of dancers in the center of the room revolved as perfectly as dolls in a music-box, the man sleek, fair and somber, the woman a modest swirl of brilliant satin. The people at the small tables around the dance floor presented a glorious spectacle of rainbow-hued silks, feathers, spangles and jewels. Laughter, the clatter of glasses, and the popping of champagne corks mingled with the music. Through the wide window, a serene prospect of white sand and glimmering sea presented itself soothingly to the view. Yet the young woman, settling uneasily in her chair and ordering a drink, could not shake the impression that all this enticing surface gaiety was false Ð that behind the satin gowns and faultlessly tailored suits lurked unimaginable depths of horror Ð as if at the stroke of midnight the feathers and glitter would fall away like masks, and the revelers stand revealed as beasts of prey, ready to turn and devour, or as mindless puppets in the hands of some terrifying, dark and malignant power that lurked at the core of this pleasure-loving town, ever ready to seize upon any weakness in the human heart that would give it entrance.

-- a solitary red pawn

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