First published in ‘Under The Bed’ Magazine’s December 2013 Issue. 

“Em, we need to talk this out,” Wally said to the bathroom door. “Look, I’m sorry, babe. Now come on out of there. Please?”

The words were slathered with sincerity, but he knew that his wife was scared, hurt…deserving. Hopefully the sentiment he packed with those words wasn’t lost in transit. Behind him, a memento of her distress innocently watched the scene play out from atop the kitchen counter. Wally caught the meat tenderizer’s glimmer from the corner of his eye. Its square jaw of jagged teeth seemed to smile at him as if harboring some delicious secret.

The scene of the crime was just to its right, a small window that overlooked the sink. Wally tried to picture his neighbor peeking in through the glass; but only the kitchen’s reflection stared back. All traces of what lurked in the night had been chased away by the bright fluorescents.

Wally stretched the stiffness from his arms, unable to remember why they were so damn sore. “Emily,” he repeated, his head still turned towards the one-way mirror, his eyes still hunting for a glimpse of the outside. “I’ll talk to Arthur tomorrow and set his ass straight. I promise.”

Still nothing, not the slightest bit of life stirred from behind the cream-colored door. Anger warmed his insides–not the kind that would turn to a gentle, rolling boil after an hour. This was the flash-fire kind, the kind that always came at the heels of being ignored.

BWHAM!

The thud of his palms rattled the door, but the door didn’t give. Neither did Emily. There was no click of the lock, no sign of his black-haired beauty of a wife, though at the moment a better ‘B’ word was bubbling to the surface of his mind.

“Fine! Sit in there all damn night for all I care,” he barked with the thickest twang he could muster. The south-speak hinted that his words had teeth. “I know what you’re thinking, and I ain’t gonna do it. I ain’t calling the god-damned cops!

”Call the police,” he dismissively mumbled to himself. Though Emily hadn’t told him outright, Wally knew that’s what she wanted. She just didn’t see things the way he did. Sure, bringing in the blue would get the job done. Harmless, gawky, man-boy Arthur would get the hint and stop peeping at Emily. The problem was that it would also set the neighbors’ gums flapping about how Wally was away from home too much and how Wally wasn’t able to take care of business by himself. He’d be the laugh of the goddamn town for weeks.

Nobody will laugh anymore, not after this.

Wally’s eyes wandered back to the counter, to the tenderizer. It shined like a specter waiting to be discovered all over again but bared its teeth as if to warn those that may get too close. Emily must have left it in plain sight, just for Arthur. Its view from the window was perfect should he decide to make a second appearance.

The clock ticked away from above the stove, and Wally sighed at its news, half past eight. They’d been in the kitchen since he got home, before the sun went down.

“I’ll be in the living room,” he yelled. “When you snap out of it, come get me and we’ll talk.”

Still nothing. Emily was really on her A-game tonight.

“Bah,” he spat, growing sick of the one-sided argument. Her last words to him were so distant that he couldn’t recall them anymore. All he could remember was that they stank of Arthur.

The stereo wasn’t on when Wally got home; he was almost sure of it. Music quietly breathed over him like a fine rain as he made his way through the dining room: ‘You think you do, but you don’t know me. No, you don’t know the one who dreams of you at night.’

As Wally stopped to listen, he noticed the darkness that had swelled around him, a far cry from the sunset that poured through the house when he first stepped off his big rig. All but the kitchen had succumbed to the deadness of night, and its light barely reached him now.

The big-band song continued to drift in, to ride on waves of vivid sound through the darkness. Mixed with the night, the unholy concoction was unsettling. His thoughts went to an even darker place, a place where he wasn’t alone, a room. The shades were drawn; the lights were off. An unkempt bed sat wedged in the corner. Sitting on its edge, atop a twisted mound of sheets was Arthur. His stringy black hair bounced about as he frantically penned a sonnet sinister enough to send nightmares running for cover. Wally couldn’t make out the words, but he felt them. They made him shiver.

”Damn that woman,” Wally mumbled, shaking off the thoughts, shaking off Arthur. As much as he hated to admit it, Emily’s skittish brain was contagious and the music made it worse. That music—

He tilted an anxious ear in its direction. The music was gone!

Oh, it’s there. No one else can hear your insides screaming like you can.

“C’mon, keep it together,” he muttered. “She’s got you in her funk. Arthur’s an asshole, but he’s harmless.”

For a brief moment, he put himself in Emily’s size-sevens. What was it like to be alone in this house night after night with only the dog to keep her company? Hell, he’d been scared shitless from what—two minutes in the dark? Maybe he was a little too rough on her.

He reached the dining room’s edge and looked into the foyer, a room that should have been as black as the rest. What he saw clenched his throat, leaving him unable to breath. The front door was ajar. Sharp, yellow light from the street pierced through the breach and projected a crooked smile upon the laminate floor.

*

Wally rushed through the foyer and slammed his body against the door, squelching the light into oblivion. As he twisted the deadbolt firmly into place, a single thought chilled him. What if the light wasn’t the only thing to find its way in? Frantically he swept his fingertips over the wall. Nothing met his touch but rough plaster.

Wally’s frustration swelled with every fruitless pass. “Where is the god-damn light switch!” he punched the wall in disgust. It’s like I’m lost in my own house! Wally turned to face the vast blackness of the room and could do nothing but wait for his eyes to adjust. With such a lack of visual information, he quickly realized just how quiet the house had become. His ears were useless and ringing with the raw, stale silence that enveloped him.

To his far left, a scant dusting of light lay across the living room, filtered by the curtains and too weak to compete with the shadows. Wally spied the silhouette of a small lamp, a beacon that rested on one of the end tables. It dared him to make a move, but his legs wouldn’t oblige.

“This is crazy,” Wally finally mumbled. Jakey would have barked if someone came in. He and Emily would have heard. “Prolly didn’t close it all the way when I got home,” he assured himself. Just as he worked up the nerve to head to the living room, there was movement from across the foyer–straight ahead of him.

“Jesus Christ!” he gasped, jumping back in surprise. The intruder immediately followed suite. Wally’s fear was washed away by both embarrassment and relief. He waved slowly and sighed when the figure did the same. It was his own damned reflection… and a bad one at that. Though the meager light didn’t reveal much more than misty shapes, it confirmed what he already knew to be true. Driving that damn truck day-in and day-out was slowly killing him. Even from across the room Wally could see how thin and pale his face had become. The bags under his eyes told the story of long nights spent on the road as he hauled shit from A to B where B was always too far and kept getting farther. Wally gave his other self one last grimace before walking towards the living room. He was already basking in the lamp’s liberation even before he popped the switch.

Are you sure you want to see? Some things are better left in darkness.

With a click, the pastel-green living room poured into his eyes, causing him to squint as he looked about. It was warm and inviting, everything the rest of the house wasn’t. A quick scan revealed what he had hoped for, he was alone. Nonetheless, his gut told him that something wasn’t right.

He spun around to examine the opposite wall. It opened up into nothing. Familiar darkness swallowed him. A musty stink of sweat and anger filled the air–acrid enough to sting his nose. Booming from all directions, big-band music stabbed through his body like ice.

Before Wally could shield his ears and his eyes in a worthless effort to wish it all away, he saw him…sitting on his bed, on his throne of sheets. Arthur. Arthur’s head was down while he darkly gleamed at his newborn masterpiece. This time, Wally was close enough to read it. He couldn’t turn away. The same words repeated over and over, etched into the page with deep strokes and in every direction. Before he could stop them, those chilling words escaped Wally’s lips in an earthy whisper, “I want a taste.” The utterance charged the air with electricity. Arthur’s head snapped up and took him in. Before Wally could react, he was falling into those black, razor-like eyes.

Those eyes! Their hatred chilled him to his core, and as quickly as it came, the darkness was gone. What was an entrance to a nightmare just a moment ago, was back to the solid green wall of his living room. Wally doubled over, lightheaded and taking only jagged breaths. When the dizziness subsided, he looked up at the wall again, taking solace that it kept its shape and color this time.

Dozens of picture frames were arranged in a scattered formation from one end to the other, just as they were supposed to be. Directly in his view was the biggest, most decorative frame of them all. It held a memory from his wedding day. The frame’s golden border was brushed with black streaks of paint, giving it age that it hadn’t earned. Behind the glass, Wally was dressed in a midnight-blue tuxedo. Emily stood at his side, beautiful as always. She was wrapped delicately in white satin. Her black curls flowed down her naked back. He didn’t look half-bad either. He was stout, not fat, solid. He had a crew cut and a trimmed beard to match, both hinting fire-red.

He sure as shit wasn’t the worn-down, worn-out creature that he saw in the mirror. In the picture, his eyes were full of life, his face healthy. His hair—

Wally reached up to feel his own and noticed the difference. His hair wasn’t the short crew cut that Emily loved to run her fingers through. It was longer, listless. The surprise forced him back, far enough for the other pictures to make his acquaintance. He and Emily were in many of them, but they were outnumbered by strangers.

“What the hell?” He thought out loud.

Wally ripped a frame from the wall, taking the nail with it. The photograph boasted Emily and two younger girls, both with long, blonde hair and wide smiles. An older, weathered woman stood behind them sharing a toothy grin with the world. In another he had his arm draped over Emily’s shoulder, but they weren’t alone. A young boy and old man were tucked under Wally’s other arm. The backdrop was an amusement park; a ticket booth and the hot-pink entrance to a roller coaster stole the scene from their smiling faces.

Wally quickly turned to the frames hanging on the living room’s back wall, the ones behind the recliner. Even from a distance he could tell that they were also cluttered with strangers. As he took a step in their direction, Wally noticed Jakey’s paw sticking out from behind the recliner. His gut coiled tightly. He couldn’t explain why.

“Jakey, come ‘ere boy!” Wally called, but the sheep dog didn’t stir. “No, no, no,” he pleaded to himself as he rushed to the recliner, not knowing what to expect. “Jakey, come on. Get up, boy!”

Even before he got to Jakey, the rusty scent of blood swarmed him. Red, matted fur filled his eyes as he came upon the dog. Wally threw the recliner aside and screamed. There was nothing left of Jakey’s head…all that remained was a misshapen mash of pink and red meat with splintered bone cutting through like milky shards of glass.

Wally stumbled into the nearest corner of the living room in horror, eyeing every inch of the light’s reach. “Come out, you bastard!” he cried.

No response.

“I know you’re in here! Arthur! “He looked back to Jakey for some clue of his horrible demise. The blood that had pooled under the dog wasn’t fresh; it was thick and dark like it had been there for hours.

A shadow darted past the front window. Wally gasped, ran over, and ripped the curtains aside. Arthur’s house stared back from across the alley. The same sharp, yellow light that earlier crept through the front door flooded Arthur’s entire property. It cast everything in a hue that reminded Wally of decay. A tangled run of wire fencing wrapped around the yard. He followed it to its end where a gate choked by weeds stood directly across the macadam. A shiver coursed through his insides. The gate had been left wide open.

From the foyer, almost like a whisper, the doorknob tried to turn. Chzk, chzk, chzk. For a moment he stood there frozen, half-expecting the door to burst open before he could react, allowing Arthur to finish his dirty work without a fight. Then he thought of the tenderizer. Its menacing smile came into focus, a familiar smile that boasted, I’m your magic wand. Wave me, and I’ll make it all better.

*

Wally took off blindly through the house, running straight for the kitchen where the light still managed to hold the darkness at bay. The bathroom door was shut, giving Wally a short-lived burst of relief. 

“Emily, stay put. Okay hon?” He said as he picked up the tenderizer. It felt tacky, like nearly dried paint. “Whatever you hear, don’t come out until I say so.”

There was no time to wait for a response. He hurried back to the foyer with the tenderizer gripped firmly in his hand.

The foyer’s lights were already ablaze. To his horror someone was standing inside the doorway. But it wasn’t Arthur. The intruder was stout and smelled of the road. A worn out blue baseball cap sat on his head and red hair pushed out from beneath its sides. Covering his chin was a fire red goatee. Wally’s first thought was that he was looking into a mirror–a trick mirror like he used to see in funhouses, where the reflection was ‘off’, a little more than a twisted inverse of real life.

But his second thought told him differently. It warned him that there was more magic to this reflection than the simple bending of light.

The man looked right back at Wally, startled by his brash sprint from the kitchen. “Arthur?” the man asked, puzzled.

Wally turned around quickly, thinking that Arthur had somehow managed to sneak up from behind. No one was there.

The man had already discovered the tenderizer and was focused on it with wide, fearful eyes. His face had turned a deathly shade of white. Wally looked down, following the man’s gaze. The tenderizer protruded proudly from his white-knuckled fist just as he knew it would. What he didn’t expect to see was that it was tinted red from the handle to the mallet. Ensnared in its rows of teeth were bits of flesh and a single strand of long, black hair.

“Arthur, what are you doing here? Where’s Emily?” The man creaked in a shaky voice. Wally stood motionless, confused. The intruder’s questions didn’t just mingle with his own but birthed new ones that he just couldn’t tolerate. The anger within him flared once again, only this time it was stronger than his self-control would allow. He knew what had to be done.

Mirrors break.

Without warning, he jumped at the man and brought his magic wand down hard. Wally felt the thud as much as he heard it. Even above the screaming, he heard it. It reminded him of Emily. It reminded him of the dog.

The man crumbled before him, rather than breaking into the shards Wally had anticipated. He kept swinging. Until the screams stopped, until there was nothing to be heard but the squishy thuds of the tenderizer as its voice rang true, Wally continued. When he did finally stop, his breaths were heaving. His arms screamed with pain–just like before.

At last the mirror was broken. The reflection couldn’t haunt him anymore. Wally let the tenderizer slip to the floor as he took in the macabre scene. The man lay in a heap in front of him, his head nothing more than a red, gritty mess, his hat shredded and dyed black with blood.

The feeling of being watched was still upon him though. He could see the pictures staring from the living room. The eyes of their occupants peered at him devilishly as if privy to something he wasn’t. It was the biggest frame, the golden one that held his wedding photograph that stared at him the hardest. It made him think of the intruder…of the fun-house mirrors. He looked below Emily’s wedding veil, to her soft, lovely face.

She never heard you coming…never heard the dog yelping for mercy…too busy blow drying that beautiful, black hair.

He looked back to his face in the same photograph, to his fire-red goatee. A prayer escape his lips as he slowly brought his hand to his face. Nausea overwhelmed him when he felt nothing but a smooth, clean-shaven chin.

The foyer’s bright lights had easily burned away every ounce of the room’s darkness, and at once the mirror across the room let him in on what the rest of the house already knew. He ran to it to be certain and was greeted by a young man with black stringy hair and a pale complexion.

Scattered upon his cheeks like droplets of rain…were crimson tears. Real tears flooded his eyes as he remembered the mess he made of Emily in the bathroom. Tears blurred the view of his real reflection–Arthur’s reflection. He wasn’t sure what emotion was stronger, the horror of what he had done or the fact that he was only Arthur. Lonely, friendless, ugly-both-inside-and-out, Arthur.

The anger that ruled him so often once again took the reins, forcing his sanity to let go for good. One after the other, he threw his fists into the mirror. The glass webbed and his knuckles shredded as he hoped the pain would be enough. Enough to rip him from this nightmare and leave him back in his cold bed–hoping that all this was as unreal as the funhouse and its ungodly mirrors.

END.