Talia_Brie

In the spirit of fairplay I'm posting this as my unsanctioned contribution to The Horror Circle.

It's about 11 years old, and hasn't been updated, but what can you do? It's poorly written by my current standards I'd say, but I liked to idea. It's probably a good contribution to the Horror Circle because it needs a bit of work to update it.

Onward!

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His life was a prison. He couldn't get away from Caitlin. She was the axis around which his life revolved, his status. He simply could not afford the scandal that would come if he divorced her.

Brad Torrence pondered his problem as he wandered through the Fremantle Markets. He was walking around in a daze. He had left Caitlin somewhere behind him, searching through a rack of blouses and dresses. She liked much of the merchandise in these markets, and Brad had to admit, begrudgingly, the home-spun skirts and tops she wore from here made her look very exotic and Bohemian. It was one of the few ways in which Kym could not compare with Caitlin.

Brad had lost himself here many times. He found the enticing smells and atmosphere were conducive to clear thinking. It was one of the reasons he had agreed to come today.

He stopped suddenly, and looked around, shaking himself out of his semi-daze. He was in a section of the markets he had never seen before, and he had been coming into the Fremantle markets most of his life. There were no other people in sight, and the stalls around him were mostly empty.

He saw a faintly glowing light ahead of him and he walked toward it. The smells coming out of the little alcove were intoxicating, and Brad felt his head begin to spin as he approached. He shook his head to clear it, and rubbed his eyes which were suddenly losing focus. Then he stumbled over something in the doorway to the stall.

He would have fallen flat on his face if it hadn't been for the owner of the stall. A wizened old woman caught him in strong arms and sat him down in a chair by the door. He tried to look around the stall, but every time he moved his head he felt the world spin around him like a top.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not get any firm impression about the old woman who stood directly in front of him. At first he thought she was wearing Gypsy shawls and skirts, then he realised it was actually expensive silks and satins. But then he discovered she was wearing thick black robes, but then the brown cloth trousers and tops the squaws wear in old cowboy movies. Finally he gave up and looked at her face.

Again he could not make out any definite impression about the old woman. 'It must be this incense' he thought to himself. 'Scrambling my brain.' Then the old woman spoke.

"Now it be a man with a problem I be looking at," she said in a wiry voice. "Been thinking with his dick so long he can't use his brain no more. It be sad to see, for certain. So the young stud be coming to old Mirma for the solution to his problem. I wonder does Mirma want to be helping this young one? I wonder if Mirma doesn't want to just wack him on his head and send him on his way?"

"Please," Brad managed to mutter, still unable to open his eyes, or even move without swallowing back vomit.

"Please?" Mirma exclaimed with a chuckle. "So the young stud isn't forgetting his manners at least." Then the old woman turned around and began searching through the myriad of boxes and chests in her stall. Brad opened his eyes hesitantly and tried to follow her progress, but once more he found himself unable to focus. "What is Mirma having for the young stud? What can Mirma be offering to solve the young stud's problem?"

Finally Brad heard the old woman grunt with exertion as she tried to extract a large, oval object from behind a particularly reluctant chest. The object was covered in thick oilcloth, but he guessed it was tremendously heavy from the effort it was taking the woman to drag it out. Then she was standing in front of him again.

"This is being the solution to your problem, stud," she said, shoving the object into Brad's fumbling hands. "Now don't you be unwrapping it until you are being ready to use it. And don't you be looking in it neither. This one's for the woman you don't want to be sticking your dick in no more, and her alone."


He woke up with Caitlin standing over him. He was clutching the heavy package in his hands, and his head was ringing. He was sitting on the footpath outside the markets, and the fresh sea-breeze was blowing cool air into his face. He could not remember anything after the old woman's warning. Caitlin was speaking quietly into his ear, and it took a moment for him to clear his head enough to understand what she was saying.

"- walked straight pass me. What's wrong? Are you ill?" There was genuine concern in her voice, but it almost made him sick to hear it. He shook his head to clear it, then took her hand.

"Could you get me something cold to drink?" he asked, and Caitlin smiled and kissed his cheek.

"Of course," she said, then stood and walked back into the market.

The people walking passed on the street were staring at him, and he wondered for a moment how he must look. His skin was white and pasty, and there were dark sweat stains under his arms. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and now, as he waited for Caitlin to return, he could feel severe chills surge through him.

Caitlin reappeared a few moments later, a can of Coke in her hand, and gave it to him. She sat down next to him again, and for the first time she noticed the cloth wrapped package in his hands.

"What's that?" she asked.

"A mirror," Brad replied. He actually had no idea what was in the package. He shook his head at her as she started to ask about it, and downed a great swallow of the sickly sweet drink.

"Can we go?" he asked her finally, rubbing the cold can across his feverish
forehead.


Caitlin had been looking at Brad for the entire return trip with the kind of concern she would have shared with their children, if they had any. By the time she parked the car, Brad was thoroughly sick of it. He carried the mirror into their room and leant it against the wall at the foot of their bed. Caitlin crossed the room and threw the keys to his car on the bedside table.

"What did you get?" Brad asked.

Immediately she started pulling her new clothes out of the bags she had carried. There was an assortment of the Gypsy dresses and shawls she had taken to wearing, and somewhere deep in Brad's mind he couldn't wait to see how she looked in them.

"Come on," she said to him. "Put up your mirror and I'll model them for you."

He smiled wearily at her as she began to undress. He took down their large square mirror and began to untie the wrapping around his new purchase. The old woman's warning was still clear and Brad was careful not to take the cloth away as he placed the mirror carefully on the hook in the centre of the wall.

"What do you think?" Caitlin asked, and Brad turned around to see her fully dressed.

"It's beautiful," he replied in all honesty.

"Well," she said, pointing to the covering that hung over the mirror. "Let me see it."

Brad's heart was pounding hard against the inside of his chest and his mouth was suddenly dry. His hands were shaking as he reached up to take hold of the oilcloth. He had no idea what was going to happen when Caitlin looked in the mirror, in fact he didn't know for sure if it was a mirror, and for a moment he wondered if he were making the right decision. Then he remembered the feeling of Kym's breasts against him, and the passionate hunger that always took him when he saw her. He carefully pulled the oilcloth away from the mirror.

Nothing happened.

Caitlin looked at her reflection in the mirror, swinging her shoulders around and thoroughly examining her new ensemble. She swept her arms up to see how the shawl hung, then swivelled around to see the back of the dress.

"I like it," she whispered, and Brad nodded his agreement. He was having trouble breathing. "I'll show you the others," Caitlin was saying, and Brad felt unexpected relief that the mirror had not harmed his wife.

Then she took her eyes off it.

It happened too quickly for Brad to be sure of anything. He was standing next to the mirror, watching Caitlin as she drew the shawl off her shoulders. Then, the instant her eyes turned away from the mirror her reflection leapt out and grabbed her.
And she was gone.

Brad screamed and leapt away from the mirror as his wife's reflection dragged her back through the silver/glass surface. There was a second of absolute silence, then Caitlin began to scream.

It was the scream of a thousand tortures. It was the scream of being skinned alive. It was the scream of having your stomach torn open and you intestines eaten fresh from the bloody wound. Brad covered his ears with his hands, but he couldn't cut out the sound of Caitlin's torture. He fell to the ground, but he couldn't take his eyes off the mirror.

Suddenly Caitlin's face reappeared. She slammed up against the inside of the mirror, the scream still roaring from her. The right side of her face was a pool of blood, and her eye socket a puddle of black and yellow. Her teeth were a bright, white contrast to the darkening mass that had once been a beautiful face. Then the surface of the mirror turned completely red as Caitlin's blood sprayed up against it and, impossibly, her scream doubled in its intensity.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The room fell under a blanket of silence, broken only by Brad's pitiful whimpering. He sat curled up in the corner, his hands over his ears, and his eyes open wider than seemed physically possible. He didn't know how long he sat like that, but when he finally re-entered the world it was dark outside, all the blood was gone, and the mirror was once again just a mirror.

He stood up slowly, never taking his eyes away from the gold and glass oval on the wall. Then he backed out of the room, slammed the door behind him, and ran down the stairs. In seconds he was standing next to his car, frantically tugging at the door handle. His mind was whirling, and all he could think about was getting as far away from the mirror as he could. He stood for an even minute, trying desperately to pull the car’s door open before he realised it was locked.

"Keys?" he whispered to himself. "Where the fuck are the keys?"

Then he remembered. Caitlin had taken them up to their room.

He never even thought about just running. He just turned around and went back inside the house. He climbed the stairs slowly, and walked to the door of his bedroom. He reached up numbly, and pushed the door open. The metal frame was all he could see of the mirror. He reached inside the door and flicked on the light switch. The room was exactly as it had been when he and Caitlin had returned to it, except Caitlin was no longer there.

He stepped inside.

The keys were lying on the bedside table. Brad was almost level with the mirror. He looked around for the oilcloth, but it was gone. He called to his mind the events before Caitlin's reflection had come alive. She had been looking at the mirror, then, when she looked away, it had attacked. Brad turned his back on the mirror and walked past it, heart thumping.
Nothing happened.

He leapt forward to grab the keys and turned around quickly. He couldn't see his reflection in the mirror. He lowered his gaze, concentrating on staring at the carpet between his feet. Then, as he was standing directly before the mirror, the phone rang.

Once.

It was a fatal instinct that drew Brad's eyes up to look for the phone. He turned his body slightly, caught sight of his reflection. As his eyes passed on from the mirror he sensed sudden, blurring motion out of the corner of his eye. Instantly he spun back and stared at his own reflection.

Only it wasn't his reflection. He was standing with his hands at his side, and his reflection was holding the gold frame of the mirror. His teeth were square, and his reflection's teeth were sharp, like a shark. His eyes were blue irises surrounded by whites, while his reflection's eyes were bottomless pits of smoking blackness and evil. He was silent, but his reflection opened its mouth and spoke.

"Oh, you are very quick, little man," the reflection said. Then Brad
registered its pose. It had been about to leave the mirror when he had looked back up and met his own gaze. It had thrown its arms up and caught itself in the inside of the frame just before it leapt out at him. "Very quick indeed. It's a shame your wife wasn't so quick. She was a good fuck though, little man. I enjoyed fucking her before I tore her tits off and ate them." The demonic reflection licked its lips with a narrow, forked tongue.

Brad's mouth was dry and his knees threatened to give way beneath him
as a black faint came over him. The reflection called out as he began to lose consciousness.

"Don't do that, little man. If you close your eyes, I'll have you."

"What are you?" Brad managed to whisper. It seemed to take an eternity for the words to form themselves, and scrape free of his throat.

"Seeing as you ask, toad, I will explain. I'm sure that stupid Gypsy bitch didn't tell you anything about me. There are simple rules that go with the use of this mirror. There are as follows. Once you have looked into it you cannot look away. You cannot break the mirror, and you cannot cover the mirror with anything but the oilcloth that came with it." The reflection reached down, out of Brad's sight, and lifted up the heavy cloth that had originally been wrapped around the mirror.

"Oh, God."

"God has nothing to do with it, little man."


It was three days later when the police arrived at Brad and Caitlin Torrence's house. As the police car pulled into the driveway, an elderly woman shuffled over from the house next door. She told the young constable, Mark Berens, about the screaming she had heard three nights ago. The constable asked her if she had reported this, and she said she hadn't. When he asked her why not, she did not have an answer.

The constable tried the door, and found it open. The house was dark, and there was a strange, coppery smell in the air. The older of the two policemen placed his hand gently on his young partner's shoulder and drew his pistol deliberately. Berens followed his example without question.

The downstairs level was empty and the two policemen moved to the stairs. The coppery smell became thicker as they climbed, and the young constable could feel sweat beginning to bead out all over his body. They checked the rooms systematically, and finally found themselves before the master bedroom. The stench was choking here, and constable Berens could taste the bile in his throat as his partner reached out and pushed the door open.

The scene that greeted them was enough to empty the young constable's stomach. It was an uncontrollable reaction, and one his partner would later defend when the news reached the squad room.

A young man sat on the foot of the bed, staring intently into an ornate mirror that hung on the wall in front of him. On the ground before him, spread about like auto parts, were the remains of a woman. The only reason the officer came to that impression was the bloody mass of long hair that hung under the mirror, caught in the intricate gold working. The carpet was stained dried-blood burgundy, a colour never seen on a Taubman's colour chart. Some of the bloody piles scattered around showed sharp white lines, which must have been bone, while others showed no resemblance to anything.

The Constable levelled his pistol at the young man at the end of the bed. He saw the man's lips moving almost soundlessly. He stepped carefully into the room, checking behind the door, then around the corner, as he approached the perfectly still Brad Torrence. As he drew close, another smell assaulted his nostrils. Human waste stained the young man's trousers and the bed beneath him, and it looked as if he hadn't shaved in three or four days. In fact, it looked as if Brad hadn't moved from that spot in three or four days.

The cop leant close, all his senses screaming at him to be careful. He almost had to press his ear to Brad's mouth to hear what he was saying, and all the time, Brad showed no indications he was aware of another presence. He just stared straight at his own reflection in the mirror and whispered.

"Can't look away. Can't look away. Can't look away . .

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gohn67

I can see why you liked the idea. It was a pretty good idea for a horror story.

Good interesting plot.

This confused me.

Too cliche for me.

There was one part when the phone rings coincidentally as he stares at the mirror. I don't think you need to put the phone in there.

If you are going to revise this, the only thing that needed work was the sentence structure, which in the beginning parts especially, very static. I am sure 11 years later that you will be able to craft some more interesting sentences, which I think would be worth it since you got a fairly good idea for a horror story.

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The Frowning Dog Blog

Talia_Brie

It was meant to.

I remember at the time I wrote this I was really excited about it. The idea came to me during a timeout while I was watching a basketeball game, the whole idea, beginning to end, in one blinding flash.

When I got it together to post here I just cringed. I think if I bother to go through and re-write it I could make it very strong.

But like I said, I don't write horror anymore, and I don't write short stories. I just don't have time.

Thanks for your comments. The story was feeling very lonely.

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shabi

Well, whatever you say about it, I think it was a good horror story. The whole 'creepy old gypsy lady giving some guy a cursed thingy that kills people' is not so original but the whole thing with the mirror seriously creeped me out. No, I mean it. When my music switched tracks just now while I was reading this and there was that empty space and then suddenly "December 4th" bounced out I totally jumped a little bit. It was cool.
Anyway, since you said it's pretty much a finished thing that you're not going to go with...I won't critique it, but I wasn't going to say much anyway. Just thought I'd say that it was really good with the suspense...

Talia_Brie

Shabi - Thanks for the comments. I'm glad you enjoyed it. This was sort of put on here to spark some activity in the Horror Circle.

I'm glad it had some effect on you.

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