Through the Mirror

by D C Tullis

  “That’s dope,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The coordinates are smack dab in the middle of the massive forest right on the edge of town. Ben might have found something out there.”

  “Makes sense,” I replied. “If you want to hide something, might as well hide it in a place where no one's gonna look for it. What time do you get off?”

  “You wanna go out there tonight?”

  “Yeah El, why not. Could be fun. You in?”

  “Hell yes, dude. I need a little adventure in my life right now. I get off at 9:30,” she replied.

  “No time at all then. I’ll continue to be a nuisance until then.”

  ✽✽✽

  The time fell from its mechanical restraints at a rapid pace, and before I knew it we were both on our bikes and making our way to the forest. Night had fallen by the time we had left, yet the air still remained at a comfortable temperature. A stark contrast to the night prior.

  As we glided down the moonlit streets, Ellie called to me, “Wait, let’s turn in here. We should bring flashlights. This is the road that leads to my aunt Rose's gun range and stable.”

  “No, I’ve got some souped up LED flashlights in my bag, so we’re good. Plus, the last like eight generations of phones have had flashlights anyway,” I replied.

  Ellie stuck out her tongue in protest.

  We passed by the stable, and turned east, away from The Burns. It was a brief ride with little to no scenery before we were at the fenced off chain link perimeter of the woods. In retrospect, I had never even considered something might have been going on in the forest, but it made sense that Ben might have found something out here since it was right up his alley in terms of scenery. If Boy Scouts was any indicator, Ben had really liked nature even at a young age. I had only accompanied him a few times as when I was younger I had primarily hung with Ellie and a few other neighborhood kids. He loved exploring those woods and documenting all the different sorts of flora and fauna that he had encountered. Hell, I remember the time we just sat there for a good ten minutes watching a deer. He’d always had an eye for things natural.

  We pulled our bikes up to the fence and chained them together right past the maroon ‘Entry Prohibited’ sign. Just fifteen meters to the right the fence had been widely cut, so it was pretty easy to see how effective that sign had been. Ellie and I climbed through the mesh. She pulled out her phone on the other side and loaded the coordinates into her mapping application. Easy enough. I was relegated to flashlight duty, so that’s where my phone flashlight came in. Isn’t technology just wondrous?

  We hiked over fallen trunks and weedy vines as we made our way towards the coordinates only once stopping to observe an owl giving us a dirty look. The forest thickened as we continued, losing the trail we had initially followed, and ramping its wildlife soundtrack in volume as we went on. The moon was full that night, and it poked through gaps in the massive tree line overhead providing temporary sources of illumination. I figured it was probably a good idea not to kill the last twenty percent of my phone’s battery so I switched over to a LED flashlight.

  The brush continued to thicken until nearly every step involved us crunching brush and scaling trunks, but we were slowly getting closer step by step. Eventually, Ellie stuck out her arm in an attempt to stop me. This would have been fine if I weren’t in the process of climbing over a rock. I fell. I fell hard. The dirt below my step tasted like earthy dust. It wasn’t a very appealing flavor, so I spat it out and shot her an annoyed look.

  She sheepishly grinned before pointing to her phone and declaring, “Look!”

  We were right on it. Whatever it was anyway.

  “Well, that solves that,” I said.

  “Yeah… but I can’t see anything anywhere.”

  I scanned the forest enclosure for anything of interest, but there wasn’t anything at all. Nothing at least that I could see. A bunch of overgrowth, a creek in the distance, some logs, and the breeze slowly swaying the leaves above us. I turned to face Ellie, but her look told me she had come to similar conclusions.

  “We’re gonna have to look around a bit, I suppose,” I said.

  “Split up and look for clues,” she replied with a smirk.

  “That’s a terrible idea,” I chuckled.

  She made a pouty face. “You obviously missed the joke then, dumbass.”

  I recoiled and gave her a perplexed look.

  “Whatever…,” she mumbled. “C’mon now, let’s get looking.”

  And so we did - after I gave her one of the LED flashlights. We climbed over everything in the surrounding area for a good twenty minutes without even a hint at what we were looking for. That got me thinking. It had really been a stroke of good luck to find his hidey-hole because I don’t think he had ever intended for anyone to find it. That brick wasn’t intentionally loose for me to stumble onto it. I hadn’t ever really seriously thought he had, but it might have crossed my mind once or twice.

  Ellie let out an exasperated moan and sat down on a log resting in the middle of a semi-open enclosure. She was clearly bored out of her mind. I, however, wasn’t about to give up so easily. That all changed when she took something out of her flannel. A joint.

  “Dude, how have they not caught you yet?” I called out still scavenging amongst the brush.

  “You can’t even fathom how sneaky I can be, J,” she replied with a grin.

  A lighter followed suit and before I knew it we were both sitting on the log and completely gone.

  Anytime weed got involved, Ellie turns from one of the most sensible and outgoing people I have ever met to an absolute conspiracy theorist. One time she gave me an entire lecture on how Roswell was definitive proof that the government was hiding something about E.T.’s and then added to the absurdity with a discussion on how the idea of Area 51 was insulting to believers in extraterrestrials and in her own words ‘totally bogus, man’.

  We had cleared half of it before she remembered something.

  “Yo, I almost forgot, Jason. Ms. Sherban accidentally left a photo in a haul of books that she sold us. I returned it today,” Ellie exclaimed as she stared attentively at a racoon in the distance.

  “And?” I asked, staring at the exact same racoon.

  “Oh, yeah, she said didn’t have a husband. But it was totally her in the picture with some guy, and they were both wearing wedding rings on the beach.”

  I paused for a moment reevaluating my vision as the racoon transformed into a log when I looked at it with only one eye.

  “That’s crazy, El. I don’t trust those bastards on the town council. All those secrets, and how xenophobic they are to newcomers outside of Lobster Fest. I don’t like it one bit.”

  Ellie said nothing for a second as she finished the rest of the joint. “Hey, J?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, now completely uncertain whether the log wasn’t actually a racoon after all.

  “I know you really want to find your brother and all, but what if this is all just bullshit? Ben was a really imaginative kid. What if he just scribbled down a bunch of bullshit to keep himself from going insane in this boring shit-hole of a town?”

  I took a little while to reply.

  “Maybe you’re right, El, but if there’s a chance I just can’t let it slip. I’m just hoping for a clue or closure or something I guess. I don’t really even know,” I said.

  She put her hand on my shoulder and laughed a little bit.

  “I know this map and journal thing is cool, but if it doesn’t turn up anything please don’t get depressed again. I’m here for you man. You just gotta cheer up,” Ellie said.

  I nodded.

  “I want to be there for you because God knows Maxence isn’t,” she scoffed.

  She had closed the distance a bit after her last phrase. Even though we had been friends for a really long time, on that fallen log I wanted to remove the distance completely. Instead, I just lingered there for a bit. It was a shitty feeling to resist som
ething I wanted so badly. I don’t even know why I did it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to it. Ellie picked up on this pretty quickly and gave me a playful nudge.

  “Cheer up, asshat. We’ll find something about Ben. Don’t give up hope just because I’m rambling like a stoned idiot.”

  I mentally cringed.

  Taking a deep breath, I nudged her back with what I thought had been only a gentle push, but she swung off the trunk and fell back-first into a hidden hole. No, actually it wasn’t really a hole. It was a set of descending steps that had been covered by a leaf mesh net.

  “Holy shit,” I shouted as I jumped up.

  “What the hell, dude?” Ellie declared, still a bit disoriented.

  It took her a moment before she noticed, but then her voice mimicked my own.

  “Holy shit. Maybe my guy spiked this shit because I’m seeing some creepy door here,” she called.

  “I’m seeing it too, Ellie,” I replied.

  The hole camouflaged a set of steps leading down ten feet to a massive metal door. It was sealed tightly by a wheel and held further in place by a massive chain locked by a large rusted padlock to a post. The outer rim was plastered with radiation symbols, warnings, …and the Eastmouth symbol.

  “No way…” I called. “I know what this is!”

  “You do?” She questioned.

  “I think so. Ben mentioned something about finding a bunker in one of his journals. Since it was paired with the talking to faeries bullshit I didn’t think too much of it, but it makes a lot of sense. He did love to play out here when he was younger.”

  “Yeah… that would make a lot of sense actually. Plus, we’re right on the coordinates, J. Like, exactly on the coordinates,” Ellie said.

  I rubbed my eyes, dumbfounded. It all made sense now. Well, bits and pieces really, but it made more sense. He’d seen the symbol on the bunker and scrawled down the location. He couldn’t exactly just say big bunker in the forest because the forest was huge. Additionally, he’d been careful because if someone took the liberty of hiding their bunker so well they clearly didn’t want it found.

  “Can you open it?” I called out to her.

  Ellie wrapped her hands around the massive wheel and tried to turn it with all of her force. It was pointless. The wheel wouldn’t budge.

  “No can do, Captain Kirk,” she giggled.

  “I’m coming down there. Gimme a sec,” I replied as I hoisted myself off the log and down the steps.

  I wrapped my grip around the wheel and after enough pressure it slowly began to move. I had almost turned it far enough to open till it was snagged back in place by the chain. Smart bastards. The chain was lodged in one of the wheel’s spokes just to make sure it wasn’t opened without dealing with the lock first.

  “There’s no way either of us is gonna be able to open it if we don’t have some kind of bolt cutters or... better yet the key,” I declared.

  “Yeah, Einstein, great plan,” she retorted. “Where are we gonna find that?”

  She was right. The key could be anywhere. It might not even exist anymore, but then I remembered the second key.

  I reached into my bag, removed the keyring, and tried to force the key into the lock.

  “That’s not gonna work,” Ellie replied. “That key is fucking huge.”

  “Shit, you’re right. Bolt cutters might be the best option then,” I said.

  “Ehh… I mean look at the size of that chain. You’re gonna need like an industrial chainsaw for that, and then there's the question of where the hell would we plug it in.”

  “We don’t have to cut the chain, dumbass. Just the padlock.” I replied mimicking her earlier sarcasm.

  It was certainly disappointing to finally find a clue and then not even be able to follow up on it. It wasn’t a total loss though. We now had something else we wanted to get into. And hell, Ben might have been right. There was certainly something hiding beneath Eastmouth’s surface. I’d always had a strange feeling about the town, but when no one else seems to notice or care it’s easy to just dismiss it as having an overactive imagination. I’d definitely have to a do a very close examination of the earlier entries of Ben’s journal. After all, I’d skimmed it, thinking it to be nothing.

  “Hey, J?” Ellie asked me.

  “Yeah?” I replied.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ellie said.

  I raised my eyes to look at her. She seemed nervous about something. She was almost shivering.

  “I’m starting to feel kind of anxious here. I don’t like the vibe of this place dude,” Ellie said.

  “Are you sure it wasn't the kush we…,” I began to say.

  “Sh…,” she interrupted. “Just listen.”

  For a moment I heard nothing but silence, but then there was this… dragging… like a wounded animal slowly pulling its way through the brush.

  “What the shit? You hear that right?” I asked her.

  She nodded and moved a little bit closer to me.

  The rustling continued, gradually getting louder as if it was getting closer.

  I shot Ellie a concerned glance.

  “Okay,” I replied. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t know what that is and I really don’t want to find out.”

  We climbed out of the hole as quietly as we could and listened. The sounds had stopped. Whatever was out there was no longer moving, and I felt the sensation of being watched sliver up my spine.

  We carefully realigned the leaf-mesh netting, making sure we left no visible trail of our presence. The last thing I wanted right then was for someone to learn we had found their creepy old bunker and come after us. Ben had disappeared after all. Maybe he didn’t leave. Maybe someone had found he had been snooping. The very thought made me shudder. I’d never really considered it before, but what if he had found or learned something that had made him a target to someone. It would explain his erratic behaviour after all. I mean… it seemed like something out of a mystery novel. Something that could never happen in reality.

  It didn’t matter. What did matter was getting the hell out of there and back onto open ground. I shared Ellie’s sentiment about the vibe. There was an uneasy feeling permeating the air there, and I really didn’t want to find out whether we were imagining that noise or not, so we hurried back as fast as we could out of the forest. When we finally reached the fence and climbed through, we didn’t look back. Neither of us wanted to.

  We rode our bikes back through the town, passing all of the usual landmarks on our way home. The open ground was extremely relieving, but I still couldn’t shake the uncomfortable sense I had picked up in the forest. I briefly paused to walk Ellie to her front door before I finished the trek and breathed a sigh of relief as I climbed up to my bedroom and locked the door.

  “Sleeeeeep…,” I groaned as I collapsed onto my bed.

  Sleep was the only thing I wanted after riding around all day. I mean I was pretty hungry too, but becoming one with my bed sounded more appealing right then. Unfortunately, that night sleep didn’t come easily to me. I rolled around restlessly trying to fight off images and thoughts of Ben. The idea of him being kidnapped or worse, killed, were burned within my skull, and the eerie feeling just exacerbated it. I had never known what had happened to him, but I had always assumed he’d left of his own volition. Maybe he’d been looking for an escape from my mother’s death, or maybe the small town life finally got to him? I couldn’t blame him if that was the case, but things didn’t seem so clear cut anymore. I struggled to shake the feeling that it wasn’t his choice to leave.

  I laid there for a while just studying my antique ceiling fan. The metal base that held its wings had rusted over time. Maxence had never called for a replacement. Probably because he had always assumed he would live and die alone. It spun gracefully, casting shadows upon my posters and the landscape Ben had painted for me during my Freshman year.

  Eventually, I realized sleep wasn’t likely to happen so I went downstairs to get a g
lass of water and drown my anxiety with some of Maxence’s sleeping pills. The pills went down easy enough. After, I made sure to check that every door and window on the first floor was locked. There was something both eerie and cozy about the house at night, and as I made my way around the house I made sure to glance twice at the smoky shadows cast by the few still lit lamps that Maxence had forgotten to shut off. Finally, I briefly stuck my head into the library and saw Maxence passed out with a glass of half downed rum resting between his legs. I flicked the main library lightswitch off and headed back up to my bedroom to give sleep a chance at redemption. As I laid there waiting for the pills to kick in, I could swear I heard a cigarette lighter flick outside of my closed bedroom window. Maxence didn’t smoke and it was pretty unlikely he’d awakened and gone outside this late with a lighter. For a moment, I wanted ever so desperately to part my blinds and verify that I was just hearing things, but I chose not too. It was probably all in my head anyway. My mind seemed to have been playing tricks on me lately. Maybe Maxence had messed up an experiment and dumped something into our water supply. I chuckled at the thought. Anyway, all of the ideas and mysteries that had appeared to me today were probably just delusions dancing around in my head. I was just looking so deeply into the town because I desperately wanted Ben to have been right. Nothing else made sense. After a while of telling myself that, I started to believe it. That was when the pills really kicked in and sleep finally came. With it, I drifted into the flowing ashen abyss of dreams.

  ✽✽✽

  BRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGG!

  The noise shot me awake, and I frantically patted down my body making sure I had full control. The noise which could have only been my doorbell had roused me from a terrible nightmare. There were clowns and some kind of massive tentacle beast coming out of the ocean and chasing me all the way to Tharkham. The sky had been some kind of sickening cloudless indigo. I hadn’t had a nightmare of similar caliber for years, and as a result I was a sweaty mess.