Most of Me

by Mark Lumby

  I picked up the rucksack, removing the package. I slid the relic on the table and unwrapped the cloth. The mirror was black, no reflection. I waved my hand across it, but it cast no image. I pressed my finger firmly on the cold surface, pressed it hard as if to make it crack, and against everything that I felt, I refrained and moved away from it. I reminded myself that if it did break, then Carl would be sent to hell. And I couldn’t do that to him. But I hoped that it wasn’t long before the phone calls stopped; I prayed he didn’t ring tomorrow and that within a week, the mirror was a broken relic. I loosely covered the mirrors face. I glance at the hourglass and at the note tucked behind. I wanted to read it, but I couldn’t. I was afraid of what was written on the charred paper.

  I had that feeling of being watched again. Like when I was in the cave with that women and the feeling that all restrictions were absent; I feel that its that same dark something that watches me. Perhaps its that same entity that I saw when I first came into this house; perhaps it was the ghost at the top of the stairs. The same entity whose shadow I saw in the kitchen. It sees me now, walking down the hallway to the foot of the stairs. I grab the stair rail, peering up into the cold darkness.

  It still sees me. It moves through the walls, but it’s no prisoner.

  I chose a room at the top of the stairs. The door opened by itself, but strangely I’m not fazed by this. Because deep inside my sub-conscience, I told it to open. I entered the room. Its dark like the rest of the first floor; the curtains are closed, but the sunlight escapes from around the edges. I switch on the light, but it makes a ping sound and the light quickly diminishes, leaving enough time to notice that the wallpaper had vertical stripes, different shades of pink. In the corner of the room I could see the silhouette of a toy box; it was open and I could see dolls inside, some scattered on the carpet, too. The room probably belonged to my Mother. There was a single bed to the right of the window. It’s covered in thick dust. I remove the top sheet and lay down regardless. I close my eyes and wonder what dreams I might have. And still, I know that I’m being watched. I can hear the walls move inside like scurrying rats fighting over food.

  I couldn’t sleep. I laid there for hours listening to the noises that seemed to get louder. I was unaware of the time, but the sun was getting low. I swung my legs off the bed and looked around the room. I wandered over to the dolls, picked one up and cleaned the dust away from its China doll face. I placed it on the bed. There was a set of drawers, which I open the top first and thoughtfully sort through. Small underpants and socks belonging to a young girl accommodated the drawer. I was about to open the second when there was a crash from downstairs. I slammed it shut and hurried to the top of the stairs. I listened, but there was nothing.

  “Hello?” I called. “Carl, it that you?” There was no answer. I started descending the stairs when I heard a faint disembodied laugh. But it wasn’t a funny laugh; it was as though I was being mocked. I reached the bitten of the stair; the room door was ajar, black inside. “Hello?” In the hallway, I passed the hardened wax. The basement door was shut. I opened it and said, “Is anybody there?”

  Then I heard playful whispers, and they responded by saying, “sshh! Quick, he’s coming!” They giggled. It was children! “No! The shadow knows we’re here! I’m scared!”

  “No…no…no! I’m not going to hurt you!” I told them with a whisper. “Where are you?” Their voices didn’t appear to emit from any room; they were muffled, like listening to a radio from next door. “Who are you scared of? This is my house; you have nothing to fear!”

  There was seconds of silence, and I was about to speak when a small voice replied, “But…he’ll punish us.”

  “He? I won’t punish you,” I cajoled. I checked the kitchen for the children.

  Don’t trust the children, Carl had warned.

  “I promise you, show yourself and no harm will come,” I reiterated. I wondered if that sounded more of a threat.

  “Not you,” a voice said. “Not you.”

  “Then, who? This shadow?” I asked. There was something moving in the wall just before the kitchen. It was like a ripple in water, and then a face materialised, eyes opening. And the rest of it came out of the wall. It was a small boy. He was holding onto the something. He looked at the wall.

  “He doesn’t look so bad,” the boy spoke at the wall. “It’s alright, you can come out.” He pulled out a little girl from the plaster. She had dark brown hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen.

  I had to take a short step back. “Who…who are you?”

  At first they refused to answer, but after I ask a second time, the little girl said, “My names Isabelle, and this is Sam.” She let go of his hand.

  “Well, hello Isabelle and Sam. My names Daniel.”

  “We know,” Sam said. He looked at the girl and gave her a nod as if they were in agreement. “But you’re not like the others, are you?”

  “The others? Do you mean, Jack?” I queried.

  “I think that was his name, although it was difficult to tell who was who.”

  “Jack stole my Grandfathers body,” I told them. “He used it then sent him into the wall.”

  “Yes, we know him, too,” Sam frowned. “The young boy…so thats your Grandfather?”

  “It was Jacks body, yes…but my Grandfather was inside.”

  “We saw him in the walls. He didn’t belong there.”

  “No. No, he didn’t.”

  “He belonged in hell!” the little girl said through tightened teeth.

  I lowered to her height. “Why would you say something like that, Isabelle? He’s not a bad man,” I said, slightly taken back by this abrupt release of hatred she showed towards Carl.

  “He did this to us!” Sam expressed. “He brought us into this house, and…and…” he bowed his head and said in a quieter voice, “…he did bad things to us.” He caught a tear with the back of his hand, looking embarrassed.

  “Bad things? Did he hurt you?”

  Isabelle put in, “In other ways, yes. And when he’d had enough, he put us in the walls.” I noticed that her eyes were different now. They seemed to change depending on which room she entered or by what mood she was in. This time they were dark brown, almost black.

  “Wait! Hang on,” I stood and pushed my palms into open air like I was signally to slow down the conversation and digress, “let me get this straight. You’re saying that my Grandfather touched you; touched you both?”

  They nodded in unison like their heads where connected by some invisible metal pole. I was reminded about the note from my Mother, the letter had been destroyed in the fire. Carl had somehow recovered the letter and was now behind the hourglass. But I still had the piece that the fire spat out. The piece remained in my pocket. It had warned me about him. I removed my section of the note.

  ‘…abused me. He is not the man he was. He’s different. I think something lives…’

  I rubbed my hands over my face as though I didn’t want to see the children anymore.

  What had I done? What the hell had I done?

  I shot into the kitchen, ripping the letter from behind the hourglass. When I opened it, I noticed the blackened edges, but there was nothing missing from the paper. I removed my sections of the letter from my pocket and compared it to the complete copy, but the content didn’t even match. I fast read the paper and it soon became clear that it was full of all the fact that Carl wanted me to believe. He had given more lies, and I had trusted him.

  I had god damn trusted him!

  I screwed the letter in my fist and threw it across the room. The mirror was on the table. I approached it and acted without a single argument in my mind, and raised the mirror above my head ready to collide it with the stone floor and send Carl to hell.

  “They’re others here, too,” Sam confessed. He was nervous by my actions, desperate. “Other children he took. Children he used.”

  I lowered my arms and dropped the relic onto the table. It wasn’t hig
h enough to break, although I wanted it too. I also realised something else. It wasn’t just about Carl Winters, anymore. “How many more?”

  Sam said, “more than a few…less than a dozen. There are three others in the house, I think.”

  Isabelle added, “And some he buried in the garden. Where did he go…the old man, I mean?”

  I looked away from them, and gathered my thoughts as I stared at the hourglass. I couldn’t help but feel cheated. The glass was full; the sand had stopped falling. I was attached, apart of this house and whatever was beyond the walls.

  He had cheated me! He had lied again and again, and I believed in him!

  I said in a whisper, “He was here. I had him here.” I palmed my eyes, angrily rubbing away the tiredness. I dispersed solemn sigh, blowing it heavily through puffed cheeks. Deep in my heart, I knew what must be done, so I turned to the children. “He’s gone!” I shook my head and pulled out a chair. “They’re both gone.” I offered my hand to the children. They were wary, but eventually Isabelle took it. I squeezed her fingers gently. Her hand was cold and her finger nail were chipped and dirty around the edges. I expected her to be untouchable, to put my hand through her body like a ghost. “But I’m here now; you have nothing to be scared of…you’re safe.”

  “I know, but you might change. It is possible,” Sam said. He approached the table, and I saw him catch a glimpse of the mirror from the corner of his eye.

  I cover the mirror with the cloth. I tried to laugh, perhaps to shine some light on their unhappy stay here, and I said, “I’ll try not to.” I gasped and looked around the kitchen. “Do you eat?”

  They said nothing, but looked at each other, as if not knowing what eating was.

  “Never mind. I’m hungry.” I brushed passed them, and as I made further contact with their bodies, it felt as though my skin was being scorched.

  I rummaged through the refrigerator, grabbing anything that was edible. I sat at the table. “I’ll eat for you,” I expressed, then looked at the food and I realised that I wasn’t hungry.

  Sam and Isabelle stood at the side of the table, staring at the package I had covered.

  “You know what that is?” I asked them.

  Sam looked at Isabelle, and said, “I heard them talking about it. I know that it’s not right. Maybe a bit evil. And my Mom always said that anything that is bad must be thrown away.”

  Isabelle said, “I don’t like it. The things that it does to people…its wrong.”

  “Well, it’s not going to do any more harm.” I picked up the package, slipped it back into the rucksack and placed in inside the refrigerator. “That should keep it safe from us all,” I told them, closing the door. “First thing, I’ll figure out what to do with it. Thats a deal, right guys?”

  They awarded me with a smile, and in that gesture it was the warmest I’ve felt in months. Although Sam faltered and kept on looking at the refrigerator.

  I sat in the sitting room all evening and all night. I couldn’t sleep, and somehow I felt that I wasn’t capable of resting. But I wasn’t tired, either, so I guess it didn’t matter. I had Carl Winters on my conscience. I let him go; it was my mistake. I was angry with myself because I didn’t even question the scorched extract from the letter. The clue was there. I should have pushed further. I should have thought about it more. But I didn’t, and now I’ve let him slip away to die of his cancer, if indeed he was really dying.

  I believed that he was true to his word, though. That was my gut instinct, anyhow, although it had failed once before. I think that everything else, though, was the truth. And the revelations in my extract of the letter, I can understand why he wasn’t forthwith. He can’t get away with this; he mustn’t. And he won’t.

  I must destroy the mirror now and then Carl will pay for his crimes.

  I can’t do that! The children with follow him. Unless I set the children free.

  But they are young, and besides, where would they go? They’d be taken into care. And those who could go back to their families, would they really fit in anymore. They’re children that went missing years ago, and they haven’t aged a single day. So what? What should I do?

  I could let them go; allow them to leave. Then I would kill them. That would work, for sure. The children wouldn’t go to hell, but Carl would.

  No! No! I can’t! That’s so, so wrong!

  Dawn came. The morning light leaked through the dusty curtains, and gradually it moved toward me like a laser beam.

  “It came to me,” I whispered. “The light came through the curtains and it came to me.” And then in that moment, I knew what must be done. I must go to Carl. I must find him and bring him back here. But how would I do that? “He’ll call today! That’s how I’ll do it.”

  I waited all day for the phone call. I was alone in the house; Sam and Isabelle were nowhere to be seen. I hadn’t talked to them since last night. There was just the ticking of the clock from the kitchen that seemed to echo its loneliness throughout the house. And there was the feeling of being watched; that never faded. No matter what I did or where I went in the house, the shadow was always hiding in the corner of my eye. I could feel its presence like static in he air; it wanted me dead, but not yet.

  I checked the mirror was still in the refrigerator. It was and it hadn’t been touched. The phone rang. The telephone was attached to the kitchen wall. It was an old design cream handset with a chord and a dial. I answered it without pause because I knew it was Carl.

  “Hello, Daniel. I wasn’t sure you’d pick up,” he said. “I’m really sorry about the pain; I should have said something.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Can’t say I’ve had the privilege to take that piss, yet, though.”

  Carl laughed and coughed. “Keep it in as long as you can, boy; that’s my advice to you.”

  “Well, I’ll try,” I replied. “So, where are you?”

  “Why do you want to know,” he chuckled. “Are things okay there?” He cleared his throat. I think time away from this house had increased the pace of his cancer. He didn’t sound too good; he sounded ill. And he appeared to be distracted.

  I asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Oh, I’m ok. I don’t feel so good, thats all. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right; the cancer has accelerated. I don’t suppose it’ll be long.”

  “Well, why don’t you come home for a while…rest. You don’t want to go too fast, do you?”

  “Lets not kid ourselves here. I don’t want to be here, and the sooner I die, the sooner you can destroy the mirror.” He paused as if he was thinking. “That is still your plan, isn’t it?”

  I said nothing, and perhaps to Carl it sounded as though I was having doubts.

  “Oh, Daniel, you must resist what it throws at you! Don’t be corrupted. No good will come of it!”

  “Whoa! Take it easy, Carl. Nothings changed. I’ll see to the mirror, but…”

  “What is it, Daniel?” sensing there was something I wanted to ask. “What is it you’re not telling me?” His voice was croaky and nervous.

  “I need you to come home.”

  “Daniel, you know I can’t do that. Why, what is it? The children! They’ve shown themselves, haven’t they?”

  “Lets not talk about the children. Tell me where you are. I just need to talk to you.”

  Carl laughed, then spluttered over the handset. He said, “But, we are talking. Isn’t that enough?”

  I sighed and tried to think what else I could say to him. “Listen, there’s something I needed to give to you before you left.”

  “You mean died?”

  “It’s important to me. I need you to have it before its too late.”

  “I can’t, Daniel. I’d hope you would understand, but…”

  “No, I do, but its…”

  He said nothing for a while. I could hear him breathe heavily, strained breathing of a sick old man. He said, “Well, ok. But you can’t stop for long! The mirror shouldn’t be left
unattended for too long. And because you are new to this, your absence should be minimal.”

  “I understand. But how do I…” I didn’t know how to do it. If I couldn’t use the front door, then how could I get out of the house; how could Jack get out?

  Carl said, “When you sleep, you can remove yourself from your body. Its quite easy really, and it will come natural to you. It runs in your blood now.”

  I was doubtful to a point where I thought it must be impossible, but I would have to try. “And if it works, where do I find you?” I asked him.

  “It will work, and…” He paused, as if second thoughts were surfacing. Carl sighed and said in a reluctant voice, “I’m at your apartment.”

  It was a place I hadn’t planned to go back to in a long while, maybe even never. But I was here: a part of me, anyway. My body was sleeping. But strangely, my body was still solid. Or at least it felt it; I could touch objects as if I was really here. I didn’t feel like a manifestation or spirit. This didn’t feel like an out of body experience. In fact, I believe that I had been halved, split in two. However, I was now vulnerable; I could be killed, Just like I had killed Jack. And there was also a time limit on my absence, like a curfew. Whilst at the house, I’m protected, although unable to watch over the mirror. And once the evil on the other side of that mirror realises I can’t guard it anymore, it will only be a short time, and they’ll start to come through.

  Sauntering through the corridor brought back memories I’d wished to forget. This was just a terrible, mocking reminder of what had happened that night when Ben and his Mother had been brutally murdered. I glanced at their apartment door as I passed, but didn’t stop. I wanted to knock and see them, alive, although it wasn’t going to happen. I continued towards my apartment, stopped at the door, and took a few deep breathes before knocking.