Most of Me

by Mark Lumby

  “Amazing,” I shook my head. “Still, you try to worm your way out of this. You’re just a God damn lie…and embarrassment.”

  “It’s the truth, I promise you.” His voice was strained and his eyes bulged desperation. “You can’t put your trust in them. Please…don’t.”

  “It’s too late for promises. I see right through you now, Carl. I see the man you really are.” I looked to the ceiling and called out, “Sam…Isabelle?”

  “No…you’re wrong,” Carl gasped. “Its them who you can’t trust.”

  “You’re a deluded old man.”

  “Please, Daniel,” he shouted. “Please tell me that you don’t believe in their stories. It would break my heart if you did.”

  Was this just another one of his deceptions? I could see the desperation in his face…the innocence. Was it real?

  The children appeared from behind and stood at either side and took my hand, frightened. Isabelle glanced up at me and expressed, “You said we wouldn’t see him, Daniel.” She had a look like she had been betrayed. The fear in her eyes couldn’t have been rehearsed. She was truly scared of this man.

  Sam squeezed my hand. “Make him go away, Daniel. Make him go, please.” His eyes were screwed shut as if this was a bad dream and he was willing it to be over.

  “I’m sorry, but thats why I called you. I don’t know how to make him leave.”

  “No, Daniel. Don’t listen to them. They’re feeding you lies.”

  “Use the mirror,” he said. “When his blood and the mirror become one, it will take him through, like he was being offered to the darkness.”

  Isabelle put in as though he had a vile taste in her mouth, “It will consume his body and soul until there is nothing left.”

  “You know a lot about this?” I interrogated.

  They shrugged in unison. Isabelle said, “You see things when you’re not supposed to; you hide in the walls and spy.”

  Eventually, I nodded as though I understood. And I suppose it did make sense. I placed my hand on Sam’s shoulder.

  “It is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Isabelle asked with a curious tone. “It will bring an end to Carl. They’ll be nothing left of him here. Hell with own him.”

  “Do you mind fetching it for me?” I turned to Sam. “It’s in the refrigerator.” He agreed and took the stairs. “Keep it wrapped, though, Sam. It’s dangerous.”

  “I know it is,” he muttered.

  “And hold it carefully, under your arm.”

  “I’ll be okay, Daniel,” he huffed.

  It didn’t take him long before he returned, clunking his small feet down the wooden steps. He handed over the package. I randomly scanned the basement, searching for something sharp. I spotted a wooden workbench poking out from under the stairs. It was laden with junk and dust and crumpled old blankets. I placed the mirror where I stood and rummaged through the contents of the work table. I returned with a work knife, and although brown with rust which made the blade stick in it handle, it would serve its purpose. I collected the mirror and carefully descended the steps into the hole. I laid the relic in the centre and unwrapped the old cloth.

  I got down on my knees. “Come here,” I told Carl.

  He seemed distracted by the children. I looked up at them; they were watching him, expressionless, cold. They no longer seemed nervous of him. It was the other way around; Carl was scared of them. He pushed off the wall, grimacing as he did. He shuffled over to me, like a soldier with a war wound, and fell to his knees.

  “I know what this is,” he expressed. “But I can’t understand why.” He looked at me, shocked. “We had a deal, you and I. A God damn deal!”

  “Child abuse? Do you think you deserve a deal?” I muttered as I persisted to thumb out the blade.

  “I’ve told you,” he pleaded. “It was only the once; there were no others.”

  I looked up at the children, perhaps for a reaction. “I don’t believe you.” The children said nothing. I turned to Carl. “This is how it is, how it has to be.”

  “Don’t you think this cancer is punishment enough.”

  “Shut up, Carl.” The blade finally released and, although the blade was corroded, it would cut him. “Give your hand to me.”

  “No, Daniel,” he refused. “I’m your Grandfather; we’re family. Does that not mean a thing to you? You believe in these children, but they are evil.”

  I looked up at the children again. Were doubts creeping into my mind? I could feel the damp from the soil soaking into my knees and sighed, not because it was wet, but because I really didn’t know who to trust. Eventually, I said, “Your hand?”

  But he was still reluctant. “They are evil, Daniel! Please don’t place your trust in them. They’re parasites!”

  I grabbed his wrist, as though I wanted to rip his whole arm out of its socket. “So are you!” I turned over his hand, and cut the corroded blade in the centre of his palm. It was a hasty move where the cut was more of a stab than a slice. It bled out as expected, but I was still taken back by the volume of blood. It absorbed into the dry soil, awarding its first drink.

  “No, Daniel,” Carl pleaded again. “You must not do this.” He knew where he was going, where the mirror would take him. He knew the horrors in which he would live with. He would awake in a nightmare and sleep in a nightmare. He cried. In fact, he sobbed. “You must not do this,” his voice broke.

  I pulled him close and wrapped my hands around his thin neck. I squeezed as if I needed to kill him now, because I was now having second thoughts. He was all I had left in the world. Take him away and I had nothing. He was family. But he was sick and evil. So I needed to end this. I needed to end this sentimentality. I tightened my grip, and I imagined hearing an audible snap, his neck cracking. But I let go with a frustrated scream, and took his bleeding hand again, stared him in the eye and said, “No more lies from you. No more touching little children. You make me sick!”

  “No, you’ve got it all wrong,” he urged. “I did nothing to these children! They lie to you! But I did do something to your Mother!” He started trembling and his voice was uneven. Tears glazed his blotchy cheeks. “I did something to her; she was only young…too young. Five months later, they left this house.” He sobbed. “But it was too late. I feel so ashamed, Daniel. Please forgive me.” He pulled at my hands, smearing me with his blood.

  I pushed him away. “Too late for what?”

  “I’m so very sorry. I am a bad man. Do what you will.”

  “Too late for what, Carl?” I shouted.

  “To get rid of you! To have you aborted!”

  I dropped the blade.

  Isabelle said, “Use the mirror. If his blood dries then its useless.”

  “Then I’ll cut the other hand,” I yelled at her.

  She took hold of Sam’s hand.

  “You disgust me,” I told Carl. I wiped the sweat from my face, but his blood on my hands coloured my skin red. I spat in his face and stared in disgust. I screamed, turned and punched the mud walls; I punched them until I hit stone, and still, continued to crack my knuckles.

  “Stop!” Isabelle said in a petite voice. “Please, Daniel, stop this.”

  I cooled my forehead against the dirt and took a few deep breathes.

  Carl uttered, “Daniel? Daniel?” He said a little louder, “Its different, isn’t it? We’re more…don’t you see?”

  I spun around and stared at his feeble body. “More?” I said. “There is no ‘more’ to this!” His eyes, this shining beacon to see into his inner self, were dark and soulless. I could see no innocence in them. Compassion was vacant and sentiment had gone for a long walk.

  “I’m dead anyway,” he sighed. “Have been for years. Thats what I never told you, Daniel. When you take on the mirror, you’re already dead.”

  “So…what are you saying?”

  “What am I saying?” He laughed. “I’m saying, Daniel, that you can’t kill a dead man. When your time comes, and it will, you’ll be telling
the same truth. You are dead…you were as soon as you looked into that damn mirror.”

  “Old fool!” I wrapped my soiled hands around his wrists and thrust his bleeding hand onto the blackness of the cold mirror. His eyes shined to a glistening black. He groaned to paralyses as saliva fell from his mouth and sizzled onto the mirror. But then he managed to moved closer to me and I moved away as though he was contagious, and he breathed something that I didn’t expect him to say.

  Carl slurred, “You’re wrong, Daniel. But I forgive you. Don’t trust the children!” And as soon as he had finished his final words, life in his face faded. The blackness of the mirror enveloped his hand and then his arm as if by consumption.

  I thrust myself off the ground and climbed the ladders. I stood between the children. They held my hand tightly.

  The mirror continued to eat away at Carl just as his body fed off the matter that the mirror produced. I watched as he looked nothing more that a shadow, and as his colour was converted to black. He melted into the mirror like candle wax.

  Carl was gone.

  “Children? Would you leave me for a moment?”

  Sam and Isabelle threw each other a puzzled glance. “You will stay with us, won’t you?” asked Isabelle.

  I lowered my myself to her height. “Hey,” I squeezed her tiny hand, and brought her closer to me, “I’m going nowhere. You’re safe now.” I looked at the mirror from the corner of my eye. There was nothing left of Carl. “He’s gone, and I’m staying. Right, Sam?” I nudged his shoulder with my knuckle.

  He smirked, as he tried hard not to show joy.

  The children listened and walked through the wall. Where they go, I think, is beyond my knowledge. But I was left alone just as I had requested. I climbed down the ladder and crept toward the mirror as if the ground was going to crumble away at any moment. I got to my knees and began folding the cloth over the frame. I caught a few smears of blood across the smooth surface before I folded over the last piece of cloth.

  I climbed the ladder taking the relic with me, and I went over to the work bench. I opened one of the cupboards and concealed it at the back, covered it with extra blankets and closed the door. Tomorrow, perhaps, I will bury it, but there was no rush. It wouldn’t be destroyed, though, because the children would be sent to hell. I’m going nowhere and neither are the children.

  ***

  The attic wasn’t a living space. It was cold and dirty. Boxes splitting apart by damp scattered the wooden floor. Christmas decorations accommodated one of them, tinsel spilling out like intestines. Old books came from a tear in the bottom of another. A circular window beamed through light; dust was suspended, floating in the air as if time had stopped.

  The wall was scratching, moving. The surface rippled and more dust fell. Then it ceased.

  “Sam?” a little voice whispered. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, sister, I’m here.” He reached out for her to bring them close. They walked from the wall holding hands, studying the attic.

  Sam called, “You can all come out now.” Two more children came from behind the boxes, both girls, and around the same age as Isabelle, and another younger girl materialised through the wall. Their eyes were sunken, appearing more like charcoal balls. It was only when they passed through the sunlight that their pupils unnaturally glistened.

  “It’s done,” Sam told them. “Now we can attend to Daniel.”

  “Why did you lie to him?” the youngest girl asked. “The old man never touched us.”

  “Sometimes we need to lie,” Sam reassured her, placing a brotherly hand on her shoulder. “Once you step into the dark, there is no going back into the light. Father taught us that, remember? And that is exactly what Mr Winters did.”

  Isabelle added, “He turned his back on us.”

  “He was stubborn,” the left twin stated as though this was an excuse. “We had most of him, but he always had something else…”

  The right twin continued, “…As did Jack; he was fuelled by hatred.”

  “And what fuels Daniel?” the young girl wanted to know.

  Sam thinks about the question. “Daniel is lonely.” He shrugged. “He has nothing; he has no one.”

  “He has us,” Isabelle reminded him.

  “But thats different; that can be to our advantage,” he assured.

  “Its still something, though.”

  Sam nudged her with his elbow. “He is vulnerable. And that makes him weak. I believe it will only be a matter of time. I can persuade him. Soon, he will allow the passing, and Father will be allowed into this world; he just has to allow it.”

  “And what if he doesn’t?” the young girl queried.

  “Then we kill him,” Sam said.

  Isabelle let go of Sam’s hand. “Isn’t there another way? Its just that…I like him; he seems different to the others.”

  From behind Sam, a dark shadow came from the wall. Its black skin moved like smoke. Tiny fingers peer from its torso, children’s eyes glaring through from ill faces. It lifted its long fingered claw over the top of Sam’s scalp. The children froze and stared at the figure.

  “Hello Father,” said Isabelle. She stood next to it, unfazed by the dark visitor. “It won’t be long now. You’ll be here soon.”

  The tall figure expelled a shallow breath and stroked her head the way a Father shows love to his daughter, before turning into smoke and dispersing through the wall.

  Sam smiled at the other children, and with satisfaction on his face, he said, “And when Father has arrived, the rest of hell will follow him.”

  ***

  I was never really bothered by the time that had gone, wondering, only occasionally, how long I had lived in this house. But I didn’t know for sure. Months…years? I had looked through the windows and nothing seemed to have changed. I had opened the door and it gave to me an incredible urge to run through it, into the white mist that I see, although I know that I can’t. The urge in which pushes me through that doorway is the same power that compels me to stay. I am drawn to stop here, like a magnet to metal.

  I don’t sleep often, maybe twice weekly. But when I do, I dream about Carl. I see him in hell, chained and tortured, and my Mom stands watching. Her back is turned. She is dressed in white and glows angelically, although her ankles are shackled with barbed wire. I want her to be proud of me, but I don’t think she is. Her head is low and her shoulders twitch as though she is sobbing. I ask her what the matter was, but she can’t say anything. When she turns around, I see that her lips are either stitched or stapled. And when she does try to speak, I see pain in her eyes as her skin fights against the stitches or staples, stretching and bleeding. Blood flows too freely down her chin. But masked behind the pain, I sense sorrow and concern.

  Every time, every dream is the same, and she is always silent, her lips tethered. I get the feeling by what her eyes revealed that someone had done this to her, as if to shut her up. What was she trying to tell me? She appeared disappointed, whether it was towards me or the thing that had done this to her.

  And when I’m awake, I’m angry with her because she doesn’t talk. I know that she couldn’t. I am confused by her lack of affection. Her wrists are not tied, so why doesn’t she hold me, reassure me that everything is going to be fine. He abused her, too, didn’t he? I thought she would be happy that Carl was being punished. But I know that she isn’t. She’s cross with me, ashamed, and I’m angry back at her. And the beast inside of me wants her dead.

  I hate her.

  ***

  I’m becoming better at leaving behind my body. I would even say that I’ve acquired a skill. It still feels strange, though. I sleep at the house, but yet I’m here. I can smell the pollution of New York and it smells sweet. I sit in a cafe, sipping coffee, watching yellow cabs; and I’m alerted by the sirens of cop cars whining by. I absorb everything, the aromas, study the people, their conversations, because this is life. Although, I can’t stop for long. I check my watch, and although I’m getting
used to travelling out of my body, I stay no longer than one hour. I guess I could stop four, perhaps five, but I don’t want to take that risk. My body is vulnerable, and so is the mirror. The evil on the other side will soon realise I’m not there to protect it. But it doesn’t stop me from contemplating if I was to stay here, enjoying coffee. When the evil passes through the mirror after my absence, what would become of my body? What would become of me? It would be like suicide. But then again, would I die?

  The alarm is set on my watch, and it begins to bleep. I expel a large sigh and take another look around the cafe as if it would be my last. I want to stay here; I don’t want to go back. I feel that something isn’t quite right about the house, and I keep on discovering the notion in the far reaches of my mind, that perhaps I had been wrong about Carl and I had made a terrible mistake.

  I made a start, emptied the coffee cup, and headed off to the mens room.

  ***

  Soft whispers greeted my welcome home; and the icy touch of small fingers lightly stroked the back of my hand. I opened my eyes, and shut off the alarm bleep on my wrist watch. I smiled at Isabelle and asked her, “Are you real?”

  She giggled and whispered in my ear, “As real as you are.” She released my hand.

  I didn’t feel real; I was losing myself again. The house was taking and I wasn’t sure I could stop it this time around. I looked across the bedroom. “Where’s Sam?” It was strange that he had abandoned Isabelle; I’d never seen them apart before.

  She averted me, and turned her head to look at the dolls in the box. “He’s…he’s with the other children. The dolls are very beautiful.”

  “The others? Oh…of course.” I had been introduced to them, but they had disappeared into the walls and I have not seen them since. I swung my legs off the bed, held Isabelle’s hands and pulled her gently towards me. “Which one’s your favourite?”

  “All of them,” she laughed.

  I stared into her innocent eyes and wondered what horrors they had been witness to. My thumbs touched her wrists, and although they had no pulse, something did run through them. “The thing that Carl did to you…he touched you, right?”