Mirrorman

by Trevor Hoyle

  The head of black glistening hair, which is swept back from thick sideburns, almost touches the ceiling. There is hardly space for the shoulders as the bloated figure waddles forward, wheezing and grunting, the full soft lips set aslant in a crooked grin.

  Exact in every detail, from the rings arrayed on both hands down to the last sequin on the costume, the figure is from life – except twice or even three times life size. It has been expanded and engorged to monstrous and grotesque proportions.

  It comes on, blocking out the light, filling Kersh’s vision with a dazzle of sparkling rhinestones like a field of stars. There’s nowhere for him to go, except backward. Retreating, Kersh is hemmed in between the stone walls on either side, the iron door behind, the bloated figure closing in rapidly. A jewelled medallion in the shape of a star hangs down on the pale exposed gut, directly in front of Kersh at eye level. Kersh retreats further. But it’s as far as he can go. Squeezed into a tight space, he feels surrounded by and then immersed in a mound of sweating blubber. With his back against the iron door, he feels the pressure increase, and then the suffocating weight and bulk of flesh crushing into him. The edges of the rhinestones are vicious and sharp, drawing blood as they snag at his face. His ribs are creaking, and even by straining hard he can’t draw breath. His senses are fading, everything becoming dark and distant as his body is compressed and the air squashed out of him.

  Kersh is suffocating in a mountain of flesh.

  Sinking into folds of flab.

  Fighting himself free and lifting his head to suck in a gasping breath, Kersh’s clawing hand strikes the star-shaped medallion. He grasps it and thrusts one of the jewel-tipped points into the quivering mound of white fat lapping over him. The jewelled tip goes deep. But not deep enough. He grinds it in, up to the elbow, then deeper still until his arm is enveloped and being sucked inside. This can go on for ever, Kersh thinks; there’s no end to it. But he increases the pressure still more, thrusting the jewelled tip with all his strength into the shuddering mountain. Something inside gives way, ruptures and rips apart, and a shock wave flings Kersh against the iron door, his skull ringing with a thousand crazy bells.

  The carcass has exploded.

  Lumps of bloodless flesh cling to the ceiling, ooze sluggishly down the walls, seeping with rhinestones and sequins. Tattered shreds of white suit drift to the floor. Ripped apart, the studded belt is scattered everywhere in bits and pieces, and all that remains recognisably intact is the star-shaped medallion with its jewelled points, lying in a pool of simmering fat.

  Kersh tries to move. He’s stuck to the floor. He heaves, struggling to wrench his feet from the congealed mess. The smell of frying grease reminds him of hamburgers sizzling on the griddle in some smoky hash joint, and he comes awake with flailing legs and the stench of hot grease like stale vomit in his nostrils.

  Lying on the sheets of black silk, his body beneath the robe bathed in cold sweat, Kersh experiences the first, and completely authentic, stab of naked fear.

  The dream has come to him unbidden: the idol of his teenage years seeking to destroy him. OK, a dream only, that’s all (stay cool, man!), but still an image out of left field that he absolutely knows, goddamnit, didn’t originate in his own mind.

  That’s what really freaks him: the fact that he, Frank Kersh, didn’t think of it.

  For a full minute he can’t move. Like in the dream when his feet were glued to the floor. Then he forces his muscles into action, swings off the bed and staggers a few steps before he can gain control of his legs. The knob of the bedroom door feels slimy in his clammy palm. Kersh turns it, then hesitates. He tells himself that the living area beyond is empty. He convinces himself no one is there. But what if he’s wrong? What if, shit and corruption, someone is? Edging the door open, he peers cautiously into the living area, does a long slow sweep across the entire room, from the sunken well to the bar, and on to the sliding glass partition fronting the balcony. Kersh closes his eyes and leans against the door jamb, stomach gurgling like a stormwater drain. Thank you, Jesus.

  Everything exactly the same. Just as it was before – unchanged – and just as it should be, and will be, for ever and ever. Amen.

  At the bar Kersh reaches down the Jack Daniel’s, fills a shot glass and throws it back in one. The liquor forges a molten path right down to his vitals, gives his confidence a kick start. He decides that what happened back there was a fluke. Some kind of glitch is all. Rest easy, Frank. You’re safe here, he tells himself. Nobody can get through, and certainly not Cawdor – he doesn’t know how.

  He refills his glass and tosses it back. He’s in mid-swallow when his eye happens on something that makes his bowels loosen and his sac of testicles shrivel like a dried prune.

  A crack has appeared in the mirror backdrop behind the bar.

  Running jaggedly from top to bottom, it splits his image straight down the middle, so there are two slightly disjointed Frank Kershes gaping back at him, drops of liquor dripping from their chins. With the back of his hand, Kersh wipes them off. Unchanged no longer.

  Almost skidding off the leather-topped barstool, Kersh spins round to scour every inch of the living area, expecting to see a grinning Cawdor standing there. But the place is silent and empty. The stars gleam steadily through the curved glass dome overhead; the slice of moon is unmoved.

  If he’s aiming to freak me, Kersh thinks, tough titty. I don’t scare that easy. The creep don’t know it, but he’s dealing with a killer here, a hardened pro like Lee Marvin who can wipe out ten guys in three blinks of an eye. He swings back to the bar and sloshes liquor into the glass. Maybe, Kersh thinks, I can get Lee up here and we can kick some ass. Me and Lee would get along jake. A couple of hard-drinking, heavy-screwing, saloon-brawling hellraisers. Real close buddies standing shoulder to shoulder, wiping out the opposition and then raising our glasses in mutual respect and admiration, Lee giving that famous lopsided grin and growling, ‘Frank, gotta say this. You’re one helluva guy. A real knockout with the ladies too, you old lech.’

  Ain’t that the living truth, Kersh admits to himself. A snap of the fingers and any woman he wants comes running –

  Sheeeit!

  He can’t hold back a rebel yell. He’s had an idea. Boy, and it’s a barnstormer – his best yet. It’ll stop Cawdor dead in his tracks. Poor sap won’t know what hit him.

  Kersh raises his glass to himself in the fractured mirror and his two selves raise theirs to him.

  5

  He has no other choice but to accept it. Kersh has won. Cawdor can do nothing to stop him. He’s no nearer to reaching Kersh than he ever was. It was all a delusion. Kersh has been toying with him since the beginning, leading him on to believe he was moving forward, making progress, when the bitter truth is this: he is at the mercy of Kersh’s malicious whim and fancy, endlessly spiralling through the store of images in that demented brain of his.

  Like this one. Sitting on the heap of gravel, knees drawn up, feeling the monotonous drumming of the sea against his spine through the timber planking. All around him the rats paddle, their shiny pointed noses twitching above the scummy water, waiting for his heartbeat to stop. The boldest rat doesn’t wait. It creeps dripping-wet up the gravel slope, head flattened, sniffing the scent of human body heat

  Eyes closed in the hollow, thudding darkness, Cawdor flinches as something touches his hand.

  Then finds himself gazing into a pair of liquid brown eyes.

  ‘I did as much as I could,’ Kumar says, ‘but it wasn’t enough. Forgive me.’

  ‘Forgive you?’ Cawdor laughs weakly. ‘If only I’d listened to you and taken your warning seriously. But I was too stupid to understand. Even when it was shown to me in the broken pieces of mirror, the past and the future laid out in front of me–’

  Cawdor stops. He is trembling all over.

  ‘We’ve been through this before. You and me sitting here, saying the same things to one another.’ His heart seems to shrink inside him. ‘Will it j
ust go on for ever, the same events repeating themselves endlessly? Do I have to live through the same future again and again? Doesn’t it ever end?’

  ‘Not until you act to change it.’

  ‘I’m lost in here. I don’t know how.’

  Kumar smiles. ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘How? Help me.’

  ‘You must break the circle. I possessed the knowledge, it’s true, but it is you who has the power to defeat Kersh. That’s why I came to your office. To warn you.’

  ‘You remember that?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But before you didn’t…’

  ‘Because I was trapped in one body. I inhabited a single existence. You saw two of my selves in two separate existences, where I was aware of only one. Don’t you understand? When you broke the mirror in your bathroom you entered another world. A probable world of what-might-have-been. A world in which your wife and daughter were abused and then destroyed. But it is only one world out of an infinite number of probable worlds.’ Kumar grips his arm. ‘You must defeat this evil. If you don’t, history will follow the path of the Messengers, and everything is lost.’

  ‘It’s too late.’ Cawdor stares off into the darkness. ‘Kersh has won.’

  ‘No!’ Kumar’s grip tightens. ‘Everything that’s happened is in the world of what-might-have-been. But you can change that.’

  ‘Why me?’ Cawdor asks, savagely breaking free. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because the only person who can destroy Kersh is the one who gave him life. That person is you.’

  Cawdor jerks back in astonishment. ‘Me?’

  ‘Kersh committed murder and was sent to Death Row. The Messengers needed an evil brain to create a world, both past and future, in which they would triumph, and Kersh was perfect. In that world you defied the Shouters on board this ship and were punished for it, along with your family. Because of that, Kershalton survived. He went on to become Kersh, who then murdered the boy in the gas station and was sentenced to death in the electric chair. The Messengers were then able to use his brain to create a world in which they would triumph. In that world you defied the Shouters and were punished by them… And so the circle goes on, and will do so, unless and until it is broken. It encompasses the distant past and reaches into the far future where the corrupt power of the Messengers has achieved complete control and total domination. A world made in the image of Frank Kersh.’

  Cawdor turns back to the limpid brown eyes in the narrow swarthy face. ‘Can it be broken?’

  ‘The truthful answer to that, my friend, is that I don’t know. All I do know is that the possibility exists.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ But, even as Cawdor asks the question, the answer comes to him.

  Behold in this shattered mirrour all your past and future times.

  The shards of broken glass had revealed to him the world as fashioned in the warped brain of Frank Kersh. In these fragments he had been permitted a terrifying glimpse of both past and future in a world of what-might-have-been that could become its own self-fulfilling prophecy. A world that exists because it exists in its own world. The circle complete and unbroken. But Kumar has faith that it can be broken, and now Cawdor understands why.

  The reason is simple. Because Kersh is afraid. He’s afraid because he doesn’t have absolute control of the world he created. If he had, Cawdor wouldn’t be here now thinking the thoughts he is thinking. Kersh would have obliterated any such possibility. But Kersh cannot rest, cannot be fully at ease, because the possibility exists.

  That’s what scares him. The possibility.

  Beyond the timber wall, the sea roars and shudders. The scummy tide swills back and forth in the gloomy hold, lapping at the heap of gravel. The boldest rat, halfway up the slope, suddenly retreats and slides back into the water as Cawdor climbs to his feet. Kumar rises with him. They stand facing one another.

  ‘I remember something you once said to me, long ago. You said that men of good faith must do what they can to oppose the forces of evil. A balance has to be kept, or else everything is chaos.’ Cawdor grasps Kumar’s hand in both of his. ‘You have shown me the truth of that. I thank you for the gift.’

  ‘Yes – and your reply was to call yourself a poor disciple. “A defective candle to carry the flame.” Remember?’ When Kumar smiles, his whole face is suffused with radiance. ‘But I happen to be an excellent judge of candles. The flame burns brightly, as I knew it would.’ He turns Cawdor’s left hand over and presses his fingertips into the palm. It is a curious gesture, one that Cawdor doesn’t understand. ‘Don’t forget,’ Kumar says softly, increasing the pressure, ‘who it was destroyed this part of you. Kersh may yet live – or die – to regret it.’

  From the bottom hold of the vessel Cawdor ascends alone to the lower deck, where bodies he crammed together on hard bunks in a miasma of suffocating heat and noxious stink. He sees the ship’s doctor on his knees, tending to some poor wretch. Cawdor passes on. No one pays him any notice. He climbs a ladder of worn rungs to the middle deck. Somewhere here, in one of these narrow wooden cubicles, he and Saraheda and Daniel spent week after week of an interminable voyage to the New World. His wife and son never lived to see the end of it. They met the wrath of the Shouters. On a moonless night in the middle of the ocean the Shouters’ murderous accomplice, one Franklin Kershalton, did for them. So be it. Cawdor gathers the malice and hate-filled revenge to him as tightly as he grasps the rail of the companionway and hauls himself up to the main deck and the fresh open air. The stench and heat below are swept away. He breathes in the warm night. The breeze touches his cheek like a soothing caress. Cawdor tilts back his head and looks up to the stars. They blaze in splendour across the heavens. He has never in all his life seen such a display. It is magnificent. More wondrous and splendid than even Gilbert Gryble might have rhapsodised about in his wildest moments of fantasy. But there is something wrong about it. Cawdor stands looking up, puzzling what this might be. The stars do not blink. They gleam hard and cold, without the tiniest flicker, spheres of dead light. Away to the eastern horizon the early phase of the moon is a thin sickle of pale luminescence. To Cawdor it looks fake. Like a piece of silver paper stuck to the sky. So bemused by this strange artificial phenomenon, it takes a while for him to realise that he’s gazing upward at the night sky through a dome of glass.

  His eye follows the glass curvature downward to a white wall and then to a white carpet. The carpet extends across the floor to three steps leading down to a circular well in the centre of the room. There, on a curved bench sofa of white fur, a man is stretched out at ease, hands folded behind his head, his thin legs and bony knees emerging from a black silk robe.

  ‘Bin waitin’ a long time for you, boy.’ Kersh grins, the skin crinkling around the eye of blank milky marble. ‘But jeez, fella, you finally made it.’

  Kersh slides off the sofa, still grinning. ‘What’s your poison, Jeff? A shot of good ole rye whiskey?’ He comes up the carpeted steps. ‘Naw, wait a minute. You prefer Irish. Am I right?’

  He goes past Cawdor to the bar and reaches down two glasses from the shelf. ‘Had fun gettin’ here, huh?’ Kersh says over his shoulder. ‘Jumped through a few hoops along the way. Sure hope it was worth it.’

  Cawdor looks around. Everything here is a creation of Kersh’s private fantasy. From this penthouse suite to far beyond the glass roof, to the stars and slice of moon. It is always night here, the City of Perpetual Night, constructed from the dark labyrinth of Kersh’s imagination. He sits atop his tower of granite and glass, 2,000 storeys high, master of all he surveys. None of this comes as any surprise to Cawdor; he expected it, and calmly accepts it. What does surprise him, and frankly baffles him too, is that Kersh shows no sign of fear, nor even the slightest concern. He has to be afraid that all this will be taken away from him. Has to be.

  Why isn’t he afraid?

  ‘Crying shame about Baby Sam,’ Kersh says, sloshing out liquor. ‘You know, I really miss the old scumbag
. He always was good for a laugh. Did you have to do what you did?’ Kersh shrugs it off. ‘Ah, well, guess so.’

  He picks up the two glasses and jerks his head towards the balcony. ‘Come on, it’s cooler out there.’

  Cawdor follows him outside.

  He halts at the rail, shocked and momentarily dazzled by the vast city of twinkling lights, spread out from horizon to horizon. The sight makes Cawdor draw breath. Way off in the distance he sees a pyramid of glass glowing like a beacon. The sheer scale and power of Kersh’s creation is overwhelming. For the first time Cawdor feels a shadow of unease; of corrosive doubt eating away at his resolution and sapping his confidence.

  Kersh sweeps out a hand proudly. ‘Great, huh?’ he boasts. ‘All this – everything I always wanted. And wanna know something? No strings attached. One second of my time is all they wanted. The last second, as it happens, so what had I to lose? Hell, sure, they can have it and welcome to it. What use is it to me anyway?’

  ‘What happens when it’s over?’

  Kersh chuckles. He hawks and spits into space. ‘You know better’n that, Jeff. It’s never over. Just goes on and on. And on. Hey, drink your drink.’

  Why isn’t he afraid? Cawdor wonders, sipping his drink. Maybe he isn’t afraid because I’m part of it, too. And, if I’m just another phantom of Kersh’s imagination, what has he to fear from that? And why am I leaning on the rail of his penthouse drinking with him? I came here with black revenge in my heart. I came here to destroy him. Cawdor looks down into the abyss. If Kersh fell from here, would it kill him? Is it even possible for him to die in this place of his own creation? Maybe Kersh can’t die, Cawdor reflects… Not unless Kersh himself thinks it.

  ‘Like I said, this is one sweet deal,’ Kersh is saying. ‘I just have to dream something up – and I get it! Neat, huh? Anything my heart desires.’