Broken Mirrors, Fractured Minds

by Carmilla Voiez

  “Never again, my love. You have my word.” The smell of vanilla and raspberries flooded into the room where Kendal sat, completely relaxed for the first time in two days. He put an Isley Brothers CD in the stereo: a gift from his father. I believe I blasted you in your mother off this album. Take it son; your lady will love it.

  Even in remembrance, his father’s words were traumatizing. He took another sip from his glass. The sound of water, beating the shower wall, relaxed him.

  Man I must really be tired.

  He caught his head just as it began to slump toward his chest. Angel spoke through the bathroom door. “Honey, I’m excited! You know my family can’t wait to see you.” Kendal grinned as he put the glass to his lips. “They’ve been waiting for you, down there.”

  “I’m really looking forward to…” Kendal looked at his drink. The glass shattered as he dropped it on the hardwood floor. Within seconds, crawfish covered every inch of the floor, crawling on top of each other with crunching and clacking noises.

  “Angel!”

  “Don’t worry baby. I’m about done in here.”

  I keep hearing footsteps baby. In the da aark!

  “What’s happening to me?”

  “She finally got ya, huh, boy?” The demon cop’s voice boomed around the room.

  Dishes tumbled from the cabinets, falling on the crawfish. Lights blinked on and off. Flashing images of decayed and warped human faces drew near to Kendal as he cornered himself between the bathroom and the hall closet. The front doorknob jiggled, violently. Undead images, human carcasses attached to terrifying faces, reached for him.

  “Get away! Get away from me!” He cried.

  Pale hands with rotted, fungus infested fingernails covered him. They smelled of putrid compost. “We’ve been waiting for you Kendal.”

  “Noooo!” He screamed then fainted. When he came to he was lying on his bed. The stench of death clung to his nostrils.

  “You’re finally awake!” Angel stood over him in a sexy, red dress split on the side, exposing her track-and-field thighs. “Come on, time to go.”

  “What the hell is going on, Angel?”

  She swept the air of the room with her hand. The floor transformed into a sea of red, goo. “My family is here to meet you.” Slowly, through the red sludge, bodies of men began to form like jack-in-the-boxes. Their eyes were black, smooth onyx stones set in the bloody gates of Hell. They possessed no mouths, but the air was full of their deafening chatter.

  “Silence!” Angel commanded the, now fully shaped, bloody humanoids. Thick blue veins pulsed throughout their bodies, resembling schematics of a large northeastern city. They stood to attention like well-disciplined soldiers awaiting orders.

  “What did you put in my drink, Angel?” Kendal asked in disbelief.

  She laughed at his question with indignation. “Don’t get squeamish now! You committed to me, remember?”

  “Yeah, sissy boy! You made a commitment to my lil girl!” The demon cop stood behind Kendal.

  “How did you . . .?” Kendal was perplexed. “Mr. Light?”

  “Let me explain.” Angel sat next to him on the bed. Even in the midst of madness, she was beautiful. “The first time we made love we connected on a spiritual level. The reason you are witnessing all of this is, because I opened your eyes to the spirit world. The world in which my spirit dwells.”

  “Look baby, you aren’t the only one I’ve fucked!” Kendal spat.

  The demon cop slapped his face. “Watch yo mouth when speakin to my chile heyre.” He said in an eerily calm, but noticeably murderous tone.

  “As I was saying.” Angel began again. “My great-grandmother was seduced by a blues musician down in New Orleans, one summer night in the French Quarter. As the story was told to me, they made love in a pit of fire and didn’t suffer one burn. She said his penis moved inside her, like a snake slithering through the marsh. His body was like silk, and his reddish, brown hair like cotton.” Kendal watched as Angel experienced the story as she told it. “When the musician ejaculated in her, she said she heard the laughter of a hundred children permeate her belly.”

  “So this blues musician was?” Kendal asked.

  “He said he had several names, but his most famous was Beelzebub.”

  “Wait, wait, wait! You mean…”

  “Yes. My lineage stems from a horde of demons.” Angel’s eyes glazed over and transformed into the same glossy onyx of the red slimy men standing behind her. She placed his hand in hers. “These are my brothers in the spirit, and of course, you’ve met my father.”

  The demented police officer smiled, exposing rotted teeth full of holes and gums swimming with earthworms and beetles.

  “So what now, Angel?” Kendal tossed his hands up in a gesture of defeat.

  “Now you meet the rest of my family.” Angel squeezed his hand and her father cracked him in the back of the head, knocking him out cold.

  When he awoke, he was in the back of a police cruiser. Angel was in the passenger seat, and her father in the driver’s seat. They sat silently, waiting for a train to pass. Angel turned around to talk to him. “Don’t worry. I called your father and told him where to find your body.”

  “Where’s my body? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You can’t see my family with all of that flesh weighing down your soul. I cut your throat back at the apartment. You didn’t feel a thing, honey. I made sure of that.”

  “You’re a nutcase! Let me out of this goddamned car, you crazy ass weirdoes! Let me out, damn it!”

  “Wha chout der now, boy! You done spilt blood on my floor!” The cop chided.

  Kendal looked down. His shirt was drenched in blood. “Oh my God!” He gripped his throat. It felt like his hands were between two raw pork chops. “I’m dead! Bitch, you murdered me!”

  “I love you, Kendal Slate.” Angel turned back toward the front.

  The train passed and a dark tunnel appeared on the other side of the tracks. The demon cop screeched the tires of the cruiser, zoomed over the railroad tracks and entered the black oblivion. It was time for Kendal Slate to explore the unknown with his lover, Angel Light, while his earthly body dripped blood on the Egyptian-cotton sheets of his king-sized bed.

  “There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save.”

  ISAAC ASIMOV, Pebble in the Sky

  The Changeling

  by Carmilla Voiez

  ‘I’m glad I came,’ Miranda shouts into Evelyn’s ear.

  Her ear is pierced with a multitude of silver-coloured studs and rings. Evelyn smiles warmly, her berry-coloured lips closed. ‘Welcome to The Crypt,’ she breathes as the track finishes.

  Less than a week ago, Miranda posted a message at Vampire Freaks [1]. ‘Hi, I’m new to the Goth scene and need some advice. I don’t have any Gothic friends and I’m too shy to speak to the people I see on the street. Where does everyone hang out? Who can I ask to go to a club with me? I really love the music but I’m still learning about clothes and stuff. Help me. Miranda, age 16, Bristol.’

  Evelyn’s reply was almost instant. ‘Hi Miranda, I’m a seasoned clubber in the Bristol scene. If you want, we can meet at The Crypt this Saturday. I’ll recognise you from your profile photo, so just come along any time after ten. Evelyn. P.S. I’ve added a link to the club info.’

  When Miranda arrives at the club she cannot see Evelyn in the swarm of black-wrapped bodies, pierced faces, pale skin and back-combed hair. In her shaking hand, she clutches a crumpled profile photo, but it is useless. The club is a tribe to which she does not belong. The air invades her nose with scents of talc and sweat. Teeth glow, as do the white and neon flyers on every table. Shining, white drinks look like lanterns. She feels disorientated as she pushes past damp bodies, apologising, searching.

  The lightest touch on her shoulder is Evelyn’s introduction. She smiles and grabs Miranda’s hand,
pulling her into the crowd. ‘I love this song,’ Evelyn announces.

  The pulse of the music is fast. Bodies rise and fall around them. Evelyn’s arms frame her face; her breasts and shoulders stab at the air in time with the beat of the music. Her huge boots seem weightless as she bounces.

  Moving her body self-consciously, Miranda feels envious of her new friend’s grace. The track changes and the music slows. Miranda achieves a more natural-looking movement, swaying her body like a cobra, losing herself in the dance. She opens her eyes. Evelyn smiles at her in approval. The woman takes Miranda’s hand and leads her to the bar.

  ‘Vodka and Coke,’ Evelyn says to the tattooed bar-man. He nods and mixes her drink. ‘You?’

  ‘Vodka and Coke sounds good.’ Miranda has never tasted vodka before.

  Drinks drunk, they rush back to the dance-floor. The music is everything; it fills the air; it fills the dancers’ bodies; it dissolves time. Miranda feels like a dark Cinderella when the club’s lights come on at the end of the night. Exotic bodies, which had once confused and frightened her, shrink away, embarrassed by the harsh light. Only a few drunks remain. Miranda follows Evelyn to the coat check, feeling torn - wanting to stay, to dance until dawn, but worrying about the time.

  ‘Mum’s gonna kill me,’ she says, too loudly. ‘I’ve never been out this late before.’

  ‘Come to my place,’ Evelyn whispers. ‘We can listen to music and talk. You can face your mum in the morning.’

  Evelyn’s bedsit is a short walk from the night club. The room is small and dark with a strange, but not unpleasant, smell. Evelyn takes off her velvet coat and helps Miranda out of her jacket. She drapes both over a chair and crouches down to turn on her music player. A guitar intro leads into deep, incomprehensible vocals and the sound of violins.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Miranda asks.

  ‘Lacrimosa - they’re German. Do you like?’

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Here, drink this,’ Evelyn insists, passing a cloudy green drink.

  Miranda reaches for the glass and takes a sip. It tastes of aniseed and, beneath that, a hint of something earthy. The music relaxes her. Her face prickles with the heat. She looks at her new friend, but finds that she can’t focus on Evelyn’s face. The room is melting; everything shifts and changes, like being under water, without the fear of drowning.

  Evelyn’s black hair moves. Her mouth twists. Her face alternates between beautiful and grotesque. There is a strange glow in her green eyes. ‘I want you. I want to be you.’

  ‘I love you,’ Miranda replies.

  In her peripheral vision she sees a flash of metal as Evelyn cuts Miranda’s forearm with a razor blade. The pain rouses her and she tries to stand up, but she has forgotten how to tell her muscles to move. Like gelatin, she sinks into the old velvet couch. Everything feels wrong. She tries to say no, shake her head, anything.

  Evelyn sucks at the small wound. She drinks, licking the puncture and surrounding skin, like a French kiss but more intimate. Miranda’s fear turns to desire which spreads from between her legs, to her stomach and up. As the feeling reaches her throat she feels herself float upwards. From the ceiling, she gazes at the raven-haired lover crouched over her vacated body. Parts of Evelyn vanish, like broken pixels on a computer screen. Her solidity changes into a mist which focuses on a thread of blood across Miranda’s arm, pushing into the wound then Evelyn and the mist are gone and Miranda is alone, then nothing.

  When Miranda wakes up, she is in Evelyn’s room. The music is still playing. She sits up and clasps her head between her hands. Pain blinds her; forcing her to sit, eyes clamped shut, head in hands, until the pain starts to fade.

  Daylight pierces the velvet curtains. When Miranda pushes herself upright her body protests against every movement. ‘Evelyn?’

  There is no answer. Walking into the kitchenette, Miranda sees a bottle of bright green liquid on the otherwise empty counter. The refrigerator is empty too. Tearing through the kitchen, throwing open cupboard door after cupboard door, she finds nothing. She searches frantically for anything that might belong to Evelyn: clothes, computer, letters. There is nothing except her discarded velvet coat. Miranda grabs her bag and Evelyn’s coat from the chair. Shrugging into it, she leaves the flat and hobbles to the bus stop, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun.

  Her mother shouts as Miranda opens her front door. ‘Where in hell have you been, Miranda? I’ve been worried sick. I phoned the police. Why didn’t you come home? Why didn’t you call? What were you thinking? Have you been drinking?’

  She grabs Miranda’s shoulders but the girl shakes her off and pushes past. Miranda walks upstairs in silence, leaving her mother’s demands for explanations hanging in the air.

  The following evening she returns to Evelyn’s bedsit. Getting into the building is easy. She enters as someone leaves. They hardly notice her. When she reaches Evelyn’s door, she knocks. The door swings open, revealing a dark room. She waits, allowing her eyes to adjust. She cannot see any outlines of furniture, but notices a shape in the far corner of the room. Straining all her senses, Miranda hears crying and smells wet grass and musk. She reaches for a light-switch but cannot find it. Keeping the door open for the light it offers, she moves towards the shape. The sobbing is louder now.

  ‘Evelyn?’

  There is no reply, but the crying stops. Miranda’s blood rushes through her, roaring in her ears. Reaching out towards the squat shape, she hears a low growl and withdraws in fear. She tilts her head, trying to understand the blackness before her. It rushes at her. A shock of icy air jolts her and she stumbles backwards as a large dog cuts through the darkness and out of the room.

  Miranda sits on the floor, gasping for breath. The carpet feels sticky beneath her hands. Black algae coat her fingers. She springs up, repulsed, and runs from the room.

  Her hand itches, a burning sensation that spreads up her arm to the raised red line. She scratches it, but the irritation is deeper than she can reach. Gritting her teeth, she sprints to the bus stop.

  The next few weeks are spent avoiding her mother’s criticisms. ‘The school phoned. Where were you today, Miranda? You can’t spend your days in bed. You have responsibilities too, Miranda. Stop scratching, have you caught lice? Miranda….Miranda! Are you even listening to me?’

  She tries not to listen, spending her time at home in her bedroom, plugged into her iPod. She dyes her hair black, and in the process the bathroom tiles, shower rose and two bath towels. She attempts to rub the stains off the tiles, but throws the towels away.

  She pierces herself. Ears first, then nose and bottom lip. She uses a needle. At the moment the metal pierces Miranda’s skin, she is back in Evelyn’s room, feeling the bite of the razor blade once again. She welcomes this penetration into herself, the burning of cold metal. Gathering drops of blood on the tips of her fingers, she sucks them. The way her ears jangle when she moves, it is like music. It is her music.

  Miranda becomes a regular at The Crypt. Every second Saturday she goes, hoping to see Evelyn again. She dances to the music and drinks too much alcohol, but the evenings seem hollow. She searches the internet, spending hours on forums and chat-rooms, hunting for anyone who might have seen Evelyn. One guy sends Miranda a message telling her he’s Evelyn’s brother. She meets him near The Crypt. His bare arms are covered in tiny cuts and his eyes shine.

  ‘Come with me. I’ll take you to her.’

  Miranda is tempted to believe his words; to go with him. But when he tries to urge her into a car, she runs away, afraid he is lying.

  One night, at The Crypt, she spots Evelyn across the dance floor. When she reaches the place where she saw her quarry, Evelyn has gone. Miranda spins around, searching for her friend. Each face is unique to her. The confused mass of black has taken on diversity with familiarity. She recognises many of the faces. People she has danced with, drunk with, seduced. People who have given her cigarettes, alcohol, speed, coke. But Evelyn isn’t among th
em.

  She spots a red-haired girl, in a Ruby Gloom t-shirt and baggy blue jeans who looks lost and out of place. Miranda approaches her and touches her shoulder, lightly. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m looking for Evelyn,’ the red-head pleads. She looks frightened and confused. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  Miranda smiles warmly, her berry-coloured lips closed. ‘You’ve found her,’ she reassures the girl. ‘Wanna dance?’

  * * *

  [1] Used with kind permission of the webmaster http://www.vampirefreaks.com

  Heaven’s Calling

  by Zoe Adams

  The wheels of a trolley squeak. Boxed My Little Pony figurines stare at me with blank soulless eyes, sending shivers down my spine. I turn away from them and head further down the aisle.

  The shopping basket is firm in my grip, but it bangs against my leg. When the Sylvanian Families enter my line of vision, I place the basket on the floor and crouch beside the toys.

  I hunt through animal families, trying in vain to find the specific set I know she so desperately wants. It’s on her birthday list, and I won’t let her down. Not again.

  When my hands finally find the plump family of sheep, my heart flutters like bird wings. They smile up at me, their beady eyes full of the love they are so willing to give. The circular gap in the plastic casing lets me feel the soft felt of their faces. A sense of accomplishment fills me, and into the basket they go.

  I hear the giggle and shriek of a little girl close by, and I think of my own dear Melody. She is the most perfect little four-year-old I’ve ever met, and I sometimes have to pinch myself to believe I have someone as beautiful as her in my life.

  I head towards the checkouts. Birthday banners and packs of balloons hang on little hooks. I grab a few packets, making a mental note to get chocolates and sugary sweets on my way home.

  There is a sudden splutter and I spin on my booted heel.