by Glenn Rolfe
Shit, Kevin mouthed.
James waved it off and motioned his finger back and forth between them. He then walked around to the other side of his bed and motioned toward the window. Kevin stepped up from the opposite side. James gestured to them to lift Eric into the room. Kevin nodded.
James stuck his head outside. “We’re gonna lift you in,” he whispered. Eric grabbed hold of the sill and hoisted himself up. James and Kevin each grabbed him under an armpit and dragged him in.
Eric dusted the dirt and dead fly particles he’d collected from the windowsill.
James didn’t like the quiet. In all the horror books and scary movies, that’s what came right before hell unleashed.
He knew this was his charge. He took the lead. Kevin, trailed closely by Eric, followed him to the door. Was the door this huge and terrifying before? James hadn’t been this afraid since he was a kid. Back then, his parents had made the mistake of leaving the television on HBO. A six and a half year-old “Jimmy” wandered out into the “spider walk” scene of The Exorcist. He wet the bed for two weeks afterwards; the nightmares lasted until a couple years ago. The enormous barrier between him and whatever was beyond delivered the same chill he got from Linda Blair’s creep-out scene. His knees locked up, the palms of his hands were suddenly clammy, and maggots of fear squirmed to life in his stomach.
“Dude,” Kevin whispered. “You okay?”
“I…I…” James was six all over again. Linda Blair was waiting for him on the other side of the door. “No,” he whimpered.
Kevin’s hand clamped his shoulder. “We’re right behind you, man. If shit gets real, we’ll fuckin’ high-tail it outta here. Deal?”
There was someone possessed out there. James knew the mirror demon had his father. The question was did it have Alison, too?
“Yeah, man. We’re with you.” Eric’s hand patted him on the back. A small amount of the dread filling his jelly spine slipped away. Still, James could not reach out for the door knob. He clenched his eyes shut. Please God, I know I spend my time reading and watching people get killed, but I need you. I need you Lord. Please give me the courage to try and help my family. And please watch over my friends. “In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
“What?” Kevin said.
“Nothing. Let’s go.” James took the cold, silver knob in his hand and turned it. Frigid air breathed into the sticky-hot bedroom. It should have felt great, but nothing about this chilled air was normal.
“Oh, Jimmy…is that you?” A female voice called out.
James’s bravery washed away. He tumbled backwards into Kevin’s arms, visions of Linda Blair crushing his hope.
“Dude, who is that?” Kevin whispered.
“I, I, I…”
He was six years old again and crying at his mother’s bedside.
“Oh, Jimmy, did you bring your friends to play?” the voice said from the cold shadow.
Eric clenched onto James and Kevin. The three boys stood paralyzed by the voice.
The hallway floor creaked.
James tightened his hold on his friends.
God was apparently out of the office.
“Back up,” James said.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s do that,” Eric said.
“Where’s the hallway light?” Kevin asked.
“Th-there’s one by the living room. The other one by the bathroom is broken.”
“Can you tell if she’s coming from one end or the other?” Kevin said.
“No.”
“Dude, it’s just Alison, right?” Kevin said. “If we rush her, we can get to the light. Then we can at least see what the hell we’re doing.”
James shushed him. The floor no longer creaked. The eerie silence returned, oppressive and cold.
It’s fucking with us. It knows what I’m afraid of and it’s using it to fuck with me.
He straightened up, let go of Kevin’s shirt, and said, “Let’s go.”
“Bull rush?” Kevin asked.
“Yep.”
Eric let go of them. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Kevin said. “Me and Eric are gonna go out fast and hard. You follow and make a play for the light switch.”
James nodded.
“Ready?” Kevin said. “On three.” Kevin held his hand up and counted extending his fingers one-by-one, signaling 1-2-
Standing at the doorway, ready to make their move, the hallway light flickered on and off. Slow at first, and then with the flickering fury of a strobe light.
James gasped, but stepped before his friends, and said, “We have to do this.”
He didn’t wait to see if they’d follow, they were pals. Pals were loyal. He gripped the edge of the opened door, flung it against the wall, and stepped out into the icy hall.
A figure covered in blood and grinning waited for them at the end of the hall.
The lights died.
Kevin and Eric crashed into James’s back. He stumbled forward and placed a hand on the cheap paneling that lined the cramped corridor. The wall was wet. James yanked his hand back and brought it to his nose. “What the hell?”
“What, what is it?” Kevin said.
James rubbed his fingers together.
Blood? Is this supposed to be blood? Nice try.
He lunged ahead and slid his hand through the syrupy goo. He found the little black switch and flicked it up ready to laugh at the demon’s tricks.
“Oh my God.” Kevin said.
“What the fuck?” Eric cried.
The paneling was coated with what sure as hell looked like real blood. Crimson smears drooled toward the floor. James felt the warmth drain from his face.
A hand dug into his shoulder and ripped him off his feet.
“Well, well, well. My son has some balls after all.”
James propped himself up on his elbows and scurried back across the floor. His back to the wall, he stared into his father’s simmering, charcoal eyes. The man’s flesh bubbled beneath the surface.
Kevin and Eric stumbled from the hall and fell over one another behind his father. Alison appeared from the corridor. Her eyes and writhing skin matched his dad’s. Kevin and Eric scrambled up next to the wall opposite James. He could see their wide eyes, open mouths. Their limbs trembling in the face of the mirror demons.
James summoned something he could always count on—his rage.
Chapter Thirty
“You look…angry? Are you upset with me?” the demon spoke.
James didn’t want to answer. This thing was not his father.
“Alison and I were hoping to see you tonight. Your buddies over here, well, they probably shouldn’t have come.”
The thing before him turned around to face Kevin and Eric. James wouldn’t allow it to harm them. He had no idea what he would do, but he’d be damned if he was going to sit idle while his friends paid for his fear.
“Big Kev and Eric, right?” the demon said, crouching down before where they’d fallen.
“Where’s his dad, huh, what did you do with Mr. Curry?” Kevin said.
“Now, now, big boy, what are you going on about? I am Mr. Curry.”
“Bullshit, James saw your face, your real face. You’re the mirror demon.”
“My, someone has very active imagination. Tell me, what else do you know about this mirror demon?” it asked.
James shook his head from side-to-side as he tried to catch Kevin’s eyes. He didn’t think a straight on approach was the best idea in this situation. Kevin stared at the demon. Eric saw him and nudged Kevin, but Kevin kept going.
“You and Bridezilla over there are Seekers. You show people with problems what they could be like if, if they give into you.”
“Go on.” The demon crept closer and stopped inches from Kevin’s face.
“You’re a liar.”
“Now, that’s not a nice thing to say.” The demon’s head turned toward Alison in the hallway entry. “Darling, did you hear what this boy just called us?”
“S
ounds like he has a problem with us,” she replied.
“Yes, it would appear so.”
The thing stood.
James watched it move to Eric next.
“And how about you, Eric? Do you think I’m a liar?”
Eric looked to Kevin, then to James.
“Don’t look at them, Eric,” it seethed. “Stop being such a little follower, you pussy. You have your own mind, don’t you?”
“I…”
“Come here, boy.”
James watched it reach his father’s hand out to Eric.
“Eric, don’t,” he shouted.
It spun on James, eyes burned with hatred, stoked like two hot briquettes. “You’ll get your turn, son.” A ripple of ice avalanched from the nape of his neck to his back end. James’s resolve faltered.
It reached out its hand to Eric. “Come, child.”
Eric’s hand trembled as he held it up. Kevin made a grab for it. The demon kicked the heel of its bare foot into Kevin’s face. James tensed as he watched his best friend hit the wall behind him and slump to the floor holding his nose. Blood poured from between his fingers.
“Another disruptive move from you, Big Kev, and I’ll make you do more than bleed.”
Alison walked past Kevin, stepped behind Eric, and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Now, I know you’ve been having some special dreams,” the demon said. “Yes?”
Eric nodded, his face had darkened.
“My love here is going to prove to you that neither her, nor I, are such bad people. Would you like to go with her?”
Eric looked over his shoulder. The thing inside Alison brought her index finger up and traced his ear, then down his jaw, and flattened her palm to his chest.
“I…” Eric tried.
James could see his eyes glazed over. They were working on him.
“Would you go in the back bedroom with her?”
James watched the smile jerk to life on Eric’s face.
“Would you like to fuck her, Eric? Get inside of her. Show her what dreams are made of?”
Eric’s grin took over his whole face. His eyes looked loose in his head, and the front of his shorts tented outward. Alison’s hand began its descent.
“Go. Be a man.”
James shook his head to clear the mixed emotions. Rage, fear, and lust all wrestled for superiority. It was doing this to him, to them. Kevin picked himself up. He pulled his hand away from his face and stared at his blood. James could see the crooked bump at the top of his nose.
Kevin’s eyes followed Eric and Alison. James watched, too, as the she-demon led their entranced friend down the hall. Eric didn’t take his eyes from the evil creature.
“How about you, son?”
James turned back to the thing inside his father. He looked beyond the flesh; he had to remind himself what was really talking to him.
“Let us go. All of us. My dad and Alison, too.”
“You’ve got something, kid. You know that?” It stepped next to him and patted the top of his head. James jerked away. “You, unlike this portly loudmouth over here could really rise up and be somebody.”
“You don’t know me,” James cried.
“Oh, I do, James. I know you better than you think. I know about your dreams, your fears, your desire for Alison, and how jealous you are at this very moment that she’s letting fragile Eric slip his skinny cock between those beautiful, thick thighs.
James’s envy stoked. He gritted his teeth and swallowed it down.
“I also know about your dirty thoughts about fat boy’s delicious little sister.”
“You don’t talk about my sister,” Kevin said.
In seconds, the demon was down before Kevin, squeezing his face. “I warned you about opening that ugly mouth of yours. Didn’t I?”
Kevin’s eyes welled up with tears.
“Nobody really likes you, besides James. Not even your brother or your sister.”
James balled his fists. The demon was attempting to break Kevin.
Tears streaking down his cheeks, Kevin swung a wild left hook at the demon’s face and connected. It responded by backhanding him with a balled-up fist.
Kevin groaned.
“You pathetic, fat fuck,” it said as it reared back and slammed another shot into Kevin’s already busted nose.
Flushed with rage, James shot up and lunged at his father’s body. The demon spun, catching him by the throat, and slammed James back to the floor, knocking the air from his lungs. He choked beneath the thing’s grip. Dots of light in a kaleidoscope of stars danced before his father’s writhing face. He wanted to let go and close his eyes. He wanted this fucked up dream to be over and done. Somewhere in the trailer, James could hear Alison, or the demon within her, moaning.
The black edges of the world began closing around his vision.
“Get the fuck off him,” Kevin shouted.
The hand at James’s throat suddenly released. He coughed, gasping for air.
Kevin tackled the thing to the floor and was swinging lefts and rights at it, but this wasn’t Hank Jacobs. Kevin was two seconds from more trouble than either of them could handle. He rubbed his throat as he scanned the edge of the kitchen for a weapon. He spotted the old stone horse ash tray his father had picked up years ago at a flea market sitting at the front of the kitchen. Two feet high with the ash tray at the top, the body was a solid, stone block carved into a horse’s head. His father had quit smoking years ago but had never gotten rid of it. James had always thought it was strange, but now planned to put it to good use.
He got to his feet and stumbled past the laughing demon. It was taking every shot Kevin delivered and was smiling back behind chunks of torn flesh and blood hanging from its face. James crossed into the kitchen and froze at the sight in the window.
A woman who looked familiar beckoned him. After studying the face, the nose, the eyes…it was…it was Carrie, but older and fully developed.
How…
Come to me, James.
….
Kevin couldn’t close his fists anymore. His hands, covered in blood and gore, trembled. His arms felt numb as the desperation to beat the words from this thing’s mouth, to beat the hurt in its words to nothing, drained away. He couldn’t raise his arms to swing as they dropped to the sides of his sweat-drenched shirt. The horrible thing had laughed through his entire assault, its face a ragged mess of torn flesh and blood. Sometime in his last flurry of punches, it closed its grotesque, fiery eyes and fell silent.
“Good,” Kevin said between heavy breaths. “Die already.”
Kevin sat perched upon its bare chest and slowly turned his gaze toward James in the darkened kitchen. “James…Jamey Boy…”
James didn’t answer. He just stood there in the kitchen staring ahead, locked into the window. “Jamey Boy, no. Don’t look at it, man. Look away. James!”
Kevin stood over the laid-out body beneath him. He took a step forward. “Jamey Boy, look at me, man. Look at–”
Kevin dropped his gaze down at the thing suddenly clenching his leg. Two eyes as bright and red as a setting sun blazed in return.
Chapter Thirty-One
Carrie snatched the door handle, desperate to get inside. Through the window she could see her brother rising and yelling to James in the next room. She jostled the doorknob, trying to will it to turn. She crossed the little stoop and leaned over the opposite side this time and tried to get a glimpse of James.
“What?” she whispered...
Inside, amongst the living room furniture his dad had hauled out to the kitchen, James mouth hung open, his hands at his sides like dead weights. He looked like he was in a trance.
“Oh God, the demons…” she muttered. She let her gaze move to the window. The reflection across from James was something out of a horror movie. James was licking the torn flesh of the naked thing in front of him. Carrie watched him, unable to turn away, as her boyfriend ran his mouth up and down flaps of black
ened, pus-riddled skin. Bile rose in her throat, hot and poisonous. She turned her attention back to where James actually stood, still staring off into space, unmoving. Then, she looked to the moving reflections and gagged. The female-thing turned its ruined face in her direction and smiled; maggots flexed and fell from cracked lips that turned upward.
Carrie stumbled backwards. Her vomit hit the porch in heavy, wet slaps. Her esophagus burned with the heat of stomach acid and betrayal. She toppled forward as something crashed inside the trailer.
At the window, the horrible reflection was gone.
So was James.
The hand suddenly digging into her shoulder caused her to cry out. Startled, she tried to dive from the porch, but her head jerked back. Whoever it was held her in place by her hair.
…..
The vision shimmered, as James was struck with vertigo. He leaned on the stone horse ash tray and turned to see Domineus rise like a great white–fast and ferocious–and with one hand, snatched Kevin by his thick throat. Kevin croaked out in surprise as his feet left the ground and his head slammed into the stucco ceiling above. Bits of white dust rained down upon the demon’s face.
“You want to play rough?” Domineus roared and slammed Kevin’s head again and again into the crumbling ceiling. Larger chunks of white plaster, breaking free, deflected off its shoulders and to the floor. “I warned you, boy!”
“James,” the voice came from behind him.
James saw the reflection of the demon that looked like Carrie turn and offer her round ass to him. He stepped forward. Something like thunder crashed beyond the image.
“Come on, James,” the demon reflection said. “Fuck me. Fuck me like you know you want to.” He watched her hand slip up from the crevice between her thighs.
Another loud bang stole his attention.
Craning his neck again, fighting through the sexual fog enfolding him, James saw the thing wearing his father’s tattered skin holding Kevin by the throat. He screamed as Kevin’s heavy body dropped from the ceiling and thumped, motionless at the demon’s feet.
