In the House of Mirrors (25 page)

My mirrored image was normal.

There was no evidence of anything otherworldly at all.

6

I turned the corner and stood in the hallway. The long corridor had several doors on both walls, although I could hardly tell due to the amount of mirrors that covered them. Like the entry room and the stairway, the hallway walls and ceiling were hidden behind Boone's gateways. As I followed Little Chris, I watched myself sneak peeks from every angle possible. Some of the images were warped to look funny, but most of them were normal reflections of myself.

Little Chris stared in awe. He looked around, spinning in circles with his mouth agape, at the various mirrors that had been plastered all around us. “I don't get it,” he kept muttering, but I hardly heard him.

My attention had been turned to the camera, which now had a greenish glow to it. It was faint, and if I hadn't randomly looked down at it, I would have never noticed. With each step toward the end of the corridor, the faint glow became more apparent. Something inside of the camera began to move. At first I thought it was my imagination playing a cruel trick on me. But as we grew closer to the door at the end of the hallway—which did
not
have a mirror hanging on it—the pulsations from within the camera became distinct. Something inside the camera was moving all right, a steady thump that vibrated my hands. Very rhythmic, like that of a beating heart.

I suddenly noticed that the pulsating vibration within the camera was exactly that; a heartbeat. As the door became a few footsteps closer, the camera's heartbeat pounded, much like mine had when I caught Lynne with Buster, or when Little Chris had pulled a gun on me. The camera buzzed so violently it took both hands to keep it from escaping my grasp. I realized my own heartbeat had taken off. Within seconds, both my heart and the thumping from the camera were in sync with each other. I could hear the pounding in my ears; the squishing sounds of blood pumping through the valves.

Bump...

Bump-Bump...

Bump...

For a second, I thought I might lose consciousness. The feeling was unwarranted considering I had remembered to take my medicine that morning. Suddenly, my head felt empty, as if someone had scooped out my brain like ice cream. I felt ill. I hunched over, prepared to lose my lunch on the hardwood floor. Little Chris turned to me. His hand was on the doorknob. He said something but I didn't hear him. All I could hear was the beating of our hearts—mine and the camera that had changed my life, altered my perception of reality. The sounds of the world around me had succumbed to the thumping of two hearts.

Bump...

Bump-Bump...

Bump...

Little Chris said something again, but I still couldn't make it out. Then he twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. A bright light filled the hallway. It blinded us, and shielding my eyes did nothing to relieve the burning sensation that had entered my skull. Little Chris drifted toward the light. I said something to him. I thought I told him to stop, but I couldn't hear myself either. The heartbeat consumed me, blocking out the sounds of the world. Whatever words I had uttered, Little Chris didn't hear them. Or if he had, he ignored me.

Instead, he stepped forward, and I watched as the blinding light swallowed him whole.

7

The heartbeat was almost too much for me to handle. A tremendous headache raged, but that was the least of my worries. For a brief moment, visions of my eardrums exploding plagued my thoughts. I called to Little Chris, but there was no answer. I decided there was little choice in the matter. I couldn't turn away now.
Aurelia could be beyond the light,
I thought, and that motivated me to carry on. It temporarily lulled the beating hearts. I found it in me to push the sick feeling in my head and stomach aside and put one foot in front of the other, toward the white light.

I stepped forward, and felt a warm sensation as I passed through the doorway and into the white light.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The warm, comforting sensation lasted momentarily, and then it was gone. Suddenly I found myself in a room with no mirrors on the walls. Instead, the room was comprised of raw, rotting wood, plain and unstained. I had stepped into the attic. Support beams and trusses hung before me, and if I had taken a few more steps forward without looking, I would've bounced my head off one. It took me a brief moment to collect my senses, and understand what part of the house I was in.

I stood in the attic and surveyed my surroundings. Above me was the gabled roof. The back half of it was missing, badly burned from the fire Aurelia had started. The sun looked into the unintentional skylight, cascading rays of sunshine into the normally dark atmosphere. I looked for any evidence of the white blinding light, but I couldn't find any traces of it or identify its source.

After I had regained my senses, I noticed the camera's heart had stopped beating. It was no longer pulsating in my hands. This calmed me. I was glad I could no longer hear my heart pounding away in my chest. It drummed normally again, and most importantly, it did so silently.

I looked straight ahead and in the center of the room, with the opening in the roof behind it, a single mirror stood, staring directly at me. It did not hold my image in its reflection. Instead, the mirrored glass ebbed like ripples in the ocean.

I stepped forward, and a familiar figure crept out from behind the mirror.

“
I was beginning to worry you wouldn't make it,” Geoffrey Boone said. He appeared with a devilish smile that split his face in half.

I looked to the corner of the room and saw a little desk with some broadcasting equipment on it. My eyes shifted to the other corner of the room, and I spotted Aurelia, tied, gagged, and sitting on the floor. Her hands were bound behind her back. An old, dirty tee-shirt had been tied around her mouth, preventing her from speaking. She made noises of discomfort. There were several scratches on her arms and face, but for the most part, she appeared okay. If anything, she looked exhausted. I peered into her eyes and I could tell how frightened she was.

“Ah, yes. The girl. She's been a most pleasant guest,” Geoffrey stated, through his disturbing grin. I wanted to charge him, tackle him to the ground, and beat him within an inch of his life. But I steadied myself.

“
Let her go,” I grumbled through clenched teeth.

He skipped over to her, quite gaily. He grabbed Aurelia by her hair and stood her up. Her painful shriek was muffled by the dirt-stained shirt. I stepped forward with every intent of smashing Denlax's camera into his face, hoping I'd fracture his nose in the process. But a hand grabbed my shoulder, keeping me from doing something that would endanger Aurelia's life any further.

I turned and saw Little Chris. He shook his head subtly. Against my wishes, I nodded to him in agreement. I stiffened when Boone produced a hunting knife from his back pocket and put it to her throat. The blade was corrugated, specifically designed for carving through muscle and tendons. It would open her throat as easy as scissors could cut through a Kleenex. I held the camera close to my body.

“
Relax,” Boone warned me. “Don't do anything you'll regret.” He shuffled from the dark corner of the attic into the beam of light the sun casted down through the missing part of the roof. He stopped and stood next to the mirror, which swirled and flowed, unable to capture the reflection of anything or anyone who stood before it. Geoffrey put his free hand on the wooden trim that outlined the peculiar mirror. He stroked it, as if it were an amiable pet. “This is the portal,” he muttered, his words were accompanied by many short bursts of laughter. “Give me the key.”

“
Give me Aurelia,” I said, holding the camera out in front of me.

Boone shook his head back and forth wildly. “No! No, no, no, no.” He kept repeating the word over and over again, until he grew tired of it. “Give me the key first. Then you get the girl. That is the only way!”

“No deal,” I said. “We swap at the same time. It's only fair.”

“
Fair!” he screamed.
“Fair!”
His face writhed. I had definitely pissed him off. “How's about this for fair? I slit this little cunt's throat and then chop you and your fat friend into tiny little pieces! How's that?”

“
I'll smash this thing before you get anywhere near us.”

“
Oh,
I'm so scared
,” he said sardonically, imitating a childish expression. A second later, his crooked grin returned, sending shivers up and down my arms and legs. This was the first time I thought that one of us might not make it out of there alive. “Give me the key,” he said sternly. “I won't ask again. If I have to, I'm going to see what the inside of a woman's uterus looks like.”

I looked to Little Chris. He nodded to me.

I faced Boone and Aurelia. Boone's face turned my stomach into one giant knot. The tears dripping down Aurelia's face enraged me. I looked at Denlax's camera. The time had come to surrender it, and I was not the least bit sad about it. I put the camera in the palm of my hand and rolled it across the floor like a bowling ball. It bounced off the unfinished floor several times before landing at Boone's feet. A worried look came over his face.

“
Careful!” he said. He bent down, mindful of the possibility that Aurelia would escape his clutches, and reached for the Denlax. He gripped it with his fingers and sprung back to a standing position, his arm still around Aurelia's throat. He examined the camera for any damage, while Aurelia squirmed. “You're lucky you didn't break it,” he spat.

“
all right, Boone. You have the camera, now let her go,” I demanded.

His eyes flickered. They were the eyes of a monster, probably the same monster that Arthur Denlax became after meddling in dark magic for so many years. His lips twisted into something that was less of a smile, and more of a snarl.

“You want the bitch,” he said to me, “then go and get her.”

Before I could react, Boone took Aurelia by the hair and flung her body toward the mirror like a professional wrestler throwing his opponent over the top rope. The liquid mirror enveloped her, and within seconds she disappeared inside of it.

Boone looked back at me. I could not immediately react to what I had just seen. He smiled and waved at me. Tucking the camera underneath his arm, Boone dove into the mirror.

We watched the strange mirror devour him, and he was gone. 

2

“
What the hell?” Little Chris asked. “What the hell just happened?”

“
The portal...” I uttered, although I didn't realize I was talking. “The portal.”

I stepped forward in a daze, not realizing I had done so. Little Chris clamped his hand on my shoulder once again, and stopped me.

“What do you think you're doing?” he asked.

“
I'm going after her.”

“
What?”

“
I'm going after her!” I yelled.

“
What are you? Fucking crazy?”

“
Maybe I am.” I turned away from him and took one step forward. Again, he stopped me. “Chris, look—”

A sudden gust of wind, more powerful than your average current, blew through the attic, nearly knocking me off balance. It swirled around the room, knocking the microphone off the table that rested in the corner of the room. Another powerful blast came forth from the mirror's direction, knocking Chris and I back a few steps.

“You can't do this, man!” he yelled over the sounds of the invisible current. “I won't let you!”

“
Chris, you don't understand!” I yelled back. “I have to!”

“
No, you don't! We can get out of here! We can... close the portal and leave!” He screamed, pointing to the standalone mirror in the center of the room.

I looked at the swirling glass. Would it even break if we smashed it against the floor? I didn't know. I supposed it might. What other choice did we have than to try? We had to close the portal before Denlax could escape his exile. But I knew I couldn't... I couldn't leave Aurelia behind. I had to... had to go after her.

“Go grab your bat!” I said, just as another strong blow nearly lifted me off my feet.

“
What?” he asked.

“
Grab your bat!”
I screamed. He nodded. “Break every mirror in the house! If I'm not back with Aurelia by the time you're done... then... you know what to do?” It was more of a command than it was a question.

He nodded again.

Little Chris wished me luck before disappearing into the doorway, but I didn't hear him. I was already facing the mirror. The mirror which was no longer an ebbing clear liquid, but a swirling dark cloud. It was changing rapidly. Becoming more turbulent. It contorted and rippled violently, like a muddy puddle that had been disturbed by footsteps. I moved toward it, planting one foot in front of the other, but I found it difficult because of the gale-force wind that was thrusting against me. I was moving slowly, hardly at all, and the mirror was still a good five steps away.

Stay away, Ritchie-my-bitchie! Stay away!
a voice spoke in my head.
You don't need to come in here. I will come to you! And you can do my bidding,
the voice informed me.
You can serve me well. Yes, indeed. Won't you like that? I'm very powerful. I can do a great many things!

I'm coming for Aurelia,
I said back, not expecting a reply.

She's just a girl, Ritchie. There's tons of them out there. Plenty of fish in the sea, they say in your world. I'll help you find another one, just like her. But I need her. I need her inside the House of Mirrors!

I was able to gain two more steps. The mirror was only another arm's length away.

You can have Boone! What do you need her for?

Boone!
The voice cackled wildly.
Boone is an idiot. An insignificant piece of trash in the Great Verse's dump.

The Great Verse?

Aye, The Great Verse. The Verse in which all universes exist. I can show you. I have the power. Let me, Ritchie-my-bitchie. Let me show you. I have chosen you. You should count yourself lucky to be at my side when I conquer your world, and others like it.

You're not going to conquer anything, you piece of shit.

My fingertips reached the mirror. They penetrated the swirling clouds where an ordinary mirror only held reflective glass. My fingers felt cold, as if on the other side of the mirror was a big block of ice. Soon, my hand became completely immersed, and a cold, freezing sensation shot up my arm, into my spine, and down my back.

Disappointing really. I had high hopes for you, Ritchie-my-bitchie.

Go fuck yourself, Denlax.

My arm became completely lost within the dark cloud. Then, without warning, something yanked on it. As my head entered the gray swirling clouds, I felt the wind tug on the lower half of my body. The next thing I knew I was suspended in the air. I felt like the rope in a game of tug-of-war; the two worlds were fighting for me, tearing me apart.

My eyes were clenched shut, in fear of looking at whatever was beyond the mirror. As my chest passed through the portal, my body became numb, as if I had been submerged in an ice bath.

Shame on you, boy. We could've been great. We could've been the best traveling act this world has ever seen!

Then my feet passed through the mirror and my body fell (for what seemed like ten feet), and I connected with something solid.

Hard. The ground of another world, perhaps.

I had trouble breathing as I scrambled to my feet. The air had been knocked out of my lungs.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. There was a burning sensation that took a moment to fade. When it did, I could finally see.

I almost choked, gasping for air, as I gazed at the horrors before me.