by K. Massari
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The downstairs lights went off. Dylan was still in his car, parked on the curb in front of his supervisor’s house, a man who had taunted him at work to the point of no forgiveness.
Dylan heard heavy footsteps working their way up the stairs inside the house. His boss was going straight to bed. Maybe he wouldn’t even bother taking his clothes off.
Dylan waited. Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he wished he had a cigarette. (He wished he had a knife or a gun.) He was such a pussy considering what other men did all the time. He was still feeling restless, not tired, not spent, still geared up. Yes - really, sometimes those coworking buddies let on he would always be the mama’s boy, he would never be tough enough and badass like them.
“Don’t you listen to that,” he heard his mother’s voice in his head. “What do they know? … They are so different, so mindless, so not skin-deep. Honey doll, I am your mother. I will always be there for you. I am the conduit.”
And although it sounded comforting, he didn’t have the strength to completely block out the doubt (the dread). It crawled around inside of him, dripping through his guts, his dreams, his better times. He was caught between worlds and didn’t belong anywhere. Dylan was alone. Severely alone. Little nothings in mirrors or not.
And he was alone on the street then and there. The giggling girls were not coming back, everyone was chilling, watching television, soaking away the day’s problems in a hot bathtub. Playing computer games, exchanging chats and pictures. Dylan checked his phone for messages as a gray sauce oozed out of the inside rearview, reaching over with fingers to his ears. His head snapped up, just in time to see the dead thing in and out of the mirror smile its crooked, ghastly smile.
Dylan threw his phone down and rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. He got out of the car and stretched, acting cool, but the tears welled up, and he had a lump in his throat. What a crazy fucking life it was for him. With no escape; hate all around. He decided to circle the house just once, to move in a little closer, inspect the backyard. He broke into a jog and didn’t look back at the car, just left the door open.
The moonlight was bright and Dylan took his time walking around the house, careful to tread softly in the darkness so no one would see or hear him, should one of the neighbors be awake and jittery and come out smoking on their porch at that hour. He knew how to blend into the background. It was the one thing his shadows could really teach, how to be there and not there, at the same time.
Nothing unusual. He sensed the people in the surrounding houses were now falling asleep. When he had finished his circle of the house, he glanced at his car under the heavy maple leaves of the trees. He could clearly make out a quivering figure in the glass of the passenger side door. Getting bolder now. It seemed to be staring at him, beckoning him to come back. He swallowed hard and exhaled.
He knew this shadow was no hallucination. It was not an ordinary shadow, the reflection of a person on a shiny surface. No, this was something else …
Dylan remembered his mom gently pulling him onto her lap (although he didn’t exactly like being touched by her), and forcing him to look up by holding his chin between her thumb and her forefinger.
“Dylan, darling,” she had said softly, “when you look into a mirror or a window, and you see not only your reflection, but also that of another person, - don’t worry, honey. No need to be afraid. They are just … our ancestors!”
“Grandma?” little toddler-Dylan had suggested.
“Why yes!” his mom had offered in a kind voice. “Grandma, Grandpa, their parents and their parents. All the way back, forever and ever back.”
Dylan had been amazed. As he grew older, however, he began to doubt these shadows and figures were the benevolent spirits of bygone generations and beloved ancestors. To him, they were merely annoying, tormenting, frightening, useless. He tried to block them out.
Ignoring what appeared to be the shadow of a woman in his car window, Dylan got back inside and behind the wheel - he decided it was high time to leave. To step on it.
Thoughtfully, he was about to turn the key in the ignition when he saw something white glowing in the living room window of his boss’s house. A woman in a long wedding dress stood there looking out at him.
From where he sat, he saw that her silhouette radiated trim youthful attractiveness, with a petite, hour-glass figure. But her body language was broadcasting unabashed hatred and unbridled rage, tense and hostile as her aura was. Where her eyes should have been, there were two large black gorges. She had no mouth, no nose and only ragged claws for hands.
Dylan tried to breathe. He really needed to go. He tried to move, but was paralyzed, forced to watch, forced to witness.
The ghostly being dressed up for a wedding let the curtain slide back into place. She was no longer interested in him. With her glow around her, she floated in the direction of the stairs. Dylan sat, mouth agape, eyes wide, and shivered, as he peered into the house and took in as much as he could possibly see, transfixed.
Very soon, he heard shrieking coming from what must have been the upstairs bedroom. Short, breathless shrieks, as if someone - the wife - were breathing heavily and trying to scream at the same time. An object was thrown, crashing into a wall. A light popped on. The man’s voice was yelling. Obscenities.
Dylan heard furniture falling over, with thunks and thuds. The wife, having caught her breath, let out a prolonged scream, while the boss barked and shouted all the more. In neighboring houses, lights went on. Even a shot was fired. Again, the demon-thing dressed as a bride stood behind the living room window (or was trapped, rather, inside the living room window pane), as it gazed longingly out at Dylan.
Grandma? Holy shit, no! “Go away,” Dylan mutterly crossly through gritted teeth. “Go back to where you came from.”
The spirit bowed its head, losing strength in its own reality, and appeared to sigh, defeated.
And then, everything went black. Dylan rested his head on the backs of his hands. His knuckles had gone white, gripping the steering wheel in utter despair. He tried to fight the nausea, but it was stronger.
He was in a long, black tunnel. He was not afraid. In fact, he felt relieved. It was cool, and there was no noise, no stress, no fear.
He let himself be pulled into the tunnel. The long, dark, soothing black tunnel. And if it pulled him to his death, he couldn’t find it in his soul to care at just that moment. Maybe it would pull him to a place where nothing really mattered anymore, and he didn’t have to be consumed by emotions that stabbed at his heart and cut into his mind.
When he came to, there was a faint sparkle to the world, the timid promise of a new day. It had to be early in the morning, very, very early. After a few minutes, he heard the familiar giggling, and the two girls from the night before came running from the porch of a house across the street. They looked pale and tired, but happy. This time, one of them did look directly at him, running a little faster past him, as if she recognized his face. Dylan knew her from Facebook and other social media sites, but now, in real life, she looked plain and small, not sexy or wild. Just a girl.
The teenagers ran to the back of the house. They had a key to the rear door, he thought, and he realized he needed to leave. He could still get an hour or two of sleep; he would sleep in his car and go to work without shaving.
He half-expected one of the girls to shriek, the one who would see the carnage first. He heard nothing. His shadows played wicked games with the minds of the people who dared to cross him. But they were games, not realities. His boss would torment him no more.
Dylan drove home, but not before adjusting his mirror.
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