Wrathbone and Other Stories

by Parent, Jason

  “Dorian?” she asked. “What the hell are you doing?” Without waiting for his reply, she turned to her frightened customer. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. We’ll take care of your tab and pay to replace the mirror.”

  “It’s okay,” Becky said, blushing. She stood, threw on her coat and exited quickly, leaving Dorian to face Charlene’s wrath alone.

  Before she could berate him, Dorian spoke first. “I’m sorry, Charlene. I don’t know what came over me. I’m not feeling well. May I go home?”

  “I think you’d better.”

  “Thanks,” Dorian muttered. Sweat dampened his armpits and forehead, and his stomach turned. He headed to the men’s room. Once inside, he locked the door and ran to the sink.

  Staring into the mirror above it, he clenched the sides of the sink until his knuckles turned white. His face paled and, his stomach twisted up in knots. Tears glistened on his cheeks.

  “No.” He wouldn’t accept what the mirror foretold. It had his future all wrong. He would never look like that. Dorian was in control of his destiny, and his destiny was to be desirable.

  He gnashed his teeth as he locked stares with what purported to be his reflection. Was it smiling at him? Black teeth and rotten gums peeked out from behind curled-back lips, their corners slightly upturned. Green eyes watched him as he watched them, but they were now more jade than emerald, blanketed by cataracts. Age spots blemished a mostly bald head. The only remnants of Dorian’s lush hair appeared in sporadic gray strands. Blotched flesh was scored with lines a century in the making.

  The man in the mirror had fallen into oblivion. Age had sucked the life from him like a parasite. But Dorian was strong, full of life. He could feel his jaw clenching, his fingers constricting. His heart pounded. Blood pulsed through his veins. He was alive and robust, not that dying old façade, and he would do whatever it took to keep himself that way.

  If not for its eyes, dull yet recognizable, Dorian could have convinced himself that the reflection didn’t belong to him. He swept his hand through his hair. It felt as full as always. The rest of me must be unchanged. The mirror lies. But Dorian could think of no rational explanation for the faces he’d met that day.

  “I’m losing it,” he said. The notion provoked him. Pull yourself together. All you need is a good night’s sleep, and tomorrow, everything will be back to normal. You’ll be the lady killer you’ve always been. He formed a gun with his index finger and thumb and pretended to shoot at the mirror.

  His ancient doppelganger shot back. It seemed to be smiling.

  “Why are you doing this?” Dorian yelled. “What do you want?”

  The old man mimicked him like a bratty child. When Dorian went silent, the image followed suit. Is it patronizing me?

  Dorian exploded. “You are not me! You can’t be me!” He pulled at his hair, slammed his fist against the wall. Then, he froze.

  Faint laughter, its source unknown, reached his ears. He couldn’t tell if it came from within his head or without. A voice said, You’re aging .

  “Aging? The hell I am. That woman thought I was twenty-six.”

  With vacant eyes as still as the glass in which they were reflected, the image offered no response. It remained cold and motionless, a stark contrast to the emotions raging in Dorian. Behind those faded eyes, Dorian thought he saw something as infinite and empty as deep space, drawing him in as though it were calling him home. Its power terrified him.

  “Die,” he told it, “whatever you are.” His voice shook. The sink rattled beneath his grasp. “You can’t have me. You can’t have my life. I won’t let you take it.” His muscles ached from constant straining. He released a deep breath and paused, attempting to settle himself, but the turmoil inside him continued to mount.

  “I’ll break you. I’ll break every damn one of you if I have to.” Dorian lashed out and struck the mirror, shattering it. Fragments of glass fell about the sink. Particles embedded in his hand and clung to his sleeve. His knuckles ran with blood.

  A knock came at the door. “Dorian?” Greg called from outside the restroom. “Are you okay in there? Charlene’s here, too. She says you need to leave.”

  “Just a minute,” Dorian said, picking up a large shard of glass. In it, that same decrepit face stared back, still smiling. The laughter returned, louder this time. Dorian covered his ears with his hands, but it was no use. The laughter amplified, making his head spin. Dizzy, Dorian caught himself on the sink. He stared down at a multitude of glass shards, each with the same reflection—the same old, ugly, laughing man.

  “No, no, no, no!” Dorian paced the length of the restroom, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow. A second knock came. He ignored it.

  It’s the alcohol. I passed out. It’s a dream. When I open my eyes, he’ll be gone, and I’ll see me again.

  Dorian drew out his breaths. Just a dream , he repeated to himself. His breathing slowed. So did his heart. But when he unveiled his eyes, he again saw a withered version of himself, mocking him behind its shimmering shield.

  The laughter grew louder still, debilitating even. Dorian fell to his knees. Glass cut into his legs. His mind raced from one thought to the next, trying to make sense of his unnatural reflection. What would happen when his reflection could age no further? Would it die? Would he die?

  The doorknob jiggled then turned. Charlene unlocked it with her key. She opened the door, and Greg rushed in.

  “Dorian?” he called. “What are you doing in here? We thought we heard fighting. Were you talking to yourself?” Greg glanced at Dorian’s mess but said nothing more.

  “What happened to the mirror?” Charlene asked, poking her head around Greg.

  Dorian heard them talking, but a migraine punished his head. He couldn’t concentrate. His eyes blurred and his nose felt as though it were bleeding, but when he put his hand beneath it to check, it came back dry.

  “Let me help you up,” Greg said.

  “Get him out of here, Greg,” Charlene commanded.

  A hand fell upon Dorian’s shoulder. It was comforting. He looked up to receive the assistance, but what he saw confounded him. His fear swallowed him whole. His doppelganger had crossed over. It had come for him and now stood above him.

  Instincts of fight and flight battled inside Dorian. Fight prevailed. “I told you,” he said, the words spitting through the slits between his teeth. He leaped to his feet. “You can’t have me!”

  Dorian lunged at his enemy, driving him backward into the wall. A warm wetness coated his hand. He looked down to see it covered in blood. He had never released the glass shard, and its jagged edges dug into his hand. The shard’s sharp point was buried deep in the demon that haunted him.

  Dorian smiled. I beat you .

  But when he raised his head to watch the life slip from his adversary’s dying eyes, he met Greg’s eyes instead. Color left the bartender’s cheeks as blood drained from the puncture wound in his stomach. Clammy and blank-faced, Greg slid down the wall, slumping onto the floor like a heap of dirty laundry.

  Charlene screamed and fled. “Call 9-1-1,” Dorian heard her shout, somewhere distant. Dorian’s breath escaped him. He covered his eyes. Traces of Greg’s blood smeared his cheeks. So much blood. He turned on the faucet. He tried to wash the blood off his hands, but the water only seemed to spread it around.

  His head pounding, mouth bone dry, Dorian stumbled out of the restroom. Customers and employees ran from him. Some watched from a safe distance. He wanted to tell them he didn’t do it, or didn’t mean to do it, but with Greg’s body lifeless and mutilated on the floor, Dorian doubted they’d see it that way. His legs shaking, he staggered through the bar and out into the street.

  “Look out!” someone shouted.

  Dorian raised his eyes as a New York City transit bus barreled toward him. Its tires screeched as the bus braked and skidded, its gears grinding. The air filled with the scent of burning rubber.

  Dorian could have jumped out of the way, but something fix
ed him in place. As the bus neared, he saw his reflection in its massive front windshield. He gaped as the image aged before him like a movie in fast forward, everything else around him in slow motion. Flesh turned sour, rotted, and fell from its face. Hair grew long and whitened. Everything human about it melted away.

  By the time the bus was upon him, all Dorian saw were endless dark caverns of hollowed-out eyes against a bone-white backdrop. Something lingered in their darkness, that cold inviting presence Dorian had seen earlier, somehow more poignant now—more sinister.

  The windshield collided with his face. Dorian’s jaw dislocated. His teeth shattered. The fiberglass windshield didn’t quite break as his face embedded into its web-like cracks. They sliced through his flesh, carving him up like a jigsaw puzzle while the impact crushed his nose, eye sockets and cheek bones.

  The bus stopped short, and its momentum transferred to Dorian. His face jerked free of the webbing with a flash of pain as hot as if he’d been worked over with a blowtorch. For a moment, he floated airborne and spun, his hands out before him in a half-hearted attempt to break his fall.

  His hands buckled and wrists snapped against the pavement. His face and chest crashed down with such force that he slid for several feet. Shirt and skin shredded.

  The pain, agonizing at first, faded as his body succumbed to shock. Broken ribs pierced his lungs, and he fought to breathe. He tried to rise, but he couldn’t feel his legs. He saw nothing but blood. Then, he saw nothing at all.

  * * *

  “Coma … disfigurement …” Dorian couldn’t see who had spoken. His eyelids parted. White light flooded into his left eye. His right eye saw only black. It itched terribly. Scratching it, he felt cloth where he should have felt flesh. Bandages?

  Familiar laughter surrounded him, echoing off the walls. Who’s there? Who’s laughing? Dorian’s unfettered eye adjusted to the light. He scanned the room but saw only four white padded walls and a door. In a corner above, a curved security mirror cast a sordid reflection.

  My face! Dorian clawed at the gauze that mummified him. The upper layers fell away, clean and pink. Blood and pus soiled the bandages beneath. The unhealed wounds smelled like meat gone bad. Dorian tossed them aside and swallowed hard. He inched toward the mirrored surface.

  A scream rose in his throat but never escaped. Instead, laughter passed his lips. Tears flowed from the eye and tear ducts still intact. A cavern, like those hollowed eyes he’d seen in the bus’s windshield, sat where his right eye had been. Something hid in that abyss, something dark and cold and void of anything human. Dorian shivered.

  “You did this to me!” He charged at the mirror, aiming to tear it from the wall, to destroy it any way he could. No matter how high he jumped, the mirror remained just out of reach. Running up the wall with bare feet, Dorian almost touched it, but he slipped and fell, crashing hard onto his back.

  He curled into a ball on the floor. The laughter intensified, filling the empty spaces. His body shook in time with it. Staring up at his reflection, he cackled wildly, out of control. His reflection laughed with him … or was it at him? Dorian couldn’t tell. He could hardly bear the sight of himself in that mirror.

  But he had to look. The mirror was all he had.

  FOR THE BIRDS

  * * *

  “Meat!” the fourteen-year-old scarlet macaw squawked. Her red crest fluttered every time she screeched out the word, which was far too often by Nev’s count.

  Just like my ex-girlfriend. Nev shook his head. Never shuts up . Still, he loved his parrot, his best and only friend in a life of reclusion. Given the breed’s average lifespan in captivity, Nev, who was three months shy of fifty-five, would have a companion for the rest of his days.

  And that was enough.

  Still, Joji was sometimes temperamental. She had a one-track mind when it came to her favorite delicacy: red meat, and the rarer the better. Nev did his best to ignore her outburst. He refused to make eye contact or otherwise cave to his better half’s demands. Joji was fond of words, but not so keen on manners.

  He took a sip of his coffee and returned to his newspaper. Clearing his throat, he said, “Do you believe this?” He set down his coffee and pulled the paper up in front of his eyes. “There’s been another one, only a few miles from here.”

  He threw down the paper in disgust. “The victim was violently assaulted before her attacker killed her, and for what? A couple of bucks and a three-year-old TV? I tell you, Joji, my ol’ gal, the Apocalypse is coming, not with one big, booming blast, but with tiny, marching footsteps.”

  Nev’s gaze rose from the newspaper. Joji regarded him with peculiar fascination.

  He chuckled, then tsked. “You won’t need to remind me to lock our doors tonight.” He smiled and winked. “I’d never let them get to you, girl.” He smiled.

  “Meat!” the parrot squawked, louder and shriller than the first time. As if to accentuate the point, she stretched her blue-tipped angel wings and shuddered violently. A stream of Oreo-colored shit shot from her rear end and landed smack dab on a cartoon in the newspaper below.

  A political satirist and pundit for the Warren City Gazette, Nev was pretty sure the cartoon was one of his. Everyone’s a critic.

  “Now, Joji,” he said, standing and placing his hands on his hips in a show of exaggerated frustration. “Where are your manners?”

  Joji bowed as if to demonstrate shame or humility. She tilted her head completely sideways so that her black-rimmed, yellow-marble eye was staring into Nev’s. The bird whistled, then squawked, “Please?”

  Nev held his frown as long as he could, a whole second before smiling. He clapped, proud as any father would be. “That’s better.” He walked over to the refrigerator. Joji flew off her perch and landed on the kitchen counter. Her head bobbed like a buoy caught in a wake.

  “Now, you know the rules,” Nev said as he opened the refrigerator. “If I give you some now, you can’t have any more for the rest of the day.”

  “Meat!” Joji barked, but that time, she didn’t let her bowels loose. She offered another whistle, followed by an eerily human, “Please?”

  Nev pulled out a sandwich bag of extra rare roast beef, sliced thin. He wondered if the deli meat would still weigh the pound he’d paid for if he poured out all the blood that had pooled and congealed in the bag.

  Extending his index finger like a hook, he went to scratch Joji’s head, but the parrot bobbed and weaved away. Her eye locked on to the meat with singular purpose.

  Nev sighed. “All right.” He opened the bag. “I spoil you. This stuff will kill you, you know?” He smiled. “And then your Papa will go to prison for murder, and you’ll be left all alone with no meat and no one to love you.”

  Joji remained silent. Her predatory glare remained fixated on the fresh beef.

  Maybe I shouldn’t. Nev always second-guessed feeding the bird her favorite dish, ever since that first time six years ago when he’d learned of Joji’s carnivorous nature. Nev had been tenderizing a fat sirloin to grill up with some onions and peppers when Joji landed near him, pupils dilating like a coke hound. The bird had been curious at first, pacing near the raw slab, her head pecking like a strutting rooster’s.

  Until she pecked at the meat.

  Nev had barely gotten his hand out of the way in time. As Joji’s beak plunged deep into the purplish muscle, Nev yanked the steak away. Joji freaked, chased after the steak in a burst of ruffled feathers and slashing claws. She drew blood from both meat and master. His heart bruised worse than his hands, Nev picked up his phone, dialed his local emergency veterinarian, and mourned for the pet he was told might die.

  But Joji never even got sick. Nev had never fed the macaw any rodents, but he knew falcons and hawks and other birds of prey ate them regularly. Nothing of the sort had been included in the pamphlet he received when purchasing the animal, but Nev was hardly an ornithologist. After a day of observation, he figured his emergency vet didn’t know shit about exotic fowl.r />
  Since then, Nev had laid down some ground rules. “One slice,” he said as he pulled a sliver of wet roast beef from its packaging. He slapped it on the counter and backed away.

  Joji ran toward the beef but stopped short of trampling it. “Thank you!” she shrieked before planting one taloned foot on top of the deli meat. Her weight held it down so that her bill could tear off stringy, mouth-sized morsels. Once she had a good grip, she jerked her head in opposing directions until a more manageable bite tore free, then swallowed down the serving as if kicking back a shot.

  Smiling, Nev sealed up the remainder of the roast beef and shoved it back into the refrigerator bin. “Happy?”

  The parrot didn’t respond. Nev hadn’t expected her to. But damn did Joji seem content.

  A snap came from the yard, the sound of a twig breaking underfoot. Nev turned to face the window over his sink. Nothing out of the ordinary caught his attention. Probably just an animal . He froze and listened all the same. The string of home invasions in his quiet, rural neighborhood had him more on edge than he’d realized. But it was morning and the sun was shining brightly. Even at his remote home, surrounded on three sides by forest, no criminal would be so brazen.

  Would he?

  In his peripheral, he caught a shadow pass by his living room’s picture window. Scuffling came from the front porch. He tiptoed to a nearby closet where he kept the baseball bat he used to scare raccoons out of his garbage cans.

  That’s probably all this is: a raccoon. He huffed. Except the raccoons usually come at night.

  Joji squawked. She marched along the counter, her black tongue lolling. Every other second, she’d stop to lick a spot of errant blood off the wooden surface. As Nev stalked closer to the front door, the parrot flew back to her perch in the living room and relieved herself.

  The front doorknob jiggled. Nev’s muscles tensed. Raccoons don’t open doors . He gripped the bat a little tighter, his hands having become clammy. Sweat pooled on his brow. His heart pounded in his chest. The doorknob stopped jiggling.