“You should have left me to die,” an unnatural guttural voice growled. “Now you become one of us!”
With a speed Teddy never would have thought possible from such a mangled corpse, the skin walker snapped his jaws closed over his hand, sinking his teeth deep into the flesh. Blood erupted from around the creature’s closed fangs yet it did not shake its head as if trying to separate the appendage. Teddy screamed in shock and agony. The beast’s canines severed numerous tendons in his hand, rendering his fingers useless. The pain was beyond compare and burned as though on fire. The pain spread through his wrist and up his arm. As it reached his shoulder, his mind could no longer handle the sudden influx and sensory overload caused him to lose consciousness. Unbeknownst to the now prone Teddy, the beast of the trenches shuddered one last time and then slipped into oblivion, never to terrorize humans again.
***
Golden eyes wander over the warring armies of the Eastern Front. Germany and Russia is engaged in a bitter conflict inflicting massive casualties upon each other. The streets and warrens of Stalingrad, once too dangerous to hunt openly, provide a bounty in food. It is the first month of the year 1943 and the bitter cold suits the beast just fine. Its warm fur insulates it from the extreme cold while its prey becomes sluggish and slow. The beast is young for one of its kind, and memories of a past life still cling to the fringes. Memories of warm Idaho mountain summers and the thrill of the hunt, yet now the prey is something new. Something far more dangerous than any prey the beast has ever hunted before.
A young trooper slips away from the German lines and makes his way into the burned-out husks of the once-mighty city. Fear the creature can smell even from his concealment in the rubble. This one will be easier than the rest it has hunted these past months, for it is already terrified and the moment the beast actually allows its prey to see it, the human will freeze in shock, making the kill that much easier. Silently, the beast slinks along the dark refines of the rubble, content with its lot in life and the thrill of the hunt.
THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY
By Eila Oakes
I don’t remember much about the day the ambulance took my mom away, and I was too young to understand what was going on. I do remember the neighbors looking at me in pity as they whispered to each other, shaking their heads. I sat on my hands on the porch bench and swung my feet as I waited with my brother. When the silent ambulance pulled away with my mom inside, my brother cried. I didn’t. As the younger sister, I was always trying to prove I was as tough as my brother and his friends.
“Only babies cry,” I remember saying to him. I instantly regretted the words when I saw the hurt, the loss on his face.
I knew I should be crying, but the tears wouldn’t come. Finding my mom lying on the floor of her bedroom weakly calling for help scared me more than it made me sad. Even after the ambulance was out of sight, the fear remained… although I would never admit it to my brother. Mostly, though, I was angry. Angry at the neighbors who stood by and fussed over us. I was angry at my mom for putting me in the position of having to find her that way. I was angry at myself because I had made her cry the day before when I kept begging her to let me go to the park with my friends.
“Your dad is on his way,” Patrick’s mom said, interrupting my thoughts. Patrick lived across the street from us and at six years old, he was the love of my life.
I looked up at her briefly from where I sat and went back to the business of swinging my feet. I felt small as I sat there staring at my bare toes casting their rhythmic shadows on the cement.
The next few months were a blur. My brother and I went to live with my dad and his girlfriend. I was enrolled in a new school to finish first grade. My brother and I were pulled from class a couple times a week to talk to someone in a special room at the school. There, I learned about “warm fuzzies” and “cold pricklies” but had no idea what the hell it all was supposed to mean. I didn’t know it then but realized later my brother and I had been labeled.
We were the kids whose mom killed herself.
***
Six months after we moved in with them, my dad and his girlfriend married. We moved almost every year, allowing our history to fade a little with each new school and neighborhood. We lost all contact with my mom’s side of the family. My dad rarely talked about her and I hardly ever asked questions. All I learned over the years was that she had a near genius IQ and suffered from depression.
Except for special days like Christmas, Mother’s Day, and my birthday, I didn’t think of her often. There were some good memories, but they were from when I was very young. They were definitely not as strong as the ones I had from when she was emotionally absent. Those were the days she would shut herself in her room for hours on end.
The years passed. I finished school, went to college, and became a teacher. I married my college sweetheart, Jake, and set out to create a stable life for myself and my future children. My brother, on the other hand, turned to drugs when he was in high school as a way to escape. We were close when we were young, but, as with most addictions, his drugs consumed him physically and mentally. He only made an appearance when he needed money or a place to crash. We lost contact as we each made our own paths in life.
By the time Jake and I had our first child, I had the life I was hoping for. We had a house, very little debt, I got to be a stay-at-home mom to our son, and things were good. Motherhood was a great fit for me, which surprised me since I considered myself motherless. When we found out we were pregnant with our second child, Jake and I were ecstatic. Everything seemed to be lined up and ready to become even better than I had dreamed. But I should have known better. I should have known the past wouldn’t rest.
***
Three weeks before our daughter was due to make her appearance in the world, I received a message on Facebook from a woman claiming to be my cousin. I vaguely remembered her, but she was quite a bit older than I was so we were not close when I was young. Her message explained that her mom, Mary, had passed away and she found some items I might be interested in. I learned that after my mom took her own life, her sister had the job of going through my mom’s items. Most of the items were worthless, but anything of sentimental value had been stored away in my aunt’s attic. My cousin, assuming I would want the items, offered to have them shipped to my home in Portland. I thanked her, sent my address, and promised to keep in touch.
For the rest of that day, I wasn’t sure how to feel. My emotions were all over the place. I wondered how it would be seeing my mom’s forgotten possessions. Would they bring back bad memories or good ones? Would I feel a connection to my mom I never knew before? Would I somehow find answers as to why she chose to desert us?
My musings were pushed to the side and I almost forgot about the shipment during the week that followed. Hunter, then three years old, developed his quarterly double ear infection. Between doctor visits, administering antibiotics, and trying to comfort a sick child, I didn’t have time to dwell on much else. When the doorbell rang the following Wednesday afternoon, I was shocked at the size of the package that had arrived. The box was about the height and width of a large coffee table and too heavy for me to drag into the house. The UPS driver looked at my basketball-shaped middle, took pity on me, and carried it inside the house.
I shut the door and assessed the box before me. This must have cost a small fortune to ship. Part of me wanted to open it right away, but I decided to wait until my son went down for his nap. Turns out, he had other plans and wouldn’t take a nap unless he was by my side. I took advantage of this and fell asleep on the couch with him lying next to me. I’ve always had vivid dreams, but the one I had during that short afternoon nap was more real than any I could remember.
I stood in the dark hallway of my childhood home, staring at a closed door. I watched as a hand knocked on it quietly. The hand was mine but small, the skin soft and smooth like that of a child. I knocked again, more loudly this time. It was answered by a voice that sounde
d far away— so far away I couldn’t hear what it said.
“Mommy, are you okay?” my little girl voice asked.
“I’m alright, Em. I just have a headache and need to rest,” answered my mom, more clearly this time.
“Can I come in?”
“No. No, honey. Please let me rest.”
“OK,” I whispered back. If she heard me, she didn’t respond.
Suddenly, I was separated from the little girl version of myself. I watched her walk dejectedly down the hallway to the playroom. My dream self was still in front of the door. Part of me wanted to leave, to get away from the sad little girl and the mom who was breaking her heart. A bigger part of me wanted to confront the woman in the room and tell her to get her shit together for the sake of her children. I reached for the doorknob, but found myself passing through the door instead of opening it.
With the curtains on the windows drawn shut, the room was even darker than the hallway. My mom was there, standing in front of her cluttered dresser. She was as I remembered her: long dark hair, gray eyes, and a round face sculpted with high cheek bones. She seemed to be fixated on a mirror centered on the wall above the dresser. The wood that framed it was of a simple antique design. She stood before it, unblinking and expressionless. I knew she wouldn’t see me as I observed her, wondering what she saw in the mirror.
I stepped behind her to see the mirror from her perspective. Where her reflection should have been, there was nothing. The glass of the mirror was black. More than that, it was as if a vacuum had sucked all color and light from anything it should have been reflecting, leaving only an endless hole of nothingness. As I looked into the void, I was enveloped in a sense of hopelessness and despair. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t take my eyes from the darkness of the mirror. I wanted to distance myself from it, to wake up from the nightmare but couldn’t move. I was paralyzed as my body seemed to be held in the cold grip of something or someone more powerful than myself.
I woke up as I forced my eyes open. My heart was racing as if I had just sprinted two city blocks. Every muscle tingled while the cold paralysis evaporated from my body. Once I could turn my head, I looked around to make sure things were as they should be. My sweet Hunter was still asleep next to me, I was in my own house, and my mom was nowhere to be seen. I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized it was just a bad dream.
***
I didn’t get around to unpacking the box until later that night, after Hunter was asleep in his toddler bed. I sat on the family room floor as comfortably as my large belly would allow and sliced through the packaging tape with a pair of scissors. The box was filled with crumpled newspaper which I lifted out with a pinch of my forefinger and thumb. I’ve always hated the way newspaper feels on my hands. The box didn’t have many items in it, which was surprising considering how heavy it was. There was a small wooden jewelry box that played music when the lid was open. There were photographs still in their frames of people I didn’t recognize. A photo album filled with pictures of my brother and me at various stages of our young lives was the last of the smaller items I took out.
I discovered what made the package so heavy after I removed another layer of newspaper. The unmistakable scent of cedar hit my senses as I saw the wooden box at the bottom. It was roughly three feet long and 2 and a half feet wide. I carefully lifted the cedar box out of the package and placed it on the floor next to me. I pushed the scattered newspaper pages aside and removed the lid from the box. The item inside was surrounded in bubble wrap and felt like another picture frame, but heavier.
Intrigued, I stood the object up and unwound the wrap until it was all the way off and I was looking at the back of the object. Even as I was swiveling the frame around so I could take a look at its front, my stomach clenched with dread and my hands trembled. Seeing it from the front only confirmed what I somehow already knew. This was the mirror from my dream.
I gasped and let go of the mirror. Although the glass didn’t break, it fell down hard on the lid of the cedar box with a loud bang! Jake called out from his office, where he was changing the strings of his guitar, asking if I was alright. I didn’t know how to answer his question. I was in shock as the memory and feelings from the dream came tumbling into my consciousness.
Before I could come up with a response, he entered the family room, saw my face, and asked in a panicky voice, “What is it? Is it… time?”
“What?” I asked, momentarily confused. When I realized what he meant, I assured him, “No! No, I’m not in labor. It’s just… I recognize this mirror.”
Kneeling down, he held up the mirror to get a closer look. “This is a nice piece of work, Emma,” he said after admiring the craftsmanship of the walnut frame.
As he moved the mirror, trying to get a better view of the small details, I noticed the glass reflecting whatever it captured: the ceiling, Jake’s face, my upside down image, the wall. Everything about it told me it was just a normal mirror. My mind attempted to explain the coincidence of the dream. I must have remembered the mirror from when I was little. The arrival of the package simply brought the memory to the surface. In a way, it made sense. An antique mirror like that would be saved and passed down from one generation to the next. Of course it would be among the items my aunt salvaged from the house and stored away.
“You look tired,” Jake said. “Why don’t you go to bed and I’ll clean up this newspaper and stuff. Tomorrow we’ll figure out where to hang this mirror.”
He helped me up and added with a wink, “You know… they say sex can induce labor.”
“Oh, I see… that’s why you’re offering to clean up this mess,” I said with a smile. “Well, handsome, if I’m still awake when you’re done, we’ll see what we can do.”
Early the next morning, I went into labor. As with my first child, there were no complications during the delivery. Within five hours, I was holding a healthy, beautiful baby girl in my arms. We named her Kate after Jake’s grandmother. The rest of that day and part of the next were spent in the hospital where I completely forgot about my mom’s mirror. My time was all about getting used to being exhausted, focusing on the seemingly never-ending cycle of nursing and changing diapers, and watching the funny faces Kate made as she slept. Then there was the constant flow of people coming and going from my room… family and friends wanting to see the baby… nurses checking Kate’s eyesight and hearing… the hospital chaplain dropping off literature and offering to pray with us. I wanted to get home just so I could relax!
***
We checked out of the hospital around three o’clock in the afternoon and headed home. As a family of four, we entered the house. Jake’s sister had decorated the entryway with a “Welcome Home, Baby” banner and pink balloons. She also left dinner— lasagna and garlic bread. I was happy to be home and away from the intrusiveness of the hospital. Later that evening, I nursed Kate while Jake and Hunter played with blocks. Jake stacked them and Hunter knocked them down before his daddy could finish what he was building. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched my two men playing on the floor together. I felt content and happier than I ever imagined I could.
I didn’t know what woke me up that night. I assumed it was Kate in her bassinet next to our bed, but when I peeked over the side, she was sleeping soundly. I reached over and felt that Jake was also fast asleep. I carefully climbed out of bed, trying not to wake Jake or the baby. As I tiptoed towards Hunter’s room, I felt a chill work its way up my back. The feeling that I wasn’t alone made me feel vulnerable and exposed. I turned on the hall light and instantly felt silly for my childish reaction to the dark. What, am I four years old again?
After checking on Hunter, I felt restless. I made my way to the kitchen where I’d left my Kindle and planned to get some reading in while I had the chance. The light cast from the hall grew dim as I entered the family room, but it was still bright enough to avoid stepping on the blocks left out from earlier that evening.
I was just about to turn tow
ard the kitchen when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. My heart leapt into my throat as I jumped. I felt for the light switch I knew was somewhere to my right. I found it and immediately flipped it to the on position. I was only slightly relieved when I saw my mom’s mirror on the wall. I have never been very observant, but I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it before. I learned later that Jake hung the mirror while I was at the hospital. But the mirror alone wasn’t what startled me—it was the unexplained movement I saw in it. Was it my own reflection I saw? I walked backwards, past the blocks on the floor and retraced my steps. Maybe I was wrong, but it seemed my movement could not have been picked up from where I had passed. I made the same path for a third time, with the same results.
My heart was still pounding when I got to the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator, not remembering why I had come into the kitchen in the first place. I was still trying to talk myself out of being afraid of the imaginary bogie man when I heard whispering. I pulled my head out of the fridge and looked around. The whispering stopped, but I was certain I heard it. I quickly shut the refrigerator door and decided to go back to bed and snuggle into Jake until I had to wake up with the baby again. I practically ran past the mirror on my way back to bed.
I got up two more times that night with Kate. Everything I needed was in our room, though, so I had no need to pass the mirror until the morning when I groggily made my way to the coffee maker. When I passed the mirror in the light of a new day, I felt foolish. There was nothing wrong with it. It was just an old mirror. Coffee mug in hand, I approached the mirror to get my first close look at it. The glass was delicately webbed with the fine black lines found on many antique mirrors. The edges of the walnut frame were joined together with perfectly carved dovetails. It was plain, but it was well made and beautiful in its simplicity.
Happy Little Horrors Page 12