Dark Ends: A Horror Collection

by Sara Bourgeois

  Sammy booked it out the door and into the car. She turned the rearview mirror up so that even if she had accidentally looked, there was no way she'd be able to see anything in the reflection.

  After dinner and research, Sammy had every intention of staying in a hotel near the hospital. She reasoned that it would put her closer to John.

  She'd been right about the nachos. The cafeteria had a nacho bar, and Sammy piled her plate high with tons of seasoned ground beef and three scoops of queso. An embarrassingly huge dollop of sour cream and a mound of black olives topped it all off. Sammy accepted that she was soothing herself with food and paid for her nacho mountain. She was sure the cafeteria workers saw a lot of that type of thing day in and day out. She reasoned with herself that as long as she didn't do it often, it wasn't a problem.

  These were extraordinary circumstances, and who could she turn to for help? Who would believe that she was dealing with a haunted mirror? Even the friends that had seen the demonic activity she'd dealt with would probably think she was off her rocker on this one.

  Before she dug into her food, Sammy sent the picture of the mirror to her email. She downloaded the picture from there and then ran a google image search. While she waited for the results, Sammy shoved a nacho dripping with queso into her mouth.

  The hot, slightly spicy cheese instantly soothed her nerves. The crunch of the chips relaxed her jaw, and Sammy took her first deep breath of the day. She understood how people got heavy and vowed to be less judgmental. As a mental health professional, she'd never been terribly critical of obese people, but a small part of her had doubted that food addiction existed. As she shoveled two big chips into her mouth and felt her spirits lift, all of that doubt disappeared.

  Before she could ponder it further, Sammy got a Google hit on the mirror. The name that came up in conjunction with photographs of the mirror in what appeared to be a mansion gave her chills.

  The estate belonged to the father of the man who'd donated the money for the new wing at the mental health center. That made him the grandfather of the patient rumored to be the reason they'd built the high-security ward.

  When she'd finished her food, Sammy went to John's room. He was still asleep, and the nurse told her to go get some rest.

  "He's going to be fine." His night nurse told Sammy. "But, his body is tired. Go get some sleep. I'll call you if anything happens, but I guess he'll be discharged tomorrow. We stitch ‘em up and ship ‘em out fast around here. I don't like it, but what can I do?" She said with a shrug.

  Sammy thanked the woman and went to the hotel to check in. She wasn't in the room for more than a few minutes before dark shadows began to dance in the mirror. When Sammy made the mistake of looking into it, a sinister version of her face sneered back at her.

  She bolted from the room and stayed in the hotel's business center surfing the web for funny cat pictures until she couldn't keep her eyes open any more. Sammy wandered the hotel for a while until she found a seating area off the breakfast room that had a large sofa and cushioned ottoman. No one was around, so Sammy sunk into it and let herself fall asleep.

  "Ma'am." A sweet voice roused Sammy from her slumber. "Ma'am, you fell asleep in the reading room. Breakfast is about to start. People are going to be filing through here looking for food in a few minutes. You can stay here if you want, but you might want to go back to your room."

  Sammy sat up and rubbed her eyes. It actually hadn't been a terrible night's sleep. She felt refreshed if not still a bit groggy. "Coffee?"

  "Oh, yes. I've got coffee on the bar. There are five varieties and decaf." The breakfast lady said. "Normally you have to wait until breakfast starts, but go ahead." She said with a smile.

  "I've got to go. Thanks for waking me." Sammy said when she looked up and realized that the back of the coffee bar was lined with a giant mirror. No one seemed to notice when Sammy's reflection winked at her from across the room.

  Chapter Twelve

  "Don't go home," Sammy said to John. "I have to take care of this thing. Once they release you, go to a friend's house or something. I'm sorry you'll have to take a cab. I can't let this go on any longer."

  She took a sip of the raspberry latte she'd bought at the Starbucks in the hospital lobby. John took a drink of his mocha and narrowed his eyes. He didn't want her trying to solve the problem alone. At least with the demon, she'd had Cameron to help.

  "I don't think that's a good idea," John said, but his voice lacked conviction.

  Sammy laughed. "I don't think it's a good idea either, baby. But, I don't have any choice. We can't go anywhere with mirrors until I find a way to put a stop to this. That thing, whatever it is, isn't confined to the mirror at the house anymore. I can't let anyone else get hurt or die."

  John nodded his head reluctantly. Sammy bent down and kissed his forehead before giving his hand a squeeze.

  What she had to do next would seem unethical to many in her profession and might have been illegal too. Not wanting to drive to the mental health center alone, Sammy left her car at the hotel and called a cab.

  At least in a taxi, she'd have another person with her, and Sammy figured she could angle her body just right in the back seat so that she couldn't see the rearview mirrors.

  The cab arrived ten minutes later, and she told the driver to take her to the mental health center. While she rode there, Sammy used the time to think of what she'd tell the staff.

  She needed to talk to Henrik Amsberg about a haunted mirror, and she'd been told to take the day off. There had to be a way to work this where she could have a conversation with him and not lose her job.

  Once she'd arrived, Sammy'd decided to use paperwork as an excuse for being on the ward. She would sit at the nurse's station working on something until she saw an opportunity to speak with Henrik.

  Luckily, there was lots of paperwork that needed to be caught up, and nobody wanted to do it. So, no one argued with Sammy when she sat down at the desk and began working. The center's administration was busy dealing with the fallout from Lucy's suicide, and they rarely came onto the wards anyway.

  She tried not to watch Henrik's door too much. He didn't come out often, but even the mysterious serial killer couldn't stay in there all day by himself. Sammy knew that he'd eventually leave his room.

  A couple of hours into her paperwork, Sammy got her wish. She was so into her work, clicking away at the computer, that she'd almost missed him. Fortunately, it was as if he knew she'd been waiting for him.

  "Samantha, can you assist me with something in the day room?" Henrik asked after he'd sidled up to the counter.

  "Sure, Henrik. I'm not on shift today, but I'd be happy to help you. I've got to go soon, though. So, we'll have to make it quick."

  Sammy didn't know how Henrik knew she'd needed to speak with him, but she had an idea. The mirror must have been playing along, so Sammy needed to take everything Henrik said with a grain of salt.

  "There aren't any mirrors in the day room," Henrik said as they entered the room.

  He threw a frightening glare at one of the other patients who sat in the day room doing a puzzle. The woman got up quickly and exited the room without a word.

  "You shouldn't do that," Sammy said calmly.

  "Did you want to talk about this with her in the room?" Henrik said smugly.

  "Not really, but it's not okay for you to scare the others," Sammy said and took a seat by the window. She pulled a game from the shelf and began to read the directions. That way, if anyone were to happen by, it would look like she was actually helping Henrik with something.

  "I'll ask nicely next time," Henrik said with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

  "Thank you," Sammy responded and pantomimed showing Henrik something on the direction sheet. "So, how do you know why I'm here?"

  "You know that. Try as I might to cover the mirror in my room, I can't seem to get anything to stay over it. I got my mother to sneak some black paint in on visiting day at the last fa
cility I was held at, but the staff just replaced it. I didn't even bother here."

  "It's not a coincidence that the mirror was in my attic and I work in the place where you've ended up, is it?" Sammy asked.

  "No. I can't tell you exactly why or how, but this has been in the works for a while. The thing in the mirror orchestrated the move from my Grandfather's house to your attic somehow. You're on its list. I was on its list." He said grimly.

  "Who is she?" Sammy whispered. "The woman in the mirror?"

  "That woman you're seeing is it," Henrik said. "That's Lizzette. She's someone else who was on the list, but she wouldn't play. So, she's caught in there. The thing, the entity that trapped her, can wear her like a costume."

  "So, you killed those people because of the thing in the mirror?" Sammy asked as gently as possible.

  "Look, I was never a good person. I'm not going to pretend like I was, but yeah. I killed those people for the mirror. It was them or me, and I didn't want to end up like Lizzette."

  "Is that what it wants from me?" Sammy asked and swallowed hard.

  "I'm guessing that's where this whole thing is going eventually. You now have access to a lot of people who can fairly easily be pushed to suicide, and it has the means to get them in here."

  "It killed Lucy," Sammy said.

  "Yeah. I'm sure that was a warning for you." Henrik said nonchalantly.

  "But, if it can push people to suicide on its own, why does it need me?"

  "Now you're getting into good and evil existential stuff that none of us can really understand, you know?" Henrik said with a shrug. "Who knows? Maybe it's more fun for it. Perhaps it knows you won't do it and it wants you inside with Lizzette. It could be bored with her. She's been in there for a while."

  "What am I supposed to do?" Sammy said more to herself than to Henrik.

  "If I knew that, I wouldn't be in here. My dad's a billionaire, Samantha. There was a much more exciting life waiting for me than this." He said and waved his hand through the air like a spokesmodel showing a prize on The Price is Right.

  "I'm not going to kill people, and I'm not going to end up in the mirror either," Sammy said resolutely. "This isn't my first rodeo."

  "The mirror told me about that. About the demon. I'm impressed, but the mirror claims to be stronger. Who knows if that's true?" Henrik said. "I am relieved to hear that you won't be relenting to the mirror as I'm sure I'm on your list. It hasn't tried to use me for anything for a long while. I was pretty confident that once it had you, I was a goner."

  "I have to go," Sammy said and stood up.

  "I understand. Good luck, Samantha. I hope you win." Henrik said sincerely.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sammy stood in front of the house. She still wasn't sure how to deal with the thing in the mirror. Without a plan, there was no way going into the house would've been an option.

  She sat down on the porch steps and rested her chin against her palm. Sammy worried her bottom lip and wracked her brain about how to get rid of the entity in the mirror.

  "A little help?" She asked while looking at the sky.

  A deep sigh issued forth from her chest when an angel didn't appear. Of course, it wouldn't be that easy again.

  "It seems to be able to go to any mirror, but..." Sammy thought aloud, "it needs that mirror. If I could destroy that mirror without it getting me, I could set Lizzette free and break the entity's tether to me."

  Sammy stood up and paced back and forth over her front sidewalk. She needed to get the mirror to the backyard, so she could shatter the mirror and burn the frame. No, not in her yard. She could take the mirror to the dump and do it there.

  Sammy got a hammer and screwdriver from the garage. She cursed herself for leaving her car behind, but it had been necessary. The thing in the mirror would have most likely caused her to wreck if she'd attempted to drive herself anywhere.

  Sammy called a cab and waited for it to come pick her up. She stashed the screwdriver and hammer in her purse.

  Back at the hotel, she found herself relieved that the parking lot was almost abandoned. Her car was behind the building and not visible from the road.

  Sammy set to work removing the rearview mirror and side mirrors from her car. Once that was complete, she threw them in the hotel's outside waste bin. Even having them in the trunk seemed like too much of a risk.

  The Home Depot was the next stop on her mission. She bought a can of black spray paint and a tarp. The plan was to paint the mirror black, wrap it in a tarp, and transport it to the garbage dump in the trunk.

  Sammy hoped that with no mirrors, the thing wouldn't be able to get to her. She'd wanted to burn the mirror after shattering the glass, but with what? After putting the paint and tarp in the backseat of the car, she walked quickly back into the store and grabbed some lighter fluid and a package of disposable lighters.

  More cars lined the nearby parking spaces when Sammy exited the building. She'd avoided all of the reflective surfaces in the store, but the thing wearing Lizzette followed her in every rear view and side mirror she passed on the way to her car. She walked down the middle of the aisle just to ensure that she didn't get too close the entity.

  She pulled the car up onto the lawn and backed to the porch. When she had the mirror in her hands, Sammy wanted to ensure there was as little time as possible before she could shove it into the trunk.

  As she'd suspected, the thing was waiting for her when she stepped through the front door. Sammy was ready, though. She had the can of spray paint in her hand. Stay far enough back so that the thing reaching out of the mirror couldn't touch her, she sprayed the mirror as fast as possible.

  Once the mirror was covered in black paint, Sammy could hear screaming coming from the bathroom upstairs. A scratching in the walls followed, and then the shrieking eliminated from the downstairs bathroom. As Sam wrapped the mirror in the tarp, the howling spread to every mirror in both sides of the house.

  She fled from the house and threw the mirror into the trunk. Sammy started the car and hit the gas. A few of her neighbors poked their heads out their front doors and watched her peel off the lawn.

  A pounding sound came from the trunk the entire drive to the dump, but that's all that manifested. Sammy figured the entity couldn't do much else. Still, she put the pedal down and raced to her destination.

  Sammy drove to the back of the dump and hid the car behind a massive pile of garbage. She popped the trunk and threw the mirror on the ground.

  Sammy held the tip of the screwdriver to the glass and used the hammer to shatter the mirror. It broke into hundreds of pieces. She then took the hammer and pounded the shards until nothing but fine powder was left.

  When the mirror was nothing but dust, Sammy stood up and doused the frame in lighter fluid. She pulled one of the disposable lighters from the plastic and cardboard package. It took a few flicks, but she finally got the flame to ignite.

  She knelt down and held fire to the wood. It ignited quickly, and Sammy had to jump back. The flames leaped up and consumed the antique wood fast. Unsatisfied, Sam sprayed more of the lighter fluid on the pyre. The flames danced high enough that the were over her head.

  Sammy stood there until the fire burned itself out. The only thing left was a black stain in the dirt.

  Epilogue

  A red truck pulled up to the spot Hank had seen in his dream. Just like in his sleep, the mirror sat propped against an old grill. He hopped out of the truck and lifted the object out of the dark dirt.

  Instead of his reflection, a beautiful woman stared back at him. Something about her wasn't quite right, but Hank was too enamored to notice. Whereas before he'd been afraid of the woman in the mirror, now he just wanted to make her happy.

  Across town, Sammy got John settled in for the night on the sofa. She went into the kitchen and pulled a pound of ground beef out of the refrigerator and box from the pantry shelf.

  "What's for dinner?" John called from the living room when he smelled
the ground beef cooking.

  "Hamburger Helper," Sammy answered back. "Is that alright? I know it's not fancy."

  "Sounds perfect," John said happily. "I love not fancy."

  "Me too," Sammy said.

  Demon Night

  Chapter One

  Sammy’s cheeks burned hot as she sat across the desk from Frederick Jones. He was the new nursing supervisor at Carver Mental Health Center, and he hadn’t called Samantha into the office for a friendly chat.

  “Sit down, Samantha,” Frederick said sternly.

  She did and crossed her ankles in a position that was both ladylike and uncomfortable. Sammy felt like she’d been called to the principle for a lecture.

  “It’s come to my attention that you involved a patient in a paranormal investigation.” Frederick spit the words paranormal investigation out as if they left a foul taste in his mouth.

  Thirty minutes later, Sammy no longer had a job. She’d also been informed that her nursing license was under review and that it was most likely going to be revoked.

  She walked slowly to her car and did her best not to cry. Samantha knew she was on camera until she left the parking lot, and she wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of seeing her tears.

  Frederick had looked positively delighted as he let her go, and even her old co-workers smirked as security took her to the locker room to collect her things.

  Sammy had tried in vain to express that she hadn’t involved any patients in paranormal investigations and that she’d never actually conducted a paranormal investigation, but to no avail. The truth was she had no explanation for some of her contact with certain patients. It was difficult to justify your behavior when you couldn’t tell anyone what happened.

  No one would have believed her about the mirror, and Sammy knew that she’d end up locked up in Carver if she tried to explain the incident, and the patient’s connection to the mirror, to her new boss.

  The internet hadn’t helped matters at all. The story of her home had gone viral, and hardly any of what had been circulated on the internet was true. Overwatch House was kind of old and spooky-looking, so people had made up stories about it and asserted them as fact.