Leaves and Shadows

by Christopher Chancy

  A part of her thought about going back to investigate, but a much stronger part wanted nothing to do with whatever lay beyond the glass in that hallway.

  She shivered again as she turned away. The lights flashed in time with her shiver. As they returned back to their dim luminescence, she found herself staring at her glazed reflection in the mirror before her. Conscious of how uncomfortable she felt to look at it, she gave it a conspiratorial what-can-you-do shrug. It shrugged back at her. She started away then paused as she looked back at the panel. Was it her imagination or was the reflection’s gesture slightly off-time with her own?

  She shook her head. Her reflection did the same. No, she was just letting her imagination run wild, literally jumping at shadows. Understandable, considering what she had been through thus far. Still, this wasn’t helping her cause in the least.

  She needed to get back to the task at hand and find Evan’s soul to somehow reunite it with his body. She had no idea what his soul would look like or how exactly she was supposed to accomplish this monumental feat, but she couldn’t get bogged down with those incomprehensible mechanics in this particular moment. Right now she had to find this priceless part of her child, and she could not do that if she continued to linger in the quicksand of her indecision. She had to make a choice and move.

  She rubbed her mop of hair out of her face then stopped to look at her hand. The recent memory of her mother’s voice came to her. “Remember: when you do not know which course to take, just follow your heart.”

  She was looking at her left hand. She was left handed, just like her mother. Evan had shown the same predilection. Didn’t she read somewhere once that your heart was predominantly on the left side of your chest? That settled it. She made her decision and turned left. After all, following her heart seemed the appropriate course of action.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Maze

  The lights above her fizzled and sputtered out, turning Erin’s world once more pitch black. She paused, not daring to take another step. Then with a flicker, the lights reignited, albeit dimly and still clicking. She breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing untoward had happened.

  Erin walked forward carefully, suppressing a cringe as the smudged mirrors continued to parallel her movements. She glared at their indifferent glass. Their constant responsiveness to her every movement kept her constantly on edge.

  The lights fritzed out again and returned with the same stutter. Moments later she reached the second intersection. Like the first, she couldn't see any differentiating characteristics between the two directions, so once again she chose left.

  The next bend she reached only went right. Not having any choice before her, she followed it around.

  Up ahead, another corridor veered left. She came to an intersection and decided to go straight through. She figured if all she made was left she would only end up going around in circles, though she begrudgingly admitted that she was basing this logic on the assumption that this maze would adhere to the same standard rules as the world she once knew. This realm had proven that it would do anything but.

  On the next left, she rounded the corner just as the lights flickered again. When they lit up again a few moments later, she found that the panels had closed in before her. She stared into a mirror that dead-ended ahead of her with dismay. Her smudged reflection stared back at her.

  Erin paused. She couldn't quite place her finger on it, but there was something about this mirror, like all the others around her, that wasn't quite right. She tried to dismiss it as unrelenting nerves gnawing at the edges of her self-control, but it persistently nagged at her. She stared at it for a long moment trying to discern what exactly about it made her feel so uneasy. The longer she studied it, the more apprehensive she grew.

  She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Her reflections around her did the same, and then the light went out again. When they returned she did not feel any better. She backed out into the intersecting hallway and looked around. The quandary of her circumstance became a great burden upon her heart. Which direction should she go next? Should she continue straight into the hallway beyond and see what lay there? Should she go right? Or behind her to the other side of the intersection? Or maybe she should backtrack to the previous intersection and choose one of those paths.

  “What do you think, Evan?” She asked glancing down at him in her arms.

  Inert with indecision, she contemplated her next move for several flickers of darkness and sighed as she finally made up her mind. Without holding any clear reasons as to why, she decided to backtrack to the first intersection and turn the right.

  As she walked, her eyes kept drifting to the mirrors beside her. Her blurred reflections looked back at her impassively. She found that she had to quickly avert her eyes, because something about staring at the mirror's eyes reminded her of locking eyes with a schoolyard bully.

  As the incessant static filled buzz from the lights bit at her concentration, she turned right into the passage. She followed its pathway down several feet when she came upon another path that led off to the left and stopped. Unlike the pathways she had come upon before, this hallway was completely dark.

  The lights sputtered around and came back on with its same persistent buzz. The hallway she faced remained dark.

  She didn’t know where this funhouse had originated. Whether it was a creation of some twisted sculptor of this realm or had been taken from a real forgotten building in some other place did not matter. Every ounce of this place was infused with a sinister energy. Despite the fact that she could still hear electricity crackle within the abyssal space she had to wonder if the darkness ahead of her had absolutely nothing to do with an electrical malfunction, or were the malevolent forces here were intentionally keeping this hallway dark to frighten her away.

  This thought made her very angry.

  "I know what you’re doing! It’s not going to work!" she screamed. "I will cross a thousand miles of darkness to save my baby!"

  The dark hungrily swallowed her words. The invisible awareness surrounding her spiked palpably. Suddenly uncertain, she looked around as the lights flickered.

  In that moment, a low voice whispered, "Come and get him, then."

  The lights returned and a shiver erupted down her spine. As she tried to still the tremors she pulled Evan closer to her chest.

  She licked her lips. "Okay. Okay." She took a deep breath that failed to calm her and shouted as loud as she could, "Don't worry, Evan, baby! Momma's coming!"

  Releasing one hands grip on Evan, she touched the glass wall. Using it as a guide, she stepped into the darkness. Her ears strained to hear anything over the harsh constant buzz emanating from somewhere above her head. She silently counted her steps to maintain her limited bearings, such as they were. As she progressed, forward the path’s illumination began to slowly dim. Another shiver rippled through her as she recalled the memories of her recent encounter in the black den of leaves.

  She wanted to call out to Evan, but every time she opened her mouth, it was almost as if the darkness filled it trying to choke her with her own fear.

  Thirty-six steps in, the light behind her became nothing but a tiny portal. Her fingers skidded over a small corner.

  She froze.

  What should she do now? Should she follow it around, or should she step out into the darkness and try to find the other wall. Should she go back? Should she? Shouldn't she? She didn't know.

  The air was filled with the familiar crackling buzz as all the lights suddenly flashed on with scalding brilliance. She rubbed at her eyes with her free hand as she blinked reflexively, then looked up and screamed! A figure was standing directly beside her. She staggered backward, shielding Evan with her body and screamed again as she saw another figure, and another. The people didn't react to her ear-piercing shrieks, nor to her frantic movements.

  She gasped, realizing he standing figures were again her own reflections. They no longer mimicked her movements, as tracked he
r movements with their collective head, but otherwise remained completely motionless. Her breaths turned to ragged pants as her throat literally convulsed in terror. She felt pinned in place by dozens of eyes, but none of the reflections made any aggressive moves towards her.

  After a few catatonic minutes, she managed to wrestle her adrenalized state under control. Heart hammering in her chest, she slowly, tremulously approached the closest mirror. Beneath its blurred glass, her reflection's head changed slightly as it followed her approach. In her periphery, she noticed the heads of the other reflections swiveled around as they followed her approach toward their counterpart.

  She reached up and wiped the grime off at the level of the reflections head and inspected it with more scrutiny. Her eyes locked onto those of her reflection. Suddenly her glass counterpart lurched forward pounding its head against the glass with a dull thud.

  It gave her a tight, jeering smile said in a harsh, muffled voice, “Boo!”

  Erin jumped back as a hiss escaped the reflections lips. Her own blue eyes were wide and fearful, but at least they were capable of love and concern. The eyes that looked back at her from the mirror were alive with malice and insanity.

  She gasped and fell to the floor, clutching Evan protectively. She scrambled backwards across the floor to get away from those familiar yet malicious eyes.

  With another thud she sprung up as something pounded against the wall at her back. Her saucer-like eyes bulged even more. The reflection behind her and all the others around had broken their statuesque trance. They pressed themselves against their glass encasements as they all leered at Erin and her son.

  Overwhelmed and unsure what to do, Erin found herself staring back into the insane eyes of the original glass she cleared.

  It took sinister joy in her helplessness. “What’s the matter, sweetie?” her glass counterpart asked in her own voice. “Don’t you like what you see? Don’t you like me?”

  Suddenly all the lights flashed off again and she was enveloped by hundreds of piercing screams.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Trapped

  Erin spilled out of the dark corridor at a dead sprint. She didn’t know where she was going, nor did she care. She just wanted to get as far away from these twisted mirrors as she possibly could.

  Exiting the dark hallway was no solution. All the mirrors were now alive with malice. Their unrelenting voices blared in her ears. The barrage of pounding on the frames was a cacophony of thunder that drove away all thought and reason. Thousands of voices similar to her own but aberrant in their collective madness shrieked at her. Their abhorrent goal was simple: try to kindle her terror into an uncontrolled frenzy of fear.

  They tried to shout over one and another, vying to be heard.

  “You are going to die!”

  “Your brat’s going to die!”

  “You don’t deserve to be a mother! It’s your fault that both of you are here!”

  “You son will suffer eternal torment because of you!”

  “. . . afraid! . . . worthless! . . . trapped!”

  She clutched Evan tightly as she sprinted. Each bounding step was a struggle to awkwardly to maintain her balance against her pregnant abdomen and the weight of her son's limp. She avoided meeting the burning eyes on either side of her as she ran.

  She whirled this way and that, no longer giving any thought to where she was nor where she was going. There was only her flight and nothing else. Keeping her bearings was an impossible feat in her current state of mind.

  Consumed within her frantic pace, she rounded a corner at full tilt and almost crashed a mirror that dead-ended the hall. The reflection cackled as it spread out its arms with a hysterical scream. "Come on, Erin! Give me a hug!"

  She skidded to a halt, almost dropping Evan tumbling head first into the mirror. Her free hand slapped into the mirror, just narrowly stopping her from head-butting the glass. Her doppelganger drew close to her side of the glass with eyes that held a dangerous gleam as its gaze bore into Erin’s. "Your deaths will not bring you any release. You and Evan are both eternally damned!"

  Erin pushed back as if she were physically scalded by the heat of the words. She scanned around and found a corridor to her right. Erin bolted down it without a second look back. She rounded another corner without so much as glancing at her demonic self through the glass. On and on she ran, through the pain of her burning legs, through the stitch in her side, and through her ragged breaths. However no matter how hard she ran, she could not escape them. Always they followed her, and always they preceded her; always they were there. Their taunts flew at the fragile shell of her psyche like piercing arrows. Their collective assaults began to crack at her already worn defenses.

  Left. Right. Right. Left. Left. Right.

  Finally her body gave into her desperation and her leg buckled under her in midstride. She crashed to the ground with a scream. Evan flew from her arms landing in a heap in the middle of the floor.

  The mirrors all broke into a chorus of raucous laughter.

  She tried to crawl to her son, but her jelly-like muscles made any motion arduous. She pushed herself up to her hands and knees, but her arms gave out and she flopped back down to the floor, panting.

  The gales of harsh laughter intensified.

  She ignored them. Her sole focus was Evan. On her side, she army-crawled to him. As her fingers brushed his outstretched ankle, they locked down on his shoe and pulled him to her. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

  Suddenly a hush came over the mirrors. She opened her exhausted eyes and saw the closest reflection leaning down at her a smirk on her face. “You two fall down and go boom, sweetie?” The twisted shade’s grin broadened. "Erin, you’re just wasting your time. You are going to die. Your son's already dead. At least his mind's dead, and his body is literally too stupid to have figured it out yet. Look!"

  Erin did not want to look, but her eyes moved of their own accord. Her reflection held up her own version of Evan's reflection. His clothes in the reflection clung to his form in the mirror as they did on her little boy. Protruding from the sleeves and neck of the collar was nothing. Save the clothes he wore, the Evan in the mirror was completely invisible.

  Her doppelganger pressed her advantage. “You see, sweetie, what you have in your arms is nothing but a shell. He’s a heavy burden that is not even worth saving.”

  Erin clung to him even tighter. The mirrors cackled. She shakily pushed herself up and backed away from this mirror that was shaking the invisible Evan like a rag doll.

  She fled down the corridor rounded another corner, and froze just before slamming into the glass wall. This mirror did not reveal another insane reflection of herself. This image was something else altogether.

  Erin found herself staring at a horrible scene that she had witnessed countless times in her nightmares. She looked upon her much younger father as he knelt on the floor wailing, clutching the limp form of his dead wife to his chest. His tears flowed down his face and dripped on her pale brow. He rocked her screaming, "Why!"

  A shudder rippled down her spine to the pit of her stomach at the dark memory revisited. She was so absorbed with the image before her that she had failed to notice all of the reflections had finally fallen into silence. If she had the inclination to look behind her, she would have found that they all stared at her with dark smiles etched on their evil faces.

  "Oh God," she whispered.

  Her voice was barely audible, but her father abruptly ceased crying and stared up at her through the glass. This reflection of her father was accurate in every detail, except she had never seen him stare at anyone, let alone her, with such contempt.

  His eyes drilled into her and spittle flew from his lips as he snarled, "Are you happy now?" Erin stared at him speechless. "She's dead now!" he bellowed. "And it’s all your fault! You've killed her!"

  She backed away from the hatred in her father's voice. Each word he uttered struck her like an individual blow.
His assault continued. "You are no daughter of mine! Just . . . just go to Hell!"

  She winced and staggered back from his words. Her voice came out in a whisper. "Daddy . . . I . . . I . . .”

  She backed away from the horrible scene before her. She unconsciously pressed her back into the mirrored wall behind her. Suddenly, the entire wall tipped inward as it spun on an invisible horizontal axis. Erin and Evan were pitched violently backwards and hurled into the darkness below. The reflection of the mirror that catapulted them away cackled, "Happy landings, sweetie!"

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Car

  The air exploded out of her lungs as she crashed into something cold and wet. The momentum of her fall continued as her legs flipped over and she tumbled down end over end, half-sliding half-rolling down a wet incline. She clutched onto Evan desperately as they skidded and flipped out of control. She grunted as she rammed into something hard and the side of her ribs was engulfed in pain. She bounced off the object was thrown sideways. She suddenly skidded upwards and was then propelled out into the empty space beyond. She was airborne.

  She sucked in a great breath about to scream again, when she splattered into a sludge-like substance.

  She lay in the sludge for several minutes, hurting, dizzy, and trying to get her bearings. It took her some time before she had the presence of mind to finally evaluate her environment. She first realized that she was sitting outside in the rain. Above her, the clouds rumbled with lightning flashing within their bowels, painting the darkness with strokes of illumination.

  Erin looked down at Evan in her arms against her heaving chest. Lightning cracked and she saw that he had an oozing scrape on his forehead. She examined him with probing fingers. She could feel rise and fall of his chest, but could not detect any other injuries.