Twisted Mirrors (A Dark Fantasy Horror): The Edge of Reflection Book 1

by Carver Pike

  So there Gabe sat, staring blankly at his computer screen, trying to make it through to the end of the workday. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples.

  What am I doing here?

  “You okay? Need some help?”

  Gabe opened his eyes to see Lisa standing at the opening to his cubicle. Lisa looked as if she’d been born into the office workers’ world. Only thirty, but with a look much older, she always wore her dark brown hair up in a bun and hid her pretty blue eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses.

  Gabe had never known her to be in a relationship. He expected that it wasn’t because she was unattractive, but because she was the type of woman who didn’t possess the confidence to approach a man she was interested in, and was just plain Jane enough to get lost somewhere between the stunning good lookers and the desperate trashy women.

  He’d never seen her flirt. In fact, a couple of times when one of his office buddies hit on her, she seemed awkwardly out of place, like romance was some sort of foreign world. She was a workaholic, and that made her dependable, a trait that Gabe admired. Far too few people were dependable nowadays. Like Gabe, Lisa always showed up to work on time and never left before day’s end.

  Gabe smiled at Lisa and sat upright in his chair. Her scent hit him right away. He loved the smell of a fresh, tidy woman, and Lisa was nothing if not tidy. She always smelled of sweet jasmine lotion and Pantene hair products.

  He thought she was cute, but kind of in a kid sister sort of way. He’d thought about trying to hook her up with one of his friends, but there was a part of him that felt overly protective of her, and didn’t want to be responsible for her getting hurt. If asked to describe her, he would say she’s a hardworking sweetheart.

  That was Lisa in a bottle.

  “You know how it is two days before vacation,” Gabe said through his smile.

  “Can’t stay focused?” she asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “So…are you taking Allie with you to LA?”

  Gabe frowned and shrugged.

  For months, he’d been trying to talk his girlfriend into visiting LA with him, but so far she’d declined every offer.

  “No, she uh…she’s got other plans,” Gabe explained.

  “Sorry,” Lisa said as she wrinkled her nose in a look that Gabe had learned to recognize as her “that sucks” look.

  Long ago, he thought it was just something strange she did with her face. Now, her scrunched up look was practically a trademark.

  “It’s crazy that she doesn’t want to go with you,” Lisa said, smiling.

  If Gabe hadn’t known her better, he might’ve thought she was flirting. He didn’t have time to contemplate and instead shrugged off the suspicion, as Lisa stood suddenly upright, alert.

  “Oooh,” she said with another scrunch of her face.

  She nodded off to her right. “Gotta go. Here comes Charlie.”

  She rushed away, and taking her place in the cubicle opening stood the tall wiry frame of Charlie, the shift manager.

  Charlie walked laps around the cubicle area like Seabiscuit trying his damnedest to win a race. He was a balding man in his late forties who was physically fit and enjoyed making everyone realize it by constantly checking the pedometer attached to his hip.

  “Three thousand fifty one steps so far today,” Charlie said as he placed both hands on his hips.

  “Wow, you should uh…keep walking then,” Gabe said.

  He loathed the very being of Charlie. The man was exactly what Gabe hoped to never be, a guy who’d been stuck there so long that he’d given up and decided to make it his life’s work to see that everyone became him.

  “Funny. You know you missed the meeting this morning,” Charlie informed him.

  “We had a meeting this morning?” Gabe was honestly surprised.

  “We have a meeting every Wednesday morning now. Everyone else came in at eight o’clock and you didn’t show up ‘till nine.”

  “When did this start?”

  “Last Wednesday.”

  “But I was off last Wednesday. No one said a word. Sorry, I had no idea.”

  “I thought you military boys were supposed to be disciplined and sharp.”

  “It won’t happen again,” Gabe promised.

  “Great. That’s all I needed to hear. You bring the donuts next Wednesday morning and all’s forgotten.”

  Charlie didn’t wait for Gabe’s response. He walked away with his arms moving back and forth, back and forth, in that goofy power-walk of his. Several cubicles away, as if he wanted the entire office to hear, Charlie called out, “And did you realize your tie’s loose?”

  Gabe shook his head and rolled his eyes. He needed to see Allie.

  Allie was simply a knock out. She was gorgeous and knew it. Her blond hair hung down just below her shoulders and was layered up to her chin. She had green eyes that seemed to sparkle every time they moved. Her blouse was always unbuttoned enough to show off a little bit of cleavage, and even though Gabe was dating her, and saw her constantly, he still caught himself staring at her the moment he approached her cubicle.

  She was on the phone, sitting with her legs crossed when he entered. Gabe’s eyes were drawn to her long, tanned legs and to the high heel that dangled loosely from her toes.

  God she’s fucking hot.

  He let his gaze drift up to her skirt. They hadn’t had sex in a couple of weeks and he wished he could shut the world out, bend her over the desk, and remind her why he was her man.

  “No, it’s up. You do what you want, Mike, but my advice is to keep it. I’d sell it in a couple of days,” Allie said into the phone while she held her right hand off to the side and mimicked to Gabe that the guy on the phone yapped way too much.

  He waved a hand at her to say hello and she held up a finger to say, “Just a minute.”

  “Yes, Mike. Call me on Tuesday, okay? And calm down. Don’t I always take good care of you?” She giggled flirtatiously. “Uhh huh. Okay, bye.”

  Allie clicked off the phone and looked up at Gabe.

  “Sorry. Important phone call,” she said.

  “I know. Can you talk for a minute? Charlie’s ridin’ my ass again.”

  “I’m kind of busy. Sorry, hon,” Allie apologized, without even a hint of sincerity.

  “What about Saturday?” Gabe ignored her excuse to avoid the conversation. “I can still get your ticket.”

  “I know, but family’s not my idea of fun,” Allie replied. “Besides, I told you Charlie’s making me work next week.”

  “The Mark Olson Portfolio, right,” Gabe said.

  The fucking Mark Olson Portfolio.

  He’d heard enough about that job to make him want to hunt down Mark Olson, whoever the hell he was, and choke the shit out of him.

  “I’m sorry. Maybe next time,” Allie raised her eyebrows and frowned her overly dramatic sad expression, one that once pulled on his heartstrings, and then turned and picked up her phone, signaling that the conversation was over.

  Later that afternoon, Gabe sat alone in the break room, munching on potato chips and drinking a soda. A paperback book lay next to him on the table, face down and untouched. It was a Stephen Hunter novel, which Gabe usually enjoyed thoroughly.

  There was something about a badass redneck with a military background who never took crap from anyone. Revenge novels were Gabe’s favorite. This day, however, he couldn’t find it in him to pick up the book.

  He was about to leave on a long awaited vacation back home to California, and instead of sun and sandy beaches on his mind, he had Allie, there on the phone, not giving him the time of day. No one who happened to overhear their earlier conversation would guess that they’d been living together for the past six months. They hadn’t officially leased an apartment, but Allie had pretty much given up on staying at her own condo.

  Her presence at his home was evident by the clean/dirty magnet that had to remain on the front of the dishwasher, which woul
d start an instant pissing match if God forbid he forgot to flip the thing upside down when the dishes were dirty, and by the one quarter closet space that remained his in the bedroom.

  Lisa entered the break room and stopped to look at Gabe’s book resting on the table.

  “What?” he asked.

  She shook her head and walked over to the soda machine, where she pressed three buttons that all read back the red digital message, “Please try another selection,” before she settled on the dreaded ginger ale.

  She sat down across from him and fiddled with the tab on her soda can before sliding it over to Gabe.

  “You know the drill,” she said.

  Gabe smiled at her and took the can in his hands. He popped the top and handed it to her. As she took her can back their hands touched for a moment. She didn’t pull away immediately. Gabe picked up his book. She lowered her head and sipped from her soda.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothin’. What do you mean?” Gabe asked in return.

  “Something’s bothering you or you’d be reading.”

  Gabe found it so interesting the way that she seemed to notice everything that went on around her. This wasn’t the first time. On several occasions, she’d fixed his tie for him in the morning before an important meeting so that he wouldn’t look foolish. Once she even quickly finished a report that he’d somehow forgotten to conclude.

  Aside from those things, she always seemed to notice when he was down. He didn’t have to tell her that he was depressed or having a bad day. She always knew. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember one single time that he’d ever noticed anything significant about her without her mentioning it. She could have had the flu and sneezed right in his face and he wouldn’t have thought to grab a tissue.

  I’ve unknowingly and accidently been a self-centered asshole.

  “You notice everything don’t you?” Gabe asked her.

  Under her breath, Lisa gave her answer, barely loud enough for Gabe to hear.

  “Only about you.”

  He’d heard her.

  He pretended that he didn’t, but he’d heard her and this time he was pretty sure she was flirting. He didn’t know how to react. She knew that he was attached to Allie. He tried to pretend that he hadn’t heard her by reading the back cover of his book.

  “What do you see in Allie anyway? She’s just going to hurt you again,” Lisa said.

  Gabe looked up to see her eyebrows raised and her lips pursed. She seemed to have shocked even herself. She put a hand over her mouth. Gabe shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t know. Love sucks,” he said.

  Lisa scrunched up her face and silently played with the tab on top of her soda can.

  “You deserve better,” she informed him.

  “Like who?” he asked.

  He had decided to play along and see how far she would take this. He’d known Lisa for a long time and this was the first time she’d ever spoken to him like this. Gabe stared at her, waiting for her answer. Her face suddenly turned bright red.

  “I don’t know. I’ve a…I gotta get back to work,” she said as she made her way out of the break room, nearly tripping over a chair as she departed.

  Once she was gone, Gabe shook his head in disbelief. He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath as if he’d been holding it the entire time he’d waited for her answer.

  ***

  Lisa fled the break room, and bumped right into Allie. She tried to step to the right to get around her, but Allie stepped left, purposely blocking her path.

  “He deserves better?” Allie asked.

  Lisa looked at her, not knowing what to say.

  “I heard you in there. Really? You think you have a chance with Gabe?” Allie asked with a sly grin.

  “He’s a good man,” Lisa replied. “You don’t love him.”

  Allie leaned forward so that her lips were a few inches from Lisa’s ear.

  “Does it matter if I love him? You don’t stand a chance, and even if you had a man like Gabe, you wouldn’t know what to do with him.”

  Allie stepped back and laughed. She walked past Lisa and purposely bumped her shoulder, causing Lisa to stumble backwards a step. Every part of Lisa’s body was screaming with the desire to slap the bitch, but she just didn’t have it in her.

  Inside the women’s restroom, Lisa paced back and forth.

  Why don’t I have the guts to stand up to her? How could I be so stupid?

  She knew that he had a girlfriend and she still made those foolish comments. He would never date a girl like her anyway. Gabe Cutter needed a stunner like Allie, who was probably wild in the sack. Lisa leaned back against the counter and ripped a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall.

  Allie was right. She wouldn’t know what to do with a man like Gabe if she had him. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She dabbed at them and tried to contain the anger that wanted to explode from her chest.

  How can Gabe not see what Allie is up to? She doesn’t give a shit about him. Why can’t he see that? He’s blinded by his infatuation with the blond tramp.

  “I should just tell him. He has no idea what she’s really like,” she said under her breath.

  She turned around and stared at her reflection in the mirror. The little make up she wore had run down her face.

  “You look pathetic.”

  She turned on the water.

  “I can’t take this anymore. I’ve got to say something to him,” she told her reflection.

  She started to run her fingers under the water when she noticed movement in front of her. As she glanced up at her reflection, a hand shot through the mirror and grabbed her by the hair.

  Chapter 2 - Images

  Allie left her cubicle and walked towards the bathroom. In her head, she ran through all of the excuses she could use to get out of making lasagna for Gabe, a stupid promise she’d made for ditching him the night before.

  Finding reasons to stay away from his apartment was becoming increasingly difficult. She’d played the sick mother card for a while, using that as her excuse to not sleep at his place, but she wasn’t sure he was buying it. She knew what he really wanted and knew that in the end she would give in as she always did.

  Sex was great with Gabe but she’d had great sex before. It could be great with many other men and she felt that she wasn’t going anywhere being attached to him. The truth was, she needed to break things off with him. She was on to bigger and better things and the sooner she let Gabe down, the sooner she could get on with her life.

  Gabe was a small fish and she refused to be with a man who was satisfied with working in an office cubicle all his life. Hell, she was only working in one because she hoped to find a man that would take her away from all of this.

  As Allie neared the restroom, she saw Lisa exiting and walking her way. Wait, it looked like Lisa, but…the woman walking towards Allie exuded confidence, where Lisa usually had none.

  Normally, Lisa would have put her head down and tried to avoid eye contact with her, but this girl was walking straight towards her, eyes glaring, full of strength and fire. This Lisa wasn’t the naïve, prude co-worker Allie had come to know.

  No, this girl was feisty, and screamed sex. She wore a skin-tight black dress. Her breasts were propped up so that her round cleavage was exposed to the world. Her fishnet stockings seemed to go on forever until they reached the stiletto heels at her feet. Her make-up was wild but hot and her usually conservative bun now hung down to her shoulders, wavy, and untamed. Her glasses were nowhere to be seen.

  Allie couldn’t take her eyes off this new version of Lisa. She almost didn’t recognize the girl. What had she done, shot up with heroin on her lunch break? What had gotten into her? This new Lisa wasn’t afraid to make eye contact.

  Allie had to move over a little so they wouldn’t crash into each other. She’d never in her life moved over to make room for someone else. Who the hell did this little
twerp think she was?

  As they passed each other, the new Lisa looked right at Allie.

  “Slut,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” Allie asked. She couldn’t believe what Lisa had said to her.

  Lisa stopped and slowly turned around to face Allie. There was an angry, crazed look on her face that said she was hoping Allie would give her an excuse to pummel her right there in the hallway.