by Cyle James
“What would you read an olden wolf warrior of the gods?”
“The Three Little Pigs?”
Riley cut his wife a look of near disdain.
“I’m glad you got over your fear of it this quickly”.
She smirked, “It’s easier to be a smartass. It’s a bit tiring to be afraid all the time. So I’ve made a choice”.
Riley nodded in approval as he put his arm around her shoulders. He didn’t say it out loud but he was proud of her for trying so hard to make it work even if it was all just a facade.
“Unless you’ve been studying native languages while I’ve been in the toilet I’m going to have to call tonight a bust. If Sourmouth doesn’t want to be found it doesn’t look like he’s going to be,” Riley said, turning his back and heading towards the door.
Violet whined as she closed the book with a thump, the heavy covers slamming together like a clamp. Reluctantly she followed her husband into the hall, periodically looking at the door to the master bedroom behind them.
The Tylers dolefully descended the stairs into the living room. Both confused by their own emotions, as they were simultaneously disappointed and pleased that they hadn’t been able to confront the creature in the mirror.
Riley threw himself onto the couch shoulder first, the momentum skidding it forward across the floor about an inch.
Violet tossed the book onto her husband’s side and took her own seat on the edge of the backrest, her hands propping her torso up on her knees. Out of reflex she attempted to check the clock and realized that it obviously still wasn’t working. But since she wasn’t blind she could see that it was pitch black outside the window and that meant night.
Only when Violet focused her eyes could see it. In the grime encrusted window pane rested the faintest reflection of Sourmouth. Its upper body overflowed in the window frame, only its head and torso fitting in its casing, its proximity exceedingly close on the other side of the glass.
“...Riley...” she murmured, her hand running blindly behind her until she came into contact with her husband’s back who was still laying on his stomach on the couch.
“What?” he muttered into the thick cushion underneath his head.
“We’ve got a visitor,” said Violet softly.
He sat up, twisting his body to look around the room. Riley’s eyes scanned from the front door to the reading room, to the stairs to the kitchen without spotting it. He was almost ready to call his wife’s bluff when the glow of vivid yellow eyes caught his attention. Riley warily slipped off of the sofa, making sure that he never took his gaze off the wolf’s reflection in case it decided to leave again.
Sourmouth stood confidently as it watched the Tylers from the safety of its pane. The creature was no longer cast in the cloak of shadow but instead appeared fully exposed in its reflection. The dry and rigid grey skin had become healthy and smooth, glistening with beading sweat. Its thick blue veins seemed to pulsate underneath its hide, seemingly connecting the many disjointed bones to its body. The head was now more wholly formed, its structure elongated like that of a canine. Sourmouth’s face was shaped like a cross between that of a man’s and the muzzle of a dog’s with its brittle skin appearing as if it had melted over its mouth to hide its teeth and tongue behind gobs of dangling flesh.
“It moved,” Violet said needlessly.
“I know,” Riley responded.
“I want it to go back upstairs”.
“I know”.
‘This is fucked up”.
“I know”.
Riley was the first to step forward, his head hung low as if he was trying to sneak up and scare the creature from behind. Sourmouth hadn’t moved from its position, but its head nodded upwards so delicately that it was barely perceptible. It seemed to be trying to sniff Riley’s scent.
He knelt down and reached out to touch his fingers to the glass. The pane was hot to the touch, far exceeding the warm temperature of the mirror upstairs.
Sourmouth stretched out its hand towards its side of the glass, mimicking Riley’s movement. The animal grazed the surface of the window with the tip of its finger, creating an audible screech. Its eyes darted back from its nail to Riley, anxiously problem-solving in its head.
“What do you think it’s doing?” Violet asked from behind, watching it around her husband’s shoulder.
“If I were to guess it’s trying to find a way out. It’s testing its limitations”.
Sourmouth stepped forward within its space, examining the frame of whatever was on its side. The creature bent at the waist and seemed to be bracing itself. What little that could be read from its body language pointed to it being primed to charge forward.
Violet seized her husband by the hand and yanked him backwards, seeing that the animal was readying itself.
Sourmouth jogged forward with its head bowed. It collided with the windowpane shoulder first, the glass quivering under the beast’s weight. But it didn’t budge further than a strong vibration. Not a crack in the glass or the frame could be found. The thing stepped back, its head ticking side-to-side as if it was confused as to why its hasty exit strategy hadn’t worked.
The Tylers stepped up against the glass, more poised than they were before knowing that they were safe from its grasp.
“Was it a little bit harder than you had anticipated? Though I admired the effort,” Riley nervously teased with a stressed laugh. He knew that it wasn’t a good idea to goad predatory animals in general, but figuring that it was locked safely away he could get away with finding out how well they could communicate with one another.
But it paid no attention to him. The beast breathed in deeply as if trying to calm itself down, but minus that it failed to even react. It still seemed to be lost in its effort to envision its next steps.
The lack of feedback actually annoyed Riley, who was still caught up on the concept of being able to interact with it. How would they engage the wolf if it didn’t bother to pay attention to them?
“Eh, Sourmouth!” Riley yelled harshly as he knocked his knuckles against the glass, the banging echoing throughout the otherwise silent house.
Sourmouth’s body convulsed like it had been electrified in the stomach at the mention of its name. Its face skewed to the side, turning its head back and forth as if it didn’t want to look the Tylers straight on. Slowly the wolf’s jaw began to open. The rigid skin around its mouth cracked and crumbled off as it flexed, blood oozing from the creases of the fresh wounds. Underneath the newly formed exposure the creature’s teeth could be seen. They sat in double rows closely bunched together, the ones in the back small and sharp like jagged stones; the front teeth were large and hooked at the tip. Out of the fissures of its mouth spilled a thick stream of drool as the muscles in its face contracted backwards to its temple.
Sourmouth was smiling.
All it took was that creepy grin to send shivers down Violet’s spine. She didn’t know what it was so happy about, but she knew that it didn’t bode well for them. And if she let her husband continue as he was, they were more than likely going to end up on the wrong side of the situation. On wobbling legs she walked up and past her husband, grabbing the heavy curtain and swinging it over the window, hiding the wolf’s reflection behind it.
“What the hell, Violet?” he demanded angrily as he trod forward to open the curtain back again.
She aggressively pushed her husband backwards on the chest, preventing him from getting close to Sourmouth again.
“No! This isn’t what we agreed on. You’re taunting it and that’s not in the fucking plan”.
“We agreed to experiment with it. And that animal isn’t responding so I need to provoke it a little. Otherwise we aren’t going to get anything out of it”.
“What do you mean it’s not responding? It mimics our movements! It plays with the glass! What more do you want from it? A wave and a hello?”
Riley prepared himself to reply but found himself at a loss for a meaningful comeback.
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“I...actually don’t know what I was expecting. It was tense. Things are tense. It didn’t respond and...I don’t know...”
Violet watched as her husband seemed to deflate, his eyes still staring a hole into the curtain as if he could still see Sourmouth behind it.
“Why is it responding so important to you? It’s still here and we’re still researching it. There isn’t a rush”.
“I guess, if it can understand us and respond when we speak to it...it can be rationalized with. It can be controlled, like how Poyam might have been able to do. If it’s intelligent, it’s not just an animal that might bite our throats out”.
Violet got closer to her husband and put an arm around his waist, hugging herself against his chest, “You’re scared...”
She said it in a way that wasn’t a statement. Violet meant to let her husband know that she knew how he felt and he didn’t need to hide it from her.
But in spite his feelings being laid bare, Riley still couldn’t find the nerve to admit it out loud.
“What am I, and what am I not allowed to do?” he asked.
“Don’t be passive-aggressive,” his wife said against his body.
“I’m trying not to be. I’m just unclear as to what is going to make you upset”.
Violet pulled her head back and looked upwards at her husband’s face, which was still focused on the window area ahead.
“You can avoid upsetting me by not doing whatever upsets that thing”.
Riley groaned and walked towards the couch, hurling himself over and onto the cushions with his hands over his head.
“Have you just given up?” Violet inquired as she leaned over the backrest, once checking towards the window behind her to ensure nothing was peeking out.
He just sighed, his agonized sounds muffled by his forearms.
“Fine. You do whatever it is that you’re doing and I’m going to go to the bathroom”.
He just responded with a mumble.
Violet climbed up the creaky stairs to the second floor, her groggy feet trudging past the backwoods rocking chair and Poyam’s appalling room. It must have just been her nerves, but she felt even more uncomfortable upstairs than she had ever felt before. Perhaps it was the fact that she was isolated, but she couldn’t shake the notion that she was unsafe. She considered calling after her husband, but knew that in his current state he’d only get upset at her for raising the alarms over a few goose bumps.
She had been doing her best to avoid using the toilet in the house since they arrived, opting to find ones to use while they were out and about in town. But her time had run out and nature was calling. Upon second viewing of the conditions within the bathroom Violet had to curse at her own bodily functions for having the foolish need to urinate.
Violet sat down onto the cold seat and rested her hands together in front of her. She couldn’t tell what it was coming from but she could feel an indistinct chilly breeze drifting up from the floor, worsening her already creeping tremors.
“I hate this house,” she said as she tore a handful of paper from the roll and cleaned herself off.
Violet stood and pulled up her pants in one motion, pivoting on one foot and casually swinging her weight with the other so that she came front first to the sink. Instantly, she recoiled backwards with a shattering shriek.
Standing in the bathroom mirror was the reflection of Sourmouth basking in the unflatteringly dim lights. He was watching her intently with his piercing, enraged yellow eyes as bright red blood dripped from its still ripping mouth. It no longer looked to be grinning. Now it was growling.
By the time that Riley came bursting into the room Violet was already halfway collapsing to the floor, her body sliding down the wall as she tried to keep herself from falling completely. In his rush to arrive it took a few moments for Riley to take in the scene. He quickly noticed that his wife was in tears, sobbing into her hands. The next thing that caught his attention was the movement in his periphery. To his side Riley saw Sourmouth moving in to lean against the glass face first with its chin angled and pointed towards the sky. It seemed entirely calm as it rested its thick skull; its eyes the only things on it that were moving as it switched its absolute focus from one Tyler to the other. Its expression was distorted against the mirror, the skin of its muzzle folding in on itself as it breathed, leaving a long trail of heat vapor against the cold glass.
Riley clenched his fist and contemplated hitting the mirror. The only thing he wanted in that moment was to make his wife feel safe. But as fast as the urge arose did he realize that he had no earthly idea as to what might happen if he broke the glass. And quickly his fist released.
“...Riley...” she said from the floor where she sat, her knees pressed against her chest.
He gingerly turned away from the mirror and bent down to console his wife.
Immediately she wrapped her arms around his neck and almost pulled him down to the floor alongside her, with her original plan being that he might be able to lift her to her feet. It took a few tries for her husband to get the leverage to pull her into an almost self-supporting standing position, but eventually she found her footing to stand. It took all of the strength she could muster to glance over at the mirror to see Sourmouth. As if it was complacent in its taunting of her, its face was still held up by the glass, unmoving as it stood inspecting them with almost childlike wonder. She didn’t know where the desire came from but its execution was almost instantaneous. Violet leaned forward in her husband’s arms and hocked a ball of spit at the mirror, landing on what would be Sourmouth’s temple.
The animal grunted. Its throat convulsing with force as the sound echoed throughout the bathroom. It pulled back its head, rubbing its face against the surface as it backed up, smearing the glass in tracks of slobber and plasma from its cavernous mouth. As it retreated Sourmouth emitted haunting snapping noises as its mouth shuttered with incredible force, its long lashing tongue licking the air as the creature faded from view.
The Tylers held onto each other in near complete silence save for their laboured breathing. Neither dared to do anything that might bring the creature back.
Finally after a minute of long agonizing inaction, Riley ignored his wife’s attempts at ceasing his movement to hesitantly reach outwards as he noticed something that he needed to investigate. With great caution he gently touched his fingertips to the smudges of grime that were streaked against the surface of the mirror. Turning his hand around revealed that his fingers were now specked with a thick red substance...Sourmouth’s blood had somehow seeped through.
Chapter 13
It was yet another restless night filled with lack of sleep as both of the Tylers spent another evening in their cramped rental car thinking about what had happened in the evening. Neither even tried to sleep other than closing their eyes to stop the strained burning that they were feeling from being awake for so long. Immediately after Sourmouth had disappeared the Tylers escaped from their house and took shelter in the vehicle, trying not to pay attention to any of the reflective surfaces should it be able to follow them there. And while they were physically more comfortable than the night before having already experienced what it was like to try and sleep in the car, mentally they knew that they weren’t going to get a lick of relaxation. Both of their minds were frantic with possibilities as to what was happening to them.
“Do you think the house is haunted?” Violet asked.
Riley looked over his shoulder to the backseat of his car, noticing that his wife’s expression was void of anything remotely readable.
“Haunted?”
“Yeah, haunted”.
“As in, like, ghosts?” he asked for clarification.
“Yes. No. Maybe. We have no idea what Sourmouth actually is. How can it do what it does?”
Finally Violet turned her gaze to her husband only briefly before looking away again.
“Your explanation is that it’s a ghost?”
“That was one of my trai
ns of thought”.
“And if I were to want to get on another railroad?”
“It’s some sort of punishment,” she answered as she diverted her mental trip.
“Sourmouth is punishment? To us? Punishment for what?”
“For everything we’ve ever done wrong in our lives. For the fact that people nowadays are horrible and don’t care about anyone but ourselves. And even when we are only focused on our insignificant little lives all we do is fight. You struggle to care about us, and I nearly cheated on you. Maybe we deserve this. Its divine intervention for throwing our lives away and we just don’t like how it’s playing out”.
Riley snickered to himself, throwing his head back against the headrest as his wife continued.
“I don’t know what the animal is. It could be anything. Its very existence suggests that there’s a lot more to this world than we thought possible, so even limiting its possibilities to things that we’ve just happened to imagine is pretty short-sighted. I guess it could be some sort of ghost. Or poltergeist. Or spirit. Or god. There’s no right or wrong answer here. Not yet anyway. So it would be nice if you didn’t respond like you’re planning on having me put into an asylum”.
Violet relaxed her head against the window as she stared off into the distance at the lake. It was odd to her how serene everything could be out there in the early morning while her world felt so upside down. The dawn rays bounced off the shimmering water and illuminated the trees, casting long shadows across the grass as animals scattered about in their daybreak routines. And as soon as she felt almost comfortable while watching the nature scene unfold she would get a flash of Sourmouth in her head and jolt back to her senses.
Riley sat in the front end passenger seat fiddling with the key to the house in-between his fingers. He snuck a peek at the rear view mirror so he could look at his wife without giving her the chance to put on a brave front. By the looks of her slumped over in the backseat with her knees tucked into her chest she seemed halfway to her breaking point. Right then and there he contemplated chucking the key out the window and driving to the docks. Part of him just wanted to get away from all of it and not put another thought to the supernatural. As far as he was concerned none of it ever happened. But every time he thought of running away he felt a twinge in the pit of his stomach. If Riley was being honest with himself, he didn’t actually want to leave. In all actuality, he was still fine with it all as scared as he was. It was his wife who was the mess and it was his love for her that made him want to go. And at that realization he felt both guilty for wanting to stay and resentful for feeling like he needed to leave.