by Tom Clarke
Looking around the room for anything she could use as a weapon Shelly saw a large full body mirror in the corner. Looking at herself in the mirror, standing there in her hospital gown and non-slip hospital socks, she was suddenly thankful that she had not removed her underwear as the admitting nurse had requested. “At least I won’t die naked,” she said to herself with a slight laugh.
Standing there, looking into the mirror, she began again to hear a slight hum, low pitched, almost like that of a fan.
She found herself fixed on the mirror, she could not look away. Slowly a face started to develop in the mirror, past her own reflection, deep into the reflective space.
She starred in amazement as the face started to take the shape of someone that she knew, it was her husband Jim. As she watched the face of her husband suddenly became contorted as if he was in pain, and then he began to scream. Jim’s face started to strip away, in its place was the face of an animal. A large head with wolf like features and gray eyes began to take shape in front of her, it smiled and said, “He’s mine Shelly. I marked him as a child, you are only borrowing him. He’s mine….and he will pay for what he has done!”
The lights in the room started to dim and flicker, there was an overpowering odor of rotten meat. Shelly could not break her gaze from the mirror as the monster staring back at her started to laugh. Then the sound of children screaming for help started again, louder, and louder. She reached up and covered her ears and just as she was filling her lungs to scream herself it stopped and there was only silence. Just then the door opened and in walked two men dressed in the same brown suit as Paul.
“You will come with us” one of the men said as he led her from the room.
“Please feel free to scream” the other man said in a voice that was almost a hiss, “we welcome your pain!”
The men walked Shelly down a long hallway and into a large room with no windows. The room had a large couch and a couple of chairs which faced a large stone fireplace. On the other side of the room was a large log built, fully stocked bar adjacent to an oversized pool table. The room was poorly lit by a large single chandelier hanging in the center of the room. The walls were adorned with the heads of different animals and in the far corner was another mirror, hanging directly above it was the head of a goat.
“Sit here!” one of the men said as he pushed her onto the couch. “He will be here soon.” Both men then raised their hands above their heads with their palms facing outwards and began to hum and chant as they left the room.
As she sat there trying to understand what she had just seen the image of her husband screaming in pain burned itself into her mind.
It had been about a year since Jim and his narcotics unit had been involved in that incident with those bikers at Rocket’s strip club.
She knew that there had been otherworldly, non-human, involvement in that case and that a lot of people had gotten killed, but that had been over a year ago.
“You are right” a voice said from across the room.
Shelly jumped from the couch, how had she not seen the man, now standing in front of the mirror come into the room. He looked to be in his late forties with salt and pepper hair wearing a nice dark colored suit and what appeared from a distance to be a very expensive watch. The man, who was standing facing the mirror reached up and ran a hand across the nose of the goat’s head hanging above the mirror. He then turned, and Shelly could see his eyes, they were a deep shade of gray, the same gray as the monster she had seen in the mirror in the other room.
“Who are you?” Shelly asked, trying in vain to hide her fear.
The man smiled, “You can call me Alan. This is my home, welcome.”
Shelly sat back down on the couch, watching intently as the man walked over to the bar. She noted that his movements were choppy and somewhat disjointed.
The man looked over and saw her looking at him, “I must apologize, every time I take this form it gets a little harder to get this body moving.”
“What do you want with me?” Shelly asked.
Alan pulled two rocks glasses from under the bar, dropped a couple cubes of ice in each and replied, “Right now, I want you to have a drink with me” as he poured two glasses of very expensive whiskey.
Alan walked over, handed one of the glasses to his guest, and then took a seat in one of the chairs by the fireplace.
As Shelly looked at the glass of whiskey Alan took a sip of his, looked up, and smiled, “Would you like to trade? Believe me when I tell you poisoning is not my style. It’s perfectly safe, that is as long as you stick to two or three.”
Shelly took a sip of the whiskey and then set the glass on the end table by the couch. “What do you want with me?” She asked again.
Alan took a long sip from his drink, peering over his glass at Shelly, his gray eyes causing her to move as far back in the seat as she could. “So, you see, I am an old acquaintance of your husband Jim. In fact, we were, well, friends when he was a child.”
“Jim told me about you” Shelly replied, a sense of realization in her voice. “You’re the one that he called Lone Wolf Reaper, from the motorcycle gang, aren’t you? The same one that Jim had nightmares about when he was a child, a monster. Oh my God, you’re the demon that tried to kill him.”
Alan took another sip from his drink, “Those are some pretty strong words, monster, demon? Why, that’s almost hurtful. True, I’m not like you, and I don’t come from what you define as your reality, but a monster…. No. And I did not try to kill Jim, he attacked me and my followers, unprovoked! He’s a little unstable your husband.”
Shelly took another small sip from her glass, “You and your followers are evil. Jim told me what you were doing, cutting people’s heads off and then eating them. That sounds like the actions of a monster to me.”
Alan stood up from his chair as he finished his glass. “Shelly. May I call you Shelly? You eat meat, don’t you? Of course, you do. Is it the actions of a monster to slaughter a cow to make hamburger? How about when a hunter stalks and kills a deer to feed his family, monster?”
Alan stood over Shelly, looking down at her with his dark gray eyes, “To me and my family some of your kind, much like cattle, are no more than food.”
As Alan spoke the lights in the room dimmed and a cold chill set upon Shelly. She looked up and saw that the chandelier hanging in the middle of the room was slowly swinging in a circular motion.
Alan walked over to the bar and re-filled his glass. “You see Shelly not all of you are food for us. Just the weak, we don’t want to exterminate you, just cull the herd a bit, as it were.”
Alan looked over at Shelly and smiled, “There are places in my kingdom for the strong. I sent those men, followers of mine, to your house. They were supposed to kill you, wait for Jim to come home, and then bring him to me.”
Shelly took another small sip of her drink, “Didn’t quite work out that way did it.”
“HA! No, it didn’t, did it” Alan replied with a large smile spreading across his face.
“What do you want with us?” Shelly asked again.
Alans smile settled into a slight grin, “Well, originally I wanted Jim, and you, dead. But things have changed; you see there is a change in management coming to your world and I need to, how do you say, get my ducks in a row, as it were.”
Alan picked up his glass, gave it a swirl, and returned to the goat’s head hanging on the wall above the mirror. “You see, dear Shelly I lost something of great importance to me, a family heirloom if you will. I need it and I think that your husband is just the person to find it and bring it back to me. In exchange, I will let you go on about your way.”
Shelly looked at Alan as he stared into the eyes of the goat’s head. She knew that he had no intention of letting her and Jim go even if Jim was able to deliver this family heirloom. “What is it you need Jim to find?”
Alan took a long drink from his glass, turned and replied, “I have been among you for thousands of years.
I was first brought to this world by ancient priests in a place now referred to as Gobekli Tepe. They wanted power, so they called for me and I came. I gave them the power they wanted, and in return they proclaimed themselves God’s over their people. I was their one true God! And so, it was for two-thousand years. I provided for them, my people, my followers, and all I asked for in return was their servitude, and an occasional…. snack” Alan said with a sneer as he peered at Shelly over his glass.
“What happened?” Shelly said as she slid down the couch, closer to where Alan was standing.
Alan looked back at the goat’s head, “They built me a temple, a marvelous place where I could reach into the darkness and replenish my power. You know, and stay in touch with my family back home, a place where I was all powerful. Then one day a man arrived from outside of my kingdom, he started making trouble, telling my subjects that they did not need to serve me, so I had a chat with him.”
As Alan was talking, Shelly, with the whiskey glass in hand, continued to slide down the couch. Inching closer and closer to Alan as he gazed into the eyes of the goat’s head. “A long story short” Alan continued, “This usurper was able to orchestrate a rebellion against me, I was forced to flee, but not before I tasted the flesh of my nemesis. The ungrateful animals then buried my temple and I could not get home.”
“What did you do then?” Shelly asked as she reached the end of the couch next to where Alan was standing.
“I can tell you what I didn’t do,” Alan said as he turned and glared at Shelly. “I did not try to sneak up on someone standing in front of a mirror!”
Shelly stopped, her heart racing, her brain trying to figure out what to do now. Her plan to attack the attacker as she cleverly kept him talking and, she thought, distracted had been discovered.
“Relax” Alan said as he bent down so he was at eye level with his guest. “I need you in one piece so that husband of yours will work with me.”
Shelly looked at Alan, smiled, and then reached up with both of her hands and grabbed him by his head, grasping two handfuls of his salt and pepper hair. At the same instant she kicked forward with her right foot hitting Alan in the shin and pushing his left foot out disrupting his balance. She pulled Alan, who was off balance and listing forward, towards her as she pivoted her body onto her hip and side so that Alan came crashing face first into the couch. Shelly rolled off the couch, grabbed her whiskey glass, and hit Alan in the back of the head with it, breaking the glass and cutting her hand.
The cut to her hand didn’t even slow her down, Shelly jumped to her feet and then kicked Alan as hard as she could in the side.
Shelly turned and ran to the door. As she flung the door open she stopped, sitting on the floor directly outside the door were three men in brown suits.
They had their heads bowed towards the ground, then, the one in the middle looked up at her and smiled. His teeth appeared as though they had been filed down to a point. She could see that stuck in his teeth was what looked like pieces of raw meat and running down the front of his suit was a large blood stain.
Shelly slowly stepped back into the room, staring in confusion and fear at the men sitting on the floor. The door to the room suddenly slammed shut, she turned and there standing behind her in the middle of the room was Alan. “I guess I deserved that for sending those idiots to kill you,” Alan said as he walked toward Shelly, backing her against the door.
“Hmm, maybe he was right, maybe I can use you. What do you think cousin?” Alan said as he turned away from Shelly and back towards the mirror.
Standing there next to the mirror was a tall dark figure of a man with no discernable features. It looked almost like a tall, solid, shadow. The room suddenly became so cold Shelly could see her breath. She looked on in horror as she suddenly could hear what sounded like hundreds of children all screaming in fear as the shadow rushed at her, then darkness.
6.
The Deal
As Jim’s SUV banged its way down a dirt road outside of town heading towards a remote lake the man in the front seat sat with his hands clasped and his head down. Tyler was moving around in his restraints, trying to speak, and every so often look back at Jim’s dogs Max and Shilo, both of whom were looking at him very intently over the back seat.
“We're here,” Jim said as they came to a rough stop in a small parking area surrounded by thick woods and a narrow path that lead to a small lake. Darrel and Jim both go out of the SUV as Nico pulled in behind them. It had been a tense, 30-minute ride out of town, as all three men were certain that someone had seen them abduct Tyler and Paul and called the police.
“I can’t believe we didn’t get stopped,” Darrel said as he stretched his arms well above his head. “Yeah, me too,” Jim replied, looking right at Tyler, “I guess people just don’t give a shit when a crooked cop gets abducted.”
Jim reached into the SUV and pulled Tyler out. He stood him up and then removed his gag. Tyler took some deep breaths, moving his jaw around to make sure it still worked.
Tyler knew Jim’s reputation, he knew that Jim’s two friends scared him, and he knew that he was in a lot of trouble.
Jim looked right into Tyler’s eyes, his gaze burning a hole right through him. “Why Tyler?” Jim asked, the anger in his voice boiling over.
“Jim, please, you don’t understand. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I had no choice, I had to help them.”
Darrel walked over next to Jim, “Listen bro we got this other smiling joker in the car. We don’t need this piece of shit, I say we kill him right now, dump his dead ass in the lake, and work on the Mennonite.”
“Jim, please!” Tyler said in a stuttering voice, “they told me they were not going to hurt her, they just wanted a way to get to you!”
Jim turned and patted Darrel on the chest, “I got this bro.”
“Are you sure?” Darrel replied as he rolled his shoulder around, losing up.
Jim nodded and then took Tyler out of earshot of Paul.
“Thank you!” Tyler muttered as Jim walked him over behind Nico’s car. “Sit down,” Jim said as he pushed Tyler to the ground, “now, start talking!”
Tyler took a deep breath, “Jim, I have been hooked on Oxycontin for about a year now. It started when I blew my knee out on that hunting trip, the doctor gave me Oxy’s, lots of them. Anyway, about 2 months ago, they just cut me off. I tried to get some from another doctor, but they accused me of doctor shopping and said if I didn’t get it together they were going to fire me.”
Jim looked down at Tyler, “So the fuck what! What happened to my wife?”
“When I couldn’t get the pills, I started stealing them from evidence. Then I got hooked up with this guy out of Missoula, he said that he was a doctor. Anyway, he took care of my pill needs, and then some.”
“What do you mean?” Jim asked.
“He would only charge me 80 cents on the dollar, I would buy 10, he would give me 15, that sort of thing. He said it was because he liked me and felt bad about how I had been treated.”
Jim put his hands on his head, “God dammit Tyler, he was grooming you!”
Tyler just shook his head as he looked at the ground, “I know,” he said in a defeated voice, “but at the time I just didn’t want to see it. Jim, I was so afraid of not having the pills and getting sick.”
Jim looked back at Tyler, grinding his teeth, he said, “Then what?”
Tyler took a deep breath and with tears building in his eyes said, “One day a young girl came by from this doctor’s office. She had some pills for me; anyway, she hung out. We dropped a pill, had a couple of drinks, and then she suggested we try smoking a pill. So, we crushed one up and smoked it, then she started coming on to me. One thing led to another, Jim she was underage.”
Jim turned away from Tyler his hands on his hips, muttering to himself. “Jim, she was wearing a camera, they videoed the entire night!”
Jim looked up at the sky, he knew what was coming next. “When did they contact you
Tyler?”
“About a week after that happened. That guy, Paul came to me with a couple of his friends, all dressed the same. They showed me the video, said that if I didn’t do what they said they would cut me off from the pills and then release the video.”
His voice cracking under the strain Tyler continued, “Anyway, after Shelly was admitted Paul called me, told me to take her to another room on the first floor by the back door. I told her that we needed to go and speak to a detective, so she walked with me to the room. I left her in the room and locked the door. Jim, I am sorry!”
“What about the parking lot?” Jim asked as he struggled to contain his anger.
“It took them longer to get her under control than they thought. I guess she put up a fight, they had to drug her. Paul over there told me to intercept you in the parking lot while they drove her out of there. Jim, they told me they were not going to hurt her, they just want something from you.”