MirrorWorld (2 page)

There were three clocks in the house: an antique grandfather clock in the foyer, six steps below her; a designer clock hung in the kitchen, the numbers centered above ’50s-style bathing-suit-clad women; and a cheap plastic number in her husband’s rarely used office. Their out-of-sync ticking filled the home with a sense of haste.

She descended into the foyer, opened the grandfather clock, and caught its pendulum, stopping its operation. She glanced through the living room to her husband’s office, where the second offender ticked away. As was often the case, her husband wasn’t home. Working late. Again. She didn’t mind. They’d soon be together more often, and his work was important. But she longed for his strong, calming presence. He would be able to unravel the fear twisting around her.

So can wine,
she thought.

Ignoring the office clock, which she wouldn’t be able to hear from the kitchen, she entered the dining room and skirted the table, feeling her way through the dark. As her fingers slid over the top of the hutch’s faux weathered surface, goose bumps sprang to life on her arms. She couldn’t see anything, but the fine hairs standing on end tickled her skin.

She hadn’t heard or seen anything other than the kitchen’s ticking clock, but she sensed something … horrible.
Someone is in the room,
she thought, and said, “Hello?” She immediately felt foolish. If a malicious burglar lay in wait, he wouldn’t reply.

After three silent steps back, she slid her hand across the canvas-textured wallpaper and stopped when she found the round plastic dimmer switch. She twisted the small knob clockwise until it stopped. It clicked when she pushed it in.

The eight-bulb chandelier hanging over the table, seven if you didn’t count the blown bulb, illuminated the room with a suddenness that made Maya squint. She fought against closing her eyes, scouring the room for danger that did not exist. The only aberration in the room was the stacks of empty moving boxes, waiting to be filled and moved to the new apartment.

A warm breeze, like breath, on the nape of her neck spun her around. She screamed and swung out with hooked fingers, some primal part of her rising to the surface to defend the modern woman.

But she was alone. Still.

“Dammit.” She stood for a moment, hands on the hutch. Her heart beat hard in her chest, the flow of blood through her body carrying unnecessary and uncomfortable adrenaline. Her stomach muscles quivered.

She searched the room again, confirming her paranoia.

Maya continued toward the kitchen, peeking through the doorway before entering. The sensation of being followed chewed at the base of her skull, commanding her to turn around. The room stood empty. She had no doubt, though her instincts disagreed.

She flicked on the kitchen light, revealing nothing more horrifying than a collection of dirty dishes. While her husband liked things neat and tidy, she let messes pile up before giving them any attention.

Twelve conservatively dressed bathing beauties looked down at her from the ticking designer clock. The gentle click of each passing second felt like a hammer striking an anvil. She looked at the clock and then toward the cupboard above the stove, where she kept the wine.

Wine first,
she thought,
then the clock
.

The Pinot Noir, about the only wine she had a marginal palate for, opened with a loud pop. The tangy scent made her nose scrunch. She wasn’t a fan of how wine tasted. She rated the various types by degrees of nasty. Her interest in the drink had nothing to do with taste or the rustic flavor of oak, hints of boysenberry, or whatever bullshit they put on the label. It simply put her to sleep. Fast. And that was exactly what she needed.

Failing to find a clean glass, she opted for a mug. Filled it to the top. She stared down at the chipped pottery. A gift from her husband. Her reflection in the deep purple liquid looked distorted and ugly, despite her bright blue eyes, high cheekbones, and lips framed by dimples. As a strong sense of fear crept back into her gut, she lifted the mug to her lips, sneering at the flavor the way her son did with cold medicine. Squeezing her cheeks together to prevent the bitter liquid from striking the sides of her tongue, she swallowed a mouthful. Then another. After taking a deep breath, she downed half the mug.

It was all she could handle. She shook her head in disgust, put the mug down, and turned to the clock.

Tick, tick, tick
.

As the alcohol warmed her stomach, she felt her limbs relax.

“Your turn,” she said to the clock.

She dragged her black rocking chair beneath the clock, which was mounted just beyond her short reach. Simon would be taller than her in the next year or two. By the time he was a teen, he would tower over her. Unsteady on her tiptoes, she caught the clock and lifted it away from the wall. Back on her heels, she turned the clock around, unclipped the plastic battery case, and removed a single AA battery.

“There.” She reached up, lifting the clock back to its high perch.

A shiver ran through her legs, traveled through her abdomen, and settled in her chest. She gasped for breath as her skin went cold and goose bumps returned. To her arms. Her legs. Her long, wavy black hair shifted as the follicles tensed. With adrenaline rushing alcohol through her veins, she saw movement in the clock’s glass front. Someone
was
in the house! Her eyes flicked toward the dark shape as the rest of her body reacted with panic.

She spun around to face the intruder, but the rocking chair, wine, and her own limbs conspired against her. With a shout, she fell. The glass clock front shattered on the hard tile floor, a kaleidoscope of curved shards spreading out around her.

Footsteps to the right. From the dining room.

Her throat clasped shut. Each breath came as a gasp.

Glass crunched under the intruder’s feet. Her mind shouted at her,
Defend yourself! Defend your son!
Images filled her mind. Her drowning son. Her murdered son.

She moved quickly, half aware, lost in a frantic mental slideshow displaying images of Simon’s death. Fear consumed her, deforming her perception of the world around her, and she fought against it and her attacker with blind rage. She opened her eyes, just once, and saw four angry red eyes staring back. The pitch of her screaming grew painful to her own ears, but she kept attacking, fighting for her life.

For her son’s life.

A vague awareness of being struck began her journey back to lucidity. She felt claws scratching at her, pulling at her cheeks. She fought against the attacker, striking again and again, too afraid of those eyes to look again. The sound of her screaming voice drowned out the high-pitched shriek of the monster attacking her, the
thing
she’d seen in the clock’s reflection.

It wasn’t until her enemy, now beneath her, stopped struggling that she dared to look at it. What she saw made no sense—a nightmare invading reality.

She saw her son, lying beneath her, still drowning, but this time in blood. His own. It seeped from a number of wounds covering his body. His hand, resting against her cheek, fell away. His eyes shifted up, widened, and then changed. The energy behind them faded.

He was dead.

Reality collided with her, knocking her back. She slammed into the fridge. Sharp pain drew her eyes to her hand. A long shard of glass, covered in blood, poked her palm. She loosened her grip and glanced from the clear triangular dagger to her son’s punctured body.

The phone rang. It rang and rang and rang, playing backup to her anguished screams.

Her insides quivered, fear returning, gently molding her actions. She lifted the glass still in her hand. Placed it against her wrist. And pulled.

Somewhere, a door slammed open. A voice shouted her name. And then, it too joined the pained chorus of despair and parental loss.

1.

I want to tell you a joke. The punch line might elude me for a time, but we’ll get there. I tend to ramble. Details make humor more robust, I think, though some would prefer I skip right to the end. Too bad for them; I don’t give a fuck.

A guy and a girl walk into a bar. He’s a philistine. The build suggests ex–football player. The high-and-tight haircut screams military, but the cocksure way he carries himself tells me he was too chickenshit to handle war and is boosting his ego by intimidating the folks of this small town.

I don’t know the name of the town. It was dark when I strolled past the
WELCOME TO
sign. The bar’s sign was well lit, though,
THE HUNGRY HORSE
. I’m not sure if that’s some kind of reference to something. Maybe there are a lot of horses in the fields around town. I don’t know. Like I said, it was dark. Maybe the bar’s owner just likes horses? I’m not sure if I do. Can’t remember if I’ve ever been on one.

Can’t remember much beyond an hour ago, which should concern me, but it doesn’t.

I think I’ll remember the girl hanging on the philistine’s arm, though. Just a quick glance is enough to etch the curves of her body in the permanent record of my short memory. It’s not that she’s beautiful. She’s caked in so much makeup that her true self, and worth, are impossible to see. Anyone with that much to hide is either the victim of unfortunate parentage or concealing their guilty conscience.

I never wear makeup. At least, I don’t think I would.

The woman’s voluptuousness is as artificial as her face, and thrice-dyed hair. Something tight hugs her waist. Probably her thighs, too. She’s a too-full sausage, ready to burst. And while her breasts are prodigious, they’re held aloft by an underwire bra capable of holding a child. Nothing about her is honest, except for her eyes—desperate and pleading for attention.

I don’t give it to her.

Anyone who does is a fool.

And there is a fool in every bar.

The man sitting across the room from me, on the far side of the worn pool table, beneath a neon-pink Budweiser sign and a mounted largemouth bass, watches the giggly entrance with wide-eyed fascination. She might as well be a peacock, strutting about, flashing her wares, entrancing the susceptible. That’s a poor metaphor. She’s not a male peacock, and she’s not simply entrancing.

She’s luring. Like an anglerfish, she dangles her quick meal, summoning her prey. Much better.

The fool hasn’t looked away yet. He’s hooked. And he’s been spotted. While the bait takes a barstool, the philistine glares at the fool until noticed. Then he grins, whispers to the woman, and heads for the fool, who is now staring down into his amber drink, wishing he wasn’t himself, or perhaps that he was just someone stronger.

The philistine stands above the fool, reading from a script everyone knows. “You looking at my girl?”

The fool shakes his head and offers a polite, “No, sir.”

The big man chuckles. He knows how easy this is going to be. He glances back at the woman, making sure she’s watching. And smiling. This is for her as much as him. Bruised egos seeking validation through the pain of idiots.

“You don’t think she’s worth looking at?” The philistine has him trapped now. To say she isn’t worth looking at is to call her ugly, but the opposite confirms that he
was
looking, and the lie will be enough.

The establishment is mostly empty. There’s the tender behind the bar, who just looks annoyed by the proceedings. No doubt, he’s seen this charade before and knows how it ends. He confirms this by saying, “Charley. Outside, please.”

Then there is the man sitting at the bar. He’s at least ten years my senior. Maybe fifty or an early gray late forties. Like me, he’s no fool, not even now that the target has been chosen. He just sips his beer, ignoring, which is ironic because out of everyone here, it’s his job to step in. The bulge beneath the man’s sport coat reveals a holstered gun. While a lot of people in this neck of the woods—New Hampshire—might carry weapons, the piece strapped to his ankle, which I can see clear as day, thanks to his too-short pants, says he’s a cop. Off-duty but, still, an officer of the law.

And then there is the fool, who is damn near to weeping. He’s scrawny and physically weak but has nice clothes, shiny shoes, and a laptop bag. He probably makes four times as much money as the philistine, has a 401(k); stock options, and a hedge fund, details that fuel the philistine’s insecure rage. The fool’s just passing through. On his way to Boston. Or New York. Maybe visiting family. Just happened to stop for a drink, like me.

Well, not exactly like me. I’m here because I had nowhere else to go and hoped a little alcohol might help my lost memory return. I’ve got fifty dollars in my pocket. No ID. No keys. No clue about who I am other than the clothes I’m wearing and a name that isn’t a name.

The fool says nothing. It’s the first right thing he’s done since the bimbo opened the door. But it’s too little too late.

“Answer me, or I swear to God, I will—”

“She’s worth looking at,” the fool says, biting hard on the hook, believing incorrectly that insulting the woman would be worse than admiring her body, which is now bouncing like an inflatable fun house full of sugar-doped kids. She’s getting off on this, smiling broadly, nearly clapping.

The cop does nothing. The bar man sighs.

The philistine, lost in anger, has nothing more to say. He lifts the fool by his expensive, salmon-colored shirt, cocks back his fist, and grins. The fight—if you can call it that—will be over in one punch.

Except, it won’t be.

The philistine’s fist never reaches the fool’s face. It finds my hand instead. Without fully realizing it, I’ve crossed the room. Part of me feels confused, like I’m not sure how my proximity to the philistine changed, but the rest of me understands that everything about this situation is wrong. And that is something I cannot abide.

The punch stings my hand, but the pain only serves to focus me. And in that moment of clarity, I realize I’ve picked up a pool stick, which I swing with gusto. I’m no fool. Nor do I believe in a fair fight.

The pool stick breaks over the man’s broad back, pitching him forward with an embarrassingly loud, high-pitched shout. Despite the man’s penchant for drama on the scale of an injury-faking soccer player, he’s far from out of the fight. I have about a second before he swings one of his meaty arms at me. He’ll miss, but the time it takes me to dodge the blow will allow him to recover, and then this could drag on. None of that happens, of course. The cue ball is now in my right hand. I drive it into the man’s forehead. He crumples to the floor, upturning the fool’s table as he descends. Beer and peanuts mix with the blood flowing from his forehead.