World of Darkness - Mirrors.pdf

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Mirrors
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™
BENJAMIN BAUGH - ROB DONOGHUE - MARTIN HENLEY
STEPHEN HERRON - HOWARD DAVID INGHAM
MATTHEW MCFARLAND - JOHN NEWMAN - MALCOLM SHEPPARD
CHUCK WENDIG - AND STEWART WILSON
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She L ives
B y W oo d In gh am
Let’s get this absolutely straight: nobody
in her right mind runs onto a pier as a means of
escape. But when you’re running fast enough,
like Rebecca is now, you’re not thinking of
where you’re going. You’re thinking about
where you’re getting away from as fast as you
possibly can, far away, each foot feeling like
it’s tangled with the other. Your arms flail
around, reaching forward for a way out. You
fall around corners, your shoulder colliding
with one of those machines where you put
in a quarter and try to grab a cuddly toy and
never can. You use lamp posts as fulcrums for
headlong dives down alleys.
And it’s coming behind her, the clatter of
shoes on the boardwalk, heels clattering impos-
sibly, inhumanly fast. Rebecca is trying every
door, every fairground ride, the gift shop, the
ghost train, the Wax Museum, the Chamber
of Horrors, the Hall of Knives, the Gallery of
Grotesques, the Stitching Room, the Helter
Skelter, and the Fun House. She dives past
windows stuffed with things she only sees out
of the corner of an eye — two-headed babies
in jars of formaldehyde, strings of shrunken
heads, broken clown masks, death masks of
Abraham Lincoln and Lee Harvey Oswald, and
the Unknown of the Seine, faded skin mags,
whips and chains, an Iron Maiden — and here’s
a door that opens. Rebecca’s inside and back
against the door and breathing so hard, so fast,
each gasp accompanying a little yelp, a little
cry of fear and pain from the stitch in her side
and relief, because it hasn’t got her yet.
And then it’s all quiet, and she can only
hear her breath, and she calms herself down
as much as she can and takes stock of where
she is. She’s in the dark. No windows here,
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M i r r o r s
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the only light the dawn sunshine peeping in,
a narrow knife-sharp blade of light, picking
out motes of dust, illuminating the room
she’s in only dimly. She can’t hear anything.
She’s next to a ticket kiosk, in a little foyer
with a wide door on the other side. She thinks,
maybe there’s a light switch somewhere here,
but the only way into the ticket booth is from
the back. So she gets up and tries the door,
and it’s open, and she can see. The hall goes
on forever, and there she is, facing herself,
all running mascara and messed up filthy
hair and filthy gutter-water on her jeans and
a sleeve half-torn off her T-shirt and bruises
on her face and arms.
And to her right, another her, only wide
and distorted and wobbly in the middle, gaps
appearing in her midriff as Rebecca looks up
and down.
“Okay. Hall of Mirrors,” she says.
She knows how places like this work.
Somewhere around here, not too far from
the entrance, she’ll find a door that says “NO
EXIT,” or “STAFF ONLY,” and she’ll slip
through that and find a cloakroom or maybe a
bathroom or somewhere else or a little office
with a phone in it she can use to call Jen or
Ellie or one of the Rachels and get somewhere
far away and safe.
The only way is in. This is how you find
your way around a maze: you put your hand
on one of the outer walls and follow that side,
wherever it takes you, because eventually, no
matter how long it takes you, you get to the
middle and then you get to an exit, and in a
place like this you’re going to find multiple
exits, because it’s the law to have fire exits,
right? And at least one exit for the staff?
Except Rebecca can’t see a sign pointing to
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a fire exit. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t
one. Because there has to be.
Left against the outside wall, which has a
mirror of its own, Rebecca follows, turns a
corner, and pulls her hand away suddenly as
she feels fingers rather than glass. She turns
and looks at the mirror.
She’s there in the reflection, only it’s not
the same: she’s in a kind of white robe, spotted
with blood at the throat and shoulders. A metal
collar is around her neck; the reflection stares
at Rebecca with a dreamy look in her eyes. As
Rebecca watches open-mouthed, someone tugs
on the chain and Rebecca’s reflection backs
into the mirror. She leans forward and sees
herself led — willingly, eyes closed, mouth
open — into the middle of what looks like
some sort of chapel decorated with bones and
skulls and crosses and spears hanging over all
the walls and she’s trussed up, hands and feet,
without any objection. Two figures in black
monk habits with hoods attach another chain
to her feet and help her up as she’s hoisted
above the altar. One of the monks pulls out
a straight razor and slashes open her throat
and the blood flows into the cup held by a
celebrant who looks like some sort of deadly
pale debauched nun. The blood is over the
sides and onto her hands and the nun mouths
words that Rebecca cannot hear, and a church
full of ashy congregants bow their heads in an
attitude of prayer.
Rebecca’s too surprised to be afraid. She
rubs her eyes and turns around, but on the
facing side of the corridor the same thing’s
happening, except the nun is up close and she
is the nun, lips so very red and skin so white
and eyes like black glass beads and a mouthful
of teeth like tiny white needles. Rebecca’s re-
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