My good friends at Irregular Magazine celebrated their second birthday in July with a special issue themed around nineteenth and twentieth century pulp fiction. In keeping, I submitted a rather shlocky and blood-curdling tale in the tradition of Victorian penny dreadfuls with a dollop of Hammer horror on the side. I later discovered that “The Empty Mirror” is also the name of a rather odd sounding film about Adolf Hitler. I doubt the two have much in common.
The story (X-rated for violence and supernatural menace!) is available to read after the jump… if you dare (Bwahahaha)…
*****
THE EMPTY MIRROR
A MACABRE TALE OF MURDER AND SUPERNATURAL MYSTERY
BY M. T. MELLA
The old drunk struggles as I straddle his chest, my left hand tight around his throat. He thrashes against the cold cobbles of the alley, grasping for salvation. It does not come; This place is as far from the early morning bustle as I could find. I press against his stubbled neck with all my weight, losing my hat as I lean closer to the wretch. For a moment I worry that it may become sodden in the puddles, but then I smell the stink of spirits on the man’s failing breath and my mind returns to my gruesome endeavour. Sweat drips from my brow. My teeth are tight and bare like a dog. The old wound in my left leg throbs, goading me as I take his life. His face greys as he gasps and rattles, lungs empty. It is dreadful. The thumb and forefinger on my right hand force his eyelids open – an awkward task that becomes easier as the fight subsides. He will see me – he has to see me, otherwise the risk of conducting this experiment in daylight hours will be in vain. He frees an arm that flails limply towards my face, but it is a token effort from a beaten man. The drunk’s life evaporates. I stare him in the eye as his fear gives way to peaceful vacuity.
Only silence follows. The anticlimax stalls me in horror, but I need to work quickly on the second part of my grim work. Although the morning fog conceals the alley and all is quiet, I am terrified of being disturbed while I perform the surgery. Besides, I wish to be away from this dead thing as soon as possible. I remove the tools from my bag: a silver spoon stolen from the kitchen of my landlady and my shaving razor. And it is with these primitive instruments that I carefully remove the man’s eyes – first the left then the right. I place them delicately in a small silk bag and slowly pull the thin drawstring shut. For a moment, I consider the bag and its fragile contents with reverence and almost triumph, but these are not trophies. They are worth far more to me.
I pull myself off the drunk and hastily grab my battered briefcase. My gut twists as my fear begins to rise, and I fumble as I store my things away. The drunk’s head lolls to one side as I leave, a slow line of blood trickling from the pit where his left eye once was. I pray that the windows to his soul will become the mirrors to mine.
*****
I developed my “affliction” six months ago following one of my dark moods. The monstrous clouds that fell heavily over my head and insides incapacitated me, and I spent their duration caged in my lodgings. One evening I raised myself to look in the small, cracked mirror above my bed, intending to curse myself and my maladies or some such self-punishment. And there it faced me – the void. That horrifying empty glass, hollow, forsaken and dark where my familiar features should be. I exclaimed, recoiling from the impossible absence. My reflection was no more. I panicked, looking frantically about myself and confirmed that I could still see my own body. It occurred to me in my confusion that I may be dead and perhaps this was the afterlife. I ran into the street and accosted some stranger – a stout lamplighter – to confirm that I could be seen by others. The man pushed me aside and frowned at my agitated state. It seemed that I was visible to the human eye and very much part of the physical world, however my reflection was absent. In mirrors, windows and even the puddles on the dark street all that stared back at me was emptiness.
At first, I denied my affliction. I turned my gaze rather than face the void, but my heart guarded hopes that I would at any moment raise my head and see my image returned. Every nervous glance was received with the same nothingness. Through experiments, I ascertained that I could not be captured by photography. When the photographs developed I was nowhere to be seen, rejected by paper and glass. After months, my memories of my own features began to grow indistinct. The idea that they had in fact changed in some way began to disturb me, as did the idea that my recollections had become warped. I no longer knew for certain who I was to the world. It was shortly after this episode that I devised my experiment.
My father was a scientific man – something which I myself aspired to but never achieved. In a fit of despair caused by young and foolish heartbreak, I abandoned my studies and joined the army. I spent a short time in service until I received my leg injury – the injury that stabs at me as I go about my murderous business. I hope in some way Father would be proud of me now, that he would see the logic in my experiments, and that he would have some understanding and pity for what I am compelled to do. It was, after all, science that set me on this journey. I had read that during the Jack the Ripper case of last year the police photographed the eyes of the murderer’s victims. A theory existed that the last image that a dying person sees is preserved on the corpse’s retina and the police hoped the image of the killer was recorded there. I reasoned that if the human eye can detect my presence, then maybe at that moment of death my elusive form may be captured in the same way. I laughed so hard when the idea first occurred to me. It was crazed and perfect and the only hope I had. The hysteria gave way to a dark obsession, and I began to plan my first experiment.
This drunk was not the first, nor was he the second. I was interrupted during the first (a woman of low morals) and the second (another drunk) had looked away at the vital moment. Those occasions met with crushing failure, but not this time. This time, all conditions were met.
*****
As I leave the alley, two figures emerge from between the curtains of fog. I know instantly from their silhouettes that they are police officers and I avoid their gaze as I walk straight by. They pay me no attention but I know if they turn down the alley and find the cadaver they will realise my involvement and give pursuit. My leg still throbs from the struggle to subdue the drunk and I know my only chance of escape is to gain as much ground as possible – to try and lose them in the shrouded streets. Walking stiffly and slowly, I glance over my shoulder and see the two officers turn down the alley. My heart stops as I prepare to run. I must time my escape perfectly; run too soon and I will arouse suspicions, but too slowly and I will still be here when they find the body. Some other part of me takes control as my nerve breaks, and I feel myself stumbling forward through the mist, not knowing if the police are in pursuit.
My legs feel like wheels spinning beneath me as I tumble across the damp streets. Pain stabs at my left thigh again, but I do not slow. I am a spectator to this scene. I enter the market area by the docks where florists and fruiterers are unpacking their wares in the dim morning glow. Throwing myself behind a flower cart in an attempt to stay hidden, I hear the whistle and cries of the policemen in pursuit. I stop for a moment and peer through the slats of the cart. They see me. The whistle blows again as they push through traders. I resume my dash and instinct guides me through the maze of alleys and yards. A left, then a right, then a left, then another right. I hope to lose my hunters but still that whistle blows behind me. My lodgings are close. I pray I am undetected as I slip inside and fly up the stairs to my room. I shut the door and listen. They have followed, and all I can do is wait.
The door swings open as the two policemen surge into the room. I stand rooted in the middle of the threadbare carpet with nowhere to run and no chance of overpowering them. I stare unblinkingly as the officers look under my bed and in my battered and split wardrobe. They ignore me, as if I am not here. They carefully scrutinise the things that lay on the top of my drawers and eventually locate my bag. They neither recognise nor try to open it. “He’s not here.” Says one, and they leave the room with the same whirlwind that brought them in.
Dizzy from the chase, I slump on my dilapidated mattress. A quiet, exhausted moment passes before I leap to my feet with shock, realising why the police officers let me be. A feeling of sickness consumes me as I examine myself and realise my disappearance is complete. Now not even the human eye can detect me. I look down at my hands, arms and body – all I see is the void. As I listen to the footsteps hurrying across the next landing, a movement catches my eye in the cracked mirror above my bed. With trepidation I edge toward it and there to greet me is the face of an old friend - hollow and troubled features that I had not seen in six months. I move closer until my nose touches that of my once-errant reflection. We laugh, tormented but reunited.
THE END
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