It took me a good portion of a month to construct the room. The mirror proved most difficult a project. I got the idea from my buddy Rob who’s spent his fair share of time behind such mirrors at the police station. Of course, when he questioned what I was doing down there in my basement day in and day out, I had to let The Hands have him. I shut him in the room and watched from behind the mirror. It was worth it to see that dumb smirk disappear from his face when The Hands shot out of the walls and ripped him apart. It went quick. One good thing for Rob. The Hands were hungry, God knew when they last fed. I even felt a little sorry for Rob. But I didn’t know if I could trust him and I value silence. Besides, he and Audrey knew each other. A little too well.
See, Audrey left me for Rob. No one’s as alluring as Audrey, believe me. And Rob’s not to blame for Audrey’s seductive ways. He simply fell under her spell. But to see her in another’s arms? The pain festered for too long. Hell, something had to be done.
~~~
As I stare through the mirror by the light of a single bare bulb, Audrey is sprawled on the mattress on the floor. She sleeps silently, lost in a dream world and far from here. Her stringy black hair clings to her face, a strand stuck between half-parted lips. Her powder-blue T-shirt is stained with sweat and rides up so I can see the fading bat tattoo on her lower back, a birthday present from me the year we met. I recall the times she slept just the same way in our own bed, her naked body tangled between the sheets as I listened to her nostrils make little whistles with each breath.
But I can’t let those thoughts divert me. Guilt dulls the sweetness of revenge.
I sit here watching for most of the day, getting up only to relieve myself or fix a quick meal. I quit my job at the restaurant weeks ago and haven’t left the house in two days, since snatching Audrey.
I sit here and listen to the scratching noises behind the wall. For all Audrey has endured, she still sleeps peacefully. It’s my own body that trembles as I attempt to light a joint.
The open bag of pot emits a pungent, skunk stench, which sends my mind adrift to the moment I discovered Audrey and Rob in bed together. The plastic bag lay open on the dresser of the smoke-filled bedroom. Coughing and giggling beneath the covers, they hadn’t seen me come in. I said nothing. Did nothing. Just quietly snatched the weed and left. Now, watching my captive sleep on the other side of the glass, I inhale and let the contents sting my throat, taking pleasure in feeling anything these days.
The walls of the Box ripple and moan. The floor moves in a hallucinogenic wave as the noise intensifies. Agitated from her peaceful slumber, Audrey tosses and turns and groans, and in a surprising move, she thrusts herself against the wall as if awakening from a nightmare.
And then…silence.
My muscles tense. I lean forward in my chair like I’m watching a horror film, waiting for the monster to emerge from the shadows.
No such excitement.
Audrey’s breathing comes rapid now. She rocks herself back and forth…back and forth. At last, she calms—as calm as one can be, under such circumstances. She looks cautiously around the room. Head in hand, she begins to weep. Her sobs are sloppy and snotty, but the beauty of her sadness hits me down deep. I think maybe my job here is done.
No! Toughen up you pussy…
Even if I wanted to let her go, The Hands have plans of their own. I can feel their ravenous energy, their hunger. There was Rob, but that was a while ago. And after all, it was I who took these tormented souls under my wing, promised them freedom in return for flesh. We’re all trapped here. Me. The Hands. Audrey. Tied together in a never-ending nightmare.
~~~
An hour drifts by. Audrey stands and walks to the mirror on wobbly legs. She brushes back the hair from her tear-stained face as if to tie it into a ponytail, but lets it fall. She does this several times as I press my palm against the glass. She’s so close I can almost smell the beads of sweat forming on her skin. She wears suffering so well, so snugly, you want to curl up inside it. The attraction is still there and I resist the rush of blood to my groin.
Damn her anyway.
Damn her for playing these games, even now.
My temples throb and I have every urge to call it a day. I yearn to fall asleep and dream of a world without her. Without the whispers of the undead in my ears. The begging cries and screams and the horrid din of The Hands. I want to fall asleep and never wake up because there’s no going back—back to when Audrey and I were high school sweethearts dancing with abandon in a smoky club, the haunting sounds of Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy soothing my rattled nerves. Both of us drunk on absinthe the vampire kids sneaked in. Both of us lost in that time for so long when the outside world could go to Hell.
Six years on and she says we’re too old for that stuff now. She trades in her black velvet gowns for cocktail dresses I’m damn sure she stole from Macy’s or Neiman Marcus. She starts going to art openings and fancy parties. I decline because it’s not my world. “Too many bright lights,” I tell her and wish for the days of the dark clubs.
I had tried to ignore the growing distance between us. All those nights she went out while I stayed home. Home with my thoughts. Alone with the voices putting up fort in my brain.
After weeks of keeping company with those voices—those awful agonizing cries and laments—I decided to investigate. I wondered if my own irate thoughts and suffering had conjured up this crazy nightmare.
That’s when I discovered The Hands (as I like to call them) in the back of the basement: animate, rotting hands with whispers on their fingertips, protruding from the walls, sticking out of the cement floor like some strange fungus. Right there, underneath our feet the whole time, dormant, waiting to awaken. Awaken them I did, and they nearly tore my life from my body. We came to an arrangement. I help them, and they leave me alone.
~~~
I wake from an unrefreshing nap in the hard, frozen folding chair that I’ve been glued to for the past two days to see Audrey looking around the room in apprehension. She backs up against the wall at first and I feel my skin tingle. A slight pressure in my skull forms like the warning of a coming storm. The temperature begins to drop rapidly, so much so that I can see my breath.
And that’s when the first hand grabs her arm. She shrieks and rips herself free, but trips backward on the mattress, landing smack on her back. Another arm reaches up from the floor and grabs her hair, yanking it so hard a reasonable amount is torn straight off her scalp. She screams at the sight of her own blood. More appendages appear, reaching out from the walls, feeling their way out of the floor.
Mewling like a kitten, she staggers to the other side of the room and tries to hide in the corner, but she’s completely vulnerable and another hand snatches a piece of her shirt. “Leave me alone!” she cries and tries to fight back but it tears the shirt, digging its nails into the flesh beneath her ribcage. She collapses and applies pressure to the oozing wound. A familiar figure forms out of thin air.
“Rob?” Audrey looks up. She struggles to hold her head erect.
Rob stands in the center of the room, head cocked to the right. His face is half chewed off, jawbone visible and exposed sinew glistening.
Dear God, I think.
Rob reaches out.
“Oh, Rob.” Audrey reciprocates the gesture, as if they could help each other in their misery. Maybe this is what I was waiting for—the culmination of all my efforts. To see them joined in such exquisite misery brings a twisted smile to my face. The Hands morph into full bodies now as they emerge from their cement and plastered prisons. Naked, flaccid old men with a hunger in their blackened eyes. Twenty of them with eyes boring in at my Audrey, lunging at her with a ferocity I’ve only ever seen on nature programs.
They drag her to the center of the room.
“Oh, God,” I say to myself, yet I can’t help but watch as Rob grabs her by the scruff of the neck and takes the initial bite, tearing her whole bottom lip from her once-irresistible visage.
She emits a gurgling noise, like a child slurping on a milkshake.
One of the men digs his teeth into her belly until his whole face is inside her. Her legs flop like a fish out of water. Her innards seep out onto the floor as her body becomes a buffet for the rest of them. She lets out one last gasp and then falls still.
I can’t look…I can’t look…I…
But I do look.
Satisfied, the men drag what’s left of Audrey back into the wall with them and she is gone. Out of my life forever.
I wait until daylight to enter the Box. No trace of blood anywhere, just a wet, coppery stench and a rhythmic plunking sound coming from the bathroom sink.
~~~
Days go by and there’s no sight of The Hands. No voices. No more nightmares looming in the morning mist.
Perhaps everyone is at peace now. Me. The dead. Audrey and Rob, even.
I hope.
I haul myself upstairs to the bedroom and for the first time in a long time, I get a good night’s sleep.