In the House of Mirrors (28 page)

I nodded.

“Good. Now,” he said, turning his attention to the cadaver at his feet.
“Morree Velay, Dos Nominee, Ver Tucchiato De Numiondo...”

Although I knew it wasn't, Black's chant sounded vaguely familiar to the Order of the Black Book's prayers.

5

Aurelia's eyes shot open, and she gasped for fresh air. It was like she had been drowning and someone had resuscitated her back to life. She struggled to find her breath. Black backed away when the spell was complete. I dropped to my knees beside her. I tried to calm her, tried to tell her it was going to be okay. She grabbed my arm, trying to catch the air that had evaded her lungs. I rubbed the back of her head, telling her everything was fine, that the air would come soon. I glanced at Quincy Black, but he had vanished.

After a few minutes of struggling, Aurelia finally began to breathe normally, her chest slowly rising up and down. She remained on the ground, and I continued to kneel next to her. I was smiling. She wasn't, although she would be soon.

“
I remember it,” she said. “I remember everything. Boone. The mirror. The...” she trailed off, no doubt recalling the giant creature and its dead puppets. “I remember being stabbed.” I suddenly remembered being stabbed as well, although I had been too busy to give the pain my attention. I quickly ran my fingers over the wound Boone had given me, and it stung like a nest of hornets. “I remember dying,” she cried. 

I shushed her. “You're not dying anymore,” I said.

“But how?” she asked. “How am I alive?”

There would come a time when I would tell her, but now was not it. “Remember when you came and picked me up at the hospital?” She nodded, a trace of a smile graced her face. “I fell in love with you on that day.”

A smile finally cracked.

I leaned down to kiss her.

“When are you going to take me to bed, Ritchie Naughton?” she asked.

“
Soon, very soon.”

We both laughed. However, our celebration was cut short by the sound of footsteps on the porch behind us. Little Chris appeared, holding the bat he had used to smash the mirrors.

“Chris!” I yelled. “What the hell took you so long?”

He didn't answer. He took two steps forward.

“Well? Did you break the last mirror?” I asked. Again, I received no response. I rose to my feet. “What's wrong?” I asked, as a curious look crossed his face. His eyes narrowed and his lips trembled.

Then blood spurted out of his mouth and he fell forward.

Aurelia screamed.

In Little Chris's back was the corrugated blade that had pierced Aurelia's skin and mine. Blood oozed from the wound, spilling onto the dirt lot.

Standing on the porch was Chris's murderer.

6

Boone cackled like the Mad Hatter from
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The creatures which led Denlax's mammoth were closer to human than what Geoffrey Boone had become. He was covered in blood from head to toe. Most of it was his own, thanks to me and the camera, which I held tightly in my hand.

I was ready to finish the job.

Boone bent over and pulled the knife out of Chris's back. He stumbled forward, like the village drunkard before sunrise. He waved the knife around, slashing air. I wondered whether he was seeing one, two, or ten of me. I moved to his left, and he followed me, stabbing the distance between us. Frustrated with his own actions, Boone squealed like a pig. He charged at me, but I stepped aside and watched him fall past me, sliding in the dirt yard. He continued to make noises that mimicked different beasts. Boone regained his footing and turned to me once again, hissing. Holding the knife dangerously close to his face, the lunatic began sniffing it. Then, to my horror, he licked the blood off the blade as if it were ice cream running down the side of a waffle cone. 

Then, out of nowhere, the wooden bat that Little Chris had used to shatter the mirrors came flying at Boone's face. The bat connected with the bottom of the knife's handle, right on the sweet part of the bat, the part you'd want to place on the ball when jacking homeruns. The knife thrust forward, into Boone's mouth. The corrugated blade became lodged in his throat. Blood spewed from his open mouth. Gurgling noises emanated from Boone's throat as he choked on the obscene amount of blood that flowed down his gullet. He fell to his knees, and I noticed the tip of the blade was jetting out from the other side of his head, where his skull and neck met.

Geoffrey Boone fell forward, onto his face, choking to death on his own blood.

Aurelia dropped the bat onto the blood-stained ground. Her expression did not change. I detected no remorse, no regret on her face. She simply took one last look at him, and turned to me.

“Let's finish this,” she said.

7

Aurelia led me to the back of the house, where a small trail led to a wooden shed, a place that looked eerily familiar. I remembered seeing it in the distance in one of the pictures I took, the very first night I stumbled upon the House of Mirrors.

“
This is where I stashed my stuff,” Aurelia said. “I had a feeling that Carter and Geoffrey didn't come out here much.” Just inside the door, was a can of gasoline and a book of matches. The rest of the rooms contents were insignificant. Nothing but junk that probably wouldn't sell at a garage sale. She handed me the gasoline while she slipped the matches into her pockets.

When we returned to the house, we doused the place in gasoline, inside and out. I made sure the room which had an invisible barrier between it and the rest of the house received a little extra juice. When I neared the mirror, which also warranted special attention, I almost heard a voice calling to me. It was distant and if I didn't know any better, I would have said it was nothing at all. But I heard it, and I knew whose voice it was. Also, I felt a magnetic force coming from inside the mirror, beyond the swirling glass. An invisible hand pulled me toward it. It was weak, and I was able to ignore it with little effort.

I did not waste an extra second in that room. I was out of there as soon as I was satisfied with the amount of fuel I had used, still leaving plenty for the rest of the house. Then I made a trail down the corridor, down the stairs, and across the living room, and out the entry door. What little gasoline remained was used on the porch. When we were finished, Aurelia helped me drag Little Chris and Geoffrey Boone's body inside the house, where they would remain until the fire department found them. It was unfortunate that Christopher “Little” Perkins (as it would say on his grave) received the same treatment as Geoffrey Boone did, because Chris deserved so much more, and Boone deserved a lot less.

However, it was the only way it would make sense, at least in the eyes of the law. Several weeks after that day, the police issued a report stating that Geoffrey Boone, in a fit of insanity, killed his father and chopped him up into little pieces, scattering his body parts in several Dumpsters around Red River. It would also state that he kidnapped Christopher Perkins, brought him to his secluded house in the woods, tortured, and burned him to death, as well as committing suicide in the process. The papers said the kid snapped, and no one seemed to argue with that logic.

8

“
Would you like to do the honors?” Aurelia asked, holding the unlit match in her hand.

I told her I would love to.

I struck the match and lit the porch on fire. Together we watched the fire run its course, traveling throughout the house. We heard the crackle of the flames, the breaking of structural beams as the fire consumed them. We listened to the windows bust.

We watched as the fire devoured the House of Mirrors, inside and out. The scene only lasted a few moments, but the satisfaction remained forever.

EPILOGUE

I remember the funeral of Christopher Pickens Jr. in great detail. There were several older women standing over the closed casket, bawling their eyes out. There was a small gathering of young people, whom I assumed were close friends. Big Chris was there too, and he also, produced an ocean's worth of tears. I have never seen a man so big cry so hard.

I would later tell Aurelia that I had cried that hard when I brought her dead body back through the portal.

After the funeral service ended, I approached Big Chris, and offered him my hand. I told him I was a regular customer of his, and that Little Chris was always there for me when I needed him the most, which was the truth, or as close as I could come to it. He shook my hand and thanked me, telling me he didn't know if he could go back to Cameraland without being reminded of his only son. “I don't know if I can either,” I told him, and to that we both cried.

2

I remember having one last dream that was directly related to Arthur Denlax and the House of Mirrors. I remember waking from it, and finding Aurelia next to me, comforting me as I struggled to catch my breath, much like I did once for her. She kept telling me that it was going to be all right, that it was only a bad dream.

It came several months after Little Chris had been laid to rest. In the dream, Little Chris and I were walking down a red carpet, a long corridor, which at the end of it sat a king's throne. The walls were covered with smashed mirrors. Glass littered the floor. Crunching sounds accompanied every footstep. Chris was equipped with his famous bat, and I with the evil camera that was the key to Arthur Denlax's eternal cell.

“What do you think he wants with us?”
Little Chris asked me.

“
I don't know.”

We continued walking toward the throne, until we reached the end of the carpet. Sitting on the throne was a figure. A shadow veiled his identity. Little Chris and I exchanged glances. We had an inkling about who had summoned us.

“Is there a reason you have not disposed of it, Mr. Naughton?”
the voice asked. Two scarlet eyes gleamed at me from the darkness.

“
I was waiting for the right moment. I want to make sure he'll never find it again. Trust me.”

“
Don't make me come back to your doomed planet. You will not like the consequences of your disobedience,”
the creature known as Quincy Black warned.
“And what of you, Christopher Pickens? Do you enjoy the world you've moved on to?”

“
Very much so, Mr. Black. Thank you.”

“
Good,”
Black said. Then, his face emerged from the shadows. His face was a mess, a disgusting glop of thick, gel-like liquid. It was as if his face had been made of melted plastic. Thick strings of skin hung from his face. Maggots swam around the several orifices that had been carved into his cheeks and forehead. His hair was thin, and he appeared to be balding right before our eyes. His nose leaked a long, gooey mucus, pinkish in color.
“DO NOT DISAPPOINT ME!”
he screamed at us.

Then I awoke.

3

Six months after that nightmare, Aurelia and I tied the knot. We had been dating for almost a year, and living together since a few days before I had that horrible dream. But since that nightmare, I haven't had a single one. I think having her by my side every night has something to do with it. It's hard to explain, but when I'm next to her, I feel different. I feel right. As if life is a series of divided paths and being with Aurelia was the correct one to travel down. I can't really explain it any better than that, so I'm not even going to try.

The wedding was fantastic, just in case you wanted to know. Everyone was there from my office, except for Sheldon Daniels, who had abruptly quit his job as editor to “pursue other career opportunities.” Dana, the secretary who was actually responsible for showing me the camera, volunteered to be the photographer for the event. She decided that I could “have the night off.” Yes, my mother came, and yes, she wouldn't stop talking the entire time. Alice, who had just turned six a week before, was the flower girl, due to my sister's plea. I invited my old pals from Atlanta, but none of them came. This left me a best man short, so I asked Robert, and he accepted without hesitation.

Over the past several months, Aurelia and I discussed—in great detail—disposing the camera that nearly ruined our lives. By the same token, it had also brought us together. That was the long and short of it. Nevertheless, there was one creature that still existed in the Great Verse that was never allowed to obtain it. Getting rid of it was of the utmost importance. So for our honeymoon, we decided to take a cruise. It wasn't a big cruise, but it lasted an entire seven days. We went to the Caribbean, exploring the various islands along the way. The islands were beautiful, and Aurelia especially enjoyed Jamaica, for some reason I couldn't quite see. I think it was the natives' accents. Aurelia was a sucker for accents.

In any case, we decided to do it on the way home, get rid of the camera once and for all. We waited for nightfall on the first day of our journey home. We crept out onto the deck and made sure no one was watching. I held the camera in my hands, and took in a deep breath. We looked at each other and smiled.

“
Do it, baby,” Aurelia said. “End it, once and for all.”

“
I love you,” I said.

“
I love you too.”

I had filled the camera with lead before we left. It weighed a good five pounds. It would sink to the bottom of the abyss with no problem. I pondered what would happen if some sea creature were to grab hold of it, somehow manage to break or crack the lens. Aurelia suggested we placed it in a box, like a treasure chest. So we bought one in a small shop in the Cayman Islands. It was no bigger than a lunch box, and the evil camera fit perfectly inside.

We locked the chest. I casted it into the sea, and we watched it disappear into the black water below.

The deeper it sank, the more relieved I felt.