MirroRorriM

Part One

The mirror showed a reflection that was not my own. The cracks gave my face a Picasso-esque appearance, but that was when I was looking at my face as an abstract image. Now, another face was in the mirror. It blinked as I blinked, leaned forward as I did, as if the entity looking back at me wondered as much what I was as I did it. But it was no longer a reflection of me.

My heart raced. Adrenaline seeped into my muscles, tensing them for flight. But I did not flee. The pathetic child I once was, who perceived darkness as a sentient entity intent on enveloping me in suffocating absence of light, had become a man who feared almost nothing, who accepted strange phenomena as normal. I simply wondered what it was. I reasoned it was likely nothing, a hallucinatory side effect of blood pressure medication my doctor was testing on me, as she frequently did. Yes, that had to be it. Creepy though it was, this wasn’t going to keep me from buying the house.

But then, it moved.

The room was large, and there was only a gaudy, green velvet wingback chair big enough for three people, and the mirror, propped against the wall on the other side of the room. The mirror was a rounded rectangle with a needlessly complex ceramic frame which was crumbling and cracked. The glass was frosty and blotched from lack of care and the cracks made it useless. But that reflection…whatever it was, moved. I mean it moved…independently of me!

A thick, scratchy voice with too much sibilance growled at me.

“Mr. McGlurd!”

I jumped up, back and spun in one motion as my heart delivered an uppercut to my throat. I looked toward the door where stood a barefooted old woman. She had a twisted finger in the air but looked surprised, as if she expected me to be someone else. But did I really see that? Did the thing in the mirror look toward the door too? Did I really see that? I looked back at the mirror and saw nothing but my face as puzzle pieces.

“Who are you?” I asked the woman.

“Oh. You’re not McGlurd,” she replied.

“No, ma’am, and who are you?”

“You must be the new owner!” She flashed an odd smile and drew out the word ‘new’ for about three seconds.

“Yes, I’m Laren. Pete Laren. Do I need to ask again who you are?”

“Do not become brash with me, specimen! I have reach of which you know nothing!”

“Okay, then how long will it take you to, reach, my front door? Get out of my house!”

“Your house?” she retorted with incredulity, then another odd smile, “Oh, but it will be. Soon!”

She mumbled to herself as I followed her out. She shuffled down the walk to the street without looking back.

I said, “And don’t just walk into my house again without being invited!”

She crossed the street and went on her way. I’d had enough for that night. It was getting darker, and I needed to go home and do some things. My jacket was still in the mirror room, but it was a pleasant evening, and I didn’t need it, so I locked up and went home. But did I really see that?

Due to the curse of a vivid imagination, by the next day when I went by the house, I had over-thought to the point of reluctance to go into the mirror room. It was one of those times when telling myself how foolish I was being didn’t work.

Part Two

Three weeks after moving in, I hadn’t mustered the nerve to go into the room. I could feel sweat pores opening all over my skin just walking past it. I knew better. I wasn’t that scared little piss-ant of a child anymore, horrified by my own imagination, or lack of control thereof. Control it! Control it! But it’s winning. What’s winning? It’s not me. It’s just…something.

I stopped myself. I was being stupid, getting myself worked up over some semi-superstitious madness. So, intellect won, and I went to take a shower. I exited the shower to my doorbell ringing. I threw on my robe and slippers and ran down the stairs, yelling, “Okay, okay, stop with the bell, I’m coming!” I opened the door and there stood an attractive woman who looked about thirty-five. Very fresh looking, I thought. She was wearing a jacket I thought a bit heavy for the weather and she had it clutched about her. Her eyes darted around, but never met mine. I spoke, “I’m sorry, I was just in the shower. I apologize for being—“

“NO! Stop!” She turned as if to hide her face. Her voice was tense and shaking. “You…you must understand, to believe! What you saw. What…who, you saw. You must understand or you will not believe!”

“Excuse me?” What was wrong with the people in this town? “Who are you?”

“Now, yes! Now, you do right, you ask! But you ask wrong, ask again, ask more!” her voice was calmer.

“What are you talking about?” I stepped back.

“NO! Don’t leave now!” her voice was shaky again. Then she shot out these words like bullets:

'Youmustunderstandoryoucannotbelieve. Andtobelieveistodefeattheinexorablepullfrom whichyoucanonlyescapebyfairexchange. Thesepeoplearenotworthytoknowwhatyousawinthemirror but I…I know. I. Saw!" She slowed down on that last part.

I marveled. Was she talking about my mirror? She turned and darted down the walk with unexpected agility and was gone in seconds, leaving me there to dread turning to look. For had I turned and looked onto the second-floor landing, there, juxtaposed symmetrically between the dual staircases, was the door to the mirror room. In my mind, it was now gray, dried out wood with a rusty doorknob that would freeze, burn or shock any who touched it. I slept in the study that night. I was not afraid; that night had just caught me a little off guard.

The next day, I was talking to Joshua Early, the Baptist pastor who was the first person who’d had an extended conversation with me, and I felt I could call him friend. The girl, I found, was Elilah Whitaker and, according to Joshua, many people considered her the ‘village idiot’. I noted how unfortunate that was and he issued a warning. “Listen, I know what you’re seeing. Beautiful woman, right? Maybe, who knows, right? Well let me tell you something. Elilah is not right. That girl, that woman, is not right. Something got into her when she was just a child. Something…happened. Some say, well some say, and I’m just saying some say, not everybody and I’m not saying it’s true, but some do say it was, well, her daddy and her sister did something to her. There was talk about those two about twenty-five years ago, things that, as God’s anointed servant, I will not repeat. But neither has been seen since and Elilah has been whatever she is now, since.”

“So, no one knows what happened to make her like that?” I asked.

“Nope. Or at least, no one will say.”

“Wow.”

“You know where Elilah used to live?”

“No, where?”

“Your house. Her great, great granddaddy built it. But each of his progeny that inherited it was a bigger knucklehead than the last. The family lost it to foreclosure on a defaulted home equity loan. Shortly before that, all the madness happened. That night: still hard to think about.” He gazed into the near distance and took a slow sip of coffee from a crude, thick mug.

This was all starting to sound a little too mysterious, like my leg was being pulled right out of the socket. So, I went along. “Well, where does she live now? Who takes care of her?”

“Now don’t you get any ideas! She lives by herself over on Acre Way. She lives on a trust her great, great granddaddy set up that couldn’t be touched by the foreclosing bank. Heh heh! Ben Clark is still mad about that. It was his bank that made the loan!”

I gave him a side eye; he ignored it and continued.

“Anyway, you moved in, and I guess it stirred up something, so she did what she did. I know it’s kind of unsettling, especially now knowing what you know. But we all just accept Elilah, you know? She never means anybody any harm. But she can freak you out sometimes. She’s actually supposed to be really smart.”

“Has anyone tried to just talk to her?”

“Oh, all the time. She’ll listen, for a few minutes. She’ll engage, for a few minutes. But sooner or later she’s going to come out of her head with something you won’t have a clue where she got it from!”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well, like beings that run around feeding on fear or something abstract like that.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, ‘wow’ is right. Well, I guess that’s our little town skeleton!”

“Delilah said something about my mirror.”

“Not Delilah, Elilah. No ‘D’. What about a mirror?"

“I know this sounds ridiculous, but there’s this odd room in the house and there was nothing in it but the biggest chair I ever saw and this old, cracked mirror. It kind of freaked me out when I first looked at it, you know because it’s cracked so it looked a little creepy at first.”

“Yeah, I'll bet.”

“Anyway, just about the time I was startled by the mirror, this old lady, who had just walked into the house, called out for somebody I guess she thought I was.”

“Who’d she call out for?” His interest seemed excessive.

“I don’t remember, Mr. Mac-something or other. Anyway—“

“That was Mrs. Knavely. She used to kind of look after the place after the foreclosure, so it wouldn’t get to the shape it’s in now…oh, sorry about that. Didn’t mean to—“

“No, it’s okay, I knew it needed a lot of work when I bought it. Go on.”

“Well, Mrs. Knavely was forced to retire, and no one ever applied to take over tending to the house. It’s kind of been forgotten for about fifteen years.”

“Why would she come into the house now?”

“I can’t say, maybe she saw a door open or something. Anyway, a lot of people around here didn’t want the house sold. Most wanted to tear it down and use that whole corner lot for a park for kids in the area. Right now, they have to go all the way to Grenadine Street to enjoy a park.”

“Well, that explains a lot. Like why I’ve been feeling almost shunned in a way.”

“Ahhh, don’t worry about it. They’ll warm up to you. You’re an all-right guy.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so. Thanks.”

“Hey, did you think of who Mrs. Knavely might have been calling out to?”

“Hmmmm…no, why?”

“Nothing. Just curious. Nice lady but a little weird too.”

“Gotcha. Well, Joshua, I appreciate the coffee and conversation. I have a few things I need to do to prepare to start fixing up my fixer upper!”

“Well, if you need a spot of help, and I do mean a spot, let me know. I’ve been known to drive a nail or two in my time.”

With a promise to hold him to that, I went shopping. I loaded my truck and was about to drive home.

Part Three

“Mr. Laren!” It was Elilah.

Elilah walked toward me as I was about to get in my truck. She was wearing a pleasant smile and a bright yellow jogging suit that fit her well.

“Elilah, right?” I said.

“Yep!”

“How did you know my name?” I said, trying to match her smile.

“Oh, everybody knows everybody in this town. You’re just at a slight disadvantage because we’ll all know you before you know all of us.”

“Oh, a slight disadvantage, huh?”

“Very slight.” She said, making a gesture with one hand. This could not have been the woman on my porch last night.

She cast an approving glance and said, “It’s nice to see an attractive older man move here.” Then, as if catching herself, added, “Oh, I’m sorry! I blurt things out sometimes. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Oh no, it’s fine. I appreciate the compliment.”

“Well, then I won’t take it back!”

“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to.”

A couple seconds of non-communicative eye contact and we both laughed. Then I said, “Elilah, can I ask you a question?”

She smiled even wider, saying, “Not if you don’t want me to start acting as crazy as I’m sure you’ve already been told I am.”

“What?”

“I suggest you smile and appear to be laughing as we talk.”

“What are you—“

“Do it!”

I complied but asked her what was going on.

“Have you ever frightened anyone?” she asked while pretending to laugh.

“What do you mean?” I asked, hoping I was feigning joviality as well as she was.

“Have you ever scared someone? You know, hide and jump out at them suddenly. Tell scary stories in the dark?

“Well, sure, why? Hasn’t everyone?”

“What did you feel when you were scaring them?”

“I don’t understand.”

“When you frighten someone, what do you feel? What is the emotion scaring someone evokes in you?”

“What? I don’t know, I guess I never thought about it.” It was getting harder to pretend to be laughing and smiling.

“I know what it is.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called rorrim”

“Rorrim?”

“Yes, rorrim is the feeling you experience when you invoke a fear response in another person. There are malevolent entities that feed on rorrim like we feed on vegetation or animal flesh. It sustains them.”

“Are we talking demons here, Elilah?”

“If demons existed, they would fear these entities.”

“Elilah, look, I don’t buy in to this kind of thing.” I dropped the pretense of joviality; it was tiring, like the conversation. Joshua was right. Shame too, because she was a gorgeous woman. Then, instant change. The thin, shaky voice was back, and words spewed from her mouth as quickly as her mouth could produce the phonetics.

“Itoldyoukeeplaughing. Don’tgobackthereleaveyourthingsthemirrormustseeyounomore. Iwillhelpyoubutyoumustunderstandtobelieveandtobelieveistoresistthepull! Resistthepull. Resistthepull. Don’tletthemwinIamnotmadandneitheryetareyoubutyet. Resistthepull!”

With that, she turned and darted away as before. I stood there flabbergasted. How could she seem so bubbly, so alluring one moment, and the next, drop off a cliff of rationality?

“Don’t mind her. She’s crazy.” I turned and saw another attractive woman.

“Excuse me?” I said, emerging from the fog of astonishment into which Elilah had drawn me.

“She’s crazy. We don’t pay her much mind around here. Hi. I’m Darla.” She offered her hand, I shook it.

“Pete Laren.”

“Is it Peter or just Pete?”

“Just Pete. My parents saved the ‘R’ for my sister.”

“Oh? What’s her name?”

“Marry, with two ‘R’s”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding.”

“Well, it’s nice meeting you, Pete. Maybe we’ll run into each other again soon.”

“I’m sure we will.”

“That’ll be nice. And don’t let Elilah unsettle you. She can sometimes.”

We parted and I went home, my imagination already revving up. I’m going to face this, I told myself! Right now. This is my house and I’ll go anywhere in it I please; including, no, especially, that mirror room. I ran up the left staircase two steps at a time. I walked up to the door, grabbed the knob, turned it and pushed. The door swung open smoothly and silently, as if it had been hung that morning. My feet became heavy as I pushed myself toward the mirror. My heart raced and my breathing became arrhythmic. It was getting warm, then hot. Was it just me? The house uttered a deep groan that felt like a heavy footstep right behind me. I couldn’t let my imagination dictate what I would see if I looked around. In my consciousness, I knew there was nothing there.

The battle between imagination and rationality is a fierce one, waged in the theater of the mind, especially in one adept at both! Rationality breaks down in the presence of a runaway imagination, which can, for a time, replace rational reality with aspects of itself that intrude upon consciousness and evoke visceral, physical responses. We have a name for that: Fear. But what of this--what was it--rorrim Elilah had talked about? What is that, or was she bubbling up nonsense from a mind traumatized by some cataclysmic event the nature of which no one seemed to know? My sweat felt like icicles sliding down my body; I felt chilled though the room felt hotter. I couldn’t swallow. I was five steps, no, six, from the mirror. Apprehension, the unwelcome guest brought by cowardice, had joined the party in my mind. Without realizing it, I was now two steps from the mirror and had stopped dead. No! The fear I had described to myself was in my mind, not in that mirror! It must not win that moment.

Part Four

I summoned something from deep in my rationality, a realization of the power rationality must have over imagination. When rationality is fervently asserted, imagination must yield. It must! I stepped boldly before the mirror and gazed upon my distorted image, eyeball to eyeball. Feeling victory rise, I smiled.

But my reflection did not smile.

The reflection glared back at me with lips tight and tightening, eyes squinted and squinting, nostrils flaring, teeth baring to reveal a grimaced smile that exuded evil intent as palpable as the air in the room. I could feel my body rocking in rhythm to my pounding heartbeat. The reflection blurred and turned bright green. It quivered and undulated and suddenly…

...lunged at me!

I felt like a hand gripped me around the throat with a grip I had no answer for. It threw me across the room, and I landed in the big chair. I felt something, like insects crawling all over me under my clothes, biting, stinging, crawling. I tried five times to force myself from the chair before I succeeded and ran screaming out of the room, down the stairs and onto the front porch, where I collapsed, unable to move for what felt like an hour.

I must have slept, for it had gotten nearly dark, and I sat up to see Elilah sitting on the porch swing, swaying to and fro. She was wearing a coat and looking at me intently.

“It touched you, didn’t it?”

“What was that?”

“Did it touch you?!” she screamed.

“Yes! It did! Now what is the world was it?”

Elilah stood and began pacing back and forth, rubbing her hands together, saying repeatedly, “No. No no no. I can’t but I have to I can’t, but I have to. No. No No!”

I stood, grabbed her, turned her to me and was ready to slap her to bring her out of whatever she was about to drift into. She stopped, looked at me, and in a stern voice, said, “No, you don’t need to hit me. I have told you, you need to understand, then believe, or you will be taken.”

“Okay. What is it I’m supposed to understand?”

“What is pursuing you.”

“What is pursuing me?”

“I don’t know what they are. I know what they want. I call them Rorrima, because they subsist on rorrim.”

“It’s a ‘they’? You were serious about that?”

“Yes. But the people in this town must believe I’m crazy or they’ll kill me, even though they believe it will kill the Rorrima if they do. That’s why they hesitate. It protects them for me to appear crazy. It protects me also.”

“Who is this ‘them'?”

“Everyone in this town.”

“Elilah, come on. Everybody?”

“You must understand to believe.”

“Fine, then help me understand, dammit!”

She sat again on the swing.

“My great, great grandfather, Harlan Whitaker, built this house with his own hands. He was hated because he stole from whomever he could for the materials to build it. Years after it was built, he married and had twin sons. One was stillborn and the other was born with no tongue; he starved to death because he was unable to suck. Harlan blamed his wife for being cursed and she disappeared, some said Harlan murdered her. His second wife also had twins, with one stillborn, but the other, my great grandfather, Harlan II, was healthy. He grew up and moved to England and became a solicitor. When Harlan I died, Harlan II returned with his wife and my grandfather, Harlan III, who had never married, but he impregnated a young girl who was traveling with an evangelist who put up tents deep in the woods and conducted revivals. Before he found the girl was pregnant, guilt drove him to seek baptism. But the evangelist believed he was possessed by a demon and subjected him to what amounted to torture; he was never the same. Still, he married the young woman. The child, my father, was not named Harlan, but William. Grandfather treated William as he believed him to be: the fruit of sin, and refused to love him or show any acceptance beyond that he was human and deserved three meals a day and a place to sleep. When Harlan III died, my father discovered Harlan I had left each of his namesakes large trusts that were legally protected from everything. My father inherited all of it since the others never knew it existed and died without receiving theirs. Father hired a nanny to look after his three children, of whom I was the youngest. The nanny seduced my brother, and when father found out, he raped her. When she became pregnant, he murdered her and got away with it. But my brother left town after father tried to kill him too. Later, Father discovered my mother had seduced my sister Mallory’s boyfriend and he told Mallory. That night, in a drunken rage, he dragged Mallory, who had also been drinking, into that wretched room and she let him have his way with her. He took her on that mirror, and it cracked as they were engaging. Unbeknown to either of them, I had fallen asleep in the big chair, and awoke upon hearing them and saw everything.

“But I also saw something else. My father stopped suddenly and was looking beyond Mallory, as if he saw something in the mirror. His eyes widened and he stood and backed away. Mallory, dazed and unaware what was going on, turned toward the mirror as some kind of shape, made of glowing green smoke, lifted her into the air and threw her toward the chair. She landed on me and screamed and flailed about, hurting me. I cried out and father ran over and grabbed Mallory to pull her off me. She attacked him, and he beat her until she stopped moving. Then, as I watched, something solid and heavy rose up out of the mirror. By some force, it drew father toward the mirror. I have never heard screams like that from man, woman or beast, as father turned into the same green smoke that threw Mallory across the room and disappeared into the mirror. I stood the mirror against the wall and called for father for hours. Two days later, police broke down the front door, found Mallory dead and took me to State General, yeah, the crazy place. The more I tried to convince them what I saw, the longer it seemed they would keep me, so I pretended to be crazy but harmless and they let me go. Mrs. Knavely, who loved my father from afar, was hired to look after the place when the foreclosure happened.”

“What," I said, “does any of this have to do with me?”

“The Rorrima take victims from time to time. I’m not sure why. But I think I know how to destroy them.”

“How?”

“I go into the mirror. There is something about me they fear, something bane to them. I believe it drains them and they fear me because of it.”

I could hardly believe I was buying into this, but after what I had experienced, it was hard to maintain doubt. “How will you get into the mirror?”

“I don’t know.”

Part Five

“Okay, Elilah. I think our friend Mr. Laren has heard about enough. Leave him be and let’s go.” It was Joshua.

At that moment, there was a loud bang from the mirror room.

Then, Mrs. Knavely and Darla walked up, eyeing Elilah and me. A black SUV pulled up and a Mr. Rudkin got out and stepped into the yard. What was going on?

“I told you idiots he wasn’t a good specimen!” Rudkin said.

“Shut up. What’s done is done,” retorted Joshua.

Elilah had moved behind me and backed up against the house. “Hey, what’s going on here?” I said, “I think all of you need to get off my property.”

“Look, Pete,” Joshua said, “I told you about Elilah. We’re sorry about all this and I know how it looks, but we know how to handle her, so you can—“

“It touched him!” Elilah blurted.

Joshua shrugged and sighed, “Well, Pete, I guess I’m sorrier than I thought.”

Another bang from the room. A police cruiser screeched to a halt in the middle of the intersection and two cops got out, brandishing shotguns. “Everybody. Inside. Now!” one of them shouted. Elilah grabbed me and we backed into the house. The others followed and ushered us up the stairs. BANG!

“Joshua, what the heck is going on?” I asked.

“He’s my brother, the coward! Oh, he left that detail out, did he? What other lies did you tell, Joshua?” Elilah said.

“Elilah,” one of the cops said, “I think you went too far this time, girl. You attacked Mr. Laren here, yelling some wild story about haunted mirrors. I think State General can help you...like they did before.”

“I’m not going back there!” Elilah said, hysteria creeping into her voice. BANG!

“Oh yes you are. You can’t stop this, Elilah, you know you can’t. You can protect yourself, but not Pete. Now, move!” BANG! BANG!

As we were forced to back into the mirror room, that heaviness was evident again, as if something impossibly large was standing right there. But there was nothing, nothing but the beginning of a soft, green glow from the mirror. It felt as if all the oxygen was being sucked out of the room. The cops ushered me closer to the mirror. Closer. Weird scraping sounds, that heaviness, thin air. I was having a hard enough time breathing without the panic that was now demanding space in my mind.

“Elilah for the last time, move!” Elilah moved to a position behind the cops and the others came forward, mumbling something under their breaths like what Mrs. Knavely had uttered before. The shards of the cracked mirror vibrated, causing tinkling sounds. A semisolid appendage of glowing green smoke extended from within the mirror and grabbed me by my neck. But instead of throwing me to the chair, it pulled me toward the mirror, and into…what? Neither my screams nor my struggling made any difference.

Elilah shouted, “Pete! Understand! You must understand to believe, and when you believe, you can resist!”

“Understand what?”

“You are a thinker, use your imagination. When you scare people, what do you feel?”

“It’s hard to think right now!” I was losing consciousness. I must not. I must not!

“They want your rorrim. You will be in the mirror, and you must scare others through the mirror to produce rorrim. They will live. This is how you'll feed them!” BANG! BANG! BANG!

Now, I understood. I understood and I believed. They will not take me! I fought with all I could muster. “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” But the grip on my throat tightened. Elilah was staring intently at the mirror. I knew what she was about to do. I had to stop her.

“Elilah! No! I can resist! I understand and believe!”

It was too late. With the others distracted, Elilah tore off her coat, revealing her nakedness, and screamed. I understood. Through her trauma, she had lost the capacity to instill fear in others. She therefore could not produce rorrim. If she entered the realm of the mirror, she’d be like a virus, a disease to them, and they would cease to exist. She bolted toward the mirror and launched herself at it. The others shrieked, as did I, but for a very different reason.

Before Elilah contacted the mirror, every crack disappeared, and it became a solid pane of glass. It might as well have been steel. Elilah hit it, bounced off, and crumbled to the floor, nearly unconscious. The cracks in the mirror reappeared.

End

Elilah was a beautiful woman who was in her prime. Still is, I imagine. She is safe, but pumped so full of psychotropic drugs she likely neither knows nor cares who or where she is. Part of me hopes she at least remembers me. Another part hopes she has forgotten me and everything that happened that night.

The Rorrima, as I too now call them, carry on as before. The others: Joshua, Darla, Rudkin, Mrs. Knavely and whomever else knows what they know, carry on as before. From time to time, they sit and talk about the time the Rorrima were almost defeated, as was their cult, which worship and feed them.

Me? I was just a victim, an intended ‘specimen’. But yet, here I am, though I am not as before. I am now the face you see in your mirror, when it’s not you. I can look frightening.

Are you scared? Please be. The Rorrima have voracious appetites.

The End