Nocturnes

Then stopped. There came the sound of footsteps above me, approaching the cellar door through the main hallway. I killed the flashlight and retreated into the darkness, just as another light came from above. I heard a man’s breathing, and the creaking of the banister rail as he placed his weight upon it, and then his figure came into view. He was a big man, and over his left shoulder he carried a sack. The sack was moving.

“Almost there,” he said.

The flashlight jogged in his hand as he reached the floor of the basement. Gently, he placed the sack on the ground, then unscrewed the head of the flashlight so that its bulb became a candle, and in its glow I saw his face.

“Don’t move,” I said, as I emerged from the darkness by the stair.

Chief Grass didn’t look as surprised as he should have done, under the circumstances. Instead, his eyes had a slightly glazed look to them. I saw the gun in his left hand, previously hidden from me by the sack. It was lodged against the head of the child inside.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “He won’t like it.”

“Who won’t like it?” I said.

“Mr. Grady. He doesn’t like strangers in his home.”

“What about you? Aren’t you a stranger too?”

Grass snickered. It was an unpleasant sound.

“Oh no,” he said. “I’ve been coming here for a long, long time. It took a while for Mr. Grady to begin to trust me, but once he did, well, everything was fine. We talk a lot. He’s lonely. I brought him some company, some new blood.”

He kicked the sack, and the child within gave a muffled cry.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Lisette,” replied Grass. “She’s very pretty, but then, you’ve seen her picture.”

Pretty.

I heard a distant voice echo the word, and in the mirror at Grass’s back I saw John Grady reflected. His fingertips pressed against the glass, flattening as the dead child’s skin had done, and he stared down at the shape of the little girl moving feebly in the sack. I saw his prominent chin, curved and jutting, his neat hair, the little stained bow tie at his neck. His lips moved constantly in a litany of desire, the words now unintelligible but their import clear.

“It’s the house, Grass,” I said. “It’s making you do this. It’s wrong. You know it’s wrong. Put the gun down.”

Grass shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “Mr. Grady-”

“Grady is dead,” I said.

“No, he’s here.”

“Listen to me, Grass. Something in this house has affected you. You’re not thinking clearly. We need to get you out. I’m taking the girl, and then we’re all going to leave.”

For the first time, Grass looked uncertain.

“He told me to bring her. He chose her. Out of all the girls I showed him, he chose this one.”

“No,” I said. “You imagined it. You’ve spent too long here. Everything about this place is poisonous, and somehow it’s burrowed into your mind.”

Grass’s gun wavered slightly. He looked from me to the girl on the ground, then back again.

“It’s infected your thoughts, Grass. You don’t want to hurt this little girl. You’re a cop. You have to protect her, just like you protected De

But I was not sure that I believed all that I was saying, for I saw John Grady’s eyes turn upon me in the mirror, and his lips formed the single word:

No.

Grass seemed to hear it, and the doubt left his eyes. He forced the gun harder against the girl’s skull, then lifted the sack up, holding his prize beneath his arm as he began retreating up the stairs. I followed him all the way, reaching the top of the steps as he moved into the hallway, his back to the wall as he made for the safety of his vehicle parked outside.

Two figures blocked the doorway.

“Now where do you think you’re going?” said Louis. He stood on the porch with his gun raised before him. Angel knelt below him, his own gun pointed at Grass. Seconds later, I added a third.

Grass stopped, caught between us.

“Let her go,” I said. “It’s all over.”

Grass was shaking his head, muttering something that I couldn’t understand. He stared straight ahead and saw his reflection in the mirror. I couldn’t see what he was looking at because the angle was wrong, but it was clear from the expression on his face that I wasn’t the only one hallucinating in the Grady house.

“Chief, you rescued De

Slowly, Grass released his grip on the sack and let it fall to the floor, although his gun remained pointing at it. I could hear the girl crying, but I thought that I could also hear another voice. It was whispering, spilling foul words into Grass’s ear.

“Don’t listen to him,” I said. “Please. Just put the gun down.”

Grass’s face crumpled. He began to cry, and I was reminded of De

“Chief,” I said.

He raised the gun and pointed it at the mirror before him.

“Put it down,” I said.

Grass was sobbing now.

“This is not a house,” he said.

He cocked the pistol-“This is not a house,” he repeated-and turned to look at me as the gun suddenly swung toward him, the muzzle coming to rest against his temple.

“This is-”

He pulled the trigger, and the walls went red.

IX

The figure behind the mirror stared at me as I knelt down and undid the rope that held the sack closed. The girl from the picture lay inside, her hands and feet tied and a red bandana gagging her mouth. I undid the gag first, then her hands and feet, but I did not let her look at the mirror behind me, or at the body of the man who had brought her to this place.

“I want you to go with my friends,” I said. “They’ll take care of you until I come out.”

She was crying, and she tried to hold on to me, but I forced her gently away into Angel’s arms.

“It’s okay,” he said, as he led her away. “Nobody’s going to hurt you now.”

I watched her until she was gone from sight. Louis remained in the doorway, waiting.

I approached the glass, my gun raised. John Grady’s dead eyes grew large and his lips moved faster and faster.

“Lights out,” I said, then fired.

And the mirror shattered as the process of erasing John Grady’s image from the world began.

X

Two days later, I watched as a team of workmen removed every remaining mirror from the Grady house and placed them in the back of one of Matheson’s trucks. Matheson himself was beside me, watching all that was being done.

One of the workmen approached us and said: “We were pretty careful with those mirrors. They’re antiques. Could be worth some money, you was to restore them some.”

“They’re going to be destroyed,” I said.

The workman looked to Matheson in the hope of an alternative response.

“You heard the man,” said Matheson.

The workman shrugged, then returned to loading the mirrors.

“You think he really believed that Grady wanted him to bring a child to the house?” asked Matheson.

“Yes,” I said. “I think he really believed it.”

“What about Ray Czabo?”

“Grass had a two-two. My guess is it will match the bullets that killed Czabo. We’ll know tomorrow for sure.”

Two workmen came out, carrying one of the basement mirrors.

“You never did tell me what you saw in there,” said Matheson.

I looked at him. I recalled the face of John Grady, and the children in the dark reaches of the glass. Fumes and tiredness, I thought, just fumes and tiredness.

“I saw reflections,” I said.

He stared at me for a time, then nodded.