Graham Masterton - Mirror

They drove back along Sunset in Ramone's patched-up Camaro, with Lugosi sitting primly in the back seat. Together, they sang two or three verses of 'Whistlin' Dixie'; and then fell silent.

'That's it, then,' said Martin, unlocking the sitting room door and ushering Ramone inside.

Ramone gave a soft whistle and padded toward the mirror on squeaking sneakers, holding Lugosi in his arms so that the cat's body hung down. 'That's some piece of glass. Nice frame, too. Who's the dude in the middle?'

'Pan, I think. Or Bacchus. One of those woodsy Roman gods.'

'He's a dead ringer for Charlton Heston, if you ask me. Do you think Charlton Heston ever posed for mirrors? You know, before he became famous?'

Ramone tentatively touched the mirror's surface, then stepped back. 'It's something, isn't it? What did she ask you for it?'

'Five hundred', Martin lied.

'Well,' said Ramone, 'I think she took you. I wouldn't have paid more than two-fifty, two seventy-five. But it's a piece of glass, isn't it?'

'There's the ball,' said Martin, and pointed out the blue and white ball on the desk. Ramone glanced at it, then glanced at the tennis ball in the mirror.

'Now, that is what I call extrano,' said Ramone. He peered at the blue and white ball carefully, and then he said, 'Is it okay if I pick it up?'

'Sure. I've picked it up. It doesn't feel any different from any other kind of ball.'

Ramone threw the ball in the air and caught it, watching himself in the mirror with delight. 'How about that!' he said, laughing. 'In here I'm throwing a blue ball; in there I'm throwing a totally different ball.'

'Try throwing it at the mirror,' Martin suggested, walking across to the windowsill to get the bottle of wine. 'That's it, directly at the mirror.'

'Heyy .. .' said Ramone. 'I just thought of something. If this ball here isn't the same as the ball in the mirror, maybe that guy in the mirror who looks like me — well, maybe he isn't me. Maybe he's somebody who looks like me, okay, but isn't.' Martin poured them each a glass of chardonnay. 'Why don't you ask him?' he suggested.

'Hee! Hee!' Ramone laughed; and then called to his reflection in the mirror. 'Hey, buddy, are you me, or are you just somebody pretending to be me? Because, let's be truthful here, you've got your right arm on your left side and your left arm on your right side, and I sure don't. Why don't you take down your pants and let's see that skull-and-crossbones tattoo, which side of your ass it's on?'

'You didn't tell me you had a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on your ass,' said Martin.

Ramone looked embarrassed. 'I don't either. I was joking, all right. But you say one word!'

'Anyway,' said Martin, 'try throwing the ball at the mirror. Not too hard. You don't want to break it.'

Winding his arm back, Ramone said, 'This is it! This is Rip Collins, just about to make the pitch of his whole career!' 'Just not too hard, okay?' Martin told him. Ramone threw, and the ball smacked against the mirror. Lugosi the cat immediately jumped for it, dancing toward his own reflection. The blue and white ball bounced off the glass and rolled back into the room, but to Martin's horror, Lugosi dived halfway into the mirror's surface right up to his middle, as if he had dived into water.

It looked as if Lugosi had turned into an extraordinary headless beast with a tail at each end, and two pairs of hind legs that clawed and scratched and struggled against each other to get free.

'Get him out!' yelled Ramone, his voice white with terror. 'Martin — for God's sake - get him out!'

Martin scrambled down onto the floor and caught hold of Lugosi's narrow body. He could feel the cat's rib cage through his fur, feel his heart racing. Lugosi's hind legs lashed out wildly, and his claws scratched Martin all the way down the inside of his arm.

Ramone did what he could to keep Lugosi's legs from pedaling, while Martin tried to drag him out. But Martin could feel that same irresistible force that he had felt when he tackled Emilio: that same relentless sucking.

'Martin! Help him!' Ramone shouted. 'Holy shit, Martin — he's being pulled in!'

The force was too strong, too demanding. The cat's body was dragged through Martin's hands, inch by inch, even though he clung on so tightly that he was pulling out clumps of tabby fur. His body, his hind legs, his shuddering outstretched paws, all of them vanished one by one. His reflection shrank too — until at the very end there was nothing but a single dark furry caterpillar that appeared to be waving in midair, and that was the tip of his tail.

Then there was nothing at all, he was gone, and the surface of the mirror was flawless and bright.

Ramone was sweating, 'If I hadn't seen that — if I hadn't seen that, right there in front of me, with my own eyes! Madre mia!'

Martin stood up. His face in the mirror was gray, the color of newspaper. 'Ramone ... I don't know what to say. I had no idea it was going to do that.'

'But it pulled him! It pulled him in!'

Ramone touched the surface of the mirror quickly as if he were touching a hotplate to make sure that it was switched on.

'Ramone —,' warned Martin, 'Christalmighty man, be careful. Supposing you got sucked in?'

Ramone's fright was fragmenting into grief and anger. 'Man — that's my cat\ That's my fucking cat! Six years I've had that cat! I didn't love and feed and take care of that cat just to have some stupid mirror take him away! Some stupid mirror?

Martin came over and gently gripped Ramone by the shoulders. 'Ramone — I'm sorry! If I'd have guessed what was going to happen —'

'Martin, am I blaming you?' Ramone fumed. 'I'm not blaming you, okay? It wasn't your fault! But I want my cat back! He went in the mirror, where is he?'

'Ramone, I really don't know. He's gone, I don't know how and I don't know where.'

Ramone stood up, his eyes staring. 'Well, there's got to be one way to find out, and that's to break this god-damned stupid mirror to pieces!'

'No!' shouted Martin. 'Ramone - listen — there's a boy in that mirror. For all we know, he's managed to stay alive some way - you know, by hiding in the mirror, or something. Listen, I don't understand any of it. But until I do — please, Ramone, don't touch that mirror. You don't know what the hell might happen — how many people might die.'

Ramone bit his lip for a moment and took three angry paces away from the mirror, and then three angry paces back again. 'Thass bullshit! Thass bullshit, Martin, and you know it! What do you care, how many people might die! What the hell just happened to Lugosi? Thass my call'

Martin didn't know what to say. Both of them were still shocked by Lugosi's hair-raising disappearance — into where? into what? It didn't make any sense. It wasn't even as if a mirrorland cat had jumped out to replace him, the way that Boofuls' blue and white ball had come bouncing out to replace Martin's tennis ball.

Martin had thought that he had discovered the mirror's logic; that an object could only pass through to the mirror-world if another object was sent back in return. But Lugosi had been sucked into the surface of the mirror and vanished utterly. And - judging from the way in which his hindquarters had struggled and his heart had been beating — it had been an agonizing and terrifying experience.

Ramone touched the surface of the mirror again; quickly, nervously, jerking his hand back.

'It can suck in a ball, it can suck in a cat. Do you really think it can suck in a man?'

'Ramone,' said Martin, 'that's an experiment I don't even want to think about trying.'

'We-e-ell, maybe; maybe not. But that's my cat in there. I mean he's in there some way. And all I want to do is get him out.'