Graham Masterton - Mirror

He reached out and he gently drew his fingertip along the stitches in Martin's chin. 'These injuries have some connection with the mirror, am I right? I sense that you're frightened. I sense that you feel out of your depth. You don't know how to handle what's happening to you. You don't know whether to laugh or scream. Well, that's right. The beyond is always alarming. In the beyond, the same physical rules don't apply. Objects fly; people change shape. I don't often tell my clients that. They wouldn't understand, most of them, if I told them that their beloved parents are appearing to me in the shape of intelligent turtles, or that their heads have been stretched until they're nine feet high. But you know, it stands to reason, in a way. Why should the world beyond obey any of the laws of our own world? It would be more bizarre if it did?

Martin nodded, and quoted, 'It may be quite different on beyond.'

Homer Theobald frowned. 'I beg your pardon?'

'I was quoting. From Alice Through the Looking Glass?

'Yes, well,' said Homer Theobald. 'There was always more to that book than meets the eye. The Victorians had a very finely developed sense of death and the world beyond.'

He lifted his head, and looked around the hallway, and listened. Then, without hesitation, he crossed to the wall where Martin had impaled the brindled tomcat, and touched it. At least, he was about to touch it, but he suddenly drew his hand back.

'Anything wrong?' asked Martin.

Homer Theobald turned to stare at him. 'Something very unpleasant has happened here.'

Martin nodded.

'Do you want to tell me about it?' asked Homer Theobald.

'Why don't we take a look at the mirror first?' Martin suggested. 'Then I can tell you the whole story from the beginning.'

'I just want to know one thing,' said Homer Theobald. 'Is there something in this mirror that isn't reflected in the outside world?'

'Yes,' said Martin.

'Is it a person? If it is, say yes, but don't tell me what his or her name is. I have to keep my mind clear, you see. Thinking of somebody's name is an immediate invitation for them to get inside my mind.'

'It's a person,' said Martin.

'Is it somebody you knew?'

'Somebody I know of; but not somebody I knew. He died a long time before I was born.'

'I see,' said Homer Theobald. He took out a clean handkerchief, unfolded it, and patted the perspiration from his bald head. 'So it's a man.'

'A boy, as matter of fact.'

'So he died an unnatural death?'

'Extremely unnatural, yes. He was murdered.'

Homer Theobald closed his eyes and thought for a while. Then he said, 'Cats.'

'Yes,' Martin agreed.

Without opening his eyes, Homer Theobald stretched out both arms and felt cautiously at the air all around him. 'There was a cat. There was more than one cat. But the first cat came to the back door and wouldn't go away. It sat there and sat there and the boy used to feed it. There was an argument. No, you can't feed the cat. That cat is unhealthy, you only have to smell it, it stinks. But I love it. Nobody can love a cat like that. I want it in the house. Certainly not, you can't have a filthy animal like that in this beautiful house, we'll all get fleas.'

Homer Theobald stopped talking as abruptly as he had started. He opened his eyes and he looked at Martin with the same kind of expression as an auto mechanic when he's about to tell you that your whole transmission's shot.

'I'm still in the hallway, right? I haven't even seen this mirror yet. It's in there, right, in that room, against the wall?'

'Yes,' said Martin.

Homer Theobald rubbed his forehead. 'I don't know what I'm going to be able to do for you here, Mr Williams. I truly don't. This isn't anything like I'm used to dealing with. It's spirits, yes. It's something trying to get in touch with us from beyond the moment of death. But if I can pick it up as clearly as this from the hallway .. .'

'What are you saying?' Martin asked him. 'You can't do anything about it, or what? All I want to do is get rid of it!'

'Mr Williams,' Homer Theobald appealed to him, 'what I'm trying to tell you is that I'm too frightened.'

Martin licked his scabby, split lips. 'You mean you won't even take a look at it?'

'No, sir.'

'Do you have any idea who it is? Whose spirit it is?'

'I have a pretty fair idea. Come on, Mr Williams, I've been living and working in Hollywood all my life. I know what goes on.'

'And what's that supposed to mean?'

Homer Theobald took a deep breath. 'Mr Williams, you bought yourself a whole load of trouble when you bought this mirror. You didn't do it on purpose, of course not. Most people could have bought it and hung it on their wall and never noticed a thing. But you yourself have latent psychic powers. Nothing amazing. Compared with mine, they're about as strong as a kid's flashlight compared with a klieg light. But you're intensely interested in the spirit which possesses this mirror — I say "possesses" for want of any better word. And your intense interest, coupled with your psychic powers, low-voltage as they are — well, they've obviously been enough to stir this spirit out of his stasis. It's not sleep, spirits don't sleep in the normal sense.'

Martin said, 'Why don't you take a look at it? I mean, just take a lookV

'No-o-o, sir,' said Homer Theobald. He was adamant.

'You're just going to turn around and walk out?' Martin demanded. 'You're going to leave me here, not just me, but the people downstairs, everybody who comes into contact with this thing — you're just going to leave us to be terrorized by this spirit for the rest of our lives? There's a kid threatened here, too. A boy of five. What do you want me to tell him?'

'Do you seriously think that I don't want to help?' Homer Theobald shouted back. 'Do you think I'd turn my back on you if there was anything else that I could do?'

'Well, that's what it looks like,' Martin challenged him.

'Listen, my friend,' said Homer Theobald, stubbing his finger against Martin's chest. 'I'm not a medium or a spiritualist or a psychic. I'm a sensitive. That means my mind is sensitive. What you have in this apartment is a raging beast, my friend. It's already tried to claw you to pieces, but only your face. If/go in there, it's going to claw my mind to pieces. I'm sorry, I understand your problem, but I don't wish to spend the rest of my life with the IQ_of a head of broccoli.'

'All right,' said Martin, 'if that's the way you feel.'

'I'm sorry J Homer Theobald repeated. He took a menthol cough drop out of the pocket of his shirt, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. 'Talking to somebody's dead husband is one thing. Raging beasts from beyond is quite another. I'm not putting you on, Mr Williams, it's a raging beast. So what you're asking me to consider here is the same as putting my head into the mouth of a hungry lion which has a special taste for heads.'

'Can't we just talk about it?' asked Martin. 'I mean, you keep telling me this is a raging beast — what kind of raging beast? And all this stuff about the cats?'

Homer Theobald hesitated, noisily sucking his candy. 'All right,' he agreed at last. 'But not here. There's just too much vibration here.' He lifted his fingers to his temples and winced. 'You can't believe it. The voices.''

'You can actually hear voices in here?'

Homer Theobald shrugged. 'Let's say that "hear" isn't quite the right way of describing it. But, essentially, yes. I can hear voices.'

'The boy's voice?'

'Sure. And a woman's voice, too. An elderly woman. And somebody else.'

'Somebody else? Who? Is it a man or a woman?'

Homer Theobald grimaced. 'I don't know. It's hard to tell. It's kind of harsh, and shrill, and metallic; but it sounds like it's closed up somewhere, do you understand what I'm saying? As if it's muffled. Somebody talking in another room, or maybe inside a box.'