Graham Masterton - Mirror

Boofuls slowly smiled; and then laughed; that high-pitched laugh that to Martin was now so familiar. Then his face faded from the screen and he was gone.

They jogged all the way back to Franklin Avenue, stripping off their tuxedos and their vests at the corner of La Brea, and throwing them into the dust. They said nothing. They were too shocked, too breathless, and they knew that if they didn't hurry they could be too late. Lightning danced in the distance, over the San Gabriel Mountains; and thunder bellowed all across the Los Angeles basin, as if madmen were shouting at each other from different rooms of an echoing old house.

When they reached Martin's house they found Mr Capelli waiting for them at the front door. 'I heard on television, some kind of disaster. Everybody killed. I thought maybe you got killed, too, and then what was I going to do?'

Martin tugged the front of his shirt out of his waistband and bent forward so that he could wipe the sweat from his face on it. 'I guess we were lucky. But first, listen, we have to get Emilio back.'

Mr Capelli clutched his arm. 'You can't! What are you doing? You heard what Boofuls said. He could die if we try to get him out.'

'Believe me,' said Martin, 'if we don't try to get him out, he's going to have to stay there forever. I don't think that Boofuls ever had the slightest intention of letting him out.'

'But he said, if we tried to get Emilio out, he could die!'

'Unh-hunh, suddenly, I don't think so,' said Martin. He felt shocked and off-balance; but at the same time he felt a strong certainty that he understood now what Boofuls was up to; and how Boofuls had deceived them all. Boofuls was utterly unscrupulous, because he was the son of evil incarnate, and not a single word that Boofuls had ever told them had been anything but self-serving trickery. He had prevented them from rescuing Emilio partly by real occult power and partly by bluff. At least, that was what Martin now believed.

And even if Boofuls had been telling the truth - even if Emilio really would be in mortal danger if they tried to rescue him out of the mirror - what in the end was the life of one small boy, when one hundred forty-four thousand had already been massacred?

They went upstairs to Martin's apartment. Through the open door on Mr Capelli's landing they could hear Tom Brokaw saying, '- a worldwide disaster - latest counts indicate that as many as one hundred thousand people may have died — not only here but in London, Paris, Stockholm, Bonn, and Madrid -'

Martin reached the top of the stairs and opened the door of his apartment. Mr Capelli lifted up one hand as if he were waving to him from a great distance. 'Martin - he's just a boy, think about that.'

Martin said, 'That's why we have to get him back, Mr Capelli. He's just a boy, yes. But he's an innocent boy. He's the boy that Boofuls traded places with so that he could organize all of this killing. Boofuls is the son of the devil, Mr Capelli; the actual son of Satan. But you remember what Father Quinlan said: 'Only the child can destroy the parent.' And do you know what that means to me? It means that Emilio is capable of wasting the devil. In fact, he could be the only person who can.'

'I just want him back,' said Mr Capelli with considerable dignity, his back as straight as if he were wearing a corset.

'Mr Capelli,' said Martin, 'we'll do our best.'

He opened his apartment door and went inside, with Ramone following. Alison was in the bathroom, and she called out, 'Martin? Is that you?'

'In here,' Martin called back.

Ramone breathed out and said, 'Man, those people ... all those dead people . . . that had to be worse than Hiroshima or something.' He sat down on the sofa and held his head in his hands. 'Man, that was the worst thing I ever saw.'

'Are you okay?' Martin asked him.

'What do you think?' Ramone retorted. 'Okay? How can I be okay? I'm going to have nightmares about that for the rest of my life.'

Martin went across to the windowsill and opened the bottle of red wine. He poured Ramone a generous glassful, and then one for himself. Then he sat on the edge of the desk staring at the mirror at the opposite end of the room.

'That's one son of a bitch,' Ramone remarked, staring at the mirror, too.

'But not unbeatable,' Martin told him.

'Oh, no?' said Ramone. 'We can't move it, we can't break it, we can't do nothing except sit here like the Two Stooges and wait for it to ruin our lives.'

'We can go into it,' said Martin with determination. 'We can go into it, and we can get Emilio back. And then, by God, we can use Emilio to get rid of Boofuls once and for all.'

'You're really going to try?' asked Ramone.

'Yes,' said Martin, although he was almost frightened to hear himself say the words out loud, 'I'm really going to try.'

He stood up, and at that moment Alison came into the room, white-faced. 'Martin? Ramone? Thank goodness you're all right! We were watching the premiere on television and when they said that everybody was getting killed -!'

Martin held her in his arms for a moment. 'It's okay; we're fine. Well, fine isn't the word for it, but we're still alive.'

'What happened'? They were saying on the news that everybody just went crazy.'

Martin nodded. 'That's just about what happened, yes. But I have the feeling that something even worse is about to happen. It's pretty hard to explain, but Emilio is the key to it. We have to get Emilio back.'

Alison slowly turned and stared at the mirror. 'When you say something worse -?'

'I mean much worse. Like the sun never coming up, ever. Not in our lifetime, anyway.'

'And we have to get Emilio out?'

'That's right. We have to go into the mirror, if we can, and find out where he is, and bring him home.'

Alison hesitated for a moment, but then she said, 'Let me come with you.'

'Hey, come on, you're loco,' said Ramone.

'But I have some psychic sensitivity, don't I? I mean, not very much. But maybe it could help.'

Martin shook his head. 'I can't let you take the risk.'

'Then what are you going to do? Go on your own?'

'I don't know,' said Martin. 'I guess I am.' He reached out and touched the surface of the mirror. It was cold, hard, as impenetrable as real glass; but he had the feeling that if he closed his eyes and simply walked right through it that it would dissolve, just as the looking-glass in Alice had dissolved.

'Well, I think two heads are better than one,' Alison argued, 'especially when it comes to anything occult.'

'For instance?' asked Ramone.

'For instance, if you manage to get into the mirror, how are you going to get out again? Have you thought about that? Emilio can't get out. How will you be able to?'

Martin said, 'Trust to luck, I guess.'

'Oh, yes, and be trapped in the mirror forever, just the way that Boofuls was?'

'Well, do you have any bright suggestions?' asked Martin.

'I don't know. It may not be foolproof, but you could use a rope when you go into the mirror, just like they did when they went through the spirit-world in Poltergeist, because let's face it, that mirror is a spirit-world, right? And if you have a rope, somebody on this side can haul you back onto this side of the mirror if you get into any kind of trouble.'

'Well . . . that kind of sounds like some kind of sense,' Ramone admitted. 'Nutty, but sense.'

'Oh, sure,' said Martin, who was still uneasy about the idea of taking Alison with him into the mirror. 'And where do we find enough rope?'

'No problem,' said Ramone. 'I have about a thousand feet of nylon diving rope in the back of my store. I can go get it, easy.'

Martin thought for a while and then nodded. He couldn't think of any other way to guarantee their safe return to the real world. 'Okay, then. If you can go get the rope.'