Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

But maybe , a voice inside her said, it’s time for you to start playing tricks back.

Who was that? she wondered. She looked at the strange shadowy reflection of herself in the pane of glass, the image that both was and was not her. There was something different about it, and it wasn’t just that the image was backward. She looked different than she had. A sly smile had begun to curve on her lips.

“What kind of tricks?” she asked her reflection.

“Did you say something?” shouted her husband from the other room.

She ignored him.

Well, it whispered back, we could start with a makeover…

A makeover! She’d always wanted a makeover. She’d begged her friends to put her name in for one of those TV shows, the ones where the women went in looking dumpy and came out looking beautiful. She’d be perfect for one of those shows; she knew it. There was a beautiful woman hiding inside her. All she needed was for someone to let it out. But nobody ever took her seriously about it. And most of those friends were gone now anyway, driven away by Keith. She should have left him long ago. If she had, she’d probably still have friends now.

“Shall I go get my makeup?” she said to her reflection. She began to dry her hands off, getting ready to go into the bathroom.

“Are you talking on the phone or something?” Keith shouted. “Who you talking to?”

She just ignored him. This was between her and her reflection—Keith had nothing to do with it. If Keith got involved he’d just wreck things, like he always did.

No makeup needed , said her reflection. You’ve got an innate natural beauty. We just need to bring it out a little.

Yes, that’s right, she thought. I do have an innate natural beauty. I’m ravishing. She lifted up her dripping hands and ran her fingers through her stringy hair.

You just have to bring it out , said her reflection.

But how was she to do that? And without makeup? She looked around on the counters but there wasn’t much there. A half-empty box of cereal, a grapefruit, some tomatoes. Two dirty shot glasses that somehow she’d missed washing. A rack with spices on it. Other than that, there were only the things now draining in the dish drainer. A bunch of plates, some plastic cups, some utensils, a carving knife—

— a carving knife , said her reflection. Well, that might come in handy.

It just might, she thought. She saw her hand slowly reach out toward it, her fingers closing around it. It felt good, had a good heft to it—why hadn’t she noticed that about it before? She turned it slowly in her hand and watched the reflection of the overhead light enter the flat of its blade and then slide off and then slide back on when she turned it back. It was like the knife was winking at her, like there was a secret between her and the knife. She glanced up at her reflection and saw that it was winking at her as well, the sly smile having been transformed into a leer. A part of her was a little horrified by what she saw, but a larger part of her was delighted. Yes, Keith had spent so many years stamping her down, controlling her. How wonderful it was to finally be able to stretch out a little bit and show her inner self.

“We’re in charge now,” she whispered to the knife. She turned it just right and lo and behold she saw her reflection in it, stretched a little, cut off at the top of the head, but still there. She was seeing herself in the knife now. She was the knife.

Now what are you going to do with me? her reflection asked, the knife asked. Use me?

She gave a low laugh. It came out sounding a little funny, like something was wrong with her vocal cords. A part of her registered that and filed it away, but most of the rest of her didn’t care. It felt so good to be free.

She let her gaze drift away from the knife and back to the window. Her reflection was there, too. She watched the reflection slowly lift the carving knife and begin hacking off her hair. Strands of it drifted down into the sink and onto the counter. A new Virginia began to come out, a woman with short hair, thatched in places and in other places cut close to the scalp. She looked tough. And more than that, she looked dangerous.

She reached up to feel her new head, was shocked when she felt the hair still there. The actual knife hadn’t moved—her reflection was somehow not following her, was instead showing her what to do. Now it was gesturing to her, telling her it was her turn.

She brought the knife up and grabbed a fistful of hair. In the window, her reflection was behaving. It had gone back to being her reflection, was showing her what she was doing again. She watched as the hair began to fall, felt the tug of the knife as she sawed the blade through her hair, trying to crop it as close to the skull as possible.

Her hand slipped and she jabbed her head, making a gash near her temple. It began to throb and bled feebly for a moment. In the window she saw her reflection reach up and touch the cut, then bring a blood-covered finger to its mouth. It licked the finger clean, its eyes crinkling with pleasure.

A few moments later she had finished. The water in the sink had gone cloudy with blood. She looked at her reflection. She looked beautiful, her head shorn nearly bare, little lines of blood dripping down here and there where her hand had slipped or she had cut too close. Yes, she was gorgeous.

In the window, her reflection smiled. Then it carefully shucked its shirt and dropped it out of sight. It took off its bra, its breasts now dangling loose, sagging. It took the carving knife and very deftly began to cut into its own chest. It traced out a circle on its chest, then drew a cross within it, then an upward facing semicircle at the head of the cross, a downward facing one through its base.

Wow, she could become even more beautiful.

It gestured to her. Was it her turn now? It was!

She lifted her shirt off and dropped it onto the floor. She unhooked her bra and let that go, too. It fell into the water and floated for a moment before slowly becoming sodden and beginning to sink. She brought the knife to her skin and pressed it against herself until it broke through. It hurt a little, but it was a pain she enjoyed. It was the pain of letting go, of becoming something new, something that could be controlled. Panting, she brought the knife around to form a ragged, bloody circle. The upright of the cross was hard since at times it almost scraped bone, but soon she’d finished it.

It hurt. God, it hurt a lot, more than anything she’d ever felt. Even more than that time when Keith had gotten drunk and hit her until she had to go to the hospital. But when she was done carving, she looked amazing. Like some sort of demonic goddess standing there with a shaved and bloody head and her chest radiating fire from the symbol she had made.

She started to put the knife down on the counter, but then she caught sight of her reflection in its blade.

Not yet, Virginia , it said.

“Not yet what?” she asked the reflection.

I don’t think you’re done with that yet, it said. Do you?

Not done with it? What else could she do with it? Maybe carve another symbol? She pulled the knife back closer to herself until all she was seeing was the image of her own eye, flattened and wavering on the blade. Then the eye, slowly, winked.

Watch me , she heard the reflection in the window say. She looked up and saw her slightly askew image, watched it put its fingers to its lips and then turn and walk away from the sink, walking step by step out of the kitchen. It was gone a long time. She just stayed there, staring at the window, waiting for it to come back. When it finally did, the knife and the hand that held it looked as if they had been soaked in blood and there was blood spattered over its body, too.