Three Nights in the Mirror

By Kevin LeCompte

Chapter 1

It was one am. Joey stood in the hallway just outside the closed bedroom door, gun pointed up, the handle raised to his chest as it moved up and down in rhythm with his cool, collected breaths. He found he much preferred this quiet, relaxed approach to the drawn out, bloody, wild rides the last two jobs had evolved into.

It was nice to get back to the basics, to simplify things. No batting practice with a baseball bat he’d found in the garage before going to town on Christopher as he dangled from a rope upside down like some human pinata. Nor would he be taking his time his as he’d done with Mikel, fingernails and plyers, knives and salt. No, sir. Tonight’s gig would be short and simple. In and out. A turn of the doorknob, a squeeze of the trigger then a quick escape back down to the basement and out through the window well entrance he’d made for himself just a few minutes prior.

It was time now. He’d stood out there long enough, making sure he heard no voices nor sensed any movement.

Slow and steady, slow and steady, the thoughts echoed in his head as he turned the knob with his left hand. His right hand gripped the gun still and was tensing up, ready to spring into action as his legs now had.

He shuffled quickly towards the bed. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so he searched for signs of life, signs of a moving target head lifting up and turning back towards him but there was none. Instead, the bed looked flat, empty, lifeless, although the sheets were undone on the far side which suggested that somebody had been sleeping there at some point tonight.

Joey hopped and spun around in one motion as he couldn’t help but picture somebody coming up behind him. There was no one though. He was alone in the room.

Things didn’t add up until a sound off to the left gave an instant explanation. A toilet flushed.

Joey glanced over that way and focused his attention on the door off in the corner. A bathroom apparently. And tonight’s target announcing his presence.

He got serious, focused on the task at hand as he army trotted towards the bathroom door, preparing to get a clean shot once the doorknob turned and the lighting backlit the soon to be dead man, a gambling bartender who got in over his head with debts, borrowed from the wrong people and was about to pay the ultimate late fee.

Then just like that there he was, in a plain white T shirt and a pair of boxers, the standard I don’t give a crap night-time choice before hopping into bed, not knowing they’d be his casket clothes, as Joey always called them in his head. And there those eyes were. Call them what you want. Deer in headlights, the goodnight gaze, the final farewell. They were knowing eyes. They were eyes that knew, eyes that understood that one of those heavy breaths that were ballooning their chest would be their last.

It was time now. Joey stepped forward, his left eye squinting as he zeroed in his sights upon the man’s head, squeezing the trigger several times.

The man flung back and landed on his side. The mirror behind him shattered as blood splattered the bathroom walls.

The noise had been tremendous, louder than usual. The exploding glass had been an unexpected surprise. He’d never experienced that before, never had a bullet hit a mirror he supposed. Also, he supposed he was just as happy that he didn’t have to stare at himself in the mirror at that moment as he was that the job was done.

And that was that. It was the quiet time now. The “try not to think too much” quiet time as the subtle aftershocks of it all gravitated through Joey’s body like always. The adrenaline dripping back down to be safely bottled up and saved for later use. The basic math skills adding up the funds that would be deposited the next morning. Any traces of guilt being swept up and dumped into the heavy ashtray he’d pitted at the bottom of his stomach years ago.

It was time now. Time to go. Everything had gotten all loud somehow, louder than usual, as if the room was built with special acoustics or something. As if the mirror had been thrown from the top of a high-rise city building leading neighbors to gather and contemplate in the streets below.

That image got him moving. He did have a couple of flights to tread down before reaching that window well after all. So, he sprung back towards the bedroom door but stopped in his tracks when he reached the hallway. A smell overwhelmed his senses and not in a good way. It was so putrid that he couldn’t help but just stop and look around, to try and figure out what had changed because it certainly hadn’t smelled like that on the way in.

He quickly glanced back towards the bathroom, wondered if that man had magically decayed in seconds because that’s what it smelled like. Death. It smelled like old, rotten death. No other way to describe it.

But the smell clearly wasn’t coming from back that way, so he turned again towards its obvious source. The darkest of dark hallways that stood between him and his exit.

He heard her before he saw her, the old woman trampling down the light starved hallway in his direction. The house was supposed to be empty, so she caught him completely off guard, sent him spiraling into a tripping backwards, fumbling, gasping moment of terror. His chest tightened like a mace, and he was so taken aback that his mind had only begun to process the fact that he still had his gun out by his side as she was upon him, hands squeezing his throat the best they could. She was so weak that she wasn’t even actually choking him although he felt the razor edges of her long nails paper cutting his neck.

He took in the nightmare face before him. The one eye filmy with a needle tipped pupil so small that it barely seemed to be there at all, seemed like it was walking away and could vanish into oblivion at any moment. The other eye’s pupil made up for that as it grew impossibly wide, creeping towards him, clearly fueled by hatred as Joey felt her grip attempt to tighten around his throat.

It didn’t hurt. It tickled. And it almost made him want to laugh, this old woman, half a corpse herself already, coming at him as if she stood a chance.

He knew this would be over as soon as he chose to bring it all to an end. Despite her rage, she’d be no match for him and his strength and his, well, gun, obviously. And yet he felt frozen as her warm, vile breath steamed around his face. He felt a sort of pity one might feel for a rabid dog who was about to be put down. He supposed she must be the man’s mother or something.

With his left hand, he’d loosened her grip around his neck enough that he wasn’t worried about her actually harming him. But when she began shouting at him, the same words over and over, some foreign tongue screeching along his eardrums as her spit sprinkled over his face, he decided he’d had quite enough. Old lady or not, the rule of thumb was to leave no witnesses. So, he pistol-whipped her face hard enough that it should’ve knocked her out. Instead, she used the momentum cast upon her body to disappear into the first room down the hallway.

He swore a few times, rubbed his neck, then began walking towards this unexpected next victim, smiling though because he knew this meant a bump in pay for tonight’s gig. He understood he had to be quick with this one. There was no more time for games, and he could tell that she couldn’t possibly be an actual threat to him. So, he charged towards the room, arms up before him, his hands wrapped around the gun, his trigger finger wound tightly.

But it was her that sprung out at him, got the better of him again, catching him off guard as the image he’d had of a frail old woman on the ground, waving her hands out in front of her face, exploded out at him like some haunted wall painting coming to life and pouncing.

She scratched at him. Mauled red lines along his neck as she hissed the same words at him over and over. “Ayanaya tina rata. Ayanaya tina rata.”

He grunted as he shoved her back into the room. He rubbed his neck and felt the wet warmth of blood there.

She stood there now. Still. And he was finally able to snap a clear picture of her in his mind.

Her hair was shoulder length and gray, her face mostly hidden behind it. She wore a long thin robe and had several necklaces or medallions of some sort around her neck. Her nails were corpse long, inches. And she seemed to embrace the smell that lingered around her as she took a long deep breath then let it out.

Then she began speaking, hissing really, those same words again, over and over.

Joey hadn’t seen until just now, but she was holding something in her hand down at her side. It was a small glass vase or something. But then she lifted it over her head, still preaching her foreign language words over and over, hissing, chanting, praying something his way, it felt like, as she hurled the glass object towards him.

It exploded upon his head and enough was enough. Joey brushed his arm across his brow, clearing tiny pieces of glass from getting in his eyes. He stepped forward, aimed, fired, then watched as the old hag crumbled down upon the ground much like the bartender just had.

She hissed one of those words one last time, which shouldn’t have been possible. Then silence hung in the air again.

Joey felt rushed to get back down the stairs and out but for some reason walked slowly down the hallway. Something was off now. He heard whispers and laughter but couldn’t find the source.

As he drove home that night, he found himself not wanting to look into his rearview mirror. He had this overwhelming sensation that if he did, he’d see the something that was following him home.

Chapter 2

The off feeling continued the next morning. Joey discovered that he didn’t feel hungry at all when he sat down to eat breakfast but did manage to choke down a Nutri grain bar and a few sips of milk. He realized that the reason he might not be hungry was that the putrid smell from the hallway the night before seemed to have somehow followed him home. He’d showered, changed his clothes the night before obviously, so he couldn’t piece together any logical reason why the smell still lingered.

He also felt tired. That was less unusual. He’d been up late, after all, and his scuffle with the old woman had taken a toll on him. Not just physically. He’d never killed an elderly person before. Granted, that particular old woman was super creepy looking and yet some strange guilt still clung to his heart. He found himself wishing the guy’s mom, if that’s in fact who she was, had just slept through it or hid somewhere. Once she’d seen his face, he hadn’t had a choice.

As the day went on, the sun ascended then slowly moved to the back of his house, creating the daily shadows of tree branches and passing clouds along the walls of his home. He had always wanted to live in a house like the one he had now, one with lots of tall windows all around, fewer walls, and he was grateful his bosses paid him so well and provided these opportunities to live his life where he wanted and how he wanted without having to deal with the normal nine to five gig that so many suckers suffered through.

The shadows seemed different today, larger somehow, and Joey kept finding himself turning to check behind him because he thought he heard whispers. A few times, even his own shadow appeared larger than it should be but only when he glanced over through the corner of his eye. Once he’d turn around to stare over his shoulder, the shadow would shrink down to a more normal size.

He tried to laugh all this off, chalk it up to the fact that the old woman had really creeped him out the night before, but a part of him wasn’t quite sure. He found himself wondering if one of their ghosts had followed him home or something.

He kept shaking his head at the thought and tried to get through the day by streaming shows on the television and taking little naps on the couch here and there.

He was awoken suddenly from one of those naps around five o’clock by a glass shattering sound in the other room. After hopping up to his feet, he just looked around trying to figure out where the sound had come from. He headed out of the family room, through the kitchen where he saw no sign of anything broken, and into the living room.

Joey surveyed the floor, surprised to not see broken glass anywhere but also confused because he was positive he’d heard it. His mind spun with scenarios as he tried to make sense of what the sound could have been and where it may have come from.

He figured he’d better check the whole house in case somebody had broken a window somewhere somehow. He grabbed his gun from the counter, holstered it into his pocket then rushed around upstairs then down in the basement. He again found no sign of anything broken at all and began to think he was either losing his mind or had fallen into a deeper sleep than he’d realized and staggered through some very realistic dream before waking up right at dinner time.

Joey was feeling hungry now, and he hadn’t smelled that rancid scent recently so maybe his appetite would normalize itself.

As he reached the top of the basement stairs, he froze, staring at something on the kitchen table. A table that had been empty when he’d last walked through the room.

It was a flower vase, at least that was the closest thing he could compare it to in regard to shape. It was coated though, not clear, and he could see his reflection curving around it like a caricature, his nose giant, his mouth tiny, his eyes spread far apart from one another.

His first thought was that he’d never seen that thing before. His second thought was that he’d never seen anything quite like it before anywhere at all. His third thought was that he had seen this thing before, late last night, clasped in the hand of a spooky old woman briefly before it had gone flying past his face and shattered into a zillion pieces all around him.

The sound echoed in his memory. And he realized that had been the exact same sound that had woken him just a few minutes ago.

He stared at it for a moment, choked down the lump in his throat, then rushed over to a drawer and pulled out a large dish towel which he then tossed over the strange object.

The towel covered the object completely now. Joey just stared at it as he tilted his head to the side, squinted his eyes in confusion.

He gulped again before quickly turning and rushing towards his refrigerator in an attempt to deny that the past ten minutes or so had even happened. He decided he must’ve dreamt it all although he didn’t actually believe that.

He must be stressed, tired, hungry. And at least he could do something to satisfy his hunger if nothing else.

He tore open his fridge to find something quick and easy to throw together. That terrible smell erupted out from it, and he covered his mouth and nose as his eyes and just stared in disbelief. The vase was there. The mirror vase or whatever the hell it was. His face reflected upon it again, his hand hiding everything except for his eyes which in the reflection were small and narrow. In reality, he knew they were as wide as could be.

He slowly turned back to the kitchen table to discover the towel lying flat. Now he looked back into the fridge. The vase was gone. It had taken his strange reflection with him.

Had the object vanished into thin air? Had his mind been playing tricks on him, and he’d imagined the whole thing? Was he still sleeping?

Joey slowly shut the fridge, glanced back over at the towel lying flat on the table then hurried up to his bedroom. He shut the door behind him and crawled into bed, accepting the apparent fact that he needed more sleep, that today was clearly fucked, and that he’d just try again tomorrow.

At some point in the night, he was again awoken by the shattering glass sound. He sat up quickly, looked all around, and this time he thought that one of his windows must’ve been broken because he could feel the nighttime breeze breathing in on him from the far side of the room. Upon further exploration, however, he could tell that the window was simply open, not broken.

He shut it. Tried to remember why he would’ve opened it as he crawled back into bed.

As he lay his head on the pillow, he froze and stared in disbelief at the reflective flower vase sitting on his bedside dresser, inches from his face.

In its reflection, a disturbingly familiar scene was unfolding, one where he’d already tied Christopher’s hands behind his back and was now tying his legs together, connecting them to a rope that was already secured to the ceiling fan. His victim from last week was then pulled up feet first.

Something happened then, as he watched the scene playing out. Joey found himself suddenly being pulled out feet first from the comfort of his bed, upside down now, dangling around in midair, screaming, wanting to fight and pull himself free but his hands were secured behind his back.

In the mirrors in his room, as well as the reflective vase on his dresser, he could see himself as he dangled around but he looked different. He looked like Christopher. And someone who did look just like himself was walking towards him with a baseball bat.

Joey moaned, a combination of fear and confusion as he recalled what had happened just last week. He watched it all continuing to unfold in the mirrors, where he swung the bat and hit Christopher square in the nose.

Instead, Joey took the hit, felt his nose break, cried out in pain as blood splattered and tears flung. This is impossible, he considered as he continued whimpering before taking another blow to the head. A few more came, though he never caught a glimpse of anybody in the room with him, never saw a bat, never even saw the rope that was holding him up.

Instead, he flung himself upright in his bed, sure he’d just had a terrible nightmare. He wanted badly to believe that, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because of the bruises all over his face as he looked towards the mirror, the swollen red eyes, the missing teeth. He knew it hadn’t been a dream because blood still dripped from his nose.

He was alive though. Albeit wrapped up in a ball and whimpering like bullied child.

Joey touched his face lightly as he glanced back over towards the mirror. He shook his head as he again observed his pummeled-up face. “Impossible,” he whispered lightly to himself before hopping out of bed and heading downstairs to tend to his wounds.

There were words playing over and over in his head now, words of another language. They were the ones the old lady had chanted towards him over and over the other night. He considered them as he sat icing his cheek and forehead at the kitchen table. In his memory of last night, he’d heard them whispered again and again. What did they mean?

He took his phone out and got to researching, typing the words into an online translation website the best he could. It was difficult because he didn’t know what language he should be translating from. He grew frustrated after a while, as he wasn’t able to find any translation that made much sense. Most searches came up completely empty.

He decided to try an Indian dialect. The bartender never struck him as being Indian at all but something about the old lady made him consider the possibility. It was the way she was dressed, he supposed. He again typed in the words the best he could sound them out then hit enter.

He stared blankly at the screen for a moment then jumped to his feet, pushing the chair back along the way, forcing a screech as the legs scratched the wood floor. The words translated from Bengali to English made sense, too much sense considering what had happened the night before and the role that the mirror seemed to have played in it all.

Three nights in the mirror. He read the words repeatedly, gulping lumps of fear down his throat as he considered some possible implications. The one he kept coming back to was that whatever this was, some vengeful curse or something, it seemed that it must not be over yet. After all, last night had only been the first night. What might the next two nights bring?

Joey slowly shut his computer then stared off blankly at the wall, breathing slowly as he continued icing his beat-up face.

He spent the next several hours pacing around the first floor of his home, throwing back glass after glass of hard liquor as he considered what he should do. He wished he hadn’t killed the old woman, wished he could speak with her, reason with her somehow and find out what he could do to fix the situation.

Dead or alive, he didn’t imagine she’d choose to help him anyways.

He considered leaving, driving far away, hoping that maybe whatever this was wouldn’t be able to find him if he wasn’t at home. But then he recalled the feeling he had in the car a couple of nights ago, the hair on the back of his neck standing up, his skin prickled in ice as he could feel a presence in his back seat. It had stayed with him, had followed him home.

Joey stopped pacing, froze completely as he quickly looked all around. Was this something with him now? Following him still? Just waiting for the sun to set before pouncing at him and doing, well, doing God knows what. Joey could only imagine. He squinted his eyes shut and winced at the thought of some of the awful things he’d done to people over the years.

He opened his eyes now as a moment of clarity washed over him. It was all about the mirrors. Perhaps if he stayed away from any mirrors, perhaps if he covered them all up for example, he could survive the night without incident.

So, he got to work doing just that, running around his home with duct tape and towels and blankets and covering up every single mirror in his home. He found himself feeling a lot better as he did this. This should work, he kept thinking to himself. It’s gonna be ok.

He kept repeating those words in his head as the night went on. But still, he knew he’d have a hard time sleeping so he kept hitting the bottle, kept hitting it hard as a matter of fact. At some point, he passed out on the couch in his family room, the ticking of his large expensive wall clock above the fireplace practically rocking him to sleep, then continuing to tick as he snored.

Very early the next morning, before the sun had begun its ascent, Joey rolled over and accidentally kicked the liquor bottle off the table beside him. It fell hard against the wood floor then began rolling creating a bowling ball type of echo in the room. Then it sounded like it shattered against the wall. This sent Joey to his feet in an instant. He frantically glanced all around, searching for signs of a threat. But there were none. The bottle lay on the floor several feet away, but it hadn’t broken.

Joey sighed in relief before smiling. His plan had worked, though his head ached terribly, and he felt like he could puke at any moment. He rushed to the bathroom just in case. He felt like he’d be able to hold it back but got down on his knees anyways, grasped the sides of the toilet seat with his hands.

He saw something out of the corner of his eye then turned slowly towards it to see if he was really seeing what he thought he saw. It was the vase, and his reflection stared back at him. He wasn’t smiling, but his reflection was. It lifted up a pair of plyers, opened and closed them a few times. Joey heard the clanking sound they made but worse than that, he felt the pain as something tugged and pulled at his thumbnail til it was ripped right out from his finger.

He screamed. He bled. He rolled over and tried to get away but then he felt a long-drawn-out stinging sensation down on his legs. He knew what it was because he had done these same things to Mikel just last week. Words were being tattooed into his legs with a knife, well, the same word over and over. Traitor, Joey recalled as he cried out in pain. He knew the salt would be next so he braced himself, bit down hard trying not to scream as it happened, but he couldn’t help it, the pain was too raw, too widespread.

When it stopped. When it seemed to be over, he glanced down past his shorts to his legs. It wasn’t the word traitor carved in his leg. It was three nights in the mirror.

Joey laid his head back on the hard floor and winced at the pain. His plan hadn’t worked, and he had one more night of this. He somehow fell into a deep sleep right there on the hard wood floor.

Chapter 3

He woke up again with a jolt, was suddenly sitting straight up on his bathroom floor feeling overwhelmed by the most random fear, considering all that had happened. He was afraid he’d overslept, hadn’t left himself enough time, as if he was going to be late for work or something.

As he came to, as he stood up and looked around, recalling what had happened right at dawn that morning, he realized what it was that he feared. He was running out of time. He hadn’t left himself enough time to figure out what this was, to research the internet and go to libraries and talk to wise old women who could teach him how to get rid of curses like this.

He hopped up and jolted into motion, going with the first thought he had. His plan to cover the mirrors had failed, but maybe driving far away would work.

His mind was racing as he feared the worst. He’d only tortured Christopher and Mikel, had sent a message but hadn’t killed them. But the man from the other night had been out of warnings and bosses had text him the word “red” which meant he was to be taken out. Two nights down, one night to go. Was this to be his fate as well? The question alone sent ice up along his spine.

He threw a handful of necessities into a suitcase, tossed it in the trunk then took off towards the expressway. It was afternoon now, and he could see the sun in his rearview mirror as he drove. It wasn’t setting yet obviously, but it would be working towards it in just a few hours.

Joey hit the gas, driving fifteen over the speed limit whenever he could. He wanted to drive faster. But he knew that getting pulled over could actually be the death of him, quite literally. His face looked terrible, still bruised and discolored in several spots. He had a broken nose, was missing teeth and a nail and had words carved into his legs. As if that wasn’t enough to make him look suspicious enough to haul into the station for some questioning, he smelled like a distillery.

He pictured himself lying in a jail bed, the cell door before him shut and secured when the sound of shattering glass filled his ears. He’d turn and see the vase, see his caricature reflection sliding up and down around the curves of the thing before, well before who knows what? Something bad. Something really bad. He imagined the third night would be the worst.

He did hit up a drive through at some point, some local burger joint though he couldn’t recall the name. He only stopped because he felt like he might pass out. In his frenzy to get out of the house earlier, he hadn’t even stopped to grab a snack.

He was on the expressway now and didn’t even have a clear destination in mind. He was just trying to drive as far away from it all as he could. He believed that if he survived the night, he could return home and get his life back. The curse would be over. Three nights would have passed.

He wasn’t sure if he believed this, but he had to at least try.

The sun was setting now. He could see it in his rearview mirror, and he felt some bile, some liquor from the night before, some ashes from the graveyard of guilt that lived in his stomach, all start to churn and mix together into some twisted cocktail of fear as he got that feeling again, that feeling that something was in his backseat and that he didn’t want to know what it was.

The sun had set now. It was gone, and a terrible question popped up in his mind just then. Will I see the sun again?

He wished he hadn’t thought it, although for some strange reason the thought provided him with a brief moment of courage. Perhaps because he realized he wanted to see another day. So, he looked in the rearview mirror, wanting to know if there really was something in his back seat.

He was glad he’d looked because there was nothing there. He sighed in relief, felt the weight that had been pushing up against his chest dissipate.

He was still staring into the rearview mirror when the reflection of his eye turned towards him, looked at him it seemed, and that’s when he realized that his reflection in the mirror was doing its own thing, wasn’t acting like a reflection at all.

Joey felt a heat rising in his face now, boiling up from the anxiety in his chest as he knew something bad was about to happen. If he’d known what it was, he would’ve pulled over first, because the bullet that flew out of the rearview mirror hit him in the shoulder and sent him and the car into a tailspin across the expressway before he crashed into a guardrail there.

The loud bang of the gun, the screeching of the breaks, the shattering of glass, and the nail on the chalkboard of metal on metal worked together to overwhelm his senses. It all happened so fast that the sounds all seemed to shout out in unison. Add in the painful screams as he grabbed at his arm, and the quintet probably got a standing ovation from the old woman and the demons she’d sent his way.

The thought might have made him smile if he weren’t in so much pain, if he hadn’t continued being shot at even after the crash.

The bullets were missing him now though, and he realized that was only because all the mirrors were pointing away from him.

He couldn’t stay there though, it wasn’t safe. He had to find an area without mirrors. It hadn’t worked in the house but maybe if he was outside, out in nature, it would be different.

He grunted as he crawled his way out of the car. Bullets continued flying around him, out of the mirrors of his car. But not just from there, he realized as he began running, but from other car mirrors as vehicles whipped past him on the expressway. Another one caught him in the hand, and he screamed out in pain before hopping over the guardrail and rolling down a steep hill towards a forest.

He didn’t stop until he smashed right into a tree. He screamed out again, and he thought he must’ve broken a rib or two because the pain in his side had a heartbeat of its own it seemed as he somehow got up to his feet and ran off into the woods. There would be no mirrors there. His thoughts from the day before washed over him, calming him just enough to take in some deep, full breaths. This should work. It’ll be ok.

It was dark though, and he couldn’t see where he was going very well. After several briskly treading steps, he tripped over a downed tree or a large branch and found himself face first in a muddy little creek.

He coughed out water as he got back up. His feet, shoes, socks and all, were soaked. His arms and face were caked with mud though he didn’t seem muddy in his reflection that rippled in the water down before him.

In fact, he didn’t look like himself at all. He looked like the bartender from three nights ago as he opened the bathroom door and looked up. Those eyes. Those knowing eyes.

Except those eyes were his now. He felt them widen on his face as the reflection changed back to his own, as the gun raised up before him, pointing his way.

There before him was the last thing he ever saw, his own reflection staring back at him, smirking as he had three nights prior. And then the last thing he heard, a gunshot ringing out louder than the scream that had begun trumpeting up and out through his throat.