Stuff of Nightmares: A Collection of Short Horror Stories

Mirror, Mirror

Mirrors: they hid a horrifying side people didn't know.

The town called me crazy, but I saw the changes infiltrating the town long before anybody else noticed. The mechanic, normally cheery and musical, stopped whistling during his projects. The little girl who lived above the sweet shop no longer offered free samples with a beaming smile. The hot thirty-something-year-old who always wore the too-tight clothes at the coffee shop started dressing like someone's grandma. The changes were subtle and would have been unnoticeable to the average Joe -- they wanted to keep the lives they'd stolen in this world, see -- but my parents brought me up to see the bigger picture, beneath the surface, through the facade and the lies. Their fake smiles, the glassy eyes, the awkward attempts at mimicking the originals' skills didn't fool me. I checked my wife and kids every single day. They laughed at my concerns, but they didn't know better. There were arguments, tears, tantrums. They wanted gadgets, mirrors, televisions. I shot all those ideas down. Those were dangerous, and they had no idea.

They yearned for me at the same time every night. I heard them all. My wife, Sherie, didn't. They couldn't touch her. Richard... Richard... So many of them. Their tone was sweet, their words persuasive, but I knew better. My house had no mirrors, no windows, no reflections. Vanity drives people insane, Richy-boy, my old man used to say. He wasn't wrong. He'd only had a mirror once in his life and it was destroyed not long after I came into this world. We kept on the move, growing up.

Maybe he was old, maybe it was a slip of judgement or out of love. I'd done the same: I never envisaged starting a family. Loved ones were a liability, a weakness, but they brought me so much joy. I thought I could risk some happiness after all these years. Maybe he thought the same. My old man installed a mirror at my stepmother's blessed insistence when they got married in the 90s and he was gone within the week. Ran away, the woman said. Like hell. He'd take a hurricane head-on. As if that old cow could make my old man run. I left, too.

It must have gotten its way through half the town before some of the bigwigs spotted differences. Some missing persons posters went up -- the pastor, the baker, the mayor's kid, but nobody had seen them. The old bird next door had been suspicious too, like me. I saw her smashing the glass of her son's car, ignoring his shouting, and then just went back into the house like nothing happened. I didn't interact with her. Too dangerous. But their arguing went on well into the night, keeping my two kids and I awake.

"They're taking people away, don't you see?"

"I'm telling ya, Ma, nobody's been taken away. A few got lost, some ran away, that's all."

"You see with your ass boy, not your eyes. Folks ain't the same."

"How so, Ma? How so? See? You can't prove it!"

"You're so busy staring at your damn reflection all the time, boy. One day, it'll take you away along with all the folks and you'll regret it."

A week later, she died. Old age, the town doc said. Bullshit, I thought. Her boy must have been taken, too, then poisoned her or something. They didn't want someone on this side knowing. I kept my mouth shut, but I knew it was only a matter of time before it spread to enough people and they got onto my trail. I began to prepare. Food, water, weapons, clothes -- I knew it was time for me to leave town again. Whenever the voices got bad and people began to disappear, I knew I would be hunted.

My daughter brought home a mirror that night.

The moment I walked in, I sensed a change in the air. Bitter, stomach-churning. Michaela froze in her pose, arm above her head and hip sticking out, at the far end of the living room, seeing me.

"Dad--"

"What the hell is this?" I exploded. Charlie, my son, ever the pacifist, darted away from the conflict. Michaela's face turned white, her words catching on her tongue.