Reflection

The gun went off like thunder, booming through night shrouded streets. Flurries of snow danced along wind that howled through the sleeping town. Darkness clouded the alcove where I cowered and I fought back the whimper that clawed up my throat. They were trying to scare me, force me out. I shrunk deeper into the shadows and tugged my sweatshirt’s hood up, hiding the blonde of my hair.

“Sammy,” the man in the black suit called, drawing it out. Taunting me. “Come on out Sam. We just want to talk. We won’t hurt you.”

I said nothing as the footsteps drew nearer, crunching on the dusting of fresh ice. They strode down the street, three of them, like they owned it. They probably did, along with everything else in this godforsaken town. Black Suit turned and said something to one of his men who sprinted off toward the others waiting out of sight.

“You took something that wasn’t yours, boy. You’re going give it back and this’ll all be done and over. You’ve got my word, Sammy,” Black Suit said, pausing in the street, straight across from me, eyes boring into the shadows like they saw me huddled there, bright as day.

I froze like a possum playing dead, my heart skipping a beat as I waited, expecting his horde of goons to swoop down onto me at any moment, even as I told myself he couldn’t see me. I repeated it in my head, chanting it like a mantra. He can’t see me. He can’t see me.

Black Suit turned away, long legs taking him further down the road, but his voice carried back, “You have no idea what you’ve done, boy. This is your last chance. Hand it over and you live, or you’re going to regret the day you were born.”

Blinding light exploded down the street. I cried out and clutched my face. Tears streamed down my cheeks and red-tinged halos danced on the inside of my eyelids. I stumbled from the alcove, not knowing which way was up or down. I hit the curb and smashed to the ground, skull cracking against the pavement as I let loose another screech.

“He’s… oh God, it’s awake!” Gibberish words from an unfamiliar voice, with a dozen more echoing behind it.

Confusion turned to cries of panic. Somewhere, something roared. Something impossibly big and impossibly angry. Gunshots rang through the air, painfully loud. I clapped my hands to my ears. It hurt. The screaming, the gunfire, the light. It was too much.

I pulled myself to my feet and ran. Legs pumping, heart pounding, cold air burning in my lungs as I tried to escape from the confusion. Voices followed me, and more gunfire. A sharp pain ripped into my side. I ignored it and kept moving. Kept running. I needed out.

---

My feet slowed, the thumping of blood in my ears weakening, as the sounds of fighting faded out and the light was overshadowed by the vista of the rustic Virginia town. Solace.

I laughed. I fell to the ground, clutching my ribs as I wheezed, my breath coming and going in icy puffs. Pain shot through me, but I laughed. Solace, such a screwed up name for a place like this.

The fingers of my left arm spasmed as I laid back against the frozen ground, the box I’d somehow managed to keep hold of tumbled to the dirt. Fingers of my other hand probed my shoulder, searching, and came away moist and red. Blood. How had that happened?

I frowned as I forced myself to sit up and pull my jacket off. It was shredded. The back nearly gone, only a few ragged scraps still clinging to the arms and collar. What was left was covered in blood.

Oh god, they’d shot me!

I rolled around, suddenly desperate to get rid of my tattered shirt and hoodie, desperate to find the wound. Blood streaked across my skin, I was dying. I had to be dying. Where was the wound? I had to stop the bleeding.

Moonlight glistened off streaks of crimson smeared obscenely across the snow as I searched. I couldn’t find the bullet wound. Couldn’t find anything. Not a scratch where I’d felt a burning sting, not a bruise where I’d landed hard on the concrete. Nothing. I wasn’t hurt. But then why did every muscle in my body ache like I had a fever, why did I feel pain everywhere, and why was I covered in blood?

‘Does it matter?’A voice whispered in my head, ‘You’re alive and you got what you wanted.’

I nodded. I had what I came for, and that was the important thing. I snapped up the wooden case from the ground and studied it. So much fuss over something so small. I still couldn’t believe Mr. Grayson was paying me more money than I’d see in a lifetime for a box.

Scuffed and splintering, I could barely make out the engraving on the lid. It looked a bit like the colored charity ribbons people pin to their lapels so they can show off how generous they are. Sort of, but not quite. Whatever it meant, it still didn’t look like something worth killing over. People can be weird about old stuff, but I never thought a busted up antique was worth the price Mr. Grayson or the guy in the black suit were looking to pay for it.

It didn’t matter. I’d be set for life once I got back up north, to D.C. We could move to a nicer place, one where we didn’t hear gunshots every night, where Mom didn’t flinch whenever someone knocked on the door. And I could afford to get her everything she needed; the right doctors, specialists, and nurses to take care of her. She would get better and everything would be back to the way it was before. And all because of a box with a broken hinge and a funny carving.

A shout ripped through the silence of night, then another. A heavy diesel engine rumbled, drawing steadily closer. It was time to move.

The next town wasn’t for a good twenty miles. I needed transportation. I tossed a glance back at the town, the floodlights they’d set up still blazed. I couldn’t risk going back there, Black Suit and his cronies were crawling all over it. No way to sneak in and steal a car without being spotted.

‘You can’t walk twenty miles in the middle of winter without a coat, you’ll freeze to death,’ that voice popped into my head again.

Right. The church.

There was an old church maybe a mile out of town, I’d passed it on my way in. There might have been a car in the lot, but I couldn’t be sure. If I was wrong, I was as good as dead, but I didn’t have another choice. I grabbed what was left of my clothes and dressed as I walked.

---

My hands were going numb by the time I staggered into the parking lot beside the church. Empty, except for an old pickup that looked like it had gone to seed. The metal was so rusted I couldn’t tell the original color and it erupted in a flurry of flakes as my hand brushed along it. My final thread of hope crumbled.

I slammed my fist into the hood, the metal buckling beneath the blow and sending another cascade of rust to the ground. I wanted to scream. There was no way the truck was going anywhere. The axles were up on cinder blocks, the tires long gone, and the windshield turned white with spiderwebbing cracks. It was just as dead as I was going to be once Black Suit found me, if the cold didn’t get me first.

I glanced up at the church, a stubby thing with a crumbling steeple. The peeling whitewash covered boards of rotten wood. Chains bound the front doors, but the padlock had long since rusted beyond use. Just a little tug and it popped loose, letting me slip inside.

Eyes accustomed to bright city lights struggled to pierce the murkiness of the abandoned church. I shuffled in, hands waving in front of me as I delved into the black. My toe slammed into something hard and I fell to my knees, palms landing on the leather binding of a book. A bible. Even God wanted me dead.

I spat out a curse as I fumbled for my cell phone.

“Idiot,” I whispered, then wondered why I had. I was alone in an abandoned church. But it felt right, something about churches — sort of like libraries — you’re supposed to whisper.

The LED screen glowed faintly against the dark, but it was enough to stop me from tripping over anymore books. I came to a stop at the foot of the altar, raised up before the two rows of pews.

I had expected it to be empty, after the priest and parishioners — and looters — were done with it. But it was untouched. A thick coat of dust had settled over everything, but it was all still there. Altar cloth, stitched with gold thread, gruesome icon of a savior bleeding to death on a cross, silver communion cup. All of it sitting there like it was just waiting for Sunday to roll around.

My phone slipped from nerveless fingers, landing on a red carpet running down the aisle. The tips of my fingers had turned blue and didn’t want to move. I really was going to freeze to death. I scooped up the phone with my other hand and headed for the candles, hoping the matches had been left behind too.

My luck was turning. I spotted a box of long matches beside the rows of melted candles. Half a dozen tries before I could get one lit and I could barely hold it steady as I shivered. The dusty candles hissed and sparked as the wicks finally caught. The friendly orange light of the candles seeped across the room and I stretched my freezing hands over the small flames, rubbing them together as I slowly regained feeling.

Tucking my hands under my arms, I turned back to the altar. Something was nagging at me, something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I stepped up onto the platform and stared down at the table. What was wrong here?

‘Nothing,’ that voice in my head said.

Right.

I started to turn away, then paused as I realized what was bothering me. No cobwebs. I looked up into the exposed rafters, nothing. Not a trace of animal or insect. Just the dust. Dark charcoal grey residue.

I reached a hand out, touching the lip of the chalice, and snatched my hand back with a hiss. Popping my finger in my mouth on reflex, I gagged and spat as the taste of years of accumulated grime coated my tongue. The tip of my finger was red and blistered, like I’d poked a burning stove. Other hand clutching my scorched finger, I backed away from the altar, beginning to suspect the dust wasn’t dust at all.

‘It’s ash, all that’s left of the last people who came here,’ the voice in the back of my mind said, almost gleefully.

Right. This isn’t good. Something here wasn’t right. And it wasn’t only the cup that burned. It was everything. The town and all the guns, Black Suit, Mr. Grayson paying tons of cash for a stupid box.

‘And you.’

Right, and me. Wait. Me?

‘You got shot, you were covered in blood, but you didn’t have a scratch on you.’

How is that possible? How is any of this possible? I pulled out the box, and stared at it, a growing knot in my stomach. So small, it rested perfectly in the palm of my hand. But it was at the center of it all.

I flipped open the latch and paused, unsure if I really wanted to know what was in it. Mr. Grayson had warned me not to open the box. He wanted it sealed and untouched. He wouldn’t pay me if I looked. But he wouldn’t know, would he?

‘How could he?’

Right.

“Stop right there, Sam,” Black Suit said, his bulk blocking the door I hadn’t heard open. He held his gun steady as he stepped further into the church, his big hands cradling the pistol.

I stepped back, my shoulder bumping into the wall. I caught sight of a stained glass window in the corner of my eye as I watched Black Suit. It was close, just a step or two ahead. I could break the window, jump out. And get shot in the back. I grimaced, it wouldn’t work.

‘He could miss.’

He might not.

‘But what if he did?’

I would freeze to death.

‘Better to have a chance at survival than to give up.’

Right.

I took a step forward, then again. My back was to the window now.

“You can’t run, boy. We’ve got the place surrounded. Hand it over, and this’ll all be done quick. You got my word.”

“You’re going to kill me,” I said.

“It’ll be fast and clean. I don’t have a choice now. You’ve had it too long. Killing you’ll be a mercy. I’m sorry, Sam,” Black Suit said, he almost sounded sincere.

“I’m not going to die. I can’t die. My mother…” I said.

“Is about to lose her son, no choice there. It’s got you, good and tight, and you don’t even know it. Be kinder not to let her see you like this.”

My heart started to race as I tensed, ready to run. I had to get home. Had to see my mother. Had to keep the box.

“It’s waking up Boss, we gotta take him out now!” One of Black Suit’s goons said from just outside.

“Hold!” he called back. “Kid, you’ve got to trust me. Give up the box and there might be a chance to save you.”

‘No!’ The voice said, ‘You can’t lose the box.’

“No,” I whispered, clutching the case in my hands, the edges biting into my skin, drawing blood.

“You don’t even realize what it’s done, do you?” Black Suit said.

“It hasn’t done anything. It’s just a goddamn box!”

“That isn’t all it is. Turn around, look at yourself. Look at what it’s done to you.”

‘It’s a trick. He’ll shoot you when you’re not looking.’

“You’re going to shoot me in the back,” I said aloud.

“I won’t,” Black Suit lowered his gun, dropping it onto the pew in front of him, “I won’t.”

‘Can’t trust him. He’s a liar. Don’t turn around! Run away. Grab the gun. Kill him!’ The voice shouted in my head, screaming, pounding.

I whimpered. My head hurt like it was going to split open. Shut up, I told the voice as I turned around.

My stomach heaved as I caught sight of the reflection. It wasn’t human, but something profane. Wrong.

Flesh oozed from high-boned cheeks, sloughing like melted wax. Ruddy skin sagged, deflated, beneath eyes that burned fever bright. Bony protrusions sprouted from a malformed skull dotted with tufts of blonde hair, and sharp white teeth peaked from a lipless mouth grinning with malice.

‘Turn away! Close your eyes! Don’t look!’ The voice rattled in my head. I ignored it and I looked in horror as I recognized the face in the stained glass window; it was mine.

My hands trembled as I struggled to comprehend what had happened. My fingers went slack and the box clattered to the ground. Eyes dropped to the fallen box, drawn to the symbol that had mystified me, but now I understood. It wasn’t a symbol, it was a face. The face of the Voice.

Expression faded from my face as my mind went blank. Unbidden, an image of a woman emerged from memory. She laid in a hospital bed, her hair long ago sacrificed to the poison that kept her alive. And a word whispered…

‘Mother.’ Laughter bubbled from a throat I no longer controlled. The Voice spoke again, growing stronger. A roar surged from my lips, a familiar sound. One I’d heard not so long ago; impossibly big and impossibly angry. The Voice relished the pain, the misery of the memory. It wanted more. It wanted death. Her death would just be the start. I had to stop it.

I overthrew the Voice, taking back control for a moment, a single instant, but it was enough. My voice came out distant and strained, I hardly recognized it, “Kill me.”

And Black Suit obliged.