Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-34823985-20180816103412

Author's Note: I decided to write a story for the mirror category. This is what I ended up with. I'm considering scrapping this idea and moving onto something else, but maybe some feedback can help me salvage this. Tell me what you think. I can take it. --

"Dad, come on, you know me. I didn't do anything to Julie. This is all a misunderstanding. She's my wife; I'd never hurt her."

Norman's father-in-law grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him against the wall. He held him there and looked him straight in the eyes. "Shut your fucking mouth you piece of shit! I never liked you. You thought she was coming to get her things alone? You thought you'd what, ambush her? You're a fucking predator! What, too much of a coward to mess with someone your own size?"

The big man slid Norman down the wall until he'd pushed him into a squatting position. Breathing heavily, he backed up a step and pressed his pointer finger against Norman's forehead, pinning his head to the wall. "Since you can't be trusted to stay away while we gather my daughter's things, you're going to stay right where I can keep an eye on you."

He backed up a few feet and looked at his son-in-law. "You're fucking pathetic. If I had my way, you'd be in a cell right now, but she won't press charges and I promised her I wouldn't go to the police... for now. You ever lay a hand on her again," Jonathan Meyers slammed his hand down hard on the kitchen table, "And I'll put you in the ground."

The sixty-two year-old walked to the end of the kitchen and called down the hallway to the master bedroom. "Just get what you need right now, honey. We'll return for the rest later." He turned back to Norman who was too much in shock to stand up. Murder was in the old man's eyes. "The next time we stop over, the fucking weasel you married won't be here lying in wait."

A few minutes later Norman watched out the bedroom window while his wife and father-in-law backed out of the driveway and drove away. He couldn't fathom why Julie would say such lies. He knew deep down that nothing she did could ever make him angry enough to lay a hand on her; he loved her. Besides, everyone at work could vouch for him during the supposed time she was attacked. "Why would she say it was me?"

Today was the first time he had seen her since he left for work three days ago. It hurt him to see her with black eyes and bandages covering her nose. He nearly threw himself at her feet and begged her to tell him who attacked her when he saw the purplish, black marks on her arms and neck. He wanted to find who hurt her and make them suffer, but everyone was accusing him of the horrible act.

Rage, fear, sorrow, and a myriad of other emotions bubbled within him. He glanced at himself in the full-length mirror they'd just recently bought at an estate sale. The image staring back at him with clenched fists and tears streaming down its face didn't look like the man he usually saw in the glass. It looked like a man capable of beating his wife and far worse.

He shut his eyes and blindly swung his fist at the face of the impostor. Norman's knuckles connecting with the glass should have created quite a racket, but all he could hear was the rapid thumping of his heart. He opened his eyes to reveal a vertical fracture running the length of the mirror, splitting his reflection in two. The violent, evil man he'd seen a moment before peered out at him from one side of the crack while the weak, frightened man he knew himself to be stared out from the other.

Norman staggered right to reveal his weak self in full reflection cowering on its side of the crack. The only food he'd eaten all day began to revolt inside his stomach, contending with the throbbing pain he suddenly felt in his knuckles. Seeing his hand dripping blood onto the floor took his thoughts from the mirror for a second. He walked a few feet past the mirror towards the bathroom, but then quickly turned back when it occurred to him it didn't have any blood on it. Reflected in the glass on the right side of the crack was the killer that had beaten his wife.

He turned away and fled for the bathroom, but didn't make it before he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor. He knelt there before the steaming pile of vomit for quite a while. He eventually willed himself to his feet and stumbled into the kitchen. He clumsily wrapped his hand in paper towels, filled a bucket with soap and water, and returned to his bedroom to scrub the blood and sick off of the hardwood floor; never taking his eyes off his task. When he finished, he properly cleaned his hand, bandaged it, and feebly crawled into bed.

While Norman slept, depraved images skittered through his troubled mind, playing out a sinister fantasy. In the dream, Julie was lying prone on the bed while he straddled her waist, slamming his fists into her face again and again and again. The distinct cracking sound of her nose breaking under his bloody fists, followed by the splintering noise of her cheek bones as he levied both fists simultaneously down upon her, echoed through the room.

He glanced at the mirror against the wall. A billowing, black smoke, limned by a green incandescence, escaped the crack in the glass and rose to the ceiling. An impossibly thin creature, almost two dimensional, could be seen weaving in and out of the smoke just inside the intricately carved wooden frame of the mirror. Norman could only make out a fraction of it at a time as it occasionally thumped up against the inside of the glass like an eel in a tank unaware of its near invisible boundaries.

The smoke covered the ceiling now and crawled down along the walls. It rumbled and flashed, imitating a thundercloud. The mysterious, ribbon-thin serpent swerved violently in and out of sight like a kite caught in a storm. Norman seemed to know instinctively what it wanted. He rolled off the bed, picked up his unrecognizable wife, and flung her limp body at the mirror. He expected the mirror to shatter, but instead she passed through the glass unimpeded.

Norman slumbered fitfully, struggling under his heavy, suffocating blanket as the nightmare played out. He fought to escape like a seal caught in a net knowing full well the killing blow could fall at any moment. He awoke covered in sweat just as the thing behind the glass lunged for his wife's lifeless body. He felt no relief upon discovering he'd been dreaming. The events as they occurred were etched deeply into the rock walls of his cavernous mind.

Norman couldn't stand to look at himself in the mirror, so he awkwardly carried the heavy monstrosity out to the garage, threw an old tarp over it, and went inside to take a shower. The thoughts running through his head were rushing in all directions. They did nothing to help clarify what his dream was all about. "What was with that fucked up dream? Julie truly believes I hurt her. I saw it in her eyes last night. She was afraid of me. That fucked up dream, though. Jonathan wanted to kill me. Could I have... but wouldn't I remember? No, I'd never hurt Julie. I'm nothing without her. God, that dream was so fucked up."

The hot shower didn't do anything for his nerves or the tightness in his back. He noticed a pinkish puddle collected around the drain; his hand wouldn't stop bleeding. He filled a cup from the sink and poured its contents over the drain. While the strange thoughts and questions continued to run laps in his skull he dried his left hand and wrapped it tight. "Wasn't it my right hand I smashed up?"

He turned and knocked the gauze off the edge of the sink, but managed to grab one end as the rest of it hit the tile and rolled out the door. He stepped out of the bathroom as it continued to uncoil along his bedroom floor and into the hall. He followed its progress through the house. The gauze finally came to its end in the kitchen. It pointed right at the door that led to the garage.

Norman stared at the door. His eyes were opened so wide with shock that they began to tear. He blinked and when he opened his eyes he was back in the bathroom. The gauze hung from his hand and extended to the tile at his feet, but didn't go any further. He pulled a towel off the rack, wrapped it around his waist, and unsteadily walked towards the garage.

He flung open the door and standing there in his wife's empty parking spot was the mirror. The tarp was lying in a heap beside it. He stepped towards the tarp when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the crack in the mirror was gone. The door slammed shut behind him. He spun around, rushed to the door, tried to turn the handle, but it was locked. Suddenly his car cranked to life.

A little while later Norman's replacement opened the garage door just enough to allow the exhaust fumes to clear out. It got out of the car, casually walked over to Norman's body and dragged him to the mirror. It picked him up easily, slipped him through the rippling glass, and then grabbed the mirror as it headed inside. A few minutes later it texted Julie, "Won't be home until tomorrow. Come get your stuff today."

Then it stepped into the bedroom closet and slid the door shut. 