Chiller in the Mirror
Need.
Agonizing and relentless.
It cut through the mire of misery in which Cruuthra wallowed.
He glided to the portal hub. Inky darkness stretched eons into the universe beyond its viewing screen. A bony finger played a discordant tune on colored panels set into the wall. Outside the floor length screen, the gloom dissipated to reveal a chamber on Earth.
Through one of the few doorways scattered on this planet, Cruuthra spied upon the human who unwittingly vibrated its craving from the marrow of its bones. It was a subconscious cry from the female, penetrating the barriers of time. An assault on Cruuthra’s senses, in truth. Yet it synchronized with the void his life had become.
Sathaa, mate of his lifetime, was slain and catapulted into oblivion by their planet’s enemies. The new life growing within, obliterated with her.
These adversaries of his home world, vicious carrion who fed on seeds of ruthlessness and nurtured by pitiless guardians, had grown to a humongous stature of indomitability. Now, his personal universe remained cold and desolate. Sathaa was no more.
But now. Human disturbs me. Alerts Cruuthra. Raises hope. Miracle can become reality.
With dispassionate interest, he followed the curious actions of the humans through the gateway.
****
In her bedroom, Grace stared at the mirror. Tall, large and baroque, it was reminiscent of a door. The topmost quarter’s intricate carvings stood out in relief above the double-curved pinnacle crowned by furling feathers. Delicate roses were depicted in tandem with spiky leaves and mini shells posed amidst curious miniature figures one couldn’t distinguish clearly. The design followed the frame of the looking glass.
She considered herself fortunate in a sense. The poverty of her youth rang only distant bells now. Cole was born into old money. He could afford to ignore raised brows, the snooty airborne noses and squinty-eyed disapproval of his parents to his choice of bride. It meant striding through expensive boutiques and ambling among antiques in quaint little shops, Grace need not worry about price tags. Cole was a generous man with his money.
This magnificent piece had caught her eye and she’d examined it closely, trying to identify who or what the tiny forms among the foliage of the frame could be. She peered closer at the tiny forms carved into the wood. Were they little men with…several arms? That couldn’t be right.
She pulled back and sighed. Cole had grunted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm when presented with her new purchase, Grace recalled as she returned to the bed and curled up on it.
A tear dribbled over pale cheeks. He’d be home any time now and when he found her moping up here, he’d know why —
Grace was startled as the door was thrust open. Cole stood in the doorway. At the sight of him, she raised herself up onto an elbow and a fresh bout of tears shimmered in her eyes. “Oh, C-Cole.”
As if the hoarse stutter of his name had confirmed something for him, he stated, “It came.”
Grace nodded and prepared to tiptoe carefully over eggshells. “When will it happen for us, Cole?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” He sat beside her and rested a hand upon her hip.
She nibbled at her bottom lip, hope blazing like a furnace in her gaze. Cole turned his head away. “It can’t hurt to see a doctor,” she said. Her fingers crept onto his shirt sleeve, tugging at it.
A hard edge sharpened his tone. “We’ve only been trying for six months, Grace.”
“But surely, I should have already — ”
Cole pulled free, stood and paced. “If you didn’t fret about it so much, Grace. If you weren’t so impatient — ”
“So you do think it’s my fault!”
“I didn’t say that, but if you stopped wallowing in the past and just relaxed…”
Grace’s eyes widened, huge and wounded.
“You’re obsessed and I’m tired. Forget about having a baby. Just stick to — ” He twisted and turned, looking around the room until his gaze landed on the antique mirror. Sweeping an arm out to encompass its length and breadth, he barked, “Stick to spending my money!” Cole stalked out.
Grace closed her eyes, squeezing out more tears. Yes, maybe she should replace the yearning for a baby with shopping. Conceiving a child did seem beyond her. She knew why, too. Trying to hide from the reason was impossible. Not with those two past tragedies indelibly inked within her psyche.
The first heartbreak left horrible scars. Her baby brother suffered the imprint of hobnailed boots delivering death before he got the chance to meet his mother and sister.
He died at seven months, in her mother’s womb, after the violent rejection of their father; Jonathan, of the piggy eyes, mealy mouth and hard fists.
And then, five years later, the second tragedy eclipsed the first with breathtaking horror, raking open old scars that hid the pus of her father’s cruelty.
No daughter of his would shame him by having a baby at sixteen. Grace’s fetus didn’t make it past four months in the womb, thanks to those boots again and his iron knuckles. His escape from the law was the last she saw of him. To cap it all off, two years later, her mother died of alcoholism.
Unable to cement her relationship with Cole by having a child, this was her father’s legacy to her. She just wasn’t meant to be a mother.
A small sob threatened to break free, but Grace swallowed it back.
No. Unacceptable.
Grabbing a cushion off the bed and stuffing it under her sweater, Grace stood in front of the mirror and turned to the side. She smoothed delicate hands over the bump. No definitive diagnosis had determined she was barren. One day she might waddle awkwardly, pregnant and proud.
Ignoring red-rimmed eyes and the dark circles accompanying them, she faced her reflection, staring at her faux baby bump.
What — ?
Grace frowned and leaning forward, head almost touching the mirror, she peered into the room behind her. It seemed to recede, grow darker. She glanced around, but all looked normal. Confusion lining her face, she returned to her reflection. Again, gloom reigned.
Rooted to the spot, goosebumps pricked up over the surface of her skin. Downstairs, Cole stomped through the house, but here, the eerie silence was deafening, as if awaiting a sudden calamity to crash into existence.
Darkness shrouded her image and a manifestation took shape, transparent at first, until it became solid. Grace recognized it as a…tentacle. Her breath stuttered.
Slowly, eyes straining at their corners, she looked behind. The bedroom remained unchanged. Grace checked the mirror again. The tentacle undulated toward her, as thick as a man’s wrist, puce in hue with mottled purple patches. It glistened down to its tapering end and slipped through the glass as if through still waters.
Grace’s heart thundered hard, and she stumbled back against the bed. The cushion beneath her blouse tumbled to the floor. The alien protuberance waved sinuously through the air as it reached out. Her scream stuck fast in her chest.
“Ack! Ack! Gackgg…” Grace shook her head in disbelief, exhaled and tried again. “G-g-get away from me!”
A guttural cry scraped free of her throat as the snake-like appendage leaped up to her forehead. It clung to her skin, its slimy secretions seeping into her pores. Grace’s eyes rolled back, closed and snapped open again.
Several more feelers shot out from the mirror. They slid beneath her clothes and caressed her stomach and inveigled their way inside her pants, leaving a stinging, oozy gunk in their trail. Her strength left her body and she dropped to her knees gasping, the main tentacle still attached to her brow.
That noise.
Garbled, hoarse, but soft.
Grace listened.
*****
Grace banished Cole to the spare bedroom. Over the next couple of weeks, relations between them remained strained. They were two ghosts haunting a home and mimicking a semblance of everyday life, barely speaking or making eye contact with each other.
Grace didn’t care.
Miracles happened.
She locked her door that evening, and stood before her reflection. Smiling, she lifted her loose blouse and smoothed a hand over the protruding belly.
“I’ve beaten you, you bastard. Your legacy has no hold over me anymore.”
She knelt before the mirror and waited. In front of this gateway of salvation, beyond its obsidian darkness, hope had come. Her savior’s promises were succor to her pain. What was ten minutes a day out of her life? Nothing, and her reward would be a rich one. Only ten minutes of oblivion. No pain. No despair. Just the soothing rasp of a language she couldn’t decipher; its staccato tones abrading the soft meat of her brain. Beautiful. She understood. Didn’t she? Yes. Did she? It did not matter.
Cruuthra withdrew his ta’thrall. It flipped back over his shoulder and for the first time since initially linking with the human, he stepped out of his dimension into the unfamiliar chamber. He undulated along the floor toward her, extending both arms. Extra tendrils peeled free from the hard sinews and shot forward, ripping away the human’s coverings. They swarmed the baby bump.
She still wallowed within the spell of his Ta’cushna, her eyes white and unseeing. Again, the glistening ta’thrall, gracing the base of Cruuthra’s neck curled over his shoulder bone to attach to the human.
It was time.
She trembled and moaned as her gaze rose to meet his.
Cruuthra cut short a strangled scream from her. His ta’thrall left the human’s brow to plug her mouth, unmindful of the two front teeth that ripped free of her gums at the violent violation. He gazed with remote curiosity at her rounded eyes, how the sclera reddened and watered. Ignored the choking sobs behind his ta’thrall.
She fell back against the foot of the bed and slipped down into a prone position. He followed her gaze to her belly where his thin snake-like feelers massaged and palpated her flesh. Sudden movement within the womb jerked her body into a taut arch and she writhed grotesquely.
The surface of the stomach percolated then rented apart. Teeth appeared first. They ripped and chewed, stained with blood. Red rivulets spewed over her skin and soaked into the carpet.
Sounds he didn’t understand fell from her lips.
“Why?” she whispered. “It’s not fair… why?”
Tears dripped, hot and steady as the infant fought its way out, eight tiny eyes swiveled in their sockets. Its diminutive ta’thrall whipped back and forth. Cruuthra’s feelers lifted it free and placed it in his arms. The image of Sathaa.
He reached down and tore a thin strip of meat from the open wound of the human’s flesh and fed it to his baby. She chomped with gusto, and her raspy cry pierced the air once she swallowed.
The claw of one bony finger popped the human’s left eye. She groaned, juddered, and stilled. Leaning over her, Cruuthra’s cavernous maw opened and a tendril of saliva dropped into the socket. He dug into the squishiness, mixing until it formed a gloopy soup. A long black tongue shot out from his mouth and dipped into the mini meal, curling and scooping a glob out and into the waiting yap of his child. He continued until no more remained.
*****
Cruuthra glided out of the gloom of the portal, and back into his universe, his world, his home. The desires of the human were strong and tangible enough to enable the fulfillment of his own yearning, and the destruction of the emptiness that had plagued him since losing Sathaa and spawn. It didn’t always happen that way.
Cradling his babe along one arm, he set the human’s head beside the other three that decorated the special alcove. The others had served different purposes, but essential ones. He loathed leaving his dimension, but occasionally it was worth the effort. These humans had rich emotions, a powerful life-force. So much so, they sparked the scrutiny of beings universes away. His kind could harness that energy and manipulate it to their will and advantage.
Cruuthra had his miracle. Where a void once resided, now lived contentment.
He hoped he need not venture out again for a long time, but these earthlings and their cravings proved so hard to resist.
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