Posthumous

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own.

Flashing. Pure. Cold.

The moment I spot it, I fall against the bathroom wall and put a hand on my mouth to stifle the scream.

I do not understand. Cannot. I’m falling, downwards and up, colliding with brick walls of a far-flung fantasy. I’m looking down at my worn police uniform, then at an inky-black outfit, then up at the face before me.

I’m dazed, tattered, and whole.

I’m unrecognizable.

The man before me is pale, lit only by the outside moonbeams. His face is long, with angles so sharp they could’ve drawn blood and eyes blue like the sea. He is deadly. He is cunning. He is all I could never be.

I put a finger against the tear on my face, slowly, slowly. Across in the gilded mirror, the man does the same. His hand is covered in blood.

There comes a banging on the door, but I’m so engrossed it could have passed for a sigh. “Lloyd, what are you doing in there? Whole house is taped off.”

“I’m coming,” I whisper.

“What?”

“I’m coming!”

With a heave, I lift myself up and brush my eyes. Got. To get. Out. I place a hand on the knob, but before I can turn it more than an inch, the sight on the bathroom floor, and in the mirror, resurges in my mind.

Red.

Red, red, red.

I crumple, my forehead on the door. My head. God, my head. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I get a blasted grip?

“Lloyd! Move it!”

“I’m coming!” I repeat, and jerk open the door.

“There we go,” says Sergeant Yoo in front of me. His flashlight is cold in the shadowed hall and adds a ghostly glint to his face. He spots the scene behind me. “Shit. You find that?”

“What do you think?”

“Ugh. Much as I’d love to see more, we’ve gotta leave it to the others. The real mess is upstairs. They need you there.”

Upstairs. Something twists deep within me. I’ve seen it - or have I? The past few hours have been blurry. Not too much of a surprise, because I came here without a wink of sleep. Yet I can’t stop feeling like I’ve already covered the area.

A hand lands on my shoulder. “C’mon, man,” says Yoo.

I take a deep breath. Focus. “Let’s go.”

Yoo hoists his gun high and begins leading me through the dark house. Our steps send squeals through the wooden planks, the limited quarters turning their echoes into a loop. I keep looking back as we go. I never got to check the mirror again. Could it be concealing something? Tools or a trace, perhaps? But as with the rest of this night, it’s already too late. The best thing I can do is move on.

We make our way through the dining room and the kitchen. The sections are moderately furnished, evidence of a family who preferred satisfaction over luxury. The only betrayal of normalcy is the guards. They are positioned at every entrance and grip their guns with sullen expressions. By the time we reach the living room, I’ve seen enough weapons to bring down a mammoth. A trap is what Yoo referred to the house as. I saw it as a cage.

In the briefing, they said the murderer never left. They said they were still lingering, like a hawk over their kills. Remembering this, I wished I had a gun. The blood-written messages were well dry, but who was I to tempt fate?

“How long did the Meyers live here?” I ask.

“Couple years,” says Yoo. “They moved in when their daughter, Ava, was born.”

Three victims, the Lieutenant had told me. A child and her parents. The child was found in her bed, the parents in the attic.

Upstairs.

That same sense of familiarity washes over me, and my head pangs again. I swear, didn’t I already check it?

We turn a corner to the stairs. Yoo ascends first, but as his flashlight leaves my sight, I spot a mirror on the wall. Its frame is old and gilded, and the surface has a slight crack through the middle. Although in the center….

No. It can’t be. This has to be some optical illusion, something with the mirror’s composition. Or a hallucination altogether.

“Lloyd!” Yoo walks back down. When he tries to loop his arm under mine, I push him away.

“You don’t have to coddle me.”

“I’m not trying to. You’re the one who keeps staring every two feet.”

“We’re passing evidence. I’m analyzing it.”

He grunts and resumes mounting the stairs. I glance at the mirror one last time, then follow.

Red.

Feet gliding swiftly up, a shadow in the cracks of darkness. A mirror on the wall, a clock ticking away the hour.

Tick, tick.

To my left, the metal hands move with resounding grace. Beneath it, there is a lone message. Come and find, the sheep are blind.

Sheep. As in us? That would almost be too simple. Yet I know well, complexity is often worse than the truth.

Yoo points to the right with his gun, jerking me out of my thoughts. “Attic’s this way.”

We pass a child’s bedroom. The walls inside are decorated with animals and trees. They’re a deep blue in the storm, and the creatures’ eyes appear to follow us as we go.

A body left in the sheets. Golden locks splayed elegantly, frozen as if in a painting. The face was beautiful in the moonlight, but it would be more fun to leave it concealed. To let them open the gift themselves.

“Ava was first,” I state.

“Yes. They took samples, and her blood is the oldest.” The sergeant looks at me as he says this. The pain inside him could shatter any heart, but it does not mine. I can acknowledge it though, for to mourn is the greatest of suffering. No matter the distance, time, or relation, grief has its way of seeping in. Some humans are more laden than others, but the substance inside is eternally the same.

Breath releasing, calm like a winter’s wind….

Would the killer have returned the way he came? There are no traces of blood leading to the writings. No distinguishable path of any kind. Gah, my mind is fixated on the obvious. I have to think. They need me to. My thoughts, however, are an immovable blockade-

Red, red, red.

Another mirror, this one of which I avoid. In doing so, I don’t notice a toy on the floor and trip face-first.

Yoo curses.

“I’m fine,” I growl, and throw the stuffed tiger against the wall. “Just stepped on this stupid lump.”

“I’ll help you.”

“No.” I lift myself up, rubbing my chafed fingers against my face. They’re curiously smooth. Although in this darkness, I can’t spot why.

We swivel through the halls. It’s not a grand house, but the cramped layout likens a floor to a maze. Especially with all the objects cluttered about. There is only one other message: in death I win.

Ha. Idiot, they are, if they intended to scare me. I couldn’t care less. I fear only my own end.

At last, we find the attic’s entrance, and thereupon lies the blood. Smeared, stroked, it is so thick one could mistake it for a bottomless lake. Yoo and I have to move cautiously to avoid slipping.

“Lloyd, is that you?” yells a woman from above.

“Yes,” I answer.

“Good. We’ll have you run an eye over this, please.”

Yoo nods to me, and I mount the ladder. On the last step, a hand reaches out, and I reluctantly allow it to lift me into the room. The shift in tone is immediate. I blink. The light…. My head….

“Detective,” greets the leader, an older woman with rich brown eyes. The one who extended her hand. “I’m Captain Keenan. Word is you’re the investigator on site. Am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, let’s get to it. My team has collected all the samples we could find, and each of them came back predictably. We have the order of murder and located the entrance, but. No fingerprints, footage, or weapon save for this.” She gestures to a silencer in the corner. I have trouble registering it; as she speaks, the weapon floats double before my eyes.

“Here’s the gist of the case,” continues the Captain. “Around two-thirty, neighbor Darlene is watching television in her living room when she spots someone in the storm, stepping through Ava’s window. She panics, calls us, and we get there within ten minutes. But by then, nothing in the house is alive. All we have is Ava, and them.”

I lower my gaze to the masses behind me.

Impossible.

I can’t lift myself from the scene. I can’t move.

The Captain leans from foot to foot. “Detective?”

“What?”

“Any thoughts?”

Thoughts? Have you no idea what this is? Have you not seen this before? “Not yet.”

“Alright then. We’ll leave you to it.”

She turns away from me briskly and returns her attention to the screen she’d been observing before I arrived. It’s almost comforting for her eyes to leave mine.

Red, red, red.

Beneath me, there lies the mother. She is petrified in a position of terror, her neck soaked crimson. Then there’s the father on the bed. He is so calmly arranged, he might have been dreaming.

Red.

Red.

Red.

“They shot the father,” I say, more to myself than the others. I look back at the corner. “They used the silencer. The mother….” I examine her neck. “A stab wound. Likely four inches.”

My head begins to throb.

“We figured as much. No knife, though.”

I’m wincing, facing away from them. I can’t let them see what I do, I can’t let them imagine. “It wasn’t glass, either. Ava’s window was slid open.”

Reality bends in on itself. Balance is broken.

I’m far from the attic, looking into a mirror, a parallel world. But the reflection….

A gloved hand slips across the sil, lifting the owner into the house. Carefully. Delicately.

Two eyes meet. There is a tender hush, and light advancement.

Poor Ava. The window was not supposed to be hers. But the plan was determined. None could undo what had already been set in motion.

The thrust of a weapon. In response, a choked gasp.

As the room dwindled, the figure hoped Ava hadn’t seen their face.

“Detective?”

In some distant realm, I place a finger on my lips. It is instinct, but oh, so familiar. Quiet.

By the stairs, a ticking clock. A smile. An inscription.

Yes. Let them play this cruel game, too.

Let them come and find, till the end of time, that the little sheep are so terribly blind.

“By the time the deed was done,” I whisper, “All the exits would have been under watch. They couldn’t have escaped unless they never left.”

“We searched the entire house,” says the Captain.

My mouth twitches. “You seem to have forgotten, people go to annoying lengths to survive.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

Once more, in that fuzzy realm, I shift. I walk to face the woman. “Do you know how far they’ll go?”

“What?”

Upstairs.

A crack of lightning reverberates across the sky, briefly illuminating the figure creeping closer. Had it been any other night, they would have noticed. But in this storm, the couple was utterly deaf.

The father goes down easily. He barely gets to open his eyes before they dim for good. There is breath releasing, calm like a winter’s wind….

Then a scream.

The mother recoils in the bed, begging and yelling. “Please,” she says, “Please, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t-”

“Oh, but your husband did,” rasps the figure. “He is a murderer.”

“He didn’t mean to-”

“Didn’t mean to? I think the morality is clear to us both. We all mean what we do.”

“Please-”

“And I mean to be the hand of fate he deservingly should have been dealt.”

“You are aware,” I say, “that Officer Meyer was responsible for the death of a man.”

“It was an accident. A terrible mistake, but an honest one.”

“Captain, as one of your status, I’m surprised you believed that. Meyer was a murderer. Nothing more. And yet they labeled him innocent.”

The figure retreats, turns his back. They were overconfident, though. Before they can reach the entrance, the woman hits them in the head with a lamp. As they struggle to regain their footing, she slashes at them with her nails.

A wheeze. “Listen…. I won’t hurt you if you let me go. I swear.”

“You wouldn’t,” she seethes. Another hit with a lamp. Then another.

It was not planned. It was not wanted. But by the time the knife sank in, death had lost all meaning. The mother was just another wrinkle in the task, and she had needed to be smoothed out.

Downstairs. Skidding through the maze. Away from the corpses, away from sensation.

Police cars outside. Sirens. Shouts.

The figure hurls themself into the bathroom and under the window’s gentle moonlight. Scrambling, they pull out a device, and as the house’s front door pounds open, they shove it into their head.

Red.

Red.

Red.

“Detective,” says the Captain. “We’re going to have to move the bodies. If you have no additional information you can provide us with, we’ll have to mark the case as unresolved.”

Red.

Red.

Red.

And, then, a flutter. A shattering. The figure’s soul being wrenched outwards, through barriers of time and space. The opening of the bathroom door to find a body, and the opening of an opposite one to find an officer.

Two souls, merging.

A mirror, divided between the faces.

The only reflection of the collision. The only surface carrying the weight. The only one to know the truth.

“Detective, any last thoughts?”

The figure looks up.

Lloyd looks up.

He is a pale man with a long face, with angles so sharp they could’ve drawn blood and eyes blue like the sea. He is deadly. He is cunning. He is me.

“No,” I say, my back turned. I inspect my nails, and the unwrinkled, printless fingers below them. “No, not a clue at all.”