From The Void Of The Other Side

The sun dipped behind the mountain, and a blood-red aura swept across the late blue sky. This began the usual transition of day to night. The valley below turned grey, and the streetlamps began to flicker on. A few spiders had already set up their webs and awaited the first moth to fly into its trap.

(You have to wait for the streetlamps to come on before you go outside, dear. It seems the ghouls don’t like the light very much.)

Her car rolled to a stop sign, and she paused for a moment. She could turn around right now. Head back home—head away from it . . .

She thought about it, but deep down inside, she knew she couldn’t turn back. It was pulling at her—pulling at her like a cement block tied around her feet. She wanted to swim up—up to the surface for air. But the weight was too heavy . . . She sank and sank until she hit the bottom. She tried to untie herself, but she couldn’t. She suffocated while staring up at the surface—her hand reaching out.

She sighed as she turned on her blinker. She didn’t know why she did that—she didn’t see any other headlights in the area. It was just a habit. She took a right and drove to the last street in the neighborhood, heading toward it . . .

It . . . was what she called the house—the house she grew up in—the house where the nightmare began. She hadn’t heard from her mother in a week. This was why she was going back. I need to check. I need to see if she is all right.

She had already prepared for the worst. The house, she thought. It had finally got her. It already got her sister. Now, whatever sister-thing pretending to be her was running around the world, causing terrible things to happen. The house had almost gotten her father, too, but he ended up blowing his own head off with a shotgun before the house could get him.

Once she turned eighteen, she moved out, but after five years away, twenty-three-year-old Tamera Jean found herself returning home. She turned the keys in the ignition, and the car fell silent. She checked her phone. Her last message was to her mother a few hours ago. Tamera told her she was coming over, but her mother had yet to respond.

She opened her door and got out. The cold winter air felt like needles pressing against her cheeks. She stood for a moment, looking at the house. It was growing old. The porch was sinking on one side. The shutters hung from their last nails. The leafless tree limbs surrounding it looked like long, lanky, arthritic fingers scratching the roof.

(Don’t mind the tree limbs scratching at the windows and walls, dear. They won’t get you if you just stay in your bed and under those covers.)

Tamera started up the front pathway. There was a lamp on upstairs. This made Tamera feel a little better. Her mother may still have time. As she grew closer to the house, the dying light cast a sinister smile across the face of the house. It made her feel uneasy, which she already was.

(We’re happy you’re home, Tamera! Come in and stay awhile! Come in and stay forever!)

As she ascended the stairs of the porch. The last light of the sun disappeared, and night settled in. She inserted the house key, opened the door, and stepped in. She immediately saw reflections of herself everywhere. They moved as she moved. Tamera turned on a lamp, and all her reflections lit up in the mirrors hanging from the walls. Every last corner of the house had a mirror hanging from its wall. It was her mother’s obsession. The obsession that ultimately led to her sister and father’s demise.

(Aren’t they beautiful, Tamera? The mirrors? They’re a special thing to have. They show you the world from a different view.)

“Mom?” Tamera called out. “Are you here?”

Tamera heard someone walk across the floor above her, but there was no reply.

“Mom? It’s Tamera.”

“Tamera?” She heard her mother faintly call from upstairs.

“Yes, mom . . . It’s me.”

She began to ascend the stairs. All her reflections in the mirrors started to follow, except for one. It stood in the mirror as still as a mannequin. When Tamera made it further up the stairs, the mannequin-like reflection turned its head to watch her. By the time Tamera made it to the upstairs hallway, the mannequin-like reflection was gone.

She could see the light coming from beneath the door at the end of the hallway. “Mom?” Tamera called out again. A gust of wind hit the house. It swept down the mountain and into the valley. The wind brought back memories—haunting memories of when Tamera was just a little girl. The memories of when the wind caused the tree limbs to scratch the walls of the house. It always reminded Tamera of monsters moving around in the walls, desperately trying to find a way out.

(Stay underneath your covers, dear! If they find a way out, they’ll come looking for you!)

Tamera almost sprung into her old bedroom, onto her old bed, and under her old covers. She no longer felt like the twenty-three-year-old young woman she was. No . . . Returning to this house made her feel like a little girl again—the scared little seven-year-old girl who watched her sister disappear into a mirror—the little girl who heard a shotgun blast from down the hallway. She remembered it all like it happened yesterday. It took her mother days to clean her father’s blood and brain matter off all the mirrors in her mother’s room.

Tamera reached the door. A shadow passed across the light shining out from underneath it. The hundred reflections of Tamera on the walls opened the door. The light from the room came into all the mirrors, lighting up the whole hallway in some strange, eerie way.

She walked in but didn’t see her mother. There was a six-foot-tall mirror in the middle of the floor. This is where Tamera used to see her mother brushing her hair. This is where she also used to see her mother talking to herself. Well . . . Tamera thought, it was more like arguing with herself or with someone else. The tree limbs scratched the window beside her, and Tamera jumped, drawing her focus to the noise.

“Tamera?” She heard her mother’s voice say.

Tamera snapped back around, “Yes, mom? Where are you?”

She didn’t see her mother anywhere. She stepped slowly up to the mirror in the middle of the room and stared at her reflection. It was strange, though. It felt like she was staring at a completely different person, yet it looked just like her.

Tamera began to brush her hair and smile. Wait . . . how did I? She looked down at the brush in her hand. When did I grab this? She stepped back, confused. She walked to the bedroom door and turned the handle, but it was stuck. She pulled. There was no give.

“Tamera,” her mother said from behind her. “Where are you going? Didn’t you come all this way to see me?”

Tamera let go of the handle and turned. She saw her mother standing in the mirror. Her mother’s hands were pressed against the mirror from the void of the other side.

“Mom?” Tamera said softly.

Her mother nodded her head. “You were right, Tamera. It got me. I should’ve left sooner. But it got me.”

Tamera walked slowly up to the mirror. She placed her hand on the mirror. Her mother put her hand on the mirror from the void of the other side. A tear began to roll down Tamera’s face.

“Mom? What happened to you? What happened to us?”

Her mother didn’t respond. A tear began to roll down her cheek, too. A creak came to the right of her. Tamera turned and gasped at what she saw in the mirror beside her. It was her headless father banging on the mirror from the void of the other side. She suddenly turned to her left and saw her sister banging from the void of another mirror. Her sister was screaming silently.

(Run, Tamera! For god’s sake, run! It’s going to get you!)

Tamera looked back at the mirror in front of her, where her mother once stood, and she saw the strangest thing . . . She saw herself, but it wasn’t her. It was something else that looked just like her. She watched as it grinned. She watched as it turned around and began walking to the bedroom door. Tamera turned, and behind her, she saw a black void. Her stomach dropped. The feeling of vomiting struck her like the impaling of a knife. She turned back around and tried to follow the Tamera-thing, but she found herself pressing up against the mirror from the void of the other side. The Tamera-thing opened the bedroom door, turned, and grinned one last time before leaving.

(It got you, Tamera! You came back, and it got you! Just like it got all of us!)

Tamera began to hit the mirror she was trapped in frantically. Her headless father appeared behind her—along with her sister and mother. Tamera stopped beating the mirror. They took her hand and began to walk with her deeper into the void of the other side.

As Tamera’s weeping grew faint, all the mirrors in the house fell and shattered.