Four Sticks

Lonnie needed a fix, and he needed it fast. As he drove down the quiet streets of a neighborhood full of houses far beyond his tax bracket, the radio hummed in the background. In the early hours of the morning, the radio played less ads and more music. Something by Led Zeppelin came through the weak speakers of the decades old clunker Lonnie drove. Had the man been of sober mind, he would likely remember the song. Lonnie only had one thing on his mind, and it was money. How to get the most of it and how quickly to get it to his dealer on the other side of the county.

The former on the to-do list was the most pressing, since every house he saw either had a visible security camera, clear signs of a dog in the house, or seemed to harbor a resident that was passionate about the second amendment. Lonnie was beginning to wonder if he could take a chance on one of the houses with the paw print mat on the porch, when he reached the end of the cul-de-sac. As if a solution meant for his own dilemma, the house sat quiet. No cars. No cameras. No pet-themed decor. Lonnie questioned if anyone even lived in the house, but that didn’t deter him from hoping. Perhaps it was model home with some appliances he could grab and sell for quick cash. Not the best plan he’d ever had, but Lonnie’s skin was feeling too tight around his muscles, and he began to scratch his chin with discomfort. He needed the money yesterday.

Lonnie put the car in park and turned it off by the curb in front of the house. The street was quiet, but he suddenly felt watched. He was eerily aware of every window in view, every peephole, and every gap in all the fencing. So many opportunities to be observed. With a shaky breath, Lonnie stepped out of the car. In the pitch black of night, Lonnie’s gaunt silhouette resembled a skeleton more than a man. His dark clothes hung on his frame like a costume of someone who had their life together. Not someone desperate for cash and looking to run from his problems.

The house felt as though it expected him. Lonnie couldn’t put his finger on it, but as he checked for a key under the mat, and found one, he stared into the hills and valleys of the brick wall by the door. He felt a void open in his chest, and he hesitated to put the key in the deadbolt. With trepidation, Lonnie opened the door.

The air was solid inside the building. Dark and humid, rank with a stench Lonnie couldn’t pinpoint. He coughed and pulled his shirt up over his nose to combat the smell. His eyes began to adjust to the darkness surrounding him. Blinking, he started to see a form in front of him. Someone was standing across from him, staring back at him. Lonnie jumped and turned to run to his right, but another figure met him—his reflection. He turned back to the original fright and found it to also be his own reflection. The terrified man reached out and walked until he touched the cold mirror. The icy sensation was so startling that it stung his fingers.

With a sinking feeling in his core, Lonnie took in his surroundings. At least five mirrors lined the walls that engulfed him. He struggled to keep hold of his composure as the frustration hit him. It seemed that even the door he walked through was a mirror, for there was no trace of his entry point.

He breathed quick and shallow, his vision becoming cloudy. Lonnie’s fingers reached out and stung still at the contact with the mirrors. He walked slowly along the way, keeping his hands to the left side of him. Eventually, he had to find a walkway, right? Some passage from this room to the next?

In the darkness, Lonnie could tell he’d found it. A hallway. His eyes proved useless, as he only saw his reflection multiplied some infinite times in the glass. Still, he couldn’t help but look. He was sure he saw an extra hand run along the wall for a flash, but he blinked and it was gone. Just get out of here, Lonnie told himself. In the stress, he couldn’t tell if he’d even said it out loud.

The walkway was winding and full of curves, but never seemed to curl back on itself. This was comforting to Lonnie. He was certain he would reach an exit soon. The house wasn’t any bigger than the other homes in the neighborhood, so he’d have to get out soon. This was some sick, impossible prank. Some way that the community punished junkies like Lonnie. It’s what he deserved for looking to rob them blind. There had to be a cop at the end of this, waiting to slap handcuffs on him and haul him away. Or some kind of rehab orderly that will strap him to a bed and force him to get clean.

Right? There’s a way out of this, right? Lonnie’s breathing worsened from panicky to anxiety-ridden. Choking on fear, his eyes darted to his reflection on his right. A figure two heads taller than him towered behind him. He screamed and took his hands off the wall. He turned around to face the specter, but was met with his reflection. As he stared into this mirror, he noticed that the edges of himself looked fuzzy. Almost like someone took an eraser to him, but didn’t quite finish.

Lonnie shook his head and whipped his eyes around him, frantic to get back on his path through the house. The pit that had formed and festered in his stomach grew larger when he realized that he’d lost his way. The progress through the house was gone, and he would have to make a blind choice of which way to go.

He stared down to the right of his current position. His reflection repeated infinitely, shrouded in darkness. The heavy shadows on Lonnie’s sullen cheeks reminded him of a skull, void of his own identity and without sympathy for his terror. As he peered into his eyes, the image morphed and swirled. A devious grin pulled at the reflection’s lips and his hand began to reach out at Lonnie.

The man gasped and broke his gaze away from the horror. He wiped tears from his face and fought the urge to look back to his right. Lonnie looked up to the left side with caution. He rubbed the stubble on his chin with his shaky hands as he tried to calm his nerves.

A rosy hue fell over his body when he peered at the new reflection. Not much seemed different, although, he avoided looking himself in the eyes. Everything looked like a normal mirror, just with a pink wash everywhere. Not as though a light was on, since most everything was dark. It was like he was seeing through a filter.

I gotta get the hell outta here, he thought to himself. Or, maybe the words slipped out of his mouth. He couldn’t be too sure. Lonnie stumbled along the wall, his hands dragging along the freezing cold mirrors. His boots felt so heavy that each step was a challenge. The downtrodden reflections mocked him in the corner of his eye as he wandered the hall. The figure was back, but Lonnie didn’t stop this time. He watched with apathy as his numb hands clung to the only constant in this nightmare he’d gotten himself into. The shadow followed close to the hollow and exhausted man. If it weren’t for the freakish height of the thing, Lonnie would’ve mistaken him for his own shadow.

As for the pink color of everything, that seemed to take effect everywhere outside of the mirrors, too. Even when Lonnie looked at his own flesh on his hands, they looked like they’d been dyed a rosy pink hue. When he looked forward in the glass, he saw that the color shifted. Red was before him. A deep, bloody crimson.

Lonnie made the mistake of looking back. He did not see the tall figure from his reflections, but rather, his own face peering down at him. It seemed the image from the right side of the path had finally caught up with him. Fear gripped his throat, and while Lonnie’s mouth gaped open, the only sound that escaped was a choked swallow of saliva. Holes were bored through the Other Lonnie’s face, black sludge oozing from the voids. His teeth were rotten and thin as rice grains. A hungry growl came from within the creature and shook Lonnie to his core.

The deformed and terrifying version of Lonnie reached out as it had before, but was still too late. The man grabbed hold of his senses and returned his rigid hands to the wall. Lonnie ran along the route before him, not slowing to gaze at any changes in scenery that presented themselves in the horrible corners of his eyes. His own skin on his hands and wrists went from pink, to red, to purple as he ran. Lonnie wheezed with lack of fresh air. The thick atmosphere of this place was awful for his lungs, but he couldn’t bear the thought of slowing down. Fear took hold of his scorched calves and pushed him forward with pure adrenaline. This place reeked of abandonment and decay, and Lonnie cried out of desperation for freedom. His screams were weak in his own ears. Quiet and short, but he continued to scream. He yelled until his lungs were totally empty. Lonnie’s chest burned with the rest of his muscles and bones.

Finally, as the adrenaline his body had on reserve began to run out, his pace slowed. His feet began to drag along the floor, and his tears splatted across his hands as they came to rest on his chest. The pumping of his heart was painful against his ribs. Lonnie imagined he could open his skin and hold his heart beating in his palms, as if he could watch the organ slowly fade from life to death.

The knees gave out first, slamming hard on the ground. Lonnie no longer looked around at his reflections. Whatever came to him, in the end, would do so to his face. No, Lonnie sat on his knees, holding his imagined heart in his hands, watching it beat its last.

At once, he felt the presence in front of him. The Other Lonnie knelt in front of him, sick and disgusting with the sludge dripping from his wounds. The creature gasped for air, mouth wide and presenting an awful stench. Lonnie nearly vomited at the odor, squeezing his heart tight in his fingers.

Finally, the mouth slammed shut with a stomach-turning noise of shattering teeth on teeth. The creature’s hands reached forward, and Lonnie stared at them. Maggots ate away at the flesh hanging on the thin bones. The fingers were long and thin, just as his own. In the purple hue that washed both of them, Lonnie found himself comfortable with the grotesque image staring back at him. Perhaps death wouldn’t be so bad if he’d stop running.

This sentiment faded when Lonnie realized the Other was not reaching out to him, but to what he held in his hands. The heart he’d protected for some time, now. His precious heart, the thing that had gotten him so far down this hellscape. The Other’s grimy fingers brushed against Lonnie’s own, as if asking permission.

With new, salty tears, Lonnie loosened his grip on his prized organ. The contact was agonizingly slow, with each second passing like minutes. Still, once the wretched Other Lonnie’s fingers grazed the heart, everything changed in a flash.

All at once, Lonnie was standing, hands empty and still at his sides. The light was blinding, and he winced at the brightness. He was outside. Beside his car, the man stood, gawking at a street light as though he’d never seen such a thing. He slapped his right hand over his chest and felt his heart beating, inside of his body, safe and sound.

He turned around and saw the house he’d entered in before. Lonnie’s eyes studied each window and over every crevice in the door that could be seen from the street. Nothing to appear any different than any other house in that neighborhood. However, everything about it filled him with an ancient, ancestral terror. The kind of fear you pass to your children, and your children’s children. The kind that gets told as legend in hopes that no one falls into the same fate as you. Lonnie wanted to be miles and decades away from this place, so he clambered to get in his car.

He turned the ignition and the radio hummed to life. Led Zeppelin filled his ears, and made his stomach flip. The song wasn’t finished, yet, and Lonnie finally remembered the name. Four Sticks.