The Year's Best Horror Stories: XVIII

Reflections by JEFFREY GODDIN

Jennifer stood against the pale rectangle of the window, holding the long curtains to one side, peering out into the rainy night. Her shoulder, the side of one small breast, her hips, were in silhouette, and were in turn reflected in the glass.

"Did you ever think about what a different sort of world it is when it rains?" she asked.

David lay on the bed, enjoying the feel of the cool sheets, watching her watch the night.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's as if the rain both joins things, somehow, and separates them. It joins them in itself. It covers things. But it separates people — it pushes us apart, into our own little buildings, our own little dry spaces."

He rolled off the bed and walked up behind her, putting his arms around her, under her breasts. Her skin was very soft. She leaned back against his chest.

"You should have been a poet, rather than a painter," he said.

"You don't like my paintings?" She made a face, her wide mouth pouting.

He laughed.

"You know better than that. I think you're great."

They stood like that, she leaning against him, for a long time, watching what they could see of the night through the window — the old stores on the street below, the tops of the lower houses, the distant lights of another section of the city, all softened, haloed by the moisture in the air.

"Well, time to go now," she said, turning and standing on her toes to give him a kiss. He pulled her to him to feel her breasts against his chest.

"Why, there's plenty of night left…."

"Lustful boy." She bit his neck. "I've got work to do. A whole book to read for Art History."

"Art History? I thought you studio people didn't have to take classes like that."

She shook her head.

"A well rounded mind in a body streaked with oils and acrylic."

"I don't recall finding much acrylic this evening."

She gave him a light slap and danced away.

"I washed." She walked across the little living room retrieving bits of her clothing.

He enjoyed watching her, the girlish way in which she made a dance out of retrieving her clothes.

"Anything I can get you? Coffee? Brandy? Candy?"

"A shot of brandy would be nice," she said, leaning back on the bed to tug on her tight jeans. He went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of Martell, brought them back. She was making up the bed.

"You don't need to do that."

"Oh yes, oh yes!" She shook her head and her dark curls flew. "The memory of making your bed will help me think of you when I'm all alone tonight, with Picasso, Modigliana, Marc and the others."

She tossed back the brandy, looking up at him. Her slightly-too-wide mouth held a broad smile.

"I like seeing you walk around naked like that." She abruptly knelt in front of him and gave him a few particular kisses. He closed his eyes and put his hands in back of her head, but she pulled gently away.

"Something to remember me by," she laughed, "and to look forward to for next time."

"When's that?"

"Come see you tomorrow?"

"Please!"

She gave him a quick kiss and headed for the door.

"Until then, and then…."

And she was gone.

It felt strange to be dressing alone. He wished she had spent the night, but then, Jennifer was like that. There and gone. Still, he considered himself very lucky. After all, he had found her — a woman who really enjoyed loving — in an era when more and more women seemed reluctant to make the time.

He turned on the lights; the recessed ceiling fluorescent he'd installed himself, and the drawing room light over his drafting table. Perhaps, he thought, he was lucky in more than Jennifer. He had a fairly clean, safe city in which to live, he was healthy, and had a good job.

But the place still seemed very empty without her. He felt an edge of loneliness creeping up on him. An only child, he had been very much aware of aloneness all his life. He was even more aware of it since he'd been living in the city. Something about the sheer masses of people around you, all going their separate ways. And here you were, looking forward to another evening by yourself.

He tried to play it lightly with Jennifer, because she seemed to like that. But he wondered what she would say if he mentioned marriage, that weird old-fashioned business where you saw the same person's face every night and every morning. He thought he would really like that a lot.

What would she say? Too soon, said the reasoning part of his mind. Don't push her. And tonight, you have work to do.

He spread out the commercial accounts he'd brought home to mock up. Most of them were pretty simple designs: newspaper and magazine layout for retail stuff. The Yuppies were enamored with British names, and he'd gotten a few accounts by suggesting the addition of a «Westminster» or a «Northumberland» to the copy, and by adding a few British style visuals: the rolled brolly in the corner, a smoking jacket on a hall tree, a bric-a-brac mantelpiece, a hunting horn on the wall. It was a little heavy, but his clients had loved it. And they were paying for it.

I, who once wanted to be the new Matta of oils, am giving form to the yuppie dream. It would be nice to have some of his own dreams again.

He sat down at the table and began to rough out some frames. He was drawing a storefront, and doing a little variation with light and shadow on the window. He suddenly had the odd desire to draw a face in the window — not behind it, as a person looking out, but in it, an effect he might have used back in his oil painting days.

Funny thought. He could visualize the face clearly, that of a man in middle age, with a look of utter terror on his features. David stared at the black rectangle on the page and shivered. Weird.

He sketched several of the accounts to the point where he could finish them at work the next day. It didn't take long. He found himself sitting, daydreaming, and feeling a little spacy.

Maybe it was Jennifer. It was so new, what they had together. And this business of just coming over, hopping into bed, then off again, this was new to him too. She had only spent the night once, but he thought she would probably stay over the weekend. He was looking forward to it very, very much.

He stood and began to pace. He was restless, still had some nervous energy to use up. He thought about jogging, but he wasn't really in the mood.

For some reason he thought of the neighbor he hadn't met, a retired fellow, or so said his landlord, living in the twin apartment to David's on the other side of the building. From time to time as he worked, David had heard his neighbor moving around, and the tinny sound of a radio.

He looked at the clock. It was only 9:00. On impulse, David decided to visit his neighbor.

The building was a bit odd. His apartment was the only one that had been restored so far. To reach the other apartment, he had to go down the stairs to the first floor. The place was stripped, the walls patched for painting, the only light a dim yellow bulb by the exterior door. Across the room a second flight of stairs led directly up to the other apartment. He found a switch beside the stairs, and a dim light came on above him. He began cautiously to climb.

The stairs hadn't been fixed yet, and they gave off odd squeaks and moans as he climbed, holding tightly to the makeshift banister that was partly wooden, partly a piece of metal pipe stuck in to cover a break in the railing.

It was very quiet, there at the end of the stairs, and almost dark, because the bulb in an open socket by the door couldn't have been above a forty watt.

He knocked softly on the door, and the sound echoed in the stairwell.

"Hello? Mr. Arnold?"

He could hear the shuffling of feet in the room beyond. The door opened a crack. He noticed that there were two chains on the door, on the inside. He saw one faded brown eye, a bit of stubbly jaw.

"Yes?"

"Hi, I'm David Streiber, your new neighbor downstairs. Just thought I'd come up and say 'hi.'»

"You did, did you?"

The eye examined him. The man moved back. Now two dark eyes appeared, above a thickly veined, arched nose, a firm jaw. Arnold's little mustache was dwarfed by the drama of his features.

"You look to be what you say."

"I beg your pardon?"

The door closed, and David heard the chains being withdrawn. The door opened again.

"Come in."

He walked into what must have been the living room. The place was neat, if not terribly affluent. A few overstaffed chairs, an old Magnavox television on a low stand, a lumpy brown sofa. The colors were all dark, with an air of mild age, reinforced by bits of green-brown carpet. He noticed that sheets of dark plastic were taped over the windows, which looked north and west. Probably to keep the heating bills down.

"Sit down," said Mr. Arnold, pointing at the couch. He went into the kitchen as David cautiously eased down onto the broken springs. In a few minutes, Arnold returned with a bottle of bourbon and ice-filled glasses. He mixed two drinks without asking David if he wanted one. David took the drink, still looking around the place. He noted a decent cupboard in the corner, with some pale bits and pieces of china showing through the dusty glass.

He sipped the bourbon. It was good old Kentucky whiskey.

Arnold had taken a padded dark green chair opposite the couch. He was watching David with an air of caution. The man was of medium height, but slightly stooped, an effect lessened as he sat. He wore heavy cotton work-clothes, green pants and shirt, with an old double-button sweater over it. His face, David realized, with surprise, was somewhat like his own basic features; wide bushy eyebrows, slightly long, thick nose, prominent, firm chin. He was also balding, his forehead broad and smooth. If their ages had been closer, they might have genuinely resembled one another.

"Well," said David, as Arnold remained silent. "I just thought I'd come and make contact, let you know who you had for a neighbor."

The older man seemed to relax slightly. He nodded.

"Good of you. I keep to myself a lot. But it's good to know that… you're my neighbor. What do you do?"

"I'm an artist, er, a commercial artist at the moment."

Arnold nodded.

"Happens to the best of us. I was a poet when I was young. Had some published, too." He pointed to a low set of bookshelves under the television, which seemed to contain some old journals under a layer of dust. "But I had to make a living. Was a proofreader for the Star until my eyes went. Retired out."

"But maybe you still write a little?"

Arnold shrugged.

"Maybe…."

David was drinking the bourbon too quickly, but it felt good. He looked around at the room again.

"Do you keep the windows covered for the heat?" he asked, then wondered if it might not be a tactful question.

"Nope, landlord pays the heat here."

Of course, just like in David's own apartment. But the Imp of the Perverse was in him. He couldn't help asking:

"So why keep them covered?"

"Reflections. I don't like to look at them. And I have very keen peripheral vision, though my direct vision's faded. Seeing the reflections out of the corner of my eyes distracts me from my book.

"Oh, so you are writing a book!" said David. "I've always wanted to write. Maybe you'll tell me a little about it?"

Arnold had finished his bourbon. He took David's glass, went to the kitchen for more ice, and returned with the drinks.

"Your book?" David prompted.

"It's about…." Arnold hesitated. "I really shouldn't tell you about it at all, but… it's on my mind so much…."

Arnold seemed to make up his mind. He'd already drunk half his bourbon.

"It's about reflections. God! Have you ever noticed how many reflections there are all around us in the city? They're everywhere — reflections from cars, and people's glasses, and pools of water, and windows — especially the windows.

"The thing about reflections is, they're not empty."

"Huh?"

"Did you ever look into a reflection, and see a face — only the face wasn't yours?"

David nodded. "Sure. Only the face was mine, just distorted. Or maybe the face of somebody just passing by."

Arnold shook his head. "That's what they'd like us to think. But there is something else there. Something that doesn't like us."

"How do you know?"

Arnold shook his head. His slightly loose gesture told David that the man was getting intoxicated.

"I don't, unless… It's like the windows. Windows are made of glass, and glass is made of silica. We melt sand — quartz — to get pure silica. And we use quartz crystals to send messages, and to store information in computers.

"Think of all the silica in a window. And of all the windows in a city. Frequencies can go from a crystal to a crystal — why not from a window to a window? What if all that silica has a kind of mind of its own — or suppose it can trap spirits, the spirits of those who've died, and never quite made it away from the earth, like we trap a bit of information in a silica chip? And suppose that this «trapping» effect allows them to build up a kind of awareness from the spirits that are trapped — a kind of artificial intelligence? And suppose they're hostile to living humanity, because we're still alive, and we have a chance to go — wherever we go when we die. But they're trapped here in a kind of conscious prison.

"And just suppose, that the weird qualities of reflected light sometimes let us see into their prison, and see their faces… And suppose that they're dangerous."

"Dangerous? How?"

"They take people who know about them."

"How?"

Arnold leaned back and scratched his balding head. He splashed a little whiskey into his empty glass before answering.

"I don't know. But I knew a man. He drank a lot. He was on the streets a lot. He used to be a bookmaker until he got to drinking too much to handle the figures. It was he told me about them. And then, they got him."

David felt himself both intrigued and a little nervous. This talk was weird, but it was interesting.

"Just how could they get him?"

"I don't know. He had a little place, over west of the Circle. But most of the time he just walked around the streets. And one day I met him and we split a bottle, and he told me about them. The next day, he was gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone. Just disappeared. But… I saw him one day. I saw him, in the glass of a window, as it reflected a streetlight on around midnight. And he was screaming, trying to get out."

David shivered. This was pushing it a bit.

"So what did you do then?"

"Do? What could I do? I hid, that's what. 'Cause they knew about me. I just hid in my house and ate the food I had, and stayed hid, until they forgot about me. And then, when I went out again, I just didn't look at 'em."

"I shouldn't be telling you this," he went on. "They might be after me now. There might be some way they could listen."

Arnold's voice was getting foggy. The rapid drinking had gone to David's head as well.

"Can I get a drink of water?" he asked.

"Sure."

He took his glass into the kitchen, rinsed it and got a drink of the rusty tap water. It seemed like the pipes weren't used much. The one window to the kitchen had been covered with the same black plastic as was used in the living room, and as he passed the little bathroom; he saw the paler spot on the wall where the mirror had been taken down.

He walked back into the living room. Arnold seemed to be dozing. Rather than disturb him, David let himself out, softly closing the door behind him.

Most of the next day at work had been typically boring — up until the windstorm. As he sketched in the narrow white office, David's sinuses had told him that some kind of storm was near — that, and the hollowness of the sounds through his half-opened window.

Then, about an hour before quitting time, the wind came up suddenly, a quick, fierce storm filled with hail that threatened to crash through the window.

He slammed the window shut, blotted the water from his drawing table, and tried to see into the blue-green fury outside. The rain was intense, blurring visibility. He saw cars slowed to a crawl in the street below, heard occasional crashes, as of something blown down by the wind.

Then, almost as quickly as it had come, the storm faded to a light drizzle, which quickly ended.

He opened the window, breathed the storm-cleansed air.

By then, it was time to go home.

David liked to walk into work when the weather was clear. He'd walked that morning, and now was enjoying the eight-block trek back to his apartment.

The city had a pleasant, scrubbed look to it, though here and there a sign had been blown down, a garbage can overturned, a window broken out by the storm.

The trees had a green-gold furring of new leaves against their glistening dark trunks. The metallic and glass surfaces of the buildings were bright and reflective.

As he walked, he found himself noticing just how many reflections there are in a city, from the windows of the buildings, the windows of passing cars, the pools in the streets from the afternoon shower — even people's glasses, bits of metal on cars and building dressing, have some kind of reflection. Of course, if poor old Arnold's theory were correct, it was only the glass you had to worry about…

And just what did you see when you looked into a reflection? He and Jennifer had once discussed the matter in detail. You saw an image of something that was real — the sky, a face, a building, a tree — distorted by a combination of your personal angle of inspection, the reflective qualities of the surface, and whatever distortion was due to the particular type of medium and the angle of the opaque surface behind it.

Jennifer found reflections a kind of artistic challenge, with a touch of science thrown in. It was certainly a healthier attitude than Arnold's.

David was in for a surprise when he opened the door to his apartment. Jennifer had used the key he'd given her. In front of the long window was an easel, and on it, a painting. The oil was still wet. The scene appeared to be a "student ghetto" kind of neighborhood a few blocks to the northeast. He thought that he recognized the type of red-brick facings, if not the actual location. By the light in the painting, it was just after dark — or very early dawn, still a thin line of paleness in the sky.

The scene was wonderful, a clear sense of identity shrouding the old houses, the small store on the corner of the block. Could she have painted it so fast? No, she must have been working on it before, and had brought it over to complete at his apartment.

He sat down and looked at the painting for a moment. There was a sharply angled window of the little store at the left foreground that had been left blank, but for a vaguely sketched-in face. It puzzled him a little.

Then the feeling came back, the feeling of happiness. The easel with the painting was a very good sign. It seemed to indicate that she might be building a presence here. He certainly wouldn't object.

He had made a ham, tomato and lettuce sandwich, and was halfway through it and a beer, when he realized that he'd been hearing heavy footfalls on the stairs on the other side of the house for several minutes.

It seemed odd, that people would be going up and down his elderly neighbor's stairs like that.

Then he heard a set of heavy footsteps ascending his stairs.

The sound gave him a weird feeling, like the knocking on the door in… what play was that?

A heavy fist crashed into his door.

He put down his half-eaten sandwich and walked to the door, his heart pounding. Why was he so nervous? He wished suddenly that he had a heavy stick behind the door, or a chain on it…

He forced himself to open the door a crack.

The man at the door was tall, beefy, in blue police uniform. He had a friendly smile.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Sergeant Donnelly, Indianapolis Police Department. Just want to see if you could tell me something about your neighbor."

"Mr. Arnold?"

"Yeah. Mind if I come in?"

"No, sure." David backed into the room. Donnelly seemed not to look around, in that way a good policeman has of taking in everything.

"I was wondering if you could give us a lead on Mr. Arnold's next-of-kin?"

"Next-of-kin? I don't know. Did something happen to him?"

"Yeah," said Donnelly, taking out a notebook. "He died this afternoon. You know that windstorm we had?"

"Yes."

"Well, he must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the big windows at the Federal Building shattered. Piece of glass nearly cut his head off."

"Jesus!"

"Yeah. Know any of his relations?"

"No, but the landlord might." David gave Donnelly his landlord's name and phone number. "Sorry, I really didn't know him all that well. He seemed nice enough."

Donnelly shrugged. "Yeah, it's too bad. Wrong place at the wrong time."

He nodded and left the room.

A little stunned, David walked back and sat down in the chair by the window. The purplish light of early Spring dusk was coloring the pane of glass. He could just see the distorted edge of his reflection.

He idly reached down by the chair and picked up the sketchpad that Jennifer must have left behind. He riffled through it. It mostly contained studies of buildings. And the windows… In several of them she'd roughed in reflections, sometimes with what seemed to be a dimly perceived, grotesque face. The sketches had a neat kind of off-center mood to them. They were almost a parody of his own commercial sketches, and he wondered if she'd left them there deliberately for him to find.

He suddenly wanted to hear her voice very badly. He went to the low walnut table where the phone rested, brought it back to the chair, dialed her number. She answered on the first ring.

"Jennifer?"

"Yes! David! Terrific! Boy, it's been a weird day. How did you like that storm?"

"I like it," he said, visualizing the broad window shattering, the piece of glass slicing into Arnold's neck. Should he tell her about it? No. "I had a great view from my office."

"I bet. And the sheer power of the thing! And something strange happened to me coming home. I was walking by the Federal Building. They'd just put in a new pane of glass, like maybe the storm busted one out. But in the window beside it, there was this neat man's face in a reflection. He was balding, with pale bushy eyebrows, and a little mustache. And this great big arched nose."

"No!" He couldn't help blurting it out. She'd described Arnold perfectly.

"Yes! I stopped and made some sketches. I think I'll use the face in a painting."

"No, I mean… Jennifer, things have gotten a little strange…." He couldn't go on. He didn't know how to explain the sudden rush of fear — fear for her — that gripped him.

"What? How strange?"

"Nothing. I'm just a little burnt out. Coming over tonight?"

"For sure. But first I'm going to walk around a little, see what kind of reflections the windows might have. Maybe I'll see that man's face again."

"Like, I'm sure," said David in his best California accent. "Like really."

Jennifer laughed.

"I'm bound to get some good angles, anyway. It's humid out, and that might change the shapes a little."

"Sounds neat. Look forward to seeing you, as in, intensely."

"Me too. Gotta go! See you later. Bye."

And she hung up.

He slowly put down the phone. Jennifer was coming back tonight. It almost made him relax.

He tried to work, but it was hard to concentrate. He had a beer, made a sandwich. His eyes kept returning to Jennifer's sketchpad. Windows and reflections. He looked at the painting on the easel, the Sine of red brick buildings. He had an idea.

He knew the part of town she was sketching in. He'd go walking there and surprise her. And if he missed her, she could just let herself in.

He quickly wrote her a note, grabbed a jacket, and slipped down the stairs, out into the night.

The evening air felt cool and clean. He thrust his hands in the pockets of his old field jacket and began to walk quickly through the hybrid neighborhood, heading roughly northeast.

As he walked, he noticed by subtle changes whether or not the mixture of old manufacturing buildings in a certain block had been chosen by the developers. Here and there a limestone facing showed up paler in the golden-pink sodium vapor light — a sign of sandblasting. Some of the buildings had new railings at the front. In one mixed block he noticed a tall old house, the door, windows, fanlight obviously restored. He hurried on.

He was entering the neighborhood where he thought Jennifer had set her painting. Houses of red brick, two and three stories, began to line the street, now under an occasional pale streetlight of the old white electric globe variety. A few people of mixed races sat on the steps, chatting in the cool evening. From one open doorway came the sound of restored rock: "Got a bad case of lovin' you!"

Fewer people were on the street now. He was entering the eastern edge of the district, near where the city had torn out a swath of older houses to extend one of the interstates across town. Now many of the places he passed were vacant, some with windows boarded up. Someone with the look of a wino beckoned him from a shadowy doorway, but it was too dark to see the man clearly.

And he found himself getting nervous, more nervous than just being in this section of town would account for. Nobody bothered him when he was wearing his field jacket — it was a very non-affluent look. No, it wasn't himself he was worried about.

Then, just ahead, he saw Jennifer.

She was sitting cross-legged under a streetlight on a corner, sketchpad on her knees, drawing the old store building in front of her. A broad angled window faced the corner. It would probably have a good reflection.

He almost yelled as soon as he saw her. But no, no need. Barely half a block separated them now. He'd just slip up on her.

As he walked slowly forward, watching her, she stood suddenly, the sketchpad falling awkwardly to the sidewalk. As if in some weird, slow motion dance she took one step toward the window, two, her arms spread wide as if to embrace the cool glass surface.

"Jennifer!" he called, beginning to run. "Jennifer!" She didn't seem to hear him. She glided toward the window.

"Jennifer!"

He was very close to her now. She half turned her head, as if with painful effort. He thought he saw her lips form his name.

Then she stepped into the window.

He skidded to a halt. The window was intact, but she was gone. He couldn't believe it. He stood back from the window, and the angle of the streetlight caught a reflection.

And in the reflection, he saw her face, her eyes wide and sightless, her mouth jerked open in a scream of utter terror.

He had to do something. She was in the window. She had to be alive, somehow, somewhere. Got to do something, anything! Got to help her!

He saw a piece of steel pipe laying in the doorway of the old store. He picked it up. It was about two feet long, heavy. He turned back to face the window at the angle of the reflection.

And he saw her face, grotesquely distorted, mouth the words: "Help me! Heelp mee!"

Only one thing he could think of to do.

He smashed the pipe into the side of the window, near the frame.

A crack appeared. And in the instant that steel met glass, it was as if a horde of small, soft creatures like moths swarmed over his face, and he seemed to hear tiny voices, repeating, echoing:

"Help me help me help me help me!"

He smashed the bar into the glass again, and again, and again….

The police, summoned by a terrified neighbor, found two situations in one block: a man, running down the street, frantically smashing in every window he came to with a steel pipe, and a lovely young woman, who'd apparently had her throat cut, lying in the ruins of the shattered storefront window.

The first two officers on the scene were unsure if the two situations were related, but they called for backup anyway.

The street was soon filled with the blood-red reflections of the police cars' revolving lights. Armed officers cautiously approached the wild-eyed man. But he was already wearing down.

There were simply too many windows.