“Who’s there?” I called.
And a voice answered, and I thought it sounded like the voice of a little girl.
I’m here, it said. Can you see me?
I moved the flashlight, trying to find the source of the voice.
Here. I’m here. Behind you.
And when I spun there was a mirror, and in the mirror I saw a child, her hair matted and dirty, her red dress torn. Farther back I saw another little girl, with pale cheeks and torn skin. The girl who had spoken pressed herself to the mirror as though it were glass, and I saw her skin flatten against it.
He’s here, she said. He never left.
From the corner of my eye I saw a darkness pass across the mirror in the dining room. It was the figure of a man, blurred like a bad projection. It moved quickly, shifting from mirror to mirror, progressing toward the hallway.
He’s coming, said the little girl, and then she and her companion were gone.
I raised my gun. It seemed that everywhere I looked there was movement, and I thought I heard a child’s voice raised in fear.
I shook my head. Now the sounds came from below me, from the basement, and I made my way toward them. In the mirror upon the door, I saw myself trapped in the Grady house that never was. The stairs to the basement descended before me. The flashlight beam illuminated strands of cobweb, the stone floor, and a single chair that stood beneath the empty light socket. It was small, too small for an adult to use, but the perfect size for a child. There were more mirrors on the walls here, but they showed no beautiful furnishings, no carpets or drapes. This was Grady’s killing place, and he had no need of beauty here. I passed from mirror to mirror, my light angled away from the glass. I saw myself reflected, again and again and again.
And for a brief instant I saw another man’s face, suspended behind mine, before it retreated once again into the shadows. I raised my gun, aimed it at the glass-
Then stopped. There came the sound of footsteps above me, approaching the cellar door through the main hallway. I killed the flashlight and retreated into the darkness, just as another light came from above. I heard a man’s breathing, and the creaking of the banister rail as he placed his weight upon it, and then his figure came into view. He was a big man, and over his left shoulder he carried a sack. The sack was moving.
“Almost there,” he said.
The flashlight jogged in his hand as he reached the floor of the basement. Gently, he placed the sack on the ground, then unscrewed the head of the flashlight so that its bulb became a candle, and in its glow I saw his face.
“Don’t move,” I said, as I emerged from the darkness by the stair.
Chief Grass didn’t look as surprised as he should have done, under the circumstances. Instead, his eyes had a slightly glazed look to them. I saw the gun in his left hand, previously hidden from me by the sack. It was lodged against the head of the child inside.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “He won’t like it.”
“Who won’t like it?” I said.
“Mr. Grady. He doesn’t like strangers in his home.”
“What about you? Aren’t you a stranger too?”
Grass snickered. It was an unpleasant sound.
“Oh no,” he said. “I’ve been coming here for a long, long time. It took a while for Mr. Grady to begin to trust me, but once he did, well, everything was fine. We talk a lot. He’s lonely. I brought him some company, some new blood.”
He kicked the sack, and the child within gave a muffled cry.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Lisette,” replied Grass. “She’s very pretty, but then, you’ve seen her picture.”
Pretty.
I heard a distant voice echo the word, and in the mirror at Grass’s back I saw John Grady reflected. His fingertips pressed against the glass, flattening as the dead child’s skin had done, and he stared down at the shape of the little girl moving feebly in the sack. I saw his prominent chin, curved and jutting, his neat hair, the little stained bow tie at his neck. His lips moved constantly in a litany of desire, the words now unintelligible but their import clear.
“It’s the house, Grass,” I said. “It’s making you do this. It’s wrong. You know it’s wrong. Put the gun down.”
Grass shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “Mr. Grady-”
“Grady is dead,” I said.
“No, he’s here.”
“Listen to me, Grass. Something in this house has affected you. You’re not thinking clearly. We need to get you out. I’m taking the girl, and then we’re all going to leave.”
For the first time, Grass looked uncertain.
“He told me to bring her. He chose her. Out of all the girls I showed him, he chose this one.”
“No,” I said. “You imagined it. You’ve spent too long here. Everything about this place is poisonous, and somehow it’s burrowed into your mind.”
Grass’s gun wavered slightly. He looked from me to the girl on the ground, then back again.
“It’s infected your thoughts, Grass. You don’t want to hurt this little girl. You’re a cop. You have to protect her, just like you protected Denny Maguire. Let her go. You must let her go.”
But I was not sure that I believed all that I was saying, for I saw John Grady’s eyes turn upon me in the mirror, and his lips formed the single word:
No.
Grass seemed to hear it, and the doubt left his eyes. He forced the gun harder against the girl’s skull, then lifted the sack up, holding his prize beneath his arm as he began retreating up the stairs. I followed him all the way, reaching the top of the steps as he moved into the hallway, his back to the wall as he made for the safety of his vehicle parked outside.
Two figures blocked the doorway.
“Now where do you think you’re going?” said Louis. He stood on the porch with his gun raised before him. Angel knelt below him, his own gun pointed at Grass. Seconds later, I added a third.
Grass stopped, caught between us.
“Let her go,” I said. “It’s all over.”
Grass was shaking his head, muttering something that I couldn’t understand. He stared straight ahead and saw his reflection in the mirror. I couldn’t see what he was looking at because the angle was wrong, but it was clear from the expression on his face that I wasn’t the only one hallucinating in the Grady house.
“Chief, you rescued Denny Maguire from here,” I said. I could hear the desperation in my voice. “Remember? You brought him out. You saved his life. You saved a child’s life. You’re not a killer. This is not you. It’s the house. Listen to me. It’s not your fault. It’s something in the house.”
Slowly, Grass released his grip on the sack and let it fall to the floor, although his gun remained pointing at it. I could hear the girl crying, but I thought that I could also hear another voice. It was whispering, spilling foul words into Grass’s ear.
“Don’t listen to him,” I said. “Please. Just put the gun down.”
Grass’s face crumpled. He began to cry, and I was reminded of Denny Maguire weeping in his bar: two men, linked by the evil of John Grady.
“Chief,” I said.
He raised the gun and pointed it at the mirror before him.
“Put it down,” I said.
Grass was sobbing now.
“This is not a house,” he said.
He cocked the pistol-“This is not a house,” he repeated-and turned to look at me as the gun suddenly swung toward him, the muzzle coming to rest against his temple.
“This is-”
He pulled the trigger, and the walls went red.
IX
The figure behind the mirror stared at me as I knelt down and undid the rope that held the sack closed. The girl from the picture lay inside, her hands and feet tied and a red bandana gagging her mouth. I undid the gag first, then her hands and feet, but I did not let her look at the mirror behind me, or at the body of the man who had brought her to this place.