Scene Through a Glass

Sheriff Roadsmen will be here soon.
In what remains of my mind I wonder what he will think of this house and the horrors that await him. In some way I feel sorry for him. He's an old man now, years of peaceful service to this little town. He doesn't deserve to be the one to have to deal with the aftermath of what has happened. But maybe no one deserved to have this happen in the first place. So he'll just be one more tainted innocent thrust into darkness by that damn piece of glass.
That fat bastard Eric is lying next to the front door. That'll be the first thing the Sheriff will see when he comes in. Not that Eric is really fat anymore. Not after having so much of himself removed and spread across the living room walls.
Then there's Ambrose in the hallway. And in the bathroom. And in the dining room. And the garage out back.
Little Devon's screams still ring in my ears. That poor boy. I'm sure the smell will lead Sheriff Roadsmen to open up the fireplace eventually.
Beverly is in the upstairs bedroom, her eyeless face staring out from between the sheets. Well except for her breasts, those big suckers were stuffed inside the microwave.
It'll take the Sheriff a while to make his way to the downstairs, and by then the rats might have had a field day with what's left of Annette. He's going to need dental records to identify her.
Then there's Alex. Oh my sweet Alex. I can't help but wonder how they'll get him down from there. It took so many nails to hold him up.
Of course Brad's body is in the backyard deep in the rosebushes. I figure they won't find him till they look down from the broken window that cut his body into ribbons.
I'm not sure if anyone will ever find Tanya. I'm not sure anyone could ever find Tanya. I'm not sure anyone should ever find Tanya.
I know they'll blame it on me, that's why I have to write this. To try and let them know. They have to destroy it, have to find a way to break it or melt it or bury it forever. I have to make them understand. I didn't kill them, not technically. They had to die, they wanted to die. If you had seen what they had seen then you would too. There was no way to live with that image in their heads. Of course, Eric got the glass originally, but since Alex and mine house was the only one that had a window the same size it was done here. But it was Tanya and I who decide to try and spook everyone, so maybe in that way it is slightly my fault. It's just that we didn't believe it would work.
Life can become so boring when you are hitting around 40 and every day seems the same. You work your job and drink your wine and watch TV as you go to sleep. We all used to be such the adventurous group. But time dulls the flames of youth. Till one day it's your 43rd birthday and you can't think of anything you've really done since collage. It was Eric, graying and growing fatter every year, who suggested we reinvoke our old fear club. Back when we would spend the night at graveyards. Or sit up all night watching horror movies. Researching serial killers. Writing letters to those in custody. Always something to take the breath away. Tanya actually went so far as to join a mortuary school for a year. We had stopped after Ambrose got sent to jail for grave robbing that time. I still have that necklace somewhere. I should have worn it tonight.
But what had thrilled us as young adults seemed to hold no terror anymore as adults. Oh, we weren't about to do anything too stupid. All of us have grown up so much. No graveyards or breaking into a funeral home. Yet the safe activities held no fun. Movies just didn't scare us anymore. Nor did books or paintings. Not the way they used to. It was if as we aged we lost something inside of us. Traded it for maturity. That spark inside us that we had once cherished so much.
I don't know where Eric got the glass. He didn't say. But we all knew what glass it was. In the world of horror it was a legend. The rumors about it was that if you looked through it on the right night after saying the right things it would let you see other places. It was supposedly created in Asia in a place called Leng. Sounded like fun.So Alex decided to install it in the attic window. We had to wait till the winter solstice to try it though, according to the legends. It was while we were waiting for that day that Tanya and I came up with our plan. I think it was because of Eric. He had gotten so smug over the years. He spoke in that annoying lawyer voice, always making you feel like he was talking down to you. It just grated on our nerves. So we figured that if we took his little piece of glass and made it seem real maybe we could make him choke on his words. Oh, we didn't want to hurt anyone, just find a way to bring back the feeling we once had, that beautiful feeling of terror that seemed so far away now.
So after Alex had installed the glass in the attic window Tanya and I went to work. We added another layer of glass behind it, with a small walk area between the two pieces of glass. It was difficult, especially since we could only work on it when Alex wasn't home. It took the better part of the month. Then we had a painting of a desert landscape put on a large tapestry. It was very realistic looking. We installed it in the space against the back glass, so that Tanya could stand in front of it and appear to be on a different place than the window should be looking at. I have to admit the effect wasn't that great, but we figured that between the dim light in the attic and the state of mind everyone would be in when they saw it it should work just fine.
Tanya would be wearing a rag robe and a yellow mask. This was another part of the legend. One of the places that the glass was supposed to allow one to see was the dwelling of the King in Yellow. He was a bit of a mythological character of the occult. Not much was known about him, and what was would make a priest shudder.I still remember everyone getting here. What a group we made. Alex and I were dressed to the hilt. He had on a full old time tuxedo, with top hat and tails. I had on a green and blue dress that looked straight out of a medieval picture. Ambrose and Devon came next. Ambrose was in his military suit that they use for formal occasions. While Devon wasn't part of our old group he came with his dad since even at 15 he was a big fan of horror. He dressed as a swashbuckler, right down to having a sword on his hip. I just loved his cape.
Next to arrive was Brad. He looked so handsome in his arabian outfit. An avid exercise freak his body more than filled out the costume in a nice way. Speaking of filling out, Beverly came in just behind him. My god, that woman filled out her shirt almost obscenely. Dressed as a gypsy I felt jealous of the way her figure had seemed to improve over the years. While I had begun to show signs of sag and weight gain she looked like she could be in movies. Of course no movie starlet had that much up front, it hurt my back just looking at it. Poor little Devon was practically drooling over her. Of course so were all the other men, but he hadn't learned how to hide it.
Eric was late of course. He and Annette drove up a good half and hour after every one else. I could tell by the look on my poor friends face that he had been being his usual charming self. That's one of the curses of not being able to drive, and since Eric was the only one who passed by her house on the way she got stuck dealing with him. If it weren't for the fact that Alex still considered Eric his little buddy I doubt any of us would have stayed friends with him over the years. He was wearing what was supposed to be almost royal robes, but on him it looked more like a purple tent. Annette, in contrast, looked positively adorable in her japanese kimono. She must have spent hours on the makeup.
We had dinner, which I must say I outdid myself with. The roast duck was perfect, and the wine flowed freely.
Everyone was a little disappointed when I said that Tanya had been forced to work for the night. As a nurse it made perfect sense and no one questioned the lie. Only I knew that she had been upstairs since before Alex had gotten home from work and was just waiting for us to start. I was nice enough to run her up a plate of food while everyone was eating.
Of course all anyone talked about was the glass. Eric wouldn't tell us how he got it, and in truth I doubted that it was real. Yet he did say that it had been involved in a missing persons case he'd dealt with not long ago. This made me suspect that he had used illegal means to come by it. That made me nervous. At my age I wasn't interested in explaining to the police what I was doing with stolen propery or missing evidence. But we had come too far and I figured that after tonight we be giving it back to Eric. Giving it back with interest in fact.
I have to admit, Tanya looked almost freaky in her outfit. She hid against the attic wall as we all headed upstairs. All she had to do was wait till Alex had said the ritual and then she'd pull a cord to make the desert backdrop fall. I figured when everyone saw her in her outfit against that desert landscape it should make a few hearts beat faster.We almost didn't do it in fact. I had underestimated how much wine we went through.
Alex kept trying to be frisky with me. Annette had to be helped up the stairs. Brad wasn't feeling well. He said he felt nauseas, and boy did he look it. Ambrose was getting mad because damn Beverly was having fun torturing poor Devon. The kid was doing his best to hide the effect she was having on him. Of course it made him walk a little off. I think she thought it was funny, but Ambrose looked about ready to spit. At one point she stopped right in front of Devon and bent down to fix her shoes, and his whole face went red as he could see right down her blouse. Ambrose just about left on the spot.Oh, how I wished he had. I wish now that something had gone wrong, that we hadn't gone through with it.But we did. Alex pulled out the old leather bound book of so called spells. The moon was coming right in through the window, it made the whole attic look bright. The whole group was on their toes with anticipation. I still don't think any of us expected anything, but just to be trying something like this was giving the old nerves a tingle. Alex started reading a the clock began to strike midnight.
It was then, I think, that I knew something was wrong. The air started to feel almost greasy. It became hard to breath. I could feel the hairs on my neck standing up. Could I have stopped it then? Would it have been possible to make Alex stop reading? I'm not sure. I think once some things have started there's just too much momentum to bring them to a halt.
The glass went misty. Like if someone had just gotten out of the shower. I could swear I heard someone scream, far off. Like I was hearing it in a dream. Then the glass began to clear. Part of me still expected to see Tanya and the desert scene.
It wasn't.
I looked like some kind of throne room. It resonated with ancient age. There was dust coating everything. It reminded me of pictures of the pyramids, not in look but in that feel of distant time. A feeling of aeons passed, or distances and passages of time that the human mind can't, or won't, imagine. There was a chair. A very regal looking chair. yet also in a state of disrepair. The arms were cracked and the velvet was rotted. You almost expected it to fall apart if touched. Yet it must have been sturdy, or else he couldn't have been sitting on it.
I couldn't begin to tell you how big he was. It seemed like he was both emancipated and yet at the same time his presence filled the whole world. He was dressed in rags that at one time may have been royal robes. They were of course Yellow. His face was covered by the mask. It was palid that mask, but I couldn't tell you what it looked like. The harder you stared at it the more it seemed to shift beneath your gaze. Yet you could feel the horror of his gaze, even though I don't think you could see his eyes. It felt like he was filling your mind, filling your soul. I couldn't breath. There was something about him that drew you to him. He radiated rage and madness and terror. Yet there was also a deep feeling of sadness emanating from him too.
Then I noticed her. She sat at his feet with her head against his knee. Her eyes were bleeding, just a flow of seemingly neverending blood. She was dressed in rags like him. I knew it was Tanya. I didn't know how she had gotten with him, but I knew she was lost. Her face was slack, yet even through the blood that came from them I could see the desperation in her eyes. The almost bottomless fear. She was aware of what had happened, and it had snapped her mind. My best friend of the past twenty years was in hell right in front of me.
Then the King reached out. His hand passed through where the glass should have been, right from his throne room into our attic. He touched me. I could feel his withered hand, more like a shriveled claw, as it touched my shoulder. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, but all I could do was stand there and watch him caress me. I knew then. I knew he wanted us all. Wanted us there next to him, sitting on the floor to worship him as Tanya was doing. We would be his royal court. Forever at his feet. Forever bonded to him in all his despair and grotesque majesty.
Brad is who broke the spell. He dove for the glass. I was sure he would crash straight into the throne, go right into the glass the same way that the King had reached out of it. But he didn't. The glass didn't break either though. Instead Brad passed right through it and crashed out the glass that Tanya and I had built behind it. I could see the broken glass cutting into his skin, as if it was all in slow motion. Slicing him open, piericing his face and body. Cutting him to shreds. Then he fell. I could picture him crashing into the rose bushes at the base of the back wall of the house. Yet he never made a sound.
The King wasn't there anymore, it was back to just being glass again. The horror we had seen was gone, but not inside of us. I could still see him in my mind, could still feel his touch against my skin. Somehow the glass from Leng was still intact. Somehow his image was still in our eyes. Burned there as if we had looked at the sun.
Beverly started to scream, big gasping screams that just didn't stop. Alex wept. I felt so bad for him. All I could think was that he would end up in that room with the King for eternity. It was then that I knew what had to be done. That none of us could live to be drawn into that horrible place. Devon ran down the stairs. He was clawing at his ears. I looked around and saw Alex's tool box. Eric looked at me, and I knew he understood. So we went to work, holding back the madness as we dealt with each of them. Freed them from what the future held. I could never had done it without his help. None of them resisted. They knew it was for the best.
It was after they were all done, after they had all be allowed to escape the vision in their minds, that I took care of Eric. But in a way that was the worst of it. Because he said something as the last of the life drained from his eyes, with his intestines drying against the wall. His last words to me as he left this world. They have left me in a panic.
That's why I sit here waiting for Sheriff Roadsman. Why I can't finish the job on myself. His last words that convinced me that living with this horror is the better alternative. I have to convince them to lock me away for eternity. To live my life out in a room somewhere, where I can try and figure out a way to deny this fate that awaits me. I can't die. I mustn't. The others, the poor souls that I have damned. I must live to find a way to free them, and to free myself.
"He's waiting for us in the beyond...."
It was the last thing that fat bastard said to me. He could see the King past the darkness. I must live, I won't join his court. I'll find a way to beat him. To escape. I did nothing wrong, I don't deserve this fate.
Oh God help me find a way.

The following trascript was entered into evidence in the case of Helena Elliot. Despite these writing and the fact that she had to be kept sedated throughout the trial, Mrs. Elliot's insanity plea was rejected by the court. Due to the severe violence of her crimes she was sentenced to death and executed by the state 11/13/05. The Elliot's estate has become property of the state and will be auctioned off next month.