The Laurel Township Triangle Part 3 – The Ghost in the Mirror

[00:00:00] Lovers of horror, fans of mystery, welcome to JB's radio show, the one and only place for original fiction written and narrated by JB Cross and guest authors. For the amusement of all you creepy crawlies out there, get ready for a doozy of a story today, friends. But first, a word from our sponsor. [00:00:22] No matter what I do, I just can't get this spell right. It's the words. They're just so hard to pronounce. [00:00:29] Oh my, yes. I used to struggle with the arcane pronunciations too. That's why I downloaded the Curriculum of Incantation from Westland Online University. [00:00:39] The Curriculum of Incantation? [00:00:42] That's right. The Curriculum of Incantation is the new age way to learn that pesky arcane language so you can cast your spells with ease. It its 22 day course had me enunciating and writing like I was one of the great old ones myself. Best yet, it's only 399 blood rubies a year. [00:01:01] Only 399? That's a steal. [00:01:05] I know. Try it out. It comes with a guarantee that if you can't efficiently cast spells by 23rd week, they'll excise you for free. [00:01:15] What a deal. I'll go get mine today. [00:01:19] The Curriculum of Incantation is copyrighted by Westland Online University. All rights reserved. Offer expires summer solsticed. [00:01:30] And now our feature presentation, the Laurel Triangle Part 3 the Ghost in the Mirror we rejoin our heroes after Trixie's frightening tale of her harrowing flight through the last woods with a child in her arms. [00:01:54] Now Jared realizes that to convince his friend Frank, he must share his own troubling tale. [00:02:02] You sound crazy, frank said to Trixie after her tale was finished. He scoffed and looked away. I've seen my fair share of this crazy stuff too, but it can all be explained. Not all of it, Jared said. He took a swallow of beer and sat back in his seat. Guess it's my turn. [00:02:21] They each met his eyes momentarily, then looked away. [00:02:26] You all know I had a partner before Bill. I was a pretty new detective. Guess I had my shield for a little over a year. Some things went down and my partner he didn't make. [00:02:39] Wasn't long after that that the killings began. Real splatter houses if you know what I mean. [00:02:46] Jared's foot slipped on the blood covered floor. He steadied himself on the wall and closed his eyes. [00:02:53] Don't grow green, jay Donovan said. You look like you're going to puke. [00:02:58] Jared shook his head in reply. It was a bald faced lie. He did feel like he would puke. [00:03:05] He could taste the bile in the back of his throat, feel the butterflies in his stomach and the watering of his mouth. He did his best to bring it under control. He led Donovan through to the gore decorated dining room. At another time, the place might have been beautiful. [00:03:22] Art showing gorgeous vistas hung on the walls, overlooking a hardwood six seater dining table and ceramic tiled floors. A chandelier tied the room together with a feeling of grandeur. The entrails hanging from that crystal light fixture ruined the effect. [00:03:39] Looks like someone left the lid off the human blender, jared murmured. Just like the other scenes, one of the crime scene techs said. Jared thought his name was Kent, but it was hard to tell what the face shields they wore. The man waved a hand at the dining room, then back to the living room. [00:03:56] I think at least three bodies in this room and two in the other. Jared nodded and bent to look closer at something reflective on the big table. [00:04:04] He pointed to it and the technician picked it up with a gloved hand. It was a thick sliver of glass or crystal twinkling with rainbow color as it refracted the chandelier's light. It felt wrong. The color was diluted, fogged, though the chunk looked clean and clear. [00:04:24] Donovan leaned over his shoulder, then glanced up at the light fixture. Chandelier doesn't look damaged. [00:04:31] Jared glanced up. [00:04:33] Doesn't look right for that either. [00:04:36] Right for what, Detective? The forensic technician asked. [00:04:40] Part of the weapon, maybe, or a piece of jewelry? Donovan asked in a whisper. [00:04:45] Doubtful. But we should bag it anyway. [00:04:48] The technician frowned at Jared for a few moments, then shook his head and put the chunk of glass in an evidence bag. [00:04:55] Jared stalked toward the door leading to the hallway. A house made for the second gore smeared crime scene. In as many days, just like the previous three months, each lunar cycle went the same a gruesome murder the day before, the day of, and the day following the new moon. That meant they were due for one more bloodbath before this month was over. [00:05:16] The real problem was that they had zero leads to follow. [00:05:20] We need something from this one, jared murmured. Or we'll be stuck waiting for next month's horror show. Donovan didn't reply, but the technician they passed in the hallway stared hard at Jared with a furrowed brow. [00:05:34] The bathroom was another common denominator for all of the crime scenes, and this one was no exception. Other rooms were often covered in blood. Sometimes the living rooms or the bedrooms or the dining rooms, but never the same rooms at different murder sites. Except for the bathroom at every scene There was a mess that exploded out in a fan from the mirror, as if the mirror had burst outward to cut someone standing in front of it to ribbons. Yet the mirror was always intact. [00:06:03] Jared stepped into the epicenter of the blood fan and turned in a slow circle. There were no signs of more glass chunks, no indication that anyone else had been there. Nothing that his eyes found. The mirror. [00:06:17] This one was different from the previous scenes. It was clouded, fogged in places. [00:06:23] He stretched out a hand to wipe it away, but it wouldn't. The fog wasn't on the outside, but inside the glass. [00:06:30] He leaned close, looking to see if the dining room chunk had originated there. Then something moved in that fog. [00:06:39] He stumbled and fell backward into slippery, bloody mess. The reflection, what should have been his reflection, was not right. It looked crystalline, the angle sharp and the eyes glowing a dull green. [00:06:53] Jared blinked and it was gone. [00:06:56] You okay down there? [00:06:59] Did you see that? Jared asked. His dry throat clicked as he swallowed. What? [00:07:05] Jared pointed a trembling finger at the mirror. The man. The thing in the mirror. And. And it's clouded. Like the chunk. [00:07:14] Donovan looked from the mirror to his partner and back, but didn't answer. [00:07:18] A technician appeared in the doorway. You okay in here, Detective? [00:07:23] Yeah, all good. I just slipped. Jared got to his feet shakily. All good. [00:07:30] The technician looked unimpressed but nodded and went back to his work in the hallway. [00:07:36] Jared glanced at the mirror, then fled from the house. [00:07:42] The chill night air and flashing emergency lights greeted him outside. He hugged his overcoat to him and blinked away spots as he stumbled through the snow to the car. The cold leather of his Cavalier's driver's seat embraced him and he sat shivering, considering, as the car warmed up. [00:07:59] Really rattled you, didn't it? Donovan asked. [00:08:03] He looked up into the rearview mirror and saw his partner in the backseat for a brief second. The man's skin was gray and spotted with red splotches. His eyes were sunken and milky. His lips were dark blue. [00:08:16] Jared blinked and Donovan looked at how he remembered. [00:08:20] Yeah, jared said was all he could think to say. [00:08:26] They say that real change starts with the man in the mirror, donovan said. [00:08:31] Jared swallowed. And what do I do with the ghost in the mirror? [00:08:35] Jared stared back at him, their eyes locked in the rear view, but he didn't reply. [00:08:41] Jared slammed the Chevy in reverse and pulled out onto the street. [00:08:45] The drive home was short and silent. The radio played only white noise, and the streets were clear of traffic, although slippery after the howler of a snowstorm that rolled through the night before. [00:08:56] His mind wandered as he drove to things unsaid between friends and partners, to better avenues taken and better choices made. [00:09:04] When he reached his apartment, he trudged inside, his mind mulling not on his own past but the strange crime scene. As he passed through the front door and into the living room of his small apartment, he found Donovan sitting in the recliner. Something killed those people, obviously, jared muttered. I doubt they did it to themselves. Someone else had to be there. I didn't say someone, Jay. [00:09:28] Jared frowned, continued into the kitchen. It stank of unwashed dishes and leftover food gone to waste. He crinkled his nose and pulled a cup of ramen noodles from the cabinet. You know better than anybody that not everything is easily explained, donovan said from the kitchen table. [00:09:47] Jared didn't reply as he put water in the cup and shoved it into the microwave. [00:09:52] Might be lucky you're on this case, partner. [00:09:54] Why? You think one of them had a gun down their crooked partner, too? Think a rogue ghost cop is hiding in mirrors and jumping out to murder people? Jared asked. His lip curled as he turned to look at Donovan. His old partner kept his deadpan expression. This isn't something ordinary, jared scoffed and turned toward the dinging microwave. Ordinary? What the hell is that? He retreated back to the living room with a warm cup in hand and sank into his recliner. He scooped up the television remote and hit the power button, then froze. [00:10:27] The kitchen light cast in eerie reflections in the glass of the screen, a vision of himself in the chair of Donovan in the living room kitchen doorway of another, more sharply angled figure in the hallway that led back to the bathroom and bedroom. [00:10:43] Then the television sprang to life and the reflections were gone. [00:10:48] Jared set the cup on the small table beside him and turned slowly, a hand sliding into his overcoat, which he'd forgotten to take off to his holstered gun. [00:10:59] The hallway stood empty. [00:11:01] Jared's eyes flicked to Donovan. Did you see something? [00:11:06] Donovan only stared back at him, unable or unwilling to answer. Jared didn't know which. [00:11:13] Jared stared at the hallway for a long moment. In the gloom, he could see the bathroom door was wide open. [00:11:20] Had he left it that way? Possibly. If he had, wouldn't he have noticed it when he first entered the apartment? [00:11:28] Probably. He rose from the chair and shed his overcoat and suit jacket, letting them fall to the floor before drawing his revolver. [00:11:36] Hands trebling and body tense, Jared stepped carefully down the hallway. He avoided the creek on the left and stepped over the small hump on the floor. He paused outside the bathroom door. The air felt cold and tense, hostile, as if it wanted to hurt him. [00:11:52] The steady drumbeat of his pulse tried to drown out every other sound, but he focused, listening for signs of movement in the pitch black. [00:12:01] It was too quiet. [00:12:03] If someone was inside, they didn't move or breathe in the dark. [00:12:07] Jared steeled himself and stretched out a hand, feeling for the light switch on the inside wall. [00:12:14] Something hard and sharp grabbed his wrist and jerked him inside as his finger flipped the switch. He stumbled through the door, tense hands almost firing a surprise shot as his feet tangled. He fell hard against the tiled wall, gun held out, practiced eyes and hands searching for a target, anything that had grabbed him. But there was nothing. [00:12:36] Nothing save for an empty bathroom with a clouded, fogged mirror. [00:12:42] He felt liquid move on his arm and looked down to see gashes on his wrist. The cuts were deep and, once noticed, very painful. He winced and clambered to his feet. He wiped at the mirror, but the fog remained. He retreated to the doorway of the bathroom, his gun pointed at the mirror. [00:13:01] Do you think it will work if you shoot it? Donovan asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. [00:13:07] Jared backed up a step to stand in a hallway and slammed the bathroom door closed. No, but whatever the hell that was, it didn't seem to like the light. [00:13:17] So you're going to leave the light on and the door closed? Donovan asked. [00:13:22] Jared nodded and turned toward the kitchen. [00:13:25] I guess you'll just pee in the sink tonight. [00:13:28] Jared didn't answer. He found a thick, mostly clean dish towel and wrapped his bleeding wrist. [00:13:35] You can't just compartmentalize and forget problems, Jay, donovan said from the couch as Jared returned to the living room. [00:13:42] He settled back in the recliner with the pistol in his lap. Been working so far. [00:13:48] Donovan's deadpan expression changed to one of sarcastic agreement. Oh sure. You're a vision of mental health. Jared held up his middle finger to Donovan before reaching for his cup of noodles, feeling secure that the thing, whatever it was, was trapped in the bathroom mirror and driven to exhaustion by the long day. He fell asleep before the cup was even empty. [00:14:11] He woke in his recliner sometime later. [00:14:14] The room was lit only by the fuzzy snow of the television screen. The half eaten noodles sat on the table and the revolver still rested in a hand on his lap. [00:14:24] Donovan was nowhere to be found. [00:14:28] Jared smacked his lips at the bad taste in his mouth. Must have fallen asleep with a bite of noodles in there, and flicked off the television. [00:14:37] The room plunged into black. [00:14:40] The creak in the floor sounded from the hallway. Lights. Cried Donovan. Jared stumbled across the room and flicked out a hand to catch the switch of the living room light. The room illuminated and Jared fell backward, yelling in terror. A figure made in Jared's image but entirely of crystal or glass raced at him from the darkness, its face contorted with rage. The angles looked sharp, the fingers ended in deadly points. When the light touched it, it disappeared with a rainbow flash, as if the light had refracted it away. [00:15:14] Gerrod crawled backward until his back was against the door, gun pointed down the hallway in a trembling fist. [00:15:20] His pounding pulse and gasping breaths held a steady rhythm as all noise seemed to die in the wake of the creature's disappearance. [00:15:29] I told you that you couldn't trap your problems in a back room, donovan said. He sat on the loveseat across the room. [00:15:36] Jared took a deep breath, but his pulse refused to slow. The old pendulum clock on the wall chimed 1:00, and he jerked at the sound. [00:15:46] You have to deal with it or it's going to come back, donovan insisted. What happened to the lights? Donovan just stared at him. [00:15:55] Jared heaved himself up to trembling legs. His old partner was right. There was no way to trap that thing if it could turn lights out. He had to find a way to kill it. He inched forward, gun clenched tight and outstretched. [00:16:09] Would a bullet hurt it? The first time he'd seen Donovan after. Well, recently, he'd taken a shot at the man. All that earned him was a hole in the wall. But this thing was corporeal, physically present in a waking world. Donovan couldn't touch or be touched. He wasn't really there. He didn't really know anything that Jared didn't know. He chewed his lip. The living room light flickered as if on a power surge. [00:16:36] He glanced through the kitchen doorway and saw glass on the floor. It didn't turn off the lights. It blew them out. [00:16:43] The light flickered again. [00:16:45] You gotta do something, pal, donovan said. Clock is ticking. Jared swallowed. He took a step toward the dark hallway, then backed up again. The light flickered again, and fear turned to frustration. What do you want? Jared yelled, shaking the barrel of the gun in the darkened hallway. [00:17:05] To his surprise, the thing answered. [00:17:09] The sound was like glass scraping and clinking. Against the glass, and down the hall appeared two green orbs. [00:17:17] They glowed with a dull inner light. The sound came again. I can't understand you, jared said. [00:17:25] The sounds came again, more frantic, and he thought he made out the shape moving back and forth in a gloom just beyond the edge of light. [00:17:34] Jared fired his gun. The flash illuminated the hallway for the briefest second, and the thing disintegrated in another rainbow flash, the bullet smashed impotently against the bedroom door at the far end of the hall. [00:17:47] Then the lights flickered again. [00:17:50] Jared sobbed and fell against the wall. I can't do this. I don't even know what this is. Giving up? Donovan asked. It's not going to work this time. Then what will? Jared yelled. [00:18:03] Donovan didn't answer. [00:18:06] He sank to the floor. Revolver slipped from his fingers and he cradled his head in his hands as he rocked back and forth. He was alone. He had no weapon to fight this creature. He had no hope. [00:18:18] The lights would go out tomorrow or the next day. They would come to check on him when he didn't come to work. They would find him in chunks like the other crime scenes, just another unsolved mystery. [00:18:30] The lights went out, then sputtered back to life. [00:18:34] Donovan's voice was barely more than a whisper. [00:18:37] If you do nothing, you're going to die. If I try to fight it and lose, I'll die. Yeah, donovan agreed. But you might win. You just gotta face it, man. Face reality. Jared shuddered but looked up. [00:18:53] His old partner still sat on the couch, but he didn't wear his typical slacks, buttoned down and sport coat. He wore a raid jacket smeared with blood. A badge hung around his neck from a steel bead chain. His empty gun holster was unsnapped and somehow lonely looking. [00:19:11] Donovan looked like he did on the night he died. [00:19:14] The night I killed you, jared said. He swallowed down the lump rising in his throat. I'm sorry it was you or me. I wish it could have been me. [00:19:26] Donovan nodded. I know, pal. [00:19:30] The lights went out. The floor creaked hard. Footsteps sounded next to him. Jared covered his head with his arms and cold, sharp fingers closed around his wrist. His skin parted and blood ran freely down his arm. If there was any time to act, it was then. [00:19:47] He put his feet under him and exploded upward to stand straight. The top of his head impacted something cold and very hard, and he saw spots. Somewhere distantly, he heard the sound of glass scraping on glass again. The sharp edge on his wrist was gone. He had hit the thing. It hurt like hell, but he finally hit the thing. He sensed movement in the darkness to his left and he sprang forward. Something, the thing's hand maybe, sliced across his back, opening gashes over his shoulder blades. He rolled, ramming into the television stand and careening to the side. The creature was hot on his heels, smashing into the stand and rebounding backward with more of the glass on glass scraping sounds. Jared backpedaled blindly, groping for anything he could put between himself and the creature, his hand came down on a throw pillow. He held it up and felt the far side shred under a vicious blow. He rolled to the right, trying to get away, feeling his body roll over his overcoat. [00:20:46] The creature cut his arm, then his leg. As he rolled, the pillow took another slash, the stuffing flying out to scatter across the room. Jared could feel the searing pain, feel the blood fleeing from his body, but he also felt realization dawn. [00:21:02] This thing could be blocked, it could be hit. But it disappeared, fled from light. [00:21:09] He scrambled backward, using his dwindling pillow shield to half block more blows and groping with his free hand, he found the gun where he dropped it. Then the pillow was gone. The creature's next blow fell directly on his palm and his hand shredded. Jared screamed and threw himself forward. His shoulder burst open as he bowled the creature over. He groped on the floor and found his overcoat, hooked it with a finger and held it up, the coat as his curtain. Knowing he had only one chance, he leveled the revolver and fired. The flash illuminated the inside of the coat. The bullet tore through and hit the creature. [00:21:47] The sound of glass on glass was constant and urgent. Jared fired again, then again, using the scraping noise as a guide to track the thing's retreat. He fired once more, and he heard it fall. [00:22:01] Jared stumbled toward it and let the coat fall to cover its form. Huddled in the fetal position beside the recliner, he aimed and emptied the rest of the revolver's bullets into it. [00:22:13] The scraping sounds stopped. [00:22:17] Jared stumbled to the side, fell against the wall, and slid to the floor. His breath came ragged. Consciousness faded. Donovan whispered in his ears. Now you get it. Way to go, pal. [00:22:32] Jared woke the next day in a hospital bed. He blinked twice in confusion, then remembered what had happened. [00:22:39] The room was empty, and he was attached to more tubes than he could count. His left arm ached at the wrist, and he trembled at the thought of looking at the remains of his arm. [00:22:49] He groped with his right hand and found the alert button. A nurse appeared. Doctors followed. The captain and chief of detectives came sometime later. [00:22:59] Any idea where that guy came from, Captain Harrod? He asked. [00:23:03] Jared frowned in confusion, then realized they must have meant the thing that had been glass. He shook his head. [00:23:10] What did he use to cut you up? Chief Anderson asked. Jared shrugged. It was dark. He killed the lights somehow. [00:23:19] The chief frowned and glanced at the captain. Harrity said, understand, Detective, this is very strange. After the incident with your partner. Well, a naked man was found in your apartment. You're all cut up. He's gunned down. No other weapon. There's more to this story. Is there anything else you need to tell us? Jared shrugged. I don't know more than I told you, sir. It was dark. He attacked me. I fought back. He almost had me. [00:23:48] The chief and captain exchanged another glance. [00:23:52] Well, I'm glad you pulled through. [00:23:55] The neighbors heard the gunfire and called it in. Otherwise, Jared didn't need the man to finish. He nodded. [00:24:04] Harrity patted Jared's foot and nodded. You get well, Detective. Jared inclined his head as they left. He looked to the chair in the corner. The chair was empty. [00:24:15] I know what you do with the ghost in the mirror, Donny, jared whispered. You face it and hope for the best. [00:24:22] Donovan didn't answer, because Donovan was finally gone. [00:24:30] Jared spread his hands, the surgical scars on his left arm evident, and looked at Frank. [00:24:37] I never have had a good understanding of what happened. Hell, even how it happened. I damn sure don't have an explanation. He glanced over to see the hooded figure writing furiously again. [00:24:49] When they finished, the page flashed as it had before, and Jared felt like something left him. [00:24:56] He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. [00:24:59] What is it you're doing there? [00:25:02] The hood turned toward him, but the figure didn't speak. [00:25:06] Capturing the essence, cat said quietly. [00:25:10] Jared considered that, then nodded. [00:25:13] I feel like I lost something. Like it won't be there to scare me when I close my eyes anymore. Cat nodded slowly. [00:25:22] Jared looked at the hooded figure. You're some sort of magician, then? A sorcerer come to bind them all into that book? [00:25:29] In a sense. [00:25:32] Can that thing not speak? Frank asked, still sounding incredulous. [00:25:38] Cat didn't flinch away from his tone. You wouldn't like his voice. Trust me. [00:25:45] Bill looked around the room, then settled on Frank. [00:25:49] Why don't you give it a shot now, Frankie? Frank's lip curled and he looked down at the floor. Then he stood and moved toward the door. [00:25:58] He paused with his hand on the handle and turned back. [00:26:01] All right, I got one for you. [00:26:11] Join us next time for the exciting continuation of the Laurel Triangle, Episode four the Squatter. [00:26:19] If you'd like to have our complete works in big continuous episodes or in print, visit our website. We've also got some bonus stories and other treats available for you there. Catch up with us anytime over on X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. We'd love to hear from you. Till then, remember, don't be too loud at night. Always lock your doors, and never stare at the moon.