Reflection

Susan is a creature of habit. She wakes up at six o'clock every morning work day or weekend. She showers then wakes her husband and kids up on the way to the kitchen to make breakfast. She gets in her car every morning to go to work at 7:20 and arrives at almost exactly 7:45, barring traffic lights. On Tuesdays she has lunch with her best friend at the same steakhouse. Every other lunch break she spends at her desk eating either a packed sandwich or salad with either carrots or Wheat Thins. She comes home at the same time everyday and immediately begins supper. After supper is done and her kitchen is straightened to her approval she joins her family in the living room and they usually watch TV. Usually television shows, not movies, Susan likes ritual and television provides that, the same programs on at the same time every week. Saturday is movie night though, but Susan refuses to watch until after supper. She sends her two children to bed at nine o'clock. Jake usually walks upstairs to their bedroom at about ten, but not all the time, he doesn't cling to habits as hard as she does. Susan watches the news at ten and then turns in for the night.
Between two and three in the morning Susan wakes up to go to the bathroom. This is part of her habits. Her bladder is not always as willing to accept her habits and occasionally she awakes at this time not even having to go to the bathroom, but she does anyway. Her mind needs the habit. But tonight the bladder is cooperating and she rolls ritually out of bed, bowing to her habits for the last time.
Her bedroom is the last door down the upstairs hallway; the next door is the bathroom. The only other door upstairs leads to her daughter's room, at twelve the eldest of her two children. Patrick's room is downstairs, he occasionally begs his mother to let his sister and him switch bedrooms, but why upset the routine. A dim night light is plugged into an outlet between Gabrielle's room and the bathroom, it casts enough light to be sure she will not step on any Legos or little green army men, but Patrick rarely plays up here anyway. Both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms are large, that and the kitchen were selling points when they had looked at the house seven years ago. The main difference between the two is the upstairs bathroom has a Jacuzzi tub.
Jake never turns on the light when he goes to the bathroom at night. "I don't like the way the light wakes me up." He said to her as she mopped the floor around the toilet one morning. Susan did turn on the light, the fluorescent one over the sink, not the large one, even though there was little chance of her pissing on the floor. If she had not, she might never have saw anything and this night might have turned out differently.
After draining her bladder she walked to the sink, turned on the water, washed her hands, dried them, and then washed her face, refreshing herself before she headed back to bed. Susan believed it was impossible for a woman to walk out of bathroom without looking themselves over in the mirror. Depending on the circumstances this look could take anywhere from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes. Seeing as how she was going back to bed and not out to eat or headed off to work, she opted for the cursory ten second glance for blackheads or new wrinkles. She was last in here examining her reflection not four hours ago, so the only changes were her bright blue inquisitive eyes were now dull and her sandy blonde hair was disheveled. 
Deciding that even in her bleary state she still did not look a day over her thirty-one years, her hand move up to turn off the light, but stopped.
The sink and mirror stood directly in front of the doorway, so looking into the mirror you could see out the door. Actually you could even see the towel shelves on one side of the door, but on the other side the opened door took up the rest of the view. Outside the door in the hall there was nothing to see but the eggshell wall with dim light starting to die as it stretched down the hall toward her bedroom. There was no table or any other piece of furniture to block the light on its march up the hall. Nothing to cast long shadows on the wall, but there was a shadow there. If she had not spent every night for seven years standing in front of this mirror, she might not have even noticed, but she did. She could have written it off as something Jake or one of the children left in the hall, but that had never happened before, at least not that she noticed. But there was something else too, it moved.
When she had noticed it, it seemed to be getting large as if coming closer. Then as if it had sensed her awareness it stopped moving. Now it swayed, not rhythmically like something being blown by a fan or vent, but like something anxious. Anxious to be off, tottering back and forth to keep the blood flowing. Also, it seemed to grow and deflate, not a lot, but noticeable. Like it was breathing in and breathing out, heavily, but she heard nothing. After a few seconds the swaying stopped, but the slow pulsating still remained.
Susan was frozen, her hand still hung in the air begging to be allowed to turn the light off. Her eyes were locked on the figure, "No that's not right," she thought, "it's not a figure, it's just a shape." If she took her eyes off of it, it would pounce and she would be dead before any sound could escape her lips. If she flipped the light it would use her sudden blindness to the dark and slip behind her and wrap its hand, tentacles, claws, or whatever it had around her neck. With every bit of will that she wasn't using to watch the thing she listened as hard as she could, but all she could hear was the hammering of her heart. If it was breathing it wasn't making a sound. That was hard to believe looking at it; if it was breathing it had to be hard. She imagined breath coming out of a mouth full of razor sharp teeth so thick and disgusting that it was actually a green wisp of smoke. She sniffed the air, but there was nothing there but the faint smell of her almost out of date Plug-in.
"This is crazy, I am crazy." The thought came to her suddenly and she felt childish, but still terrified. "I'm sleepy and I'm seeing things. I am not five years old and the coat in the corner is not a monster." Recalling the screams that awoke her one night from her five year old. He had spent the previous night with his grandmother and stayed up watching scary movies after she went to bed. It took a month for him to sleep through a whole night. But he was five years old, she was thirty-one, and this was not a monster, it was a coat. Maybe it was one of his damn Barney dolls, the pulsating and tottering were not breathing and swaying, it was probably just the night light starting to go out and flickering. This made so much sense and she started to smile to herself, her heartbeat began to slow, and the intensity of her gaze started to wane. She knew that if she walked out there right now and looked up the hallway she would see a purple dinosaur sitting in the floor between the nightlight and the bathroom. As soon as the thought of going out in the hall occurred to her, her heart picked up pace and new fear washed over her.
She knew if she stood there the fear would build again and she would have to rationalize herself back to adulthood. She had to end it. Her hand was still hung in the air and it just occurred to her that her shoulder ached from hanging there so long. So she flipped the light switch.
"Uhah." She was so horrorstruck that the sound was barely more than a whisper. She did not know what she was trying to say, but this sound was all she could get out of her mouth.
This time there was no mistaking it. It definitely got bigger, or closer, probably closer. It had to be standing just out of view, whatever it was. The images her mind created were dreadful and even though she just went to the bathroom a little urine squirted into her panties. It had moved, there is something there, Barney couldn't have moved. Her mind was not playing tricks on her. When she saw it move the first time she could have been still half asleep, but fear had woken her, sharpened her senses. Something was there and it was still pulsating, or breathing.
It had obviously heard her, but why should that matter? Why did that make it stop? It had to be bigger than her. Shadows can play size tricks on you, but if it was a monster or the boogeyman, they don't care if you see them. Maybe it was a person.
In a low, shaky voice, "Jake, Patrick, Gabrielle?"
She waited a moment, her eyes never leaving the mirror and the shape. The whole time she watched this it was in the mirror. She hadn't even dared the half second it would have taken her to turn around; she knew that half second would be all it would take to get her. There was no rational reason for thinking this, but then again there wasn't anything about this that was rational. After a few long seconds, where she started to think about what next, she got an answer.
"Aaaaaahhh."
It wasn't loud, but it was deep. Much like her first response it wasn't an answer, but just a sound, a horrible sound, but told her all she needed to know. There was no green smoke coming around the doorway to put an exclamation on this, but she knew that if she could see around the corner she would see the green smoke and worse the long sharp teeth opened in a horrible smile and that would be the last thing she saw. Tears began to run down her cheeks and her vision got blurry, but she did not blink, look away, or close her eyes. She wanted to live.
"Please don't hurt me."
The low, shaky voice again, but you could hear the tears too. It moved again, she knew this was it. It was through playing games with her, it would move now, she would see it. It would be worse than her mind could even imagine, teeth, claws, eye(s), tentacles, forked tongue, and parts she couldn't identify. She would be so overcome by terror she wouldn't even make a sound; she would meet her end quietly. "This is the way the world will end, not with a bang but with a whimper." She thought to herself, only she wouldn't even be able to whimper. All the people she would never see again and all the things she would never do ran through her mind. Then, it moved.
It didn't move toward her, but it did move. She stiffened as if Riga mortise had already set in her. Then it started to move away. As its shadow faded on the wall, it began to drag something along the wall, a tail, arm, claw, or who knew what, the sound made bumps break out all over her body and she shook violently, losing sight for a second, then it was gone.
The mirror showed nothing now but the dim hallway lit with a cheap children's night light. Yet even with this reprieve she remained frozen unable to move. Her body still waited for the deathblow even though there was no longer anything there to deliver it. Her mind raced into gear, "Shut the door, shut it now! Move Bitch." her mind screamed at her. Yet a few more agonizing seconds passed with her still frozen. Then she turned, stretched and slammed the door in quick motion. The next second she locked it. She turned back to the mirror that had just moments ago shown her a horrible mystery, but could see nothing in the dark, not even her reflection. A child's fear of the dark and unknown compound her own fears and she flipped the light switch. This time she turned on the large one that illuminated the room with two bulbs of 75 watt, soft, white light. Her reflection met her gaze, and made her jump out of surprise.
Five minutes ago this reflection was one of a beautiful young woman, even in her sleepy, groggy state. The vision of herself she now beheld was that of a middle aged woman who looked sick. She was pale, shaking, and puffy eyed, and looked as if she had sprouted a few new wrinkles. With her back still to the door she slid down until her butt connected with the floor. She crossed her arms over her knees, dropped her forehead to them until she was staring straight at the hard wood floor and backs of her slim ankles and feet, and began to cry. Not soft crying, but really letting it flow. She cried that way for almost an hour, then just sat that way with her eyes close and eventually fell asleep.
"Oh my God, it's back. It's pounding at the door. Oh God. Oh God. What do I do? Please?"
"Susan, are you all right?"
Jake's voice. The hammering that had immediately started in her chest began to subside. Susan wiped her eyes and tried to focus. She shook her head, trying to shake the cobwebs loose.
"Suse?"
She could hear the concern and maybe a little agitation in his voice.
"What's going on baby? Are you all right in there?"
"I'm fine."
That wasn't good, horrible answer. She was pretty fucking far from fine. What was she going to do though? Open up the door, fling her arms around him, and tell him how glad she was to see him. How glad she was just to see daylight. "Oh honey, you'll never believe it, the boogeyman tried to get me last night. Finally he left; I was too scared to come out of the bathroom so I stayed in here all night. Can we move out of here today? You and I will take the day off work, go house hunting and stay in a hotel until then ok.", that sounded ridiculous. She was pretty sure she could get Jake to finally believe that she saw something, she would never get him to believe it was the boogeyman or monster, maybe a burglar or some teenager trying to sneak a peek at her in her underwear, but not a bonafide honest to goodness, suck out your eyeballs monster.
"I'm fine." She stated again trying to sound as calm and normal as she could. "I was just feel'n a little sick. Let me get a quick shower and I'll be right out."
"Ok. Don't take to long though or I'll be late for work. You sure you ok, it sounded like you were cryin."
"No I wasn't crying." She might have sounded a bit too defensive then. "I'll be out in a few minutes."
She did take a shower and it felt great. Most sane and rational people when confronted with something truly terrifying will begin to believe the worst parts of it were their imagination. The will often say they don't really remember what happened when they actually remember it perfectly. They will assume that their mind has made up most of it, but it hasn't. After a while they will delude themselves into thinking it wasn't really that bad. There imagination will start to work then to create something that is different from what really happened, but something that the human intellect can process as plausible. Only in horrible nightmares will they recall what really happened anymore.
Susan was sane and rational; she was not to the point where she didn't think she saw something last night. As the water fell over her body washing away her dried tears and piss, her fears and certainty began to go down the drain with the water. She got out of the shower, toweled off and put her robe on, and almost felt normal and safe again. Jake knocked at the door again.
"Suse, are you almost done?"
She opened the door and gave her husband a kiss.
"Hey, I don't want whatever you got." He said playfully pulling back. "You look alright. Hell, you look sexy."
"I feel fine, I was just a little nauseous, but it passed."
Jake kissed her and swatted her butt as she walked toward the bedroom to get dressed. The kids were already up, and by the time she got dressed and made it down stairs they had already downed a couple of Poptarts and were on their way out the door. She fixed herself a bowl of cereal, cut an orange, and poured a glass of milk. She sat eating and reading the paper. A few minutes later Jake emerged. He grabbed a cereal bar, gave her a kiss on the cheek and head out the door. Just a few seconds after the door had shut behind him the realization that she was in the house all alone set in. She tossed her paper aside grabbed what was left of her orange and headed out.
On her way out the door she passed the mirror that was right beside the door. It had a little dish underneath where they put their keys. Looking in the mirror you could see back into the living room. The upstairs was visible from the living room and was visible from this mirror as well. There was a flicker of something up there. Yesterday she might have turned around walked up stairs to try and find out what it was, but today a shudder ran down her back and she walked out the door with out a second glance in either the mirror or over her shoulder.

The door to the bathroom stayed shut, always. Later the same day after it had all happened Gabrielle walked out of the bathroom and left the door open. Susan snapped at her to close it. No one questioned her about her outburst. Everyone knew that mom liked the house just so and even though keeping the door closed seemed to be a new thing, they immediately adapted to closing it.
Susan no longer went to the bathroom at night and never used the upstairs one at all. She began to refrain from drinking anything after dinner. Still she awoke every night, but she did not get out of bed. Hell, she didn't even open her eyes most nights. She'd just lay there with her eyes shut until she fell back to sleep.
Sleep did not elude her the way one might think it would after such a traumatic event. The first night she followed Jake up to bed at ten. Once they laid down she wrapped an arm around him, laid her head on his shoulder, and watched the rise and fall of his chest until she drifted off. All of this may see seem strange, considering less than twenty-four hours ago, she thought she was about to be eaten alive. But she felt secure next to Jake. Of course the thing would have ripped her to shreds and would have had little more trouble with Jake as well, but all the same she felt comforted. There was another thing too, Susan's mind made a connection between the bathroom and the monstrosity. It never would have come to her, or would come to her again as long as she avoided the bathroom. The last and probably most important reason she could sleep was the fact that she had never laid eyes on the thing. All she had was her imagination and the rated R monster was quickly becoming PG-13.
Life went on for Susan. She never did settle back into habits though. This could be viewed as good and bad. Without her steadiness of habits she became disconnected and restless. Her family noticed this on some level, even Patrick. But life seem more adventurous to her. She could not predict what she would feel like doing next. This at times made her moody and disagreeable, but more often than not it made her spontaneous and fun. Her family most assuredly noticed this and liked the improvement.
Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. After six months the memory of what happened felt more like the memory of a nightmare than anything that had actually happened. She did know that it was not just a nightmare. The sound that the thing made would not leave her and perhaps that alone made her acknowledge the reality of what happened.
Susan was ambitious and practical, she was going to move beyond this event and get on with her life. She would not live her life in fear and let it drive her to madness. That is why she never even suggested moving. The simplest and most practical solution was simply to avoid the bathroom when possible. She would still go in to clean it from time to time, but only on the weekend when everyone was home and she often enlisted Patrick's help just for comfort.
Growing up she always disregarded her own needs and wants for the sake of her younger sister who was so often sick. In college she worked forty hours a week and took the maximum hours she could pushing herself beyond most people's breaking points both mentally and physically. Early in her career she let her family sacrifice by working extra long hours and weekends to make a name for herself, all the time ignoring her guilt. After five years of a strained marriage which she took full responsibility for, the last five years have been great. Everything had been worth it, all the sacrificing paid off. She was successful, Jake and she would never have to struggle and her children would know a much better life than she could have ever hoped for as a child. That is why she would suppress that fear that made her chest clench every time she walked by the bathroom door. That is why her heart forced her mind to admit that it had no idea what they saw that night. That is why she lied and told herself that it had only happened that once, not since then, and probably never again.
She upgraded their home security system, almost as an afterthought. She had no real belief that it would have stopped that thing. But that was as far as she was willing to take it. She was not willing to uproot her family and destroy all that they had created, not for her fear. She had worked to hard at making a happy home to give it up. In the end, it was merely her own nature that got her killed.

Almost one year had pasted since that night. Only her nightmares seem unwilling to let go of it. She dragged herself out of bed a little past six that morning. She woke her kids and fixed their breakfasts. She showered, downstairs of course. By the time she came out her children had already left for school. She sat at the table with a magazine and cut a grapefruit. Half way through her grapefruit Jake bounded down the stairs in a mad rush. He was running behind again.
"Shit. Why can't I drag my lazy ass out of bed on time? I have only been getting up at the same time for nine years."
She smiled at this remark she had heard all too often. Jake gave her a peck on her check still straightening up his tie. He did an about face after this and did a mad rush for the door as if that extra half second he saved by rushing would stop him from being late. After all these years Susan was pretty sure the company had accepted the fact that Jake was never on time for anything.
Susan finished her breakfast, but still continued to read for a few more minutes. After finishing as particularly juice story about the latest Hollywood break up the time had come for her to get to work. She stood and the feeling of disorientation took her as she realized she wasn't sure where she left her purse. This was one of the downsides of losing her rituals. A year ago it would always be on her dresser, now she never knew. She retraced her steps in her mind and came to the conclusion that it was in fact upstairs and probably on the dresser. She ascended the stairs and started to walk the hall at once noticing a certain door was open.
This did not cause her to halt or even stutter step. It was simply an observation. But once she was in front of the door she did stop, to close it. This was just about subconscious; her mind wanted that door shut. Without crossing the threshold she reached in to close the door, but then another subconscious part of her mind woke up. There was a cup on the floor in front of the sink.
She couldn't leave it there. It would bother her all day, in that same slightly painful mostly annoyance way a cold sore did. She started to walk in and a voice, which by this time was small, spoke up and begged her not to. Unfortunately Martha Stewart's voice was in there too and it was louder.
Patrick, it had to be Patrick. She shook her head, though she wasn't mad at him; he was very neat for a boy his age. But he was a boy, and boys will be boys. She grabbed the cup in the opening between her middle and pointer fingers and stood up. Now she was staring at herself in that infamous mirror. Then the cup dropped to the floor.
It was standing right behind her.
This was just like she knew it would be that night. It was worse than anything her mind had thought of that night or since then. It didn't resemble anything; the only part of its anatomy she could identify was its teeth. This creature did not embody fear; it couldn't, because it was beyond even the sickest of imaginations. It had been spat from the darkest pits of hell. Its flesh still seemed to sizzle and melt as if it were fresh from its fiery womb. Susan knew that soon her flesh would sizzle too.
She was completely paralyzed with fear, her knees were locked like boards, her feet were lead weights, her hands and arms didn't even feel like they were there anymore.  Tears filled her eyes and she began to tremble ferociously making the horrendous image in the mirror blur. Her life was over and she knew it. Even if the monstrosity turned and left right now she would die. If not physically than mentally, there is no way you could ever gaze upon this thing and return to a normal life. She not only knew she was going to die, but welcomed it. She didn't want to live with the nightmares and images of this thing.
"I never told anyone that I loved them this morning."
This was her last thought.

The kids arrived home at their usual time after school. They noticed Mom's car in the driveway, but she did not answer when they called her name. So they simply just didn't think she was home, and went about their day. Gabrielle had to go to the bathroom and found the upstairs bathroom door not only shut, but locked. Once again this did not interrupt their day; they simply used the downstairs bathroom. Jake arrived home at about 5:30, his usual time. He, however, did find the presence of Mom's car troubling. He found the fact that she did not answer her cell phone more troubling and he was in panic when he called her office and found out she had not been there all day. His next phone call was to the police.
While they waited eagerly for the police, Gabrielle remembered the bathroom door. Her father sprinted up the stairs and began to bang on the door as soon as the reached it. When there was no answer, he did not give it a second banging. He backed up a step, lowered his shoulder and slammed into the door. Jake was no bodybuilder, but he was in fair shape. The door didn't give way the first time and the door thanked him for his first effort by sending a sharp pain through his shoulder. But he was not going to be denied, and the door relented on his second attempt.
Evening had set in well and the bathroom was virtually dark when the door came crashing open. The dull night light did not cast much light, especially with him standing in the door way. He reached and flipped the switch.
Nothing.
There was a cup on the floor and the mirror had a crack running its entire length from top to bottom, but other than that there was nothing in the room.