Shattered by RyanWillox
The realtor’s Lexus was already sitting in the driveway when he pulled up. Strange, Bill usually drove a Toyota.
Regardless, there was no sign of his wife’s Honda Civic.
“Where are you?” he texted.
No response.
Jim paused, wondering whether to wait. He was on his lunch break and traffic had kept him from making good time.
Ann had seen plenty of homes without him, so worst case scenario he could describe it to her later.
Otherwise, he wasn’t going to have time to eat before going back to the office.
The drive was well-appointed, bouquets in full bloom along a winding path and the grass still neatly cropped.
Apparently the previous owners had been out of the property for a while but there was no evidence of neglect on the exterior, window boxes still in-tact, ivy neatly intertwining a lattice work awning over the entry, no exterior brush unlike so many of the others they had seen.
So, so many.
He would generally have waited outside for Bill to call him in, or his wife would already be there inwardly chiding him for his tardiness so the tour would be more of the whirlwind variety.
No such luck this time. Jim glanced in through the pane at the side of the mahogany door. No one there. Maybe Bill was upstairs? Either way the window was closing on his opportunity to snag a burger on the way back, even from the drive through.
Straightening his Paisley tie, he grasped the door handle and walked in.
“Hello?.....Hello?”
To his right was a large family room with a large fireplace, on his left a study. Ahead was a staircase that lead to three, maybe four bedrooms. The hallway carried on towards a large kitchen with picture windows that looked out onto the patio and a sweeping lush green lawn.
Jim was walking in that direction when he was startled by movement from the corner of his eye.
“Hello.”
Jim whirled with a start and was caught off guard by what he saw.
He had been expecting Bill, unkempt hair, ill-fitting suit, gut hanging over pants that were a size too small.
In his place was a petit woman, bobbed hair-cut, minimal make up wearing a grey jacket and skirt with a sky-blue blouse.
Jim barely had time to fully form a thought before his mouth engaged. “Bill….eh…is?”
“Bill won’t be joining us today. I’ll be taking care of you.”
A hundred calculations spun through his mind. Could he bump the tour? If he was out of here in five, maybe ten minutes, would he have enough of an idea of the place to act like he’d taken it all in? Would he still be able to get to that drive through?
Jim glanced around, took his phone out of his jacket pocket and contemplated sending another text, then snuck a look at his watch.
“The house has a flow to it,” she said, holding his gaze. “It really doesn’t take all that long to tour.”
As the realtor guided him through the family room, Jim wondered if there had been some mistake.
Even from his cursory inspection since pulling up out front, he could tell this size of house was well out of their range.
The family room stretched the length of the building, had rich hardwood floors and built in bookcases at the far end. It looked immaculate save for some broken glass around the fireplace on the left wall.
A swing door took them into a fully-furnished modern kitchen. In the center was an island with a rack of gleaming pots and pans suspended above it. The counters and kitchen tops gleamed in chrome. There was barely a speck of dust.
He tuned the realtor out as she babbled on, likely about the possibilities for the kitchen, the various amenities and how glorious a morning at the breakfast bar with the family would be.
Jim’s head was turned by the picture windows leading out to a brick patio and that large, perfectly manicured lawn.
A melancholy washed over him at the realization they would never be able to afford this place.
He was momentarily thrown off, and wished he paid a bit more attention when his wife had run over the itinerary with him.
But they had seen so many houses. There was surely a reason she’d kept this beauty on their list though?
If this was the deal they were looking for, they were going to have to move fast on it.
The study was better up close than it had been when he had first glimpsed it. No doubt Ann would try and appropriate it for some other use – God knows what – but he figured he could make a compelling case in his favour.
His foot crunched glass as he stepped to examine the built in mahogany cabinets and give the large globe ornament the previous owners had left a twirl.
Before he could say anything, the realtor was off upstairs.
Climbing the last few stairs, he resent his earlier text.
The bedrooms, three of them, were every bit as impressive as the remainder of the house. The realtor had quieted now and was basically letting the house do the talking for her.
It gave Jim the opening he needed, as with a cursory skim off the bedrooms he had seen all he needed to.
Satisfied, and convinced that they either could not afford it or were going to bid on it right away if the price was, somehow, right, Jim began towards the stairs and the front door.
He was going to hit that drive through after all, meal deal and all.
He got to the top step then paused, remembering house-hunting 101.
Without prompting, and with the realtor tottering along behind him in her heels, Jim proceeded to the en suite of the largest bedroom, the one he and Ann would take in the unlikely event they would ever own this place.
Jim had intended to flush the toilet and run the shower and the sink to give the plumbing a quick run through but he was stopped in his tracks.
There was shattered glass everywhere. The south wall of the en suite had been a floor-to-ceiling mirror, except that now it was a shattered-all-over-the-floor mirror.
“We should talk about that,” said the realtor.
Jim’s heart sank.
The realtor led him to the bay window of the main bedroom and invited him to sit. Against his better judgement, Jim obliged realizing at this stage that the burger was now more or less a goner.
“This home is a foreclosure.
“While I am not legally required to tell you this, I feel I should let you know that this is what one might describe as stigmatized home,” She put her hand on his arm in a consoling manner but her touch was cold, even through his suit jacket, and it occurred to him then how chill the house was even on a sunny spring day.
“The previous owner of this house is serving time in an institution after being declared unfit for trial by reason of insanity.
“The bank would like to get this home off their books as quickly as possible, hence the low price point. It’s a pretty well known story in this suburb which is why we haven’t had a lot of local interest. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s very reasonably priced.”
“What did he do?” Jim asked.
The realtor looked away, nodded as if convincing herself whether to continue and her hair fell over her face.
Gently she pushed her hair back behind her ears with the first two fingers of her hand and after doing so, she held Jim’s gaze.
“He murdered his wife and family. He shattered all the mirrors in the house and stabbed them to death with fragments. The kids first, then his wife.”
“Jesus! Why is he in an institution? That sounds like an open and shut case?”
“He claimed he didn’t do it,” she continued, eyes locked on Jim, scanning him for a response, her hand a little tighter on his forearm now.
“He said it was….a witch. He tried to say the kids, two of them – Beth and Robert - were playing Bloody Mary. He tried to say he was trying to help his family.
“He said he broke the mirrors to keep her out, but that he was too late to save them.”
Jim’s head was spinning. Out in the cold light of day he wouldn’t have given a damn about something like this, but this was so close, so apparently recent.
They had talked about this type of thing, such as a death on the property, and decided they wouldn’t be put off by something like this but here, now in the face of it, it felt real in a way he hadn’t imagined.
“It’s a lot to take in, I understand.”
The realtor broke her gaze finally, her expression sympathetic and kind. Jim wondered if that shyster Bill would have let them in on the house’s little secret.
He couldn’t help feeling they would already have been in a place if they had had this girl all along. Shit, he’d even forgotten to ask her name.
“No, it’s good that you told me. I think that is something we can get past.”
The initial shock fading, Jim began to think more analytically. They had been looking for an inordinate amount of time He was so, so sick and tired of this kind of thing, being dragged away at lunch and not getting to eat, not getting to watch a game because his night was booked up seeing craphole houses they would never use as a bathroom, let alone live in, Or worse, shooting for a star they would never reach.
This was a star they would, could and had reached. It was too late in the game to turn their noses up at something because of something someone else had done. Jesus, there were nut-jobs everywhere.
That didn’t mean there was anything wrong with the house and if some other schmo didn’t want to live here because of it, then more fool them.
“Ok, give me a minute.”
Jim stood up and walked out onto the upstairs hallway. From there, he texted Ann again – ‘you need to get here; I think this might be the one!!’
Another glance at his watch, and his heart dipped again. This was going to be the worst of both worlds because it didn’t look like they were going to get to see the house together this time, which could leave it open to other buyers, and lunch felt as much a pipe dream as the house at this given moment.
Jim began making his apologies to the realtor as she followed him downstairs towards the front door.
As she explained how she could wait for Ann in the event he had to head out, Jim absently hit redial on his phone in hopes he could speak to his wife and get an eta from her.
She never answered her phone. Selfies, status updates and meme’s for sure, but an actual telephone conversation?
He was stopped mid-flight by the sound of ringing.
Jim turned and glanced at the realtor, raising his index finger towards her in the universal symbol of ‘wait, and listen.’
There was a look he could not quite read on her face.
Louder as he took each step, the phone rang until it rang out as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
Jim glanced at his cell in order to strike redial and it was then that it hit him that the last number he had dialed had been Bill’s.
He had called to let their regular realtor, and Ann by proxy, know that he would be running late but had forgotten all about it when he had not received an answer.
Did no-one pick up a phone anymore?
Jim hit redial again and the ringing was louder now.
“Wait!” the realtor called but Jim was already off following the sound of the tone before the phone went to messenger again.
He turned right at the foot of the stairs, following the increasing volume. Just before the kitchen was a small door built into the staircase. He hadn’t noticed it initially because there was a stand with a house plant next to the door obscuring the view.
Jim opened the door and the ringtone volume blared as clear as day. Just as he stepped onto this new flight that presumably led down to the basement, the call went to voicemail again.
Redial, Jim held the phone out in from of him for illumination and descended the stairs into the basement.
He could hear the other realtor behind him but was focused now on why Bill’s phone was ringing from the basement of this house.
He saw a shape at the bottom of the stairs and couldn’t make out what it was at first. As he got closer a sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. Halfway down and he could clearly make out the shape of a body at the foot of the stairs.
A half-dozen more steps and the light of his cell was almost enough illumination to tell.
Two steps more and Jim could see Bill’s shattered body at the foot of the stairs, dark liquid that could only have been one thing spreading in a pool from beneath him, limbs bent at impossible angles.
Jim shone the light of the cell at Bill’s face to be sure and saw an expression that could only be described as terror.
Then the light went out.
A couple more steps and Jim’s head was under the lip of the basement celling and he could see into the dimly-lit basement of the house he would call home.
It was there that movement caught his eye.
There was at least one mirror left intact in the house and it was straight ahead of him past Bill’s broken body.
Movement from behind him caught his attention in the gloom and if ever he had been asked, he would have sworn he saw the realtor – except it wasn’t the realtor.
What he saw had straggled and matted grey hair, pallid skin, red glowing eyes, and a mouthful of jagged razor teeth and clawed hands.
Clawed hands that were reaching for him
“Breaking the mirror didn’t keep the evil out,” it said as it swept effortlessly towards him.
“It kept it in.”
The light from his phone went on again.
Instinctively Jim glanced to see it was a text from Ann, right before he felt sharp pain in his back and neck like something grabbing him to hold him steady while it bit him.
Jim screamed as the the world swam out of focus.
“I’ll be right there.” The message read.