Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3: Eighteen Stories of Ghoulish Terror (The Macabre Codex) by Newton Webb

Author:Newton Webb [Webb, Newton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steel Crown Productions
Published: 2024-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

“Hey, man, we’re setting up a new game downstairs. You in?” Jake, his roommate, popped his head into Toby’s room one evening.

“Yeah, sure. Give me a second.” Toby quickly put on a hoodie and grabbed his laptop. Just as he was about to step out, he caught a glimpse of himself in the small mirror on the back of their door.

And there she was. The spectral woman stood closer than ever, her ghostly figure almost touching him. Her eyes remained hidden in the shadows, but the rest of her face was disturbingly clear.

Feeling a shiver crawl up his spine, Toby turned away, forcefully pushing the image out of his mind. He jogged down the stairs, eager to lose himself in the game, in the strategy and the banter, the trivial things that occupied so much of his time.

Yet as he rolled the dice, getting more ‘1’s than he deemed normal, and strategised with his friends, a part of him remained alert, uneasy. No amount of laughter or camaraderie could fully dislodge the image of the spectral woman’s increasingly clear visage, or the unsettling feeling that she was getting closer, becoming more real with each passing day. The only thing that took his mind off her was marijuana.

His grades were already beginning to slip. He had become irritable, finding it difficult to focus during lectures or while studying. His friends noticed the change, but attributed it to the stress of university life.

If only they knew,

If only he could explain without sounding insane.

But he kept his silence.

2010, London

“Do we really need a mirror that big?” Toby complained, eyeing it with evident discomfort.

“You clearly don’t you scruffy devil,” his girlfriend Ivy stepped close to him and planted a kiss on his nose, almost the only patch of skin not covered by his enormous, bushy beard. “You are like a big fluffy dog, but I need it to put on my makeup in the mornings.”

He didn’t explain the real reason he hated the mirror, the dread he felt every time he looked at his own reflection. For all his closeness to Ivy, there were still some parts of himself he kept hidden from her. She was bound to think he was weird, who wouldn’t? He was definitely scared of how she would react. He could lose her.

Whenever he had to use the bathroom, Toby found himself in an uneasy dance with his own reflection and the spectral woman who haunted it. She was closer now, so close that had she been real, he would’ve felt the cloth of her ghostly garments brush against his arms. She still didn’t have eyes. Instead, where her eyes should have been, chilling red lights glowed like twin embers in a dying fire.

Toby did what he could to minimise his mirror time. He avoided barbers, kept his grooming and tooth-brushing sessions brief to avoid eye contact with the ghostly figure looming up behind him.

“Cheer up. It’s like you’re allergic to your own reflection,” Ivy teased.

Toby gave an awkward chuckle. It was a miracle that he had found Ivy.

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