Deep Down

There's something less than enjoyable about walking the city streets. The store windows are black. I don't know why the owners insist on tinting them; it only screws up the reflection and makes the city all the more inhospitable.

A teenage girl was standing on the sidewalk talking to a middle-aged man. Dark roots were showing on her bleach-blond hair, and the smile on her face might've simply been painted on with lipstick. She was definitely wearing more makeup than she needed. That cynical voice in my head wondered if she'd have breast implants in a few years.

My mother glanced back to make sure I was still following. If I were smart, I would've gone into the coffee shop a few blocks back and just let her wonder what had happened to me, but I didn't. So, when she looked back, her piercing eyes focused on me and once again I found myself wishing she would fall on those heels of hers and land in the middle of traffic. She didn't smile at me; she never does. Instead, she just turned away and kept walking.

I didn't like walking through this part of town to get to the mall. Even in the daylight, even with my mother just ahead of me, I didn't want to be here. It's like I could feel the horrible things that happened here infecting the air and clinging to my skin. Yesterday I saw on the news that the police found a body in an alley around where I was now; the young girl had been brutally raped and murdered. I think they said she was twelve years old. She may be four years younger than me, but that's not a big difference, and I do not want to be anywhere near the people who did that to her.

About a block later, we reached the mall. It was filled with teenage couples and PMS'ing mothers who insisted on buying their five-year-olds more clothes. My mother and I ended up in one of those clothing stores where everything's bland, and only the richest people can afford to dress as ugly as the mannequins in the windows. I think I remembered hearing something about child labor and sweatshops, once, in reference to the merchandise here. I hated just being in the place; I bit my tongue to keep from saying that I wouldn't even let myself be buried in any of these clothes. Mother, of course, was already picking clothes off the racks to try on.

"Lizzie, come over here."

I can't stand it when she calls me that.

"There, that looks like it'd fit you."

The shirt she was holding up to me was hideous. It was unshapely, and the earth tones used in it made wearing dirt seem more appealing. I simply bit my tongue. Forced to take the hanger, I held the blouse up to myself and walked over to a mirror.

It took all of my effort to look into the mirror, and still I saw it.

The shirt was a dripping mass of matted hair and blood, falling in oozing clumps from the hanger. I saw glimpses of the store reflected in the mirror, but none of it looked the same; it was all horrible sculptures of human viscera and animal carcasses. The walls were crumbling, revealing a rusted, steel latticework underneath. Small rivulets of soiled water trickled from some of the cracks in the walls, and globs of sludge decorated the store like splattered paint.

I tried to focus on my own reflection, and I noticed that my hands were stained red from touching the shirt.

I turned quickly away from the mirror, dropping the blouse as I rushed to clutch my stomach. I fought the nausea sweeping over me, telling myself that none of it was real and it was just a normal mirror and I was just hallucinating; it's got to be a hallucination.

Squatting on the ground, I opened my eyes. My back was to the mirror, and for the moment I decided to keep it that way. Mother was too busy looking at clothes to notice me, and I was thankful for that one small favor.

This sort of thing had been going on for a couple of months, now. Sometimes, I would look in a mirror, and I'd see it. It was so horribly real. At first, it only happened every now and then, and if I closed my eyes for a couple seconds the gore would disappear. It keeps getting more and more frequent, though; almost every time I first look in the mirror, my surroundings are splattered with blood. I don't know what to think, anymore. I don't know how to shut this out, and it's scaring me.

Shit, how long had I been kneeling on the floor? I grabbed the shirt and stood up, brushing myself off. My hands balled into fists, fingernails biting into my palms. I turned around and looked into the mirror.

It was only me, holding the bland-looking top in the bland little store.

I exhaled, not even realizing that I'd been holding my breath.

"Would you try on the shirt, already?" I heard from behind me. My mother's condescending voice never failed to drive a nail into my gut. Without answering, I walked into the dressing room and shut myself into one of the stalls. I looked into the mirror, and my reflection looked back. I quickly pulled off the shirt I was wearing and yanked the ugly top off its hanger. I slid it over my head and tugged it down to see if maybe it could look decent on me; it couldn't.

"Is it on?"

I whipped around, looking to see where my mother was. I saw her foot tapping impatiently on the other side of the door.

God I hate appeasing her.

I ran my hands quickly through my hair, brushing it away from my face. When I opened the stall door, my mother was standing directly in front of me.

"Does it fit?"

I tugged on the blouse a bit, pretending to think about it. "I think it's too small." I didn't look into her eyes, because I hate the way she looks down on me from the reigning height of her high-heeled shoes. Besides, it was probably quite obvious I was lying. The only thing wrong with the mustard-colored top was that it was ugly.

"Are you sure?"

I swung my arms a bit, twisting my torso back and forth. "Yeah, it's too small."

My mother stood there a moment longer, and I knew she hoped that if she stood there long enough I'd confess that the shirt was just fine. I refused to look directly at her, and finally she walked away. I went back into my stall, closing the door behind me.

I didn't even think about what I was doing. That's how my eyes locked on the reflection.

It was like someone painted a top on me with clotted blood. I saw it clinging to my skin and dripping down my arms, trickling down my wrists, down my hands…

One red, shivering drop fell from my fingertip, and I stumbled back, eyes still locked on the mirror. I crashed into the door, and suddenly I was turned around and pulling at the lock. I pushed the door open and sprawled onto the floor. I quickly picked myself up, bumping into a lady entering the dressing room.

She appeared to be in her mid-thirties. Stuttering, my mouth opened and shut as I tried to apologize. My gaze wandered behind her, and I saw her image reflected in another mirror.

The lady's hair was matted with gore. Her clothes looked ragged and bloody. My mouth was gaping open; I couldn't think. I looked around to see what the other mirrors held. I caught glimpses of her face: plastic skin melting away to reveal a moldy skeletal structure. One of her eyes was completely gouged out, leaving a blackish gaping hold in her head. A better view of her clothes revealed that they were stitched together with human hair.

My eyes locked on my own reflection. My gaze wandered downward, and I realized that I was still wearing the disgusting blouse. Not even managing to utter a real sentence to the woman, I backed away and rushed into the stall, slamming the door and tugging at the shirt. I pulled it off of me, gasping for air.

She had looked horrific in the mirrors, like she was wearing her viscera; no one's reflection had ever appeared that way before. Wait, had I seen anyone besides myself reflected in the mirror during the past couple of months? I can't remember.

"Lizzie, I have an outfit for you to try on."

I wanted to scream at the woman who gave birth to me, the woman who named me, that my name is not Lizzie: it's Liz. But I didn't, I couldn't, and it didn't matter, anyway. I opened the door, not even thinking about the fact that I was standing there in my bra. My mother looked at me as if I was a gutter whore with syphilis; in her eyes, I probably was. I snatched the hanger from her hands so I wouldn't have to look at her for too long.

"Give me the top back. Perhaps I can find a size that fits you."

I wondered if she did this stuff just to make me miserable. Turning around to grab the top, I tried to avoid looking at the mirror. I looked around it, at the walls, at the floor, but when I brought my gaze up to see the shirt, it was like my eyes were forced to look at the reflection.

My mother. Her eyes were saggy, droopy, with pus dripping down from them and smearing the makeup on her face. The woman's hair was thinning, falling from her scalp, and she was nearly bald. Holes were smashed in her head, and I saw glimpses of cockroaches swarming in her skull. Her clothing was of children's hide and animal innards. The hands that she got manicured every two weeks were cracking, crumbling, with fingers splitting open into a black abyss. And those heels, those goddamn high-heels, were nothing but bloody, rusty nails driven into her feet.

I whipped around and slammed the door shut in my mother's face. My stomach cried out that it wanted to vomit, but I breathed in deeply, trying to calm myself. I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut, but the image was burned into my mind.

I put my own shirt back on. I would just lie to my mother when she returned and tell her that the outfit she had picked out didn't fit me. I just could not try on another piece of disgusting clothing in this store.

I slowly turned around and looked into the mirror. The gory, ugly reflection greeted me. Red handprints covered the stall. Crimson splatters decorated the walls, almost as if someone had played baseball with rodents in this small space.

The reflection: it wasn't still. I saw myself breathing. My hands clenched and unclenched, my eyes piercing into their own reflection. On the outskirts of my vision, the blood kept dripping. I focused; I could see it. I could see it clearly: trickling red gore and-

"Stop it! Stop it!"

I heard the phrase over and over again. When I realized it was me screaming, I didn't even care.

"Get out of my fucking head!"

Unable to stop myself, I crashed into the mirror, my body slamming against it. I felt cold glass against my face. Slipping, sinking to the floor, my fists began pounding on it. I beat against the mirror, wanting to cry, feeling as if it was all futile, when finally I heard a crack as my knuckles made solid contact. Again and again, and I felt stinging on my hands as something warm and slippery trickled along my skin. I continued to pound against the glass, and the cracking grew louder and louder until soon it was all I heard. Then I felt glass rain down on my head and slice through my face as the mirror broke.

And something inside me shattered.

I came to, lying on a carpeted floor. I could immediately tell I was in a store, because it was hard and uncomfortable there. Suddenly, flashes of what happened filled my head and I bolted upright, eyes still shut to see the memories clearly. I wondered if anyone had heard me. My mother? The store clerks? Shoppers? They would have to be deaf to have missed it, and I realized I probably wasn't in the stall anymore. They probably moved me and were all standing around me in a circle looking down at ‘poor, misguided Liz.' I could just hear my mother saying how I never seemed to act normal and I was always causing some sort of commotion, even though that's not true and I usually sit in a corner while quietly ignoring everyone. If anything, I've inherited my delusions from my mother.

I opened my eyes and found myself staring into my own reflection: my untainted reflection.

My eyes wandered the length of the mirror. Everything looked perfect. I blinked. I rubbed at my eyes. It was just a bland little store: no more blood on the walls.

My face was unscathed. There were no marks on my hands, and the mirror wasn't even scratched. How? Perhaps I fainted in the stall and it was all just a bad dream: a horrible nightmare. Now I could go back to my mother and finish telling her that none of the clothes here fit me.

I stood up and brushed myself off. Turning around to open the stall door, my eyes focused on my surroundings.

Gory. The walls were old and crumbling, dripping with blood. I looked down and saw crimson stains smeared across my skin.

"No, no, no…"

I flung the door open and hurried out, shutting my eyes to keep from seeing the shoppers passing me by, opening them again to see where I was going. I struggled to keep my balance as I realized I didn't want to know where I was going, and the horrible surroundings kept pouring into my head.

Out of the dressing room, I saw a woman looking through racks of matted hair and intestines. She had holes in her head, and a cockroach fell out of her skull and scurried across the floor.

The woman was my mother.

I rushed to the exit without looking back. If my mother noticed me, she didn't say anything. Walking through the mall, I passed person after horrible person. A woman hurried past me, a cavern where her chest should be, silicone oozing down her ruined blouse.

My quick pace turned into a run, and soon I was bounding through the mall doors and out into the city air.

It was air filled with smoke, dirty and black, collecting above the skyscrapers. I didn't feel it in my lungs, but just seeing it made me cough.

A mother and child walked by, heading into the mall. The mother was another corpse-like woman, and it was all I saw, every adult. Not the child, though. She was a pale girl of about four, with soft, brown hair brushed back out of her face. The child's dress was pink and frilly, but it was marred with scattered, bloody handprints; even a few strands of her hair were matted with blood.

"Come on, hon," the mother said.

I hadn't even realized the girl had stopped to look at me until her mother spoke up. The girl looked up at her mom, who in turn lovingly caressed the child's face. They began walking away, and when the girl looked back at me one last time, I saw a bloody smear across her cheek.

"Fucking hell, this is not happening," I said under my breath, as if that would make it all disappear.

I walked down the streets, staring at the ground. The concrete crumbled and shifted under my footfalls, and no matter how bad I had thought the city before, it had never been this gruesome. There was road kill in the streets, dead dogs and cats rotting right under the cars' wheels. I could smell the horrible stink of garbage coming from a dumpster in the alley next to me. The fumes made me look over and glance into the alley. I quickly realized I shouldn't have.

Day or not, sun or no, the alley was as dark as midnight. Shadows clung to the walls, to the garbage bins, and to the corpse lying on the pavement. It was a girl, probably about twelve years old, left in the alley with a bullet to the brain. Her clothes were torn, and-

I turned away quickly and kept walking. I knew rape and murder happened around here, but I did not want to know it happened in that alley, and I certainly didn't want to see the girl's body. I did not want to see how they beat and murdered and fucked-

I stopped where I was and shut my eyes, my hands clawing at my face.

Get out. Get it out! GET IT OUT!

All I could hear was my voice ringing in my ears, in my head, with the horrible image of that girl in my mind, and I simply wanted to rip it from behind my eyelids.

I breathed in deeply and let it out. I opened my eyes and the memory faded. I kept walking, looking at the ground, trying to concentrate on anything but what I saw around me.

I got a few blocks, feeling slightly calmer, when I saw the same teenager I saw earlier. She was a bleach blonde with roots showing, wearing too much makeup. Only now, her skin was bruised and scarred. I saw a few gashes, still dripping, and the girl appeared diseased.

A middle-aged man was standing near her, talking to her. One of his legs was bigger than the other: chunkier. He was missing an eye, and his lip curled back over yellow, broken teeth. His clothes were shredded, falling apart at the seams, and it looked as if they'd been sprayed with acid. I could see his package: his black, shriveled penis and his one, lonely testicle. He talked, and I heard him asking about cost.

I looked back at the girl. She opened her mouth to speak and semen spilled out. It dripped down her chin and stained her clothing.

Reeling, I ran past them. I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to see any of this. I pushed past people, refusing to look up into their faces. I didn't know where I was going, and I didn't care. I wanted to be anywhere but here, but every street was the same.

I slumped down to the sidewalk, letting my back lean against the building behind me. I closed my eyes and curled up into a ball, rocking back and forth.

"It's not real, none of this can be real…"

I didn't know how much time passed, nor did I much care. I was sitting out there, head resting on my arms, leaning against my knees, when I heard the one thing I least wanted to hear.

"So, this is where you are. I was wondering what happened to you."

I didn't look up. I didn't want to see what was standing before me.

"Hello, Mother," I replied bitterly.

"I don't know what's wrong with you," she continued. "I can't fathom why you'd be sitting out here on the sidewalk. Now get up; I'm done shopping, so it's time to go home."

I peered out from behind my arms. Looking down at the cement, I saw her standing in front of me. Her feet had a nail driven into each heel, and-

I looked away quickly. I was trembling, and I had to force my voice to sound normal. "I think I need a minute before I can walk home."

"Why the hell can't you walk?" she snapped.

"I just… I just don't feel very well at the moment…"

"You never mentioned feeling sick earlier. I don't know what you're trying to pull, and I don't care. Get up off the ground right now."

My skin felt like ice; I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, trying to make myself warm again. I was shivering almost violently, and I felt cold all the way to my core.

"Just… just one minute, Mother…" I stuttered, my teeth almost chattering as I looked up into her sagging eyes.

She simply glared at me for a moment. "God, it's like you're on drugs," she said. My mother leaned over a bit, and I tried to ignore the gaping holes in her head, the pus dripping from her eyes. "You probably are on drugs. You've never given me a damn bit of respect. You're such an ingrate, but I am still your mother. And as much as you seem to hate me, when you grow up, you will be exactly like me."

My mother's gaze pierced into me, her words ringing in my ears. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the cockroaches that filled her skull scuttling about. One crawled out and suddenly fell from her head. My entire body spasmed as the cockroach landed on my arm and began scurrying across my skin and under my sleeve, leaving a brownish-red trail of blood and grime behind it. At that point, I couldn't help it.

I began to scream.