Shattered Reflections

By J Brown

A young boy, pushed beyond the limits of his fragile psyche.

A washed-out detective, obsessed with finding the cannibal who is mutilating more and more innocent victims.

An achingly sad soul, living in the shadow of his former self, becoming increasingly frantic in his search for salvation and, finally, peace as he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake.

And in the final hour, a man, held captive by his past, faced with a decision he does not yet know he needs to make.

A desperate battle between good and evil unfolds, and the cards being dealt keep changing.

Hop on board the dark train as it races through the desolate pits of Smiley's world but beware the dark passengers who ride alongside you. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: J Brown
• Release date: Aug 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201918682

J Brown

J Brown a South African-born emerging writer with a penchant for peeling back the layers of the human psyche and exposing them through fiction. She has always been fascinated by what makes the mortal mind "tick". When she's not focusing on her day job, she's toying around with new ideas and fleshing out mind-maps for her next novel. 

Book preview

Prologue

He woke with the acidic taste of vomit in the back of his throat and to the pitiful sound of sobbing, receding until it resembled an echo, falling from a cliff. For some reason, he was afraid to open his eyes, so he kept them closed, trying to find his moorings through his sense of hearing alone.  Silence. No, not complete silence. It was something like white noise – that fluffy, inexplicable buzzing, which isn’t buzzing at all but feels as though your eardrums are being buffeted by clumps of cottonwool, vibrating gently against the tiny bones inside each ear.

He realised that he was lying on his stomach, his cheek pressed to a cold, hard surface and for the first time he wondered, where the hell am I?  His cheek was wet, and he realised it was stuck to the floor with his own saliva. Had he fallen, knocking himself out for an indeterminate period? And where exactly was he? Outside? He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing last night. Or was it tonight?  How long had he been lying here? He opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a windowpane, beyond which the light was too murky to make out distinct shapes.  So, it’s still dark outside, he thought, at the same time realizing that this was a vague assessment. The fact that the sun wasn’t up meant nothing; it could be anything between 8pm and 4am. Nothing he was looking at succeeded in clarifying his recollection of where he was or what he’d been doing before he’d blacked out. Maybe he had drunk copious amounts of alcohol, and his fuzzy recollections were the product of viewing things through a dense haze of whiskey. He couldn’t remember anything, which seemed to be irrefutable proof of a world-class bender, didn’t it?

He was starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable and realised the main source of his discomfort was the hard floor on which he lay, the cold of which seemed to have seeped into his bones.  He tentatively moved his limbs. Placing his hands on the concrete floor he pushed himself up onto his knees. His arms and legs seemed to be working fine, although a little creaky and stiff. If he’d been lying in the same position for a few hours, even half a day, on a cold concrete floor, then a little stiffening of the joints was to be expected, especially at the age of....of.... He frowned as he tried to recall his exact age, but it eluded him for the time being.

What the fuck?, he muttered under his breath.

He turned his head to the right and then to the left, trying to get his bearings in the half-light. There were windows to either side of where he stood, but he still couldn’t make out even a rough shape in the space beyond the glass. He turned around slowly, shuffling his feet – which were bare, he registered with surprise – and did a 360-degree scan of his surroundings. More windows. Not normal house windows, either, with frames set into brick and concrete. These were full length glass panels.  Four glass panels, in fact, joined at 90-degree angles.

As his confusion deepened, he looked upward.  More glass. He felt some of the residual cold from the concrete floor leech into the rest of his body and settle in the pit of his stomach as he began turning his head from side to side, searching for...for...something. He continued turning until he had come full circle.

As far as he could tell, he was in what appeared to be a glass cubed structure, though he couldn’t immediately estimate the size. The geographical location of the cube was also a mystery to him. He had certainly never seen anything like it and couldn’t begin to fathom why such a thing would exist.  He shuffled forward on legs which suddenly felt like they would be more at home on a marionette, trying to look for what had eluded him earlier. Realisation hit him then and succeeded in sharpening his fog-filled brain. The buzzing in his ears became louder as he finally figured out what was missing – there was no door.

Part 1

INCEPTION

"And into the

forest I go,

to lose my mind

and find my soul."

- John Muir

Chapter 1

Gillian Lazenby stepped out of her Honda onto the paved surface of the driveway.

For f..., she muttered to herself. She had been complaining to Joe about their sectional garage door for over a month now. It was to be understood that a house as old as theirs would have a few niggles here and there.  In fact, she had sympathy for the motorised garage door which had to have been opened and closed roughly six-hundred-thousand times in its lifetime. Well, that could be a gross over- or under-exaggeration – she had no idea how many times the garage door had been opened and closed in its lifetime. She couldn’t even begin to calculate how many times she herself had opened and closed it in the 5 years since they’d purchased the three-bedroomed suburban house. But it had to have been a lot.

Until June of this year, the old door had presented no problems, save for a few creaks and shudders during the initial stage of opening once she’d pressed the button on the garage remote. Joe had oiled the various hinges, gears and working parts a few times, but she supposed there was only so much oiling you could do before that no longer served any purpose.

Twelve times – thirteen, if you counted today – she had arrived home, pressed the button, and the door opened partially, shuddering for a second, and then immediately closed. She’d tried a few times and then finally resorted to leaving her car in the driveway and entering through the front door, which she loathed doing as she always had to jiggle the key in the lock on the old wooden door slightly before the tumblers would finally engage. That, too, had been the source of many an argument between her and Joe over the years. On one occasion, she’d even left the four shopping bags she’d been holding while trying to coax the stupid lock into opening, right there on the porch, loudly proclaiming to Joe as she finally entered the house and slammed the front door that he could damn well bring in the groceries himself as she marched to the bathroom to relieve an already bursting bladder because she was sick of this stupid house’s shit. Joe had risen from his lounger where he’d been watching tennis, or cricket, or some damn thing and had brought the groceries in, muttering under his breath about having told her before to just put the key in the lock and pull it out slightly while twisting it gently to the left. Later, while she’d been putting the perishables in the fridge and packing the rest of the items she’d purchased in the pantry, she’d heard Joe tinkering with the lock while spraying lubricant into the keyhole. She’d gone to him then with a beer, apologised for being a bitch, and given him a kiss on the cheek.

But now she’d had enough of the garage door. She’d lost count of how many times she had told him to just call someone in to have it repaired. But Joe, who fancied himself a serious do-it-yourselfer, had always said he refused to waste money on a no-good repairman who would inevitably cause more problems than he would solve. He was perfectly capable of doing a better job than any of the so-called experts, thank you very much.

So far, Joe had applied WD-40 (his solution to everything) to the various squeaking and grinding parts each time she complained. He’d even replaced the springs at the top of the door, taking a full day to do it. That particular day, he had come in just before supper, tired and sweaty and she had thanked him for working so hard to fix the door. The next morning, as she’d left for work, the door had opened smoothly and with only the mildest of squeaks, but then, no sooner had it closed than it had immediately opened again. She’d phoned him from the car, and he mentioned something about photo-eyes, but she cut him off mid-sentence with a sharp just fix the damn door and killed the call. Ok, so she’d actually said, ‘fucking door’, but she’d just been so mad!

He’d readjusted the alignment of the door’s photo-eyes, which were apparently small plastic devices that serve as a safety feature (who knew?) and the door and motor worked like a dream. For about three weeks. 

The current – and exceedingly frustrating – issue was that the door opened slightly and then immediately closed. Joe had shown her how to ‘help the door along’ but she was getting sick and tired of doing it.

What the hell is the use of an automated garage door if I have to ‘help it along’?, she muttered angrily.

Lately, she had begun detecting a petulant note in her voice when she was agitated, and she hated it. It reminded her of her mother. But, for heaven’s sake, how long was she going to have to live this way? Hadn’t she had enough battling to last her three lifetimes? She was sick of it.

Gillian stomped toward the door, pressing the button on the remote as she approached it and when it started opening, she bent down, gripped the right bottom corner of the door, and pushed upward. As before, the door got stuck about 35cm from the ground and then there was an audible dip in the hum of the motor, a metallic click, and the door continued upward on its own.

She stomped back toward her car, scowling. Falling into the driver’s seat, she slammed the car door, releasing the handbrake and over-revving the engine as she slammed her foot down on the accelerator. That made her feel good. She waited until the last moment before stomping on the brake, inches before the nose of the Honda hit the back wall of the garage. That made her feel even better and she stopped scowling.

While Gillian had been preoccupied with the door, relying on some choice four-letter words to assist her with the task, she hadn’t noticed the hooded man who had been standing in the shadows of the oleander bush to the left of the garage wall. He was dressed in black and blended so well with the shadows that she might not have seen him, even if she’d been looking directly at him. As she had bent down to grip the door, he had swiftly approached her vehicle, opened the back door, and slid into the space behind the front seats, quietly closing the door behind him.

As Gillian entered the kitchen through the door connecting the garage with the house, the automated door closed with a thump and the space was pitched into darkness. Behind the Honda’s beige fabric-covered seats which smelled faintly of the perfume Gillian often spritzed onto her wrists before getting out of the vehicle, he waited.

Chapter 2

H ello?, he shouted . Anyone? Help!.

He’d been shouting for what seemed like hours, banging his fists first against one pane of glass and then, finally, all four, alternating between calls for help. He still couldn’t see anything beyond the murkiness surrounding what he now began to think of as a ‘cage’. Initially, he had tried focusing on one area in the murk, desperate to make out some shape or form which would allow him to find his bearings somewhat, then he had tried looking through the murk, beyond it, like you did when trying to see the image embedded in one of those 3D pictures you found in magazines. When he’d finally given up trying to see, he began yelling for help. After each word, he would wait for a few seconds, straining to hear something, anything. But there was nothing. No answering call, no footsteps, not even the sound of traffic. If he had not been able to hear his own voice, registering the faint note of hysteria creeping in at the end, he would have thought he’d gone deaf. The world beyond the glass was devoid of movement and sound.

He had to get a grip on himself. He had no idea how to even begin finding a way out of this situation and if he gave in to panic, he would be useless. Besides, shouting for help was beginning to make his already dry throat ache.

It was having no sense of time that was screwing with his mind the most. If he could figure out a way to determine that, at least, he would be able to start thinking coherently.

He had regained consciousness in clothes which seemed to fit him well enough to have been his own: faded blue jeans and a red V-neck t-shirt, no shoes. Also, no wedding ring, and no watch. He looked at his left wrist and in the dim light he could clearly see a band of skin which was paler than the rest. So, I obviously do wear a watch, he muttered. He wondered if it had been stolen by whoever had locked him in here.

My watch and my shoes, he thought in bafflement, and perhaps a wedding ring? He could see no tell-tale tan-line on his ring-finger. So, no wife in some house, God knows where, wondering why he hadn’t arrived home. Would he even have arrived home by now? Was someone waiting for him, wondering what had happened to him? Did he have anyone in his life who would even miss him, start wondering where he was? He was beginning to feel disoriented, panic surfacing within him, and he firmly pushed it down.

He was thirsty after shouting at the top of his lungs and he wondered when that need would become unbearable. Besides himself, the glass cage was completely empty. There wasn’t even a bare lightbulb, dangling from a cord, as he might have expected. He had tried but couldn’t seem to find the source of the dim light which bathed the interior of the glass cube. At first, he had assumed there was hidden lighting – perhaps a few well-placed LED’s, hidden behind cornicing in the ceiling. But there was no cornicing, and no ceiling, just the glass. Whatever the source of the dim glow inside the box, it did nothing to permeate the grey fog surrounding it.

He sat down on the concrete floor, his back against one of the glass panels and thought about what to do next. He registered that there was mild pressure on his bladder and vaguely wondered whether he was going to have to allocate one corner of the cage as a depository for bodily waste when a voice spoke.

You need to urinate, don’t you?

Chapter 3

While sprinkling grated mozzarella on the dish of macaroni and cheese before returning it to the oven, Gillian heard Joe pull into the driveway.

It was 19:15. He usually finished up at the office at around 16:30 and was home by no later than 17:30. But that was before. Before everything in their lives had turned to shit. Before she’d lost the baby. Lately, he’d been arriving home later and later, with the unmistakable smell of beer on his breath and that shiny, wide-eyed look in his eyes which he sometimes got when he’d had one too many.

Honey, I’m home!, he called gaily from the entrance hall as she heard him throw his keys into the wooden bowl they kept on the table by the front door. She heard him bump into the tall copper floor lamp as he negotiated his way to his lounger and she paused in the process of returning the dish to the oven, waiting to hear if this would finally be the day that he wouldn’t be able to right the lamp in time and it would crash to the floor, spraying bits of glass from a shattered bulb everywhere.  She heard him say Whoops!, as he usually did, and was grateful that this was not followed by the sound of breakage. She sighed.

After a cheerless meal during which they spoke the bare minimum to one another, Joe retreated to his trusty lounger and Gillian cleared the kitchen, leaving the clean dishes to dry in the drip-tray. As she scrubbed congealed cheese from the plates, she allowed her thoughts to wander.

She knew it was dangerous to ease her grip on the tight leash she usually kept on her thoughts, but she couldn’t help herself. As she had done countless times before, she dreamed about what their life would have been like if she had not had the miscarriage. She would be putting their baby girl to bed right about now, perhaps rocking her to sleep in the old bamboo rocking chair she’d gotten from her grandmother, probably humming softly to her as she drifted gently into dreamland. She couldn’t carry a tune, but she didn’t think babies cared about such things; didn’t have a clue what lullabies were supposed to sound like. All babies really cared about was feeling loved, nurtured, and safe – not whether their mothers sounded like a nightingale. Just safe. And cared for. And loved. And, oh, how she would have loved her.

She swallowed hard but the lump in her throat stubbornly refused to move. She focused on washing the silverware and sighed, vigorously scrubbing as though she could dispel the memories that way; memories that had risen to the surface of the dark pool in which she usually worked so hard to keep them submerged.

The sounds of cheering from the TV in the lounge filtered through to her as she dried her hands on a dishtowel, indicating that there had been either a try scored, or someone had batted a six, or aced a serve. Joe didn’t make a sound, which probably meant he had dozed off in front of the set again. Once more, she sighed. She was going to have to start watching those sighs. Her grandmother used to say, A sigh is not just a sigh. The heavier it is, the harder it falls, and where it falls, it turns the soil to ash, unable to give life to even a single blade of grass, forever barren.

Barren. Like her womb.

I’m off to bed, she called to Joe as she made her way up the stairs. Their bedroom with its en suite bathroom was on the upper floor, the second bedroom and guest bathroom below, to the right of the stairs. She never went into the second bedroom anymore, couldn’t face the pink fairy wallpaper and beautiful white bassinette with its soft, fluffy blanket and frilled pillow. Could not bear to look at the rocking chair in the corner, with its crocheted cushion.

Huh? Joe answered after a second or two. I’ll be up in a while. Just watching the end of this game, he said with the mild but unmistakable slur of someone who had been roused from sleep. Gillian knew he’d go back to sleep again within a few minutes, that he would snore himself awake sometime during the early morning hours and then drag himself, bleary-eyed and exhausted, up the stairs and fall into bed beside her.

Same old, same old, she said quietly to herself. She realised then that it wasn’t so much that she was tired of the bleak rut their lives had sunk into, it was more that she was sad. So incredibly and exhaustingly sad.

Chapter 4

He knew the time had come when he heard the husband call out, Just watching the end of this game.

He had been waiting patiently behind the staircase, in the small niche, standing next to a large green plastic toolbox. He’d entered the house through the interconnecting garage door while she had been preparing dinner, busying herself with chopping onions. Her back had been toward him as he breezed past the kitchen doorway, making not even a breath of sound as he found the space behind the staircase and slid into the shadows.

He was tempted to approach her when he saw her, as he admired the golden colour of her hair, her shapely, girlish body apparent in the light summer dress she wore which ended above the knees. Her feet were bare, and he took a moment to imagine what her skin would feel like to his touch, the velvety smoothness of it. He would savour every inch of her beauty when she was finally his, would greedily devour every curve with his eyes and marvel at the perfection which was Gillian. She was an angel, a divine entity made into flesh and bone, and he could not wait for the moment when she would finally be his. A shiver of delight travelled down his spine and his mouth filled with saliva.

He had been tracking her for two weeks. He’d first caught sight of her as she entered the supermarket where she stopped every day on her way home from work to do her daily shopping. Since then, he had watched her often, always in the shadows, always from afar, never getting too close.

From the moment he had seen her, he’d known instinctively that she was from that other world, a place unencumbered by the two-dimensional worries that plagued the lives of those from this world. A world alongside this one, where those who were privileged to exist did so on a plane which transcended human concerns. He knew because he had seen it.  Seen it but was denied entry to it. There was no room in that world for darkness, no place for the ugliness of which he was made.

She was so different from the others he had thought would be his salvation. She could grant him passage. She would fill him with her light and make him clean, be his talisman. Her purity and perfection would scour the darkness from him, scrub his soul clean of evil. She would meld her soul with his and finally her sacredness would consume him, and he would know the tranquility of that world where he would become one with the light. He could almost taste the pleasure of that world, as though it were tangible, like a drop of pure honey on his tongue.

Soon, he thought with a smile. Soon.

Chapter 5

His head snapped up from where he’d been resting it on his forearms, his elbows on his bent knees, his eyes wide with shock.

In the corner to the left of where he was sitting, was a young woman. He estimated that she was in her mid-twenties, 28 or 29 at the most. She sat with her arms folded across her chest, her left leg crossed over her right. She was statue-still, staring directly at him, the right corner of her mouth turned up in a half-smile.

Well?, she asked, raising her eyebrows.

Wh..who the hell are you?, he stammered through lips which felt numb.

With the fluid grace of a dancer, she rose from the chair in which she’d been sitting.

You need to urinate, don’t you?, she asked again, striding gracefully toward him, nodding sympathetically.

I... yes, I... what?. He was blathering. Her sudden appearance had scared him. He was sure that he had been alone in the cage, was convinced he’d viewed every inch of it, would stake his life on the fact that there was nothing and no one in the glass cube with him. But how could he be sure? He had been pretty strung out until this point. Could he have been so immersed in his own panic that he would have missed noticing her before? No, surely not, he thought. I would have seen her; would have noticed the chair, at least, if not her.

She was looking down at him condescendingly. If he had been shocked by her presence before, he was dumbstruck now.

She was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. Porcelain skin, high cheekbones, full, pink mouth, the lower lip slightly more luscious than the upper. A nose so perfectly straight that it appeared to have been lovingly formed from clay, perfected by an expert potter. Her hair was the colour of flax which had been dipped in the freshly squeezed juice of ripe strawberries and then rinsed so that only the vaguest blush remained. But it was her stare that held him. Her eyes were the shape of almonds, the lashes long and dark, irises of the most arresting deep blue.

From somewhere deep in the empty well of his memories, the words Lapis Lazuli came to him. Prized since antiquity for its intense colour, the Sumerians believed that the spirits of their gods lived within the stone, while the ancient Egyptians saw it as a symbol of the night sky. As fleetingly as the memory had come to him, it was gone. As he looked into her eyes, he thought now that the Egyptians had been right on the money: he could see the night sky in those eyes, almost expected to catch a glimpse of tiny flickering stars in their depths.

I can see that we’re going to have the most illuminating conversations, she said, and though her words dripped with sarcasm, her voice was like a melody. She turned away from him and resumed her seat on the chair in the corner, folding her arms across her chest again, her left leg over the right. She bobbed her foot up and down, as though keeping time with a piece of music only she could hear.

Who are you?, he asked again, rising stiffly to his feet. How did I get here? Where are we? Did you lock me in here? I have no idea what you think I’ve done or what you’re planning, but I can tell you that I don’t know what this is about. He was walking toward her as he spoke. I don’t remember anything. I don’t even remember my own name!.

He was standing directly in front of her now, looking down at her intently. She stared up at him, seeming to consider his words.

As she rose from her seat, he took an involuntary step backward, somewhat alarmed by her. She had a presence about her, an aura of authority, almost a regal air. Although he estimated that he must be a full 10 or 11 inches taller, he felt dwarfed by her thereness. He could not look into her eyes and so he averted his. He had the distinct feeling that she was looking through him, into his very soul, that she could see into his core. It was an uncomfortably intimate sensation.

No, she said, a gentler tone to her voice than he had heard her use previously. You won’t remember. She reached a hand up and placed it against his cheek. Her palm was cool and silken, feathery soft. He closed his eyes and for a ludicrous moment almost leaned into her touch. He fought the urge.

What do you mean, ‘I won’t remember’? he asked, frowning, opening his eyes to look at her.

Her frank stare was now soft, caring.

You won’t remember, she repeated gently. Not until you’re ready to.

Chapter 6

The house was quiet . The sleep