Mirror Image

1. Your short story must be based on one of the three prompts below. (I Selected "Am I Evil")
2. The story must be 2000 words or less. (If you go over one or two words that is fine)
3. You may only submit one item.
4. Your entree must be new.
5. Contest closes on Halloween.
6. You may edit anytime before deadline.
7. You must indicate which prompt you are using by placing the songs title in the message block
8. You must post in BITEM FORM


Am I Evil

My mother was a witch, she was burned alive.
Thankless little bitch, for the tears I've cried.
Take her down now, don't want to see her face.
All blistered and burned, can't hide my disgrace.

Twenty-seven, every one is nice,
Gotta see 'em, make 'em pay the price,
See their bodies out on the ice,
Take my time...

As I watched my mother die, I lost my head
Revenge now I sought, to break with my bread
Takin' no chances, you come with me
I'll split you to the bone, help set you free

Twenty-seven, every one is nice,
Gotta see 'em, make 'em pay the price,
See their bodies out on the ice,
Take my time...

On with the action now, I'll strip your pride
I'll spread your blood around, I'll see you ride
Your face is scarred with steel, wounds deep and neat
Like a double dozen before ya, smell so sweet

I'll make my residence, I'll watch your fire
You can come with me, sweet desire
My face is long forgot, my face not my own
Sweet and timely whore, take me home

My soul is longing for, await my heir
Sent to avenge my mother, sleep myself
My face is long forgot, my face not my own
Sweet and timely whore, take me home

Am I Evil?
Yes I am
Am I Evil?
I am man

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Mirror Image

By Indelibleink

The crazed pounding upon Jason Randall’s bedroom door tore him away from the daydream which had held him captive the last few minutes.

“Jason? Jason! Wake up! There’s a fire in the barn. Get your brother and sister - I’ll try to find your mother!” The panic in Ward Randall’s voice was obvious as he alternated between pounding on - and trying to open - the locked door. “Jason…Please get out here…I need your help!”

“Okay, Dad! I’m coming! I know where the kids are. You get Mom!” Jason struggled to get his tennis shoes on while simultaneously donning a t-shirt. There had been no mistaking the urgency in his father's voice, and Jason loved his father dearly - as much as he loved his sib's. Once out of the bedroom, the smell of burning wood stung his nostrils while the thickening smoke hurt his eyes.

Racing down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the rear door, Jason could clearly see the inferno which had once been the barn, and the silhouette of his father against the backdrop of bright orange, leading the horse and a few of the other terrified animals to safety. He paused to watch for a moment. Fire had always intrigued Jason.

"Dad! Where's Mom? Do you need my help here?" Jason started to break towards the barn, but his father waved him off.

"No! You make sure those kids are okay - you understand?"

Jason waved his affirmation, turned, and resumed in the direction of the southeast section of the huge farm, where about 26 acres were devoted strictly to the growing of feed corn. Being just past Labor Day, the stalks were turning brown and the the two other Randall children, Beth Ann, age 9, and Joey, age 7, spent a lot of their free time playing in the natural maze. Jason had seen the pair playing in that area just a couple of hours earlier, and they had said they were going to stay there until dinner was ready.

Sure enough, just as Jason neared the corn field, he could hear the laughs and giggles coming from the kids. It ceased the instant the kids heard the desperation in their brother's voice. "Quick - you guys - there's a fire at the house - Dad needs our help!" In a flash, the three were making a bee-line for the house.

As the three emerged from the tall brush that surrounded the pathway home, they slowed to a stop as they could see the fire department was hosing down the charred wood that only a couple of hours earlier had been the barn. While the kids seemed mesmerized by the fire engines and the flashing lights, Jason's attention was centered on the vehicle which had the words, "Luna County Coroner" emblazoned on the side.   

"You kids go in the house, until we know it's safe out here." Jason ushered the kids toward the kitchen door, and once they had entered the house, ran over to his father, who was standing near the remnants of the barn, in the midst of a discussion with several officials.

"Dad, are you okay? What's the Coroner doing here?"

Choking back tears, Jason's father embraced his teenager tightly. "Jason, I'm afraid your mother didn't make it. I'm not sure what got her out in the barn this time of day - perhaps she heard the fire and tried to put it out herself - but she didn't make it out. The police and fire people...They think the fire was intentionally set. Arson!  God...Who would do such a thing?" That speculation - perhaps coupled with the image of his wife engulfed in flames - weakened Ward to the extent that his knees buckled and he collapsed in a sobbing heap, leaving Jason with the task of consoling the inconsolable.

Much later that evening, after helping his sedated father to bed, and driving his distraught - and now motherless - siblings over to Ward's sister's for a couple of days until things settled down a bit, Jason tried to ease the stress of the day away with a long, relaxing shower. He thought about his relationship with his mother, and how the woman he saw was far different from the one his father saw. And, how he was ashamed of having a "mail-order" mother, since it was no secret that Ward Randall had literally "purchased" a wife from a European country twenty years ago. How some folks whispered that she was a witch, because her father - supposedly - was a deranged homicidal maniac. How he had been teased unmercifully as a child because of it. He stepped from the shower and stood in front of the fogged-up bathroom mirror.  In an almost trance-like manner, he brought up his right index finger and, upon the fogged glass, wrote, "Am I evil?" He solemnly stood and pondered the question - as well as what had prompted him to write it - for some time before resuming his drying off and subsequently going to bed.

The following morning found Jason tired and anxious - he was pretty sure he hadn't slept a wink - having been tormented continuously by a recurring dream: His mother, dressed in black witch's garb, standing in the bowels of the barn fire - laughing and seemingly unaffected by the flames and heat. Even in the fire, her face looked eerily similar to Jason's, although up until now, he had always felt he looked more like his father.

As he allowed the hot water to run in the bathroom sink while preparing to shave, he noted the question he had written on the mirror above the sink began to reappear. As he drew the straight razor to his Adam's apple to begin on his freshly-lathered face, he nearly cut himself when he noticed that the letters in the message on the mirror had somehow moved around now read "I am vile." Jason quickly smeared the message with his hand, and assumed he must have simply been more tired than he thought the night before to have mistakenly worded the message that way.

"Dad! You awake yet?" Jason shouted as he descended the stairs and headed into the kitchen. Since there was no sign of any activity since he was in there last night, he tip-toed his way to his dad's bedroom and cracked the door a smidgen and peeked in. Sure enough, his dad was still out like a light. Well, with no mother, no siblings around, and for all intents and purposes, no father due to the marvels of modern medicine, there still were a helluva lot of chores to do and it looked like it was all on Jason's seventeen-year-old shoulders for the time being. He figured he'd slop the hogs and feed the other animals before he came in to eat breakfast. As he was putting on his work shoes, there was a knock at the front door. A quick glance out the dining room window at the vehicle parked in the driveway told Jason that it was someone from the Luna County Sheriff's Office.

Jason opened the door before the doorbell could ring a second time. It was Sheriff Yates himself! The sheriff nodded, removed his ten-gallon hat, and walked into the farmhouse.

"Jason...Is your Pa around?"

"He's still asleep, Sheriff. Anything I can help you with?"

"Your Pa's takin' it pretty hard, is he? Understandable...what with your Ma and all..."

Jason stared out the front door and up at the sky. "Yeah, Sheriff, although I think Doc Meadows may have overdone it with whatever he prescribed for Dad..."

"Funny...Last night I thought I heard your Dad refuse a prescription from ole Doc. But you know, that's okay because what I wanted to ask him to can wait." Halfway out the door, the sheriff paused. "You know, it's mighty admirable the way you're handling all this - having lost your Mom and all. Just out of curiosity, do you remember where you were when the fire started yesterday afternoon?"

For the first time, Jason felt somewhat flush - angered by the implication. "I was lying in my bed, waiting for dinner."

The sheriff nodded. "Fair enough, fair enough. I don't suppose anyone saw you to corroborate that, did they?"

Jason stopped and thought for a moment - his blood pressure still rising. "Of course someone saw me, Sheriff..."

The sheriff shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands apart. "Okay, Son, I give up...who?"

Jason stared at the floor. "My Mom saw me, Sheriff, my MOM!"

The sheriff's expression turned to one of disbelief, and he was clearly becoming angry. "I'm glad your Daddy isn't awake to hear that kind of disrespectful talk, Son."

"That makes twenty-eight fire-related deaths still unsolved under your watch, Sheriff. Hope you remember that this is an election year." The voice that was coming from Jason was no longer that of a teenager, but now a much deeper, ghastlier, booming declaration that seemed to reverberate throughout the entire house, which left the sheriff now backpedaling through the front door. "Twenty-seven deaths ten years ago - the entire second grade class - Sheriff! Arson...and still unsolved!" Although Sheriff Yates was now in his car, with the windows up, the voice was as clear as if Jason was sitting right beside him. "And now my Mom, Sheriff! Who's next? You? Ha-ha-ha..." The sound of Jason's laughter drowned out every other holy and natural sound that emanated for miles around. With beads of perspiration dripping from his nose and chin, the sheriff exited the Randall farm as fast as humanly possible.

Jason was terrified at what had just transpired. He started for his father's room, but stopped short. What would he possibly tell him? That his son was insane? That his son had just sent the sheriff of the whole damned county running off like a scared jackrabbit? No. That would be pretty stupid. He decided to go up to his room to think things through, and figure this all out.

Once in his room, Jason went to the sink. His own shirt drenched with sweat - he felt hotter than he had ever felt in the past - Jason removed his shirt and splashed some water on his burning face. Incredibly, he watched as the water reacted to his face in the same manner as water sprinkled on a hot skillet: it literally spit and popped off his face, generating a huge volume of steam in the process. Jason grabbed a hand towel and wiped his face. When he peered up at the mirror, he noticed his face was now beet red. Not only that, but he could see his mother much more clearly now in his facial features. Finally, he saw the words - the very same words he had wiped from the mirror earlier in the day - reappear. He took the hand towel and smeared "I am vile" again from the mirror. The mirror glass felt distinctly cold to his touch, and as he stepped back, he again saw the message reappear in the mirror. This time he watched in horror as, again, the letters rearranged themselves, this time spelling "Ma, I live." Equally as horrific was that his own image in the mirror was now alternating between him, his mother, and another older man who looked just like them. Finally, the images stopped changing, and it stayed upon the image of the old man, who lifted a crooked finger and pointed to the letters on the mirror, which again were changing. When they stopped moving, the message said "I'm alive." The old man in the mirror laughed, and the confused Jason ran to the full length bedroom mirror to see what he really looked like right now.

Much to his surprise, Jason actually saw himself in the mirror, only older and more like his mother and the old man than ever before. Just as surprisingly, he was becoming decidedly calmer about all that had happened. Suddenly, he began to understand - the transformation was full throttle now: The old man in the mirror was his grandfather, and he remembered how his mother had always been in such awe of her father and how it upset her that some traits skipped a generation. She never was a witch, but she knew Jason had been given the power, and she knew that someday Jason would do what he had to do to build his empire, which included eliminating her - a mere mortal. And she had covered for Jason after the school fire, deflecting just enough of the town's suspicion her way to keep it off her son, who had erroneously demonstrated his power at age seven. But now, he was ready.

Jason walked slowly to his bedroom window, looked out, and closed his eyes. Miles from the farm, at a local gas station, a still-distraught sheriff was gassing up his vehicle, and just starting to make coherent sense on his radio with his deputies. Suddenly, he stopped, turned off the radio, and walked back into the gas station and bought as many 5-gallon gas containers as he could carry. Upon filling them, he drove down the road a bit until he was out of sight. He doused the interior of his car with petrol, and finally, he drenched himself, before getting back in his car and heading towards the Randall place.

Jason smiled and walked into the bathroom a final time. Looking in the mirror and seeing - not himself - but The Master, he stared approvingly at the mirror and watched as the following words appeared: "I AM Evil" As he walked down the stairs and out the rear of house, Jason heard the Sheriff's cruiser flying up the driveway and heading full speed towards his soon-to-be former residence. Jason stopped and bellowed "Sweet dreams, Daddy!" while the cruiser plowed into the side of the home, exploding on impact.  Of course, he had to watch the fire for a moment. Jason loved fire.

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Words: 2345