The Hourglass.

The night sky hung heavy; the chill of fall lingered in the air. A slight breeze blew, rustling the fallen leaves on the ground. Inside the weathered two-story Victorian sat a very large hourglass, grains of sand slowly falling, counting down the minutes. Within the hourglass sat a beautiful girl with honey blonde hair and terrified eyes. Her tears soaked into the grains of sand, trying to slow down time.

The girl had known better than to visit the old Victorian. She had heard the stories of the house and its eerie ways her entire childhood; the whole town had. The city had tried tearing it down once, but every machine they brought in broke beyond repair as it reached the property line. They even tried bringing in a crane, coming at it from above but it rusted before their eyes. So the house sat, uninhabited and eerie, year after year.  

She knew better yet she went anyway. Deep inside she had hoped that maybe the house could help heal the gaping hole that had seared its way through her chest where her heart should be. He had left her at the altar, standing there in her beautiful white dress, staring down an aisle without a groom.

She couldn’t believe it when her wedding planner had told her that he hadn’t shown up. He would never do that to her. He loved her. She hiked up the swirls of lace and gentle silk and trudged down the lawn towards the entrance of the church, her bouquet in hand. As she pulled the heavy arched doors open, the room fell silent, all eyes on her. A wave of pity washed over her, making the air thick and hard to breathe. There, at the end of the aisle stood his best man and the preacher. They had stopped mid-discussion to turn their eyes towards the unknowing bride. The preacher’s face turned woeful while the best man’s eyes dropped to the floor. The room just sat and watched, as if she were some fragile animal in a glass menagerie, too delicate for human contact.

Her eyes welled with tears as she marched to the end of the aisle. The best man cowered as she approached. She stared at him, daring him to say something. All he could manage was “I’m so sorry”. He placed his hand on her bare shoulder. Her skin crawled under his touch. She pulled away, anger tearing at the edges of her sorrow. Her heart had stopped beating completely the moment she saw him not standing there, down the aisle, teary-eyed and ready to make her a wife.  A hot rage started burning in her belly.  She turned and stormed down the aisle and out of the church. With her dress tangled at her feet she got into the limousine, the words Just Married painted on the back window and told the driver to take her home. He had to be there. She deserved some answers.

The limo pulled up in front of their small rented two-bedroom colonial and the rage was now simmering just below the surface. On the porch, just outside of the front door there was the leather overnight bag she had gotten him for Christmas the year before. The screen door was propped open and the front door was ajar. Two beer bottles sat on the windowsill. Her anger boiled over; her flesh burned hot with fury. She thanked the driver through gritted teeth and slammed the door as she got out of the car. She sprinted for the door. Deep moans wafted down the staircase. There was a black lacy bra flung over the railing and a tiny black thong hanging from one of the stairs. She threw up on the floor as the moans grew more intense.

She pulled up the hem of her wedding dress and tiptoed up the stairs. The bedroom door was wide open. A tiny, naked woman with long black hair and very tanned skin was straddling her fiancé. She was writhing on top of him, her muscles contracting, her head swaying back and forth. His hands were dug deep into her hip bones, his toes curling on top of the bed sheets they once shared. She had never heard the moans he was making before. When he was with her, he was quiet and always on top. She gritted her teeth and stormed into the room.

* * * 

When the police arrived, the room was covered in blood from top to bottom. In the history of their small town, nothing like this had ever been seen. Murder was not something that they were used to. The smell of blood had caused several of the officers to excuse themselves, vomiting in various areas of the front lawn and refusing to return to the scene.

A detective from the city had gotten the call and made his way to their sleepy little town. He was used to gruesome sites and blood splattered walls. He, too, had to excuse himself from the scene. He made it to the bathroom just in time, heaving up his meatball sub into the toilet. He had never seen anything so violent before. This was a crime of passion beyond measure.

The police knew it was her that had committed the crime. There was no denying that. Their wedding was the talk of the town. His tuxedo was still hung on the hook inside the closet, their rings still in boxes on the dresser. The pictures of the two of them, her with her honey blonde hair and smiling blue eyes, him with his strong build and deep brown hair. They looked the happy couple. The woman in the room had long, black hair and a thinner frame than the blonde in the photos. He hadn’t shown up at the altar with the rings and bags were packed. This was an easy open and shut case. Except for the blonde was nowhere to be found. Neither were the eyes of the deceased.

* * *

The bride tore into the body of the naked woman with a rage she wasn’t aware was could harness. She grabbed her by the throat, ripping her off her fiancé in one fell swoop. The dark-haired woman tried to scream but the grip of the bride’s hands was so tight she had crushed her windpipe instantly. They tumbled to the floor with a heavy thud. She yanked the naked woman over and straddled her, fury seething from her eyes. She reached up and pulled her comb from the dresser and shoved the end into her throat. The comb slid through her flesh and muscle far easier than she had thought, the adrenaline pulsing through her body giving her a strength she could never have possessed otherwise.

Her fiancé sat naked on the bed, terrified. She glared up at him from the floor, the sound of life draining from the woman he was fucking in their bed on the floor below him. A dark, grim smile creased her lips as she stood, still towering over the naked body of the tiny woman, blood gurgling from the hole in her throat. She inched toward the bed, her bloody hands shaking, pulsing with disappointment. He shifted across the bed, hoping to get away from her, down the stairs, into the street for help. She jumped on him just as he made it to the other side of the bed, his side of the bed. She grabbed him by the hair and smashed his temple into the corner of the bedside table. His eyes went dark, his body limp. A pool of blood started forming on the floor, dripping from the corner of the table, soaking into the wood.

She sat on the edge of the bed staring at the two naked adulterers, lifeless and bloody. Her skin crawled as she looked at her fiancé, his naked body covered in the sweat of someone else. She jerked his body over, so he was laying on his back. His lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling, a glint of fear seared in them. She straddled him, touching his face, running her fingers along the small stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave for their wedding day. She ran her fingers down the length of his stomach, lingering at his slight beer belly. Anger consumed her once more as she moved her fingers farther down. She leaned forward and punched him the face, his nose shattering against the force, blood pouring onto their sex-soaked sheets.

Her eyes brimmed with tears. How could he do this, she thought. She turned back to the tiny woman, the comb still lodged deep in her throat. She took in the angles of her trim, muscular body, the bronze color of her skin, the shine of her perfect long locks, the fear burned into her striking dark eyes. This woman, naked and dead on her floor was beautiful in an angular, model type way. Her eyes drifted to the mirror in front of her. She herself was soft and pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way. She was not beautiful.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, unable to contain the pain any longer. Without thought she stormed into the bathroom and grabbed a pair of cuticle scissors. She bent down over the beautiful woman and dug her fingers deep into her eye sockets, yanking until each eye popped out. She cut them away with the small scissors. She spun and leaped on to the bed, furiously working to also take the eyes of her once beloved. With four eyes in hand, she marched out of the house in her blood-soaked wedding dress and went straight for the old Victorian. The house could help. It had to.

* * *

The detective paced the foyer of the colonial, stunned at the vicious nature of the crime. He studied the photo of the blonde. She seemed happy, but the circumstances of the day were obvious that version was simply a facade of the truth. He noted that in his small notebook and sat on the couch. He picked up another photo from the side table; the two of the them on a beach, her in a one-piece bathing suit, him with a small smile, trying to suck in his beer belly.

She was pretty, with soft features and milky skin. The bloody body upstairs was just the opposite. The woman in the photo didn’t appear to be strong enough to pull off the gruesome scene yet the detective knew that adrenaline can cause the body to become nearly superhuman. He could wrap his head around their physical deaths easy enough, open and shut case but the missing eyes was something he could not understand for the life of him. How could someone who seems so happy in the photos strewn about the house do something so violent, so vicious, so…disturbing?

He shifted his gaze to the two uniformed officers huddled by the door. Both where ghastly white, the contents of their breakfast churned up on the front lawn. Both looked uneasy, shifting nervously as they spoke. As he made his way towards the men, their eyes drifting to the floor, hushing their voices as he neared.

“Any idea why she would have taken their eyes, gentlemen?”

* * *

The bride stood on the front porch of the old Victorian, its heavy, red door daring her to enter. The small window was busted in from kids throwing rocks at the old place from the safety of the sidewalk. The doorknob was rusty and cold to the touch. A shiver ran through her bones as she turned the knob, the door creaking to life as she pushed it open. Musty air from inside the house wafted towards her, wrapping her up, luring her inside. She stepped over the threshold and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and swung the door closed behind her. A faint click echoed through the house as the door locked.

She swallowed hard, choking down the overwhelming fear that now consumed her every fiber. Her hands trembled, the bloody eyes jiggling in her hand. The fury inside of her raged again, sending her forward, deeper into the foyer of the house. The old wood floors creaked beneath her bare feet. A crackling noise caught her attention. She walked toward the noise slowly, taking note of the rotting house.

The walls were a deep, emerald green with mahogany wainscoting and intricately detailed crown molding along the ceiling. The enormous staircase led up to a delicate but dusty stained-glass window; the scene held a beautiful willow tree with a tire swing and a small child. The colors were breathtaking albeit coated in cobwebs and years of dust. The upper landing was dark, full of rotting wood and unseen smells.

She turned her gaze back towards the door as her feet kept inching forward towards the crackling noise. The room seemed to stretch before her eyes, the door now so far from her she’d have to run to get back.

The crackling noise grew louder as she turned into what she could only imagine was the sitting room. The room was filled with floor to ceiling mahogany bookshelves filled with dusty, decaying books. The creaky wood floor was covered with an intricate oriental rug, covered in a thick layer of dust and dirt. Two wine colored velvet wing-back chairs sat on the rug facing an ornate fireplace. A raging fire burned before her. She stepped forward, the flames licking at the heavy screen keeping it in place. She placed both sets of eyes on the small table between the two chairs and lifted the screen, placing it on the floor beside the fireplace. The flames danced wildly as she sat on the floor, her blood-stained hands still trembling as she spoke to the old Victorian.

“I killed them,” she confessed, the fire crackling and growing, as if being fueled with each syllable.

“I don’t know who she was. I don’t care, really. She was fucking him. On my wedding day. Who does that? Who hurts someone like that?”

The fire roared. She watched with intensity, her fingers aching to reach forward and touch the edges of the flames.

“I can’t breathe without him. I don’t know what to do. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I only wanted him to see me and realize he had made a mistake.” A tear slid down her cheek. The flames licked at her face.

“I killed them. And now I would like to have him back. I brought a piece of them for you. I think that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?” She tossed the shriveling eyes into the flames with a heavy sigh.

The fire roared, filling the entire fireplace with red hot flames. She shut her eyes tight, fearing that she would be engulfed and burned alive. In a flash the flames died to a small smolder, bright blue embers the only thing left at the bottom of the fireplace. As she opened her eyes the house was in pristine condition; the mahogany gleamed with a just polished shine; the velvet chairs were plush and soft; the heavy dust, rotting wood and decaying paper of books left unread were now clean and crisp. She stood in awe of the true beauty of the house. How could anyone have let this beautiful home go to waste for so many years?

She stood and headed towards the giant staircase. The floors no longer creaked beneath her feet. The stained-glass window gleamed, sunlight beaming in, casting a beautiful glow from the colors down the staircase and onto the floor. She hustled up the stairs to explore the second floor, no longer lifeless and eerie. She flitted around each room, one more beautiful than the next.

She swung open a set of French doors at the end of the hallway, revealing the master suite of the house. In the center of the room sat a fourposter bed in ornate wood, a gauzy canopy swathed across the top. She flung herself onto the bed, sinking into the plush mattress. She snuggled down into the pillows, drifting off to sleep.

Downstairs, the fire smoldered and cracked. An eerie, muffled sound echoed in the foyer as a layer of mahogany wood built itself up over the front door, erasing any hopes of her ever leaving.

* * * 

The detective skeptically took notes from each of the town’s police officers. He wasn’t big on folklore and tall tales but figured it wouldn’t hurt to check out this supposed haunted Victorian that nobody dared visit. A few of the officers at the murder scene offered to take the detective to the house but refused to step foot on the property.

As they rounded the corner, the old Victorian rose against the skyline, looming and dark. A slight chill ran through the squad car as they pulled up in front. The porch sagged and the windows were filmy with years of dust and neglect. The detective got of the car and squinted at the house against the sunlight while the officers remained in the car staring straight ahead.

There was no sign that the blonde had come to the house. No signs of disturbed grass, no blood drips from her hands, no wide opened door staring at him from the front of the house. The detective began to worry this was some sick joke that the town officers were playing. He turned to question the other two but was left dumbfounded; both men were white as a ghost, nearly trembling, refusing to turn his direction, towards the house. They were mute with the windows up to keep out the chill of fall and avoid any further questions. The detective turned back towards the house, confused yet determined to find the blonde bride who had murdered her fiancé and his brunette lover. As he made his way up the walkway towards the sagging porch, the officers locked the doors.

* * *

The blonde woke to the sound of music being played, a record playing sending notes up the expansive staircase. The house was filled with warm light and the scent of turkey wafting through the halls. She stretched her arms and gently placed her feet on the warm hard wood floor. She turned towards a long mirror, her hands clean of all blood, her hair down in soft tendrils. She twirled in the mirror, admiring the beautiful silk gown that hung off her body perfectly; her blood-stained wedding dress nothing but a mere figment of her imagination.

She gently made her way down the stairs into the kitchen. A woman in a maid’s uniform stood over the stove, mashing potatoes by hand, stopping momentarily to stir a warm pot of gravy. A glass of red wine sat on the edge of the island. She picked it up and took a sip, the warmth gliding down her throat. She smiled and closed her eyes, inhaling the scent of the room.

In walked a beautiful woman with pale white skin, jet black hair and deep red lips. She held a long cigarette holder in her left hand and a glass of red wine in the other.

“Oh, darling, you’re awake. I’m so glad to see that dress fits you like a glove. You look just marvelous.”

The blonde gazed at the woman with a small smile, tilting her head slightly in confusion.

“Come along now. It’s time for dinner.”

She followed the strange, stunning woman into the dining hall. The woman donned a long, deep red silk sheath covered in lace and fringe. The fabric clung to each curve of her body, sweeping along the floor as she walked. She was elegant and tall and wore a beaded headband, tendrils of her dark hair tucked up into it. She seemed to glide along the floor as she walked, a small trail of smoke lingering behind her from her ever-burning cigarette.

The dining hall held an exquisite six-foot-long oak table. An ivory linen runner with delicate gold filigree detail ran along the length of the table. Atop the runner sat two magnificent centerpieces full of exotic flowers the likes of which the bride had never seen, let alone knew the names for. There were four candelabras between the centerpieces casting a beautiful flickering glow across the room. A fire crackled in the stone fireplace. The room was filled with gentlemen in tuxedos and women in varying shaded of red. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her entire life.

As they entered the room, everyone stopped and turned. The only noise was the crackling of the fire and the faint sound of music from record player in the sitting room. The dark-haired woman raised her glass.

“To our guest,” she stated, bowing her head slightly. Everyone in the room raised their glass in cheers. The bride blushed slightly.

“Please, sit.” A stalky gentleman in a tuxedo with tails pulled out the chair at the head of the table for her. He pushed it in gently as she sat down. She smiled a small thank you. He turned and sat at the seat to her right, the elegant woman to her left.

The maid from the kitchen brought out a giant turkey, browned and steaming. The man sitting next to her carved her a piece and placed it on her plate. A swarm of butlers came from the kitchen carrying silver trays loaded with more food than she had ever seen in her life. Her plate filled with mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed mixed vegetables, a beautiful green salad and soft dinner roll. The table was filled with honey glazed ham, duck confit, baked yams, green bean casserole, homemade stuffing, coleslaw and a three-tiered cake. She was in awe at the sheer amount of food.

The cake was something of pure beauty. It was snow white with a string of pearls wrapped around the base of each layer. Delicate peach roses and soft baby’s breath cascaded down each tier. Small pearls were tucked into each tier at random intervals. It sat on a lazy-Susan that turned in a slow, meaningful way. Her eyes caught one of the pearls and a wave of emotion tore through her heart. This was her wedding cake.

As tears welled in her eyes, she pushed her chair back to excuse herself from the table. The dark-haired woman swiftly placed her hand over the bride’s with vigorous force. She glared up at her, flames flickering in her eyes.

“Sit. Down.”

The bride, dumbfounded, slowly returned to her chair, her eyes locked on the woman’s, now full of fury. Once she was back in her seat, the woman’s face returned to a smile, carrying on with her dinner. She sat, trembling and unable to eat.

* * *

The detective turned back to the officers in the car just as he got to the weathered porch. They sat stiff as a board, still ghastly white. Whatever, he murmured to himself under his breath. As he got to the front door it clicked and creaked open slowly. The detective took a small step back, his hand still reaching for the handle.

Get it together, he thought to himself. It’s just an old house, possibly with a murderer inside. Nothing to be afraid of.

He pushed the door open farther so that he could see into the old house. The sunlight beaming through the stained-glass window at the top of the staircase cast foggy shadows across the floor. The air swirled with dust kicked up from the breeze of the door opening. Cobwebs filled the staircase and hung from the giant chandelier above his head. The smell of rotting wood and mold filled his nose, sour and displeasing.

There were no footprints on the floor, no droplets of blood to be found in the foyer. A faint smell of sulfur wafted towards him from the sitting room to his left. He turned and slowly made his way through the intricate doorway into a room with velvet chairs covered in years of dust and decay. A small amount of smoke trickled up the fireplace, embers still burning slightly in the bottom of the fireplace.  

He walked towards the chairs, his hand on his gun, just in case. The woman he was chasing had, after all, killed two people in cold blood. As his eyes gazed over the top of the wing-backed chair he found two sets of bloody, terrified eyeballs sitting on the edge of the fireplace. They seemed to be set with care, delicate and thoughtful in their placement, staring at each other.

The detective’s stomach turned. He closed his eyes, his hand to his mouth. For the love of God, he whispered. A small noise came from the back of the room, in the corner. He reached again for his gun, drawing it up slowly.

“Miss,” he questioned in the quiet, eerie house. He inched slowly towards the noise.

“I just want to understand what happened. Can we just talk?”

He inched further into the shadows. There, next to a thick, heavy red velvet curtain with gold fringe around every edge sat a life-sized hourglass. Within the hourglass sat a woman, blonde, in a blood-soaked wedding dress. Her eyes were stoic, her skin garish, as if a spotlight were pointed on her from inside.

The detective stood, horrified at the scene. Grains of sand were drifting slowly through the hourglass, ticking away. Though, upon closer inspection, these were not grains of sand at all. The pieces filling the bottom of the hourglass were drops of blood and pieces of lace. Her body was slowly dissipating into pieces as the seconds ticked by.

* * * 

As dinner ended, the bride had still not eaten. Though the slender woman with the dark hair had engaged in conversation, laughing and eating with the others at the table, the bride couldn’t help but feel her icy stare on her from the corner of her eye.

As the cake was slice and served, the bride had sat with her eyes shut, tears streaming down her face. She wanted nothing more than to leave, sleep, forget this awful day but she stayed put, fearing the wrath of the strange, cold woman sitting next to her.

“Let’s retire to the sitting room, shall we?”, the slender woman announced, standing with ease at the table. All eyes flitted to her. All heads bowed in unison, then all stood and shuffled into the sitting room. The woman stood over the bride, her shadows casting a long, eerie glow across the bride’s face.

“You too, my dear,” she said, placing her icy fingers on the bride’s bare shoulder. Her grip tightened just a touch. The bride’s flesh pricked, a chill inching down her spine. She stood with a tremble in her legs.

Music started playing once again as they entered the room. The stalky man in the tuxedo made his way towards the bride.

“My lady,” he said, taking a deep bow. “I would be honored.” He placed his hand in front of her as the rest of the room began dancing in unison.

She blushed slightly. Nervous and tired, she placed her hand in his. His fingers were cold but once he had her body pressed to his, moving her across the room his body flushed with heat and she found herself smiling.

He twirled her around the room, smiling and gazing deeply into her eyes. Something about him made her feel safe. They danced for what seemed like hours, neither of them tiring nor getting bored with the same song repeating itself over and over.

As the clock in the corner of the room struck midnight, he stopped, still holding her tightly against his body. His smile faded and his eyes became dull, lifeless. The bride cocked her head slightly, unsure of what was happening. She glanced around the room finding that everyone had stopped dancing. The fire had burned to nearly embers and the room suddenly felt cold. She shivered as she dropped her hands from his embrace.

She backed up slightly and bumped right into the cold woman with her cigarette. She turned, startled. The dark-haired woman loomed over her, suddenly towering three feet over her head. As the bride looked up, fear creeping up her spine, the woman jerked herself down towards the bride, an awful howl shrieking from her throat as her eyes turned into empty sockets, dark and hollow. Her mouth stretched to ungodly lengths, swallowing the bride whole.

The bride sat up in screaming at the top of her lungs, soaked in sweat. Her heart raced as tears streamed down her face. It was just a dream, she told herself, trying to regain her composure. She took a deep breath and glanced around the room; fourposter bed, rich wood and the sound of music, followed by the scent of a delicious feast. Panic set in.

* * *

The detective stood staring at the seconds tick by, slowly pulling pieces of the bride through the narrow hole. Once he regained his composure, he knocked on the glass, softly at first for fear of it shattering all over the bride. He was desperate to get her attention, to get her out of the hourglass and out of the house. She didn’t flinch at the knocking on the glass. He grew panicked, pounding on the sides. Still, she sat, stoic and motionless, her life draining away slowly inside. The detective paced the floor, ranting to himself that there was no way this was real. This couldn’t be real. He tried lifting the hourglass, to move it in any way but it wouldn’t budge. It was as if it had been bolted to the floor. The examined it closely, the hard grain wood frame surrounding the glass. There had to be screws somewhere, keeping the pieces together as one. He came up empty handed.

He moved to the other end of the room, his eyes fixated on the woman and ran at full speed into the hourglass, no longer fearing for the bride’s life. He rammed his body into the wood, the air expelling from his body with a loud exhale as he flew backwards on to the ground. The hourglass remained in pristine shape. He grunted as he rolled over to stand, in awe of the sight before him.

During the commotion he hadn’t heard the soft piling of wood recoiling up the frame of the front door. Nor had he noticed that the eyes, once looking directly at one another, were now fixated solely on him.

* * * 

The bride slowly inched off the plushy bed, placing her feet on the warm hard wood floor. Her body trembled slightly as she inched towards the long mirror in the corner of the room. She stood in the same beautiful silk dress, bare shouldered, blood-free hands. Her hair was soft around her shoulders, quivering as her body shook with fear. This must be a dream, she whispered to herself as giant tears began forming in her eyes. Behind her, footsteps made their way down the hall towards her, followed by the smell of cigarette smoke. She froze.

“There you are, dear. We’re all waiting. Come along now.”

The bride’s body refused to move. The elegant woman with the pale skin, dark hair and ever-burning cigarette standing before her now had, just the evening before, opened her mouth and swallowed the bride whole. As the woman stepped over the threshold, the bride’s knees gave way and she hit the floor with a heavy thud.

When the bride finally came to, she found herself at the head of the table with the stalky man to her right, the horrifying woman to her left, her hand placed over the bride’s with conviction. She smiled at her as she opened her eyes.

“A toast, to our guest.”

The room cheered as the bride sat, sullen and panicked. The stalky man picked up her hand and kissed it gingerly.

“Shall we,” he replied, leading her from the food-filled table towards the music in the sitting room. She stood, uneasy. He wrapped his arm around her waist and led her to the dance floor. He pulled her into a strong embrace, and they were off, twirling around the room with ease and grace. The bride let herself relax into him, letting the weight of the night before slide off her shoulders. She rested her head against his chest and softly closed her eyes.

The clock struck midnight. Her body turned ice cold. The stalky man dropped his hands, his face blank and lost. She turned around, her body convulsing as waves of terror tore up and down her spine. The woman stood before her, taller than before, longer than before, darker than before. Her sunken, empty eye sockets hollow and deep. As her mouth opened, stretching to the floor a foul, rotting stench surrounded the bride. Her teeth were dagger sharp, growing ever longer as her flesh tore and her tendons stretched. The guttural howl escaping her throat seemed to wrap itself around the bride’s, choking off her air supply, stifling her scream as the woman lunged forward and swallowed her whole once more.

* * *

A fierce shriek startled the detective awake, followed by the grandfather clock striking midnight. He opened his eyes, dazed and disoriented. Midnight? How the hell is it midnight? Was that a scream? He stood from the dusty velvet chair and ran to the hourglass. The bottom was nearly halfway full of pieces of the bride, littered with lace, blood, shards of bone and sinew. His body quivered at the sight.

He turned and paced the floor, his mind running mad at how he could get her out of there. He had nearly lost sight of the horrific murder she had committed that led him here. He stopped short, recalling the officers that had driven him to the house, outside in the car with the windows up and their stoic faces.

He jogged towards the front door. Or at least, where he thought the front door was. The staircase was the other way when I got here, right? He cocked his head, unsure that he could trust his own thoughts. He turned back into the room and headed out the other door, assuming the door should be at that end. Again, the staircase led the other way. As he ran towards the door, the room seemingly spun at the same rate of his jog, forever staying just outside of reach. He finally became so dizzy that he fell to the floor, the staircase spinning beside him. He closed his eyes, trying to get his bearings.

When he finally came to, the staircase still sat the wrong direction, the door out of reach. He turned back to the room where the bride sat, decaying inside and impossible hourglass. A large mirror hung above the fireplace, dusty covered and intricate. Was that there before, he thought to himself. He wiped away a small circle. His eyes grew wide with terror as he took in the sight before him.

There he stood, aged 30 years. His wrinkles had been minimal, save for the years on the job leaving their mark but the face staring back at him had deep, garish wrinkles and severe crows feet. His jet-black hair was suddenly streaked wildly with white and his face was covered in a thick, angry stubble though he had shaved just that morning. He glanced down to his hands, now, covered in age spots, his knuckles slightly gnarled. This can’t be, he thought. He was only 45. How was he suddenly, overnight, 75?

* * * 

The bride woke again in the same plushy bed covered in a swath of gauze. Music wafted from downstairs, the scent of a feast filling the air. Tears welled in her eyes as she stood in front of the mirror; her skin had become ashen, her cheeks sunken in, her ribs protruding. She appeared nearly skeletal, the dark red dress struggling to stay up on her sharp shoulder bones.

“Come along, dear.”

Her frail body shuddered at the sound of the woman’s voice echoing up the stairs.

“Don’t keep your guest waiting. It’s not polite.”

The bride sat at the long table, weak and sleepy. The stalky man smiled his big, cheerful smile as he lifted her from the table, wrapping her up in his arms as they swayed throughout the night. As the clock struck midnight, he placed her gently on the floor as her legs were too weak to hold her up. The woman stood over her, triumphant. She glanced in the mirror and coated her lips in a bright shade of red, the fringe from her dress tickling the bride’s knees. She looked down and smiled. She howled wildly as she hinged her body at her hips and stretched her mouth wide, devouring the bride with nearly no effort.

The stroke of midnight jarred the detective from his sleep. He stood, his knees weak and sore, he back crooked, popping as he moved. He glanced in the mirror above the fireplace. His hair was ghost white and nearly gone. The flames from the fireplace cast shadows across the gleam of his bald head. His skin hung with age, covered in spots. Tufts of hair had sprouted from his nose and his ears. He leaned in closer, finding his teeth yellowed and rotting.

He stepped back slowly, finding it difficult to catch his breath. There, on the mantel sat both sets of eyes, staring at him. He shifted to the right, both sets of eyes following him as he moved. His old, 90-year-old body began to tremble. He turned to run towards the door, but his foot caught on the edge of the oriental rug.

As his body flung towards the floor, the pupils in all four eyes flared, the flames in the fireplace roared wildly, dancing with delight. His bones shattered in his paper-thin skin as his body crumbled to ash, blowing away like dust in the wind. The fire smoldered and both sets of eyes slowly disintegrated into the wood of the mantle.

The air shifted outside. The officer in the driver’s seat rolled down his window, put the car in drive and returned to the station. The officers still at the scene followed suit, packing up their things and leaving without a word. The wedding party headed home without a word. The colonial crumbled, sinking into the ground with the remains of the murdered couple.

Night fell and the colonial rebuilt itself, rising from the ground with loud crashes and bangs. The town sat quiet, still, undisturbed against the raging sound. In the morning a For Rent sign popped up on the front lawn. A sweet couple came to look at the house the following day. They were new to town, newly engaged and hoping to find a quiet house in a good neighborhood. A tiny, muscular woman with jet black hair and a small scar on her neck stood at the door, waiting to greet them.