Haunted Mirror

Team building is one of those awful inventions of modern life where employees are invited to some rural location, pummelled with activities of completely risable natures, fed large amounts of alcohol and are expected to function better as a team after the exercise. In my experience team building causes rifts in long-standing friendships that have been forged in the fires of unified resistance to management stupidity and brutality. Come to think about it that is possibly the arcane reason for team building exercises, but whatever last winter I and my colleagues were instructed to assemble at a resort high up in the mountains for a weekend of "fun and excitement" with "all expenses paid".

On arriving at the resort I got this awful feeling that all was not right with the place. Financially that is. A feeling echoed by Sue and Leo my closest allies at the firm and confirmed by Lucy PA to the CEO. It turned out that the owners of the resort had somehow talked the CEO into using their failing resort for the weekend. Nasty rumours of bribery and corruption flourished rapidly of course.

What was interesting about the resort was that it had been fashioned to look like a Swiss ski resort which meant that the rooms were almost Gothic in decoration. Dark painted walls offset by mirrors and chandeliers that provided minimal illumination.

"A fucking haunted castle." was how Leo put it. "You should be quite happy here Sue. You being a Goth and all."

"I left my piercings behind." looking ar me "You think that they have ghosts here?" Sue harping onto an old story that I was a medium in a previous life.

"Yes. They will come out of the woodwork and ravish us all."

"Hah! Fat chance of me getting even a faint whiff of ravishment. Sue maybe, but I am so out of the game I don't even have a ticket to watch from afar."

"Ah, poor Leo. How long has it been since Gene left? Two weeks?"

"A life time I tell you. A life time."

"You will just have to ravish yourself then, give the ghosts a laugh."

By this time we had made it to reception and were sent on our separate ways to our rooms around the resort. We agreed to meet in the bar as soon as possible.

I thought I was fast but Leo and Sue were there by the time I had dumped my bags, done a quick recce of the place and walked into the bar.

"How is your room? Mine is dark and cold. Window onto the delivery yard. And you Sue?" Leo staring mournfully into his beer.

"I have a wonderful view of the mountains. Seems I get to sleep next to the boss."

"You will have to bar the door by Saturday night if all the stories of his randiness are to be believed."

"After the stunt I pulled on him at the last team meeting? Not bloody likely. I suspect he just wants to make sure I am not cooking up any more fake videos of him agreeing to double the agreed increases across the board."

"Marvellous use of AI if I may say so. I am tempted to buy you a bottle of champagne on the strength of that."

"Promises, promises."

Leo looked across at me. "And you Tom? How are you set up?"

"Dark, dingy room with a feeble chandelier and a view of the kitchens. Oh, and a full length mirror. There are bound to be things of the night just waiting to emerge and rummage through my case. Watch out here comes boss man Adrian."

"Good evening colleagues. I am glad to see you have all made it here in good time. I hope that you are looking forward to an exciting weekend of fun, challenges and excitement. We will assemble in the dining room at supper time and after supper the fun will begin."

Someone groaned horribly from the back but Adrian pretended not to have heard.

====

The evenings "fun, challenges and excitement" boiled down to quizzes and a strange relay race that seemed to have no rules except that Adrian was meant to win. We were also warned that an early start was planned. We were to be guided by a local guide to visit the waterfall and if we felt like it, have a swim in the pool below.

It was a dismal crew who reassembled in the bar at 10:30 only to find that the bar closed and 10:30 so Leo, Sue and I decamped to Leo's room where he dispensed gold tequila with a liberal hand. Tequila has a nasty effect on me, it causes hallucinations if I am not cautious. But of course I was not cautious so at midnight I was to say the least merry. I did not overindulge to the point of making a pass at Sue so that was an encouraging sign that I might survive to brave the early morning walk.

I fell into bed and more or less passed out. Forgetting of course to set an alarm.

It must have been 2 am when there was a sharp rapping sound. Sharp enough to wake me from my tequila induced sleep and actually get my head off the pillow.

"What?" I managed to get out before collapsing back onto my pillow.

More rapping. Sounded like a window and knowing I was on the ground floor I assumed one of my colleagues had lost his or her way and was begging to be let in. I staggered to the window, opened it and looked around. It was fucking ice cold outside and the courtyard was empty. No one had been rapping on the window. I staggered back to bed. As I collapsed the rapping started again. This time I was wide enough awake to realise that the noise was coming from inside the room, and that the only thing that would cause that sort of glassy rapping was the mirror.

"Oh. Fuck. NO!"

I staggered round the bottom of the bed and stared at the mirror and there was a figure. Definitely not me. A woman, early thirties, long blonde hair and naked. One hand was placed across her breasts, the other over her pussy.

"Whaddya want?"

"Please help me get out of here."

"No. Fuck off. I have to go walking tomorrow at sparrow's fart."

"I will make it worth your while."

"Anything or anyone who gets trapped inside a mirror is not in the business of making anything worth my while."

"Please I beg of you. Help me out. I know you can. I can feel it."

I hovered torn between going back to bed and the notion of saving a rather pleasant looking woman but before I could do anything foolish a dark shadow appeared behind her and dragged her away, which left me with a memory of her fading cries for help and and enormous desire for sex. All of which made me feel even more of a beast. I sighed and headed back to bed. I was now wide awake and roiling over my cruelty. Of course my 3 am voices took great joy in making me feel totally inhumanly cruel on par with Hitler and Uncle Joe Stalin. Eventually I chased the voices away and at about 4 I crashed into oblivion only to be woken and 7:30.

"Cummon you lazy bastard." Leo managing to sound awake, happy and enthusiastic.

"Fuck off! I am sleeping."

"Adrian sent me to collect you. He said he would come and roust you out if you didn't pitch PDQ."

So I rolled out of bed, found warm clothes, a costume (Yes I know I am a sucker for punishment) and some sturdy hiking boots. Once I got to the assembly point it turned out that Leo and I were basically the first to arrive and there was a rumour that Adrian wasn't going to join us which I must confess brightened my day immediately. It dimmed fast when the local guide arrived. He was one of those thin, wiry characters who are about 900 years old, have been hiking the mountains for years and have lived off moss and lichens in the bad times. Johnny was his name.

He looked us over like an infantry sergeant inspecting a shabby bunch of recruits. And of course he stopped right in front of me, looked me up and down carefully then stared me in the eyes. After a while he nodded, said "Yes. You will do." and walked on. His single comment did not encourage me in the least. I have had experience with people like him before and always to my detriment.

"What was all that about?" Sue managing to look fresh, well groomed and inordinately sexy arrived at the end of Johnny's inspection of me.

"Yeah. What was that about?" Leo backing Sue's question up.

"Old soldiers never die which in many cases is a terrible pity. They are invariably immortal and I swear that they are all punched out of the same mould."

"Come on folks. The mountains are eroding by the minute. Lets get going." Johnny sounding encouraging.

"Even their fucking jokes don't change." I muttered mainly to myself but also to back up my story which was true to an extent, he probably was one of those old soldiers, but he was something else and it was that something else that disturbed me more than the old soldier part.

Fortunately, I do do a lot of walking in mountains so I didn't suffer too badly on the walk up to the waterfall. Sue of course did not even break out into a sweat, but Leo moaned and bitched all the way up. The waterfall to give credit where credit is due, was beautiful. A single thread of silvery water falling from a buttress way above us turned into a dispersed spray of droplets making transient rainbows in the sun. The wind tossed some of the droplets into our faces confirming that the water was icy.

Sue was first out of her clothes and into the water. She is very beautiful, extremely desirable and totally committed to a really great guy which made her completely untouchable as far as I was concerned. It didn't stop me from going completely mad, stripping off and following her into the water when she shouted at me to join her.

I am glad I did, it was probably the most wonderful experience of the weekend. The water was cold but refreshing in a strange organic way. Only a few of us dared to swam, Leo of course stood on the edge carefully wrapped in warm clothes and shouted insults at us.

As we wended our way back towards the resort Johnny stopped and waited for me, falling into step with me, breathing easily and moving like a cat. Somehow he managed to cause us to become separated from the rest of this hikers. Some were ahead, some behind, but somehow we were on our own.

"She will come again."

I didn't bother to ask who "she" was.

"She needs your help."

"I am out of practice and my last "outing" was a serial disaster."

"Only you think so."

"I know so and 15 years is a long time."

"Compared with her 100 years, 15 years is nothing." And with that he was gone, almost sprinting to catch up with Sue and then accompanying her all the way back to the resort.

The afternoon and early evening were the usual mix of challenges and games that only the most demented in the HR world could think up so it was a battered and bored trio who assembled in Leo's room to take solace in tequila and commiseration. The party broke up earlier than the night before because we finished the bottle quickly.

I must admit I was quite grateful for the early night as I did not have much little sleep the night before. Thus it was that I was in bed, alone by 11:30 and well asleep before midnight, only to be awakened by the the rapping sound on the mirror again.

"Oh, for fuck sake." I sat up in bed and saw the woman in the mirror again.

"I will give you anything, everything if you will but help me escape." she said

I was to be completely honest terrified of what I had seen the night before and from Johnny's words the previous morning but of course the fucking knight in shining armour arrived on the scene, talking of honour and ethics and courage and all those things that usually get someone killed or maimed.

It is at this moment that I must disabuse you of your good opinion of me. I am a nasty wretch. A manipulative, self seeking monster. I am only on the side of good because, because, ah fuckit I have no idea why I end up doing the right things. Dammit, I didn't even try to grope Sue in the mountain pool this morning despite the huge temptation to do just that.

"You a man or a mouse?" snarled my shadow. "You lust after the woman but you don't do anything about it. You could have got in a really good grope in the pool. She was hoping you would."

"No, she wasn't. She is happily married to Brian."

This conversation was interrupted by the woman in the mirror.

"Please, please we don't have much time."

Fuckit.

"What is your name?"

She pauses.

"Cummon. Your name. What is your real name."

"Rebecca."

"And the rest of it."

She looked panicked.

"Drop your hand to your sides, I want to see you naked." Internal voices howled with disgust. She dropped her hands and stood naked before me, trembling like a leaf which only caused me to hate myself just that little bit more.

"Your name Rebecca!"

She doesn't answer.

I slide out of bed, drop my sleeping shorts and walk toward the mirror. Her nudity and vulnerability driving my lust. (See I told you I am not a nice person).

She stares at my nakedness and my erection and to my utter surprise, she smiles, not a false smile but a smile of something. Recognition? I dunno.

"Oh, my. You are beautiful Free me and I will pleasure you beyond your wildest dreams."

"Rub your self, stroke yourself, let me see."

And to my complete surprise that is exactly what she does and we stand face to face, mutually masturbating till I spray semen on the mirror. She looks down at my cock and smiles.

"Rebecca, Sanchez, Maria, Helena, Jill." Her full name with all the nuances included and I was hooked. I went to my case, opened the hidden pouch and took out my vial of holy water (one must always have a vial of holy water about one) and an iron cross (not one of those German military things but a proper cross forged out of native iron and blessed by Brother Ignatius who provides my holy water too). I looped the leather thong that holds the cross around my neck and I turned to face the mirror and to my horror see I had left it late. The shadow was approaching faster than I could imagine. To add to the tension someone starts to bang on my door.

"Open up! Open up! Let me in."

Sue? What the fuck?

"Hurry up. Let me in or she will be trapped for ever."

Completely stunned I open the door and a scantily clothed, very beautiful and happily married Sue stormed into the room, an iron cross swinging between her very beautiful breasts.

"Stop leering at my tits and get her out of there. I will keep that bastard distracted."

Together we faced the mirror, together we threw holy water at the mirror. The woman in the mirror started slip through into our reality until the shadow behind her grabbed at her and started to pull her back. Then the filmy garment that Sue was almost wearing floated through the air and somehow drifted through the mirror. The shadow stopped pulling at the woman and grabbed Sue's garment. It let go of the mirror woman and instead started to drag Sue toward the mirror. I pulled the woman out of the mirror and then reached through and pulled Sue's garment out of the mirror breaking the connection between Sue and the shadow. The shadow let out a string of furious screams.

The mirror shattered into a thousand splinters like the droplets of water from the waterfall, just no rainbows this time. I fell back onto the bed completely overwhelmed. Not because I was afraid of the shadow creature, I have met them before and survived, just, but because he nearly got Sue. If I hadn't been playing clever with the woman Sue would not have been endangered. Told you I wasn't a good person didn't I?

The world seemed to fade and grow dark and I dreamed. I dreamed of the shadow stalking me. I dreamed of the mirror woman Rebecca, smiling, free and fading slowly. I dreamed of Sue, in the pool with me. I dreamed of her being drawn into the shadow lands and I was terrified for her.

"Its over. We are both safe." Sue's voice coming from vast a distance.

I started to get cold and cramps raged through my body.

"Tie his belt around his arm." Leo's voice echoing from a vast distance.

I felt the cold of the mountain pool, remembered Sue in the waterfall spray and then I dreamed no more.

It is the sound of a door closing that wakes me and the sound of a hospital that keeps me awake.

"I am glad to see you are still alive so you can pay for the mirror you broke during your drunken party. You were a bloody disgrace. You are not a team player." Adrian's voice makes me want to follow the shadow into the shadow land.

I open one bleary eye, see him vaguely in focus.

"I resign. Now fuck off."

The door slams and he is gone.

"Cummon soldier. You can't sit around like this for the rest of your life. All you did was lose a bit of blood and get yourself some honourable scars on your arms to show that you did the right thing despite your best efforts." Johnny helping me out of the wheelchair that the hospital had insisted I ride to the entrance. Leo helps me into a car and Sue is in the driving seat and looks back at me.

"We worked well as a team this weekend. You see? Team building does work."

I told you. They are fucking mad and immortal.