Genre: Gothic Horror Fiction
Written by: Md. Aftab Hossen
After listening for a while, she said, “No, I mean, they’ve come to see the house.”
After another brief pause, she said, “Yes, they look nice. A young man and a young woman.”
She fell silent again, then answered, “All right. I’ll ask them. You come, then.”
Seeing Rebecca and Mizan staring at her with their mouths half open, she looked a little embarrassed.
With a shy expression, she said, “Don’t mind him. He’s just like that. But he has a lot of affection inside. Come upstairs. I’ll show you the rooms.”
She finished speaking and started walking. Rebecca and Mizan followed behind her with irritated faces. When they stepped outside through the door, they saw that it had become almost completely dark. The light in the stairwell had been switched on. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of the Maghrib azan drifted through the air. The old woman covered her head with her scarf. Then she turned and looked at Rebecca. Rebecca pulled her own orna over her head. Everyone began climbing the stairs. Mizan was at the very back. He noticed the guard Hasen and the maid Aleya whispering to each other behind him, and it seemed to him that they were laughing.
When Mizan turned around, they stood silently.
The elderly woman stopped beside the locked door of the empty flat. The light there was extremely dim. With great difficulty, she searched through a bunch of keys, found one, pushed it into the dusty lock, and opened it.
Seeing the layer of dust on the lock, Mizan whispered into Rebecca’s ear, “Looks like nobody has come to see this place in quite a while.”
Rebecca pinched his hand lightly, making him stop.
The moment they entered the room, an intense, strange smell hit everyone’s nose. Rebecca and Mizan covered their noses and mouths, but the woman remained completely normal. The first room was huge. Yes, it looked like a sitting room. Although the place had looked fine from outside, for some reason Rebecca no longer liked it once she stepped inside. There were three more rooms. Two were open, one was locked. They shone their mobile phone lights into the two open rooms and peeked inside. The sharp, foul smell was unbearable. They could barely stay there.
Rebecca asked, “How long has it been empty?”
The woman hesitated a little before saying, “Seven or eight months.”
“What are you saying? Seven or eight months? It hasn’t even been seven or eight weeks.”
A heavy voice made all three of them jump and turn around at once. A gentleman was standing across the doorway.
White hair, clean-shaven, neatly dressed, he entered the room with a smile on his face. The guard and the maid entered behind him as well. They were smiling too. Seeing their smiles sent a shiver through Rebecca’s body.
The gentleman introduced himself. “I’m Md. Hakim. A retired banker. And the owner of this house. It’s only been a short while since this second floor became vacant.”
The guard and the maid nodded together with smiles on their faces, as if to reinforce Mr. Hakim’s words.
He continued, “The rent isn’t high. I don’t have any shortage of money. You’ve seen the rooms, haven’t you? Oh, one more thing. You two are married, right?”
They answered together, “Of course. It’s been almost a year.”
The gentleman took a key from his pocket and said, “Come. Let me show you the master bedroom.”
Mizan noticed that the guard and the maid still had smiles at the corners of their lips. This time, a strange uneasiness crawled over Mizan’s skin. He did not like any of this.
Mizan said, “No, uncle, it’s all right. It’s already night. We can come back tomorrow or the day after and have a look in daylight. How much is the rent?”
Mr. Hakim spoke in a tone that sounded almost like an order. “We won’t be here tomorrow or the day after. Since you’ve come all this way, see it now.”
He unlocked the closed room. Although the foul smell came from every other room, it did not come from this one. Instead, they noticed a sweet fragrance. To both of them, it seemed like an unusual scent created by the mingling of tuberose and jasmine flowers.
Although all the rooms were dirty, this one was not. The other two rooms had no lights, but this room did. Three people entered the room: Mr. Hakim, Rebecca, and Mizan. Mr. Hakim switched on the light after entering. Mr. Hakim’s wife, the guard, and the maid stood holding the doorway.
Mizan began looking around. Then Rebecca noticed a dressing table in the southeastern corner of the room, covered with a white cloth.
She seemed to ask herself in surprise, “Why is there a dressing table in an empty room?”
From behind them, the maid Aleya said, “It’s very beautiful and very old, madam. That’s why sir and madam didn’t throw it away. Whoever rents the room uses it.”
Mizan looked back. Mr. Hakim was standing right near the door. For some reason, it felt as though they were deliberately blocking the doorway. None of them had entered the room. Mizan and Rebecca walked forward through the middle of the room and stopped near the dressing table.
All four of them were staring at the two of them in a strangely fixed way. Mizan did not like it at all. They could not even get out. Everyone seemed to be keeping them trapped there by force. They were all standing across the doorway.
Mizan turned toward Rebecca and said, “Rebecca, let’s go. We don’t need to see anything else.”
Rebecca whispered, “Wait. Let me have a look at this.”
Before Mizan could go and bring her back, Rebecca stood in front of the dressing table and pulled away the white cloth. She froze.
Inside the mirror of the dressing table, countless people were standing, blood streaming from their eyes. One girl stood among them with nothing but a smile on her face.
The moment the cloth came off, they heard the sound of the door being shut. Mizan turned around and saw no one. The door had been locked from the outside.
The smiling girl standing inside the mirror only said, “Abbu, this is going to be fun.”
A horribly terrifying voice.
Rebecca shuddered. Mizan ran to the door and began pounding on it. The room light went out.
Then came a horrifying scream.
Everything became silent. Dark. Empty. Still.
Once again, pin-drop silence.
Mizan whispered, “Rebecca? Where are you?”
Even his own voice sounded unfamiliar to him.
Mizan switched on his mobile flashlight and slowly walked to the dressing table. He shone the light onto the mirror.
Rebecca was standing inside it, blood running down from her eyes. Along with many others, she was trapped inside the mirror.
In a fit of rage, Mizan tried to kick the mirror.
Instead, he himself went inside it and became trapped in the mirror.
**The End