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Chapter 4, continued
Crime scene tape encased the room and a large, unnerving bloodstain covered the formerly white carpet. The room was remarkably like the entryway in that it appeared to have been closed, sealed, and not entered since; and in that it sent chills running up Don's spine. Don ducked under a strand of tape that blocked of the doorway and stepped inside, carefully avoiding the bloodstain. He scanned the room with scrutiny. The window was closed and locked. The pillows were all on the bed. Nothing appeared out of place. This, more than anything else, alarmed Don. Something should have been displaced. The girls would have struggled, so something should have been knocked over or broken. But even the scatter of glass figurines on the bedside table remained posed in an elaborate position. It was almost as though someone had just taken a big balloon of red dye and popped it over the floor as some Halloween stunt, simply pretending that a gruesome crime had taken place. Don reached behind himself and shut the door, checking. It still squeaked. He squeezed his eyes shut and ran his hands across his face and slowly over his temples. This whole thing seemed impossible.
Don leaned forward and glanced under the bed. Another balloon pop of blood stained the carpet there: Juji the puppy's final resting place. How had that happened? He thought. Surely the dog would have barked or whined or something. Suddenly, Don wondered how exactly the dog had died. . . animals didn't instantly die from cuts to the side, even if they were deep. He made a note of the question. Don was surveying the room one last time, about to leave, when the closet door caught his eye. Another involuntary shock of chills went spiraling up his back, and Don mentally told himself to get a grip. He carefully crossed the room and opened the door. The closet, too, was completely as to be expected. Cluttered, but clean. As normal as a closet could get. . . almost. One slightly abnormal thing stood out about the closet: another door was at its back. Don raised his eyebrows curiously. He crossed the closet and put his hand on the knob. He turned it. For a moment he thought it was locked, but then the knob gave an awkward jerk and the door popped open. Don simply stared at it for a second. He had never felt a door open like that. Don shook his head and gave a small laugh. Either he was becoming door obsessed or he was going crazy. Door obsessed probably counted as being crazy anyway, he thought. Not good. He shook his head again, this time to clear his head. All it did was make him notice the musty smell that was filling his nostrils. He glanced up. The closet door led to the attic. It was. . .
Don's jaw dropped. An ornate full length mirror was poised in the middle of the attic. For some reason, it made Don's heart stop. He could feel himself breaking out into a sweat. A door creaked behind him, but he couldn't move. A purely instinctual fear was rushing through him. There was something about that mirror. . . something terrifyingly familiar. A hand clapped down on Don's shoulder and he gasped. He spun around in horror, and found Jeremy looking at him with surprise.
"Holy Shit!" Don said, his breath coming in huge gulps, "What the hell did you do that for? Don't sneak up on people like that!" Jeremy looked shocked.
"I called four times from downstairs, and the door croaked like a freaking bullfrog when I came in. How did you miss that?"
Don shook his head, "I. . . I don't know," he didn't want to sound stupid, but his hands were still shaking slightly and he felt a little sick. That mirror wasn't normal.
"What were you looking at anyway?" Jeremy asked curiously.
"Oh, the. . . uh. . . attic," Don said, he turned back around, and nearly smashed his face into the door. "What the---?" He muttered, "How did this get shut?"
"You slammed it when I came up," Jeremy said.
Don snorted, "When you scared the shit out of me, you mean."
"I was trying to be polite." Jeremy said, smiling, "but if you want to talk about it, it was kind of a pansy thing to do. You must have jumped about a--"
"Hey. . . shut up." Don said. He had his hand on the knob and was attempting to turn it, but it didn't budge. There was no jerk this time. No nothing. "It must have locked when I closed it,"Don said, pulling his eyebrows together. "It wasn't locked when I came up here, though."
"Weird," Jeremy said. "Was there anything interesting in there?"
Don hesitated, "I don't know," he said finally, "I didn't really get a chance to look. We'll have to get the key from Mrs. Richard and make sure there aren't any ways to get in or out of the house from there, though. I haven't found much else here. Did you see anything worth noting?"
"Apart from the ocean of blood out there?" Jeremy asked. "Nope. . .Well, except for the fact that there's nothing valuable up here."
"Yea, I thought of that too." Don said.
"So what do you think he was after?"
Don shook his head slowly, "The girls?" he said, without conviction. "Or maybe," he said, something dawning on him for the first time, "something in there." He inclined his head toward the attic and thought uncomfortably about the mirror. It was actually plausible, he thought.
"We're gonna have to talk to Kate Richard again, huh?" Jeremy said. Don slowly nodded.
"Yea, but we've got some others to hit first."
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