5. The Vanity: Spiteful

“Hey, Ben!” His father called from the garage, the clanging of tools echoing behind the door. “Have you seen my wrench? I can’t find the dam—“ His mother cleared her throat from the dining room table and his dad coughed, before continuing, “that blasted thing anywhere.”

Weird, his dad usually was incredibly organized with his tools, sometimes he’d joke with Tyler that he loved his metal babies more than him. Though, they all knew it wasn’t true.

"No, I haven’t seen it since last week. Do you want help finding it??” Ben called back, setting down his math notebook. He was getting a headache from it anyway.

There was a pause before the gruff man relented, his head popping in through the kitchen doorway. He looked exasperated. “If you don’t mind, I need to retighten the bolts on the car again. Not sure what the issue is but every time I mess with it, it loosens up again the next day.”

Ben smiled at his old man, and jumped to his feet. “No problem, I’ll help you out!” He grinned and headed into the garage after his father with a kick in his step. It had taken some time, but Ben didn’t really feel all that scared of Cassius anymore. It had been two weeks since there last encounter, and the mirror had been silent. No incidents, no laughing in the night, and more importantly, he hadn’t messed with anyone else. The threat about Jessie had obviously been a bluff, his words about “the mirror not being a factor”, Ben wanted to laugh in that no good bastard’s face.

G****e helped his nerves, too. He had looked up common ghosts theories, past hauntings, and while some were chilling—he fully believed his little ‘friend’ ( more like enemy ) in the garage was harmless.

Irritating, and mildly infuriating, but just an angry and lost spirit.

Probably some bully who met a bad end.  Ben almost felt sorry for him.

Not.

“I’ve checked on this side of this garage already, wanna do a sweep of the other side for me?”  His dad asked before kneeling down in the corner to fiddle through some of the boxes stuffed there.

Glancing over to where his dad said, Ben had a childish idea. “Sure thing!” Walking over to the area by the desolate mirror, Ben peeked over at the dust settled neatly on the surface of the glass. Feeling giddy like a five year old, he beamed.

“Not so tough now, are you?” He snickered quietly to himself, before plopping his finger directly on the reflection. He wasn’t even slightly worried with his dad there, Cassius only ever showed up when he was alone.

The next few seconds he spent doodling, the plush of his flesh smudging an angry frowny face into the mirror. Under it, he spelled out a very neat and simple: Wash me.

Satisfied with his handiwork, Ben all but stuck his tongue out at it before moving around the vanity to look for the missing wrench. He riffled through boxes, looked under its wooden legs, peered behind the trash can—but to no avail. It left both him and his dad scratching their heads in confusion and defeat before his mom was calling from the doorway.

“Okay hunny, it’s time to wash up and go to work! You two can look for it tomorrow or he can keep an eye out while I take you, either way, move your tush.”

Groaning in defeat, the man stood to his feet and marched up the steps to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Yes, sweetie. Mind keeping an eye out for it Ben? I’ll be home later.”

“No problem, I’ll keep an eye out!”

She giggled and the two headed off. Ben never understood why his dad had to shower before work when he came home just as messy, but Ben knew better than to argue and so did his dad. Patting his hands off on his jeans, Ben shrugged as he stepped towards the waiting door.  

He half expected his little stunt to have Cassius appearing as soon as his father left the vicinity, but he was only met with silence. Trying his luck, he decided on one more act of vengeance, for Jessie.

Checking to make sure his mom wouldn’t catch him; Ben hurried to the fridge and grabbed an egg. With a grin, he tiptoed back into the garage and took aim.

“Ha!” With a splat, the egg exploded right beneath the words he wrote earlier, the yolk dripping down to the wood spitefully as Ben laughed in victory. “Have fun in your gross mirror!”

With the sound of his parents pulling away from the street not even five minutes later, Ben half expected to finally see his tormentor.

But in an unusual haunting of silence, he never came. Ben blinked, wondering if he had left and perhaps he was just vandalizing a poor antique.

“Huh…” Blinking, the blonde turned on his heel to head back in the house, deciding a break to watch some cartoons could help him look for the wrench with fresh eyes in a bit.

But he paused, hearing a small click.

Peering over his shoulder, Ben scanned the room for the source of the noise. But when he spotted it, he was shocked.

And overbearingly curious.

Descending the steps, Ben walked over to the mirror. In his reflection it caught every fleeting look of surprise over his features, dumbstruck. He kneeled down, his fingers pausing as they reached out, only to stop midair. The drawer that had been locked since the very beginning was cracked open. A glint of metal shining in the refracted light from the ceiling as he slowly pulled it open the rest of the way.

In the middle of the plush red fabric inside, the wrench laid—innocent.

“Cassius…?”

He had assumed the drawer was broken, unable to be opened no matter how much both his father and friends tried when they had originally brought it home from the junk yard down the street. His father hadn’t touched it since, having no interest in the mirror. So… how?

His heart hammered.

Why is the mirror a factor?

Ben turned pale. Reaching in slowly, he felt anxious. But nothing happened, not even as he slowly shut the drawer again with a ‘click’ and put the wrench in his pocket.

He stared for a minute longer before retreating into the house.

Never seeing the venomous gold eyes that materialized right as he shut the door.

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That night, the house thundered with a roar so loud, that it awoke everyone in the house with the shattering of glass.

“GET THE PHONE, NOW!”

Ben scrambled to his feet, tripping over his turtle pajamas. He could feel the cold chill of wind billowing, his sleep ladled mind unable to figure out where the gust was coming from. “D-dad, what’s wrong, what’s going on?!”

Ben took the stairs two at a time, and could only blink the sleep away as everything registered all at once. The shattered windows that lined his living room, a collection of rocks sitting in the middle of floor admist the pieces of glass that encompassed his living room. It looked like a hurricane hit, and the wind from outside battered his clothes like a warning. He felt shocked.

“Bring me the phone, now, Ben.”

It took a second to register that his dad wasn’t staring at the mess in the living room though, he was shaking, standing in the kitchen doorway to the garage with a curtain rod in his hand. He wasn’t sure what he had planned to do with that, but the man looked completely shaken. It made Ben’s stomach drop to his knees.

He had never seen his dad scared before.

“What… what is it, what they’d take?” It had to be a robbery, right? The damage was so extensive, did they make someone angry? The questions beat at his head as he stepped forward and his dad shook his head aggressively.

“Stay back, Ben!”

Ben watched his father's fingers go loose around the curtain rod, his gaze unbearably sad. His mother was crying, her arms coming to wrap around him as she murmured that it was okay, just listen to his father.

But Ben couldn’t. Leaving the safety of his mother’s arms, he ran forward. The need to know what was going on thrumming in his veins, as he shoved by his father’s towering frame. “Why! Tell me what’s going on!” Did the mirror finally break? Did someone steal something? Wait, where was the ground…?

All he saw was glass everywhere, almost glittering like freshly fallen snow on the ground, when he tripped over his pant leg.

“Ben!!”

His father’s holler fell on deaf ears as Ben tumbled down the small steps, and searing pain shot through his palms and knees as he hit the ground with a thud. Tears prickled in his eyes, but the pain was suddenly eclipsed.

His eyes so wide he felt they might fall out of his head as stared straight ahead, his mouth wide open.

“What…no…no way…”

His dad’s pride and joy was completely smashed in, the old mustang’s top caved in as the garage door all but fell into it. It was hanging sideways on its metal clasps, the metal bent unnaturally.  The windshield was shattered, and all that rested on the hood of the vehicle was the wrench that he had found earlier.

He barely registered the blood seeping from his hands onto the ground as he stared in horror at the pure wreckage.

But that wasn’t what caught his eye the most, tears spilling over as he fought the urge to vomit.

“It’s okay. Don’t cry…” His father’s strong arms hauled him off the dangerous ground, blood and broken glass marring his pants and flesh as his mother ran over to try and soothe them. But he couldn’t focus on anything, except the words scratched into the side of the garage door, the hung ominously over them.

‘I can throw things too.’

Ben was hyperventilating and as a sharp slash ripped through his hands, the tears spilled faster and faster.

His wild gaze searing down as he watched the cuts on his hands, shred into letters before his very eyes.

“Oh my god…oh my god…” He chanted, hysterical. His parents hugged him closer, the sound of police sirens bounding down the street.

But he was oblivious, staring empty at his own hands.

‘Wash Me’ stared back at him in the pools of his own blood.