Gays Through The Looking Glass

CW: The following story contains instances of Violence and Blood which may be too much for some beings to endure. Listener discretion is advised.

 Intro: This is Queer Ghoul. An anthology of short queer horror stories written and produced by me, Adriana Oister, pronouns she/her and they/them. 

With various tales of horror, suspense, mystery, and science fiction, I in the role of “The Narrator”, will introduce you to a diverse set of characters each of whom trapped in their own hellish landscapes, and teeth-clenching nightmares.

Monologue: It seems only fitting that the first episode of Queer Ghoul should begin with a ghoul story. One of the many inevitabilities of human existence is that with love, in the many forms it takes, will come heartbreak. For one reason or another a heart will crack and shatter, like the glass in a mirror. It’s possible to fuse the pieces back together, but it will never be fully intact. And the process will forever continue, pain and repair, pain and repair, until that person’s heart stops beating altogether, and the sorrow is allocated to another. You could say that it’s a form of…haunting, so to speak. The protagonist of this story, Ellis Alpin, pronouns he and him, has gone through a lot of this grief in such a short period of time, and the…person who’s helping him get through it is quite questionable to say the least. I’ll warn you in advance that after listening to this tale of horror and love, you may want to beware of what you see and feel when you look in the mirror and question yourself on what lives on the other side of its glass. I now present to you…. GAYS THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS.

Gays Through The Looking Glass

Ellis Alpin rested his arms against the pristine white tablecloth, staring over at the other side of the small table, past his laminated menu and wine glass, the bread rolls and butter, and the seasoning grinders, where his eyes met no one but an empty chair. Silverware rolled up in a cloth napkin with no one to unravel it. 

His ears were focused on the distant playing of a high-strung violin and the chatter of the surrounding couples dining. So much so, that he nearly jumped out of his chair when the waiter spoke. “Are you ready to order, Sir? Or are you waiting for someone else?” His pen was at the ready and hovered over his notepad.

Ellis softly smiled. “Yes, I’m ready. No one else. “He said as he ordered his meal. 

            The waiter scribbled, nodded, and walked away. Ellis stated a firm thank you to him as he departed.

He glanced over the dining room one last time, toying with the knot in his teal blue tie as he did so, before he took out of his waistcoat’s pocket a small compact. He flipped open the lid, where he stared back at himself. His eyes were dull and pained. His smile weakened as he placed the little mirror on the other side of the table, facing his direction. 

He took a sip from his glass, careful to not get any of the red liquid onto his outfit. He brushed his hand over the top of his short brown hair. “Are you there?” He waited. 

It gave no response. 

“I would understand if you didn’t want to show yourself, I know the circumstances look a little insane, but maybe you can just listen instead?” 

There was a pause. 

“Mrs. Bailey came to the bank today, remember her? She’s the one who has the dog that got loose, and we had to chase it through the lobby…”

Ellis kept on with his conversation to the mirror throughout his meal. He only stopped when the waiter would swing by, or a couple would pass. All the mirror did was reflect back his saddened face.

He went directly to his apartment after the dinner, where his roommate waited for him on their couch. Asher Church rested the heels of his socked feet on top of the coffee table while he cradled in his hands his paperback copy of Sputnik Sweetheart. Its open pages practically an inch from his sharp face. Ellis closed the front door, and Asher lowered the book and his feet. “I know that look.” He said. “You were just on a date, weren’t you?”

Ellis walked past him. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

Asher’s eyes followed him. “Because it didn’t go well, did it?”

Ellis stopped but didn’t turn around.

“It’s okay that it didn’t, many dates don’t.”

“All of my dates don’t.” Ellis said.

Asher didn’t reply, so Ellis left him there without another word as he entered his bedroom, closing and locking the door behind him. He flicked on the light switch, and looked past the mountains of cardboard boxes which littered the floor, and the cobwebs still clinging to the ceiling that he never could find in himself the energy to clean. A pink porcelain lamp sat on a pile of boxes; its fabric shade ripped down the middle during the move. He instead zeroed in on the corner of the room, where a long rectangular object was cloaked with a heavy silver shroud.

He took off his coat and tugged it onto the rack. He adjusted his attire as he walked over to the object and grabbed the heavy leaded fabric from the bottom and pulled it up midway.

He was met again with his own reflection, bordered by an old frame with patterns of intertwined roses and horned demons with fangs etched into the black wood.

 He dropped the fabric and watched it thud back onto the carpet. He sighed and wiped his pink eyes with his sleeve. He was sick of looking at reflections that were his. He took another breath and grabbed a hold of the fabric again. He lifted it up to catch a peek of the glass.

A handsome man in a crouched position smiled and gave him a small wave.

Ellis’s heart pounded as he smiled back and whipped the fabric completely off the mirror with a newfound delight.  “For a second, I thought you weren’t going to show again.”

The man stood up and stretched his back. His cheekbones were chiseled and led to a strong chin with a small cleft. His short hair black. He wore a yellow turtleneck which was tucked into brown trousers. His hairy wrist was adorned with a white wristwatch linked in a leather brown band. His eyes were limitless pools of ocean which were as glowing as his toothful grin, and they crinkled at the sides when watching Ellis. “I could never stray too far away from you. I get lonely when you’re gone during the day.” His voice was raspy and soothing to the ear. The man adjusted his position, crossing his legs, and leaned into the mirror. His palms flat against his side of the glass.

“I get lonely too when I’m away from you, Leslie. Even with all the people I interact with in one day, none of them compare to you.” Ellis said.

“I feel the same way, you’re a bright spot in a crowd of gray.” Leslie’s eyebrows knitted, and he cocked his head. “You came home later tonight than usual, was something the matter?”

Ellis looked down at his feet. “It was silly. I went out to have dinner, and I thought I could bring you with me. So, I used a little compact mirror and sat it across the table. I tried to pretend like you were there, but it wasn’t the same.”

“That’s very sweet of you, but if you wanted to have dinner with me, you could have just came in here.”

“I know, but I wanted to really have a special moment with you. Out and about in town, not just in my bedroom.”

Leslie chuckled. “It’s hard, but yet so easy to love you. You have a heart of gold. I too wish I could hold your hand in mine and take you on dates and kiss you, to really show you how much I care. But I am unable to talk to you from any other mirror than this one. It’s the only thing in your world that connects it with mine.” His eyes pierced into Ellis. “You have no idea how much I wish I could shatter it and be able to walk into your arms.”

“I wish you could too.” Ellis raised his palms and evened them with Leslie’s. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this, I want more. I want to be with you every day, in every moment. To touch you, to feel you, to love you. It feels like a cruel trick, to have what you want most to be right in front of you, but on the other side of a thick piece of glass. I feel like nothing when I’m away from you. It seems like that in my life- “

“-love is always just out of reach?” Leslie finished. “I feel the same way. Everything you feel, I feel Ellis. Our hearts and souls are connected like that. It pains me that you feel so unloved, when you’re the only person I can think about. The things you have told me Ellis, they wound me. I think that’s just the saddest thing in the world. To pen and send love letters without a single reply. To have the words ‘I love you’ flow through your lips, but to never hear them echo. Well, hear them now, my Ellis. I love you, and I wish for us to try again.”

“I can’t…I can’t do it again. I’m sorry. It would only make my heart hurt worse.”

“Please Ellis, look at me. I know you want to. I can feel it. Let’s try it again, one more time. I understand that our situation is complicated, there’s a lot to figure out. But there would be less to ponder if you joined me on the other side of the glass, Ellis. We can still do it. I’ll work this time, I know it. Over here on my side of the glass, the world isn’t as cruel, people aren’t as dense or as rigid. It’s beautiful and vast with fortune. I can show you that beauty, we can live there side by side for the rest of our lives. It won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you.”

“How do you know it will work?”

“Because your love gives me strength. Your belief in our love fuels me, and it only grows stronger the longer we are in each other’s presence. Please, let’s do it Ellis, let me take you away from your cruel and ugly world. Just close your eyes like before.”

Ellis took a deep breath, and he did as Leslie told him.

“Yes exactly, let our love pulse through your blood and saturate your mind. Yes, I can feel it, it’s there. More. More. Everything you’ve got, I need. Now, keep your eyes closed, but reach out your hand, flatten it across the glass. Do you feel that, Ellis? Those are my fingertips tapping against yours, and this is our fingers intertwined together like they’re meant to be. I’m going to let go only for a second, keep your eyes closed, no peeking. I’m going to grab your wrist firmly, shake your head yes or no if that hurts. No? Perfect. I’m going to pull you over, and do not open your eyes until I tell you to. Your arm is already halfway in, you shouldn’t feel pain, it should only feel as though you’re submerged.”

Ellis’s skin was freezing, except where Leslie’s hand wrapped around his wrist, there it was warm to him. Hot even. But he trusted Leslie, and so he continued.

“Now Ellis, I need you to take one big breath in. Do it for me please. Then lean your body in towards the mirror, I’ll wrap my other arm around your waist and pull you in. Yes. Yes. Perfect. You’re almost here, only a moment longer.”

Footsteps approached the room. “Ellis? Ellis? Can I talk to you for a second?”

Ellis ripped his arm out of the glass, and out of the man’s grasp. “That’s Asher!” He said to Leslie, who seemed to be in a daze, tapping his hand on the glass, trying to break through but to no avail.

Ellis picked up the fabric and draped it over the mirror. He sprinted to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open.

Asher stood with a fist raised, it shook in the air. He lowered it back down and cleared his throat. “Were you…just talking to someone?” His voice cracked in the middle of the question.

“I wasn’t talking to anyone.” Ellis said. He didn’t make eye contact.

Asher stepped through the doorway, inviting himself inside. He sat on the edge of Ellis’s bed and studied the room. “You still haven’t unpacked all of your stuff.”

“Yeah, I’ll get around to it eventually.”

“I could help you. If you want help that is.”

Ellis shook his head. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

Asher rubbed his hands. “Did he call you lately?”

            Ellis sat next to him and crossed his arms. “No. I haven’t heard from him since he left.”

“I’m sorry.”

            Ellis hummed. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Honestly. I’m used to it at this point. Sometimes, I really don’t think I’m capable of being loved to begin with.”

            “Oh, come on now. That’s no way to talk.”

            “No. You don’t understand.” He stood up off the bed and frowned at Asher. “I’ve never been in a relationship that worked. It’s either I love him, but he doesn’t love me. Or I love him, and he loves me, but he can’t be with me. The universe is sending me a clear message that I’m not meant for love, still I’m stupid enough to keep having my heart broken.”

Asher bit his tongue and stood up as well, his hands holding onto Ellis’s shoulders. “There are many different forms of love, you know. The universe is infinite, and so is love in the many shapes it can take. So much so, that sometimes there isn’t even a label for it. Personally, I’ve found that the most powerful of love comes from the man in the mirror.”

            Ellis’s eyes grew wide, his chest tight. “Man in the mirror? What man in the mirror?”

            “Well, person in the mirror I should say. Years ago, people would see me and see a girl, when I looked in the mirror, I saw a guy. I fell in love with the guy, and how over time he became more true as I nurtured him. That guy was me. I loved him, and therefore I loved myself. It’s hard sometimes, but I still love him.” He pushed Ellis closer to the covered-up mirror. “What you need to do is fill your own heart and fall in love with your person in the mirror.”

Ellis watched as Asher picked up the fabric from the bottom of the mirror.

            “Wait, Asher, you can’t do that!”

            In a flash, Asher ripped off the cover.

The mirror reflected back himself, and an unnerved Ellis. 

“See? This is what I’m talking about, the man in the mirror.” Asher said, pushing Ellis closer to his reflection. “It’s hard, but you’ll get there eventually.” After a moment, he took his hands off of Ellis’s shoulders, and walked towards the door. “I’m going to leave you alone now, let the two of you be…but…just think about what I said, okay? I care about you too.”

            “I know.” Ellis said.

            Asher gave a small smile and left.

            Ellis looked back in his reflection, which dissolved to reveal Leslie once more.

            “Why did you disappear when Asher looked into the mirror? Why didn’t you greet him as you did with me?”

“My Ellis,” Leslie said. “It wouldn’t have mattered. He wouldn’t have seen me anyway. Because he doesn’t believe, he wouldn’t believe that I was real, as you do. That’s how I know that you don’t really believe that you’re not meant for love. Because you and I standing here talking, is proof enough of it being real.”

            Ellis nodded and looked over at the alarm clock on the table at the side of his bed. “It’s getting pretty late; I better get ready for bed.” He said as he walked back over to the side of the mirror and grabbed for the fabric.

            “Please Ellis, can we stop with the fabric?”

            “I don’t know, the person who sold me this mirror at the antique store told me that when I’m not using it, this fabric needs to be covering it.”

            “I know what they told you, the advice was meant to protect the mirror. But it’s safe here tucked into the corner of your bedroom. You don’t need it anymore. You know I’m here; you know I won’t let anything bad happen.”

            Ellis gave it a moment of thought. He shrugged. “Of course.” He said, dropping the fabric back down in a heap.

            Leslie’s smile grew wider. Unnatural. And that same smile never left his face. 

Even an hour later when he watched Ellis fall into a deep slumber while tucked into his bed. 

His youthful eyes darkened.

Ellis woke a few hours later, when he heard heavy breathing in his pitch-black room. It was as though someone was breathing right next to his face, as he felt warm air tickle his ear and the side of his cheek. 

His eyes shot open, and he sat up straight. He gazed over his room, and to where a small stream of streetlight slid through his window and stroked the border of the frightful full body mirror. “Leslie?” The name slipped through his lips but was unanswered by the glass and the darkness.

The breathing was gone, but he still heard sounds coming through the walls. They were muffled bumps, thumps, and quick smacks against the wall.

He pushed the bed covers off of him, stood up, and slipped his feet into his brown slippers and exited the room. Asher’s bedroom was across from his, the door had been left wide open. He peeked inside but didn’t find him in bed.

He walked closer to the living space, the sounds grew heavier, as did his legs. It sounded to him like two beings attacking one another, an intense struggle. One of the voices carried out and begged for help, and it sounded like Asher.

He made it into the living room and witnessed just that. Two blackened bodies, laying across the floor, the one figure on top of the other. It was larger than the one on the bottom, and a heavy growl emitted from its throat.

Ellis flicked the light switch; the room illuminated and gave colored appearances to the figures. 

The one on top of a bloodied Asher froze in place.

“What is going on in here?” Ellis asked, trying to keep his voice from stuttering.

Asher screamed. His balled-up fists beating down on the carpet. “It’s trying to kill me!”

The figure in question raised himself off the floor and turned towards Ellis.

Ellis backed away, his mouth hung open, his hand rose up to cover it. “Leslie?”

            The twelve-foot-tall figure was in fact Leslie, or something that could have looked like Leslie at some point in an alteration. He was wearing the same clothes, but they were stained with brown blotches and torn around the joint areas. His skin was a bright painful white, his ears pointed. His eyes were no longer human, instead replaced with those of a beast, beady and black. His mouth filled to the edge with sharp pointed animal teeth. His arms and chest were thick of hair. His fingers had turned to claws. And two pointed horns had thrusted themselves out of the top of his large head and curled.

Ellis repeated his question. “What’s going on?”

While Leslie was distracted, Asher stood up and struck his fist across the back of Leslie’s head.

            Asher’s hand slid right through him.

Leslie snarled. He twisted around and brought his clawed hands around Asher’s neck and pushed him back down to the floor. He opened his jaws and a long forked purple tongue stretched out. It elongated itself and slithered down Asher’s mouth.

            Ellis looked on in terror. “Stop!” He cried.

The wet tongue flew back into Leslie’s mouth. He rushed over to Ellis and wrapped his thick arms around his body. “Look, my love!” He said, his voice deeper. Evil. “We’re together! Just like we both wanted!”

Ellis tried pushing out of his embrace, but Leslie was too strong. “You’re not who you said you were. Why are you over here? Why are you trying to kill him?”

Leslie squeezed him harder. Ellis’s shoulder popped. “I never lied to you my Ellis, I told you I loved you and I lived on the other side of the glass. I never lied.”

            “You also said you’d never hurt me, and that was a lie. You never told me you were a monster. You didn’t want me, you never wanted me, you wanted a meal.”

“That’s not true,” Leslie’s jagged teeth dribbled salvia down onto Ellis. “That’s not true at all. I love you.”

Ellis’s eyes welled up in tears. “I was so stupid, again. I thought what we had was real.”

Leslie kneeled and left a slobbery kiss on the top of his temple. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry, my love. What we have together is real. It was your real emotions that allowed me to come over to your side. Your love, your insecurities, your fears. All of them gave me the strength I needed.” He lowered one of his clawed fingers and tapped the tip of Ellis’s nose. “But please listen, I don’t have much time. I need your friend; I need his soul. It will give me the remaining strength I need to stay on this side with you, to shift back into a human form. Nothing would be able to split us up again, in a decade or so I may need another human to feed off of to keep me by your side, but we can be together for the rest of our lives! Just like we both wanted! As we both dreamed!”

            Ellis pushed away, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. His mouth in a scowl. He was done. “No! This isn’t what I wanted! Asher’s my friend, I don’t want him to die. No one should have to die for real love to last.” His eyes flashed at the creature. “I really was so stupid. You were telling me all along. Since I first looked into that damn mirror and saw you, I thought I was seeing and hearing a different person. I hated seeing my reflection, but really, I was with it all along. Because all you did this entire time was repeat the things I felt and what I wanted to hear. You’re really nothing more than a blank slate, and you fed off of me to bring yourself here.”

Leslie’s huge mitts held onto Ellis’s hands. “Is that really so bad? I’m everything you want, right here in arm’s grasp. If you don’t want me to kill your friend, then find me another human, or better yet, come with me over to my side of the glass. It’s better there, I promise you. I don’t care what side I live on, as long as I’m with you!”

            Ellis rolled his head to see Asher breathing heavily on the floor, staring up at him with a shocked expression. He wiped his cloudy eyes with his hands. When his eyes returned to the pleading ghoul in front of him, he titled his head up, and eyed Leslie’s demonic mouth with a new born confidence. It wasn’t strong by any means, but it bloomed, and it grew.

            Leslie cradled Ellis’s head. His claws poking the back of his skull.

            Just when their lips were within an inch apart, Ellis whispered to him. “Race you to the mirror.” He said as he pulled away with all his strength from a surprised Leslie and rushed back into his bedroom. 

            He stood in front of the old mirror, and to no surprise Leslie was already behind the glass. He was back into his human form, although his eyes were menacing, his skin was still white, and his teeth were too sharp to be compared to any other mans.

            Leslie smirked. “I win.”

            Ellis attempted to stay put together. To cease the trembling through his frightened body. The only way to tip off a creature who fed off of your emotions was to continue to think about love. Although Leslie didn’t realize that Ellis wasn’t thinking about his love for him. “I thought you would.” He said.

Leslie pressed his hand back into the glass and it slid through. It made the glass turn murky and sprouted ripple like waves which vibrated the mirror. His hairy hand motioned for Ellis to take it.

And Ellis did.

Leslie pulled his arm back and tugged Ellis along with him. “I love you.” He said in a dark tone.

Ellis exhaled, the iced sensation chilled his skin and veins and slowly his arm disappeared behind the glass, where it felt hot and sweaty. Could it possibly have been hell back there? His eyes met with Leslie’s. “I loved you too.” He said.

Leslie’s lips grew wider, his teeth grew sharper.

Ellis grimaced. “But I love myself more.”

Leslie’s face changed into confusion, as his eyes watched Ellis’s other hand grab onto a nearby lamp. “No! No! Ellis, wait! Don’t do this! Don’t break it!”

            Ellis smashed the lamp in the mirror, the glass from both objects shattered into pieces, rained down onto the floor, and crunched under Ellis’s slippers. Some of the shards sliced through Ellis’s hands and face, and trickles of blood dribbled. The arm that was through the mirror was pulled back to his side.

“Ellis!” He heard Leslie scream, but it was cut short by the crack of the blow.

Asher bent over and scraped up the last few remaining pieces of glass from Ellis’s carpet, throwing them in the pail shaped trash can next to him. “I still can’t believe that happened.” He said to Ellis, who was standing up holding in his grasp a larger shard of the mirror. “I thought you were actually going to go with that thing.”

            Ellis laughed and placed the piece of glass in front of him on top of the cabinet and leaned it against the wall. He scratched at a few of the bandages on his arms. “Let’s just say that I took a friend’s advice to heart.” He smiled down at Asher, before looking back into his own reflection. The tiny cuts on his cheeks were still red but stopped bleedings hours before. For a split second, the smile dropped, but when he reminded himself of what he had done, it returned to his face soon after. “I’m done with men in the mirror after him, except the one that’s me of course. I’d like to take the time to get to know him better.”

            Asher got off the floor and stopped in the bedroom doorway. “You want to take a break and head out for lunch? Maybe some shopping? We can come back and finish up your bedroom.”

            “I’m in.” Ellis said and followed Asher out. “We need to find someone anyway that can get rid of the rest of the mirror.”

            Asher nodded. His body was equally covered in bandages. “So, this man that was in the mirror, he looked human, but clearly wasn’t. He told you that this side of the mirror was better than our world? Huh, I wonder what really was on the other side of the glass?”

            “I don’t really want to find out…ever.” Ellis said, as they both exited the room, and locked the door.

Meanwhile in Ellis’s bedroom, the large piece of glass which he placed on his cabinet started to rattle. The glass reflection turned dark. Rippled waves started from the middle and grew to the glass’s border.

            A clawed white hand smacked hard against the surface from the other side.




OUTRO:For the written version of the story you just heard and other Queer Ghoul originals, visit QueerGhoulPodcast.com.

The Queer Ghoul podcast anthology is an independent endeavor. If you enjoyed what you’ve heard, please consider leaving a review or rating and telling a fellow creature of the night about the show.

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 Until next time, thank you for listening. Just remember that the next time you’re in your bedroom alone in the dark and you hear and feel deep heavy breathing across your skin, it’s best that you check to see if your mirror is covered, if it’s not…run.