09 May The Mirror Man

Most kids, like me, hear a lot of stories and urban legends growing up. They’re fun to pass around at slumber parties to scare each other and even more fun to perpetuate. If you bother taking the time to look one up these days and trace it to its root, you’ll find that many of them contain random threads of truth—just enough threads to make them plausible and difficult to refute.

Usually, the story starts in a similar fashion:

Something like, “My cousin’s girlfriend’s brother told me about this strange paranormal game that killed a bunch of people where he grew up.”

Or maybe, “My father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate told me about a series of murders that happened where they worked.”

So, why am I telling you all this? It’s because I need you to understand how these things work—how urban legends are born. Stories you hear and pass around were real for someone, at some point. Lives could have been ruined or changed forever. Meanwhile, you’re laughing with your friends in front of a mirror, calling out for Bloody Mary or Candyman.

Not to disappoint you right away, but this isn’t a story I heard from some far-removed source. It happened to me, fifteen years ago. Sure, people have telephoned it to death, but it’s not a popular story outside of where I live, so it’s unlikely you’ve heard it before.

Back then, I worked at a famous Southern Ohio haunt. It’s still a fairly popular place around here, so I will not tell you the name. For the sake of the story, I’ll just refer to it as “The Dungeon.” I’m also not going to give you any names because many people besides me were affected by this.

I don’t want to out anyone’s situation if they haven’t been vocal about it, or give you any avenue to stalk them. I’m getting this out for my sake—to help myself move on, and to keep something like this from happening again. All you’re going to get is a nickname that describes their position or something.

It truly was a great place to work, and I loved the people I worked with. The owner was a hell of a guy—always kind and “wanting to see the best in people.” He would even dress up and roam the haunt to lift morale and entertain the customers, making sure we could rest between groups on overly busy nights.

On the downside, wanting to see the best in people sometimes meant that things went sideways now and then. I was one of those things, and so were a few other girls there. This was because the manager for the actors was a handsy little twat who always seemed to tell you exactly what you wanted to hear. No matter what he did to you, or how much you knew better, there was just something inexplicable about him that made you believe you were the only one for him.

By opening night, a few hours before we let the customers in, I was devastated. I found out that I was, in fact, not the only one for him. It turned out there were seven of us in total. He was sleeping with all of us at the same time while lying to us about the others.

When it all came out, some of the other staff were completely behind us. Even the owner did what he could to protect us from the situation and lent his ear if we needed it.

He raked the guy over the coals about it and threatened to fire him if it continued, but he never actually fired him, even though it continued. The guy just got smarter with his targets and kept things quiet for a while. It didn’t help that his co-manager was one of those girls, and unfortunately, she also started covering everything up because she’d become obsessed with him.

Overall, working at The Dungeon was amazing. We scared people half to death, showed our costumes off to the kids, and played little games with them when they went through. We even had the occasional after-hours party or get-together throughout the week. Everything we did, we did as a family. If you’ve ever worked at a haunted attraction, you know what I’m talking about.

One thing we did at these events, besides playing Cards Against Humanity and getting a buzz on, was play games inside the haunt. Our favorite one was actually playing hide-and-seek throughout the attraction.

It might seem silly to think about inebriated grown-ass people running around playing hide-and-seek at all, but let me tell you, there is nothing like it.

We would turn every light and sound off in the place and get to hiding. Only one person ever did the finding, and eventually, it just became a time trial to see how long it would take for him to find us. I don’t know how, but he could find you anywhere, no matter where you hid. We would contort our bodies to fit into impossible spaces, hide in the ceiling panels, and even try to cheat and hide in one of the offices. Nothing mattered—he somehow always found you.

Being hunted like that, by someone with that kind of skill… add the creepy-ass environment it was happening in… there was nothing like it. It was thrilling and terrifying all at once.

The owner never joined us but had given our seeker a copy of the key and permission to “keep up morale” within reason. Seeker was the one who organized our little get-togethers. He was a single father—a kind guy who always had some advice and encouragement to give you, and always thanked everyone who worked there every night, even though he wasn’t a manager or anything.

I’m explaining this so you understand how safe this was—and how even though you knew it was safe, it sure as hell didn’t feel that way.

Before one of our hide-and-seek sessions, Seeker said he wanted to try something a little different. He was big into paranormal games and such, and was always telling us about new ones he wanted to try. We’d played the Midnight Game and several others before, so we were all interested.

I don’t remember the name, but the rules were fairly simple. He said it was part Bloody Mary (or Candyman, if you prefer) and part a childhood horror version of tag called Ghosts in the Graveyard.

Each person had to do a little ritual in front of an old, creepy mirror in one of our backrooms before we went out and hid. All I really remember about it is that I had to light a candle and invoke some spirit named Mirror Man by saying his name a few times and telling him it was time to show us some truth about ourselves.

We were told that if the ritual worked, we would see someone following us through the haunt. You would see the figure just out of your peripheral vision or always moving quickly around a corner just ahead of you. Once you were hidden, Seeker would wait fifteen minutes before coming to find you—and supposedly show you what you asked for.

This became a huge hit at the haunt. It added an even creepier element to the game, not that it needed one. The game then became about outsmarting our genius seeker long enough to see the Mirror Man.

It was a big place, but we never had over eight people playing besides the seeker. Games didn’t always even last to the fifteen-minute mark. When they did, someone would inevitably make up some story about having seen the Mirror Man.

I don’t know if anyone ever really saw him, but that didn’t even matter. It added to the legend and made the game legendary among those in the know. The downside was that your mind would play tricks on you in the dark—and even when all the main lights were up and you were working on something, or the haunt was open to the public—you would still think you saw something move into the next scene ahead of you, or catch a figure from the corner of your eye.

* * * * * *

One night, we had a special party with more people than usual. Word had somehow gotten around to the managers. I’ll call them Handsy and Miss Codependent for the sake of ease. Handsy decided it was time they, and a few of their “yes men,” joined in the fun they’d heard so much about, and as management, we obviously couldn’t deny them.

As “one of his girls,” I almost didn’t go. What changed my mind was a phone call from Seeker, who was asking all the girls to show up. He said that it would be a show of solidarity among the victims and would hopefully make Handsy and his friends uncomfortable enough to leave early. He also added that if it didn’t, the people who knew the truth would still outnumber Handsy. Seeker wanted this to be a moral victory.

I gave in and agreed to show up. I was sad to see that Seeker’s daughter couldn’t make it, but Seeker told me she wasn’t feeling well and sent us her love.

Things went as they always did. We drank and played some cards. If you know anything about Cards Against Humanity, you know you can literally torture people mentally through the cards played on the person in charge of reading them each round. Every time Handsy or Miss Codependent’s turn would come up, they’d have to read cards about relationships, his lack of sexual prowess, her inability to think for herself, and many other terrible things we came up with to torment them. Seeker even brought an official blank deck of cards and a few markers. I’m sure you can imagine how quickly that got out of hand.

After some arguments and the occasional threat, we stopped playing cards sooner than we usually did. Some people were just delicate flowers with no sense of humor. On the bright side, it gave us time to play a few extra rounds of what we had now taken to calling “Haunt and Seek.”

We all went through the familiar ritual and took off into the attraction to find our hiding places. As usual, our seeker waited until everyone had taken their turn alone with the mirror in the backroom and scattered before getting started. He always gave us a ten-minute buffer to get hidden. It was only fair that he received a handicap, after all.

This time, I hid under the swirling vortex. If you’ve never seen one or didn’t know what it was called, it’s basically a black tunnel with odd lights that spins around you as you walk down a narrow, raised walkway with rails. There was a spot I’d discovered while working one day where you could put your back against the partial wall beneath the tunnel, with your lower half stretched out of sight. You could see where people were coming from and going, but with the way they positioned it, no one could actually see you.

As usual, I had that sense of being watched. I was confident that tonight was the night I would either finally see the Mirror Man, or last long enough to make up a story about it to help keep the fun going. I was good with it either way.

Since I was the first one out of the backroom and the tunnel was in a big central area, I saw just about everyone stumble through on their way to hide. I couldn’t help but notice that Handsy, Miss Codependent, and their Yes Men seemed to be way more hosed than everyone else. The more of them I saw, the more I worried that something bad could happen to them—or because of them. Being that drunk in a place like this could be dangerous if you didn’t have your senses about you.

I was just about to crawl out of my spot and let the seeker know when I heard him yell the words, “I’m coming for you, Barbaaraaa!” It was Seeker’s way of letting us know the game was afoot. I shifted back into place quickly, hoping for the best. Tonight would be my night, and I would let no one ruin it!

Actually, getting to watch our seeker hunt our group was breathtaking. Each movement he made was precise. He walked like the slashers from the ’80s, with long, silent steps, finding people before they even knew he was near them. It sent a chill down my spine.

I assumed he would eliminate Handsy’s crew first (we sometimes had this game where someone would challenge him to find them first, and somehow he had never failed). That way, we could all get to the actual game without the outsiders ruining the fun. It shocked me to see him go for everyone else first.

I guess I must have stumped the master, though, because although he was near me a few times, he ended up going for Handsy and his crew next. When I say he went after them, I mean he went after them. It was when he found the first of them that I knew something had gone terribly wrong.

He yanked Yes Man #1 from the floor onto his feet from a spot in the graveyard. He said something I couldn’t quite hear before stabbing him in the abdomen multiple times and stuffing his body into the faux mausoleum. I wedged myself deeper under the tunnel, my screams dying on my lips as I all but willed him not to find me.

The next Yes Man he found was in the bathroom scene. It mimicked that scene from the original Nightmare on Elm Street where Nancy is attacked by Freddy’s glove in the tub. We had plexiglass installed, through which water ran to make it seem as if the tub was filled. With the right lighting and fog, it looked real enough.

After again saying something I couldn’t hear (and honestly never wanted to), Seeker broke one of the large pieces of plexiglass, and the tub actually filled with water in a quick rush. He held Yes Man #2 under the water until he stopped struggling. When he was dead, Seeker put a piece of plywood over the tub and moved on.

I slid my phone from my pocket and held down a button. I nearly lost control of my bladder as the opening tone sounded, signifying that it was powering on. I stuck it in the pocket of my hoodie and gathered loose fabric around it to muffle the sound. I saw Seeker pause for a second, smile to himself, and walk right past my hiding place. Tears slid down my face as I realized he now knew exactly where I was.

He never came back for me, though. Instead, it became a game of cat and mouse. I had suddenly become the final girl in a horror film without the benefit of likely surviving at the end. I couldn’t wiggle my fat ass out from under there easily, and I sure as hell couldn’t outrun him.

His next victim was Miss Codependent. She’d also been hiding in a position to see a little of what was happening, but from the morgue scene. It wasn’t as well hidden as mine—more of a hide-in-plain-sight situation, which made your brain and eyes somehow overlook it. It sounds weird, but it’s actually a haunt technique that works better than you can imagine. Unfortunately for her, it clearly didn’t work on our seeker.

She gave more of a struggle than the others, stabbing him with a box cutter she must have grabbed from the hidden partitions. These little spots were in most scenes and usually held water for the actors in that area or tools needed to fix something within the scene if something broke.

I watched as her arm flailed wildly, slicing the left side of his face by random chance alone. He didn’t move. He didn’t cry out in pain. Seeker just stood there and tilted his head slightly to the side. Before I knew it, he said something I still couldn’t make out and grabbed her by the hair on the back of her head. He repeatedly slammed her face into the large metal slab in the center of the scene until it was ruined. I could hear the cartilage and frontal bones cracking before her limp body hit the floor. Seeker opened one of the body drawers against the wall and carefully slid her into it, closing it once he had her in place.

Finally remembering the phone in my hand, I quickly dialed 911 but didn’t say a word when the operator answered. I had once seen some movie or TV show—I can’t remember which—where a person in distress did the same thing. They ended up sending an officer to investigate the situation because there was supposed to be some rule about investigating all calls. I didn’t know if that was true, but I sure as hell hoped it was. Even though I was pretty sure he knew where I was hiding, I prayed that not calling attention to myself would save me somehow.

I shifted my attention back in time to see Seeker heading my way. Just before he reached the opposite end of the tunnel I was hiding under, he shifted direction to the funeral home scene. He yanked a lid from a coffin and stared down into it. He was close enough this time that I could see his face and hear him breathing.

I knew he’d found Handsy because I could hear his voice drunkenly bitching about how Seeker better not have broken the lid or he’d be forced to pay to replace it, if not outright fired. He slurred his words all to hell, clearly not understanding what was happening.

This time, when Seeker spoke, I could hear him. Suddenly, everything made sense in some twisted way. He told Handsy his truth, just like the Mirror Man was supposed to do from our game.

“I know what you did to my daughter and how you had your friends cover it up. She committed suicide today. Unfortunately for all of you, she left a note.”

At that point, Seeker pulled a flask out of his pocket and emptied its contents all over Handsy and the coffin he was desperately trying to pull himself out of. From his other pocket, he produced a pack of matches.

“Your truth is that you are incapable of being a better person. You surround yourself with yes men to validate even your most damaging life choices. Your burning desire to be the most important thing in every room you walk into has poisoned you and everything you touch.”

With the simplest action—a quick flick of his wrist—a match was lit and tossed into the coffin. I could smell Handsy’s flesh burn as he squealed for someone to save him. The squeals turned to choking sobs as black smoke filled his lungs before the crackling of the coals overpowered the sound.

Seeker turned and walked in my direction. I saw the anguish on his face. There was something in his eyes—not regret, no—but a look of resignation. He smiled at me sadly and left. He just… left.

I crawled as fast as I could. My short legs fought desperately to propel my fat ass out from underneath the tunnel. The second I cleared it, I ran out of the attraction to the main office. I saw him enter the backroom where we kept the game mirror and heard the click of the lock. The main office door flew open, and I was quickly pulled inside.

Everyone else had survived the ordeal. Each of the people he had found before the murders was told to go to the office and lock the door. They all thought that there was going to be some kind of prank or fight to get back at Handsy and the others for what they had done. No one knew what had actually happened, or why.

I barely let them speak before shouting for them to call the police, now. In a panic, I rushed through what had happened so quickly that they could barely understand me. A fire alarm went off inside the building, cutting off my second attempt, and we all fled outside to wait for the fire department to arrive. At that point, I was the only person who knew Seeker was still locked in the backroom.

Eventually, I could tell everyone what had happened, including the police officer who had shown up at the scene. The desperate call I’d made to 911 had been noted, but it wasn’t until the fire alarm went off that they took what they thought might have been a prank call seriously.

Thanks to the state-of-the-art fire alarm the owner insisted on putting into the building, the fire was put out easily, and they found all the bodies intact—except for Handsy’s. They had to use dental records to identify him. Other than the funeral home scene and a little smoke damage in the neighboring scenes, the attraction itself was also fine.

There was only one thing still in the backroom when the fire department broke down the door. Before you take a guess and end up wrong, no, it wasn’t Seeker. Somehow, in a concrete room, with no other exits, he had disappeared. The only thing there was that old mirror we’d stood in front of before every session of our game.

* * * * * *

Last week, I heard a story about the mirror from my younger cousin’s boyfriend’s sister. It was about someone called the Mirror Man. They say that if you follow a certain ritual before a game of hide-and-seek, the Mirror Man will find you.

Each person has to do a little ritual in front of a full-length mirror before a game of hide-and-seek begins. They have to light a candle and invoke some spirit named the Mirror Man by saying his name a few times and telling him it’s time to show them some truth about themselves.

I was told that if the ritual worked, a person would see someone following them. You would see the figure just out of your peripheral vision, or always moving quickly around a corner just ahead of you. Once you were hidden, he would wait fifteen minutes and then come find you to show you what you asked for.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I tried it by myself tonight. I didn’t play hide-and-seek with myself, but I stood in front of my full-length bathroom mirror, lit a candle, and said Mirror Man three times.

I stood there for fifteen minutes, and as I expected, nothing happened. I turned on the light and went about the rest of my evening.

All too often, people create their own monsters—their own legends. Every action and decision you make has a consequence, good or bad.

Part of me likes to think that Seeker is still out there, dishing out punishment and maybe even saving lives. The rest of me hopes he’s at peace somehow. As a parent myself these days, I can’t imagine anything I wouldn’t do to someone who hurt my little girl.

While all urban legends contain a shred of truth, not all truths are worth repeating.

No—some things are better left to the dead.