The body on Mitchell's bed did not belong to Mallory.
After he awoke that morning to turn and look upon the stranger who smiled next to him in bed, after he gasped to see that terrible, old woman from so many reflections grin upon the pillow next to him, after he had screamed and squeezed his fingers upon that vile woman's throat until death replaced the breath, Mitchell Howard had run about his home in panic, flooding the rooms with light as he ripped open curtains and switched on lights. And yet, after he had banished all of the darkness, the body of that awful stranger remained on his bed no matter how completely he cleansed his home of its shadows.
Mitchell trembled as he stood before the mirror fastened over his sink in the master bathroom adjoined to his bedroom, within sight of the corpse laying upon his bed. He dripped upon the tile while the shower steamed behind him. He could not clean the revulsion from him. The water would not wash the disgust away, and the warmth failed to quell his shivers.
He stood staring at his reflection that looked back from that mirror over his sink. Something did not appear proper in the face that stared back at him from the glass.
What had the woman asked him before he had choked the life from her throat?
"Gerald, is that really you?"
Mitchell wiped the steam from the mirror's glass with a shaking hand. He squinted into the mirror. There was something wrong in the reflection. There was something that was not his, a something that belonged to someone else, a something that belonged to a stranger.
Suddenly, Mitchell's eyes focussed upon that something while he dripped upon his tile floor. He gasped and shuddered before turning towards the bedroom to take one last, long stare at the body of the stranger which lay lifeless on his bed.
Mitchell swallowed. He chased the shakes from his hands and knees before grabbing his razor and returning to the shower's heat and steam.