The Mirror in the Back Row

I’ve been attending the Tuesday evening spin class at the Peak Fitness Center for about six months now. The room is a converted racquetball court, with dark blue walls and a single wall of mirrors along the back. We all set up our bikes in the same spots, and I always take the second row from the front, near the window wall, so I can keep an eye on the instructor without staring at myself in the mirror. That night, the class was half full, the usual crowd: a couple of old-timers who never miss a Tuesday, a group of college kids who came together, and the instructor, a wiry woman named Dana who always led us in the final sprint to a pounding remix of some pop song.

About thirty minutes in, during a song with a heavy bass line, I glanced into the mirror to check my form, and I saw a figure in the back row that I didn’t recognize. She was a thin woman with dark hair pulled back so tightly it looked like a cap, wearing a gray tank top and black shorts, and she was pedaling with a smoothness that seemed unnatural, like her legs were on a motor. What struck me was her face—she was staring directly at me in the mirror, not at the instructor, not at herself, but at me, with an intensity that made my stomach drop. I looked away quickly, back at Dana, and tried to focus on the beat. But a few seconds later, I couldn’t resist glancing again. She was still staring, and now she was smiling, a thin, tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. I figured she was just a newbie, maybe a friend of someone, and I tried to brush it off.

But then I noticed something off: she wasn’t doing the same routine as the rest of us. Everyone else was following Dana’s cues—some jogging, some climbing out of the saddle—but she was just sitting, spinning at a constant rhythm, not even sweating. The thought occurred to me: ‘She hasn’t been here since I started.’ I usually know everyone by face, even if I don’t know names. But this woman was a total stranger. I scanned the room, hoping to see if she’d walked in late, but the door was behind me, and I hadn’t seen anyone come in. In fact, I’d been facing the mirror for that entire song, and there had been no one there before.

I tried to reason with myself. Maybe she came in right as we were all looking down at our water bottles, or maybe I’d just missed her. But the feeling that something was wrong grew stronger. I decided to test it: I looked away for a full count of ten, focusing on the instructor’s rapid-fire directions, then whipped my head back to the mirror. She was gone. I felt a wave of relief, but it was short-lived. I saw her in the mirror again, but this time she was standing in the back row, still as a statue, bike untouched. Her face was expressionless, and she was pointing at me with an outstretched arm, her index finger extended like a blade.

My heart hammered. I spun around, expecting to see her right there, but the back row was empty. The bikes were as they’d been, with no sign that anyone had been on the one she’d been on. I looked back at the mirror—and she was there again, now in the front row, directly behind the instructor, still pointing at me. The class was still spinning, oblivious, the music thrumming. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I tried to catch Dana’s eye, but she was focused on her own reflection, counting out the sprints.

The woman’s mouth moved, and I could see the words forming in the mirror, though I couldn’t hear them over the music: ‘I see you.’ Her lips were dry, cracked, and her eyes seemed to grow darker, like pits. I was frozen, my legs stopping their pedaling. The person next to me, a heavyset guy named Marcus, glanced over and asked, ‘You okay, you look pale.’ I nodded, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the mirror. She was now holding a small, dusty mirror in her hand, like a hand-held, and she was holding it up, and in that tiny mirror, I could see a reflection of my own face, but distorted, stretched, and screaming.

I blinked, and she was gone. Just like that. The class finished with a cool-down, and I stayed on my bike, shaking. After the room cleared, I walked over to the back row where she’d been. There was an old bike there, rusted, unused, and it was covered in a thick layer of dust, like no one had touched it in years. I ran my finger along the top tube, leaving a trail, and saw that the dust was disturbed, but only in a pattern that matched the shape of a body, as if someone had been sitting there for a long time, not moving. I looked up at the mirror, and I caught my own reflection, but for a split second, I saw her face over my shoulder, still smiling, and then it faded, leaving only my own terrified expression.

I rushed out of the gym and drove home in a daze. The next day, I asked the front desk about the bike. The clerk, an older man named Jerry, looked at me oddly. ‘That’s the one that belongs to the ghost of the spin class,’ he said, laughing, but his laugh was nervous. ‘There was a woman who used to come to this class years ago, back when it was a racquetball court. She died of a heart attack during a class, right in that spot. Some say she never left, that she just keeps spinning, waiting for someone to see her. You’re not the first to see her, but you’re the first to be pointed at.’

I’ve haven’t been back to the gym since. I can’t shake the image of her finger pointing at me, or the sound of my own scream in that tiny hand-mirror. I don’t know what she wants, but I know she saw me. And now, every time I look into any reflective surface, I catch a glimpse of her in the corner of my eye, always pointing, always smiling, and I’m terrified that one day, she’ll step out and take my place on that bike.