They all knew what had to be done.
"Where would you go," asked Teri, "if you were Hal Hornbeck and had a pair of magic glasses?"
When the question was asked in that way, the answer came quickly and clearly, bringing on a powerful dose of hope.
Hal had done what most kids in town would do under the circumstances. He had gone to the dentist.
***
Public-access cable took in the video dregs of the universe. Would-be talk-show hosts and local crackpot prophets teetering on the edge of lunacy found a happy home on Channel 92. There were long hours of town council meetings, high school sports recorded on home camcorders, and really bad dance recitals. Basically anyone who could afford ten dollars a minute could have his or her own local television show.
Only one local show was watched week after week. Frankie Philpot's World of Phreakie Phenomena.
The story, as everyone knew, went like this. Frankie, a mild-mannered dentist, had discovered some years ago a set of gold-filled molars that not only picked up a local radio station, but also (when the patient's arms were held up in just the right position) could tune in voices from the great beyond.
From that moment on, Frankie had dedicated all of his nondental time to exploring the supernatural, and he produced his findings at six o'clock every Thursday night.
His dental practice doubled, of course, since every kid in town wanted a paranormal dentist who might be able to tighten his or her braces just enough to pull in radio signals from dead people—or even better—famous dead people.
Kids watched his show every week, hoping beyond hope that something mystical would actually happen, but nothing ever did.
This week's show, however, promised to be very interesting.
***
Kevin, Teri, and Josh arrived at the small office building where Franklin I. Philpot, D.D.S., had his offices. The waiting room was empty when they arrived.
"Dr. Philpot has canceled all his afternoon appointments," the receptionist explained through her little glass window. She handed Kevin a small pink card. "This is a voucher for a free teeth cleaning," she told him. "We're sorry for the inconvenience."
"We don't have an appointment," said Kevin. "We just need to talk to him."
"It's an emergency," added Josh.
"There are other dentists," suggested the receptionist, beginning to write them a referral.
"But it's about Elvis!" Teri blurted out.
The receptionist perked up and put down her pen.
"What about Elvis?"
Kevin and Josh turned to Teri. "Yeah, what about Elvis?"
Teri didn't miss a beat. "My retainer," she said. "Of course I can't be sure, but I've been hearing Elvis singing through my retainer." The receptionist didn't quite buy it.
Teri pulled the retainer out of her mouth and held it in the receptionist's face. "You wanna check?"
She grimaced and backed away. "Maybe you'd better show Dr. Philpot." She disappeared into the inner offices, and they snuck in right behind her.
***
It looked like any normal dental office—several examining rooms with dental couches, X-ray machines, posters about gum disease. The only difference was an office in the back that had been converted into a low-budget television studio.
Hal Hornbeck sat alone in the studio with his feet up, like an emperor, eating chocolates out of a golden bowl.
There was evidence everywhere of Hal's abuse of the glasses—food that must have appeared right before Frankie Philpot's eyes now littered the ground. Philpot was not in sight; he was probably on the phone with someone bigger and more important than himself. This thing was about to blow sky-high, if Kevin didn't do some heavy damage control . . . but he couldn't do that until he got the glasses away from Hal.
"Well, if it isn't the goon patrol," said Hal, not even bothering to stand up. "I knew you'd get here sooner or later."
"I want my glasses now!" said Kevin.
"Extremely Full Nelson!" said Hal, and instantly Kevin felt his neck pressed forward and his feet lifted from the ground, although no one was there. Kevin couldn't talk—could barely breathe. How dare someone use his own glasses against him!
"It's too late," said Hal. "Philpot's already putting me on this week's show."
"You moron! You can't show the glasses on TV," insisted Teri. "Then everybody will want to take them away!"
Hal gave her an ear-to-ear smirk. "Not if they don't know it's the glasses. Right now Philpot thinks I'm the one with the power, and you'd better not tell him different!"
Just then, Frankie Philpot, dentist of the supernatural, burst into the room, fumbling with his video camera. His eyes and hair were wild, as if he had just won the lottery. In his excitement it took him a few moments to notice there were new people in the room.
"Are these your friends?" Frankie asked Hal. "Are they . . . like you?"
"No," answered Hal, "they're mere humans."
"Don't listen to him," began Josh. "He's—"
"Josh," said Hal, "you shouldn't talk with a frog in your throat."
Josh suddenly began to gag and cough. Teri opened her mouth to speak, but when Hal turned to look at her, she shut it again, for fear of what he might do.
Frankie Philpot didn't care about the kids in the corner. He anxiously raised the video camera, ready to record the magic of Hal Hornbeck.
"I've had this power for as long as I can remember," Hal began, once the camera was rolling. "I was born with it...."
Josh kept trying to clear his throat but couldn't stop gagging. Teri, who was trying desperately to free Kevin from the invisible stranglehold, turned to Josh and gave him the Heimlich maneuver.
"Go on," said Frankie, "tell me everything!" This must have been the highlight of Frankie Philpot's life—documented evidence of a supernatural being. "Where are your people from?" he asked.
"Originally Pittsburgh," answered Hal.
Teri gave a tug on Josh's gut, and Josh coughed out a good-sized bullfrog, which shot across the room like a bullet, right into Hal's face, knocking the glasses to the floor.
"Great aim, Josh!" said Teri.
Kevin flexed his arms and neck, spun around, and finally broke out of the Nelson. He dove to the ground on top of the glasses, like a football player recovering a fumble.
Frankie Philpot did not waver; he had a job to do. "Forget about them," he told Hal, never moving the videocam from his face. "Tell me more about yourself."
Kevin and Josh raced out, and Hal was about to follow, when Teri, thinking quickly, took hold of a dental X-ray machine and pulled on the long mechanical arm that connected it to the wall. The thing looked like a huge blue insect head. She aimed it at Hal's chest.
"Make one more move and I'll fry you!" said Teri.
Hal froze in his steps.
At last Frankie lowered his videocam. "Is something wrong?"
Josh and Teri were on his heels, while, much farther behind, Hal was pursued by Philpot, who refused to let any phenomenon go undocumented. "Wait!" he cried to Hal. "I just have a few more questions."
Kevin turned down a dead-end hallway.
Finally he put on his glasses, and the yellow lettering on the steel doorway ahead of him came into clear focus. It said DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE.
"Kevin, this way!" said Teri as she and Josh turned toward the elevator, at the other end of the hall.
The glasses were already filling Kevin with warmth, taking away his shivers and his headache—but not quickly enough. The electricity was humming behind those doors. Kevin could hear it, and he began to wonder. He pushed the glasses farther up on his face.
All that electricity . . . and only a few feet away . . .
He took a step closer to the steel door of the electrical room, and then another. Josh grabbed his shoulder.
"Don't, Kevin," said Josh, almost reading his mind. "You got the glasses, that's enough.... You don't have to do this."
Kevin shook off Josh's arm. "I want to do it." Ke
vin reached out, pulled open the door, and looked deep into the rat's nest of high-voltage copper coils.
A heavy wave of electricity shot from the transformer and began to course across the surface of the glasses with the random pattern of a tornado funnel. Josh fell to the ground and grabbed firmly onto a steel doorstop, as if he feared being dragged away.
Up above, the lights began to flicker and dim, as if someone in the next room was getting the electric chair.
Teri and Josh had never seen Kevin charge the glasses. It was an awful, private thing they felt they had no business watching, but they couldn't turn their eyes away.
"He'll fry himself!" said Teri. "We have to do something!"
Frankie Philpot and Hal had just turned the corner, and they stopped dead in their tracks when they saw where Kevin had gone.
For Kevin it was like coming to the surface of a deep, cold ocean and taking his first breath. He felt he could breathe in forever and never exhale. It felt better than anything the glasses had ever done for him.
And then something went wrong.
Something cracked.
It sounded like a million chandeliers falling to the ground at once, and it felt like an explosion inside Kevin's brain. He was blown back and went sliding across the floor. The current between Kevin and the transformer died, and the lights returned to their normal brightness.
***
Teri and Josh helped Kevin up and looked into his rolling eyes.
"Kevin, are you okay?" asked Teri.
"I don't know, I..."
"The glasses—they're cracked!" said Josh.
It was true. The glasses had overloaded, and a crack in the left lens was shooting tiny sparks.
"Let's get out of here!"
Josh and Teri practically carried Kevin to the elevator. Hal and Frankie were close behind and made it into the elevator just as the doors closed. Frankie raised his camera.
"I have to get this all on tape!" said Frankie. "Somebody, please tell me what's going on!"
"You stink, Midas, you know that!" Hal grabbed hold of the glasses and tried to pull them off Kevin's face, but they didn't come.
"Somebody, please say something," begged Frankie. "Anything!"
"Siberia," said Kevin, and he disappeared along with Teri and Josh.
Frankie lowered his camera. "Correct me if I'm wrong," he said, "but did I just witness a transcontinental teleportation?"
"Siberia?" said Hal. "Why would he want to go to Siberia?" Then the elevator bell rang, and the doors opened to the lobby.
Only it wasn't the lobby.
The elevator had opened up to an endless plain of snow, beneath a troubled sky. Before them stood a man with a heavy parka, a funny hat, and a leathery face that peered in at them. Even the yak standing beside him seemed confused.
"Uh-oh," said Hal.
***
Kevin, Josh, and Teri picked themselves up off the bottom of an empty elevator shaft. The only light came from the cracked glasses, which still sparked like a bad short circuit. "Take us home, Kevin," said Teri.
He reached up to push the glasses farther up the bridge of his nose but realized he didn't need to—they clamped onto his head now, in a perfect fit. Kevin pictured his house, then opened his mouth to wish them home—but they were standing in his living room before he said a single word. He didn't think much of it. Until about a minute later.
13
HAUNTED HOUSE
A black hole, Kevin recalled from his ten-page report on the universe, was a sphere of darkness that swallowed everything that got near it—even light.
His parents often referred to his room as the Black Hole.
A "singularity," Kevin recalled from the same report, was that point in space at the very center of a black hole, where all the laws of time, space, and science ceased to exist.
This was a much more accurate description of Kevin's bedroom on the day the glasses fused onto his face.
It was four o'clock. The sun was still high above the horizon, but Kevin was trying his hardest to fall asleep—to be dead to the world in any way he possibly could. He curled into a ball under his blanket and covered every inch of himself so that he could barely breathe. He tried not to think. Not to think of anything at all.
"I found the wire cutters," said Josh, hurrying into the room. Underneath the covers, Kevin burped, the cracked lens of the glasses sparked, and a pepperoni pizza fell from the heavens, splattering at Teri and Josh's feet.
"Just because all that pizza's coming back on you," said Teri, "you don't have to wish it all over us!"
"Leave me alone." Kevin stirred beneath the blankets, trying not to think of food anymore. He began singing in his head, forcing everything out. "A-ram-sam-sam, A-ram-sam-sam." It was the stupidest, most nonsensical song he knew. Words that meant nothing—thoughts that could not possibly take any shape in his mind. "Goolie-goolie-goolie-goolie-goolie Ram-sam-sam."
Still, a thought did squeeze its way in. The lens sparked, and an empty glass on his desk began to foam over with root beer.
Stop thinking! Kevin ordered himself, but his mind wasn't a light bulb he could just turn off.
When they had returned home from their eventful afternoon, it hadn't taken long for them to discover that they had a new and much more serious problem on their hands.
The cracked glasses had fused onto Kevin's face, and if that wasn't bad enough, the crack was making the glasses malfunction in the worst way.
Now the glasses were having little seizures—backfiring like his mom's old car. The fractured lens would send off a random spark every few moments, and that spark would reach deep into Kevin's mind, dragging whatever he happened to be thinking about into the real world.
He didn't have to wish for it—he didn't even have to want it. He just had to think about it. Controlling what he wished for was hard enough, but controlling his thoughts was like trying to herd a swarm of bumblebees with a goldfish net. The best Kevin could do was create a wall of static in his head and try not to think of things like Godzilla.
The glasses sparked again, and some unseen liquid flushed its way through all the walls of the house. Probably more root beer.
Teri snapped the blanket off Kevin, and Josh approached, holding the wire cutters like a surgical instrument.
"C'mon, Kevin," said Teri. "Now or never."
"No!"
Josh leaned in closer, trying to push Kevin's struggling hands out of the way. "This won't hurt a bit!"
But it would hurt, Kevin knew it. The glasses were as much a part of him now as his eyes or his ears, and as Josh began to squeeze the wire cutters on the left arm of the glasses, Kevin felt a searing pain shoot through his skull. Josh might as well have been yanking out his molars.
Kevin screamed, the lens sparked, and the wire cutters turned into a rose. The thorns pricked Josh's fingers.
"Ouch!" Josh hurled the rose down into a pile that contained a sponge, a carrot, and a banana, which had originally been pliers, a hammer, and a monkey wrench. "If you don't stop doing that, we won't have any tools left!" complained Josh.
"Stop torturing me!" yelled Kevin. The glasses sparked, and an iron maiden of the Inquisition variety appeared in the corner and clanged to the ground with a deep bell toll. Kevin grabbed his blanket and covered himself head to toe.
"You should be good at shutting off your brain," said Josh. "You've had enough practice."
A Chinese star flew through the air, the four-pointed steel disc just missing Josh's head, and embedded itself deep in the wall.
Josh looked at the weapon and shuddered. "You're really good at getting rid of people you don't like, aren't you?" said Josh. "First Bertram, then Hal . . . Am I going to be next, Kevin?"
"I'm sorry," said Kevin, "it was an accident." But even so an apology seemed useless. "We're still friends, right, Josh?"
"Yeah," said Josh, "of course we are." But Josh couldn't look him in the face.
"Maybe I could run the glasses down," Kevin wh
ispered, as if the glasses could hear him if he didn't. "Kind of the way you run down a battery."
"Tell us how," said Teri, not afraid to use her full voice.
Kevin looked away. "It has to be cold," he said, "dark..."
"The garage!" said Josh.
Kevin slowly came out from under the blanket. It could work! It might not work for long, but it would buy them time. In the hallway, the extent of Kevin's mental meddling became clearer. It wasn't just the Mona Lisa hanging crooked on the wall, or the roast turkey on the bookshelf, or even the suit of armor by the linen closet that may or may not have contained a medieval knight. Worse were the changes in the house itself. Suddenly angles didn't look right. The floor seemed to slope off, windows weren't quite square, and the walls weren't quite straight. The ceiling seemed farther away, and in the hallway, which somehow seemed longer, there were doors that had never been there before.
It was the type of house Kevin might have passed through in a nightmare.
Teri looked around, troubled. "It's like I'm losing my mind," she said. "I can't remember what's supposed to be here, and what's not."
Kevin knew that as an outsider, Teri could never see things the way he, Josh, and Hal Hornbeck did. If no one told her what was wrong with the picture, it would all seem normal—just as it would to their parents when they got home. Kevin could imagine his mom hanging towels on the armor and his dad carving the turkey for dinner, as if turkeys always appeared on bookshelves for no apparent reason. It was amazing how normal the world could seem to others, when, through Kevin's eyes, it was so incredibly screwed up.
"Trust me," said Kevin, "none of it is supposed to be here."
They climbed down the not-quite-straight stairs, opened the not-quite-rectangular door to the garage, and stepped in.
The garage had taken on the same dreamlike quality as the rest of the house. The ceiling seemed to disappear into darkness; the cinder-block walls were damp and covered with mildew. The air was stagnant, like the inside of a tomb, and in the corner, the boiler had begun to take the shape of a face, with the fiery mouth of an iron monster.
The glasses sparked once, and whack! a door that had never been there before appeared against the far wall.
The Eyes Of Kid Midas Page 9
