Optical Delusion

by Hunter Shea

  It was bizarre, watching the smoke roil around his lungs before being expelled in a thin column up his throat and out of his mouth. Blackstone knew he’d never touch a cigarette again after witnessing it, not even on late nights in the bar when a Marlboro went with booze the way Stacy Michaels was synonymous with va-va-voom.

  The image of the last time he’d seen her made him shudder.

  “Got the chills?” Dr. Herbert said, first feeling his head, then sticking a thermometer in his mouth. “Now, let me see what we have here. Martin, what kind of glasses are these?”

  It embarrassed the hell out of him to say it out loud, but there was no sense holding at least that part back. He pulled the thermometer from between his lips and said, “X-ray specs.”

  “X-ray specs?”

  Another draw on the cigarette, smoke billowing and churning in the doctor’s lungs.

  “They’re my kid’s. I was goofing around and put them on. I think the cheap glue or whatever they used to make them got on my face.”

  Dr. Herbert daintily touched the bridge of the glasses. Blackstone slammed his eyes shut as the skeletal finger got close to his eyes.

  “I wouldn’t call it cheap glue if it works this well. How long did you have them on?”

  “Not long,” he lied. “But I guess long enough for this to happen.”

  The doctor tried to move them, but they stayed put. He reached behind Blackstone’s ear to see if he could get a finger under the arm and pry them off, but to no avail. His breath smelled like coffee and cigarettes, his face too close to Blackstone’s. Blackstone squirmed on the paper, making a hell of a racket.

  “Well, whatever they used, it’s solid. It’s almost as if those glasses were welded onto your face, Martin.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said irritably. His head and stomach hurt and his mouth felt like he’d licked the sawdust off the floor of the Rusty Nail.

  “I think I have a solution that will do the trick. Now, I just need to find where I put it.” He rummaged through the cabinets in the cramped room, opening and closing glass doors. Or at least that was the way Blackstone remembered them. Now, the doors were invisible to him.

  Dr. Herbert popped his head into the hallway. “Madge. You know where that glue solvent is?”

  A woman’s nasally voice replied, “I’ll look for it. It’s not in the examining room?”

  “If it was, I wouldn’t be asking you.”

  Madge was Dr. Herbert’s cousin, a woman who would have been very much at home during the temperance movement. She went to mass every day, scowled at people doing anything she deemed immoral—including holding hands in public—and was an inveterate busybody. Blackstone couldn’t stand her and suspected the doc felt the same, but she was family and his cross to bear.

  “I’ll apply a little of the solvent to a section of the glasses with a Q-tip. It’ll be a kind of test area to make sure it works and your skin doesn’t have an adverse reaction before we try for the whole megillah. X-ray specs.” He couldn’t help chortling.

  Blackstone was tempted to tell him to knock it off, but held his tongue. If he was in the doc’s shoes, he’d be doing the same thing. Plus, he needed the man’s help. If he didn’t get them off and stop seeing through everyone, he was going to become an alcoholic before slipping into insanity.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  Madge walked in, a thin bundle of sticks and diseased-looking entrails. Blackstone couldn’t help slipping back on the table, the paper protesting.

  Because with Madge, he was seeing something more. If he thought things were as bad as they could get, he was dead wrong.

  As her bones and organs began to fade, they were replaced by something else: Something dark and twisting, like old motor oil infused with mercury. It filled every part of the outline of her birdlike body, red orbs glowing where her eyes should be.

  It was like looking into the face of hell itself.

  “Get away from me!” he shouted.

  Dr. Herbert paused, the glass of solvent in his hand. “Martin, what’s wrong?”

  “Don’t let her come in here.”

  “That’s a fine thing to say, Mr. Blackstone,” Madge said, her voice dripping with disdain. She’d never liked him either, which had always been fine with him.

  She was beyond horrid to behold.

  Everything about her spelled one solitary word: Evil.

  Blackstone jumped off the table, stepping to the doctor’s left, keeping him as a barrier between himself and the thing that was Madge.

  “Martin, I need you to calm down,” Dr. Herbert said.

  Madge placed a hand on the doctor’s shoulder, urging him to throw Blackstone out of the office.

  “Don’t let her touch you!”

  “Martin, I need you to calm down right this instant.”

  “He’s probably drunk,” the Madge-demon said. “Let him go sleep it off somewhere. We have real sick people waiting to see you.”

  “Not now, Madge.”

  Blackstone darted past the pair, grabbing his coat in the waiting room. Three women, a child no older than five, and an older man turned their skulls to him, brains suspended in jelly. He couldn’t see the expressions on their faces, but he could feel their fear. He felt sorry for scaring the kid especially, but he had to get the hell out of there.

  “Martin, come back,” Dr. Herbert cried as he dashed out the door.

  Blackstone hopped into his car, peeling out, desperate to get as far away as possible from Madge and the terrifying thing living inside her.

  Chapter Ten

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he came home to an empty house. Brian was in school and Andrea was out shopping. He hoped she’d be gone awhile. He needed to not see anyone for a while, just to give his senses time to recover.

  What in blue hell was that thing inside Madge? Why was she the only one whose bones and organs disappeared, only to reveal that gut-churning foulness?

  He dropped his coat on the living-room floor and sprinted up the stairs, just making it to the toilet. Vomit came out so hard and fast, it took his breath away. His eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets. When he was done, he avoided looking in the mirror. He didn’t think he could handle what he saw.

  What if the thing inside Madge was in him as well?

  He couldn’t run from himself. Nor, knowing that, could he live with himself. There was only one way out of that situation and he was in no condition to entertain the thought of suicide.

  Now what was he going to do? There was no way he was going back to Dr. Herbert’s office. Even if he could be assured Madge wouldn’t be within ten miles, he just couldn’t face the doc after that episode.

  He had to get these glasses off, pronto. He sat on the stairs, considering his options.

  Holes.

  It was too early for the tracks to be running, which meant he was most likely home. Hadn’t he once worked in a drugstore? Yes, he had for a few years before retiring to the gambling life. He might be able to think of something.

  Grabbing the phone book from atop the refrigerator, he dialed Holes’s house.

  “Yello,” Holes answered.

  “It’s Marty. I need you to help me with something.”

  “Oh, hey Marty. Good timing. I was just about to step out and get the early racing forms. What’s going on?”

  “What kind of chemicals can eat away at industrial glue without doing any harm to the skin?”

  There was a long pause. Blackstone could hear the radio news station playing in the background. There was a report about a decrease in oil production. Right now, he could give a frog’s fat ass about oil. “What the heck are you talking about?” Holes said.

  Blackstone had to keep from shouting. “Exactly what I just said.”

  “You accidentally glue something to your hand?”

  “Yeah, something like that. You know of anything that’ll work?”

  “I can think of a couple of t
hings.”

  Blackstone went rigid when he heard Andrea’s car pull up to the garage door.

  “Good. Grab what you can and meet me at the Rusty Nail.” He had to get out before Andrea got home. He didn’t want to see her again until he got the X-ray specs off. That he was pinning his hopes on Holes was a sure sign of his desperation.

  “I’ll see if I—”

  He hung up before Holes could finish, slipping out the back door, grateful he’d parked on the street and wasn’t blocked in by Andrea’s car. He heard her close the front door just as he popped from the side of the house. Right now, she was probably calling his name. She’d get worried when he didn’t answer and she looked out the window, only to see his car gone when it had just been there moments earlier.

  Blackstone could live with that. Better a little worry now than her having to deal with a husband who’d gone stark raving mad, all over a pair of crap gimmick glasses that seemed to have been put together by the devil himself.

  * * *

  It was just the two of them and Mike the bartender in the Rusty Nail. It was too early for the lunch crowd. Even the hardcore alcoholics were home, sleeping last night’s bender off. Blackstone had a beer. Holes ordered a 7UP. He put a brown paper bag on the bar.

  “All right, Ray Charles, what’s the rush?” Holes sipped his soda, sitting back on the stool.

  Pointing to the glasses, Blackstone said, “I gotta get these off.”

  Holes sputtered, soda spilling from his mouth. “How did you glue glasses to your face?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose. Look, just help me and I’ll owe you one. Or more than one.” If he only knew.

  At least neither Holes nor Mike had that black ooze inside them. It was the only positive thing to happen today.

  Holes opened the bag. “Okay, I can see you’re a little edgy. I get that. I wouldn’t want cheap kid glasses stuck to my face, either. First, I got nail-polish remover.”

  Blackstone slapped the bar. “What are you gonna do, paint my nails?”

  “Settle down, Marty. This stuff takes off more than polish, and it won’t burn your skin. Well, you might feel a bit of a sting.”

  Grabbing a cocktail napkin, he soaked it and dabbed at Blackstone’s temple. His skin tingled, the astringent smell burning his nose hairs. He had to close his eyes to avoid looking at Holes’s bones touching his face.

  He let it set in for a bit, then tried to pull the glasses off. They didn’t budge.

  “On to what’s behind door number two,” Holes said, slathering cooking oil on Blackstone’s face. Some got under the glasses and in his eye, mercifully making everything blurry for a few minutes. “This one’s my long shot, but it can’t hurt to try. Oil is usually good at loosening glue, though maybe not the kind you got. How did this happen again?”

  “If you get these off, I’ll tell you.”

  They waited five minutes, Blackstone finishing his beer and ordering another. It was helping his hangover. Mike asked them what they were doing. “Experimenting,” Holes said. The bartender left it at that. All that mattered was that they behaved themselves and paid for their drinks.

  The oil didn’t work. Neither did the bottle of glue remover he’d picked up from the hardware store. They each tried pulling the glasses off, sending sparks of pain across Blackstone’s face.

  “Jesus Christmas, it’s like they’re a part of you. You try seeing a doctor?”

  He wasn’t going to tell him what happened earlier, though Madge was surely spreading the word around at this moment. Fucking blackhearted nosy body.

  “Maybe I will go to the emergency room like Andrea said.”

  Holes patted his arm. “Listen to her. She was always the brains in the family.”

  Blackstone pushed away from the bar. “Well, thanks for trying.”

  Holes was asking him about getting paid back for the things he bought when Blackstone walked out of the Rusty Nail and into the cold.

  What he saw next brought him to his knees, screaming like a man who’d elected to forego anesthesia for his open-heart surgery.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bodies brimming with brimstone were everywhere! They walked along the sidewalks, crossed streets, passed by in cars, sat in stores and offices. The sight of so many of them set something loose in Blackstone’s brain. Even though they were all going about their business and paying him no mind, he felt that sooner rather than later, they’d turn on him because he could see. In an instant, he saw them for what they really were. And they would sense that, anger stoking the flames behind their crimson eyes as they set about making sure Blackstone could never, ever reveal their secrets.

  He didn’t do himself any favors by shrieking, his gibbering drawing the attention of everyone around him. Not all of them were filled with the boiling sludge, but there were enough to freeze his blood.

  Holes burst from the bar, kneeling beside him.

  “Whoa, what happened, Marty? You get hurt or something?”

  Blackstone flinched when Holes went to touch him. “Lay off me, Holes!”

  “Hey, I’m only trying to help you.”

  He stumbled to his feet, a dozen pairs of red eyes peering back at him. Could they see inside him too? Leaning against the wall, he scrunched his eyes closed.

  Only this time, it didn’t change a thing, because now he could see right through his eyelids.

  “I—I can’t make it stop,” he stammered, backing away from Holes.

  He heard his friend talking to the bartender, who had come outside as well, alarmed by the commotion. “Mike, how much did he have to drink before I got here?”

  “He only had the two beers.”

  I have to get out of here, Blackstone thought, running from the Rusty Nail, weaving in and out of the skeletons and black souls out and about during the lunch rush.

  Holes shouted something after him but he ignored him.

  Black souls!

  Yes. What he was seeing was their souls. Or their essence or whatever you’d want to call it. He never went for all that religious mumbo jumbo, but maybe they were right. It made a kind of insane sense. He’d always suspected Madge’s prim propriety was a cover for something deep and dark. Seeing her soul for what it really was confirmed it.

  There were so many people just like her, filled with vile muck, most pretending to be something they weren’t . . . or maybe could never be.

  He turned off Main Street, circling around residential roads, refusing to slow down, his breath coming in jagged gasps. His car was parked, of all places, by the real-estate office. Stacy Michaels’s naked beauty being stripped away had started all of this. The last thing he wanted to do was look inside again, maybe seeing deeper into Stacy than anyone should.

  Just don’t turn your head in that direction, he said to himself, jogging around the block and coming back out on Main, two blocks back from the car. Skeletons and tainted souls were everywhere, carrying on with their day. None of them paid him any mind as he got into his car.

  Gunning the engine, he thought of Brian’s friend, Noel. He was the one who had bought the X-ray specs. Two pairs, in fact. The one pair was currently stuck to Blackstone’s face, altering his vision, shattering his mind.

  What about the kid? He’d kept his pair. And he hadn’t been going to school.

  Dammit, was the same thing happening to him?

  He drove to Noel’s house, unsure of what he was going to say when the kid’s mother answered the door. All he knew at that moment was that he needed to see him. Whether it was to share in his misery or save him from a similar fate was up for debate.

  * * *

  To his relief, Noel answered the door. Or at least what sounded like Noel. The bag of bones and pulsating heart could have been anyone.

  “Oh, hi Mr. Blackstone.”

  He’d taken several deep breaths before leaving the car. The last thing he wanted to do was look and sound as frantic and out of control as he felt. He fumbled for words, unable to tell if Noel was w
earing his X-ray specs or not.

  “I—uh—heard you were sick,” he finally said.

  “The doctor says I have strep throat. I’ll get my mom.”

  Before Blackstone could say anything, Noel walked away, shouting for his mother. It only made sense. Adults didn’t come to houses to visit children. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to the woman, but it was unavoidable. He thought her name was Becky. They hadn’t spoken much besides quick pleasantries in passing or when the boys were dropped off. Blackstone usually did his best to avoid her and her husband Hank. In the parlance of his mother, the couple wasn’t his cup of tea. In his estimation, they were undercover hippies who he’d heard hosted key parties several times a year. He wouldn’t be surprised if they smoked dope. He didn’t have time for weed-smoking, granola-eating pansies. While he’d served in ‘Nam, Hank was dodging the draft, protesting the war.

  Nope, not his cup of tea at all.

  “Mr. Blackstone’s at the door,” he heard the boy holler.

  “Let him inside. It’s freezing out. And get back on the couch.”

  The skeleton boy returned, opening the door wider. “My mother says to come in.”

  “I kinda got that. But I—”

  Noel traipsed away before he could finish, the boy’s image growing fuzzy for a moment before turning into the living room. Blackstone felt sparks of pain ripple across his chest. He shut his eyes for a moment, catching his breath, seeing through the floor into the basement. The vision startled him, his brain thinking he was floating on air for a moment and about to plummet.

  Quickly recovering, he called out to the boy, “How do you like those X-ray glasses?”

  His reply was barely audible over the TV. A rerun of I Love Lucy was on, part of the channel 5 morning schedule.

  “Oh, that? I threw it away. It hurt my eyes.”

  Blackstone sagged with relief, but in a bizarre way was also upset. For it meant he alone was suffering in this hell. It wasn’t right, hoping a child would endure the same torture. Nothing felt right anymore. Nothing.

  “Hi, Martin. What brings you all the way to this end of the block?” Becky asked, emerging from the kitchen.