Jaundiced Eye
Victor and Mary believe they are hallucinating. They are haunted by ghosts with no apparent purpose except to break their weakening grip on reality. In fact, madness seems to have descended on their entire isolated town. As the two slip further away from what they've always known as sanity, they discover the fear of not knowing what's real - and the liberation of realizing they never did.
Sample...
Victor's eyes wandered around Mary's bedroom. Her walls were painted a dark shade of red, giving the room a strangely regal quality, despite its cluttered messiness. An open armoire door revealed the tattered relics of her childhood: aging dolls, worn and frayed stuffed animals, a pair of baby shoes, torn posters. Piles of clothes littered the walking space throughout the room. A large hookah occupied the room's corner nearest the door leading into the hallway. On every elevated flat surface sat a unique Eastern-style decoration, depicting bizarre Hindu gods and goddesses, the Buddha in all of his various manifestations, elephants, and unsettling Japanese Oni masks. The room was illuminated by flickering candles placed all around the room. Decorating her walls were Chinese brush paintings and a further assortment of Oni devil masks. The entire room was a disconcerting mixture of ancient Eastern spirituality and ordinary Western teenage untidiness.
Victor studied the largest of the masks, adorning the otherwise empty wall space directly above the headboard. The demonic faces seemed composed of pure hatred and evil at first glance, and yet what haunted Victor about this one was the sense of unbearable pain and grief conveyed in its tortured expressions. This one he imagined as a man being slowly flayed alive for the sin of having been cursed with an evil face, the torturer working his way inch by inch from the man's feet to his torso. Just as the carver reached the soft flesh of the man's midriff, this mask captured the victim's expression of utter terror and despair. His carved wooden eyes were turned sharply downward at their sides, and his mouth was frozen into an eternal, silent, agonizing wail.
Another mask, on the opposite wall, was painted deep red over black shadows and lacquered for a shiny gloss. Fearsome fangs protruded from its mouth. Its lips and eyes were bent into a ferocious, demonic scowl. And yet, Victor had a strange sense that this one felt afraid. Perhaps, Victor thought, this was the butcher who had tortured the poor soul on the other wall. The two were placed exactly opposite one another, the torturer facing his suffering victim, forever staring into one another's eyes from across the span of this messy room.
Mary appeared in the doorway carrying two plates. "We only had bologna." She closed the door softly behind her as she entered the room and sat beside him. She noticed his attention on the mask and explained, "You know, I really don't know much about those. I have a few books, but I haven't read any of them. The masks scare me, and I like that. I made several of them myself. That brush painting is mine, too." She motioned to one of the paintings on the far wall. Its broad strokes created an abstract pattern, but when he softened his focus, he realized it might be a picture of a winged serpent descending on a helpless human prey. "It's abstract. I've done more, but there's not enough room on my walls. I could wallpaper my room with brush paintings, but that would be silly, so I keep the rest under my bed. I'll show them all to you sometime." Her eyes moved to the tortured man above her headboard. "I like the masks best."
As she spoke, Victor felt himself being drawn toward her, as if an invisible cord was pulling him. Two small steps put him next to her, almost touching. She handed him his sandwich.
"You can sit on my bed and eat." The two of them climbed onto the bed and sat leaning against the headboard while they ate their sandwiches.
"I like not knowing the real stories behind these guys," she said, motioning with her head toward the masks. "It lets me fill in the blanks. I think it's more meaningful that way. Sometimes I lie in bed and stare at a mask, imagining the man behind it. I can't help but think that if you wore something like that, you could be possessed by the emotion it expresses. They're so raw and emotional. The expressions are so exaggerated; you can't help but feel their pain and anger. And if you put one of these on your face and wore it into battle, confronting your enemies and facing death with that frozen expression of rage or hopeless despair, I think you could be consumed by it. You might become fearless. At the least, you would scare the shit out of your enemies. How could they help but be intimidated by that? It gives you the sense that you're looking at a cadaver's face, frozen at the peak of his most intense emotion."
"Do you know if anyone even wore masks like these in battle?" Victor asked.
"They did in samurai movies, didn't they?"
"I like you." Victor spoke without thinking, but didn't take it back.
"I like you, too." She grabbed the back of his head and kissed him. "Want to put on the masks and have sex?"
"Yeah."
"Ok, but not yet. Just hang out with me tonight."
They finished their sandwiches in silence; then Mary took their plates into the kitchen. She returned with two glasses of water. "Sorry, I should have brought these with the sandwiches. I've never been a very good host."
"Thanks." He took a glass from her hand and drank a long gulp of water before asking, "Do you believe in ghosts?"
Mary shook her head and grimaced. "Of course not. I think, and I read. I don't believe in monsters, boogie men, living gods, or spirits. Why, did you see one?"
"Yeah. I don't believe in them either, but I saw one, two nights ago. I saw him again tonight before I came over, when I was laying in bed. I might be seeing things. When I turned on the light, he was gone."
Mary put her hand over his. "I believe you, Victor. I see them, too. A boy and a girl."
Victor nodded. "Exactly. They're both about our age."
Mary lowered her voice to a sinister half-whisper. "Yeah, they ask me to do things. Terrible things."
"Are you serious?"
"No, I'm just kidding. But I really have seen them." She paused, then said, "I still don't believe in them."