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Eyes closed, I reached blindly for the brown paper
towels. Grabbing a few sheets I dabbed at my face, drying it as
good as I could with the flimsy paper. I looked down to toss it in
the trash can when something dotting the brown sheet caught my eye.
I stared at the thick black substance stuck to the paper. Then I
glanced up at the mirror over the sink.

I screamed.

My eyes were black like ink. Thick tarry tears
streaked my cheeks. Shaking, I reached up and touched the dark
lines with the tip of my finger. It was sticky like syrup as it
transferred to my finger. Running the water scalding hot I rinsed
it from my skin. I watched as it made a creepy black swirl going
down the drain.

Leaning close to the mirror, I stared at my coaled
eyes. What the hell was wrong with me? Was it black blood coming
out of my brain? When I looked deeply I saw that the iris and white
part of my eye were now the same color as my pupil. And the thick
substance draining from the sides were like tears, except I wasn't
crying.

Heart racing and hands trembling I tried to make
meaning out of what I was seeing. But how could I? It made no
sense. There couldn't possibly be a medical reason for this.
People's eyes just didn't turn jet black.

Turning the water on more, I dunked my head into the
sink trying to get right under the spray from the tap. I kept my
eyes open hoping to wash away the dark stain, hoping that my eyes
would return to their original color. The doctor would never let me
leave the hospital if I magically had solid black orbs rolling
around in my head.

I kept under the water, rubbing and scrubbing, until
I couldn't handle it any longer. Taking a deep breath, I looked up
into the mirror. And almost screamed again.

They were still black, but now they were shiny as if
I'd washed them squeaky clean. It was even stranger to see them
sparkle in the low fluorescent light of the bathroom. The tar like
streaks were gone, washed off, but that was about all that had
changed.

Fear still gripped me tight, but some of it had
abated a bit to allow me to study myself. No pain shot through me.
It wasn't as if something had ruptured inside my head and was now
bleeding out from my eyes. Something else made my eyes fully black,
something I was sure now had everything to do with my short death.
Even if it was for only seven minutes.

I turned my head this way and that trying to
understand where the dark taint came from. And why it was
happening. As I twisted my neck back and forth, my vision changed
and shifted. I'm not exactly sure how but I began to see things
differently. It was as if objects had another layer on top of them.
When I looked at the toilet in the mirror, I could see it plain as
day, but it looked like another toilet was superimposed on top of
the original. An overexposed photo. As if I was looking at two
spliced into one.

It didn't scare me. I actually thought it was kind of
cool. Everything in the bathroom took on a different light and
texture. As if I was seeing more than what was just evident or
obvious.

A loud knock came at the door jolting me. "Salem, are
you okay in there?" My mom's voice was shrill.

I scrambled with the trash trying to shove the
blackened paper towels to the bottom of the can. "I'm fine. I'll be
out in a minute." I glanced back into the mirror and saw a glint of
green. I grabbed the rim of the sink and leaned into the glass, my
nose nearly touching. The black was gone. Vanished. My eyes were
back to normal.

I blinked several times testing to see if the dark
film would come back. It didn't.

And maybe it hadn't been there at all.

Taking more paper towel I finished drying off my
face, then tossed it into the garbage. After one last look in the
mirror, I grabbed my IV buddy and opened the bathroom door and
allowed my mom to guide me back to bed. I was tired. Maybe I just
needed to sleep. And when I woke back up, maybe all of this would
just be a strange nightmare. A figment of my overly active
imagination.

Or worse...maybe it wasn't.

Chapter 6

After another day in the hospital, I was freed with a
medical record of surprisingly good health. Once I woke up, the
doctors were hard pressed to find anything wrong with me so they
had to let me go home. I never told them about my eyes turning
black. It didn't happen again, so I just chalked it up to
delirium.

My mom on the other hand was having a difficult time
believing that there was nothing wrong with me.

She hovered over me for another two days, dogging me
at every step with inquiries into how I was feeling. After every
trip to the bathroom she asked me questions, wanting every single
disgusting detail. I guess a person's poop holds the answers to
everything. Who knew?

It was now three days gone and I felt fantastic.
Better than I'd ever felt, as if I could take on the world and win.
It was weird, after dying and stuff, but I wasn't going to question
it. I felt too good to ruin it by overanalyzing the situation. I
was going to go with the flow. Ride the wave and see where it
rolled me.

I laid on my bed watching as Chloe finished the last
riff on
Paint It Black
with the
Guitar Hero
game
guitar. After her dramatic final arm swing, she turned and gave me
the rock sign, her tongue sticking out between fingers. "I freaking
rock dude!"

I laughed.

"You're a complete nerd." The voice came from the
corner of my room where our other friend, Jamie, was engrossed in
something on my computer. He was probably downloading porn again.
His penchant for it bordered on obsessive. Thankfully my mom
trusted me and never checked the surfing history stored on the
computer. I would have some explaining to do if she ever did.

Chloe flipped him the middle finger. "You're just
jealous because you haven't gotten this far on the game."

"Yeah, the only game you're good at is playing the
pipe." I made rude gestures toward my crotch.

Chloe flopped over laughing.

"You're right." Jamie turned in the chair, something
pale and pink sticking out of his pants. Both Chloe and I shrieked
and covered our eyes. I started to laugh when I realized it was
just his hand poking out from his open fly.

I tossed a balled-up pair of dirty socks at him.
"You're sick."

He caught it with his phallic-posing hand. "I know.
That's why I get all the hot girls."

"You do not," Chloe said. "Your last girlfriend was a
greasy pig."

Jamie zipped up his pants. "Marissa was not a greasy
pig."

Chloe and I looked at each other, then said in
unison. "Yes, she was."

"Okay, maybe she was a little. But she had the
softest set of—,"

I put my hand up to ward off his next words. "Please.
I don't want that image in my head."

He smiled. "I was going to say lips. You have a dirty
mind Salem Vale." He waggled his eyebrows at me. "I like it, you
saucy minx you."

Before I could comment, the phone rang. The cordless
was laying on the pillow beside me. I picked it up and pressed the
talk button. It was probably my mom checking up on me. Today was
the first day she seemed okay about leaving me alone to go back to
work, well as alone I could get with two boisterous best friends
crammed in my room and a younger brother somewhere in the house
playing something on his laptop.

"Hello."

There was no answer.

"Hello?"

A line of static sizzled in my ear. It was so loud I
had to pull the receiver away. I pressed the end button.

"Who was it?" Chloe asked, her attention back on the
guitar hero game.

"Nobody. Bad line." I glanced down at the phone in my
hand. I swallowed down the lump forming in my throat. A sense of
threatening dread crept up on me like a shadow crossing the ground.
It sent shivers down my back.

I set the phone down on the pillow, and tried to
focus my mind on something else. I watched as Chloe scored some
major points on the game and smiled. This was one computer game we
were both good at and Jamie wasn't. He usually kicked our asses on
all the other games though. He rocked at Halo.

She glanced back at me. "Do you want a turn,
now?"

I nodded and bounced off the bed to take the guitar
from her. Before I could grab it, the front doorbell chimed. I
frowned wondering who it could be. Maybe it was the postman. My mom
did a lot of her shopping online. She hated going to the mall for
anything. The bell chimed again impatiently.

I opened my bedroom door and called, "Kyle! Get the
door!"

There was no return bellow and the doorbell dinged
again. It was becoming annoying but I knew if it was one of my
mom's packages and she found out I didn't answer the door for it,
she'd bust my ass big time.

"Be back in a second," I said to Chloe and Jamie then
bounded out of the room to march down the hallway to the front
door. It sounded once more before I grabbed the handle and turned
it.

Pissed off, I swung the door open to give whoever it
was a piece of my mind, but there wasn't anyone standing on the
stoop. I stepped out and glanced both ways, looking for the
offending door ringer so I could yell at them before they ran away.
I was alone, standing out on the cement step, the bright sunshine
beaming down on me and the birds chirping musically nearby.

It was an idyllic summer day, with clear blue skies
and perfect outdoor weather, but I couldn't stop from shaking. The
hairs on my arms and the back of my neck rose, gooseflesh popped
out all over my skin. Fear clamped a wide steel hand around me and
I couldn't shuck it off.

Hugging myself tight I scanned the area looking for
the source of my irrational fear. A woman walked by pushing a
stroller, her baby babbling happily inside. Vehicles drove by, none
of them slowing or stopping near the house. Nothing appeared to be
threatening but it was there regardless.

Someone was watching me. I was sure of it. My skin
crawled from the phantom gaze. I glanced around again. And this
time my vision changed. Everything I looked at shifted in shape,
exactly what I experienced in the bathroom in the hospital.
Everything was doubled, or giving off some sort of aura mirroring
the object itself.

The azalea bush, the decorative rock in the middle of
the lawn, even the lawn chair sitting out front took on a new
dimension. It was pretty cool to see the objects like that, but I
still had a sense of paranoia. It still felt like I was being
observed from somewhere near by.

Then a human shape wavered into my view. It was
coming up the sidewalk near the house. I watched and waited,
anticipating, as the shape moved across the freshly cut grass. I
could see the person, and then a colored halo around their shape.
Blues, greens and sunny yellow swirled around together, swaying
back and forth, rocking to the motion of the person's movement.

"Hey Sale, what are you doing standing there?"

It was my brother Kyle moving towards me, dressed in
shorts and a tank top, his usual attire.

Realizing that my eyes must be doing the freaky ink
thing for me to see in that way, I lowered my gaze and pretended to
study my feet. I didn't want Kyle to see them. He would freak
out.

"Someone rang the doorbell. I just came out to see
who it was."

As he approached the stoop, he glanced one way then
the other obviously trying to figure out if I had lost my mind or
something. "Okay? So who was it?"

I shook my head, still keeping my head downcast. "Ah,
no one I guess."

He came up on the stoop but paused at my side before
going into the house. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I rubbed at my eyes. I couldn't go
back into the house with them the way they were. Someone would call
my mom and I'd be back in the hospital and probably end up
undergoing a bunch of painful tests. "Where were you anyways? I
thought you were in your room."

"I was over at Brian's playing a little b-ball."
After looking at me funny, he went into the house. "Are you coming
back in?"

"Yeah, in a minute. Just leave the door open."

"Okay," he said, a quirk in his voice, then the last
bit he mumbled under his breath, "weirdo." But I heard him
anyway.

His little comment didn't surprise me--Kyle and I
were complete opposites. He was tall and fair haired, as I was
short and well, I colored my hair monthly, so I guess that didn't
count. He loved sports and was on the school basketball team. I
managed to play a mean game of air hockey once in awhile down at
the pool hall. Academically, we were about the same. Both of us
raked in B's, with a few C+'s mixed in the bunch. However I did
manage to score an A last term in art. Thankfully my teacher had a
great sense of humor and thought my sculpture of a sperm cell
constructed entirely out of tampons was inspired.

Music and movies also differed. While I leaned toward
the hardcore, including loving horror movies, Kyle was really all
about the Pop. Although I did think Superbad was a freaking
hilarious film. I mean who couldn't love McLovin? And Michael Cera
I thought was cute as hell.

After a few more minutes I gave up trying to find out
who was watching me, if anyone. I rubbed at my eyes until they
stung, but finally my vision returned to normal. I glanced around
the yard one last time before heading in.

Out of my peripheral I thought I saw movement in the
shadows along side the house, but instead of stopping and checking
it out, I shook the feeling off and went back to my room. I had
enough of being freaked out for the day. I figured I was over
quota.

I pushed open my bedroom door with the intention of
lying back down on my bed and picking up the phone to order pizza.
It was past six and my stomach was starting to grumble. But when I
entered, a high pitched shrill, like the emergency broadcast system
signal, invaded my ears. I clutched at my head trying to drown the
offensive sound out.