The Eyes of Kid Midas (10 page)

"I DON'T KNOW! I can't remember, so just shut up about it, okay?"

Josh looked terrified, and Kevin knew why. Itwas as if someone had yanked something out of their heads. It was like that old trick of pulling a tablecloth out from underneath a perfectly set table. Everything looked fine, but something was missing.

Josh couldn't remember, and neither could Kevin. If he tried really hard, he could remember Bertram's voice, or part of his face, or the smell of his gum, but the memories were fading, becoming harder and harder to find.

"What did you do, Kevin? What the hell did you do?"

"I think . . ." said Kevin, "I think I've changed the rules, somehow."

Josh scowled at him, trying to understand.

"It's like . . . you know, when you're dreaming; first you're in your house, then suddenly you're at school, then suddenly you're at the mall in your underwear, but no one notices—not even you— because while you're dreaming, you don't notice when things don't make sense. You don't notice when the rules change, you know?"

Josh's lips started to quiver. He was breathing fast, too, and Kevin knew that he was beginning to understand.

Kevin slipped the glasses out of his pocket and put them on. His whole body surged with warmth.

"See, Josh, if I were to say something like 'two plus two equals three,' suddenly it would be true, and no one would know any better."

Josh reached out and plucked the glasses from Kevin's face. They made a suction sound as they came off, like a snail being pulled off a window.

"When I first got the glasses, Josh, they just made things—but now that I've had practice, and gotten better at it, the glasses are doing even more. Now the glasses are re-making the rules. They're
re-imagining
the universe!"

They both glanced into Kevin's bedroom, where Nicole was bouncing on an eraser as if it were a miniature trampoline.

"So no one's going to notice anything strange about Nicole being six inches tall?" asked Josh.

"No one . . . they'll just look right past it, and not give it a second thought, like it's normal . . . and it's the same with Bertram. Pretty soon, Bertram's going to be completely gone. No one will remember he ever existed—-not even his own parents. . . . Nobody but you and me."

"Why me?" asked Josh. "If
you're
the one changing the rules, how come I know something's wrong?" But Josh answered his own question. "It's because I was there with you when you found the glasses, isn't it?"

Kevin nodded. "We're in this together."

Josh looked at the glasses, which were still inhis hands. Kevin's tone changed. "I'd like them back, please," said Kevin.

Josh's grip tightened on the lenses. "Maybe I should keep them for you . . . so there's no more trouble."

Kevin reached out a hand, and his fingers closed around the glasses as well.

"Let go, Josh."

They stood there, facing off—neither of them letting go.

"Jump ball," said Josh, with a nervous chuckle.

"Let go, Josh."

There was something in Kevin's voice-- something so commanding that Josh couldn't fight it. Josh let go, and his shoulders sagged. Kevin shoved the glasses back into his shirt pocket, and Josh rubbed his hands on his pants, as if trying to wipe off invisible blood.

"I'm an accessory," said Josh, with bitter resignation. "An accessory to the crime."

Kevin saw Nicole to the door. He offered to walk her home, but she wouldn't allow it.

"I'm fine by myself," said Nicole. "Cats are stupid, anyway."

As she stood on his palm, before Kevin let her down to the ground, she took a long look at him.

"You know," said Nicole, "you should have waited."

"Huh?"

"You should have waited before you kissed me. It was a really dumb thing to do. You should have waited till we were, like, going out or something."

Kevin set her gently down on the sidewalk. "But you'd never go out with me."

Nicole shrugged. "You never asked me." Then she turned and began the long, long walk back to her house four blocks away.

CHAPTER 10

Specters in the Dark

Kevin told himself he wouldn't use them again. No matter how miserable he felt without the glasses on his face, he swore he'd stop once and for all.

Yet as he lay in bed that night, thoughts of the glasses pushed everything else out of his aching head. He knew where they were, so close, sitting there in his shirt pocket, hung on the back of his desk chair.

It wouldn't hurt just to look at them,
thought Kevin, and so he heaved his cold, shaking body out of bed, took the glasses from his shirt, and set them open on his desk.

About a foot away from the wall outlet.

The glasses had already drained the heat from the room, but it wasn't enough. They sat there spent and powerless, just like Kevin, in a room that had become as cold as winter. Now the blade of the lenses was a dull, foggy gray, like cheap plastic that had been washed too many times.

In a moment, an arc of blue electricity bridged the cold air between the glasses and the outlet. It looked like one of those mad scientific devices in old monster movies.

Kevin slipped under his blankets and watched.
It wouldn't hurt to let the glasses charge up just a little,
he thought. Only they didn't charge just a little, they charged a lot. For half an hour Kevin watched and listened to the gently crackling electrical hum while everyone else slept.

Soon the glasses looked perfect again. The smooth visor blade was sharp and shiny—as perfect and pure as a diamond. They sat there, waiting patiently for Kevin.

Now Kevin longed more than ever to have the cold and the emptiness he felt chased away by the glasses.

If I wore them for just a second, it couldn't hurt,
he thought. Could he bear that? Wearing them for just a second? Of course he could. Then he could put them back in his shirt pocket. That's what he'd do.

He reached out, crooked his finger, and grabbed the glasses, just as he had the first time, when he had seen them on the mountain. He slipped them on his face.

Instantly the icy night rolled over into a thick, warm quilt for Kevin to wrap himself in, protecting him from anything hidden in the shadows.

He stretched and let the warmth relay- down his spinal column until it pulsed in his fingers and toes.

How good it was to feel so warm, so safe, and so comfortable. How could he ever want to feel differently?

Still wearing the glasses, Kevin felt sleep begin to pull him down with caressing hands. He gave no resistance.

Kevin opened his eyes some time later, deep into the night, hearing the distant sound of metal against metal. A rattling sound. A tilt of the head told him that the sound came from the left side of his room—more specifically, his closet.

Kevin sat up and walked what seemed to be twice the usual distance, noticing the sickly-sweet aroma of overripe fruit. Pushed by curiosity, he reached for the 'knob and turned it. The door creaked open to reveal a place that bore no resemblance to Kevin's closet. And Bertram was there.

Bertram was in the same clothes he wore the moment he was sucked out of the world, only now they were drenched in sweat.

Yes. Now I remember what he looked like
was the first thought that flashed in Kevin's mind. Then the shock and horror followed it in, like thunder.

Bertram lunged at Kevin in fury, only to be choked back by the chains. Heavy black chains circled his legs, arms, and neck, rattling like iron bones. They were fastened securely to a jagged wall of steaming, black, shiny stone, which had replaced the walls of Kevin's closet. The glass-like obsidian shimmered, reflecting fires unseen.

It was
exactly
what Kevin imagined Hell to be like.

Except for the fish.

Bertram's Hell had fish everywhere. They flopped at his feet, they slithered down the wall and into his shirt. And they all smelled like used fruity bubble gum. It must have been-Bertram's worst nightmare.

"You're
dead,
Midas!" screamed Bertram. "You're dead when I catch you! You're gonna pay!"

And then Bertram's face changed. He wasn't a grimacing demon anymore, but a terrified thirteen- year-old boy.

"Please," he whispered desperately, "please, Kevin, help me. I'm scared . . . pleeeeeease . . ."

"I'm sorry!" cried Kevin. "I didn't mean it! I didn't even know there really
was
a Hell!"

Bertram changed again. His face twisted into a snarl, and he lunged forward like a madman, only to be choked back once more by chains that seemed strong enough to hold a dinosaur.

"You idiot!" growled Bertram. "You
made
this place! You made it for me!"

Kevin knew it was the truth. Whatever other places there might be—in and out of the universe— this particular Hell was invented just for Bertram.

The rage left Bertram's eyes again, and once more he was just a kid. He began to cry. "Please, Kevin, please, I'll be nice to you. I'll be your friend, just please get me out of here. . . ."

If I step in the closet,
Kevin thought,
if I just cross over, I can bring him back.

Bertram stretched his hand out as far as he could, and Kevin took one step toward the closet, reaching for Bertram's grimy, wriggling fingers.

Then Bertram turned into an old winter coat, and the rattling chains became nothing more than the wire hangers clattering in the breeze of an open window. Kevin found himself in his pajamas, standing at the closet door.

The dream, and the memory of Bertram's face, were already fading, but still Kevin knew this was no ordinary dream. Not just because of how real it felt, but because of the smell that still filled the house. The awful bubble-gum stench of a million rotten strawberries.

Kevin stood for the longest time in front of Teri's bed, not having the nerve to wake her up. Eventually she awoke by herself, to see Kevin standing there, the way an ax murderer might. She gasped, then angrily threw a pillow at him. "You don't scare me," she declared. "So get outta here."

Kevin didn't move. Teri sniffed the air.

"Ughh! what is that stink? Did you fart, Kevin?"

"No," he answered. "Teri," he said, his voice quavering, "I gotta talk to you."

"Oh, for God's sake, it's three in the morning!"

She peered at him in the darkness. Maybe there was enough light for her to see the trouble painted on his face. He had taken the glasses off, leaving them on his desk again, away from the outlet. He wondered if he looked as weak as he felt.
It's all wrong,
he thought.
I shouldn't have to wear those stupid glasses just to feel good. I used to be able to feel good without them.
But he couldn't even remember what that had been like.

"Is this about Nicole?" asked Teri. "You know she likes you."

Kevin nodded. He knew that now. He had figured out that the glasses didn't control Nicole's mind because they didn't have to—she had already liked him. Of course that didn't mean she had to admit it—not even to herself. But that was screwed up now, too.

"It's about a whole lot of things," said Kevin. "I'm . . . I'm in trouble, Teri."

Teri stared at him, studying him for the longest time.

"Something's really wrong, isn't it?" she whispered.

Kevin nodded.

"Climb aboard." Teri tossed him her favorite pillow, and Kevin hopped onto the end of her bed, sitting with his knees tucked into his chest. True, much of the time Teri was a general nuisance to Kevin, but that was only part of her job as his big sister. This was the other part.

"Tell me," said Teri. "Tell me everything."

"You won't believe me."

But the look on her face said that she would. No matter how crazy or awful his secret was.

"If it's the truth, then I'll know," she said. Then she added, "But if you woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me a lie, I'll beat the crap out of you."

She took his foot in her hands and began rubbing it, to get it warm.

Kevin told her everything, from the beginning, and even though it was the word of her crazy brother against the rest of the sane, rational world, Teri did the most wonderful thing a sister could ever do. She chose to believe her brother.

It was nearly dawn when Kevin was done. Teri didn't Say anything. She just sat there, staring at him. Then she finally said, "We have to do some serious thinking."

"Can I stay with you tonight?"

Kevin hadn't asked that since he was six, yet somehow he didn't feel ashamed to ask her now. He didn't think Teri would let him leave, anyway. He doubted she wanted to be alone, either.

"As long as you don't snore," she said, then changed her mind. "Naah. You can snore as much as you want."

They lay on the bed, stretched out in opposite directions, but neither one of them slept. Soon early dawn washed the room gray, and Kevin could hear his father getting ready for his morning run.

On his way downstairs Patrick Midas passed by Teri's open door, and stopped when he caught sight of Kevin there. Teri pretended to be asleep, but Kevin didn't. He stared right at his father.

Mr. Midas stood on the threshold for a moment, as if he were about to speak. Kevin wanted him to speak—to say anything.
If I told Teri,
thought Kevin,
I could tell him, too. Whether he believed me or not, at least he 'd have to do something. Anything.

Mr. Midas lingered by the door for a moment, then turned away. Kevin could hear him bounding down the stairs and out the door.

"He didn't even ask what I'm doing in here," whispered Kevin. "He knows something's wrong, but he didn't even ask." Kevin couldn't remember the last time either of his parents wanted to know anything. They didn't ask about his recent mood swings, or what he spent his time thinking about. They didn't ask about the bursts of energy and hours of weariness that had filled his life since he found the glasses. They rarely seemed to notice when Kevin was out of whack, and when they did notice, they would write it off as if it were nothing.