Four and a Half Shades of Fantasy

by W.J. May

  Chapter 6

  Rrrrr…Rrrrrr…

  My phone vibrated against my cheek. I must’ve rolled onto it in my sleep. I’d passed out big time.

  I opened my eyes and nearly shit my pants. Holy crap! What the hell happened? I lay on the top of the stairs. Well, sort of. My hips and legs were on the landing, but my upper body lay splattered down on the top two steps. The moments before passing out came flooding back. How I hadn’t toppled down the stairs was beyond me.

  Slowly I crawled backwards until there were no more steps. Headache’s gone, thank goodness. Except my body still felt weak and shaky. I crawled back to my room and dropped onto my bed, tossing my phone beside me.

  Stretching, I glanced around my room. Five guitars rested peacefully on their stands but my new one still lay on the floor beside the bed. How irreverent of me.

  A tingling in my toes reminded me of more important things. I leaned to the side and touched the wall. My fingers brought Nate’s room into focus, even clearer than before. Freakin’ awesome! I still got it.

  I punched the bed in excitement, rolled off and stood barefoot on the hardwood floor. An image of the dining room flashed in front of my eyes at the exact moment the bottom of my feet touched. My feet now have eyes? What’s going on with my skin? I gotta figure out how to control this or I’ll go crazy. Distracted, I nearly stepped on my guitar. I caught myself and went to splash cold water on my face.

  “Holy shit!” I stared at the reflection in my mirror, towel in hand. My eyebrows hid under my hair, and my mouth hung open. I’m surprised the vision didn’t come from my jaw hitting the floor. Moving closer, it seemed as if my blue eyes had more specs of brown in them. Or they were just bluer. Nah… impossible.

  Still gawking, I spread my feet shoulder width apart. After seeing my face in the mirror and the room below, I touched the wall. My freak skill allowed me to see Nate’s room, the dining room and my reflection, all at the same time. It took some time but by shifting my focus slightly by moving my eyes, I figured out how to switch rooms. It made my head spin so I dropped the toilet seat down and sat. I could touch the floor and both walls.

  I needed to slow down or I’d throw up. Feet on the floor, I shoved my hands under my armpits and worked on shifting scenes without getting dizzy. Once accomplished, I added one hand, then the other. Soon I could focus on what I wanted to see, and still see the other rooms peripherally, like a computer screen that had different screens which popped up by simply touching them. Pacing in my room, I needed to figure out how to have the ability to see my normal field of sight. I’d either never be able to move or crash into everything if I didn’t get it sorted.

  Dropping my arms and shaking them, I gave my shoulders a few rolls and started from my feet up again. First one foot I concentrated on the screen views my brain gave me. Sweat broke out on my forehead but I knew I was getting there. The dizziness disappeared as well as the nausea. When I finally added a hand to the wall and manoeuvred around my guitars without banging into anything I relaxed. Easy as pie. Laughter erupted from my throat, and I did a Tiger Wood’s fist pump, then nicely finished off with two long blasts from the old butt trumpet.

  A buzzing stopped my victory dance. My phone slid a few inches on my sheets, trying to get my attention. I picked it up and checked for messages. There were three. Seth said he’d meet up and would stop by Kieran’s place to see if he wanted to come. Heidi texted that Zoe had sent her a message and she’d let Rylee know, and they’d be there.

  Zoe sent the last one.

    Sorry 4 not replying sooner. Mom’s freaking out since I didn’t call her when I was at my dads. I’m walking 2 mom’s now and getting the Beatle. C U at PHP. I gotta tell you something.  

  Poor gal, she had no idea how to send a short text. I couldn’t help but grin. I gotta tell you something wayyy cooler. Unless she had the same thing happen to her. Something from the mine…

  I replied: L8er.

  Tossing the phone on the bed I then bent over and picked up Hangstrom, unable to resist playing it. I settled onto the stool near the fireplace on the far wall and ran my fingers over the strings, playing a few odd chords. I’d always preferred fingers over a pick. Now, the vibrations humming through my fingers were like magic, like I’d never understood the sound until that moment.

  I disappeared into the melody as the notes rang out. Nothing else existed. There was only the music. Not like before, so much more…deeper, sensual.

  The next time I checked my watch, I stared in surprise. Two and a half hours gone? It’d felt like twenty minutes since I’d come to at the top of the stairs. Six o’clock and I still needed to shower before heading out to PHP. Jumping from the stool, I carefully set the guitar on her stand and raced to the bathroom.

  The log cabin exterior of Pool Hall Parlour twinkled with year-round with multi-colored Christmas lights. A few old cars in the parking lot, but none looked familiar. Once inside, I checked to see if any of the gang had been dropped off. At home, I’d figured out when I wore socks or sneakers, my feet were unable to get any X-ray vision. It made driving a whole lot easier.

  Running my fingers along the wooden walls, I searched the eating and pool table area, even the ‘Cowpokes’ restroom. I lifted my hand as I passed the ‘Cowgals’. There were certain things in life a guy didn’t need to see. Nobody was here yet.

  Funny, I’ve been here a million times but everything seems like I’m seeing it for the first time. Way clearer. Maybe my focus is notched just a little tighter.

  Whoever decorated PHP must’ve made some taxidermist rich. Stuff raccoons, beavers, ducks, fish, and deer heads, plastered the walls over the pool tables, bar, and video games. A huge black moose loomed over the dart board, a couple of stray darts stuck to him. The one by its nose was mine.

  Aside from never wanting to be here on your own with all those beady eyes staring at your every move, the place had an awesome atmosphere. It only added to the awesome food they served. Huge burgers which tasted like proper outdoor barbequed, fresh cut French fries with the skin still on, and sandwiches crammed with half a chicken. Everything was greasy and salty. It was impossible to order the wrong thing from the menu. My mouth watered from the menu and smells coming from the kitchen. I glanced around and checked the door. They’d better be here soon, I’m starving.

  The place was dead for a Sunday night. A couple of people eating and four college guys, summer strays as we called them, must’ve come up to Elliot Lake for the last weekend before school. Completely wasted, they were trying to play pool, in between cat-calling the waitress. Poor Abigail. One of them, tall with shaggy blond hair, tried to swat her ass, but she sidestepped and strolled back to the bar rolling her eyes.

  I’d settled into a booth near the far side, facing the front doors. Sort of watching the entrance, interested in the hall more than anything else. The stuffed animals on the walls kept watching my every move. Or maybe watching the door as well.

  “Dude!” Seth’s booming voice made everyone turn. He smiled, but then grimaced when he passed the kitchen and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Kieran strolled right behind him, dressed in dark clothes and hands in his back pockets. He surveyed the room with a bored look, shaking his head at the animals hanging on the walls.

  Seth dropped into the booth. “Abi! Can we get a pitcher of Ginger ale over here?”

  “Ginger ale? What are you, ninety?” I laughed. “You getting anything to eat?”

  “Naw, the kitchen’s got a funky odour coming out of it.” He rubbed his nose, as if trying to block the smell.”

  “I never noticed.” Kieran pulled a stool to the booth and sat down.

  “Me neither. I’m starving.” I grabbed the menu, already knowing what I’d order.

  Abigail dropped the jug and glasses off and stood behind Kieran. “D’you guys want anything?” Her tray rested against her hip.

  Loud laughter from the college boys muffled my stomach’s loud grumble.

/>   Zoe, Heidi and Rylee slipped around Abigail and scooted into the booth. Zoe sat beside me, the other two by Seth.

  Zoe grinned and whispered, “I bet Brent orders the mega-burger.” She rested her elbow on the table, hands covering her ears.

  I stared at her, trying to keep my eyes from wandering over her sun-kissed skin and down her short white skirt. If I touched her shirt, would I be able to see through it? Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and forced my fingers to play with the napkin wrapped around the cutlery. “Maybe I’m not hungry.”

  She gave a half-smile. “Liar. I heard your stomach growl.” Her cheeks turned a shade of red that matched her low cut tank top.

  How’d she hear it? “Fine, you win.” I turned to Abigail, my gaze roaming once more over Zoe’s perky boobs before moving on to Abigail. A guy’s gotta look, right? “Can I get the mega with a side of onions rings?”

  Abigail blew her bangs, looking tired. “Anyone else?”

  Kieran ordered the mega too, and the girls got the nacho tray.

  “Seth?” Rylee said. “Anything? Or everything on the menu?”

  He inhaled and turned three shades of green. “Nah, I’m good. Wait. Maybe another ginger ale? With a spoon for the bubbles.” He rested his chin on his hand, his fingers covering his mouth and nose.

  “If you got the flu and gonna puke…” Heidi scooted away from him and closer to Rylee.

  “I’m fine…I think.” Seth spoke from behind his hand. “Everything just smells totally strong. Some of it’s nice, but some of it…” He gagged and shuddered as he swallowed. “I think the mine poisoned my gut.”

  Heidi and Rylee jumped out of the booth. Heidi slid beside Zoe, who moved closer to me. Rylee grabbed a stool and sat beside Kieran.

  Seth smirked and sat up, not sick or poisoned at all. “I’m fine now.” He stretched a leg out on the bench and grinned.

  “Bugger,” Rylee said. “You just wanted the seat to yourself. I should’ve seen that coming.”

  “Bugger?” Zoe asked. “Where’d that come from?”

  Rylee shrugged. “Someone said it on Corrie Street or Queer as Folk or some other BBC show I watched online. It’s a cool word.”

  Kieran laughed and crossed his arms over his chest. He winked at the girls sitting by me. “Never had someone try an’ impress me that’a way. Thar’s a first.” His accent made his r’s roll. Great, more things to make the girls ogle over him.

  Heidi coughed, looked at Zoe, and then me. “What’s going on? With all of us?”

  Suddenly my skill went from being cool to dropping a stone in the pit of my stomach. It’s wrong? Wait. Do they have it too?

  Abigail’s arrival with our food stopped me from replying. Taking forever, she finally walked set everything down and walked toward the pool tables.

  I stared at my tower of onion rings, thinking about how to ask my buddies without sounding out of my mind. I grabbed the top ring and popped it into my mouth. The frown on Zoe’s face stopped me from reaching for another. “What’s up?”

  She nodded to the college guys. “They’re saying things. Pretty disgusting stuff about Abi. I hope Max’s kicks them out. They’re gross.”

  “You mean, Skinny, Dipshit, and Bleach-head?” Seth jabbed his thumb and smiled, looking all proud of thinking up the nicknames.

  I cocked my head. All I heard was loud laughter. “How can you hear them?”

  Zoe stared at her nachos. All of us grew quiet – a weird, almost knowing silence. She whispered, “I can hear everything.”

  “Git out,” Kieran said.

  “There’s a guy talking outside on his cell. He’s about to come in.”

  We all turned to the entrance and watched some guy walk in with a phone stuck to his ear. I turned to Zoe. She covered her ears, as if trying to drown out the noise.

  “You’re ears are wacked! My hands and feet—”

  “These nachos taste like a dirty ashtray.” Heidi cut me off. She pushed her plate away, her face four shades of green.

  Seth leaned forward, oblivious to what had just happened. He sniffed. “They stink a bit like smoke, but better than the lard stench coming out of the kitchen.” He tried a nacho, then slid the plate in front of him. “If you’re not gonna eat…”

  “Time out, time out, guys.” I made a capital “t” with my hands. Kieran eye’s jotted over each of us. He’s thinking what I’m thinking. My head ticked like the second hand on a clock at each of my friends. Seth complaining stuff smells bad, Zoe can hear a pin drop, Heidi’s taste is off and…

  My stomach tightened, and breathing became a challenge. “All of you been weird since last night?” I scratched my jaw as each of them nodded. All, but Kieran. “Rylee, what’s your deal? Is it your skin?”

  She blinked. “No. My skins fine but my eyes are super focused. Remember last year when I had laser surgery? It was awesome ‘cause I could see everything without my glasses.” She blinked, her eyes shooting everywhere around the hall. “It felt like that again this morning. Except now I can see the trees with five thousand leaves, their veins and the bugs crawling on them.” She paused. “And watch the sap running through them. I swear I could see all of it.”

  “So,” I said slowly. “You’ve got perfect vision? And Zoe’s got sensitive hearing, Heidi’s taste buds are off, and Seth’s nose stinks.” I thought I had sight, but it’s feel. My hands and feet…it’s based on my skin. My heart pounding, I continued, my words now tumbling out, “I woke with some wicked feeling-thing in my hands. I touched a wall and could see through it. Same thing with the floor, like some kinda X-ray vision.” I turned to the Scotsman. “What about you?”

  Kieran chuckled. “Yer serious, aren’t you?” He pretended to sniff, cupped an ear with his hand, and then licked ketchup off a French fry. He shook his head as he ran a finger across the table, and then rubbed his eyes and blinked a bunch of times. “Nothin’. Had a bad headache, but tha’ was it. But no super-power.” He leaned forward. “Yer pullin’ me leg, right?”

  “No joke. I can see through walls.” “I can’t stop hearing everything.” Zoe and I spoke at the same time.

  “Our senses are all screwed up,” Zoe whispered. She spoke, tapping a finger with each word, “Smell, sight, taste, touch and hearing.” Her eyes grew huge. “M-My dad’s doing some blood work to check for radium and whatever other shit’s running through me.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and gave a squeeze. Her skin felt amazingly soft, but cool as if it needed my arm there. “Something weird happened after the lightning.”

  Heidi looked ready to cry. “It doesn’t make sense. If there was radioactivity in that room last night, our skin should be falling off our bones.”

  “But it isn’t.” What had happened in the mine?

  “Do you remember the weird smell last night?” Heidi asked.

  “Yeah, can’t get it out of my nostrils at the moment.” Seth wiped his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

  “It was from the lightning. It’s actually ozone.”

  Heidi’s school book reading kicking in.

  “Lightning splits water molecules in the air and three molecules of oxygen bond to form ozone during a lightning storm.”

  “Where’d the heck you learn tha’?” Kieran, the only one eating, held his burger halfway to his mouth.

  Heidi shrugged. “Earth Science. Chemistry.”

  “Okay.” Kieran didn’t sound too sure.

  “Heidi’s got a photographic memory,” Zoe explained.

  “No shite?”

  We all nodded. It’d been like this since second grade.

  “Something happened to us while we were in that room,” Heidi insisted.

  This is wrong, in so many ways. “Maybe from the lightning, or the Uranium mine,” I said.

  “I bet it was from when we were blue.” Rylee added.

  “Then why didn’t he,” Seth said, pointing at Kieran. “Not get affected? Why just us?”

  Kieran leaned forward, a
nd set his burger down. “Maybe you guys have some defunked gene from living in Elliot crap-hole.” He held up a hand. “Sorry, mates. ‘Didn’t mean that like it sounded.” He bit into a French fry and chewed. “Maybe something’s in the water or the soil and you guys absorbed. Remember, I just got here.”

  “You might be right,” I said. “The five of us had been friends since first grade. Maybe there’s something in the soil and then when the storm hit – or we got hit in the mine – it messed everything up.” I shook my head, totally confused. “Can this really be happening?”

  Seth straightened. “Five senses and there’s five of us. And dude,” he said looking at me, “It’s totally happening.”

  Everyone sat silent and barely moving. Except Kieran, who kept on eating his burger and fries.

  Zoe let out a long sigh. “So, what do we do? Should we tell someone? Maybe my dad?”

  “Heck no!” Seth pounded the table with his fist. “Think of all the crap we’re gonna get away with this year at school. Getting straight A’s, some serious pranks, there’s so much shit. We’re not screwed or dying, we just got hit with some awesome super-ability.” He stared at each one of us. “So we gotta keep this our little secret.”

  “Little?” Heidi asked.

  Seth shrugged. “Fine. Our big-ass secret. I say we don’t tell anyone.” He turned to Kieran. “Can you to that?”

  Kieran raised his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t worry ‘bout me. I’m not tellin’ a soul. I want ta see what you kin do with yer new bits.”

  “I think we should tell my Dad.” Zoe took a sip of her coke. “I mean, what if something’s wrong? He’s already doing my bloodwork. I could tell him about my hearing.” She chewed her lip.

  Heidi spoke, “What if we get cancer or some growth or worse…”

  “Like what?” Rylee said. “We wake up dead one morning?”

  Everyone laughed. Gotta deal with the nervousness somehow.

  “We tell your dad if we have to,” Seth said. “If he says something about the blood results, we go from there,”

  “Or we get sick,” Heidi said not sounding convinced.

  “Sounds good to me,” Seth said. “I don’t want to be smellin’ crap all the time.” He sniffed. “Actually, I think it’s getting better. When we were all scared, I could smell somethin’ weird. Now it’s changed – a bit sweeter.” He scratched his head.

  “Maybe you can smell fear and joy and all that shite.” Kieran reached over and grabbed the pitcher. He shook the empty jug and glanced behind him. “Where’s our waitress?”

  I looked around. The college guys were gone, and Abigail probably went out to have a smoke break.

  A sharp intake of breath beside me made the hair on the back of my neck spring up. Zoe grabbed my arm with a vice-like grip.

  Don’t be hurt. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Color drained from her face and her lips trembled. One shaky finger tugged at her earlobe. “Abi’s in trouble.”