Four-Eyes
At school, they tease and taunt me with the nickname Four-Eyes. None of my friends understand how I can just smile to myself and shrug it off. It's because, behind my glasses, my eyes don't just see the real world. I have visions of the spiritual realm -- almost as if I had four eyes.
One of first visions happened when I was lying on the top bunk, as usual, trying to sleep over the creaking sounds of the old tree outside the window. I rolled over and froze.
Standing in the doorway was a man. He was just a shadow, poised as if to grab my sister, but his empty face lifted and he saw me staring. I wanted to scream, but my throat was clenched shut, and I was frozen.
Leaving a cold, stale breeze behind him, the man was gone.
Months later, my cousins Emily and Megan came to stay the night. I still had fleeting memories of the shadow-man, but I tried my best to ignore my fear and smile and socialize instead. We ran into the long grass of the backyard, which stopped being our yard and became a vast field a good eighty feet out. Barlow, my black lab mix, bounded at our heels, woofing with the joy of running.
With my feet pounding and hair flying back, I could almost forget the vision. I threw back my head and laughed, then looked around for my cousins. My smile faded as I saw them standing motionless behind me, staring across the field. Following their vision, I sucked in my breath sharply.
Across the field was an oozing red lump. At first I thought it was the body of a doe, but then I saw the shimmer of plastic. It was a bag. The three of us exchanged a look, and I quickly grabbed onto Barlow's collar.
"We do not mess with that bag," I told Emily and Megan in a low voice as I walked stiffly back towards them. "I don't care what's in it. Don't touch it."
"Fat chance. I wasn't going to anyway," Emily said. Megan just shuddered.
That night, we camped out in the living room, spreading out our sleeping bags extra close to the dwindling fire. Emily's snores soon indicated her slumber, and I yawned and clicked off my flashlight.
"Courtney!" I heard Megan hiss a moment later. "There's a mouse!"
I made a sound of disgust and made as if to stand up, but Megan's clammy hand gripped my wrist. "Oh my god, it's a hand."
I could see the mouse's silvery fur in the dying firelight, but there was no hand. And then there was: pale, curled fingers reaching, clutching, squeezing...
The mouse screeched and went limp. The last bit of firelight died away.
Megan and I hugged each other tightly and kept our eyes clenched shut. The hand was between us and the door; there was no leaving the room. We stifled out whimpers into our shoulders and nodded off sitting up until the morning light brought some measure of safety.
We didn't tell anyone, because Megan was very cross and didn't want to be thought of as crazy. I simply didn't want to anger the spirits haunting me any further. Blaming it on my four eyes, I waved goodbye to my cousins and went to sit alone in my room.
A few days passed, and I stayed upstairs as much as I could, scribbling furiously on legal pads until my mother kicked me out of the house. "You'll get sickly if you stay inside so much," she told me.
I texted my cousin Austin for company, and he arrived on his bike half an hour later. "Let's hang out in the barn," I said. I felt like shelter was the best bet at this point.
He shrugged and we went into the musty old barn. Austin scrambled up the ladder and began to tightrope-walk some of the ceiling beams. I ignored him and plopped down in a pile of hay in the middle of the barn to continue writing.
I glanced up when a peculiar smell floated to my nose. My eyes widened. A dark shadow was looming behind the unsuspecting Austin, its claw-like hands extended as if to grab his shoulders.
"Austin! Behind you!"
He wobbled a little, but caught his balance with swooping arms and gave me a wry grin. "Nice try, Court."
"No really. There's..."
As he glanced over his shoulder, the shape vaporized itself. Austin turned around, frowning now. "Okay, look, if you want me to get down, there are other ways to -- Court! It's a ghost!" He was pointing with a trembling finger to a spot behind me.
I didn't want to believe him, but my crawling skin forced me to trust his word. I pushed myself up, flung my paper and pencil behind me, and took off running. I knew the spirit was following me, and I knew it wanted to hurt me, but I had to run. I couldn't just let it win.
I stopped running when I felt ready to collapse, and looked around. I'd ended up on top of a little hill, with the sunset bathing the clover and grass around me in a deceptively calm light. A glance over my shoulder told me the spirit had stopped chasing me. I frowned. With the malevolent power I'd felt, that didn't seem right. I turned.
Standing in front of our tractor was a little boy. His face was gone, replaced by a skull, and the staring sockets bored into my soul. I stiffened, but continued to stare back, feeling the force of his gaze.
Then, as I closed my eyes, unable to hold the stare any longer, my glasses shattered.
I was thrown backwards, my head throbbing from the impact and stinging where bits of glass had embedded themselves into my skin. I blinked my eyes open, gingerly touching my forehead. There was no damage to my eyes.
Scrambling to my feet, I looked to where the boy had been. There was no sign of him. A quick sweep of the area told me he had just vanished.
I didn't replace my glasses after that. I decided to switch to contacts. I haven't seen a spirit since.
