GOLD EYES GLEAM FOREVER

Aloysius’s eyes glazed and unglazed, as the blue light of the radio congealed with the red light of the speedometer into purple and separated out again. The pink sky congealed into purples as he flicked on his headlights and noticed Alvin’s face glow orange with his own. Alvin exhaled a deep breath of the first good hit of a freshly lit joint that blasted back into the car as the cold air rushed through the cracking window. 

They were meeting Melissa and Cassandra back at Louis’ parents’ place. His parents went away for the extended weekend that morning and the four of them were using the opportunity to access an immersion in autumnal joy that would have been impossible without their absence. Aloysius had been staying there for the last several months as he was in a transition period but felt uncomfortable with friends coming over around his parents. He never particularly enjoyed mixing friends with family and thought them best kept separate.

They aimed to engross themselves in as many fall activities as possible without rushing. It had been many months since the four of them got together, longer than the prior gap, with the growing temporal lapse occurring as a natural byproduct. A rare set of consecutive days to forget their daily responsibilities without consequence. They would have the luxury of being able to smoke weed inside, surrounded by decorations with meaning while staring out windows that stare out at trees. A true treat. 

Alvin pounded along sloppily to the beat of Blitzkid’s ‘Pumpkinpatch Murders’, visibly content and relaxed from their successful completion of the corn maze and subsequent haul of gourds, cider donuts, and a surprisingly good variety of freshly picked apples.

Alvin made a few absent-minded comments that had no use in being said in the first place, and Louis let them fall into their proper unmarked graves of disregard. It wasn’t intentional, things had been blurring for Aloysius. So did this Blitzkid album. And the rest of the music he had been listening to lately. He tried to think of the last song he wanted to hear, and couldn’t. 

“Stop sign.”

They barreled forward.

“Yo stop sign! Yo! YO!!!”

Louis jammed on the brakes as Al began to squirm up his seat, sending upwards a cloud of dust and forwards a large smattering of loose gravel.

“You good man?”

“Yeah…”

Aloysius pulled his shit together and snapped back into it. He reached for the joint and Alvin obliged.

“Yeah, I’m good. My bad dude.”

“You want me to drive?”

“Nah I’m good. It’s been two hours since my last tug.”

Aloysius had finished his flask in the port-o-john before leaving the corn maze which was only 37 minutes prior.

“The coffee has been helping too.” He took a cold gulp from the hot coffee bought from the Stewart’s earlier that morning.

“Well just let me know if you want to switch, I don’t mind at all.”

Louis did mind though. He needed this. Even if he was going to blow through a stop sign doing 15 over the buffer speed, even if it was dangerous to space out while at the wheel after a day of drinking, at least he knew it was him doing it. That it would be his poor decision-making that led to his death and the death of his friend. He was in control of his own life for the whole ride, conscious or not, and he realized this as he put his foot on the gas to make a right onto the county highway. It gave him a morsel of calm, which turned the smell of weed, ash, and manure into eucalyptus. As soon as the phantom scent was in his nostrils it was out, and a deep dread sprang from in him like an artesian well tapped to a previously untapped aquifer. He knew that it was only a matter of hours until he had absolutely no control, so he took out his crumpled pack of camel blues and lit up a bent one before it broke.

****

They pulled up to the house to see Melissa and Cassandra posted faux-impatiently by the trunk. They took separate cars for the weekend. There was no romance between the four of them, there never was. They were all too desperate for friendship when they met to risk the betrayal and were too desperate in general as people to ever dare think of it and risk losing the support.

Louis parked in front of the scarecrow couple display on the side-yard and killed the lights. Before they were fully out Cassandra churned back up the engine of ribbing that had been driving so much of the day.

“What the fuck took you guys so long? Alvin, did your weird bladder make you piss yourself again?”

“No, we needed more smokes.”

“You both really need to quit that shit”

Alvin knew she was right, but Aloysius did not. 

“Whatever, dude. Did you guys bring beer?”

“Yeah, we got 12 UC’s,” Melissa said confidently. 

“12?!”, they blurted in tandem. 

“I’m drinking at least 8 myself,” Louis demanded.

“I was only gonna have 5 but I really wanted 5.” The trunk closed revealing Alvin’s genuine face. 

“Stop, no, you guys are insane. Why is 12 not enough?”

“Wait, hold on, why didn’t you guys get beer at the gas station?”

“Because you said you were bringing beer. We thought you had it covered. You know who we are, come on.”

“Louis, don’t your parents have anything? You’re not drinking all the beer that we bought.”

“They drink that prissy IPA and sour shit. I wanted an actual beer, not something a weirdo jerks off into that tastes like his fuckin’ spunk.”

“Oh so now you care what booze you drink.”

“I’m maturing.”

“R-i-i-i-ght.”

They all laughed at him and a small smile crept over his face as he closed the door behind him.

***

They sat around the firepit in the backyard staring into the flame in silence, smoke and waning warmth hitting their bodies against the encroaching cold. They had worked their way through the 12-pack, each taking an equal share plus more tugs from Aloysius’ whiskey. Cass decided the quiet contemplation must end. This was their fun weekend, anyway. She thought briefly for something to stoke the conversation.

“You guys know any good ghost stories?”

She looked over at Melissa who rolled her head at her in a way that said, “I’m too drunk to use my brain for that right now,” then turned to Alvin.

“What about The Hat Man?”

He was trying at least. Aloysius stood up.

“Nah fuck all that shit man. I’m gonna go get another beer, does anyone want another?”

Melissa rolled her head back to Louis giving him the same look. Alvin knew his line and shook his head.

“I’m good, dude.”

“I don’t want one but I’ll come with you. I should probably get our stuff from the car so Mel can go to bed.”

Cassandra followed Louis inside, diverging one to the fridge and the other to the keys on the counter. She attempted to keep things alive again by popping her head above the fridge door as he pulled out his father’s IPA.

“Did you run inside because you’re afraid of The Hat Man?”, her hands doing a little wiggle as she said this.

Aloysius shot her a hard stare, slugged out of the beer, and slammed the fridge shut.

“No, fuck off.”

“Yo what the hell, what’s crawled up your ass? You’ve gotten more dickish as the day’s gone on.”

“Nothing.”

“It’s clearly not nothing.”

Although it also wasn’t the continuing fun she was looking for, it was something so she prodded. Louis’ look softened, a flash of fear showing deep within his eyes.

“Some of that stuff just isn’t really meant to be messed with.”

She picked up on it. She recognized the look from their teens when he had been experiencing a mental health episode. He wasn’t just moody; it was something else. 

“What do you mean?”

“People shouldn’t make light of dreams.”

“Aloysius, I don’t know what you’re saying. What do you actually mean?”

“I get nightmares.”

“Of The Hat Man?”

“No, but I talked to a guy who did.”

“Then of what?”

Louis started, grimaced, and stopped himself.

“I don’t really want to talk about this tonight.”

“Well with how much you’re drinking I don’t think not talking about it is helping you at all.”

Louis stared at her. He was called out. There was no point in trying to shove this back into the bag. He had drunk too much and the burden was too heavy to bear anyways. It was pickling him.  

“The Sleep Hag.”

“What the fuck is The Sleep Hag?”

“I’ve been getting really bad nightmares, Cass. Look, if we’re gonna talk about this then I need to smoke a joint too.” 

“Yeah, that’s fine. Come out to the car with me though so I can get our bags.” Louis began rolling from the supplies spread across the kitchen table. 

“Gimme a sec’.”

“Is she killing you in your nightmares?”

“No, she’s killing me while I’m awake. Can I just go in on this for a second because it’s been weighing on me. I haven’t shared this with anyone so I need your confidence that you won’t tell anyone about it.”

“I promise.”

“Okay, the joint’s good,”

Louis lit the joint as they walked out the front door, sucking in hard.

“I guess it started back last fall when I moved back into my parents and then got sick. I had a super high fever and was in my bed for like two days, but there was like an eight-hour period or so when I was really going through it. I was drifting in and out of sleep but it didn’t feel like sleep, and then all these translucent, blue, little people were running around my room. They were kids but they weren’t, I don’t know how to describe it. Full-grown adults the size of two-year-olds who played like six-year-olds. You ever see Tom Goes to the Mayor?”

“I mean I’ve seen it but I didn’t watch it. Can I hit that?”

“Yeah, here just smoke the rest of that. I have another. Anyways, it was sort of like that. I think the start of it. A few months later I was having a dream where I was in my bedroom. Almost all of these dreams took place starting in my bedroom here at my parents. It’s like there was no difference between being awake and dreaming, it all always looked and felt exactly the same as real life. Same time, same lighting- everything. So in this dream I was in my bedroom like I was waking up and had to go piss, and I walk out into the hallway and there’s this short woman just standing there, and she turns and looks at me.”

“What the fuck.”

“Yeah, dude. She was this short and stocky woman, like once you got past her calves it was just one solid mass until her head. She was covered in dirt and raggy clothes with long matted hair.”

“What happened?”

“I tried to scream and wake up but I always do that, ‘hhhhnnnuuuuuhhhhh, hhhhhhnnnnuuuaaaAAAAAHHHH’ thing where you try to scream but you can’t. Eventually, that got loud enough to wake me up. I was freaked the fuck out because I had never experienced a dream that felt so much like real life that was also so disturbing. Shortly after it got really bad,”

The weed and Louis’ words began to swirl together in Cassandra’s mind.

“It was three in one night. The first one started in my bedroom again, and again it’s like I’m waking up to piss. In my dream I’m aware of the last one with the short woman and also think I’m awake, so I’m nervous as fuck going through the hall. I get into the bathroom and start peeing and this woman grabs me from behind and starts to stab me in my chest. I try to scream again, wake up, freak out, and then go back to sleep. The second dream started more normal, still back in my bed but my ex Jackie is in it. I think The Sleep Hag took the form of Jackie because she knew I would be comfortable and drop my guard so they could make the fear worse. Jackie had never hurt me before. All of a sudden she rolls on top of me, takes out the same knife I was stabbed with in the last dream and holds it up to my throat while laughing in my face. Same thing: try to scream, wake myself up, go back to sleep. For the third one, again I wake up in my bed and again I have to pee. In my head in this dream I think it’s over, I think I am truly awake. I walk into the bathroom, start to take my dick out, and then the lights go out. I say, “Oh fuck,” knowing immediately that she is back. The Sleep Hag then came up to me and stared at me with a big smile and gold eyes with streaks of yellow and black in them. I’ll never forget those eyes. She grabbed me by the hand and started pulling me down into this pit of darkness, just being dragged downwards into this infinite pit of darkness. You could tell it was infinite or went down so low you wouldn’t want to conceive of what was at the bottom, you could feel it. It got a lot worse a few months later though when I started dating Mara.”

Cass was almost stunned at this point, her feet and eyes locked.

“I know, none of you liked her. Which you were justified in, for more reasons than you know. Now I really don’t want you to tell Alvin this next part. It was the start of winter and we went on a walk over at the preserve around dusk. I was having a good time but I could tell something was up with her, but once it started to get dark shit just got different. There was a bad feeling that crept over everything and she wanted to leave so we did. We got back here and were chilling in my bed and then she just started turning or something, I don’t know. She started looking at me, and the more she looked the more her eyes changed. She wanted to kill me, Cass. She was thinking about it, and I actually thought at the time, ‘God damn this is how people get murdered.’ She confirmed it a few months later by saying she was thinking of strangling me, but at the time said she picked up something in the woods. Like something attached to her. We drove over to Pizza Plus and got spuds and shit and when we get back the fear levels just ratchet up. I can’t explain this either but somehow I ended up moving into her place that night. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I guess I thought it would help things. It didn’t though and they got a lot more frequent. First once a week, then a few times a week, and then it turned into every day. Always the Sleep Hag. The severity got worse too. I wouldn’t just wake up half screaming, but I started hyperventilating in my sleep. Then that developed into having full-blown panic attacks in my sleep and waking up mid-episode. My drinking picked up a lot by that point to cope, and I lived like that for four months before I quit my job, broke up with Mara, and then started crashing on Alvin’s couch.”

Cassandra’s eyes were as wide as plates, and she might have muttered, ‘What the fuck?’ somewhere along the way. 

Eventually they just kind of fizzled out. Until I met Iris. The first night we slept in the same bed together I woke up full-on screaming into the wall next to me but couldn’t remember the dream. Then about a month later she was over here, and we were actually staying in the room you’re staying in tonight, I had another. Same pattern as before, I'm awake in the dream as if I woke up in real life. And at the end of the bed is this woman just standing there. She’s got dark hair draped over her face covering it up, and a cream-colored dress that’s all worn out. She’s just standing there, facing us against the wall opposite the bed. I did not dare to try to wake Iris, because then I would have found out if it was real. She looked so real, Cass. That was the last nightmare I had until last night. Same thing, except this time is different. The lighting in the other dreams was beige, this was blue. And things weren’t normal at the start of the dream like they usually were. When I was inside that dream, I immediately felt the greatest fear I have ever felt in my life and I fucking pray will ever feel. It was pure fear. It was beyond what I could have conceived fear to feel. It was all-encompassing in my being, erasing the rest of my life at that moment. I was pinned like a starfish to my being. Let me tell you, Cassandra, fear is a weight. And this one was so heavy I could not move. I was covered in sweat and looked out my right to the window. From the start, my gaze was pinned on the door of my room, which was cracked just an inch. Whatever was behind that door was what caused the incredibly intense terror that I was experiencing, and I knew if it came out again the fear would somehow get worse. I had to just lay there, staring at the door, waiting for whatever it was to come out and do what it wanted. I wish I could convey to you what that fear felt like without you feeling it. It was something that even your nightmares wouldn’t let you see. These joints are cashed, let’s go in.”

Cassandra was horrified, the realization of her having to sleep there burning in her mind. She saw Melissa passed out, mouth agape on the couch. She shakes her and calls her name to no avail. The door to Alvin’s room is closed and she can see through the kitchen windows that the porch lights are off. Aloysius is making his selects at the candy bowl on the table.

“You want any?”

Cass looked at him blankly.

“Today is Halloween, gotta take advantage. I’m gonna go hit the hay. Night dude. Thanks for chatting. Don’t talk to any little, blue, translucent people.”

Cassandra stared at the cracked door to her bedroom, heart in her throat.