A View From A Hill

by Mike Mayak

“I hate these damn contact lenses,” Barry said, rubbing at his eyes as they walked down the Midway.”

“C’mon, buddy,” Jorge said. “You look great! Those glasses made you look geeky. Besides, you won’t lose these!”

Barry and Jorge were both in their early twenties. They had grown up next door to each other and kept telling each other they were “just friends.” They both were just over six feet tall and lean. They had played basketball in school (not that well.) Now, it was early June and they were at the County Fair.

“Just glad they’re holding this around the old Amusement Park,” Jorge said. “We get the roller coaster this year!”

“Oh yeah,” Barry said, unenthusiastically. He was glad he could see everything through the new contacts. His eye doctor had recommended some place to get them that he’d never heard of when Barry balked at the price. The place was at the other end of town in an old stone building. Inside had been dark and smelled funny and the diploma on the wall was written in a weird sort of Latin but he could see through the lenses and they were easy to remove and put in.

“How do they feel?” Jorge asked his friend, serious for a moment.

“Pretty good,” Barry said blinking a couple of times. “I barely notice they’re in.”

“Okay, let’s do the ‘Coaster!” Jorge said excitedly.

Barry nodded, not sure whether he was going along for the usual reason he rode the roller coaster; to squeeze close to Jorge.

“C’mon!” Jorge said. “You like this thing! And you can see the whole town from up there. It’s like a view from a hill!”

Barry grinned and nodded. He thought to himself, hills didn’t jerk them around while careening headlong into an abyss.

The two of them got their tickets and squeezed into the car and strapped in. After a few minutes the coaster started up, as usually very slowly.

When it reached the top, it almost paused then it roared down to the sharp curve then up again then back the other way as the landscape and the Fair seemed to sweep past them. But Barry wasn’t looking at that…

When the car slowed again, Barry saw, not the Fair or the town but a decimated, smoldering landscape with huge bug-things munching on a tall building and a slimy reddish-brown lizard the size of a city bus with something alive squirming in its mouth. Behind what looked like the ruins of the old shopping center a furry black appendage draped over it twitching like the limb of a spider.

Barry was too shocked to say anything and in the next instant the coaster roared back down and up and down and up with Jorge and the other people in other cars happily screaming. If Barry screamed it wasn’t because of the ride.

When the coaster slowed at the top again, Barry popped out the contact lens on his left eye—it had to be the contact lenses, reacting with the speed, maybe with the solution he’d used on them. Or something. Through his left eye, Barry saw a slightly blurred view of the town and the Fair. Through his right eye he saw impossibly thin snakes slithering through a burned out landscape. There were dark clouds in the distance and someone, some thing standing so tall on the horizon its head was literally in the clouds.

When the ride ended and the two of them walked back to the Midway, Barry managed to take out the other lens and clenched them both in his fist, discreetly stuffing them into one of the overflowing trash barrels painted with clown faces that dotted the Fair.

“That was great! Absolutely great!” Jorge said.

“Uh, yeah,” Barry said. “But my lenses popped out.”

“They did?” Jorge said, looking at him with concern.

“Yeah,” Barry lied. “I got my glasses back in the car.”

“Oh well,” Jorge said. “Those lenses were cheap anyway. Hey, I’ll lead you around.”

“You don’t have to lead me around…” Barry said.

“Yeah. Hey, let’s get hot dogs!” Jorge said.

Barry followed his friend, trying not to think about the other world he had seen.

At least hoping it was another world…

—end—

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the March Flash Fiction Draw challenge were for a Horror Story, set on a Roller Coaster involving Contact Lenses. I took the opportunity to homage the M. R. James story referenced by the shared title.

And I already think contact lenses are scary! —–mike