Page 46 of Devious Delusions

It’s deeper from his lack of sleep and we’re too old for me to be giddy about falling asleep on the phone to my own husband.

“It depends,” I say slowly. “What type of story are we talking about?”

The sheets rustle on the other end of the phone and he groans but there’s no desire in it. “Don’t put images in my head or I’ll have to go back to taking cold showers until I get home.”

Turning on my side to face the wall so my psychotic imagination can’t make up images, I rest the phone on my ear as Asher begins his storytelling.

“Close your eyes, baby. I’m going to tell you the tale of two faces.”

His voice is soothing, and I smile at a memory being confirmed. It was some secretive bullshit he always mentioned when we were younger, and he’d never tell me what it was. He’d just say the tale of two faces as though it was an answer to every question in the universe.

“There was a powerful family who had sons for five generations, but the last generation had three sons who all died of mysterious circumstances while their wives were pregnant.”

The hairs on the back of my nape stand up and a chill covers my body.

“All three of their wives gave birth within two months of each other to healthy daughters. For the first time in five generations, all three families had daughters only and no living sons. So, people thought they had a spell put on them.”

The chill intensifies and I pull the sheets tighter around me.

“But they didn’t know that one powerful family had two faces.”

“Like Jekyll and Hyde,” I interrupt.

His voice lowers as he repeats, “Like Jekyll and Hyde.”

I settle slightly at the gentleness in his voice, and he continues in the same tone, which removes the creepy quality of the story.

“The townspeople saw one version of the family, the lonely widows grieving and raising their daughters on their own, but deep underground, the second face was allowed to come out.”

My eyelids droop and my body becomes weighted as he switches stories to something less cryptic and based on fact.

“I’m staying in my old room and everywhere I look, I see something that reminds me of you.”

My smile is dopey, and it makes me slur, “Oh, yeah? Miss me?”

“I’ve always missed you. I remember when you used to stay over, and I’d hear you laugh. Fuck, just hearing you laugh used to make me smile.”

Sleep pulls at me when I have no desire to end our conversation, it doesn’t allow me to speak, but I remember the memories of having sleepovers with Kane when we were seven. Asher would always find a way to invade them and take over. He’d stand in the doorway assessing how we were playing, and sometimes he would even give us some of his toys to play with.

“There were times I wanted to record those laughs,” he whispers, “but they weren’t for me.” His voice lowers even further. “They were never for me.”

A sharp screechblasts in my ear, making me jump. My phone screen is hot, burning a path across my cheek as it slides off my face and forcing me to cup my ear from the pressure of it digging into my skin as I turn to get the alert to stop screaming at me.

I must have fallen asleep and the dim bedside lamps are the only light in the room. They cast everything in a warm glow, and I finally find my phone nestled between the pillows. The screen shows it’s 3 am and it blinks before turning black and dying on me. Stretching over the side of the bed closer to the windows, I slap around for the wire when my nape prickles as though I’m being watched.

It’s not sinister or fear inducing, just the warmth of a stare.

Slowly turning my head, I half expect there to be someone standing behind me, but there’s no one there. It’s just another way my mind is playing tricks on me, so I ignore it and lay on Asher’s side of the bed as I find the wire.

My phone doesn’t turn on straight away so I can’t even talk to him. The only option I have is staring at the window and watching the reflection of the room. The low lights allow some of the scenery to mix with the reflection, the trees in the distance blending into the image of me laid on the bed and I just blink, waiting for sleep to take me again.

I make the mistake of looking too far to the side at the walkway and as soon as I do, I can’t look away. The gas mask is back. It’s not a plague doctor mask anymore. There’s a clear figure attached to it this time instead of hiding within the trees lining the side of the building. The mask hasn’t been cleaned, and the lenses are darker than the translucent material they should be. They’re nearly black. He doesn’t come close to the glass, he just stands there, staring at me while I stare back. Does it know that it’s not real and that I made it up?

My heart rate picks up as we watch each other and something about the mask feels familiar, like the same way it pulled my attention when I first saw it in the disused building. It’s not a normal gas mask that only has a respirator at the front. There’s a flexible, ribbed hose like a vacuum cleaner attached to the respirator and I tilt my head to follow the rubber down to the bottom of the freak’s hoodie where it’s tucked in.

I can’t see his hair, but he’s tall and broad, his biceps flexing as he pushes his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. It tugs the hose attached to his mask. I like him watching me, even though he’s not real, but it’s warm and feels like he’s some dark guardian sent to protect me.Or it’s what I’m telling myself to feel comfortable with my delusions. The familiarity doesn’t stopwith the mask as he slowly tilts his head to the side like he’s examining me.

But I lift my hand and raise my middle finger while I talk to my insanity.

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