I originally had no intention of making this a multi part story. It's just that when I was recounting the events of last summer and got to the part where I saw Mike's "eyes" for the first time it was just too much. It really was like seeing them again for the first time. As I have said before, I can't really talk about this with anyone I know and I was hoping recounting it here would be helpful or therapeutic. And I'm sure it will be helpful but, man, it's a lot tougher to get through this than I thought it would be.
Now that I've taken some time to recoup and get my nerve back, let's get on with this and get to those "eyes"....
I remember I had to look away from his face immediately. I looked down and began scrambling to pick up my stuff and put on my clothes. The man standing in front of me didn't have eyes, or rather he had beams of radiant light for eyes. It was like someone had scooped out his eye sockets and light (from where? inside his head?) was pouring out of them.
"W-w-w-what the hell, what do you mean?" I stammered, finding my mouth to be as dry as the sand that surrounded us.
"You really can see me..." He said. I kept scrambling for my clothes, not daring to look him in the face again. I don't think I could have even forced myself to look at his face again. I have never been more unsettled in my life, before or since. I glanced around and noticed that a few people had looked over at me because I had just screamed, I just shrugged and waved them off.
"I've had too much sun." I thought, as I noticed how my skin was peeling off my shoulders as I put on my shirt. "That's all this is, I'm dehydrated or maybe sun stroke, heat stroke, whatever the fuck, I'm seeing shit. I've got to get out of here."
I finished pulling on my shirt when the creepy, pasty, hippie dude reached out and grabbed my arm. His hand was cold, clammy, spongy. I remember just staring at his pale hand clasping my arm, not wanting to look up at his face.
"You're the only one." He said. "You're the only one that's been able to see me, hear me, or touch me."
"You're the one touching me." I responded.
"I know." He said, letting go of my arm, then added "I don't know why this is happening man, but you gotta help me."
"I gotta go." I replied.
"My name is Mike Hermanson, find out for yourself man." He blurted as I turned away. "I think we both know what I am, but you can find out for yourself."
"I've had too much sun..." I replied without looking back. I slipped on my sandals and booked it for my car. I looked over my shoulder a few times and saw no sign of "Mike". I got in my car and grabbed a bottle of water that had been sitting on my passenger seat, I gulped it down, it was as warm as a hot bath from sitting in the sun. I started the car and began blasting the AC. I really wasn't sure if I was in any condition to drive; dehydration and heat stroke are pretty fucking serious especially when they bring on hallucinations. With no other options really available to me though, I chose to drive home.
At home that night my wife kept asking me what was wrong. She could tell something was on my mind but I kept brushing her off. All that evening I just kept replaying things in my head, not just that after noon, but every afternoon I had spent on that beach. Short of analyzing every grain of sand on that beach, I replayed and analyzed every moment I had spent there.
Maybe I lack imagination but there were only 3 possibilities that I could come up with to explain what happened. The most obvious and most likely was that, the over exposure to sun and heat, mixed with alcohol had caused me to hallucinate an encounter with the creepy, pasty, naked hippie guy.
The next, less likely explanation was that this was a prank or hoax. All my life I've kind of been the creepy, loner type and for some reason this has made me a target. It was possible, I suppose, that I came across as the creepy, loner guy at the beach and became the target of a practical joke. However, the more I thought about it, the less likely this became. I mean really, all those people would have had to have been in on it. Not only that, they would have been in on it from the first day I was there. That really didn't make sense, but it still made more sense than the third explanation.
