seymoure

Chapter 23
“The Glamour”

It was hard to walk through the room this morning. She was alarmingly aware of the pains of aging as never before.

Every joint on her person ached, and now she was getting little spikes of pain from all over her body. She kept looking and expecting to see blood, for that was how sharp the pain was, but nothing such was waiting for her eyes.

Ethel moved into the communal room and saw that no one looked fresh and sprightly. Claus looked like it was a labor to raise his head, and Screed looked to be in real pain.

Vaskania was meditating, but looked to always be near dropping out of his concentration.

Jeanne Gary was asleep on the couch. She had a palor that was stunning at the least.

Muntz was suddenly aware that her shoes didn’t squeak, but squished. Was she perspiring to the degree that her shoes were filling up with water?

She took off the shoe, but there was nothing there. Strangely, the inside of the felt moist but there was no visual hint of liquid.

She looked at the carpet under Gary’s feet. There was a slight indentation in the carpet. Like someone had left something heavy parked there for some time and then moved it.

This was not the kind of hotel to let that kind of thing go uncared for, this was something she knew. Gently she reached down and touched the floor that was bent down.

It felt wet, but there was nothing to see.

“Mr. Claus,” she said as she rose, “In the world you know, is invisibility possible?”

“There are several ways to achieve,” he began and then sudden grasped his ear. His second hand jumped to his eye. The big man fell to the floor with a cry of agony.

Ethel was aware of a pain that cut across her throat, and she was having trouble catching her breath. She, too, slumped to the ground.

Jeanne Gary released a breath that some might have identified as a death rattle.

Screed fell face first over the couch.

A single tear slid down Vaskania’s cheek.

The room went deathly silent.