Joe

Joe had done hallucinogenic drugs before, enough to know how to deal with the highest highs and darkest lows that could come with them. But he had never felt like this. For lack of a better description, Joe Betty was tripping balls.

The Khaos had hit him quickly, just about five minutes after he’d taken it, and by then, Joe had left the backstreet’s grunge in favor of the surrounding woodlands and the small, sparse open fields. On all his previous trips, being outside, being in nature always felt great, more euphoric than all but his dirtiest wet dreams. Once the Khaos hit, however, once the light that reached the forest floor through the trees started to look more like bent plates of diamond and the shadows seemed to part in his wake as though he were Moses and they the Red Sea, euphoric seemed like a dull, gray word to describe what he felt. In fact, Joe was sure there wasn’t a way to describe it. The dancing shadows, humanoid figures that waltzed alongside him as he strutted over the forest floor seemed to giggle as he thought to put words to his feelings. Joe chuckled, too. The shadows were right, that would be silly. He had plenty of other things to think about.

Even when his mind drifted to thoughts of Austin, slipping into thoughts of his family, of his father, the feeling continued, never wavering, never diminishing. No bad trips here. Smooth fucking sailing as far as the eye could see, and the strange thing was, his eyes could suddenly see very far. Joe wondered if anyone in the Army or Marines had ever used Khaos for recon. If not, Joe thought he had some pretty pleasant news for the United States Armed Forces.

He wasn’t sure when he started to run, when the thought and subsequent thrill of dashing through the forest sounded more like a need than just a strong desire, but as streams of light passed him by, a subtle wind tugging at his cheeks and hair, Joe wondered how he could’ve been doing anything else. Joe thought of his family again, thought of one of his first memories of his father standing over his brother and mother as Joe cried and his mom begged him to be quiet. There was a swinging fist, some blood, and even more tears as his father smacked Austin to the floor, sending him sprawling and unconscious and with a bruised and cracked scalp, blood oozing to their dirty tiled floor. Joe had just turned two.

Joe’s father barked at him to get to his goddamn bedroom before he really made him cry, and as Joe watched his father set upon his mother, tearing her blouse and holding her to the floor by wresting his elbow into her throat so his mother could only breathe through the occasional, raspy breath as her cheeks turned a most violent shade of purple that would forever remind Joe of eggplants, Joe Betty ran to his room. Nine months later, Thomas Betty was born. Joe didn’t like to think about it that way.

Now, however, as Khaos egged him on through the forest, his father’s words and mother’s cries seemed to be behind him, shadows calling for him to run as far away from Winter Harbor as possible, to start over like he never knew the name Betty. Once or twice, Joe thought he felt something following him, some shadow stalking him through the light. The feeling didn’t last long, however, and each time he felt that tingling worry in his gut, its memory was gone moments later.

Joe’s foot snagged a root, and he stumbled but did not fall, bracing himself on a nearby trunk, panting, chest pulsing, eyes deadlocked on the ferns at his feet. He thought to press on and get back to running after a quick breather he hadn’t realized he needed, but one of the ferns caught his eye.

Dew, great orbs of it that looked pastel and delicate but also dense and slimy, clung to the fern at interesting and almost disturbing angles. A few drops even looked like they wanted to fall up, careen to the sky as Harriet Joyce had done down to the Wenatchee River. The plant itself was bathed in the sunlight, the only plant touched by the light for a good three feet in any direction, and had Joe been of a clearer mind, he might have thought it strange the fern held any moisture at all on the almost ninety-degree day. He didn’t, however, and crouched next to the peculiarly perspirating plant.

“Look at you,” Joe said to the plant. “Something about you, huh, little guy?”

Joe reached out his hand, his fingers trembling more and more violently the closer they got the fern. The uncanny dew shone in the sunlight like stars bright enough to be seen in the day. Joe’s eyes suddenly felt older and his mouth drier.

He would just pick the plant. Once he did that, whatever made it special or unique or magical, even, would stop. He knew it. And if it didn’t that would be okay because then he could show people, and when he would show people maybe they would think he was special or unique or magical, even, because he would have brought them such a sight of a fern with dew that somehow looked like glass globs of saliva, some that fell up instead of down, and he’d become a sensation on someone’s YouTube channel (maybe Brett’s, because Joe knew his best friend loved that kind of shit), and then he’d be famous, and then he could leave Winter Harbor once and for all, and if the plant was as beautiful as he thought it was in that moment, fingers aching to touch it, to pluck its stem from the earth and just fucking feel it, man, then maybe others would want to touch it too, and then Joe could sell it, sell it for a fortune and get his little brothers out of Winter Harbor with him, and if there was enough left over he could get Austin out of jail and hopefully even find some way to help his mother, because that’s all Joe wanted, to help his family, to get away from his bastard of a father and his fists and his rage and his drinking and the memories he’d given him, given all of his family, and never look back. That’s all he wanted. That was it. Just to help—

The forest seemed darker.

Joe’s eyes shot up, his fingers inadvertently shying away from the fern. Cloud cover? It was hard to tell, but it must’ve been. Weird. There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky earlier, but Joe considered that it was Washington. Clouds were as common as sand in a desert. It wasn’t just the darkness that made him balk, however. The forest seemed colder, and even though Joe’s eyes didn’t work any worse in the lower light and his skin barely felt different, when he concentrated, he was sure he could see his breath lingering in the atmosphere.

Air was still battling its way back into his chest, but Joe stood, ready to run again, to get back to the surreal, sublime feeling he’d had not a minute ago. The dancing shadow people were gone, too. What was going on? Didn’t matter. He’d get back to the town, find Brett and Callie, tell them he was tripping out, and they’d help him. Dumbasses or not, cowards or not, they were his friends. That meant something.

Joe looked behind him, if for nothing else than to assure himself whatever memories he’d had weren’t following him, the past’s shadows staying where they belonged. But there was nothing. The way behind him was just as he thought it should be: wooded, a carpet of foliage on just about everything, and even the faint melody of birds somewhere far off. Joe liked that, the singing. What Joe didn’t expect, however, was the direction he’d just come from looked lighter, more sun shining through the canopy behind him as though the darkness that blocked out the sun didn’t exist. That was possible, he supposed, but a chill shot down his back all the same.

When he looked back, chest still tight and gasping, the ice in his back rippled down his limbs, climbing to his neck and to jaw and temples. While Joe could see as well in the dimming light as he could in the bright day, white outlines buzzing around every tree, leaf, and rock, the almost sentient blackness that appeared before him almost made him lose his footing, and he teetered on his heels. He caught himself on the same tree trunk he had when he’d almost tripped, and Joe craned his neck, face growing ever paler, ever clammier.

A shadow, the shadow, was massive, looming just feet away, and as the voice that had told Joe to run from the Khaos, run from the man in the Mariners cap, returned, screaming at Joe to get the fuck out of Dodge, make a beeline for the nearest anywhere and fast, Joe found his legs to be painfully stagnant. The thing’s eyes, as blue and alive as Joe had ever seen, rolled back to reveal a mouth with uneven teeth in its very human-like gums, and even more hideously, a tongue, dark red like blood and dripping boils of spit that looked hauntingly like the dew on the fern. The stink of mold and hot sweets left out for too long clogged his throat, and Joe coughed the wretched stench away as best he could. He barely had the time to take a step backward before the tongue was at his ankle, its tip investigating.

It didn’t take the tongue long to conclude its inquiry, and a long, lethargic shiver worked its way through the tongue, up Joe’s calf, through his torso, and finally to the top of his head. By the time the feeling flooded him, by the time Joe took stock of what had happened, Joe found he was very calm. Not only did the fear that had accompanied his long shiver seem to fade with little more effort than it took to blink, the shadow before him seemed less threatening as well.

The shadow sighed, a long, hollow noise that reminded Joe of a deflating ball. It rolled its tongue up Joe’s leg wetting his whole lower body with thick spittle before retracting the impossibly long muscle back into its maw, shutting it away with little evidence it’d been there at all. Its blue eyes locked with Joe’s, and the thing looked as though it was cocking its head, waiting for Joe to do something.

“What do you want?” Joe hissed at it, amazed at how shaky his voice sounded when everything else about him seemed so… even. So okay.

The shadow didn’t reply. It just kept staring at Joe. Waiting. Biding its time. For what? Joe didn’t get it, but the longer he waited, the more time he had to think. Thinking, while oftentimes a good practice, can be dangerous, can make the mind unsure of things. Joe thought about his father, about what he’d seen him do to his brothers and mother. Could he save them? Maybe, but the more he thought about it, the less sure he became of that and every thought he’d had and every fact he’d ever learned, except for one. One idea was all he needed, however. Just a solution.

Joe smiled, carefully working his body away from the shadow so as not to touch it, and the shadow’s blue eyes followed him as he went.

Once Joe was sure he was clear of it, positive the thing wasn’t just toying with him, he allowed the calm he felt to overwhelm him. His solution, how he could at least help himself, itched in his mind, boring into his head like a screw. If the idea hadn’t been so sweet, so utterly simple of a way to make everything better, he might have broken down and cried, might have gone insane and screamed until the Khaos wore off. But there was simplicity there, and a voice, the same one that came with the Khaos, and it told him to run. And so, Joe Betty ran.

He sprinted again, his legs and lungs just overcoming their fatigue, but even as his muscles began to weaken, his mind pushed him on. He had his plan, his solution, his way out, and he wasn’t going to waste any time. Joe focused in, and his vision led him through the forest as he bounded over ferns and roots. It was like he knew what was behind each tree, could sense what would await him on the other side of each large rock or bush. Joe barely even remembered he’d taken Khaos. This was just… right. How things were supposed to be.

Twigs scraped his cheeks, his legs nicking a bush or two, but it wasn’t long before his eyes saw beyond the forest, saw the road and a clear shot to somewhere he could carry out his plan. Joe tucked his chin to his chest and pumped his arms as hard as he could.

Joe burst through the woods, coming to a momentary stop as his mind situated where he was. His head twisted left then right, but just as his legs twitched to go, he hesitated.

Brett and Callie. They looked at him, called his name, but Joe was off again before he might be tempted to stop. He couldn’t let them catch him, talk to him. They wouldn’t understand. He had to run, had to get ahead of them. Joe heard heavy breathing, but it wasn’t for another fifty yards or so that he registered that it was him.

Where could he go? He’d given it some thought, most of his ideas having to do with either McFadden Drugs or his father’s work shed behind his house, but Joe had taken off before he’d fully decided what destination was best. Right now, the name of the game was to keep away from Brett and Callie. He looked over his shoulder.

His face went a pale green and he focused back on the road in front of him as he dashed past lone houses and neighborhoods. Brett and Callie weren’t behind him. The large shadow, however, was. It somehow managed to always be back behind him though it never seemed to move. Joe wasn’t sure if it was the shadow he was running from, but as the trees thinned and the sound of distant speeding cars became more than a mild cadence, Joe’s plan clicked. Not far ahead was Winter Harbor Gas, Grease, and Goodies. While Joe rarely spent much time in the property’s gas-station-like area, today there was bound to be something there he needed. His heart pounded in his ears, but a small voice sounded all the louder. It begged him to go faster, pleaded with him to get out of Winter Harbor once and for all. Joe had no intention of doing anything less.

Joe rammed his way through the diner’s door with a little ding that seemed decidedly unenthused for the situation at hand. Joe thought a few dozen trumpets or at least a passable orchestra might have been more appropriate, but as Jesus Padilla greeted Joe with his usual, “Hey, Mister Betty! What’ll it be?” with the “h” in “hey” remaining absent, Joe quickly set his mind back to task.

He started for the place’s convenience store area, before pausing and shooting Jesus his nominal, “Hey, Zeus. How’s it hanging?” Jesus laughed, and the sound carried Joe out of the diner. No reason to add suspicion. Joe wasn’t sure how long his plan would take, but he might as well do it in peace. Man’s got a right to that.

Joe perused quickly, jetting up and down aisle after aisle, taking just enough time to glance at every artificially illuminated product he passed. Candy bars wouldn’t do. Neither would condoms and tampons. He was getting closer when he spied a few aerosol cans filled with bug spray, but as he reached for one, feeling almost happier than he could ever remember, the little voice whispered in his ear that he could do better. Joe obeyed without question, retracting his hand and continuing.

It turned out the voice had been right.

Just around the corner, in the small section between aisles, Joe found exactly what he was looking for. His eyes grew, and he wondered why on Earth he’d never really considered it until then? He picked up the bleach (the generic stuff, because any of it would do) and smacked his lips.

“Joe!”

Joe looked up and beyond the aisles, to the doorway between the diner and the store’s “Goodies” section. Brett, Callie, and Jesus Padilla stood in the doorway. Brett and Callie both held similar expressions, brows hot with sweat, eyes wide and terrified like people one might see on movie posters for horror films Brett always liked. Jesus, on the other hand, looked merely alarmed, obviously aware something was awry, but just not quite able to turn the cogs in his head fast enough to keep up. Joe thought Jesus should stick to badmouthing the Chinese. He was better at debate than perception.

“What’re you doing, dude?” Brett called, his chest heaving through a few labored breaths, words fighting through the fatigue. “Why’d you run?”

The bleach was still out of view. Small blessings. The voice told him to unscrew the cap, but to do it slowly, to savor the seconds leading up to it, to his escape. Joe did so, his eyes never wavering from the others. “Just needed to run,” Joe said back. His voice was cracked and aged, and Joe thought it sounded like an old door creaking on its hinges right before they turned to dust, useless and dead.

“Are you okay?” Callie asked, taking a small, tentative step toward him. Joe didn’t like that, and the tiny voice shrieked. “We were worried.” She took another step.

Joe felt the cap release in his hand, and he tossed it aside. It made a few small, hollow noises before coming to rest in front of a fridge stocked with exclusively with Rainier Beer.

“What was that?” Jesus asked, scampering over toward the far aisle and its fridges. Joe’s body tensed, and his arm readied to move. They would try to stop him, and perhaps that was nice of them, sweet if Joe was to use that sort of language. It was misguided, however. Couldn’t they see what he was doing was the only right thing? Couldn’t they be happy for him? He’d finally get away from it all. Why couldn’t they see that?

“Joe?” Brett asked. He’d now moved forward, too, even with Callie. Jesus was off to the side, cautiously investigating what the discarded cap belonged to. “Dude, you’re freaking me out. What’s wrong?”

Then Joe saw it, again and for the last time. The massive, towering shadow stood just beyond the precipice between the “Grease” and “Goodies” areas, just far enough away from the diner to avoid any patron’s prying eye and far enough behind his friends and Jesus to demand a full one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn in order to notice it. It looked at him, eyes of blue Joe thought looked almost familiar, and sighed a long, shallow sound.

“Do it,” the voice in his head said. It spoke with such force, such gusto, that Joe almost dropped his prize. He managed to juggle it back to life, saving all the precious liquid in it from the floor, but when he looked back up, the shadow was gone and Brett and Callie’s eyes were even bigger as they saw what he held, almost big enough to break Joe’s heart and give him second thoughts. Almost.

No more waiting. No more pussyfooting around this. No more of him being afraid of his father. He was getting out. He was going to be free. Joe tilted the bleach back, his lips touching the blue plastic, and the stuff inside rushed out to greet him.

Truth be told, even as he’d been unscrewing it, Joe had had the panging doubt he’d just vomit it all up before he could get enough down to do the job. That thought had been pleasantly pessimistic. The bleach tasted good—really good. Joe wondered if that was the secret ingredient in Winter Harbor Gas, Grease, and Goodies’ diner food, the trick to make it so irresistible.

The taste was something between honey and chocolate, sweet and creamy, but neither flavor really did the bleach justice. Suffice it to say, as Brett and Callie bolted for him, both of them screaming, and as Jesus stood in front of the fridge with the Rainier Beer, his mouth aghast and shaking as though it was trying to form words, Joe drank and drank and drank. He wished he’d been able to chug like this at parties. Too late now.

Joe wasn’t sure who knocked the bleach from his hands, sloshing the rest of the contents to the floor as he gave a hollow croak and a cry, reaching out as though he might be given it to finish. What he was sure of was the fact that, as he watched ounce after ounce of bleach spill out onto the dirty floor, he wasn’t moving anytime soon. He smiled at that.

His solution had worked.

“Joe! Joe! Come on, man. Fuck, why’d you do that?” Brett sounded far away, another world away in a time and place where Joe thought he might even want to live in Winter Harbor, a time and place where his father wasn’t always in the back of his mind, his presence felt on his neck, wrists, stomach, and even balls if his father needed to test his golf swing on something more “dynamic.” This wasn’t that Winter Harbor, however, and as Joe’s best friend since as far back as Joe could remember tried to stick his fingers down his throat, Joe bit him, and Brett recoiled with a few curses.

In that same Winter Harbor, the one far away where Joe thought he might be happy, he could hear Brett and Callie crying, sobbing, and it made Joe feel sad. Not only from his friends’ tears, but from what his family might think. He’d failed them. He’d only been able to help himself, and while that was something, it wasn’t perfect. He hoped they’d forgive him, hoped they would understand why he did it. The sadness and the hoping, all feeling for that matter, soon left Joe Betty. Soon, there was only light, freedom, and something that smelled a little like going home, blackberries and Pine-Sol, perhaps to that other Winter Harbor. Joe thought he’d like it there. Then he closed his eyes.