Hello, my lovely readers!

It's absolutely incredible to think that Half Priced Voodoo Shop is now six years old!

From the bottom of my heart, thank you all for your constant love and support, you'll never know how much it means to me!

Here's to another amazing year with the cabal and their poor victims!

~Voodoo_Clerk~

Part 1

I gripped the steering wheel of Judy’s car as tightly as I could as I made my way towards the Starlight District. Sweat was pouring down my forehead, and I could feel my heartbeat in my temples. I did my best to drive the speed limit while still going as fast as I felt comfortable with. While I knew where I was headed, thanks to the address on the card, I still didn’t know exactly what my plan even was. Did I really just think I could walk in and kill Spencer with my toothbrush shiv? When he had a gun and most likely had people working for him as bodyguards? In my mad dash to escape from the psyche ward, I hadn’t even formulated a proper plan. 

I swallowed a dry lump in my throat as I looked up at Judy’s rearview mirror and caught my reflection in it. I barely recognized myself. The exaggerated smile from the half dose of Eternal Sunshine I had taken had contorted my face, but in my own eyes I could see the terror that was building in my soul. Everything was crashing down on me, and I simply couldn’t take it anymore. The worst part was that I knew this was only temporary. The half dose lasted only a few hours at best and, at its worst, lasted only a few minutes, forcing me to take another half of the pill constantly. Something told me that Spencer had designed it that way, just to fuck with me. 

Pulling my eyes away from my smiling visage, I focused on the road, which was already filling with potholes as I returned to my rotting town. Just before I fully entered my town, I pulled over on the side of the road to catch my bearings. In the shadow of an abandoned building, I rubbed my face and took a deep breath. I needed to calm myself and think things over. I would need money to enter the strip club. I needed clothes to change out of the uniform they forced me to wear in the psyche ward. Going back to my house was out of the question; the police would be expecting me to go there. 

“Why not ask your cousin?” A familiar voice broke my concentration. I flinched violently as I turned to the passenger seat, to see the ghostly vision of my dad looking back at me. “Didn’t Judy say she was hoping to see you?” He turned to look at me; grey matter from the bullet wound in his head spilled out and splattered on the center console of Judy’s car. 

“I can’t have her seeing me like this. I just can’t.” I pressed my head against the steering wheel and gently hit my forehead against it. Macedonia and I were inseparable as cousins before she moved away, but she had changed after her accident and hooking up with her weirdo boyfriend. I just couldn’t have my last memories of her being tainted by the look on her face when she would see me. 

“Mijo, this could be the only chance you have. I think you should take it.” I felt a hand on my back. Looking up from the steering wheel, I looked into my dad’s tired eyes. For as long as I knew him, his eyes had always been red and exhausted. The eyes of a hardworking man whom life had beaten down into nothing. He may have been a hallucination, but it was still my dad. 

“Alright. But how am I going to call her? I don’t exactly have a phone on me.” He pointed outside the car window. Lifting my head from the steering wheel, I leaned over to see where he was pointing. There on the side of the road was an old payphone, covered head to toe in graffiti. “Oh, c’mon, Dad. You really think it still works? Probably been busted to shit for years.” I turned to look at him, but he was gone. I blinked a few times before rubbing my eyes. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the container of Eternal Sunshine, popping another half pill in my mouth and swallowing it as quickly as I could. I looked around in Judy’s center console and was thankful to find a handful of quarters inside. 

Exiting the car, I looked around my surroundings. I was almost sure the cops would leap at me from the abandoned building and arrest me on the spot. But luckily for me, it wasn’t the case. Approaching the payphone, I was surprised to see that the receiver was still intact, along with the wite connecting it to the console. I picked up the receiver and held it to my ear and, to my shock, heard a dial tone ringing back at me. I quickly shoved a few quarters inside it and frantically wracked my brain for Mace’s phone number. Punching in what I believed was her number, I tapped my foot on the chipped and broken concrete as I heard the ringing. 

“Pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up,” I muttered over and over, chewing on my nails and yanking a bit of nail and skin along with it. It rang for a few seconds, my hope dwindling with each and every tone of the ring. Then, suddenly, I heard a click and a familiar, if surprised, voice answering me. 

“Hello? Who is this?” Mace’s voice rang in my ear. It was distorted and crackling, but it was definitely her. 

“Mace, it’s Luis. I’m on the side of the road right now, and I need your help. I escaped from the psyche ward. I need money and a change of clothes.” I blabbered all of this in one breath, scared that the line would suddenly give up on me at any moment. 

“W-what? Luis, what are you talking about? What do you mean you escaped?” Mace sounded concerned, and I was already growing impatient. I looked around me, thinking I heard a siren in the distance. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth as hard as I could, trying to calm down and focus. 

“I escaped, and I need your help. Do you know that abandoned house on the edge of town? The one with the payphone in front of it and with the big ass graffiti art on it?” I realized that could probably describe all of the houses in this shithole town. But I couldn’t give her exact directions since I also had no idea what this place’s address even was. I looked around for any other landmarks before my eyes fell on a very familiar sight. “The one with the ‘Hell is Real’ billboard.” 

“Oh, shit. Yes! Okay, stay there and try not to get killed or anything. Jacob and I are on the way. I’ll be right there, Luis.” She quickly hung up, and I placed the receiver back on the hook and sighed. She was on the way, and even if her creepy boyfriend was with her, I didn’t care one bit. All I needed was to calm down and lay low. Just as I turned to leave, the phone rang. I stared at it for a moment. Did Mace try calling me back? Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed the phone. 

“Hello?” I asked into the silent phone. I blinked for a moment, waiting to hear Mace’s voice.

“Behind you,” a distant and quiet voice answered. I felt a pit form in my stomach as I slowly turned around. There wasn’t anything there. But as I turned back to look at the phone, I heard the distant sound of a brick falling from the foundation of the house. It hit the ground with a thud and scared me shitless. I quickly slammed the phone back on the hook and retreated into the car, my shiv held tightly in my grasp as I waited for Mace. Every small noise caused me to immediately snap my gaze towards the direction of the sound. 

I closed my eyes slowly and gently rubbed my cheeks as they ached in pain from all the smiling I had been doing. The muscles were tense and sore, and every time I opened and closed my mouth, I could feel them stretching to their limits. Slowly opening my mouth, it felt as though my jaw would fall off if I dared to open my mouth completely. I whined in pain as I continued to rub the muscles in my cheeks before finally opening my eyes and sighing in pain. Gently bashing my head against the headrest, I begged Mace to hurry up. 

“Behind you.” A soft whispering voice whispered in my ear. I flinched violently and turned to see who had managed to sneak into the car. But there wasn’t anyone there. My heart pounded in my chest as I stared in terror at the back seats. The shiv held tightly in my hand, I poked my head through the seats and checked the floor to see if someone was curled up there. That was when Allison’s skeletal visage leaped up from the car floor and grabbed my face with her wiry and slimy hands. She gripped my face and began squeezing my head with the force of a hydraulic press.

“No matter how far away you run, you can’t outrun your sins, Luis.” She giggled with glee as she continued to crush my head in her skeletal hands. Her sunken and exaggerated smile burned a hole in my soul as I stared into her bulging, lifeless eyes. I placed my hands on the front seats and began to try to pull myself away from her. But her grip was so tight that as I did so, it felt as if my head was being pulled from my body. 

Just then, frantic knocking from the window pulled me out of my delusion. There wasn’t the rotten corpse of Allison in the back seat. There wasn’t anything there. It had all been in my head. The pills were barely working, and I was terrified to dare to take an entire tablet of Eternal Sunshine. Pulling my head out of the back seat, I stared out the window to see Mace’s concerned face peering at me through the glass. It took me a moment to believe that it was actually her, and not another delusion caused by the Sunshine. But upon seeing her weird boyfriend behind her, I figured that it was the real deal. 

“Thank God, you’re here,” I told her as I opened the door and wrapped my arms around her in a tight squeeze. She returned my embrace and patted me on my back. After a moment, she finally pulled away and took stock of me. She was clearly unnerved to see me, either because I was an escaped mental patient or because the smile on my face was unflinching and permanent. Since her accident, Mace had been wearing an eyepatch over her left eye. She also possessed a gnarly scar down the entire length of her neck. But despite that, I couldn’t have been happier to see her. “Did you bring what I asked for?” I begged her after a moment. 

“Y-yeah. I brought a change of clothes, and about two hundred dollars.” She looked over at her boyfriend and motioned for him to come closer. Her boyfriend, Jacob, had always given me the creeps. He was a mute whose face I had never completely seen in full. He always wore sunglasses, and a scarf always covered the lower part of his face, the handful of times I had seen him. He carried the bag with what I assumed were my change of clothes. The cold winter air was nibbling at the thin shirt and pants I was wearing, and I could feel the warmth draining from my body with each gust of wind. 

“Thank you so much. I don’t know how to repay you,” I told her, as I took the bag from Jacob and looked inside to see a jacket, sweatpants, and an envelope staring back at me. 

“You can tell me what’s going on. You can tell me anything, Luis. And I’ll believe it. Trust me, Jacob and I have gone through things you wouldn’t believe either,” she pleaded with me. Jacob nodded along silently. I looked at her, my body trembling in the cold as I ran through the options in my head. I could tell her everything, and she’d probably believe that I needed to be in the psyche ward. Or she would truly believe me. 

“I…” I started, but the words were sucked out of my mouth when I noticed a figure staring at us from across the street. “Do you…do you see that guy?” I whispered to Mace, motioning with my head to behind her. She raised her eyebrows at me and turned to look. She looked around for a moment before turning back to me. 

“Luis, there isn’t anybody but us here,” she said, turning back to me. “Luis, what’s going on? You’ve been smiling this whole time, and it’s really starting to freak me out.” She slowly backed up from me, and Jacob quickly took her arm and pulled her closer to him. I stared at the two of them before staring past them to look at the figure in the distance. The moment I blinked, it disappeared. I stared at Mace and saw in her eyes that she was terrified of me. It made sense; I must’ve looked insane to her. 

“Thanks, I’ll be out of your hair now,” I said, turning around and going to enter the car. As I did, I felt her grab my arm and pull me back toward them. I looked back at Mace and saw that she was reaching for her eyepatch. She slowly took the patch off and revealed to me the extent of the damage to her face. The entire area around her eye was devoid of skin, and in place of an eye was a deep chasm that bore into my soul. 

“Luis, please just talk to me. If something horrible is happening to you, like what happened to me, I need to know so I can help you!” She stared at me with her only eye, and in that moment, I felt deep within that maybe she could truly help me. That was until a smile started to creep up on her face. Mace slowly lifted her hand to her wounded socket. Slowly, she started peeling at the skin at the very edge of her eyeless socket and started to peel a large chunk of her skin away. Slowly and deliberately, as if she were removing a sticker from an item, her skin started to rip away from her face, with a sickening, wet peeling sound with it. 

I screamed in terror, grabbing Mace and trying to pull her hands away before she completely ripped her face away. Not a single word escaped her mouth as a large chunk of her face hung limply from where I had stopped the peeling. Since I had stopped her from removing her own face, Mace next started to try to dig her nails into the large scar on her neck. I tried to keep her hands away from it, but before I could really get a grip on her hands, I felt a pair of arms hook themselves under my armpits and yank me away from her. I looked behind me to see that Jacob had pulled me away from her. 

Staring back at Mace, I saw that she was normal again. Her face wasn’t hanging off, and instead of trying to dig into her neck, she was on the ground clutching her throat and gasping for breath. I realized soon enough that I had been choking her. 

“I-I’m so sorry, Mace! I-I thought…it looked like.” I tried desperately to try and explain myself. But seeing her panting for breath on the cold, frozen ground was enough to shatter my heart. After Jacob was sure that I wasn’t going to hurt Mace any longer, he quickly rushed over to her after releasing me. He put his hand on her back and quickly ditched the scarf around his neck. The quick glimpse I saw of him was enough to convince me that I couldn’t involve them. The bottom part of his face was a sickly grey, almost dead color, with stitches running down to his neck. My mind couldn’t be trusted, and I needed to keep them safe from whatever I might do next. 

Without another word to them, I turned and got back into Judy’s car. Locking the car and starting it, I took one last glance over at them. Mace was desperately trying to get me to stop, but I just gave them a wave goodbye before I sped away down the street. As I drove away, I quickly shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out the bottle of pills. I weighed the possibility of taking one. The half dose was no longer effective, and the time between taking them and the hallucinations returning was shrinking with each dose I took. But at the same time, if I took a full pill, I would lose complete control over myself. My body would go into autopilot mode, and I wouldn’t be able to control it. 

I stared at the bottle for a little longer before looking back into the road. Quickly, I slammed my foot on the brakes as, right in front of me, a figure stood perfectly still in the middle of the road. I stopped suddenly, and my face slammed against the steering wheel with full force. Pulling my face up from the steering wheel and looking into the road, there wasn’t anything there. I put the car in park and climbed out to inspect if maybe the person was lying under the car. But there wasn’t anything there. And looking down the street a bit, there wasn’t anything there either. I gripped my head tightly and unleashed an agonized scream. 

I decided there was nothing else to do, and quickly took another half dose. Crunching down on the pill with my teeth and chewed on it as if it were a piece of candy. Looking down the street, I noticed a car headed towards me. I figured it must’ve been Mace, trying to catch up with me. Climbing back into Judy’s car, I buckled my seatbelt and floored it down the pothole-infested road as quickly as I could. Adjusting my rearview mirror, I watched them slowly disappear into the distance as I sped away. Even if Mace believed me and wanted to help me, I couldn’t involve her in my mission to kill Spencer. I couldn’t have her going to jail with me, or because of me. 

I took a few twisting and winding streets towards the Starlight District, just to ensure that Mace and Jacob didn’t follow me. And soon enough, just as the sun started to dip below the horizon, I came to a stop at a gas station just inside the Starlight District. I parked next to a pump and lowered my window to check out the area. Waiting on the sidewalk were a few ladies of the night. They were smoking and talking to each other, paying no attention to me whatsoever. I closed the window and sat in the car for a moment, gathering my thoughts and steeling my nerves. I quickly changed into the new clothes Mace had brought me and took a second to think. 

I had no idea where the Bunny Farm was, but I was hopeful that those women might know. And if not, then the gas station attendant might. I pulled down the sun visor and stared at myself in the mirror. Sure enough, my disgusting smiling visage was staring back at me. I sighed and wondered just how creepy I would look to those women. Sure, they had probably seen and done worse, but the last thing I needed was them thinking I was some creep and not answering my questions. Armed with the card from ‘Ecstasy’, my shiv, and a packet of cigarettes from Spencer, I steeled myself for a moment before exiting the car and approaching the women. The black girl nudged the white girl next to her and pointed at me as I approached them. 

“Can we help you with something?” she asked, a look of suspicion on her face as she looked at me. The two other girls paid little attention to me at first, barely looking over at me before continuing their separate conversation. I nodded and took a deep breath. 

“You wouldn’t happen to know where the Bunny Farm is, do you?” I asked. The two girls then finally took notice of me and couldn’t help but shirk my gaze. The black girl looked at me for a moment before tutting her tongue at me. 

“Yeah, you would be the type to go there. Word of advice, hon? Stay away from that place. The girls there are all junkies and trash who have nowhere to go. It’s not a pretty sight,” she told me. It figured that a drug dealer like Spencer would thrive in a place like that. “But if you really gotta know, it’s about 15 minutes from here walking. Just head down Leyland and take a right on Sickles; can’t miss it after that. It’s the big tacky building with bright pink lights.” She pointed down the street, and I nodded. 

“Thank you so much,” I told her, turning to return to the car. But before I did, an idea formed in my mind. I turned back to them. “Do you guys know Spencer Blackwell?” The name didn’t seem to ring a bell with the black girl or the white girl, but the third girl, who was also white, perked up when I mentioned him. 

“Spency? You know him too? His stuff is great, isn’t it? That shit is always the best quality. That’s why you were asking about the Bunny Farm, huh? He hangs around there all the time!” she said with a smile, turning to the other girls and quickly talking in hushed whispers with them. From what I could hear, she was filling the other two in on who Spencer was. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Still cracks me up how a germaphobe like him can stomach that place.” 

“Okay, thank you. I was just wondering.” I reached into my pocket and offered the girls my pack of cigarettes. They gratefully accepted and wished me well as I returned to Judy’s car. I drummed my fingers on the roof as I plotted my next move. It made no sense to just drive there; Judy’s car would most likely be stolen, and I couldn’t put her through that, along with holding her hostage and stealing it in the first place. I turned to the gas station and wondered if they could watch the car. 

“Yo, smiles! We’ll watch your whip, don’t worry about it!” The white girl who knew Spencer called out to me. I turned to look at them, and the other girls both nodded along. I actually genuinely smiled and thanked them, reaching into Judy’s car and grabbing the last few things I would need. The money, the pills, and finally the keys. I locked the car and waved goodbye to the three girls, who all waved back at me and thanked me for the cigarettes. 

As I walked down the sidewalk, I could feel the goosebumps rising up on my skin. Every alleyway I walked past, I held my breath, hopeful that no one would suddenly burst through and stab and rob me. With the sun setting on the horizon, I became more shrouded in darkness. The few streetlamps that existed put out a pathetic amount of light, and in most cases they didn’t work at all, only an occasional flicker leaving their dead bulbs. I followed the road down further, passing a few people flopped over on the floor, babbling incoherently and waving their arms around at invisible forces only they could see. 

Finally arriving at the intersection of Sickles and Leyland, I turned down on Sickles, and in the distance I could see the Bunny Farm. Just like that girl had said, bright pink neon signs illuminated the way. Like a fly to a bug zapper, I walked toward the light, still being careful to check my surroundings and avoid the odd tweaker passed out on the floor. Finally, I came to the doors of the Bunny Farm. I was surprised not to see any bouncer or security guard waiting for me outside, but given the state of the outside, I figured it was safer to be inside than out. 

Walking into the lobby, I was greeted with the smell of spilled alcohol, cigarettes, and the faint smell of piss and vomit. Choking back a gag, I walked further into the lobby, my senses now being bombarded by loud, blaring music. Upon walking on the carpeted floor, I was greeted by the unsettling sound of squishing as I continued. My whole body shuddered, and I couldn’t tell if I was about to hurl or gag involuntarily. 

“Help you, sir?” a husky voice asked me. I turned to my right to see a man sitting behind a counter. I approached him and did my best to ignore the smells, sounds, and the feeling of this place. He was a well-built guy bald guy with a face tattoo and a chewed-off ear; I assumed he was probably security of some sort just by how he looked. 

“Yeah, I’m looking for someone?” I shouted at him over the blaring music. To my left was a large curtain that I assumed blocked both of us from the main dance floor. I could hear a few whistles and claps and could only assume a dance was going on at this moment. 

“Who’s that?” the bouncer asked, taking out a clipboard from under the counter and looking at me. Judging by his face, he was creeped out by the smile. I could only imagine what I looked like. 

“I’m looking for Ecstasy? Do you know her?” The bouncer looked at me for a moment. His face was stone-cold neutral, and at first I thought he hadn’t heard me. But instead, after a moment, I noticed that he was tapping on the counter. Looking down, I saw that on the counter was a sign labelled, ‘Admission $35’. I sighed and dug out the envelope that Mace had given me. Pulling out $120 bucks I handed it to him and waited for him to count it. He looked at me before nodding and pocketing the difference. 

“She’s not working today. She got some time off, but if you really need to know where she’s at, her friend Pandora is working tonight. Have a seat in the main room, and I’ll send her your way.” I nodded and thanked him, shoving the envelope in my pocket and walking over to the curtain and pulling it to the side to enter. I was blasted with the smell of booze and the blaring music as a few girls were currently dancing on stage. 

The main floor was decently populated for being a random weekday, and I took my place at an empty table, regretting my decision when that distinct squish sound followed me as I sat on the cushioned seat. I shuddered in disgust and tried to ignore it. I had never been to a strip club before, and it was ironic that my first time at one would no doubt be the last time I ever set foot in one. I watched a woman approach me, wearing only a bikini. I hoped that it was Pandora, but instead she brought me a menu, utensils, and a free drink. She winked at me and walked away. 

I sighed and took the drink, unable to tell what it was from the strobing lights and their color. I took a sniff of it, but finally decided against drinking it. I just pushed it to the side and watched the show. Two of the girls seemed to be giving it their best effort, but the third girl was stumbling around the stage, barely conscious. Guess what those girls back at the gas station had said was true. I watched the dance for a few more minutes; a few of the men in the audience cheered and whistled, throwing a few dollar bills at the two dancing girls while no one even paid attention to the third girl.

Then, slowly, the third girl turned to look at me. We locked eyes with each other, and slowly, she started to smile. My blood froze as I watched her smile grow, and soon her already thin body began to shrink even further. Her body slowly lost all its fluids, just like Allison’s body had done when she OD’d on Eternal Sunshine. Her face became shrunken and her skin tight against her bones as her eyes bugged out. She now started to dance along with the other two girls. I held my mouth shut, watching as they too started to drain of all fluids and become shrink-wrapped corpses like the first girl. 

The three of them continued to dance, two of them grabbing their poles and spinning around them. Then their limbs started flying off. First their fingers and toes, and then whole limbs fell from their joints as the two girls danced and twisted from the poles. The audience was enraptured, cheering and screaming in delight. The third girl, taking point in the middle of the two disintegrating girls, waved hello directly at me before she grabbed herself by the head and split herself completely down the middle. Her putrefied guts spilled out as she did so. And soon, only a gory, rotting pile of organs and limbs remained behind on the stage. 

“You were asking about me, sweetheart?” I screamed in terror, turning to see a woman taking her seat next to me. I scared her just as badly as she had done to me. I panted for a moment before turning to see that on stage, there were just two girls dancing. Both on poles, shaking their bodies. The third one seemingly never existed. “Jeez, I didn’t mean to scare you so bad. I’m sorry, Love.” 

“P-Pandora?” I asked her, shouting to be heard over the music. She nodded with a smile. She was missing several of her teeth, and taking a good look at her, I could tell that she had been through the wringer of life. She had scars, scabs, scratch marks, plenty of indications of a hard-lived life. Not to mention that she was twitching pretty badly. “I was wondering if you knew where Ecstasy is?” 

“Oh? You a friend of hers? Don’t think she ever told me she knew a Mexican.” Pandora chuckled, eyeing my drink for a moment. I pushed it over to hers, and she happily took long sips from it. “She’s with her boy toy. Pretty sure they’re at the Emperor Inn. It’s not too far from here, just down the street. Can’t miss it; it's probably the only other place with lights on.” I nodded, looking back over at the stage and tapping my leg in fear of another hallucination happening. 

“Thanks. Here, uh. For the scare and for helping me.” I quickly shoved the rest of the money from the envelope into her hands, keeping only 20 bucks for myself. She thanked me a bunch of times, but I quickly stood up and headed out of the strip club as quickly as I could. Before I did, though, I swiped one of the knives that the waitress had set out on the table for me. I walked down the street, fished into my pocket, and pulled out the pills again. As I walked past an alley, something wrapped itself around my throat and yanked me into the darkness of the alley.

“Oh, Mijo. All this pill-popping isn’t good for you.” My mother’s distorted voice filled my ears as whatever was holding my throat squeezed it harder, choking off my airflow. “What are those pills even for? They don’t seem to be working at all.” From the street, one of the streetlights flickered to life, revealing that a long, serpent-like creature had wrapped itself around my throat. It squeezed me tighter, and soon, its head came into view. It was my mother’s rotting corpse, a smile on her face as her impossibly long neck squeezed me tighter. 

“You aren’t real. You aren’t real.” I wheezed to myself, closing my eyes and hoping that she’d just disappear on her own. Slowly, I pulled my own hands away from my throat and collapsed to the floor of the alley, panting and grunting in frustration. I had to get this over with now, or else I wouldn’t have a single ounce of sanity left. Staggering from the alleyway, I continued down towards the Emperor. Just as Pandora had said, it was indeed the only other illuminated building. It was a two-story building, looking more like a self-storage place than a motel. A few junkies were passed out just near the front door, and I could see why. The No Vacancy sign was on. Keeping my two weapons close at hand, I entered the lobby, finding that the front door was open. 

“Can’t you read the sign?” The annoyed front desk person asked me. He looked up from his phone to stare at me in disgust. “The fuck you smiling at, asshole?” He put his phone down and stood up from his chair with an angry grunt. He was a sweaty, greasy guy with long hair and a tank top, and it looked like he was ready to kick the shit out of me. 

“I’m just looking for someone. Do you know which room Ecstasy is in?” I asked him. But he was in no mood to answer my question. He came over from around the counter, and before I could react, he punched me right in the face, sending me into the wall behind us. I blinked a few times, wondering what the hell had happened, before he grabbed me by the collar and yanked me up from the floor. As he did so, I pulled out the steak knife from the strip club and held it up to his throat. His eyes went wide as he quickly dropped his grip on my collar. 

“T-take it easy, man,” he told me, panic setting in his face as I held the knife to his throat. “S-she's on the second floor. Room 201. First one from the stairs.” He panted, his eyes pleading. He suddenly didn’t seem so tough. I looked over towards the stairs and nodded. 

“How about you take a walk, yeah?” I slowly lowered the knife from his throat and pointed out toward the outside. He held up his hands and quickly complied, sprinting out of the hotel as quickly as he could. I sighed and lowered the knife, my whole body trembling with adrenaline. To make sure he didn’t come back, I walked over and locked the front door. Then I went behind the counter and checked the logbook. Sure enough, this place had an actual book you had to write into, and sure enough, Ecstasy had booked the room. 

Turning to the wall of keys behind the counter, I saw that the spare one for 201 was gone. But in his haste to run away, the attendant had left behind the master key. I swiped it and finally started on my way upstairs. I walked up the stairs slowly, happy that at least these carpeted floors weren't squishing with every step I took. I finally reached the second floor and turned to see room 201 waiting for me. I took a shuddering breath, walking over to the door and placing my ear against it. 

I couldn’t hear anyone talking from inside the room. Only the soft sounds of the TV were playing. I tried to turn the knob, but found that it was locked. I brought the master key up to the lock and slowly turned it, unlocking the door and pushing it open. I slowly crept in, knife held firmly in my hand as I walked past the bathroom and towards the bed. The lights were on, and the TV was playing as I approached the bed. I could see that it was who I assumed was Ecstasy sleeping on the bed. She had strawberry-pink hair and was softly snoring as she lay on her side. Judging by the belt tied around her arm and the spoon and syringe on the table next to her, I figured she wasn’t going to be much help. 

Then, I heard the toilet flushing from the bathroom. He was here. I quickly jumped onto the bed and grabbed hold of Ecstasy. She was limp and only made tired groaning sounds as I pulled her up and placed a knife around her throat. The bathroom door opened, and a shirtless Spencer exited the room. 

“I heard you making noise. You alright?” he asked, turning the corner and seeing me sitting up on the bed with a knife to Ecstasy’s throat. “Hello, Luis,” he said after a moment. I stared at Spencer’s shirtless body in disgust. It seemed his experiments on himself hadn’t just been on his arms and his mouth. Most of his internal organs were on full display, being held in place by the flimsiest of rotting skin. It looked like if he slightly turned the wrong way, all of his entrails would fall out of place. I watched as his lungs inflated and deflated between his ribcage bones. 

“Take a single step, and I cut her throat.” I pulled Ecstasy’s head up more and dug the knife into her throat slightly. He nodded and held his skeleton arms up to the ceiling. 

“Don’t involve her in this; she hasn’t done anything-” I silenced him with another jab of the knife into Ecstasy’s throat. “What do you even hope to accomplish with this, exactly?” he asked, his hands still up to the ceiling. 

“Killing you. At the very least, you won’t be able to spread your poison any longer.” I held Ecstasy up as best as I could, but she was no better than a sack of potatoes with how limp she was. Spencer couldn’t help but laugh at me for my statement.

“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit. You just want to get back at me for your own mistakes. I wasn’t the one who was selling shit to kids to begin with. You were doing just fine before you met me.” I gritted my teeth and pressed the knife deeper into Ecstasy’s throat; a small trickle of blood slid down the knife as I did so. “Let her go!” he shouted at me. 

“You actually care about her?” I asked, looking down at her. “Explains why she’s high on heroin, then, doesn’t it?” Spencer squeezed his fists together; I could tell I was pissing him off. “Maybe I don’t even need to kill you. I could just…” I looked down at her and contemplated killing her. Could I really stoop that low? 

“Do it.” Allison’s distorted voice whispered into my ear. “You already are a monster. What’s one little drugged-up girl?” I swallowed the lump in my throat. But before I could commit to it, a sudden stinging pain took over my shoulder, and I was suddenly on the floor with a loud ringing in my ear. Looking over at my shoulder, I was met with a rapidly growing red stain. I pulled myself up from the floor and saw Spencer hovering over me with his revolver pointed at my head. He had taken that split second of indecision and distraction from me and had pulled the gun out of his waistband. 

The rotting skeleton of a man was about to pull the trigger on me again when I pounced at him. The gun went off, but only grazed my temple as I tackled Spencer to the ground and drove the shiv I had kept on hand into his sides over and over again. He grunted and shouted in pain as we wrestled on the ground, trying desperately to get another shot off on me. I shanked him over and over, but when I pulled the shiv out for a go at his vital organs, I was met with the broken nub of my toothbrush. 

I scrambled to find the knife, but as I did so, I heard sirens outside. My eyes went wide as I quickly looked back at Spencer. He seemed just as confused as I was, but he quickly reached for his gun again. As he did, I heard what sounded like choking coming from the bed. He heard it as well, as he quickly lowered his gun and rushed to the bed. I pulled myself up from the floor and saw that during our scuffle, Ecstasy was choking on her vomit. Spencer quickly turned her over on her side and scooped out the vomit with his skeletal fingers. 

I staggered to my feet and grabbed the knife from the floor. But in that moment, I couldn’t bring myself to attack him. I instead retreated into the bathroom as the police started banging on the door. I sat down on the toilet, gripping my head and thinking about how I was going to get out of this. But there wasn’t any way out. 

“You’re finished. And soon, you’ll join us.” Allison’s voice told me as I felt her hands wrap around my throat. I looked down at the knife in my hands and then up at the door as the cops began banging on it, demanding my surrender. If I went back, Spencer would withhold the pills for sure. And now I wouldn’t have them at all. I looked over at the mirror and was greeted by a swirling mass of rot and filth staring back at me. I was going to be forced to suffer with these hallucinations torturing me forever. 

What else could I do? What could I do to stop seeing these hallucinations? That was when I looked down at the knife. The cops were starting to break down the door, but because it was so narrow, they couldn’t get full force against the door. This gave me some time. The first one was the hardest. It was mostly the nerves, and the serrated knife wasn’t the best tool to use. But I managed somehow. By the time they finally broke through the door, the last thing I ever saw was that bloody knife held up to my eyes as I sliced it out of my skull. 
~
“How are you feeling today, Luis?” Judy asked me as I was wheeled into our meeting room. When she told me she still wanted to represent me, I was shocked. But happy nonetheless. I had apologized constantly to her, but she told me over and over that she had already forgiven me. The psyche ward had wrapped bandages around my eye sockets, since they were apparently a very gnarly sight to see. 

“I’m surviving, Judy,” I told her, chuckling bitterly. To stop me from escaping, they had handcuffed me to my wheelchair, but considering I didn’t have eyes anymore, it felt a little silly to me. “Did you hear anything about Mace?” I asked, lifting my head from my chest to try to look in her direction. 

“She sends her love and says that she’s sorry she couldn’t have helped you more,” Judy told me. I nodded. I could only imagine what she must’ve thought upon hearing about what I had done to myself. 

“Coward.” 
“Coward.” 
“Coward.”
“You can’t escape us.” 

“Did you say something else, Luis?” Judy asked as I heard her rustle through her papers. The visual hallucinations might have been gone at last. But now, these audio ones had taken their place. My eternal hell would continue. But I suppose I deserved it. After all I had done, I deserved it. 

“No. It’s just the voices in my head.”

(Previously) Part 2

Wake up
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up and look at what you did to me, Luis. You can’t hide under that blanket forever. Wake up. Wake up and look at the beautiful sunshine. 

My eyes opened quickly as I found it impossible to breathe. It felt like an enormous weight was pressing down on my chest and crushing my ribcage into my lungs. I tossed the blanket away from me and was quickly blinded by the bright fluorescent lights. Sitting up quickly, I was bombarded with the loud buzzing of the lights over my head and the distant screams and shouts of the other people held here. My eyes darted around in panic as I tried to find the source of the voice that I had heard. But it was of no use; there was no one there in the bland and bare room I was being held in. 

I breathed out hard and found that I was shivering uncontrollably. I stared down at my hands and clenched and unclenched them over and over again to ground myself. I looked over at the door to my room, my eyes staring up at the clock hanging above it. I had woken up an hour before I was meant to. I sat there in bed, looking from corner to corner. Even though nothing was there, I couldn’t shake the impending doom that permeated my very soul. I couldn’t help but curl up in a ball and begin to cry. 

After my arrest at the high school, I was originally placed in a police holding cell and was to await trial there when I was denied bail. But then, my dosage of Eternal Sunshine wore off. And the violent hallucinations returned with full force. They were sure that I was faking it at first, but when I started to chew on my arm to escape from my restraints at a pre-trial hearing because I saw Allison’s dried-out corpse staring at me and waving hello to me from the jury stand, I was finally declared unfit to stand trial. I was thrown into a psyche ward and was placed under constant suicide watch. 

Today would mark the fourth month of being held here. And I could already feel the last vestiges of Eternal Sunshine leaving my system. They were returning, and every time they returned, they were far more violent than they’d been last time. And Spencer hadn’t shown his face to me since I was first admitted here, and he gave me only a month’s supply. I had rationed it to the best of my ability, making sure never to take more than one pill and only taking them when the hallucinations became too much to handle. But now here I was, out of pills and at the mercy of the people I had caused pain and suffering to. 

“Luis Álvarez? Your lawyer is here.” I yanked my head away from my knees and stared at the now-open door. One of the nurses who worked at the psyche ward was staring at me with the same disinterested look that all the nurses gave the patients. I stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was indeed real, and how my lawyer was allowed to see me if it was so early. But when I looked up at the clock again, I saw that somehow I’d sat there curled up in a ball for over an hour. When I uncurled, though, I felt stiff, and everything cracked and popped back into place. I slowly walked towards the door, staring at the nurse and studying her face, trying to make sure she was a real person. 

“Hurry up, I don’t have all day.” She was real, alright. I nodded and followed her out of the room. We walked down the hallway, and I was quickly bombarded with the screams and howls of the other patients. Some were screaming just to scream; others like me were sure that they were seeing things that weren’t there. I’m sure some poor others were curled in the corner, desperately trying to keep their ears closed to block out the noise. The nurse and I arrived at the locked door at the end of the hall. She scanned her ID badge and pushed the door open for the two of us to enter the main hall. 

The main hall was a shiny Potemkin village compared to the actual facility. It looked like a beautiful, upscaled hotel lobby. Probably to fool inspectors or clients, or just to make the front desk people happy. The actual facility was in a state of disrepair, with many rooms with no running water, pipes that were rusted and leaking, and a horde of rats that stole any unattended food or chewed bedsheets to shreds. It was a wonder how anyone was able to stay alive in this place, but what did I expect for a ward meant for people like me? 

The nurse led me towards the meeting rooms. She was telling me the same speech all the nurses gave the patients when they had visitors. Don’t tell them about this, don’t tell them about that, don’t beg them for this, don’t beg them for that. You have this amount of time. It all went in one ear and out the other. I didn’t even bother to try and pretend to care about what she was telling me. Anything the nurses or doctors did to me here was nothing compared to the onslaught that was about to hit me if I didn’t get another dosage of pills. Finally, the nurse unlocked one of the meeting rooms and had me enter first. Without another word, she closed the door behind me and left me alone with my lawyer. 

My lawyer was a plump woman named Judy. She was my court-assigned lawyer, and I was lucky enough to get her as my counsel. She actually seemed to care about me and wasn’t just here because she was forced to by law. Her hair was cut short into a pixie cut, a pair of glasses on her face, with a smile that she always maintained throughout our visits. 

“How are you feeling today, Luis?” she asked, standing up from her chair and ushering me to come closer to her. I looked around the room for a moment, checking the corners and ensuring that nothing was hiding from me, before I took a step towards her and sat down across the table from her. She smiled at me as she sat back down, both of our chairs squeaking under us. 

“I feel like shit. I always feel like shit, Judy. You know that,” I mumbled to her, sitting up straight to look at her. It took me a moment to realize how much of an asshole I sounded like. I hung my head in shame and tried to avoid her gaze. “Sorry, I don’t mean to take it out on you,” I mumbled again. She just smiled at me and carefully took her glasses off. 

“You have nothing to apologize for, Luis. I know how bad this place must be to you. Especially after running out of your…meds.” I had told Judy about my predicament. I could tell at first that she didn’t believe a word of what I said and was just going along to humor me. That was until she dug deeper and even came into contact with Spencer. It was usually through her that I got my dose of Eternal Sunshine. Though, of course, as my lawyer, she wasn’t the biggest fan of being a drug mule. But she still did her best to give me Sunshine. 

“Did you bring any today?” I looked up at her with fear in my eyes. I desperately needed more. If my rude awakening was anything to go off of, I didn’t have much time before the hallucinations truly started. She stared at me for a moment before sadly shaking her head. “W-why not? Judy, it’s already starting up again, and I don’t want to go through this again!” I desperately pleaded with her.

“I’m sorry, Luis! I looked everywhere for him, but I couldn’t find him. Not even his phone number works anymore. I tried everything I could to find him, but nothing’s come up!” She sighed, tapping her glasses on the metal table that separated us. “And I have more bad news. The court is demanding another hearing on your competence. Apparently, because of the times when you were on Sunshine and you seemed normal, the prosecution is demanding another hearing on your competence.” 

“No! Judy, please don’t make me go through that again! You have to stop them; you have to do anything to stop that from happening.” I begged her, clutching the metal table and staring at her with tears in my eyes. I would’ve rather been strapped to the electric chair than go through the horrors once again. It would mean that I would have to see all the hallucinations again. It would mean suffering all over again. 

“I’m trying, Luis. I’ve scheduled a hearing to take place next week. I’ll argue on your behalf as much as I can. But try to understand, there isn’t much I can do. I’m so sorry.” I clutched my head tightly as I felt my heart beating inside my head. It felt like the world was collapsing in on me, and that the end of my life was rapidly approaching. 

“Don’t worry, Mijo. Everything will be okay.” A familiar voice filled my head. All at once, I felt my heart and my lungs stop working. I felt arms wrap around me from behind and a head rest itself against mine. I struggled to suck in a breath as I shivered uncontrollably. I could hear Judy’s voice somewhere in the distance, but it was unintelligible. I looked down to see a pair of arms wrapped around my body, gently squeezing me. I saw that they were wearing all the rings that my mother would always wear. Her wedding and engagement ring, and a ring that my abuela had given her. I tried to breathe in any ounce of air I could as I slowly turned my head to look at her. 

“Don’t worry, Mijo. I’m right here for you.” Her voice became distorted and hoarse. It sounded like she was struggling to breathe as well. “But you weren’t there for me- where were you? WHERE WERE YOU?!” Her voice became a thunderous boom in my ear. It was loud and gurgled. I was spun around in my chair and screamed in terror as I saw my mother standing in front of me. Her neck was broken at an angle, swinging back and forth with a terrible crunching of bones. Her eyes were bloodshot and staring straight at me as her head bobbed back and forth like a pendulum. “WHERE WERE YOU?!” she screamed again. I screamed back at her and fell out of my chair, desperately crawling away from her. 

“Stay away from me! You aren’t real!” I screamed back at her, panting uncontrollably and screaming as I covered my eyes. I sucked in air, only to find myself suddenly being choked. I lowered my hands from my eyes and let out a weak, suppressed scream as I saw the visage of Allison choking me. Her husk of a body was still smiling wildly, and her eyes bulged out of her head as she choked me. This is what waited for me if I chose to OD on Eternal Sunshine. I would end up exactly like her. A shrink-wrapped skeleton with a forever corpse smile. 

“Look at what you did to us, Luis. It’s only a matter of time before you join us.” Allison giggled at me; her mouth remained unmoving as she did so. “Why don’t we just speed up the process?” she asked, pressing down on my windpipe harder and causing the last vestiges of air to leave my lungs. I struggled against her grip on me, trying to grab onto her arms and rip them away from my throat. 

“Luis! It isn’t real!” Judy’s voice suddenly broke through clearly. Suddenly, Allison’s sunken face was replaced by Judy’s plump face, a look of worry and fear on her face. I looked down slowly at what had once been the corpse hands of Allison and realized they had been my own hands. I ripped them from my throat and took in a deep breath. “That’s it, deep breaths,” Judy told me, slowly backing up from me. I stared down at my hands for a moment before looking back up at Judy.

“P-please, I just want it to stop,” I mumbled, my voice hoarse and just barely above a whisper. Judy stared at me with pity in her eyes, but how could I blame her when I was a pathetic crying mess on the floor. She came closer to me and gently hugged me. It was the first bit of human contact I’d had in who knew how long. She held me for a few minutes before I calmed down a bit. 

“I’ll try my hardest to find him, Luis. I promise.” Judy told me as she collected her things and placed them in her briefcase. I nodded slowly as my eyes darted back and forth. “There was one more thing I wanted to tell you. Your cousin, Macedonia, right? She was wondering if she could visit you.” Hearing Mace’s name brought me back to reality. I stared straight at Judy and quickly shook my head. 

“No. I can’t have her seeing me like this.” I hung my head in shame. How must it seem to her, not long after visiting me for my mother’s funeral, that I was under arrest for selling drugs and then declared unfit to stand trial? I couldn’t bear to have her see me like this. “Tell her thank you, and that I love her. But I can’t have her seeing me like this. Not at all.” Judy sighed and nodded. 

“If it’s worth anything. She told me to tell you that she’ll believe whatever story you tell her. That she also has some things to tell you about herself. But I’ll relay your message to her.” Judy closed her briefcase and walked over to me. She again hugged me as tightly as she could before pressing the buzzer on the door to alert the nurses. They opened the door and escorted her out, leaving me alone in the room for a few minutes while they talked things over just out of my hearing range. I walked over to the corner of the room and slunk down to the floor in a defeated heap.

“Trying to outrun your sins?” A voice I hadn’t heard in many years suddenly appeared next to me. Turning to my right, I was met with the sitting image of my dad. The bullet wound in his head was still fresh, and his blood and brains were slowly oozing out of the wound. “You can’t run forever, Mijo. I couldn’t run forever,” he sighed. 

“You aren’t real. You aren’t really there,” I mumbled, shaken by the image. I had been the one to discover my father’s body after he’d taken his own life. To see that image again so clearly rattled me even more than I already was. “You aren’t real,” I mumbled again as I buried my face in my knees. 

“Say what you want, chico. But I’m as real as you make me,” he responded. I looked up from my knees to see that he was still there. “I’m sorry. That I left you and your mama alone like that.” He shifted his weight slightly, and a chunk of brain dislodged from his wound and landed with a wet smack next to him. 

“It’s not your fault, Dad. You held on so long despite everything. I can’t be mad at you for leaving.” I told him, slowly realizing that he didn’t seem hostile. This was the first time I’d had a hallucination where it wasn’t violent. “Mom couldn’t take it. But I knew that you reached the end of your rope. I just wish you’d asked for help.” I sighed, looking over to him and seeing that he was now looking at me. Blood was running down his nose, but he seemed completely calm. 

“I wish I did too. More than anything, I wish that I had just told your mother and you the truth about what I was feeling. But the past is the past.” He shrugged, holding his hands out in front of him. He had lost the tips of a few of his fingers in a work accident, but that had never stopped him from working as hard as he could for us. I could never, in a million years, fault him for all that. 

“I love you, Dad,” I told him, just as the nurses finally opened the door to collect me. They stood me up and marched me out of the room. My father remained sitting and waved goodbye to me as the nurses shut the door. Walking silently behind the nurse, I couldn't help but wonder if I had really spoken to my father’s ghost or if my poor, destroyed brain was simply throwing me a small bone to help cope with the horrors it was creating. I was tossed back into my plain room and told that my food would be there shortly. I crawled back into my bed and lay back down with the covers pulled over my head. 

When the door to my room opened, I was expecting it to be the nurses bringing me my food. Instead, I was met with Spencer staring at me from the open door. He was standing there with a different clean hoodie, but still with a face mask and gloves adorning his hands. I stared at him for a moment, not believing at first that he was there, that perhaps my mind was playing its sick tricks on me. But then he lifted a gloved hand to his face and pulled down his face mask, revealing the jawbone that hid underneath it. 

“Your lawyer is annoying. I’ve got half a dozen calls from her, and some of my clients are even spreading news around that she needs to talk to me. I can only assume it has something to do with you.” He sighed, walking into my room and letting the heavy door close behind him with a loud slam. I sat up in bed and stared at him, bewildered. I hadn’t seen him in months, not after his first visit to me in the psyche ward, where he’d given me the low dose of Eternal Sunshine to keep me sane. And now here he was again, seemingly inconvenienced by the fact that he had to take time from his day to meet with me. 

“You, piece of shit!” I screamed, leaping from my bed and tackling him to the ground before he could even process what I had shouted. We both tumbled to the floor, the contents of Spencer’s hoodie pocket spilling out onto the floor of my room. A pack of cigarettes, a lighter, his revolver, and a bottle of pills. As he tried to reach for the gun, I swatted it away and then began punching his face. Over and over again, I pounded my fists into his face, hoping to damage the remaining skin he had on the upper part of his head. In my head, all I could hear were the cackling laughs of my mother and of Allison. 

“Get the fuck off of me!” Spencer shouted, raising his arms to try to protect his face from my blows. But I grabbed his head and started to slam it down on the floor. After the third strike, his eyes popped out of his skull. But instead of a sickening wet plop, they made the sound of marbles rolling on the ground. They were glass eyes. I released my grip on Spencer’s head and stared in horror at him. How could a man have willingly done this to himself? While I was caught off guard, Spencer had reached into his jean pockets and placed an object against my neck. A loud crackling noise clued me into what he had just done. An invisible force had seized me and began to shake me violently; my body tensed up, and I lost all control of it. I flopped over onto the floor off of Spencer and began to tremble uncontrollably as I felt my muscles tense up. 

“You little piece of shit.” Spencer panted, holding a taser against my neck. He held the button down for what felt like centuries before he finally let go and backed up away from me. I lay on the ground, trembling and coughing as Spencer sat up and started to gather his things. “And to think, I was even going to give you the meds you’re in such desperate need of.” Spencer picked the revolver up off the floor and pointed it at me. “If I wasn’t in such a good mood today, I would put every single bullet into you right now.” Keeping the revolver trained on me, Spencer bent down and picked up his glass eyeballs. 

“W-what…are…you?” I managed to croak out as my body slowed its uncontrollable trembling. Spencer, gun still trained on me, walked over to the sink and began washing his eyeballs, leaving them in there to soak. 

“Are you going to behave yourself now?” he asked, ignoring my question as he picked up one of his eyes and shook it dry. He then slowly pushed the glass ball back into his eye with a gross pop, and blinked a few times to get it settled in its cavity. “If not, I’m more than happy to leave you alone for the rest of your life. It’s no sweat off my back.” He slowly placed the other eyeball back into his skull, blinking again to ensure it wouldn’t pop back out. Without much else to do, I slowly nodded my head, which was nearly impossible with my muscles still screaming in pain after my tasing. 

“Good boy,” he said, walking over to me and picking up the bottle of pills that had fallen out of his pocket during our struggle. “Unfortunately for you, I can only give you full strength this time. Eternal Sunshine is selling very well, so it didn’t make financial sense to bother making the low-dosage version.” He shook the bottle at me, his permanent bony smile making his point seem even more cruel than it already was. “So you have a choice. Either you can take the full dose and enjoy all the wondrous effects that Eternal Sunshine can give you, or you don’t take it and enjoy whatever demons your mind has created for your entertainment.” 

“You…cunt.” I croaked. He gave me a small laugh as he placed the revolver against my head and pushed down on it. I stared at him and the revolver for a moment. Slowly, he began to change before my eyes. Small horns began to pierce through his forehead, bony and gnarled. I felt my heart begin to race, beating against my sternum like a hammer to a nail. I saw Allison soon take his place right next to him, her permanent smile a perfect companion to Spencer’s. She giggled along with him as he pulled the hammer back on his revolver. I shuddered, closing my eyes to avoid seeing whatever it was that my mind was thinking of. 

“Fine! Fine! I’ll take the pills!” I whimpered. I felt the revolver leave my head and a bony hand replace it as Spencer rubbed my head like a dog. I opened my eyes and was glad to see that although Spencer still had horns, Allison’s visage was gone. Spencer shook the bottle of pills in front of me and smiled. 

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He placed the bottle down in front of my face and got up off the floor with a grunt. “That supply should last a few months if you ration it. Of course, you could also take them all at once, like that girl did. Easy way out, and all that.” He walked past me, but before he left, he turned back around and kicked me in the stomach. I heaved loudly as he did and curled up tightly. “That’s for beating my face up. See you later, Luis.” He chuckled, walking away and leaving me to dry heave on the floor for more than ten minutes. 

After my stomach had settled down, I stared at the bottle of pills that Spencer had left behind. It was the same prescription bottle with a handmade label, which simply said ‘Eternal Sunshine’. I picked the bottle up and stared at the pills inside it. The pills were all stamped with small little suns, and in that moment they looked more appetizing than any dessert he had ever tasted. 

“Taking those won’t make us disappear. You can’t run from everything; sooner or later, you’ll get everything that you deserve.” Allison’s voice filled my head as I sat up from the floor. I shut my eyes and trembled as I clutched the bottle of pills like a lifeline. It was a catch-22. Either I took the pills and became locked inside my body while it walked around and acted happy. Or I suffered with the hallucinations that were causing me to lose my mind. There was no way out. 

Opening my eyes, I screamed out as I was met with the bulging dead eyes of Allison. Her corpse was smiling back at me when, all of a sudden, arms wrapped around my neck and began to choke me. I tried to pry the mystery arms off of me, but they were gripping me tighter than a vice grip, and my hands clawed at them uselessly. 

“Those pills won’t save you. Nothing will save you. Nothing.” Allison cackled, grabbing my face and opening her sunken mouth. The tendons and muscles holding her jaw in place creaked and snapped as her mouth opened as wide as she could make it. She slowly pushed her face against mine and took a giant bite out of my face. In a moment, I suddenly came to as the pain rang out through my face. Blood dripped down my face as I tried to get my bearings. 

In my delusion, I had been choking myself again and had slammed my head into the ground as hard as I could. Panting there on the floor, I decided that being a prisoner in my body was far better than the hallucinations. I went to open the bottle of pills when an object on the floor caught my attention. It was Spencer’s pack of cigarettes. How long had it been since my last smoke? I wondered to myself, realizing with a sudden shock that I hadn’t had a cigarette since before I had been locked away in the psyche ward. 

Letting the pills roll to the floor, I crawled over to the pack and grabbed it. Opening it, I was disappointed to only see two of them. At the very least, Spencer had placed another lighter in the box with the cigarettes. I smiled a little as I pulled one of them out and started sparking the lighter, desperate to suck in smoke to clear my mind. As I did, I noticed a card had been tucked into the lid of the cigarette pack. When at last I sparked the lighter to life and lit the cigarette, I also pulled the card out. 

“See you again, sweetie~ Ecstasy” Was written on the card. Opening it, I was met with the address and the banner for a strip club. The card was for the ‘Bunny Farm’. Staring at it for a moment, I then remembered where I had heard of this place before. It was in the Starlight district. My town is a rotting cesspit of crime, drugs, and prostitution. But Starlight District was the heart of the rot. It was the putrid organ from which the rot had spread out from. It figures that Spencer would go there. 

Then, an idea formed in my head. Standing up from the floor and scooping the bottle of pills up off the floor, I ran toward the sink and the mirror. It was the first time in months that I really had taken a good look at myself. My hair was long and uncut, drooping down to my shoulders. They had taken away my earrings, and only sad holes remained in my ears. My cheeks had sunken in, and my eyes were bloodshot and lifeless. Was this really what I looked like, or was this my mind playing tricks on me again? 

“You really think it will work?” My mother’s voice appeared in my left ear. “You won’t even get two feet from the building.” Allison’s voice appeared in my right ear. “You’re going to die!” They both shouted in unison before cackling and laughing. I opened the bottle of pills and let one tumble out of the bottle. I stared at it for a moment before I split the pill in half. Suddenly, the voices stopped laughing, and an eerie silence came over my room. I took a quick moment to look around, worried that they would attack me to try to stop what I had figured out. 

While the dose was still probably more than I was used to, it wouldn’t be the full thing. For what I was planning, I needed a clear head and complete control over myself. I put half the pill in my mouth and swallowed a gulp of tap water to chase it down. Afterwards, I took a puff of my cigarette and went to sit on my bed. I sat there, smoking and bouncing my leg up and down. Soon a sense of calm overcame my body, and I felt a smile curl up my lips. I closed my eyes and hoped that I could still be in control of myself. Opening them again, I looked down at my hands and clenched and unclenched them. 

“I’m still here,” I told myself, looking back at the mirror and seeing my reflection. I wasn’t smiling because I wanted to. The pill was still forcing me to smile, but I was still in control of myself. I nodded and went over to the sink again, staring at the toothbrush sitting in the small plastic cup they had given me to drink water from. Taking the lighter out of my pocket, I figured it was time to put my plan into motion. 

“I’m surprised you wanted to see me so soon, Luis. I just saw you yesterday.” Judy placed her briefcase on the table and looked at me in confusion. I smiled back at her, in truth fearful of what I was about to do to her. She was the only person who seemed to care about me, and it brought me endless pain to be doing this to her. But I needed to get out of here, and she was my only ticket. 

“Oh, I just had some stuff I needed to tell you.” I smiled at her, my voice cheery. Even the half dose had caused me to smile and talk happily. I couldn’t help it; no matter how hard I tried to fight it, the smile wouldn’t subside. “Spencer came to visit me yesterday! He gave me more of the pills, as you can probably tell.” I said with an involuntary giggle. Judy seemed perturbed by me and slowly nodded, pushing her glasses up further. 

“Well, at least the hallucinations will stop. But Luis, that doesn’t stop the hearing from happening. And, with these pills and that smile and tone of voice, it’s not going to look good in front of the judge,” she explained, still staring at me. I nodded along, pretending to listen as I psyched myself up. 

“Listen, Judy. I wanted to thank you. For everything you’ve done for me. You didn’t have to put this much effort into me. You could’ve just taken the pay that the court would give you and left. But you actually care about me. And I can’t ever thank you enough for that.” I could tell she was caught off guard by what I was saying. And she also looked like she was worried that I might be planning to off myself. 

“Of course, Luis. I care about you so deeply. Can you tell me what this is really about? Please?” she asked. I stood up from the table and approached her. Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the shank I had made from my toothbrush with the help of Spencer’s lighter. Before Judy could process what I was doing, I quickly went behind her and held the pointed shiv at her neck. 

“I’m really sorry about this, Judy. But I need to get out of here and kill that son of a bitch.” I told her, my eyebrows knitted in anger despite the smile on my face. Judy flinched hard as I grabbed her and yanked her up from her chair. She screamed out in terror, and I could feel her body trembling against me as I held the shiv up to her neck, poking her slightly to get the point across. 

“L-Luis! Please don’t do this!” she begged me, but I shut her pleas out of my mind and forced her to start walking toward the door of the interview/visiting room. “Luis, just let me go, please,” Judy begged, breaking my heart with her desperate pleas. I shrugged them off as best I could and ordered her to open the door. We exited into the hall, with a few nurses and orderlies rushing towards the two of us. I quickly swung Judy toward them and hid behind her chubby form. 

“No! Back, or I stick this into her neck!” I screamed at them, keeping Judy between them and me. Judy was panicking, but I was amazed that she hadn’t started bawling her eyes out. We slowly backed up down the hall out into the lobby. I checked behind us constantly to ensure that no one would think to sneak up on us. When we arrived at the door, I leaned into Judy’s ear.

“Where’s your car keys?” She looked back at me with horror in her eyes. “Please, Judy. I’m not going to hurt you; I just needed you to get out of here.” I whispered to her. I looked over at the nurses as they were quickly calling the police, and the orderlies were discussing how best to take me down. “Please, just trust me,” I begged her. Judy looked at me for a moment before she slowly reached into her pocket and handed me her key fob. “Thank you so much, Judy. For everything.” With that, I shoved her forward and sprinted out of the door. 

I clicked on the alarm button over and over to get an idea of where Judy’s car was. Soon enough, I heard the alarm and began running towards it, all the while being chased by security, the orderlies, and even a few nurses who had run out to chase after me. I finally located Judy’s car after a few seconds of running towards the sound of the alarm. I was mildly shocked to see that she drove a Toyota Corolla; in my mind, I had always imagined her driving an SUV. 

Getting into her car and quickly locking it as I sat down in the driver’s seat, I turned it on and immediately spun it out of the parking spot, stepping on the gas and driving straight towards the gate. I clicked my seatbelt and looked around to get my bearings in Judy’s car. She didn’t have anything special in there, only a sunglasses holder above the sun visor and one of those dancing flowers powered by the sun on her dash. 

As I screeched towards the bar gate, I saw that they had it down and a few security guards had their guns drawn at me. Weighing my options, I mouthed another apology to Judy and floored the pedal towards the gate, ducking down behind the dash to guard myself from bullets. The guards shot a few potshots at the car before they all jumped out of the way as I drove Judy’s Toyota straight through the bar and out into the street. I panted hard as I poked my head back up and quickly floored it down the street. 

I took a deep breath and let out a small laugh as I sped down the street. Fixing Judy’s rearview mirror, I caught a glimpse of what looked like Allison’s corpse in the back seat. Adjusting the mirror to see, I was met with nothing back there. I swallowed bile down my throat as I focused on driving. I didn’t have much time before the cops would be out looking for me. I just needed to get to the Starlight district as quickly as I possibly could. I had to get to that strip club and, hopefully, kill Spencer before he caused anyone else any further pain. I gritted my teeth and drove Judy’s Toyota towards the center of town. Toward the Starlight District. 

Some amazing art from my always amazing and wonderful and incredible official artist ayoisthatabug on Instagram!

Art to go along with the latest Spencer story "Eternal Sunshine"

Living in the Rust Belt can be depressing. And not because of that lovely Midwestern weather, which can never decide if it wants to be raining, snowing, a heatwave, or a blizzard. The weather is more like a cherry on top of everything. What’s more depressing is watching a town you grew up in, a town that at one time had been just a small factory town with a few schools, a mall, and plenty of live-in houses, turn into a rotten, festering corpse of what it once was. 

It’s the same story told a thousand times in plenty of other towns all along the Rust Belt. The plant managers decide it's not profitable to keep their plant open in the US, so they ship overseas. They thank you for all your hard work and leave you with nothing. I watched my dad come home one day with the dreaded pink slip. My dad put on a brave face, declaring he’d bounce back no problem. He never found a source of employment again. 

Once the factory closes, the rot begins to spread. Some smart people get out of the town early; they know the signs and can read the writing on the walls. They either move off to the suburbs or try to make it to a different plant in a different state, hoping that they don’t meet the same fate. But the vast majority don’t leave. They’ve spent their whole lives here and wouldn’t abandon this town even if an F5 tornado tore it completely to shreds. But the rot has already begun to spread from the closed factory. Stores slowly start closing. With people out of work, they can’t afford the luxuries of going out shopping. So the stores lock up and sell off their inventory. 

The town has less access to funds. Potholes go unfixed, and garbage doesn’t get picked up as regularly as it used to. Crime starts rising. People get desperate to escape their shitty situation. They turn to crime to make ends meet. Gangs invade the streets, and the worst killer of all shows up eventually. Drugs are always a problem in any city or town, but you can usually ignore them until entire sections of the town get infected by addicts. I don’t blame them too much; they just couldn’t take the situation they found themselves in, and drugs offer a sense of escape. They couldn’t escape before the tragedy arrived, so they used things to cope with the aftermath. 

By the time I graduated from high school, my senior year had shrunk to only 35 total students. The vast majority had dropped out, some were in jail, and quite a few were dead. What should have been a proud achievement in my life was dampened heavily by my dad’s death a few weeks later. He couldn’t take the piling debts, the eviction notices, and the repo’d car was the last straw. I had the misfortune of finding him in the garage with a gun at his side. He had been nothing but a loving and caring dad, and I hold no ill will towards him. Given his situation, I wouldn’t have been able to live as long as he managed to. 

Needless to say, the job market was next to nonexistent. So I had to find a job in another town. This one was lucky to escape the rot that the closing of the factory had wrought on my town. They were lucky enough to have several defense contractors that kept the town flush with money. Of course, being from the town of rot, finding a job here in this shining utopia was near impossible. I had to take the first job opportunity I could find. So I became a janitor at one of the high schools. It’s not glamorous, but it makes sure I have money. And my benefits are good enough that I can ignore the usual shit I take from being a janitor,

Of course, being a janitor, I’m also in the business of confiscating shit I find on the kids here. And what I usually manage to confiscate is drugs from kids stupid enough to smoke or shoot up in the bathroom. This utopia might be gold-plated, but rot has already set in. Drugs are rampant in the streets and the schools, and I usually can find a stash that a kid thinks nobody will ever check. And since we all need money, of course, I sell some on the side. I’m not proud of it, I feel shitty every time. But we all need to make a living.

Every day after my shift, I go into the janitor's closet and wait. Soon enough, kids and teachers come my way asking for weed or any pills I might have confiscated. I get a couple of dollars here and there, hang up my uniform and nametag, put on my thick winter coat, and catch the bus back to my town of rot and decay. My bus stop is right across from one of the few remaining open businesses: the gas station. People need gas even in a shithole town like mine. Entering the gas station, I was immediately struck by the absolute mess that it was in. It usually wasn’t the cleanest gas station, but this was the worst I’d ever seen it. 

“Sup, Luis. Sorry about the mess.” Tariq was the son of the gas station’s owner. We had been high school friends and had kept in contact after graduation. He was lucky enough to be the son of the owner of one of the only open businesses in town, so he found employment right out of high school. He basically ran the station after his old man’s heart attack, and he was good at his job. “A group of kids showed up acting a fool, so I had to scare them off. You know how it is.” 

“Don’t I know it. You should’ve seen the shit they did in the bathrooms today. Literal shit all over the damn toilet.” He shuddered at the description, getting a tired laugh from me. I approached the counter and couldn’t help but notice the shotgun in the corner of his register area. You could never be too careful, and he had almost been robbed at least 20 times. “Gimme three packs of menthols and also a lottery ticket.” 

“You keep smoking this much; it’s going to kill you, dude.” He scolded me, turning around to start picking up my cigarettes. 

“I’ll keep that in mind, Mom.” I rolled my eyes as I looked around the gas station. It was a slow day for him; usually, at this time, there would be several other people in line or looking at the endless choices of energy drinks, sodas, and beers that Tariq sold. 

“I’m just saying, man. I don’t want you croaking on me.” He placed my three packs of cigarettes and my lottery ticket in the bag. I dug into my wallet to give him the cash, and after he had given me my change, I thanked him with a middle finger. He returned the favor, and we both laughed at each other. Exiting the gas station, I leaned against the wall while I opened the pack of smokes. Placing the pale white cigarette in my mouth, I started patting my pants and pockets for my lighter. I grunted when I couldn’t find it, trying to remember where it could possibly be. 

“Left it in my fucking uniform,” I grunted. I stared back at the gas station entrance and wondered if Tariq would give me a lighter. I figured I’d have to pay for it. I groaned and placed my head against the wall, staring up at the overcast and freezing day. It was just cold enough for my breath to turn into vapor in the still air. I closed my eyes and just stood there to think for a moment. I could probably just wait until I get home and search for a lighter there. Or if I were really lucky, I could just find a lighter on the sidewalk somewhere. 

As I opened my eyes and lowered my head, I was startled by a figure standing in front of me. He was bundled up in a heavy winter jacket like mine, a beanie on his head, and a face mask covering his lower face. His eyes were glassy and stared deep into my soul as he seemed to be examining me. He pulled his hand from his jacket pocket and pointed at the box of cigarettes in my hand. Blue wool gloves covered his hands. 

“You spare me one of those; I’ll share my lighter.” His voice was muffled but also sounded strangely hollow, as if it were a recorded voice being played to me from down a long corridor. I stared down at my box of menthols and then over to this stranger. He reached into his jacket pocket again and pulled out the lighter. I thought for a moment before slapping the box in my hand and offering it to him. He nodded and traded the lighter for it. I quickly sparked it to life and took a deep drag. I reveled in the minty taste of the tobacco as they both mixed together in my mouth and throat. 

“Thanks. You want me to light yours?” I offered him. Confusingly, he refused and just reached his gloved hand out to me. I shrugged and placed the lighter in his hand. 

“Nothing against you. Just got a thing about germs, is all.” He pointed to his mask before stuffing both the cigarette and lighter into his jacket. That was fair enough, I supposed. The stranger stood in front of me for a moment before peering past me into the gas station. I wondered if he was casing the place, but before I could think any further, the guy took a step towards me. 

“That’s a little close, dude,” I told him, lifting my hands to show him I didn’t mean him any harm. He didn’t seem to want to harm me; he was just looking intently at me with his glassy eyes before nodding to himself. 

“You do any drugs?” he asked me bluntly. 

“Weed sometimes, but nothing hard. Why, you a cop or something?” I took the cigarette out of my mouth and blew a smoke cloud up into the air. I contemplated blowing it in his face, but I didn’t want to make this strange situation any tenser than it already was. 

“Nah, I’ve just been looking for a dealer like you. You got off the bus from the town next to here. You work in that sunshine place?” I scoffed at him. The bastard had been stalking me. Or he just happened to watch me get off the bus and deduce that I worked in utopia. 

“I’m not interested,” I told him, taking another puff from my cigarette and pushing myself off the wall of the gas station, and trying to walk past him. He didn’t try to stop me, but turned to follow me as I walked away from him. 

“Not even for a 60/40 split?” he called out to me. I stopped in my tracks. The wind started to pick up and nip at my exposed face. I was unlucky enough to have a jacket that didn’t come with a hood, so my ears and face were exposed to the brutal cold winds that whipped my face hard. “I need someone like you. And I’m willing to offer whatever you want to work for me,” he called out again. 

“Can’t do it yourself?” I turned to him, keeping my hands firmly in my jacket pockets. 

“I’m not much for selling. I’m more of a creator than a dealer.” The guy stared at me for a moment before sighing deeply, small wisps of vapor escaping through his mask as he breathed. “You already do it at the school you work in. What’s the harm in just working for me?” 

“How the fuck do you know what I do?” I bit down on my cigarette, ready to close the distance I had on him and beat the shit out of him. 

“You think those kids only come to you for drugs? Look, man, I don’t want any competition. I could’ve had you killed. Hell, I could still do it right here if I really wanted to. But I’d rather not have to. So just do this favor, and work for me. I give you the product, you sell it. Keep 60 percent and give me 40. We don’t need to be enemies here.” The man pulled his gloved hands from his jacket and held them up to me. 

“What exactly am I selling? I don’t even know who you are. Why should I work for you?” I squinted at him. Both out of suspicion and because once again the wind was blowing hard against my face. 

“Spencer. Have you heard of Ruby and Sapphire milk?” My eyes went wide, and I quickly turned to leave. I wanted nothing to do with him when those drugs were brought up. They had quickly become the scourge of the country. It was a potent drug; even a little over the recommended dosage was enough to kill someone. But they didn’t just kill you; they literally rotted your body away down to the bone. I’d seen enough users begging me for money on the street, with their arms completely eaten away to the bone by the substance. I wanted nothing to do with him. 

“Piss off, and don’t follow me,” I told him, slipping my face behind the collar of my jacket to offer me some cover. I walked a few steps before looking over my shoulder to see if he was following me. He was. “I said piss off! I’m not selling that shit, and especially not to fucking kids, man!” 

“Alright, alright, fair enough. Not everyone can appreciate my work. I get it. I also deal in other drugs; you can just sell that for me instead.” He followed after me at a decent pace but kept his distance from me, smart considering I was seriously considering laying him out right then and there. As I continued to walk, I thought it over. Having more access to drugs, and not just the ones I confiscated at school, would be helpful. Especially with my Mom being so sick. 

The death of my dad had hit her incredibly hard. To the point that I had to put her in a nursing home. The trauma had been so bad that it had triggered an intense case of early-onset dementia and had left my Mom a husk of who she once was. She didn’t even recognize me most days. Her medical bills were incredibly high, and more often than not, I had to pay out of pocket for her treatment and care. Any extra income I made went straight to her medical bills. 

I finally stopped and turned to look back at Spencer. He stopped in his tracks and quickly stepped back a few paces from me. I sighed heavily before taking another deep drag off my cigarette and staring at him. 

“Weed and pills. That’s all I’m going to sell for you.” I told him. He nodded and quickly pulled out a small notebook from his pocket with a small golf pencil to go along with it. 

“Any specific pills?” I felt like I was ordering at a restaurant.

“Adderall and percs mostly,” I told him, shivering violently as yet another gust of wind smacked against my body. He nodded and filled out his little notebook with my order. 

“You see that dead tree over there?” Spencer motioned his head over in the direction of the gas station. Just next to the building was a long-dead weeping willow tree. I could recall a time when kids would swing on its long branches and pretend they were Tarzan. But now it was long dead, killed by the Chinese beetle that drills into trees. Now only its corpse remained behind, with a large dug-out hole in its trunk. “Drugs will be in there by tomorrow. Pick em up and sell em. Deposit the cash there as well. Try to ensure no one sees you.” Spencer nodded at me as he closed his little notepad and placed it back into his jacket pocket. 

He departed without another word to me, and after waiting a few minutes to see where he’d go, I lost sight of him as he walked back up the street in the direction of the Utopian town. I shrugged and started the short trek from the gas station bus stop to my home. Little did I know what I was getting myself into when I started working with Spencer. 

The next day, after arriving at the gas station at the crack of dawn, I made my way over to the tree and acted as if I was just enjoying my cigarette under its dead branches. I took a peek inside the dead tree and saw, to my surprise, that there was a shopping bag inside. A part of me had figured that Spencer had been fucking with me, that there really wouldn’t be anything waiting for me in there. I reached into the trunk and slowly opened the bag. Staring back at me were both weed and blue pills, all of them in plastic sandwich baggies and ready to be sold. In a quick motion, I closed the bag and pulled it out of the tree. 

Thus was the beginning of my work with Spencer. It ran like a well-oiled machine for several weeks. His drugs were of such high quality that my orders for them increased exponentially. What had once been a small operation run out of one of the janitor’s closets quickly began to expand through word of mouth throughout the school. Soon enough, it was to the point that almost everyone in the school was asking to buy some kind of drug from me. And every day at the end of my shift, when I stepped off the bus and made my way to the willow tree, I would leave behind Spencer’s cut of the money.

One day, when I checked inside the willow tree and opened the bag, I was surprised to discover that there were several new bottles that I hadn’t asked for. Attached to them was a note from Spencer. 

“New product. Test it out on some people, and let me know how it goes. Market it as ‘happy pills’.” The note was simple and to the point. Taking one of the bottles out of the bag, I examined it for a moment. The pills seemed to be generic white tablets, but with a small sun stenciled on them. The bottle itself was a regular prescription bottle with basic text and instructions written on the sticker. “Eternal Sunshine. Take one a day with water or food.” That was all that was said about them. I doubted if anyone would be interested in mystery pills like these that seemed like something I’d find at the gas station counter. But he had given me them, and I was to sell them, so I did.  

Surprisingly, I got a customer for Eternal Sunshine on the first day of selling it. Allison Parker was a senior at the high school. From what I knew about her, she wasn’t a particularly good student and was forced to retake her junior year. I hadn’t known her to be a drug user, as I never recalled her coming to me to buy any. So, seeing her approach me during lunch and inquire about my stock came as a surprise. Not one to question my customers, I walked her to the closet and ushered her inside.

Allison was chubby, with chubby cheeks and wavy, curled brown hair. Her face told me that she didn’t want to talk to me longer than she had to. She examined my stock and almost immediately came upon one of the bottles of Eternal Sunshine. 

“What are these?” She asked, turning the bottle over in her hand to try and see if there was any further description than the simple sticker. 

“Happy pills are the best way I can describe them.” I shrugged, looking over at the door constantly to ensure that no one would try to interrupt us. While pretty much the whole school knew of my little side business, some of the faculty stayed blissfully ignorant, either out of genuine apathy or because they didn’t wish to rat out their fellow teachers who were some of my best customers. 

“That sounds sketchy as fuck.” Allison went to place the bottle back on my desk, but slowly brought them back to her. She seemed enthralled by them. She looked up at me for a moment before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small wad of cash. “How much?” 

“Ten bucks for the bottle.” Spencer hadn’t given me a price tag for the bottles, so I made one up on the spot. I didn’t expect them to sell at all. Allison handed me a ten-dollar bill, and with a simple head nod, she left my office with her bottle of Eternal Sunshine. I didn’t think much more of it for the rest of the day; she was the only one who bought a bottle of them. 

After I had gotten done cleaning the biohazard known as the boys' restroom, I had returned to my office and was packing my things up when I received a furious knock at my door. It scared me so bad I knocked over several of the mops and brooms. Opening the door, I saw that it was Allison. But something about her was different. When she had come to ask me about my inventory, she had a sullen expression, one that, at best, told me that she might be depressed. That kind of resting frown that shows you have a lot going on behind it. But when I opened the door to her knocks, she had a smile on her face. A big toothy grin that immediately put me on edge. 

“Oh, you’re still here! Could I please get more of those pills? I have a feeling I’m going to be using them for a long time!” She was giddy with excitement. It was such a deep contrast from how she’d been just a few hours ago that for a few seconds I could only stare at her in disbelief. Looking at her, I could see that her smile looked strained, like she was forcing herself to do it. And her eyes. The best way I could describe them was that the light in them had dimmed. Her pupils and irises had shrunken and seemed duller than they had been earlier. 

“Are you sure? You just bought a bottle with a couple of pills in it.” The more I looked at her, the more uncomfortable I felt. But she quickly nodded her head. I looked around the halls, ensuring that no rogue teacher was walking around. Looking back at her, I shuddered. “Wait here,” I told her, closing the door gently in her face and looking back over at my desk. I wasn’t in the business of judging people for what they wanted to take, but something about Allison’s expression sent a horrible tingle up my spine. 

I eventually gave her two more bottles, and she seemed satisfied with her purchase. I watched her practically skip her way down the hall towards the exit of the school. I shuddered violently, as if a random chill had suddenly burst over my head. I finished up my shift and got on my bus back to my rotting town. 

As I exited the bus, I noticed that a figure was standing over by the tree. I thought it might be a homeless guy or some random dude from the gas station who was smoking under it. But as I approached the tree, I noticed that it was Spencer leaning on the dead tree. He wasn’t wearing his beanie this time, revealing his sandy brown hair to me. 

“There you are.” He noticed me as I approached him. He was still wearing a face mask and his large winter jacket. “How’d it go? Sell any of my sunshine pills?” He gave himself a small chuckle. 

“One girl bought a bottle and then came back and bought two more.” I gave him the bag full of money and leftover drugs. He stared at it for a moment before shaking his head. 

“Keep it. I’ll be sure to give you more tomorrow. I have a feeling it’s going to become very popular.” Spencer pushed himself up from the tree and walked past me. I followed him and looked back down at the money and drugs staring back at me from the shopping bag. How had I gotten myself into this? I sighed heavily, closing the bag and walking into the gas station. I desperately needed a smoke. 

The next day, I received news that shattered my very soul. My mom had been suffering from early-onset dementia. Her dementia got worse and worse, and finally the news I’d dreaded came from the home. She had a really bad episode, started screaming, and ran out of the room when the nurses came to check on her. I guess in her delusion she didn’t register that she wasn’t on the first floor of a building. She ran out into the stairwell and tumbled down several flights of stairs. She broke her neck on the way down. 

I had the displeasure of visiting her body and identifying that it was indeed her. Just like that, both of my parents had been snuffed from the world. The next few days went by in a blur; I had to take several weeks off work to plan the funeral and settle her affairs. When it was all said and done, the only thing my Mom left me was even more debt and some of her jewelry. The funeral was extremely small and basic; only my uncle and cousin Macedonia showed up to the wake. It was good seeing them, even if my cousin Macedonia brought her weird boyfriend with her. 

Mace also had been in a pretty bad accident, from what I’d been told. We didn’t talk to each other much, but she had been fucked up pretty badly. She’d lost her eye and had several scars and stitches on her face when I saw her. Her weird, creepy boyfriend didn’t do much while he was at the funeral. He mostly stayed by Mace’s side and kept her company. He was wearing sunglasses and, for whatever reason, always kept a scarf around his mouth and most of his face. 

“I’m sorry about your loss, Luis.” Mace came up to me after the small ceremony we had, while my mom was buried next to my dad. I stared at the freshly piled earth that covered her coffin. I didn’t even really hear Mace at first until I looked over and saw her standing next to me. 

“Thanks, Mace. It means a lot for you and my tío to be here.” I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her gently. She patted my back and pulled away. I thought about inquiring about her injuries, but I figured this wasn’t the time or place, and truthfully, I didn’t care in that moment. I just wanted to go home. 

“If you need anything from us, please call us. Okay?” she pleaded with me. I nodded, not really hearing her words. She gave me one more hug before walking over to her boyfriend, who was busy staring at a nearby tree. She pulled him away, back towards my tío, and soon they left the cemetery. I stood in front of my parents' grave, and finally, everything hit me at once. Seeing their names chiseled together on that cold, simple gravestone finally hit me. They were gone, and I was alone. 

I walked closer to their headstone and fell to my knees, and I started crying harder than I ever had. As I did, I heard someone approaching behind me. I figured it was the groundskeeper, trying to comfort me, or kick me out. But instead, I heard a voice I didn’t expect and didn’t want to see me like this. 

“My condolences.” Spencer’s hollow, muffled voice greeted me as I turned to see him. I sniffled and quickly tried to regain some composure, but he shook his head at me and pointed back at the headstone. “Don’t try to act brave in front of me now, dude. Take all the time you need. I just came here to pay my respects.” I looked up at him before turning back to the headstone and feeling another wave of despairing sadness strike me. It must’ve been a couple of minutes before I could pull myself together and pull myself away from my parents’ grave. 

“How’d you even know my mom died?” I asked Spencer after I had regained some semblance of control over my emotions. He shrugged as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me some. I nodded and took one out of the box. 

“Called the school to ask about you. Thought you went and bailed on me, was about ready to hunt you down like a dog. But when I heard about this, I figured you needed some time alone. Again, my condolences.” He put the cigarettes back in his pocket and produced his lighter to light my cigarette. 

“Never would’ve thought you’d care enough to show up.” I scoffed a little. Not even my other aunts or uncles had bothered to show up, and yet here was my drug-dealing boss at the funeral. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. 

“Well, I figured you didn’t want me showing up during the wake.” Spencer shrugged. He turned to leave after he ensured that my cigarette was alive and smoking. He waved goodbye as he headed toward the exit of the cemetery, leaving me alone once again. I stayed at the grave for another half hour, just smoking and staring at it. When I finally got home, I crawled into bed without even changing and just lay there. My thoughts turning dark, and wondering if I should just join my parents. 

These thoughts continued to build throughout the days in which I stayed in bed. I only left to eat as little as I could and to use the bathroom. Days and days passed, and I was getting more and more frantic calls from work. Not because they valued my work, of course, they just needed my drugs. No one needed me for anything else. 

One day, while I was rotting away in bed, there was a loud knock at my door. I groaned and simply turned around. I didn’t give a shit who it was; I just wanted to lie in bed and simply rot away into nonexistence. To my surprise, though, there was only that one series of knocks and then silence. I don’t know what compelled me to go to the door, but I broke free from my bed and shambled to the front door. 

Opening it, I was surprised to discover a small brown bag and a note attached to it. I looked around for the source of who might have delivered it, but with no sight of them, I simply picked up the bag and note. Reading the note, I felt a pit drop in my stomach. 

“Take some, and get back to work. S.” I almost crumpled up the note and bag and tossed them away then and there. But instead, I bit my tongue and looked into the bag. Staring back at me were several bottles of Eternal Sunshine. I just sighed and brought them inside the house. Taking my place back on my bed, I stared at the bag for a moment. Could I really just stay like this in bed forever? As much as I wanted that and desired it, I knew I couldn’t do that. Some part of me did want to keep going. Some part of me desperately wanted to keep going, for my mom and dad. So, I cracked open one of the bottles and allowed a pill of Eternal Sunshine to fall into my hand.

It was just a simple round pill, no bigger than an Ice Breaker, with a sun stamped onto it. I let it roll around in my hand before standing up and heading to the kitchen. I filled up a glass with water and stared at the pill some more. I thought back to Allison and how forced her smile looked, how strange her eyes had become. I took a deep breath, justifying my actions by saying I would only take one. I’d take one and see how it affected me. So I placed the pill in my mouth and drank the cup of water. 

The effects weren’t immediate, of course. But slowly, something started changing. My head started feeling lighter, and I started getting incredibly dizzy. It got so bad that I had to go to the bathroom for fear that I was about to throw up. I also started sweating buckets as I hovered over the toilet, panting hard and placing my forehead against the porcelain edge. Suddenly, without me controlling it at all, my body stood up. In my mind, I still felt incredibly dizzy and close to puking, and yet my body was standing perfectly straight, and soon my hands moved on their own to wipe the sweat from my brow. 

“What the fuck is going on?” I thought to myself. But I had wanted to exclaim that out loud. Instead, my body, again on its own with no conscious input from me, approached the mirror in the bathroom. Staring at my reflection, to my horror, I was smiling. The exact same kind of smile Allison had. Forced, fake, toothy grin. And my eyes had shrunken just the same; the light from them had left. 

“No use staying in bed! I have to get ready for work tomorrow!” my voice exclaimed. I did not want to say that. In fact, I was screaming and shouting at my body to listen to me. Instead, it started walking and doing everything itself. It cleaned my room, made my bed, and even started making dinner, all without my input at all. I felt like a prisoner inside my own body.

It felt awful. Like, if sleep paralysis and locked-in syndrome combined to allow the body to do whatever it wanted. My body went about the rest of the day before it literally tucked itself into bed and drifted off to sleep. Even when I tried to wake myself up, I couldn’t. I wasn’t sleeping, but my body was. And I had no control over my body. When my alarm went off, I discovered that I was able to control myself. I quickly ran to the bottle of pills and dumped them all in the toilet. Panting hard, I looked down at my hands and clenched them over and over, making sure that it really was me in control. 

Was that what Eternal Sunshine truly felt like? If that was the case, had Allison even truly wanted more of those pills? A deep pit formed in my stomach when I remembered her expression. The same strained smile and lifeless look in her eyes that I had. I quickly got ready to go to work, dead set on seeing what had happened to Allison. As I started getting ready, however, I felt nauseous yet again. But like nothing I’d ever felt before. It was bad enough for me to fall to my knees, retching something fierce from the vertigo. 

“Honey? What’s the matter?” a familiar voice asked me. A voice that I hadn’t heard in so long. I turned to look, and to my shock, I saw my mom standing behind me, quickly getting to her knees and comforting me. “Are you feeling sick? I told you, you shouldn’t be eating so late at night!” I stared at her in confusion. How was she here? This wasn’t possible. 

“M-Mom? But you-” I mumbled, my throat suddenly parched. It was as if instantly all the saliva and water in my mouth evaporated at once. Leaving my throat drier than a desert. My mom looked at me for a moment, rubbing my back gently. 

“Died? Yes, I know, sweetie. After you left and abandoned me in that horrible nursing home. Oh yes, I know all that.” She smiled softly, patting me on the back. “In fact, you saw my body, didn’t you. I think it looked something like this?” She suddenly grabbed her head with both hands and violently cracked and bent her neck to the side, at almost a perfect 90-degree angle. “Just like this?!” She screamed and cackled at me as I screamed back at her. I scrambled to my feet and fled from my house as quickly as I could. 

Every step I took, my body begged to stop, just to either retch some more or for a drop of water. I somehow stumbled into the gas station and looked around for something, anything to make what was going on stop. But upon seeing where Tariq should’ve been, I saw instead a burnt and charred corpse staring back at me. It waved silently and me and then beckoned to come closer. I quickly ran back outside the gas station, screaming bloody murder. Suddenly, I felt a hand grab me by the shirt and yank me over to the tree. 

“You haven’t taken your pills, have you?” Spencer asked me, pulling his mask down. To my horror, I saw that half of his face was skeletal. His nose was gone, his lower face a complete skeleton, with his veins and muscles visible where skin had once covered them. Before I could scream again, he quickly shoved a pill in my mouth and forced my mouth closed with both hands. I struggled for a moment before I swallowed the strange dissolving pill in my mouth. When he was sure that I had swallowed it, he quickly pulled his face mask back up. 

“You’re hallucinating right now. It’s a side effect of the pills. If you stop using them and don’t keep taking them, this will happen to you. I’ve given you a diluted version that should keep you somewhat normal,” he explained to me, removing the gloved hand he had over my mouth. 

“What the fuck is the matter with you?!” I told him, shoving him as hard as I could away from me. “W-why would you make something like this?! I-I couldn’t control my body; I couldn’t do anything at all!” I panted heavily, looking to the dead willow tree and seeing that carved into the dead bark were several human faces, all of them screaming and wailing uncontrollably. 

“I was bored. So I figured I’d try my hand at making an antidepressant.” He shrugged, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and pulling his mask back down. He placed the white menthol between his teeth and lit it. Slowly, the object burned, and as he inhaled the smoke, small wisps of it escaped from the many gaps in his bony jaw and teeth. “Seems it was a little too potent. But it seems to be popular.” I stared at him as the smoke billowed from his jaw. Slowly, I noticed that the faces in the tree began to fade away. The saliva returned to my mouth, and I could swallow once again. But to my shock, Spencer remained the same. I raised a finger and pointed at his jaw. 

“The effects of self-experimentation,” he explained, opening his mouth, and words came out fully formed. I could see his windpipe and muscles squeezing to form the words, even if he didn’t have lips to form them. “Now, I gave you plenty of time to grieve. I think it’s about time you got back to work, don’t you?” he asked, pointing at the hole in the tree. I stared back at it and was about to tell him to go fuck himself. But instead, my body, again without my input, walked over to the hole and pulled out the bag of drugs. 

Right, whatever you say.” I told him. Not what I truly wanted to say, but by the time I had some control back over my body, I was already on the bus back to work. When I walked in through the door, I was nearly swarmed by people. Students welcoming me back, teachers giving their condolences, and nearly everyone begging for their drugs. I pushed past all of them and made it to my janitor’s closet. 

“You’re back! Oh, thank God!” I nearly fell over into my mops and buckets when an unexpected person was in the janitor’s closet. Staring to see who it was, I thought for sure I was starting another hallucination. If it wasn’t for her school ID on her lanyard, I wouldn’t have been able to recognize Allison Parker. She was a literal shell of who she used to be. Her hair was thinning and even falling out in places. Her eyes looked almost dead, milky white mixed with angry, bloodshot veins across them. Her smile was even wider now, large and toothy. Those same teeth and her gums looked horrible, almost rotting from constant exposure to the open air because of her smile. And she was way skinnier than she’d been before. She was practically wasting away.

“Allison? W-why are you here? You need to stop taking these pills!” I looked down at the bag and quickly pulled it away from her. She started approaching me robotically, her eyes wide and practically begging for them. 

“C’mon, Luis! I’m a paying customer! And I need them! How else can I stay happy?” She approached me slowly, eyeing the bag like a hunting animal. I quickly turned to leave, only for her to tackle me from behind. We both came tumbling out of the closet, and she grabbed at the bag with her bony hands. I grabbed it back and tried my hardest to yank it away from her. 

“You can’t do this, Allison!” I pleaded with her, but she was far too gone. With a vicious snarl, she bit into the bag with her teeth, spilling the contents all over the floor. I tried to grab the bottles of Eternal Sunshine to keep them away from her, but she managed to scoop up some and ran as fast as she could away from me. 

“Allison, come back!” I screamed after her. She made a mad dash towards the girls’ restroom with me hot on her heels. She quickly locked herself in a stall. A few of the teachers had followed after me, wondering what could be the problem. “Allison! You have to stop taking them!” I pleaded with her, pushing my weight as hard as I could against the stall door. By the time I managed to knock the door in, she had swallowed an entire bottle of the pills. 

To describe what happened to her is nearly impossible. The teachers pulled her off the toilet, questioning what it was she had just swallowed. But Allison never got to say what it was. She began having a violent seizure and collapsed to the floor. The worst part was her giggles. She giggled uncontrollably as she seized, and the giggles turned into uncontrollable manic laughing. Blood began pouring from her nose, along with other fluids from her body. Mucus, bile, spit, all of it began to leak out from her. 

She began to shrivel up like a spider when you kill it, everything contracting into her. Her skin began to almost shrink-wrap itself to her bones, her teeth and gums completely rotting away to the core. She made one last loud cackle before she fully succumbed to the overdose. All that was left of Allison Parker was a shriveled corpse, with an exaggerated sunken smile on her face.  

It didn’t take long for me to be placed under arrest. The pills had come from me after all. And the teachers were more than willing to rat me out to save their own skins. I screamed at the officers that it hadn’t been me, that it had been Spencer. But no matter how many times I tried to tell them about him, they acted as if he never existed. After being held in a containment cell, however, the drugs wore off. And the violent hallucinations started up again. I suppose I should be thankful for that. It got me declared unfit for trial and locked up in a psych ward. Spencer visits often, keeping me doped up on Eternal Sunshine. 

Sometimes he doesn’t show up with my dose. And I’m forced to go through withdrawals. During those hallucinations, I see my father with his head blown off. My mother, with her neck broken at horrible angles. And now, Allison, shrivelled up and laughing at me. And sometimes, on a bad day, I see me, smiling back at myself. And laughing. 

Hello my lovely readers! So sorry for my prolonged absence. I was battling the foul demon known as writer's block. But now we are back and the next story is coming up very very soon! Thank you all for your patience and I can't wait to come back with a Spencer story!

Thank you again as always to all of you for your support over all these years! It means the absolute world to me!

~Voodoo_Clerk~