Now You See Me...

Chapter 1: Love To Me Is So Unreal

It sounded like his car. He knew the engine by heart like an old friend's voice. But wasn't his car parked right there before his eyes, in his driveway? Cole leaned further out the window, staring down at the car with a murmur of confusion. He was too stoned for this shit.

He stumbled back to his computer to type a few more words of his rambling short story. He picked up the pipe laying on his bed and grabbed the lighter lying beside it in two smooth movements. He deftly took a hit and wheezed out the smoke passively.

"Guess I better check it out," Cole murmured, laying the pipe and lighter down like a man in a dream.

He fumbled absently in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes as he stumbled towards the door. He opened the door with some difficulty. That knob got a little argumentative after a few bowls of the shit Cole was puffing.

"Be right back," he mumbled to his mother's boyfriend as he passed.

The weird guy was listening to music on some 80's channel.

"And I-yi-yi-yi-yi will always love you-oo-ooo-oh," Whitney Houston sang loud and proud.

"Fucking strange," Cole commented dazedly.

He walked outside onto the back porch. He stood there with the cigarette dangling between his lips as he watched his car pull into the driveway. He watched it swing sideways to park beside... his car.

Music was blaring from the CD player.

"Happiness I cannot feel and love to me is so unreal," Ozzy crowed. "And so as you hear these words telling you now of my state, I tell you to enjoy life. I wish I could but it's too late."

As the song conveniently ended, the CD player shut off. No one turned it off. That was for sure. The car clone was empty.

"What the fuck?" Cole whispered.

The cigarette slid from between his lips and dropped. It fell between the boards of the porch. Cole didn't seem to notice. He walked down the steps carefully because his eyes were still locked on his car sitting there.

His cars.

"What the fuck?" Cole whispered again as he dismounted the last step and stood there dumbly. "This is some Twilight Zone shit, man."

Cole glanced to his left, at the neighbors sitting on their porch staring at him. He waved with an almost politically false smile.

"Howdy, neighbors," Cole said under his breath barely moving his lips. "Don't mind me. I'm just a fucking nut."

The neighbors ushered their kids inside where they had been playing on the lawn on a beautiful summer day. They cast sharp and suspicious looks over their shoulders before following the kids. Apparently the neighbors agreed.

When Cole turned his eyes back towards his vehicles, he only had one again. His eyes widened. At the same moment, a weird sound caught his ears.

It was a tinkling little tune. It brought to mind something sweetly evil. It was taunting and playful yet murderous. Cole wondered what horrible instrument hid behind that seemingly innocent tune.

"Ice cream!" the kids next door yelled and burst out the front door with their worried parents hurrying along behind them.

It was an ice cream truck, pulling up to the curb.

Cole turned away and ran up the porch steps and headed back inside. He was trembling and sweaty. He headed back to his room through another wave of 80s music - Pat Benatar was talking about love being a battlefield - and shut the door tightly behind him. He locked it.

"That's what I get for going outside," Cole said to himself. "Holy fuck."

He walked back towards his bed and began packing another bowl in the pipe with shaking hands. A handy live-action replay in his head of his other car pulling into the driveway and then disappearing kept playing through his head.

"Just got too stoned," he told himself reassuringly.

The tune outside kept playing, drifting through the window Cole had opened to air out the smoking location. That sweetly evil barrage of noise seemed to taunt him somehow.

You saw what you saw.

"My eyes were just playing tricks on me," Cole whispered as he valiantly finished packing the bowl.

The tune kept playing.

If you can't trust your eyes, what can you trust?

"I think I have enough fresh air," Cole said flatly.

He walked over and slammed the window shut. The tune was cut off, leaving only the sounds of his mother's boyfriend coughing in the living room.

He lifted his mouth to the end of the pipe and poised his lighter to take a hit. He took the hit and blew it out and sat the pipe back down and then the lighter. He scratched his nose casually and then sat down in front of his computer.

"I saw it," he admitted in a hollow voice.

He heard the crunch of gravel and the roar of that familiar engine.

"But I didn't hear that," Cole murmured.

He reached for the pipe and lighter.

 

Just a little hint: I thought adding in the Paranoid song was funny. I love writing psychological thrillers.

 

(Feel free to comment if you're reading this, by some chance. I don't want to just be me posting and you guys reading. Tell me what you think of it. Please.)

Chapter 2: Take Yourself To Higher Places

"You're a god and I am not and I just thought I'd let you go," Vertical Horizon blared from Cole's computer speakers.

He paced fitfully around his room, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. He was trying to convince himself that he was just tripping. Maybe he needed some sleep...

Cole suddenly realized that he had been awake for nearly two days. He hadn't been sleeping well at all lately. Getting high seemed to be more important even as his life crumpled around him. He was shutting down.

He looked over and saw the pipe sitting there with a freshly-packed bowl. It was like magic.

"When did I pack that?" he whispered. "Screw it."

He grabbed the pipe and took a man-sized hit off it and blew out the smoke with a relieved sigh. He looked at his car keys sitting on the desk between his keyboard and an unfortunately empty can of Yoo-Hoo. An empty Yoo-Hoo just simply doesn't compute.

What if I go out there and my car -- my other car -- follows me?

The thought sprang unbidden to Cole's mind and he tried to will it away.

What if there's no one in it?

Cole squeezed his eyes shut, taking deep breaths. He opened them and looked at the keys again. They seemed further away now.

"Okay," he whispered in a small voice.

He looked around wildly in the suddenly deafening silence. The song had finished playing. It was TOO quiet. Cole had to---

He desperately began typing on the keyboard and clicking with the mouse in a sort of skillful frenzy. He quickly selected a random song and let it play. He slowly smiled that crooked smile of his as he heard the song begin. The driving guitar and drum beat had his head nodding.

"Tonight my head is spinning," came the words. "I need something to pick me up. I've tried but nothing is working. I won't stop, I won't say I've had enough."

What better song than Break by Three Days Grace when you're having a drug-related crisis?

The smile widened.

"If you can't stand the way this place is, take yourself to higher places," the singer yelled.

"Don't mind if I do, boys," Cole replied softly.

He took another man-sized and blew it out, laughing in his head as the flow of smoke broke against the computer screen. By the time he recovered from this most recent fit of laughter, the song had finished again and he could hear country music now blaring from the living room.

His mom's boyfriend was quite the music lover.

"Tequila makes her clothes fall off," Joe Nichols drawled.

"Oh for fuck's sake..." Cole muttered.

He restarted the desperate search for a new song. He selected another random name in the list. The song hit him immediately like all 3rd Strike songs and he grinned again.

"Look away 'cause I'm strange in my mind," he sang. "Let's make a place for me so I feel right inside."

Cole loved this shit. It distracted himself from his mind with its awesomeness.

"See my violent self," he sang along quietly. "All is passed away but dreams stay alive."

He was too focused on the music to hear the car pull into the driveway again. The window was down. Cole couldn't hear the CD player blaring.

It was roaring with almost genuine horror in the sound. It was a song that almost made you feel crazy.

"It's a madhouse or so they claim. It's a madhouse, oh am I insane?"

The car revved up slowly, threatening.

"It's a madhouse or so they claim. It's a madhouse, I'm insane!"

The car put itself in reverse and backed out of the driveway and sped off down the street. Things like that aren't restricted by speed limits.

 

Chapter 3: Fucking Pianos

Cole snapped back to reality. He had thought he had heard a train roaring very close by and he had seemed to be frozen in time with that roaring whistle. He had broken free and sat dazed in the computer chair. He wasn't sure what it was, but his head hurt.

He took deep breaths. In and out.

"I gotta lay off this stuff for a bit," he said but he sounded uncertain.

He stood and paced around taking more deep breaths. His eyes kept flicking back to the bowl now sitting between his keyboard and the keys.

He sighed softly and then froze as he heard a car door slam shut outside. He looked out but his car was empty. It was almost eerie how empty the car and the entire yard looked.

Devoid of life, Cole thought grimly.

The train was back. Cole leaned his head further out the window and got a few deep breaths of the fresh air. He felt much better.

"This must be how a fish in a fishbowl feels," Cole murmured.

The train was gone.

"I'm tripping so hard right now," Cole said softly, and he turned on his TV and shut the window as well.

When had he even opened up the window? He didn't recall.

He struggled to focus on the television's massive screen.

Is that Avatar? he thought dimly. He grabbed the remote and checked to see what was on because he had no fucking idea. He was too stoned. The remote wasn't working. Cole grunted in frustration.

He had to actually use the fucking television buttons to find out.

"Yeah it's Avatar," he confirmed glumly.

He jabbed another button and the television shut back off. It was back to the music, he supposed.

Cole put on a random song and laid back on his bed. He took the bowl with him out of habit. Cole took three or four hits in quick succession, laid the bowl and lighter aside and stood. He couldn't seem to stay still while smoking. He tried to focus on the music as he paced.

"Whoa-oh-oh sweet child of mine," the lead singer of Guns'N'Roses crooned. "Whoa-oh-oh-oh sweet love of mine."

"What the fuck?" Cole whispered.

His head was hurting bad now. He had to battle through this. He couldn't let them win. He didn't know who they were. He just wouldn't -- couldn't -- let them win this battle.

"What the fuck is going on?" Cole murmured.

Horrible things lurked at the edge of his mind. They were staying there, threatening him with their presence.

"Is this what fucking schizophrenia is?" Cole asked bitterly.

It was the first time he had blamed his own mind instead of just the drugs. It was a big step. Cole couldn't back off of this, though. He had just taken the first step towards admitting his insanity.

"Where do we go now? Where do we go now?" the singer called as Sweet Child O' Mine began to wind down.

Cole selected another song. As he did, he went back and picked up the pipe and lighter and stood there as the new song began. That beautiful piano tune made him feel at peace. Somewhere, some evil force cursed. Fucking pianos...

He paused the song. He had heard the voice in his mind. It wasn't his. Was that other car really his car?

"Yeah," Cole commented flatly. "This is schizophrenia."

 

Hehe the character is me and the events are real..

 

Chapter 4: 20

4:19 P.M.

Cole grinned, a sort of crazy crooked grin. His eyes were bulging with horror and shock and madness.

He was staring at the clock on his computer. He ignored the car honking its horn tauntingly outside.

He had a bowl backed and ready in his hand and he was waiting.

He was waiting for 4:20 P.M. He'd take a hit at 4:20 P.M. and try not to let it out until 4:21 P.M. It really made that minute irationally precious in his mind.

"Holy shit, I'm paranoid," he whispered.

He loved voicing random thoughts. He took a quick gulp of his new Yoohoo. Wait when did he get a Yoohoo? Cole dismissed the thought.

4:20 P.M.

Cole took the hit and blew it out after about ten seconds.

"Fuck it," he told himself. "I'm gonna go smoke a cigarette outside."

He walked outside, going out the front door this time. He stood on the concrete stoop that was all he could offer as a front porch. He lit the cigarette and stood there smoking steadily.

His eyes were constantly scanning the street however. He was constantly scanning with his eyes. The shadows cast by the streetlights made him jump every few seconds. He must have looked insane.

Cole wondered what he would do if something just came charging out of one of those shadows, screaming bloody murder.

He hurriedly dropped the cigarette and went back inside, locking and bolting the front door behind him. He sat in the armchair by the door, gasping for breath.

"I don't like going outside," he whispered. "Going outside is bad."

He heard that tinkling tune as the ice cream truck approached. Cole hurried back to his room without a backwards glance. The door slammed shut and locked behind him like the barred door of a prison cell. And that's what it was.

A prison cell.

He sat there in front of his computer typing but not really focusing on whatever the hell he was writing. He looked up finally to inspect this new piece.

"Count the bloody stains on the wall," Cole had written over and over in neat little paragraphs.

It was probably two chapters long.

"Jesus Christ," he whispered to himself. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He looked around wildly at the wall as if expecting to see bloody stains covering its length. It was bare, almost mockingly so.

"M-maybe I should just smoke another bowl," Cole stammered, sitting on his bed and trying to chill as he packed a new bowl.

His shoulders felt strange, like something was sitting on them. It had felt that way for about a month off and on. It steadily got worse and he steadily lost weight. He wasn't sure what it was.

He had watched that movie Shutter.

He had seen the ending. The guy discovered that the ghost of a girl whose rape he had photographed enthusiastically was sitting on his shoulders and weighing him down. It sort of felt that way for Cole.

Cole shook off those dark, irrational thoughts. He finished packing the bowl. He took three quick hits and held the bowl aside as he stared into space.

"Oh yes, this is good shit," Cole whispered with a grin. "This is good shit."

He took another pair of man-sized hits and shrugged them off with a little grimace that replaced the smile.

He looked up at the Harry Potter And The Sorceror's Stone poster on his wall.

"Fuck you, limey," Cole murmured, giving the poster a coldly dismissive one-finger salute.

Seven hits later, Cole was floating.

"Shit..." he muttered. "I'm going to sleep."

He toppled sideways out of the chair and laid on the floor. He didn't move. Snores began flowing out.

Yet his mind kept working against him even while unconscious.

 

For Cole to leave the house, I have to leave the house. Which sounds pretty fucking unappealing to me haha.

 

Chapter 5: It's The Beginning Of The End

Cole snapped awake laying on the junk-littered hardwood floor of his bedroom. It seemed as if he had just fallen asleep. There was a strange feeling of reality not being all there, however.

"Is reality ever all there for me?" Cole grunted to himself rhetorically as he stood up and walked back over to his bed.

He automatically picked up his pipe from its place on his pillow. It was just something that he was used to lately. He had no life, and this seemed to be the thing to do in any situation. Smoking was his life.

Cole dutilly headed over to the window, opened it and tapped the ashes out of the pipe. He watched them float down to the concrete ten feet below. It was a beautiful bright summer morning and there was only one car sitting there in the driveway. It looked like a pretty day. It looked like a promising day.

"I guess I slept through until morning," Cole murmured.

He packed a new bowl slowly, contemplatively.

Cole took a hit and as he blew it out, he watched a bright ember float up from the bowl and come down to rest on his thigh. He felt it sting him and burn him but he didn't react. He just smiled slowly.

"At least I know it's not a dream," he commented simply.

He took another big hit and sat back down in his computer chair with that lazy smile on his face. A thought was beginning to break through into his mind.

It was a sunny day. Why not go for a walk and smoke a cigarette after he finished the bowl? Cole was liking that idea more every second. He took another hit and another.

He was starting to feel pretty damn good.

He took a third hit. The massive cloud of smoke from that one reminded him uncomfortably of his younger years spent as a pyromaniac and quite the amateur arsonist.

He took the fourth hit. That cloud of smoke reminded him of the mushroom bomb rising in one of his nightmares. His nightmares always seemed so real. They always seemed too real. His nightmares were like something out of a Freddy Krueger movie.

He took the fourth hit. This one was rather small as the bowl's supply of fuel was diminished. Cole let out a disgruntled sigh.

He took a fifth hit. He emitted a satisfying cloud of smoke that wafted towards his ceiling as if through a fog.

"Woah," he said softly. "I'm stoned."

He looked at the bowl.

"It's basically empty," he assured himself as he stood up and put some pants on.

It was the old pair of jeans that he had worn when he had gone to paint his friend's mother's house. They were stained with Picasso yellow.

The birds were driving Cole nuts. Outside, through the window he had opened. They were constantly tittering and chittering and cawing and chirping.

"Am I really going to go out into that?" he asked himself scathingly.

He replied, "Yes."

"You better take your car keys," he suggested to himself darkly, and there was something very low and warning in his own voice.

"Sure," Cole replied to himself cheerfully.

As he headed out the door, the car keys remained sitting beside the keyboard. Beside the half-empty pipe and the empty can of Yoohoo.

Cole came back in quickly.

"Shit, forgot my cigarettes," he muttered.

He snatched up the pack of cigarettes and his lighter and quickly hurried outside onto the back porch after hastily putting his shoes and socks on. He had forgotten those as well.

As he went outside, he turned on his Internet playlist on his Android and let the tunes roll.

"Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainy stinging clear," Incubus sang. "And I can't help but ask myself how much I let the fear take the wheel and steer."

"Right on," Cole muttered as he lit a cigarette. "Right on."

"Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there with open arms and open eyes, yeah," the song continued. "Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there. I'll be there."

"You're braver than me," Cole muttered defensively.

He quickly switched the song.

"How many times have you been pushed around? Is anybody there? Does anybody care? And how many times have your friends let you down? Is anybody there? Did anybody stare?"

Cole grinned. Our Lady Peace was the shit.

"Life is waiting for you. It's messed up but we're alive. Oh, life is waiting for you. It's all messed up but we're surviving."

Cole frowned.

"Is everybody high? Is everyone afraid? And how many times have you wished that you were strong? Have they ever seen your heart? Have they ever seen your pain?"

He switched the song. He hated when the songs were too true.

"The truth hurts," he whispered as he waited for the new song to begin.

He groaned as a commercial played. The commercial went off and the new song began. He nodded calmly as he recognized the beginnining.

"When all is said and done and dead, does he love you the way that I do? Breathing in lightning, tonight's for fighting. I feel the hurt, so physical."

Cole closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead in frustration. This song always reminded him of his ex-girlfriend. He could only ever think of her with bitter pain these days but some desperate insatiable part of him loved to think about her no matter what. Some desperate insatiable part of him loved songs like this. There were many like it on the playlist.

Okay, so there was a shitload like that on the playlist. That was a secret, though. He switched to another song and recognized it as his ringtone for his phone.

"What a kickass song," he whispered with that little crooked grin.

It was actually the ringtone for calls from his friend named ... Rhett. It was Beginning of the End by Spineshank. Rhett was basically a dangerous sociopath, and Cole thought he needed a badass song as his ringtone. The chorus was the actual ringtone, however. It kicked ass.

"It's the beginning of the end and I don't know where we lost control. It's the beginning of the end and I know that I am all alone."

When Cole thought about it, the chorus really described the friendship that he had with Rhett. It was always the beginning of the end with Rhett. Drama was a big part of it.

He laughed softly and switched the song. Another commercial.

"Fuck," Cole murmured. He switched the playlist off and stuffed his Android back in his pocket.

His eyes slid up and focused on the driveway.

There was only one car there.

He smiled with a sigh of relief and traipsed down the steps and got eagerly into the car. He rolled down the window so the smoke wouldn't completely fucking kill him in the closed and nearly air-tight environment.

He leaned back in the familiar stained seat and sighed, closing his eyes. He hadn't felt this relaxed in months.

Fantasy has the same basic rules as reality.

When things get better, they get worse a lot quicker.

 

I got very high for purposes of writing this. I'm sure it shows. I'm going to go and play some video games, I am fucking wasted guys.

Chapter 6: Cole Spoke To Himself Today

The air was starting to get really hot. Cole had known it would be hot inside the metal car on a summer day, but he hadn't expected this. He could feel his mouth drying and then there wasn't any more drying. It was dried.

"Wow," Cole wheezed.

He looked around, holding his throat. It felt like it was closing. The fucking car was trying to kill him!

He groped for the door handle but it was like a drowning man groping for something buoyant. His flailing attempts were only making him tire faster. His whole arm seared with pain. He looked down and saw that the cigarette had fallen from between his trembling fingers and it had burned his arm terribly.

"Fuuuuuuuck," Cole whispered, accentuating the world as quietly -- yet painfully -- as possible.

When he looked around, he could see clearly again. He could breathe again. Whatever hold that the car had possessed over him had been broken by the pain of the nasty cigarette burn.

"That's right, fuck you," Cole whispered. "You lose."

The wide, stupid grin of victory was still on Cole's face as he turned to look to his left, towards the street. He glimpsed something walking along the road through the trees...

It was just a little kid, probably ecstatic to be out from school and on its way to---

LOOK AGAIN!

Cole's eyes widened with horror. The child was staring at him, and it hadn't even turned to face him. Its head had turned impossibly on its neck like some grotesque owl-human hybrid.

That was not a child. Whatever it looked like, it was not a human child.

The not-kid's decayed skin was peeling. Its eye was trying to focus even as maggots feasted upon it. The fact of its smile was disturbing, but the smile itself was even more unpleasant. Moss covered the teeth and Cole glimpsed a human middle finger between two of the fangs. They were fangs.

"You lose," it said in a high child's voice, and giggled hysterically.

Cole calmly exited the car and walked back up the steps to his porch. He walked back into his house. He muttered a 'what's up' greeting to his mother's boyfriend, and entered his room. He locked the door behind him.

He sat down on his bed.

He didn't say anything.

He didn't say a word.

-----------------------------

Cole wondered if it had been a dream.

Did he fall asleep or had he just been sitting in a sort of apathetic coma on his bed staring into nothingness? No one would bother to check on him. If he died quietly enough in his room, he wouldn't be found for hours...

Cole shook off that nasty thought.

"I'm just g-going to listen to m-music again," Cole stammered, more to himself than anyone else for once.

Then again, wasn't he always talking to himself in one way or another?

Cole ignored that little suggestion and sat down in his computer chair and brought up the playlist on his desktop this time. He went to a special playlist. It was his suicide playlist, full of songs that were probably about suicide. Some were definitely about suicide.

Cole selected a random song and smiled as he heard it begin. He knew the lyrics to this song by heart. He sang along.

"Wake in a sweat again," Chester and Cole sang. "Another day's been laid to waste in my disgrace. Stuck in my head again. Feels like I'll never leave this place. There's no escape. I'm my own worst enemy."

Cole stopped, tired from his strange day already. He waited for the chorus. He was ready and belted it out when it came.

"I've given up. I'm sick of feeling. Is there nothing you can say? Take this all away. I'm suffocating. Tell me what the fuck is wrong with me!"

Cole packed another bowl as he paused the song and selected another one as he prepared to hit the bowl. He was in his groove now. He was forgetting The Incident That Would Be Forgotten outside.

"Out home drawing pictures of mountaintops with him on top," Eddie sang. "Lemon-yellow sun. Arms raised in a V. The dead lay in pools of maroon below."

Cole grinned slightly. It wasn't an expression of amusement. It was an acknowledgement that he had felt that way once. Maybe he still did. He hit the bowl and chuckled to himself as the song continued.

"Daddy didn't give attention to the fact that mommy didn't care. King Jeremy the wicked ruled his world."

The song was about a kid that had shot himself in front of his classmates. Up until then he had been a quiet boy. On that day however, Jeremy "spoke" in class. He pulled the trigger. It was a powerful song.

Cole wondered if anyone would care unless he did it like that. Would he get a song written about him by Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam or Blink-182? Somehow he doubted it. Somehow he wouldn't hold his breath waiting for that.

Cole realized that without thinking, he had taken four or five more hits. He was feeling a bit too good.

"Shit," he murmured.

Those birds were back. Chirp chirp chirping away. Cole walked over to the window, looked down at the car quietly for one long instant before shutting the window and sitting back down.

"Man, I want some fucking ice cream," he said out of nowhere with a touch of hysteria in his voice. "Where is that fucking ice cream truck when I need some ice cream? This is bullshit."

Voices -- loud and contemptuous and hauntingly real -- were assaulting the edge of his mind as Cole laid in his bed and covered up against the invasion.

 

(Not getting many comments. This kinda sucks. Might have to sic Zombie Kid on you muhfuckas.)

Chapter 7: A Fat Bitch Named Bridget

When he woke up and went outside again to smoke, he was sober.

The world seemed a lot better when he was sober. He didn't see two cars when he was sober. There weren't any zombie kids when he was sober, except for those pill-junkie kids from down the road that sometimes stumbled by on their way to the store. The birdsong when he was sober was beautiful and melodious.

Cole sat and smoked and watched a little black bird pecking its beak into the grass to find worms. Dark thoughts inevitably crept at the back of his mind and voiced their opinions.

It was like whatever evil force was torturing him. It was pecking its beak into the grass of Cole's skull and searching for the worms in the dirt and brains beneath. It was trying to eat Cole alive.

"Bullshit," Cole said and headed back inside.

He sat down and picked up his pipe with a sigh of resignation. He glanced at the television screen. Rhett had called him earlier that morning. A lot of fucked-up shit had gone down at his house the night before. Cole had offered the best advice that he could offer, and Rhett had seemed a bit happier when he hung up the phone.

"I'm useful for some things," Cole commented wryly in the silence of his room.

He noticed that Happy Gilmore was on. Adam Sandler could be a funny guy when he wanted to. Cole laughed as Chubbs fell through the window. He laughed as Adam Sandler shook the wooden hand at the funeral.

"You gotta love Happy Gilmore," he whispered as he walked over to the open window and tapped out the ashes from the most recent bowl he had smoked.

He looked out warily on the outside world as he did. He watched a bumblebee winging its way imperiously through the skies. He stuck his tongue out at it and lowered the window a bit more to discourage its entrance into his domain.

He got a text message and laid the pipe aside beside his computer mouse as he checked his phone.

His girlfriend had bought a dress apparently. He had always thought she'd look good in a dress.

"Suhweeeeet," he typed back and laid the phone aside.

He picked the pipe up again and began packing another bowl. Another text message bleeped on his phone. He sighed and checked it again.

"I dunno if I like it though," his girlfriend had replied. "It makes me look like a fat lard."

Cole typed out a response.

"I doubt that," it read.

He finished packing the bowl and sat back to smoke and watch Happy Gilmore. It seemed like the setup for a good day.

"This is my kind of movie," Cole said with a grin before taking his first hit.

He took another one, and looked at the screen as he blew the smoke out through his nose.

"Happy's getting angry," he murmured. "He's losing."

He was sitting in his computer chair all of a sudden.

"Wow," he said. "Wasn't I here all along?"

He took another hit and went to Google.com on Firefox. He typed in "car tried to kill me" in the search bar. He didn't find anything.

"It was worth a shot," Cole said with that crooked smile.

This all sort of reminded Cole of Pennywise the clown from Stephen King's It. It reminded him of the classic book and the movie. Shit had gone down like that in It, and also in The Shining. Pennywise the clown was horrifying. It had traumatized Cole when he had watched it as a kid.

Cole remembered the Happy Gilmore scene with the clown at the miniature golf course and began laughing. He doubled over in the chair wheezing with laughter. He kept trying to say something, but he couldn't stop laughing.

"You're gonna die, clown," he whispered finally, and collapsed in a fit of giggles.

He took another hit, and then he took another.

"You're gonna die."

---------------------------

Cole sat there staring at the pipe and the empty container that had held his stash of drugs. The pipe was all crusty and nasty from days of relentless smoking. Cole made a mental note to wash it out before he smoked from it again.

"Well," he muttered. "This sucks."

He slid a cigarette from the rapidly emptying pack and headed outside. He was trying to get his mind off the fact that he was pretty much doomed to be sober unless he got some more shit.

He sat on the steps of the back porch and lit up his cigarette, staring intently at his car... It was the only one in the driveway. His mother had gone to work to take care of some woman with Alzheimer's. That was her job. She had sounded worried about the woman possibly beating her up.

"Work sucks," Cole said, offering his own opinion on the job.

He took a big drag off the cigarette and closed his eyes as he blew the smoke out. He was trying to relax and enjoy being sober before he went to pick up a new supply from his dealer. He was an Indian guy who lived a few streets away. It wasn't much of a drive, but Cole was still nervous.

He didn't want to dwell on it, but the thought was there regardless.

What if my other car shows up? What if no one is in it? What if it tries to run me off the road?

Cole sighed and took another hit off the cigarette before tossing it aside. He would just have to give it a shot. It was either that or stay sober. It was either that or sit on his bed and blankly play video games. It was either that or sit on his bed in an apathetic daze and stare into space.

Isn't that what being high is? The question made Cole smirk as he stood up and headed back inside to get his car keys from the computer desk.

"Yes, but I have to be high," he replied to himself.

He walked out to his car and hopped in, turning the key in the ignition and hearing the familiar roar of the engine. He loved this car. It was his first car. He pulled out of the driveway and sped off down the road, nearly running a stop sign. He was eager to get his shit.

He turned on the CD player and laughed out loud at the ironic song that played over the speakers. He sang along with it. He knew the lyrics to this song as well.

"I want a rusty axe. I want to know voodoo. A fat bitch named Bridget. And a little sip of Faygo too. Until I get my shit in this motherfucker, I won't ever die!"

Cole turned the CD player off. ICP could be funny at times, but it wasn't something to listen to for more than a few minutes.

He looked in the rear-view mirror and froze. Could that possibly be a '95 Honda Prelude following him? Could that possibly be his own car, despite the fact that he was driving it?

The answer was already there.

Anything was possible now.

EDIT: Hell I'm already up to Chapter 9. Just waiting on comments. Disrupting my flow, yo.)

 

Awesome. See that's what I want, high comments from fellow blades like unknown and Britt.

 

(This chapter is my masterpiece. I just blazed through it with a big arrogant grin knowing that I rule. Tommy Woods is my favorite character to date. What a fucking awesome guy.)

Chapter 8: ...Now You Don't

Cole didn't stop to consider the ramifications of that eensy weensy thought in their complex entirety.

He stepped on the accelerator and got the little Honda moving. He whipped around a curve.... and all of a sudden there was that little kid in front of the car. Except, he wasn't a zombie now. He was one hundred percent grade A human.

"Holy fuck!" Cole yelled clearly, before whipping the wheel back to the left desperately.

The car swung in a wild arc and jumped the curb, barreling its way straight into the side of a house. It didn't stop. It kept going until it plowed right through the wall and straight into the bedroom of Tommy Woods, the town sheriff. Cole's face slammed into the steering wheel, and that was the end of the chapter for Cole for all intents and purposes.

-----------------------

Tommy Woods rolled out of bed and was up in an instant, grabbing his .380 from under the prostitute's pillow without batting an eyelash. Yes sir, Tom Woods was a solid and ballsy little bastard. He was only five foot four.

"What in the blue brazes of hellfire itself is going on here?!" Woods screamed drunkenly. "A god-damn car just drove through my fucking wall! You had better answer me before I open fire! I will in T-minus nine seconds, so help me God!"

"Woah woah woah!" the prostitute yelled.

She was also slurring a bit obviously.

"Calm down!" she demanded. "I think the guy's unconscious. Relax that trigger finger, Al Pacino."

Woods realized she was right and lowered the pistol reluctantly.

"Hey!" he yelled with sudden realization. "It's that whacko boy from down the road, Jessica!"

Her lips curled in fear and distaste.

"Well..." she said slowly. "You could still shoot him."

Woods considered the notion for a moment, then saw sirens up the road and sighed softly. He hated cops. He was a cop. He was a dirty cop, and got a big piece of the action. Hell, he got Jessica for free. Some drug dealer had owed him a favor.

She was the dealer's girlfriend.

"Naaaah," Woods drawled sheepishly. "Go make Al Pacino a cappucino, sugar tits. It's gonna be a long fuckin' morning."

"Oh shit, dude," Jessica Sugar-Tits mumbled but headed towards the kitchen obediently.

He scored her funk and she supplied her Junk. My disease-filled Junk, Jessica thought with a contemptuous smirk.

Woods picked his way through the rubble of what had once been his bedroom wall and skirted past the smashed and smoking front end of the blue Honda. He opened the door and dragged the crazy bastard out and laid him dismissively in the gravel driveway after cuffing him for precautionary reasons. The kid was completely nuts, after all.

He waited impatiently in the road waiting for the other cops to show up. He didn't even bother to put away the .380. He had a just cause for wanting to keep it out. This was a very delicate situation. Besides, he liked showing off his weaponry to that hot mamacita next door.

He winked at her where she was watching through her window. She winked back and waved flirtatiously. She cocked her head as she heard her husband call for her and made the 'Call me' gesture with her fingers before stepping out of view.

Woods looked over his shoulder at the heap of shit laying in his driveway and smirked. That kid wasn't going to be showing his ugly face around this neighborhood for a while. Hell, he wouldn't be showing much of a face anywhere for a while. His face looked smashed beyond repair. His car was certainly smashed beyond repair.

That thing wouldn't be driving ever again. It was off to the junkyards for that pretty little Prelude.

Tommy looked over to see a mother comforting her crying child in the street. For a moment, the child blinked away its tears and noticed Woods watching. It smiled for the briefest instant. Something shimmered -- fangs?! The child resumed its sobbing and buried its face in its mother's shoulder.

It.

Woods couldn't seem to think of that child as 'he' or 'she'. In fact, he refused to. Had he really seen those fangs?

"Keep it together," he murmured to himself. "You are a cop, God blast it."

He looked down the street for the other cops that were just moseying along towards him for some reason. He really would like if they would hurry. Woods wished that they would hurry. He prayed that they would hurry. Woods wanted them to hurry their happy asses up.

He might need backup.

"That's a silly thought though, isn't it?" he asked himself. "Isn't it?"

He laughed. It was an uncertain, desperate sort of laugh. His bravado had seemed to go out the window at the sight of it's fangs. Had they been fangs? He dared himself to look again, but he refused to.

He wasn't playing this game, where there were winners and losers. Woods was a winner. He had been a winner in football in high school and he had been a winner in the academy. God-damn it, he had been a winner as a beat cop. He had been a winner, and now he was the youngest sheriff in this particular town in forty-seven years.

Still, all the same....

"Hurry up," Woods whispered.

He danced uncomfortably from foot to foot with the .380 clenched tightly in a one hand dangling at his side. His teeth were chattering and his breath seemed to be coming up short.

He looked down and was shocked to see Cole sitting up with his hands cuffed behind him back.

He was shocked to see Cole's mouth open somewhere in the bloody remnants of his face.

He was shocked to hear Cole whisper, "Do you see It, too?"

Cole smiled.

That smile was silent, but it had a lot to say in other languages. There were other languages. That smile spoke in them.

It said, "Welcome to Hell. Jump right in, the lava's fine."