The town dissolved behind us. I turned to Horse who was slumped on the passenger’s side, the bottle of Jack sloshing between his legs. "You should put that away?" I said.

"You gonna be a paranoid bitch the whole time?"

Only yesterday we were sitting in my room sharing a joint. I’d felt relentlessly stupid; content in my withdrawal from life. I had a useless job making a pathetic wage; twenty-two and still living with my mom. I’d started taking comfort in going nowhere.

"Dude, I gotta take a piss."

"Jesus Christ . . . we just left!"

"I’ll piss on the fucking floor!" Horse warned.

I pulled into a gas station.

"Three hotdogs for ninety-nine cents." There was a sign. Horse got out.

I stood by the car and suffered my aching stomach. The high I’d gotten at Tommy’s had since receded into a boggy wakefulness. It’s not like I hadn’t been in Lakeside before; at this very same gas station. Maybe it was the idea of hot dogs smothered in cheap, runny catsup. Or perhaps the strong premonition that we would not be coming back.

I filled the tank. The smell of gas fumes made me want to puke. Already I was looking forward to cheap motel somewhere along the highway.

There was no telling how far we would make it. Maybe Newport. I knew the road well enough. We had driven it many times . . . back when we were a family.

Horse came out with three hotdogs cradled in his arms. "You can have one if you want."

"I don’t want one."

"Whatever."

- - - - - - -

The rain continued to spew down. The sky darkened. The road was difficult at first. Horse hunched reading, squinting his eyes in the half light.

"What are you reading?"

Horse had a contemplative side that was largely overlooked.

"Notes From the Underground."

"Any good."

"I’ve read it before."

Horse believed that we were devolving as a race; that humanity was moving away from the thing that spawned it; despondent and ritualistic. ‘Awaiting the slaughter’, as he put it. He wrote some of it down, but most of it was in his head. It became a kind of lucid babble when he was stoned.

In high school Horse spent more time reading random literature then what was actually assigned. He argued with teacher’s about things that were non-essential to the curriculum, but essential none-the-less.

"Why did you wait this long?" I asked.

Hair obscured his face, the tips grazing the pages of the book he read.

"Doesn’t that make you sick?"

"Not really."

"I was just curious," I said.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" One of Horse’s eyes peered sideways at me; in between tangles, like a bead of oil.

I really wanted to know. "Why the fuck did you wait?"

"For what?"

"To leave."

Horse sat up. The book was still opened on his lap.

"Seems like you should’ve left a long time ago."

"Fuck, Pete! How long have we been talking about it?!"

I groped on the floor for a tape. Bleach was still in the deck.

We could see the lights of Florence through the trees. It was practically night. Horse closed the book and tossed it onto the backseat. "Wanna roast one?"

I swapped out tapes. Tool’s Stinkfist came on.

Horse packed a fat one. We were at a stoplight. Beside us, two teenaged girls gawked. "They look dumb and stupid," he said. "But fuckable."

"They all look fuckable," I said.

"Not all of ‘em."

Horse rolled down his window. The light turned green. He yelled something before we were whisked away.

"Did they hear you?"

"I’m not sure," he said.

The girl’s slowed down.

"Wait," said Horse.

They turned toward the beach.

"Wanna follow ‘em?"

"Nah," I said.

"Why not? What’s your fucking hurry?"

"I didn’t sleep last night."

"So?"

"So, I’m fucking tired."

- - - - - - -

We stayed the night in Depot Bay. Horse and I split the cost of an excessively cheap motel room. The woman who took our money was covered in cigarette smoke.

"Look at all the fucking seagull shit."

Horse unlocked the door.

The room smelled like the woman.

There was a generic painting above the bed; a lighthouse lost in the distance.

From our room you could hear the ocean.

Horse sat at the edge of the bed and flipped on the television. "Cable," he said.

"They all have cable."

"How do you know?"

There were two beds with a foot of dark space between them. Horse took the one closest to the door. We watched a documentary on the History channel; a portion of an eight part mini series about Hitler.

"He wasn’t much different then Christ, you know?"

I was almost asleep. I peered at Horse through my fatigue; thirty hours worth at least.

"I mean, he was just trying to help his people."

"Christ was a Jew," I muttered.

"Dude, go to sleep."

- - - - - - -

I had a dream that Horse was being nailed to a cross; one forged out of shiny, brown bones twisting skyward. The skulls of animals and men were piled in haphazard array around his feet.

Sam was there. And Rich.

There were also a lot of people I didn’t know.

Everyone was naked and covered in dust. They were just standing there, looking at Horse, the dust clinging to the wetness of their eyes. The sky was filled with it; a dead, Biblical fog blocking out the world.

I turned around to find Hitler standing exactly on the edge of my vision. The dust turned up and roiled behind him. He stepped forward, but slowly. His face was pale and hard. "Do I know you?" He asked.

Suddenly, I understood German.

"I don’t think so."

"You look familiar."

"That’s Pete."

Hitler looked up at Horse, who was leering down at us.

Horse spat, red like his blood. He struggled against the spikes in his wrists. Runnels of blood wound through dust down his arms. His cock became erect.

He spat again, this time tagging Hitler in the eye. "Fuck you."

"I’m only here because of this maggot." Hitler looked at me.

"That’s Pete," he said again. "A friend of mine."

"A boy like you shouldn’t have friends."

Horse came before dying; thick and pungent. It beaded up darkly in the dust.

Hitler headed back toward the edge. The rest followed. I was alone with Horse dying on the cross. "It doesn’t matter anyway," he said.

- - - - - - -

"That’s when I woke up."

The ocean was in turmoil beneath us. There was brick wall guarding us against it. People walked up and down a boardwalk. Across the highway there were several shops, all of them peddling the same cheap shit: magnets of sunsets with Oregon or Depot Bay scrolled across in neon; hats covered in fake seagull shit declaring: I Hate Seagulls; sea shell schooners.

"Don’t you remember our conversation from last night?"

"I was so fucking tired."

"You want to take some of that acid."

"It’s past noon."

"Why are you in such a fucking hurry?"

Horse bought some salt water taffy and ate it in the car. He offered me some.

"No thanks."

"Don’t you ever eat?"

"That shit gets stuck in your teeth."

"You’re the one who knows where the fuck your going."

"Kinda.

"I don’t know," he said. "You want some," The hit was uniformly pale in the wrinkled center of his palm.

"Nah."

Further down the coast.

"Stop here," said Horse.

There was a bookstore on the right side of the highway. We were coming into Lincoln City.

The was a mural on the parking lot side of the building. A prince, or something, reading a book beneath a tree. Horse stood looking at it for a while. It was the acid.

"Going in?"

"Yeah."

The store was labyrinthine; nooks twisting into narrow aisles. Books were stacked to the ceiling in places. The proprietor sat behind a battlement of glass cases filled with old, expensive looking books. "Let me know if I can help you find anything?"

"Do you have the Necronomicon?" Horse wanted to know.

"The cheap paperback version? Or the one bound in human flesh?" He joked.

Horse, stoned, playing along. "Human flesh, of course."

"I have a letter that H.P. Lovecraft wrote to Clark Ashton Smith."

"Did you know that H. P. was a fascist? He had a black cat that he called Nigger Cat . . . that was it’s name." Sweat was breaking out Horse’s pores. "I’m gonna go look around," he said.

"Would you like to see the letter?"

Horse wandered off, the proprietors voice diminishing behind him.

"Tell him it’s not real," he told me.

"What?"

"The Necronomicon."

"He knows."

When I found Horse he was sitting on the floor flipping through a book of Frances Bacon’s art. It reminded of some of the paintings he did in high school; heaped figures, opened and blurred against a nightmare landscape; real, organic worlds peopled by defiled artifacts . . . wet holes through one world and into another . . . doors into Horse’s mind.

"Do you want to go?"

"Where?" Horse was lost there.

"Up the coast."

"I never wanna leave," he muttered.

"We have to . . . eventually."

Horse looked up and into me.

"I’m hungry," I said.

"So go eat."

"I want you to come with me."

"Why the fuck . . ?"

"Dude, your tripping."

"It was only a hit."

"It’s good acid."

"Fuck right."

"Come on."

"But I want to find something."

"What?"

"Something."

- - - - - - -

Horse bought a tattered copy of Waiting For Godot. We continued heading north, stopping a Taco Bell along the way. I ordered two seven layer burritos and several tacos.

"I don’t want any," muttered Horse.

"You’ll be hungry later."

A fat, redheaded girl with braces handed me our order. "Can we get some extra hot sauce packets?"

"How many?"

"I don’t know . . . a fistful."

The bag was opened between us. Her fat, freckled claw hovered above the mouth and opened.

Horse closed Godot. "Some days I feel like the Devil. And some days like God. How do you explain that?"

The road curved ahead. I didn’t answer.

"That dream you had . . ?"

"I thought it was because of some show," I said.

The road straightened. It started raining. Horse handed me the pipe with one hand and took the wheel with the other. The hit burned my throat, but tasted fine.

"The book," he said.

I handed Horse the pipe and rolled down the window. The rain felt fine on my face.

"We truly are slaves, aren’t we?"

Horse was coming off the acid. His tone was slight, fragile; his words sluicing off the fire of his mind.

"What does that have to do with my dream?"

"I don’t know . . . maybe nothing. The book made me think of it."

"It’s getting dark again," I said.

- - - - - - -

The joint Horse handed me smoked from my fingers. It was the first time we’d ever gotten stoned; the first time I’d ever gotten stoned, period.

"You gotta hold it longer". Horse sat on a gravestone across from me. It was twilight, making his face appear cadaverous. I breathed as deep as I could and held it.

There was a tight feeling around my skull. "I feel like I’m wearing some kind of helmet."

Horse hopped off the stone and pocketed the joint nub. "Can you feel ‘em?"

"What?"

"Ghosts, man . . . the dead."

I laughed at him, for the first time ever. He wasn’t expecting it.

"What’s so funny?!"

"Nothing," I said. "It feels good."

We walked up a hill, winding in between the stones. From the top you could see the whole town. "Look at this fucking shit!"

Horse whipped out his cock and pissed on a old, wooden cross.

"Do you really believe in ghosts?" I asked.

Zipping his pants. Lighting a cigarette. Horse grew faint in the coming darkness. The stones grew into the nub like protrusions of scattered teeth. I thought a lot about the bones underneath; tight, flaxen skin and coarse hair . . . months, years of decay. There were even a few who had been here longer than a century . . . dust.

And the trees were skewed memories; twisting limbs of winter . . . bones themselves, growing into the sky.

"I just want to get the fuck out of here," he said. "Someday."

"Have you ever seen one?"

"What?"

"A ghost."

"Once," he said.

"What was it like?"

"Comforting."

- - - - - - -

We stayed in Seaside.

I glanced out at the ocean; oblique and seemingly motionless beneath the ink sky.

"Take this." Horse handed me the same hit of acid that he’d offered earlier.

There was no sense in trying to avoid it.

I slipped the paper into mouth. I chewed nervously. "Aren’t you tired?"

But I knew that he wasn’t. Horse had the ability to go on nothing, forever. It was like all the times he took me hunting behind his house; deeper and deeper into the wild landscape . . . caked in mud . . . hands numb from exposing them to our weaponry. Horse wouldn’t stop until something was dead. Up sloping creek beds and into ravines, the sun on the verge of collapsing over the viewless horizon . . . darkness.

We went outside.

A lengthy boardwalk skirted the ocean.

The rain had stopped, but the night was cool.

"We used to stay here," I said.

Horse and I turned up a street of lights.

"You should see it in the summer."

It was Coney Island, Oregon style: The spasm of arcade lights juxtaposed with the aroma of pizza; bumper cars, a carousel; a veritable hive of mediocre tourist attractions.

The people wandering by seemed stupid and oblivious.

Horse looked like a skeleton beneath the flashing lights "What the fuck is this?"

"The edge," I said.

"The edge of what?"

The acid was kicking in. I began to feel like I could stand there forever, like Horse in the bookstore. It really didn’t matter if I was alive or a dead; a king, a peasant . . . it didn’t matter if I was alone or not . . . filling space, or denying it.

Horse was talking to some girl; maybe he had been for a long time.

"Seattle," he said.

"Cool."

Horse loomed above. The girl was sitting on a bench.

Taking out a cigarette, she asked Horse if he wanted one.

"That’s Pete," he said, pointing at me.

Her legs were open. I could see the outline of her cunt. It gave me butterflies. My cock twitched lethargically The girl was smiling at me, but from very far away. "Hey," I said.

"What are you doing?" Horse wanted to know.

"Nothing," she said. "Escaping. I’m here with my parents . . . my brother. We’ve been driving all day. I don’t know why they wanted to come here."

"You want some acid? You know, if you really want to escape."

"I don’t know," she said. "I told them I wouldn’t be out long."

I stood on the edge of the conversation, hands in my pockets. I wasn’t sure for how long.

I could smell the ocean. Somehow, it crept out of that thick, carnival aroma.

A car passed by blaring rap music; two mule faced jock types with their hats screwed back on their heads. That and the concurrent din of reparatory machinations; needling arcade sounds.

The back of my head began to ache.

The girl got off the bench and followed us down the street of lights; toward the beach.

"It’s okay," said Horse. "Pete and I will take care of you."

"Only for a while," she said.

Someone bumped into me; one of the beefhead assholes who’d driven past.

It occurred to me how small their eyes were . . . faces like flesh toned wax melted over thick, Neanderthal skulls . . . the malleable substance of their minds huddled in the forever darkness of infinite ignorance.

It was easy to judge them. I’m just glad it wasn’t Horse. Especially on acid.

They’d kick his fucking ass.

"Where we going?" The girl wanted to know.

Horse and I had gone to high school with fuck-dicks like that.

There was a roundabout at the end of the street; a stairway leading down to the beach on either side.

"It’s fucking freezing," I muttered.

"Quit your pussing."

We followed Horse down. The girl’s name was Aya. She stood between us.

Aya’s red hair whipped frantically in the wind. The lights were dimming behind us. I felt a moment of doom; a vulnerable instant of despair.

There were tears in my eyes, but it was probably just the wind.

We stopped where the water started.

It might have been easier to keep going.

Horse told Aya to hold out her hand. He took a second hit. "Pete?"

"I’m fine."

I blamed the beefhead for my despair . . . the moment he bumped into me.

We sat in the sand and shared a bowl. The wind kept killing our fire. We each had to wrap our hands around the others flame in a crude, yet oddly sanctimonious, ritual.

"This is just fucking weird," said Aya.

"What?"

"I don’t," she said. "We just got here. I’ve only tried acid once."

Horse invited Aya back to our room. We were happy to get out of the cold. Aya sat back on the bed.

The outline of her cunt . . .

"I don’t know if I can sit," she said.

Horse poured a drink and handed it to her. "Courtesy of Pete’s mom."

"My parents are going to kill me," she said.

"Are you afraid of them?" Asked Horse.

"I don’t know . . . not really."

"Do you think they’re capable of murder?"

Aya, sipping the drink Horse poured for her. "Do you have anything to put in this? Coke, or something."

"They have a machine outside," I said.

Aya set the cup down. She started to dance around the room. Her body was lithe and tight around her bones. I assumed she wasn’t much older than sixteen.

I turned on the television. The Twilight Zone was on the Sci Fi Channel.

Horse came in with a can of Coke "Here," he said.

I hadn’t even seen him leave the room.

"Fuck!" Said Aya, twisting her body according to some forgotten, primordial instinct.

"Lie down," said Horse.

"It comes in waves," she said. "Like now I feel okay."

Rod Serling smirked amicably. He wanted to take you to a place not only of sight and sound, but of mind.

"Jesus Christ . . !"

"It’s no use fighting it," said Horse.

Turning a light off I got under the covers. I was still freezing my ass off.

My hands took turns warming themselves against my cock.

I propped my head sideways, on a pillow, and watched the show. I was beginning to feel tired again, but not enough to actually sleep.

Horse pulled Aya down on top of him. "Relax."

"I need to go." Aya muttered, groping for the edge of the bed. She was crying and laughing. There was fear in her eyes.

"It’s okay," said Horse, grabbing her wrist and twisting it toward him. "Come here."

I’d witnessed Horse doing this so many times that I’d lost count; either taking my car, or Sam’s truck . . . waiting outside the high school, or at Phil’s, an all ages dance club out on Interlake. Getting girls drunk, stoned, or both . . . convincing them to go with us wherever.

Once, Horse got a girl so drunk she almost died. He fucked her anyway. She was fifteen, sixteen. Her puke had looked like blood because of all the Mad Dog she’d drank. I was drunk too. Horse asked me if I wanted to fuck her when he was done. I think her name was Fiona.

I was always surprised that someone hadn’t come along and beat Horse to death; father, brother . . . anyone who took these girls to be more than young, confused sluts.

"Please," she said.

Horse’s face was changing, the flicker of television getting into the crevices of his expression.

A flicker of memories flooding back; through cemeteries and onward . . . toward the death of our lives. Ghosts. I suddenly felt very bad.

She must of known what she was getting into.

"Come on, dude," I said, letting go of my mostly erect cock.

"I just wanted to have some fun . . ."

Aya was at the door. Her lithe fingers groped violently at the knob, but she’d forgotten how to open it.

"It’s okay," I said. "Let’s smoke another . . . before you go. It’ll help."

"Fuck Pete!"

"Come on Horse."

Aya turned around, her hair flaming around her face like a blood sun. Her eyes were hard, black pearls lodged in the centers of both untrusting eyes.

And then she remembered.

I only hoped she wouldn’t be able to describe the way she’d gotten there.

C. C. Parker resides in Seattle with his wife and daughter. His work has appeared in Dark Muse, Fuzzclog and Flesh and Blood.