I Got A Letter From My Best Friend…He’s Back In Our Hometown. Part 2.

Ryan was fast asleep in the passenger seat as we passed the dilapidated welcome sign to town. I’d never seen the front of this sign before, some letters were faded and worn away, years of withering away in the elements.

GR YWATE

WE’RE SO GLAD TO SEE YOU BACK!

Something about it felt off. It was too enthusiastic. Towns like this one didn't welcome you back with arms wide opened like a toddler. They just existed, indifferent to your arrival or departure.

I watched in the side mirror as we passed it, expecting to see the typical “See you soon!” but it read:

You finally came home

Suddenly, I felt like someone had their hand inside of my head, fiddling around in the creases of gray matter. I pressed my foot down into the brake pedal like a mobster curb stomping on some unlucky rival. The car came to a screeching halt, and Ryan jolted awake as his seat belt locked up.

“Fuck! What happened!? My breathing was sporadic, and my fingernails had fully embedded in the steering wheel—white crescents pressed into leather. I looked back up into the rearview. As quickly as I saw it, it was gone. I squinted a little to focus my vision.

See ya later, friend!

How the fuck?

“There was a dog…it ran across the road. He’s already in the treeline. You okay?” An amateurish transparent lie to try and throw him off.

“Yeah…goddamn.” He let out a big sigh and settled back into his seat as I gave the car some gas.

What is going on with me? What am I so afraid of?

We wound through the outskirts of town, my mind growing foggier as we passed minor roads leading back into the woods, the abundance of trees that guarded homes that crouched beneath fir and cedar canopies began to feel like they were entrapping us; the vegetation growing denser with each passing second.

As we pulled closer to the road that would lead us into the heart of the city, we pulled up to multiple road signs blocking our way, blurting out:

ROAD CLOSED FOR CONSTRUCTION

Bright orange barriers guarded the road. No construction equipment or workers. They just sat there like sentinels. Ryan glanced over at me.

“So do we go around?” He asked. We’d have to backtrack hours through winding back roads that twist and double back on themselves. Hours more before we’d find Luke. I looked around and noticed a small park nestled in the trees just off the road.

“It’s only half a mile to downtown. We’ll park the car there and walk.” Confusion spread across Ryan’s face.

“And what if Luke is as bad as he was last time? You’re gonna have to carry him out of there.” The memory flashed—Luke's body deadweight in the backseat, vomit, piss, and muttered nonsense. The red glow of the emergency room. The beeps and hums that haunted me every waking moment of every day.

“So I’ll fucking carry him.” I was determined to get Luke out of this place, today, and we were losing enough time as it was.

“Fuck, man. Whatever you say.” I knew this trip was

already a burden on him, but this was important. I couldn’t fail my friend again, and we were already losing precious minutes just bickering over it.

I swerved the car sharply into the parking lot of the small rest-stop-like park. Gravel crunched under the tires. The park sat empty around us. Picnic tables weathered gray, trash cans overflowed, and a rusted swing set creaked in the wind.

Through the trees ahead, somewhere in that half-mile of fog, Luke was waiting. I opened the car door. The air that rushed in was cold and damp, tasting of metal, like copper.

Ryan climbed out slowly. Reluctantly. Looking at the trees like they might have tried to move when he wasn’t watching.

"It’s just half a mile," I said again, trying to convince myself, as much as Ryan, that this was worth it.

We stared down through the concrete tunnel, a faint semi-circle of light glowing at the end. I moved one of the signs out of the way and a sharp scratching noise radiated from its legs as they slid across the pavement, echoing down the long, dark tunnel.

“Are we really doing this? What if someone sees us? And if this is actually under construction, couldn’t it cave in or something?” Ryan asked, concerned.

“First off, do you see anyone?” I held an arm up and motioned around, and Ryan stared at me with a slight impatience in his eyes. “Second, the tunnel is built already, it’s been here forever.” I didn’t know how I knew that, it just sprang out from a deep corner in my brain. “They’re probably just re-paving the road through it.” As I tried to reason with Ryan, I caught a glimpse of a memory. The three of us running through that tunnel, holding sticks up, pressed into our shoulders like guns.

Go men, get to the other side! The enemy is on the retreat!

Yeah! Get those Nazi creeps!

Yaaagggghhh!

A few flashes like those hit me all at once. Yeah, we were obsessed with World War II movies and comic books! How could I forget that? Chiseled American action stars with sharp chins leading the way through furious charges against skinny, feminine Nazis. The blood rushed from my face as it passed through my head.

“Jay? You alright? You’re pale as shit.” Ryan asked. Doing my best to recollect myself, I cleared my throat and tugged my green jacket down, refitting it to my frame.

“Yeah, I’m good. I dunno what just hit me…c’mon.” As I made that first step into the tunnel, into a world I somehow knew, but couldn’t remember, the air shifted and swayed, and a strange cold way down in my stomach hit me. A kind of cold I’d never felt before, all encompassing, and it drilled its way into my bones. Somehow, even though Ryan walked beside me through a portal into the unknown-known, I felt so alone.

As the light began to fade, I looked around at the interior walls, and a few strange markings caught my attention. Scratches in the cement, and after squinting a bit, I could make out three short sentences.

The first was lost.

The second must be given.

The third carries the weight.

I tried to justify this as just odd graffiti that some angsty teenager, much like ourselves when we left, must have written. But it was too obvious to be a coincidence; it rattled in my head and shook my bones in odd ways. I felt a slight discomfort in my joints, almost like I had the flu. I started to open my mouth, but caught myself before blabbering about it to Ryan.

He’s already come all this way. I probably shouldn’t scare him off, there’s too much at stake, I thought. It stung in my chest to think like that, feeling like I was tricking my friend into some trap. But what traps could there possibly be in a ghost town like this?

I kept my mouth shut, though I probably shouldn’t have. I just kept walking into the darkness, dragging my friend into this mess with me.

There were large gaping holes in the asphalt, cracks that would have shredded the tires of any massive haul truck that dared tread this path, let alone a weary asphalt paver, and they got worse the further we got into the tunnel.

Through the last third of the tunnel, I completely forgotten that Ryan was there with me. That cold mixed with a claustrophobia took me over, even though the tunnel was at least fifteen feet wide. It wasn’t the walls, but an odd pressure that built all around me. I felt like I was being watched from every angle, like the walls were covered with eyes that waited to launch arms out at me and pull me in.

And then there was light. All of that built up tightness suddenly released as we came out the other side.

Then there it was. We made it. We were home.

____

The town looked like any other you might have seen while on a long road trip through the Pacific Northwest. Lots of quaint buildings engulfed your typical downtown square. But this place was unfamiliar to me. Street names twisted and folded in my head. One-way streets that led only to dead ends, roundabouts that spun webs of confusion. I got turned around more times than my pride could take.

The architecture screamed that the founders needed this to be a tourist destination. Instead, they got a town of maybe six thousand trying to wear the clothes of somewhere important. Two-story apartment buildings with bay windows that might have once been beautiful, squeezed together from sidewalk to sidewalk. Little abandoned shops and restaurants occupied their first floors, like organs in a body that had shut down in the years after we left.

“You seein’ this?” He gave me a perplexed look. “This place is dead.”

“Was this place ever really alive?” His answer caused me to dig deep into my memories.

“Can I tell you something? Promise not to call me crazy?” I asked.

“Hit me.”

“I…I can’t remember anything. About this town, I mean. This is our HOMETOWN. Why can’t I remember?” Ryan was a deer caught in the headlights, with a mix of nausea showing through his now pale green features.

“I can’t either.” I was lost for words, and an eerie silence stretched on for what seemed like eternity. It made my skin crawl in a way I hadn't felt in a long time, some strange itch scratching a far-off memory deep within my brain.

We strolled crooked sidewalks that seemed to shift when we weren’t looking. Street signs twisted and blurred as we made our way across crosswalks that felt off center. I spotted a directory at the edge of the block; one of those tourist maps showing downtown's layout. Like any tourist would want to be here, right? A record shop. A bookstore or two. And two blocks south, a bar called Patty's.

“If anyone’s seen Luke, it’s a bartender,” Ryan suggested. Unfortunately, he was right on the mark. Anytime he went away on one of his benders, we could always follow a similar trail that he left behind. Once one bartender kicked him out, he'd simply move on to the next.

“Agreed.”

We passed a few people as we walked towards the bar, and this set my mind at ease a little, even though they seemed tired and not entirely present. Empty eyes in expressionless faces drifted past us without acknowledgment. It still felt a little deserted for downtown a few hours before the dinner rush, though. I can’t be entirely sure of what I really expected anyways. Even I stood smack dab in the middle of it, my memories of this place remained faded. Back beyond some wall my subconscious had put up. I tried to push it out of my mind and take in the scenery instead of dwelling on it.

In the center of downtown, there was a tiny park adorned with a splash pad and little jungle gyms. The small trees were popping with vibrant oranges and yellows, but as I focused my attention on them, they almost looked like they were rotting. There were baron patches that didn’t have any bark, accompanied by an almost black discoloration. The jungle gyms had subtle hints of rust throughout their many connecting metal bars. All of the sidewalks had too many cracks to count, with dead bolts of grass crawling out of them. I was surprised they could even hold our weight. Three young boys played on swing sets that creaked and moaned with every push. The sound was awful, pained from years of neglect, but the boys didn’t notice. They laughed and played freely, unaware of the decay that threatened to pull them in. Something in me wanted to warn them, but I didn’t know what I’d be telling them to run from.

Finally, we stumbled upon our destination. I looked up at the sign hanging above the doors.

Patty’s Bar & Pub. Your last stop for the night.

I grabbed the door and held it open for Ryan.

Inside, the smell hit immediately—fried everything mixed with stale beer, the scent of a place that had been dying slowly for years. One older man sat at the bar, beer half-empty and probably flat, with a bowl of peanuts sitting beside it. The shells of which were scattered around his chair like evidence at a crime scene. Two other men occupied a booth on the far side, silent and still.

"I'll ask around in here if you wanna hit the bathrooms."

I nodded and looked around for them. A bright red arrow-shaped sign that hung next to the bar caught my attention. RESTROOMS THIS WAY shone in a faded neon glow in a font that looked like it was trying too hard to be fun.

As I pushed the door in, the hinges squeaked. The restroom was in very bad condition, with orange, rusted walls. Darker streaks, almost red, pointed down toward the floor tiles like arrows showing the way to hell. The floor tiles are worse. Cracks seeped through every single one, spreading like veins under sick skin. The bar was definitely of the dive variety, but this was still an extremely jarring jump in quality. I really didn’t want to be in there; in fact, I didn’t want to be in this hellhole at all.

“Luke?” I called out. Silence. “You in here, buddy? It’s Jay.” Still nothing.

Okay. I’m really doing this, I thought to myself as I pushed in the filthy stall doors. Most were empty besides the horribly clogged and disgusting commodes. The next few, empty as well. As I placed my hand on the door of the last stall, I could make out faint breathing on the other side.

“…Luke?” I pressed inwards on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. The breathing grew a little louder, mingling with strange, wet sloshes. Like volcanic liquid bubbling, low gargling radiated from the stall. I backed away, almost tripping over my feet as the lock jiggled sporadically and small wisps of steam floated all around it.

I tried my best to make it back to the entrance, but the stall burst open before I could. Smoke filled the room so quickly I didn’t have time to react, and as I breathed it in, I choked on the fumes and fell to my knees, lightheaded and completely dazed. Just before I could pass out, the air felt fresh again, and my lungs cleared out the smog.

As the air cleared, I looked up and thought I could make out something hiding behind the stall door, but my vision was still blurred.

“Are you okay, mister?” A strange, childish voice asked me. It called out and echoed through the bathroom and twinged with a familiarity I couldn't quite place. A little boy peeked his head out from behind the stall door, like I had somehow scared him. He couldn’t have been more than five years old, and I could make out shaggy dark brown hair and blue eyes under his dirty complexion. He was wearing a worn-out superhero shirt and baggy sweatpants, tattered like a safety blanket carried by a four-year-old through every venture out into the world they'd ever faced. I cleared my throat.

“Yeah…I’m fine.” I rubbed, then squinted my eyes to make sure I wasn’t just in another manic dream. “Why are you all alone? Where are your parents, bud?” I asked him. He stepped out slowly, despair painted across his features.

“Gone.” The words fought out of his throat as he held back fierce, painful tears.

“Gone? Gone where? You shouldn’t even be allowed in here.” He couldn't form the words to answer me, but tears streamed down his cheeks like little creeks opening up through a forest of emotion. This boy felt strangely familiar to me, but I couldn’t seem to place where I’d seen him before. He looked back up at me, but now his eyes were red, with deep yellow irises.

“Please don’t leave.” His voice twisted and darkened, skipping through several low, destabilized octaves.

The stall door slammed back open abruptly, swatting me like a fly and sending me across the restroom. I crashed into the door, the force breaking it open, and I landed against the wall outside the restroom. Pain shot up my back as I tried to gather myself. I heard Ryan running over.

“Ryan?” I asked through the pain.

“What the fuck happened? Are you alright?” He wrapped an arm under mine and helped me up to my feet. Before I could even think about answering him, I shoved open the door to the restroom and took a few steps in. Ryan held the door open behind me.

It was empty. I looked over at Ryan, my mind bending and curving through waves of confusion, but couldn’t form any words to describe what I’d seen.

I walked out of the restroom with Ryan pacing after me. The semi-empty bar was now void of…anything. Not a soul wandered between its walls. The lights remained glowing, and drinks had spilled over onto the tabletops.

How? I ran towards the door frantically.

“What the fuck?” Ryan said, “I was just talking to the bartender. Jay, wha-“ I froze before I made it there. I stared blankly out the windows. Subtle ringing filled my eardrums as I gazed out into the now desolate city center. What was once there had completely lost life. “Jay?I heard his muted voice.

I pushed open the door and stepped out, Ryan sticking right behind me. Silence. Silence like I’d never experienced. The chilly breeze was still steadily swaying through the air. The door to the bar slammed and echoed out across the baroness before us.

“Well, now what?” He asked. I let out a slow sigh and started ambling down the street. “Jay! Fucking talk to me!” I took a deep breath and slowly released the air in my lungs.

“How many other bars are in town?”

____

We checked all five other local bars in the downtown area, but every trace of life had completely left the town. As we walked through the town square, I looked over at Ryan.

“Okay." I took a deep breath in. "The hospital is about a mile from here. Since he’s not at any of the bars, I'd have to guess that he's already been taken there after he did what he always does.” I said.

“Jay, this place, for whatever reason, is a complete ghost town. I-I really think we need to leave.” I didn’t skip a beat in replying.

“I’m going. I don't have another choice, Ryan. You’re welcome to go back to the car and wait. I completely understand if this is too much for you."

"Why is it always this way with you, Jay? This stupid savior complex of yours is gonna get us in some serious heat this time. I can feel it." Frustration wound its way through every word he spoke.

"I'd do the same for you." He didn't bother giving another rebuttal.

We started on our way back to the directory, cutting across the park to save time. The soft, dead grass crunched lightly beneath my shoes. We passed completely abandoned cars parked slightly on the sidewalk. Open balcony doors of second-floor apartments with curtains blowing in the breeze. The trees drooped, and their leaves had fallen ever so softly to the ground.

As we walked up to the rectangular prism covered in maps, one side caught my eye. I stepped around and felt my head flush. Written in red, there was a red arrow lining the entire route, all the way to the hospital. Someone put a circle around it with red lettering that said:

You couldn’t. What makes you think they could?

What is this? I could feel Ryan’s gaze on me, as if he was questioning my thoughts without hearing them. I was determined to get all three of us out of here. Together.

“Let’s go.”

____

November 23rd, 1 year prior.

There we were yet again. Ryan and I once more found ourselves with an incredibly sweaty and disoriented Luke, all crammed into my bedroom. What was this, the fifth? No sixth attempt at getting Luke clean in the past two years, and it was weighing on us more and more. With every detox came more rifts between the three of us.

Ryan was sitting on my bed, fixed between the wall and where my bed met it, with pillows supporting his back. I was on the floor sitting to Luke’s left, and he was curled up sitting upright in the fetal position. He was leaning slightly over with his head resting on my shoulder. Ryan and I had bundled up in all the bedding we likely had in the apartment, including throw blankets from the living room couch. We had the window open, and it must have been thirty-something degrees outside.

However, Luke was down to his red boxer briefs, sweating profusely, and complaining that it was still too hot for him. He had been sick for days. This was our third attempt to get Luke sober in the past two years. It had to stick this time. We could feel the phone calls coming and telling us he was in the hospital with a failing liver, or that he had slipped himself into a coma of some kind.

“I can’t do this,” Luke told me. He pushed the words out of his lungs through waves of nausea. “It’s too much, man. I feel like I’m drowning and burning to death at the same time.” I believed him. I could see it all too well, painted all over his entire being. I couldn’t stand seeing my friend in such a state.

Addiction is evil.

“We’ve got you, buddy. We’re gonna get you through this,” Ryan told him reassuringly. “If you drown, we’ll just pull you out of the water. And we’ll burn with you until the flames die. Always.” Ryan used to have such a way with words when it came to calming him.

“My stomach's in knots, man. I’m gonna try to hit the toilet.” Luke told us. He was turning a milky white and green, and my body ached in sympathy as he tried to get to his feet.

“Let me give you a hand, buddy," I offered. I set his arm around my shoulders and heaved with every muscle I could activate. When we finally got up, I felt the entire weight of his massive frame, as if he were completely dead weight. We took a few steps before he went completely limp, falling out of my grasp. Somehow, he caught himself on his hands and knees. He dried heave violently, his back arching up and down as his demons fought their way out of him. I knelt down and rested my hand on his back, rubbing up and down. When it finally made its way out, the vomit was almost black, thick, and viscous. It slopped into the carpet like warm hot glue.

Holy fuck, that can’t be normal.

“Luke, buddy, I think we might need to go to the hospital.”

“No,” he said sternly. The serious tone of his voice caught me off guard. “No more doctors telling me I need to go to rehab. If I can’t do this on my own, I don’t want to do it at all.” He was silent for a moment. “I think I just need a cold shower.” This sounded insane to me. I couldn’t fathom why he could feel the need to get even colder, but we obliged.

We had bought a shower chair for him, like he was an arthritis ridden geriatric man in hospice care, just waiting for his time to fade away into obscurity, and once we got everything set up, I opted to stay in the bathroom with him just in case he needed something. Much to his annoyance, he knew I wouldn’t back down.

After about fifteen minutes, Ryan poked his head in.

“Wanna smoke?” Ryan asked me.

“I thought we were trying to quit,” I said with a tired drone in my voice.

“Yeah…I think we deserve one after today.” I couldn’t disagree with him. It had been one of our rougher recovery attempts with Luke. I looked back at the shower curtain. “Holler if you need something, man.” He didn’t respond.

We sat outside on the balcony of the apartment in tattered red and green lawn chairs as we lit our cigarettes under the soft glow of an overcast afternoon. Ryan had a concerned look on his face as he blew out small tentacles of smoke that clung to his face as they rose and then slowly faded away.

“Jay…I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” He told me. I glanced over at him, and I could see tears swelling in his eyes.

“What’s going on, buddy?” I asked him, concern hovering in my tone. Tears streamed down his face.

“I don’t want to be an asshole, man. I love Luke more than anyone…but I can’t stand to watch him do this to himself. I want my friend back, Jay. But this…this is getting to be too much.” I’d never seen him so torn up.

“What we’re doing for Luke…I don’t think anyone else could.” I said. “It has to be us. We’re all he has. You can’t give up on him now.” His expression changed violently. “…that came out wrong. I don’t think you’re giving up. I really think we can do this.”

“No, Jay. You can do this. I’m not like you, man. This is…it’s…I feel like I’m melting.” The levies broke, and he began to convulse and sob. “I j-just can’t keep this up. Fuck. It’s tearing muh-me a-apart. Me and Emma are getting pretty serious. B-but…how am I-I supposed to even think of settling down with all of this happening? Fuck me. I feel so fucking selfish.” I could feel his soul being ripped in two.

I understood what this must have felt like for him. Wanting to build something while you’re watching everything you’ve ever had fall apart.

“My entire world is crumbling right now, Jay. And I don’t even have the guts to fix it.” We sat in silence for a few moments.

“…I can handle Luke for the rest of the day…I think you should get some lunch, take a good nap, and maybe take Emma to a movie or something. Get Luke’s self-induced debacle off your mind for a while.”

“I can’t let you do this alo-“ I cut him off in the middle of what he was saying.

“Ryan.” I locked eyes with him. “I got this.” We stood up, and I wrapped my arms around him. “I got this,” I repeated.