Chapter 2

nother sun-drenched day is coming to an end on Clearwater Beach. The sun begins its daily transit into the sea, lighting up the western horizon.

A hundred yards away, two Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies watch from their Kawasaki four-wheelers.

“Looks like drugs again.” The smaller one kills his engine.

“Yup.” The stocky one hollers over the sound of his still-running ride. “Think you’ve seen enough?”

“Nah. Give it a few more minutes.”

Nearby, a group of children shout with joy, their parents relaxing with local blueberry wine. Terry remains oblivious to it all—pacing, sweating, watching. For the last year, these sunsets have been his escape. A fleeting way to chase the feeling of being alive—what he remembers from his summers before meth.

The LSD kicks in. The rhythm of the waves takes on a new life. In his mind, rainbow-colored faeries chase the children.

Something bounces off his forehead. “Was that a horsefly… or Pegasus?” He laughs, loud and unrestrained, as rainbow-colored flying fish pour across the beach.

A hundred yards out, the stocky deputy shakes his head. “Alright, I’ve seen enough, dammit.” He thinks of his own seventeen-year-old son. The deputies dismount, out of shape and weighed down by all their gear, sweating through their uniform blouses. They saunter toward Terry. They think they have plenty of time.

Suddenly, Terry’s core begins to cook. His mind betrays him. Ever since his mother coaxed him into his first hit of Ice, he’s lived on the edge of a dull knife. He’s overheating. Fast. Too fast. It’s ninety degrees, and the thick Florida humidity keeps his sweat from cooling him.

In the distance, he sees the heavy figures of the law approaching. To his warping brain, they look like Laurel and Hardy walking into a trap.

Hey, what are you guys doing here?

“Hey—stop!” Terry’s voice cracks as he points his finger, trying to save the strange men walking in his direction. “Quicksand! Be careful! Stop! Oh no.”

Terry laughs as the illusions sink without a trace. But his body can’t hold his mind’s attention anymore.

He’s moving. He looks at the place where his feet should be, but they’re not there. “Where are you taking me?” His last words come as a whisper no one can hear.

His brain has exceeded its limit. His face slams into the warm sand before he even knows he’s falling. A final kaleidoscope floods his mind as his cells choke on the heat. Terry takes his last breath just as the real deputies finally step up to his body.

Laurel says to Hardy, “Damn. What a shame. He’s too young. I think we’re about to ruin a family’s weekend.”

“You never know,” Hardy says. “Sometimes the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”

It happens fast like that sometimes.