If you live in Florida, please be careful about where you plant your weed.

My name is Owen, and I enjoy stealing in general. Also drugs, which I generally sell my stolen shit to buy more of. So, my equally goonish friend Terry and I got the case of a lifetime six months ago. We had screwed over this creepy dude Cody who was selling us stuff by covertly stealing his stash of shrooms and weed and calling the cops on him as he made a delivery to our friendly competition later. He was selling black shrooms that everyone kept asking us for and we were worried we were losing customers. Both of us being usually unbathed as well as over six feet tall with scraggly hair, we somehow doubted it was our lack of congeniality.

Unexpectedly, the police assumed he was dangerous and decided to shoot him in the head, despite his being unarmed, shirtless and confused. He was a pretty creepy dude, but everyone doubted that his actions could be interpreted as a threat. They swore that he was coming right for them. We were surprised, enough that we didn’t make our usual jokes about it, but as junkies we both needed to make money and get another fix.

To console our good friend Ashley, who is his cousin, we offered to smoke her out (with Cody’s stolen weed). Needless to say, Terry tried and failed to fuck her. After being given a cold shoulder I began to ply my trade of casing her and her friends for other drugs to steal. His cousin was so upset that she mentioned not knowing what to do with the incredible payload of stuff they were growing that they had left out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. She seemed worried police might find it if they were investigating Cody, a paranoia I eagerly fostered. Still not believing ourselves to be under suspicion, we plied Ashley for the whereabouts of the grove of shrooms, weed and whatever else that was hidden in the swamps.

“I don’t remember clearly. It was a while down Southern and then a left at an abandoned building. Maybe we could find it on Mapquest? Owen, do you know the area?”

“No problem, the least we could do is check it out, make sure the cops didn’t nip it. This could have been a much larger sting or something. How long do you think it will take to clean it out?“

Ashley shook her pretty blonde head and stared at the floor.

“A while, it was a lot of plants, most of them were at least half way grown and a lot of them were almost ready to be picked.”

She didn’t meet my eyes and was ardently protecting herself from showing any kind of facial expression. Her puffy red eyes led me to believe that she would be softer right now than she was.

“Shit. That’s felony town. Maybe even RICO, or whatever.”

Considering the fact that we had dropped the tip just three weeks ago and they picked up everyone we mentioned I was pretty confident PBSO had no idea where this place was.

Paranoia had already set in and the idea of being watched by the police was very clearly an issue, since he had no idea that his cousin was simply set up by the goons he was currently being hustled by. We got approximate directions and prepared to head out the next day to find the secret garden. Druggies, in general, were usually off guard at around dawn in our local experience. Ashley showed us a couple of the shrooms that came from the crop, the black and brown caps hadn’t been dried and were especially dark and slick. She finally sighed, told us she wanted it all destroyed and announced she wanted to go to sleep. We promised to do our best for our good friend.

“Merry douchemas, bro.”

We fist pounded the second we got back into his turquoise 1982 Buick Regal.

“It’s more like Douche-Hanukkah, don’t you think? It’s like one act of douchery that is just lasting us much longer than normal. “

We didn’t have the decency to blame ourselves for Cody’s death, so this just seemed like someone else’s catastrophe that we happened to be able to cash in on.

“That makes sense, it’s like we’re keeping the douche oil going for eight douchey nights instead of just one.”

“You right. Well let’s go steal this motherfucker’s shit.”

He grinned, proud of the gaps and gold.

“One hell of a weekend.”

So we called our friend Nino and got ready that night, with whatever shoes we could hike in and durable clothing. We prepared to wake before the crack of dawn. We were all groggy when we woke, but we got a little high anyways before heading off into the dark, driving about forty five minutes down the 98, which was only known as “Southern Blvd.” to us at the time. It was about twenty minutes longer than civilization was able to cover. It runs across the entire state and plenty of Florida’s wetlands. By the time we reached the place, the sky had a single scintillating blue slit that was very far away.

Eduardo, or “Nino”, was Terry’s step brother from El Salvador, and he owned a quad cab pickup with a covered bed. Ubiquitous in redneck territory, we chuckled about how the most obvious instrument made us less likely to be noticed by the police. Thankfully it was dark, because a five foot three El Salvadorian in a plain white t-shirt with a lot of gold is normally how the police make their money with random stops. Especially when they’re with two hammy white trash looking guys like me and Terry, carrying what we hoped was a buttload of drugs.

Despite a general desire for being hidden, we blasted Spanish rap as we pulled past an old white house that was missing a roof and its windows. It was the main distinguishing feature that we knew about and aside from the giant patch of drugs somewhere nearby. Nino pulled his truck off the road and into the surprisingly deep grass. There wasn’t a road to the house, but it was still barely visible behind the wall of vivid pinks and purples coming from Floss Silk and Hong Kong Orchid trees. Near the side of the building was the concrete foundation of what was once a road sign, with two holes ringed with iron.

“You sure this is the place?”

Nino swirled around and shot me a cautious stare.

“Yeah, we Googled the area and she thought this was it. I saved the location on my phone.”

Nino turned around and snickered.

“I feel bad for them, I do.”

Nino seemed to be talking to himself at that point.

“Yeah, and I feel bad for all those weed plants that are going to get burned to death!”

Terry roared with laughter, but Nino began focusing on the area around us instead of responding.

We couldn’t see much further than the lights that the truck would reach and even that was hindered by brightly colored foliage. We got out of the car and looked around. Terry grabbed his supplies, the trash bags, a wheelbarrow and some refreshments inside. Sure enough, a small creek ran into a tiny pond about thirty feet behind the building. Coral pink stone slabs were occasionally partially visible winding past the massive pillars of red and orange hibiscus flowers and up to the pond. The layout of the plants almost seemed intentionally promoted along this path, which encouraged my belief that this was a tourist trap or something at some point. Eventually we finally got to what was clearly an originally man-made pond, with pale lavender tiles around the destroyed remnants of a ring in various states of assault from plants and water.

“Holy fucking shit.”

I felt the sting of Nino’s hand slapping my back hard and tightening briefly on my shoulder. He raised his finger to point at what had gotten his and Terry’s admiration. Across from the pond was a single visible pot plant, poking out from behind a wall of tree growth about thirty feet away from the pond. We all picked up a happy trot on the way to our quarry, which was still along a badly weathered path. Sure enough, behind a batch of pines and bushes bigger than SUVs was a very well-manicured garden stretching through enough scrub to include several large fully grown pot plants. It was clearly tended by someone competent, who included separate sections for weed, regular shrooms and the glistening black beasts of mushrooms that we knew to be growing in popularity.

The black ones seemed to spread infectiously, clustering in small uneven groups near the other shrooms but especially near the stems of the pot plants. There were a couple of salvia plants too, but we didn’t care. I started filling trash bags with the stuff, ripping the plants out roots and all if there was enough bud on them. All of the plants looked just slightly wild, they were planted with care but upon close inspection didn’t seem to have been trimmed or even touched in quite some time.

“Bro! We’re going to be kings for a fucking year! Look at these fucking things!”

Terry lifted an oozing clump of the irregularly sized but tightly packed black shrooms and held them next to the slightly less disgusting brown and black regular shrooms. They were both disgusting and appetizing simultaneously and I didn’t blame Terry when he ate quite a few of both before returning to pack his bags.

“This is worth the down payment on a pretty nice house.”

Nino gestured to the mountainous weed plant in front of him, almost as if he were arguing defensively.

“We cut and cure this and we could make a fucking fortune.”

Nino smiled confidently. I finished my fourth messy bag of weed and moved on to the shrooms, going near an area that seemed split between the two varieties. I ate a little of the fresh shrooms, which tasted like ass, before chugging some Faygo Terry brought. Years of being a juggalo in High School had left him with a genuine taste for the stuff, as well as other Floridian favorites like champagne cola and chocolate soda. I braced myself before shoving a tiny amount of the black shrooms into my mouth and swallowing hard, hoping to force it down before my mouth could register a taste. The shrooms were faster though, and my mouth was flooded with the taste and smell that was similar to blood and feces. I wretched immediately, but nothing came up and I was able to wash it down with more soda.

“Jesus ass-fucking Christ!”

I heard myself spit the words out. Terry laughed hysterically before stifling himself and looking around to see if anyone else was visible. We were all vaguely aware of the risks involved in what we were doing.

“Yeah, it gets a little better when it’s dry, but not much.”

Terry winced in sympathy before chugging some champagne cola with a little coconut cream he had mixed in a two liter. I noticed what appeared to be a fat white person moving towards us from over Terry’s shoulder, but it turned out to be a giant cluster of white flowers when I looked closer.

“How the fuck did this shit get popular?”

I asked incredulously. They both laughed deeply.

“Probably the same way inhaling burning plant ash got popular.”

Nino smiled ear to ear. I went back to plucking the plants as they were kicking in on me, making me glad I wasn’t driving. After about twenty minutes the place was pretty much picked clean, except for some remaining small clumps of black mushrooms. The stuff kicked in quick, and I could notice colors becoming brighter, more vivid. When I moved my head, every flower turned into a blur. I felt the rise of a new euphoria, and the shit did have plentiful horsepower.

“Don’t worry Ashley, the cops won’t find any of it. “

Terry said with an odd chuckle. He began wheeling the first load up to the truck, while Nino carried two hefty bags on his back. I picked up two bags myself, hoping to match his feat. Surprised by their weight, I couldn’t quite easily do it and decided to quietly put one down when they had turned up the path and couldn’t see me. I marched dutifully past the small pond leading to the truck after that. By the second trip, it was a wrap, and I was glad to be out of there. The shrooms had made the colors blur strangely, each bleeding into the next just slightly. I was smiling like an idiot and my heart was pounding.

“Shit, I’d say I was about to get a better truck, but the right money in a shitty apartment could be a fortune in ten years. I’m tired as fuck of paying rent, yo.”

Nino clasped us both on the back before we took off with the last load of roughly plucked plants.

“Yeah man, I wanna be some banks bitch instead! Mortgages baby!”

We all laughed heartily and took off towards the pond. Terry looked like he was doing fine, but I was ready to take a nap. I felt sleepy and my heart was racing, although it was a fun high. As I reached the pond I had to stop for a moment. The water was crystal clear, but choked with life, with massive green clouds floating past forest like weeds. Fish darted from behind cover. It was seemingly crowded with life in what seemed to have once been the remains of a pool no larger than five feet in diameter, but had turned into a part of Florida. The small creeks that ran into and out of it were similarly clear, but had torrents of tiny fish here and there despite not being more than a foot deep.

I almost put my last bag down, but when I looked down into the water I saw a face with stunning green eyes staring back at me. I blinked and realized it was just a tile with some remaining designing, being slowly absorbed into the great biomass that neighbored it, the mushrooms blurring things just enough to curve the shapes into something recognizable. I shuddered and mustered enough energy to get to the truck where the guys were stuffing the bed with our ill-gotten gains.

“Alright, if there were cops they would have pulled up on us…as long as no one finds out about Cody, we’re home free.”

Despite only recently having gotten involved, both Terry and I happily accepted the tone of authority and leadership in Nino’s voice. Terry shut the gate of the truck and we all hopped inside. I was glad to be somewhere vaguely familiar and felt safer when I felt the engine kick on. The sky was streaked with garlands of orange and white, but had finally reached a gentle teal. As we drove away, I thought I saw what looked like an extremely obese white person stretching out to us, but when I looked closer it was just the ruins of the sign in front of the destroyed building, which in more light was clearly being overrun with plant life.

I nodded off on the way home, where we quickly rushed the goods indoors to be cleaned and prepared for buyers. We spent the rest of the day, aside from a quick nap, cleaning things up. We had at least twenty five ounces of high quality weed as well as more shrooms than Coachella would probably need. Nino had gone home with a nice sized stash for himself, proud of a job well done. We ordered more Chinese food than we could eat, confident that we could splurge. We used quite a nice assortment of drugs that night, with some Roxicodone and shrooms to send us both to sleep.

The next day I woke up at Terry’s house, a two bedroom one floor home of the variety popular in South Florida, with a flat roof and bright yellow walls. It was still in Palm Beach County, but was at least forty minutes away from the part that could be called a city. He had no neighbors, an envious situation for folk like us. I smelled the thick smoke of burning weed the moment I woke, and it prompted me to reach for my own bong and Adderall. Terry was in his densely forested back yard. I burned a bowl and washed it down with whiskey and amphetamines, a wonderful pick me up.

“Bro, how you feeling?”

Terry asked after rushing in when he saw me stir to life.

“Delicious! Fuck man, I can’t believe how much we got.”

“We have to go help Nino out, he got into some kind of a fight last night and woke up in the slammer.”

The look on Terry’s face was one of someone still trying to hold on to the silver lining after seeing it ripped away from him a thousand times before. He could imagine this gift unraveling already, and he just hoped it was his turn to get lucky. The drive to the strange, massive tower that loomed over West Palm Beach from Gun Club road was a quiet one. The county jail was a massive facility, housing an absurd number of people in what appeared to be a skyscraper from the “Giant blocks of concrete and metal” school that was popular in Communist Russia. Terry was more than happy to take out his life savings for bail, knowing that we were at least financially alright. I sat in Terry’s Buick while he went into the absurd edifice and tried to keep myself busy on my tablet.

“Fucking shit, man.”

The disgust in Terry’s voice was thick when he suddenly opened the car door. The other side opened and Nino quietly slipped in. He didn’t say anything or look at me, but I saw from the bandages and his reflection in the side mirror and he was clearly fucked up. A red spot had blossomed into the gauze near his ear, and his head seemed to be thoroughly wrapped.

“Bro, we got painkillers, you’re gonna be fine. The other guy isn’t pressing charges anyways; You just got public intoxication and lewd conduct.”

I wondered what the fuck Nino had done to get all of this and for it to be called getting off easy, but he remained silent the entire way back to Terry’s. Terry kept trying to lift his spirits, but he never seemed to even move his head. When we reached Terry’s I saw the full extent of the damage. Half of his face was fine, but the other half was covered in bandages. Apparently he took a swing at his neighbor and his neighbor ended up smacking him hard enough to send him straight to the hospital. He plopped down on Terry’s filthy blue couch and mindlessly grabbed some pills and shrooms off the table. He swallowed them both instantly, without any water. I had to wonder what that tasted like since some of the black shrooms were in there.

“I found a way to make them taste a lot better.”

His thick accent and cause wrapped mouth made the words sound like angry mumbling, but Terry followed it.

“Oh yeah? What did you do, to make them taste better?”

Terry seemed to engage in the conversation the same way one might talk to a stranger’s distraught child.

“Boil it into tea with honey.”

Nino said this very flatly and even though it wasn’t a very easy to understand statement, Terry jumped to his feet, eager to meet what was obviously his step-brother’s wish.

“Alright man, hell, let’s give it a shot.”

I didn’t normally like shrooms, but fuck it, right? I was looking forward to another rush from the horrible crap. I popped some Xanax to mellow out the earlier Adderall and began to prep myself for the horrific taste. Terry came out of the kitchen with a coffee pot filled with extremely dark purple liquid that had some kind of debris floating through it. We each poured it into whatever filthy vessel, in my case a beer stein with dried rings of ale inside, and drank. The smell had not improved. It reeked of shit and blood. But the taste, strangely, had. It was crisp and grassy, with just a hint of sweetness. I remembered hearing that the Durian fruit tasted great but smelled terrible and I wondered if this was something similar in effect. Nino chugged his right away, out of an old coffee mug.

“It kicks in better this way.”

He was obviously straining to speak and both Terry and I nodded sympathetically as he downed a second mug just as quickly as the first. I poured a very small amount for a second shot for myself, spurred on by the fact that drinking takes a while to kick in, which is frustrating for a person like myself. This time, the smell didn’t bother me nearly as much. Nino returned to his quiet and Terry put some movies he downloaded the previous night on a memory stick for us to watch. My eyelids became very heavy about fifteen minutes into Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence staring soulfully into the camera.

When I woke up, the room smelled like one of us had a horrible case of diarrhea that he had decided to simply concede defeat to. The salty, coppery shit smell choked me. The screen had auto-dimmed and the drapes were still pulled tight to defeat any of sunlight’s attempts, making the room darker despite being in the middle of the day. I looked over to Nino and saw him slumped in his couch, black drool leaking out of his mouth and onto the previously pristine wrapping. Terry’s chin was resting on his chest, only the top of his head was visible.

“Shit. Terry?”

Terry didn’t move, and I figured Nino deserved his beauty sleep.

The couch was sticky and damp against my skin. I got up slowly and went to the kitchen where we kept the drugs. The glass back door had a few blinds missing, and my eyes needed a moment to adjust to the light. When they did I grabbed a bottle of beer and twisted it open. I rolled it around my mouth for a moment before walking back into the living room. In the corner of the living room, between Nino and the recliner where I slept nearest the door was a fat, naked man. He was absurdly fat, with brittle looking wrinkly skin. He peered at me carefully from behind his legs while sitting on the floor with his knees bunched in front of his face and his thin, talon like hands wrapped around the front of his legs.

“Dude, what the fuck!”

I ran and shook Terry, who was closest to me. His head limply dropped to the side and black goo fell out of his mouth. His eyes were fixed open. I heard a horrible rasping sound escape the immense old man, who was now slowly rising to his feet. I backed away; the old man was clearly fixed on me. He was white, but not like a white person. His skin was unnaturally pale, his long nose, straight white hair, and a square jaw framed a face that did not look European and had no trace of facial hair. His deep green eyes did not look real. As he rose, he pointed a sickeningly long and boney finger at me as if to accuse me.

“Impa…”

His voice was choked and angry as he finally managed to stand. It sounded both deep and brittle. The meaningless syllables seemed to echo unnaturally. He was utterly naked, and his immense belly loomed awkwardly over the white fur of his crotch. He was no more than five feet tall, but he seemed strangely immense. The proportions of his body were all wrong, with a gut that belonged on a 600 pound obesity patient and arms and legs that looked emaciated. In addition to having extremely thin and boney arms, each appendage was adorned with oddly long toes and fingers.

I turned and braced myself to open the rusty and often jammed lock on the back door as fast as possible. Instead, I ran directly into the fat old man, who was suddenly directly in front of me. I felt slimy fingers grasp my shoulders as he opened his mouth to reveal tiny, rotten teeth. Black slime oozed from around his gums as his long, snake like tongue darted towards my face.

“Impa!”

When I woke again, the smell of blood and shit was almost overwhelming. Seth Rogan was laughing awkwardly on the TV and sunlight was pouring in from the windows. Terry was standing over me, snapping his fingers. Blood was trickling from his mouth. Nino watched me carefully from the couch.

“Bro, what the fuck?”

Terry looked stunned, and shook his head before going back to the loveseat he had been sitting on. There was no fat white guy in sight.

“You were going crazy. You hit him.”

Nino pointed this out sagely.

“What the fuck bro, are you alright?”

My head was ringing, my stomach was turning and the wonderful bouquet of the mushrooms made it difficult to focus on anything else.

“I’m going to have to estimate this, but I think it’s a ‘no’. Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with those shrooms?”

“I took some last night. I don’t remember getting into that fight, I just remember going to sleep and thought it felt great, but holy shit. I thought I was just fucked up on a lot of shit, the whole day was pretty blurry. I think you just went through the same thing. At the very least, this stuff causes you to black out and take a swing at anyone that tries to wake you.”

Nino began to rub his jaw, clearly in pain from the attempt to use his voice. The look on Terry’s face had hints of horror and betrayal.

“Let’s just sell them. Get rid of them. Sell them at a discount, trade them, whatever.”

I heard my own voice shake as I said this. Nino looked to me and nodded before taking a deep bong hit. Terry stared down at the floor.

“Even the weed?”

Terry asked innocently, but we didn’t answer. It wasn’t dried yet, so we had to smoke our own stuff anyways. I remembered the clusters of oily black mushrooms at the base of the pot plants and shuddered. I felt myself craving the rush of it again and it disgusted me. After a few minutes we all eventually picked up our phones and began texting, searching for anyone who was looking for quantity and wasn’t asking questions.

“Uhm, Todd Cavanaugh hinted that he might be willing to give us two grand and a 2006 Ford Taurus. He said it’s in good condition?”

Terry asked hesitantly, while looking over at the massive garbage bags stuffed with what he had assumed was about 10 to 15k worth of stuff once dried, if sold over time carefully. It was still more than Nino’s bail bond, but not by much.

“Let’s go talk to him, bring him samples. But only a little of the weird shit.”

Nino smiled at my idea and slowly nodded. Two grand and a Ford Taurus it was. Terry began texting furiously, arranging the meeting in as discrete of terms idiots could come up with. Terry stuffed a generous load of fresh bud into his book sack, along with a ton of shrooms and a significantly sized baggy of the disgusting paste that the other mushrooms had devolved into.

“Yikes.”

Terry still seemed to love the stuff and shot me a look as if offended by my suggestion that the stuff was ‘yikes’ worthy.

“He said he can do it tomorrow.”

I nodded at him.

“Great, we’ll leave it here and go sleep at my place tonight.”

He gave me an exasperated look.

“Dude, it is not that bad, you guys just lost your shit.”

Nino seemed to be wrestling with doubt at this suggestion. I wondered if he had seen anything too, but he didn’t seem to outright reject the idea. I didn’t want to mention how badly I wanted just another hint of the stuff, or that part of me was trying to convince the rest to take a little more to “test” it more thorough. I wasn’t going to be in the same room as the shit anymore. I left the planning to them and told them to meet up with me that night at my shitty one bedroom apartment. My home is in a building that used to be a motel and also used to be cheap, but is still shitty and in the middle of nowhere. It has a kitchenette from the sixties. Not a lot of room, but the two or three of us could crash.

I got in my equally shitty 86 Camaro and wondered if the Ford Taurus had a particularly reliable transmission, my least favorite part of any vehicle. As I was putting my seatbelt on, in my peripheral vision I saw the fat man take a step towards me from across the yard. I looked up, and but it was just the combination of the mailbox and a white Realtor sign nearby it that formed the bleached silhouette. I decided to go home.

“Fuck me”

I repeated to myself casually, over and over as I pulled out of the driveway and started heading home. Nino clearly didn’t have any naked fat man issues, but he knew something was deeply wrong with the shit. Terry seemed to think something was at least awry as well. Otherwise he would have fought kicking and screaming. I continued my mantra until I had pulled onto 441, the seemingly endless local neighborhood road that went north and south in Florida. As I pulled up at a stoplight next to a Ford Taurus I was inspecting, I saw a massive, pale bloated body with a curtain of white hair shuffle towards me.

“Son of a fuck!”

I didn’t have an exclamation for something that bad. But when I focused on the apparition it turned out to be a fat redneck in a Dodge Neon with a stupid white hat. I jammed the gas when the light turned. As I got away from the innocuous Neon, I saw it again. A single long, pale arm stretched toward my car, gaining on me rapidly. The fat thing was on top of a truck. But when I looked, it was just pvc pipes and a white drop cloth. Instead of gunning it, I took a deep breath and moved over a lane. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me three times and I’m probably just panicking. I decided to pull over all the way to a visible Taco Bell and get something to eat and drink.

“Welcome to Taco Bell, can I take your order?”

The small Hispanic girl smiled as sincerely as a minimum wage employee could be expected to muster.

“I’d like two chalupas and a large drink, please.”

I was aware of the fact that I probably looked and smelled like I had crawled out of a dumpster but I smiled happily anyways and tried to act like a normal person. After ordering, I got my drink and shuffled over to the area where prepared food was handed to customers, taking care to memorize the number on my receipt. When the number on my receipt was called, I grabbed my food quickly and went to the door.

And that was when I saw it. The fat thing was walking towards the parking lot from road. I met its green eyes and saw its mouth open wide, finger slowly rising to point at me. I gasped and swirled around, as if another alternate exit might exist that didn’t involve walking towards the thing. The small Hispanic girl shot me a nervous smile and checked to make sure her coworkers were near. The man ordering in front of her looked more disgusted than alarmed, but I was a little more worried about the fat thing than them.

“Sorry, I thought I forgot my wallet…”

I said, not even bothering to make it look like I was checking my pockets. Now most people in the front were giving me nervous looks that said they were worried about a potential Floridian junkie issue. When I turned around to start walking to the other exit that was slightly closer to my car than the thing, it was gone. The white cab of a semi was sitting in traffic where it had been, its driver retracting his cigarette wielding arm to take the wheel as the lights changed, forcing him to lurch forward. I almost breathed a sigh of relief, but a white car pulled into the parking lot, and for just a moment I could vaguely make out its outline in the vehicle. I walked as quickly as I could to my car.

“Fuck, man, pick up!”

I could hear my voice saying as I attempted to call Terry once I was in the car. I was hoping that I was still tripping a little, and that I just needed someone to help me calm down. My vision was still a little blurred, something I clung to for hope. The phone rang once, then twice and then went to voicemail.

“Aw shit man, come on!”

A woman getting out of her van looked at my car nervously as I punched Nino’s call button. As I put the phone to my ear, I plunged the car keys into the ignition and turned on the engine, ready to shift into reverse at 90 miles per hour if Nino didn’t pick up. The moment I put my hand on the shifter, my passenger side window exploded in a shower of glass and a thin white claw waved near my face. I shrieked as I shot the car into reverse.

“Impa!”

The angry shriek of metal on metal seemed to form the word as I sped out of the parking lot. When I looked in the rear view mirror, a man in a white shirt who had been trying to help a handicapped person out of the van next to me was waving at me; the small telescoping rod that had broken my window accidentally was still in his hand as I came as close to flooring it as I could. At every light, out of the corner of my eye I could see the thing trying to gain on me. Every time I looked closer, the “thing” turned out to be something innocuous. I got away from it, but never by enough to get it out of sight.

As I pulled into my parking lot, Terry’s phone number lit up my phone and I grabbed for it desperately. I got out of my car as I answered, and briefly looked behind me to see the thing about half a mile down the road, as a white SUV. I ran into my shitty apartment, turned on all the lights and locked the door.

“Dude, can you meet me at my place?”

I asked, entirely out of breath. Terry’s voice sounded depressed and unsure.

“I mean, I guess. Todd Cavanaugh said he might be able to do something today if he likes it.”

He had a defeated tone in his voice.

“Bring Nino. Are you guys feeling alright from that shit last night?”

I didn’t know what would be worse, him telling me they’re fine and knowing that it means it was only happening to me, or hearing him confirm it and having to face the fact that I was in a special kind of deep shit. I didn’t want to admit that my desire to eat more of the disgusting fungus was growing rapidly, or that I was starting to feel sick and clammy.

“I took some, about to do some extra, Nino’s driving and didn’t want any today. You build up a tolerance to this shit quick, I had to take twice as much as I did last night to get anywhere. Still pretty quick for something you eat, and you get used to the taste. “

My spine turned to ice.

“Ok, well get here soon. I gotta talk to you guys real quick, it’s important.”

I hoped that he would convey the urgency to Nino. I sank down on my couch and took out a joint. I puffed and puffed, but it didn’t get me high at all, I was too nervous. After about twenty minutes of wondering if that thing could make it through a front door I finally heard Terry talking away as he walked up to my door. I opened it before they knocked, and invited the glazed looking Terry and Nino in.

“Does anyone else not feel good about this shit?”

Nino shot Terry a worried look and then nodded to me. Terry gave me a scrutinizing look.

“Listen, if you’re worried about getting caught, don’t be. We already did it. You’re probably just having a bad trip because of the anxiety, you know? Mushrooms are pretty subjective.”

I wanted to believe what he was saying to me and give the little bastards another try, but the bits of shattered glass still about my own clothing demanded that I focus.

“Terry, you need to stop taking those. It’s one thing to be subject, but two violent blackouts out of three uses just isn’t normal. There is something wrong with those. We should just throw them away.”

Terry put up an incredulous face.

“You guys are still probably tripping a little. Just relax, pop some Xanax. We’re selling the stuff already anyways, let’s not make this complicated.”

Nino’s mouth twisted into an unhappy shape.

“Why don’t you take care of it then? You can keep the whole load of black ones, and we won’t destroy them, but we don’t want anything to do with them?”

Both Terry and Nino studied each other after I made my suggestion. Nino didn’t seem to share the intensity of my fear, and balked at this suggestion, but he didn’t say anything. Finally, Terry spoke up.

“Alright, I’ll take care of it. Holy shit you guys are overreacting. You don’t want the high and the money? Fine.”

Nino bit down on his lip and I could tell he was desperately craving the stuff too. He also seemed to be breaking a sweat. I wanted to feel that high so badly that when I thought of the taste of the stuff, the mix of shit and blood, it actually made my mouth water. Terry was grinning confidently, as if he expected us to jump back on the share and tell him it was time to party again to celebrate. Nino and I quietly nodded to each other.

“That sounds good. You handle the sale, just give us our share of whatever doesn’t include the black ones.”

Nino said this with an adamantine tone.

“I don’t want anything to do with them. I’m sorry man, but we won’t destroy them. We don’t even want the profits from it. ”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. Terry now looked at us as if we had just threatened him. He looked between the two of us, but neither of us said anything until he conceded.

“Fine. I thought you guys might like a free rush, but whatever.”

The moment he agreed, it felt as if the entire day had just been a practical joke at my expense. Over the next couple of hours, Nino obviously loosened up a lot too. He even let out a laugh every now and then. The thought of the black shrooms wasn’t even tempting. Terry ate a few more, and then a few more after that. He was a little bitch for the rest of the day, but we sat through it, finally getting high after several bowls. After about three hours, it was time for Terry to make the sample drop to lure Todd Cavanaugh into the purchase. Nino decided Terry seemed sober enough, so we let him take care of it. He had been so moody that we both just wanted to chill without him for a minute. As he left the parking lot I tried to pretend that I didn’t see the fat thing following him.

We got the money the next day, much less than we initially hoped for. Terry was surprisingly clean, and aside from the horrible smell on his breath and the red rings around his eyes we thought he might be doing better. But after that, we never saw him again. Both Nino and I had horrible fucking nightmares that night, of the fat thing dragging Terry, kicking and screaming to us for help, into the small pond near the grove we harvested. Once it had him in the impossibly deep water the thing plunged its tongue deep down Terry’s throat. Terry reached a hand towards the surface of the water, but it went limp. A dark cloud spread from the things gaping mouth in the water. The cloud somehow navigated into Terry’s open mouth and nostrils.

Two weeks later, “Terry” got fucked up on what the police hoped was meth and killed Todd Cavanaugh, as well as the guy’s six month old kid with a ball-peen hammer. The two had been hanging out non-stop since Terry managed to introduce him to the shrooms, which Todd’s widow told us he had barely bothered to sell. He didn’t want to get rid of them. The only other time I ever drove down Southern Blvd was a year later for a job. I couldn’t help but look on the side of the road where we had found that grove. Something that looked like Terry was there, but bleached and stretched out of proportion. When I looked closer, it was just a leafless bush.

After Todd’s funeral, I got an email from Ashley, Cody’s cousin. It said:

*“You coward. Those were for you, and you should have just eaten them yourself.” *

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