Jules Read online

And waits. And waits. He waits for what seems like hours but, in reality, amounted to twenty or thirty minutes (at most). Finally, someone comes up to him. A big guy in small, tight-fitting blue office scrubs. It’s a bit intimidating to look at, at first. He talks to Jules more about how he’s feeling before deeming him unfit for the mental health ward. This infuriates Jules, but there’s only so much that he can do.

  Once he gets home, he makes himself some coffee and gets a call; it’s Terrence. “Hey, J, it’s ya boy, T. I got a serving of turkey for ya, if you’re still interested. You know where to meet.” “Hey, T. That’s awesome! Yeah, I’ll come by and get some off of ya. Thanks, man.” “No problemo. How have you been holding up without it?” “Surprisingly well,” Jules lies. “That’s good, my man.” “Haha, yeah… Well, take it easy dude. I’ll be by in a few days.” “Okay, no rush. Take it easy, man. Peace!”

  The coffee percolates in the distance as Jules tries to make a decision. Keep having fun by smoking DMT or try to quit it for good. Seeing how insane it has made him without it, he starts to think that quitting for good might be best. The coffee finishes, he gathers himself a cup before sitting down to watch the news. No sign of any U.F.O. sightings. “Weird,” Jules thinks aloud to himself. “Weeeiiirrd.” He says again before taking a sip.

  After the news, Jules thinks to himself, “Screw it!” and decides to go get some more DMT from Terrence. Once he gets to Terrence’s house, he performs the magic knock. Terrence answers. “You clean?” He asks, panicked. “It’s J. Les.” Jules responds. “Aight. Give me a sec.” You can hear Terrence messing with numerous locks on the other side of the door. At some point, the noise stops. The next second, the door opens and he lets Jules in. They give each other a high-five leading into a handshake, before hugging each other outright. “Hey, man! How have you been?” Jules asks Terrence. “I’ve been good, my guy. Business has been tight… And the pussy? Tighter.” Terrence responds, bursting out in laughter. “Alright, alright!” Jules exclaims.

  After building up some rapport, the two go sit down in Terrence’s living room on his beat-up, yet comfortable, couch. “So, you want some turkey. Eh?” Terrence retorts. “Yeah, man… I’ve been out for the past couple of days and boy! … I am fiendin’.” “Haha, man… No worries, I got’chu.” “Thanks, Homie.” It’s as though Jules is a completely different person around Terrence; dumber, almost. The two of them talk some more before making the exchange and then enjoy a joint together afterwards. Afterwards, Jules goes home.

  Once home, he gets a call from Terrence. “Hey, man. Real quick. Want to apologize for the low dosage. It was all I was able to get my hands on. Hope it works, T.” The voicemail reads. Jules looks down and opens up the bag, noticing there’s only enough for one hit… Maybe two, if he’s lucky. Yet, instead of getting angry he accepts his fate and decides this might be best anyway.

  Later that night, he lights up and puts the T.V. on. While watching the news, there’s a piece about some more U.F.O. sightings and Jules finds this odd. Trying not to get into his own head too much, he starts to think that the DMT is magical. As it would seem that the aliens only begin to appear when he smokes the shit. This causes him to become both, excited and panicked. “Like, how cool… But how weird…” As Jules puts it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He looks down and, thankfully, he has enough DMT to smoke once more. But he waits. He wants to become sober before he tests this theory of his. And so, a couple days go by without Jules lighting up. As he’s experimenting, he makes sure to pay close attention to the news. Three days sober and there was some more information regarding the U.F.O. sightings, which made Jules start to doubt the magic of his drugs. A week later, however, and everything seemed to die down. That’s when he smoked his last remaining dosage of DMT. The trip itself was not anything to report on, it’s what happened after that shocked Jules.

  On the news, there was a piece about an alien abduction in a nearby state. Some random person was out gardening their plants when, out of nowhere, they were hit with a beam of light and sucked up into a strange, saucer-like ship. This caused Jules to start wigging out even more. He calls up Evelyn to see if she has heard the news.

  “Evelyn, it’s Jules. Did you see the news? An ACTUAL alien abduction. Call me back, asap.” She doesn’t answer, so he leaves a voicemail. Next, he tries to call David (who also doesn’t answer), leaving him the same voicemail. He then gets up and goes to work. While at work, he cannot help but to think about what happened. As he’s cleaning away, he begins pondering upon the possible outcomes; fearing that he will be abducted soon. Or worse, someone he loves will be abducted.

  With each passing second Jules grows more and more paranoid. It gets so bad that he just up and leaves work. Once home, Jules heads for his stash to try and find something that can help him to forget. He looks and notices the heroin and, without any second thoughts, shoots up. At first, everything is calm. But, quickly, Jules’ vision starts to distort. The world begins spinning around him as he then succumbs to a hard fall before an all-encompassing darkness surrounds him.

  His phone rings, it’s his sister. He doesn’t answer. This concerns her. The phone rings again. Still no answer. She drives over to his apartment and knocks. No answer. She uses her spare key that he, her brother, gave her and lets herself in. “Jules…” She calls out, “It’s me, Evelyn.”

  She slowly makes her way to his bedroom, nervous that she might catch him naked or something. Instead, she opens the door to find him unresponsive on his bedroom floor. His stash of drugs is open next to him, the needle is still in his left arm. Evelyn’s face is one of sadness and horror. She calls 911.

  As she waits for the ambulance to arrive, she tries waking him up. It doesn’t work. He’s already dead. And although she suspects that to be true, she’s holding onto to hope that he’s still alive. Or that there’s a small chance to bring him back, at the very least. Once the paramedics get there, they check his pulse before confirming that he’s really gone. Evelyn continues to hold him, in her arms, while she cries. The paramedics wait a few minutes before taking his body from her. They load him into the back of the car and drive off, the sirens begin to fade in the distance.

  END

  Epilogue

  It has been three months since Jules’ death. A few more U.F.O. sightings have made news headlines. The funeral was small with only David, Evelyn, Raheem, and Terrence showing up. After the funeral, an influx of mysterious, unresolved kidnappings started to plague the nation. Nobody knew why, who, or how.

  After a few weeks passed, Evelyn went to Jules’ grave to pay her condolences to him. His tombstone read, “A believer in the unbelievable.” As she stood above him, her heart grew heavy with sadness and despair. However, she was able to better maintain her sadness this time around. She brought him a little, plastic U.F.O. which she stuck in the ground next to his epitaph. She then spoke of strange kidnappings, saying to his spirit – if there even was one – “You would be amazed with the news right now, lil’ bro. There’s been some peculiar kidnappings happening lately. And, I don’t know… But a part of me thinks it’s the aliens after all.”

  Afterwards, Evelyn stands up and gets ready to leave. As she turns around a beam of light shines down upon her. She begins first to float, then to soar high above the ground below. Until she gets so high off the ground that the darkness fully consumes her and she disappears into a place unknown.

  About Richard D. Brown:

  Richard D. Brown (or Richard Brown) is a twenty-one-year-old American author and poet. He hopes to, one day, be considered among the greats like Poe, Thoreau, Silverstein, Bukowski, and the like. When he isn’t writing, you can catch Richard sitting in front of a television…playing video games. Or perhaps he is enjoying time with his family. He is a man with many hobbies and interests. But his main passion is writing and he struggles to imagine living in a world without it.