WRIST

She pulls into a parking space and parks the truck. The flashbacks come in waves. The ones from October are the worst, because not only they make her feel like she slips into their bullshit reality, she also becomes someone else in them. Maybe not quite Max Caufield, but definitely more Max Caufield than Chloe Price. This freaks her out, because it makes her feel like a ghost. Or maybe a soul trapped in purgatory. Meaning a dead person. Which she may have intended to become a few days ago, but now, when it comes right down to it…

She shuts off the engine and sits in the seat. Rides them out.

Max Caufield wearing slacks or some shit, and Chloe Price in a motorized shopping cart. The beach is full of dead whales. Max knows way more than she lets on. They talk about the good old days.

"My nose is getting cold," Chloe says.

Chloe and Max walk through the parking lot towards the RV. There's a finger painting of a smiley face in the dust of the boarded up window. The beach is deserted. There's a plastic chair and a table in front of the RV door and empty beer bottles all over.

"Wait, Chloe," Max says. "This is not going to go well."

Chloe shoots Frank in the chest. Chloe shoots Frank in the leg. Chloe shoot Pompidou. Chloe stabs Frank with a knife.

She phases back in, wondering if the message is to bring the gun or leave it. There's a little girl, about four, squatting at the edge of the surf, scooping out a hole in the sand, which overflows with every wave. Her mother is talking on the phone. The beach is empty, otherwise. No whales. She could smoke a whale right now. In the end, the gun stays in the duffel.

She crosses the lot towards the RV; her boots scraping the pavement. There's no smiley face in the window, but the chair and the table and the bottles are all there on the other side, making her stomach churn. She waits a bit for the flashback to phase out. It never does, so she exhales and checks her pockets and walks up to the door and knocks.

There's a moment where nothing moves, and she realizes there are about a thousand gulls screaming constantly over the waves. She has time enough to register their cries and to wonder if maybe she knocked on the door in some other reality and not this one, before Pompidou begins to bark.

"Goddamn it," Frank's voice. Then Frank himself in the doorway. His eyes go mustard-big when he sees who it is.

"Price! Where the hell have you been? And what the hell are you thinking showing up here looking like this? If I wanted to advertise, I would place an ad in the Beacon, not invite junkies to hang around the lot. You know you're not coming inside looking like that, right?"

She lets him talk without hearing much of what he says. Her eyes are on his wrist. Then his other wrist. There are no bracelets on either one. He notices and shuts up for a moment, then asks, "What the hell happened to you?"

"What was that shit you gave me?" she asks.

"Was that it? Were you tripping?"

"I'm still tripping, Frank. I get these flashbacks. It's a mix of things that happened and things that never did, past, future, all over the place. It's fucking with my mind and freaking the shit out of me. I need to know how to stop it."

"Shit, Price. It's a drug. It'll wear off and you'll come down. Just ride it out. How much did you take?"

"All of it"

"What?"

"With some Jack. Three days ago."

He blinks at her a few times.

"You took the entire bottle. At once."

She nods.

"Why the hell would you do that?"

"Fuck it," Rachel says. "I just want to take something that's not mine."

Her eyes are blazing. Her feather earring dances in the gusty Overlook wind. She's hurt, and pissed, and wild, and she will not be stopped.

"I'm going in," she says. "Try to keep up."

"Price?"

"That's… uh… not important right now. How do I get straight?"

"How the fuck should I know? I told you this shit was new. Nobody's ever taken the whole bottle before. And lived to tell the tale, that is. How long have you been up?"

"A few hours. Should I go to the hospital?"

"The hospital? For what? Pumping your stomach is not gonna do shit three days after the fact. No. What you need is rest."

"How am I supposed to rest when I'm tripping balls every time I close my eyes."

"Just ride them out. They won't hurt you. The hospital is bullshit, though. All they'll do is bill you."

"Like I give a shit. What's another bill we can't pay?"

"Maybe some weed will do you good. Settle your mind a bit."

"Kind of strapped for cash, Frank."

"Shit, never heard that one before… Come in a second."

He holds the door open for her gallantly. Suddenly, she's spooked to come up those steps, because Frank never volunteered free weed before.

The door opens and Chloe Price barges in, all cheekbones and blue hair and suspenders and ugly-ass cowboy boots. Max Caufield shrinks back into the corner of the bathroom. The courage she's been working up to confront the Prescott kid and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing in the girls' bathroom shrinks with her. She doesn't recognize Chloe, because she doesn't really see her, though she would not recognize her if she did, either.

"Did you check the perimeter?" Chloe Price says. "Like my step-ass would say."

The voice rings the tiniest of bells, but Max is too confused - and kind of terrified of being found - to put her finger on it. She closes her eyes to steel herself for the inevitable embarrassment of discovery, which never comes.

It's ten seconds later and both, she and Frank realize she hasn't moved. Their eyes meet. There's a silent question hanging in the space between them. She takes a couple of steps back. Frank's face becomes more confused.

"Chloe?"

"I think I'll just go home and sleep it off."

"You're walking away from free weed."

"You're volunteering free weed, Frank."

His eyes shoot past her for the briefest of moments. She follows the trajectory and sees the mother and daughter combo from earlier. She looks back at Frank and takes a couple of steps more. Frank rolls his eyes.

"What's in your head? What do you think is happening here?"

"I don't know, man. Nothing feels right."

She just got backhanded in the face. The burned room swims around her. She would like to get up but somehow she can't seem to find the up and down. The sky where the ceiling is supposed to be doesn't help.

"Chloe!" The voice. It's Frank. He's bleeding and grimacing and leaning on the wall and laboring to breathe.

"Frank!"

"Damon, what did you do?"

"Oh, I fucked you up good, didn't I?"

"People change," she says, turning and walking away. "I'll see you later, Frank."

She hears the door slap shut, but when she looks back from the truck, Frank is still there by the RV, watching her. She glances at the duffel bag and for a moment she desperately wants to come back over there and ask Frank about Rachel. Instead, she starts the truck and raises her hand in a salute that she hopes looks friendly.

He doesn't return it.