Yesterday's Gone: Season Six (27 page)

“We got a new member?”

Nobody else answered, so Emily nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, you don’t need to call me ma’am. The name’s Jazz.”
 

She held out her hand.

Emily reached out and met the woman’s firm handshake.

“Is that your real name, Jazz?”

Emily didn’t mean to snoop on the woman’s thoughts but saw a flash of horrifying memories. Bloody. Jazz was a survivor, who’d lost plenty.
 

“I used to go by another name, but too many bad things happened to that woman. She was a victim. But Jazz, she’s a fighter.”

Emily nodded. “Nice to meet you, Jazz.”

Suddenly, Luca screamed: “Mary!”
 

* * * *

CHAPTER 3 — Mary Olson

No, it can’t be.

Paola?

Mary listened as the footsteps behind her came closer. Then the girl stepped into view.

It
was
her!

“Paola?” Mary couldn’t stop the tears streaming down her face.

Paola stood in a long dark-blue dress. She looked slightly different, slightly older, nineteen or so, but there was no mistaking her daughter: long dark hair, large brown eyes, small lips, trembling as she wept. It was somehow, impossibly Paola!

Paola collapsed onto Mary, hugging her as best she could with her mother naked and strapped to the table, crying in her ear. “I missed you so much, Mom!”

Her daughter’s hair covering Mary’s face, she inhaled the girl’s scent, leaving no doubt that this was, in fact, her daughter, still somehow alive.

“I missed you, too. Oh, God, I missed you so much.
How?
How are you still alive?”

It hit her before either of them spoke. Paola was alive in the same way that Desmond was — animated by the aliens. Likely hijacked.

Mary let out a scream. Paola jumped back, startled.

“You’re not my daughter!”

Paola pushed her hair back from her tear-stained face, eyes wide, hurt. “What?”

“You’re not my daughter! You’re a corpse, pretending to be Paola.”

“No, Mom, it’s me!”

Mary stared at the girl, desperate to believe her, to
know
that somehow Paola was alive. But nobody could survive the gunshot wound she’d seen her daughter take to the head.
 

Mary closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at this mockery to Paola’s memory any longer.

“Please, Mommy, it’s me. It’s Paola.” She reached out to embrace Mary again.

Mary screamed, flinching from the thing’s touch, shaking her head, “Get away! Get away!”

“She
is
your daughter,” Desmond said.

Now she had Desmond, speaking in his normal voice, and Paola, begging her to see them as the humans she once knew and loved.
 

She squeezed her eyes tighter, screaming to drown their voices, “Gettttttt ouuuuuuttttttt!!”

Mary screamed until her throat was raw, sore, and cracking.

She finally stopped. The room was silent except for her sobbing.

Are they gone?

Mary opened her eyes to an empty room. The abominations pretending to be her daughter and lover were gone.

Mary never thought she’d experience anything worse than Paola’s death.

Now she knew how wrong she’d been.

* * * *

CHAPTER 4 — Boricio Wolfe

“Mary!” Luca screamed, his body shaking in Barrow’s bulging arms.

Boricio ran to help Barrow gently lower Luca to the ground just outside the Chandler House’s basement entrance.

“Easy does it.” Boricio placed a hand behind Luca’s head and watched the old man convulse.

Boricio usually kept his eyes on two things when the Boy Wonder was making a maraca with his body: that the kid didn’t hurt himself and that he didn’t swallow his tongue. Now he was wondering why Luca was screaming Mary’s name.
 

Was she in trouble? Did something happen to her? Was there anything he was supposed to do?
 

Boricio tried not to consider all the terrible things that could befall Mary out there. Yet all matter of awful atrocities started playing in his mind’s lonely theater.

Karma, bitch, comin’ to take the person you care about most.

Boricio told his inner voice to shut the fuck up.

Luca’s body stopped shaking. His eyes opened.

Good, he’s coming to. Kid can give me the spoilers.
 

“You okay, buddy?”

Luca’s eyes looked up at Boricio, dizzy, confused.

“Luca? You with me?”

He stared at Boricio, still lost.

Fuck!

Boricio could feel the others crowding around him, watching, waiting anxiously to see if the kid was okay. He was the
one thing
that they all had in common, and maybe the
only thing
holding them all together. If, or when, Luca died, Boricio was damned sure the wheels would come flying off the Team Boricio Mystery Machine. And if that happened, Team Fucking Alien won.

“Come on.” Boricio shook Luca, trying to wake him from his stupor. “Come on, buddy.”

No response.

“What
about
Mary?” Boricio shook him harder. “Come on!”

“Hey, hey!” Keenan put a hand on Boricio’s shoulder. “Easy now.”

Boricio flinched and looked up at Keenan. “He knows where Mary is. We need to find out!”

“We won’t know anything if you shake him to death!”

Boricio looked down. Luca’s eyes were closed, out cold again.

“Fuck!”
 

Boricio laid Luca’s head down gently then popped up and spun, searching for the first thing he could plunge his fist into. The tunnel’s wall would work just fine.

Pain shot through his hand like a bolt of lightning.

Fuck! What’s this fucking wall made of?
 

He held his hand, hoping he didn’t break anything, and fell back against the wall. He closed his eyes, breathing in and out, slow and deliberate, trying to calm himself.

He heard the others, including Barrow and Luca, move into the Chandler House basement, giving him space.

He waited for silence then opened his eyes.

But Boricio wasn’t alone.

“What?” he said to Emily.

“Maybe I can help.”

Boricio laughed. “Yeah, how’s that?”

“Maybe I can go in his head and see what he saw.”

Boricio smiled then found a laugh.
 

He opened and closed his fingers. His knuckles were red and bleeding, and his whole hand felt like he’d punched Iron Man’s crotch. But he didn’t think there was anything broken.

“You think you can do that? I mean, you still ain’t reached Daddy Dearest.”

“I can’t promise anything, but I think maybe I can’t connect with Dad because I’m so far away. But Luca’s right here. I’ve never tried going into someone who wasn’t awake, but I want to help however I can.”

Boricio looked at the girl’s eyes, so wide and earnest. While she was hardly Paola’s twin, something about her reminded him of Miss Mary’s daughter. He had to be careful not to get too attached.
 

God gives me the old dick slap when I start to fucking care.

“All right, let’s give it a shot,” Boricio said, leading Emily inside the Chandler House.

* * * *

CHAPTER 5 — Brent Foster

“How would you like to come with us?” Tommy repeated to Ben and Becca.
 

The children were silent, trying not to cry.
 

Tommy, still crouched, leered at them then smiled at Brent and Teagan.
 

Brent wanted to strike but couldn’t stop what was happening and would surely die if he tried, maybe dragging them all down with him. He thought of his own razor, hidden under a clump of dirt a few feet behind him, and tallied his odds.
 

Tommy smiled wider and ran a hand through Becca’s long, red hair. “How old are you?”
 

Becca flinched.
 

Ben’s lip quivered like he wanted to say something but was afraid to.

Brent scooted back, slowly, inching his fingers toward the razor somewhere behind him. Purple Hair looked at Brent, called him a coward with his eyes, then turned his full attention to Tommy’s show, his hand reaching down and adjusting his cock, or stroking it.

Brent wanted to cut it off. Cut both their cocks off and then shove them down their throats. Brent couldn’t conceive of how either of them could be even thinking about raping when the girl they raped last night, along with her mother, were still bleeding all over the container floor just inches behind them.

Tommy looked from Ben to Becca. “Which one of you wants to come with me first?”
 

When neither child spoke, Tommy turned to Teagan.
 

“Mind if I borrow your daughter?”
 

Teagan whimpered, clearly trying not to scream. Brent had to act, and had to act now. There was no way that he could let them take either of the kids out of the container. No way in hell.

Brent’s fingers desperately searched behind him, fumbling over debris.
Where the hell is the razor?
He had to find it.

Purple Hair glanced over at him. “What are you doing?”
 

“I can’t watch,” Brent said, throwing his head into the crook of his right arm. He kept his left arm behind him, searching.

For the longest moment, there was nothing but silence save for Tommy’s telling Becca what a pretty, pretty girl she was.
 

Brent prayed Purple Hair wasn’t still watching him, or worse, coming over. He dared to peek over his arm, saw that Purple Hair’s eyes had returned to the show, kneading the head of his cock through his pants.

Fucker.

Brent’s fingers splayed as wide as they’d go, groping in the dirt, pushing dirt and debris aside, searching for the sharp edge of his blade.

Come on, where the hell is it?

Right hand still over his eyes. Brent stretched his left arm out as far as he could without inviting attention, or scooting any farther from Teagan.
 

“Your boyfriend says he can’t watch,” Tommy said to Teagan. “Can you?”

Suddenly, a moment of silence. Brent was sure he was busted. He pulled his hand back quickly to his side.

“Why you looking at him?” Tommy said. “Think he can save you?”
 

Brent looked up, knowing they were talking about him. He met Teagan’s crying eyes. Then he looked into Ben’s and Becca’s, also wet. But they were too terrified to cry out loud with the bandits over them. They knew something bad was about to happen, even if they couldn’t know
how
bad.

Teagan shook her head.
 

“He
can’t.
Ain’t nothing gonna save you but
you
, and only if you’re smart enough to make the right choices. You wanna watch, or join in?”
 

Skull Tattoo shook his head, glanced over at Wilson’s body, and clapped a hand on Purple Hair’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get this guy out of here first. Dead bitches next.”
 

The two bandits lifted Wilson’s body, one at the armpits and one at the feet, and began to carry him outside.
 

Brent’s fingers returned to their search and then felt the razor’s edge.
 

Got it, fuckers!

Purple Hair stopped.
 

Skull Tattoo, holding Wilson’s feet, said, “What is it?”
 

“Not sure,” Purple Hair said, eyeing Brent.

Brent was frozen, doing his best to his best to appear as though he was making eyes at the ground, without drawing attention to his left hand behind him.

Tommy looked back at them. “There a problem I should know about?”
 

“No,” Purple Hair said. “Just do your thing.”
 

Brent stayed frozen. The bandits continued to carry the body out of the container.
 

His hand closed around the blade, cold in his flesh.
 

He tightened it in his fist, hoping he wasn’t slicing his flesh. He was so amped he might not feel it. He imagined plunging the blade into the pervert’s eyes, one at a time before cutting the throats of the other two bandits.
 

But he had to bury his intention until the perfect moment.

“Hmmm … who’s first?” Tommy ran his hand over Ben’s head. “They’re both so cute. You two did such a good job raising these little ones.”
 

It took everything inside Brent not to lunge forward. Tommy moved his eyes from boy to father, daring Brent’s response, a sick glee gleaming in his beady eyes.