Today, Tomorrow and Always

by Bailey, Tessa

  Today, Tomorrow and Always

  Tessa Bailey

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  A man didn’t need much in life.

  Tucker patted the cigar in the pocket of his plaid shirt to make sure it was still there. Draped a loose hand over the steering wheel and reveled in the knowledge he didn’t have to wake up for anything but eggs and bacon tomorrow morning.

  Yes, ma’am. All a man needed was Saturday night, a six-pack and the rumble of engines. Technically, he was late to his destination, but schedules didn’t run tight in Buckhannon, especially on the weekends, so he didn’t spare a worry. Stress wasn’t a word in Tucker’s vocabulary.

  He drove down lamp-lit Main Street, tipping his hat to his old middle school geometry teacher who was bringing her grandkids out for ice cream, a customer Tucker knew from the auto repair shop where he worked during the day. He liked to call that his straight job, but the Saturday night drag races? Now that’s where he made his fancy cigar money.

  A couple of high school kids ran through the crosswalk, stopped when they noticed Tucker waiting at the stop light and jogged back. They used their fingers to make antennae and whistled the X-Files theme song, before taking off laughing.

  Tucker laughed, too, despite the way his skin turned clammy.

  When the light turned green, his foot landed on the gas with a little too much force and he sped off the small but busy main strip, heading for the edge of town. It wasn’t long before the familiar potholes of the back road were bouncing him around on the seat of his Impala. Distant river wind danced in through the driver’s window and lifted the hair on his neck, the bright moon illuminating the flat fields on all sides.

  He turned up the music and tried to shake off those kids from the crosswalk, along with his guilt. The latter made him want to turn around and go back home, apologize to his father for their argument. Kids having a laugh at his expense wasn’t anything new, but a fight with mild-mannered Carl wasn’t typical. It would have to be tomorrow’s problem, though.

  Forcibly, Tucker cleared his mind. He’d been running the Saturday night drag races long enough that people had made their jokes about his father and moved on. At the very least, he wouldn’t have to deal with any of that shit tonight.

  A movement out in the field to his left whipped his head around.

  Was that a…person? Standing so still on the edge of the moonlight?

  He braked a little and peered into the night. Where’d the sucker go?

  Ignoring the finger of uneasiness dragging up the back of his neck, Tucker chuckled and continued on his way. Probably just some kids making out. More power to them. God only knew he’d take the chance to do the same if he had the option.

  Fat chance. Tucker was king of the friend zone. The slightly overweight guy who made everyone laugh, then sort of melted into the background with his beer when everyone else paired off. And he was fine with that. Just fine.

  Didn’t really have a choice but to be fine, seeing as how he lived in a small town where everyone knew one another’s business. There weren’t a lot of girls signing up to mix their gene pool with the son of the local UFO enthusiast—and he couldn’t blame them.

  Still…what would it be like to have his own piece of property? To share it with someone else and make some babies to give it life and love? Sit back on the porch rocker and watch them run around with sparklers in the front yard on the Fourth of July? He could see that moving image, plain as day. It was the kind of scene he’d grown up with until everything changed at age sixteen. It hurt to admit to himself how much he wanted that feeling of home back. Home was stuffing too much food into his belly at dinner, laughing at silly things until tears blurred his vision, going to bed knowing everyone would be right where he left them in the morning.

  Maybe he’d never have that.

  Maybe he’d never had stability to begin with. The fabric of his family had been so fragile, but the fraying seams had been invisible, along with his mother’s unhappiness.

  Hell, if there was a way to stop wanting that sense of home, he would.

  Tucker turned up the music a little higher and took the hairpin turn, tires squealing, toward the stretch of abandoned road where they held drag races every Saturday night. The races had started back when he was in high school, fresh from getting his driver’s license. Tucker and a couple of buddies, looking for an adrenaline rush that was elusive in small town West Virginia, had started the races as a way to pass the time.

  He wasn’t money-minded. Not now and not in high school. As long as he had pizza money, life was fuckin’ grand, but when his first car—cobbled together with parts from the scrap yard—had needed repairs, he’d seen his newfound freedom compromised. Needing some cashola fast, he’d started taking bets on the drag races. That’s when people really started showing up. Not only from Buckhannon, but elsewhere, looking to double their own pizza money and meet chicks. It was a well-known fact that girls loved idiot risk-takers and right there, on the edge of Tucker’s hometown, was where they congregated.

  Tucker swerved into the clearing and skidded to a stop, throwing the Impala into park.

  Big crowd tonight.

  There was a local guy racing against a rival town. The rivalry was mainly football related, but in West Virginia the gridiron angst spawned side-rivalries in everything from barbeque joints to churches. And now drag racing.

  The stretch of road ran about half a mile to the finish line, before it turned toward the river. College-aged kids and some older high schoolers—no doubt there without their parents’ permission—lined the strip of asphalt. Half-empty six-packs dangled from fingers, cigarette smoke curled against the black backdrop of sky and stars.

  Ignoring the fact that at twenty-six, he was getting too old for this shit, Tucker lit his cigar and tucked it into his mouth, swinging his husky frame out of the vehicle and executing a dramatic bow. When he straightened, mostly everyone had quieted. That, or they were digging in their pockets for cash, getting ready to hand it over. “Ready to race, motherfuckers?”

  He didn’t react to the rowdy cheers, just held his palms out, flourishing his fingers up and back in the international symbol for gimme.

  “Local boy is the favorite. Four to one odds. Who wants to play?” Tucker walked through his audience like a Baptist preacher taking the Sunday offering, money being slapped into his palms, bass from the blaring Shop Boyz remix punctuating his steps. Eyebrow Piercing was putting twenty on the underdog. Purple Lipstick wagered five on the local kid. And on and on he went, memorizing each bet and mentally tabulating his cut of each. “Now!” Having reached the end of the crowd, Tucker turned and addressed them all with a stern look. “I assume both racers have an up-to-date competition license.”

  Blank looks all around.

  “Ah, I’m just fucking with you.” He ashed his cigar, threw the laughing youngsters a wink. “Gentlemen, start your engines and pull up to the starting line.”

  There was something almost romantic about headlights cutting through the bleak country black of the deserted road. Voices buz
zing with nerves. Girls hiding their faces in their boyfriend’s jacket collars. People this age thought they were immortal. Life was an infinite resource to them. There weren’t a lot of adults at drag races, because once you’ve reached a certain number of years, you’ve witnessed tragedy. How fragile life could be.

  Tucker was stuck somewhere in the middle, unable to dislodge himself.

  He liked the adrenaline, the excitement, the risk. Fine, even the romantic, forbidden quality of doing something illegal on a Saturday night. But there was a part of him that questioned why. Or if maybe he’d just convinced himself he preferred the buzz and relative stardom that came with running the drag races, because adulthood was going to be a disappointment.

  Why grow up at all? What was waiting for him there?

  His father’s well-known oddities notwithstanding, Tucker was slightly overweight, a mechanic, a jokester, not that pretty to look at. He’d never had a girlfriend. Women tended to give him a pat on the head, then work their way toward greener pastures. Toward guys with college degrees or a foot in the door of a family business. No questionable DNA or missing mothers. And hell, now he’d just gotten to a point where he lacked so much confidence with women, he didn’t even bother trying to get past the jokes to something deeper. The rejections had worn his self-assurance thin.

  So here he stood, in the middle of a dark road, cigar smoke obscuring his vision just slightly. Enough that the young folks looked like something imagined. The crowd would be different next year. The girls would start wearing different kinds of clothes, the guys would be buying a new brand of jeans, the music would change. But Tucker wouldn’t. He didn’t know how to walk from one side of the road to the other. How to go forward when so many things seemed to be holding him back.

  Forcing a smile onto his face, Tucker pulled a bandana from his back pocket and held it up, waiting for everyone’s attention. “All right, kiddies. Let’s have a clean race.” He eyed the audience. “First one to shotgun a beer doubles their odds.” A rusty chuckle escaped him as every guy in attendance scrambled to puncture a can, foam spraying everywhere, girls laughing. And those sounds carried into the night sky as Tucker boomed, “Three, two, one—”

  Tires shrieked and the two souped-up cars shot forward, roaring past Tucker. He turned without hurry and pulled on his cigar, waiting for the victor to be declared so he could divvy up the winnings. The races didn’t usually take more than twenty seconds and he tended to go home with at least three hundred bucks. Come to think of it, that hourly rate made him better paid than a big shot lawyer—

  Tired skidding, metal crunching, glass shattering.

  Screaming.

  Screaming on all sides of him. And running.

  No.

  No, in almost a decade, there’d never been a crash. It was a wide road, he didn’t let hotheads race, inspected the cars himself at the shop before Saturdays rolled around. He took every precaution, but…Jesus. Jesus, the fire bloomed down at the end of the dark road, reminding him of birds of paradise. Jagged orange and pin pricks of blue.

  He dropped the cigar and started to run.

  God, please. Please don’t let anyone be hurt or worse.

  He’d never forgive himself.

  Not a kid with a future. Please.

  The flames balled up and exploded, smoke pluming into the sky, the hip-hop music playing in the distance now an eerie soundtrack to…what? Death? A hoarse sound left him and he picked up his pace, sprinting now toward the wreckage. “Stay back,” he shouted at the other young people on the road. “Call nine-one-one. Do not come any closer!”

  Thankfully, they listened to him and Tucker kept running, alone now.

  But when he reached the crash site, his steps slowed.

  Both drivers were lying side by side in the middle of the road.

  And there were two men standing above them. Adults that definitely didn’t fit into the crowd. The unnaturally still figures were dressed in black pants and jackets, watching him approach in a way that sent a shiver coasting down Tucker’s spine. There was something predatory in those eyes. And a wealth of…knowledge? If so, it was definitely more knowledge than he had. That seemed to be understood. That they were superior, unafraid of the flames behind them. They made him the outsider, an intruder, with one sweep of those sharp gazes.

  These guys couldn’t have been standing at the starting line. They never would have been able to make it here so fast. Who the hell were they?

  Tucker looked around for the finish line crowd. The ones who always stood at the end to congratulate the winner and corroborate his claim of passing the finish line first. But there was no one in sight. No one…

  A foot was sticking out into the road.

  No. More than one.

  As Tucker’s eyes adjusted to the dark, after looking into the fire, he saw them. Three young people, lying in a tangle of limbs just off the edge of the road.

  “Oh Jesus,” Tucker breathed, raking his fingers through his hair. “Were they hit by one of the cars? We need to get a goddamn ambulance out here.”

  This could mean prison for him. These were his races. He was responsible. That was a problem for later, though. At that moment, he was torn between assisting the drivers and the threesome of injured spectators. Getting the drivers away from the fire was most important, right? “Help me move them.” His lips were numb. “We shouldn’t, but I’m worried about them being so close to the cars. There could be an explosion—”

  “No need to bother,” said one of the men, quietly, calmly.

  The other added, “Not about any of them, really.”

  A chill spread through Tucker. “What?” He looked back at the starting line and saw an outline of several heads—the people he’d told to stay back—and he had the sudden urge to warn them to run, run as fast as they could. That instinct was only strengthened when he turned back to face the wreckage and the two men were standing mere inches away from him. He hadn’t even heard them move.

  This wasn’t right.

  This whole thing, the way the bodies were lying, the way these creepy assholes weren’t even remotely concerned or rattled or anything. It was all wrong. They didn’t even breathe or blink. They could have been made of wax, if it wasn’t for the odd glow of their eyes.

  “Did you…have something to do with this?” Tucker asked through stiff lips.

  The men turned to one another and laughed. “Of course we did.”

  “Oops,” said the second one, nudging his tongue to the corner of his mouth. Was that blood on his lip? “We were starving.”

  “And let’s face it, bored. Not much else to do in West Virginia.”

  “Amen to that.”

  “Who are you?” Tucker interrupted raggedly. “Why…hungry? I don’t…”

  One of the men glanced back at the drivers with an eyebrow raised. A moment later, one of the prone figures started to move. He rolled over and groaned, sending a wave of relief through Tucker, nearly staggering him backward. “Tell you what, since we’re bored, let’s play a game,” said one of the men. “We were planning to Silence one of these nasty little daredevils. But perhaps you’d like to trade yourself?”

  “Oh, sound plan,” the second man crooned, looking Tucker over. “He’s got a lot more meat on his bones. We could have spared the others and simply dined on him.”

  “So wasteful. Can humans be recycled?”

  “Yes! It’s called Silencing, silly. We’ve literally just been discussing this.”

  “Shut up,” Tucker growled. “Explain what you mean by…you could have spared them. You…” Attempting to swallow, though his mouth was bone dry, he glanced over at the tangled limbs off the side of the road. “You did this to them? You did this and you caused the accident. How? Why? Why the hell would you do that?”

  “Answer the question.” The man sounded impatient. “Would you like to trade yourself?”

  “Tick tock, big boy. Simple question. Needs a simple answer.”

  Oddly, Tuck
er thought of his father in the following moments. Thought of him at the home they shared, in the barn out back, babbling to himself, making notes. Staring at screens and holding his breath every time he thought the seismograph moved. Trying to make contact. Desperate for interaction with other beings.

  Could these be them? The other beings his father swore were out there? The creatures from another planet that his father believed had taken his mother away?

  After a decade of nodding through his father’s ramblings, Tucker was floored to even be considering the possibility. But hell, his heart was beating like it never had before. He was in fucking danger, plain and simple. His body and mind and gut knew it. Their gazes cut through him like a warm knife through cake, dead, blank, but highly intelligent—and that wasn’t good. Wasn’t right.

  “Are you aliens?” Tucker whispered.

  That set them off laughing again.

  Just as fast, they turned serious. “No.”

  “Good try, though.”

  Tucker stepped back, put up his fists. He’d never fought with anything else and didn’t have time to learn a new method, even though he sensed with every fiber of his being that fists weren’t going to do the trick. “Me or them? Take me. Let’s go.”

  One of them tilted his head. Too far. Too quickly. “You realize this means your death, don’t you?”

  “You know, it might be kind of funny to leave him pudgy for eternity.”

  Tucker glanced behind the men and saw the second driver had roused, was beginning to sit up, bloody but alive. Tucker looked to his right at three unmoving bodies. And he knew, he knew these strangers were going to kill him. There was no way out of it. Any men who were capable of something so sinister, so violent would have no qualms killing a man.