She drifted in and out of consciousness in the ambulance.
She awoke a few times in the hospital and found herself handcuffed to a gurney, too weak to move, too forlorn to care.
She heard voices over her sometimes, but most of the time she slept a deep sleep where her dreams were of the faces in the trees and the things they said about her: terrible things.
Mia never woke when they moved her into the military truck. She was moved onto the base, wheeled into the lab, and placed under the hot lights with no struggle at all.
There, the man with the wire-rimmed glasses could examine her more closely.
*****
Mia's eyes opened with a burst of yellow light to find a blond man standing over her in the lab. The energy crackled through her, and she stood.
Four others were there, one girl and three guys. They were in a lab of some kind. Had they been experimenting on her?
"This one," the blond guy said, "once I woke her up she burned the drug out of her own system."
"WHERE AM I?" she screamed.
She brought her hands up, and threw them forward. A cascade of energy blew the tables apart and knocked them all to the floor.
One of them stood up and approached her, a black guy, bald.
"Listen," he said, "my name is Kevin. We were on the bus together."
Mia brought up a fist and unleashed the energy at him. It buffeted him, but seemed to have no effect. The waves just crashed around him.
Kevin looked around himself for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, that doesn't work on me. We don't have time for this. The people that brought you here are going to get help and come back."
"Who brought me here? Where am I?" she asked again.
"It's a base or something. They're after all of us. All the kids from the school bus. I'll explain it but we have to move out of here.
There was another glow from behind Kevin. He turned to find Zachary standing over another person: a man with black hair.
"He'll be okay," Zachary said, pulling the sheet away from him. The man sat up.
"Where am I?"
"Um, more important question," Brandon interjected. "Were you under a sheet just now?"
Zachary nodded. "They have sheets on the dead ones."
"You just brought him back to life?" Kevin asked.
"What?" the guy asked confusedly.
"I asked God to do it," Zachary said.
"What in the hell is GOING ON?" Mia screamed.
*****
The bus plunged into the water, and the yellow light followed.
Mia's head was tearing itself apart, her eyes opening, opening. Her pupils pulled open like the lens of a camera, and the noise in her head called out.
It called out to the light, and the light answered. It poured into the bus, bringing with it all the things the faces had said, all the terrible things they knew about Mia. The truth about her funneled into her head and she would never get it out. Never never never, the light told her.
She fell back into the seat, and blackness took her as the water rushed in.
*****.
Mia pulled the glasses off the scientist's face and crushed them with a satisfying SNAP.
She gripped his hurt shoulder with her right hand and the yellow energy closed on him like a vise.
"Aghhhh!" he screamed as the energy crushed through him.
"You feel like talking NOW?" Mia asked.
The energy kept them at bay, and it was growing. Kevin looked around in desperation, and then realization struck him.
"I know who we need," Kevin said.
"What?" Brandon looked confused.
The yellow energy built to a massive crescendo, sending out wave after wave, knocking over chairs, pushing away tables.
Kevin grabbed Zachary. "Come here, Zack!"
"Kevin, what are you doing?" Brandon said.
Kevin began pulling sheets away from the tables, exposing the bodies. He threw aside one, then another. Finally, after pulling a third, he stopped.
"Here," he said, pulling Zachary over.
Brandon looked at the face of the girl on the table. "Ohh no. No no. Um, Kevin. No!"
"Yes," Kevin said. "Do it, Zack!"
"I can only ask God to do it."
"Whatever!" Kevin said, impatiently. "Just bring her back."
Zachary laid his hands on the girl, and a warm glow began to rise in his chest.
"Kevin, oh my God no!" Brandon said.
"Shh!"
"But you didn't see...the people, the people at the mall..."
The glow passed down Zachary's arms and into the girl's body, filling her with a soft radiance before fading away.
"She made them wait on her, like... They were treating her like a queen."
SSOUNDS ABOUT RIGHTT
Becca gracefully slid from the table, and adjusted the now-dirty gray dress around her legs. She grinned. Dried blood streaked her face, matted her long blonde hair and stained her teeth, but it didn't touch those amazing green eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
BECCA
"Daddy's little princess."
Becca sat with her head against his chest, his arm wrapped around her.
They sat in the stands, the sun shining down on them, sharing popcorn. He cheered for the game, and she cheered because he did.
He was her world.
He carried her on his shoulders as they walked to the car, and every so often he'd hoist her up in his arms and hold her in the air.
"Who are you?" he'd say. "Who is this little girl?"
Becca opened her eyes. She sat up quickly, trying to force the dream out of her mind. She hated to dream of him. He was gone, she told herself. He drove off one day and never even looked back.
Don't you dare cry for that asshole, she thought. Don't you dare fucking cry for him.
She gave her left cheek a hard slap, let the sting of it sink in.
The clock on her nightstand read 8:30 a.m..
"Mom!" No reply. "I'm late, why didn't you wake me up!"
Under the hot shower, she gave her long hair a good wash. It took forever to dry, but was worth it. Hell, I'm already late. She had to hold it piece by piece and shake the hair dryer over it. Brush it and brush it and brush it. She stood in the mirror and tried various looks, flopping some of it in front and then all of it in back, shaking her head back and letting it fall this way and that. Adjusted her bra and shirt, cupping her breasts with her hands and scootching them until the cleavage was just right.
Finally, she was happy with what she saw.
Oh yeah, that's it right there. "You are gonna own today, you know that," she said to her reflection with a wink and a smile.
Her mother's door was still closed. No noise came from within.
"Mom!" She rapped on the door. "Come on, I have to go to school, I'm late!"
No reply.
"Mom?" She opened the door. "Are you still asleep?"
Her mother lay on the bed, on her back, fully dressed. Becca stepped closer. Her mother's eyes were open. A pool of dried fluid congealed between her mouth and the pillow. One hand was open off the edge of the bed. A pill bottle lay on its side on the floor, empty.
Becca sat on the edge of the bed next to her mother and looked down at her.
"Well...you fuckin' bitch."
*****
Becca put on her sunglasses and strode up to the curb. Despite the crowd of kids queuing up to get on the bus, she approached as if she owned the place. Becca didn't do timid.
"Oh my God," said one of the girls in line. "I don't believe this."
Becca smiled, but said nothing.
Another girl, a tall brunette, rolled her eyes. "Unbelievable. Miller. Aren't you too good to ride the bus?"
No shit, thought Becca. "Looks like I'm slumming it," she said.
It had been a month since her mother died, and still no one at school knew. She had gotten a job go-go dancing at a club in the city, driving her moms car there every night. She had used he
r looks to talk her way into the job, talk her way out of tickets, talk her way through everything, but she couldn't talk the car engine into working again once it broke down. For that, she needed money, and she didn't have it. So here she was, angry, exhausted, and reduced to riding the bus home.
"What was it she said, Tiffany?" the brunette asked the girl next to her, "What was it she said about cheerleading?"
"Something about how we were shaking our tits," the other girl said.
Becca grinned, "I said I'm not shaking my tits for a bunch of horny dudes to get them all worked up over putting a ball in a fucking hole." The three of them looked almost as shocked as they had the day she had first said it. Becca was pleased.
The bus was filling up, and the line was thinning out. Becca moved to go around them, but Tiffany moved to block her.
"Get out of my way!" Becca said.
"Hmm, I just can't motivate myself to move my tits out of the way so you can put yourself in there."
"Probably because I'm not a horny dude, huh?" Becca asked.
Tiffany went red. The rest of the kids were filing into the bus, and it was looking full. Becca tried to move around her again, and Tiffany snatched her purse away and tossed it.
"Fuck!" Becca exclaimed, going to retrieve it.
She picked it up off the ground, dusting it off. As she turned, the bus doors closed.
"Sorry, Miller!" Tiffany called from the window. "Guess you take the next one!"
"Anything's better than taking the Slut Shuttle!" Becca called back.
*****
;
The bus swerved, and Becca looked out the window, trying to see what was going on. There were crowds lining the road, crowds of strange men watching the bus.
They were faceless.
Becca recoiled, and turned to see the other kids on the bus beginning to panic.
The bus swerved again, and she moved as if to stand, but found that her legs didn't reach the floor. She lifted her hands, and they were tiny. They were child's hands.
*****
"Now this is more like it," Becca said as one of the boys began to wash her hair in the sink.
She had them lined up, each taking care of one task or the other. Simon had moved chairs to provide her a place to sit with her back to the sink. Brandon was gently dabbing blood away from her face with wet paper towels. Mia was cleaning dirt from her hands. Heather was standing immobile in the corner. Zachary seemed unaffected, standing on the other side of the room next to the scientist on the floor. He had reached down to heal the man's shoulder, the soft glow passing down his arm and into the man to fade away. Also unaffected, of course, was Kevin.
"Listen to me, Becca, we don't have time for this," he said.
"Don't talk like you know me," she said.
"I don't know if you really understand what's going on," Kevin said. "But first off, you really don't want Tyler -the one washing your hair- away from the door."
"I know who he is," Becca said, taking a peek at Tyler. "I like his hotness right where it is."
Kevin sighed. "Look, we are in a lot of danger right now. Tyler's the only thing keeping armed guys from coming right through that door."
"Fine, fine!" She flicked a hand. "Watch the door, boy."
Tyler jolted as if he had been slapped, and he sagged down against one of the tables. "Oh my God," he said. He managed to rise, but seemed weak. "You fuck--urrkkk!"
"Ah ah ah," Becca warned, "None of that. You watch the door quietly or you go back to washing hair."
"Ty, please," Kevin said, "The door."
Becca released him again, and Tyler reluctantly turned and went back to the door.
"Happy now?" Becca said. Brandon had begun squeezing the dark red water from her hair.
Kevin tried to measure his response. Since Zachary had brought her back, she had done what he’d hoped, stopping Mia from murdering the one man who could give them answers, but since then she had been a train wreck.
"Thank you for that," he said slowly, "but you really need to listen to me."
"Yeah, so your friend the dork keeps saying."
"Brandon?"
"The Dork," she repeated. "He never shuts up."
Kevin nodded. "That's Brandon all right."
"Luckily, I can shut him out."
"Yeah, you're very powerful. I get that."
Becca sat up. "Don't patronize me, asshole. You're the only one I can't control. Well, except Blondie over there, but he doesn't talk much. And the dog, of course."
Kevin took a puzzled glance around the lab. Dog?
Becca continued. "So here's what I got so far: We were all on the bus. We all got fucked up somehow, Monkey Boy there got more fucked up than most, and now we all have powers. Good so far?"
Kevin nodded.
"So there's some evil assholes and they want us all dead for some reason, and now we're trapped in their lab with this guy," she indicated the scientist, "who is either the janitor or the most evil asshole of them all."
"Uh, well kind of, yeah. We know he has answers, I was hoping you could find them out for us."
"Because I'm your little lap dog, is that it? I do whatever you want?"
"No," Kevin assured her, "that's not it."
She stood. "So then what is it?"
"Look, you may not realize this but you were dead a minute ago! Not hurt, not asleep...DEAD."
She mulled this over. "The bridge. When you found me."
"Yes. Zachary brought you back."
She raised an eyebrow.
Zachary spoke up. "I didn't do anything. God did it."
Becca snorted. "What are you, retarded? Fucking Rain Man? Seriously."
"I don't know what that means," he said.
Becca nodded. "Uh huh...Moving on."
"Please," Kevin said, "can you just help us? Just see if you can find out some answers from this guy."
"Well, I like that you begged," Becca said with a grin, then sighed. "Look, it doesn't work like that. I can't go digging around in people's heads. I can hear what they think, but it's...it's whatever's at the top, what they're thinking right then. The memories, other stuff, I don't get that."
Kevin thought a moment. He looked over at the scientist, who was watching them both pensively. "Okay. I know how we can do this."
*****
She could hear their thoughts. All of them.
Becca sat in admissions, one of the hospital staff questioning her. She barely noticed, so awash was she in the thoughts of everyone around.
"Miss?" the woman said.
"Oh! Yeah. Yes, I feel fine."
"I asked if you have any insurance..."
"Oh! Ha...no." She's thinking about her boyfriend. Oh my God! This is crazy!
She must have hurt her head or something in the crash, the woman thought.
"My head's fine," Becca said with a smirk.
The woman looked startled. "Did I say that out loud? I'm sorry."
Becca laughed. That girl Heather could hear me, she thought. I wonder if I can make someone else hear me. She looked into the woman's mind.
CCAN YOU HEAR MEE
The woman jumped. "What? What was that?"
Becca could see the thoughts clearly in her mind, the surprise, and the confusion. It was easy to wipe them away, just brush them away with her eyes.
The woman looked around confusedly. "I'm sorry, where were we?"
Becca smiled. Oh, this is good.
*****
Becca walked down the hall, grinning. She had just gotten her third A+ in a row for the day, and she couldn't believe how easy it was. Whenever she wasn't sure, she asked the teacher a question, and she could see the answer in their mind. It just popped up, like a friendly little animal in a children's book.
She turned the corner, and almost ran into Brock Kenney, a gargantuan football player who couldn't keep his hands to himself.
"Beccalicious," he said. "Sup girl?"
"Nothing," she said, rolling her eyes. "And I
told you to stop calling me that, Brock-Stupid."
He put a hand against the wall, blocking her. "You know you love it." Damn I'd like to suck on those tits, he thought.
"Ugh! You're fucking disgusting. Get out of my way."
"You know what, one of these days, you and me are gonna -"
SSHUT YOUR GOD DAMN MOUTHH
The thought was out of her and into his head before she could stop it, and along with it she tried to physically close his mouth and stop him from talking.
Brock's mouth snapped shut, his teeth closing on his tongue.
Becca laughed as she realized what had happened. She could feel his shock at the sudden pain and inability to speak. She sent her eyes into his mind and found that she could move his hands, his legs; she could walk him around like a puppet.
Inside his mind, Brock was railing against it, screaming what's happening? Stop stop stop help me someone help, but he was powerless to stop her.
WWE ARE GONNA HAVE SOME FUN NOW, DOUCHEBAGG
When Brock ran into the gym, stripped down to his boxers, the kids at first were too startled to make a sound. Then the laughter started, the pointing, the applause. Two coaches ran over to stop him, but he just kept running around in circles, dancing and skipping for all to see.
Becca wiped the memory from his mind with one brush, and closed the door behind her. She laughed until her sides hurt.
That was her last day of high school.
*****
Becca began to whimper in fear.
She was a little girl, wearing her summer dress from the ballpark, sitting in the middle of a bus full of strangers, tires screeching in the night. There were faceless men outside, and they were coming for her.
Becca began to cry, and the crying turned to sobs.
"Daddy! Daddy where are you? I'm scared!"
The bus roared onto the bridge
*****
"Okay," Kevin said, "She's gonna let you guys go, and I really need everyone to stay calm, ok?" He waited a moment. "Okay, Becca."
Becca released everyone but Heather, who remained in the corner.
Missing Time (313) Page 7
