White Space Season 1

something off in his eyes, and looking more wrong with every inch.
    His eyes narrowed, then turned angry as he took a step back. “Stay away,” he growled.
    “It’s me, Roger. It’s Liz,” she cried, not sure why he was turning her away.
    A miracle meant he had somehow survived. Why was he rejecting her? He seemed almost afraid of her. She inched closer, despite his warning.
    Pressing Aubrey against his left shoulder with his left hand, Roger reached behind him with his right, pulling a pistol from nowhere and aiming it at Liz.
    “I said, stay the fuck back!” he snapped, backing his body toward the window.
    “What are you doing?” Liz cried, confused, suddenly terrified for her baby. “Please, Roger, put Aubrey down. Let’s talk.”
    “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Talk. So you can trick me. What then? You gonna turn me over to them? Are you one of them, Liz?”
    “One of what?” she cried.
    “One of them!” he screamed.
    Aubrey woke and started crying.
    “Don’t you fucking lie!” Roger screamed, the barrel of his gun shaking between her eyes.
    Liz was paralyzed with fear. If she said the wrong thing, he would kill her.
    God knew what he’d do with Aubrey.
    “Please,” she cried. “Please, Roger, I love you.”
    Aubrey screamed, turning to Liz, eyes wide and wanting her mommy.
    “Shut up!” Roger screamed not at Liz, but at Aubrey. “Shut the fuck up!”
    How can he scream at a baby?!
    Roger turned the gun from Liz, then put it to the back of Aubrey’s head, his face twisted in rage as he screamed, “Shut the fuck up, you little cunt!”
    Liz screamed, reaching out to stop Roger.
    But she was too late.
    He pulled the trigger.
    Liz screamed as her heart shattered.

    * *

    Liz woke up screaming, “No!!” and wailing, “Oh God!”
    “Mom, are you okay?” Alex said, shaking her awake. “Mom?”
    Liz opened her eyes to the stark daylight soaking her room. Alex was sitting on the bed beside her, holding Aubrey, who was very much alive and drooling.
    Liz broke down sobbing, hugging both her children close to her body, thanking God that she’d only been dreaming.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 4 — Milo Anderson

    Wednesday morning…

    Milo aimed the remote in front of him, trying to give a shit about anything on any one of the nine billion fucking channels on the TV.
    His dad was upstairs, probably trying to decide between the red tie with the black stripes, or the black tie with the red stripes. He had to look good for work. He could dress for his son’s misery in sweats, but that would have to wait until sometime at night when his dad got home — assuming Milo was still awake.
    Milo wasn’t bitter, though his credit in the Bullshit He Had a Right to be Pissed About department was damned high.
    Someone at work was riding his dad. His father’s stupid phone had rung three times just that morning. Not the phone from AT&T. It was the new one, the one that looked like a glass credit card. The one his dad always had to answer, no matter what.
    Milo wasn’t pissed that his dad had to go into work, and wasn’t even pissed that he’d taken every crooked road around an actual conversation since first visiting him in the hospital. Milo was pissed, however, that no matter how many times he stared into the mirror, the kid staring back was living a life that had been shattered by a half-clip’s worth of bullets and a Big Bang’s worth of downright impossible.
    Beatrice was still in the hospital. She would make it, sort of. All of her was working, except for most of her brain. That part didn’t seem to be working right at all.
    Conway Medical had an amazing psych ward. As good as anything in Seattle, at least according to his dad. Milo wondered what came first, the chicken or the egg. From Mrs. Lindley to Mr. Carney, and all the island oddballs in between, Hamilton had more than its share of folks who not only seemed slightly off, but were.
    Were there more weirdoes because there were so many doctors, or so many doctors because of the excess of weirdoes?
    Milo’s mother had been treated for her mental problems at Conway Medical years earlier, and maybe even by the same doctors working on Beatrice. Maybe that was just coincidence, but the part of Milo that wrote stories with Alex didn’t like the coincidence a bit. It smelled like the dumpsters at The Fish Tail.
    Milo didn’t wonder if his father knew more than he was saying, he only wondered how much more he knew. His dad was the obvious