White Space Season 2

Tom? Did Sarah tell you that?” He laughed, slightly uncomfortable.
    “Yeah, I guess,” Cassidy said. “Strange the things you remember.”
    She smiled, and Jason smiled back.
    “I guess it’s because you’re twins, right? Sarah probably told you everything, whether you wanted to know it or not.” He blushed, then cleared his throat and added, “You can probably read each other’s minds or something like that, huh?”
    “Something like that,” Cassidy said, heart pounding.
    Not read it, BE it.
    Cassidy had to leave, had to flee Al’s; pay for her stuff, get Vivian her shit, then fall asleep so she could wake back up with everything sort of normal again.
    She said a quick goodbye to Jason, probably abrupt enough to seem like a bitch, especially since she was the one to initiate conversation, then grabbed a jar of Classico with sausage, mushrooms, and tomatoes — the final item on her list — and headed to checkout.
    Cassidy was 15 feet from the checkout when she had to force herself to stay inside a scream. Her breath was heavy, panting as she held her terror at bay.
    Piled on the linoleum, oozing halfway between her and the checkout were three hideous creatures, all bulbous and made of gray jelly, congealed together. Each had three eyes, setting one apart from the other. The one on top looked as though it was trying to scream, though no sound left its mouth.
    Cassidy still wanted to cry out. The mess in front of her started to pulse in its thick skin of goo, sending her heart into a heavier beat. Cassidy knew that whatever the blobs were, they weren’t really there, so she tried to ease by them.
    They turned into birds as she did.
    Giant, ugly, horrible birds.
    Like the ones from the forest.
    Another memory which she couldn’t remember as her own. What birds, in what forest?
    She shook her head, confused. She was either losing her marbles, or having the worst acid flashback ever. The only thing was, she’d never done acid, so far as she knew.
    Who knew what dealers laced her shit with?
    As Cassidy approached the checkout, a giant beak crashed through the ceiling. Before it could feed its birds, Cassidy lost it. She started to scream, then wailed through minutes until a pair of full grown men managed to calm her.
    “Are you OK, Ms. Hughes?” asked Ronald Lansing, Al’s son.
    “I’m fine,” Cassidy said, once her breathing was calm enough to lay claim.
    She went to the checkout, ignoring the many eyes pinned to her back, piled groceries in her canvas bags, held her cell in front of the scanner to pay, then left Al’s and practically crawled into her car behind the groceries.
    She pressed the button to start her ignition and pulled out from the parking lot, pointing her old beast toward Vivian’s.
    She made it less than a mile before losing her will to the pills.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 7 — Warren Conway

    Warren sat in his Bentley with the midnight-tinted windows, parked behind Father’s hospital, waiting, his foot tapping anxiously on the floorboard.
    Where is he?
    He looked at the dash. Five after 10. It wasn’t like Kaiser to be late with a delivery.
    Warren saw the black Paladin van approaching. It pulled up beside him and killed its headlights. A black, driver’s side window rolled down, and Carl Kaiser greeted Warren with a smile. His grin always looked so odd beneath his angry blue robotic eye.
    “Sorry, had to wait until Johnson could get to me.”
    “You got it?” Warren asked.
    Kaiser patted the front pocket of his black shirt. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
    Warren killed the engine, stepped out of the car, then walked around to the passenger side of the Paladin van and waited for Kaiser to unlock it. The door clicked, and Warren climbed in, eager, but not wanting to seem too enthusiastic. It had been too long since his last fix.
    He held out his hand. Kaiser pulled the inhaler from his pocket, shook it, then handed it over.
    Warren grabbed the inhaler, shoved it in his mouth and squeezed it from the bottom, feeling the drug’s mist coat his throat. The nanonarcotic’s effect was nearly immediate, coating Warren’s tangled nerves, soothing his frayed edges into straight currents of wrangled chaos.
    Everything felt suddenly sweet; a flat line to his anxiety.
    Warren closed his eyes and leaned his head into the seat.
    “Thank you, Carl.”
    “Johnson is out of town next week, so I nabbed a few extra doses,” Kaiser said, patting his pocket. “But you need to space these