Yesterday's Gone: Season One

the look on John’s face, somewhere in the middle of ignorance and intrigue, when the bones beneath his face suddenly shifted.
    What the fuck? Jim was startled, and jumped back, unable to hide his reaction.
    This is weed, not ‘shrooms. I have to be imagining things.  
    John blew a stream of smoke into the air, then placed the stem to his lips and lit the basin again, ignoring Jim’s reaction. John was holding his breath for a few seconds when the bones in his face started to move in a wave beneath the surface of his skin a second time.  
    “Dude, what the fuck? Your face just...”  
    Jim took a step back, staring at John.
    “What... the?” he stammered.  
    John’s eyes widened, but his lips were sealed in a rising smile.  
    Jim fell back toward the hotel room door behind him, then turned and put his hand on the handle. He turned the knob, then heard a voice from behind him.  
    “Dude, what the fuck? Your face just...What... the?”  
    It was Jim’s voice, as if the thing that wasn’t John was trying it on for size.
    Jim tried to scream, but the attempt died inside him as the thing grabbed him by the back of his neck so hard, he thought it would rip his spine right out of his body like in Mortal Combat or something.
    Jim whimpered as the John monster spun him around and pushed him into the hotel room, threw him to the ground, and fell atop him, hand crushing Jim’s throat as Jim squirmed and struggled to break free.
    “No escape,” the thing that wasn’t John said as it put a hand over Jim’s head and sent a sharp pain through his whole body.
    Jim wanted to scream, beg for his life, say something! But he was paralyzed, unable to move, breathe, or even swallow. Panic coursed through him like fire, lighting his entire body with a million messages to run, flee, escape, fight, breathe, but his body ignored them all.
    His open eyes began to dry out as the thing that wasn’t John bent down, picked him up, and threw him over his shoulders like a sack of laundry. Jim’s face bounced off of John’s back as he carried him into another room, then slung him into a tub. Jim’s head slammed into the bottom of the tub with a loud echo. He couldn’t feel the pain, but imagined there had to be a lot of blood.
    He was fading.
    As the world dimmed at the edges, the last thing he saw was the thing that was not John look down at him and close the shower curtain.

    * * * *

EDWARD KEENAN

    Ed’s headache worsened while he sat and waited for the “answer guy.”
    His head pounded and his memories continued to grow fuzzy. Mostly small things, like the street he lived on, the car he drove, his favorite brand of toothpaste. He could see them in his mind, but had to focus to draw them forth. However, the harder he focused, the more intense his headache grew. And the more his vision blurred.
    He was beginning to wonder if he’d suffered some sort of head trauma in the plane crash. Unlike movies, where people were hit on the head and knocked out on a routine basis, with little to no lingering side effects, actual head trauma was different. A blow to the head could be initially dismissed while internal bleeding caused swelling in the skull which could kill you.
    I don’t wanna die like this.
    I want to see Jade. And Teagan.  
    Ed decided that no matter who came into the room to see him next, he would demand to see Jade. He had to know she was okay. And if Teagan wasn’t nearby, he would demand to know where she was, too. And he wanted proof.
    Of course, he was hardly in a position to make demands. But he’d make them anyway. He could tell by how they handled his interrogation, that he was better trained than these people were. Given time, he could win them over through persuasion. The only question was whether his touch would be gentle or firm.
    Assuming, of course, that the killer headache went away. And that he had enough time to work his magic.
    Alone time with the mirror had forced Ed to ponder some of the shit he’d done over the past few years. How he’d neglected his family. How he’d been ruthless in executing orders. How he’d let so much of his life pass him by with barely a memory set aside for posterity. And the worst part was, if anyone were to have asked Ed what things meant the most to him in life, he would never have said The Agency. Not if he were answering honestly.
    The list would have comprised of his daughter, his wife, and living a normal family life. Not this shit.
    He had no real past