Yesterday's Gone: Season One

branches and a shallow pool of shattered glass dug into her feet, stinging and tearing her flesh. She looked down, surprised to see blotches of red on her white skin, brown on the black asphalt.  
    The pain in her feet made the dream feeling fade.  
    She would have forced herself awake right there, but then she saw a square clearing in the night sky ahead with no fog at all, but rather a neon, blinking billboard that read, “DADDY THIS WAY” with a big red arrow aimed in the direction she was walking. She would walk on.
    Just past the billboard, Paola saw the bright white canopy of a gas station, its rows of yellowed and aged fluorescent lights cutting through the fog. The station sat in the middle of all the light, making it look like an oil painting hanging from the middle of a big black frame. The darkness surrounding the station made it seem as though all the world’s light was concentrated under the canopy. Most of that light gathered in the middle, bathing a tall man slouched against a fuel pump.
    A chill went through Paola.
    The man was her father, only not quite. Same hair, same smile, same eyes, but different clothes, as though he were dressing up to play her daddy, but he’d missed the finer details that made her dad’s style. He was even wearing one of those hats they wore in old films and Indiana Jones movies. The hat looked fake, but the stubble on her daddy’s cheek was real so Paola raced forward, the pain in her feet all but a distant memory.
    “Daddy?”
    “Paola!” He took off his hat, fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve missed you so much, and I was so worried.”
    “I’m so glad you’re okay!” Paola said. “Do you know what happened to everyone?”
    “No, but I do know how we can find out. You have to come with me right now, then we’ll come back and get your mom before she wakes up.”
    “We should go and get Mommy first .”  
    “No, we can’t, because she’s sleeping right now and we’d have to wake her.”
    “She won’t mind. Come on, Daddy.” Paola waved her arms back toward the hotel.  
    He sighed, then shook his head. “It’s okay, Shortcake, I promise. She won’t even know you’re gone. And as soon as we get back, we can all go out and get ice cream. Your new friends can come with us and everyone will be happy. It’s just like playing hide-n-seek, except right now your mom’s sleeping instead of hiding.”
    Paola shook her head. “She won’t mind if we wake her up. No one will. They’ll be excited. And she’ll probably be mad if I leave without telling her.”
    “But it’s me, I’m your father. Besides, it’s my week. You’re supposed to be with me right now, anyway.”
    That doesn’t sound like Daddy at all.  
    “I want to go back to the hotel, Daddy.”
    Paola’s father rose to his feet, returned his hat to his head and flashed Paola a movie star smile. “Come on, Shortcake. We’ll be 15 minutes tops.”
    Paola shook her head and took a step back. The dream part felt like it was fading.
    “Okay then,” he held his hand out for Paola, “We’ll wake her first, but we’ll have to be careful. You know how fucking awful she is when she doesn’t get her sleep.”
    Paola froze.  
    Dream Daddy would never say anything mean about Mommy. Or use that kind of language. Neither would Real Daddy.  
    “Why did you say that, Daddy?”
    Paola knew she’d never hear an answer because her father’s face started to change right that second, mouth first as it drooped horribly. The nose went next; shifting, contorting and folding itself inside out in an angry looking liquid motion. It looked like the devil was giving birth, like every bad thing Paola had ever seen, heard of, or thought up, was suddenly given two long and skinny legs.
    Her father’s skin grew bright red, wet, shiny as the muscles and bones beneath the flesh seemed to churn like someone was running a mixer in the thing’s insides. The monster looked kind of like the black thing they’d seen in the road, but different in ways Paola couldn’t quite place as she had turned away from the creature in the road pretty quickly. It was then that Paola realized with horror that she could not look away from this thing that was not her father.
    Its eyes, dark, black, and evil, were the only constant as its face shifted form again and again like it was searching for the right fit. Her head began to hurt as if something were pressing hard sticks against her skull. Or