Yesterday's Gone (Season 5): Episodes 25-30 (43 page)

He hated feeling helpless. 

Hated waiting on someone else. 

Hated not being able to help Mary execute her plan against Desmond.

He wondered if she’d been able to do it, or if the monster had caught her. If so, she may be dead already. If that were the case, there was a damned good chance that Desmond was already searching for Brent, Teagan, and the kids.

His stomach churned and made him feel hollow.

Brent watched Ben reading to Becca and despite his nerves couldn’t help but smile at how his son ate every one of her giggles. 

Look at them, happily oblivious to our danger.

The longer Brent stood there watching the children and feeling his helplessness grow, the more he wished he’d stayed at Mary’s and shot Desmond. Of course that wouldn’t have helped Mary get Paola back, but it might have meant his own child would be safe a while longer.

Ben laughed again and looked up to see if his daddy was watching him entertain Becca.

“Good job,” Brent said.

Ben returned to the page, and Brent had to leave the room before emotions claimed him. 

He headed upstairs and into a room that looked out over a clearing to the east, the most likely place a search party, or assault team, would come from.

He watched the area, wondering how long they’d be safe for. 

Brent spotted someone standing just beyond the tree line. The man, wearing a black Guardsman uniform, seemed to be staring straight at the house.

Brent fell to the ground beneath the window, heart hammering.

Did he see me?

Shit.

He debated whether he should peer out the window again, to be sure his eyes weren’t lying. Instead, Brent decided to run to another window, in a room to the right along the same wall, in case the man was watching the other window, waiting to see if his own eyes were telling the truth.

Brent slowly approached the open window, hands shaking as he crawled along the floor, wishing there were curtains to conceal him. He’d already told Teagan and the kids to stay away from the windows downstairs, and had left them in the kitchen, where windows had all been boarded long ago. And yet he might have stupidly allowed himself to get caught.

The Guardsman could already be on his radio calling for backup.

Brent rose just high enough to peek over the windowsill.

He saw The Guardsman still standing and staring at the house.

He
had
to do something.

* * * *

CHAPTER 19 — MARY OLSON

Desmond was surprisingly cooperative as Mary led him into the facility with a gun at his back.

“You might want to hide that thing as we approach the elevator,” he said. “There are cameras all over this place, and I can’t be responsible if someone else sees you as a threat to eliminate.”

“I bet you’d like that.” Mary shoved the gun inside her jacket pocket, then thrust it into the small of Desmond’s back.

“I’m not your enemy, Mary. No more than Paola is your enemy.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked as they stepped into the elevator. 

“I just find it interesting that you all refer to Paola as having ‘The Light’ inside her, when in fact it is an alien, no different than myself. Yet you are no doubt thinking of me as ‘infected with The Darkness,’ am I correct?”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what anyone calls anything. I just want my daughter back, so stop stalling and bring me to her.”

Desmond placed his palm on the elevator’s security panel. The elevator bumped then descended. Mary kept the gun trained on him from inside her jacket pocket.

Desmond stared at her, as a parent might stare at an unruly child.

“What are you looking at so smugly?”

“Just wondering what’s going on in that tiny little brain of yours. What do you plan to do with me once you get Paola? Shoot me? Report me to the superiors? What is it you hope to gain with this little stunt?”

“I just want my daughter back,” Mary repeated, “now shut the hell up. I’m tired of your lying mouth.”

“Fair enough.” Desmond crossed his arms and leaned against the elevator wall. When the box stopped, he pressed his fingers on the seven and zero buttons. The elevator lowered another floor then Desmond placed his palm against the panel again, and the doors slid open.

“More guards ahead,” he whispered, “act like you’re happy to be with me.”

Mary pushed him forward through the doors and plastered a fake smile onto her angry face.

One of the guards looked at Mary and seemed like he was about to say something or perhaps ask for credentials, but must’ve thought twice, due either to Desmond’s rank or the rage in her eyes. 

Or maybe they’re infected, too. 

How the hell
am I
going to get out of here?

Mary couldn’t afford to consider that now. If she lingered too long, doubt would settle, and she was sure the alien would use it against her.

Desmond led her through more doors, down hallways to a final doorway.

“She’s in here,” he said stopping outside of it. “But before I let you in, I need you to consider an offer.”

“Fuck you; open the door.”

“OK,” Desmond said with faux exasperation, like a game show host warning a contestant not to choose door number three. She had no time for alien head games.

Mary’s pulse quickened as she stepped inside the huge room and saw two rows of four glass chambers along walls to her left and right. A light was on in the last chamber, where she saw her daughter lying on a cot.

The door closed behind them.

Paola looked up, eyes wide at the sight of her mother. Her mouth opened to say “Mom,” though Mary heard no sound.

“Open her door.” Mary pulled the gun from her jacket and aimed it at Desmond. 

“OK,” Desmond said. “Computer. Cut the oxygen to cell four, and drain the remaining amount.”

Mary’s stomach dropped.

What?

She looked at Paola in her cell as the girl looked up at the ceiling.

Desmond turned to Mary. “You have exactly one minute before all the oxygen is sucked from Paola’s chamber. And then, depending on her lungs, maybe another minute, minute and a half before she runs out of air and drops dead to the floor.”

Mary shoved the gun in his face.

“Let her out!”

Desmond smiled, “Ah, Mary, Mary, do you really think your gun scares me? Shoot me, and I’ll trade this form for yours.” He looked her up and down, “And it is quite a nice form to be inside.”

 “Open the door!” Mary shouted.

She looked back at Paola’s cell. Her daughter was gasping for air, eyes wide and scared.

“Ah, she really should’ve grabbed a good lungful before,” Desmond said. “Maybe she
won’t
last another minute.”

Mary swallowed.

“Open the fucking door!” Mary screamed and shot him in the chest.

Desmond fell back against the wall, still smiling, but not mortally wounded.

Mary yelled and motioned for Paola to get down to the ground.

Paola did as instructed.

She turned and fired a shot, then another at the glass.

Bullets ricocheted off the glass, whizzing around the room, one getting lost in the far wall, then another coming back at her, hitting and chipping the floor about four feet to her right.

Paola looked up at her mother, crying out, though Mary couldn’t hear her.

But in her head, Paola’s voice suddenly cried out, “Kill him. Shoot him in the head.”

Mary turned the gun on Desmond, aiming straight at the alien’s face, pistol shaking in her hand.

“Your choice, Mary, but only my voice will open the door and return the air to your daughter’s room.”

Mary looked back at Paola, shaking her head and continuing to scream inside Mary’s mind, “Kill him! Kill him now!”

Mary’s finger circled tighter around the trigger, the gun shaking wildly in her hand. “Open the door!” 

Desmond kept smiling. “Put down the gun, Mary, or your daughter will die. I will take your body, become you, then go kill Brent, Teagan, and the children. Five seconds.”

“Five.”

Paola’s voice screamed in her ear, “Kill him, Mom, kill him!”

“Four.”

Mary shoved the gun hard against his head and growled in his face. “Open it!”

“Three.”

“Open it, you cocksucker!”

Desmond said, “Computer. Speakers on.”

The sound of Paola’s gasping filled the chamber.

“Two. Do you really want to
hear
your daughter die?”

Mary looked back to see Paola’s face turning crimson through her gasps. She looked, bug eyed, at her mother, shaking her head no.

Mary looked at Desmond. His mouth opened to say “One.”

She handed him the gun. “Turn on the air!”

“Computer. Turn the oxygen back on.”

Paola gasped, drawing deep breaths as she collapsed against the glass, momentarily saved.

Desmond turned to Mary, said, “About time you started thinking smart,” then took the pistol’s butt and hit her hard across the head.

* * * *

CHAPTER 20 — BRENT FOSTER

Brent pulled his shirt over the gun holster as he went downstairs and whispered into Teagan’s ear. “Keep the kids quiet. I’m going to check on something.”

“What is it?” she whispered back.

“Don’t worry.” Brent didn’t want to alarm her and thus unintentionally scare the kids. The last thing he needed was crying children with a Guardsman right outside the house.

“I’m going to make a phone call; I’ll be right back.” Brent kissed Ben on the head.

“I want to go outside,” Ben whined.

“Me too,” Becca joined in.

Shit. I really don’t need this.

“We can all go out later. Right now, I need to make a call, and I promise we’ll go outside later, OK?”

Teagan stepped in. “Who wants some pudding?”

“I do, I do!” Ben yelled.

Brent cringed as he imagined his son’s voice traveling toward the tree line and alerting the suspicious Guardsman who may or may not have already seen Brent in the window. 

Teagan seemed to notice the fear on his face.

“OK,” Teagan said, “let’s play the quiet game, and I’ll give you each a pudding cup.”

“OK!” Ben yelled, possibly louder.

Teagan pressed a finger to her lips.

“OK,” Ben whispered.

“Thank you,” Brent said to Teagan. 

She was surprisingly adept at this parenting thing for such a young girl. Sometimes Teagan seemed better equipped than Brent, at least when it came to keeping Ben from a meltdown. Caught by emotion, Brent gave her a hug and immediately felt awkwardly emotional, hoping he wasn’t broadcasting his fear that they’d been discovered.

She smiled. “Sure thing.” 

“I’ll be right back.” 

He turned from Teagan and went outside, almost expecting the Guardsman, or even multiple Guardsmen, to be waiting to take them in — or kill them.

Brent was relieved to see no one outside. He grabbed his gun and headed toward the home’s rear where he’d seen the man just outside the clearing.

As Brent made his way toward the back yard, it dawned on him that he had no idea what the hell he’d do once he found the Guardsman. Would he shoot the man? Brent had no idea if the Guardsman was even compromised or sleeping with the enemy. He might be a regular guy earning his paycheck, clueless he was working for an alien. Maybe he hadn’t even seen Brent in the window. Perhaps he was working a regular patrol and not looking for anyone. 

Or, Brent feared, he could be part of a squad, already informed about the man in the window.

Brent couldn’t just sit in the house. He was sick of doing nothing, of having his hands tied by circumstance or his child, unable to help anyone. He wondered what Ed Keenan would’ve done earlier that morning with Mary. Would he have agreed to let her handle the situation herself?
Hell, no.
Keenan would’ve taken over. He would’ve waited for Desmond to come home, put a gun in the guy’s mouth, and demanded that Dez bring him to Paola right now, dammit.

But Brent
hadn’t
done that.

He’d let Mary convince him to get the kids away from the house, to tuck his tail between his legs and hide.

He’d agreed at the time because he
was
thinking about the kids’ safety as well as Teagan’s. Mary had made a good argument that the kids’ welfare was priority one, and that Mary was well trained and could handle herself just fine with Desmond. But now Brent wondered if he, Teagan, and the kids were really any safer hiding out in some abandoned house like rats waiting for Guardsmen to stomp them. Even if they were, that did nothing to protect Mary or Paola. 

Brent was sick of waiting for the bad guys to win. 

He’d played it safe his entire life, and look where it led him. A day didn’t pass without Brent wishing he’d done more to convince Gina that he wasn’t nuts, and that the events of October 15 had actually happened. 

Things had gotten out of hand and ugly. He lost his temper, rather than finding a smart way to prove his sanity. If he’d been smarter or bolder, Gina might still be alive. Brent might have his entire family still with him.

But no, he’d allowed fear to push him into stupid decisions — Allowed the fear that he’d get locked up and never see them again to keep him from them.

What good had that fear done?

Gina was dead, and he was on some godforsaken island with an alien intent on destroying the world.

It was time to stop being afraid.

Time to take action and do what he could to seize victory, secure the safety of Teagan and the kids. They were counting on him, and he couldn’t let them down.

Brent spotted the Guardsman still standing just past the tree line. The brown-haired man, tall, thin, and in his early thirties, wasn’t wearing a helmet, just a Guardsman’s black beret. He had a pistol in a belt holster, and a flashlight that doubled as a baton on the other side of his belt.

The man had yet to spot Brent outside.

What the hell is he doing out here?