WhiteSpace: Season One (Episodes 1-6 of the sci-fi horror serial) (26 page)

Milo figured
that
would piss her insides out, but Beatrice was still letting the cat run around with her tongue.
 

Bitch and a half.
 

Milo wished he could see her eyes, and wondered if they looked as crazy gone as they had the night before when she’d been staring at the TV, just before she decided to dump the deli in her handbag. But Milo couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were with the rest of her face, pointed straight ahead out the window.
 

They were drawing closer to Jordy’s, and Milo was suddenly impatient. Why in the hell had she come to pick him up if she didn’t want to? It wasn’t like they were trimming minutes from the trip. By the time they left the grocery store, Milo could have already been home, and without the Chilly Willy from Beatrice.
 

Without moving her eyes from the road, Beatrice reached over to the console and flipped on the stereo. Adam Levine started singing, but only for a moment. Other Mom flipped from iTunes to Sirius, then twisted the dial to the right, finally settling on a station broadcasting nothing but static.

Milo could swear the corner of her mouth twitched in a smile, though her eyes never left the road. She pressed down on the gas, taking the car from 45 mph to more than 65 in seconds.

What the hell?

Milo shifted in his seat, his foot reaching out for an imaginary brake.

He thought of Beatrice as a waxy plastic bitch to begin with, but she suddenly looked like she was made of plastic, like when she came home from Seattle after getting her Botox. Except when Beatrice got Botox, it looked like she was trying to smile but couldn’t. Now it looked like she wasn’t even trying.
 

She swung a left, two blocks from Jordy’s, barely slowing enough to navigate the turn.

“Beatrice,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady as his right hand gripped the strap above his window. “Are you going to say anything?”

Blood pooled across the front of Jessica’s powder blue sweater. 11. Jessica stared up at him, scared and searching for any explanation. She said something, 11, but the screaming whistle in his ears swallowed her words.

“Beatrice!”

Nothing.

“Beatrice!” Milo’s voice was laced with hysteria. “Say something. Anything. I just need to know you can hear me!”

Still nothing. Thankfully, she slowed down to a normal pace as she pulled into the parking lot of Jordy’s.

Two dozen cars were scattered across the rain spattered parking lot, as a few people shuffled in and out of the front of the store’s sliding glass double doors
—
a mom holding hands with her toddler girl; a fat man, Mr. Hollis, with one arm full of groceries and the other shoving a honeybun into his mouth on his way to his beat to shit Silverado, and a young couple in matching jeans and black leather jackets holding hands as they went through the doors.
 

Beatrice should have been slowing even more, but wasn’t.
 

She reached over and turned the static louder, then did the unthinkable by lowering her foot on the gas.
 

Beatrice was silent. Milo was screaming, paralyzed by fear as they rocketed forward.

His screech, along with the radio’s static and the roar of the engine, was a symphony coalescing to a crescendo as Beatrice’s BMW crashed through the front of Jordy’s, parting glass and aluminum in a curtain of splinters and shards, cries of terror and fleeing shoppers.
 

Milo’s world went black.

TO BE CONTINUED...

WhiteSpace: Episode 4

by Sean Platt &

David Wright

Copyright © 2012 by Sean Platt & David Wright. All rights reserved
 

Cover copyright © 2012 by David W. Wright

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The authors have taken great GIGANTIC liberties with locales including the creation of fictional towns (and islands!) The authors rarely leave their home states and research is limited to whatever the spirit of Magellan tells them via Ouija Board.

Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

The authors greatly appreciate you taking the time to read our work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends or blog readers about this book, to help us spread the word.

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eBook Edition - May 22, 2012

Updated 5.22.12 to fix typos

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Published by Collective Inkwel
l

11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11

* * * *

CHAPTER 1 — Milo Anderson Part 1 (age 12)

Hamilton Island, Washington

5 years ago

Milo woke to the sound of his father screaming at someone downstairs.

He glanced at the clock on his nightstand: midnight.

Who’s here?

He felt a chill ice through his insides, wondering if someone had broken into their house and was hurting his father. His mother had left in the middle of the night four months ago, and Milo often wondered, especially at night, if something would happen to his father next.

He opened his door quietly, then slipped through the crack and sneaked to the end of the hall at the edge of the staircase, where he realized they were alone in the house.
 

His father was on the phone. “No, and that’s my final answer. Don’t call here again,” his father said, sighing as he flipped his cell on the coffee table and plopped on the couch.

Milo sat crouched at the top of the landing, peering down. Even staring at his back, Milo could tell that his father was furious. His dad rarely showed emotion, fury least of all. To see him in an unguarded moment made him feel uncomfortable, and like he should just go back to bed. He inched back, the stair beneath his foot creaked.

His father turned, startled by Milo’s presence.
 

“What are you doing?”
 

“Nothing,” Milo squeaked, “I thought I heard something.”

“It’s nothing, Milo. Go back to sleep.” His dad sounded exhausted.

Milo was already at the foot of the stairs, slowly approaching the couch. He circled his father, thinking how odd he looked, how . . .
distraught
. His hair was a mess and his eyes were red, as if he’d been crying.
 

“I said go back to bed,” his father snapped, staring at the floor instead of Milo.

Milo sat beside his dad on the couch, cautiously. Nervously.

“Was that call about Mom?” Milo asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

His father looked up, eyes wide. His dad didn’t just look worried, he seemed almost scared.
 

“How much of that did you hear?”
 

Milo’s voice split with creeping fear. “What do you mean?”

“Answer the question!” His father grabbed Milo’s arms tight. Milo tried to pull back, shocked by his father’s sudden violence. But his father’s grip was too strong to shatter. “How much did you hear?!”

“Nothing! Let go!”

“It’s not polite to spy on people, Milo,” his father said, his eyes slightly closing, as his grip loosened.

“I didn’t hear anything!” Milo cried out, standing. “I’m not spying!”

His father shook his head and then ran his hands through his hair.

“I’m sorry. I’m just having a tough time at work right now. I didn’t mean to snap at you. Sorry”

He patted the cushion next to Milo.

Milo sat, then fell into his father’s hug.

“I’m sorry, buddy.”

“It’s okay,” Milo said, as tears started to fall from his eyes. He wiped his pajama sleeve quickly across his face, hoping his dad wouldn’t say anything. Of course, he did.
 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Milo said. It didn’t make sense to bring it up again. Whenever he tried talking about his mom, or the possibility that she might come home, his father always changed the conversation.
 

“Not now.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”
 

“Maybe some other time, Milo. Okay?”

His father never wanted to talk about it, always pushing it off for “later.” But maybe later never came. Milo decided to spill his guts, “I miss her.”

For a long while, his father said nothing. Silence stretched, then after what seemed like forever, he wrapped his long arm around Milo’s skinny back and said, “I miss her, too.”

“Then why don’t you ever talk about her? Why do you pretend like she never even existed?” Milo said, tears choking half his words.
 

His dad handed him a box of tissues from the end table and Milo blew his nose.

“It’s hard to think about her,” his dad said. “Without wondering what I could’ve done differently. That maybe she’d be here today if I’d just done something differently.”

“It’s not your fault she left,” Milo said, even though he secretly thought it might be.
 

His father worked long hours as an analyst for Conway Industries. Milo wasn’t sure what his dad did, exactly. The few times Milo wondered out loud, his father said it was complicated, and that it was mostly paperwork and “managing too many people and moving parts.” Whatever his job was, it kept him away from home sometimes for weeks at a time.

“Do you think she’s going to ever come back?” Milo asked.

His father met his eyes.

“I don’t think so.”

Fresh tears stung Milo’s eyes. “Why? Doesn’t she love us enough?”

“Oh, no, buddy. It’s not that,” his dad said, hugging him even tighter. The same sort of hug that used to make everything okay, back when his dad was still Superman. Back when he could do anything, and his answers never came with “not now,” “I don’t want to talk about it,” or “maybe some other time, Milo.”

His mother’s disappearance was Kryptonite, however, turning Milo’s father into a mere mortal.

After Milo cried some more, his father pulled away and met his eyes again. His father swallowed a knot in his throat, then forced the something he’d been working up to say from the frown of his mouth.

“Your mother was sick, Milo.”

Milo was confused.

“Sick? What do you mean?”

“She never wanted you to worry, so she never told you, but she wasn’t well. She was clinically depressed.”

“Depressed? No. Mom was always so happy!” Milo said, confused by his father’s clearly wrong confession.

 
“She was, Milo, and she was taking medication to help her. For a long time, it seemed like she was better. Earlier this year, the depression started coming back again. The doctors prescribed her something else. And I thought it had been working.”

Milo sniffled, then wiped his nose. “What do you mean,
thought?
”

“After your mother left, I found out she hadn’t picked up her meds in over a month.”

“Maybe she didn’t need them anymore?”

“When you have clinical depression, you can’t always tell when you need your medication. And sometimes, when people go off it, they can get real bad.”

Milo’s dad stared at him for a moment, as if waiting for Milo to finally understand what he was saying. But Milo couldn’t figure out what his dad was trying to tell him.

“Sometimes when people go off their meds, they get suicidal.”

Milo stared at his dad, unable to believe what his dad was suggesting.

“No! She didn’t kill herself!” Milo shook his head violently back and forth, suddenly sobbing.

“I don’t know if she did,” his father said, looking down. “But we have to consider the possibility, Milo.”

“No!” Milo screamed, launching himself from the couch. He ran up the staircase, taking the stairs two at a time, then went into his room and slammed the door so loud that his lamp, which was turned off, fell from his dresser and onto the ground.

Milo heard his father running up the stairs, calling after him, “Milo!”

Milo locked the door, then fell into his bed and pulled the covers over his head.

“Milo, please. Open the door.”

“She didn’t kill herself!!” Milo screamed.

“I was just saying that . . .” his father started.

“She’s alive!!” Milo repeated, screaming louder.
 

A deafening silence thundered on the other end of the door.