The Tune

Issue/Episode: Two, Volume/Season: One

Tricia is lying on the mattress on the floor of her New Jersey apartment, staring at the ceiling, frozen in an almost corpse-like fashion. She had been feeling an empty…hollow feeling since “that night”. Taking a long, sharp breath bringing herself back. It was still her breath.

Autonomy seemed to be different since ”that night”. The days of her wearing fitting hip-length short skirts and leather jackets and jubilant smiles are long gone. Her current daily attire is now a loose-fitting graphic T-shirt from work, one size (or more than she’d care to admit) too big, with sweatpants. Taking deep breaths, trying to get back to the world she knew.

“The f*** is wrong with me?” she pondered somewhat rhetorically. She should be happy again, having finally climbed to THE music hub of the 1980s, but any day (especially in the summer) felt like a “tragiversary”. Time for a “Mac Snack,” she thought excitedly, popping the tape “Mirage”, by Fleetwood Mac into her tape player.

The opening track, Love In Store, may as well have been a Tibetan monk chant, given the energy she needed to blast away the ghosts of 1980. Tapping in tune kept her here; “thank the universe,” she thought, clearing her mind. The tape serenades her through the commute of trains to her dream job.

A receptionist named Jan at the desk, wearing a red blazer draped over her chair with a red dress, and a puffy shirt, kindly welcomes her back. The receptionist has a calendar on her desk with the date for Monday, July 5th, 1982. Finally, Tricia felt at home.

Receptionist:

Welcome back, so jealous of your new assignment. My lord, getting PAID to LISTEN to Fleetwood Mac.

(Smiles excitedly)

Hopefully no nicks for Nicks?

Tricia :

(Giving an awkward plastic smile she hoped was “to scale”)

Living the dream and no nicks for Nicks with this tape. That Love In Store jam is gonna be like glue on my noggin all day.

Whose dream? Tricia was caught up pondering. Was it hers? Or whatever puppeteer caused the fresh hell she was trying to escape from. Were they still there? She thought in the back of her mind as a goosebump crept up her spine.

Tricia bumps into Tom Chesterton, the lead manager of their location, whose father was the President of the network itself.

Tom:

Hey legs, no more bangs? Or no more

(Giving a crass “humpty pumpty” gesture)

Bangs

Tricia :

(Dryly)

Funnier every time I hear it. I forgot which of us is interviewing Blind Cougar this weekend?

Tom:

(In a huff)

I’ll…. I’ll…I’ll just have to talk to my father about that.

Tricia :

(Teasingly bragging)

You definitely won’t be talking to Ed Van about it.

Tom

(Frustrated)

You’re lucky that Pamela Dutch chick wants to talk to you today. God knows the reason. Better be thankful every f***ing day to be working at Music Video Network.

Tom leaves in a huff.

Receptionist:

Someone’s interviewing the queen executive of music. That’s amazing.

(The receptionist smiles excitedly and gives Tricia a high five)

Don’t forget you’ve got an interview with the new band The Stops for the Slowdown at Marmont High soundtrack.

Tricia :

Ok…

Suddenly thrown by something about those names seeming…off.

Tricia :

(Perplexed)

Are you sure?

Receptionist:

Yep, the end of the day around 333

Tricia :

3…33?

Receptionist:

(Blazey)

…You know these rock n roll types, ever indecisive.

Tricia :

…Right…

(Smiles before leaving)

Thanks Jan

Tricia heads to her desk, trying to clear her head from a progressively surreal day. The day she thought,

(Finally having the time to fully see her calendar)

Oh God, it’s that day…

Being overwhelmed by the approaching anniversary of That Night pushed every other major day out of her mind. This call was a week late, anxiously doing so, but she knew that she needed to.

(Taking a deep breath)

She shakily picked up the phone in her tiny office, calling home. Knowing how this played out last year, sheepish would be underselling what she was feeling now.

The phone rings anxiously, debating hanging up with every ring. A man’s voice is faintly heard on the other end.

Tricia

(Anxiously)

…Dad

The voice on the other end isn’t heard.

The focus on Tricia pulls back, shrinking her in frame more and more with each and every line.

Tricia :

(Lump in her throat)

It…

(Voice on the other end is louder but muffled under Tricia‘s heartbeats)

I…just wanted to wish Mom a happy birthday.

(Tricia starts to tear up while trying to maintain her composure)

I don’t know, Dad, I don’t remember that night…I ca..

(Voice breaking)

Because I lov

(The other line hangs up)

Tricia begins to grimace and cry, overwhelmed.

Just over two years later, she’s been haunted by the fallout of “The Night That Never Was”

Network Executive enters her tiny office.

Network executive:

Tricia, Pamela Dutch is ready for you in the conference room.

Upon arriving at the conference room, Trusha was still in the haze of the overwhelming day, trying to avoid stumbling into the room.

Network Executive:

I’d love for you to meet Pamela Dutch, the biggest music executive on the East Coast.

A younger P enters the room, looking much more professionally conservative, and walks into the conference room. She’s dressed in a hypnotically blue power blazer with a passionate, sharp red blazer and pink lipstick, standing tall, proud, and bold in her high-end pumps. P/Pamela extends her hand, greeting a befuddled Tricia warmly.

Seeing Pamela and the residual connection to her through Randall. Tricia’s brain is processing a simultaneous flashback and flash-forward in time, seeing Pamela. Tricia goes cross-eyed (trying to fake a sneeze to cover her face). She tries to make her shattering reality while attaining any level of professionalism.

Pamela

(Trying to give her rare female coworker credit while brushing off curiosity from her “second job”)

Gotta respect that Rock N Roll lifestyle?

Tricia :

Sorry….must have a…RESTLESS MIND, probably had too much BACON

Pamela /P looks at Tricia more knowingly, yet trying to play it down, not entirely sure how to navigate her own curiosity.

Male exec

(Cluelessly chuckling, trying to keep up with a (to him) random conversation while not screwing things up with a major name in music)

…I can’t handle bacon much, especially with cheese

P looks longer at Tricia, trying to take in what the hell was happening. Would the nightmare of this day never end?

P:

You’re

(Long pause) HER

(Figuring out how to approach this)

…the…The Shout club lady? You stopped the gunman.

Executive:

The f***?

P:

It was all over the news; she went all cold-blooded on his ass. Don’t mess with her in heels.

Tricia :

(Frustrated, trying to get answers from her but not in front of a coworker)

(Sternly)

Or at all

P:

I…suppose…ANYWAY, I hear that you’re the golden goose interviewer around here?

Tricia :

(Reaching for names that suddenly seemed to come to her)

One may call me the Regina BACON of the music world with my Restless Mind.

Male executive:

Sorry, she’s not usually this…weird. She actually helped break the news on Phil Collins going solo.

(Casually chuckling, trying to re-establish normalcy)

I still feel betrayed that Collins branches away from Genesis.

(Under his breath)

…Follow You Follow Me, my ass

P:

(Warm yet inquiringly)

You seem very invaluable to the company.

Male executive:

(Reassuringly glad the normalcy has returned)

The Soundtrinket Music News wouldn’t be the colossus for the medium it is today without her.

Tricia catches P’s slight recognition of the oddity in something the executive mentioned but doesn’t know why.

P:

Excuse me, Jonathan, can you give Tricia and me some alone time? I’m curious about her direct perspective on the roles of women in the postmodern world of music.

Jonathan;

You damn postgrads and your theses and theoreticals; just try to make it more of a short story vs novel length conversation.

P:

(Smiling agreeably)

Deal

Jonathan leaves the room.

P and Tricia

(at the same time)

What the f***?

P:

Get out of my head, crazy.

Tricia :

F*** you I’ve been in hell since you’ve been in my head. Or whatever the f*** happened almost two years ago. You and the f**ing Randall Reynolds.

(Frustratingly chagrined)

Randall Reynolds, Randall Reynolds, Randall Reynolds. I feel like an obsessive f***ing stalker whose only connection to them is in my f***ing head.

(Sternly furious)

UNTIL

YOU

(Anxiously hoping to finally find sanity)

PLEASE, tell me you understand it beyond me just being a “heroic crazy b***”

P:

F***…ok….masterclas in this s*** I’m getting today.

(P takes a long deep breath)

Ok, well….I guess it worked.

Tricia :

The f*** are you talking about?

P:

I don’t know

Tricia :

(Condescendingly)

PHD huh?

P:

F*** you, you try to explain time travel before studying time tra…

(Takes a deep breath)

If you want to know where you really work, please follow up on my card.

Tricia :

What?

P

(Reassuringly)

You’ll need time. It’s going to be a very surreal day.

Tricia :

Uggg so…Who the f*** Is Roger Bacon anyways?

P:

(Her words catching up with her brain)

…da Vinci, who I’m writing my latest repo….

(Exhausted and befuddled)

F***ing time travel… I guess Randall just needed to be ready then.

(Pausing longer to take everything in)

Maybe you…

(Pauses again, giving a contemplative look of either comprehending or planning)

Tricia :

(Processing or trying to)

…Randall…from 1999 ah, f*** you that’s when I think they were from. I was from…he was from?

P:

The…

Tricia :

Life ruiner

P:

But you’re a hero,

(Trying to present Tricia with a silver lining)

and your current job’s not the worst?

Tricia :

And you and f***ing psychopath your little junior psychopath turned me into a f***ing puppet…I…can’t f***ing do this.

P slips her business card in Tricia‘s jacket as Tricia runs out of the room, trying desperately to escape an encroaching divergent reality.

Tricia leaves the meeting feeling profoundly overwhelmed. Hyperventilating, she finally feels a strange oneness of finally being heard yet disconnected from any/everything. Making her way to A port while still lost in the fog.

Seeing the logo for the Soundtrinket Music News flashing between itself and the prime universe’s job company, her brain begins to overload. Where is she? Who is she? What is she? Who the f*** is Randall Reynolds and where do they end and she begins.

Tricia leaves the building, throwing up in a garbage can outside while hailing a cab, woozily, increasingly feeling time moving slowly yet accelerated simultaneously. The events were separated by minutes yet felt like seconds.

Tricia

(Nodding off in the cab woozily)

The…Shout…night…club

Tricia nods off, having half-conscious sights and sounds of the 1990’s. Bands yet to be named, foreign yet connected to Randall’s future. Half awake, she pushes herself to center into some form of normalcy.

Taxi driver:

We’re here

Tricia gets out of the taxi, trying to wake her feet and self. She anxiously almost “zombie walks” slowly to the “club that changed her life”.

As she enters the door, she flashes back to the 1980 crowds fleeing The Shout as she slowly opens the door to a now-normal club during slow hours. A building chill ramps up throughout her back and arms.

1980 Tricia

(Shouting anxiously inside of herself with Randall at the wheel)

“He’s got a gun”!

No words come from her Randall-controlled mouth.

Modern Tricia :

(To herself, trying to remember in between worlds in ‘Club Purgatory “)

Who…?

1982 bartender:

(Shocked)

It’s you!

The sounds of the club screaming still proliferate in Tricia‘s subconscious.

Tricia :

Uh

Bartender:

You saved my life that night, possibly the whole damn club’s. Wild f***ing night. Wouldn’t expect to ever see you again.

Cutting between Randall through Tricia cutting up the mysterious stranger. With the mysterious figure trying to say something despite having heel-sized holes in their throat tendons/muscles. Meat and gore gushing out of their neck. Filtered through Tricia‘s trauma and “half brain” of the event, the words are muted.

Tricia grabs her head, taking in too much. Bending over, overwhelmed, Tricia holds herself up on the bar.

The bartender offers her a soda, which Tricia pops open and chugs down, damn near finishing half the thing in one gulp, shaking.

Tricia:

I can pay…

(Reaches for her wallet in 1982 juxtaposed with Ransha (Randall/Trisha) holding her bloody heel in 1980 and wallet in 1982)

Tricia :

Hell of a night

Bartender:

You’re telling me, crazy damn city, that was one of the weirdest nights I’d seen.

Tricia :

(Trying to maintain)

Never been robbed before

Bartender

Not like that or you and them…both of you seemed…different.

Tricia :

Different?

Bartender:

Hard to put into words. I’ve seen my share of junked-up weirdos, but…this…was something…

Tricia :

Different?

Bartender:

Yeah…unnervingly so. I’ve been held up at gunpoint before and by blade, so sporadic violence. It’s s***

(Takes a breath trying to explain the insane in a sane way)

I’m…well, not used to it but less immediately jarred byit. But this was some spirit leaving the consciousness s***.

Tricia :

(Apprehensive to dig back into the trauma memory)

…The….the other guy…did…die

Bartender:

You’re really wanting to know this s***? Had I not felt so terrified that night I wouldn’t even be sharing this s***. Mental duct tape kinda thing, ya know?

(Chuckles anxiously)

…Can’t help the bar either

(Bartender anxiously pours himself a shot of rum)

So long as I’m breaking protocol…

(Chuckles anxiously again)

Given that, damn night intoxication may be MORE akin to sanity.

(Takes another sip while trying to distract himself)

Wow…I’ve never had bad rum before today, but this.

(Takes another sip to be sure)

Is really s***y rum

(Awkward pause seeing the lostness and anxiety in his former patron’s eyes)

Seeing you today especially is some….freaky…zombie ghost s***

Tricia :

I know, I don’t think I moved like myself…?

Bartender:

(Clears throat and speaks under their breath)

…So did they…

Tricia :

(Anxiously curious to have closure on as much as her brain can handle)

They…moved like someone else too?

The bartender doesn’t say anything despite seeming to shrink as he stands. This skinny hipster-looking woman in sweatpants and an oversized shirt was scaring this “swole 80’s Tom Berenger-looking cat”. The bartender looked like he was seeing The Headless Horseman of Ichabod fame from childhood nightmares.

Tricia :

(Takes a deep sigh knowing which way of the fight/flight coin she’s ready for)

…Look man ... .I’ve ... .I’ve been living with this s*** as the rainiest damn rain cloud over my head for about two years now. I’m past mad or anything negative…

(Laughing anxiously about the absurdity of her life)

It’s like getting to the last page of your own mystery book and the damn thing blowing away.

(Laughs again anxiously)

Trust me, you can’t sound any crazier than I have the pas….too damn long.

Bartender:

(Gives a long pause)

Seeing you now…they…may…have…had YOUR GAIT.

(speeding up his response)

The more you move, the harder this is for me. I thought that I could do this, but I can’t. You saved my life, but they may have killed me and both…felt like you.

(Looks at her, trying to push that night from their mind)

I just need you to get the f*** away from me. You’re….you’re….not…right

Tricia leaves

(Depressed under her breath)

Theme of my day

Tricia fumbles for P’s card before heading to a payphone outside.

Tricia :

I…don’t know what the f*** is going on and i

I…you’re the one person in 2 years that hasn’t immediately looked scared and/or judgmental of me and…I need that now.

Cut to Tricia outside of P’s Westchester County Scarsdale suburban home. Debating pressing her doorbell, not knowing if she’s ready for weirder or finally prepared for closure.

P opens the door, welcoming her inside a living room filled with books on the history of sound, with a giant hardcover biography on Roger Bacon and thesis notes strewn around the living room.

P:

Still have the tape?

Tricia :

What?

P

The Fleetwood Mac tape we sent you?

Tricia :

No, you didn’…

(Tricia takes in the oddity of the past 2 years and

P excitedly motions for Tricia to give her the “Mirage” tape, putting it into a tape deck hooked up to a conventional (albeit metallic-appearing) tape deck attached to a very surrealistic amplifier.

Tricia :

Does that say…notch ….say…future?

P:

(Smiles jubilantly)

I can’t believe how lucky I am to have found you. Ten years until this, me and my partners theorized something like “The Shout incident” could happen, but we didn’t know how or when to approach you.

Tricia, confused, gives the “Mirage” tape to P. She puts it into the tape player

P:

YOU need to play it.

(P smiles excitedly)

Give it a try

Befuddled, Tricia presses play on the tape player, feeling a surreal jolt coming from her hand going into the tape player.

P:

(Smiles)

If you’re ready, press and hold down the slider and prepare to melt your brain

Tricia slides the tape amplifier slider as Love In Store begins to play. It begins to audio warp out of sync the vocals begin to stretch as the spool in the tape expands as Love In Store begins to warp into Big Love (from Mac’s next-as-of-then unreleased album). Christine and Stevie’s duet warps together into Lindsay Buckingham’s solo for the track Big Love.

P

(Still smiling)

So…you’re a first for me. The Roger Bacon thing you mentioned is newish to me, but my current work research project…however the hell that works. Let me reimburse your cab fare; that must’ve been a doozy of a trip.

P heads to her room to get her walker as Tricia sees Randall Reynold’s name in P’s alphabetical file cabinet, quickly jotting down his address and basic contact info. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, she thinks.

Tricia :

And the…music executive thing…?

P:

(Looking for her wallet)

My “second job”

(Laughs)

Ain’t it a gas? Sound design is a vital aspect for my employers, which means understanding music inside and out.

Tricia :

An alias?

P:

If you want to call it that. Different company name in the other ‘verse, BTW

Tricia :

The…what now? What the hell is it then?

P smiles mischievously, giving her her circular pink shades, which Tricia apprehensively puts on.

P points Tricia to look at her Soundtrinket Music News shirt in the mirror to see the other universe’s logo instead.

Tricia :

What the hell?

P:

(Smiling)

Gotta go mad to get sane, huh? I’ve got weirder.

Tricia :

And what the hell is Restless Minds?

P:

Above your pay grade

Tricia :

F*** you above my pay grade, I was your puppet, who the f*** was my Gipetto? Why the hell am I here if not for answers?

(P points to the tape deck to the future she’s playing)

P:

(Teasingly)

Because you can connect with time in ways nobody else currently can. You’ve walked between two times; you’re beautiful, damn near ethereal, and the first paradox I’ve ever seen in my almost decade in the field.

(Excitedly, P smiles as though she’s found the first of a new species)

The woman between two worlds.

Tricia:

I have no world, you’ve ruined my life you b***. You haven’t shown me a new world; you’ve destroyed the one I’ve had. Two years in purgatory and you’re calling it heaven.

(Laughs slightly maniacally)

Tricia angrily throws the tape deck on the floor, hoping it’d break, leaving the house furiously unfulfilled and stuck in a deeper level of her purgatory and frustrations.

Upon Tricia leaving, Pamela answers the phone.

Pamela:

(Over the phone)

You really want me to say it?

Unheard voice on the other end

Pamela:

Fine, you were right, we…you’ll have to do something about her. Her brain has taken in too much; the world isn’t ready for. I know I can’t walk this back; do what you need to do.

Cut to the Reynolds house. Randall is playing outside in the backyard with a Nerf gun.

Tricia rings the doorbell, waiting for Randall to answer. The Reynolds family Ford escort (or other economical family car) is running idle in the background.

Ryan answers the door.

Ryan:

(Confused)

Hello?

Tricia :

Pamela wanted me to pick you up; I’m her new assistant from Restless Minds. …She wanted me to take you to your exam.

Tricia gives young Randall a warm smile. Though warm now, it will be eerily familiar to the being that will haunt him in years to come.

Randall:

What’s her passphrase?

Tricia gives a long awkward pause before saying the first word that came to her mind.

Tricia:

Bacon

Ryan

(Smiling)

It’s what’s for breakfast.

Ryan gets into the car and closes the door as Tricia puts on the childlock with Randall in the back.

Tricia:

There’s been a development at RM. We have to be sure that you’re not taken by anyone.

Tricia drives up to the neighborhood’s security guard station.

Tricia:

Hi there, the company sent me to pick up Junior.

Security guard:

And you are…?

Tricia:

I’m Tricia, a work assici…

Tricia sees the security guard is looking at her skeptically.

Randall sees a book on how to jump-start a car hidden behind the seat and anxiously starts to crawl to the front seat as she slams on the gas, throwing Randall back.

Randall:

(Trying to roll down the window)

She’s trying to kidnap me!

Tricia rams through the wooden security pole as the security guard tries to shoot out the wheels but misses.

A motorcycle helmet-wearing driver, with their face concealed, is behind the wheels of a 1982 Chevy Blazer or jeep is parked off road. Seeing Tricia breaking through the wooden security bar, pursuing the road-running duo.

Hot in pursuit, the helmeted individual opens their helmet, revealing intensely focused eyes, as he grabs his .22 opening fire, shredding Tricia’s car’s driver window.

Tricia:

s***

Tricia:

You won’t believe me, but I don’t want to hurt you. I just have questions that only you can answer. I can’t ask them if you’re hurt or killed.

(Frustrated, trying to scare Randall into compliance until she can somehow think)

Cut to Randall’s POV warping through the intensity of the situation as Tricia’s face and silhouette begins to to visually warp from normal to more akin to The Being.

Tricia’s voice becomes otherworldly and garbles Randall. Terrified grabs the seat like his and is magnetized to it

Seatbelt now

Randall quickly clicks the seatbelt.

With the window to the car Tricia’s driving blown out, the helmeted figure changes from his .22 pistol to a Carbon-Dioxide Neurotoxin Dart gun, firing a dart at Tricia; somehow, she’s miraculously unaffected.

Tricia ramps up speed as Todd rams her side, which Tricia turns into the drive in the wrong lane to lose Todd as…

Randall

(Hyperventilating)

WATCH..

(Horn of car in front of them slamming, cutting off Randall’s ”out”)

Traffic continues to approach them; they both dodge between cars before off-roading into a potato field. Potato after potato blast through the undercarriage of both vehicles as Todd fires another dart into Tricia. The family car’s undercarriage gets “potatoed” to the point of stalling out.

Tricia parks sharply as she leaves the car running on foot. Randall runs to Todd’s car, hoping to escape the trauma of the day, as Todd grabs another tranq gun and extra darts as he pursues Tricia on foot, running and climbing a fence into nearby cornrows.

Todd takes off his helmet, swapping it for a ski mask to maintain hiding his identity within the corn.

Todd:

(Trying to get Tricia to speak aloud to find her)

F***ing corn am I right?

Silence besides the buzzing locusts and grasshoppers serenading the chase/hunt

Trisha runs slightly ahead of Todd, trying to be quick yet silent. Her arms are getting cut up by the sharp leaves in the rows.

Trisha flinches and slightly moans in pain as beetles fly to her, hitting her face.

Todd

(Taunting Tricia)

Give me swamps, give me deserts, but cornfields are a true pain in the ass. Not to mention the zoo of beasts you may bump into.

(Cut to Tricia anxiously hiding)

POV of a slithering, rattling snake: Which will it approach?

Todd:

It’s just the corn, you think, but they’ve already cut up out here, I’m betting?

(Threateningly)

Think you’re worse off with me? Or the randomness of pain in these rows?

Todd sees Tricia’s blood on a cornrow ahead as a snake approaches a fallen row.

Tricia sees an exit to the rows as the snake charges her.

Todd blasts the snake with a tranq dart, knocking it out. Tricia flees the rows as Todd reloads, taking deep breaths, aiming for Tricia’s exposed neck, hitting it, and finally knocking her out.

A farmer furiously ranting while the masked figure grabs a low-intensity tranq gun from his back.

Farmer:

Hell y’all gone n dun ta ma gerd damn crops ya sum bitches gon n dun recked a who…

Masked man shoots farmer with the weaker tranq gun, temporarily sedating them.

Tricia is half-conscious, crawling on the ground and bleeding out.

Tricia’s first-person POV as her vision wanes, dropping into a deeply comatose state

Tricia:

(Last physically conscious words)

This

(Woozily falling over)

F***ing

(Closing her eyes)

Da…

The helmeted pursuer takes off their helmet, revealing a 32-year-old Todd Dalton.

Todd Dalton:

(On his car phone with Trisha in the backseat)

Crafty gal called up the parents and said their aunt Betty was having an emergency to get them out of the house.

(Unheard voice on the other end)

Todd Dalton:

Patch her up? Crazy bitch stole a damn ki…right, she’s a breaker. It took three damn Neurotoxin Darts to bring her ass down…right, we don’t know how…yes, I’ll send her to The Locker…yep, no vitals, but she won’t be…on her way to Dreamyville probably for years.

(Voice unheard on other end)

That’s right…the parents are ok.

(Pause)

What should we do about the kid?

(Looks at the deeply exhausted and overwhelmed Randall)

Todd Dalton:

The poor kid must’ve had the most intense night of his life.

Cut to: The Locker: a special, highly secure wing deep underground of captured temporally paradoxical people and oddities.

PA system DJ 1

(Echoing throughout the underground hallways)

It’s Hawaiian shirt day, guys, so let’s turn those frowns…

PA system DJ 2:

UUUUpside down

PA System DJ:

That’s right, number two, we’ve got a brand new guest today. She’s gone from reviewing records to being one. Let’s welcome

PA System DJ 2

Drumroll please

(Both do a drumroll)

Tricia Cardoba!

Comatose Tricia is being wheeled through the hall by masked doctors wearing Hawaiian T-shirts, passing a room with the Dirty Blond Haired Woman. (currently girl) from issue 1. The doctors in her room examining her are all singing All I Have To Do Is Dream, by The Everly Brothers pleasantly yet uncontrollably)

Cut to Randall Reynolds’ family’s house.

Randall’s mom prepares his bed for him, tucking a shamen Randallto sleep.

Still exhausted from the chase, Randall anxiously begins to drift off to sleep as he nods off. The being begins to approach them in their sleep; now a blurry/fuzzy moving image with an otherworldly, warped voice emerges in his unconscious state.

The Being:

Finally, we can talk. I’ve got two years’ worth of questions for you, kid.

End of issue 2

© July 2026, Copyright by Lawrence Gaines, All Rights Reserved, No Reproduction Without Permission July 25th, 2026