Episode 2-22

As soon as Patrick Donavon has jumped on Kassie Tom, the gunshot rang out through the house. There was a moment of complete silence. That was until Patrick got up.

Kassie immediately crawled out from under Patrick, and looked around the room. She saw both Robert Carlyle and her mother, Darla, on the ground for cover. Darla was at the base of the stairs, and Robert at the kitchen’s entrance.

Robert came up to the fallen duo, and looked up at the intruder. “Why are you doing this?”

Not answering, Kassie turned to Darla. “Mom! Are you okay?” She remained fixed on Darla’s unmoving body. “Mom?”

Patrick turned to where Dr. Wyndham had been standing in the doorway. He was on his knees, coving his head. A man stood behind him, holding a smoking pistol.

Kassie, enraged, immediately turned to the intruding man. “What the hell do you want?”

The intruding man was masked, but his voice rang clear. “I think you know…”

“Well you can’t have him!” Kassie cried out, getting on her feet. “I don’t know why you want, but dammit: it is stopping here!”

Robert grabbed Kassie to prevent her from attacking the man. With that, Kassie froze up. Robert tried to hold her up, but she collapsed to the floor.

As Kassie jotted her eyes around, everything became blurry. The last thing she thought of as she lost consciousness was why her mother wasn’t moving…

Iris Torres could hardly control herself as she entered her old home for the first time in ten years. It was a classic white picket-fence home. The grass was gnarly, since Bo Torres (walking up with his daughter) hadn’t been there since he had first arrived in Presence.

“It is just as I remembered it,” Iris stated, following her father in the house. “The windows… the color… the feel.”

Bo turned on a light inside, and the whole living room lit up. The light reflected off the while wallpaper, and refracted through light fixtures.

Bo smiled. “I thought you would. I was planning for us to go through some old things that me and your mother pack away into the attic.”

Iris nodded, absorbing everything around her. She flung her blonde hair over her shoulder, and followed her father down a hallway.

As they neared the attic stairs, Iris noticed a light that was on. “Have you been here recently?” she asked.

Bo looked at the room, and shrugged. “You’re worrying a little bit too much. I must have just left it on. I get those everlasting enviro-bulbs.”

“Having being stabbed twice in a year by your brother can do that to a person,” Bo joked dryly, nearing the attic steps.

As they began their ascent, Iris could only imagine what memories from her past would revealed.

“Birds!” screamed a hysterical female guest. It was Brianna’s funeral, and somehow a flock of ravens made it inside. “They’re everywhere!”

Skye Lore opened her eyes just in time to see the festivities. “This will be good…”

Sitting beside her, Mateo Consuelos elbowed her. “Ravens? Why did you have to summon these birds? They are always such a pain to get rid of…”

Meanwhile, ravens began to swoop down from the rafters. With their beaks ready, they dove at panicked guests.

“They’re in my hair!” cried out one guest, falling to the floor. “Get it out!”

Ian Huber didn’t understand what exactly was happening, but it didn’t seem good at all. The birds, he felt, actually wanted to harm the guests.

As mourners fell to the floor, slid under the pews, and ran around wildly, Skye couldn’t help but laugh. It was funny.

“Stop them…” Mateo instructed. “They’re going to get suspicious if they’re not attacking us!”

“Thank you,” Mateo sighed. “Now you can—” Before he could finish, and raven swooped down and whacked him in the head.

Mateo tried to beat away three birds trying to get at his eyes. “Very—ow—funny! You know what I meant.”

Ian looked out to the audience to find his eyes land on the couple he’d figure might know what was wrong: His neighbors, Skye and Mateo.

“Them!” he pointed out to Father McMurdy (who was also being swarmed). “She’s not being attacked. She’s laughing!”

Father McMurdy looked out to the crowd, and spotted her. Not because she was laughing. Not because she wasn’t being attacked.

And just then, a single raven glided down and perched itself on her arm. It did nothing.

Father McMurdy looked over to Ian, as they both wondered what evil has been unleashed on their small, little town.

Constance King gasped as her friends, Pricilla and Lourdes, delivered the bad news.

Lourdes took a sip from her Martimmy. “Your brother Frederick Mathison, and his wife, Fanny Mathison-Prince, both died last night.”

Pricilla nodded. “I feel terrible. We figured Alistair Prince would have told you.”

Constance shook her head. “That man? Never. He never cared much for my brother marrying his daughter, so talking to me is out of the question.”

Constance was about to order a drink, but she stopped. “What about their son?”

“Where will Mitchel stay?” she persisted. “Did you hear anything about that? He’s only fifteen. This must be terribly traumatic.”

Shaking her head, “No!” Constance insisted. “There is no way that nephew of mine is going to stay under the eye of that corruptive man

“Sorry to hear about your brother-in-law,” came a man’s voice from the crowd. “And his wife.”

“Freddy and Fanny. They died. You haven’t heard?” The man quickly spun away, probably heading out to the links.

John came up to his father. “Uncle Fred?” he questioned, talking a shot of Scotch off a nearby table. “He’s the annoying guy, right? He’d keep called me the ‘Heir with bad hair.’ That’s him?”

Julian nodded. “Annoying or not, his family owns Prince Publishing. Huge company. Hopefully my wife gets something out of this tragedy.”

Nodding, John gulped the beverage. “To bad his wife had to die. She was one fine package. She must have been good banging.”

As Macy Winthrop stormed away, Adam King just wanted to leave the wretched country club. Even after his long absence, he missed none of it.

“Why are you trying to hide that tape?” Gillian Evans asked Giovanni Pike. “Is it something you don’t want me to see?”

Giovanni needed to think quickly. “Um… It is nothing more than an old TV spot I was in. That is all.”

Gillian smiled. “Of course… That must be where Brooke recognized you from before. She could have sworn you had been on TV!” She came forward. “Can I see it?”

Frustrated, “C’mon!” Gillian insisted. “This is getting silly. Just play it. I don’t care what you’d look like. Just don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Jeez…” Gillian exclaimed, rushing up to him. “It can’t be that embarrassing.” She got to the VCR, and pushed the tape in.

In the apartment above Giovanni’s, Brooke Wright had just gotten off the phone with Addy Evans. Addy had told her that Gillian was crushed by what she had seen on the tape.

“I need to talk to her,” Brooke said. “Addy said she was at Giovanni’s, so I’d better go to make amends.”

Within moments of Skye being spotted, the birds fluttered away. Guests got back up on their feet, and looked around warily.

Everyone’s eyes went to above them, trying to figure out what had just happened, and where the birds had gone.

It took several minutes for the chattering to cease, and Father McMurdy came up to the front. “What ever phenomenon just occurred, it has ceased. We will now let each mourner say his or her final words to Mrs. Brianna Huber.”

Two men lifted the coffin lid. Immediately, guests stood and moved to form a line that crept up the church.

“What the hell was that for?” Mateo whispered. “Ian spotted you a mile away! I suggest we get out of this church – it can only mean bad things for us!”

Skye shook her head. “Are you crazy? I want to say my last goodbye. I may have visited her crash site, insulted her in the morgue, but I want to see this time. Third time’s a charm, is it not?”

Even if he was superior to her, there was no use stopping her. It would only cause a more deadly, extravagant scene.

After many short and touching goodbyes, Mateo went forward to the open casket. “Goodbye.” He was finished, and move back to his seat.

“Brianna,” she stated. “You may be wondering why we did this to you. Simple. You were annoying, and killing people is fun. Simple, right? But I’m hoping that I didn’t make a bad choice. You will more use in there than you ever would have been out here.”

Skye then pulled up her dress and pulled out a newspaper, rolled up. “Remember this? I saved it. It was the article you wrote after Mateo’s brother was shipped over to the coo-coo house. This is why I did what I did.”

Glancing around (and seeing no one), she placed the paper under her arm. “This is so you’ll always remember what you did.”

Giovanni immediately pressed ‘Stop.’ “Gillian… Please respect what I say. I will… show you later. Right now isn’t a good time.”

Giovanni came up to her. “Let’s not let this incident ruin anything. I had a good time last night.”

“Right,” Gillian added, unconvinced. “How could you have had fun? We didn’t even—you know.”

Shaking his head, “That isn’t what made it good. It was just being with you.”

“I’ll get it,” Gillian chirped. She rushed to the door and opened it. “Oh… Hi.”

Brooke revealed herself, standing in the doorway. Giovanni tuned his head to see who was there. Gillian greeted her with a smile.

They both crept into the attic. It was fairly spacious, and a single light, combined with a triangle window, lit up the area.

Bo immediately picked up box. He brought it over to her and they looked through it.

Bo shrugged. “I think it was something you used to own. Oh! This is what I was looking for.” He picked out a small jewelry box. “This was your mother’s. I think she had wanted to give you this, but… ‘things’ happened.”

“It is old,” Bo answered, continuing to rummage. “I think it used to belong to Vivian’s grandmother.”

“Really? That is old.” Iris spotted an album. “Oh, I remember this! I made it in high school. It has all those pictures in it.”

“This was when I went skiing with half the junior year!” Iris exclaimed, flashing back. “It was during spring break, and we all traveled up north to Whistler, British Colombia. Canada is a beautiful country.”

Bo nodded, turning the page. “Ah! The prom. Here’s you and your sister posing.”

“Yeah…” Iris sighed. She remembered the evening well, since it was the last picture ever taken of her.

“And now I need to go.” Constance picked up her purse and disappeared into a crowd of eager golfers.

Julian was looking around John, since he had just finished formulating the plan he was going to use to get Iris Torres out of son, Adam’s, life.

Eager to know what his father had concocted, John listened. Julian brought his mouth to John’s ear, and he gave the instructions.

“…and that is it.” Julian finished, looking at his son. “Are you up to it?”

Coming from behind, Constance listened in on Adam’s line. “Why did you mention ham?”

Not trying to figure out everyone’s chaos, they all went to the exit, ready to go home. They weren’t quite ready for the country club, and the club wasn’t ready for them.

Ian got up at the front once the casket had been closed. He took out a small sheet of paper, but hardly glanced at it.

“I’ve always seen people give eulogies,” he started, looking at the guests. “They never looked hard. Just compile a list of things that you loved about the deceased.” He wiped a small tear, remaining composed. “Then, once this terrible tragedy occurred, I realized something. Everything I say right now will be the final words spoken about her.”

As he continued talking, Skye rolled her eyes. “Blah, blah, blah… Can you believe this tripe he’s spewing?”

“Love?” Skye scoffed. “Love is completely overrated. It’s nothing more than a word to signal the attachment of lust on someone. All human—all animals for that matter—are here for one reason only: To procreate. Whatever ‘love’ is formed is false and disgusting.

“You bet…” Skye agreed. She shifted over to his, and placed her hand inside his dress shirt. “I know it can be very… pleasurable…”

Back to Ian: “I always loved the way she’d get very excited about the smallest things. A news story… mail that wasn’t in bulk… things like that. Her eyes would light up. I will miss that most of all…”

“The blood!” she screamed, pointing at the coffin. “It is covered in blood. The coffin is covered in blood!”

“Kassie!” Patrick called out, kneeling down beside her. He shook her, but she didn’t move. “This doesn’t make any sense. What’s wrong with her?”

“Enough!” the masked man announced. “I’ve got instructions, and the child is coming with me. Right now!”

As both Patrick and Robert dealt with Kassie and the intruder, Darla opened here eyes. Shaking off a bad headache, she got to her knees.

“Noah…” she gasped, to herself. She must have fallen when she heard the gunshot. “Is he okay…?” Having landed on her back, Noah remained in her arms. “Noah…” she whispered. “Are you okay…? Please say something…”

“And this time our side will have no more death,” he concluded. “You got lucky when my colleague tried to take that filthy little urchin from you at the hospital – and you shot him. But, as you can see, our backup plan involves much more pain to those you love.”

Darla immediately saw Kassie lying on the floor. “No!” She looked up venomously. “What did you do to her?”

“It is time to end all of this,” the man finally said. He took out his gun and pointed it at Darla. “I’ll bet you’re really tired of seeing this thing, aren’t you?”

Without warning, Dr. Wyndham jumped off the floor and attacked the gunman. The shot rang out and hit the ceiling. Spackle covered Kassie, Patrick and Robert as they shielded their eyes. Robert got up and headed to the kitchen. Patrick remained beside Kassie.

“I’ll protect your family,” he promised. Looking up at the gunman, he stepped up. “You want the information, don’t you? You want the information that Drew had taken undercover in Iraq a year ago! Get over it! It burned up when his plane crashed – with him!”

The man shook his head. “I know Drew had you hired in case something happened to him, but you can give it up.”

“Think about it!” Patrick continued. “If in fact we did get our hands on the information – which we didn’t – would we have made copies. And it has been a year. Wouldn’t have you felt the effect of the information being released publicly yet?”

Patrick shook his head. “What are you going to do?” Patrick looked down and saw the gun on the ground. “You don’t have your gun…”

Looking over to Darla, the man smiled. “We killed that man in Switzerland last spring. And we’re prepared to do it again.”

“Oh… no…” Patrick gasped. It was a strange shot, but he knew what had happened.

The gunman himself was caught off-guard, as he backed away. He then put two and two together.

As soon as the shot rang out, Patrick hobbled forward, his back arched inwards. It looked as if he had been shot from behind.

On the brink of insanity, Darla shook her head, covering her mouth. “No… This can’t be true…”

As Patrick’s eyes, too, began to close, he saw a needle mark on Kassie’s neck. He knew who had been deceiving them since the gunman showed up.

Eyes watering, Darla back up to the stairs and let out a confused and crazed scream. “No!!”

Robert stood in the kitchen doorway, looking on the chaos. In his hand was a odd-looking, cylindrical firing weapon.

A wide angle over Kassie and Patrick, lying side-by-side in front of the door. Move to Dr. Wyndham knocked out in the battle with the gunman.

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Episode 2-23

Darla and Noah are in horrible danger.
Think the funeral is odd? It is about to get more shocking and explosive than before!
Iris finds stuff regarding Lily.
The infamous tape is played - for everyone!
John makes a shocking move!
Constance calls her dead brother's father-in-law - Alistair.