Friday, November 4th, 5:45 p.m.

For the past hour and a half, Jordan watched the Kinghorn family with silent awe. In fiction, she'd read about countless families and what family life looked and sounded like, but she'd always thought those families didn't exist. Jordan was delighted that she was wrong.

Mr. and Mrs. Kinghorn seemed fascinated with even the smallest details of their children's day. Their oldest daughter, Jessica, was not forthcoming with information, but her parents laughed regardless as if going upstairs and locking herself in her room was a part of some long running joke.

The little Kinghorn, ten-year old Diana, was more than happy to pick up her sister's slack. She gave a firsthand account of the shot-for-shot recounting of her day, and her parents listened. They didn't half-listen while doing other things. Heather, her mother, sat patiently while nodding along and asking intelligent questions.

It made Jordan acutely aware of everything she'd been missing. As a child, Jordan never felt any doubt that her parents loved her, but whether or not they had time for her was another matter.

Jordan's dad would be gone for days sometimes weeks at a time, but when he came back he showered Jordan with affection. He checked her out of school without her mom knowing and took her out on the town. They'd go to the zoo or watch a movie in the middle of the day, and Jordan would giggle at the thought of all her classmates stuck in school because their dads weren't as amazing as hers.

Jordan's mom spent a lot of time worrying. The longer Jordan's dad would be gone, the more worried she would get. She jumped whenever somebody knocked at the door, and had a hard time listening when Jordan spoke to her. If Jordan asked why, her mom would just say how much she missed Jordan's dad. Despite all that, she did her best to make sure Jordan got to school on time and always had meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but itt was like Delilah Bryant was in two places at once: her mind was with Jordan's dad, but her body was with Jordan.

Losing herself in the love and compassion of the Kinghorn family may have been the happiest Jordan had felt since she arrived in Lancet Falls. A dark little part of Jordan tried to remind her that her mom was still in a hospital bed, Jordan had killed two things last night, and the whole town, possibly world was in danger; she didn't have any right to be happy right now. Jordan pretended like she didn't hear the dark voice. She wished Derek were there, his loud enthusiasm would drown it out.

◈

At the tail end of lunch, Jordan thought Derek was going to die of pure ecstasy when he found out that he too had become a "superhero."

He told Jordan he could fly and tried to get her to ditch class, so he could show her, but Jordan convinced him to wait until after school. Derek conceded with a loud groan.

Jordan spent the rest of school imagining Derek flying around Lancet Falls giggling the whole time, and Jordan couldn't help but think how perfect of a power that was for him. A twinge of jealousy pinged at her subconscious, Jordan's ability hurt just as much as it helped, a lot like Jordan herself.

Jordan met Derek at their usual spot, the place where they first met. She got there first. She waited and watched for Derek. When he finally crashed through the front doors, Jordan thought he was going to fly to her right then and there. Jordan thanked her lucky stars that he at least he had that much restraint.

"Derek!" A voice called out, Derek's mother. Amelia Spencer.

"Can Jordan come over?" Derek screamed back, his voice cracking.

"Not tonight hun, maybe next time."

Derek looked at Jordan with that personified human suffering, "I'm sorry. It's my mom's night off. I'll sneak out and show you tonight. Pinky promise."

Derek trudged off, leaving Jordan alone until Mr. Kinghorn finished his work. Jordan had hoped Derek would be with her at dinner. This journey had become as much of his at is was hers, and his presence made her feel better. Jordan would have to do her best to represent them both and make sure to catch Derek up on everything that night.

◈

A knock at the door jolted Jordan out of her reverie.

"That'll be Christopher," Heather Kinghorn said taking off her oven mitts and jogging towards the door.

She opened the door, and a tall man creeped into the room. Passing through the entryway, he had to hunch his back as to not hit his head. He wore a long black coat and black gloves. Beneath the coat, a hint of a white dress shirt poked out at the collar. His eyes roved the room as if scanning and cataloguing information for later use.

Mrs. Kinghorn gave him a bear hug that he did not return, instead he stiffened at her touch.

"Good evening, Aunt Heather," the man said with the warmth and affection of a robot.

"I was so thrilled when Raymond told me you were coming to dinner, it's been so long since I've seen you!"

"Forty-seven days," he replied, "It is nice to see you as well."

"Have a seat in the living room. Dinner'll ready in a jiff."

The man nodded and started to walk towards where Jordan was seated. When he ducked into the room, the man reminded Jordan of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, but once he started talking, he was closer to a character from The Matrix.

But not one of the human characters.

Jordan was seated on the end of a three piece couch, and the Kinghorns' nephew, Jordan thought his name was Christopher, chose a love seat directly across from Jordan. The man gave Jordan a case of the creeps, the cold indifference of his face was unsettling. After he'd examined the room in is entirety, his eyes settled on Jordan. She did her best to pretend she didn't notice, but out of her peripheral vision, she could feel his eyes on her.

Neither of them said anything. If he wasn't Mr. Kinghorn's nephew, she would have assumed he was one of The Beings from the night before, an invader in her world. He looked at everything the way an alien would, as a scientific curiosity.

When Jordan couldn't stand it anymore, she looked into his eyes and asked, "Have you ever seen The Matrix?"

"Yes," he said avoiding her gaze.

"You kind of remind me of one of the characters in that movie."

"Which one?"

"I don't know, just one of the extras."

"Oh, which one?"

"I don't remember," Jordan replied, not sure whether or not he was being genuine.

"Okay," he said.

The two continued their silence while the sound of pots clattering rose from the kitchen. Smells wafted into the living room. Jordan didn't recognize any of them, but her mouth watered at the aromas. A home cooked meal had been a rarity for her even when she still lived in New York.

"Thank you," Christopher said about a minute after their conversation ended. Something that resembled a smile was on his face. It looked pained as if expressing anything other than a bland monotone caused him physical harm.

Jordan returned the smile, "You're welcome."

"You don't look like anyone I've ever met before," he said, a tone of thoughtfulness in his voice, "It's quite refreshing.

Jordan didn't reply, but his comment made her smile. In his uncomfortable, bumbling sort of way, he'd given her one of the most genuine compliments she'd received in Lancet Falls.

Jordan had an epiphany about the man. His robotic qualities and his refusal to hug Mrs. Kinghorn didn't stem from any sort of negative emotion. Christopher wasn't comfortable and he was doing his best to keep a straight face and be polite. A grown adult being uncomfortable was never something Jordan had considered, she just assumed that once you were a grown up, that you figured everything out.

"Dinner's ready!" Heather's voice called from the kitchen.

Christopher and Jordan stood up at the same time. It seemed like both of them were waiting for the other to take the lead. Jordan didn't know where the dining room was, but she gave it a shot and walked towards the sound of the woman's voice.

The only word to describe the Kinghorns' dining room was breathtaking. The room was lit by the dim light of a faux chandelier and four candles giving the room the feel of a dining hall. Pictures of the family on various vacations adorned the walls, the most recent looked like they were at Mount Rushmore. A big glass window on Jordan's left revealed the Kinghorn's lawn and a sunset of deep blues and purples that looked like it had been meticulously crafted to set the perfect ambience for their meal.

A feast lay before them. Plates holding two full cooked chickens were on either side of the dining table. In the middle of the table were three separate glass containers, each containing something new. One looked like a salad. The other two were foreign to Jordan, but Jordan thought that she saw roasted marshmallows on top of one. The table was covered by a cloth that looked like it had been crafted by hand; various combinations of fruits and vegetables were sewn into it bespeaking prosperity.

Six places were set, three on each side. Mr. and Mrs. Kinghorn were already seated in the middle on opposite sides of each other. The youngest Kinghorn chose a seat by her mother, the side closest to the window. Jordan chose a seat by Mr. Kinghorn on the side closer to the wall. She didn't know why, but she hoped Christopher chose to sit across from her.

Jordan noticed that nobody had started eating yet, and everyone's plates were still empty. 

"Jessica! Get your booty down here!" Mr. Kinghorn shouted.

Jordan heard a door shut and the clomping of feet coming down the stairs. Jessica paid the feast before them no heed and sat in the only remaining seat. Christopher stiffened at her arrival, but did not say anything.

"Let's say grace, Diana would you like to do the honors?" Mr. Kinghorn asked.

The girl assented with a vigorous nod. The Kinghorn family raised their arms at their sides and grasped each others hands. Jordan saw Mr. Kinghorn reach out to hold Jordan's hand as well. Christopher seemed equally confused on the opposite side of the table. His gloved took Mrs. Kinghorn's, and Jordan followed suit.

They all closed their eyes, and Jordan did the same. Diana thanked God for her family and the food set before them. She thanked God for the healthy family that she had and how blessed she was to have them all, and she also thanked God that Jordan and Christopher could join them for dinner.

Jordan's experience with church had been kept to a minimum. Her dad believed what he could see and feel, and didn't trust the corrupt charlatans trying to "emotionally blackmail" him to behave in a certain way. He made sure to pass it onto Jordan. Delilah had been a Sunday Catholic that chose to go to confessional once a month, but that was the extent of her devotion. Listening to Diana's prayer, Jordan didn't feel like she was being blackmailed at all. She thought it was sweet to make sure to tell everyone you were grateful for them, maybe if her parents had done that, they would've stayed together.

The Kinghorns started helping themselves to food. Jordan decided to wait until everyone else got her food. Mr. Kinghorn pulled off a drumstick and proffered it to Jordan.

"Eat up, kiddo."

Jordan accepted and helped herself to some salad and that marshmallow dish. It looked like marshmallows cooked on top of orange potatoes. This item was responsible for the smell that wafted into the living room. Jordan didn't know what it was, but she already loved it. 

Once everyone began eating, the idle chit chat began. They spoke to each other of nothing of consequence or weight. Jordan smiled. Witnessing little pockets of happiness helped her forget the real world, and she envied them. None of these people had to experience heartbreak or get ripped apart by a cruel world, and Jordan wished that she'd been so lucky. At the same time, Jordan preferred it be her than them, she wouldn't want to see anything break the their bonds of love.

"Dad! Tell Jordan the story of how you and mom met!" Diana said with excitement.

Rachel Kinghorn rolled her eyes and explained to Jordan, "Diana heard this story for the first time a few days ago, and she's become quite enthralled with it."

"It's like a fairy tale!" The girl exclaimed, "Tell them dad!"

Mr. Kinghorn looked around the table, and began, "Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, a boy ready to become a man went to university. He was a boy determined to make his mark on the world, and go on to become the president of the United States or even king of the world, but fate had other plans."

Raymond winked at his daughter, "The boy met a princess."

"From the moment he set his eyes on her-"

Strangled gurgling sounds stopped Mr. Kinghorn's story.

The following moments happened in disjointed chunks. Jessica had planted her lips over her father's. A bulge slipped down Mr. Kinghorn's throat like a snake that had just swallowed a rat. Jessica removed her lips, and a black noodle seemed to hang out of her mouth. She slurped it back between her lips and locked eyes with Christopher. Mr. Kinghorn's head slumped to his chest. Jessica scrambled on top of the table her sneakers digging into the marshmallow dish.

Christopher watched in a dazed silence as Jessica knocked dishes and plates aside as she crawled across the table. At that moment, Jordan understood the phrase deer in the headlights. Acting on instinct, Jordan found herself diving forward, slamming her body into Jessica. The two tumbled onto the ground with Jordan on top. That didn't last long.

Jessica grabbed Jordan's wrists and flipped Jordan onto her back with a strength that belied Jessica's slender frame. The older girl straddled Jordan, painfully pinning Jordan's arms to the ground. An open mouth bore down on Jordan, looking to lock lips with Jordan. Black worms squirmed in anticipation in the girl's gaping maw.

Violet washed over the scene. Jessica's face had stopped its fatal descent. In fact, everything had stopped. Jordan couldn't hear anything, and her body wouldn't respond to her commands. In the next moment, a blur passed over Jordan's face, and Jessica was no longer on top of her. Christopher had knocked her to the floor.

He stood up in a panic and looked at the room around him, eyes wide with horror. Jordan tried to pull herself up, but it felt like she was trying to move her through thick mud. Jessica lay across from her. A moment before, the girl had been frozen where Christopher left her, but now she started to stir. The girl's movements were slow. Apparently, she shared Jordan's difficulties.

Christopher looked down again and saw Jessica's attempts at movement, and then noticed Jordan. He extended a hand towards her, and took hold. His touch restored vitality to her system, lifting the thickness from her body.

The Kinghorn family was frozen in shock; Heather's mouth open in what looked like a perpetual scream while Diana had already started crying, a tear crystallized on her cheek. Jordan rushed to the little girl, hoping her touch would revive Diana like it revived her. Jordan saw Christopher doing the same for Heather. When Christopher touched her, a scream split through the room. Jordan wondered why his tackle didn't have the same effect on Jessica.

However, Jordan's touch did nothing for Diana, and Christopher hurried over and unfroze the little girl. Diana eyes were locked on her father. He sat in his chair perfectly still, a gobbet of black drool dribbling down his chin onto his shirt at a snail's pace.

An endless litany of "Daddy" was all the girl could manage to say. Jordan heard the sound of a hand thumping on wood. Jessica had shrugged off the lethargy and was looking at Christopher. A snarl that would have looked more at home on a rabid dog now dominated her features. Jordan yanked Diana out of her chair and tried to pull her behind Christopher.

Heather refused to budge, unable or unwilling to stop screaming. Jessica's eyes danced between the four of them across the table, assessing a plan of attack. She decided Heather was the weakest link. Jessica took a couple steps backward, and then did a running jump over the table, hands in front of her grasping for her mother.

When Jordan saw Christopher wasn't going to do anything, she kicked the leg of Mrs. Kinghorn's chair as Jessica was preparing to leap. The wood cracked with a satisfying crunch and tipped the chair holding Heather just out of Jessica's reach.

The fall knocked the mother out of complacency. She pleaded with Jessica to stop, but she couldn't see she was pleading with an animal, not her daughter. The thing that stood before them was just wearing Jessica's skin. Jordan noticed the oldest Kinghorn daughter's pupils had dilated to full black circles, all traces of color gone.

Jessica looked beyond her mother to Christopher and Jordan and licked her lips.

Christopher and I are her targets.

Jordan filed away that information; she felt it would be significant if she managed to escape. A horrible image coalesced in Jordan's mind. She imagined gathering up The Surge into her feet and running as fast and far away as her feet could carry her. She banished the thought but felt sick that her mind had even thought of it. If they were going to escape, it was going to be all of them.

Christopher hadn't moved since his heroic burst, but if he could manage another one of those violet flashes, it would buy them enough time to go get help.

"Christopher!" Jordan shouted, "Can you manage another one of those purple flashy things?"

The man shook his head vigorously, but her words seemed to have dispelled his stasis. Christopher grabbed a knife from the table without a word and grabbed Heather's wrist.

Heather still begged Jessica in heart wrenching sobs unable to comprehend a world where her motherly love could be violated. She yanked her arm out of Christopher's grasp.

"I don't know what's wrong darling, but Mommy is here to help you," she said walking in slow, measured paces towards her daughter.

Jessica lunged at her mother, and Jordan didn't see what happened after that. Christopher had grabbed her and Diana and pulled them towards the front door, deciding Mrs. Kinghorn was beyond saving. 

 He ushered them both onto the front lawn; neither Jordan nor Diana had the time to retrieve their coats. The brisk night air was a quick, slap to the face, but adrenaline shielded her from the worst of it. Christopher pointed at his car and told the girls to run. He was looking at the window to the dining room. 

Jordan heard the shattering of glass behind her. The sound was nowhere near as loud and melodramatic as it was in the movies, just one quick impact and the muffled tinkling of glass falling on grass. Jordan chanced a look back and saw Christopher wasn't following them; Jessica was crouched in a halo of glass on all fours and ready to pounce. Jordan made a decision.

She sent Diana running to the car and turned back towards where Christopher stood to face off with Jessica; the knife looked small in his hand, like a child's toy.

From the moment the ordeal had started, Jessica's hungry expression had been devoid of anything resembling human emotion, but when she looked over the two of them, she smiled, baring her teeth. 

Jordan caught a movement from the periphery of her vision, but didn't dare look away. She needed to be ready when Jessica struck. The other girl seemed hesitant, calculating even. 

The tensing of her muscles was the only indication she'd made a decision. Jessica crossed the twenty feet of distance between them faster than any animal Jordan had seen. She readied herself not knowing what she was going to do, just knowing she needed to do something. 

The crack and muzzle flash of a gunshot pierced the night.

The ringing in Jordan's ears painted the scene before her in a surreal tone, like it was a silent movie. A dark circle appeared on the right side of Jessica's forehead. Jordan thought she saw a dark mist and a clump of hair eject from the back of the girl's head. The girl kept moving, her forward momentum propelled her a few more feet before her arms crumpled underneath her. Jessica did a rag doll somersault and was still. 

Jordan stared at the body, unable to connect the thing that lay before her with the girl that had grumbled about dinner moments earlier. The veil between life and death had never felt so thin. 

A hand slid into Jordan's own. It was a large man in a suit with skin darker than Jordan's own. Tattoos swarmed his hands. Two more equally massive men had already grabbed Christopher and Diana. They were leading them towards a black SUV that seemed to meld into the shadows of the night.

The men shoved Diana and Christopher into the backseat. The action so violent that Christopher's head was slammed into the side of the door. The third man treated Jordan as gently as the others had been treated roughly. 

Jordan was crammed into a seat with Diana and Christopher in the middle with the suited men on either side of them. It was a tight fit, and no one was wearing any seatbelts, but they managed to fit.

A man in the passenger seat turned his head and smiled at Jordan. A man that Jordan knew from another life. He laughed as if greeting an old friend.

"Hey there Squirt."

"Hi, Uncle Tony."  

SaintCole here!

This chapter did not turn out the way I thought it would, but I'm really happy with the turnout. This is another one of those scenes I've had vividly in my mind for a very long time and it was cathartic to get on the page.

If you enjoyed this one, please give me a vote my friends. I could use one after the emotional heaviness.

Time for you guys to tell me what you think! Did any of you see it coming? Was the scene emotional? What do you think could be going on? 

Lots of action and answers are coming shortly. I hope you guys are ready for this!

Thanks for reading my wonderful readers.