Chapter Five- Urges

The realization that her mother was gone and not coming back was right in Jesslyn's face as the clean up crew finally made their way to the burbs and washed away what was left of her mother and the other souls from the front street. Nothing says death like brain fragments and chunks of body and scalp being scrubbed off the pavement. Cleaners, Chess had called them. Jess was devastated, consoled by Sandy.

The world will bring you to your knees soon enough and at the most inopportune times. Just when you think you know pain and suffering, the world shows you that there's a heap more that you had no clue about. As she had her first meltdown of the morning and struggled to gain her composure, Julia knew what the big deal was, but she didn't quite feel the big deal.

"I watched my mother take her last breaths." Julia said. "But if I was to be honest, she looked at peace after she died." Sandy and Jess gave her an awed and unsympathetic look. One that would kill if it could. "Sorry, trying to help." She mumbled. "In my experience, once the person has turned-"

"Julia, not now." Sandy hushed her.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry." She apologized as comforting words were not her strong suit. She stood by the door and she watched through the window as the cleaners worked in their suits and their gear attached. She felt none of it was really necessary. The remains of the true body should be cleaned up, but anything more than that was a wasted effort. A good rainy day would effectively accomplish the same task as the crew. But since no one could control the weather, a good rain was impossible to summon. In the future there were no teams and thus everything was burned. It could have been an effective infection control option as opposed to giving the families some peace.

Peace? Because what was peace? Jess had none at that time despite the fact that the Manganelli's were cremating Louann and sealing her up in an egg. Julia had no peace and as each day unfolded closer and closer to the 15th, she had yet to find it. Would there be a day she didn't recall the short life and death of Caroline Keller? There wasn't a day that passed she didn't think of her or the way she died. "I know how ya feel though. I may act like I don't, but I do."

She could have blathered on about having the person you love the most in the world die by the hand of a Keller brother. Sinking a knife through the skull and delicate brain beneath, a sharp blade that severs the brain function so whomever you love the most would not spread the infection to another person that someone else loved the most. It was a vicious cycle of death to prevent death. It was a violent end for Louann and the more that Julia thought about it, Care had suffered the same violent end. There was nothing nice about it. "We feel the loss, you know, but who worries about the ones who have to cause that loss? Who sympathizes for the Tavin and Jayson's of the world?" It is a necessary evil. The cycle of life was off kilter. Men become killers from necessity rather than sport.

"With Tavin and Jayson?" Sandy asked.

"That's what I said." Julia replied. "Jess lost her mother. Tavin's hands caused her pain. What about Tavin? Jayson did the same thing for Caroline." She explained. "So what of them? As we mourn the loss of the people we love, who cares for them?" She turned back to the window and watched as the team moved further down the street to the perimeter of the police tape. "Those who perpetrate the final act, who witness the final act, carry that around long after the person has been laid to rest." She thought of all the lives she had exterminated in the Main theater in Ephrata. She thought further back to the lives she had exterminated in Philadelphia.

"Should I call Tavin?" Jess asked through a steady stream of tears.

"No, I already have."

"I don't blame Tavin. Not at all. I wouldn't because I understand what happened."

"He needed to hear it though. I guess all I am trying to say is, you share that together. If that makes sense."

Julia saw both sides. The nightmare loops and the end never comes and you wonder whether there's light at the end of the tunnel. For some, like Jess, there would be light at the end of her tunnel. For some, like Julia, the end of the tunnel led to another tunnel and then another and another and all those tunnels were filled with corpses. In the beginning it is a rush, a pure dose of adrenaline and if you're not careful, you learn to thrive on it, look forward to it and then feel validated from it. If you see it as a game of good versus evil and you are on the side of the good, then it's exciting and thrilling.

After a few years and they keep coming at you and then you start feeling trapped like you got no where to run, you become the game. Determining the good and the evil is more difficult and if you're not careful, the game consumes you. The problems come when the players get tired of the game. Like everything else, the excitement and the thrill fades and then you're left with reality. It's an ugly game and playing with lives, alive or dead, is serious business. Once you take a loss, a family member or a close friend or a child, then that game may break you. It takes on a life of its own inside you. What happens when you're not playing the game, but the game is playing you? When quitting is not an option, but all the other players still want you on the team because you're the MVP? The human body and brain are tough, adaptable and endure and withstand the unthinkable. The human psyche can be fragile and can break. The body is an amazing machine, but the mind that is temporarily or permanently out of order, makes the machine malfunction. It's a dangerous place, the fragile mind that seeks some peace.

I need a drink...Julia said to herself  as she opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. She pulled the door shut behind her and she sat in the heat, the morning sun penetrating her hoodie to the central air chilled flesh beneath. "I need a drink. I need a drink." She repeated as she glanced at her ring and the initials that were written beneath it on her pale flesh. She pulled her cigarettes and her cell from the hoodie pocket and she smoked. She looked at her ring again. She dialed Chess's cell and she waited for him to answer. "I need a drink." She whispered.

"It's a little early in the morning for that."

"Never too early." She moaned as that was not the answer she needed to hear.

"Not good with the addict shit, cause I could use a drink too. So asking a person who wants a drink to tell another person why they shouldn't is just plain dumb."

"I'm calling the wrong person?"

"Maybe, is all I'm saying." He muttered.

She heard the diesel engine running and figured he was on his way home from Philly. Felonies...he'd left his felonies in the city of brotherly love. He had obtained Jody and all Jody's belongings he'd gathered and they were on their way home.

He had exchanged words with Shelby on his way through the badlands in Philly. Burned out through most of the area, he'd been interested in seeing the aftermath. Shelby ordered him to go put out a small fire in the town of Boothwyn, which lay near the border of Delaware. He was not interested and he told her as much. Had she asked nicely, cajoled him in the slightest, reminded him that lives were on the line, "yada, yada, ya I may have given the bitch a different answer. Who does she think she is ordering me to do anything?" He complained. "Like I don't work for you, never did. Some public relations bitch doesn't order me around."

"She doesn't have Cook's oral skills of persuasion?"

"No." He answered. "Don't talk bad about my girl either."

"Sorry, I was serious. You woulda done it for Cook."

"She's mean, Julia." He complained. "Ignorant. Arrogant."

"Overworked, underpaid, deals with obnoxious men telling her what to do all day and all she wanted was a little help."

"This is not a femi-nazi thing, Julia." He stated. "I have no objection to strong women. I have no issue with any women. But she's a ass hole."

"You bringing Jody home?"

"Yes.  How's Jesslyn?"

"She watched them wash mommy's brain off the street. I would say sad." She answered, flicking her cigarette toward the sidewalk. "Sandy's comforting her. I can't comfort anybody."

"No booze. I'll bring you something sweet though."

When Chess hung up, Julia dragged herself off the porch into the house. She passed the emotional women and she dropped down the basement for Jayson, stepping around Tatia and her toys, which Tav had dropped off earlier. Jay and Ray sat on the sofa, playing that Xbox like it was a full time job. She leaned over the back of the sofa and put arms around him.

"Come fuck me, babe." She whispered in his ear. If Tatia had not been across the room, she would have called him from the steps. Since she couldn't drink, she would do the next best thing and he sat on the Xbox couch with his cousin.

"I'll be back, Ray." Jay set his controller down. "Babe, I had a kill streak going there." He complained as she snatched his hand and led him to the steps.

"Stay outta my room, I got a camera in there." Ray advised them as Jay set his controller down.

Jay stopped, but Julia pulled him along with her. "One thing at a time. Focus, Jay."

"He just say he has a cam in his alien headquarters, Jules?"

"I believe so, Jay." She nodded as she turned right coming out of the basement. She closed them into the downstairs bathroom and dropped the sweats she wore.

"But-"

"Yeah, it's ok. He'll delete it or whatever." She shrugged, turning her back to him. She pushed her hair over her shoulders as Jay unzipped and bent her over. "My hair." She said as he pushed into her.

"Not touching it." He said, slipping an arm around her small waist as she leaned over the bathroom sink.

"Pull it. Grab it. Yank it."

Normally he'd get his ass kicked for touching, pulling, grabbing, or yanking her hair. He'd lived enough years with the girl to know this as common knowledge. But he did as she had demanded. He'd done it before, just never with her. A handful of hair wrapped his hand and pulled taut as she arched her back and let him fuck her. She pulled against his grip, feeling the scalp tense up and her neck started to ache, but as he slammed into her, she loved it. He left her go suddenly and without warning to grip her waist with both hands and she banged her head against the medicine cabinet in front of her. A sharp and unexpected bang as the forehead met the wooden frame and thankfully not the mirror and she was damn near knocked out as Jay emptied inside her.

"Are you ok?" He asked, still inside her as he looked around her shoulder and over her face. A lump formed on her forehead and it was starting to bruise.

"You let me go." She winced, looking at her head in the mirror. Oddly enough she absorbed that discomfort, admitted to herself she kind of liked the feeling.

Jay pulled out and turned her around, pressing on her lump. "I'm sorry. I was gonna come." He looked worried. "I didn't mean it. I-"

"I know. Calm down."

"You're hurt though." They gathered themselves and redressed quietly. He kissed her and told her he loved her. "Not supposed to hurt, Jules." He smiled, kissing her forehead.

"It was an accident, Jay."

"And my bones hurt." He said, placing his hands on his pelvis. "I am sore from all this activity of yours."

I still need a drink..."So let's talk to Ray about our video, please."

"Oh, that's really cool. I have an app on my phone, too." Ray said to him when he asked about the camera. "It's like one of those home monitors where you can be at work and watch the babysitter beat your kid."

"Oh, I see, so the video-"

"Streaming. Yes. It's live and recording to a cloud."

"Can you get in your cloud and delete that video from last night?"

"Did you hear anything in my room? Noises or-"

"There was activity. Me and Jules spent the night in there and it's not the kind of activity you're looking for."

Ray looked suspicious. "I know you were in there, but was there any activity?" He stated.

"We didn't touch anything." Jay answered. It was as simple as that.

His face looked disturbed. "Did you do anything down here?"

"No." He shook his head. "You bugged the basement?"

"Yes." He pointed across the room to the shelf above the Xbox. "Mommy said I wasn't allowed to have cams anywhere else in the house."

There was a camera there. If you were looking for one, then it would be visible. Where he hid the one in his room, Jay had no idea. Jay didn't care either as long as no one saw the activity in the room. Audio...Jay thought suddenly. If he had video capability, then Ray had audio as well. "Please delete it." Ray reluctantly agreed. "I don't think you need to see that." Jay sat back and waited on the match to start up. "Unless you already watched it. Please don't tell me you already watched it."

"I didn't watch it, no, but I heard about it." He answered. "Just saying, I got followers on my website."

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Ray?"

"Me?" He asked, looking surprised by that question. "No one told you to create porn for my followers."

"Take it down, Ray."

"It was dark and the glow on her from the black lights was out of this world, according to one follower."

"Take it down, Ray." Jay said loudly, thinking they watched his glasses clad glowing wife masturbate live to some cloud in the sky. "We were-that was private, Ray. Anyone we know watch that site?" Jay felt the color draining from his face. The thought that someone, anyone, was viewing their intimate moments was frightening. They had no knowledge they were being recorded and if they had knowledge, they wouldn't have gone there.

"I took care of it already. Calm down." Ray assured him. "You should be more careful in the future."

Chess returned with something sweet for her as he had said he would. It wasn't alcohol, rather, mango flavored Rita's water ice. "Thanks," Julia said as she took a spoon and scooped some into a Dixie cup for Tatia. She handed it off to her and then took another spoon to share among her and Ray and Jay. "Funny thing happened this afternoon." Julia mentioned to him as Jody came in the house and was greeted by his biggest fan, Tatia. He carried the mango water ice eating child to the kitchen where he gave Julia a kiss on her cheek. "Hi." He said, standing too close for comfort.

"Hi, Jo. Glad you're back." She said as the kiss lingered on her cheek. Tatia spooned a bit of water ice in his mouth.

"Glad to be back. I missed my girl." He said putting Tatia down on the counter. "She's getting heavy." He mentioned, pulling her dress over her knees as she ate.

"What funny thing happened this afternoon?" Chess asked as he pulled a lid off the other container.

"Oh, did you know that Ray's room is under video surveillance for aliens?"

"Yeah. He's got a whole website that streams-" Chess quieted. "I forgot. Julia, I forgot."

"You forgot." She repeated. "We, me and Jay, are not aliens, Chess." She whispered annoyed with him and his memory.

"If there's any activity, there's a notification-" He said, pulling out his cell phone. He looked at the long list he had yet to scroll. Usually his notifications focused on incidents, zom related conspiracy sites. He clicked on Ray's alien encounter site and it said clearly 'video not available'. "See, Julia. It's not there. He must have deleted it."

"That's wonderful. Thanks, all I wanted to know."

Julia joined them in the basement on the couch and shared water ice with Jay and Ray while they played their game and she played on her cell phone. Hours passed and she took a nap curled up between the two cousins as each had moved to opposite ends of the couch. When she started kicking and tossing and turning, they relocated to the floor and played there. All was well until the phone call from Tavin interrupted the game.

"The glasses threw me off for a minute, but I would recognize Red's little body anywhere." He said with a little laugh. "Listen, uh, Jay, you know there's an extended version."

"I'm gonna be sick."

"You better tell her before someone else does. I doubt anyone would know it's you two, it was dark, but you never know."

"Please, don't watch." Jay's voice was pleading. 

Tavin didn't reply too fast, which meant he'd clicked that link for the extended version and had viewed part, if not all, of it. "It's all over twitter. There's Reddit posts and-"

"Oh, you already...this is awful. I'm gonna be sick." Jay said again, shocked and without words as he glared at Ray Morgan who was clueless to all of this. Julia lay asleep clueless to all of this. Why did he get the call? Why did he answer the phone?

Tavin sent the link to him after he hung up and Jay looked at Ray and then to the camera above the Xbox. They were live on cam, providing faces to match the glowing alien female and shadowy male that had alien sex with her.

If she wasn't creating problems, she could find them some. This was not her fault. This was not his own fault. This was Ray's fault.

"We are on the internet." Jay said quietly as he shook Julia awake.

"What?" Ray and Julia both said together.

"We are on the internet as 'man makes passionate love to horny young alien girl'. 'Click here for glowing alien sexcapade'. 'Alien female likes to be fucked hard'." Jay held the phone in front of her squinting eyes as she tried reading the screen. She fumbled for her glasses, feeling around the couch cushions and applied them as this rumored deleted video had yet to play before her eyes. She clicked the arrow over the video box and there she stood, nude wearing only her goth chic glasses as she made herself come for Jayson, which wasn't all too bad. She watched as her scars glowed in the black light of the room. Ray peeked around to see the phone screen. "Taste it." They heard Jay say.

"Oh my fucking God." Jay groaned, handing off the phone to her.

"Awe, come on. You can't tell that's us." She whispered as she watched herself taste her own fingers. Then he addressed her by name. She gasped, blushed as he took her to bed. "Please, turn it down." She said as she watched their alien sex video. If not for the sex noise, it wouldn't be too bad. The skin slapping skin, her body contorted into-"Enough, Jay." She said, covering her face. "I cannot believe this." She looked at the website and breathed a sigh of relief. "Some obscure site, Jay. It's alright. We're-"

"My brother sent this link to me. It's on Reddit and it's being tweeted, Julia."

In so far the only people who had seen the video were a handful of Ray's alien followers and their closest friends, which was not resolving any of Jay's anxieties. No parents had knowledge of this and no phone calls were received. She reminded Jayson as he fretted nervously and speculated that the general public, people at the gym or in the neighborhood may recognize him or her or the two of them. Jay felt true embarrassment. Julia wasn't truly embarrassed and compared to all the other situations she had found herself in over the course of her lifetime, this was one of the worst. But she weathered it better than Jay. She wasn't exactly beaming with pride, but she wasn't as upset as everyone thought she'd be.

Alien sexcapade was placed on the back burner while everyone shifted to Jess and her grief. Misery, Julia thought. Death and misery. For someone who was supposed to be dead herself, she wondered why the universe kept her alive, if only for alien sex videos? More to the point, Philly would have been a problem if she had died. That would have got completely out of hand and the more she thought about it, she felt she was useful, had some purpose. But others could have handled that purpose just as easily as she had. Honestly, if Jay had tried hard, he could have handled that swell of movie theater goers alone or with Ray or Tavin.

Alone and in her thoughts, despite having survived to live another day in Julia Fry's tight and fit body, she still tossed around the idea of death. She still tossed around taking her own life. Being placed in front of zoms and working, erasing a problem served to momentarily take her mind off her very own death.

"You getting dressed?" Tavin asked, bringing her clothes to her that she'd asked for from the house.

"Yes, thank you." She nodded, staring out the window in the alien headquarters.

She had looked and searched for the cam that streamed alien sex to the few followers Ray had on his site. She came up empty. She had watched the video and it only streamed from one view point and that was by the bedroom door. She had looked around there and she hadn't found it. Maybe he had moved it?

She took her clothes from Tavin and she dressed in the bathroom. As she brushed her hair, she glanced at the scissors that were in the accessories bin on the counter. A fleeting moment passed where she longed to cut all that hair off her head. She reached for the scissors and held them in her hands as she looked in the mirror. Her hair covered that lump and bruise from her head hitting the medicine cabinet. Maybe a cut wasn't the best idea until she healed up. The lump itself wasn't as raised after the ice application, but the damn bruise spread over her forehead. She pulled her hair up and put it in a tail, sliding the hair band over the length of it to her shoulders. Maybe no one would notice?

"Babe," She heard through the door. "You ok?"

"Yeah," She answered, looking in the mirror. She felt alright, her usual, not filled with light by any means. He turned the knob and came in to change his clothes. He took the scissors off her like she was a five year old and put them back where they belonged.

"Uh-uh." He said, pulling the hair tie from her length.

"How short would you allow?" She asked, running the brush through the curls again. She pushed the veil of red over her shoulders and she felt it land at her waist. "Jayson, really, this is more like a shirt than hair at this point."

"When's the last time you cut it?"

"When's the last time she cut it? Because I did cut it. In rehab."

"You really like that short ass hair better?" He asked. She was quiet, hearing his annoyance. "Eh, I don't care, do what you want." He lied.

"Half, Jayson."

Half? He looked pained by her statement. None. He didn't want any of it cut off her head. He smiled. "Do what you like."

"I gotta look at this." She said when he took the band out of his own short hair. She gripped the soft, black hair in her hand and pulled his head to the right.

"Uh, I don't know what made me think that this was a good idea." He groaned. "Buzz this shit off my head please." He handed her the shears. "Buzz, buzz."

She finished with his hair as he asked and then left a little length on top of his head. She moved onto his eye brows, shaping them up for him. He showered and shaved and looked so mature by the time he started dressing.

"Oh, shit, Jay." She giggled, watching him run his hands through the short and wet hair on his head. "You look so-"

"Different." He admitted as he pulled on his underwear. He reached for her and instead of grabbing her by her arms or waist as usual, he gripped her hair. "Leave enough to pull." He smiled, dragging her little head toward his face. He kissed her. "You know, since you're into that now."

He looked fine standing in front of her. He had no bulk to him at all, but that body was lithe and toned. He looked like one of those underwear models she followed on Instagram. He cleaned up well, having transformed in front of her eyes from a long haired kid to this sexy guy. He noticed she was staring at him. "What?" He asked, feeling self conscious. "You don't like it." He said, running his hands through his hair again.

"The opposite. You're handsome." She said back to him. "Like hot, Jayson."

He laughed a little, not feeling the heat she spoke of. "Whatever you say, Jules."

She suddenly didn't feel like a kid anymore. She hadn't been one in a long time, hadn't felt like one in ages. She realized that even when she was a kid, she didn't very much feel like one. "You look like an adult." She told him. Because he was one. Both of them were adults. Time is not linear. They were not ageless. Crossing over and into Julia Fry's body had wound back her clock three years. She no longer wore her own scars from life, the little nicks and dings she had gathered along the way. She glanced at her arm. "I want my tat back." She said quietly, thinking she wanted to mark up this tight and fit body and make it her own. She glanced at the scars on her left arm. She moved her shoulders around and felt the skin taut over a scar and a skin graft. She hadn't earned that scar. She didn't feel like she deserved to carry it around. She rubbed her fingers over scars that had healed on her forearm. She imagined a broken hand on that arm. A dead hand that had its fingers against her skin and the claws that had punctured the skin. She had an idea. "I'll see you downstairs."

She left him to dress and she went to find Kelly. Her artist was at Jess's side and talking quietly while the family buzzed around the first floor of the house. She let them talk as she passed and didn't interrupt their conversation for a tattoo idea. She would eventually draw her idea and when it was done, she'd have it inked on her forearm.

She tossed around the idea of putting zombie Jesus and his followers back on her right arm. She missed her rendition of the apocalypse. It wouldn't have been Julia Fry's vision of the apocalypse. She tossed around ideas as simple as tattoos and wondered how she could appropriately memorialize Julia Fry, considering that she had saved her life not once but twice. The first had been an inopportune switch at her time of death and then the second had saved her from putting a metal projectile through her head. She thought she should be grateful to be on the Morgan patio and she thought she should be grateful to be breathing and surrounded by her family. But she didn't. During her quietest and most reflective moments she wondered why she was so cold and why she genuinely didn't care one bit about herself. At which point in time had she given up on life and living it? How far would she have to go back to figure it out? Did it have anything to do with Caleb Downing or Shane Dixon or Caroline Keller or was there a cumulative effect that just built up till she eventually couldn't take one more minute on the planet? Whenever she thought about it, her stomach churned with nervous energy. She felt like she was being gripped by an invisible hand in her gut and that hand twisted and yanked at her. Why? Then she suddenly wondered whether Julia Fry was as haunted by her traumas as she was? Did that girl flip out every odd second and try to kill herself off? When Julia filled her with the light, absorbed some of the darkness, it had been then that Julia wondered why the girl didn't have any dark of her own? Was her brain hardwired differently? Was she somehow stronger? What gave the girl her ability to avoid the mental? Did her physical pain overshadow the mental stress of her whole situation? Julia felt like she should have asked, because she never cared to. If the girl had wanted her to know, then she would have spoken up, but really...when had they ever spent any time with each other? Each made the other so uncomfortable.

She spotted Chess with his brother on the patio, so she went through the sliding door and stood next to Chess. "I have questions." She stated.

"About?"

"I would like to know why Julia Fry wasn't completely crazy like me."

Julia Fry had her own meeting with the devil named Caleb Downing. She had her own trauma, a bite, a vaccination, a tour through Dr McGill's lab and then she had nearly died twice from a staph infection from a bite, but not the zombie virus itself. She recounted this to Chess as she had heard Julia's story summed up in those two sentences since the girl was rescued and roomed with them at the farmhouse.

"Little more to it than that." He answered.

If she had taken the time to get to know her and had asked her..."I didn't care." Julia replied simply. "I am curious now though."

"Why?" He asked, surprised to hear it. Julia didn't normally go around telling her story to anyone and everyone. Her business was hidden. Her business she shielded and she went through it alone. She didn't have a group of friends at her side helping her through it.

Julia looked at Ray and then back to Chess nervously. "Honestly?" She asked, hoping she wouldn't have to explain it, that Chess would somehow just know and understand.

"I'd prefer honesty."

"I think she's still in here." Julia poked at her head.

"Like multiple personalities?" Ray asked from behind her.

"Not quite, no." Julia replied.

"You have noticed the personality differences. More physiological than psychological, right?" She pushed her glasses up on her nose and folded her arms against her chest.

"Sure."

She stood quietly in front of him, but she closed the distance between them a bit. "Chess, do you understand me?"

"No." He shook his head. "Should I?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "I think you should for some reason, probably cause you knew her. You did know her best."

He eyed her oddly, because he had no idea what she meant.

"Mind, body, soul." She mumbled as she looked to Ray whose presence was making her uncomfortable. "The person's essence is in the whole being, mind and body and soul. I have these feelings and-" She glanced at Ray who was playing on his cell at that point. "Urges." Julia summed up her entire feeling in that one word.

"Urges to do what?" Chess asked curiously. He knew Julia Fry. She never had urges or impulses. She was always very regimented and self organized. She never acted on impulse, always thought out what her move should be. Julia put thought into what she did and for whom. That girl's sprit burned and released into the universe. He told her as much. "Like drinking or drugging or-"

"Not the kind of urges I am talking about, Chess."

"Wanna die again?" He asked seriously.

"No." She answered for how she felt at the moment. "Nevermind, Chess."

"Know you're trending on twitter?" Ray asked her as she stepped away from Chess to go back in the house. "I told you to stay out of my room." He muttered as he moved toward his brother.

Trending...Julia thought. "We're trending." He saw she wasn't amused. "If you people don't turn that video off. It makes Jay uncomfortable."

"He's not in it." Ray said as he took her the phone. There she was standing by the window. Someone had spliced together the video of her moving around his room while she was looking for the cam. She was in all different angles as she looked high and low for the recording device that she had yet to discover. Then there was, "Tavin, the guy that fucks alien girl."

"We're not doing anything."

"They're putting two and two together, Julia."

"They're adding wrong." She mumbled, turning her head away from the looping thirty second video.

"Why were you in there again?"

"He brought me my clothes from the house." Julia repled looking at Chess. Her eyes moved to Ray next. "Looking for the cam, Ray. I still haven't found it."

"And what were you gonna do with it? Huh?"

"Throw it the hell out. That's what. Like the other one." She raised her voice and Chess moved her away from Ray and his delusions. "They're not fucking real, Ray and you fucked me over with this stupid cam of yours." Ray gasped audibly at the insinuation that his Men In Black were all a figment of his imagination. "The only thing you ever saw on that cam was alien sex."

Ray untucked his shirt and Julia backed off like he would pull a weapon on her. Ray was unhinged, but not unhinged enough to hurt anyone. She hid behind Chess. "Jesus, Ray, not with this again." Chess sighed, moving away from Julia.

"They did this to me." Ray yelled at her as he pulled up his shirt. He bared the scar across his belly.

He placed his hands on Ray's shoulders and stared him in his eyes. "She wasn't with us for a long time. She doesn't know, Ray."

"They're real, Chess. You tell her they're real. As real as zombies and as real as you and me."

"I'll make her understand, brother. I will. Go inside." Chess smoothed the shirt back over Ray's abdomen and the healed and strange shaped scar. "I'll make her understand."

Ray slid the door open and disappeared inside the house. Chess gave her a look that was unsavory.

"They're real?" She asked.

"No." He answered. "He thinks they are. He did that trying to get the implant out. Bled all over the fucking house and my mother found him bloody and screaming in the basement."

"Shit, Chess."

"On the flipside, same thing. Tavin stitched him up. Same scar, same circumstances. The ship took him from the school and returned him with an implant."

"So that's why he put the cams in."

Chess only nodded. "Apologize. Say you completely understand now."

"He's so normal though."

"Agreed. I asked him, what would Julia do at a time like this? And that's what he came up with. The research, the website, the photographs, the books, the studying, the surveillance. It's how he copes now." He finished his soda and tossed the bottle in the recycle bin. "Like I said, you were not with us for a long time. Either place." Chess looked tired when he talked about Ray. "So what urges? You wouldn't say cause he was here."

"Sex stuff." She answered uncomfortably.

"Oooo-kay." He smiled. "Um, I won't get too detailed, but she liked it rough to say the least."

"Pain, restraint. I come for pain not pleasure kinda." She had to blurt that out or she never would have said it at all. "This in no way is an invitation." She added just in case he felt a demo was in order.

"She didn't have any problems with-uh-orgasm."

"Did she need to be restrained or in pain in order to come, Chess?"

He looked a little caught off guard. "Not necessarily."

"Why isn't she crazy too?"

"She believed in God, Julia."

She pointed to the sky. "Like God in the heavens?"

"He's the one."

"She believed all that nonsense, Chester?" She asked, rolling her eyes.

"Yes, most people do. Our version of it differs considerably. I'll tell you her story if you wanna hear it, but I don't have the time right now."

"Ok, some other time." She said as Jay slid the door open to the patio.

"What did you do to Ray?"

"Oh, I'll go apologize. I'll fix this."

"He locked himself in his headquarters."

"I have a key." Chess told Julia as she walked away. "If things are going south in there." His attention turned back to Jayson and his lack of hair. Julia had styled him up a bit. "Jay, if you don't leave your fuckin hair alone."

"Nothing much left I can do with it. Know how long it'll take to grow back now? Years." He replied. "We smoking or waiting till this fuckin funeral is over? I hate funerals. I didn't even go to grandmom's funeral."

"We'll smoke, Jay. Yeah. Been waiting on you."