Jon stood at his locker getting his books for the first lesson of the day, History. He knew that he had to keep up the pretense that everything was okay with the world, or he would draw more attention to himself than he already had. He didn’t know what else they (whoever they were) could do to him. They had taken Karyn and made her older and a teacher at his school. He hadn’t seen her so far this morning, which was a good thing, he thought.
They had taken his sister and replaced her with Sarah of all people. Mikey was still missing; he had been missing for a few days now, but neither Sarah nor his new Mom, Melissa, said anything about him being missing. To them, it was as if he had never had a younger brother. Then here was Melissa, the former cheerleader who somehow had been aged up and was now his mother.
The last time he had seen his Real Mom had been on Sunday night when she had told him and Sarah that she was going away on a work trip for a few days. Something about working on a big case for the law firm that she worked for. She was just a paralegal, but she explained that if everything went well, she might have a chance at that elusive promotion that she kept talking about.
Jon remembered that he had to try hard not to laugh at that statement. She had been telling him for years now that her promotion was just around the corner, but it never seemed to arrive. She had gone to bed early that night as she had to get up early and would probably be away before they got up on Monday morning.
Sunday night was the last time he had seen her. Whoever this was, they must have gotten to her while she was away, yeah, they must have got too her then. Jon remembered that it was the night that he and Tina went to the Meshida House to see who Yuki’s replacement was, since she was now Julie DeVries.
Flashback to Sunday night in the Madison House….
Sarah looked at him. "That's the stupidest story I've ever heard," she said. "I'm still coming."
"What?" Jon asked. "Why?"
"Because you are the worst liar in the world, so either something is going on...and I'm going to prove it. Or...you're crazy and I'm telling Mom you need to be locked in a padded room." She said.
He and Tina exchanged looks and nodded. They had to go, it wasn't worth fighting over.
Tina turned to look at her watch. “Jon is almost 4 already we don’t have time to deal with her we need to get going.” She told Jon.
“What is so …?” Sarah stopped in mid-sentence causing both Tina and Jon to turn and look at each other.
“Sarah?” Jon asked her as he waved his hand in front of her face and got no reaction.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. It’s 4 am now so she is like the rest of the town unable to hear us or move.”Tina answered Jon’s unasked question as she met her face friend's gaze.
Jon wasn’t sure what to think. He knew that Sarah wasn’t his sister but she had been living in his family home for a while now being treated like a member of his family by the rest of them. So some of it must have rubbed off on him.
“We had better get going,” Tina said to him.
“Yeah, I will figure something out about Sarah later. Thanks to that app of yours I know exactly where to go.” Jon Told her still a little unsure if should leave Sarah like this or move her back to her bedroom. No, they didn’t have time.
“You do?” Tina asked him.
“Yeah, the Meshida house.” He answered.
“Why there?” She asked
“It’s all because of Julie DeVries,” Jon told her as they headed out of the door…..
As they went out the front door, a group of the Blue men came in the back door. They moved with an unerring grace. They seemed to float upstairs towards the master bedroom. Inside, they found Llinda Madison in her bed. She didn’t hear them as they began to pack up the contents of her closet and empty the dresser that stood beside the bed. They placed the items they found there in boxes that were marked with a small white label with a barcode on it. They then picked up Linda herself and placed her in the rear of their black van that was sitting outside. Then, slowly, another set of boxes marked with a different bar code was taken inside the house, and the contents of these boxes were used to refill the closet and the dresser.
Another group of them carried a redheaded woman upstairs and placed her in the bed where Linda Madison had lain only a few moments before. This was Melissa Madison. Who, only a few days ago, had been Melissa Smith, a 17-year-old cheerleader at the local high school. Now she was a 45-year-old mother of 2.
The same Melissa Madison, a paralegal who had to leave early that morning to help the firm with a big case for the law firm that she worked for, and maybe just maybe, this would be her chance to get noticed. She would miss Sarah and Jon while she was away, but she was doing this for them to give them the life she had never had. At least that was who she would be when tic became tok, but that was still a little bit away.
The Blue men found the frozen Sarah standing where Jon had left her. They were given silent instructions from somewhere and took her, placed her back in what had been Zoe's room up to a few days ago, but at the moment was her’s. They also removed the last few minutes of her memories for some reason.
….
Jon entered his house a few minutes after Tina had. He would have to come up with some excuse for Sarah. He knew that she wasn’t his sister but he had to treat her as if she was for the moment. To his surprise, she was not standing where she had been left standing. Surely they couldn’t have taken her. No, whoever they were they had planted her in that life so why would they take her out of it now?
He slowly went up the stairs and saw the door to his sister's room slightly a jar. Yes, it was his sister's room. It had been Zoe’s room when she had been his sister but now Sarah was living that life for some reason unknown to him. So it was still his sister's room just not Sarah’s room. He peaked in and saw her lying there in bed fast asleep. For her and everyone in the town, it had only been a few minutes since he had left her standing in the sitting room. Not as he had known it two to three hours.
If she was back in bed somehow he didn’t need to deal with her at the moment he could deal with her later. It gave him more time to work out what to tell her. His mind then turned to Tina. He had to admit that he hadn’t known her that long but for some reason, she was acting strange tonight. He thought he had gotten to know her fairly well in the last few days or was that just because she reminded him so much of Karyn? He wasn’t sure. He could see so much of his friend in her was that why he trusted her. Perhaps he thought and what of Karyn she had been missing for days now. Was she still in the warehouse or was she somewhere else in the town? He knew that the app that Tina had thought up could help find her but it had its limitations. Only three uses in one day was a big one. He was sure that he would find her no matter what they did to her. Then he thought about what he had seen at the Meshida house. Given a couple of days then Mrs Meadows would look like she had always been part of that family so would he be able to know Karyn if he saw her? Maybe, no he had to. She would know how to fix this mess, especially with everything he had learned since she had ….
With that thought running around his head Jon’s head hit the pillow and almost as soon as it did he was asleep. He was only human after all and the human body could only go so long without rest.
A short time later, Jon heard his alarm go off and he knew it was time to get ready for the school day ahead and what it would bring.
….
It had to be when she was away because he would have known if anything had happened while she had been at home. Yes, he would have known, of course, he would have known.
