Yesterday's Gone: Season Six

by Sean Platt

  Brent looked down at the razor then looked back up.

  Skull Tattoo was holding Teagan at gunpoint.

  Purple Hair was aiming at Brent.

  Tommy glared, mouth bleeding, fists clenched, hate burning bright in his eye. He was going to make Brent pay. He was going to make them all pay.

  “Want me to shoot him?” Purple Hair asked.

  “No, no, no, I want him all to myself. I’m gonna fuck him up then make him watch as we fuck his kids and his girl.”

  Adrenaline and hate coursed through Brent. Sammy was down, Teagan had a gun to her head, and the kids were crying, huddled on the floor. It was down to him against the bandits. And not just the three in the container but the countless number waiting outside.

  They wouldn’t survive the night.

  No way in hell.

  Brent asked himself: What would Ed do? What would Boricio do?

  His answer: Survive as long as you can.

  He swiped the razor in a wide arc toward Tommy.

  Tommy jumped back, smiling, bobbing and weaving like a boxer, eyes watching Brent’s every move, smiling like a maniac.

  “Try again, tough guy.”

  Brent did, this time leaping forward as he swung, aiming at the man’s gut.

  Tommy fell back but held his balance.

  Brent barely had any and stumbled past him into the opposite wall, tripping over Meghan’s and Lara’s dead bodies.

  Tommy delivered two blows at once, to both of Brent’s ears.

  Pain exploded in his ears and his head. He fell to the ground, dizzy, nauseated, and feeling like he was going to die.

  His razor fell to the ground.

  Despite Brent’s ringing ears, he heard the bandits’ maniacal laughter. Blinking through blurred vision, he saw them close in around him.

  His heart was pounding; this was the end.

  Brent imagined the horror of what they’d do: strip him naked, beat him senseless, force him to watch as they did the unthinkable to Ben, Becca, and Teagan.

  Teagan.

  Before Brent realized what she was doing — before any of the bandits realized what she was doing — Teagan grabbed Purple Hair by the back of the head and slammed him into the wall, just as she’d done to Tommy.

  He cried out and dropped his revolver.

  Teagan grabbed the gun.

  He twisted on her, hands raised to strike.

  She fired three times, twice into his chest and then into his face.

  Purple Hair slumped down.

  She turned the gun onto Skull Tattoo and Tommy, who both stared at her, flabbergasted.

  “Let us go,” she said, eyes wild, blood covering her face, chest, and arms.

  “No.” Tommy sauntered forward, gun still in his holster.

  Skull Tattoo aimed at Brent’s head. “Why don’t you put your gun down, Missy.”

  “I’ll shoot. I mean it!” Teagan’s gun shook wildly in her hands.

  “No, you won’t.” Tommy inched toward her.

  “Stop!” she screamed as he drew closer.

  What the hell is he doing?

  Tommy said, “You ain’t got no bullets left.”

  Teagan stared down at her gun in horror then pulled the trigger, repeatedly.

  Empty.

  Tommy grabbed the gun then swung, hitting her across the face with its butt.

  Brent jumped to his feet.

  Skull Tattoo pressed the gun harder into his head. “Sit, bitch; we ain’t done with you.”

  Brent looked up to see more bandits streaming into the container. And in the middle of the pack, Marcus, the Reaper.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 6 — Emily Roberts

  The basement was surprisingly large, divided into makeshift rooms, with many of the home’s furnishings brought below to make the place feel more like home. Luca slept in the dark bedroom, with Emily lying beside him. Boricio sat in a chair at the end of the bed, waiting for Emily to “work her magic,” as he'd said.

  Seeing the hopeful look in Boricio’s eyes, Emily wished she’d not made the offer to enter Luca’s mind. She’d shatter that hope if she failed, and Boricio would probably be mad at her again.

  But if I can do it, then maybe he can find out what happened to Mary. And if he brings her back, maybe she’ll stop being mad at me, too.

  Emily closed her eyes, feeling for the threads of thought surrounding Luca’s aura, swaying like a sea of grass caught in currents of wind.

  She had to find the right one, or a right one, to tug. Pull the wrong one, then all the thoughts would unravel in a spool of futility. Find the right one, and she could grip and pull herself inside, deeper into his mind.

  She’d practiced a few times with her friend, Sami, one of her closest friends at school, and one of the few people she could be certain wasn’t hosting an alien. Emily had never told him what she was doing, for fear he might think her a freak, but she’d been able to do it enough times to develop the skill.

  Finding the thread was tricky enough in a serene environment. But here, in this basement, with a swell of emotions surrounding her — fear for Luca, fear of being caught, fear for Mary, and fear for herself, along with psychic stains in the walls of the house from years following the invasion — made her job all the more difficult. Traumatic memories competed with breathing thoughts, sometimes drowning them down to a barely audible echo.

  Emily focused to find what she was seeking.

  Then she felt it — a memory of himself walking along the beach. An old man selling lobster tacos. Will was his name.

  Emily grabbed the thread with her mind and pulled herself into his headspace.

  Then she was sharing the beach with Luca.

  Unlike other memories she’d experienced through Sami, which felt artificial, fluttering with change and the imperfections of recall, Luca’s memories were vivid enough to make Emily swear that her toes felt the sand, and her skin the kiss of a sun so bright she had to squint. Gulls cried. Boats bobbed in the distance. Music blared from radios. A salty scent stung her nostrils. She could even hear chatter from people. Not just chatter, but threads of conversations.

  This wasn’t now. This was Before.

  Emily had never experienced anything so intoxicatingly immersive. There was a part of her that wanted to live in this memory. Spend the day with Luca, in his younger form, hanging out, talking — doing the sorts of things normal kids used to do. The sorts of things she’d never known.

  Luca looked at her, surprised.

  “Emily?”

  “Hi, Luca.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to find out what happened to Mary.”

  Luca looked up, as if trying to remember. Smiling, he said, “I don’t know. Would you like a lobster taco?”

  Her stomach growled, mouth salivating at the heavenly scent.

  “Here ya go, ma’am.” Will smiled and handed her a foil-wrapped taco.

  Emily lifted it to her nose and inhaled. She’d never had lobster, but from the bright scent of its grilled flesh, she could tell it was going to be delicious before it touched her tongue.

  This feels so real.

  Emily took a bite of taco. Lobster and salsa, melting with avocado on her tongue.

  Oh, my god.

  “This is amazing,” she said, surprised after she swallowed.

  A group of girls walked by in tiny bikinis. Emily was surprised that neither Will nor Luca checked them out. More surprising was that she could smell coconut and other sweet fragrances as they passed. She could hear their thoughts. One of them, Missy, was thinking about Kim, and what a bitch she was being.

  This can’t be real.

  I’m not really here.

  I’m lying in a bed beside Luca in the basement of a house in The Wastelands. None of this is real.

  Luca broke into a run. She was about to pursue him, but realized he was chasing a dog.

  “He’ll be right back,” Will spoke into her mind.

&nbs
p; Are you telepathic, too?

  He smiled. Yes.

  “This isn’t real, is it? I’m not, we’re not really on this beach, are we?”

  Will took a bite of taco. We are indeed here. Right now.

  “No,” she said. “It’s impossible. None of this is here. These people are all dead. There are no radios playing music. This is a dream.”

  You’re looking at time and space all wrong, young lady.

  Emily’s head hurt, trying to decipher the old man’s odd words.

  Luca came running up to them, the dog trotting at his side. He grinned, petting the dog between his big, fluffy ears.

  “This is Dog Vader,” Luca said. “He’s not really a dog, though.”

  “Hi, Emily,” the dog said, also in her mind.

  No, this isn’t happening. Luca is having the weirdest freaking dream ever. I’m caught inside and can’t get out.

  Emily felt dizzy, almost delirious. The world felt topsy-turvy. She reached out to grab the cart to settle herself but missed and stumbled backward.

  Will caught her.

  As he helped Emily right herself, she caught a whiff of a cologne her father wore Before.

  Thinking of her father reminded Emily of her mission to find Mary.

  “Luca,” she said, “I need to know where Mary is.”

  He looked around, said, “I dunno,” then bent to pet Dog Vader again.

  Agitated, voice raised: “Come on, Luca, I need to know!”

  The world moved beneath her feet. At first, Emily thought it was just her, then she saw Will and Luca swaying to stay upright.

  “She’s fading,” Will said.

  Emily had no clue what that meant.

  “You need to hold on,” he said, reaching out.

  She tried to reach out then fell. Not to the ground but through it.

  She sank fast then stopped, with the lower half of her body stuck in the ground like it was quicksand.

  The beach was gone, replaced by a charred landscape stretching as far as she could see in every direction. No trees. No greenery of any kind. The sky churned with a black mass of swirling clouds.

  Something moved within them, sinister and staring back at Emily.

  She struggled to move but couldn’t.

  Her feet were stuck, along with her hands, trapped in the earth.

  “Luca!”

  He wasn’t there.

  The clouds swirled faster, and red lightning erupted, spreading like a spiderweb in darkness.

  Clouds roiled, creating a cone-shaped tip surrounded by bursts of red lightning. It gathered speed, its train engine’s roar growing deafening as its tendrils swirled toward the ground.

  A tornado!

  It hit, in the distance, scattering debris. Pieces of earth, rock, and whatever else was on the ground soared into the funnel and became one, the tornado swelling in size.

  The world turned into a chaotic maelstrom of screaming rain and wind, tearing at everything as Emily struggled to break free.

  But the earth refused to lose her.

  “Luca!” she cried out.

  The tornado kept coming.

  This isn’t real!

  This isn’t real!

  This isn’t —

  — and then Emily was back in the bed, with Luca, sitting up, gasping for air. Soaking wet.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Boricio stared at her. “Where did you go?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You vanished. Where did you go?”

  “I dunno. I was on a beach with Luca and an old man, Will. And a talking dog.”

  Boricio stared at Emily. At first, she thought he’d think her crazy. But his horrified eyes weren’t suggesting insanity.

  “You said Will and a talking dog?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you see Mary?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask Luca where she was?”

  “He said he didn’t know. He seemed confused. It was a weird dream or something. Nothing made sense. Then I was in a burned field with a tornado coming at me, with red lightning inside it.”

  Emily shivered, her body ice cold. She looked down at her clothes, soaking wet and filthy.

  “How long was I gone?”

  “Just a minute,” Boricio said. “I was about to get up and get the others when you came back.”

  She looked at Luca, still old, still in his same clothes. Still sleeping.

  “Did he vanish?”

  “For a moment, yes.”

  “He was there, too, but as a kid, with Will and a dog. What just happened?”

  “I don’t have a fucking clue.”

  Boricio not knowing scared Emily more than anything.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 7 — Brent Foster

  This was the end.

  It had been almost an hour since Marcus had yanked the other bandits out of the container, demanding answers for what the hell happened.

  As Brent, Teagan, and the kids waited, huddled together, quietly, he knew that whatever reprieve they were enjoying would be short lived. The question was what would happen next. Would the bandits come back and have their way with Teagan and the kids before killing Brent?

  Or would they be shot by firing squad like the other slaves?

  Then the door finally opened, and they had their answer.

  “It’s time to die,” Marcus said.

  They were marched single file, collars off. Oddly, that freedom meant that hope was gone because they were surrounded by at least five bandits, including the blonde who’d helped to catch them, guns aimed.

  He stared up at full fat moon, cold and oblivious to their pain. The same moon he’d once stared at as a child, thinking the worst thing that might ever happen would be a life lived without falling in love.

  But no, there were far worse things than that. Like finding love and having it ripped away. Like watching your child’s murder, helpless to prevent it. Like slitting your daughter’s throat to end her suffering at the hands of evil men.

  The moon didn’t care about any of that, of course. It shone light down on good and bad alike, never intervening. Never caring. Not unlike God.

  They followed Marcus down the cul-de-sac, through the fence toward the fields just inside the fortress perimeter.

  There would be no last-minute heroics here unless God Himself intervened. Or Team Boricio. But Brent couldn’t rely on that glimmer of hope. He had to prepare for his death, and the deaths of those he loved.

  The only possible blessings were that at least Tommy and the others wouldn’t rape and murder the children and Teagan. Marcus made it clear as he commanded them to leave the container that “the bullshit is over” and it was “time to end this.”

  Marcus led the way through the fence and out to a new, though smaller, freshly dug ditch.

  Teagan was crying, softly. Ben and Becca were louder, but for the first time they weren’t told to shut up.

  They reached the pit’s edge.

  Teagan stopped walking. She turned back to Marcus and begged.

  “Do whatever you want with me, but please, don’t hurt them.” She looked at Becca and Ben. “I’ll do anything you want.” She lowered her voice. “Be anyone you want. Just please, let them live.”

  “What makes you think I can’t make you do whatever I want, be whoever I want, and still fill my pit with your mistakes?”

  Brent finally found his balls and stared into Marcus’s milky-white eye. “Our mistakes?”

  Brent heard Becca whisper to Ben behind him. “Are we gonna die?”

  “No. It’s okay,” Ben whispered back. “My dad will make everything better.”

  “Yes, your mistakes.” Marcus twirled his fingers toward the clouds. “You done fucked up, Fishbelly. I’m trying to build a polite society here, give everyone a role to fill, and let the smart folks go about filling ‘em, a spot in the world where people know their place and aren’t prone to problems. You’ve gone and pissed
in the pool.”

  Brent flinched.

  “The world is a dangerous place. You all should be thankful that we brought you in. But no, you all gotta rock the boat. Cause some sorta rebellion. Got razors, dead slaves, and you killed one of my men. You’ve brought this upon yourselves.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Brent yelled. “You have Welcome to Hell written outside!”

  Marcus gave Brent another rotten-toothed smile. “You never heard of a little color?”

  “Color? They were going to rape our kids! Are you telling me that you wouldn’t fight back if that was happening to your family?”

  Marcus lost his smile. His eyes flinched.

  Tommy yelled, “Goddamned liar!”

  Marcus yelled, “Wyatt!”

  Black Beard came over, and Marcus nodded toward Brent.

  “What’s he talking about?”

  “I don’t know anything, boss.”

  “You don’t know anything, or you’ve nothing to say?”

  Marcus looked from Wyatt to Brent to the rest of the crew then finally to the bandits and back. Brent couldn’t see Tommy or Skull Tattoo, and wasn’t willing to dare a look.

  Wyatt shook his head. “I don’t know anything about nothing.”

  Brent clenched his fists, studying the Reaper’s face, wanting to scream the truth even if it earned him a bullet.

  Marcus said, “Anyone else have anything to say?”

  No one spoke.

  Marcus looked at Brent. “Tommy says you’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying. This all started because they came in the middle of the night and started raping that girl, that dead slave you’re so worked up over. The mom killed her daughter, and herself, to keep it from happening again.”

  Marcus shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Now does that really sound like something a sensible mother would do?” He turned from Brent to his men. “Any of this true?”

  Shaking heads and mumbled nos.

  Marcus nodded toward the pit. “Then let’s go.”

  The kids and Teagan started to cry.

  Brent prepared for his death, wondering if he should plead.

  Cowards begged, but at least they lived longer.

  But was it worth it? Brent could beg until he was blue, and they’d probably kill him anyway. At least closing his eyes and waiting for the bullet would leave him with a splinter of dignity.