by Platt, Sean
Sitting there on the couch, Brent felt guiltier than ever about trading his family for work.
He’d always wanted to be a reporter. When he landed a gig in New York, his dream came true. Sure, it wasn’t The Times, just The Apple Tribune, but still, he was in the heart of it all, covering feature stories in the city of a million stories. But the newspaper business was dying: the Internet, evaporating advertising, and a cast and crew that couldn’t stop the bleeding. As the cuts came, he was always spared (so far), but it meant working that much harder to survive the next round.
He rarely saw his family.
It was a temporary sacrifice, he told himself, and a necessary one. He was working toward something, and getting there a word at a time. And he knew good writers, damned good writers, who were unemployed, hungry, and writing anything they could just to keep food in their fridge.
And while he used to dream of the life of a newspaper writer in New York, as something close to being famous, or at least respected, the reality of his role was a slap in the face. Most people treated him like shit. Especially people who disagreed with the politics of his paper, something he had nothing to do with. He was a features guy, telling nice little stories about the city and its eclectic denizens.
But most people didn’t care. You work for the wrong paper, they treat you like a lying, thieving, evil bastard. And even when they didn’t hate him for the paper’s politics, they often bitched when he got some little facet of a story wrong, or more often, didn’t stick with the narrative they imagined the story would take. It never ceased to amaze him how many people would get bent out of shape or threaten lawsuits over a nice story!
Now, sitting alone with no idea where his family was, the vanity of his job was apparent. He was too busy trying to impress strangers and win their love, while neglecting his family who already loved him.
Brent pulled Stanley Train from his pocket, looked at the train’s big goofy smile, and he felt his heart fade into an ache. Ben was gone. The thought that he might never play with his toy train again shattered Brent into tears.
**
Brent spent about half an hour feeling sorry for himself while fear ran rampant in his head. Then something swelled inside him. Anger. Anger at himself and his inaction. His family was out there — he hoped — and it was his job to find them.
He grabbed a backpack from his closet, filled it with food, drinks, and clothes, wrote his wife another note — this one saying he’d be back at midnight — and headed out the door. He left it unlocked since Gina left her keys inside. If someone broke in, let ‘em. Halfway down the hall, he raced back to his apartment, grabbed the framed photo from the couch, put it in his backpack, and headed out into the city.
First, though, he’d need a gun. He found one in the fourth apartment he kicked in. A revolver with a box of bullets. He’d fired a gun twice at a range, but never owned one. No matter, he knew enough to be dangerous.
He stepped out of his apartment building and onto the street. The air was cool, and a fog was rolling in, like a wooly icing atop the haunted hallways of the abandoned concrete empire. Brent couldn’t smell any smoke, or anything out of the ordinary. A good sign, he guessed.
He stared off in the same direction as the man had been staring before losing his shit, but saw nothing odd. Well, no more odd than the ghost streets, and buildings getting swallowed by the fog descending on the city. The fog was different than normal, though Brent couldn’t quite place what the difference was.
He crossed the four lanes of West End Avenue to the apartment building the man had ducked into. It was roughly the same size as his, 15 stories tall. He wasn’t sure how he’d find the guy, or if he’d be dangerous, but Brent had to establish contact with the only person he’d seen.
When he reached the double doors that would normally be locked or tended by a doorman, he noticed that one of the two windows was shattered. Glass covered the red doormat inside. Brent put his hand on the gun tucked inside his jacket and stepped through the doorway. Glass crunched beneath his sneakers. The lobby desk was deserted and the elevators were dead, which meant he had to take the stairs and begin his ascent.
The stairwell was dimly lit by emergency lights. His footsteps echoed off the walls. He didn’t bother with stealth. He hoped the guy, if he were still around, would show himself so Brent wouldn’t have to search the whole damned building.
Brent got his wish as he opened the door to the second floor landing and came face to face with a pistol. On the other end of the gun, a wild-haired disheveled, skinny guy in his late 40’s or early 50’s wearing thick black rimmed glasses. Brent’s hand held his gun tight in his pocket, but made no move to reveal it. Instead, he aimed it at the guy, through his jacket.
“Anyone see you come in here?”
Brent shook his head, “No, I don’t think so. I didn’t see anyone out there.”
“Who sent you?” the guy asked, his voice tuned to nervous.
“Nobody, my name is Brent Foster, I live across the street. I’m looking for my family.”
“Brent Foster?” the guy said, his eyes darting up for a moment, accessing memory. “Brent Foster who writes for the Tribune?”
Great, the moment he’d always hoped would never happen. Some wacko with a gun recognizing him as a reporter. Hope he’s a fan.
“Yes,” Brent said, reluctantly, bracing for reaction.
The guy lowered the gun and a broad smile crossed his face.
“Stanley Byrd, but you can call me Stan. I’m a big fan of your work, sir.” the guy said, putting the gun awkwardly in a jacket that was about 20 years out of fashion.
Brent let go of his own gun and shook Stan’s clammy hand.
“What have you heard? Did you see anything?”
“Nothing,” Brent said, “I woke up and my wife and son were gone. And apparently the whole damned apartment building and everyone on the streets is gone, too.”
“Yeah, the whole city is gone, but not just the city.” Stan said with the certainty of someone who took such things in stride.
“What do you mean?”
“Come, come, I want to introduce you to some people,” Stan said, turning and heading down the hall. “I can’t believe you’re here. I read that story you did on the blind jazz guy who plays in the subways to put his son through college. Goddamn, that was beautiful stuff.”
“Thanks,” Brent said, following, hand in his jacket. Just in case.
Stan brought him to the last apartment in the hallway, knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice, paused again, then two more quick knocks.
Bolts, several of them by the sounds of it, unbolted and the door opened. A bald, buffed, stone-faced Hispanic in a tight black tee greeted them, arms drowning in ink. He nodded and let them in.
All charm, this one.
Sitting on a sofa even older than Stan’s clothes, was a blonde haired woman in her early 40’s or so. She reminded Brent of a doctor or scientist, and he was rarely wrong when judging people by appearance. Stan was nuts, muscles was angry, and the lady, well, she was probably the brains of the bunch.
Muscles locked the door and Stan introduced everyone.
“Everyone, this is Brent Foster, from the Tribune. Brent, this is Luis Torres, who lives five floors up. And this is Melora Mitchell, who lives in your building, actually.”
Luis nodded. Melora stood up and reached out to shake Brent’s hand. Her hand was cold, thin. She retreated quickly — or perhaps Brent was just imagining things — as if she were aware of Brent’s judgment of her hand’s temperature.
“Have a seat, Brent,” Stan said.
Brent took a seat in one of two recliners across from the couch. Stan took the other, while Luis stood up, arms crossed.
“We didn’t think we’d find another,” Melora said. “How long have you been having the dream?”
Brent didn’t have a chance to ask what she was talking about.
“Where were you at 2:15 a.m.?” Stan asked. It seemed
as if he were waiting for a specific response to the time.
“In bed. Why?”
“What do you remember?”
“Nothing. I went to bed dog-ass tired, woke up this morning with a headache, and the world was gone. Why are you asking me about that time?”
“Because that’s when The Collapse first started.”
“What do you mean, Collapse?” Brent asked, glancing now at Melora to see if she were also buying into Stan’s weirdo speak. Her face was all business.
“At 2:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, nearly 99.9% of the population of the planet vanished. Gone, poof, into the unknown.”
“What are you talking about?” Brent asked, now glancing at Luis, also stone-faced.
“We’re calling it The Collapse. And we’ve known it was going to happen for years.”
Brent stayed silent. He was certain his expression was louder than words, anyway.
“The four of us have been dreaming of this day and hour since we were children. We found one another five years ago on some message boards, and started researching this thing, trying to prepare. We even came up with a name for ourselves,” Stan said with a laugh, “We call ourselves the 215 Society.”
Okay, that’s it, I’m outta here. Brent began to think of a way to get the hell out of the room without offending Luis.
“We’re not crazy,” Melora said with a professorial smile. “We’ve been dreaming of this moment for most of our lives. Something in the dream told us that the world would be gone and we had to prepare.”
“Prepare? How?” Brent asked, his curiosity getting the better of him even if he was chasing delusion. It wouldn’t be the first time he entertained some loon with crazy, tin foil hat stories.
“Well, we never really knew, to be honest,” Stan said, “At first, we thought we were supposed to warn people. We tried that, but nobody listens to you when you say the world’s gonna end. And we didn’t want to lose our jobs or get thrown in the loony bin. So we kept mum, just trying to be ready in whatever ways we could.”
“Wait,” Brent said, looking around the room, and trying to see into the hall, which likely led to a single bedroom and bath. “You said there were four of you; where’s the fourth?”
“We haven’t seen her yet,” Melora said. “She was supposed to come here last night to wait with us. But she never showed.”
“So you all stayed here for the end of the world? What happened at 2:15 a.m.?” Brent asked. “Did you see people vanish? Was there some big light from a UFO? Was God here? What happened?”
Melora smiled one of those smiles that someone gives you when they’re looking down on you. “You think we’re crazy, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Brent said, “I’m just looking for my family and would like to know what the hell happened.”
“They’re gone,” Luis said from behind. “They’re all gone.”
Brent was getting pissed, but kept his attention on Melora as he spoke. “They’re not gone. I’m going to find them.”
“I’m afraid Luis is right,” Melora said. “Everyone is gone. Which is why I’m confused. You didn’t answer my question before. Have you not had the dreams, too?”
“No,” Brent said, standing. “I didn’t have any crazy dreams. I told you what happened and now I’m going to go out to find my family. Thank you for your time and your . . . stories.”
Brent pushed his way past Luis, who didn’t bother to stop him.
“Wait,” Stan called out, his voice hyper. “There’s something you’ve gotta see.”
Brent was going to ignore him, just head the hell out of there, get back out on the street and leave Crazy Town. But again, his reporter’s curiosity tugged at him. Even if these people didn’t know what the hell was happening, he wanted to understand what they thought was going down.
“What?” Brent asked, going to the kitchen where Stan and Melora were pulling something from a box. A small video recorder.
Stan handed it to Brent.
“Press play.”
He did.
The camera showed the time in the bottom right corner. 2:14 a.m. The scene was the room he was in now, except the chairs and couch were all moved aside, and the three 215ers were sitting on the floor talking.
“Should be any minute now,” Stan said in the video.
Melora started to say something and then the power went out.
The camera switched to night vision green and showed all three fall to the ground, unconscious. There was some static. Brent watched the screen, waiting for them to move, but they didn’t. They were out cold. If he didn’t know better, he’d think they dropped dead right there.
“That’s it until an hour later, when we woke up,” Stan said. “Then we went out and drove around the city to confirm what we thought.”
“I drove around the city,” Luis corrected him.
“Yes,” Stan agreed.
“Okay, so you recorded yourselves ‘passing out’ at the same time; what’s that supposed to prove?” Brent asked.
Melora reached into the box and pulled out another recorder. “This is the one we put in an apartment two doors down. One of several we placed in other apartments, I might add. Without anyone’s knowledge, of course.”
She handed it to Brent, and he pressed play.
2:14 a.m.
The scene was inside someone’s bedroom, a king-sized bed. The camera was already on night vision. Next to the bed, Brent saw a clock’s face that read 2:10. He could see the shapes of a man and woman in bed, the guy hogging the blankets, the woman curled against him. He could hear one of them snoring.
The alarm clock went black.
“That’s the power outage,” Melora said.
Brent kept watching.
More static, this time accompanied by a five second burst of a high pitched whistle like a tea kettle if the tea kettle’s sound were filtered through a high velocity fan.
And then something came into view of the camera and Brent jumped. The camera fell from his hands.
“What the fuck was that?!”
Stan, surprisingly agile, grabbed the camera before it hit the ground. He rewound it to where Brent had left off and handed it back.
Something that looked like a dark cloud had formed all at once over the bed, a swirling mass of slow moving smoky tendrils. Except it moved more like smoke if it were in liquid form. Brent stared in horror as two long tentacles of darkness twisted and snaked down toward the sleeping bodies. Just as one of the tentacles creeped toward the woman’s head, the image flickered
More static and the high-pitched weird teakettle noise whistled for the longest five seconds of Brent’s entire life. The static cleared. When it did, the bed was empty.
The time in the corner read 2:15 a.m.
TO BE CONTINUED...
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES!
We hope you enjoyed the first episode of Yesterday’s Gone as much as we enjoyed writing it.
If you think this ending was something, wait until you see what happens in future episodes leading up to the craziest WTF ending at the end of the season!
You can find links to all the episodes at http://serializedfiction.com or you can get the full season in one convenient download at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Yesterdays-Gone-Season-One-ebook/dp/B005REXCKE/
****
EPISODE TWO
****
CHARLIE WILKENS
October 15, 2011
Early evening
Jacksonville, Florida
It had been two hours, but the girl was still passed out in Charlie’s bed. He started to wonder if she had fallen into a coma — maybe she’d die.
He’d removed her hoodie when they first got home. She was wearing a charcoal tee underneath and Charlie cut the sleeve from her shirt to dress the wound. It was more bruise than torn flesh, which was good because he didn’t think he’d be able to stitch someone. He didn’t understand why the girl was still out, but he also wasn’t in a hurry for h
er to wake. Because then he’d have to deal with her reaction to being abducted, which could get violent.
He kept flashing back to that moment when they’d fallen in the shopping plaza parking lot, and he first realized she was a girl and not some dude looking to jack their truck. Something in her eyes said she wasn’t a threat. But what was she doing in the store? The doors were locked when he and Bob arrived, so she must’ve followed them in for some reason. But why?
If her goal was to take the truck, she could have done that without going into the store. Hell, she could’ve taken anything with four wheels; the streets were plenty full. Then again, he guessed she could have entered the store through a side door or service entrance.
He thought of her beautiful eyes again. He only knew a handful of black girls, and none with blue eyes. Bob searched her for ID, but came up empty. While he had thought she was close to his age, closer inspection put her closer to 20.
“Who are you?” Charlie asked, neither expecting, nor getting, a response.
The light outside, bleeding through the thick and slightly-parted curtain, was starting to dim. It would be night soon. It wouldn’t be long before they’d have to switch to some of the battery-operated lamps they’d lifted from the store. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she didn’t wake soon. If he went to sleep and wasn’t awake when she came to, she might freak. He wasn’t worried that she’d hurt him, even though it was a distinct possibility. His main concern was that Bob would see her as a threat and put a bullet in her before Charlie could calm the situation.