Yesterday's Gone: Season One

by Platt, Sean

  **

  About 20 miles south, he decided they would need some sleep before the next day’s travel. They stopped at a store and grabbed some clothes for him, along with a trio of portable lanterns and several packs of D-batteries. They filled the truck with food and drinks, then found a Trinity Suites Hotel, a place that normally charged $400 a night for its cheapest room. Though its sign wasn’t lit, the lobby had a faint glow from the backup lighting.

  They parked in the hotel’s lot, which had a couple dozen cars. The lobby doors were open, just as Ed expected. “Hello?” he called, his voice echoing off the empty halls.

  The hotel was silent, save the buzzing from the emergency lighting and the signs above the doors. They took the stairs to the second floor and knocked on a few doors. Satisfied nobody was inside, Ed kicked in one of the doors while Teagan lit the room with a lantern. It was large, with two Queen-sized beds, a large flat screen TV hanging on the wall, and a broken mini-fridge, plus a separate bathroom and a mini-office setup against the windows.

  The beds were made, meaning the room had likely not been occupied when the Big Vanish occurred.

  “Nice room,” Teagan said.

  “Okay,” Ed said, “Here’s the deal. You can stay in the next room, and I won’t take offense at all. I’m an old dude with a daughter older than you, so I’m sure you’re nervous to stay in the room with me. On the other hand, I’m not sure what the hell is going on and I want to keep an eye on you to make sure you’re safe.”

  Teagan thought about it for a moment. “Are you some kind of cop?”

  “I used to be ... something like that,” he said, not wanting to tell her too much, just in case someone hit the cosmic pause button again and the world resumed as normal in the morning. The less Teagan knew, the better off they both would be. “You can trust me. Though I’m sure a homicidal maniac would tell you the same. Which is why I’m going to give you this.”

  He pulled out the pistol and Teagan nearly jumped back when she saw it, eyes wide.

  He quickly handed it to her, to strip any idea in her mind that he intended to use it on her.

  “Here. Take it. Just click this button here; it’s the safety. Aim and fire.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, “I don’t want ... need that.”

  “Okay, fair enough. Then you take this,” he said, removing the cartridge from the gun and handing it to her. One was still in the chamber, but she didn’t need to know that.

  She took the cartridge. “Okay, I’ll stay here. Which bed?”

  “I’ll take the one closest to the door,” Ed said, “Just in case.”

  “In case of what?” she asked, sitting her lantern down on the nightstand.

  “In case of anything.”

  **

  After Teagan lay down, Ed went into the bathroom. The sink, shower, and toilet were still working to his rather large relief. He took a long shit and then a longer shower. The water was slightly warmer than ice, but after the night he’d had, he didn’t mind at all. He was bruised and battered, but his injuries would heal quickly. A decent night’s rest and he’d be ready to roar.

  He dressed in his new clothes — jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt, a far better fit than the stolen clothes, then lay on top of the sheets on the bed closest to the door.

  He looked over at Teagan, balled up under the comforter, then flicked the lantern and threw the room into darkness.

  **

  “Noooo!” Teagan’s scream woke him violently from his sleep.

  His hand was on his gun in less than a second, his eyes scanning the dimly lit room as he jumped out of bed to face whatever was there.

  But they were alone.

  Sunlight lit enough of the room that he could see Teagan sitting up in bed, crying.

  “What is it?” he asked, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  She fell against him.

  “They were coming for the baby.”

  “Who?” he asked, putting his hand awkwardly on her shoulder.

  “The men with the helicopters. They were hunting us because they want my baby.”

  ****

  LUCA HARDING

  Luca had never been in a helicopter. And though he thought it would be exciting, it was mostly loud and a little bit scary. Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to stay in the helicopter too long. Will said they would fly to the nearest airport where they could trade the copter for a fully fueled airplane.

  “You can fly a plane?” Luca had never met a pilot before.

  “Like you wouldn’t believe,” Will beamed, “Was in the U.S. Air Force for 14 years before we started thinking one another were crazy.”

  They did stop at the airport to trade the copter for a plane, but only after a small stop first.

  “Been wanting to get down here for days, but I wasn’t sure when you were gonna show, and I sure as a trip to Disney World didn’t want to miss you.”

  Will winked at Luca as he lowered the helicopter into the mall parking lot, right in front of Nordstrom’s front doors. “Do wish I could’ve looked a lick or two more presentable, though.”

  Will gave Luca an awkward smile then hopped from the helicopter and held his hand out. “Come on,” he said, “I think you should come with me. The dog can stay in here if he wants. He’ll be fine and I’ll be quick. Promise.”

  Will lowered Luca from the cockpit. He was gentle, squeezing the boy’s shoulders as his feet hit the concrete. For a sliver of a second, Luca missed his dad a tiny bit less. His mom and sister, too.

  They broke into Nordstrom by hurling a trashcan through the doors, but Will promised Luca it was okay emergency behavior. He took a grooming kit and a large pile of clothes into the men’s restroom, where he stayed for a while. Luca thought it seemed like a long, long time, and it was, but the time made sense when Will came out of the bathroom looking almost exactly like the man who made the lobster tacos.

  His scary hair and beard were gone. He was the same tall man as before, but looked even taller in jeans and a black tee shirt. His face was freshly shaven, and his scary hair was now shorter, though choppy in places he cut wrong. If Will had any idea how ridiculous his hair looked, he didn’t care. He was all smiles.

  “Alright kid, let’s go!”

  After a quick swap at the airport, they were flying in a small plane that Will had arranged to be fueled and ready. Will explained that since there was no electricity in most places, they’d be tight on gas. So he outfitted the plane with some kind of fuel bibs which should give them enough gas to get where they were going. But if they ran out, Will warned, they’d need to land somewhere and find a car.

  “Where are we going?” Luca asked.

  “We need to get to the trees,” Will said.

  “Are we here?” Luca asked as they flew through Flagstaff, above a sudden, beautiful sea of green.

  Will shook his head.

  “You don’t seem like you’re an Army person,” Luca said.

  “I wasn’t in the Army,” Will smiled, “I was in the Air Force. But I see what you mean. I am a much cooler cat than they usually allow, what with my giant muscles and bottomless charm.”

  Dog Vader whined from the back of the plane, just like he’d been doing every 15 minutes or so since leaving the coast.

  “I wasn’t a normal officer,” Will’s voice rose just above the husky’s wine. “The Air Force wouldn’t have been my thing, but I was recruited young. Promises were made and I was young enough to believe them. I was also naive enough to believe that if they wanted me bad enough they’d be willing to pay me what I was worth.”

  “What’s Nai-Eve?”

  “They needed something I have in here,” Will tapped the side of his head. “You know what a one-horse-town is?”

  Luca shook his head no.

  “Well, it’s small. My town was called Leonard. Sits so close between the Kentucky-Tennessee border, folks might argue over which was which, though the ones who said Leonard was in Tennessee would’ve b
een right. My cousin Jimmy called it a ‘hoof town’ on account of it being so small it didn’t even have the one horse. The Air Force paid for everything, made me feel smart, and got me out of the hoof town.”

  “What did they want?”

  Will pinched his nose, then stayed inside his thoughts for about a minute. “You know how I said I could see the colors of stuff, and sometimes their sounds? Well, it’s like that, sorta. At least as close as I can manage to explain for now.”

  Will looked at Luca.

  “Don’t worry about getting it; you will. Wish it wasn’t so, but it is. And you can take me to the bank on that. I’ve seen more in this life than I ever imagined I would, and I think a lot of that might have been just so I could get it all to you. A lot of what I’ve seen isn’t fit to tell an 8-year-old boy, but I promise you’ll know everything you need to know before you need to know it.”

  “Will?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “To the world? I don’t have a popped kernel of a clue, kid. Wish I did.”

  “But you said you knew it would happen?”

  “I did. Even knew the day, time, and what I was supposed to do when it did.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went to live by the water. Slept by the border for most of a year, waiting for the post-modern Rapture, then eventually you. Night it happened, I went to the water and held my head under the ocean for a few minutes. By the time I’d surfaced, the world had gone hollow.”

  Luca could tell Will was wondering if he understood everything being said, but he kept quiet. Sometimes the best way to let a grown up know you got what they meant was to nod and not say anything at all.

  Will smiled at Luca then went on.

  “There were a bunch of us this one time, and they sent us deep into the Alaskan wilderness. There was nothing but nothing around us. A little like this,” he waved his hand across the empty beneath them. “We found something we didn’t expect and weren’t supposed to see.”

  This feels like listening time. No interruptions.

  “We were deep in a cave on a crack of land I can’t imagine anyone ever having stood on before. Yet we found technology in that cave that I’d never seen. None of us had. Venturing a guess, I’d say it was there to measure something, but what I can’t even begin to guess without slamming hard into a wall of logic. My light was directly on it, whatever it was, but I couldn’t get a good fix on the tech because the alloy was dull and the cave was so dark. I could see it, but I didn’t know if anyone else could. You see,” he looked at Luca, “sometimes I see stuff that isn’t there, at least according to everyone else. That’s why the Air Force sent me to Alaska in the first place.”

  I think I see stuff like that, too.

  “Everyone saw it, though none of us knew what we were looking at. By the time we all agreed there were some strange things afoot among the ice floes, we saw a sharp flare of light, which looked a bit like the end of the world in the mean mouth of that cave. Then BAM!, we were out. No one remembers anything after the light. We woke up and the tech was gone. Some of the guys remembered seeing it, most didn’t. But I’m convinced whatever it was in that cave gave each of us “The Sight.”

  “What’s The Sight?”

  “It’s what let me see you about a year before I did. And lets me still see all the guys from the Alaskan adventure, except Renny since he’s been dead for six years. Some of ‘em see me right back. They all could if they knew how, but most of the guys never realized things had changed. Here’s the thing.” Will leaned closer. “All the guys who knew about The Sight, well they’re all still alive. Right now, all four of them.”

  Luca gasped. There are more people! Maybe his mom and dad knew about The Sight, though even if they did, Anna probably didn’t. “There are more people?”

  “Of course!” Will slammed his hand on his knee. “There must be a ton. And that’s just easy math. Even if we lost 99% of the population, and I’m not so sure the number’s that high, we’d still have three million people in America alone. People will come together. We’ll start over and everything will be fine. Maybe even better than it was.”

  “Where are your friends?” Luca asked.

  “Didn’t say they were my friends,” Will’s mouth twitched, “and I’m looking for them every chance I get.”

  “You mean with The Sight?” Luca didn’t wait for the answer. “I have The Sight, don’t I?”

  “I’d be as shocked as a man chewing on electric chocolate if you didn’t!”

  “How did I get it?”

  “Born with it, most likely. End of the world just brought out the best in you.”

  Will hit Luca on the knee, but Luca wasn’t feeling nearly as playful. From nowhere, he started to sob and cried himself to sleep.

  **

  Luca woke screaming from a nightmare unlike any he’d ever had in his whole life.

  “You dreamt about her, too, didn’t you? The girl Paola and her mom?”

  Luca nodded.

  “You’ve been dreaming about them too?”

  “Yes,” Will said, “for almost as long as I’ve been dreaming about you.”

  “They’re with the trees,” Luca said, feeling like he might cry again. After a pause, he asked Will, “Does she have to die?”

  Will shook his head. “No, that’s what I call a tomorrowbility; it may or may not happen depending on the variables in the equation.” Will shook his head and started over. “Sorry about that. I mean, no. It’s a possibility, but it definitely doesn’t have to happen.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Get to the trees as fast as we can. We’ll be there soon.”

  Luca said nothing. Will sank into his seat. An odd current crackled between them. Luca could tell that Will had dreamed more than he had said. Will was afraid to tell him something.

  But Luca was starting to sense it.

  Something bad was going to happen to the girl and her mom, real bad.

  * * * *

  BORICIO WOLFE

  Boricio woke, lids gummed behind what felt like a thick wall of a cheesecloth blindfold. His head was buzzing and the hallucinogenic sludge was still swimming its way out of his head. A thin strip of plastic was digging its teeth into his wrists, which were crushed between the floor and his back.

  His nose twitched at the smell of prey. He couldn’t tell how many people were in the room, but he definitely wasn’t alone, and it was more than just that big-nippled bitch who had tricked him. In fact, he didn’t smell her at all.

  The room was slightly musty, and felt large. Boricio would lay a Benjamin that there weren’t any windows. He felt the fabric beneath him. Burlap.

  Well, where in the fuck-all am I?

  Nope, Boricio don’t like this one bit.

  His ears prickled and the short hairs on the back of his neck whispered that he was being watched. No way to know how many, but eyes were on him, no doubt.

  He could either play it Sam Jackson and let the room know who was boss, or play smart and show the claws later.

  “Where... where are we?” Boricio stuttered weakly.

  “He’s awake.” A man’s voice said from Boricio’s right.

  “You’re okay,” a second man’s voice, slightly farther and barely a whisper. “Keep your voice low, they’ll be back any moment.”

  “Who is they, and how many are there?” Boricio let his bottom lip quiver, just in case he was the only one with his eyes covered.

  “Don’t know who they are, but they know what’s going on. Three of ‘em snuck up behind me while I was taking a shit. Next thing I knew, I was laying on the floor in here.” This final voice was closest to Boricio, just a few inches away.

  Predator’s guess put five people in the room, including him. One to his left, another three to his right. Silent Bob was on his left, breathing like a lab with a belly full of pups.

  “We’re waiting to get processed.” It was the guy furthest to Boricio’
s right again. “They come in here and take us out there to whatever’s waiting. No clue what it is, but I’m pretty sure I’m next. They come in every five or six hours. And there’s always five in here. One comes in, one goes out. So far, there ain’t been any girls except the one I imagine brought you here, just like she brought all of us.”