Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER)

by Platt, Sean

  “There! Tried it. Don’t like it!” Paola said. “No offense.”

  Her mom laughed.

  “Damn, kids these days have no appreciation for good food!” Boricio said, playfully throwing his apron on the granite island countertop. He went back into the kitchen, then returned a moment later with a plate-sized pancake, covered in freshly sliced fruit and lightly dusted with powdered sugar.

  “Luckily, I made pancakes too,” he said with a wink.

  “Yeah, I knew you did,” Paola smiled. “I smelled them when I woke up.”

  “Man, I can’t pull anything over on you, Little Lamb.”

  Paola poured syrup on the pancake as Boricio brought her mom a plate with a large slice of quiche, then set a platter of bagels in the center of the table.

  “I should have you all over more often,” her mom said. “Breakfast around here is usually a smoothie, at best. And a bowl of Fruity Pebbles at worse.”

  “Or maybe you all should move to the island,” Boricio said. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I know,” her mom said. “But I don’t think I want to be anywhere near Black Island. Or any island.”

  Paola’s mom trailed off, but Paola knew what she meant. It had been three months since her father died on Black Island, and while Boricio wasn’t living on Black Island, and it wasn’t even the same Black Island they were attacked on, being anywhere near any large rock in the middle of water was enough to bring back too many painful memories. It had been hard enough coming back, starting over after they’d been declared missing by state officials. Fortunately, Sullivan had somehow managed to pull enough strings to straighten things out and help them get another home, far enough from the other bad memories which would eternally surround Warson Woods.

  “Did you all start without me?” The pleasant voice came from the top of the stairs.

  “I thought I’d let you sleep in until breakfast was ready,” Boricio said, setting a plate on the table, then walking over to the girl with a pixie cut and kissing her on the cheek.

  Paola couldn’t help but laugh, seeing Boricio, Mr. Tough Guy himself, as soft and cuddly as a bear when with his girlfriend, Rose, a super nice woman he’d met a month after returning to Earth.

  Boricio caught Paola laughing, and pointed a finger at her, “You watch it young lady, or I’ll stuff spinach in your pancakes.”

  “Ew,” Paola said.

  The woman took a seat beside Boricio and smiled, then picked up her fork as they all dug into their breakfast together.

  It had been a long time since Paola had shared a meal with anything close to a family. This was nice, even if only temporary.

  She looked up to see Boricio smile at Rose, then giggled again.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 17 — Brent Foster Part 2

  Our Earth

  New York City

  April 3, 2012

  Pre-dawn

  One minute, Brent had been sitting in the Facility with the others. The next, he was back home, standing in the dark of his apartment.

  “Oh God, they did it. I’m home,” he whispered, looking around, hardly able to believe his eyes. “Oh, God.”

  He swallowed hard, wondering where Emily was.

  He started to panic, then remembered when he’d first met her and her mother, Jane, near the ferry. Jane said her husband had vanished. At the time, of course, Jane didn’t know the truth — that it was they who had vanished to the other Earth, which meant her husband was probably still home, wondering where his wife and daughter went. And if Brent was returned to his home, it stood to reason Emily was returned to hers — he hoped.

  Brent looked around the apartment long enough to figure out that it was still his family living there, and that they hadn’t moved out in the six months since he left. Gina’s purse was sitting on the kitchen counter, keys and glasses next to it — always well prepared for the next day.

  Brent raced down the hall.

  The door on the right led to his bedroom, where Gina was probably sleeping.

  He longed to see her, but that would mean explaining a lot, if not everything. At the moment, Brent wanted nothing more than to see his son, Ben, though.

  He passed his bedroom and went into his son’s room, freezing at the sight of the drawing taped to the front of the door — a heart with two crudely drawn circle figures in it. Beneath the heart, Gina had written in crayon, “Ben and Daddy.”

  He wasn’t sure how he would explain his absence to his wife. But even less so how he would explain to his son. He could only imagine the abandonment that Ben felt — that Daddy left because he didn’t love him.

  The pain sliced through Brent’s heart and he began to cry as he reached to open the door.

  The room was dark, except for the soft blue hue of the nightlight.

  Brent’s eyes adjusted as he stepped toward the bed, barely making out the shape of his son beneath the covers.

  He couldn’t see his son’s face in the darkness, and as Brent stepped toward the bed, his heart swelled in anticipation of seeing it. It had been so long.

  Oh God, Ben, I missed you so much.

  As he inched closer, Brent’s shoe slipped on something and he nearly stumbled. He caught his balance, then bent to see what he’d stepped on, hoping he hadn’t broken it.

  Stanley Train smiled at him, unbroken.

  Brent grinned, clutching the train whose duplicate was taken by the Guardsmen at the docks; the train which he’d cried over losing several times since then.

  Stanley is here.

  Ben is here.

  I am here.

  Tears flowed down Brent’s cheeks as he looked down at his son’s face, so angelic and peaceful in his cozy bed. The stuffed dog that Brent had given Ben last Christmas was tucked under the boy’s arm.

  He crawled into bed beside his son, wrapping his arm around him, drawing from his warmth, and never wanting to let go.

  Ben turned over and his eyes began to open. “Daddy?” he said, groggy.

  “Yes, buddy,” Brent said. “I’m back.”

  “Where were you?” Ben’s voice asked, still in the grips of sleep. Otherwise, he would have certainly leaped up excited to see his Daddy.

  “Far away, but I’m home now, Buddy. And I’m never leaving again.”

  “Promise?” Ben said, eyes closed and lips barely parting.

  “I promise,” Brent said, hugging his son tighter.

  “I love you, Daddy,” Ben said.

  “I love you, too.”

  * * * *

  EPILOGUE

  Our Earth

  August 4, 2012

  10 Months After The Event…

  The Darkness stared into the mirror, examining Its face.

  It could heal the scar and the eye. But there was something about the patch which disarmed humans.

  It liked that feeling.

  It also liked that the echoes of the human, Boricio Bishop, hated the scar and the patch. Boricio was stronger than the other shells It had used. The more It could do to break what was left of his will, the better.

  It lifted the patch, looking at the hole where an eye had once been, now nothing more than a core of mottled skin.

  It smiled into the mirror.

  It set Its hands in the sink and allowed the cool water to sooth Its burning body before splashing Its face.

  Someone knocked on the door. Again.

  It opened the door to a fat bearded man, stupidly glaring.

  The man didn’t dare speak his displeasure. Its husk was too intimidating.

  And that was good.

  It made its way back to Its seat in the third row of first class, then sat and stretched Its legs, thankful not to have another stinking human in the seat beside It. There were three others in first class — a tall black man in a gray suit, leaning back and sleeping in the front row; an older woman in the row behind the man, her head buried in a Kindle; and a tall, muscular man in the row in front of It. The man was watching a movie on his iPad.
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  It could feel the man’s rage burning inside, could see his primitive thoughts playing themselves out in his stupid brain. He was angry at his ex-wife. So angry he could hardly pay attention to his insipid film.

  He thought only of violence; all the things he wanted to do to the “lying fucking bitch.”

  Yes, he will make an excellent acquisition.

  It looked over to the old woman again. She wouldn’t notice if It removed Its clothing and proceeded to shit in the aisle’s center.

  Humans were so easily placated.

  It opened its mouth, allowing part of Itself — just a wisp, so small she might not have noticed even if she had been paying attention — to float out and then over the seat in front of It.

  The Darkness crept into the man’s mouth so subtly he hardly noticed.

  Then, in seconds, It infiltrated the man, burrowing deep inside. Infecting him.

  The man was just one of 300 so far.

  But it wouldn’t be long before It had an army at Its disposal.

  Then, It would find Luca.

  TO BE CONTINUED IN…

  YESTERDAY’S GONE: SEASON 4

  THE INFECTION COMES HOME

  SUMMER 2013.

  Be sure to check out our Coming Soon page at the end of this book to learn about our upcoming short story, What Would Boricio Do?, and our zombie serial.

  * * * *

  Did you enjoy Yesterday’s Gone Season Three?

  We’d love it if you could take a moment to tell someone. Whether leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads, or mentioning us to friends, your words help us write ours.

  Thank you for reading and your support,

  Sean Platt & David Wright

  www.collectiveinkwell.com

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: Sean Platt

  Hard to believe it’s been a full year since Dave and I first decided we wanted to write a serial. Actually, it’s been nearly four years since we first decided we wanted to write a serial, and more than three since we first tried. It’s been one year since we took our first giant step toward getting it right with Yesterday’s Gone.

  Late last summer, with the possibilities now present with ePublishing, we decided we wanted to give the serialized fiction model a go. We were coming off of several years worth of blogging, a mind numbing online sport which requires a relentless sort of write-your-face-off mentality to do it at all, let alone do it well.

  In addition to blogging, I was ghostwriting a lot; writing approximately forty-two million words per month, or at least that’s how many words it felt like as my best friend and wife, Cindy, rubbed the knots from my fingers each weekend.

  Despite the brutality of the pace, I never really minded it. Loved it, actually.

  I like writing fast because I feel like it’s too easy to let your ideas linger otherwise. I don’t believe that creativity is finite, or something that can be used up. That well is bottomless. We live each day, and that means that capturing our thoughts and turning them into stories through the alchemy of the keyboard can keep that well from drying.

  The more you write, the more ideas you have; the more ideas you have, the more you can write; the more you write, the easier it gets to articulate those ideas.

  And so the circles spin.

  I never minded the pace, but I did mind that I was writing seven figures worth of words each year, with too few raining on work that I loved.

  Once Dave and I decided to revisit the serial idea that we started (and fell short) with writing Available Darkness online, we needed to develop a concept. We both love post-apocalyptic fiction, and felt that the open world rules of the genre would allow us to make things up as we went along, thus allowing us to get started almost immediately.

  Ready, fire, aim.

  Beyond our setting, we also needed a model. Kindle was a new medium, and we didn’t want to write the same sort of books we would have written before it existed. We thought it would be a good idea to shake things up, so we ignored convention and modeled our first series after scripted television, with LOST being one of our biggest inspirations.

  We used words like “episodes” and “seasons” as a shorthand broadcast to our readers that would help them immediately understand where we were coming from and where we were going – let them know what sorts of stories we were planning to tell so we could sell tickets to the right sort of adventurer.

  We had the name, premise, and a giddy green light, with each of us at our keyboard and a week to deliver our side of the story.

  The first episode of Yesterday’s Gone was written in the dark, neither of us having a clue what the other had written until pages were traded. Dave started with his three characters: Ed, Brent, and Charlie, and I started with mine: The Warson Woods Crew, Luca, and Boricio.

  Boricio wasn’t premeditated as the force of nature he’s become.

  I knew only that I wanted a wild card. Boricio was born when his feet hit the cold wooden floor with the words, “Well, this is some beer battered bullshit.” The line came to me while I was in the Think Tank (the bathtub) a day or so before I sat to write, and the name Boricio was born from my son, Ethan. He made it up based on a kid in his grade named Mauricio. I’d loved the name Boricio for about a year, and figured it would find a home eventually.

  Even our most loyal readers probably notice that the first episode of Yesterday’s Gone is the roughest of everything we’ve written. But I love it for its raw edges. After that episode, we couldn’t get away with ready, fire, aim anymore – we owed it to our readers to plot, and plot we did.

  One thing was nonnegotiable: Each season of our work must improve upon the season before. We want each of our series to be exceptional, and each series to substantially improve from season to season, building on what came before while losing none of what made it what it was. More Breaking Bad than LOST, which had a few hiccups. That improvement from year to year is one of, if not the most important things, to us as creators.

  Season one started as an adventure, and it was a helluva fun ride. As was Season Two. But it wasn’t long before some of our story threads began to require our immediate attention, threatening to tear the tapestry we were trying so hard to sew.

  LOST wasn’t just one of our favorite shows, it also happened to be one of our best teachers. We both love that show, but also appreciate it for the many lessons it taught us – not just with what to do, but what not to do.

  Perhaps only diehard fans of the show are aware of the “Hurley Bird,” but the Hurley Bird for Dave and me was almost like a North Star in our creative sky.

  In the second season finale of LOST, just when the show was going from the coolest show on TV to possibly my favorite show ever, one of the characters, Hurley, is crossing the mysterious island with a small handful of the show’s main characters. Just shy of their destination, a bird swoops in front of his path, crying, “HURLEY!”

  For the next four years, many fans waited for an explanation to this singular event.

  Alas, an explanation never came.

  Yesterdays’ Gone was not allowed to have any Hurley Birds.

  As we entered our third season, it was essential that we wrapped our loose threads, closed our open loops, and made sure that those readers who stuck with us for two seasons had all their questions answered.

  All Hurley Birds must be shot from the sky.

  Yet, because we started without any definitive plan as to our ultimate number of seasons, we started snagging our story on simple questions such as how much of our story to tell, and when precisely to tell it. We didn’t want to drag the story a page past its welcome, nor did we want to leave the world of Yesterday’s Gone before we were ready.

  We all have our favorite shows that we would have loved that much more if they’d only had the sense to end a season or two earlier. Yesterday’s Gone would not be one of those shows.

  We started season three with the loose idea that we would write Yesterday’s Gone for four seasons. That was the number Dave was happiest with.
I wanted five.

  We knew how we wanted Season Three to end, but had a ton of heavy lifting to neatly tie a bow around the third season. Our story was slightly scattered, and we had to start threading elements so we could pull them into something tight enough to be unforgettable.

  We spent the first several episodes of this season drawing everything closer, conscious of how much story we wanted to deliver, how many questions we wanted to answer, and how important it was to give everyone a satisfying conclusion.

  No Hurley Birds.

  We were so focused on shooting the Hurley Birds from our story, that by the time we got to the final two episodes, their bodies were littered all over Black Island, and floating in the ocean around it.

  This presented us with a brand new problem.

  WHAT NEXT?

  With so many of the original mysteries now resolved, stretching the series into a fourth season would seem ludicrous, an add-on, unnecessary; stealing time from our readers and ourselves, and delivering redundancy when we could be delivering a different story altogether. After all, Dave and I write and publish a new story each week — there’s no sense in delivering something that doesn’t serve our readers, and us, 100%.

  As we neared the end of this season, we found ourselves with a phenomenal idea — a way we could finish our time in the world of Yesterday’s Gone while serving all masters.

  We know exactly how we plan to end the Yesterday’s Gone saga. And while it’s great to have an end in mind, what matters most is how you travel. For us, it’s always been about the characters and the adventure of it all. And we weren’t ready to leave this world. But staying inside without a story to serve us is like staying a houseguest after you’ve been asked to leave.

  We appreciate readers who gave us their time through the first three seasons, but wanted no one to ever feel like they had too many unanswered questions, so we’ve crafted a scenario that, we believe, does all things well.