Tomorrow's Gone Season 1

by Sean Platt

  A curt nod from Stewart. “Good luck.”

  The Slums was a four-hour ride on horseback, each of them uneventful. Pascal had passed a few merchants and a handful of nomads along the once-paved road, but not a single bandit.

  The heavily wooded forest faded to a mostly dry prairie for the final few miles. This was usually the safest, most well-traveled leg, passing homesteads and the occasional shack of folks who’d opted for life outside the cities.

  This stretch wasn’t patrolled by Rangers, but rather a militia of men from the area who took turns on patrol, mostly to scare bandits away and to keep anyone from The Slums from thinking twice about encroaching on their land.

  Pascal passed a pair of men on horseback, glaring at his approach. One from inside a red motorcycle helmet, the other from behind a hockey mask.

  They looked ridiculous in their makeshift armor, ill-fitting over regular clothes. They had crossbows at the ready, but neither were aimed at Pascal.

  “Good day,” Pascal said with a nod.

  One of the men returned the gesture while the other kept glaring.

  He continued on his way until prairie surrendered to concrete. Small homes that had once been a poverty-stricken inner-city neighborhood now razed to the ground.

  Passing the rubble of what had once been a part of The Slums before the Hendrix Incident, Pascal felt like he was walking a ghost town. Not even nomads or the poor souls in shanty town chose to live here, but the presence of rancid memories was almost overwhelming.

  He continued over a drawbridge leading into The Slums, two square miles of what had once been a beautiful city, an expensive place to live, crowded with apartments, hotels, shops, and tourist attractions.

  The Event turned it all to shit. A group of poor and lower middle-class people living in the suburbs that fell in the riots following the disaster stormed then claimed the city, evicting and often killing its prior residents.

  Anarchy, where only the strongest survived. Rangers from Fortress had tried to seize the land but were driven back by guerrillas.

  Only Slum Lord could control the wild population, which made him a necessary evil and political ally.

  But that didn’t mean Pascal could just walk in and ask for Hobarth or the girl. Slum Lord would likely deny their existence.

  He kept his people in check, but was full of shit and not to be trusted.

  So Pascal had to take a more old-school approach. Sneak in, kill whoever he needed to, then get the hell back out with the girl.

  He didn’t want to break the truce and create conflict between The Slums and the Coalition Cities, but Pascal wasn’t about to let Charlotte disappear into this sewer of a city and live the rest of her life as a sex slave, hooked on drugs until she was either killed or did the deed herself.

  Pascal had to go in and get her, and couldn’t let himself fail.

  The city’s buildings were tall, especially compared to the surrounding areas. None of the nearby towns, save for Old City in The Ruins, came close to The Slums in verticality or density. The place was surrounded by a giant wall of concrete and steel, and barbed wire spooled along the top gave the city a prison aesthetic. The wall wasn’t built to keep people inside — it kept interlopers out after the Hendrix Incident.

  The city was fairly open now, despite the wall. The main gates, at both the north and south ends of the main drag, were usually open, facilitating the flow of trade and tourists seeking illicit merchandise or carnal delights.

  The only requirement upon entry was to check your horse at the stables just inside the gates, which Pascal did immediately.

  It was an open-carry town that didn’t require him to check his weapons. Anyone dumb enough to draw a gun here would have to contend with a well-armed populace, citizen gangsters, and the Slum Lord’s enforcers. Pascal had only been behind the wall a couple of times, and while violence was an ever-present threat, it usually bloomed from drunken squabbles or gangster-related crimes. Tourists and other residents minding their own were typically left alone. Slum Lord kept a tight leash on things, even despite his despicable methods.

  Pascal needed no better reminder of Slum Lord’s insanity than the display in town square. Two dead bodies, both teenagers, hanging from nooses slung over a wooden beam suspended from one building to the other.

  A wooden sign listed their crimes.

  Pascal wasn’t sure which was worse, the horrifying way in which the bodies were staged or the casualness in which people went about their day, practically ignoring the dangling corpses.

  Birds of prey circled overhead, waiting for the right moment to descend and feast on human flesh.

  The main street branched into separate paths. On the right there were hotels, reputable businesses, and a bank of apartment buildings. To the left it was red lights all the way. The seedier part of The Slums, where buildings were packed tight with barely-there narrow alleys between them.

  They reminded Pascal of a man he once knew before the end of the world, a man with too many teeth in his mouth, like posts on a fence, fighting for both dominance and direction. This part of the city was like that man’s mouth, too many buildings clustered too closely together. None were leaning at an odd angle, but their closeness and height, the amount of wires hanging overhead, and the chaos of bumping into people on the street was all a bit much. Add the balconies packed with partying and shouting, or the open windows broadcasting an orchestration of yelling and fucking down into the street, and the cumulative effect was dizzying.

  This part of the city also reeked of piss. Garbage littered the streets, especially where cobblestone met the buildings. Bags of trash were piled high in the narrow alleyways, sometimes to his waist.

  Pascal passed an outdoor market with a toothless old man hawking meats, including some that looked like rats on sticks. A tiny dog sat at his feet.

  He passed a bald albino woman shilling clothes and jewelry at an outdoor shop. She offered him a smile as he walked by. Pascal nodded and kept on his way, following the curving street as it seemed to grow darker.

  He came to shorter buildings that were once shops with apartments above them.

  Two young women in lingerie were making out in a window to his left, advertising sex shows and prostitution. Then he passed another pair of buildings with similar displays, now with a couple of men.

  But none of these buildings felt right.

  A place pimping underaged girls would be more discreet, even in The Slums.

  A creepy-looking dude with bug-eyes stepped out of a building to his right, surveying the scene and pulling his hat low before stepping into the street and scurrying away.

  “Hey. You dropped something.”

  The man turned and Pascal approached him, pretending to hold something. When he got near enough to receive the nonexistent item, Pascal grabbed his wrist, squeezed tight, and shoved him into the alley.

  The man wanted to yell but couldn’t. Pascal already had a blade at his throat. “Relax, I’m not here to rob you. I just need information.”

  “What?” He blinked his nervous, bulging eyes.

  “Where do I find young girls, Billy Conklin?” Pascal was holding the man’s wrist and already probing his mind.

  “What?” Playing dumb. “I’m not into that shit.”

  But Pascal had already seen into his memories. He saw a building with an orange door, up ahead where the street started to curve.

  “I am. So where would I go to get what I want?” Pascal pressed.

  “Maybe that place down the street, the one with the orange door. I hear they might have shit like that.”

  “Thank you.” But Pascal had already seen the man’s familiarity with young boys from behind that orange door, so he slit his throat.

  The man’s eyes went even wider. He pawed his wound, trying to stem the flow, failing as he staggered back and finally fell to the ground.

  Pascal dragged his corpse deeper into the dark alley, and relieved the man of his cash. He grabbed some garba
ge bags, causing a dozen rats to squeal and scurry away. Finally, he covered Billy’s body.

  Someone would eventually find whatever the rats hadn’t eaten, but Pascal would be long gone by then.

  He wiped the blade against the man’s clothes, then left the alley and continued down the street, masking the swelling anger he felt from the stain of Billy’s acidic memories.

  There weren’t enough pills to unsee what Billy had done to those kids.

  Just before the street turned again, Pascal came to a four-story tenement with two shady-looking men standing outside on a stoop. A thin young dude dressed in a tacky yellow suit taking money from a fat older man in a long coat and a hat. A muscular man with wide shoulders, no shirt, and jeans casually smoked a joint beside them.

  Pascal approached after the old man entered through the front doors.

  Yellow Suit looked at him. “Hey, man. What you lookin’ for?”

  “A teenage girl. Something fresh, not worn out.” Pascal knew from Billy’s memories that they didn’t have many teens. They never lasted long before being sold to someone else.

  “Fresh’ll cost you more,” said the man, looking him up and down.

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred.”

  Pascal reached into his pocket, then pulled out the pouch overflowing with coins to prove his wealth.

  He could feel the two men looking at each other. Were they sizing him up as a repeat customer or wanting to rob him? Maybe dump him in the alley where pedophile Billy was already making a feast for the rats.

  He handed the men two hundred in coins.

  “Second floor, room six,” said Yellow Suit with a smile. “You get thirty minutes. If you need more, you gotta pay more.”

  “I think thirty will suffice.” He tipped his chin and entered the building.

  The apartment smelled of warm mustiness and despair. Pascal passed a few exhausted-looking prostitutes in the makeshift bar drinking with customers.

  A black woman sitting alone at the bar gave him a wink.

  Pascal ignored her, heading straight up the stairs.

  He reached the second-floor landing. There were about ten rooms in total. He traveled the narrow hallway of faded floral wallpaper and doors in desperate need of cleaning and paint, tuning out the music of exaggerated moans, banging headboards and worn-out springs, grunting, plus the occasional smack or chorus of laughter.

  It was all so repulsive to Pascal.

  Places like this hadn’t been a turn-on to him before the world ended. Hovels of evil and iniquity, where predators were forever hunting for the prey of sad and exploited men, women, and — all too often — children.

  He found door six and opened it.

  Charlotte was lying on the bed in a sheer white nightgown, staring at the ceiling, her pupils large and dark, mouth agape.

  She looked drowsily at Pascal and didn’t seem to recognize him.

  His heart broke as he entered the room, wondering how he might wake Charlotte up enough to get the hell out of this place before Yellow Suit and Muscles, or any other goons, gave chase.

  For some reason Pascal hadn’t anticipated the girl being nearly comatose and now wasn’t sure what to do.

  So he closed the door and got ready to do it, anyway.

  Twelve

  Wolf

  Fuck this morning.

  Wolf was having a decent spell of sleepy time in a dark cell inside the Hope Springs police station when some assholes woke him with a splash of icy water from an old wooden bucket. They came in, grabbed him, and dragged Wolf to a mirrored interrogation room where he was cuffed and secured to a metal table.

  Then he was left alone.

  That was a few hours ago.

  The room was cold, sterile, and gray. Wolf looked at the mirrored walls, wondering which one was the two-way where some peeper was watching him.

  He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. The last thing he could recall was getting trashed in Callan’s Corner — a desiccated snatch of a town — before waking up surrounded by fallen bodies and Rangers yanking him out of there.

  Wolf was being framed for something, but he wasn’t overly concerned. Worst came to worst, he could have them message the mayor of Riverside and she could vouch for him.

  “Hey, I need to piss!” But no one answered or came through the door. “I guess you don’t mind if go ahead and tap a kidney right here, then?” Wolf waited a beat. “Nothing? Well, okay then, I’m about to make my bladder just a little bit gladder. Cleanup’s on you.”

  He unzipped, but the door burst open before Wolf could empty his bladder or make his point.

  A beady-eyed man entered the room. An idiotic haircut that made it look like his chemo might have been his regular stylist. A second man loomed behind him. Short and angry-looking with a dark tan that made his blue eyes look almost white, hand on the hilt of his sword.

  The beady-eyed man in his shiny, barely worn-in red leather Ranger costume, spoke first. “My name is Captain Stewart. I’m going to remove your cuffs and take you to the restroom. Try anything stupid and Ranger Walter here won’t hesitate to end your life.”

  Wolf laughed as Stewart unleashed him from the table.

  “What’s so funny?” Stewart looked like a little bitch as he asked.

  “It’s just funny.”

  “What’s funny?” He released Wolf and fell a step back, hand on his hilt.

  Wolf stood, stretched his neck, and eyed them both with a smile. “Just … Walter. Were all the shittiest names taken? No Cletus or Ernest or Adolf available, so your parents had to settle for a sewer-grade name like Walter? Shit, man, I hope that’s your last name instead of the one you use when—”

  Stewart shoved him forward. “Walk.”

  Walter looked ready to draw his sword, but he bit his tongue and stood down like a good little doggy.

  Wolf smiled as he walked through the door, and held it on his way down the hallway to a dirty bathroom with four urinals and two stalls.

  Stewart waited outside while Walter stood guard.

  Wolf went to a urinal, unzipped, and let out a long stream of piss, whistling the tune to Outkast’s “So Fresh and So Clean” as he did, enjoying the slowly boiling rage wafting off of Walter behind him.

  “You wanna shake me off, kimo?”

  “Just finish up, already.”

  “Sure thing,” Wolf said, taking his time, now whistling “Ms. Jackson.” “You like Outkast?”

  Walter sighed behind him.

  “Can’t find a single motherfucker who remembers them.” Wolf turned, then winked at Walter on his way out the door.

  He followed Stewart back to the interrogation room.

  Wolf sat back down.

  Stewart reached for the chain.

  “Hey.” Wolf raised a hand. “Wouldn’t you rather be friends?”

  “Shut up,” Stewart said, linking the cuffs to the table, then nodding at Walter to close the door and wait outside.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Wolf.”

  “Wolf?”

  “Yep.”

  “Your real name.”

  “That is my real name.”

  Stewart shook his head. “You want me to treat you like you’re not a criminal, then I suggest you start by being honest.”

  “Fine. My name is Walter.” Wolf stared at Stewart without blinking.

  “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

  “Well, I do enjoy trying.” He leaned forward and whispered, “When’s the last time you had a blowjob?”

  The captain blanched.

  “I mean a sloppy one, not the quickies you only kinda remember from Mommy.”

  “You shut your fucking mouth.”

  Wolf grinned. Then, “Sorry. I didn’t realize …”

  It took him several seconds, but then, “Realize what?”

  “That you can’t get laid? Shit, man, I’d be an asshole like you if it was always custard for one.”

 
“What happened in Callan’s Corner?”

  “Fuck if I know. Sentinel Soldiers or some shit, came in and starting harassing the customers. Then, BOOM. A fucking Ruin Storm. The place goes apeshit and everyone starts killing each other in the face.”

  “And yet when Rangers showed up you were the only one … the only one in the entire town … who was still alive. How is it a dumbfuck like you managed to survive a Ruin Storm?”

  “My mama breastfed me until I was twelve.” In truth, only a handful of memories featured his mother, most of her yelling in lyrical strings of cutting obscenities, all of them feeling not just long ago, but also — and inexplicably — somewhere else.

  Stewart pounded his fists on the table and leaned forward, glaring at his prisoner with the kind of stare that might break an ordinary man.

  Wolf met his gaze and held it. Then he leaned in closer, inches from his face, and barked like a rabid dog.

  Stewart stumbled backwards, red-faced and instantly shamed.

  Wolf barked louder, then started laughing, really losing it when he saw something happen in Stewart’s eyes as the man lost all control.

  The captain punched his prisoner in the face.

  Agony exploded in his skull, but Wolf kept laughing.

  Until he stopped, then started barking again.

  Stewart came for him a second time. But Wolf ducked so his knuckles met the hardest part of his skull. The captain stumbled back, clutching his hand and staring back in ever-mounting surprise.

  Wolf spoke with their eyes locked. “Are you starting to wonder if you’re really up to it? If you can really fuck with the only survivor of a Ruin Storm? You already know there’s a reason the town’s now a graveyard, but now you’re realizing that reason is about to end you.”

  Stewart swallowed, then finally found one of his balls. “How did you survive?”

  “Maybe you should message the mayor of Riverside and ask her.”

  Something in Stewart seemed to relax. “What about the mayor of Riverside?”

  “I work with the Rangers there, escorting them into The Ruins to help find supplies and protect the town whenever a Storm comes through. I’m an Alt. The Storms don’t affect me, nor do the things inside The Ruins.”