Tomorrow's Gone Season 1

by Sean Platt

  She hadn’t been around many men, let alone adults, but still she knew the sound of bad ones — the discordant tune she was hearing now.

  Emory found her courage, diving into the underbrush just as they rounded the bend on their horses.

  She kept her head down as they passed — rough-looking men in leather and body armor, all of them armed. Many had tattoos lining their arms and faces. Bandits, of course.

  She’d seen their kind before. Emory remembered them coming into the camp where she and Mama were staying when she was little, storming in to destroy it as they fled.

  Emory watched, holding her breath as they passed. A dozen in total.

  She wanted to move, deeper into the woods, but there wasn’t enough time before they appeared. She was out of sight, but too near the road, too exposed.

  Emory watched and waited.

  Something moved beside her.

  She turned and saw a snake slithering through the grass toward her.

  She yelped and regretted it immediately. Looking up, she saw the last three men in the pack all turn to look at her.

  One of their eyes went wide with recognition. “It’s her!”

  Emory sprang to her feet, no longer sure where the snake was, or capable of caring.

  She ran deeper into the woods.

  The bad men followed behind her.

  Fifteen

  Johan Pascal

  Charlotte stirred as Pascal shook her body.

  “Huh?” She could barely focus, but a smile found her face once she did. She reached out and tried to touch him. “You.”

  “We’re gonna get you out of here. Can you walk?”

  She tried to sit up, but fell back to the bed in frustration.

  The room was small and barely furnished. A bare mattress; yellow, water-stained walls and ceiling; the reek of cigarette smoke thicker than the paint.

  There was a small chest at the end of the bed, probably a place for her clothes. Pascal looked inside: only lingerie, nothing to wear outside. He couldn’t carry her through the streets in this outfit.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  But she was already falling back to sleep.

  Pascal slipped from her room and walked down the hall, searching for the loudest sounds, a room where he was less likely to be noticed sneaking in. He drew his knife and opened the door to a short, thin older man with an obese redheaded woman, both pale and very naked.

  Neither noticed Pascal as he crept into the room and grabbed the man’s clothing from the floor, or as he crawled back out into the hallway.

  Moments later he was shaking Charlotte awake again. Her eyes slowly opened and she looked up at him, confused.

  “You?”

  “Here,” he said, slipping the man’s green tee over her head.

  Charlotte swam in the thing, but even over her gown, it would do for now. Pascal helped her sit up, then pulled her legs to the edge of the bed. His stomach shuddered at the parade of bruises on her body.

  Maybe she fought them off.

  But Pascal knew better.

  He knelt down and grabbed an ankle to slide it through the hole in her new navy blue sweat pants. She flinched.

  “Sorry. I just want to get you into some clothes so we ditch this place.”

  She nodded, head bobbing as if still struggling to leave her sleep behind.

  “Put your hands on my shoulders. I need to slide these up. Unless you can.”

  Charlotte put her bony arms on his shoulders, head drooping. He slid the pants up, standing her up as he finished.

  Pascal pulled the knot and tied it to keep her sweats from falling down. “I need you to try and walk. Can you do that?”

  “Smhh,” she said as he tried to coax her into a walk.

  She stumbled forward into his arms. A tiny laugh, followed by her slurring a few versions of sorry.

  “Charlotte?”

  “Huh?” She tried to meet his eyes.

  “I’ll be right back. Wait right here.”

  He laid her back on the bed.

  She closed her eyes and curled into the fetal position.

  Pascal left her room with a hand on his sword. He walked the hallway, searching for a silent room, then entered the first one he found.

  A woman was brushing her hair at the edge of her bed. She was in her forties, or a heartbreaking thirties. Track marks and tattoos battled for attention on her body.

  “Not a word or I’ll kill you. Nod if you understand me.”

  The woman nodded at Pascal. Her eyes looked glazed, but she wasn’t as high as Charlotte.

  “What is your name?”

  “Alice.”

  “Alice. I’m here to help. Who’s in charge here?”

  “Willie.”

  “And where would I find Willie?”

  She pointed up. “Third floor.”

  “Is he alone?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Take me to where you think Willie is most likely to be. If he’s there, then you live; make a sound and I’ll kill you.”

  They ascended the stairs, Pascal with his sword drawn behind Alice, just as a man was leaving one of the rooms. Dirty-looking and thin, brown hair slicked back onto his skull. His dark eyes widened, seeing the armed man before him.

  “Go back inside.” Pascal pointed to the still-open door.

  The man disappeared behind it.

  Pascal followed Alice upstairs, where a man and woman were making out on a couch. He was built, with his hair in a bun.

  “Who the fuck are you?” He was on his feet in a second. Already walking toward a sword, propped against the wall.

  “That Willie?” Pascal asked, keeping Alice between them.

  “No. That’s Marcus.”

  Pascal pushed her aside and charged the man.

  Marcus swung, his sword clashing against Pascal’s with a terrible CLANG that would surely alert Willie, and everyone else on the floor.

  So much for getting in and out quietly.

  Willie stepped back, readying to take another swing at Pascal. He parried, blocking the blow. They clashed swords as Willie backed Pascal into a corner.

  Both women fled.

  Pascal didn’t have long before they alerted the men out front along with whoever else might be working security here. He raised his sword high, then put it behind his back in a position that he knew would get Willie to charge, assuming he had the advantage.

  But Pascal was faster, swinging his sword and knocking the blade from his opponent’s hands, then driving his through Willie’s guts and out of his back.

  Willie fell to the ground.

  Pascal pulled his sword free and ran towards the door at the end of the hall.

  He kicked it open to see a gaunt man with dark circles under his eyes and a long broken nose standing behind a desk. The sword shook in his hands, then harder at the sight of a dead henchman on the ground behind Pascal.

  “You’re Willie?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m taking Charlotte.”

  “Who?”

  “The new girl.”

  “Sure, man, whatever,” he said.

  “And you’re coming with me to the gate to ensure our safety.”

  Footsteps clambered up the stairs.

  Pascal ran at Willie.

  He swung his sword, but Pascal knocked it out of his hand and raised a blade to Willie’s neck. “Tell them to back off or else.”

  “Back off! Back off!”

  Footsteps came to a halt just outside the door.

  Pascal turned to see four men, two with swords and another couple with knives.

  He got behind Willie, retrieving his dagger with his left hand and putting it to his prisoner’s throat while sheathing his sword with the other hand.

  “Tell them to put their weapons down.”

  “Put your weapons down!” Willie shouted.

  The men stared, unwilling to obey. The swordsmen gripped their weapons like amateurs. But the t
wo men with knives could do some serious damage, assuming they could get close enough.

  Pascal shouted, “Put them down or I’ll kill him and every last one of you!”

  The biggest man laughed.

  He hoped that these men didn’t want to see their boss dead. Maybe taking him out meant a promotion to head pimp. Pascal was gambling with this approach, but sans backup it was his only option.

  “You put your weapon down,” said the biggest man, holding a knife, “and maybe we’ll kill you quickly.”

  Pascal wanted to throw his dagger through the man’s eye, but if his shot didn’t incapacitate or kill him, he was inviting a five-to-one fight. Or four-to-one. Willie was useless and would probably run.

  “I’m here for the girl. Her father was killed and she was sold to you. I’m her uncle. More Rangers are waiting outside. If I don’t leave with her, they will come in here and kill you all.”

  The biggest man turned to Yellow Suit, who now appeared ready to listen.

  Willie bellowed, “Put the fucking weapons down and let him pass!”

  Then it was frightened expressions and swords clattering to the ground.

  Pascal ordered the men to leave the room.

  Willie nodded.

  They went into the hall.

  Pascal nudged his prisoner forward.

  As they crossed the threshold, Pascal ordered the four men into the farthest room. “In there until Willie comes back.”

  Pascal’s prisoner nodded again.

  Muscles glared at him, hating the emasculation but obeying anyway.

  Pascal ordered Willie down the stairs, keeping his blade at the man’s back as they walked. At Charlotte’s room, he said, “You can carry her to the city gates.”

  She didn’t stir when he gathered her into his arms. Pascal felt for a pulse just to make sure she was still alive.

  Willie, straining on his way to the door, said, “You’ll never get out of here.”

  It didn’t sound like a threat so much as a fact.

  “Then I guess we’ll have to kill you.”

  Pascal felt dozens of eyes on them as they left the building. Men and women in the streets fixed to their movement. He noted a few underweight young men watching from a whorehouse porch. They all ran inside.

  “Walk faster,” Pascal commanded.

  “You want to carry her?”

  Pascal didn’t answer. He heard shouting inside the house with the two young men. No doubt alerting others. More of Hobarth’s goons on their way.

  He felt exposed with his back to so many people.

  He drew closer to Willie. “If I get shot, he goes with me!”

  He laughed. “You think Hobarth gives a damn about me?”

  “You better hope so, for both our sakes.”

  Pascal prodded him forward. The crowd of watchers continued to grow behind him, some now following. Rounding the bend there were even more, including a line of threats holding bats, swords, and machetes. In the center stood an obese man, at least six-foot-seven, dressed in an all-black robe with a long coal-colored beard and a jagged scar bisecting his left cheek. His arms were folded across his chest and his line of men claimed the entire street.

  Willie stopped. “Well, I guess now we’ll find out how little I mean to Hobarth.”

  “What’s going on here?” Hobarth shouted.

  Pascal pressed the blade so hard against his neck, there was no way he could be harmed without taking Willie with him. “My niece is coming home with me.”

  He felt people creeping closer behind him. They were keeping their distance, but not for long. They were probably awaiting Hobarth’s signal to attack. Violence lit the air like lightning waiting to strike. Pascal was surrounded by at least fifty people, probably every one of them willing and perhaps even wanting to kill him.

  “Your niece?” Hobarth arched an eyebrow. “She’s a trader’s kid. And he ain’t had no family.”

  Pascal wasn’t sure if the man was bluffing or if Hobarth even knew Nathaniel. “I am a Ranger and I command you to stand aside.”

  Hobarth looked to left and right at his expressionless men. “You hear that, fellows? He’s a Ranger!”

  A belly laugh, joined by raucous laughter from his men.

  Pascal would have to kill Charlotte first, if this was the end. A mercy to throttle her misery. But as he looked past Willie’s shoulders and down to the still-sleeping girl, Pascal wasn’t sure if he could.

  “Your laws don’t apply here, Ranger!” Hobarth yelled. “You know what we do to Rangers who come in here waving their dicks around?”

  Pascal didn’t answer.

  “We cut them off!” Then to his men: “Kill him!”

  The world closed in on them.

  Then Pascal heard the blasting of a horn.

  Sixteen

  Wolf

  Wolf was back in the bar when the woman and her daughter came in begging for help. Maybe it was a dream.

  Because this time shit happened differently. They came in same as they had last night, but everyone froze like the Good Lord got to fucking with his Universal Tivo.

  Wolf looked around the place and lost a little what the fuck? from his mouth.

  He approached the front door, frozen mid-swing, halfway shut.

  He peered outside. Saw no Sentinels but felt them close enough, then turned back to look at the girl and her mom, statues on their way to the bar.

  The woman was in her early thirties, maybe. The girl was around twelve. They were both so familiar. He looked closer. Peering at their dark hair and blue eyes. They were especially bright, and felt familiar, perhaps echoes of memories from a life before this one.

  He stared at the girl, remembering the explosion between them when he’d gone to pull her off of her fallen mother. She’d unleashed something in his head, loosing some of the shackles around his memory. She’d woken some part of him, but failed to finish the job.

  Wolf was still confused, still half-asleep.

  He reached out to touch her face, wondering which of them he would wake from what had to be a dream.

  Her eyes flicked open before his fingers connected.

  He jumped back.

  Her mouth opened, eyebrows furrowed. “You.”

  He stared, confused. “Do I know you?”

  She looked at him, her head tilted sideways. “You are the one I saw.”

  “The one you saw?”

  “Please, find me. Before they do.”

  “Before who does?”

  She came towards him, her hands outstretched.

  He took a step back, as though she might hurt him. Wolf was surprised by his skittishness, and was about to apologize, but the girl was already reaching out, putting her hands to his head.

  A flash of the child running in the dark through a street filled with people fighting and biting, tearing at each other’s flesh; dead and dying all around her; turned into The Lost by The Ruins.

  She ran to a cabin in the woods, barreling forward in the dark before squeezing through a hole in the rear boards covering the door.

  “Please, help. I don’t know what to do!”

  “Wake up, sunshine,” said a man in the dark.

  Wolf opened his eyes, annoyed to see Captain Stewart’s smug, ugly face.

  “You’ve got a visitor.”

  He sat up as Stewart led an old bald monk in a powder blue robe into the room. A rare sight outside of The Ruins, where Wolf often saw them going in to get their fix of Pillar.

  “I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything.”

  “I’ve got this. Thank you, Captain.” The monk gave him a nod.

  Stewart left, his boots clip-clopping down the hall until Wolf heard him go through a door.

  The monk, still standing, stared at Wolf without saying a word. Wolf, sitting cross-legged on his cot, stared back. “You might wanna choose something a bit scarier than the robe if you’re trying to scare me.”

  The man stared back without any expression, arm
s like noodles at his side, unreadable. Until finally: “You are the one they call Wolf?”

  “And you’re that kid from The Last Airbender all grown up, right?”

  A bow of his head. “I am Brother Serenity.”

  Wolf nodded without bowing back, then he leaned against the wall and laced both hands behind his head. “You here to help me with my crow pose? I can never round my upper back right, and fuck trying to bring my toes up under my collarbone.”

  “You are Touched, eh?”

  “Not yet today. But it looks like you’ve got soft enough hands, and I can close my eyes, so why don’t I get in corpse pose and we can take care of that now?”

  Brother Serenity frowned. The monk either wasn’t interested in tickling lingam or he didn’t get the joke. Either way his namaste was wasting Wolf’s time.

  “You are an Alt?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you go into The Ruins for Riverside?”

  “Whenever I can. Most folks don’t know it, but The Ruins is the only place around here that still sells Pokemon cards.”

  “Do you know the girl or her mother?”

  “No, sir.” Finally, a question he cared about. “First time I ever laid my peepers on ‘em. How about you, Airbender, do you know them?”

  “No,” said Brother Serenity, though Wolf wasn’t buying it.

  “Then maybe you know why the Sentinels were looking for them.” Wolf waited to see if the monk might respond, then finished his thought in the silence. “Or why they were willing to kill if it meant nabbing ‘em?”

  Brother Serenity leaned forward, his voice softer, but still too strong for a whisper. “There is a war coming between our kind and theirs.”

  “Our kind?”

  “The Touched and The Untouched.”

  Wolf unfolded his arms and moved to the edge of the bed, hands on his knees as he flattened his feet on the ground. “You all need to work on your branding. Touched might as well be diddled. So, are all you monks engaged in spiritual molestation?”

  “Those who are not Touched, fear us. And still others want to control what we have, use it for themselves, or destroy it.”

  “And what are the Sentinels looking to do?”