Tomorrow's Gone Season 1

by Sean Platt

He entered, replacing the rack of bottles behind him to conceal the hidden exit, then turned on a light and descended more stairs.

  Beneath The Baxter Hotel was a series of tunnels used during prohibition by smugglers. Most of the tunnels had been closed off decades ago by the city. But Slum Lord had found one that had been previously undiscovered, leading to a series of underground and unfinished railroad tunnels.

  An entire secret network under The Slums that he alone knew about.

  The farther down he went, the more the cacophony faded from above. An in its place was a stillness that was easy to find solace in.

  Sometimes Slum Lord came down here to think.

  But tonight he needed advice.

  In a life filled with questionable choices, he couldn’t risk another mistake. It wasn’t just his own position, and possibly his life on the line, if he fucked up. The fate of The Slums, its inhabitants, and Sasha were all his to preserve or destroy.

  He loved Richmond, and Sasha. They each satisfied a separate part of him, making Slum Lord whole in a way that neither could ever do on their own.

  The secret kept him guilty, but Sasha would never understand his needs. And she would take it personally, feel as though she wasn’t enough. He didn’t want to invite more pain into what had been a difficult life — especially when he and Richmond could never really be together. Why risk a long-term good relationship for temporary pleasure destined for disaster?

  Sebastian kept walking, taking turns into the old railroad network until he came to his tunnel. The cement and tiled walls had given way to dirt, excavated long ago with wooden beams supporting construction that would never be coming.

  A faint pink and purple glow pulsed from the end of the tunnel ninety yards away. It brightened at his approach, as if sensing his presence and wanting him nearer.

  At the end of the tunnel, Sebastian found what he had been seeking.

  Exposed roots budding out from the dirt wall and ceiling, blooming from a tree system far above ground, and far north of here. How the roots had traveled so far from the source, Sebastian didn’t know.

  He only knew that they presented him with the deepest of insights.

  The tendrils glowed brighter and moved as he neared them.

  He reached out and touched them. Then the roots wrapped his arm with an alien warmth that eased his unsettled mind.

  Power radiated out from the roots and into his skin, a hit of energy and calm to quell the swelling anxiety he’d been feeling all night.

  “Hello, old friend,” said the voice in his head.

  “I need your help. I’m looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  He thought of Maritza, then of a younger version of her. He pictured her eyes, one blue and the other brown. “I need to find her without alerting anybody else.”

  “I will do my best. Will you do your best when the time comes?”

  Slum Lord wasn’t sure what would be required of him, but he had agreed to do whatever the tree needed him to do long ago. It had given him so much already.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Time always felt odd and off near the roots, and Sebastian wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it was morning by the time he returned to The Baxter.

  He stepped out of the attic and walked through the kitchen to find Axl looking frantic.

  “Where were you?”

  “Just taking a walk. What is it?”

  “There’s a meeting of The Six.”

  “What? Who called it? Hobarth?”

  “No, Jackie. It’s about a visitor.”

  “Who is it?”

  “A Mr. Kind from Stratum. He has an offer for The Slums.”

  TO BE CONTINUED …

  * * *

  EPISODE FOUR

  Episode 4

  Come together

  Thirty-One

  Emory Gray

  Emory woke to a jostling of the carriage.

  She couldn’t see anything with the sack over her head.

  Her wrists and shoulders were numb from the metal cuffs, and from having her arms pinned behind her back.

  A thick metal chain secured her cuffs to a metal ring on the floor beside her. She was on her side, the cart’s hard wood bottom pushing painfully into her ribs as the carriage bounced on uneven road.

  She could hear the men laughing and talking over the muffled sound of hooves clomping along the road.

  Emory wasn’t sure how long she had been sleeping. Her world was still mostly a blur. She’d woken once, but after she started screaming and kicking and crying, one of the men came in and injected her with something.

  She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the world last went black. Hours? Days? She had no idea how far it was to Stratum.

  Best to feign sleep. Maybe the drug would wear off. Though even if Emory managed to unleash a storm and make the men all kill each other, that didn’t solve the problem of her being chained and locked up in a horse-drawn cage.

  If everybody was dead, who would let her out? Maybe the crazed men would kill her when she couldn’t possibly fight or escape.

  Murder her cold, same as James and his parents.

  Damn them.

  Tears stung her eyes. Her throat burned with all the pain that kept building up inside her with no way out, or place to go if there was.

  Emory thought of her mother.

  What would Mama say now?

  Keep my head and bide my time.

  Push the tears down with the past and the future.

  There is only the present. If you’re alive now, then you focus on that.

  “Why we gotta go so far?” said one of the men. “Be easier if we sell her to Hobarth. He’d pay well for one this young.”

  Another man laughed. “Until she goes psycho. Then Hobarth will have our asses! This one’s no whore. She’s—” His voice dipped low so Emory didn’t hear what he’d called her. And she desperately wanted to know.

  “If Stratum wants her so bad, maybe we should keep her?” The third speaker had a slow-sounding accent.

  A loud SMACK! was followed by a scolding. “What the hell are we gonna do with her, dumbass?”

  “I dunno.”

  “So shut yer damned mouth unless you got some actually useful ideas in that thick skull of yours.”

  Her back was hurting. Starting to throb. She slowly sat up, carefully, still blinded by the sack.

  Something moved across from her.

  Emory froze.

  “Shhh …” The whisper sounded like it came from an old woman. “It’s okay. I ain’t gon’ hurt ya.”

  Something felt off about the voice. Emory didn’t trust it.

  She backed up and hit the wall. She hoped the men riding atop the carriage and up in the front didn’t hear her.

  “Be ca’ful. Don’t let ‘em know yer up.”

  Emory nodded, wondering if the woman could even see it. Maybe she had a sack on her head too. Or was blindfolded. Emory couldn’t remember anyone else with her when she woke up the last time.

  “Who are you?” Emory whispered.

  “Molly. ‘Dey took me. Who are you?”

  Never give your real name.

  “Eliza,” she lied. “Eliza Miller. Why’d they take you?”

  “I dunno. Why’d ‘dey take you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Really?” Pure surprise. “They soun’ scared of ya.”

  “I don’t know why.”

  “You sure ‘bout that? What is it they so scared of?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You an Alt?”

  “A what?”

  “An Alt? You got powers?”

  Never tell people about your powers.

  “No.”

  Silence, then a hiss. “Liar.”

  “What?” Emory pressed herself harder against the wall, afraid that the woman might hurt her.

  “You’re lying. If you wanna get outta here, tell me the truth.”

  “H
ow are you going to get me out of here?”

  “I got my ways,” she whispered. “Jus’ need to get ‘em to stop.”

  “Aren’t you bound? Do you have a hood?”

  “I was bound, but I got out. ‘Dey ain’t give me no hood. Guess ‘dey don’t care if I see. But you … ‘dey don’t want you seeing for some reason.”

  Silence.

  “But you wouldn’t know nothin’ ‘bout that, would ya?”

  A cold chill ran through Emory. Why was this woman trying to find out more about her? Was she a bandit herself?

  The carriage stopped.

  Emory heard the men dismounting and walking away.

  The woman moved, coming closer to Emory.

  She froze, bracing for something painful to happen.

  “Relax. I ain’t gon’ hurt ya. But I can help you, if you tell me what your powers are. ‘Dey said somethin’ ‘bout a storm. You got any others that could help us?”

  “I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The woman grabbed her by the throat, choking Emory through the burlap sack.

  She gagged, kicking her feet against the floor, hard, no longer caring who heard. She tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the sack and the woman’s tightening grip.

  “You shut yer fucking hole—” she squeezed tighter “—stop strugglin’ or I’ll snap yer skinny neck!”

  The woman might kill her if she stopped fighting, but Emory didn’t have a choice. Her body relaxed, against its every instinct.

  The woman loosened her grip and whispered, “Now, when ‘dey open the door, I’m gonna run. Then you do one of ‘dem storms. I’ve got a knife.”

  “How’d you—”

  Movement toward the back of the carriage. Emory stopped talking.

  The door opened.

  Bright light poured inside, though the shapes were indistinguishable.

  The woman screamed as she scrambled toward the men.

  One of the men shrieked in pain.

  “Now!” the woman shouted.

  Emory squeezed her eyes tight, trying to focus on summoning a storm.

  She dug deep into her pain and fear and hate, remembering what these men had done to James and his sweet parents, remembering what other men had done to her mother.

  The air crackled around her.

  “Stop her!” screamed one of the men.

  She heard someone coming at her.

  She kicked out, blindly, and felt her foot connect with someone.

  The man screamed.

  Emory backed up into the corner, as she felt and heard the man approaching.

  She tried to summon the storm but the man hit her in the head hard enough to make focus a joke.

  She felt dizzy, consciousness starting to kid her.

  Seconds later, a pinch in her arm.

  Drugged.

  Again.

  “You little bitch,” the man grunted as he pulled the sack off of her head.

  A pale-faced young man, glaring at her with his dark brown eyes.

  She saw another two men behind him, including the blond who had killed James, holding a dirty-looking woman in her early forties, dressed in rags, surely a beggar.

  One of the bandits was on the ground, dying or dead from a slit throat.

  “You stupid bitch,” said the blond. “You could’ve had a decent life in the mines.”

  Then he slit her throat.

  Emory wanted to scream but the drugs were too much.

  Thirty-Two

  Wolf

  Wolf and Brother Truth were sharing a horse as the sun set.

  He didn’t care for riding bitch, but Ravagers had turned Wilbur into glue and it wasn’t long before dark. Something worse would come as the night fell, or so the monk had warned them.

  The fog thickened as they went. Lightning crackled ahead, illuminating wooly violet clouds in a staccato burst to illuminate the sky in majesty.

  “We’re close,” Brother Truth shouted over the wind.

  Cold rain fell as they rounded a corner to the temple, a massive brick and glass building. A giant emblem occupied most of one wall. A proud circle with an eye inside it, a symbol representing one of the Old Gods atop it. Wolf didn’t know which one, they were mostly all the same to him and he couldn’t have given three dribbles of piss to get the difference.

  Wolf and the monk saw it in unison.

  The horse stopped.

  “Why didn’t you tell me we were going to zombie Disneyland? I would’ve brought my zombie pedo rifle. It always gets ‘em right in the defiler.”

  Of course, the monk said nothing.

  Both of them stared at the hundreds of Lost standing in the temple lot, all of them still, as if waiting for something.

  Brother Truth reached into his robe and retrieved a white blindfold. He tied it around his eyes. “These Lost are too strong for me. You need to lead the way.”

  “On horse or on foot?”

  “On foot.” Brother Truth dismounted.

  They tied the horse to a bike rack in front of a library across the street.

  “Take my hand, brother. And don’t think that means I wanna fuck you or anything. Also, feel free to turn invisible if shit hits the fan.”

  The rain and wind continued to worsen, howling and whipping Wolf’s wet hair, lashing at his face. Brother Truth kept getting yanked by the gusts. He squeezed the monk’s hand tighter without cracking a joke.

  There had to be at least two hundred of The Lost standing around the temple. Clusters of three and four, plus a few stragglers. To someone who didn’t know better and who was far away, they might even look like parishioners trading pleasant exchanges Sunday morning after church.

  “We’re almost to the parking lot,” Wolf said.

  Every one of the Frankenstein brigade turned their head to look at him.

  Well, ain’t that shit a Friday the 13th on Elm Street.

  He held his breath, hoping they’d ignore him same as others had done in the past. But what if these Lost were different, like the Ravagers?

  And as they passed the first of them, Wolf watched their heads turn and follow along in his peripheral vision. The Lost usually flinched away, but these husks kept staring as Wolf led Brother Truth around a group of six.

  He steered clear of the first cluster, coaching Truth to avoid them as well.

  Rain fell harder. Wolf heard an odd hum coming from somewhere above.

  He wanted to ask about the noise, but these husks were paying close enough attention already.

  They circled another group as they inched toward the front doors.

  The wind came harder, now like needles in his eyes. Wolf walked faster, dragging the monk past another cluster of Lost.

  Truth bumped up against someone and his hand slipped from Wolf’s grasp.

  He spun around as Brother Truth froze.

  A dozen Lost spun toward him and started approaching.

  He’d never seen them violent, but these weren’t like the other Lost.

  They had the monk surrounded.

  “You gonna do that thing you do?” Wolf shouted.

  But Brother Truth didn’t turn invisible. Nor did he speak. He looked like Han Solo in carbonite.

  Wolf carefully moved toward him.

  But the cluster, now two dozen thick, formed a tight circle that he couldn’t squeeze through.

  They stood, staring at him, heads tilted, and … sniffing him like wild animals.

  One of the Lost, a tall man in a wet, gray suit, jumped at the monk and grabbed him by the throat.

  Brother Truth fell to the ground.

  And several of the Lost jumped on top of him.

  “Fuck!” Wolf yelled, unsheathing his sword.

  Other Lost slowly turned, then started walking quickly toward them.

  “Something’s making these fuckers cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”

  Brother Truth thrust his sword through the fleshy automaton, then shoving his well-dressed hus
k away from his body.

  “Keep that blindfold on!” Wolf yelled at the monk.

  One of the Lost, a woman in mom jeans and an ancient and fraying holiday sweater, recognized Wolf as a threat and raised her arms as she charged.

  Wolf buried his sword in her neck.

  But more were still coming. “Fuck, man! Turn invisible or something!”

  “I can’t yet!” he bellowed, blindly swinging his sword.

  The monk was doing a decent job of killing the attacking Lost, even blind as he was. Wolf felled another three as he made his way to Truth.

  A fat man attacked the brother from behind and bit into his shoulder.

  He screamed, turning around and thrusting the sword through the meat puppet’s blubbery gut.

  Wolf had nearly reached him when a small figure charged, a young blond-haired boy no older than ten.

  Wolf kicked him backwards, not wanting to stab him.

  But the boy was back on his feet, almost cat-like. He leapt at Wolf.

  Wolf dodged, hitting the kid in the back of his head with the hilt instead of the blade.

  The boy fell.

  “Stay down!”

  He turned his empty eyes on Wolf and leapt again, teeth gnashing, ready to rip into his enemy’s throat.

  Wolf drove the blade through the kid’s chest, wincing as he soaked in blood.

  He wrenched the sword free, sending the kid squirming and twitching to the ground.

  Wolf had to look away.

  He turned back to see the monk charging him.

  “It’s me!”

  Brother Truth stopped with his blade only inches from Wolf.

  “Take my hand. And no, I’m still not gonna fuck you.”

  Wolf led him quickly toward the temple before more Lost came at them.

  The doors opened and he muttered, “Damn right, you’re motherfucking open.”

  He pulled Truth inside, then slammed the door shut as three more Lost ran at them. He locked it, hoping they weren’t smart enough to figure out how to get in, or didn’t start crashing through any one of the too many windows.

  “Wait here. Let me make sure there’s no more Lost inside.”