Yesterday's Gone (Season Four): Episodes 19-24

by Sean Platt

  Luca was in another neighborhood where he’d never been, many miles from his own. Most of the lights were now off, meaning it was late, way way past bedtime. Luca wasn’t sure what he was looking for, exactly, maybe a tree house or an unlocked car to crawl inside. Both could mean danger, though a tree house seemed better for the night than a car. Problem was, Luca saw no tree houses.

  How come no one has tree houses in this neighborhood? Connor and JT both have one on my street.

  Every minute Luca walked seemed like the one when he might finally collapse. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on, but every movement felt like his ankles were stuck in sludge, and he had to push his body forward with a backpack that was filled with his grandfather’s old metal cars, while wearing heavy wet blankets.

  Luca began to look longingly at some of the larger lawns, thinking how comfortable it would be to lie down and sprawl on top of them. He imagined the feeling of cool grass against his body as he did. Luca never would’ve thought of grass as comfortable, like his bed — it was usually pretty itchy — but at the moment, even the smaller lawns looked like his parents’ King sized bed.

  Luca stopped in front of an old house with an overgrown lawn that looked like no one had cut it in years. The house was small, almost tiny, its windows and doors all boarded. It looked like the sort of house where something bad happened and it had to get shuttered forever. It was the kind of house kids whispered about in warning, “Don’t go there!” The kind of house that was always in scary stories at Halloween.

  The front yard even had a giant tree with branches reaching like skeleton’s arms toward the moon. Yet for all its scary qualities, it had one thing which called to Luca like a lighthouse in the dark — a porch swing.

  I’ll lie on the swing, and think about what to do next.

  Luca slowly approached the house, listening for anything evil that might be lurking inside. He wasn’t normally afraid of stuff like ghosts or witches or other things that weren’t real, but at night, on his own, in a strange neighborhood, anything seemed possible.

  He stepped onto the porch, the wooden, paint-chipped, gray steps creaking under his weight.

  A shadow suddenly moved to Luca’s left.

  He jumped, then realized it was only from the streetlight and wind pushing the swing.

  Luca laughed at himself, then sat on the bench, chains pulling tight as he did. He pushed down hard, just to make sure the chains in the roof could support his weight.

  Sitting felt great, laying down even better.

  He closed his eyes, telling himself that he’d wake in the morning, then find his way home. The police would be gone, Mom and Dad would make everything better.

  Luca fell asleep, almost smiling.

  **

  In Luca’s dream, he was on the side of a long road, lying down. It was daytime, and the sun seemed to take up most of the sky.

  His skin was itchy-burny hot, his throat was dry and raw.

  A dog appeared, carrying a bottle of water in its mouth. The dog was the same one from his earlier dream — Dog Vader. It dropped the bottle of water beside Luca, who grabbed it, unscrewed the cap, and gulped the liquid.

  “Where am I?” Luca asked.

  “You’re on a trek,” Dog Vader answered.

  “A trek?”

  “Yes, you have to find something. Something very important.”

  “What?” Luca asked, swallowing the last of the water, which tasted like it was from heaven.

  “The vials,” Dog Vader said.

  “What vials?” Luca asked, vaguely remembering something from a dream. No, not a dream, but when Johnny had him on the ground. There had been vials in that dream or vision, or whatever it was.

  Dog Vader then thought about the vials, and oddly, Luca could see what the dog was picturing in his head. They were filled with glowing, blue liquid. There were a dozen of them all floating in darkness.

  “Wow, how did you do that?”

  Dog Vader didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “It’s time to wake up Luca. Time to wake up and find the vials.”

  “How will I know where to look?”

  “Just trust your head,” Dog Vader said, then vanished.

  Luca was confused.

  Trust my head?

  The sun seemed to turn up its heat, like Mom using the stove.

  Luca realized, again, that he was dreaming, and remembered his sleeping self on the swing. He had to wake up before morning. A neighbor might see him and call the police.

  Luca woke up suddenly, no longer on a swing.

  Or anywhere he’d ever been or even seen before.

  The sky was a forever sea of blue, and below it, unending rolling waves of bright, hot sand stretching forever in every direction.

  Luca knew, with a horrible sadness inside him, that he would never see his family again. He screamed, his voice wafting into the endless empty desert.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 9 — Michael Blackmore

  Mike reached the Madrid thoroughly exhausted early in the morning. So exhausted, he was tempted to get a room and sleep first. But he couldn’t risk losing Mary if she was already on the road.

  Mike approached the front desk with flowers, saying he was leaving them for a guest, Mary Olson.

  The receptionist, a pretty young woman with long, dark hair, consulted her computer and looked up, frowning. “Oh, I’m sorry, that guest checked out last night.”

  “Do you know where she went?” Mike asked, hoping his desperation didn’t show.

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” she said. “We don’t have that information.”

  Mike looked down at the flowers, then back at the receptionist, tossing her the ball. “What should I do? I have to deliver these flowers. Boss said this was a rush job and very important to whoever wanted Mrs. Olson to get them.”

  The woman looked back at her screen. “I could call the number we have on file for her, if you’d like to leave the flowers here.”

  Mike sneaked a peek at the screen, saw Mary’s number, quickly remembered it like he’d done with who-knew-how-many numbers before, then smiled at the receptionist, confident she’d not seen his theft.

  He looked at the flowers again, then sighed, “Well, I can’t leave them with anyone but Mary. We’ve had situations before, leaving them at hotel desks, and the guests never getting them.”

  The girl looked offended, “What? Here?”

  “No, no place as nice as this. But all the same, it’s policy.”

  “I never heard of anything like that.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty damned stupid,” Mike said. “I’ll go back to the shop and see what the boss says. If he says I can leave them here, I’ll bring them back. Thanks so much for your help.”

  Mike smiled and headed back to his car.

  He sat inside and fired up Mary’s laptop, which he lifted from her house, found a Wi-Fi signal and clicked on her money app. He found her recent credit card activity and found the name of the motel she was now at. The Camelot, on PCH in Malibu. A quick Google search showed her about an hour away.

  Mike peeled out of the parking lot.

  **

  Mike arrived at the motel in less than 40 minutes.

  As he pulled into the parking lot, he spotted a man outside a room kicking a Pepsi machine, cursing.

  Mike stared, waiting for the man to turn around enough for Mike to see his face. The man reached into his pockets and shoved more money into the machine, finally getting a can of Coke.

  He turned and headed back to his room, and as he did, Mike got a good look at the man who killed his daughter.

  Mike stared, snarling. “I got you, motherfucker.”

  TO BE CONTINUED …

  YESTERDAY’S GONE

  ::EPISODE 23::

  (FIFTH EPISODE OF SEASON FOUR)

  “Eye for an Eye”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 1 — Edward Keenan

  Ed Keenan approached the front desk receptionist at Harrison P
sychiatric Hospital, then flashed his badge and said, “Ed Keenan, Homeland Security. I need to speak to a patient, Roman Rosetti.”

  The receptionist, a tired looking mountain of a man, stared at Ed’s badge, then turned to the computer screen, and slowly back to Ed, as if trying to decide how helpful he would be. The man picked up the phone, dialed a few digits, and said, “Yeah, we’ve got someone from Homeland Security asking to see Rosetti.”

  “Someone will be with you in a moment,” the man said casually before returning his eyes to the newspaper unfolded on his desk. He was reading a story about the recent strings of violence. The news media was searching for connections, but at the moment, they were looking in all the wrong places — looking to blame the violence on things like the media, video games, and various political ideologies. None was close to the truth: that aliens had invaded the world and were living amongst us.

  “Thank you,” Ed said, turning to scan the lobby: large and sterile, with “artsy” benches rather than couches or anything resembling comfortable furniture.

  After a few moments, a thin 40-something, red-headed man in slacks and a button-down blue shirt appeared. He wore no badge, nor offered a name, but was clearly in charge.

  “You’re here to see Roman Rosetti?”

  “Yes,” Ed said, producing his badge before the man asked. “Ed Keenan, Homeland Security.”

  “Martin Gross,” the man said. “May I ask what this is regarding?”

  “Sorry,” Ed said, “official Homeland Security business.”

  “Come with me.” The man led Ed to an elevator, up to the seventh floor, where they stepped off onto polished linoleum. Gross waved a plastic white card over a reader and parted a pair of glass doors leading to the seventh floor reception desk, where a male and female nurse sat. The nurses nodded at them as Gross led Ed down a long hallway of closed doors. Each of the doors had a small square window giving a glimpse into each room.

  “This is where we keep the dangerous patients,” Gross said.

  “Has Mr. Rosetti been violent during his time here?” Ed asked.

  “No, he’s been a model patient, aside from a few eccentricities. We’d have him on one of the other floors if not for the nature of his crimes.”

  They stopped outside a door at the end of the hallway. The lights were off inside the room, which Ed assumed was Rosetti’s.

  “What sort of eccentricities?”

  “Well, the doctor can tell you in more detail, but in short, he’s obsessed about a date.”

  “What date?”

  “Tomorrow. He’s been writing the date over and over on whatever paper we give him ever since he arrived. But whenever we ask him about it, he seems confused, not sure what it means. But clearly, it is important to him.”

  “And is this any more odd than your typical obsessive behavior here?”

  “No, and it wouldn’t mean anything except … well, I’m not sure how familiar you are with his case … but after he shot those people, police went to Rosetti’s house and found that he’d written that date, too. So the fear is, he’s planning something else … which is why he’s locked on the seventh floor. Is that why you’re here? The date? Is he part of some homegrown terrorist cell or something?”

  “I can’t elaborate on that,” Ed said. “It’s a matter of national security. May I talk to him now?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Gross reached into his pocket, then waved a card over the reader beside the door.

  The door unlocked and Gross turned the knob, then stepped into the room and clicked on the light.

  “Holy shit!” Gross said, backing away before stepping outside the room and slamming his palm on a red emergency button right beneath the card reader, sending a loud alarm screaming through the hallway.

  Ed stepped inside, hand on a gun that wouldn’t be needed for anything inside an empty room.

  The walls were covered in black ink, the same thing scrawled over and over in both tiny print and giant, crazy-looking large text: “It’s Here.”

  Two armed security guards ran from the elevator and through the doors at the end of the hall, approaching Rosetti’s room.

  Gross snapped, “Rosetti is out. Lock the place down, search every inch until we find him!”

  The guards got on their radios, issuing orders. Ed asked, “Who’s responsible for overseeing this wing?”

  “The nurses we passed when we got off the elevator. Nobody comes or goes through those doors without the nurses letting them through.”

  Gross stomped to the reception desk and grilled the nurses, asking them where the hell Rosetti was. Both looked as surprised as Gross to find the patient missing.

  “When was the last check-in?” Gross asked.

  The man, a thin scarecrow in blue scrubs, punched a few keys on the keyboard, then looked up. “Eight twelve this morning. And he was fine.”

  Gross barked: “And nobody said shit about the crazy writing all over the walls?”

  The scarecrow looked confused. “Writing?”

  “Never mind,” Gross said. “Who checked on him this morning?”

  “Esther signed it.”

  “Is she here now?”

  The scarecrow consulted the computer, and looked up, “She’s on break.”

  Gross grabbed a phone from his pocket, called someone, then yelled at them to bring Esther Greene to the seventh floor immediately.

  Gross looked like someone who had shit the bed, and had it smeared all over his body in a drunken stupor. He was probably wondering exactly why Homeland Security was asking about Rosetti, and how much hell he was going to catch for allowing the man to flee his room, and possibly the hospital.

  Ed asked the nurses, “Is there any other exit Rosetti could’ve taken?”

  “Not without passing our desk and going through the door,” the woman said.

  “And were you both here the entire time?” Ed asked.

  “Well, aside from bathroom breaks, but even then, we take turns, so one of us is always here.”

  Ed looked up and down the hall, then focused his eyes on the camera in the upper corner above the door, one of three in his view.

  “Where can I see the security footage?” Ed asked.

  Gross said, “Down in the server room, I can have someone pull it up for you.”

  “Do that,” Ed said. “I’ll search his room for any sign of where he might’ve gone.”

  “OK,” Gross said, getting back on the phone and barking orders to his staff, telling people they were going to lose their jobs if Rosetti wasn’t found.

  Ed stepped back into the room full of lunatic writing. The sheer amount of ink seemed like something that had to take days or weeks, maybe months of obsessive work, not something done in the span of a few hours.

  Ed’s eyes followed from one “It’s Here” to another, noticing that not only were the letters done in different sizes and styles, they seemed almost as if written by many different hands. And though he couldn’t determine a pattern, there seemed to be one somewhere within the chaos. He circled the room studying the letters until he found one message different from the others, just above the doorway.

  It read, “Turn back, Keenan. Go home now.”

  Ed stopped, heart racing, cold chills through his body. He looked outside in the hall where Gross was talking on a radio to his security team, making sure nobody was paying attention to what he was looking at.

  How the hell does he know my name?

  What does this message mean?

  Ed thought immediately of the only true home he had, and the girls — Jade, Teagan, and Becca. After Sullivan discovered Ed’s safe house in Florida, Ed knew he had to hide his new family better. He found a place in upstate New York, a bit closer to him, that neither Sullivan nor people at the Black Island Research Facility could possibly know of. The girls changed their appearances, stayed off the phones, except for the one he gave them for emergencies, and ensured they had enough supplies to last them a long time.

  He wond
ered if somehow they were in danger.

  Sullivan had found him the first time, and said he’d done so thanks to some “power” from the vials. Had Sullivan tracked the girls down? And if so, why? While Ed didn’t trust the government, who’d turned him into their hired killer until they no longer needed him, he thought he could trust Sullivan.

  Ed needed to get in touch with the girls, but couldn’t do so yet. First he had to find a secure location to make his call.

  Gross interrupted Ed’s thoughts: “Esther is on her way up here.”

  “Good,” Ed said.

  “Find anything?”

  “No,” Ed lied. “Just a bunch of crazy chicken scratch. Let’s talk to Esther.”

  **

  Ed returned to his van with nothing of value. Roman was gone, and Esther knew nothing. All Ed had was a cryptic message that was working to slowly unnerve him.

  He called Sullivan and reported Roman’s disappearance. Sullivan seemed more upset than usual, asking how the hell Ed could lose a locked up man.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Ed explained.

  “Well, you’d better find him, Ed. I don’t have to warn you what Bolton will do to you … will do to the girls … if you lose Rosetti.”

  Ed was surprised. Sullivan had never been so abrupt with him, nor had he ever pulled rank or delivered such a threat.

  Ed wanted to blast back, but figured Sullivan must’ve been in a room with Bolton and was being overly aggressive to save face, and perhaps even help Ed in some way.

  “I’ll find him,” Ed said, biting his tongue.

  Ed made no mention of the personalized nature of the wall’s message, though he imagined someone would find it eventually.

  “You’d better,” Sullivan said, pressing his luck.

  “Where do you want me to go from here?” Ed asked.

  “Follow the trail,” Sullivan said. “See if Rosetti went back to the 215ers.”

  “OK.” Ed hung up, turned to Brent, still handcuffed and pissed in the back of the van. “Looks like we’re going to go visit some of your friends.”