by Sean Platt
If it works for people, let it work.
As Marina remembered the dream and seeing Steven’s dark form, she wondered if maybe her father hadn’t been onto something after all.
If she’d just had the dream then woke, she never would’ve given it credence. She would’ve seen the dream as more of her own fears, past relationships twisting her sleep. But when Steven was beside her, saying he wished she’d not seen it … she knew there was something more.
**
Marina wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep when she was suddenly woken, startled by whispers.
She stood from bed and looked around the room, stopping at various spots, such as under the air ducts, and by the door, ears perked. She heard nothing outside the gentle whir of air conditioning. She assumed the whispering was fragments of a dream she’d yet to swim from.
Marina wondered how long lights would last in the shelter, and whether they were wired to the house’s electricity, or ran on the solar panels installed on the roof.
Whispers grew louder. One of the loudest rasped, “Marina.”
The loudest came from the casket.
Marina stepped closer, unable to believe her ears.
“Marina,” the voice repeated: her father.
Her heart pounded, goose bumps pimpled her skin. It couldn’t be Daddy. He was dead and buried, for nearly two — impossible — years.
“Marina,” the voice repeated.
“This isn’t funny!” she shouted, imagining Steven laughing as he watched. She searched for a camera, and found one on top of the computer monitor, apparently off.
“Marina … ”
She approached the casket, and reached out to touch it, slowly, ready to pull back her hand, half-expecting the coffin to pop open and a skeleton to reach out to grab her.
She touched the casket, and felt a vibration: warmth from within.
What the hell?
The vibration turned into a low and steady hum. With it, whispers grew louder.
“Marina, Marina.”
I must still be dreaming.
She tried telling herself to wake up, she was dreaming. Usually, once Marina realized she was dreaming she’d open her eyes, even when she didn’t want to wake up, like every now and then when she was inside the dreams that kept her wet.
Something clicked inside the casket, a loud clicking, like an opening vault.
Marina stepped back, expecting the casket to swing wide, even though it was fused shut.
Instead of opening, it sank into the ground.
Marina stared in shock.
Whatever was happening wasn’t otherworldly. It was, instead, mechanical, and what seemed like an automated response. Marina wondered if her father had set something in the room to recognize if she were trapped. She didn’t know the casket sank into the floor, so God only knew what other surprises there might be.
The casket stopped, and a light came on, revealing a second room under the shelter.
“Marina,” the voice repeated, louder, wafting up from a speaker below.
She stepped onto the casket, carefully, keeping one hand on the floor above in case she had to pull herself up.
Marina looked around and saw a small hallway with a door at the end. On top of the door was a video camera, and a speaker.
“Marina … Marina,” the voice brayed; no doubt her father through the speaker. The voice was recorded, same thing each time in an automated loop.
Marina had to know what was behind the door.
She let go of the floor, dropped into the hallway, and approached the door. There was no knob. Instead, a keypad that looked like it belonged on a decades old phone.
“What am I supposed to do? Dial a number?”
The door clicked partly open.
Marina stepped toward the door, seeing blue light bleeding from the black.
“Hello?” she called, hesitant to step all the way inside the room.
“Marina, is that you?” a voice said — her father.
She stepped into the room and saw him, lying in a bed, looking as dead as the last time she saw him. His eyes were closed, so was his mouth.
“Marina?” he asked, though she couldn’t see how he was speaking when his lips weren’t moving.
She longed to run.
But where can I go? Back up there? And face Steven?
“Yes, it’s me, Honey. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Where are you?” she asked, looking around the small 10 by 10 room. The box held nothing besides her father, the bed, and another door on the opposite side. There wasn’t even hospital equipment or anything that looked like it might be keeping him alive.
“I’m here, in front of you.”
“You’re not moving,” she said. “You look dead.”
“I am, Honey. But as long as my body is here, I’m connected enough to reach you. Did you hear me calling?”
She wasn’t sure if he meant now or in her dreams. “I think so,” she said. “What’s happening?”
“Bad things, Marina. This is what I warned you of. What I dreamed. The moment. I need you to do something very important.”
“What’s that?” she asked, stepping toward him and putting a hand on his icy arm. She pushed on him to see if he’d say anything, see if he noticed. Of course, he was dead. That didn’t keep him from speaking.
“I need you to go through this door. Inside, you’ll find something very, very important. A box.”
“What’s in the box?” Marina asked, staring at the door as if it might burst open at any moment.
“There are two vials, Marina. You must guard them with your life.”
Behind Marina, a motor churned. She looked outside the door to see the casket rising, locking her down here.
She cried out, “The casket is locking me in.”
“That’s OK, Marina. Because you’re going to go through the door, and take the tunnel until you reach a second door that will open into a monastery cellar two blocks away. There’s a man there I want you to find, Father Thomas Acevedo. Tell him who you are. He will help you.”
“Help me what?”
“Save the world.”
* * * *
EPILOGUE
Luca stepped through the portal.
He fell to the floor, inches on the other side, head swimming from the enormity, not just from the largest house he’d never seen, but from reality’s fabric stretched like taffy.
He tensed, anticipating the crazy man following him over, but the portal closed, leaving just the blue sky above him.
Luca shivered as he crawled forward in the grass, trying to reach the house. His entire back was numb, blood soaking his shirt. He felt dizzy, maybe like he was going to run out of blood and die.
He struggled to call out, “Help!”
He fell to the grass, barely able to keep his eyes open.
There were footsteps, someone approaching. He tried raising his chin, wanted to look up, but he may as well have tried to sprout wings.
Luca tried harder, then passed out.
**
Luca woke in a large, white bedroom, to see a woman sitting in a chair beside him.
She was friendly looking, with long, brown hair and a giant smile. She was beautiful, and … somehow familiar.
A name bubbled to Luca’s mind. His lips parted as if to whistle the sound and fill his air with a memory.
“Rose?”
“Yes, Luca?” The woman widened her smile as she reached out to touch his head, like Mom did when he was sick. Rose reminded him a lot of his mom; she had once taken care of him.
Luca’s mind flickered through more memories of a life he lived but didn’t. Memories of that other Luca whose family died in an accident. In that life, Luca’s brother, Boricio, was in love with this woman, Rose. She was like a big sister to Luca.
“How do I remember you?” he asked.
“Because you knew me,” she said. “Before someone took your memories.”
“Y
ou mean my family is … really dead?” Luca sat too quickly, his head was immediately dizzy. “That really happened?”
“I’m afraid so, Luca,” she softly said.
He began to cry, sad and confused. Nothing made sense, everything was wrong and upside down.
“But I was with my family, and they were alive.”
“Someone lied to you, Luca,” Rose shook her head. “I’m your family, now. I’m all you have.”
“No,” Luca cried. “They’re still alive.”
“Those people aren’t your family, Luca. They don’t know you. Or love you.”
“Stop it!” Luca cried, swatting at her hand. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m trying to help you remember. You’ve felt different for a while, haven’t you, Luca? Like something was wrong, but you just couldn’t place it?”
He nodded.
“And you may have even felt like you did some bad things, right?”
“I did do bad things,” Luca said, thinking of the dead bullies. “Didn’t I?”
“Want to know the truth, Luca? The truth they’ve been hiding from you?”
Luca nodded again.
Rose reached to the floor, then picked up a black, metal box and set it down on the blanket. Luca looked at his lap, vaguely remembering the box that looked like a book.
The box, the vials, and the crazy man.
“What is this?” he asked.
“It’s the truth, Luca. Open it, and set yourself free.”
Luca opened the box to six, blue vials glowing bright.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Take one out. Open it.”
“Open it?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling.
“And do what?”
“You won’t need to do anything other than open it.”
Luca’s hand was shaking, and he felt weird, like maybe he shouldn’t open anything at all. A vague memory flashed, another weird one he couldn’t place — of him handing a vial to his “brother” Boricio. Bad things happened, maybe in a dream, maybe reality, Luca was certain of nothing.
Except that Rose wouldn’t lie to him. She was too sweet. Luca could tell just by looking. And feeling. Luca felt it more surely than he’d ever felt anything. If Rose were his age, he would’ve thought the feeling was love at first sight.
“Open it?” he asked again, just to make sure. The smile on his face felt good.
“Yes, Luca.”
Luca looked down at a black, rubber-looking stopper sticking out partly from the tube.
“Just pull this out?”
Rose nodded, her eyes giant, like she couldn’t wait for Luca to pop the vial. He wondered what she knew that he didn’t, and wondered if it was some sort of magic potion that would make everything OK again.
Or at least get things to make sense.
He pulled the top.
As the blue liquid crept up the sides, Luca jerked his arm from the glass and dropped the vial on his blanket. Blue light blew wider, like melted plastic, then turned dark.
Luca screamed, trying to jump from the bed, afraid of what he had spilled.
Rose held him down, shoving him against the bed with shocking power.
“It’s OK,” she said, leaning closer, again like Mom, but with something that was nothing like his mother’s never-flinching love.
Rose shoved her fingers into his mouth. Luca gagged, nearly puking. He didn’t because she held him down and told him not to.
“Open up and let US in,” she said as black stuff rose in soupy strands around her and inched toward his open mouth.
Luca screamed as he inhaled a Darkness that promised death to the world.
TO BE CONTINUED …
IN YESTERDAY’S GONE: SEASON FIVE
Did you enjoy reading Season Four of Yesterday’s Gone?
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Authors’ Note
Yesterday’s Gone Season Four was the most difficult words we’ve written so far.
Not because the story itself was complicated — Season Three was more tangled by far — but rather because it is our first serial, and because it’s our first serial Yesterday’s Gone comes with the largest group of readers and thus the highest expectations. We love the world, and the thousands of readers who have made our story part of their lives.
We owed it to the simmering anticipation, we had to deliver our best work to date.
But that could only happen after we found the story.
Season Three ended on a nice bookend, closing as many open loops as we could so that seasons 4-6 could have a slightly different vibe, separate from the other three. We knew the story we wanted to tell in broad strokes, and how it would be split between the seasons, but we didn’t know specifics, and of course, specifics are what really matters. The Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, and A Bug’s Life are all essentially the same story — the beauty is in the details and telling.
As with all of our stories, getting to the root of what we wanted to say meant finding out what we wanted to see happen for each of member of our Yesterday’s Gone cast. This world holds a ton of story — each character could easily have their own book with the story told entirely from their POV — so we must assign weight to everything we want to see, pull back and look at the series as a whole, and determine what will serve the over arcing story lines, and what will detract.
One of the reasons we wanted to bring these characters home for the second half of their adventure was to show you their lives lived on a normal world, while following up as they attempt to salvage something in the aftermath of what we lived with them already.
And of course, we wanted to set the stage for the epic battle which will close the series over the next two seasons. Since none of our work has yet been committed to film, we don’t get to have DVD extras. Author Notes are as close as we can come for now. For these particular notes, we thought you would enjoy a peek into some of the thinking behind this season’s individual story lines:
BORICIO
Early on, we knew we wanted to see how everyone’s favorite serial killer (maybe second favorite if you’re a fan of Dexter) is now living a “normal” life, as well as how he’s coping with his past. More than that, we wanted to put you, the reader, in an interesting position where you meet one of his victims, Michael Blackmore, the father of a slain girl.
We were curious to see how many readers would suddenly root for the fan favorite, Boricio, to get what he had coming.
The scenes between Boricio and Mike were some of our favorites, and if we had more time, or if this was a TV series, that would have certainly been one of the parts from this season we would have loved to (and certainly would have) extended.
LUCA
Luca was another great character to explore because unlike the rest of our Goners, he has no memory of what happened. And he is unaware that he is an impostor, a boy from another world. He recalls nothing of the other world, (our) Luca, or Will or Boricio, at least not before our season gets started.
Luca is one of the more interesting characters in our catalogue. He is a deeply emotional child. Intelligent, but infantile when unsure. We enjoyed spending time with a slightly older Luca, not just in looks but behavior.
We wanted to give him emotional conflict, before nudging him into the larger story. Most of us have had issues with bullying, and we believe most people can relate to Luca’s pain in wanting to avoid the bullies, and his desire to make them stop once and for all. As always,
things got a bit weird with Luca in the end, and of course they had to for all that’s coming in Season Five.
MARINA
Faith is a consistently explored theme in Yesterday’s Gone, this time we took a tour through the eyes of a new age cult. The founders of both the Prophet’s group and the Church of Original Design believed they were doing the right thing, and that they had been touched by some greater power.
The problem wasn’t that either man was knowingly evil or meaning to start a cult. Both men were misled and deluded by their desire to believe, and attempts to understand something greater than themselves. The greater thing, of course, was alien, not deity.
Marina, like the heroes we knew before this season, was accidentally dragged into the battle between Dark and Light, pulled in by her father’s faith and the things that happened with him that she (and the reader) have yet to understand. We would have loved to have done more with Marina. She’s another example of a storyline that would have been expanded in a different medium. In our massive plans for Season 5 — it will probably be the longest of all six seasons — Marina will have a larger role to play.
BRENT
Brent is one of Dave’s favorite characters, both to develop and write.
In the first three seasons, Brent was written as a weaker character, too whiney. He was sad, and wanted to get home to his family. Survival changed him. Brent is bitter, angry, desperate to prove his sanity. Some of Brent’s new angles are explored through Brent’s relationship with Ed, different on this world from what it was on the other.
We didn’t (exactly) know what would happen with Brent until it did.
Since the beginning, it was important to Dave that we end Season Three with Brent getting home to his family, but in the gulf between seasons three and four, we got to talking about what we wanted for Brent’s arc, and thinking that having him look an ugly (and unexpected) reality in the eye would certainly be painful for his character, but it would be rewarding for us as creators, and ultimately for you as the reader.
