Yesterday's Gone: Season One

by Platt, Sean

  Everyone has a weakness. You just need to find it. When you find a pussy, you fuck it.

  Oh, how he’d love to wipe that fucking smile from Bob’s face. Take a bat and just smash his fucking skull in. But this wasn’t a dream. This was the real world. And in the real world, the real Charlie Wilkens was neither a bad ass nor a hero. He didn’t know dick about dick, and still needed Bob’s skills if he was going to survive.

  Asshole that Bob was, he knew how to fix things, hunt, and all the shit survivalist types know. Charlie was an ignorant child who couldn’t last a day in the real world.

  And like the pussy he was, he went home with his tail between his legs.

  **

  Charlie was crossing the street, wondering how worried Callie would be when she woke to see he wasn’t there. Maybe Bob would be worried, too. Maybe he’d feel bad for being such a dick. Or maybe he would be mad that Charlie left and was gone all night. Who knew? The coin could land on either side with Bob.

  But Callie, Charlie was sure, would be missing him. Maybe that would soothe the awkwardness between them a bit, he hoped.

  The front door was unlocked just as he’d left it last night. He walked in, surprised that Bob wasn’t still on the sofa sleeping off his drunk. He went to the kitchen, nobody there. He was about to go upstairs when he heard Bob laughing from out back.

  Two large tinted windows looking out onto the back patio. Bob and Callie were splashing in the pool.

  Did they even notice that I was fucking gone?

  Callie dunked Bob under and he grabbed her, pulling her down with him. When they came up, they were kissing. A long kiss and Callie wasn’t breaking away.

  Charlie stared, not willing to believe what he was seeing.

  How could she? Why? Why Bob?

  His heart pounded so loud, hard, and fast, he could feel it through his entire body. He wanted to run, wanted to scream, wanted to do anything other than stand there mute and paralyzed as he watched them kiss. Callie’s arms locked around Bob and he lifted her up slightly, and reached down.

  He’s fucking her right there in the pool!

  Charlie could feel his nostrils flaring, rage coursing through his veins. An idea came to him, then spun him around and sent him to the living room where the shotgun lay propped against the sofa.

  He picked it up. Bob had taught him how to load it and fire it. Charlie hoped he was good enough not to miss.

  Charlie went to the kitchen, cocked the shotgun, and raised it, aiming at the couple in the pool. His finger curled around the trigger as his heart pounded louder, so loud, he could hear it in his ears, drowning out everything else.

  He tightened his grip and leveled the gun. Callie opened her eyes, looking at the window. He didn’t think she saw him, but he had seen her eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes that looked like she was looking past him into some distance he could not see. Charlie felt a tug at his heart which he couldn’t ignore.

  He closed his eyes, then turned away from the window, lowering the gun.

  Charlie ran upstairs instead, grabbed one of his duffel bags, filled it with some food, some comics, a couple of pistols, some bullets, and kept the shotgun. Then he grabbed the keys to Derek’s Toyota and drove as fast and far as he could, tears in his eyes.

  **

  As Charlie drove, he replayed the events in his head over and over again, wondering how long Callie had liked Bob. Wondering why she didn’t tell him. Wondering if she was just using both of them, sticking with whichever one would provide a better chance of survival. If that were the case, Bob had Charlie beat by a long shot.

  He wanted to be mad, was mad, but at the same time, he couldn’t ignore biological imperatives. If the world really did flush all the people away, then it was survival of the fittest again. And a big ape like Bob was at the top of the food chain. He would get the best of everything, including the women. He’d get them despite the fact they were nothing more to him than things to fuck, use, and abuse.

  The more things change, the more they seem the same.

  **

  Charlie was about an hour or so into Alabama, driving along the highway, jamming to a Tool CD. Neither Derek nor his lover seemed like the typical Tool fan, but who was Charlie to judge. People surprised him every day. At least this was a pleasant surprise.

  He banged on the steering wheel to the throbbing drum tracks of Forty Six and Two, letting his rage out through music — the only therapy he believed in.

  He wasn’t sure where he was going, but would drive until he found something. He didn’t know anyone outside of Florida, except his grandmother in New Jersey, senile and in a home. Well, she had been in a home. She was probably gone now, which was for the best. He didn’t want to think about his grandma being eaten by zombies.

  He liked the idea of just driving until something spoke to him.

  More than that, he liked the idea of starting over.

  Where nobody, assuming there was anybody left, knew him. Where he could reinvent himself as a stronger, cooler guy. The guy that got the girl. The guy who wasn’t too pussy to go after what he wanted.

  Someone other than Charlie Pussy Ass Wilkens.

  “My name is Boricio,” he said into the mirror, rolling the ‘r’, even though the guy in his dream didn’t seem Spanish.

  If anyone asks, my name is Boricio. Heh, I kinda like the sound of that.

  Charlie was speeding along the highway screaming out the lyrics to Eulogy when the car started acting weird, as if the engine had just been cut off.

  He turned down the music as the car coasted to a stop. That’s when he saw the red gas light on the dashboard.

  Fuck me!

  As the car died, he stared out his window along the long rural stretch of road. Nothing as far as he could see ahead. And behind him, it had been at least a few miles since he’d passed any signs of what was left of civilization.

  As if on cue, the sun was eclipsed almost all at once by dark, angry looking clouds.

  So, what you gonna do now, Charlie Boy? Only it wasn’t his inner voice that mocked him. It was Bob’s.

  “Fuck you, Bob.”

  He thought about getting out of the car and walking back the way he came until he found a place to hole up for the rest of the day and night, or maybe find a new car. But as he was about to get out of the car, he was interrupted by the loudest thunder he’d ever heard. It sounded as if someone were tearing the roof from the top of the world. Lightning flashed not too far ahead.

  Rain followed, hitting his windshield in fat, loud drops that sounded like rocks.

  Charlie reached into the duffle bag, found a book, a collection of P.K. Dick stories, and eased his seat back. He was going to be in the car a while.

  About an hour into this book, he saw headlights in his rearview mirror.

  He pulled the seat back up and threw his book on the seat, then reached into the duffel bag for the Glock. He checked the ammo, made sure the safety was off, and put the gun in his lap as the lights drew closer.

  His first thought was that Bob and Callie had come after him. But as the vehicle got closer, he saw that it wasn’t a car, but rather a van.

  It parked right behind Charlie’s car.

  Oh shit.

  Charlie sat, frozen, unsure what to do.

  It was too dark and the rain falling too hard to see the driver of the van.

  The van’s lights flicked on and off twice.

  He wants me to get out?

  The lights flicked again as if in response.

  Charlie put the gun in his waistband and stepped from the car, instantly drenched by the rain. He ran to the van’s driver side, relieved as he got closer and saw that the driver was a woman. She looked a bit older, a little heavy, with long, dark red hair.

  She rolled down the window a bit, “You okay, honey?”

  “Ran out of gas!” Charlie yelled over the howling wind.

  “Get in,” she said, pointing to the empty passenger seat.

  “Okay, lemm
e get my bag,” Charlie said, running back to the car, putting his book in the bag, along with the pistol from his waistband.

  He eyed the shotgun sitting in the back seat, but would have to leave it. If he came running to the van with a shotgun, the lady would probably freak out and drive away.

  He grabbed the Tool CD from the player and put it in the bag, then ran to the van and hopped into the passenger’s seat.

  “Where ya’ headed?” she asked as he got situated, putting the bag down between his feet. A black curtain separated the front of the van from the back.

  “Wherever,” he said. The van moved forward and that’s when Charlie noticed that they weren’t alone. The curtain parted and a man with red hair and a scruffy beard appeared, wearing all black, with something behind his back. As Charlie was trying to figure out what it was, the man quickly wrapped his arms around him and injected something into his neck before Charlie even had a chance to fight.

  Seconds later, Charlie hit the dashboard and was out cold.

  **

  The first thing Charlie noticed when he came to was the shaking. And he couldn’t see a thing, blindfolded and arms bound behind him. He was in the back of the van.

  A woman was laughing in the front. Charlie’s mind flashed on the woman who had lured him into the trap.

  “You believe that shit?” a man said, also from the front.

  Though he was bound, and in the back of a moving van, Charlie felt a strong impulse to squirm, kick, push, anything to break free.

  Not now. Someone else is in the van.

  “Shhh, you’ve been kidnapped,” a voice said.

  Only the voice wasn’t coming from anyone in the van.

  Instead, it was in his head.

  Boricio?

  “The one and only,” the voice responded, “You just sit tight and let these people take you where they’re gonna take you.”

  How are you talking to me?

  “No time for questions, kid. Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing. You’re about to meet the most awesome motherfucker you’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  You?

  “Who else, kid? Just close your eyes, go back to sleep, and don’t rock the boat until it’s time for us to mutiny on these motherfuckers.”

  Charlie had never been one to believe in things like fate or things happening for a reason. But there was no mistaking that something was happening here. Something weird, fantastic, and terrifying all at once. He was on the verge of discovering his destiny in a man named Boricio.

  ****

  BORICIO WOLFE

  Now why can’t he just shut the fuck up? I’ve got Manny, Moe, and Jack to my right and only Moe has to be a fucking hard-on. Can’t wait to shut your yap box, you whiney bitch. Gonna start things off with you, too. Should start with Manny, but fuck if you deserve to live an extra 16 seconds.

  Boricio had been trying to brew banter with Adam for the better part of 15 minutes and Moe kept butting into the conversation. If Adam were a chick, Moe was a Cock Blocker Extraordinaire. Adam knew something. Something big. Boricio needed to know what it was. That was enough to spare his life, but the kid had been smart enough to tip Boricio with another reason or two.

  He could get answers out of Adam easy as shit, but only with rhythm, and that wasn’t going to happen with Moe shoving his dick into the conversation every five minutes. Worthless piece of shit hadn't delivered a single fact Boricio could use, except maybe that the Jackson “Dead Guard Walking” fucker is a sadistic asshole, but Boricio didn’t need a back bayou shaman to see that one. At least the other guys were mostly quiet.

  “Hey, Jack, how’d you get caught?” Boricio asked, hoping if Jack spoke for a little bit, Moe might latch onto him and give Boricio some space to talk with Adam.

  “Was the strangest shit. You’d never believe it if you didn’t have all this other no way, no how to believe already. And it’d be funny even if it wasn’t so goddamn terrifying, or maybe if I heard it from someone else. See, weird thing was, I was wide awake when it happened, least I had been just a ball hair before. I came home late, worked till 1:30 at the Ugly Tuna because Richie always stops showing up for his shifts whenever it’s his first week with some new tail. And he ain’t never gonna get fired because Nate’s been married to his ma for the last two years. Anyways, I was out of there by 10 til, and home by five after. Me and Nadine started fuckin’ straight up at 2:12, because the clock is on her side and we was both facing that way. So I started getting my face on, you know, but right before I popped, I suddenly blacked out, except I wasn’t gone nowhere unconscious. I was still fuckin‘ and feeling and all, but I was sorta suspended with animation, or whatever they call it. Couldn’t move and couldn't see. Time just hung like that for a helluva spell until all of a sudden I was poppin the weasel without a Nadine to catch it. She was totally gone and the clock was blinking 2:16.

  “So you only lasted four minutes?” asked Manny.

  “I told you there was suspended animation.”

  “That’s a crazy story, man,” Boricio said, “You must have been out of your head! What did you do? How long until you found someone else? Where did you go?” Jack was sucking down his own story like a fat kid with cake, so Boricio obliged him with a new handful of questions.

  “I left the house and saw the town was full of nothing but empty, then came back home for two days not knowing what to do. I finally got into Nadine’s Honda; it had less gas in it, but got way more to the gallon than the Chevy, and I hit the road. I didn’t see no one for a long while until I came on an old church my second day driving. The church looked Catholic, and all the lights were on, which seemed like a miracle in itself. Fools gold, though. Before I hit the holy water no less than three guns were aimed at my face. Something hit me hard from behind and next thing I knew, I was in here.”

  A lot of shit seeped in the silences between people’s sentences, finished and unfinished. That fucker Jack knew something about something, and wasn’t saying shit about it. That wasn’t gonna do Boricio one cunt hair of good. No, he’d get that fucker to kick a jumbo pot of beans before he ended him.

  “That sounds so scary,” Boricio said. “I bet it felt right good when you first saw those lights and thought you’d found some people.” He seasoned his sentence with a sympathetic pause, then added, “Too bad it turned out like it did.”

  “Yeah, but at least I’m with other folks now. It was awful being in the middle of all that nothing...”

  There it was. Boricio heard it clear, even if everyone else was too stupid to hear the shit that wasn’t being said. “What else did you see out there, man?”

  Silence.

  “It’s okay, we’ve all seen some crazy stuff in the last few days. World’s gone upside down. We’ll believe you. Right guys?”

  A murmur of agreement rippled around the room, followed by a lingering silence. Boricio didn’t press it. A long silence was exactly what Jack needed to be drawn into talking. Finally, he drew a deep breath and let it spill.

  “Day before I hit the church I saw something moving off the side of the road. Crazy looking and not quite right, a bit like road kill, but longer, more human. I slowed as I got closer, and sure as the shits at a chili cook off, it was wearing people clothes. I got out, real slow cuz it was just laying there, but laying there all wrong, if you know what I mean, though you probably don’t. I was halfway to it before I thought to go back and grab the Winchester from the Honda. I tiptoed to the thing, and about lost it when I got up close. It was black and white, dirt and light. The grimiest, scariest, living scarecrow of a creature I ever saw, and I worked at a slaughterhouse for two years. The thing started making all sorts a unholy sounds and then it tried to get up. I don’t even know if it could have, but I emptied the rifle into it before I got the chance to find out. I put every bullet where its face should’ve been, just in case. Then I saw another creature just like it later that night. So the short of it is, I’m with the kid; maybe this place right here ain’t so bad after
all.”

  No one spoke, then Moe said, “Anyone else see these jitterbugs?”

  A chorus of yes’s followed, Boricio’s included, though he added his last, and he was lying.

  These Mexican bean jittery fuckers don’t sound like no soldiers of any sort. They sound like some kind of accident, courtesy of whatever Armageddon dipshit let the fries burn in the first place.

  “I seen worse,” Adam said. “I seen a bunch of them things. First one was in my house. I swore the thing was coming for my old man. Would’ve sworn on a stack a Holy Bibles a foot high. I thought the Devil had come to bring him home, and I ran from the house as soon as I saw it. I ran straight for the gorge, since that’s where I like to go when I don’t want to be found, and I saw six or seven more on the way. When I got there, I couldn’t believe what I saw — a couple dozen more of them things just quivering at the entrance. And just past them, that was the scariest shit I ever seen. There were bodies, dead people, hundreds, maybe even thousands. All of ‘em stacked. Stacked so high you wouldn’t believe. It looked like...”

  Eureka! Organized disposal! Hunters!

  “What do you mean stacked?” interrupted Manny. “You mean the bodies were in a pile?”

  “No, sir. Not a pile. A stack. The bodies were stacked in rows. Like pallets in a warehouse.”

  Boricio smelled something on Moe. Whatever the fuck had been brewing in that guy’s ball sack earlier was boiling now. Something was off, and it had to do with the way Adam was telling his story.

  There was a click, a whine, and a warm gust of air, followed by the unmistakable scent of that asshole, Jackson.

  Looks like it might be game time. Don’t know how much more I’m gonna dig from this crowd. I’m leaving with some intel and an ally. Might be ready to leave with a scalp or two, too. Maybe I’ll let old Dead Guard Walking decide, give him a chance to live another small while just to be a good sport. But if he wants to live, he’ll have to be a good puppy and show me.