Yesterday's Gone: Season One

by Platt, Sean

  John wasn’t happy about it, but since everyone else agreed, he kept his grumbling to a minimum... so far.

  Though the bleakers had let Will and Luca pass into the hotel unharmed, nobody was willing to take the chance that they’d allow them to leave with such ease. For one, the creatures sounded as if they’d grown angrier. Their shrieks grew louder, their clicking more incessant. And in some cases, when one of the group passed by a window or the front doors, the creatures hissed at them.

  Since they weren’t going anywhere, Mary and the group decided to kill some time while getting to know their new guests.

  Mary sat in the bar sipping a soda as she watched Paola playing cards with the boys, a smile on the girl’s face, almost as if she’d managed to temporarily shed the horror of the last few days. Laughter rolled in a circle, from Jimmy to Luca to Paola and back to Jimmy. It was impossible to tell her daughter had been at the edge of death a few hours before.

  But Paola hadn’t died. Something had happened.

  Paola didn’t remember much, though. She remembered her father calling her out of the hotel in her sleep. But the man wasn’t really her father. She thought she’d been dreaming, but also knew she wasn’t. Something visited her. Paola knew it. And Mary sensed it. Something had invaded her child’s soul. And while Luca had somehow saved her, Mary couldn’t be certain that whatever happened wouldn’t happen again. Or that the danger was gone.

  Once your child is threatened, especially by something so mysterious, Mary figured, you never really feel completely safe again.

  Paola’s laughter rang through the room; beautiful music Mary had been longing to hear. She was happy to see her smiling, covering her mouth as Jimmy flaunted his loud personality. Jimmy was such a talker, but the last several days had worn on his voice. It was nice to see him stepping into his natural rhythm again. The group could certainly use the humor.

  Mary wished she wasn’t so suspicious of Luca. But she felt hot, and the guilt was a parka wrapped around her. He had dropped from the heavens and rescued her daughter with barely a word. She should feel nothing but grateful.

  And she was, but grateful didn’t soothe the knowing inside her. The knowing that said something was horribly off about the boy. And not just the aging. Sure, that was weirder than Koontz, but she could almost accept that. Life didn’t come with free lunches, and perhaps the price of saving Paola was paid in age. It was amazing the boy had been willing to pay it. That should have been enough for Mary.

  But it wasn’t.

  Her instincts said something was wrong. Really wrong.

  “Mind if I sit?” Will said, taking a seat next to her.

  “Of course not.”

  Will smiled then sat. “Long morning?”

  “You could say that.” Mary couldn’t help but smile. Something was undeniably warm about the old man. Wild, but sweet. Her instincts said shelter.

  “Looking forward to leaving, I imagine,” Will said.

  “Yeah, I don’t even care what happens. I just don’t want it to happen here.”

  “Where’s home for you?”

  “Here, Missouri. You?”

  “Everywhere, anywhere where there’s interesting people. I never stay long enough to get bored, though.”

  Mary changed the subject to the one she’d been wanting to ask since he had arrived with Luca. “You said you had dreams about us. What happened in the dreams? How did you know to trust them?”

  Will looked shy. “I can’t really say what happened. Long story short, whenever I tell people what happens in my dreams, it never turns out good. It’s best if I can just do what I can to try and help as much as possible.”

  “But you can tell me what you saw with Paola, what already happened, right?”

  “I wish I could. But in her case, the details were vague. It’s not even a matter of me not wanting to tell you, I’m really unable beyond a feeling.”

  “What was the feeling?” Mary asked, leaning so far on the edge of her seat, she might fall at the slightest jolt.

  “There was something bad in her.” Will said, “Something that’s bigger than all this stuff going on. But I also knew that Luca could help her.”

  Mary stared at Will, then over at Luca, not sure what to say.

  “He’s a good kid, Mary. The best. He gave his soul a beating for Paola, and it left him with a temporary scar. You’re not sure how to feel about this, are you?”

  Mary looked down, ashamed. “I don’t know why, but I feel like something’s wrong with the whole thing, and hate that I do.” She looked up, a tear sliding to her chin. “I know what he did for her, and for me, but something feels so ugly.”

  “Look at it like this.” Will leaned forward. “Whatever happened between Luca and Paola helped her, right?”

  Mary nodded.

  “So if there was something terrible inside Paola and now there isn’t, that means Luca took it away. So where do you think the terrible thing went?”

  Mary gasped. “Into him? That’s terrible.”

  “I think that’s why you’re sensing something bad in him. But he’s gonna be fine. Trust me. He’ll process it. If he weren’t able to, we wouldn’t be here right now. He’ll be good as new in no time. Then you’ll see what I see, and I’ll get to hear you tell me I was right.”

  Will winked and Mary smiled.

  “It’s all just so hard to believe,” Mary said. “I mean, how do you even know any of this? How did you know to trust your dreams and come here?”

  “I don’t, but I tend to see things a lot of people don’t.” Will said, “Most people see things from their own limited viewpoint. And that makes it hard to accept things like what we’ve got going on here. But when you consider possibilities, the things we don’t know, and keep an open mind, weird things like this, oddly enough, are a bit easier to grasp. Are common dreams really harder to believe than any of this?” He waved his hands toward the parking lot and its lurking monstrosities.

  “No,” Mary said. “Not at all. Much easier, actually.” She sat quietly, then asked, “Any theories on the aging?”

  Will scratched his head. “Sure, I got theories. Which one you want? I got the one you won’t like, the one you’ll like even less, and the one that probably won’t bother you at all, which also happens to be the one I’d say is most likely anyhow.”

  “Let’s go with that one,” Mary smiled uncomfortably then shifted in her seat.

  “You ever heard of rapid aging diseases in children?”

  “Not really.” Mary shook her head. “I mean, I think I saw something on Oprah, but I’m going to sound like an idiot if I try to tell you what I know.”

  “There’s a disorder called Progeria. It’s a genetic mutation, hereditary but just barely. Kids who get Progeria rarely live past their mid teens or early twenties. And most of the minutes spent between birth and death are misery. The disorder’s rare, but indiscriminate, hitting both sexes and every ethnic group. There are other accelerated aging diseases, but what makes Progeria different is that while other diseases are caused by DNA damage in the body’s cells, Progeria is caused by a gene mutation. With me so far?”

  Mary nodded.

  “Kids with Progeria show symptoms around a year and a half to two years old. These are the kids you’ve seen on TV: hair loss, crinkly skin, brittle bones. Even their teeth are mangled, either barely there or missing entirely. Sound like our boy to you?”

  Mary shook her head. “No, not at all.”

  “If Progeria is a gene mutation and the other disorders are DNA related, and none fit with what’s happened to Luca, where would you guess the problem lies?”

  Before Mary could answer, John was three feet away, clearing his throat. “It’s getting worse out there,” he said. “Desmond’s been watching the bleakers, and it’s looking bad. Their numbers are growing and they seem to be moving faster and getting smarter. They’re opening unlocked car doors and climbing inside. Desmond’s getting worried about the cargo van, but still th
inks we should wait until morning to leave. I’m not so sure.”

  He turned to Will. “I was thinking we could use the helicopter and shuttle out to the airport. You could fly us in turns. Maybe we could get a plane. What do you think?”

  “Not gonna work. I don’t think we should split up.” Will said with a pleasant keeping-the-peace sort of smile. “I think that when we’re ready to leave, we should all leave together. And besides, it’s not as easy as grabbing a plane and getting it in the air. You’ve no idea how hard it is to find the right one, fuel up, make sure everything is working. It isn’t like we have a ground crew. Took me a helluva lot of prep to get us here in the first place. Plus, we have a lot more weight to handle now. Of course, we can find plenty of transportation at the airport, guaranteed, but it might be smarter to stay on the ground, at least until we know where we’re going. Altogether, I’m not so sure the airport is the best idea. But,” Will shrugged, “if that’s where we elect to go, I’ll get us there safe.”

  “You don’t seem too concerned,” John said, a hint of accusation in his voice which annoyed Mary, but seemed to bounce off Will. “You still operating on this hunch of yours?”

  “For now, that’s all I’ve got,” Will said. “And as for my concern, well, no, I’m not, really. Don’t get me wrong.” he gestured outside. “There’s a nightmare waiting, but it’s not meandering around the parking lot of a Drury Inn, least not yet.”

  John stared at Will, as if he weren’t sure whether he was dealing with idiocy or dementia. “What on Earth are you talking about?”

  “Those things outside? They’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

  “Bullshit,” John said.

  Mary wondered how long Will would stay polite to John’s growing bitchiness.

  Will shrugged again. “You see it from whatever angle you like. But those ‘bleakers,’ as you call them, are just children. They’ll grow up and get mean like most of us do, but right now, we need to let them be and get out of here precisely one second after it makes sense to do so. It’s not like they’re storming in here or organizing an effort to attack, right?”

  “We’re in danger every minute we’re here, and it seems like common sense went the same place as the rest of the planet’s pulse.” John turned on a heel and headed back to his station by the front. Dog Vader barked from the other side of the bar.

  “See,” Will said with a wink to Mary, “even Dog Vader agrees.”

  “Your dog’s name is Dog Vader?” Mary asked.

  “Luca’s dog, Luca’s name for him.”

  “Ah,” she said, “So where were we? I think you were trying to bore me with talk about DNA and gene mutation, right before you told me that none of it mattered.”

  Will laughed. “Right. Well, it doesn’t, really. But rapid aging exists in science, and I wanted to illustrate what science already knew, so I could paint an accurate picture of what it doesn’t. I don’t believe Luca’s age has a thing to do with his DNA and I don’t think he’s suffered a mutation. I think it’s all up here.” Will tapped the side of his temple.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve heard the urban legend that if you die in your sleep, you’ll die in real life, right?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that. But it’s not true. Right?”

  “No, not true at all. But the legend makes sense since the mind is the mother of everything. If you believe something strongly enough, you can sometimes will it to happen. Like sometimes you won’t want to get sick before a big event or something, and sure enough, a day or two before it’s set to occur, you’ve got the sniffles. You willed yourself to sickness, even though it wasn’t intentional, and the last thing you wanted to do. You created the conditions to make it happen though, activated parts of your body, shut others down, and a bunch of stuff we don’t even know we’re doing. Now this doesn’t mean you can get money to rain from the sky like those quacks from The Secret would swear, but the brain is amazingly complex and powerful. And as advanced as science is, in many ways, brain research is still in the dark ages. And I hate to say it, but it looks like research just slowed by a century or so.”

  “So are you saying Luca just made himself older?”

  “Ha, if you want to reduce my theory to a simplified sentence, sure. Our bodies are capable of so much we don’t even know. Unfortunately, we usually find out through accidental discovery like when people’s skin turns to bone and the rapid aging stuff. I’m just saying, our bodies contain all sorts of buttons and features we haven’t even seen. Maybe whatever got inside your daughter and Luca hit a switch.”

  Desmond walked up, heavy breath and sweat on his brow.

  “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “No, just playing a round of ‘What The Hell Is Going On Here?’” Mary exchanged a smile with Will. “What’s up?”

  “Well, the bleakers are definitely more... confident, and it seems the later it gets, the more of them show up and the more energized they are.” Desmond gestured nervously toward the front door. “John’s edgy and wants to leave right now. I can see why; it’s getting grim out there. But I’m inclined to think we should stay. What about you, Will? What’s your gut tell you?”

  “I’m still thinking morning. I won’t argue if everyone else votes to leave now, but I don’t think those gruesome uglies pose much of a threat.”

  Desmond raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

  “I think they will get dangerous, and soon, but I don’t think they’re there yet. And if their numbers are thinner and speed slower in the morning, as you all said they were, that seems like the ideal time to split. One more night in a comfortable bed won’t make much of a difference, and might end up being what keeps us all alive.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Desmond asked. Mary noted that, as usual, curiosity, not confrontation, edged his question.

  “I never claimed certainty, but it’s what I feel inside.” He turned to Mary. “Mary knows what I mean.”

  “Great, now there’s two of them.” Desmond raised his hands over his head in mock frustration. “I suggest we hunker down early and get as much sleep as possible tonight. We’ll head out as early as we can in the morning. Sound good?”

  “Sounds great,” Mary said.

  Will nodded.

  Desmond saluted, then turned and went back to John.

  “How many more interruptions you think we’ll have?” Mary asked.

  “Twelve.” Will smiled.

  “So, if Luca could make himself five years older, does that mean he can make himself five years younger too?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, growing is a natural occurrence. His just sped it up. Growing backwards, though, not natural. I won’t say it’s impossible, but I think it highly unlikely.”

  Mary sank into the weight of what Will was saying, then changed the subject, pointing toward the trio of Uno players. “Think they’re having fun?”

  “You ever seen anyone not having fun with a deck of Uno?”

  Mary rolled her eyes. “Obviously you don’t have children. Kids these days can look like they’re not having fun while playing PS3 on the floor of a candy factory.”

  “Ah,” Will said. “The old too much and not enough syndrome.”

  “Yeah, that’s about right.” She was still studying the group. “They look so... happy.”

  “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “Of course,” Mary said. “Just seems... unnatural. How can they laugh and smile with everything that’s going on?”

  “That’s ridiculous, Mary, and you know it. Don’t try and tell me you haven’t found reason to laugh or smile or hope in the last few days, because I know full well you have. And I don’t have to be in your dreams to see it, or to watch you light up every time Desmond Do-Right over there opens his mouth.”

  “Not true,” Mary said, barely hiding a smile.

  “Okay, whatever you say. But that’s the beauty of the human condition; we’re always able to see th
e spring on the other side of winter, so long as we’re willing to try.”

  Will slid back in his chair. Mary sank into hers.

  She allowed the old man’s warmth to blanket her. Maybe he was right about Luca; maybe she had nothing to fear. But a new knowing was inside her, one that was only now starting to surface; seeds germinating in the silences of all that Will wasn’t saying.

  But a small part of her could hear it, and that part sensed how terrible it was.

  * * * *

  BRENT FOSTER

  October 16

  2:14 p.m.

  East Hampton Docks

  East Hampton, New York

  They spent nearly five hours getting to the docks, after first stopping at a clinic and bandaging Luis’s arm, then grabbing some medicine and first-aid supplies for the road. They ran into a wall of stalled cars blocking passage to the bridge, so Brent had to get out of the BMW and move nearly a dozen cars. They all had keys dangling from ignitions, but the majority were either out of gas or dead as the world, and needed to be pushed aside.

  Fortunately, they’d not seen any other aliens along the way.

  Unfortunately, the fog had grown so thick and dark, their visibility was even worse on the coast than in the city. And the coast was just as much a ghost town, if not more, due to its lack of skyscrapers. While Brent half expected to find a bunch of people waiting at the docks for the ferry, or cars left by people who’d taken it across already, they found neither.

  Instead, they saw a large yellow cardboard sign with big black letters, reading:

  “FERRY WILL RESUME TOMORROW at 8 A.M.”