Yesterday's Gone: Seasons 1-6 Complete Saga

by Sean Platt

  “What kinda job did you have?”

  Ed wasn’t sure if the kid knew and was just fucking with him or if Jade really had kept quiet.

  “You didn’t tell him?” Ed asked, turning to Jade.

  “Your name didn’t come up much,” she said, a look in her eyes he didn’t want to see.

  “The less you know, the better, Ken,” he said. “Let’s just say it was my job to be prepared for any eventuality. And I was good at my job.”

  Ken smiled nervously before breaking eye contact. Ed didn’t think the kid was sleeping with his daughter. He seemed effeminate and looked like he’d fold like a lawn chair at the first sign of opposition. Not the kind of guy he’d want dating his Jade. But then again, girls tended to go out with exactly the kind of guys most likely to disappoint their absent fathers. And being an absent father, there wasn’t a whole damned lot you could do about it.

  As Ed watched Ken scramble to fill a grocery bag with items, he felt like someone was watching him. He turned to see Jade and Teagan both staring. Unlike Ken, Jade kept eye contact.

  “I’ll be right back,” Ken said, “I need to get something from next door.”

  The way Ken said the word something and exchanged glances with Jade, Ed figured it was some kind of drug. Hopefully it was only weed and not meth, cocaine, or any of the really dangerous shit. Otherwise, he’d have to play Strict Dad, a role he never felt comfortable in, especially given how little he was present in Jade’s life. However, that didn’t mean he would stand idly by if he thought she was endangering herself. Being a parent meant sometimes you had to be the Bad Guy — a role Ed was all too familiar with.

  “So, this place of yours in Florida,” Jade began, “How long have you had it? How do you know it’s still there?”

  Ed, confused by the line of questioning. “It’s still there. Trust me.”

  Suddenly, a scream came from the next apartment. Ken, followed by an unholy shriek and clicking, then the crash of furniture and someone hitting the wall.

  Well, there’s the missing alien.

  Ed grabbed his guns, raced into the hall and into the next apartment. Ken was on the ground balled up and screaming as the creature stood over him, swiping down. Fortunately, it was one of the aliens with stumps instead of clawed hands.

  Ed raised his pistols, surprise on his side, and went for the shot. Something hammered Ed in the back, knocking the wind out of his lungs and sending him sprawling forward into a circular dining room table. He landed on top, and went tumbling over it, taking the table with him, as his head slammed into a chair and the gun in his right hand bounced away.

  To his right, the first creature, atop Ken, turned, eyes dialing in on a motionless Ed, who was lying on his back, the back of his head splitting in pain.

  The alien who had hit him from behind — and Ed was almost positive it was an alien now — stood fully and opened its mouth wide, releasing a shrill screech and clicking sound which bore deep into Ed’s skull. The one that had attacked him from behind, which did have claws, joined in the clicking. As both creatures approached, Ed fought to maintain consciousness, vision blurring at the edges as pain threatened to shut him down.

  Must fight it ... Pain is an illusion. It’s how you respond to it that matters ... Push it down, drive it down deep.

  He fought the pain, raising his left arm at the clawed creature, trying to aim for its head. But his vision was too blurred. He felt like he was looking through sheer wet cloth. He closed his eyes, then opened them again, as the creature screamed louder and lifted its arms.

  Gunshots thundered through the apartment as the first creature, to his right, fell to the ground. In his blurred vision, Ed made out Ken, standing, holding the gun Ed had dropped. Ken turned to fire at the second creature as Ed unloaded his clip.

  “Die, you fucker!” Ken screamed as he fired shot after shot until the creature dropped. The gun went empty, but Ken’s arm kept shaking as his finger kept squeezing the trigger.

  “You got ‘em,” Ed said, standing. “Thank you.”

  He reached out and took the gun from Ken, who was in shock and crying.

  “It’s okay,” Ed said. “They’re gone.”

  That’s when Ed saw Ken’s shoulder, bloodied beneath his shirt. “Are you hurt badly?”

  “It bit me,” Ken said, his voice shaking, “It fucking bit me! It was gonna eat me.”

  “You’re safe now,” Ed said, “Come on, let’s get back to the girls and get the hell out of here.”

  Ed retrieved fresh clips from his back pockets and loaded them into the guns. He would need more ammo soon, especially if they were going to run into more aliens.

  When they returned to 410, Jade and Teagan were terrified, “Oh my God, what happened?” Jade said, running to Ken.

  “He got bit,” Ed said, “We need to get out of here. Now.”

  “Are you okay?” Jade asked them both.

  “Yeah,” Ed said, “Ken really saved my ass back there.” May as well throw in a good word for the kid, Ed thought. Maybe Ken wasn’t as weak as he seemed. Ed wasn’t sure if the kid were gay, but if he wasn’t, he just proved himself worthy of Jade’s attention. “We need to leave right now, though. God only knows how many more of those things are lurking outside.”

  Ed went to the window to see if any more aliens were in the parking lot.

  That’s when he saw them. Not monsters, but two black vans in the parking lot that hadn't been there before.

  The window in front of him shattered and something stung him in the chest. He glanced down to see he’d been hit with some sort of dart. Jade, Teagan, and even Ken screamed as a second dart crashed through the window. Ed turned to see them looking at him, horror in their eyes.

  Then he fell.

  Fifty-Nine

  John Larson

  After he got good and drunk and spilled his secrets to Desmond, a guy he didn’t even particularly like, John slinked off to his hotel room. What alcohol didn’t help, he hoped sleep would.

  He was snoring in seconds, and stayed that way until he shot straight up in bed, wide awake and ravenously hungry. The room was dark, save for a soft white glow coming through his frosted window.

  John swung his feet to the carpet and rubbed his eyes.

  What time is it?

  Hard to tell since the world was quiet and a working clock wasn’t in the room.

  The air felt liquid, like a dream. Or maybe he was still heavily intoxicated.

  He was drawn to the window. The parking lot and trees looked beautiful in the moon’s luminescence, reminding him of an illustration from a childhood book his mother used to read him. He couldn’t remember the name of the book, but he remembered the picture, a house underneath a smiling moon. And the sky was a beautiful shade of dark violet he’d never seen in nature ... until now. He remembered staring at the picture as a child and thinking how cozy the house looked, how safe, cool, and inviting. Countless times, he wished he could have jumped into the pages of the book.

  And that’s just how the world outside the hotel now looked. Safe, cool, and inviting.

  The bleakers were lined up, standing in a wide arc. The one at the front was motioning for him to come outside. The creature’s movement was so slow John felt as if he were watching time lapse photography.

  What’s the harm, it’s not like the creatures can hurt me in a dream.

  He opened his window and jumped, landing three feet from the head bleaker. It took a step back, as did the bleakers behind it, parting as though John were a king walking a red carpet. Their eyes, so big and black seemed not scary as they had before, but rather curious.

  “John!” called Jenny’s voice in the distance.

  Jenny?!

  His heart sped up as he searched the night for her.

  He stepped past the head bleaker and the rest crowded the empty space behind him, as though sending him off and wishing him well.

  “John!” Same voice, more urgent.

  He crossed the ed
ge of the parking lot, jogged across the street, then broke into a full run on the other side, heading into the nearby woods. Though he knew he was dreaming, a large part of him didn’t care. He might never see her again in the waking world. But, if he could see her in his dreams, that would at least be something. The worst thing he could imagine would be to forget her completely. The sound of her voice, the look in her eyes when she looked at him, the way her nose crinkled when she smiled.

  “John!”

  He saw Jenny, standing beside a slender tree, wearing the matte silver dress he loved, the one that made her look like an Ann Taylor princess.

  He approached his wife, tears filling his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  Jenny was silent.

  “Please, please, please forgive me,” he said. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  Her lips didn’t move.

  Her silence pained him. Though John knew it was a dream, cold indifference was a coffin of discomfort.

  “Please,” he begged, “Answer me.”

  John reached out to touch her face, but recoiled in terror as it started to shift, starting with her eyes, which went hollow. Her face reshaped itself into a breathing image of agony. His wife was gone, and in her place was the burned hide of a corpse. Its cracked skin was crimson and black, its eyes ebony and large and almost circular in shape, like a snake’s. The bones beneath the thin flesh of its face rolled like ocean waves beneath the surface as it tried the faces of people from John’s neighborhood, starting with Mary, and then Paola, Desmond, and Jimmy, moving on to everyone from the Franklin kid to the old man who spent his evenings calling out for his dog, Miley.

  John took a step back, confused. How did it know how to make all those faces? It was as if the monster was running through John’s mental Rolodex.

  The beast’s face softened, then relaxed into the familiar creamy cheeks with a rosy glow John had loved since the second he first saw her.

  Perhaps, John thought, all that darkness was simply his feeling about their fight manifesting in some monstrous shape.

  Jenny smiled at him.

  She was back.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” she said in that familiar voice that greeted him every morning, holding her arms open. “Everything will be okay.”

  John’s heart melted and broke all at the same time. Happy that she’d found the heart to forgive him, but then sad in the realization that this was surely just a dream. And when he woke, the world would continue to decay without her.

  “You don’t have to go back,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You can wake up now. And be with me.”

  “What do you mean?” John asked. “If I wake up, I’ll be back in the hotel.”

  “No,” Jenny said, “That is the dream. This is a dream. But in reality, I’m at home, in bed, waiting for you to wake up. Right now.”

  John’s head was pounding in confusion, trying to make sense of what she was saying. It didn’t seem right. Everything that had happened the past few days, that was reality... he thought. But the more he considered events, the less sense that world made. A world where everyone vanished, where bodies floated down rivers, and monsters attacked you. A world where a little boy comes and saves the day but ages in the process. Maybe that was the dream world.

  “How do I wake up?” he asked.

  “Just let me in.”

  “What?”

  “Just open your mind. Open your heart, and let me in.”

  “How do I do that?” he asked, now crying and more confused than ever. His head felt like it was in a vice, being squeezed tighter and tighter. He was so afraid to make the wrong choice and risk losing her forever.

  “That headache you’re feeling right now... that’s your dream self trying to stay in the dream.” Jenny said. “Don’t let your fear keep you from waking. Reality is waiting. You just need to let go. Come to me, John.”

  She held her arms open.

  Tears streamed down his face. But they weren’t just tears of love or joy at being reunited with Jenny. Something else was there which he couldn’t quite place.

  “Just let go,” she whispered as he fell into her embrace and kissed his cheek.

  She brought her lips to his, then reached her hands up his back, and found the back of his head. Her fingers swept through his hair in that way he loved, swirling and massaging, and then ... tightening.

  What the ... ?

  Her fingers began to dig into his skull, feeling like several bits drilling through his flesh and bone. He tried to scream, but couldn’t. Nor could he move.

  And that’s when he recognized the true source of his tears — the realization that he was about to die.

  Sixty

  Mary Olson

  Oct. 18

  Dawn

  Belle Springs, Missouri

  Mary woke feeling happy.

  She couldn’t wait to smell the fresh air of the open road. She was sick of the hotel and sick of the waiting. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand John’s urgency; she wanted to leave every bit as much as he did. But she wasn’t willing to put her daughter in danger or leave before everyone was ready. And she trusted Desmond’s judgment completely, Will’s, too, even though she met him just the day before.

  The last few days had been long, but the sun was breaking, and in an hour they would be on the road to whatever was next. Desmond had stayed up all night on guard and finalizing plans with Will. Desmond had to be exhausted, but he kept going like he thrived on exhaustion.

  “I was just thinking of you,” she said as Desmond approached.

  “Have you seen John?” he asked, minus his characteristic smile.

  Mary shook her head. “No, why?”

  “Because I can’t find him anywhere, and he was in bad shape last night. I’m trying not to worry, but I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t.”

  “I imagine you’ve checked his room?”

  “Yeah, I went through all the rooms on the first floor, but didn’t see a thing. Mind helping? I don’t want to tell the others because I don’t want anyone to worry.”

  “Of course, what can I do?”

  “I’m hoping he crashed in one of the upper rooms, trying to get as far away from the rest of us as possible. I’ll start on the top floor if you start on the second. We can meet in the middle. Sound good?”

  Mary nodded. Desmond handed her a gun.

  “Do you know how to use this?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  “Good,” Desmond said, “Just shoot or scream, and I’ll come running.”

  She took the stairs to the second floor, stepped off, then started opening doors. The first three rooms were empty, but Mary opened the door of the fourth and saw John lying motionless in bed.

  Her heart nearly stopped when she saw him.

  He was face down, motionless, his bare feet caked with dirt, as were the ankles of his jeans.

  “John,” she said tentatively. For a sick moment, she was certain he was dead.

  Then John rolled over, sat up, and opened his eyes.

  They stared at one another for 10 full seconds of silence, and Mary felt a vacuum of recognition as if he had no idea who she was. Goosebumps prickled her skin.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Never been better.” he smiled, all teeth. “Today’s the first day of the rest of my life.”

  TO BE CONTINUED ...

  ::Episode 6::

  (Sixth Episode Of Season One)

  “LIKE DOMINOES IN A ROW”

  Sixty-One

  John

  John saw from behind a thick stew of growing fascination and utter disgust.

  Who are these foul, repugnant creatures, and why are they so ... unstable?

  Their minds were all so disparate, yet each seemed to ignore their true selves so they could fade into the background of collective humanity. Empty echoes of obsolete originals, mocking distinction by granting themselv
es individual names, and walking through life as if they had free will; like they were snowflakes rather than seeds.

  It stared at Mary, one of the humans and the mother of the girl Paola, whose mind and body had been too immature to occupy. The exploration was entertaining, but she wasn’t a suitable host: too soft where it mattered. Of course, the human called John was also soft mentally, still swimming in the primordial ooze of self-discovery.

  It didn’t concern itself with such self exploration. Not when so much was out there to ingest, absorb, and assimilate. It found its purpose, and first suitable shell. This shell was good enough, with access to everything It needed to grow: the dark light of the planet’s spreading disease, and the collective memory from her most repellent species.

  It would be John, at least until its strength expanded enough to make titles pointless.

  John rubbed its temples. The shell’s memories were occasionally painful. It was different with the girl; she hadn’t been carrying nearly as many, and the ones she had, were wrapped in a sort of delicate innocence. The shell’s memories were different. Even the best of them bled with a darker edge, as though the simple act of living had marred all purity and sewed misery into even the most joyous memories. And while the girl’s feelings were sweet, they were too sweet. Sickly sweet. John preferred the dusk of depression. The shell’s emotions were murky and though it pretended to be strong, it was weak. Weaker than the child had been. That weakness coupled with a desire to cling to his own darkness is what made it so easy for It to summon John out of the hotel and to infiltrate.

  “John, it’s time to go.”

  It was the woman, Mary, still standing in the doorway after waking him. She was eager to leave, and was hurrying everyone along, even though it had been she who caused them all to stay behind in the first place, at least according to the sharp memory in the shell’s bank. But that was the thing about these human’s memories: constant prejudice made them impossible to trust.