by Sean Platt
“Why is that lady chasing her?” I said, more curious than frightened. I could feel my sister’s discomfort beside me.
“Probably because she forgot to clean her room,” my dad said. My mom suggested he change the channel, which he did immediately, but not before defensively saying to my mom, “You’re the one who likes Stephen King.”
“Was that Carrie?” I asked, pointing to the TV. My mom said yes. I have no idea how I knew.
I did know this – Stephen King books were scary and exciting. And after seeing seven seconds of Carrie, I also knew they probably had buckets of blood, which for all the swords and warfare, was something The Hobbit was seriously lacking.
I read The Talisman, fresh from the bestseller rack, still in hardcover about a month after my mom did. I took it from her room, transported it to mine, then twisted the landscape of my mind and imagination forever.
It took a couple of decades, plus a few major life changes before I realized I was a writer, but many seeds were planted in between the pages of my first stack of Stephen King books. Like The Hobbit, I rarely understood everything the first time through, but I never minded the return visits.
My parents had a small business, right around the corner from a Walden Books. Best babysitter I ever had. I devoured everything I could, hours swallowed hours and days ate weeks. That bookstore wasn’t only the best babysitter I ever had, it was also my best teacher. It’s where I read Twain and McMurtry, but it was also where I feasted on an endless supply of comic books and Blanche Knott’s Truly Tasteless Jokes books. I was eleven when I read Anne Rice’s Exit to Eden, which was a far more vivid lesson in sex than I’d ever get in school. My homework was often ignored, but by ’88, I’d read everything Stephen King had ever written, with the exception of Danse Macabre, which I admit I’ve still not gotten to.
I grew up and was soon engrossed in film, preferring the bite-sized two hour adventures. I traded King for Tarantino and PT Anderson. The common thread was the same: well-told stories I couldn't break away from, with characters and dialogue that kept me smiling.
Most recently I’ve fallen in love with the golden age of television and the serialized delight from shows such as LOST, Dexter, The Walking Dead, and The Sopranos. Great characters, open loops, and impossibly awesome cliffhangers.
These are the seeds which eventually sprouted Yesterday’s Gone.
I expected my lifetime diet of books, movies, and TV would coalesce to help me tell a well-told story. After all, I’d been doing it as a ghostwriter for years. I love telling stories and knew Dave and I could write an exciting-to-read, impossible-to-put-down adventure.
What I didn’t expect was the magic.
I started writing Yesterday’s Gone expecting the first season to be fun, and maybe a little trashy. Though Dave and I wanted to deliver the highest quality experience we possibly could, part of what I loved most about his idea for the post-apocalyptic setting, was that I was confident we could write it fast and furiously (I’m a big believer that the faster you write, the more natural your voice, but that’s a different author’s note).
I was picturing the grind house experiences of the 70’s, a trashy movie in a trashy theater that left you wanting more. I expected to enjoy writing the season, releasing it to an audience, then moving onto the next one. However, I didn’t expect to fall in love with the story, or the characters.
I love everything about Yesterday’s Gone, and after more than three million words written in the last three years, it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done.
And I never saw Boricio coming.
I can’t wait for Season Two.
Thank YOU for reading. I’m looking forward to you and I having many more adventures together.
Sean Platt
Season 2
::Episode 7::
(First Episode Of Season Two)
“SANCTUARY”
One
Mary Olson
Billings, Alabama
March 20, 2012
Five months after the events of Oct. 15
Mary woke up sticky. Another dream about Ryan.
Though he was little more than an echo of the past during her waking hours, there wasn’t a thing Mary could do to keep him from haunting her sleeping ones. Odd how the past forgot its place in dreams, where old friends, lovers, and ex-husbands held court on equal footing with the present.
A flash of sudden sorrow, then a current of guilt flooded Mary’s guts. She turned over, adjusting her eyes to the early morning that spilled through the thin opening in the thick, dark curtains. A shaft of light fell on what she assumed to be Desmond’s sleeping form, but when her eyes met his she saw that he was wide awake. Watching her again.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” he said.
“What time is it?”
Desmond turned and picked up his watch from the nightstand. “Quarter after 6.”
“You realize we don’t actually have to rise before the roosters anymore, right?”
“Old habits,” he said. “Besides, when else can I get a peep show?”
“I can’t imagine there’s anything interesting about watching a log.”
“You have no imagination,” he smiled. “Or any idea how dirty I can make mine.”
Mary blushed, like she did several times a day beneath the glow of Desmond’s compliments, though he didn’t usually start so early.
She had no idea what the last five months would have been like without him. Desmond was a godsend – smart and a natural leader — but more than that, he had a way of untangling the knots of their hardships, no matter how thick the gnarls. Without Desmond, they never would have left the Drury alive and never would have found sanctuary in their new Alabama home.
“You’re doing it again.” Desmond rubbed his hand on the ball of her knee.
“Sorry,” she met his eyes, “I was just thinking about the last few months.”
Mary was getting lost in thought a lot more often lately. Too often. She’d been known to go deep, and had her whole life. It’s what made her a good, if not great, artist. She had a way of pulling whimsy from nowhere, then displaying it in a way no one had ever seen before. But that took time and space. And now, with all the time and space in the world, it seemed as if Mary’s mind was always being pulled off to plunge deeper into her thoughts – deep enough to drown the outside world. Desmond said she could stare into the nothing for hours if he let her. If Mary didn’t trust him as much as she did, she’d swear he was lying. It never felt like more than a few minutes. She would simply start thinking about something trivial, until her mind started chasing memories down the rabbit hole, taking her in different directions each time: worrying about Paola, conflicting thoughts about Desmond, odd ideas about Luca and Will and everyone they’d met in Alabama. These thoughts had less shape and left her far from understanding, especially the thoughts about Will.
John was there sometimes, too. Like a shadow.
“What about the last three months?” Desmond kept rubbing Mary’s knee, his fingers drifting higher.
“Everything,” she said, “and all at once. But most of all I guess I’m wondering if it’s really over. Is this it? Is this our life now? Is this what it’s going to be like forever?”
“Maybe,” Desmond smiled. “But it’s not so bad, right? I’ll never have to go to another boring cocktail party. You’ll never have to worry about shipping in time for the holiday rush. And it looks like the universe finally took care of Facebook once and for all.”
Desmond’s hand had crawled all the way up Mary’s inner thigh, his fingers grazing the edge of her gummy middle. Desmond smiled again, this time more like a wolf.
“Jesus,” Mary said. “You’re like a teenager. Wasn’t last night enough?”
“You have something better to do?” He rolled on top of her. Her knees lifted in the air as she pulled her legs back toward the bed.
“Never,” she said.
His teeth touched the edge of her ear. Mary moaned s
lightly, then whispered, “You don’t need to warm me up, Tiger. Just go.”
“When I’m ready,” he said playfully, rock-hard but taking his time. “Good things come to those who ... ”
A gunshot finished his sentence, followed seconds later by the ringing of the alarm bell on top of the grain silo where one of the men was on watch.
Desmond rolled off of Mary and onto the floor. She bolted from bed, threw on a sweater and sweats, then grabbed the pistol from the nightstand. Desmond threw on his pants, grabbed the rifle in the corner of the bedroom, bolted into the hallway, down the stairs, into the living room, and to the oversized window overlooking the front yard of their four acres of farmland.
Mary ran to Paola and Luca’s room, two doors down, and threw open the door. Both children were wiping sleep from their terrified eyes. “Stay in here! Remember the plan.” Mary shouted a few decibels shy of a scream, meeting her daughter’s eyes. “And lock the door.”
Luca leaped from the top bunk, then went to the door. “Thanks, Mary,” he said, closing the door and turning the latch. Though he looked like a young teen, he was still a child who needed to be locked away.
Mary ran downstairs where Scott and Desmond were staring out the window, a few feet from Linc, all three with rifles ready. She saw the long-limbed black monsters outside, the things that had nearly killed them back at the hotel, and that stalked her dreams nightly.
“Bleakers!” Scott said, his mid-adolescent voice a crack of excitement.
“Who’s on watch?”
“Will,” Desmond said. “He’s on the silo.”
“How many are there?”
“I see four, just inside the gate,” Desmond said. “What about you, Linc?”
“Your four, then one in front of the barn,” Linc said, peering down the scope of his rifle, which he aimed out the open window.
A gunshot, from Will, thundered outside, immediately followed by a second and third.
“One by the barn is down,” Linc said, “Will needs backup. Let’s get out there now.”
Desmond was first out the door; Linc just a step behind that. Scott tried to follow, but Linc held up a palm, “You sit this one out, kid.”
“Come on,” Scott pleaded, looking at Mary, who shrugged, deferring the call to Linc. If she had it her way, Scott would be up in the room with the other kids. But that was the mother hen in her, something that she was trying not to push on Scott, who was striving to be seen as a man in the group.
“I said no,” Linc’s deep voice and former linebacker’s body was intimidating, even if everyone knew he was a bigger teddy bear than Mary. “I can’t be keepin’ an eye on you right now. Maybe next time.”
Scott’s eyes narrowed behind his thick glasses and under his straw-colored bangs. He opened his mouth to protest, but Linc wasn’t waiting for an answer. And now was obviously a bad time to make a stand. Scott swallowed and held his rifle in the air. “OK, I’ll hang here, make sure the kids stay safe.”
Linc nodded, slapped Scott on the shoulder, then he and Mary joined Desmond racing towards the gate, 50 or so yards from the house and 200 from the silo at the other end. Two of the dark monsters had broken off from the pack and were circling the silo, screeching and clicking at Will, safely out of range, unless one of the creatures started climbing the ladder, which no one had seen them manage to do. Yet.
The pair of bleakers by the gate turned their oversized, black eyes toward Desmond, Linc, and Mary, who took steady aim and opened fire, emptying their guns on their way to the barn where they could shoot from more safely. Like the bleakers they’d seen in small clusters over the last couple of weeks, these were faster and able to take more bullets than the ones they’d grown used to. Their mouths, holes with rows of jagged teeth, were wide open, wailing an unholy clicking shriek that drilled into Mary’s brain like the sound of a baby screaming for its mother.
“Shit!” Linc screamed at a bleaker that had taken a bullet straight to the face but still kept walking, without half its head; a horrifying first. Linc threw down his rifle and reached into the holster at his belt and grabbed the Glock. He squeezed off three shots until the fucker fell to the ground, twitching and clicking.
“Inside, now!” Linc ushered Desmond and Mary inside the barn, pulling a second pistol from the other holster and firing at the three new bleakers that had appeared from nowhere. Linc, an ace shot, managed to hit the first two in the forehead, then slipped inside the barn and locked the door behind him, but not before he saw something that widened his eyes and sucked the life from his face.
He stood at the door, frozen, staring at nothing.
“What is it?” Desmond asked.
Linc shook his head, not looking at them.
“I don’t even know where to start, man. I wanna say there are dozens, but that’s just to make us all warm and fuzzy. Truth is, looks like those giant-faced fuckers are oozing out of the forest right now. Definitely the biggest swarm we’ve seen so far. Maybe a hundred of ‘em.”
Mary looked out the small barn window toward the house, then over at Will – a speck on top of the silo – but said nothing. Everyone knew the only thing guarding the house and the children inside it was an old man standing on top of a silo 600 or so feet away, and Scott, who was little more than a child himself. Stating the obvious wouldn’t help a thing. Besides, even if she opened her mouth, Mary was half certain all she’d manage was a whimper.
Six shots popped through the air in neat succession, exactly two seconds apart. Will pulling the trigger from atop the silo and hitting his targets, by the sound of it. The final shot finished with a thud as a bleaker’s body banged against the side of the barn.
Mary found her voice. “We have to get back to the house,” she said. “They’re dead if we don’t.”
As if to prove her right, another shot rang loud; closer, from inside the house. Mary looked back out the window. A bleaker was pushing its way in through the front door of the house; another four were thrashing wildly a few feet behind.
“Desmond!” Mary threw him a sharp look, but he raised his arms in the air, helpless. They were reloaded, but the barn was surrounded. And with only the one small window facing the silo, they had no idea how bad it was behind them. Judging by the visible clusters storming the gate, and the speed with which the bleakers were moving, opening the barn door would be almost certain suicide.
“Let’s give it a second, so we can get our bearings.” Desmond’s voice was cool, but his hand was shaking as he cocked the gun.
“We don’t have a second, Dez!” Mary shrieked, “THEY ARE IN THE HOUSE!”
Thunder battered the barn from all sides as dozens of bleakers banged against the outside walls. Another round of shots rattled the air and hammered their nerves, while also sending them a sliver of hope as more bleakers fell.
“It’s now or never,” Desmond said, looking at Linc. “You ready?”
Linc nodded, though he looked like he was holding his shit together with floss.
Desmond opened the door firing, kicked the closest bleaker to the ground, aimed his gun at the creature’s mouth and pulled the trigger, coating the dirt in a putrid brew of chunky black.
Two bleakers rushed Linc, knocking him to the ground as his shots misfired into the air. Mary stepped toward the fallen trio and popped both of the bleakers in the back of their heads. Linc looked up, and despite all the chaos, managed a grin.
Desmond was too busy emptying his Glock into the approaching swarm to notice anything but the roar of Will’s rifle from the top of the silo, and another half dozen perfectly punctuated shots. Will was keeping them alive. But he only had so many bullets. And in the moments between reloads, they were on their own. As Mary, Desmond, and Linc pressed their way into the front yard, they got their first real glance at just how many they were dealing with. A hundred was a conservative guess. It was as if someone sent out a beacon calling every creature within miles to home in on the farm. There was no way Mary could see them getti
ng out of this alive.
The creatures were still pouring in from the woods on either side of the farm.
When will it stop?!
They were going to die today.
She looked over to Linc and Desmond in desperate search of some sign of hope in their eyes. All hope was gone.
Another gunshot from the house pulled Mary’s attention back to the children. She had to get in there. Now!
She raced straight at - and around - a bleaker, racing to the house. She raised her pistol and fired at two of the creatures blocking her path to the house. They fell, but her clip was empty. She stared at the porch where the bleakers were trying to get in the front door, which was somehow blocked, but for how long she had no idea. Nor did she know if any had already breached the door before it became blocked, as she couldn’t see Scott or hear anything in the house.
Suddenly, shots screamed out from behind, and the two bleakers in front of her fell to the ground, heads splattered.
She spun around as a midnight-blue SUV charged the gate, tearing through a huddle of bleakers, sending three to the dirt before the truck screeched to a halt, stopping with a squish as it landed on top of a bleaker’s head, popping it like a grape.
Two armed strangers — decked out in black outfits that looked like SWAT gear — leaped from the truck and opened fire on the bleakers. The driver stayed inside, threw the car in gear, then raced toward the thickest part of the swarm, mowing bleakers a handful at a time, covering the windshield and sides of the otherwise spotless SUV with gooey slop.
Linc fell into formation with the two soldiers, both clearly trained, picking off bleakers shot by shot.
Desmond raced to Mary, handed her a clip for her pistol, and they ran to the porch where three bleakers were trying to open the front door, which had been blocked by a fallen light fixture. All the bleakers had to do was kick the obstacle aside. But they kept opening the door over and over, expecting the same movement to yield a different result. Mary was glad to see the bleakers’ brains were still moving slow, even if their legs had learned to go faster. Desmond and Mary opened fire from behind and painted the porch in black.
