Yesterday's Gone: Seasons 1-6 Complete Saga

by Sean Platt

  How did I get here? Where am I?

  He remembered what the men in black had said after waving the blue light over him.

  Infected.

  He looked down at his arms and chest, pale beneath the harsh lights above. He wasn’t sure what the signs of infection were, but he felt no different. And his skin was its normal pasty shade of pale.

  They must have it wrong. Besides, when would he have been infected? How would he have been infected?

  Charlie thought back to the monstrosity in the back of the truck. Then to the bald fucker who had tracked him and Adam to Boricio’s compound, the one who had turned monster. Charlie didn’t want to become one of those things. He would rather die.

  They had to be making a mistake.

  Yes, that’s it. They made an error. Like when the light beeped on the kid, then it didn’t. I need another test.

  I feel perfectly fine.

  Thinking of the kid, and how they’d shot him even though he wasn’t infected, sent a chill through Charlie’s already icy body.

  What kind of fuckers do that? What do they want? Are they looking for infected people, and fuck the rest? And if so, why? They starting a zoo? Or some kinda freak show carnival?

  And if these are the same people who took Callie, is she infected, too? Is she in a cell just like me?

  As Charlie sat on the bed with the pillow still covering his lap, certainty spread through his body. He was being watched.

  Though he couldn’t see anything beyond his reflection, Charlie was suddenly certain that someone was standing on the other side of the glass; he could feel them as sure as he felt the flow of cold air creating goose bumps across his naked flesh.

  He looked down, feeling even more exposed, shifted on the bed, then stared up at the holes in the ceiling again, wondering at their purpose.

  Is that where the air is flowing from? No, that’s the black grid above the toilet. So, what are the holes for? Gas, like the Nazis used to gas the Jews in World War II?

  Movement pulled Charlie’s eyes to the other side of the glass and straightened his back. He pinched his eyes, but saw only his reflection staring back.

  “Well, ain’t this some beer-battered bullshit?” a voice said, surprising Charlie.

  He nearly leapt off the mattress before realizing the voice had come from Boricio who was sitting beside him, also naked, though no pillow covered what looked more like an anaconda than a cock. Unlike the dream he’d had in the truck, this Boricio wasn’t neatly dressed. His hair was long and his face unshaven. Boricio’s appearance, along with the mirrored walls, made Charlie hopeful that this was just another dream. If so, perhaps the truck, Adam’s death, and all of that had been a dream as well. Maybe he’d wake up on the road next to the van they stopped to investigate.

  “Is this a dream?” Charlie asked.

  “Sorry, Charlie Brown,” Boricio said. “This shit’s as real as it gets.”

  Charlie wasn’t sure he trusted Boricio’s assessment. Dreaming up a lie was easy to do. So was dreaming of Boricio to substantiate the lie.

  “Are you really here?” Charlie asked.

  “Nope,” Boricio shook his head. “I’m in your noggin, though that don’t make me a molecule less real.”

  “What the hell does that mean? You’re either here or you’re not.”

  Boricio turned and smiled, “Open your mind and think outside the box, Chuckie FuckStick. Your head has room for a little hippie bullshit. This is some to be or not to be shit here. Do you think you’re going insane in the membrane, insane in the brain?”

  Oh fuck, I’m losing my mind!

  “And Bingo was his name-O,” Boricio sang.

  “Wait, you heard me thinking?”

  “Yeah, and you might wanna stop talking out loud, because they’re listening, and nothing makes you look crazy quite like a fucker talking to himself.”

  Charlie moved his eyes across the walls of glass, trying to see through to the dark on the other side. He saw nothing but Charlie, Charlie, and more Charlie. It was The Charlie Show everywhere he looked, without even a hint of his co-star, Boricio.

  So, what? I just think and you can hear me?

  “Yup,” Boricio said, still talking with his mouth, though Charlie figured they couldn’t hear him if he was only an imaginary version of Boricio.

  Where am I?

  “A place called Black Mountain,” Boricio said.

  How do you know what this place is called if you’re not real?

  “You must’ve heard it, but don’t remember. I’m just telling you what you already know.”

  So, what good are you?

  “Fuck you, Charlie Chum Water. I’m here to keep your ass from crackling in the heat of the fire. You ain’t even gonna get by, let alone outta here, without me. And you can believe the fuck outta that.”

  I can get by just fine on my own. I don’t need you.

  “Yeah? How’s that whole going-it-alone thing working so far? Let’s take a minute to tally all that’s happened since we last saw one another, mkay? You got eaten by some giant fucking tornado, then spit into a snowstorm. You lost Callie. You almost froze to death until Adam saved your ass. Then you both got caught. Adam lost his fucking head, and you let a boy get shot to death. Now you’re infected and trapped in a cell. So yeah, America voted, and we’re gonna have to be sending you home.”

  Shut up!

  Charlie closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at Boricio.

  Boricio whistled, then said, “I’m still here,” singing like he was Tweety Bird.

  Go away. I don’t need you.

  “Okay,” Boricio said.

  Charlie looked around the room to see where Boricio had gone, as if he were real and confined to the same laws of physics as Charlie. But the figment was nowhere. Charlie felt alone again, wishing he’d not banished his only companion, even if that companion was only a man inside his mind.

  Sudden movement from behind the window grabbed at Charlie’s attention. He sat straighter, perking as he heard a crash, like something dropping just outside the window. A light flickered in the distance, then brightened into life, washing a second cell in white. And then another, and another, and another, until a row of cells identical to Charlie’s were all screaming with light. Every cell held a prisoner — some lying mattresses and others standing, while many were curled into balls in the corners.

  He saw two rows of 10 cells, lining either side of a long hallway. Charlie counted 12 others, with no more than one prisoner in any of the cells. At the far end of the hallway separating two rows was a thin beam of light bleeding through the bottom of a door.

  The door whooshed open, like in Star Trek, then two men wheeled a gurney down the hallway toward him. Both men were wearing yellow hazmat suits with enclosed masks and air tanks concealed beneath the yellow suits on their backs.

  A second chill ran through Charlie as he stared, open mouthed and waiting, hungry to see which of the prisoners the two men would wheel out. But the men had come for a deposit, not a withdrawal, so said the long lump beneath the white sheet.

  One of the men leaned toward the cell door across from Charlie, then tapped a black glass pad in the chrome frame of the door, probably entering a code on the panel to open the door.

  The men wheeled the gurney inside the room, then hoisted the body from the gurney and onto the bare mattress, where a pillow lay waiting. The men blocked Charlie’s view of the new prisoner.

  Charlie was already wearing a chill, but it seeped into his every pore with the realization of what he was seeing. Lying naked on the mattress, either unconscious or maybe even dead, was Charlie’s best friend and unrequited love, Callie.

  Fourteen

  Brent Foster

  Somewhere in Georgia

  March 28, 2012

  FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT …

  “The Prophet?” Brent said, his weirdo alarm buzzing like crazy as the old man’s station wagon quickly closed the distance between the grocery
store and Black Mountain.

  “Yes, sir,” the old man said. “I ran a little church round here for years; The New Unity Church parishioners were a humble bunch, and all of them blessed with visions of the Lord’s Wrath on the 15th of last October, before He gathered so many of his loved ones to Heaven and cast others into Hell.”

  Brent tried to bury what he feared was an obvious bristle. He’d had little patience for charlatans and their shams before 2:15 a.m. a half year earlier. Less now.

  Brent met the man’s eyes in the rearview and felt sickened by his self-righteous smile.

  I wonder how much he’d be smiling if he knew that God had nothing to do with any of this. We were the ones pulled away, and delivered to another world. Our world isn’t empty.

  “You don’t believe me, do you, son?” The Prophet asked, meeting Brent’s eyes and deepening his chill.

  “I don’t know what I believe,” Brent said, “but I imagine I’m a ways away from saying God had anything to do with it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear … “

  “Well, why are we here, then?” Rojas asked. “I’m not saying I was any kinda Saint, but I was good, and I went to church every Sunday, and prayed every night before I went to bed. Why didn’t He take me?”

  “Well now, son, can you really tell me you’re free of sins?” The Prophet smiled kindly at Rojas, his eyes twinkling as if reflecting the sins counted in Rojas’ personal book of life.

  “Are you free of sins, Prophet?” Lisa finally cut in. “I mean, He left you here. What sins did you commit?”

  Brent didn’t pick fights, and hadn’t planned to get confrontational with the old man, especially since the guy was giving them a ride to Black Mountain, but Lisa didn’t seem to have the same reservations. She almost seems to be looking for a fight, like she hadn’t flushed it from her system during the battle at the store.

  “We’re all sinners, my dear. Just some of us are more honest than others. In answer to Mr. Rojas’ question, I can only say that God works in mysterious ways. Perhaps He is testing you as He is testing me.”

  Brent wondered how in the hell The Prophet had picked up on Rojas’ name. He didn’t recall any proper introductions. Maybe he’d gathered it like Brent had, from the man’s name tag on his tactical vest.

  Still, something’s weird.

  Brent caught Ed, sitting beside him and wearing the same set of black handcuffs, nodding subtly, as if in silent agreement that the old man was definitely suspicious. If Ed felt suspicious, too, then Brent felt a hundred times better about his hunch.

  “I know it’s hard to have faith, especially in the End Days,” The Prophet said, speaking to everyone. “Believe me, I’ve grappled with my own faith from time to time over the years.” He laughed as though delight were in his secrets before raising the sad in his voice. “I grappled again after He took my family. Then again after I lost my congregation, followed most recently by The Good Lord setting demons upon my church.” He shook his head. “Though, I was wrong on that last one. He did not set the demons upon me. That was Satan. The Lord is the one who told me about the air horn. Told me in a dream the night before my church was plagued. Do any of you ever have weird dreams?”

  Although Brent thought The Prophet learning of the air horn’s use as a weapon against the aliens in his dream was interesting, it was hardly divine intervention. If anything, it was dumb luck. But he wouldn’t argue with the man, so long as The Prophet didn’t try to sway Brent’s beliefs.

  Whatever gets you through the night.

  “I think we’ve all had weird dreams,” Lisa said. “Most people call ‘em nightmares.”

  Brent flinched at her briskness, wondering why she was being so prickly. Though he shouldn’t have been surprised, she’d been the same way with Ed. Still, he didn’t want to see religious debate erupt in the car. He wanted to get to Black Mountain so that whatever was gonna happen could finally be over and done with.

  Brent had been wondering what was next for some time. Ed seemed anxious about Black Mountain, but Brent figured that with all the chaos in the streets, he’d happily take his chances with another government entity, even if it were at odds with Black Island’s Guardsmen. Differences like these were usually political, and if Brent had one area where he was most confident, it was in his ability to navigate tricky political currents.

  He despised politics, but Brent had plenty of experience playing the game as a reporter. Even though he worked features, politics had a way of invading nearly every section of the paper, from the front page to the sports page. People were political animals by nature. Brent hoped his skills would still be useful when the bullets from Ed’s one-gun-fits-all solution thudded into a brick wall.

  Brent was easing tensions when The Prophet slowed the car to a crawl, and stared into the darkness ahead.

  “What’s going on?” Rojas asked.

  Brent looked up to see why they had stopped, his jaw nearly dropping at the shadows barely illuminated by the wagon’s high beams.

  The highway was blocked with tall dark towers of stacked cars, trucks, and debris, soaring 10 stories and higher, vaguely visible in the moonlight.

  “Holy shit!” Lisa said, leaning forward and shaking her head. Then, “What in the hell? This wasn’t here the other day.”

  The Prophet stared for an eternity, as if he were trying to wrap his head around who or what might have made the impossible possible. Something in his expression seemed to indicate that he didn’t think it was divine work.

  “I saw the same thing in New York,” Brent said. “Except with bodies.”

  “Bodies?” Rojas asked.

  “Yes, thousands, maybe tens of thousands, all stacked in Times Square.”

  “I wonder if those were the sinners or the saints,” Lisa said, glaring at The Prophet.

  “Where do we go now?” The Prophet asked, still preoccupied with the stacks of cars, still visibly shaken, maybe all the way to his core.

  “Turn the car around,” Lisa said. “We’ll get off at the last exit and find another way.”

  The Prophet put the car in reverse just as the engine died. The car began to roll backward, and he slammed his foot down on the brake pedal, jerking the car to a halt.

  “What the hell?” Lisa said, leaning over. “Out of gas?!”

  The Prophet leaned forward and stared at the gas gauge, seemingly as surprised by the red as he was by the stacks in the road. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve had to drive myself anywhere.”

  “Great!” Lisa said, opening the door and stepping from the car. Everyone followed, Brent growing more certain that Ed would make a break for it soon. Rojas was tasked with keeping an eye on him, but the Black Mountain Guardsman was distracted, if not outright spooked, with everything else happening. Brent watched Ed for any brewing signs for action. If he were going to make a move, it seemed like the right time.

  But Ed was quiet, perhaps biding his time.

  “Shit,” Lisa said, looking down from the overpass railing to the road below, or the crumbles that were left of it. Though dark, they could see enough detail to know that the landscape below was littered with jagged crags of debris as far as the eye could see, as if an earthquake had split the road into thousands of chunks of asphalt and earth.

  “I think there’s aliens down there,” Billy said, his first words since they’d left the shopping center.

  Brent didn’t see any signs of life, however.

  “We have two options,” Lisa said. “We can go down there and try not to break our asses. Or we go through this pile and hope that the towers don’t fall on us. Anyone have an opinion?”

  Brent was surprised she was asking anyone for input, but the question seemed mostly directed at Ed. Perhaps Ed had earned a bit more respect back at the grocery store than she was verbally willing to acknowledge. Brent stared at the road ahead of them. His eyes had adjusted a bit to the darkness, so he could see that the towers of cars sprawled for a few hundred yards or so, with just e
nough room to walk, or maybe drive, a motorcycle through. It reminded him of the vehicle piles they’d found as he and Luis were trying to make their way to Times Square, except those cars were only jammed side by side, not on top of one another, too.

  What the hell could have done this? Not the aliens?

  They can’t even climb; surely they’re not stacking cars like toys.

  Ed’s eyes narrowed as he looked down from the overpass and then back toward Lisa. “I don’t like the looks of anything down there.” He shook his head, then turned to the stacks. “I say we head straight through the maze and hope there’s a working vehicle on the other side of this maze.”

  Lisa stared at him as if trying to read what else he may have been thinking. Maybe she was wondering if he were looking for an exit, too. Hell, maybe she didn’t even have it in her anymore to care. Perhaps with everything else going on, a prisoner was the last thing she had the time, or the ability, to look after. Brent thought about Mr. Ebers, his 11th-grade shop teacher who would often turn the other cheek, pretending not to notice as several of his students fled his classroom when his back was turned. Mr. Ebers didn’t seem to have the energy to care anymore, figuring his life was easier if he just let the people who didn’t want to be there leave. Lisa’s life would be far easier if she didn’t have to deal with Ed.

  But perhaps Ed had proven himself so valuable an ally against the aliens that Lisa couldn’t stand to lose him, and therefore wasn’t about to look the other way — for even a moment.

  “Alright,” Rojas said, gesturing with his rifle. “Let’s move forward.”

  As they headed into the maze, The Prophet stood beside the stalled station wagon, unmoving.

  “You coming?” Lisa asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said after a long moment spent slowly shaking his head.

  “We’ll be fine,” Lisa said. “Bring your air horn.”

  Something flashed inside The Prophet’s eyes, and for a moment, Brent could have sworn the man’s face went blurry for a split second. Brent blinked and rubbed his eyes. The Prophet was looking at him. “You okay?” he asked as he reached into the car and grabbed the air horn.