Yesterday's Gone: Seasons 1-6 Complete Saga

by Sean Platt

  Sullivan looked up, trying to remember. Ed launched himself forward, over the coffee table, both hands reaching out for the gun. He grabbed it by the barrel, but couldn’t pull it from Sullivan’s hands as the two men fell to the ground in a tangle. Ed pressed both of Sullivan’s hands to the ground, facing to the right, and shouted back at the girls, “Run! Get Becca and get my guns in the back yard!”

  Teagan jumped from the couch and raced upstairs while Jade ran out the back door to get the guns Ed was forced to drop. All he had to do was make sure Sullivan stayed down until Jade was back.

  Sullivan’s eyes met Ed’s, as they fought for control of the gun. His eyes looked like a scared man’s, though Ed wasn’t sure if it was the alien’s fear of Ed or Sullivan’s fear of what the alien would do if it wrested control of the gun.

  “Let go!” Sullivan grunted.

  Ed said nothing, pressing his body harder against Sullivan’s, keeping him down.

  Hurry up, Jade!

  Ed felt something slipping around his neck and tightening, black and slippery, like twisted, fleshy vines slithering up from Sullivan’s ribs. An alien appendage ripped through his clothes, threatening to strangle Ed if he couldn’t stop it.

  If he let go of the gun, Sullivan would be back in control.

  If he didn’t, the alien would crush his windpipe and kill him.

  Ed pushed with his feet, head butting Sullivan in the face as hard as he could, repeatedly, despite the pain to his own skull. He heard Sullivan’s nose crunch and break. Hot blood streamed over them both as the black ropes loosened from his neck. Before Ed could use momentum to gain the upper hand, more ropes wrapped him at the fingers, pulling them back, and away from the gun. Ed screamed as his left index finger snapped.

  He let go of the gun, and Sullivan seized both moment and pistol, grabbing it as he turned and fired a shot, barely missing Ed, bursting his eardrum as it did.

  Ed heard a muffled gunshot, and turned to see Jade behind them, aiming a pistol into their tussle. She screamed, “Let him go!”

  Sullivan put his gun against Ed’s head and held him tight. He said, “You all get one final chance: Join us or die.”

  Fifty

  Rose McCallister

  Mike pointed his gun at Steven. “You need to turn around and get the fuck out,” he said. “Nothing to see here.”

  Steven paused, smiling. His entire body seemed to soften, bones going mushy as he looked around the room, from Boricio to Mike, before hanging his stare again on Rose, smile still shining. She felt it, like fire on ice as the man stepped toward Mike, ignoring the waving gun.

  Mike raised his voice and yelled, “Get out!” probably hoping louder would work.

  A few feet from Mike, Steven curled his palm into a fist. Mike’s shirt wrinkled at the collar, and his body rose in the air, levitating along with the man’s raised arm. His fingers shot open, dropping the gun, and his feet wiggled, brushing the carpet with his toes. Steven held his smile, wrenched his arm like he was hurling a ball, then watched as Mike crashed into the wall and dug a melon-sized scoop from the drywall.

  Steven laughed, laying his hand so it hovered horizontal and parallel to Mike, while Mike struggled for breath.

  “What’s happening?” Rose cried out, unable to believe she had landed a BINGO of crazy: the machine turning on Paola; finding out her true love was a homicidal maniac; Marina Harmon’s man — a guy with super powers — had come to (maybe) save her and now her attacker was being murdered by that same man, with an invisible hand.

  “What’s happening?” Rose repeated more than once. Steven ignored her, keeping his focus on Mike, squeezing his right fist tighter as Mike struggled harder, until after turning purple and bloated he struggled no more. Seconds after Mike’s foot twitched for a final time, Steven turned to Rose. He stood beaming, like he was waiting for a kiss.

  Rose said, “What’s going on?”

  Steven looked surprised, maybe hurt. He stepped toward her. Rose held her ground, knowing a fallen step meant surrendering all she had.

  The man’s face darkened. He said, “You don’t remember me?”

  “No,” Rose admitted.

  His face shifted. Tiny waves rippled across the surface, reminding Rose of rolling dough beneath a pin. It stopped as Rose screamed.

  The new face was mostly Boricio’s, though kinder and gentler, less hardened. His eyes were still intense, but not as angry.

  “Boricio?” Rose whispered, holding out her hand, knowing this other Boricio was somehow different from the first.

  The true Boricio found his voice and screamed. “You have to get out of here, Rose!”

  He thrashed on the bed, yanking restraints as muscles bulged on his neck and biceps.

  “It’s not human! Run, Rose, run!”

  Rose turned toward the door, and tried to run, but only managed three steps before something snaked her ankle and yanked, sending her face first to the carpet. She turned over, looking back to see a large, black, wet tentacle-looking appendage coming from Steven’s ribs through a hole in his shirt and holding her by the ankle.

  She screamed. She immediately thought of the aliens Boricio had battled on the other world. Now they’re here.

  “Don’t scream, Rose, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to save you.”

  “She don’t want you, you limp dicked alien fuck,” Boricio screamed, shaking the bed hard again. A loud splintering crack grabbed both Rose and the alien’s attention. The black tentacle let go of her ankle.

  Boricio broke the headboard, and was desperately trying to squirm free, hands cuffed, one to another.

  Rose backed toward the door as Boricio jumped from the bed, legs still bound, and knocked the alien down.

  Boricio looked up at Rose, eyes wide and scared — the first time she’d ever seen him scared — as he screamed, “Run!”

  The alien turned back to Rose. Eyes narrowed, he said, “Move and I’ll kill you!”

  Rose was frozen, paralyzed by fear, imagining the black tentacle racing toward her and grabbing her at the throat.

  Boricio brought his cuffed hands up and drove his thumbs into the alien’s throat, choking him. The tentacle snaked up and twisted around his throat, the two Boricios engaged in an attempt to choke one another to death.

  Boricio looked up at Rose, and widened his eyes as if to say: Go, now … while you can.

  “Die!” Boricio grunted as he dug deeper into the alien’s throat.

  The alien’s tentacle pulled Boricio up by his neck, until Boricio was forced to let go of his hold. The tentacle lifted Boricio like he was a bag of trash, and tossed him onto the bed.

  The alien turned to Rose. She froze.

  Boricio grabbed a broken piece of headboard and raised it above his head, about to strike.

  The alien must’ve noticed the change in her expression, as he turned back on Boricio, his tentacle grabbing him by the wrist, and shoving him down onto the bed.

  The thing that wore Boricio’s face leaned into the thing that was born with it and hissed, “I should have killed you over there. I’ve been waiting for this. I wasn’t … pleased … with what happened last night, but am … happy … it turned out as it has. Now I’ve found my Rose, again.”

  “Well I’ve gotta warn you, I ain’t done a dookie douche in a while, so there’s like a 100 percent chance you’re gonna get muddy.”

  “You are a cat,” the man said, “in constant need of scratching, a dog who must beg for attention.”

  Boricio cackled: “I thought you said I was a cat.”

  “You are a child.”

  “Well whatever you are, it sure as shit ain’t Boricio.”

  Boricio kept mouthing off to the man as Rose made slow steps backward toward the door. Boricio was no match for the alien, and he seemed to be running thin on patience. If she was going to run, she had to do it now.

  Her heart galloped, certain the impostor would turn and see her at any second, but Rose made it to the open door.
She stepped through the doorway, suddenly not wanting to leave Boricio with the impostor.

  Yes, Boricio deserves to die. But not like this.

  The impostor turned to her and their eyes locked. He smiled, then turned to Boricio, giving Rose silent permission to leave.

  But then what?

  He murders Boricio and comes after for you. You think you’re really going to get away? And go where?

  Rose didn’t know if it was because she loved him, or her life, but it was impossible to leave Boricio to his fate. Leaving the room meant running forever, and knowing that thing, whatever he was, would kill Boricio, and would probably never stop looking for her.

  She was six steps from the door, into the parking lot, when she looked back and saw the thing choking Boricio with his tentacle. Boricio’s face was turning blue, and he looked seconds from death.

  Rose saw Mike’s gun on the bed where he dropped it when the impostor grabbed him. She ran back into the room, leaned onto the bed, grabbed the gun, twisted around from the mattress and landed flat on her back, then pulled the trigger three times.

  Rose fell back against the wall with the gun raised, poised to shoot again. The one on the left missed him by atoms. The third bullet slammed into the monster’s face and sent him writhing to the ground. Rose had already made enough noise to bring sirens, so she lowered the barrel to the fallen monster’s head and pulled the trigger again, killing him for good.

  She turned to Boricio and said, “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

  Fifty-One

  Boricio Wolfe

  Boricio’s heart barely ever raced. Notes climbed, sometimes before the kill, but that’s because good murder was a symphony in tune, with no motion an accident. His heart raced, but never ran. Few got far running from Boricio.

  Yet, his heart was away from him now. Gone, and if he got it back it would be inside out and stomped on. He had melted her face, his confession pouring acid on their every shared moment. He had destroyed their trust and her faith in him.

  For all the horrible things he’d done in his life, and some he actually felt bad about, nothing matched breaking Rose’s heart like this.

  “Let me explain,” Boricio smiled for Rose, knowing the one thing that always worked would never work again.

  She turned from his smile. “You’re a monster.”

  “No,” Boricio said, reaching down and untying his feet, desperate to make Rose see what logic couldn’t. “I’m not like that, Rose. I was, before you. You changed me, even more than Boy Wonder. I purge to breathe, Rose, but I do right by it. I keep us safe.”

  Rose shook her head. She looked like she wanted to spit on him. Boricio wished she would, it would’ve been honest, rather than suffer the hush, wondering each second what she was thinking, and living through a hell of waiting to know.

  She clawed his heart, calling him a monster, then slammed it with her heel when she said it again. “You’re a monster … I can’t believe I trusted you … can’t believe I loved you!”

  The something bubbling in Rose erupted: She ran at Boricio and beat at his chest with the butt of the gun. Then she lifted it, nudged the barrel against Boricio’s temple and pushed. He looked up at her like a beaten puppy, waiting for a kick.

  “I should kill you!” she screamed.

  Boricio was silent.

  “I’d be doing the world a favor, I’d be doing me a favor.”

  Before she could say finish, Boricio said it for her: “You’d be doing me a favor, right, Rosie?” The gun shook against his temple. “You’re right, Rose, that you’d be doing me a favor, and that I’m a monster. But nothing in this world is worth a smear to you, and I can’t stand knowing you’re thinking all the things you are about me. So no, I don’t wanna die, but I won’t stay if you want me to go. I figure if the door that ain’t death means living without none of your sweet miss near me, maybe Door Zero ain’t so bad.”

  Rose held the gun on Boricio as he looked up, forgetting how to blink. He saw straight to her insides, and knew she wouldn’t — couldn’t — pull the trigger. She wanted to see him dead, but didn’t want to kill him.

  Her eyes flickered, and for a second Boricio wondered if he was wrong, if he had misjudged things, if Rose really would shove the gun deeper and paint the wall behind him in red. She drew the metal from his skin, took two steps back, held the gun to Boricio, and pulled her phone from her pocket. “No,” she said, “you don’t deserve mercy.”

  “What are you doing, Rose?”

  He watched as her fingers dialed 911.

  His instincts to live crackled to life. Boricio had no problem being killed by Rose — it was almost poetic — but there was no way Boricio would let a donut diddler curdle his milk.

  “What are you doing, Rose?” Rose snarled out from his mouth, mocking him.

  “I’m calling the police, Boricio. That’s what you deserve: not an easy way out.”

  Boricio heard a woman on the other end of the phone, “Nine one one, what is your emergency?”

  Boricio pleaded, “No, baby — you’ve gotta listen to me. You’ll regret turning me in forever; it’ll keep you up at night; you’ll want to die. You can forgive yourself for killing me, but you’ll never be able to do the same for turning me in, Rose. And you know it, because you know me, the me that’s got nothing to do with this.”

  Boricio’s whisper kept his words from the operator.

  Rose held her eyes to Boricio.

  “Nine one one, what is your emergency?” the voice repeated for the third time.

  “Hang up and shoot me, Rose.”

  Shots were fired. Someone in this hell hole must’ve heard it. The police will be coming, even if she doesn’t call. We don’t have long.

  “No,” she steadied her aim and took another step backward toward the door. Her lips to the receiver: “I need help. I’m being held against my will.”

  Rose gave the operator an address as black liquid puffed like smoke from the fallen impostor’s nose, then plumed over the floor, and raced up Rose’s ankles, enveloping her body on its way to her face. It happened so fast that Boricio barely had time to register movement before the alien was seconds from overtaking her.

  “Rose!” Boricio yelled, waving his hands, then moving toward her. “Rose! Look out! It’s getting inside you!”

  He was too late.

  The Darkness curled into her nose like cartoon scent, the rest of its body quickly following.

  She dropped the phone, and her body began to shake, either a process of invasion, or her trying to fight it, Boricio couldn’t be sure which.

  He watched in horror, helpless, as The Darkness settled, hating It for everything It had done and everything It likely planned to do.

  Boricio stared, knowing his Rose was gone and could never come back; a trip through evil would ruin her if she tried. It turned, shocking Boricio with a glimmer of his Morning Rose still in her eyes.

  It reached down and tore the cuffs from Boricio with inhuman strength.

  “GO,” Rose cried out, her voice even less her than the tormented face. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold it back.”

  “No,” Boricio said, flexing his freed wrists and grabbing Rose roughly by the arms. “I’m not leaving you.”

  With the same inhuman strength that had freed him, Rose leaned into Boricio, grabbed him by the arms, yelled “Go!” then sent him flying through the doorway and out into the parking lot.

  “Get out!” Rose screamed.

  Boricio stared back as Rose’s face made tormented ripples. He snarled at the creature who had taken so much, including all that mattered. Boricio vowed that he would grow strong enough to kill the monster, no matter what it took, or what surrender was required to make things right.

  Then Boricio did something Boricio never did: He ran.

  Fifty-Two

  Sullivan

  Sullivan held the gun to Ed’s head, watching as the girl, Jade, aimed hers at him, demanding that he let her father
go.

  The alien part of Sullivan had tried to reason with them, was honest with Its purpose. While one of them, Teagan, seemed to see sense in his offer, the rest could not, too polluted by fears.

  Sullivan’s human side tried to be cryptic in his warning to the girl, as if the alien side would not realize his intentions. Truth was the alien didn’t care to lie. It was confident that Its offer was death’s superior alternative. Who wouldn’t want to evolve? Who wouldn’t want better? Apparently, It had overestimated the intelligence of these humans.

  It would have to kill them, or settle for a hostile invasion.

  The problem with taking humans who fought it, was living with lesser control, weaker integration. An inferior host wasn’t as useful to the Collective. And a host as strong-willed as Ed might prove damaging. If It couldn’t convince them to surrender, It would have to kill them all.

  But even as It thought that, It could sense Sullivan’s hesitation, he too a reluctant host. Sullivan was different from others because he had been touched by Its counter, The Light, enabling Sullivan to mount a better defense, and prevent an outright takeover.

  Even as Sullivan held the gun to Ed’s head, his human side resisted, trying to seize control. It was all It could do to maintain Sullivan’s hand on the weapon, making it all the more difficult to keep an eye on Jade.

  “Put the gun down or I’ll kill your father!” Sullivan commanded.

  “Kill us, kill us both, Jade!” Ed yelled.

  “No, Daddy!”

  “If you don’t, he’ll kill us all! Shoot him in the head!”

  It had tolerated plenty. It was time to end this, cut Its losses. It sent the command to Its host to squeeze the trigger: Kill Ed.

  The host’s hand started to squeeze, but froze, gun shaking in Sullivan’s hand.

  Do not resist me! It commanded. I will hurt you.

  Sullivan’s human side resisted, apparently not learning the lessons It had already taught him. Or perhaps the human side could tell It was bluffing. It couldn’t send a blast of pain to Sullivan, not now. If It impaired Sullivan, Ed or his daughter might get the upper hand and kill It. While It could find another host in one of the others, there was also a chance they could fight It off enough to stop Its ability to find another body.