Yesterday's Gone: Season One Part 11

"Even if there are others," Melora said, in her parochial voice, "it's safe to a.s.sume his family isn't among them, or else they would have been in his house this morning."

Brent stared at her. Her face was blank, clinically detached from her words. He was pretty good at guessing people's histories, what made them the way they were. Melora, however, was beyond him. He felt like punching some color into the pasty white of her face.

Brent suddenly remembered seeing one of them on the street. "Wait a second. Was one of you out on the street earlier? Wearing a dark jacket and a hat?"

"Yeah," Luis said, "why?"

"You saw something. I saw you looking north with your binoculars, then you ran. What was it; what did you see?"

"You don't want to know," Luis said, taking a sudden interest in his boots.

"We may as well tell him," Melora said, "He's going to find out sooner or later."

Luis shook his head, as if delivering this news was more painful to him than it would be to Brent. The sensitivity seemed a bit odd coming from such a musclebound tough guy.

"Tell me," Brent asked more than said.

"You sure you wanna know? I mean, you might have a wife and child out there and when I tell you this, you're gonna wanna go after them."

"Tell me."

"You're right on one thing ... we're not alone. There's something else out there. These ... things. Not quite human, but not quite anything I've ever seen either. Maybe aliens, I dunno. I saw a few of them when I was driving around the city before the sun came up. They look like people, if you stretched them out and burned them black, then dumped them in some kinda gel. And they move all weird and s.h.i.+t. When I drove past, a few of them chased after me. And they were faster than any human I ever saw."

"And you saw one out on our street?" Brent asked, shaking his head, as if it would help him digest the impossible.

"More than one," Luis said, "A whole mess of 'em. They looked like they were searching for something or someone. Maybe to come and get the ones that had been left behind."

Brent stared at Luis, his mind reeling.

"I've gotta go out there. I will find my family. I feel it in my gut."

"That's hope you're feeling," Melora said, "But it's not informed by fact. And chasing hope is an empty pursuit."

Brent glared at her, wondering if it was still never okay to hit a woman, even at the end of the world.

"So, what? I'm just supposed to give up? Hole away in an apartment and hide day and night while my family might be out there and in danger? Then what? What's the plan after that, huh?"

"We don't have one," Luis said.

Brent thought the comment almost sounded like a criticism of the group, then Melora threw Luis a dirty look that confirmed it.

"Listen," Stan said, trying to make peace, "We're as much in the dark here as you are. Sure, we have theories and ideas, but we don't know what's next, what's out there, or where anyone went. If you want to check it out, I understand. Really, I do. But I think Melora is right about your family. You saw the video. You saw the people vanish."

"Yeah, but we don't know where they went, right? I mean, when people vanish, they go somewhere, right? You can't just make matter disappear without a trace. We haven't found any bodies or mysterious piles of ash or anything, correct?"

"No," Melora said. "The beds are all empty. No trace of anything."

"So," Brent continued, his hands were everywhere as he worked through the ideas taking shape in his head. "All we know is that all the people went somewhere. But we don't know where. Which means they might still be in the city somewhere."

"Or in s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps," Stan suggested.

"Maybe," Brent gave him that, "But if that's the case, maybe we'll see them. Or maybe the aliens will come and take us too, and we'll be reunited. Did any of you lose anyone last night?"

"I did," Luis said, "My little girl, Gracie. She's seven."

"And do you really want to sit here and do nothing?"

Luis looked at the others then shook his head no.

"You're talking millions of people," Melora said, "The odds of millions of people being somewhere in the city ... no. That doesn't make sense. I'm more inclined to believe they all got called to heaven in a Rapture, than walking around the city or being held somewhere by aliens. And I'm an atheist."

"I don't think they were raptured," Brent said, "And maybe they are in UFOs, for all we know. But sitting here isn't going to answer any questions. I'm going out there. And if any of you want to come, I'd love the help. Otherwise, I'm going solo."

"What about those things?" Stan asked, his voice shaky, "What do we do if we run into them? How do we fight?"

"I don't know," Brent said, "But I'd rather go down fighting than cower in here waiting to die." He headed toward the door, then turned back midway and said, "You don't have to stay here and wait for fate to find you."

"I'll go," Luis said, "We just need to go to my place and grab some s.h.i.+t."

"Anyone else?" Brent asked.

Stan said nothing, but looked at Melora for direction.

"There's nothing out there for me," she said. "I wish you luck. And when you give up, our door is open to you both. We have enough supplies to last a long while and we're happy to share with you."

"Thank you," Brent said, "And good luck."

"I'll keep in touch with you all via the two-way radios," Luis said. "Turn them on every half hour, and I'll do the same. Anything happens, anything at all, we contact the others."

"Good luck," Stan said, shaking both mens' hands.

"Be careful," Melora said.

Upstairs, Luis grabbed a black duffel bag full of supplies, most of which were of the shooting variety.

"You any good with a firearm?" Luis asked as they walked down the stairwell to his car outside.

"Eh," a regular gun, maybe, not those submachine guns. "You?"

Luis smiled, "Those two up there, they say they've been preparing for this day, but neither one of 'em ever really got ready to fight. I did nothing but prepare to fight for the past 10 years. I'm ready for anything and everything, and all of it at once."

Brent found himself liking his new friend. A lot.

The fog had descended, blanketing the street and reducing visibility to less than 20 yards. The New York streets had fallen mute for the first time in centuries. Every step echoed not just off the buildings, but off the fog as well. They climbed into Luis's car, a black BMW.

"This should keep us somewhat safe," he said proudly. "Polycarbonate sandwiched between two panes of gla.s.s for the windows, and ballistic steel armor on the body. As close to bulletproof as you can get without being in the belly of a tank."

"But," Brent said, "Can it keep out whatever the f.u.c.k was in those videos?"

"The company I ordered this from was fresh outta alien-proof materials."

Brent laughed as Luis put the car in gear and hit the gas.

"Where are we going?"

"Gonna look around, see what's doing. See if we can find our families and wipe that look offa' Melora's face."

Brent was surprised by how hard he laughed.

If the streets were eerie when empty, the fog took them close to terrifying. It hung thinner on the ground, giving limited visibility. But above the streets, the fog swirled in thick clouds that seemed to swallow buildings like a sentient being. Though the city had never seemed less populated, nor the streets more wide open, Brent felt an intense claustrophobia, as though the fog held unseen ma.s.s that might crush them at any moment.

After minutes of silence, Brent had to fill the cabin with idle chatter to distract his mind from the looming danger above.

"Is it just you and your daughter?"

"Yeah" Luis said, "My old lady died last year. Cancer."

"Oh s.h.i.+t, I'm sorry," Brent said. He never knew what to say when someone mentioned death. And he always felt like "sorry" was one of the worst things you could say. It was so ... trite. Yet, he could never think of anything better. He'd tried other phrases, like "sorry for your loss," but that felt like a cheesy cop show line, even if it was slightly better than "sorry." If he were being honest, he'd simply say, "that sucks," because death truly did exactly that. But "that sucks" seemed almost flippant. So he always fell to the old uncomfortable standby, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Luis said.

And they always say that, too. 'It's okay.' No, it's NOT okay. It's never f.u.c.king okay.

"I hope you don't mind me asking," Brent began, "But if you'd been having these dreams, and you knew some s.h.i.+t was gonna go down, and were even preparing for it, why did you settle down and start a family?"

"Way I see it, we have a limited amount of time on the planet, right? I just happened to know how limited mine might be. You can spend your time fearing inevitable death, I mean, s.h.i.+t, we're all gonna die, right? Or you can make the most of the time you've got. Live the f.u.c.k outta those years! Do everything you can. Live, learn, laugh, love. Dance like no one's watching, you know, all that s.h.i.+t."

Brent smiled, tears welling in his eyes.

"Though, to be honest, I didn't intend to have Gracie. She just kinda came along. And that s.h.i.+t weighed on me, knowing we'd brought a child into this world for such a limited time. It seemed so f.u.c.ked up. But what was I gonna do?"

"Did you tell your family about the dreams? I mean, how did you prepare? What did you do last night with Gracie?"

"No, I didn't tell my wife. I wanted to a million times, but she had her own s.h.i.+t to deal with. She'd had cancer as a teen and it was in remission for years. I don't know if stuff like worry can cause cancer to come back, but I always felt like it sure as h.e.l.l couldn't help. So I tried to make things as easy as I could for her, make sure cancer never came back. But, as it turned out, s.h.i.+t came back anyway."

Luis's jaw clenched on some misery just beneath the surface, but he kept talking.

"Last night, I thought about telling Gracie, but I didn't want to scare her. So I took her out of school for the day and we went to the park, saw a movie, and had dinner and ice cream. All her favorite stuff. When we got home, I read to her. And we made a tent in the living room with blankets and couch cus.h.i.+ons, and then went camping. We talked for hours. I asked her stuff I'd never thought to ask her before, so I could really know her. I asked her about her earliest memories, what she wanted to be when she got older..."

At this, Luis paused, blinking back the tears.

"It was a magical night. She fell to sleep on my chest. I remembered thinking I had to go to the bathroom, but I pa.s.sed out. I wasn't going to meet the others last night, but I was wide awake, and I thought maybe there would be safety in numbers or something, so I brought Gracie over and let her sleep on the couch. She slept the entire time. And then 2:15 hit. I woke up and she was gone."

"Jesus," Brent said, not knowing a single word worthy enough to follow, except maybe "Christ."

"Now here's the thing I didn't tell the others," Luis said, turning to Brent, eyes red. "They'd all been dreaming about the whole world disappearing and the four of our group surviving, right? Well, I had too. Until a few weeks ago when the dreams started to change."

Brent was only vaguely aware of the white, blurred world outside the car.

"In my dreams, we didn't survive. n.o.body did."

MARY OLSON.

October 15, 2011 afternoon Somewhere in Missouri The huddled survivors shrank from the railing, frozen with fear.

Mary glanced at Paola, who had left the car despite her mother's warning. Her daughter shouldn't have to see this. They should be back home, arguing about her constant att.i.tude and whether or not she could manage three days in a row without losing something new to the growing pile of contraband and consequences Mary had started to stockpile in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

But Paola had seen it, and was a bleached sheet because of it. So was Jimmy. John had already emptied a few gallons of his home-brewed ralph over the railing and into the river, but his insides must have been bottomless because he was still going strong.

"They look so neat," Jimmy said.

"No," Desmond was still staring at the bodies, "Not neat; stacked."

And they did look stacked. The bodies had a barracks-like organization, lined in orderly rows the river's current had yet to separate. John sent another liquid scream over the railing, but some of the chunky cargo caught wind, flying behind him and into Paola's hair. Mary drew her daughter closer and pulled her hair into a loose ponytail.

Everyone waited quietly while John finished throwing up. But it just kept going and going, stripping his organs by the sound of it.

"She's dead. Gone and slaughtered. Probably stacked somewhere just like this, maybe in that floating cemetery, or another just as awful." John's jaw had hardened.

He looked more angry than sad, fierce even. Mary always thought John looked a little pretty and on the soft side of masculine, but now he looked mean. Like he could kill, maybe even like he wanted to. She wondered how long it would be before they all turned into the worst type of animals. Only thing separating man from beast was civilization, after all. Once that disappeared, they were little more than talking bears in a Sat.u.r.day morning cartoon.

"We'll find her, man." It sounded almost sweet, the way Jimmy nearly believed the sound of his voice. "We just have to start looking."

John probably wouldn't have yelled at Jimmy, but he couldn't yell at Paola. She was too young. And someone had to get yelled at after Paola chimed, "It's okay Mr. Saddler; sometimes you just have to believe."

John stared at Paola for a long second, then pounced on Jimmy. "I don't need any G.o.dd.a.m.n plat.i.tudes. We won't just find her. HOW are we going to find her? At the next rest stop? Don't you realize what's happening? Everything is gone and everyone is dead. And we're next. This probably isn't just here, it's probably everywhere." He reeled around to face Desmond. "You seem to know everything about everything. What do you think? Is this global?"

Desmond chewed on the answer. "Yeah, I think whatever this is, it's probably everywhere."

Jimmy's brief spark of hopefulness was gone. Paola's too. Mary probably would've cracked, but she had to keep her fractured psyche fused for her daughter's sake. John was already well beyond shattered; hollow, not quite there, a bit like the thing they had found twitching on the side of the road.

"See," John turned to the rest of them. "We're all just days from dead, if we're lucky."

"That's not what I said," Desmond was firm, but his kind eyes met John's and his right hand was resting on the grieving man's shoulder. "But we need to go now if we want to play our odds."

"I want to be alone," John said. "I'll drive the van."

Desmond shook his head and lowered his arm. "You can't do that."

John clenched his teeth. "Why?"