Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (59 page)

Sullivan and Ryan were still battling a couple dozen aliens on the ground. Boricio was shocked to see them still standing.
 

The white tornado suddenly spit sparks of bright light from the gaping mouth in its center, disintegrating the remaining aliens.

“Holy shit!” Boricio shouted.“Let’s get the fuck outta here!”
 

Mary ran to meet her mutant husband, dragging their daughter behind her. Halfway there, a piece of the black reached out and grabbed Ryan like a twig, then plucked him into the air screaming into its widening vortex.

Mary lost her voice in an anguished bellow as the Darkness turned toward her, swirling its hungry tendrils and grabbed her too.

“No!” Boricio and Paola both screamed.

The white tornado sent a swirl of bright crackling light into the heart of Darkness, pulled Mary from its horrible depths, then dropped her gently on the ground next to her daughter. Mary stood up, wet and scratched to hell, and picked Paola up and began to run away.

Boricio heard Luca’s voice inside in his head, “Use the orange ball!”

“What?” Boricio screamed at the bright tornado that was once the man-kid Luca, or the vial, maybe both.

“The orange ball,” it bellowed. “Tell Sullivan to use it.”

Boricio shouted to Sullivan, “He said use the orange ball!”

“Who?!”
 

“That!” Boricio said, pointing at the Light tornado snaking around the Dark one.

“We’ll all die!” Sullivan screamed.

The pair of vortexes started to yank surrounding trees, dirt, rocks, and debris into themselves, gathering mass so fast, that every one of them were sure to be pulled into the swirling chaos in a matter of seconds.

Sullivan held the glowing orange sphere in his palm.

He squeezed the ball hard and the orange light grew brighter and brighter, until it started screaming red.
 

Everything vanished in a blaze of impossible light.

* * * *

CHAPTER 14 — Luca Bishop

Black Island, New York

April 2012

SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

Keep swimming!

Luca kept going, faster than he’d ever swam in his life, trying to find a way back to the other world, where he’d been safe and sound in the other Luca’s bed.

But he could never return if he was unable to concentrate.

Luca swam for what felt like forever, until his entire body was aching, his limbs turning to rubber. He could float no longer, though he was finally a safe distance from the falling stuff.

He saw the source of the falling stuff in the distance — the two largest tornadoes Luca had ever seen. While Luca had only seen tornadoes on TV, he was sure they didn’t usually have balls of lightning and fire swirling from their middle.

Luca couldn’t tell how far away the tornadoes were from each other, but they seemed inches from collision. He had also never seen two tornadoes at once, even in movies. It was like they were fighting to see which could gather and spit the most terrible stuff into the sky as they continued to drift closer and closer.

Luca finally realized that it wasn’t just
stuff
they were spitting into the sky.
 

The tornados were spitting what was left of Black Island.

His eyes widened as he screamed.

**

Our Earth

Los Orillas, California

April 2, 2012

SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

Luca woke in his bed, soaking wet, and screeching.

But no one could hear his scream through the hand on his mouth.

Luca stared in disbelief as the other Luca, the one who belonged here in this world, the one whose life he had stolen. But he was young again, not old. He sat across from him on the bed, his palm pressed hard against Luca’s mouth, trapping his scream mostly in his throat.

He’s come to take his life back.
 

He’s mad and he’s come to get me!

“Shhh,” the other Luca whispered, looking at the closed bedroom door, then back to Luca. “Okay?”

Luca nodded, and Other Luca slowly removed his hand.

“What happened?” Luca said, “How did we get here? How did
you
get here? What happened to the island?”

“It’s all gone,” Other Luca said, his voice calm, no emotion. “The Darkness won.”

“What?”

“The Darkness. It had another name long ago. Now it is just The Darkness. It took over everything.”

Luca swallowed, thinking back to what happened on October 15 — how the old preacher man had taken the vial from his brother and opened it. When darkness spilled out and started to swallow everything, Luca had managed to get away, and pulled Boricio away, too, though he wasn’t sure where he’d pulled his brother to.

That’s when he wound up here. It was the last time he’d seen his brother. Luca had tried to contact Boricio several times, but was never able. Instead, he only saw the Other Boricio, with the Other Luca and Will.

“Was it the vials? Is that what was in the vials Boricio asked me to get?”

“We are the Light, but also can be made into Darkness by intervention from dark souls. We changed you when your brother used us to cure you. And you carried the Light over here to this world and put it in this child. But then you changed us when you found us again. You, your brother, and the others, tainted some of us — turned them into the Darkness. Our only hope was this child, Luca.”

“What do you mean
this child?
” Luca whispered. “You’re not Luca?”
 

Other Luca began to softly glow, as an impossibly bright light seeped through the child, then spilled onto the blankets and wall.

“What are you?” Luca asked.

“What are
we,
” Other Luca answered, pointing to Luca’s stomach, which, to his surprise, was glowing with the same light.

Luca let out a startled yelp, as Other Luca quickly returned his hand to the boy’s mouth. When skin met skin, a spark of electricity shot through him, causing him to jump from the bed, in surprise rather than pain.

He stepped back from Other Luca, trying to figure him out.

“No, I’m human. I’m still me,” Luca said.

“Yes, you only have a part of us inside you. This child, Luca, opened the final vial. His purity, his kindness, gave us strength to fight. But we could not defeat
It
. Despite all the people I pulled over to fight, we were not enough. Now the war is over, and that world is lost.”

“Where is my family?”

“Your father is dead. Your brother has become The Darkness, Chaos, The Void. I could not destroy it. I could not bring him back. I had to leave before he murdered us all.”

Luca cried, swallowing tears, along with the urge to wail and wake his — Other Luca’s — parents.

Luca suffered through a long silence, where Other Luca stared at him as if observing a rare insect even though he was the one glowing more, until he finally asked, “What happened to everyone? The other people I saw with you? The other Will, the other Boricio? Are they . . . dead?”

“Will died. Boricio Wolfe, he is alive. Many died. Many are now part of The Darkness. Others, I saved, as I did you, and returned them back to their world before the Darkness could claim them.”

Luca fell to the floor, sobbing. “I’m so sorry. I thought I was helping Boricio. I thought he’d save Rose.”

“I know your intentions were good,” Other Luca said.

“And I didn’t mean for
you
to be taken from your family and brought to my world,” Luca cried. “I didn’t mean to take your family. But I didn’t know where else to go, and I was scared. When I came here, you were gone. I didn’t know you were gone. Then, when I did see you over there, and tried to switch places back, tried to talk to you, you couldn’t see me.”
 

“It’s okay,” Other Luca said as his light began to burn brighter.

“What’s happening to you?” Luca asked.

“I have to go.”

“Go? Go where? Don’t you want your life back?”

“That’s not possible.” Other Luca shook his head. “We are now one — Luca, and the Light. We cannot stay here.”

“What? Where are you going?”

The glowing child began to fade, barely there and about to vanish.

“No!” Luca cried. “Don’t leave me here! I don’t belong here. I can’t look at your family knowing I took you from them. Please. Come back. Or whoever, or whatever you are, come into me, and give Luca his life back.”

“We can’t,” Other Luca said.

“Why not?”

“You are not pure.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Luca cried. “I’m not Luca! They aren’t my parents. I feel like a big phony!”

Other Luca’s eyes stared from behind the light. “Do you want to forget? Do you want to
be
the other Luca?” Its words were everywhere and nowhere at once.

“What do you mean?”

“We can give you his memories. We can erase yours, except your recent ones, which we can partially remove. You will wake up believing that you are him. With his memories.
Your parents
will never have died. You will never have known Will and Boricio Bishop. You will be Luca as he was before The Darkness.”

Luca stared into the light. “You can do that?”

Other Luca nodded.

But can I? Can I forget everything? My family. My real family — my mom, dad, and sister who died? And then my other family, Will and Boricio? Do I want to forget them?
 

“You must decide now.” Other Luca’s body was gone already, and now the light was disappearing too. “We must go. But we can take your pain with us.”

“And what happens to you, to the Other Luca? Where are you going? Won’t you miss your family?”

“We are one, now, you and I, Luca. I feel what you feel. I can be with them through you. Feel their love. Feel them. But I cannot live here in body. I’ve grown too weak. I’ve changed too much. But you can forget it all. But you must decide now.”

Other Luca’s light began to flicker.

It’s now or never.

All the pain. All the regrets. Everything can go away.

“Will I still be me?”

“Yes, but you must—”

The light crackled. The Light was almost gone.

No, don’t go!

Luca cried out, “Yes! I’ll do it!”

Other Luca flared, and the light went so suddenly bright that the room seemed as though it was nothing but pure white.
 

Then it went dark and back to normal until Other Luca was only a mist.

Am I too late?

Luca couldn’t see the hand he felt on top of his head, but he felt it there like the nose on his face or the arm hanging from his shoulder.

Warmth spread through his body.
 

Luca’s eyes fell involuntarily shut as darkness crept around the edge of his memory. He thought of his little sister — his
real
sister. The first time he looked into her crib and made her laugh. And how excited he was.
 

He had looked at his mom, who he didn’t know was watching them.

She had smiled at them in a way that made him feel loved from the inside out.

Wait. No, I don’t want to forget.

I want to be me.

Then, the memory was gone, and he fell into his bed, trying to remember what it was he’d forgotten. And why he was wet, smelling of saltwater.
 

And why he was going to bed soaking.

Luca was too tired to try and make sense of messy thoughts that didn’t want to be cleaned. He curled into bed, pulled the covers up to just under his chin, then closed his eyes. For a moment, he thought he saw a light floating over his bed, but then figured his mind was playing tricks.

Maybe it was a dream.

Sleep swallowed Luca with a smile.

* * * *

CHAPTER 15 — Ed Keenan Part 2

Our Earth

Palm Coves, Florida

Ed’s safehouse

July 2012

NINE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

Ed patted Becca’s back and glanced at the TV’s clock for the hundredth time, still waiting for the 15-minute mark to pass.
 

He wished he’d eaten
before
trying to put Becca down for her noontime nap, because this was the third time he’d tried, and they’d been sitting on the couch for nearly an hour.

Fifteen minutes seemed to be the minimum it took for Teagan’s baby to fall into a deep enough sleep for a trip to the crib without her waking. If Ed rose from the couch too soon, Becca would start crying. He’d have to start the whole process over, starting with the rocking. If he waited too long, same thing.