Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone) (3 page)

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 getting 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 for 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 and ammo belts - 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 her, 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.
 

“You’ve got this.” Desmond said. “I’ll cover the outside, make sure nothing else gets in. You get to Scott and the kids, okay? Scream if you need me.”

Mary nodded, then stepped inside the house, gun raised, looking first toward the living room on the right, then toward the kitchen on her left. Two pairs of bleakers; four total. The first two were rifling through the kitchen; one was pulling out a butcher knife, looking at it with its head turned like a dog trying to figure out Algebra, while the two in the living room were roaming in circles, seemingly lost.
 

Relieved by their lack of attention, Mary flew up the stairs, hoping none had thought to hit the second floor. Her hopes were dashed when she saw the trail of blood on the wooden floor leading to the end of the hall where Scott lay in front of Paola’s door, trying to fight off two bleakers with his bolt action rifle.
 
His shirt was bloody and he looked minutes from bleeding out.

“Paola?!” Mary screamed, “Are you okay?!”

“MOM!” Paola’s panicked voice yelled from the other side of the door.

Scott looked up to Mary, eyes glazed. “I’m so sorry, Mary,” he sobbed when he saw her.
 

Mary said nothing, just opened fire on the pair of bleakers at the bedroom door, then shifted her aim to the third bleaker who managed to take the rest of her bullets without having the decency to drop.

FUCK!

“Stay inside!” she yelled again, then ran to the end of the hallway, swinging her arm in a wide arc and lodging the butt of her gun into the surprisingly soft back of the bleaker’s skull.
 

The bleaker turned to Mary, its mouth, with its jagged rows of malformed teeth, agape. She took another wide swing, making matching entry and exit wounds on each of the bleaker’s cheeks, chunks of wet black flesh and teeth hitting the wall and floor. What was left of the monster’s mouth collapsed on itself as it rattled a wretched sound of surprised anger, stumbled, then fell to the floor, thrashing.
 

Scott slid the rifle along the floor to Mary. She picked it up and swung down, taking out the rest of the creature’s skull until it stopped moving.

“Where are the bullets?” she asked, sure that she’d drawn the attention of the four bleakers downstairs and would need to be armed.

Scott pointed to his duffel bag at the end of the hall – the same bag they’d found him with two months ago when they first saw him, dehydrated on the side of the road in lower Tennessee. It was a kid’s bag, black, with white lettering which read: BOMB TECHNICIAN:
If you see me running, you'd better start running too!

Mary stepped past him, feeling a bit shitty not to bend down to check his wound but also recognizing that she needed to prepare for the other monsters or none of them would get out of the house alive. She reached into the bag, retrieved the box of bullets as sounds of the bleakers stumbling up the stairs caused her hands to shake. She slipped the first bullet into the magazine, then the second. A bleaker was at the top of the stairs, clicking and shrieking, mouth open wide.

She slid the third bullet into the magazine, then tried to squeeze the fourth, but it was a tight fit. She struggled, hands shaking, fingers betraying her, pressing hard to get the bullet into the chamber as the creature moved closer. She wished like hell that the boy didn’t have a bolt action. But that’s what she had. Four bullets. Four bleakers.

Fuck!

The fourth bullet slid into place and she clicked the magazine into the gun’s stock, glanced up to see the bleaker barreling towards her, slid the bolt back and forth loading the chamber, then raised the rifle as the bleaker was nearly on top of her. The shot ripped through the bleaker’s chest and launched it back into a second bleaker who had come into the hallway.

“Desmond,” she screamed, “I need you up here NOW!”

No reply. She fired a second shot, taking out the second bleaker’s face.

Outside was a thunderstorm of chaos. It sounded like more bleakers, more engines, more gunfire, more shouting.
 

More of everything.

Mary managed to squeeze off two more shots, bringing down the third bleaker, before the final one — that she knew of, anyway — got through and was on her. The monster clawed at her arm, tearing the fabric of her sweater, but narrowly missed her flesh as she squeezed out of the way. Her rifle fell, just out of reach as the creature stood to its full length and glared down at her with its alien eyes. Its mouth opened wide and it leaned over, shrieking so loud that she had to cover her ears or risk her eardrums being burst.

The bedroom door behind the bleaker swung open and Luca ran into the hallway, screaming.

“NO!” He charged toward the bleaker, punching the back of its body. Luca looked to be 14, rather than the eight years his lifetime provided. And though 14 was bigger than eight, it wasn’t big enough to stand against the six foot five or so bleaker who turned around and swatted an angry black fist at the boy, sending him sprawling back along the bloody hardwood floor. The bleaker turned back to Mary, who watched as Paola slipped into the hall and put her arms under Scott’s armpits and dragged him into their room. Scott’s eyes were closed and Mary feared the worst.

Once she had Scott inside, Paola cried out, “Luca, come back!”

Mary screamed. “Do what she says, Luca! Now!”

The bleaker turned its attention back toward Luca. The boy got up, sliding in Scott’s blood, then scrambled into the bedroom, buying Mary a half-minute to grab her rifle from the floor. Luca slammed the door shut a nano-second before the bleaker slammed the weight of its body against the door, clicking and shrieking. The door burst in and the creature lunged towards the opening.

One bullet.

Mary aimed and pulled the trigger but missed.

She cried out as the creature stepped into the room with the children. With her child.

“No!” she screamed, jumping up.

Just then Desmond appeared with two of the black outfitted men, all armed.
 

The three men raised their weapons in unison, took careful aim, then fired into the room. The creature fell to the floor with a thud as Mary screamed out, “Paola!”

Mary stood up and ran into the room as Paola ran into her arms and buried her head in her mother's chest, sobbing. Luca wrapped his arms around Desmond's waist. “Sorry I couldn't help,” he said.

"You don't need to be sorry for a thing,” Desmond said, then put his hand on the back of Luca's head.

“What happened?” Mary asked Desmond.

He shook his head. “You don't even want to see what's outside. If these men hadn't shown up when they had, we'd all be dead.”

“Who are they?”

“Don't know yet, but there are a lot of them. Six cars and more than a dozen men, at least. And it looks like another car was coming when we came inside.”

“I think Scott might be dead,” Mary said, trying not to cry as she gestured to the boy laying on the floor. She knelt next to him, feeling for a pulse and shook her head. Blood soaked the floor beneath him. Even if they managed to start his heart, there was no way to replace the lost blood.

The sound of several sets of heavy footsteps echoed into the living room, then fell quiet. Seconds later, footsteps creaked up the stairs. Two tall men stepped into the hallway and in front of Paola’s room. The taller of the two — a near giant with a broad face and crooked nose — studied the room, then nodded his head. He approached one of the two men with Desmond — a tiny soldier with a thick Brillo of chestnut hair — and said, “Looks like we lost Rutu and Sal.”

The soldier shook his head. “They’ll be missed,” he said.

Desmond looked down to Scott. "We're down one, too."

Without a word, Luca knelt by Scott.
 

Mary started towards Luca, but Desmond squeezed her hand, pulling her back.
 

“Let him try,” he said.
 

Luca sat down on the floor, legs crossed, and closed his eyes, going to a place in his head no one understood.
 

The hallway settled into a lingering silence, most of them likely believing that they were witnessing one child mourning another.
 

Desmond waved a hand to the new people to indicate that everything was fine. The morning light poured through the window as if Luca were drawing it in and turning up its volume until it obscured him, and Scott, in its brightness. The air crackled with electricity, making the slightest of hums. This was the second time Mary had seen Luca work his magic, yet it seemed no less amazing than when he’d saved her daughter.

When he finally stood, Luca was a full foot closer to the ceiling.

Luca’s hair, cut by Mary just three days before, fell in wild tufts to the base of his neck. A thin line of stubble lined his upper lip and the base of his chin. His baggy pajamas were now long shorts, straining their seams. No one could say when his shirt had fallen to the floor, but Luca was bare chested. Strong, tight muscles replaced the soft flesh of moments ago. Luca faced the onlookers, embarrassed, then walked slowly to Desmond, slipping his arm awkwardly around his waist.
 

Scott stood, still bloody, but only on the outside. “Wow,” was all he managed to say.

The front door slammed downstairs, sending a roll of thunder through the awkward silence. There was no pause, just a single set of footsteps from the front door to the stairs, ending with a face in the hallway that made Desmond and Mary gasp in unison.
 

“Hello,” John said, “It’s been much, much too long.”
 

* * * *

2 - BRENT FOSTER

Manhattan, New York

March 20

Manhattan was surreal from the interior of a chopper.
 

All the intricate plumbing systems man had set into place to keep the island dry had surrendered within days. With nobody left to keep nature at bay, much of the city looked as if it were a Venetian waterway. Except Venice had boats. Manhattan was riddled with floating bodies and the rotting remains of humans and animals. The only living things were the aliens, which was the unofficial label that Black Island Research Facility had given the creatures.