Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone) (58 page)

 
When Luca first began hearing other people’s thoughts, the voices poured through like a whole bunch of radio stations all tuned in at once, and it was too much. Now, when he wanted to, he was able to tune out everyone completely and stay in his mind with his own thoughts. He didn’t like the constant chatter and negative thoughts of others. Now, however, Luca was tempted as he watched Paola doodling on a piece of paper and ignoring Ms. Autumn, to get in her head and hear what she was thinking.

Things had been weird between them since he started talking to Rebecca, even though Paola had no idea that Luca was hanging out with her every night in the little trips he took outside his body. Nobody but Will, and Rebecca, knew he could do that.

Things had already been weird between them since he saved Scott. Once he grew physically so much older than Paola, she started acting different. Maybe she sensed he had a crush on her, and wasn’t sure how to respond. He was, after all, really eight, and not the 16 years his body now appeared. The whole thing was weird, and Luca noticed how even Mary and Desmond looked at him different, like they didn’t want him being friends with her anymore. They were afraid he’d have sex with her. While Luca’s knowledge of sex was extremely limited, he couldn’t deny that the body change caused him to think about girls a lot more. Not to mention, he was always “popping boners,” as Jimmy had called it.

Last night, when Luca and Paola were joking after dinner, Luca heard Mary’s thoughts, even though he wasn’t trying to eavesdrop.
 

Don’t you dare make a move on my daughter.

Luca heard the thought, clear as if it had been his own. He turned to Mary, and caught her staring at him. A moment passed between them, and she quickly turned, as if she knew he’d heard her thought.

He left her head, but not before he felt something. It wasn’t in words, but rather an emotion — fear . . . of him.

Luca liked Mary; he thought of her like a mom, almost. So her fear of him made him sad. He didn’t want to be the target for her Mama Bear rage, and was offended that she felt that way about him, like you might an outsider. They’d known each other for months, and Luca thought he’d earned more trust from Mary.
 

Besides, Luca didn’t even feel the same about Paola anymore. Not since Rebecca, anyway.

Even though Rebecca was locked in the box outside, he felt as if she’d been by his side nearly every night.

Over the course of the past few nights, they’d journeyed to the mountain, his home, a lake she used to swim in, and even Disney World, or at least the version informed by TV and painted by Luca’s imagination. They even went on rides, and though it couldn’t possibly have been real, it felt real to them. Though Rebecca was locked in a cold box with barely any food or water all day, she was having the time of her life when she closed her eyes at night.
 

Luca felt like they’d known each other for years, not days. In many ways, Rebecca, at 13, was closer to Luca’s age, than Paola, who seemed way older than her 12 years, and was growing more jaded by the day.

Rebecca would be freed from the box after her week was up, and Luca couldn’t wait to finally see her in person. But he was also afraid. Once she got out of the box, her mother, and the others, would surely be keeping a close eye on her. If she even talked to a boy, let alone Luca — the outsider — they might both wind up in boxes.
 

Luca tried not to think about the stuff that would stop him form enjoying his time with Rebecca. Even if they had to spend the next year together only in their connected dreams that weren’t really dreams, it was a lot better than nothing. Luca wasn’t sure what romantic love was like,
 
or if it was possible to feel it so quickly for someone — someone you technically didn’t even know in person — but he felt
something
for Rebecca. If it wasn’t love, it had sure fooled his heart.

So why am I still wondering what Paola
 
is thinking?
 

I have to listen in.
Just one more time..
 

He closed his eyes, and tuned into the voices. But he didn’t hear Paola’s.
 

Instead, he heard Black Pieces, the voice he hadn’t heard since they came to The Sanctuary.

“Hello, Luca. I missed you.”

“Black Pieces?”
Luca thought, excited and a bit nervous that his old chess-mate had resurfaced.

“Yes, I’ve been looking for you.”
Black Pieces said, his voice today like Cheshire Cat’s from
Alice in Wonderland
, but with a bit of a hiss at the end of his words.

Luca felt a chill.
“What do you want?”

“He’s here, isn’t he? The Man in The Center, Man in the Middle, whatever you’re changing voice is calling him today. I feel him with you.”

“Yes,”
Luca thought,
“But he’s not like he was in the dreams. He’s not killing people.”

“Not yet, but you know the dreams can’t be changed, right? Because they’re not dreams.”

“Yes, they can. I can change them.”

“Do you even remember what happened in the ‘dreams,’ Luca?”

“No, not everything. I haven’t been having them lately. I thought maybe they wouldn't come true. Maybe things would be okay.”

“Yes, I see what you’ve been doing, but I wouldn’t get too attached.”

A vision flashed before Luca: Rebecca’s dead eyes staring up at him. She was skinny, and her skin blue, as if starving and cold.

“
No
,” Luca thought. “
She’s not going to die!”
 

Dark Pieces laughed.

“She’s already dead, silly. Heh-heh. She died two nights ago. You’ve only been imagining that she’s still alive. Tsk, tsk, you’re even more messed up than they said you were. Poor Luca’s first love is a dead girl.”

“
No!
”
Luca thought. Or
thought
he thought, but then realized, by the stares from his classmates, that he’d shouted it out loud.

“Are you okay,” Ms. Autumn asked as the kids up front giggled. Paola stared at Luca, concerned.

Luca’s heart pounded, and he felt short of air, sucking in deep breaths, his thoughts a jumbled mess.

No, she can’t be dead!

Luca got up from his desk, heart pounding in his throat, and said, “I don’t feel so good,” and raced from the classroom, into the hall, and out of the house, headed for the Box of Shame.

* * * *

LUCA HARDING: PART 2

Luca raced from the women’s house, toward the courtyard where the Box of Shame stood in the morning sun and last night’s four inches of snow.

He could feel eyes on him: workers at the church, a couple of men in front of the barn, Brother Rei and John, who were standing in front of the hangar, and surely the men in the guard towers over each of the houses. He heard snippets of thoughts, people wondering what he was doing. One man wondered if he should shoot Luca.

Luca didn’t stop running until he reached the box. He pounded on the box, his hands hurting in the cold air as his fists met the wood. He cried out, “Rebecca!”
 

Nothing but silence.
 

His heart froze.

No, she can’t be.

All those journeys taken together, all their conversations, stories, secrets, and laughs shared in the past two nights, were they all in his head?
 

He continued to bang on the box. “Rebecca!!”
 

Behind him, one of the men shouted, “Hey, get away from there!”

Luca could hear footsteps approaching, though he could see nothing but the wooden box in front of him with its heavy wooden bar locking the poor girl inside. He put his hands beneath the bar, andpushed up. It was lodged tight, so he pushed harder, putting his feet into it, but his feet were slipping in the snow.

Please, please, please be alive!

“Hey!” the same man shouted.

“Get away from there!” another shout. It was Brother Rei, racing toward him, John close behind.
 

Luca looked at them, then back at the bar, giving it another desperate push. He had to get the box open before they got to him. He pushed with everything he had. The bar lifted and swung aside.

Footsteps closed in, and he could hear breathing, and their thoughts:

I’m gonna kick his ass.
 

You little fucker.

The boy is possessed!
 

He’s dead!

Luca pulled the door open and his heart stopped. He saw Rebecca inside, eyes closed, skin blue, unconscious, maybe dead. He reached in pulled her out of the box — she was so cold — and gently laid her on the ground so he could try to heal her.
 
A hand caught his hair and pulled tight, yanking him back. Brother Rei.

“Let go!” Luca screeched, trying to break free, and get to Rebecca. “I have to save her!”

“You’re coming with me!” Brother Rei said, ignoring Rebecca who had yet to move and was dead or dying. There were more than 50 adults at The Sanctuary, at least 10 in the courtyard, not including guards, and yet nobody was helping Rebecca.

“Someone, please help her!” Luca cried out, still trying to pull free from Brother Rei’s tight grip on him.

A couple of the men looked down at Rebecca, but remained passive.

“She’s dying!” Luca screamed as Brother Rei’s hands went around Luca’s waist, and pulled him farther away.

“Let go of him!” a voice shouted.

It was Desmond, who’d come running from the barn.

Brother Rei held his grip tight, “He’s going in the hole!”

Desmond dropped to his knees beside Rebecca, then felt for a pulse. A moment later, he began to perform CPR on Rebecca. The crowd of people around them had grown to nearly 20, but only Desmond was helping Rebecca.

“Get him off of her!” Brother Rei commanded to one of the men.

Brother Andre, a big red bearded man, almost as large as Linc, grabbed Desmond by the right arm.

Desmond spun around, gripped the man’s hand, and twisted it behind him hard, then thrust Andre to the ground. Two more men ran toward Desmond.

“She’s dying!” Luca screamed.

“Let God decide her fate!” Brother Rei shouted, holding his hand out to command the others to stay put.
 

Luca used the slippery snow to his advantage; he spun, dipped down and slipped out of Brother Rei’s grip, then came up and elbowed him beneath the left eye.
 

Freed, Luca dropped to the ground and scrambled to Rebecca’s side. One of the guards, Brother Terry, thrust a rifle at Luca, “Get away from her, or I will shoot.”

A loud shot rang out and Brother Terry dropped the gun, clutching his bloody, mangled right hand, crying in disbelief, “You shot my hand!”

Luca looked up to see Desmond holding a pistol, and waving away the others. “Back the FUCK off!” he shouted.

“Everyone just hold on,” Linc said, stepping forward with his hands up. “Let the kid help her. I’ve seen him do it before.”

Luca put his hands on Rebecca’s face — so cold — then closed his eyes in search for her soul.

He found her on the mountain, in their spot where the swing and rose bush had been during their first trip. Only now, there was no swing, rose bush, or lightning bugs to light the darkness swirling in the clouds overhead. Rebecca was in a heavy black coat, on her knees in the snow, back turned to him and looking down at something he couldn’t see, her long red hair flowing in the wind.

Her hair is back!

Luca stepped toward her, and heard her murmuring. As he drew closer, he saw her pulling petals from one of the roses with a million petals, saying, “He loves me; he loves me not,” over and over.

“I’m here,” Luca said, but she either didn’t hear him, or was ignoring him, as she kept counting the petals, tossing them to the ground. As he circled around her, he saw there must’ve been 500 petals on the ground in front of her splayed blue dress, which flowed over the snow like a blanket.

“He loves me; he loves me not,” she said, oblivious to his presence, her eyes closed.

“Rebecca,” he said, kneeling down in front of her, “I’m here.”

“He loves me; he loves me not…”

He reached toward her hand as her fingers plucked a petal free, and touched her.

Her eyes opened wide, but they were all black.

Luca jumped back, startled.

She kept counting, “He loves me; he loves me not…” only now her eyes — her alien, black eyes — followed him as he backed away.

“
Rebecca?
”

“He loves me; he loves me not…” she said, ripping petals from the flower, faster now, though her dark eyes never left him.