Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone) (35 page)

“Wha . . .” was all Vic could manage as he slumped forward clutching the blade.

Charlie let go, stood up, and stepped back, afraid he’d not mortally wounded the man - that Vic would pull the blade out, stand up, and come after him like some kinda
Terminator
or something.

Oh shit, what did I do?!

Vic pulled the blade out, choking up blood, then looked up to Charlie, eyes filled with anger and confusion.

He tried to say something but all that fell from his mouth was more blood.

Then Vic stopped moving.

Charlie leaned down, grabbed his blade, and wiped the blood off on the dead man’s shirt. He wanted to say something like
fuck you, take that you steroid fuck,
or any of the other million rage-filled thoughts running through his head. But instead, he said nothing. He was simply taking out the trash.
 

You didn’t do victory dances for taking out the trash.

Something screamed out in the distance, veiled by the fog.

Callie!

And then another sound. A truck.

Charlie’s heart pounded hard in his chest as adrenaline coursed through his system, pushing him forward despite the aches and invisible path before him.

“No!” she cried.

“Callie!” he screamed, not caring if whatever she was scared of heard him. “Callie!”

Another scream, and then the truck revved its engine and took off.

Fuck this fog!

Then silence.

“Callie!”

Charlie raced further forward through the fog as the truck’s engined faded into the distance, direction unknown. As he ran forward, the ground unveiled itself, 30 yards at a time through the fog. He prayed he wouldn’t find her dead on the ground.

“Callie!” he cried again, as something took form in the fog ahead.

He raced forward, blindly, hand on his blade and heart in his throat, dread coursing through him.

“Charlie?” a voice said from the shadows ahead.
 

Adam!

Charlie closed the distance and found Adam stumbling toward him, just as bruised and bloodied as Charlie.

“What happened?” Charlie asked.

“They took Callie!”

* * * *

RYAN OLSON: PART 2

Brookdale, Tennessee

February 17

nighttime

Ryan woke to an explosion of loud, muffled music, which seemed to be drifting in from a nearby apartment.

“What the?” he bolted up in his sleeping bag, momentarily disoriented, feeling around for his rifle, then finding it on the floor beside him in the darkness. He pulled it toward him and slipped his finger over the trigger.

“What is that?” Carmine whispered, stepping into the room, though Ryan could barely see him in the dim light bleeding from the moon.

“What’s going on?” Joe called out, way too loud. The clank of his wheelchair clattered across the apartment. Both his voice and noises were loud, even above the riot of the music.

There was a second explosion of music, this time from another nearby apartment. “Stereos!” Ryan said, as he realized with sick dread what was happening.

“What’s going on?” Joe said, wheeling himself into the living room.

“Shh,” Ryan said, moving in a crouch toward the windows, then peering out at the parking lot below. Sure enough, the music had achieved the desired effect. No less than six of the creatures were moving toward the apartment building, targeting the source of the music.

Red Jacket, you son-of-a bitch!

“He’s luring them here,” Ryan explained to Carmine, who ran to the window and gasped.

“Who’s leading what here?” Joe asked, annoyed and nervous. Maybe afraid, but unwilling to show it in front of his grandson.

“The thug we ran into earlier; the one that got away. I think he came back here and is using the music to lure the monsters to us.”

“Monsters?” Joe asked.

That’s when Ryan caught Carmine staring at him, trying to throw him a look he wasn’t catching. He remembered too late that the boy had not told his gramps of the real danger lurking out there.

Shit.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you, Gramps,” Carmine said, his voice on the verge of breaking. “There are monsters out there.” He gestured out the window. “Big, black things that look like aliens or something, with lights under their skin and giant teeth and claws.”

Joe laughed, but only until he realized no one else was.
 

“Wait . . . You’re serious?”

Carmine nodded.

“I want you both to go in Joe’s room and lock the door,” Ryan said. “Don’t make a peep!”

“What are you gonna do?” Joe asked.

“We’ve got two problems: the monsters and whoever turned on the radios. I need to take care of the latter first, then try to lure the monsters away.”

“No,” Joe said, “You two go. You can run, get away. Go to the roof, bar the door or something.”

“No, Gramps, we’re not leaving you!” Carmine said.

Ryan stared at the man. Wheelchair or not, this man had balls of steel, willing to sacrifice himself to save his grandson.

Ryan hoped it wouldn’t come to that. “I’ve got a plan,” he said, lying like a motherfucker. If he had a plan, his brain had better inform his body what the hell it was. “Go in there. Lock the door. Move the bed to block it, if you can do it quickly. And then stay quiet. You still have the gun I gave you, Carmine?”

Joe’s eyes widened, but he didn’t protest.

“Yeah, I put it in my room,” Carmine said.

“Good. Give it to Joe.”
 

“Remember,” Ryan said, “Not a peep.”

“Be careful,” Joe said. He and Carmine retreated to his room.

Ryan confirmed his rifle was loaded, then slid a box of bullets into his pocket and approached the front door at a creep, hoping like hell Red Jacket wasn’t on the other side, waiting to take him out. Ryan figured his odds were good; Red Jacket probably wouldn't hang around too long after rolling out the sonic red carpet for the monsters. Odds are, he either holed up in another apartment on one of the higher levels, or he’d gone to the roof. If he were really quick, and had a car, he might have already made it back downstairs and took off to who knows where before the place was overrun.

Pussy. Couldn’t fight his own fight, had to get the monsters to do it for him.

Ryan held his breath, forced himself to step into the hall, then let out his breath at the silence of no shots fired. The sound of music, loud rock he didn’t recognize, came from either direction: two different sources, two different songs blasting.

Though his ankle was still mostly fire, he limped as quickly as he could to the apartment nearest the stairway. He tried the doorknob. Surprisingly, it wasn’t locked. If Ryan were baiting this trap, he would’ve locked the door to delay entry. Give the monsters more time to find them.

Inside the room, Ryan found a large boombox sitting on top of the dining room table, with a front panel lit up in bright blue. He searched desperately for the off button in the darkness, but with the bright light of the display screen, it was hard to see details of the buttons on top of the device.

“Fuck!” he yelled, turning the radio around with one hand, while the other stayed on the rifle, “Where the hell is it?”
 

He found the button, small and lit green, on the top, where he should’ve seen it before, and pressed down hard. The light, and music died, but music from the other end of the hall continued to scream.

He limped into the hall, praying none of the monsters had made it up the stairs yet. They didn’t seem terribly bright or fast in his limited experience with them, so he hoped he had another few minutes to throw them off his trail. The hall clear, Ryan pushed himself as fast as he could to the second apartment, then turned the knob. Also unlocked. He slipped into the dark, scanning the darkness for the radio. Judging from the sound, it was in one of the bedrooms. He navigated past furniture toward the back of the apartment, and stumbled into the creeping feeling that he wasn’t alone.

He turned and saw a shadow among shadows, flickering in the kitchen. Though he couldn’t make out the man’s features, he knew who it was. Red Jacket. Waiting.

Ryan raised his rifle — too late.

Red Jacket fired his pistol, the gunshot thundering over the sound of the music.

Ryan stumbled back, then fell against the wall feeling as if someone had hit him in the gut with a baseball bat.

So this is what it feels like to be shot.

The man stepped from the kitchen, into the scant light seeping through the windows,
 
and aimed his gun at Ryan. “Should’a left well enough alone, Soldier Boy.”

Ryan tried to raise his rifle, but realized too late that his hands were empty. He’d dropped his weapon when the bullet hit. The pain in his gut spread like fire, and he felt dizzy and nauseous, making movement difficult, if not impossible. He wasn’t sure if this is what it was like when your body went into shock, but he prayed he would stay conscious. If he closed his eyes, he’d never open them again.

Move, damn it! You can’t die like this!

But he couldn’t.

Red Jacket leaned down, grabbed the rifle, then went into the back of the apartment and silenced the stereo. Ryan waited in the silence, listening, unable to turn around, waiting for Red Jacket to reappear and finish him off.

Time slowed to a crawl, and Ryan thought of Mary and Paola. He flashed back to the night of his daughter’s birth. How scared he’d been, waiting in the emergency room. Mary’s water broke seven weeks before Paola was due. They raced to the hospital, Ryan driving like a bat out of hell, pushing his Chevy to 110, fully anticipating a police chase or accident to give their story a different ending, but far too afraid not to drive like a stunt car driver.

The surgeons waited almost 16 hours before deciding they’d have to do a C-section. They said it was routine, but there was “always a chance,” however small, that something could go wrong. As Ryan waited in the hallway outside of the operating room while they prepped Mary for surgery, he grew more fearful that something bad would happen — that he’d lose the baby, Mary, or both. He’d never felt more helpless. He tried to tell himself surgeons performed these procedures all the time, and that things almost never went wrong, but nothing gave him comfort.
 

It was nothing short of a miracle when things
didn’t
go wrong, and they handed him his beautiful baby girl. In that moment, every fear and reservation he’d had since Mary said she was pregnant vanished in the purity of his newborn child. Ryan had thought he’d known what love was, but had never known anything like what swelled his heart in that moment.

The pain numbed as Ryan continued to wait for Red Jacket to show himself, . He wanted to get up, but his limbs refused to obey.

Instead, he thought more about Paola. And Mary. And all the pain he’d caused them with his affair. He wasn’t sure where it had all gone wrong, or why. And now, as his world was about to end, it didn’t matter. All he had was regret. He thought again of Paola, and the first time Mary saw her child. She was out of it during the procedure. So she had to wait until the nurse came to Mary’s recovery room a couple hours later. The look in Mary’s eyes, the happiness and joy, that moment when things weren’t perfect, but were so damned right, that moment would be the one he’d cling to as the icy cold of death came to greet him.

Red Jacket finally stepped back into view. Ryan saw only the man’s boots and jeans; he was dead enough already to be unable to look up.

The man stood in front of him, quiet. Ryan wondered why he wasn’t saying anything. Was he toying with him? Was he thinking of some fucking cheesy movie line like the kind a monologuing villain might give before dispatching the hero?
 

But then Ryan realized he couldn’t even hear the man’s breathing. Or his own.
 

It was as if someone had wrapped gauze around his head. The few sounds that made it through were muffled. For all he knew, Red Jacket was reciting the Declaration of Independence and encoring it with
Born in the U.S.A
.

Ryan couldn’t believe it. He was dying.

No last minute reprieve. No rescue.

This is it.

Suddenly, Red Jacket’s legs were gone. Snatched in an instant.

Ryan heard screams – muffled shrieks – and gunfire.

His heart raced as he strained to move and see what was happening. But the connection between his brain and body was severed.
 

The monsters had gotten into the room, that much he knew. Beyond that, everything was darkness and muffled chaos.

Please God, please don’t . . .

More screams, and then something grabbed Ryan’s legs and pulled. He slumped from the wall and onto the ground, looking up at the ceiling.