Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone) (72 page)

Noella stared at the bag, her mind reeling as a fog of terror swallowed her ability to move.
 

“Open the register!” the man growled, thrusting the gun inches from her face.

Oh God, he’s not even wearing a mask!
 
He’s gonna shoot me so there are no witnesses.

Noella stood, frozen to the spot.

Move, move, move, just do what he says!

But she couldn’t. And she became certain that in her fear of doing anything which would get her shot, he would become frustrated enough to pull the trigger.

“Now!” the man screamed again, and Noella jumped.

Just stay calm, give him what he wants, and hopefully he will leave.

Tony’s voice called from the back, surprising both her and the robber.
 

“Did you say something?” Tony asked as he stepped from the back room, reeking of smoke, pulling white earbuds from his ears. Tony’s eyes widened in shock, bouncing from the gun to Noella, then back.
 

He turned, and made it one hastened pace toward the back room before Mets Hat pulled the trigger and shot Tony in the back of the head. The gunshot thundered through the coffee shop and pierced Noella’s ears. She cried out, holding her hands over her ears, staring at Tony as he stumbled a few steps, then made a final sideways shuffle. He dropped, face cracking ceramic in a bloody crunch.

Noella cried out, her voice and breath threatening to leave her.

She stared at Tony’s dead body, and flashed back a decade, seeing her father die in front of her.

No, no, no.

She turned to Mets Hat, tears in her eyes. “Please don’t kill me,” she begged.
 

He looked more surprised than Noella. She had expected him to pull the trigger since she first saw death in his eyes. He obviously hadn’t been planning to . . . until now.

He opened his mouth but said nothing. The death in his eyes retreated, leaving behind a broken shell of emotion. “Oh my God . . . What did I do?”

His eyes darted back and forth, panicked, trying to figure out what he was going to do now. He just killed a man. And now he had to determine whether to flee or take care of the only witness. Noella was frozen, not daring an inch, for fear of spooking Death to take another shot.
 

He’s going to kill you.

You saw his face. You saw him kill someone. He can’t let you live.

Their eyes locked, and he looked down at the gun in his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, raising the gun to her head.

* * * *

CHAPTER TWO

Yesterday morning…

Thursday, October 25

Noella reluctantly woke to reality.

She far preferred her dream world to this one. In her dreams, her dad was still alive, and she didn’t have to live with her Aunt Josie and Josie’s jerky boyfriend, Randy. At times, her dreams seemed solely designed to remind her how much of a nightmare her reality had become.
 

She opened her eyes to the sliver of light spilling through her parted curtains, and thought of her father, Thomas.
 

It had been 10 years today since his eyes closed forever, yet on mornings like this, in the lingering aftermath of the dreams,
 
10 years ago seemed like yesterday, and the wounds of grief still fresh.

Noella faced the window, trying to work up the courage to start her day. Though she got six hours of sleep, it felt more like four. Her head was throbbing, again, and she was feeling groggy. Today was gonna be a long day. She reached for her bottle of pills, palmed one into her mouth, and then took a sip of water from the water bottle on her nightstand.

A pill a day keeps the voices away.

She lay back down, figuring she had about 10 minutes before she needed to start getting ready. Josie didn’t have to be to work for another hour, so Noella had time to maybe catch a catnap.

She was debating whether or not it was better to just get up, or catch a few more Z’s, and have to go through the whole waking up thing all over again. A knock on the door bolted her upright in bed. She could practically smell the
oh gross
of Randy’s Old Spice on the other side.
 

He pounded on the door again, then yelled, “You ready yet? I’ve gotta get to work. I’m taking you to school, and we’re outta’ here in five.”

Noella’s feet hit the carpet.
What? Nobody told me!
She opened the door and poked her head into the hallway where Randy was standing, dressed in his uniform and ready to go.
 

“I thought Aunt Josie was taking me to school, today. How am I supposed to shower and get ready in five minutes?!”

“Nope, she’s come down with something and is laid up in bed, so now you get to ride with me in the cruiser.”

Great.

Just what she needed: to be driven to school with her aunt’s boyfriend in the police cruiser, again. Last time he dropped her off, she tried to keep her head down and sneak out of the car unnoticed. Randy, being the big jerk he was, waited until she was halfway out of the car and “accidentally” blurted the siren. Right in front of all the kids hanging out in front of the school. They all looked, pointed, and laughed. It was
so humiliating!
Given her history, and the events from two years earlier, the last thing Noella needed was to be brought to school in a cop car. It reminded people of the things she hoped they’d someday forget if she could manage to fly under the radar long enough.

“I wish someone woulda told me I had to be up early,” she said.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Missy. I’ll tell Josie to try and schedule her sickness in advance from now on so Princess Noella’s not inconvenienced.”
 

Princess Noella?!
She hated when he said crap like that. She was about as far as you could be from a princess, especially given all the rich, stuck-up snobs in her school.
Those girls are princesses!
 

Randy’s voice cracked into a laugh. “Get up, giddy-up, and get in the shower. No one was ever around to wake me and I learned to unbury my head from the covers just fine. Five minutes is more than enough time. It’s not like you’ve got more than four outfits. Pick one, rub some Teen Spirit on your stink patches, and get downstairs before I turn the engine.”

“10 minutes, Randy.” Noella growled. “You’re telling me you couldn’t have given me 10 minutes?”

Anger flashed on his face and his voice went electric. “Excuse me? Is that how you talk to someone offering to do something nice for you? Sheesh, kids today are so ungrateful!”

Noella stared at Randy, holding his eyes and making him gaze into the hate she could never voice. Sometimes, she wished he would just hit her, so maybe Josie would wake up and see what a jerk he was. But Randy had been too cool to ever let his anger get that out of hand. He somehow managed to snow Josie over, balancing his verbal abuse evenly with this charm, but Noella could see, maybe even feel, the monster lurking below, the monster that fed on their misery and drank theirs like a drunk in an alley. Between his erratic mood swings, obsessive compulsive attention to detail, and penchant for ruling the roost like a prison warden, their lives always revolved around not doing anything to set Randy off. It was like constantly walking on a carpet of eggshells. And for some reason this morning, she felt like dancing all over them and cracking them to powder, just to see if she could push him over the edge.

His flash of anger vanished, replaced by a wide, faux smile barely masking his contempt. “Well, you
could
just take the bus,” he said, his smile a hook, waiting to see what it might catch.
 

“You
know
I don’t like to take the bus,” Noella said.

“That’s your fault. You just need to learn how to stand up to those bitches. Problem with you, Noella, other than your questionable wardrobe of funeral attire, is that you let life happen. Girls ain’t gonna pick on you if you do something to change it.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Noella said. “What do you know about what I’ve gotta put up with?”

“Oh, right,” Randy sarcastically nodded. “What do
I
know? I’m just a deputy. What would I know about handling violent people? Take the bus, and learn to stand up for yourself. Otherwise bullies are gonna be pushing you around forever. Mark my words, Missy.”

Missy
... another one of the things he said which had a way of crawling under her skin
 
and burrowing into her brain.

“Fine, I’ll take the bus,” Noella said to the biggest bully she knew.

It was just as well. The girls on the bus were cruel, but at least the trip was short. Going to school with frizzy hair and feeling funky was not an option. She’d rather put up with a few minutes of catty crap than feel like crap all day. Besides, the girls on the bus were in the minor leagues when it came to her list of enemies. Her real enemies were far too popular to ever be caught dead on the bus. They either took new cars their parents got them, or rode with their boyfriends (in cars bought by the his parents). So maybe the bus wasn’t as bad as she remembered.

“Well then, I’m outta here,” Randy said. “Remember, if you kill one of the girls, I’ll have to arrest you, but I promise you won’t get grounded at home. So try and keep it to fists and hair pulling, eh?” Randy winked, then disappeared down the stairs and out the front door.

Noella rolled her eyes and shut her door, his Old Spice still lingering in her nostrils.

**

Noella showered and then texted Mako to let her know she would be joining her on the bus today. They didn’t get to see much of each other this year, since they only shared one class, so that would be cool. Noella checked in on Josie long enough to see her shape buried under the covers, and then raced from the house. The morning air was crisp and cold. Dark clouds hung over the street as if they’d been waiting for her to step outside.

God, it better not rain... or snow.

She considered going back inside to get her umbrella, but sometimes the bus liked to come early, so she locked the door instead. She turned around and stopped cold, surprised to see an extra long green and yellow moving truck blocking the house across the street, the one that had been vacant ever since her best friend Sam,moved a half mile away last summer.

As though she had all the time in the world, Noella trotted across the street, then peeked around the back of the truck. It was locked up tight. By the looks of it, the house was, too. But the “For Sale” sign was gone, so someone was definitely moving into the place. She hoped it would be someone cool, though odds of that happening seemed pretty remote. In fact, other than Sam, fate had a rather dark sense of humor when it came to choosing her neighbors. Her block sometimes seemed like a Who’s Who of Weird, from the old man who liked to walk outside in nothing but his underwear, to the militant nut-job that always gave her the stink-eye and yelled racist comments at people who walked on his lawn, to the “family” that she was pretty sure was running a meth lab, to the creepy guy who seemed waaaay too interested in everyone’s business, she was glad she didn’t have to spend a lot of time outdoors.
 

And then there were the kids.

Kids around here, with the exception of her two friends, were either popular rich kids who looked down on anyone different than them, or testosterone-pumped steroid cases with raging homophobia. And in some cases, you got the worst of both worlds, steroid-case rich kids. While there were other groups, the artsy hipsters, the rockers, the emos and goths, the nerds, and a few other groups, she didn’t really fit in with any of them. Though most people looked at her and thought
goth chick
, she never really fit in with them, either.

Noella was truly a unique freak, not belonging or fitting in with any group. Alone, as she’d always been. And most days she liked it. But her birthday was not one of those days.

Noella looked up and saw Mako at the end of the block, tapping her foot impatiently.

“Come on!” she said.

“Sorry!” Noella yelled, throwing her arms around her in a big hug.
 

Most days felt like a reunion. Noella and Mako rarely saw one another outside school. Randy was a jerk, and yanked the leash whenever he could, but the real problem was that Mako’s parents were ridiculously strict, even for old school Japanese parents. Most days, Mako could only leave the house for school or violin practice. Even though she and Noella lived just one block apart, Noella had only been past her front door a few times.
 

Mako was a near slave to her violin, with 12 hours of practice per week, and a quarterly performance to prove the time, and money, was well-spent. She played like an angel, but half the time hated it like the devil, and played like she was trying to prove it. Mako called her style,
Violince.
Of course, she never dared to play like that for her parents, or they would freak the frick out out.

Violince
sounded like its name, violent strings, but there was a desperate, elegant beauty to Mako’s playing that made Noella want to happy cry.