Yesterday's Gone: Season One

a pair of black jeans, his body still wet.
    The woman raised her head, then murmured something unintelligible through her groggy haze.
    “You’re okay,” Luis said, rushing to the woman’s side. “You crashed into the house.”
    “I’m s ... sorry,” she said, as her daughter clung to her. The woman embraced her daughter, though she was too weak to do anything other than lightly place her arm on the girl’s back.  
    Luis helped the mother from the car, the little girl clinging to her the entire time, then ushered her to the love seat which had just missed getting hit by the car, instead of the couch, which was thoroughly destroyed.  
    Luis approached Brent. “She’s got a small head wound, nothing too bad. I need you to clean it and put a bandage on, okay?”
    Brent wondered why Luis would ask him, when Luis was closer. “I’m infected,” Luis said, sensing Brent’s confusion.  
    Brent stared, trying to process the news, as Luis hopped in the woman’s car, drove it from the house, and parked it diagonally to block as much of the house’s gaping wound as he could.
    Brent grabbed the first-aid kit, and went to help the woman, but couldn’t stop thinking about what Luis had said.

    **

    “What are those things?” the woman asked, sipping from a water bottle, hands shaking.
    The girl sat next to her mom, wiping tears from her eyes, traumatized.
    “We don’t know,” Brent said, “I’m guessing aliens, but definitely can’t say for sure. We ran into a bunch of them in the city this morning. Where are you all coming from?”
    “Jersey, near Clifton,” the woman said.  
    They exchanged vanishing stories, though Brent and Luis left out the Times Square bodies and Joe getting infected parts, and definitely left out the part about maybe Luis now being infected , too. They wanted to comfort the mom and her child, not scare the hell out of them.
    The woman, Jane, a 30-year-old stay-at-home mom, was woken at three in the morning by her six year old, Emily, saying she’d had a bad dream that monsters came to take them away. The girl then asked, “Where’s daddy?” Jane found that her husband, Michael, was missing. So was their cat, Cinnamon. Jane tried to call her husband’s cell, but the power went out. She went door to door in the middle of the night, before realizing the entire block had also vanished.
    They went back home, Emily crying the entire time, and turned on the battery-operated radio to see if an emergency broadcast message or something was broadcasting. But all they got was static until they picked up the message regarding Black Island. They waited for a while to see if Michael would come back. When he didn’t, they decided to take a chance and drive to the docks.
    “I know they said not to drive at night, but I couldn’t wait any longer,” Jane said. “I had no idea there were these... aliens out there. What do you think happened?”
    Luis told her about the dreams he’d been having, not that it offered much explanation for reality.
    Outside, the morning sun had risen on the horizon, though it was only a blur lost in the low-hanging fog.
    “So what do we do now?” Jane asked, hugging Emily.
    “We wait for the ferry and hope no more of those aliens show up,” Luis said, staring out where the window had been, lost in thought.
    “I want my daddy,” Emily cried, leaning against her mother.
    Brent felt his heart break while staring at the small girl, so delicate and shaken. He wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay, that she’d see her dad again, and maybe even her cat, Cinnamon. But he’d never been a very convincing liar.
    “I know, baby,” Jane said, kissing her daughter’s head, “I miss Daddy too.”
    Though the girl was six, she wasn’t much taller than Ben. Brent thought about giving her the Stanley Train in the pocket of his sweat pants, but truth was, he didn’t want to let it go, even if it might bring joy to another child. Letting it go meant he might never be able to give it to Ben. Instead, he went to the kitchen, and brought them some Pop-Tarts. Jane thanked him and opened the package, handing one of the pastries to Emily.
    “Thank you, Mr. Brent,” Emily said, reaching out for the Pop-Tart with her tiny hands and taking a tiny bite.

    * *

    As Jane and Emily sat on the couch, Brent and Luis were in the kitchen, packing the duffle bags with food and supplies. Brent noticed Luis wasn’t wearing a bandage. In fact, his arm looked as if it