Yesterday's Gone: Season One

looked like a dark cloud had formed all at once over the bed, a swirling mass of slow moving smoky tendrils. Except it moved more like smoke if it were in liquid form. Brent stared in horror as two long tentacles of darkness twisted and snaked down toward the sleeping bodies. Just as one of the tentacles creeped toward the woman’s head, the image flickered
    More static and the high-pitched weird teakettle noise whistled for the longest five seconds of Brent’s entire life. The static cleared. When it did, the bed was empty.  
    The time in the corner read 2:15 a.m.

    TO BE CONTINUED...  

 
    ****
     
    EPISODE TWO
     
    ****
     

     

 
    CHARLIE WILKENS
     

     

     
    October 15, 2011
     
    Early evening
     
    Jacksonville, Florida
     

     
    It had been two hours, but the girl was still passed out in Charlie’s bed. He started to wonder if she had fallen into a coma — maybe she’d die.
     
    He’d removed her hoodie when they first got home. She was wearing a charcoal tee underneath and Charlie cut the sleeve from her shirt to dress the wound. It was more bruise than torn flesh, which was good because he didn’t think he’d be able to stitch someone. He didn’t understand why the girl was still out, but he also wasn’t in a hurry for her to wake. Because then he’d have to deal with her reaction to being abducted, which could get violent.
     
    He kept flashing back to that moment when they’d fallen in the shopping plaza parking lot, and he first realized she was a girl and not some dude looking to jack their truck. Something in her eyes said she wasn’t a threat. But what was she doing in the store? The doors were locked when he and Bob arrived, so she must’ve followed them in for some reason. But why?  
     
    If her goal was to take the truck, she could have done that without going into the store. Hell, she could’ve taken anything with four wheels; the streets were plenty full. Then again, he guessed she could have entered the store through a side door or service entrance.
     
    He thought of her beautiful eyes again. He only knew a handful of black girls, and none with blue eyes. Bob searched her for ID, but came up empty. While he had thought she was close to his age, closer inspection put her closer to 20.  
     
    “Who are you?” Charlie asked, neither expecting, nor getting, a response.
     
    The light outside, bleeding through the thick and slightly-parted curtain, was starting to dim. It would be night soon. It wouldn’t be long before they’d have to switch to some of the battery-operated lamps they’d lifted from the store. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she didn’t wake soon. If he went to sleep and wasn’t awake when she came to, she might freak. He wasn’t worried that she’d hurt him, even though it was a distinct possibility. His main concern was that Bob would see her as a threat and put a bullet in her before Charlie could calm the situation.
     
    Charlie stared at the shape of her breasts beneath her tee shirt. They were on the small side, but still quite nice. He had resisted the urge to “accidentally” brush against them when they were carrying her to his bed, then again when he was dressing her wounds, even though Bob made some sort of joke about Charlie keeping himself a “little chocolate sex slave.”
     
    What an asshole.
     
    As he kept watch over the girl, Bob stayed in the living room drinking his beer. Not Nati-Light, either. He’d looted good shit. Beside him, on the couch, a shotgun. Usually, he’d watch TV as he got good and drunk. Without TV, Charlie wondered what Bob would do for entertainment. He didn’t strike Charlie as much of a reader.
     
    He hoped Bob didn’t plan to continue using him as a dartboard for his amusement. He didn’t mind pretending to drink and burp to keep Bob in good humor, but he wasn’t Bob’s court jester, and wasn’t willing to play one in front of a girl. But if Charlie’s history with bullies had taught him anything, it was that bullies loved to humiliate others. An audience was just fuel to a fire.
     
    Bob was originally going to abandon the girl to die in the parking lot, but Charlie begged him to show compassion. They couldn’t just leave someone — especially a girl — behind to die.  
     
    “Well, she’s your responsibility,” Bob said as if she were a stray mutt. “But if she gets outta line, I’m putting her to sleep again and she ain’t waking up.”
     
    Charlie hoped it wouldn’t come to