Yesterday's Gone: Season One

the bodies in the river.”  
     
    Paola spoke up from the backseat. A small voice, but in no way timid. “Then that means there are bad guys, probably a lot of them.”
     
    “She’s right,” Jimmy agreed. “Anyone who’s moving stuff or making it disappear would have to know what happened. And they would need some crazy technology to make it happen, which is why I’m putting my chips on aliens.”  
     
    “You’re not old enough to lay your chips on anything,” John said. “Might be the Army; that wouldn’t surprise me at all. And if that’s the case, Desmond’s leading us down the highway in the worst possible direction.”  
     
    “It’s not the Army.” Mary didn’t know how she knew, but it felt right and given her instincts, that meant it probably was. Besides, she didn’t like what John was insinuating about Desmond’s decision, or perhaps his intentions.
     
    “We don’t know what’s going on.” John said. “It’s best to be prepared for anything, including an Army that’s also an enemy.”
     
    “It’s a zombie outbreak, or maybe some weird inter-dimensional shit. Maybe something’s happening to time.” Jimmy had three theories in three seconds.
     
    “Maybe it was nature,” again from Paola in the back seat.  
     
    John took his eyes off the road and moved them to Paola. “What do you mean?”
     
    “Well, maybe the planet is the bad guy, and it’s taking itself back from all the people. It’s not like the people have been being very nice to it.”  
     
    Silence filled the car as everyone considered Paola’s theory. It was her father speaking, Mary thought, thinking from an angle no one else saw, yet was somehow so tangibly practical. John was something of an environmentalist, or at least the kind who tried, so he seemed to be giving Paola’s idea some weight.
     
    A thick silence lingered for a few minutes, interrupted by a slight rattle that sounded like it was coming from under the hood, followed by a heavy blanket of ... atmosphere, or something; a sudden weight — gravity growing thick and fattening the air around them.
     
    “See,” Paola said. “The trees are mad.”  
     
    Something stole the flush from John’s face.  
     
    “You hear them now, don’t you?” Jimmy asked.  
     
    John nodded. He could hear the trees, at least until they fell silent a moment later. The dense clusters started to thin. They passed a patch of twisting blackened branches, then the green was suddenly, shockingly all gone.  
     
    Everything grew darker over the next few miles: the sky, the surroundings, the ground. The entire drive had seen the five of them sailing through the great big empty, but the long miles were nothing compared to the rather abrupt dead man’s walk now surrounding them.  
     
    There was nothing — no trees, no cars, no people, no houses. Nothing but ashen ground and empty air. Corpses would’ve been a welcome sight over this. At least it would’ve been something.  
     
    Everyone in the car was wondering the same thing: Was Missouri gone forever, and was this the tundra of their new dead world?  
     
    They drove for another few minutes in awed, toxic silence, wondering where everything had gone. Then they drove right into the answer. No words could describe the devastation before them. Storm, squall, tempest, tsunami — none would do.  
     
    If the world had ended, it looked as though they’d surely found the center.

    * * **  

 
    LUCA HARDING
     

     
    October 17, 2011
     
    morning
     
    Somewhere in California
     

     

     
    Luca woke up mostly happy, though he still felt slightly scared. The itchy burny was gone. It started to fade when he woke up and now almost felt nice. Warm all over, like being by the fire naked.
     
    The invisible fire kept him from getting tired. It was his third day walking, yet Luca could still have easily played a full game of soccer, or several. He saw another dead dog on the side of the road and his sad spiders started to crawl.
     
    Luca shuddered, but didn’t stop his stride, or even slow. He missed his family, and the world. But he would find everyone soon. Probably as soon as he found the man who made the lobster tacos. Luca had been thinking about him a lot lately. Whenever he went to sleep, usually after he was finished talking to the Indian.  
     
    Luca didn’t remember what the man who made the lobster tacos looked like, so his brain made up a brand new face. Now he was tall, taller than most