Yesterday's Gone: Season One

hadn’t seen him in a whole lot of hours. It had to be close to lunch time, but Luca didn’t want to stop just yet and eat any of the food in his backpack.
     
    He had to be getting close to Mexico because Luca saw one of those signs with the family running across the street. That meant they weren’t too much farther from the man with the lobster tacos.
     
    Luca passed a cat with bugs on its face and felt an ouchy inside, but his attention wasn’t on the cat for long. He heard the husky’s unmistakable whine and saw Dog Vader a few yards up the road, nudging his nose against something on the ground.  
     
    Luca was standing beside the dog, just as a man was starting to wake up. He opened his eyes slowly, then smiled, leaping to his feet at the site of Luca.  
     
    “It’s you!”  
     
    Luca took a big step back. He was NEVER supposed to talk to strangers. NO, NO, GIJoe. But this was definitely an emergency, even if he wasn’t bleeding or vomiting. He needed help, and how else was he supposed to get it if he couldn’t ask? But there was a big problem. The man didn’t look like just any old stranger.  
     
    He’s a jumbo stranger. If I talk to him, he might take me far, far away. He might even make me live inside the terrible scary, since that’s where he probably lives himself.  
     
    The man kept jumping up and down. “It’s you, it’s you, HA, it’s finally you!” Luca looked past the scary white hair and fixed his gaze on the man’s smile. It made Luca feel safe, just like the man’s large lime-green tee shirt. The memory of lobster lingered on his tongue and Luca took a small step toward the tall man.
     
    Dog Vader whined. The stranger cleared his throat and ran his hands through a thick carpet’s worth of hair. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “It’s just so great to see someone else. Are you alone?”
     
    Luca thought he should say probably no, but lying made his tummy feel terrible. “Yes.”
     
    The tall man looked disappointed, though not at all surprised. He held his hand out to Luca. “I’m Will, Will Sparks.”  
     
    Luca took his hand. “Luca, Luca Harding.”  
     
    “Where’re you from, Luca?”
     
    “Las Orillas.”
     
    Will looked impressed. “You walked down here yourself?”
     
    “Yeah, most of the way. I drove a little but I had to stop because I didn’t like it when I crashed the car.”  
     
    “Had a fender bender, eh? Well, looks like you made it out okay.”  
     
    Luca didn’t want to tell him about the invisible magic that made him better. He wondered where Will was from. He looked a-lot-of homeless. More than just the few days’ worth since everyone went away. He also looked a little like Santa Claus, if he were skinnier and his beard was less bushy.
     
    “Did you drive down here?” Luca asked.
     
    “Nope. I live here.”
     
    “Where?”
     
    “Wherever I can.”
     
    “You ARE homeless!”
     
    Will laughed. “Well, you don’t have to sound so happy about it! Yeah, I’m homeless. And apparently now so are you. But I have the edge since I’ve been doing it for a while. So I say we stick together. Strength in numbers and all that. What do you think?”  
     
    His hair is scary but his smile is from the man with the tacos.  
     
    “You recognize me, don’t you Luca?”  
     
    The boy nodded.  
     
    “Well, I’d like to tell you a story.”  
     
    Will sat and crossed his legs. “You’re a smart kid, Luca. And if we’re gonna travel together, I figure we’ve gotta start out right.”  
     
    Luca sat in front of him with his hands in his lap.  
     
    Will said, “I’ve been waiting for you. And I mean you specifically , not just anyone. And I haven’t been waiting just three days. It’s been nearly a year. That’s why I came down here to live in the first place.”  
     
    Will rubbed his temples, chewed his lip, lowered his voice, then dropped to one knee and looked Luca in the eye. “The world is gone, Luca. And it’s never coming back. I’ve known this was going to happen for a while. Told everyone I could, too. But that only made me lose everything I had, including a world’s worth of friends and colleagues, each one thinking I was batty. Of course, I’m the one who ended up with the beachfront property.”  
     
    Will winked at Luca and leaned in closer. “You see, I’ve been having dreams since forever. Bigger than big dreams, really. You know, like a Beatles song. You do know the