Yesterday's Gone: Season One

it would slow the creatures down long enough to defend the apartment with the small arsenal spread out on the coffee table.
    It had been nearly an hour since the massacre at Stan’s apartment. An hour of horrible silence and endless waiting.
    “All this time, I was hoping Gina and Ben were out there, lost. But now I’m not so sure. If they’re out there, with those things, there’s…” Brent couldn’t finish. The mere thought of some monstrosity attacking his wife or child, especially his child, was something worse than unimaginable.
    But even as he tried to squash the thoughts from his mind, his brain drew the image of Ben seeing one of the monsters, thinking it was a cool cartoon or toy come to life, and calling out to it. And then the look in his son’s eyes as the thing came closer and then finally attacked.
    Brent rose from the chair, pacing, wanting to do something, but not knowing what to do. What he could do.
    “Do you think they’d be better off if they just vanished?” Luis asked.
    “I don’t know. If the same creatures who killed Stan and Melora are also behind the vanishings, then no. But maybe … maybe whatever took all the people was actually saving them?”
    “Saving them?”
    “Yeah,” Brent said, the idea starting to spin and gather speed in his head, “Maybe some benevolent force was calling people up before these creatures showed up.”
    “What? Like God or angels?”
    “I dunno,” Brent said, “I mean, the things in the video didn’t seem all that godly, but would we know divine intervention if we saw it?”
    “Then why didn’t this … divine source … take us all? I mean, I could see if it was the Rapture and all the sinners or non-believers were left behind. But if that were the case, the city would be packed with people, right? As far as we know, it’s just us four. Well, now two.”
    As darkness enveloped the city outside, Brent and Luis took turns taking naps. Luis told Brent to go first, lying on the sofa while Luis sat in the recliner. Brent didn’t think he’d fall asleep. But as Luis was telling him a story from his life before the vanishings, Brent fell into the breath of nothing.

    **

    In Brent’s dream, he found himself reliving a year-old memory.
    Brent and Gina were in bed, listening to the baby monitor as Ben whined, not wanting to sleep. He was almost three years old, and had been sleeping on his own for almost two years, but had suddenly developed a fear of sleeping in his bedroom. Gina was trying to sleep. It was 10:20 p.m., and she had to be up early. Brent was typing story notes on his laptop. He didn’t have to be to work until 11 a.m., but he had a few hours of work ahead of him still.
    “How long do you want to let him cry it out?” Brent asked. “It’s been 15 minutes.”
    Gina sighed, “We can’t keep giving in or he’s not going to outgrow this.”
    Gina was right, and surely in stress listening to her son cry yet not going to him, but she was strong. Brent found it hard to listen to his son’s cries without going to Ben’s room.
    Ben’s recent night fears were likely inspired by Brent’s absence at home as he worked later and later. Most nights, his son was asleep before Brent got home. He couldn’t help but think if he went into Ben’s room and cuddled with him a bit, it would do more good than the harm Gina felt would come from surrender.
    “I’m going in,” Brent said, closing his laptop.
    “Sucker,” Gina said, playfully, and half asleep. He was glad she wasn’t going to argue with him. Raising a son was tough, but not agreeing on things with your wife made it harder. They didn’t have huge disagreements, just lots of little things, which added to the stress he already felt under the insanity of his workload.
    He slipped from their room, laptop in hand, and set it on the dining room table before going into Ben’s room, dimly lit by the blue Stanley Train nightlight on the wall.
    Ben was sitting up in bed, mouth wide open in full cry.
    “Hey, buddy,” Brent said, “What’s wrong?”
    “I want Daddy,” he said, his voice tired, ragged from crying.
    “I’m here, buddy,” Brent said, “Want me to lay down with you for a few minutes?”
    “Yeah,” Ben said, wiping tears from his cheeks.
    Brent scooted his son over, slid next to him in the bed, put an arm around him, then rubbed his hair, which often soothed the boy to sleep. Ben relaxed almost immediately.
    “Daddy loves you so much,” he said, hugging