Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

him warm in the constricting cocoon of white death. Outside, the snowstorm had become a howling blizzard, reducing the world to a thick wall of white.
    Like the fog, but freezing.
    He was exhausted, in pain, and trembling. Abandoning the shelter of the car to confront the cold kiss of the storm was suicide. So he hunkered down and waited.   He hoped Adam was smart enough to find him and get out of the cold, too. But he was too exhausted to worry about Adam.
    Charlie reclined the front seat, leaned his head against the headrest, and closed his eyes. Maybe just a few winks.
    As he drifted off, memories of a movie where the hero was fighting sleep in the cold flashed behind his eyes. There was danger there, something about if he fell asleep, he would never wake up.
    Don’t fall asleep, or you won’t save Callie.
    Charlie opened his eyes, trying to shake himself free from the seduction of sleep. But within minutes, his eyelids grew heavy again.
    Just a few minutes . . .
    Charlie closed his eyes, tired of fighting, and surrendered.

    * * * *

MARY OLSON: PART 1

    Kingsland, Alabama
    The Sanctuary
    March 24
    9:06 a.m.

    Mary sat on the toilet, holding her stomach. She hoped she wasn’t coming down with something. Aside from the occasional bout of sniffles, she almost never gotsick. There was nothing like a boiling stomach, rolling in anger and making you too stupid to think straight. She needed to be stronger than ever, not struck by the lightning of an oncoming virus. She didn’t dare consider what the flu might do to her body now that modern medicine was a memory.
    Maybe it wasn’t the flu, but stress. Stress could certainly tear a body in two. And she’d had more than her share recently, with what had happened to poor Rebecca and all. It was awful, punishing an innocent girl like she was Devil’s seed, shearing her hair to nothing and locking her in a wooden box for a little more than being a normal 13 year old girl. The end of the world didn’t entitle anyone to forget human decency, compassion and fairness. Such predatory behavior was vicious, befitting of wolves, not people. And those that allowed it to happen without a word of protest?Sheep.  
    As awful as all of it was, Mary had the hardest time with the part played by the girl’s mother, Sarah. Not only had Sarah done nothing to stop it, she’d fueled the fire and fanned the flames. What sort of mother would do that? If that had been Paola, The Prophet would’ve needed Rei and every other “brother” in the compound to keep her nails from clawing the color from his face. Sarah had practically issued the directive to lock her daughter away.  
    Punish the sinner. Punish the sinner now, while there is still time to save her soul, before she joins her sister in The Lake of Fire.
    The cruelty of Sarah’s words were a ragged blade digging into her spine. Mary shuddered, continuing to rock back and forth on the toilet in a self-embrace.  
    Mary was so enraged, she wasn’t sure whether it was the sick in her stomach or the sick in her soul that had driven her from the lunch table and into the bathroom for the first time that day. This was the second. The space in the middle had been spent outside in the garden with Desmond and Will.

    **

    The garden was at the back of the property, behind the hangar, a favorite spot for the three grownups in their group. While Linc was technically part of their group, he’d been steadily spending more time with the members of the church,   which left Mary feeling like Desmond and Will were the only adults she could truly count on here.  
    The garden had two long stone benches. The trio always sat on one, Desmond and Will on either side with Mary in the middle, huddled close together to ensure their chatter didn’t carry too far.  
    “You should’ve seen it, Mary,” Desmond whispered. “It was some fucked up shit, the way they got their ‘confession.’ If I was a kid like Carl, getting tortured by a pious dickhead like Rei, I would’ve confessed to stealing the Lindbergh baby!” He shook his head. “Rei’s every word was insidiously chosen to led the boy down a series of feelings and then fed him the answers they wanted from him. Carl didn’t stand a chance. It was expert manipulation and mind control!”
    “What did he say?” Mary asked. “Rei, I mean. Not Carl.”
    Desmond gritted his teeth. “I remember it word for word: ‘ Do it for both of you. The punishment for girls is far less strict than