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

to scrape a razor on his face, would be six feet under in just a few hours.
    Mary felt a chill imagining The Prophet’s sermon, talking about how Scott could finally feel the Glory of strolling through the Gates to meet the Good Lord, after “bravely fighting off the evils of the approaching Demons” in his few final minutes.
    When she finally fell asleep, Desmond disappeared, her mind filled by Ryan instead. He was lying still, as a young black boy and an old black man in a wheelchair hovered above, wiping a cloth across his face. He slowly opened his eyes to the bright light pouring in from the open windows. “He’s awake, Gramps!” the boy said.
    Ryan looked like he could barely move. “I thought you was never gonna wake,” the old man said.
    “What happened?” Ryan said, barely coherent.  
    The old man said he was safe and that the monsters were gone. Ryan was confused, asking questions and barely comprehending the answers. They hydrated him with water and told him again that he was safe, said he’d been out for five days after the monsters had bitten him. His eyes fluttered shut and his breathing collapsed. His head fell back against the pillow.  
    That’s when he saw Mary.
    Ryan said. “Is that really you? I’ve been searching for you everywhere”
    “You have?”  
    “Of course,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you and Paola for months.”
    Something swam inside Mary’s head, telling her she’d been in a similar spot many times before. “Is this real?” she asked. “Are you really still alive? I know I’m dreaming, but are you dreaming, too?”
    “I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said. Ryan smiled the same smile that had brought her to her knees more times than she could count. He met her eyes. “Are you and Paola really alive? I was almost out of hope.”
    “We are,” Mary said. And though she didn’t know why she said it, or even where it came from, she added, “Look for the broken cross. You’ll know it when you see the stone walls. We need you to get here before the monsters attack.”
      Ryan turned to dust before she wandered through another series of dreams, not one of which she later remembered. When she woke the next morning, she had thoughts of Ryan at the front of her mind, like she often did, but remember anything beyond that he’d been in her dreams.  
    She was awake for less than a minute when a queasy feeling rolled through her belly again, and sent her racing to the toilet. She made it just in time, as she vomited mostly fluids into the toilet.  
    Mary had felt that same feeling once before, 13 years earlier. The last time she had wanted dill pickles and green olives for 10 weeks straight.  
    There was life growing inside her, whether The Prophet would like it or not

    * * * *

LUCA HARDING: PART 2

    Kingsland, Alabama
    The Sanctuary
    March 24
    10:29 p.m.

    Luca stared out the window at The Box of Shame, thinking about Rebecca and feeling the empty inside him that reminded him too much of the Terrible Scary. Scott had been killed by the monsters today, or the Demons, as everyone here called them, so Luca was alone in the room, trying not to feel sad. But it wasn’t working.
    He washed his face, brushed his teeth, missed his family, then got back into bed with his face to the wall. He lay like that for 15 minutes, before he couldn't stand to stare at the flickering shadows of tree branches on his wall any longer. He flipped to his other side so he could stare out the window at The Box of Shame, standing alone beneath the moonlight, illuminated by a thin shaft of silver raining from the sky like a spotlight on the girl’s sadness.
    I’m sorry you got put inside there , Luca thought. It wasn’t fair.
    Luca had become used to the voices in his head, but until earlier that day, he wasn’t used to people answering back. But there was no mistaking the voice in his head this time. Rebecca said, “ Are you really there? ”
    Luca thought, “ Yes, I’m upstairs in my room. I’m looking at the box right now, and I can feel that you’re sad. Are you scared? ”
    “ Yes, ” Rebecca thought. “ It’s really cold in here, and I’m hungry and lonely and I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I heard bad stuff happened today. Is it true that someone died? ”
    “ Some of the men went out on a run and were attacked by monsters. Scott died. So did Eli. They are going to have a funeral for both of them tomorrow. ”
    “ Oh my God, ”