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

three blocks away and , be in the path of an out of control car which drove straight into a restaurant and struck three diners, killing two of them instantly.   As a result of the accident, Sam would wind up being a paraplegic, spending the rest of his years in almost constant pain and misery.
    Considering Sam never missed a day of work, and would never take time off on a whim, no matter how compelling Will might make the whim sound, he would have to get creative if he expected to get Sam away from the bookstore and into a safe place.  
    Will ran through a hundred ideas, but none seemed like they would work, at least not without raising suspicion. With Sam, suspicion led to reservation, and reservation was often a brick wall between them.  
    He tried to order pizza for lunch, convince Sam to dine in. But Sam was a man of routine and only broke it when forced. He did the same things, day in and day out. Ate at the same diner every day for as long as they’d owned the bookstore. He was obsessive compulsive about everything, and a break in routine was disaster in his personal world. Every day, Sam left Hidden Wonders at 12:30 p.m. on his way to the bank for their daily deposit. He ate lunch at the diner next to the bank, where he scribbled in his notebook, working on a novel he’d been writing every day for as long as they’d known one another.
    A rhythm like clockwork.
    So Will would have to get creative if he was to successfully meddle with time.
    Just before lunch, Will accidentally locked Sam in the storage room while he was counting the daily receipts and preparing the deposit. They had two locks on the door, one that locked and opened from the inside and another that locked and opened from the outside. That was how the door had been installed, for reasons only the last tenant knew. It was odd, but nothing Will or Sam ever bothered to change considering the million and one other things that needed their attention. There were always more things to fix than money to fix them. And besides, what were the odds one of them would actually get locked into the room from the outside? While parts of the city had gone to hell, their section of downtown had remained relatively safe.
    Will managed to clear the storage room of any screwdrivers or tools Sam could use to open the door ahead of time. Sam didn’t seem savvy enough to know how to use a credit card to slide the lock open, so Will’s plan had a shot of success. Five minutes after Sam went inside, Will locked the door, then broke the key off inside.
    Sam was pissed, especially when Will told him the locksmith said it would be several hours before he could get to the store and free him.
    “Can’t you get some pliers and turn it or something?” Sam asked from the other side of the door, sounding desperate, even though he’d only just discovered his predicament.  
    “No, it’s jammed good,” Will said.  
    “Why did you even lock it?!”  
    “I dunno, I saw some shady looking people walking by, like they were casing the place or something, and I wanted to make sure you were secure.”
    “Are they still out there?” Sam said, now sounding worried for Will, which turned up the flame under Will’s guilt.
    “No, they got on the bus. Just sit tight; the locksmith will probably be here sooner than he said. He wants to under-promise so he can over-deliver. Good business, right?”
    “What the hell am I supposed to do until then? I already did the deposits and books.”
    “I dunno, maybe you can do some organizing while you’re in there.” Will laughed. Though Sam was obsessive about many things, organization of the storage room wasn’t one of them, a source of minor bickering between them for years.
    “Nice try,” Sam said. “I’ll find something to read. That shouldn’t be a problem.”
    Will laughed, then went back to the counter up front, happy he’d managed to find a loophole, and hoping it would work. His past experiences at finding loopholes had always blown up in his face, though. But the other times, he’d tried direct methods of intervention, trying to tackle a problem head-on. Locking Sam in a room seemed less direct. He wasn’t trying to stop theaccident, but trying to keep Sam from being there. Perhaps fate wouldn’t notice such an indirect method of interference.
    Perhaps.
    Shortly after two o’ clock, Will heard the sirens of racing ambulances and police cars. Something had happened, right on schedule. And Will was safe and