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

whispered.
    Noella’s eyes shot open and she saw that she was no longer alone.
    Crawling through the wreckage of the classroom, surfacing from the shadows of the rubble, and into the beams of sunshine, were two of the creatures .  
    The creatures that had haunted her dreams and waking nightmares for years, were back after a year’s absence.  
    The nude, emaciated monsters looked like something out of old photos she’d seen of concentration camp corpses, sunken features, bones pushing sharp through pale skin. Like ghosts of humans, but these things weren’t human, at least fully formed humans. For one, they had no genitals. And instead of eyes, their eyelids had been sewn shut with dark cord. And then there were their claws, long jagged crags of fingernails curling like commas at their fingertips.
    The worst thing about these things, though, was their mouths. The skin had been peeled away, exposing bone and sharp, rotting teeth that looked ready to tear into flesh.  
    The two monsters shuffled through the room, inching their way toward Noella, raising their noses as if trying to pick up her scent. They sniffed like dogs, in quick bursts, as they drew closer, arms fumbling blindly in the darkness searching for her.
    Noella whimpered loudly and stumbled back, her foot getting tangled in debris. She slipped and fell back, landing hard on her ass.
    A razored talon wrapped around Noella’s arm, and its bony finger dug into her flesh. The thing whispered, dozens of voices impossibly coming from its mouth, none of them making sense.
    “Nooooo!” she screamed, breaking free and crawling back on all fours as they rushed at her. Though the rational part of her brain told her that none of this was real, the rest of her body was convinced that if these things killed her in her dream, she’d die in the real world.  
    Must get away.
    The monster closest to her, swung its clawed hand at her face, coming within inches of slicing her. She screamed and pushed herself back and something hard slammed into her back.
    She   turned and looked up, suddenly blinded by light as the decrepit room around her vanished and was replaced by her classroom and classmates.
    She was on the floor, her back up against Evan Harrison’s chair, with every eye in the classroom glued to her.
    “Oh God,” she said, swallowing her ridicule as laughter erupted.
    Mr. Mahr rushed to her side and helped her up.  
    “Are you okay?”
    Becca and Vicky, who sat in the row behind her, were staring at her as if she’d stripped nude and ran through the classroom starting fires.
    Noella wanted to melt into the floor. Hide in the closet, climb in the sewer, anything. She hadn’t lost herself like that since the incident . She looked around in a panic, making sure she hadn’t hurt anyone.
    Everything seemed normal, except for herself, of course.
    “I’m fine,” she said, and then, feeling the scrutiny of the entire class, she decided that she had to get out of there. Now.
    “I need to see the nurse,” Noella said. She grabbed her bag and left the classroom before Mr. Mahr had a chance to write a permission slip.
    Noella bypassed the nurse’s office, and instead went to the girl’s room closest to her classroom, then into the farthest stall, and sat on the toilet and collapsed into tears.
    She’d thought these pills were working. She should’ve known something was wrong a few weeks ago when the nightmares started coming back. She tried to tell herself that they were just regular nightmares like everyone else had. It wasn’t like they were bleeding into her real life like they had done for so much of her childhood. Nor had she heard any of the voices that usually came with them. Other than the nightmares, things had been okay.
    Until now.
    Why did the pills stop working?  
    Dr. Foster spent months experimenting with different pills until they found one that both worked, and didn’t leave her feeling like a zombie. The pills had been a godsend, allowing her to live a somewhat normal life for the first time in years. But now, for some reason, they just stopped working.
    She’d have to go back to Dr. Foster. More tests, more scans, and more medication.  
    Another six months of being a guinea pig, hoping they’d find a way to make her feel normal again. She should’ve known better.  
    Normal died 10 years ago.

    **

    Somewhere on the way from the bathroom and to the nurse’s office, Noella had a change of heart.  
    She decided that so long