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

it seemed as if Mary’s mind was always being pulled off to plunge deeper into her thoughts – deep enough to drown the outside world. Desmond said she could stare into the nothing for hours if he let her. If Mary didn’t trust him as much as she did, she’d swear he was lying. It never felt like more than a few minutes. She would simply start thinking about something trivial, until her mind started chasing memories down the rabbit hole, taking her in different directions each time: worrying about Paola, conflicting thoughts about Desmond, odd ideas about Luca and Will and everyone they’d met in Alabama. These thoughts had less shape and left her far from understanding, especially the thoughts about Will.  
    John was there sometimes, too. Like a shadow.  
    “What about the last three months?” Desmond kept rubbing Mary’s knee, his fingers drifting higher.
    “Everything,” she said, “and all at once. But most of all I guess I’m wondering if it’s really over. Is this it? Is this our life now now? Is this what it’s going to be like forever?”
    “Maybe,” Desmond smiled. “But it’s not so bad, right? I’ll never have to go to another boring cocktail party. You’ll never have to worry about shipping in time for the holiday rush. And it looks like the universe finally took care of Facebook once and for all.”
    Desmond’s hand had crawled all the way up Mary’s inner thigh, his fingers grazing the edge of her gummy middle. Desmond smiled again, this time more like a wolf.  
    “Jesus,” Mary said. “You’re like a teenager. Wasn’t last night enough?”
    “You have something better to do?” He rolled on top of her. Her knees lifted in the air as she pulled her legs back toward the bed.  
    “Never,” she said.  
    His teeth touched the edge of her ear. Mary moaned slightly, then whispered, “You don’t need to warm me up, Tiger. Just go.”  
    “When I’m ready,” he said playfully, rock hard but taking his time. “Good things come to those who...”  
    A gunshot finished his sentence; followed, seconds later, by the ringing of the alarm bell on top of the grain silo where one of the men was on watch.
    Desmond rolled off of Mary and onto the floor. She bolted from bed, threw on a sweater and sweats, then grabbed the pistol from the nightstand. Desmond threw on his pants, grabbed the rifle in the corner of the bedroom, bolted into the hallway, down the stairs, into the living room and to the oversized window overlooking the front yard of their four acres of farmland.
    Mary ran to Paola and Luca’s room, two doors down, and threw open the door. Both children were wiping sleep from their terrified eyes. “Stay in here! Remember the plan.” Mary shouted a few decibels shy of a scream, meeting her daughter’s eyes. “And lock the door.”
    Luca leaped from the top bunk, then went to the door. “Thanks Mary,” he said, closing the door and turning the latch. Though he looked like a young teen, he was still a child who needed to be locked away.
    Mary ran downstairs where Scott and Desmond were staring out the window, a few feet from Linc, all three with rifles ready. She saw the long-limbed black monsters outside, the things which had nearly killed them back at the hotel, and which stalked her dreams nightly.  
    “Bleakers!” Scott said, his mid-adolescent voice a crack of excitement.
    “Who’s on watch?”
    “Will,” Desmond said. “He’s on the silo.”
    “How many are there?”
    “I see four, just inside the gate,” Desmond said. “What about you, Linc?”
    “Your four, then one in front of the barn,” Linc said, peering down the scope of his rifle which he aimed out the open window.
    A gunshot, from Will, thundered outside, immediately followed by a second and third.  
    “One by the barn is down,” Linc said, “Will needs backup. Let’s get out there now.”
    Desmond was first out the door; Linc just a step behind that. Scott tried to follow, but Linc held up a palm, “You sit this one out, kid.”
    “Come on,” Scott pleaded, looking at Mary, who shrugged, deferring the call to Linc. If she had it her way, Scott would be up in the room with the other kids. But that was the mother hen in her, something that she was trying not to push on Scott, who was striving to be seen as a man in the group.
    “I said no,” Linc’s deep voice and former linebacker’s body was intimidating, even if everyone knew he was a bigger teddy bear than Mary. “I