Yesterday's Gone (Season 5): Episodes 25-30 (19 page)

Art cried out, trying to ask for help, but the liquid raced from the vial, up his arm, and into his mouth.

He gagged as the warm liquid shot down his throat, then jumped up from the table and shoved his fingers into his own mouth.

He was overwhelmed, unable to spit or pull the blue stuff out as it seemed to force its way deeper into his mouth. 

He fell back in the chair, arms limp, eyes blurring as he saw Luca and Rose stare at him without lifting a finger to help.

They’re trying to kill me.

The liquid burned as it rolled down his esophagus and then expanded across his chest.

Art coughed more, but nothing came up. He gasped for air, trying desperately to draw anything other than the blue into his lungs.

He gasped, and then the world went dark.

**

Art woke gasping, this time sucking deep mouthfuls of air into his lungs.

He was no longer in the chair but lying in one of the two beds. 

“He’s awake.” Luca rushed to his side and looked down at him.

Art sat up feeling the oddest sensation. While his lungs still burned, he felt otherwise fine. Better than fine. Energy pulsed through his body. For the first time in decades Art was able to sit up in bed without worrying about pulling something.

He looked around and noticed something else, too. 

The world was clearer than it had been in ages.

He reached up for his glasses, but they weren’t on his face. He saw them on the table where his wine cup still sat, along with the empty vial.

Art noticed the mirror on the dresser directly across from him. But it wasn’t him staring back — well it was him, but younger by at least four decades.

He got up and crossed to the mirror, needing to see closer. He touched his smooth face, no longer cracked with crevices and wrinkles. He couldn’t help but smile, breaking into laughter at the wonderfully impossible sight.

“Dear God,” he said, “what did you do to me?”

“Welcome to your new life,” a voice said. 

The voice didn’t belong to Rose or Luca. It was like two or three voices, speaking simultaneously, men and women. 

But there was no one else in the room.

Are they in my head?

“Yes,” the voices said. “We’re here, inside you.”

* * * *

CHAPTER 7 — BORICIO WOLFE

Boricio wasn’t sure how long he’d been left alone in the dark like an animal — he’d fallen asleep and had woken a few times since seeing Guard Tard — but it felt like a dozen dick-stained hours without a morsel of food or droplet of water. 

Boricio wondered if the people in charge knew where he was, then figured the crooked hogs were running the asylum. He was hungrier than Honey Boo Boo after a half day with nothing from Hostess, and his mouth was dryer than a dead camel’s cunt, but it was hard for Boricio to focus on his body’s pressing needs when the dull truth kept hitting him like an anvil on the head:
he’d finally been caught. 

Boricio was now tied to the hillbilly murders, the shit that went sideways in the dumpy motel before The Darkness stole his Morning Rose from her body, and the pedophile fuck who had been creeping on Paola.

After more than a decade of killing random innocents who didn’t deserve it, Boricio was now getting nicked for murdering the most deserving of fuckers: an irony of bullshit proportions. 

You’d think the cops would give me a blue fucking ribbon for doing the shit they don’t wanna get caught doing.

Boricio had passed out a few times since Luca had “fixed” him, but hoped his attention to details and steering clear of the law were so ingrained into his rituals that he’d cleaned up after himself before taking an impromptu nap at the most inconvenient of times.

He now sat in BumFuck County Lockup on the hook for who knew how many murders?

How many more will they find?

Boricio had pressed pause on his pursuit of freedom from the straitjacket. His head felt like the Fourth of July from repeatedly bashing it back into the wall behind him, his way of overriding the deep cut of confinement. 

He’d never felt further from control.

But fuck if Boricio was about to let anyone see him cry like a bitch.

He stared at the sliver of light bleeding from beneath the door, waiting for a sign that someone might come to smother the darkness and trying to think a way out of his clusterfuck.

A funny thought crossed Boricio’s mind: those little bracelets WWJD — What Would Jesus Do?

Boricio cackled, thinking of so many people wearing the bracelets, few acting anything like their Santa in the sky. 

He’d never seen anyone run onto a televangelists’ stage and expose their hypocrisy. But
that’s
what Jesus would’ve done. He wouldn’t be selling overpriced tchotchkes with his name on them.

If Jesus were real, and on Earth today, Boricio was goddamned sure his own believers would nail him to a cross and claim their Lord and Savior was a commie hippie with a vendetta against commerce. And ain’t no way on Earth Big Religion would allow any deity to come before the Almighty Dollar.

Sorry, Hey-Zeus, but we get fuckers doing the shit you would do, and we’re plum out of business. 

And what would Jesus do if held prisoner after ending a nest of hillbilly knuckle draggers?

There was no FUCKING way Boricio was about to let anyone nail
him
to a cross, strap him to a chair, or set him toe-to-toe with whatever death penalty they handed out in this godforsaken putrid taint of a state.

What would Hey-Zeus Do? No, fuck that, What Would
Boricio
Do?

Except, for the first time in memory, Boricio didn’t know what to do, or what he
could
do. No cavalry was coming to save him. He had no family or people to count on.

Mary and Paola were the closest things he had to friends, but Boricio hadn’t heard from them since shit hit the fan at the motel. He’d tried calling Mary and Paola, but their phones only rang. He’d searched the motel, and had even driven to Colorado, but found only nothing. 

Boricio assumed that The Darkness got them too. He hoped it killed them quickly rather than claiming their bodies and corrupting their memories.

He tried not to think about them, or Rose. He tried not to tumble down the same abyss of gnarled thoughts that had kept him in search of every next bottle’s bottom. Now that Boricio had actual feelings for people, he realized that giving a fuck was one hell of a curse. It was a bowling ball to the baby maker when people you let into your life were suddenly taken away.

Boricio laughed again, staring up into his cell’s utter darkness.

God was a cruel fucker if he wasn’t a fairy tale, to make people care so much about those he’d pluck from the planet one by one.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. 

Boricio did what he wanted, when he wanted. He killed fuckers in need of a killing and stuffed his stainmaker wherever he wanted — goddamn any asshole who stood in his way.

But as Boricio sat in the darkness, he wondered if this
was
his perfect justice. 

He was being made to pay for all the lives he’d destroyed. Not just his victims, but their families. Had Boricio been caught before now, before he’d been “fixed,” it wouldn’t have mattered. He would’ve thrived in jail until they put him down.

It would’ve sucked, but Boricio wouldn’t have really felt much of anything at all. He certainly wouldn’t be thinking about his friends and the only woman he ever loved being taken from him. Sociopaths can’t care. A fixed Boricio could. Worse, he could regret.

And nothing hurt worse than regret.

This was a perfect, almost cosmically planned justice. Make him care, then lock him up tight.

“Fuck you, God,” he growled into the void.

**

Boricio woke to the sound of an opening door.

Light flooded his cell, and a blurred shape formed before him. 

Is it Guard Tard, or has someone else finally realized I’m in here?

It
was
someone else.

It was the black guard, the one who’d reamed Guard Tard.

Boricio was so happy he wanted to cry.

He tried to remember the man’s name, but couldn’t. He saw the brass pin on the man’s front left pocket.

BOYLE

“Well, hello, Boricio.”

How the hell does he know my name?

Boricio’s mind reeled as he tried to imagine the circumstances that led to his name’s revelation. He hadn’t used his real name in forever. Only Rose, Mary, and Paola knew him as Boricio. Anyone else would only know one of his many pseudonyms. 

If they know everything, then this is the last yellow brick in the road.

Boyle spoke again. 

“I bet you’d like to get out of here, eh? Looks like they’re treating you like shit.”

The man’s eyes went down to the piss and crap carpeting the ground. Boricio wanted to stand and smack the fucker.

How dare you judge me, you cunt!

Boricio said nothing, waiting to discover why the man had come to see him.

“I can get you out of here.” He leaned closer, his brown eyes meeting Boricio’s.

There was something oddly familiar about his eyes, though Boricio’s hammering head wasn’t about to tell him what in the hell it might be.

The man spoke again, but this time in a voice that belonged to a woman:
Rose.

“I can get you out of here, love.”

A sledgehammer slammed into Boricio. His heart started beating hard enough to burst from his chest. 

“What the fuck?” 

“I’m projecting into this shell. I don’t have long before he starts to resist and I lose my connection.”

Projecting? Into a shell? Fucking alien talk!

“You’re not Rose.” 

“She’s still here, Boricio. With us. And you can be with us, be with
her
again. You can be free.”

Boricio laughed. “Free? Have Alf controlling my brain? I’d rather rot in here.”

“Suit yourself,” Rose’s voice said as the guard stood and turned around.

“Wait!” Boricio said, surprising himself. 

The guard turned back to Boricio. “Yes?”

“What are you doing with her?”

“We’re doing something fantastic, Boricio. Something I think you’d approve of.” The voice fell to a whisper. “We’re evolving humanity.”

“Yeah, I saw your ‘evolution’ on the other planet.”

“This is not like that. The Darkness was selfish and messy. In trying to claim the world, we destroyed humanity. Everything devolved into chaos. This time, we’re doing things the right way. We will become one with humans, rather than destroying them. We will evolve both species into something
better
than the sum of our parts. Admit it, Boricio, you’ve felt like a better person since Luca fixed you, right?”

“For all the good that’s done. Look where I am now.”

“A minor inconvenience if you allow us to help you now.”

“I don’t want no fucking aliens in my head!”

“You act like we’re not in there already.”

Boricio stared at the guard or whatever it was, hating it for using his Rose’s voice. “The fuck you talkin ‘bout, Willis?”

“Luca was the first to be ‘infected’ by our species, as you all seem to see it. Yet he’s not some monster, is he? He saved you. And a part of him is still inside you. A part of
us.
”

“Bullshit! And besides, the Boy Wonder is dead now.”

“Not the other version of him. He’s with us, helping to make this dream a reality. We’re not your enemy, Boricio. These, these people in this prison that are treating you like a dog, and all the old thinking humans,
they
are your enemies. We can make this all go away. You can join us and be truly free for the first time in your life.”

Tears welled in Boricio’s eyes as he imagined a reunion with Rose. Hearing her voice, even if bastardized from some guard pig’s mouth, felt like an invitation to go back in time and spend a few months back when everything was perfect.

God, he wanted to be with her again.

But as Boricio stared at the guard, he couldn’t shake the reality. Rose wasn’t
Rose
. By any other name she was an alien’s marionette. 

He remembered staring into her eyes after The Darkness took over. How she had begged him to run.

Boricio couldn’t forget the look.

That Rose
wouldn’t want him to say yes to the guard.

That Rose
would tell him to keep running.

“Well?” the guard said. “Do you want to be free?”

“Fuck you, Alf!” Tears streamed down Boricio’s face. How dare they use Rose to try and lure him?

“Sorry, you feel that way, love,” Rose’s voice said.

The guard stood, turned around, and left Boricio alone.

Again.

Boricio wailed into the darkness.

* * * *

CHAPTER 8 — MARY OLSON

As morning sun creeped through the blinds, Mary rolled over in bed to avoid the light, and bumped into Desmond.

She opened her eyes to find him watching her.

“Stop.” Mary covered her mouth, not wanting to blast him with morning breath.

“Stop what?” Desmond smiled in the morning’s dim light.

“Stop watching me sleep. It’s weird.”

“Hey, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Every new morning beside you is a miracle.”

“Oh, please. Do you want to write my greeting cards now?”

“I’m serious.”

Mary blushed.

While her ex, Ryan, hadn’t been a jerk, she wasn’t used to such a saccharine-sweet guy who said the sorts of things no real guy ever said. Ryan had been a gentleman, sure. He held doors open, bought gifts — when he remembered — and was always respectful. But he was never the kind of guy who flowered Mary with compliments, or flowers.

And yet,
he was
that way with Paola. 

Guys were rarely willing to reveal raw emotion to their partners. And yet, they had few qualms saying sweet, silly things to their children.