Tomorrow's Gone Season 1 Read online

  Tomorrow’s Gone

  Season One

  Sean Platt

  David W. Wright

  Copyright © 2021 by Sterling & Stone

  All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  Special Offer

  Prologue

  Episode 1

  1. Wolf

  2. Elijah Freeman

  3. Johan Pascal

  4. Alma Gray

  5. Johan Pascal

  6. Slum Lord

  7. Wolf

  8. Johan Pascal

  9. Slum Lord

  10. Wolf

  Episode 2

  11. Johan Pascal

  12. Wolf

  13. Richmond Freeman

  14. Emory Gray

  15. Johan Pascal

  16. Wolf

  17. Slum Lord

  18. Johan Pascal

  19. Richmond Freeman

  20. Emory Gray

  Episode 3

  21. Johan Pascal

  22. Olivia Freeman

  23. Wolf

  24. Slum Lord

  25. Richmond Freeman

  26. Johan Pascal

  27. Richmond Freeman

  28. Wolf

  29. Johan Pascal

  30. Slum Lord

  Episode 4

  31. Emory Gray

  32. Wolf

  33. Richmond Freeman

  34. Johan Pascal

  35. Slum Lord

  36. Wolf

  37. Johan Pascal

  38. Elijah Freeman

  39. Richmond Freeman

  40. Slum Lord

  41. Johan Pascal

  Episode 5

  42. Emory Gray

  43. Johan Pascal

  44. Elijah Freeman

  45. Richmond Freeman

  46. Wolf

  47. Elijah Freeman

  48. Olivia Freeman

  49. Elijah Freeman

  50. Richmond Freeman

  51. Wolf

  52. Olivia Freeman

  Episode 6

  53. Slum Lord

  54. Wolf

  55. Olivia

  56. Elijah

  57. Slum Lord

  58. Wolf

  59. Slum Lord

  60. Olivia Freeman

  61. Elijah Freeman

  62. Wolf

  63. Slum Lord

  64. Slum Lord

  65. Wolf

  66. Emory Gray

  Epilogue

  What to read next

  Want more?

  A Note from the Authors

  About the Authors

  To YOU, the reader.

  Thank you for your support.

  Thank you for the wonderful emails.

  Thank you for the thoughtful reviews.

  Thank you for reading and loving our stories.

  Special Offer

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  Prologue

  Riverside

  * * *

  Being this close to the violet wall of death where her father vanished was always difficult for Caleigh, because a part of her always felt like he was close by and watching. Of course if he was still out there, he wasn’t her father anymore. He would be one of them now — one of the Lost Ones.

  The wind picked up and darkened the sky with storm clouds, whipping Caleigh’s long hair into her face. She tied it back into a ponytail and called out to her little brother. “Come on, Ryan. We need to head back. I don’t want to get soaked.”

  It looked like a normal storm so far, but being this close to The Ruins she had to account for the possibility, however rare, that it would spawn something far worse, something that would come and claim anyone not locked safely inside their homes.

  Caleigh was mostly worried about getting her book wet, though. Constance wouldn’t lend her another one. Books were a rare treat since the world disappeared fourteen years ago, before she had learned to walk, let alone read.

  Ryan cast out his line out again, his back to Caleigh.

  “Ryan! Now!”

  “Not yet, I almost had one!” He sounded desperate, and barely audible above the screaming wind.

  “We can try tomorrow.”

  “No, I need to get one today.”

  Her brother had been anchored to the same spot on the riverbank for most of the morning and now lunchtime was long behind them. He had yet to catch anything, same yield as his last three weeks of effort, or in the months he’d been coming with Dad. Ryan was awful at fishing, no matter how hard he tried. And even if he could catch his first fish on their father’s birthday, it wouldn’t ever bring him back.

  There was no returning from The Ruins.

  Dad might not be dead, but still he was gone.

  Caleigh stared across the wide, sloshing river to the looming forest on the opposite side. Trees thickened, growing closer and closer to make a dense blanket of dark greens and browns as they ascended the range, vanishing from the foot of the mountain into the horizon’s lavender fog.

  A chill shook her body.

  The purple haze was the barrier between the few counties spared and The Ruins, what had once been the rest of the world before the things came out of nowhere to destroy the planet.

  It was a barrier that her father, on a hunting trip, had been stupid enough to breach.

  She still hated her uncle for daring him to cross the river with him. Uncle Mike should have lost his life; Caleigh should still have her father.

  Thunder BOOMED not far off. Lightning spread like spiderwebs in the distant purple sky.

  Her pulse raced as the roiling fog kept getting thicker and darker. She’d never been so near The Ruins with a storm brewing. Caleigh wondered if the fog always thickened or if it was one of those storms.

  She heard no siren so far, and the screaming always came when it was.

  We’re safe.

  We just need to get going.

  “Come on,” Caleigh called again as a fat drop of rain hit her cheek. She tucked the book beneath her coat to keep it dry. “Okay, I’m leaving without you!”

  Ryan ignored her.

  “I swear I will.”

  “No you won’t.” He didn’t even turn around. “Mom would kill you.”

  “We’ve got to go!”

  He finally looked at her. “Five more minutes, pleeeeease.”

  Thunder rumbled with the low growl of a hungry beast rising from its slumber. Panic swelled in her chest as her voice rose in pitch.

  “Fine, then I’m leaving you here. Good luck getting home on your own!”

  That should scare him into coming.

  Ryan hated to be left alone. He was eleven, but still clingy like a toddler. Not that Caleigh had seen all that many, and could only vaguely recall what her brother had been like that young.

  She turned away from Ryan and started walking along the well-trodden path toward home. It was a good twenty-minute walk back to town. They’d probably have to run if they expected to avoid the rain — assuming he was coming.

  She looked back.

  But Ryan was still standing there, still trying to catch a fish.
<
br />   Idiot!

  Caleigh kept walking, shouting over the now howling wind. “I’m leaving!”

  “Fine,” he whined. “Go.”

  She hated when her brother did stuff like this. He was usually well-mannered, but since Dad died six months ago, he’d been acting out more, as if he wanted to upset her and their mother, as if he wanted to get in trouble. She didn’t understand boys, least of all her brother.

  Still moving, Caleigh peeked back to see him still standing there, now almost out of sight through the thicket of trees. She should probably turn around. They’d both walked the path plenty, but she didn’t trust him to get home on his own, not with the storm coming.

  She’d have to stop and wait.

  But Caleigh hated giving in to his childish demands. She would have to march back and grab him by the arm, demand that he leave with her most serious face.

  She turned.

  And the siren from town issued its terrible wail, cutting through what was left of her anger, filling her with raw panic and unrelenting dread.

  So it was one of those storms.

  She looked up to see the thick purple fog rolling toward her brother, undulating as it raced forth like a wave about to crash on the shore and annihilate everything in its path. The world around her was growing dark enough to swallow her brother.

  No!

  Ryan cried out. “Caleigh!”

  She ran to him, slipping and falling into the wet grass.

  She scrambled back to her feet, the wind a vortex around her. An angry violet fog filled the air like porridge, thick enough that Caleigh could feel its warmth and wetness on her skin and in the strands of her hair.

  Or maybe it was the rain.

  She screamed in the darkness. “Ryan!”

  Nothing.

  No, no, no! If he’s lost to The Ruins, it will kill Mom. And me.

  “Ryan!”

  Still no answer.

  She raced half-blinded by the stinging rain and thick fog to where she thought she’d last seen him, praying she was heading in the right direction.

  She finally found him, or a flash before the boy disappeared in a swirl of amethyst. He was standing right where she’d last seen him, on the bank, still clinging to his fishing pole.

  “Ryan!” He was either still ignoring her or couldn’t hear her.

  She ran to him, following memory more than sight.

  Another flash and she saw him. He had dropped the rod and was staring out at something Caleigh couldn’t see.

  “Close your eyes! Close your eyes, Ryan!”

  Her brother vanished again.

  She reached him, or where he should have been, but he wasn’t there.

  The wind and rain and everything else came to a crawl around her, moving so slowly that Caleigh could see the arc of individual drops of rain, of leaves and pine needles hovering in the wind, and the fog like a frozen cloud before her.

  “Ryan!” Her voice returned in echoes.

  He kept staring forward, and she still couldn’t see what he was fixed on. Nor did she want to; Caleigh knew better than to look.

  That was the first rule about The Ruins — never look at what comes out.

  She grabbed his shoulders and spun him around, the world still crawling around them both.

  His eyes were wide open and it looked like he’d been crying. The eerie smile claimed his entire face. “Look, it’s Daddy! He’s come back.”

  She tried to cover his eyes with her hands, but time sped up again. Ryan exploded into motion, moving fast as if trying to catch up with himself.

  He turned and started running, toward whatever he’d seen in the fog.

  Caleigh couldn’t think fast enough to stop him.

  Again she screamed his name, but Ryan was already gone.

  She raced forward, unprepared for the speed with which her body moved, and tumbled into the river.

  She went under and then came back up gasping for air, looking wildly around for her brother.

  She heard movement behind her.

  Caleigh turned, hoping it was him, but not daring to look up. She kept her eyes low.

  But Ryan wasn’t standing there.

  It was the familiar brown pants and gray coat her father had always gone out in.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, the rain like slivers working their way beneath her eyelids to pry them open.

  Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.

  “Caleigh?”

  The voice she’d longed to hear every night for the last six months. The voice that had told her bedtime stories nearly every night of her childhood. The voice that echoed with a throbbing ache in her heart.

  Don’t look.

  Don’t look.

  “Caleigh, is that you?”

  She felt his hands on her face, tilting it toward him.

  God, she missed him so much.

  Don’t look.

  Don’t look.

  “Daddy?” she asked, crying, lips trembling as her hand reached out and landed his arm. His skin was cold, wet, and, oddly, bumpy.

  No, they weren’t bumps, they felt like … vines or something growing out of his flesh.

  “Yes, dear. It’s me.”

  Don’t look.

  Don’t look.

  But Caleigh couldn’t help it.

  And before her eyes met his gaze, she heard a growl from behind.

  She turned and saw Ryan’s bone-white eyes glaring back at her.

  The siren kept screaming as Mike fastened the shutters over Mr. O’Conner’s windows. He tried again: “Stop trying to help and just get inside!”

  But Mr. O’Conner was still an old grouch. “I can do it myself.”

  “Fine.” Mike turned and headed for the next house to help Mrs. Findley.

  He knocked on her door to make sure she was safe inside.

  “Stay put, we’ve got you,” Mike said as he and Reese lowered her shutters.

  There were only six rangers to batten the hatches for a village of seventy-five homes. Fortunately, most of the people here were either fishers or loggers, and already securing their homes.

  Someone was coming at him. He didn’t have time to help anybody else. He turned, ready to tell whoever it was to wait their turn.

  But it was his sister-in-law, Colleen.

  “Have you seen the kids?”

  “They’re not home?”

  “No, they went fishing by the river hours ago.”

  “Shit.” Mike looked up at the sky, now quickly turning purple. They didn’t have long before The Ruins storm was at their doorsteps. He turned to Reese.

  “Is Simone around?”

  “She went to get meds for Dom.”

  “Shit. Where’s The Wolf?”

  She shrugged. “It’s just after lunch, so he’s either still asleep or already drinking.”

  He went to the bar first, Reese right at his side.

  They found The Wolf lying face down at a table in the back, surrounded by an army of empty glasses, long black hair and a thick beard covering most of his face.

  Mike shook the man awake.

  “Wake up, Wolf. We need you.”

  Episode 1

  2:15

  One

  Wolf

  Wolf was having a real dick-tickler of a dream. A matching set of sexy lasses, one tall bottle of top-shelf tequila, and a blindfold to keep him from seeing the various implements of pleasure they kept dragging along his naked skin to tease him ahead of their ravishing.

  But he never got to the good part. Some assholes grabbed him by the throat instead. Yanked Wolf right out of his balmy little threesome, then hurled him into the icy waters of a dreary goddamned reality.

  “Wake up … We need you!”

  Wolf didn’t answer, blinking up at Mike and Reese, the two Rangers wearing panic like a pair of soiled panties.

  He groaned, reached for the nearest glass, and gulped his beer. It was piss warm so he spit it out.

  Mike said, “There’s a
storm. My niece and nephew are caught in it.”

  Images of the kids, two of only four in the village, flashed in his mind. The boy was a bit of a window licker, but the girl was quiet, always looking at Wolf with either curious or cautious eyes before she finally opened her mouth. Guarded but sweet, she even lent him a book a few weeks ago: Alice Unfolded.

  Wolf hadn’t read it yet, and every time Caleigh saw him she asked if he’d started. He lied every time, saying he’d been too busy but would get to it soon. Which wasn’t, technically, a lie. Being a drunk was a full-time commitment.

  “Where are they?” Wolf asked, instantly alert, if not yet fully awake.

  “The river. They fish near the north fork, at the base of the mountains.”

  “A river running the length of the village and you let them lower their rods that close to The Ruins?” Wolf narrowed his eyes at Mike. “How many times did your mommy drop you on your head?”