Yesterday's Gone: Season One: Yesterday's Gone, #1

Episode 1

2:15

ONE

Brent Foster

Saturday

Oct. 15, 2011

Morning

New York City

On the day everything changed, Brent Foster’s biggest concern was getting an hour to himself. But hell if he wouldn’t have settled for 15 minutes.

His head was pounding when he woke, as if he’d spent the night partying rather than staying late at the paper. Fortunately, it was his day off. He glanced at the alarm clock and saw that the blue numbers were black. The fan he used to drown out the sounds of his neighbors and traffic was off, too. The power must’ve gone out.

Great.

Judging from the morning sun coming through the opening in the curtains, he figured it was probably 9 a.m. And since he couldn’t hear the sounds of his rambunctious 3-year-old at play, Gina must’ve taken Ben for a walk or play date at the park.

He smiled. He loved when he had the apartment to himself. Moments alone were so rare these days. He worked under constant deadlines in the newsroom, still always hustling and bustling, even with the layoffs. Then, at home, his son was usually awake and in need of some daddy time.

He just wants to spend time with you, his wife would say, tugging at Brent’s threadbare guilt strings. You’re always working.

Brent wasn’t completely antisocial, even if Gina might argue otherwise; he just needed time to decompress when he woke and when he got home. He was just wired that way. If he didn’t get time, he grew moody and anxious. And he was short with Ben, which carried the rough consequence of feeling shitty for hours, one hour for every second he was uncool to Ben. The last thing he wanted to be was like his own dad, yet some days, he was headed there with a full tank of gas and a brick on the pedal.

He was in a better mood when he could start the day alone. Today, it seemed, would start just right.

Brent walked into the living room, popped open the fridge, off but still cold. He grabbed a bottle of water and took a deep swig as his eyes scanned the counter for a note from his wife. She always left a note when she went somewhere. But apparently, not today. Brent took another swig of water and headed down the hall to his son’s room. The door was closed; big, blue wooden letters spelled BEN on the door. Brent peered inside. The bed was unmade, curtains drawn, even though Gina always opened them when Ben first woke. Both pairs of Ben’s sneakers were sitting on top of his blue, wooden toy box that doubled as a bench.

Brent was confused. Gina wouldn’t take Ben from the apartment without shoes.

He went back into his room, fished the cell phone from his pants, and glanced at the time" 10:20 a.m. Later than he thought.

He dialed Gina’s cell and put the phone to his ear.

No sound on the other line.

Phones are down, too?

Brent dialed again, same result.

Mrs. Goldman.

They had to be at the apartment across the hall, Mrs. Goldman’s. Her husband had passed away a few months earlier. Gina had started bringing Ben over to keep her company. She loved Ben, and he loved eating her cookies — a perfect match.

Brent slipped on some sweatpants, then headed across the hall and knocked on the door. The lights in the hall were out, save for four emergency lights spaced every five doors along the ceiling.

Mrs. Goldman always took forever to answer the door. Brent suspected she was going deaf, even though she had a keen ear for neighborhood gossip. He knocked louder. Still, no answer.

Mrs. Goldman never went anywhere. Ever. Her only other family was her worthless son, Peter, who never visited. The few times Gina had invited her to the store or for a nice afternoon lunch, Mrs. Goldman declined. She didn’t care much for the city. Was only there because her husband loved it. Now he was gone, and she was happy to spend her days watching TV, reading her mysteries, and playing bridge with some of the other ladies twice a week.

Mrs. Goldman, Brent called, Are you there?

Nothing.

Weird.

Brent didn’t know the other neighbors on his floor, but Gina had recently become friends with a young mother a few doors down. Maybe they went there, Brent figured. He walked toward the end of the hall, but couldn’t remember if the woman lived in number 437 or 439.

He tried knocking on 437 first.

No answer.

He tried a couple more times, then went to 439.

No response.

What the hell?

People were always home, or at least it seemed that way. Brent was never able to sleep in because his neighbors were loud and the walls were thin. He’d wanted to move somewhere quieter for years, somewhere with neighbors who actually left the building every now and then. Brent turned and tried the door across the hall, 440.

No response.

What the hell?

Brent turned around and headed up the hallway, stopping to knock at each door along the way.

One, two, and then five more doors. Nothing. He continued down the hall, his heart thudding, knocks turning to pounding at each door.

By the time he reached the end of the hallway, he was hot and sweaty, yelling. HELLO?! ANYONE?!

Nothing but black silence. The darkened hall seemed to constrict as his mind started racing.

Impossible. There’s no way that nobody’s home. No fucking way. Unless . . .

Terrorists.

The word bubbled to the surface as an answer to a question he’d not yet had the courage to ask. They were in New York, so it wasn’t implausible. He raced back to his apartment, door still open, went to the windows and pulled the curtains aside, then looked down on the city streets. The empty city streets.

Brent was speechless, his heart on pause, eyes swimming in and out of focus.

What the fuck?

It didn’t add up. If there were an attack, there would be bodies. If there was an evacuation, surely his wife would’ve woken him. Unless maybe it happened while she was out and unable to get back.

That thought died on the vine when he spotted Gina’s purse and keys on the kitchen table, right where she put them every night before bed, ready for the next morning.

He looked back down. No people. No cars on the street. Well, none that were moving, anyway. Brent could see a handful that were either in the middle of the street, or had crashed into the cars parked on the opposite side of the street. He could see exhaust from some of the cars, their lights still on.

It was as if everyone on his block just simultaneously vanished. Everyone except Brent.

He went to Ben’s room again to get a look from his son’s window, which had a slightly better angle at the cross street. Something sharp stung his foot. He cursed as he stumbled, glancing at the carpet to see a small, blue train.

Stanley Train, Ben’s favorite toy, which he carried with him everywhere, including to bed. It was there, just sitting on the floor. Brent bent and picked it up. Its wide eyes and eternally giant smile stared back at him. Wherever his little boy was, he was without his favorite toy.

He set the train on Ben’s pillow and returned to his room. He got dressed, then grabbed his keys, wallet, and phone. He shoved everything in his jeans, then went to the kitchen, found the notepad and a pen and left a note for Gina.

Where did you go? Went outside to look for you. Knocked on doors at our neighbors, nobody’s home. I’ll be back at 1 p.m. If you come home, wait for me.

Love,

Brent

Halfway through the front door, Brent thought of something, then went back to his son’s room, grabbed Stanley Train from the pillow and put it in his pocket.

Brent took the stairs down to the next floor, and started knocking on those doors, despite not knowing anyone on this floor.

At the sixth door without any response, he worked up the courage to try a doorknob. Locked.

Halfway down the hall, he got an idea. He found the fire alarm and pulled it. The alarm blared; a banshee shriek amid the quiet. Brent covered his ears, watching the hall, waiting for people to flee.

Not a single door opened.

Fuck it, Brent said, and went to apartment 310, tried the knob. It was locked. He backed up a bit, kicked at a spot right below the doorknob and was surprised at how easily the door burst open. Why even have locks?

Hello?! he shouted.

No response.

The apartment was as vacant as his own. Pictures on the wall showed a Puerto Rican family of four. Parents with two twin boys, about 10 years old. He was about to leave the apartment, but movement grabbed him. Something just beyond the sheer curtains covering the living room window. He moved closer and saw the slinky silhouette of a cat sunning on the windowsill. How it could relax with the alarm blaring was beyond Brent, but then again, so were most things feline.

He went to the curtain, pulled it aside, and saw the white, long-haired cat stretched out, face nuzzled against the warm windowsill. As he reached out to pet the cat, it started to roll over to show its belly. As it turned, Brent jumped back.

The cat’s face had no eyes or mouth.

Brent fell back two steps, letting the curtain fall into place, his heart racing, half expecting the monstrosity to jump on him or worse. He stared at the curtains, dread creeping up his spine.

What the hell is that?

He watched the cat’s silhouette as it lay back down. He worked up the courage to pull the curtain aside again to make sure he’d seen what he thought he’d seen. The cat’s face was turned down, so he had to reach out, hesitantly, again and pet its head to get it to look back up at him. As his fingers touched the cat’s fur, he felt a slight shock, like static electricity. The cat didn’t seem to notice the shock. It began purring in response to the touch, then lifted its chin to meet Brent.

Only this time, the cat had eyes, wide blue ones, and a mouth.

Brent shook his head, feeling stupid. He continued to pet the cat’s head as the alarm kept ringing.

You deaf, kitty? Brent asked.

No response. Which was a good thing, or Brent might have just jumped right out the window.

He glanced out at the street below to see if tenants were pouring from the building’s lower floors because of the fire alarm. If so, he didn’t see anyone.

As the curtain drifted back into place, he saw movement on the street below.

He snatched the curtain aside again, and glanced down at the apartment building across the street. A man in a dark sweater, baseball cap, and pants emerged from beneath the green awning and onto the street, looking around. He was too far away to get a good look at, particularly under a baseball cap, but something about his gait suggested he was nervous.

Brent jumped up, excited, and began smacking the window, yelling, HEY! HEY!

The cat leaped down and scurried out of sight.

The man on the street didn’t seem to hear Brent. He was walking north along the street, sticking to the sidewalk. Brent stopped trying to get his attention. While the man did glance over at the building a couple of times, likely drawn by the sound of the siren, his attention was mostly on something further down the road that Brent couldn’t see.

Brent watched, waiting to see where the man would go.

He seemed to be looking for someone. The man pulled a pair of binoculars out of his jacket and scanned the street in both directions. Then, he raised his binoculars up toward Brent. Brent waved frantically. For a moment, the man paused, and Brent was certain that he’d seen him. But he put the binoculars down and turned quickly to the north side of the street as if he’d heard or seen something.

The man lifted the binoculars to his eyes and focused to get a better look at whatever had his attention.

Brent turned, pushing his face against the window, struggling to see whatever the man was now staring at, but the angle was marred. He looked back down at the man, only to see him running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, and back into the apartment building he’d come from.

Brent pressed his face against the window again, struggling to see what scared the hell out of the guy. Whatever it was, he couldn’t see it.

Hide, a voice in Brent’s head said. Hide now.

It’s coming.

TWO

Mary Olson

Saturday

Oct. 15, 2011

Morning

Warson Woods, Missouri

Mary woke up sticky.

Another dream about Ryan, the sixth one in the last two weeks. Weird. She probably hadn’t thought of him for a month before that. Or longer. Though she couldn’t help but picture her ex from time to time since their daughter was his spitting image — well, a cuter, girly version, anyway.

Mary turned over and buried her face in the pillow. She hated dreaming about him, and really hated when they were sex dreams.

He’d never stop being inside her, but he hadn’t actually been there in three years. They’d been divorced for two, but once she found out about Natalie Farmer, the bitch that was 10 years too young and as perky as a sitcom schoolgirl, she couldn’t touch him without a shudder.

She hated him for the innocence he stole and the lives he abused. But a large part of her could never forget the way he made her feel — the way he made her laugh, the way that, for no reason at all, he used to slip behind her and whisper treasures in her ear. The way he truly seemed to love her and their daughter, Paola. And the way he always reassured her that everything would be okay, even if he only did so in her dreams.

Mary rarely slept past 7. During the week, Paola had to be at school by 9 and they usually left by 8 because Paola liked to go early. Unlike most 12-year-olds, Paola would wake early even on the weekends. Sometimes, Paola would join Mary for some early morning yoga before Mary worked a few hours on the greeting cards that paid for the $1.1 million house high on a hill in Warson Woods, just outside St. Louis – no thanks to Ryan.

A million dollars bought a palace in Warson Woods, the kind of house Mary liked most, even though it made her feel guilty all the time. Her cousin lived outside L.A. He said nothing was for less than $350,000 unless you were willing to settle for bullet holes.

It was probably thinking about bullet holes that made Mary realize how quiet the house was. More than usual. She sat up in bed. More than quiet – eerie. The trees were swaying, but that was it. No birds chirping. No dogs barking. And no lawnmowers. In Warson Woods, people loved lawns like children, and spoiled them the same, either themselves or through their teams of landscapers. Mary started calling lawnmowers the Missouri Symphony the second week she moved in. To not hear lawnmowers on a Saturday morning made her briefly question whether she’d slept straight through to Monday.

Mary left the bed and padded toward the stairs. She needed coffee. That would help the oddness fade. The hallway was dark. Mary flicked a light but nothing happened. She sighed and kept walking. One million for a house, fine, but everything should work.

She would have a hard enough time this morning without light, but being without caffeine might make it impossible. So, she wasn’t happy when her new Keurig wouldn’t work either. Maybe there was an outage in the neighborhood? A sudden chill iced her insides. It wasn’t logical, but it came from the place that keeps its eyes peeled for the stuff logical doesn’t.

Paola?

Paola didn’t answer, but the Keurig rumbled to life and started warming its water as the hall light came on and the air conditioner cycled on. She would’ve called for Paola a second time, but she didn’t have to. Paola called for her instead. Mom!!! Mom sounded like a war cry rattling from the throat of a warrior who knew she was about to die.

Mary was at the foot of the stairs in less than a second and all the way to the top in two after that. She flew through Paola’s open door. Her daughter was screaming at something out of view.

It was gone before Mary got there, but it had left Paola a vibrating mess. Mary tried to soothe her, but Paola pushed her away. It’s okay, Honey. Mary pulled her closer. Paola surrendered, and Mary’s hands fell in a familiar pattern behind her daughter’s head.

What was it? Mary asked.

I don’t know, Paola shook her head. I don’t know the words.

Try.

It was like, Paola fell into a second fit of sobs. Mary continued to pet her. It was like ... more sobbing, then, It was like Daddy.

What? What do you mean, it was like your father?

Paola shook her head. Her cheeks burned. It was Daddy. He was in my room, but he wasn’t. It was just him, but not all of him.

Your father was here?! Mary could feel her white face making Paola’s redder.

No. Paola started to say something, then closed her mouth. A long three seconds passed, then, It was like if a ghost was there without the ghost. Daddy, but not Daddy.

How do you know it was a ghost, or your father, if you couldn’t see anything?

Paola just stared at her mother. I’d know Daddy anywhere.

Her face cracked, and she started to cry again as the power went off again.

It seemed to take longer than normal for Mary to calm Paola’s whimpers down to heavy breathing. Right when inhales and exhales were starting to meet, Paola broke the rhythm.

Why is it so quiet?

Mary had almost forgotten. I’m not sure, honey. The power’s out and everything feels ...

Wrong, Paola finished.

"Yeah, wrong." Mary stood and held out her hand for Paola. She was almost as tall as her mom, and would likely tower over her in another year or two. Paola followed her mom downstairs and into the kitchen. The coffee machine had died before it could produce enough for a cup. Frustrated, Mary went to the fridge and grabbed a Diet Coke for herself and poured some OJ for her daughter.

When they finished, Mary looked out the front window.

Let’s go look outside.

They walked the neighborhood that had gone from posh to ghost town overnight.

They peered through windows and into cars, and crossed well-manicured yards, starting at Mrs. Parker’s house on the corner, because she was the first to move into the subdivision and had made it family business to know everything about everyone every day since. She wasn’t home.

After two empty streets, they rounded the hill and hit the hiking trail, thinking there might be a neighborhood gathering they didn’t know about. The trails were empty, too. Odd for the weekend, when the housewives and retirees were usually out en masse.

They followed the trail, then rounded the avenue back to their street. They were surprised, and thrilled, to see someone standing in front of their house. It was their neighbor, Jimmy Martin – Jim, as he’d been introducing himself since eighth grade, even though no one would listen. He was a head too tall for his age. That, along with his long, dark hair that he let hang in his eyes, made him look a bit older than his 16 years. Any advantage he had in looking older was usurped by his immaturity. While he was generally a good kid, as far as Mary knew, he got into frequent trouble for skateboarding in the shopping center, trespassing at the pool after hours, skipping school, and the stuff that unfocussed kids generally did to pass away the time.

What’d you find out, Mrs. Olson?

Nothing, Mary shook her head. Do you know what’s going on?

"Other than the entire world going POOF!? Jimmy made jazz hands, I’ve no idea. I woke up, my mom and dad were AWOL. So were both my brothers. I figured they were fu ... messing with me, but I can’t figure out the angle, plus there’d be no way they’d get the whole neighborhood to play the reindeer games."

Jimmy seemed oddly unfazed by events.

Mary was about to ask him if the electricity was working in his house when her neighbor from the other side, John, appeared in the distance. He was walking fast, directly toward them. Mary closed her mouth mid-sentence, Jimmy and Paola turned to see why.

Thank God! John was running toward them.

What’s going on? All three asked, hard to tell who was first.

No idea. Jenny’s gone. No note. Nothing. She doesn’t even go downstairs without kissing me goodbye.

It was true. With any other couple it would’ve been disgusting. But John and Jenny were probably the two nicest people alive. And so adorable and doting, it was almost creepy.

No one had a chance to console John, or consider Jenny, before a smoke-colored Audi appeared on the drive coming toward them. It was Desmond Armstrong, the neighbor from across the street. The Audi’s engine died, but Desmond stayed inside. They could see him through the tinted windows, sitting and staring into space. It was an endless minute with no one knowing what to do. Finally, the door opened, and Desmond put his boot on the grass.

There’s no other way to say it, Desmond shook his head. The world is dead.

THREE

Charlie Wilkens

Saturday

Oct. 15, 2011

Morning

Jacksonville, Florida

Charlie Wilkens wasn’t upset when he woke to find an empty world. In fact, it was the best damned thing that had happened in his 17 years on the planet.

He was frightened at first, of course, when he woke to find his house empty, both cars in the driveway, and no sign of his mother or asstard stepdad, Bob. But when he went door to door and discovered his entire block was as empty as his house, he was a few planets past the moon.

As he tottered down the street on his 12 speed, he stopped to knock at each house, considering its occupants and the offenses they’d committed against him over the years. He knocked on the bully Eddie Houghton’s house, remembering the time the fat, red head made Charlie eat dirt in front of his classmates in sixth grade.

Good riddance.

He stopped at Josie Robinson’s house, a girl he had a crush on since kindergarten, and who had been his friend until last year, before she started hanging out with Shayanne and the rest of the cheerleaders in the Bitch Clique. It was bad enough that she’d shunned him, but at one point, she called him pizza face in front of half the lunchroom. It was all he could do to keep from crying.

Bye bye, Josie.

Then there was that asshole, Mr. Lawrence, at the end of the block. A short, creepy dude who once hired Charlie to go door to door and hand out flyers for his painting business. Mr. Lawrence had promised Charlie $40 for the job. But after Charlie spent the entire weekend canvassing the neighborhood with the ads, Mr. Lawrence claimed someone saw him dumping a box of the flyers in a dumpster at the Quick Stop (which was bullshit). So, he refused to pay Charlie.

Sayonara, asshole.

Charlie laughed as he raced to the next block and repeated the process, growing more giddy with every empty house.

Goodbye, assholes! Fuckers! Motherfuckers! he shouted from the top of his lungs. It was an amazing release, even if no one was around to hear him.

For too many years, he’d had to bottle his emotions and take shit from everybody. He’d been the world’s doormat for most of his life, through no fault of his own. He just happened to be a bit geekier, a bit paler, and had a few more zits than everyone else in his class. If he didn’t have the zits, got tan instead of turned pink in the sun, and his hair was straight instead of a curly, blond mop, maybe people would have seen him a bit differently.

All he wanted to do was get through adolescence under the radar. But ever since middle school, it was as if he had some sort of homing signal which seemed particularly honed to attract unwanted attention. And when you stood out, the wolves licked their chops.

Growing up a momma’s boy had made him soft.

He spent the first 11 years of his life practicing ways to make his mother happy. She’d been depressed since his father died, so it was his mission to bring her smile back. He’d put on puppet shows, tell her jokes, and would even go to painting classes with her on weekends. While most kids avoided their parents, Charlie was best friends with his mom.

But having no father figure in his life had made him meek and a magnet for the aggro assholes wanting to vent their frustrations and call him momma’s boy, faggot, and anything else their tiny intellects could muster.

He might have been able to cope, if it weren’t for Bob.

Charlie’s mom met Bob four years back. They began dating immediately. Dating turned into an impromptu wedding. Everything was good for a few months. That’s when Bob dropped the mask and let his drunken, violent colors bleed into Charlie’s world. In a land of bullies, Bob was their king. And there was nothing Charlie could do. And nothing his mother would do.

And for that, he was glad she was gone.

Smell ya later, Mommy.

Charlie rode around a while longer until he circled back to Josie’s. He knocked again. When nobody answered, he tried the doorknob. To his surprise, it was unlocked.

Hot damn!

He opened the door and stepped inside Hello? Josie? Are you here?

When nobody answered, he closed the door.

The house was cool, despite the loss of power. And it was well lit by all the large windows and open blinds. He hadn’t been in Josie’s house in three years, but it was as nice as ever. Her mother was in real estate, made good money, and routinely indulged in her premium tastes.

Josie’s dad had left her mother a few years earlier, but the a-hole was an investment banker, so the monthly checks were fat.

Despite her family’s wealth, money didn’t seem to affect Josie all that much. In fact, she seemed embarrassed by her mother’s extravagance, which was probably the thing Charlie liked most about her, other than how she was cuter than an anime character. She didn’t act like the other rich kids in the school, and had never treated him like the poor kid he was.

Well, at least until she started hanging out with the Bitch Clique.

Charlie trudged up the stairs to Josie’s room, and opened the door.

She had redecorated since he’d last seen it. She used to be obsessed with stuffed penguins, which once lined her shelves, closet, and even her bed. Now, her room was more adult with pinks, blues, and the sort of furniture his mom circled in the catalogue but never bought. No childish stuff anywhere, save for one lone penguin standing guard at the foot of her unmade bed. His name was Percy, Josie had once told Charlie. That was something else he’d liked about her. She wasn’t afraid to be goofy, one of her most endearing qualities, actually.

Charlie sat by the headboard and picked up her pillow. He lifted it to his nose and took a deep breath. It was soft, fluffy, and smelled just as he remembered her.

He closed his eyes and sent his mind to a time when they were sitting on the floor in the room. They were both 12, and she’d asked Charlie to give her a neck massage. It wasn’t sexual of course, he’d barely even thought about sex at that age. And she wasn’t that kind of girl. But sitting behind her, with her long hair spilled in his face and his hands on her shoulders, along with a glimpse down her shirt, gave him a raging erection.

When she lifted her shirt, and asked him to rub her back, he was painfully erect. Then, to his utter horror, he ejaculated in his pants, and had to make an excuse to rush home.

So, technically, Josie was his first, and only sexual experience with another person, even if she never knew.

Thinking about Josie as he sat on her bed, he was hard again.

He began to look around her room and found a photo album she’d made. He thumbed through the book and saw pictures of her, taken recently at the beach. Her lips were full, her skin the color of honey, and her breasts practically falling out of the pink bikini. He was rock hard.

He went to her dresser and thumbed through her drawers, investigating her underwear, surprised to find such lacy numbers. He wondered if her mother knew what Josie was wearing under her skirts. In the mirror, he caught a glimpse of the expandable hamper in the corner, pink, of course.

Charlie retrieved a pair of pink, silky panties from the top and smelled them. The faint scent of piss and perfume made him wince, then smile. He closed his eyes, imagining the prettiest of her pink that he’d never see, then went to her bed, dropped his pants, wrapped her underwear around his staff and started stroking.

He lasted three seconds longer than he had when he’d given her a back massage.

Charlie caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, denim snaked around his ankles and wiping himself with her underwear. Shame flushed his face. He threw the panties into the hamper and yanked up his pants, then glared at himself in the mirror, angry at his lack of self-control. Josie was right to shun him — maybe some part of her had sensed his perverted thoughts. Maybe she’d only become a bitch to him because he was such a creepy geek.

The thought depressed him, and he went downstairs to her fridge. Rich people always had good food.

He grabbed a piece of birthday cake. It was half gone, but enough remained for Charlie to imagine the Happy Birthday, Mom! scrawled across the top. It had a chocolate ganache frosting, at least he thought that’s what it was called, and it tasted better than delicious. Maybe even the best cake he’d ever had. He was about to grab a glass of milk, when he thought better. Though the contents of the fridge were still cold, the milk (even though it was soy milk, whatever the hell that was) might’ve already started to spoil. The last thing he wanted to do was get sick, especially if no doctors were left in the town, or hell, maybe the world!

Instead, he found himself eyeing a four pack of red wine coolers.

He’d never drunk alcohol before. As a child, he’d never had the urge. And Bob was a living poster for why NOT to drink. But he knew a lot of the kids in school did drink. Mostly the dumb jocks, cheerleaders, and the Fiesta Crowd, as they were called. Charlie considered them all about as smart as a hot dog and didn’t want to be anything like them, even if that meant being a pizza-faced geek, but they did seem to enjoy their lives. His life, on the other hand, was a constant broadcast of misery.

It didn’t take long to do the math. Charlie grabbed the four pack, locked the front door (just in case), and headed back to Josie’s room.