Lost Past by Teresa McCullough, Zachary McCullough

go from seeing city lights to seeing Earth half in daylight, half in night. Cara, Wilson and Linda crowded around a rear-facing window as they watched Earth recede. Soon, the Earth-moon pair became smaller and smaller. Stars were visible in the background.
                  John argued with their captors in a language Linda didn’t understand. Linda could feel he didn’t have any hope of winning the argument, but felt obligated to try.
                  Wilson leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Can you get my gun out of its holster? It has to be unsnapped.”
                  “I think so,” she said as she maneuvered next to him.
                  “No, first, let me unzip your purse.” Her shoulder bag rested on her left hip with its strap on her right shoulder and across her chest. She turn ed to let Wilson crouch to unzip the purse. She retrieved the gun. It was a bit awkward, but she had it in her hand. She handed it to Wilson, who put it in her purse and zipped it. They then separated and took opposite sides of the window, just in time for a distant view of Earth before the Earth, the sun and the stars disappeared.
                  There was no space. It wasn’t darkness; it was nothing, which was somehow different from darkness. Linda surveyed her fellow captives after John joined them in back of the ship. She felt John’s frustration, but neither fear nor wonder at their being taken from Earth. Cara lowered herself to the floor with surprising grace, considering her hands were bound behind her back. She curled up and fell asleep. Linda was amazed she could.
                  Wilson asked John, “Do you remember anything now?” When John shook his head, he said, “I don’t suppose you’d like to report on the conversation you just had.”
                  “They won’t release us and they won’t tell me why we were taken. They enjoy that I don’t know what’s going on.” After looking at Cara and Linda, John turned his face toward the window to look at the nothingness.
                  Wilson looked at their captors, with no expression on his face. Linda wondered if she were the only one who was amazed and afraid. There was a certain irony to it, since she now had the gun. When the stars reappeared, Linda wished she knew enough to recognize if they were in the same configuration as they were from Earth.
                  The rear-facing window was no longer interesting, but they could see a bit from the front. One of their captors pulled a weapon when they started toward the front of the ship. Linda could see they were headed toward a planet that didn’t look like Earth. They flew over an ocean, headed toward a continent, but landed instead at an island that was a few miles off the continent. The ship landed on a spot just big enough for it, surrounded by a field of strawberries. After they exited the ship, they saw a machine was passing through the neat rows, picking ripe strawberries. The machine dumped the strawberries into a bin that appeared to be on a track that led below the ground. The bin filled with strawberries moved away.
                  A few yards from the ship, there was a small building that looked like a subway entrance for one person. It was little larger than an old-fashioned telephone booth. One of the blond men entered, closing the door after him. About two minutes later, a light turned blue above the doorway. Cara was shoved toward the doorway and told to go down the stairs. Linda felt her hesitation was more due to confusion than disobedience, but one of the blond men hit her and shoved her through the door, telling her to go down the stairs and wait for the door to open.
                  Before the door closed, John said, “Don’t worry. It’s just decontamination. It’s harmless.” Linda wondered how he knew, then realized he must have been here