Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (49 page)

“Or what?”

“Or the world will be plunged forever into Darkness. And I, and all the people you know here, will be consumed by, and become part of, the Darkness.”

Luca had a million more questions that he wanted to ask, but then the Indian said, “Not now. Now is time to wake up.”

* * * *

CHAPTER 2 — Boricio Bishop Part 1

Dunn, Georgia

Boricio’s Compound

March 31, 2012

FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

Boricio Bishop ran his hands over his bald head as he watched Charlie appear in the doorway.

Every part of Bishop bristled as his doppelganger, Asshole Boricio, welcomed Charlie like his long lost brother.

Something’s wrong. How the hell did he get out of his cell?

Did he escape?
 

If so, how many bodies did he leave behind?

Boricio felt a sudden danger he couldn't define, as though it singed his skin with its flames, though he wasn’t sure where the fire was. He had to be careful how he handled the Charlie situation. This other Boricio was a loose canon, and while Boricio had been able to handle nearly any situation life threw his way, he wasn’t sure he could handle the
him
from another world — the him who seemed all id, no restraint. Asshole Boricio had never been adopted by Will, and had falsely learned that destroying everything around him was the best way to understand himself better.

He wouldn’t think twice about getting down and bloody to protect his own.

“Well,” the Asshole Boricio said, “get the fuck in here and make yourself at home!”
 

Charlie smiled, sort of, then stepped inside the house, casting his eyes across the room as though he were taking it all in for the first time, almost with the same look as if he were observing a huddle of strangers he’d never seen before.
 

He barely glanced at Callie, which struck Boricio as bizarre, especially after what he’d seen passing between the two of them on the cell monitors the night before.
 

Asshole Boricio led Charlie to the dining room table, then pulled out a chair and gestured for him to sit. “I imagine you couldn’t find any open drive-thrus on your way over here, Chucky Fuck Stick, so you want one of Miss Mary’s pancakes to powder your gut?” He nodded toward Mary, standing by the bottom stair, shoulders tensed and arms wrapped around her daughter. “They’re not as good as Boricio’s World Famous Flapjacks, which I’m sure you’re a lucky enough fucker to remember, but they’ll do for short notice, I suppose.”
 

Something about the asshole’s pride in his pancakes forced Boricio into the twitch of a grin. He swallowed his smile and said, “What in the hell are you doing here, Charlie? You’re infected. And how did you get out of your cell? How did you leave Black Mountain? How did you find us?”

Asshole Boricio didn’t even give Charlie a second to answer. He asked, “Infected with what?”
 

Boricio thought he’d already explained this shit to his asshole counterpart, but for the sake of keeping things calm, he said, “It doesn’t have an official name, but some of us at Black Mountain refer to it as ‘The Apocalypse Worm.’ The monsters aren’t monsters; they’re aliens. And the aliens aren’t friendly. They’re parasites that worm their way into your body through physical contact, usually a bite, then slowly — though it seems to be happening faster and faster — take over the body, turning regular people into mutated monstrosities. Charlie is our only subject to have not mutated in outward appearance, though. We have one other subject who is halfway mutated, but everyone else, once they’re infected, that’s been that. They’re lost.”

Asshole Boricio then asked, “Is Charlie Cheese Dick dangerous? Is he gonna get all slippery when wet on us?”
 

Callie spoke instead. “We’re safe,” she said. “I knew Charlie was infected, but wasn’t worried. Mr. Bishop said Charlie was fine, and that they’d probably be able to fix him, maybe use his blood to help fix everyone else. Believe me; you’ve nothing to worry about. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless it was to protect one of us.”

Boricio wanted to believe her, but looking at Charlie, and the odd look in his eyes that he couldn’t quite pin, he wasn’t so sure. Even if Charlie wouldn’t do anything dangerous on purpose, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat.
 

Bishop considered pushing his position; drawing the line between himself and Charlie and clarifying the threat’s severity. If Charlie returned to his world infected, it was only a matter of time until their world went to ash just as this one was.

Charlie still hadn’t answered the question, how he’d gotten out. And what the hell kind of mess did he leave behind? Boricio hoped that he didn’t break out and kill anyone. If so, he’d personally put a bullet in the kid’s head. The first time Charlie went all X-Men, Boricio could forgive. He was scared, his only experience with Black Mountain had been at the hands of assholes who shot the kid he was with. But Boricio had spared the kid, had trusted him. He hoped to God he hadn’t made an error.

He considered pressing Charlie for an answer, but decided to go another, more subtle, route.

Brent and Ed, the Black Island Guardsmen who’d proven quite useful, were standing about a foot and a half apart, their bodies tensed and ready; eyes wide and alert, shoulders and jaws set. Ed had one foot forward, ready to spring. He looked pissed, probably because Boricio made him leave his gun in the van. The woman, Mary, looked more upset than frightened, while her daughter looked more frightened than upset.
 

He had no words to describe the look on Callie.

Boricio didn’t have the time or the focus to read all of their thoughts, so he quickly went into their heads, pulling the most dominant thought from every mind in the room.

Charlie: Nothing.

Callie:
He’s wrong about Charlie. Real Boricio will make sure everything’s okay.

Ed:
The crazy Boricio’s gotta go first. I’ll wipe that smug look off his face.

Brent:
At least she’s at the end of the world with her daughter?
 

Mary:
If anything happens, we run outside and grab a van ... Sorry Luca.
 

The girl:
Charlie reminds me of John.

Old Luca was sending nothing but static from upstairs, and that was slightly more than Boricio was pulling from Charlie.
 

He hated the room’s tension, but at least that was something — the emptiness inside Charlie was chilling.
 

But there was nothing Boricio could do, no way to cleanly win this particular battle.
 

He’d go with the flow for now, play it cool. But he’d have to keep an eye on Charlie. Then he had to let Ed and Brent know that they needed to do the same. Shoot at the first sign of trouble. Boricio hoped it wouldn’t come to that, however. He actually liked Charlie a bit. He was a good kid given a bad deal, and from what Boricio had seen in his head, that had been the story of his life.

Boricio could relate to the abusive step-dad. And he could see how Asshole Boricio had developed a soft spot for the kid as well. Perhaps he wasn’t a complete asshole, after all.

The top stair creaked and the entire room spun toward the sound. Ed thrust his arm in front of Brent and took a slight step forward as Mary wrapped her arms tighter around her daughter, then fell a step back toward the door.
 

Another stair squeaked and Asshole Boricio was suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, looking up toward the top. A smile split his face as he turned to the rest of the room. “Looks like Old Man Luca wanted to come down and meet his brother from another mother.”

A second later, Boricio saw Luca’s foot, though it took about a half-minute for his body to follow. He didn’t speak until he reached the bottom stair, and when he did, it sounded as though he was using every last drop of energy to push a few splintered words through his ancient throat.

“We have to go to Black Island. Now.” Then, after a few long seconds spent struggling for breath while the rest of the room stood waited, he whispered, “If we don’t go, we’re all dead.”

* * * *

CHAPTER 3 — “Charlie”

Dunn, Georgia

Boricio’s Compound

March 31, 2012

FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

It
was hungry.

Starving.
 

Empty, hollow, deprived.
 

It smelled the ripened scent of the unfiltered feast
It
longed to consume.
 

The good one — ancient on the outside, but still gooey in the middle where the child harbored his innocent thoughts — would be bliss to consume.

Soon.
 

Soon, everything would be finished.
 

The beginning of the end was already over.
 

The girl
Its
shell yearned to seed was trying to convince everyone that
Charlie
was safe. He wouldn’t hurt any of them.

If only she knew.

The one who held hate where his eye had gone missing was trying to read the room. But he couldn't — at least not all of it.
 

Though the man who held hate had a bit of The Enemy within him, which allowed him to read these animals’ minds, there was nothing he could do to penetrate
Its
mind.

It
waited for the spotlight to fall off of
Charlie
. If
It
was found out,
It
might be killed before
It
could consume its enemy.

It
was starving. Deprived. Near hollow.

Ready.

This was taking too long.
 

The scent from the top of the stairs grew stronger. It felt ripe, beckoning to
It.

The gooey parts in the middle of the child’s thoughts now running like broken yolk.
 

The end of the beginning was over, but the beginning of the end felt like it was taking forever.
 

A stair creaked from the top of the stairs — the end, finally on its way.

The aggressive one put his arm before the one who was too thoughtful. The woman
It
met before wrapped her arms around the girl who was too weak for
It
to stay in.
 

Then the violent one, the one
It
wish
It
had found at Sanctuary before going into the fat old man, said, “Looks like Old Man Luca wanted to come downstairs and meet his brother from another mother!”

It
licked
Its
lips.

Once It attacked the child, It would be forced to silence every breath in the room.
 

But It would be worth it.
 

It would be stronger than ever.
 

The child in the old man’s shell appeared, first his feet, then finally his head.
 

The child took great labor to speak. “We have to go to Black Island,” he said. “Now.”
 

The eternity it took for the child to finish his thought gave
It
plenty of time to see everything the child didn’t know he was supposed to be hiding.
 

It
now knew what the child knew.
 

Its
body relaxed, putting aside
Its
hunger now that
It
had seen the far greater meal waiting for
It
at Black Island.

There was plenty of time.
 

Soon
It
would be full.

Gorged, glutted, satisfied.
 

It
wanted what the child wanted.
 

But the vial — holding the last of
Its
enemy — would belong to
It
, never the child.

It
had all the time in the world, now that
It
knew where
It
needed to go.

The child whispered, “If we don’t go, we’re all dead.”
 

The beginning of the end was now.

And nothing would stop
It.

* * * *

CHAPTER 4 — Other Ed Keenan

Black Island

Black Island Research Facility Level Eight

April 2, 2012

SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

Ed stared at the giant monitor, wondering how long they had before everyone topside was either infected or dead.