Yesterday's Gone: Season One

easier, and I wish like hell it didn’t happen, but I’m not still clinging to straws either. I’m not saying I moved on, but at the same time, I can’t hope for something I know won’t happen. In my dreams, she was gone. And I can’t question the dreams.”
    Brent scanned the rows of bodies again, likely adding them in his head. While Manhattan was home to more than two million people, no more than a few thousand bodies could have been stacked in the Square, maybe as many as 100,000. But that left plenty still unaccounted for. For all Luis knew, more bodies were on the next block, or the one after that, or hell, stuffed in buildings and heaped ceiling high in Madison Square Garden, but they couldn’t search all of Manhattan. Not with those monsters scouring the city. Brent was probably realizing what Luis already knew: their best shot was to find whoever was broadcasting from Black Island and hope others had made it to safety.  
    “Okay,” Brent said, shoulders hunched in defeat, “Let’s go.”
    “It’s gonna be okay,” Luis said, even though he didn’t believe it.

    **

    They arrived at the car to find Joe in worse shape than when they left.
    Black veins covered his face and his skin was slick with something slightly thick and wet. His breathing was labored, and eyes still closed. Luis considered feeling for a pulse, but the dark splotches on the guy’s face looked infectious. The only thing that kept Luis from putting the old man on the side of the street and leaving him there was the concern in Brent’s eyes. This wasn’t just Brent’s maintenance man, it was the last person he knew in the world. His only connection to his past, and given how shaken Brent already was, Luis didn’t want to risk pushing him over the edge by severing it.
    “You okay, Joe?” Brent asked, as he climbed into the back seat.
    No response from Joe.
    “We need to get him help,” Luis said as he got in the front seat and keyed the ignition, wanting to get to the ferry as fast as possible so Joe wouldn’t puke, bleed, or die in his car. “Hopefully, they’ll have someone at Black Island.”
    “Daddy?” Ben’s voice said, again from Joe’s mouth.
    Luis glanced in the rearview and saw Brent’s torment.
    “I’m so...” Ben’s voice said again, voice so weak , it seemed as if Joe could hardly form a breath much less a word.
    “What?” Brent asked leaning forward in his seat to better hear Joe’s murmurs.
    Joe’s head rose, but his eyes were still closed. “I’m so... hrmph...” the voice said again, though this time it sounded like a mixture of Ben’s voice and Joe’s.
    “ What’s he saying?” Brent asked.
    “Beat’s the hell outta me,” Luis said, confused and just wanting the old man out of his car.
    Brent leaned closer, and Joe inched forward with great effort, eyes still closed, as if he were unconscious.  
    “I’m so... hungry,” Joe said, his voice growing.
    “Hungry?” Brent asked.
    Luis looked over just as Joe’s eyes shot open, no longer white, but pitch black. Joe’s mouth opened impossibly wide, the flesh at the corners of his mouth ripped and bled black down his chin. Joe, suddenly alive and energized, thrust forward, grabbing Brent’s head and trying to bring it closer to bite.  
    Luis slammed on the brakes, causing Joe and Brent, neither of them wearing seat belts, to lurch forward. Brent hit the back of Luis’s seat and snapped back into the back seat. Joe sailed forward, head smacking the front window hard and leaving a red splotch on the bullet-resistant glass.
    Joe screamed, an unearthly banshee cry, somewhere between man and monster, then turned to Luis, leaping onto him. Luis’s guns were out of reach, in the back seat. The shotgun on the center console had slid forward and fallen on the floor in front of Joe when Luis hit the brakes. Luis tried to push Joe back against the passenger door. With one hand on Joe’s thin chest, he pressed his right hand tightened around Joe’s forehead, struggling to keep Joe’s open mouth from biting him.  
    “Gimme a gun!” Luis shouted back at Brent, who he could not see in the backseat.
    Suddenly, something cracked in Joe’s neck and he swiveled his head sideways and bit down hard on Luis’s arm.
    “Fuck!” Luis screamed, reaching back frantically with his left hand and finding the door handle, pulling it open, then unclicking his seatbelt, and falling backward to give himself enough room to kick at Joe, awkwardly at