Yesterday's Gone: Season One

of the words gone, absent, defunct, dead, and buried , all crackling through the speakers.  
    Only one word repeated though, several times, in fact.
    Extinct.

    **

CHARLIE WILKENS

    “You in there, Charlie?” Bob shouted, rattling the door with his knuckles.
    Charlie’s head was still hurting, but Bob’s sudden appearance had startled him to readiness.
    The whole town ups and leaves and this asshole is still here? The end of the world and it’s me and Bob? Fu-uck me.
    Bob caught a glimpse of Charlie peering through the curtains, so there was no point in hiding. He grabbed the empties and tossed them in Josie’s closet, then headed downstairs and opened the front door.
    “What the hell happened?” Bob asked, pushing his way into the house without invitation. “Where’s your mother?”
    “I dunno, I woke up and you and mom were gone, then I went around the neighborhood and everyone else is too.”
    “Your mom’s gone?”
    “Yeah,” Charlie said, noticing that Bob looked genuinely concerned. “Where were you? I thought you were gone too.”
    That’s when Charlie noticed Bob was wearing his greasy work shirt and cap, with ‘Sal’s Towing’ in ugly cursive letters.  
    “I had to cover someone’s shift last night. I was bringing a car to the impound and I must’ve nodded off waiting for the asshole to fill out the paperwork. Next thing I know, I woke up and everyone is gone.”
    “It’s not just our neighborhood, then?”
    “Dude,” Bob said, his eyes wide and nervous, “it’s the whole fucking world. Or at least everything I’ve seen for 50 miles on the highway.”
    Charlie stared, digesting the news.
    “Why are you here? Anyone home?”
    “No, I came looking for my friend Josie, and saw her door was open. So I came inside to see if she was here.”
    “So you broke into her house?” Bob said, his face showing a shadow of the asshole Bob hid beneath the surface.
    “The door was open,” Charlie explained. “I came in to see if anyone was here, maybe hurt or something.”
    Bob stared at him, likely trying to decide if he’d be a total fucking hard ass like he usually was or if he’d let it go on the count of it being the end of the world and all. He turned and headed out the door, “Come on; let’s go home. Your bike’s in the truck already.”
    Charlie wanted to protest, but knew he didn’t have a choice. He was, by all accounts, Bob’s bitch again. He walked like a dog behind him.

    **

    “So what are we gonna do?” Charlie asked, sitting on the couch opposite Bob, who was in His Chair — the chair nobody else in the house dared to sit in — drinking his fifth Nati Light.  
    “Fuck if I know,” Bob said, his voice slightly slurred. “Wait for someone, the Army, The Marines, fucking X-Files, I dunno. If you ask me, it’s the goddamned Rapture. God came and took the good folks to heaven so us degenerates could rot.”
    “Don’t you think if it was the Rapture, there’d be a lot more people here than vanished?”
    Bob stared at Charlie for a moment, as if trying to figure out how he felt about Charlie’s response.
    “Shit, boy, that’s the funniest damned thing you ever said.”
    Charlie glanced at the ground and shrugged.  
    “You ain’t so bad,” Bob said. “You should talk more instead of always staying up there in that room of yours.”
    Yeah, maybe I would if you didn’t always call me dumbass or retard, or slap me around.
    “How old are you now?”  
    Charlie squirmed a bit, not sure where this was going. “Almost 18.”
    “Well, hell, ‘almost 18’ is old enough for a beer. Shit, I was drinkin’ when I was 13. Of course, times were different back then. Go get me another beer and get yourself one too.”
    “You sure? I don’t think mom would want me . . .”
    “Your mom ain’t here, now is she? She’s probably up there in heaven and seeing as you and me are still here, means we’re probably goin’ to hell. So we may as well have some good times till then, eh?”
    “I guess.”
    Charlie went to the fridge and grabbed the last two cans of beer, then returned to the living room and handed them both to Bob, just in case Bob was testing him.
    “Here, crack it open,” Bob said, throwing it to Charlie.
    Charlie pulled back the tab and beer sprayed all over his face and shirt. He let out a yelp before running into the kitchen so his beer could overflow into the sink. As Charlie cleaned himself, Bob was in the living room laughing his ass