Yesterday's Gone: Season One

forward, until the creature stopped thrashing and fell forward onto the first cart, injured and squirming.
    Mary gripped the flashlight, and swung down, slamming it into the thing’s skull over and over, warm blood spraying her.
    It screamed. Terror, anger, agony as it pulled back, head half caved in, mouth still intact.
    The creature’s wail sent Mary three steps back, just as a hunk of its face fell to the floor. Mary swallowed the bile in her throat, then launched a second assault at the creature’s head, bashing it repeatedly until the thing stopped screaming, clicking, and squirming and collapsed to the ground.
    Mary didn’t know if the creature was dead, or even if it could die, but it was down for a moment and that was enough. She swallowed again, keeping the bile in her belly, then squeezed past the carts and creature, and out into the hall. She dropped the bloodied light and raced through the stairwell door and down to the lobby where Jimmy, John, and Desmond were standing.  
    The terror on her face sent the men to her side in seconds. “You okay?” Jimmy asked.
    Mary swallowed, unable to talk at first, staring back at the stairwell door in shock, and amazed that she’d gotten away.
    “What happened?” John asked, eyes wide and fearful.
    “I just saw another one of those things, you know, like the dead thing we saw on the highway. The thing Desmond shot.” She looked at Desmond with a weak smile, then down at her shaking hands and the front of her shirt, covered in black blood. “I’m fine. I think I killed it.”
    Desmond raced into the stairwell, grabbing a pistol from his waistband.  
    “What about Paola? Anyone find anything?” Mary asked.
    Mary could read the NO written on their empty faces. She was right, at least about Paola. No one found a trace. But John had seen one of the twitching creatures lying on the floor in one of the rooms. Almost pissed himself when he saw it, but the beast was either sleeping or dead so he closed the door and counted himself lucky.  
    “I need to know which rooms the creatures are in,” Desmond said returning to them, “So we can make sure they’re dead. And then we move out and search outside for Paola.”
    “Someone needs to stay here and wait in case she comes back,” Mary said.  
    “Mary, I understand how you feel right now,” Desmond said, “but we have to stick together. We can’t afford for our numbers to get split. We’ll be able to help Paola better together, so let’s go outside and look. If we don’t find anything, we’ll come back.”
    “No. Somebody needs to stay here,” she said.
    Jimmy and John seemed willing, but both were looking to Desmond.
    Desmond sighed. “Please, Mary. Let’s stick together and canvas the area. Chances are, she’s close. If not, we’ll be back in a few minutes. It’s what’s best, not just for all of us, but for Paola, too. I promise.”
    “And what if we’re all out there looking for her and she comes back and, whoops, there’s another monster in the hotel and nobody here to protect her?”  
    “I’ll stay,” Jimmy offered, “As long as you give me a gun.”

    * * * *

BORICIO WOLFE

     
    Somewhere in Alabama
     

    Boricio gnashed his teeth at the injustice of his blindfolded captivity.
    Unfortunately for his captors, the beast had already freed himself from his chains, breaking out of the plastic restraints which had bound his wrists behind his back. His blood was boiling, kinetic violence waiting to crackle, holding for the time when no movement would be wasted on his return to the rotting corpse of the world outside.
    He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but figured he hadn’t lost more than a day already. Still, that was a day longer than anyone had ever held Boricio. Unfortunately, he would have to lay on the burlap mat a bit longer, until he’d sussed out the situation.
    Danger was in the room and dangers were outside. Outside was probably worse. Much worse. Difference was, outside Boricio made some of the rules. He was busting out one way or another. Question was how many fuckers would have to die before he was rolling down the highway, windows down, and dialing into the latest on Boricio FM.  
    Way he smelled it, he had six ways to end everyone in the room, and three of ‘em made a helluva lot of sense. One wouldn’t work, at least not until he could get a clearer picture of the distances between the last body and the wall, and the first body and the door. Of the