Yesterday's Gone: Season One

the math. Charlie grabbed the four pack, locked the front door (just in case), and headed back to Josie’s room.
    He decided there were worse places to hang out at the end of the world. He sure as hell wasn’t going to go back home to his shitty little house.

    **

    Three bottles in, Charlie wondered what all the fuss was about. He didn’t feel all that different. If anything, he felt worse. His head was hurting, and he was feeling sad.
    He decided to take a nap. He slid off his jeans and shoes and laid down in Josie’s bed, nestling his head into the cool, perfumed pillow.  
    Josie was so beautiful. Why did she have to be such a bitch?
    Charlie began to think about where the world had gone. Or rather, where all the people had gone. Whether this was a localized thing or if maybe people were missing in India, too. He’d thought about it earlier, of course, when he realized something was wrong. But now, a bit tipsy, he found himself sinking deeper into the thought.  
    He decided that though he hated most of the world, or at least the people he’d met, he didn’t want to see everybody gone. He’d be awfully lonely. In fact, he was lonely now. Hell, he’d even be happy to see Josie, even if she were mean to him.
    Charlie cried himself to sleep. Fortunately, he faded fast.

    **

    A loud knocking downstairs woke Charlie from his sleep.
    “Charlie? Are you in there?!” a man’s voice.
    What the fuck?
    Charlie leaped from the bed, nervous, looking around until he found his jeans and shoes.
    Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
    He was busted. This had all been a dream; he sleepwalked and broke into Josie’s house. The police were outside!  
    His heart raced as someone shouted his name again. The voice was deep, angry, and familiar. He ducked low on his way to the curtains, then slid them aside just an inch to peek at who was outside. It was the devil himself — Bob.

    **

EDWARD KEENAN

    Saturday
    October 15, 2011  
    2:18 a.m.

    The first thing Edward Keenan felt was rain, cold and splashing his face, snapping him from the darkness and into the bright light beaming through a thick canopy of trees.  
    The next thing he felt was pain — everywhere, as if his entire body had been thrown from a building and slammed against every awning on the way down and then picked up again and thrown off the building once more to hit the awnings he missed the first go round. A high-pitched whistle pierced his throbbing eardrums. He reached up to cover his ears, before realizing his wrists were still bound together by plasticuffs.
    Ed stood clumsily, pain shooting through his legs, back, and arms, then glanced around. A faint, flickering glow broke through the tree line. He made his way forward tentatively, stumbling several times, but managing to stay upright.  
    As he got closer to the glow, he could hear the crackle of fire. Could smell the fuel. And there, as he pressed into the clearing, he saw the mangled, fiery wreckage of Flight 519.  
    Ed raced forward, searching for any sign of survivors. The plane was split in half, swallowed by billowing smoke and a quick-spreading curtain of flame.
    Suitcases, clothing, papers, chunks of the plane, and other debris littered the field, with some of the smaller scraps sailing low in the sky. From what he could see of the cabin, nobody survived other than himself. Yet, there weren’t any bodies. He looked back into the woods, wondering if perhaps all the passengers had been ejected from their seats as he had. Perhaps some, but not all of them.
    Where the hell is everyone?  
    The last thing he remembered was his escort, Agent Grant, telling him to shut the fuck up. They’d be in Washington soon enough. Ed decided to take a nap, but didn’t think he’d actually fall asleep. He must have. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground.
    He was torn — go back into the woods and search for survivors, or run as far and fast as he fucking could. Last thing he wanted was to run into Grant — assuming Grant was alive.  
    He took a chance. “Hello?!” he called.
    As he stood at the edge of the woods, another high-pitched sound sailed over the drone in his ears, sounding as if the sky was ripping to shreds above him. He instinctively ducked, glancing up as another airplane shot by maybe 10 stories from the forest floor, on a sharp dive, soaring past the tree line before disappearing into a deafening explosion just out of sight.
    Christ on a cross. What’s happening?
    Ed raced toward the