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

by glass. Charlie felt himself drifting into a post-orgasm slumber, a stupid grin still lighting his face.
    Suddenly, Callie tapped on the window three times in sharp succession. Charlie jumped, startled.
    Her eyes were large and frightened. Charlie looked around, but couldn’t see what she was afraid of. Callie grabbed her pen and paper and started scribbling, then held up the paper.
    “Boricio knows the old man next to you! They were yelling at each other earlier.”
    “So, what does that mean?” Charlie wrote, shrugging.
    “I dunno,” she wrote. “But be careful.”
    “You too.”
    They each returned to their mattress, but Charlie couldn’t sleep with his mind circling any of the many reasons Callie might have been spooked by the old fat man in the cell next to him.
    Though he was facing Callie, both their hands touching the glass, Charlie couldn’t help but feel like the old man was lying in the dark, awake and watching them both.

    **

    The next morning, Charlie woke to the sound of knocking.
    Callie was standing at the doorway with a Guardsman in black, waving goodbye.
    Charlie jumped from his mattress and went to the door, then set his hand against the glass to meet hers. He mouthed, “I love you. Be careful.”
    “I love you too,” she said. Their eyes locked in a final lingering moment before the Guardsman gently pulled her away.
    Charlie watched them walk down the hall and then to the doors. As Callie slipped from view, Charlie returned to his mattress and lay down. He turned his head to the glass and stared over at Callie’s mattress, and the piles of their correspondence from the night before lying scattered across her sheets. Sitting on her pillow was a paper he hadn’t seen before — a drawing of a heart, and inside the heart, an almost perfectly rendered drawing of Charlie.
    He stared at it, thinking back to the drawing he’d made of her. She’d never said she was as good an artist as he was.
    Yet, Charlie was staring at proof.
    He looked at the drawing for what felt like forever, feeling like his heart was breaking into pieces too small to stitch, hoping like hell that Black Mountain would cure him so that he could be with Callie again.
    As he dared to hope, the lights went black as though they were mocking his ambition.

    **

    Charlie woke to a row of bright lights flickering on in the cells, and a lone Guardsman making his way down the line with a cart full of breakfast trays.
    Breakfast was a bowl of cereal without milk, two bottles of water, and a peach, which he figured must have been grown in a garden somewhere on the mountain. His stomach grumbled as Charlie stared down the line waiting for the Guard to arrive. Suddenly, Charlie realized that the old man in the cell beside him was looking at him.
    Not just looking — staring, with all his fat, old, pasty nakedness pressed against Charlie’s glass wall.
    Charlie nearly jumped back in shock.
    What the fuck?!
    The man turned away when he noticed Charlie looking back, but it was too late. He’d already spooked Charlie.
    The old man went to his door as the Guardsman approached, moving his pasty flesh flat against the entrance.
    “What the fuck is his deal?” Imaginary Boricio asked, appearing out of the blue, wearing a black tee shirt and sweats just like Charlie had been given, and jerking his thumb toward the old man’s cell.
    “I dunno,” Charlie said out loud, not even bothering to mask his dialogue back to Boricio in thoughts. He’d put mayo on his knuckle sandwich while the cameras were rolling; he didn’t think he could get more embarrassed than that.
    “Nice performance last night, by the way,” Boricio said clapping his hands. “Ol’ Chucky finally scored him some Callie! Even if it was a solo performance.”
    “You were there?” Charlie asked.
    “I’m always here, lil’ buddy,” Boricio tapped his temple. “I’m in your head.”
    “Well, I’m just glad you didn’t pop up last night. That would’ve been a mood killer for sure.”
    “Who ya kidding, you would’ve both loved it if I whipped out my slim reaper and put on a show for the both of ya!”
    “Not now,” Charlie said, “I don’t wanna lose my appetite before breakfast.”
    Charlie glanced back up to see if the Guardsman was done giving the old man his food, and was shocked to see the old man standing entirely still, his mouth stretched impossibly wide as black smoke-like liquid rose from his throat, then spilled out of his mouth and