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

since there was no way they’d be able to take on the wide churning sea of aliens without eventually joining it.
    As they passed, Brent looked out the left side windows, staring at the aliens in all their many varied forms; repulsed, amazed, and half expecting one or all to leap forward and attack in unison. But they remained still, as if they weren’t even aware of the passing van.
    Callie sat shotgun in front, aiming a pistol at her window, her hand, and the gun held in it, shaking.
    Ed held his rifle trained on his side window, watching the row fly past as Boricio gathered speed. Brent saw what looked like the end of the aliens’ line ahead in the distance.
    They were about halfway there when something slammed into the back of the van.
    “Fuck!” Callie screamed, then fired her gun, which sounded like a bomb in the enclosed space.
    Brent’s ears felt shattered, just like Callie’s passenger window. He wasn’t sure what had slammed into the back of the van, but the aliens’ mouths were all suddenly open at once, screaming a shrill screech and gnashing their teeth at the van from all sides.
    Between the screaming and the high-pitched ringing in his ears, the pain in Brent’s head was unbearable. He dropped his rifle to the floor and covered his ears. Jung, Ed, and Callie were all doing the same, their faces twisted in torment as Boricio struggled to steer them through the dark horde.
    The van lurched forward as Brent clutched both sides of his head, trying to dull the terrible shrieking of the aliens. Swarms of the creatures began to move forward into the road, to block their path.
    “Fuck!” Boricio screamed as the van tore through the first of them to step in front of the van, their bodies thumping hard against the metal, causing the wheels to wobble against the asphalt, and sending the van steering out of control.
    Brent released his ears to grip his seat, as the van flew from the road and onto the freshly turned soil, naked and ugly and stripped of everything but the memory of its once green vegetation.
    Brent braced his body, ready for the van to get stuck in the soft soil, giving them unfair seconds before the tires were ensnared in the earth and the aliens surrounded them — seconds before it was finally the end of everything.
    The van kept sliding, as if the dirt was hard as pavement, but slick like ice. The van was skidding at a ridiculous speed, and would surely tip if Boricio couldn’t steer the wheels into their skid.
    Boricio struggled with the steering wheel, screaming a surprising number of obscenities as he fought the van for control as more things started to slap the van’s sides and back. Something shattered the rear window. Brent looked down as whatever had shattered the window fell to the carpet, black and squirming.
    In the first second, Brent thought it looked like a long black snake, but then saw its hook and remembered the hook-like things Ed had said they’d shot in the back of the store.
    Thicker swarms assaulted the van as it continued its skid across the unfrozen black ice of the forest floor. Brent gripped his seat as Ed held his own with one hand and his rifle with the other, taking aim out the back through the shattered window.
    The van came to a jarring, screeching halt which sent everyone flailing to the left. The engine died as thunder rumbled loudly outside.
    Except it wasn’t thunder.
    As Brent glanced out the window he saw it was a stampede of black, racing toward the van.
    “Go! GO!” Ed screamed, sticking his gun out the window and firing.
    Boricio pumped the pedal, screaming, “Come on you cock-sucking cunt-fuck!”
    Callie and Jung found their guns and took aim, also firing.
    The aliens were 100 yards away and closing fast.
    Brent fired his rifle blindly out the window, but everything was moving too fast to tell whether he was hitting anything.
    Boricio tried turning the ignition again, but the van would only cough and sputter.
    “Fuck!” Brent cried out watching as the army of darkness raced toward them.
    This is it! I’m sorry Gina and Ben! I’m so sorry!
    Brent continued firing blindly into the aliens until the engine suddenly turned and Boricio screamed, “Fuck yeah!” flooring the gas pedal.
    The van burned rubber and squealed, then started to roll, its sides and back riddled with hundreds of black hooked flesh, and sounding as though a million rocks were being thrown at the van, all at once.
    Jung screamed.
    Brent spun around to see a thick