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

to figure out how to talk to a man like Boricio — not just the man he was, but the man he was becoming, a man unwilling to wait for the world to tell him who he was.
    Boricio wanted to know why the old man was in his room. If he was drinking this early in the morning, he was likely holding onto a special sort of bullshit he was ready to shovel onto Boricio’s plate.
    Boricio sipped his Jack beside the old man, more out of curiosity than anything else. Because there was already alcohol in his blood, it was only a half hour or so before he was well on his way to demolished — even though he’d yet to wring his liver from the evening before.
    The old man started talking about the coming prophecy again, and Boricio found himself swaying back and forth in half-belief. “You know I haven’t just been dreaming of this day for years,” The Prophet said. “I’ve been dreaming of you .”
    Boricio felt an icy chill, not just because he was slowly and inexplicably starting to believe, but because he’d been dreaming of the old man too.
    The Prophet must have noticed the look on Boricio’s face, because he started to question him like a prisoner. “You’ve dreamed of me too, haven’t you?”
    Boricio nodded because anything else would’ve been a lie screaming inside him.
    The old man said, “This isn’t a mistake, Boricio.” He shook his head back and forth so fast it looked like it had batteries. “God doesn’t make mistakes. You and me,” he clapped his hand on Boricio’s shoulder. “The Good Lord has brought us together, given us a special acquaintance so we could do something as one. Something special.” He paused, then, “Something that’s never been done on His green Earth before.”
    Boricio didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. A few minutes faded into five before the old man relieved his bottle of its final drops, then filled Boricio’s red cup with another few shots of fuel.
    “What can you tell me about the vial, Boricio?”
    Boricio suddenly wanted to leap from his chair, and fly toward the old man and start beating his face in.
    How the fuck does he know about the vial?
    The Prophet was either exactly who he said, or what Boricio feared he might be.
    “How do you know about the vial?”
    “Same as everything else, Son — When He whispers, I listen.”
    The old man reached out to Boricio. “Our time is right now,” he said.
    No, this isn’t right.
    Boricio stood, then said, “Of all bad men, men of the cloth can be the worst.”
    The last word was the hardest. His head started to swim, and Boricio wondered how long it had been since he’d felt so drunk.
    Except it wasn’t drunk, not exactly.
    He collapsed to the edge of the bed as the world went dancing in circles.
    “What is it, Son?” the old man asked. “Tell me what’s in the vial.”
    Boricio’s heart was pounding. He had to reach his bag, make sure the vial was safe.
    He rose from the bed again, then swayed but stayed on his feet, swerving back and forth like a pendulum as he tried to keep himself steady.
    But he couldn’t.
    Boricio tried to ask the old man what in the fuck he had done to him, but his words, like his breath, were trapped in his throat.
    He collapsed to the floor and fell into a fresh abyss.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 7 — Ryan Olson Part 1

    Black Mountain, Georgia
    March 31, 2012
    FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

    Ryan tried to cover his ears from the sound of the braying alarm, buzzing on and off for what seemed an eternity until someone finally appeared outside his cell door.
    It was Lisa, one of the Guardsmen who’d found him and brought him to Black Mountain. She was covered in a bucket of blood and sweat, though as far as Ryan could see, none of the blood appeared to be hers.
    “Something got in here, or escaped,” she said.
    “I know,” Ryan said, standing. Her shotgun was still in her hand, but she, along with several others, had come to trust him, so it wasn’t aimed at him. “I saw. They’re doing some sort of experiment, which somehow linked me to the kid, Charlie. Now I can see inside his head.”
    “Whoa,” Lisa said. “That’s crazy.” Then, “Does that mean you can tell us what in the hell he’s doing?”
    “He’s not the Charlie you know,” Ryan said. “He’s been compromised. Something else came in here, in the body of an old fat man they threw in the cell next to Charlie’s.”
    “The Prophet?”
    Ryan thought for a moment. He didn’t recall the thing thinking