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

said. “Go alone.” He shook his head. “I can’t help you.”
    He was swirling with too many emotions, mostly rage, along with the endless clicking, beeps, and mutant shrieks swimming across the surface of his mind. Beyond the cacophony was something else — a bottomless hunger nothing would sate.
    As Ryan looked at Lisa, he began to imagine how easy it would be to bite into her flesh, and taste whatever it was she had inside her.
    He shook his head, closing his eyes, trying to drive the sick thoughts from his head before they drove him to action.
    It was happening.
    He was turning.
    As memories of the mutant feasting on the baby ran through his head, Ryan felt another wave of nausea stewing in his guts.
    Then he felt something else … a sick delight in the sensation of the unborn flesh in his — and the other mutant’s — teeth, ripping the life from its body and gulping it down like milk from a mother’s breast.
    “We’ve gotta go,” Lisa said, offering Ryan a hand to help him to his feet. “We need to get out of here while we still can.”
    “I can’t go with you,” he said.
    “You have to!” Lisa cried. “I can’t stop them alone.”
    “I’m … changing.”
    “What?!” Lisa said, taking a step back.
    “It’s happening. I can feel it.”
    “No,” Lisa said, shaking her head. “No, you’re just trying to scare me so I’ll shoot you.”
    Ryan forced himself to look at her, barely able to control his rising urge to bite her. He could sense her fear which further fueled his hunger.
    “Fucking kill me or I will eat you just like he ate her and her baby!” Ryan screamed.
    He rose to his feet and started to walk toward her, eyes boring into her, glaring. If she wasn’t going to shoot him, he’d scare her into it. He had to end this now.
    He had nothing left.
    He was becoming a monster.
    Time to die.
    Maybe he’d see Mary and Paola in Heaven, assuming Heaven wasn’t as much of a lie as Earth had turned out to be.
    He looked into Lisa’s scared eyes and stepped closer, just inches away.
    “Do it!” he screamed.
    Lisa stepped back and lifted the shotgun, aiming it at him, crying, “Please, don’t make me.”
    “Do it! Do it! Do it!” he goaded her.
    “Are you sure?” she cried, shotgun shaking in her hands.
    “Please,” he begged. “Please.”
    He closed his eyes, bracing for the bullet. As Ryan waited for death, he drew more thoughts from the mutants, the infected, Charlie, and the Darkness swirling inside him.
    He saw that the Darkness was walking up to a house.
    Is this where Boricio is?
    The door opened.
    Ryan saw the other Boricio answering the door, a wide smile of recognition on his face. Beyond Boricio, he saw another familiar face — Mary!
    And there, beside her …
    Paola!
    They’re alive!
    They’re here and alive!
    Ryan couldn’t die now.
    He had to get to them.
    He had to protect them.
    He had to say something to stop Lisa before she shot him.
    He opened his mouth and cried, “Nooo!”
    He was too late.
    The gun thundered before the world went silent.

::EPISODE 18::
    (SIXTH EPISODE OF SEASON THREE)
    “Hard Reset Protocol”

    * * * *

CHAPTER 1 — Luca Harding

    Saturday
    October 15, 2011
    morning
    Las Orillas, California

    Luca’s skin was burning. He opened his eyes and put an end to the dream where Mommy was making eggs on his arms.
    The sun was brighter than it should have been. Light poured through the window like buckets splashing against the glass.
    Luca turned to look at his Cars alarm clock, but it was off.
    He didn’t like the feeling in his arms, tingly bad and kind of burny. Luca wanted to scratch his skin, but stopped himself because Mommy said that scratching always made things worse.
    The itchy burny would probably go away if he ignored it.
    Luca pulled off the covers and got out of bed, then went number one in the bathroom. His toothbrush was on the counter when he went pee, but was gone by the time he flushed the toilet.
    Just like his Cars alarm clock when he went back inside his room.
    The house was too quiet.
    Luca went to the closet, peeled off his Lego pajamas, pulled on his jeans and his favorite Star Wars tee shirt — the one that said “ I had friends on that Death Star” that his dad bought because he thought it was funny.
    Luca dropped his Lego pajamas on the floor only a second before, but they were already gone, just like his Cars alarm clock and everything else in the room — the bed, the desk, his toys, all of it