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

head.
    Stop it, stop it! GET OUT!!
    Ryan couldn’t think straight, so Lisa thought for him.
    He saw nothing, but heard four shots — two sets separated by a heartbeat’s worth of silence, then two thuds followed by a chorus of shrieks. And he felt intense pain in his chest and head, where he figured the gunshots hit the creatures.
    Lisa pulled Ryan to his feet, then dragged him the four remaining steps, sliding the van’s side door open with one hand, throwing him inside with the other, and climbing in behind him, then locking the door as the first alien pounded its body hard against the metal.
    She climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving Ryan in a moaning puddle at the back.
    “Fuck yeah,” she said, then threw the van into reverse and rolled over a pair of rampaging aliens.
    “Now!” Ryan screamed. “Get us out of here and out to Black Island before we’re overrun.”
    “You think I’m a fucking idiot?” Lisa screamed back, pulling the van from the compound.
    “Well,” he said. “You are traveling with me.”
    Lisa said something else, but Ryan couldn’t hear it. His head was swimming — flashes of Mary and Paola, on their way to Black Island with everyone else as the Darkness inside Charlie patiently waited to end them.
    The Darkness waited because It had a new goal.
    “ It wants the vial,” Ryan said, suddenly knowing for certain, and wondering how long it would be before he would finally kill Lisa and join the Darkness.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 6 — Brent Foster Part 1

    East Hampton, New York
    East Hampton Docks
    April 2, 2012
    SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

    Their vans arrived as the last of the purple twilight surrendered to black, pulling up to the East Hampton Docks that were as dark as the desolate cities.
    Lights from the ferry flickered in the distance, a few hundred yards offshore. Further out, Brent could see the barely-there outline of Black Island, a dark smudge you’d miss if you didn’t know where to look.
    Boricio Bishop, Ed, and Brent took one van, while Boricio Wolfe, Mary, Paola, Luca, Charlie, and Callie followed in the other. Brent was glad to not have been stuck in the van with Wolfe, who may have been the most arrogant person he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. Bishop was far less crude and maybe two percent as terrifying, despite his bald head, scarred face, and pirate’s eye patch.
    “Is the ferry just sitting out there?” Brent whispered so that his voice would not carry to whatever might be lurking in the darkness. “Are we gonna have to wait for the morning?”
    “A Guardsman should be stationed on shore,” Ed said, looking up the dark street and into the driver’s-side mirror.
    Apart from the houses to the left, and a restaurant along the boardwalk to the right, there wasn’t anything or anyone else but them on the dark street.
    “And you don’t have a radio, do you?” Bishop said.
    “No,” Ed shook his head.
    A salty breeze gusted through the shattered passenger window, and carried the sound of the surf with it. Other than the ocean, and the sound of the van’s low purr, they heard nothing but eerie silence.
    That silence lasted a moment, then was shattered by the blasting of a horn and flashing of headlights behind them.
    “What the fuck?! Is that asshole trying to get us killed?” Bishop shouted as he hopped from the van, pistol in hand.
    Ed followed, rifle ready.
    Brent stepped out of the van, holding his pistol, hoping he wouldn’t need it, and remembering how he’d frozen in the van when an infected Jung attacked.
    Bishop raced to the second van as Boricio Wolfe hopped from the passenger side and yelled, “Where the fuck’s our welcoming committee, Captain?”
    “Shut the hell up, you’ll draw the aliens!” Bishop yelled at his revolting twin.
    “Let ‘em come,” Wolfe said, full of machismo and idiot one-liners.
    Brent looked at Ed and rolled his eyes.
    Suddenly, another voice called out, coming from behind them, “Drop the weapons and down on your knees!”
    Brent turned to see two Guardsmen aiming assault rifles and lights at them.
    Ed turned to face them, placed his gun on the street, then stepped into their light, and said, “Stand down, I’m Guardsman! Commander Edward Keenan — returning from special assignment.”
    After a moment’s hesitation, the Guardsmen slowly approached the group, getting a closer look before lowering their guns.
    “Sorry, Commander,” said the one on the right.
    Ed nodded, then,