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

person in the room.
    Morris met Brent’s eyes, but instead of the ice Brent expected, they glistened with sympathy.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know how to tell her. I was hoping we’d run into someone she knew, and … well, do you want to tell her?”
    Brent looked over at Emily, her face filled with anxiety, like she knew they were talking about her and her mother.
    “Fuck,” Brent said. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
    Brent turned from Morris and began walking back toward Emily, not sure what in the hell he should say.
    How do you tell a kid her mother is dead, and that she’ll never see her again?
    Brent approached Emily and met her eyes, preparing to deliver the worst.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 7 — Boricio Wolfe Part 1

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

    Boricio stared as Limp Dick approached the Paul Bunyan-looking motherfucker at the front door, and thought for sure a fight was about to erupt.
    He wasn’t sure why, but Boricio wanted to see the little guy get knocked the fuck to the floor. It was the sort of irrational hate Boricio had never questioned before, but rather indulged, figuring most people — if you really got to know them — had at least one or 14 things that made hating them easy as fuck.
    Boricio kept one eye on Die Hard talking to the Guardsmen and Pirate Boricio about whatever shit was happening on the island and around the restaurant. From what Boricio could tell, the island seemed fuckered, overrun with about a billion of the ugly black monsters, which weren’t monsters, but aliens and infected fuckers too stupid or sorry to outrun the aliens — mutants, they were calling ‘em.
    Boricio didn’t care what the fuck they were called — people, aliens, mutants. They all bled, which meant all of them died.
    Boricio watched as Limp Dick walked away from Paul Bunyan with his tail between his legs. Boricio smiled.
    Fucking pussy. Should’ve at least taken a shot at the fucker. I might’ve had a squirt of piss worth of respect for ‘ya then.
    Limp Dick was walking toward a little girl. He got down on his knees, met her eyes, then put a hand on her shoulder.
    What’s goin’ on here? I doubt that little girl has a single blade of grass on her patch. Ain’t no way she’s old enough to play ball.
    The girl burst into tears, sobbing, “Mommy!” on repeat.
    Limp Dick picked her up, then held her tight.
    Boricio looked over to Paul Bunyan, watching the scene with watery eyes.
    Boricio walked over to Paul Bunyan, nodded toward Limp Dick and the girl in his arms and said, “What the fuck is up with General Hospital over there?”
    Paul Bunyan wiped his eyes, then said, “We’ve got orders to kill infected on sight. The girl’s mom was infected and had to be put down. Girl didn’t know. That guy, Brent, I think, is a friend of the family. He volunteered to break the news to the girl.”
    “Put down?” Boricio asked. “Like a dog?”
    “We have to kill all infected.”
    Boricio whistled, then nodded on his way back to his spot near Ed and Pirate Boricio — both of them still speaking to the Guardsman, and now on the radio with home base or some such shit.
    Boricio looked back over at Limp Dick, the girl still in his arms.
    Boricio saw the pain in the girl’s eyes, then felt a sharp and sudden stab, no different from if he were a kid with his own mother shot. Boricio wondered, for the first time ever, how many kids he’d made cry by putting their mommies or daddies into the dirt. Boricio prided himself on never raping or killing a kid — he might’ve been a monster, but he wasn’t sick — but he must’ve handed pain like candy to at least a few kids over the years.
    Boricio surely broke some little girl’s heart, like the one still sobbing in Limp Dick’s arms.
    Limp Dick wiped the tears from the little girl’s eyes and Boricio suddenly felt like a giant asshole for thinking of Brent as a pussy, when the truth was the fucker was brave enough to tell a tater tot that her mother wasn’t ever baking potatoes again.
    A girl’s voice pulled Boricio from the scene, asking, “Are you crying?”
    He looked down and saw Little Lamb, with Mary and Luca standing behind her.
    “No, I’m not fucking crying, Paola,” Boricio said, turning away and wiping his eyes. “It’s goddamned dusty in here and I’ve got allergies conspiring to fuck my shit up.”
    Mary burst out laughing, but her laughter collapsed when she