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

gray concrete.
    Ed looked up to see Lisa standing with her shotgun, and Billy with his Glock 22.
    She raced toward Ed, then slid to a stop just inches from him holding the keys to his handcuffs.
    “Hold them off!” she yelled at Billy, who took aim at the aliens spilling through the door and into the warehouse.
    Lisa slid the key into the keyhole, but it slipped and fell to the ground.
    “Fuck!” she said, glancing back as the aliens barreled down on Billy. He opened fire. She grabbed the key and put it into Ed’s other hand, “You do it!”
    She grabbed her shotgun, then fired at the aliens pouring inside. Lisa would run out of shells soon. She needed Ed’s help.
    Ed slid the key into the hole, clicked the handcuffs open, then handed Brent the key. He ran to Billy, who had a second Glock in his waistband. Ed grabbed it, not even bothering to see if the clip was full, as an alien soared toward them on all fours, shrieking.
    Billy’s gun was out of ammo but he kept pulling the trigger, either not realizing, or not knowing what else to do as the alien came toward him, ready to bite.
    Ed stepped in front of Billy at the last possible second and the alien’s open mouth came up to bite Ed instead. Ed shoved his hand, with the gun, into the alien’s mouth and pulled the trigger twice.
    The alien’s body went slack as the back of its head exploded in black goo and bits of fatty meat and fleshy bone. Ed flung the alien from his body, then brought the pistol back up to fire at another charging alien.
    Lisa blasted it down before Ed had a chance.
    Ahead of them, one of the men, Rojas, entered backward, firing his M16 at aliens following him.
    All the aliens that had made their way inside the stockroom were lying in piles. “Come on!” Ed screamed, above the whistling in his eardrums. “We’ve gotta block the door!”
    They raced toward the door as Rojas dispatched the last of the approaching aliens, then slammed the door shut. Ed slid the lock shut. It looked strong, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Ed and Brent pushed four wooden pallets between the door and the immediate wall, stacking one on top of the other to keep the bottom of the door secure.
    Aliens began to bash against the door from the other side, as if to test the lock’s integrity. Ed wasn’t sure how long the lock, or makeshift braces, would hold up to dozens of aliens battering their bodies against the door.
    Ed looked toward the back of the stockroom. It was shaped in a giant L, and he would have bet his left nut, and maybe even his right, there was at least one other entrance into the room from the back of the store. That meant aliens could be storming in to flank them. They had to find safety now. He looked up and saw that the top shelf was close enough to one of the skylights that they might be able to stack some stuff to climb out and onto the roof.
    “Let’s climb the shelves!” he yelled, pointing up. “I don’t think they can climb!”
    “Better idea!” Lisa shouted. “There’s a ladder around the corner, leading to the roof!”
    Ed gave her a thumb’s up and they raced toward the back of the store, climbing the ladder as the sound of destruction echoed from the store and into the stockroom.
    Rojas went up the ladder first, pushing the hatch open, then peeking out to make sure no aliens were on the roof.
    “All clear!” Rojas shouted from above.
    They followed him onto the roof one at a time, with Billy going second, Lisa third, and Brent next. As Brent began to climb, two aliens made their way in through one of the other doors in the rear of the store. He raced up the ladder behind Brent, his face practically in Brent’s ass.
    Ed heard shrieking beneath him, but didn’t dare look down. He hoped to be up and out of their line of sight before the aliens could see where they’d gone. He’d hate to find out this way that they could climb. If the aliens got onto the roof, it was only a matter of time before Ed and the group were overrun, even if they were able to pick the fuckers off one by one as they crawled through the hatch.
    Once Brent was standing up top, he reached down and pulled Ed the rest of the way. Then they quietly closed the hatch.
    Ed stood on the gravel, and let out a gasp, “Holy shit!”
    Ed leaned over, sucking wind, his legs in pain from being forced into action after three days of inertia. He caught his breath while staring at the hatch, hoping like hell it wouldn’t pop open.
    “Oh my