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

vortex of swirling Darkness, as it spun Will’s body, sucking his blood and guts into its center, then spewed them across the room.
    The poor old fucker couldn’t even scream.
    The house shook violently around them as the wind raged outside. Luca, now nothing but a brilliant orb of growing light, thundered again, his voice now a hundred souls speaking from the inside of a single scream:
    “GO! GO!”
    Every window shattered at once as wind, rain, and debris swarmed through the house, as if the foundation were birthing a tornado.
    Mary should have been running, but she stood rooted beside Paola, both fixed to the floor in horror, unable to move.
    Boricio grabbed two arms, one from each girl, and shoved them both out the door, then down the stairs and through the swirling chaos. They made it outside just as the house collapsed and was siphoned into the two swelling, swirling tornadoes — one as wretchedly black as an infinite night, the other as white as Siberian snow, both of them spitting debris to the sky like the heavens were starving.
    Sullivan and Ryan were still battling a couple dozen aliens on the ground. Boricio was shocked to see them still standing.
    The white tornado suddenly spit sparks of bright light from the gaping mouth in its center, disintegrating the remaining aliens.
    “Holy shit!” Boricio shouted.“Let’s get the fuck outta here!”
    Mary ran to meet her mutant husband, dragging their daughter behind her. Halfway there, a piece of the black reached out and grabbed Ryan like a twig, then plucked him into the air screaming into its widening vortex.
    Mary lost her voice in an anguished bellow as the Darkness turned toward her, swirling its hungry tendrils and grabbed her too.
    “No!” Boricio and Paola both screamed.
    The white tornado sent a swirl of bright crackling light into the heart of Darkness, pulled Mary from its horrible depths, then dropped her gently on the ground next to her daughter. Mary stood up, wet and scratched to hell, and picked Paola up and began to run away.
    Boricio heard Luca’s voice inside in his head, “Use the orange ball!”
    “What?” Boricio screamed at the bright tornado that was once the man-kid Luca, or the vial, maybe both.
    “The orange ball,” it bellowed. “Tell Sullivan to use it.”
    Boricio shouted to Sullivan, “He said use the orange ball!”
    “Who?!”
    “That!” Boricio said, pointing at the Light tornado snaking around the Dark one.
    “We’ll all die!” Sullivan screamed.
    The pair of vortexes started to yank surrounding trees, dirt, rocks, and debris into themselves, gathering mass so fast, that every one of them were sure to be pulled into the swirling chaos in a matter of seconds.
    Sullivan held the glowing orange sphere in his palm.
    He squeezed the ball hard and the orange light grew brighter and brighter, until it started screaming red.
    Everything vanished in a blaze of impossible light.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 14 — Luca Bishop

    Black Island, New York
    April 2012
    SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

    Keep swimming!
    Luca kept going, faster than he’d ever swam in his life, trying to find a way back to the other world, where he’d been safe and sound in the other Luca’s bed.
    But he could never return if he was unable to concentrate.
    Luca swam for what felt like forever, until his entire body was aching, his limbs turning to rubber. He could float no longer, though he was finally a safe distance from the falling stuff.
    He saw the source of the falling stuff in the distance — the two largest tornadoes Luca had ever seen. While Luca had only seen tornadoes on TV, he was sure they didn’t usually have balls of lightning and fire swirling from their middle.
    Luca couldn’t tell how far away the tornadoes were from each other, but they seemed inches from collision. He had also never seen two tornadoes at once, even in movies. It was like they were fighting to see which could gather and spit the most terrible stuff into the sky as they continued to drift closer and closer.
    Luca finally realized that it wasn’t just stuff they were spitting into the sky.
    The tornados were spitting what was left of Black Island.
    His eyes widened as he screamed.
    **

    Our Earth
    Los Orillas, California
    April 2, 2012
    SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

    Luca woke in his bed, soaking wet, and screeching.
    But no one could hear his scream through the hand on his mouth.
    Luca stared in disbelief as the other Luca, the one who belonged here in this