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

there and about to vanish.
    “No!” Luca cried. “Don’t leave me here! I don’t belong here. I can’t look at your family knowing I took you from them. Please. Come back. Or whoever, or whatever you are, come into me, and give Luca his life back.”
    “We can’t,” Other Luca said.
    “Why not?”
    “You are not pure.”
    “What am I supposed to do?” Luca cried. “I’m not Luca! They aren’t my parents. I feel like a big phony!”
    Other Luca’s eyes stared from behind the light. “Do you want to forget? Do you want to be the other Luca?” Its words were everywhere and nowhere at once.
    “What do you mean?”
    “We can give you his memories. We can erase yours, except your recent ones, which we can partially remove. You will wake up believing that you are him. With his memories. Your parents will never have died. You will never have known Will and Boricio Bishop. You will be Luca as he was before The Darkness.”
    Luca stared into the light. “You can do that?”
    Other Luca nodded.
    But can I? Can I forget everything? My family. My real family — my mom, dad, and sister who died? And then my other family, Will and Boricio? Do I want to forget them?
    “You must decide now.” Other Luca’s body was gone already, and now the light was disappearing too. “We must go. But we can take your pain with us.”
    “And what happens to you, to the Other Luca? Where are you going? Won’t you miss your family?”
    “We are one, now, you and I, Luca. I feel what you feel. I can be with them through you. Feel their love. Feel them. But I cannot live here in body. I’ve grown too weak. I’ve changed too much. But you can forget it all. But you must decide now.”
    Other Luca’s light began to flicker.
    It’s now or never.
    All the pain. All the regrets. Everything can go away.
    “Will I still be me?”
    “Yes, but you must—”
    The light crackled. The Light was almost gone.
    No, don’t go!
    Luca cried out, “Yes! I’ll do it!”
    Other Luca flared, and the light went so suddenly bright that the room seemed as though it was nothing but pure white.
    Then it went dark and back to normal until Other Luca was only a mist.
    Am I too late?
    Luca couldn’t see the hand he felt on top of his head, but he felt it there like the nose on his face or the arm hanging from his shoulder.
    Warmth spread through his body.
    Luca’s eyes fell involuntarily shut as darkness crept around the edge of his memory. He thought of his little sister — his real sister. The first time he looked into her crib and made her laugh. And how excited he was.
    He had looked at his mom, who he didn’t know was watching them.
    She had smiled at them in a way that made him feel loved from the inside out.
    Wait. No, I don’t want to forget.
    I want to be me.
    Then, the memory was gone, and he fell into his bed, trying to remember what it was he’d forgotten. And why he was wet, smelling of saltwater.
    And why he was going to bed soaking.
    Luca was too tired to try and make sense of messy thoughts that didn’t want to be cleaned. He curled into bed, pulled the covers up to just under his chin, then closed his eyes. For a moment, he thought he saw a light floating over his bed, but then figured his mind was playing tricks.
    Maybe it was a dream.
    Sleep swallowed Luca with a smile.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 15 — Ed Keenan Part 2

    Our Earth
    Palm Coves, Florida
    Ed’s safehouse
    July 2012
    NINE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

    Ed patted Becca’s back and glanced at the TV’s clock for the hundredth time, still waiting for the 15-minute mark to pass.
    He wished he’d eaten before trying to put Becca down for her noontime nap, because this was the third time he’d tried, and they’d been sitting on the couch for nearly an hour.
    Fifteen minutes seemed to be the minimum it took for Teagan’s baby to fall into a deep enough sleep for a trip to the crib without her waking. If Ed rose from the couch too soon, Becca would start crying. He’d have to start the whole process over, starting with the rocking. If he waited too long, same thing.
    Ed had been held hostage at gunpoint a half-dozen times in his career, but he was now held hostage by something that remained years away from being able to clean itself, and he was held hostage nearly every damn day.
    Ed decided next time, he’d do the grocery shopping instead of surrendering to Jade and Teagan. It was if they were so excited to get out of the house, especially together, that they