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

took FOREVER to do what he could have easily done in 20 minutes. He imagined the two of them sitting in the grocery store cafe, sipping on the chai lattes they both liked so much — though for the life of him he couldn’t see why — and eating overpriced scones, while his lunch schedule was dictated by the tiny tyrant in his arms.
    He looked down at Becca, and most of his annoyance faded like daylight at dusk and he found a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
    It seemed like forever since Jade was this age. Ed could hardly remember her so small, nor being so hard to get down for a nap. Though, it wasn’t like he’d really been around much during those early years. These were probably the kinds of things he’d missed out on. This was normal life for normal fathers. Well, as normal as life could be at the moment, living in hiding under assumed identities, following the hell and fury of the past half year that started on October 15.
    As the clock finally ticked past the 15-minute mark, again, Ed stood, slowly, careful not to stir Becca, displaying a dexterity he’d not used since escaping from an underground cage in the Ukraine six years ago.
    He navigated across the toy-littered floor with the same grace, making it to the other side of the house to Becca and Teagan’s bedroom.
    As he reached for the knob, his doorbell rang.
    Shit!
    These damned solicitors always come at nap time!
    Can’t they read the NO SOLICITORS sign on the door?
    He looked down, terrified that Becca would open her eyes and start screaming.
    But her eyes remained still, fluttering under her lids as he rushed her into the room, then carefully set her beneath the Pooh Bear mobile in her crib. As Ed eased away from the crib, the doorbell rang again. Ed cringed, certain Becca would wake up and he’d have to hurt — maybe kill — whoever was on the other side of the door, threatening his lunch.
    Ed raced from one end of the house to the other, and froze when he looked at the security monitor in the kitchen, which should have displayed feed from above the front door, but instead, showed only static.
    His heart raced as he reached into the top of the pantry, retrieved his shotgun, and started toward the front door.
    He approached slowly, quietly.
    The doorbell rang again, twice in a row.
    You fucker! You just WANT to wake her up, don’t you?
    Or, is the Agency finally here to take me out?
    Ed peered through the peephole to see a face he never thought he’d see again — Sullivan, the man from Black Island — a man he’d not seen since they all vanished in a flash of white before somehow getting returned to their Earth.
    What the hell? What’s he doing on this Earth? What’s he doing at MY door?
    “What do you want?” Ed asked through the door, keeping his aim steady.
    “You’re a hard man to find, Mr. Keenan,” Sullivan said. “We need to talk.”
    Ed growled, “I’m hard to find because I don’t feel like talking.”
    “May I please come in?”
    “What’s this about?” Ed asked.
    “Please,” Sullivan said, moving his face closer to the peephole. “I’m not here to cause trouble or interfere in your lives. But we need to talk.”
    Ed closed his eyes, sighing. He didn’t have any reason to distrust Sullivan, but he found it odd that the man had been able to find him. Ed had gone through great pains to set this house up long before he was declared an enemy by the Agency. Nobody could trace the house to him. He was a ghost, so far as the world was concerned. If Sullivan, someone without any resources on this planet, was able to pinpoint Ed’s location, who else could?
    Ed opened the door, keeping his gun on Sullivan, then ushered the youthful-looking, neatly dressed man inside. Sullivan looked like he was going door-to-door peddling religion.
    “Keep it quiet, Becca’s sleeping.”
    Sullivan smiled. “I’m glad to see that you’re taking care of Teagan and Becca. Keenan, the other Keenan, would be happy to know that. You know, if he’d made it.”
    Ed wanted to say that he didn’t really give a shit what the other Keenan would’ve thought, but the look in Sullivan’s eyes, his sincerity and friendliness, kept Ed’s tongue from flapping. Besides, Ed had seen on one of the video feeds on Black Island how the other Keenan had died, bravely fighting a fight that Ed should’ve been there for. Hell, perhaps Ed would’ve died instead of his doppelganger.
    Ed looked Sullivan up and down, “Are you