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

cried out, bracing for a violent end. He hoped that the darkness wouldn’t go into his body next.
    Oh God, it could enter me, and use me to get to Luca.
    No, no, no.
    The shadow on the other end tugged at the door.
    Will reached for the lock, though he’d only be able to reach the door closest to him. If another door was unlocked, the darkness would enter.
    Must reach the lock.
    Will’s fingers were centimeters from the lock when his door swung open. He was too late.
    It wasn’t the Prophet, or the dark thing, or anyone he expected to see on the other side. It was Luca, as a child.
    “What?”
    Will blinked his eyes. He must be dreaming, or already dead.
    Luca was eight again, looking almost exactly as he had when Will first met him, and how he had appeared to Will for years in his dreams, except he was wearing pajamas.
    “Daddy?” Luca said.
    Daddy?
    “No, it’s Will.”
    Luca nodded, as if he knew he wasn’t his dad all along, then looked down at Will’s wound. “You can see me?”
    “Yes,” Will said, wincing as a sharp pain stabbed him fresh in the gut.
    “Oh God,” Luca said, “What happened?”
    “One of the monsters got me,” Will said. “How are you young again?”
    “I’m not your Luca,” he said, looking around. “I tried to talk to him, but he can’t see or hear me. Then I keep going back.”
    “What are you talking about?” Will asked, every word an effort to cling to consciousness.
    “You and Luca aren’t from here. You were … brought over here. This isn’t your world.”
    “What are you talking about?” Will said, confused.
    “You have to find the other Will. You have to go to Black Island. It’s in New York. Tell them that Luca sent you. They will let you in.”
    “What are you talking about?” Will asked again.
    “Find the other Will and tell him I said to look in the moon. I think he can bring you home.”
    “The moon?”
    Luca was about to say something when an anguished scream tore through the dream, vision, or whatever it was, and shoved Will back into the harsh reality of the burned out compound.
    Though his voice was different, the scream belonged to the same soul he’d been connected to, deeper than anyone since Sam — Luca.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 8 — Edward Keenan Part 2

    Ed blinked a half dozen times, but he still didn’t believe his eyes, even though the acrid scent of the monsters’ sweat, or whatever it was, should have made it easier.
    Ed stared over the edge of the roof, shaking his head at the sea of aliens below. With his nerves frayed and attention divided, Ed was half tuned to the hatch that might pop open at any moment, while the other half was focused on the certain death below.
    The aliens didn’t necessarily look like they were making a formation to attack, but they did look like they were waiting for something. They were milling about the entrance, with some of them heading into the store, but they weren’t charging inside like Rojas said they had been earlier. They seemed almost orderly, as though waiting their turns.
    The gun felt right in Ed’s hand. He wrapped his fingers around the handle tighter, finger kissing the trigger, itchy to squeeze it and knowing the math was impossible. Bullets to aliens were at least ten to one.
    Ed turned from the aliens, then glanced at the hatch before his eyes landed on Lisa. “There’s no way I’m letting you cuff me again. You realize that, right?”
    Lisa said nothing.
    Ed continued, “We’re gonna get through this, and when we do, you’ll know you couldn’t have done it without me, and I’ll know I couldn’t have done it without you. That will be enough. We’ll say our thank yous, and then our goodbyes. Once this is over, so are we. Hasta la bye-bye, and no coming back.”
    Lisa added empty silence to her pile of verbal nothing, while Ed said the same thing with different words. “You never saw us, and we never saw you. You got it?”
    Lisa finally nodded, then said, “Let’s just wait until this shit is over. Then we’ll talk.”
    “No talking,” Ed said. “I’m taking off when this shit is over, and you’re going to let me and Brent head into the sunset with a smile on your face. I want your word, Lisa, or I’m going to find it awfully hard to pay attention to what’s happening all around me when shit starts flying from the fan.” He raised his eyebrows. “And believe me, I’m exactly the man you want ahead, around and behind you, from right this minute until