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

stubborn, or too suspicious, to cede to Ed’s valid point. Maybe she was right not to trust him, Brent figured, but Ed was the best prepared of all of them to handle the threats. The guy was like Rambo by way of Jason Bourne or something.
    The fog grew thicker, and obscured the top halves of the towering cars, which did nothing to lessen the sense that they might topple on them at any moment. If anything, it added to Brent’s claustrophobic fear. The car’s creaking seemed to grow louder in the fog, as if the mist were reaching around with its wispy tendrils to purposely rattle the towers.
    Everyone seemed to step up their pace, but no one said a word.
    Suddenly, a loud thump thundered above, like something had flown down and landed on one of the crooked steel piles.
    “What was that?” Billy shouted, his voice five octaves higher than normal.
    Rojas aimed his rifle up and rolled the barrel back and forth, scanning the fog for a sign of whatever made the noise. A sudden, second thump came from above, closer. Then another. And then something dark fell in front of Billy, who screamed as he fell back on his ass and hands.
    Brent stumbled backward as Ed thrust himself in between Billy and the fallen thing, twitching on the ground and gushing blood — a giant crow in the spasms of death.
    Another thump from above, and then another, until the horrible scream from thousands of wings flapping tore through the air. Swarms of cawing birds careened through the maze assaulting the group with bruising force that could easily kill them.
    “Get on the ground!” Ed screamed, pulling Billy — who had gotten up — back to the asphalt.
    Brent fell to the ground and curled to a fetal position, covering his face with his handcuffed arms as seemingly hundreds of birds pelted his back on their way by. Brent cringed through the battery. Some hit his body so hard they were injured and fell to twitching lumps all around him.
    Billy screamed, though his scream was barely audible over the swarming caws and flapping wings.
    Another sound grew suddenly louder above the chaos, though — something that sounded like a train barreling toward them.
    The assault on Brent’s body eased as the sound of birds began to fade. But the sound of the train grew louder. Brent raised his head and peered past his bruised and bloody arms in time to see a swirling vortex of dirt and debris that looked as wide as a city block churning toward them. The towers of cars started to buckle around them in the monstrous tornado’s wake. Lightning pulsed from its middle, and struck out from its center. And then the towers began to tumble — cars raining down upon them.
    Lisa screamed, “Run!”
    They scrambled and ran, slipping on and crushing the corpses of hundreds of birds as they raced their way back through the maze toward the opening of the car maze. Streaks of lightning arced out, crackling loudly in the air, above the sound of the swirling mass. Chunks of dirt and rocks swirled through the corridor, assaulting them with the same ferocity the birds had brought just a moment before — stinging Brent’s eyes and clogging his throat as he spit and then closed his mouth and tucked his chin against his chest. He kept running.
    Brent, Ed, and Billy were close to catching up with Rojas, who was in front of them by 20 feet. Brent didn’t dare slow long enough to look back and see if either The Prophet or Lisa were keeping up.
    Lightning flashed above, close enough for Brent to feel its heat. The flash that followed was so bright, Brent felt as if it tore something in his mind. In that flash, Brent saw Rojas disintegrate into debris, slightly larger than the dirt swirling en masse around them.
    Brent gasped, thinking he’d never see anything so terrifying again. He was right … for two seconds.
    A car soared overhead, faster than a jet, and slammed into the highway a hundred yards ahead, then bounced and rolled. Brent heard another vehicle slam into one of the towers. He glanced back to see the dark shape tumbling down into another tower. As Brent braced for the dominoes to fall, Lisa pushed past him. Brent screamed and followed, as Ed and Billy raced toward the railing, barely visible through the storm of debris.
    Something exploded behind them as Brent reached the railing and hurled himself from the overpass, hard onto the grassy incline, and rolled down to the street below. His body was stunned and his breath ragged as he spit dirt from his mouth. Rain