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

spiders.”
    “Sad spiders? What are those?”
    Luca felt like maybe he shouldn’t say anything. His second dad might get mad.
    Luca spent a long time saying nothing, the entire time wanting to leave this world that belonged to the other Luca and return to his home on Black Island. After too long without an answer, his first dad said, “Should I be worried about anything, Luca? Anything at all?” He tugged on his right earlobe like Luca remembered he used to do. Another memory that he’d almost forgotten.
    Luca looked up at his father and felt a sudden flare of jealousy toward the other Luca. The Luca who wasn’t adopted, the one who was still living with his first family.
    Luca didn’t really hate anybody; he didn’t even hate Tommy Wilcox when he made Luca eat a cricket, but right then as he stood close enough to his dad to smell what he could never have again, hating him was easy. For a moment, Luca did, no different than if the small boy had been the drunk driver who murdered his parents.
    Luca turned to his first dad. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’m going to bed now. Will you ask me about the sad spiders in the morning?”
    “What do you want me to ask?” his dad said, still puzzled.
    “Just ask me about the sad spiders.”
    “Okay…”
    Something about Luca was scaring something inside his first daddy. Maybe it was because Luca didn’t even know why he was telling his dad about the sad spiders. He thought maybe it might get the other Luca in trouble.
    He could hear his dad wanting him to go back to his bedroom so he could finish his work. Luca felt bad for being scared, guilty for his unkind thoughts, and curious why he was suddenly trying to get the other Luca into trouble.
    “Goodnight Daddy,” Luca said, giving his father a giant hug. Luca did his best to hold in the cry he wanted to release in that long hug.
    It had been so long since he’d hugged his real dad, and he didn’t want to ever forget this feeling — the warmth, the love, and … the safety of a his old life.
    Luca wanted to stay and never leave.
    Never.
    His father held the hug, then said, “Goodnight Luca.”
    Luca reluctantly went down the hallway, then back into the other Luca’s room, where he stared at the sleeping boy under the covers.
    At first Luca thought how easily he could hurt the other him. He was lying there, helpless. Then he realized how dumb that would be. And how mean. He hadn’t done anything, after all.
    But then Luca had another idea. One that brought a thin smile to his lips.
    Maybe I can bring this Luca back to Black Island and I can stay here?
    Then Luca could return to this room and live the rest of his life with his mom, dad, and Anna.
    As the idea took root in his mind, Luca wanted to, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
    First, he wasn’t even sure if he could bring a person back with him. A person was a lot bigger than a photograph. Second, his new Dad would be too mad. And his real parents would be mad if the other Luca did that to him. He would be mad too.
    Though the idea made him happy for a moment, it was wrong no matter how he looked at it.
    Luca shook his head. These were wrong thoughts and Luca only wanted to do what he knew was right. So he went home, sad, waking back up to his lonely world.
    A world without his family.
    A world without his real dad’s hugs.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 8 — Charlie Wilkens Part 2

    Charlie lay on his mattress, blinking in his cell, draped in the same darkness he had been in most hours since he arrived. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there. It felt like at least a day, and the lights had only come on once since Callie arrived.
    The lights went on as a man in a yellow hazmat suit came down the row and slipped a small black tray of food and two water bottles through a slot in the bottom of each occupied cell’s door. Charlie was starving, and scarfed down his peanut butter sandwich and bag of pretzels in seconds. Callie looked just as dead as when they’d left her on the mattress. He watched her cell as he ate, staring and praying she was only sedated, rather than dead.
    Charlie was curled up with his pillow, staring at Callie’s cell even though he saw nothing through the darkness. He wondered if she was infected too. Maybe all the people on the block were infected. If so, why were they being held in cells?
    Are they keeping us quarantined? Or something worse?
    A few hours later, the lights went bright again. Callie was standing at her