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

Rose.”
    “Boricio —”
    “I don’t want to hear it,” Boricio breathed slowly in and out, barely keeping the snarl from his throat. He tore the badge hanging from the lanyard around his neck, threw it onto Will’s desk, then ripped a bright pink Post-it from the top of a multicolored stack.
    Boricio wrote: “I QUIT” in black sharpie, then said, “I’ve always hated the goddamn lighting in this place anyway. Fucking fluorescents.”
    Boricio stormed from his father’s office, barely containing the swelling rage.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 3 — Charlie Wilkens Part 1

    Black Mountain, Georgia
    March 2012
    FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT…

    Charlie stared at the man standing in the yellow hazmat suit. Though he was bald, scarred, and wore an eye patch on his left eye, he looked exactly like the Boricio who sprang he and Adam from the weird ass cult compound not too long ago.
    Yet, judging from the lack of recognition in his eyes, he may as well have been a stranger.
    Just as Charlie was about to say something about being Boricio, the Imaginary Boricio beside him finally spoke up.
    “Wait! Don’t say anything, Charlie Brown. There’s something weird about this guy. Yeah, he looks like me, but there’s something … off.”
    Imaginary Boricio looked closer, then turned to Charlie, “I haven’t been gone long enough to have a scar that faded. That isn’t me! Maybe he’s some long lost twin or somethin!” He laughed. “My real daddy musta’ been a bad, bad man.”
    Charlie looked the hazmat-suited man in the eye, “Who are you?”
    “My name is Boricio Bishop,” he said. “And you’re at Black Mountain Research Facility.”
    “Woah,” Imaginary Boricio spun on his foot. “Looks like they’re slopping up the beer-battered bullshit in piles over here in the Twilight Zone Inn ! Don’t say dick about him not knowing you, Chucky Fuck Stick! There’s something about this shit that’s fishier than Fat Betty’s sloppy tuna. I say keep your mouth shut. Just the facts, ma’am, least until we figure this shit out.”
    Imaginary Boricio paced the glass cell as the hazmat-suit Boricio continued to speak.
    “Have you heard of Black Mountain?”
    “No,” Charlie said.
    “We’re pretty much all that remains of the United States government. There’s a few other facilities throughout the world, but we lost contact after The Event. Our job now is to try and return things to normal.”
    Charlie wanted to snap, ask the one-eyed asshole if his idea of normal was killing innocent people, but instead he chose to ask a question since this was the first person he met — even if he was Boricio’s twin — who seemed to have some insight into whatever in the hell happened to the world on October 15.
    “What was The Event ?”
    Boricio looked down for a moment, then back up at Charlie. “That’s classified information. What I can tell you is that we’re trying to cure the outbreak. Which is what makes you a curious oddity.”
    “What outbreak?” Charlie asked. “And why am I an oddity ?”
    “The outbreak is alien in nature. The aliens infect humans, like parasites, and eventually take over their hosts. Our tests say that you’re infected, and your blood work clearly shows infection. And judging from the way you laid my men out, I’d say you’re clearly not just human. Yet you show no signs of degeneration like the others. It’s as if the infection enhanced you, but has not taken over your system — suggesting a symbiotic relationship, which is either an anomaly or an evolution. We need to understand what’s happening with you.”
    “I’m not infected!” Charlie said. “When did you take my blood?”
    “While you were unconscious. It’s standard procedure. And yes, you are infected. Have you been bitten by an alien or infected human?”
    Charlie tried to think back to his run-ins with the creatures. He couldn’t recall having been bitten. “No, I don’t think so,” he shook his head. “Scratched, maybe, but not bitten. Can you be infected through a scratch?”
    “Possibly through any exchange of fluid, do you remember how long ago?”
    “I dunno. A few days I guess. We were attacked by a guy who’d turned into one of those things. He might’ve scratched me, I can’t remember.”
    Hazmat-suit Boricio said, “Hmm. Yeah, you should be showing more physical signs by now. Most of the infected begin to visibly mutate within 48 hours or so.”
    “Is it possible that I’m a carrier and