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

didn’t recognize, and without any memory of how he got there, or where he’d been before he woke handcuffed to a table. Three of the walls were gray concrete, just like the floor. The fourth mirrored, like he’d seen in interrogation rooms on TV and in the movies. The room was empty, except for the chair he was sitting in and the table his right hand was cuffed to a metal bar on top of the table which seemed built expressly for the purpose of handcuffing.
    A bare light bulb hung limp from a chain, flickering on and off above him with an intermittent buzzing sound.
    Where the hell am I?
    Charlie stared at his reflection. He looked like he’d aged five years or more in the last five months. He looked down at the cuffs, so sturdy, shiny silver, and official looking. He wondered if they belonged to a cop and whether he’d been arrested for something.
    For what, though? And are cops really on duty at the end of the world?
    It wasn’t as if any law was left in the land, let alone officers to enforce the rules. Arrest seemed unlikely. Yet, here he was.
    But who else could’ve done this? And what the hell do they want from me?
    “Hey!” he called. “Show your face, pussy!”
    Charlie got only an echo as a response. And his scared reflection which betrayed the bravery of his taunt.
    “Hey!” he screamed, loud enough to put a scratch in his throat, shaking his hand, the cuff biting into his wrist.
    Behind him, a door opened. Charlie looked up in the mirror and saw Boricio enter the room, wearing a dress shirt and pants, his hair neatly trimmed and styled.
    “Boricio?”
    “Well, I ain’t the goddamned Easter Bunny,” Boricio said, closing the door and circling behind Charlie before settling himself on the other side of the table.
    “Where the hell are we? Why am I in handcuffs?”
    Boricio looked up and held his finger to his lips, “Shhh, keep it down, Charlie Brown. You don’t want to wake the others.”
    “Others?” Charlie asked, looking around the room. “What others?”
    The light bulb lightly swayed above them, as if someone had tipped it. Charlie looked up, then watched as Boricio’s shadow bounced back and forth alongside the light’s movement.
    Boricio looked around, rotating his finger in a small circle before he said, “You don’t see them?”
    Charlie stared at Boricio, waiting for him to break into a laugh. But Boricio was playing it straight.
    “Come on, this is some kinda joke, right? You’re fucking with me. You, Adam, and Callie, you’re all fucking with me. Ha-ha, real funny. Now let me out,” Charlie said, shaking the handcuffs.
    Boricio stared him in the eyes. “Nobody’s joking,” he said. You need to wake the fuck up right now, Chuck E. CheeseDick, because shit’s about to get thick as a handful of jizm hair gel out there.”
    “Out where?”
    Boricio pointed again, “You really can’t see them?”
    Charlie looked around again as the light continued to dance with the shadows. Charlie thought he saw something move past him, quickly flying by on the left.
    He turned to find the shadow just as the light above him died, casting the room into pitch black.
    “You need to wake up, man,” Boricio said in the darkness, his voice sounding muffled, as though underwater. Only it was no longer Boricio’s voice, and it was coming from someone beside him.

    Charlie woke up to Adam shaking him on the left shoulder and whispering, “Wake up, man. Something happened.”
    Charlie’s head was throbbing behind a tangled web of confusion. He shook his head, wondering where in the hell they were and how they got there. They might have been in the back of a cargo truck or something; he couldn’t tell. Wherever it was, it was a winter of black and cold. And he heard no sounds of movement, so if they were in the back of a truck, the wheels weren’t rolling.
    “What’s happening?” Charlie asked.
    “Shhh,” Adam said, “I don’t think the others are awake yet.”
    “Others?” Charlie said, thinking of what dream Boricio had asked him.
    Adam moved a bit in the darkness and then a moment later, Charlie heard the unmistakable sound of the a lighter top flipping open, immediately followed by a couple of flicks and then a flickering flame which nearly died in the gust of Adam’s excited breath.
    “See,” he said, his face seemingly red in the glow of the flame, then pulled the lighter away and waved it back and forth.
    They were indeed in a truck. A dozen or so other men, women,