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

people screaming, crying, combining with the pounding and shrieking coming from outside.
    This is what death sounds like. Confusion. Chaos.
    Adam thrust his hands forward and Charlie found his arms in the darkness. He followed them down to the wrists, then snatched the lighter from Adam, flicked it open and spun the wheel.
    Darkness persisted and Charlie heard someone vomit, and splash of putrid mess instantly wafted to his nostrils.
    “Oh God!” someone screamed, already panicked and at the edge of hysteria, and someone else, or maybe the same person, puked again.
    Charlie’s hands shook as he feverishly fought to make a flame.
    Come on, come on, come on!
    Someone in the truck cried out, a scream that instantly registered above all others for its sheer intensity. Then Charlie heard the unmistakable sound of wet flesh being torn.
    What the fuck?!
    More screaming as everyone started pushing and shoving, moving toward the closed doors of the truck, as if trying to escape.
    Charlie finally got the lighter on and cast the truck and its occupants in an orange. Given the gift of sight in the dark, fresh screams erupted in the hold as Charlie scanned the flickering movement of bodies and shadows in search of a sign to tell him what was spooking the natives.
    The lighter went out.
    “Fuck!” Charlie said as someone slammed into his body.
    Charlie fell back against the wall, dropping the lighter as the truck turned into a bedlam of screams, punching fists, clawing hands, and kicking feet. Charlie fell on top of the boy, instinctively trying to protect him as Adam tumbled over them both.
    “Get the fuck off of me!” Adam screamed. Charlie could feel Adam’s weight shift over him as he shoved someone back.
    Outside, the shrieks grew louder.
    The truck rocked harder as Charlie’s hands scrambled for the fallen lighter. Someone stepped on his fingers and Charlie screamed, yanking his arm back and cradling his injured fingers.
    “I got it,” Adam yelled, then moments later the orange light flickered across Adam’s face. He smiled as he held the lighter in front of him, basking in the glow of his awkward accomplishment.
    Charlie laughed at Adam’s simplicity, to find joy in such madness. Then Charlie saw what had drawn the screams.
    Behind Adam, a woman stood, her head hanging limp barely hanging by bloody flesh and bone from her neck, replaced by a bulbous, shiny black head of one of the creatures, its mouth open wide and bloody teeth glistening in the flames.
    “Oh fuck!” Charlie said.
    “What?” Adam said, turning around.
    The creature lunged at Adam, its fingers fused in a fleshy blade, clawing across Adam’s face and then through his neck. The creature’s other hand found the opposite side of Adam’s face then wrenched Adam’s head free from his neck in an eruption of hot blood and sudden black as the lighter fell to the floor of the truck.
    “Adam!” Charlie screamed.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 4 — Luca Harding Part 1

    Luca dropped to Will’s side, ready to heal him.
    “No,” Will said, slowly shaking his head as his eyelids fought gravity. “Not me. You can only save three. Don’t waste it on me.”
    “I can’t let you die!” Luca cried.
    “I’m only injured. I’ll be okay,” Will said, covering his stomach wound with his left hand, and raising his head to meet Luca’s eyes. “I can be fixed. But only you can bring back the dead. Go. Now.”
    “Who do I save?” Luca said, turning around to the sea of bodies. Most were well beyond help, with missing limbs, many sitting in sloppy piles of guts, feasted on by the army of monsters. Saving any of them would be impossible, Luca figured.
    Luca thought of his fallen friends — Paola, Mary, Desmond, Linc, and … Rebecca, who he lost in the barn when the creatures overran it. Everyone was fighting for their lives, with whatever they could get their hands on — axes, bats, and pitchforks — as the fire spread into the barn. The smoke and flames were blinding. Somehow, Luca lost sight of Rebecca.
    He found her a few moments later, at least a couple two late. She was sprawled across the ground with her throat slit, one of the monsters standing above her, blood dripping from its clawed hand.
    Luca lost it, swinging his axe with blind rage into the creature’s head with a thunk. The creature fell to the dirt, but Luca yanked the axe out and kept hacking, screaming, until Boricio pulled him back.
    “We’ve gotta get outta here,” Boricio said, as