Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

to the night of his daughter’s birth. How scared he’d been, waiting in the emergency room. Mary’s water broke seven weeks before Paola was due. They raced to the hospital, Ryan driving like a bat out of hell, pushing his Chevy to 110, fully anticipating a police chase or accident to give their story a different ending, but far too afraid not to drive like a stunt car driver.
    The surgeons waited almost 16 hours before deciding they’d have to do a C-section. They said it was routine, but there was “always a chance,” however small, that something could go wrong. As Ryan waited in the hallway outside of the operating room while they prepped Mary for surgery, he grew more fearful that something bad would happen — that he’d lose the baby, Mary, or both. He’d never felt more helpless. He tried to tell himself surgeons performed these procedures all the time, and that things almost never went wrong, but nothing gave him comfort.  
    It was nothing short of a miracle when things didn’t go wrong, and they handed him his beautiful baby girl. In that moment, every fear and reservation he’d had since Mary said she was pregnant vanished in the purity of his newborn child. Ryan had thought he’d known what love was, but had never known anything like what swelled his heart in that moment.
    The pain numbed as Ryan continued to wait for Red Jacket to show himself, . He wanted to get up, but his limbs refused to obey.
    Instead, he thought more about Paola. And Mary. And all the pain he’d caused them with his affair. He wasn’t sure where it had all gone wrong, or why. And now, as his world was about to end, it didn’t matter. All he had was regret. He thought again of Paola, and the first time Mary saw her child. She was out of it during the procedure. So she had to wait until the nurse came to Mary’s recovery room a couple hours later. The look in Mary’s eyes, the happiness and joy, that moment when things weren’t perfect, but were so damned right, that moment would be the one he’d cling to as the icy cold of death came to greet him.
    Red Jacket finally stepped back into view. Ryan saw only the man’s boots and jeans; he was dead enough already to be unable to look up.
    The man stood in front of him, quiet. Ryan wondered why he wasn’t saying anything. Was he toying with him? Was he thinking of some fucking cheesy movie line like the kind a monologuing villain might give before dispatching the hero?  
    But then Ryan realized he couldn’t even hear the man’s breathing. Or his own.  
    It was as if someone had wrapped gauze around his head. The few sounds that made it through were muffled. For all he knew, Red Jacket was reciting the Declaration of Independence and encoring it with Born in the U.S.A .
    Ryan couldn’t believe it. He was dying.
    No last minute reprieve. No rescue.
    This is it.
    Suddenly, Red Jacket’s legs were gone. Snatched in an instant.
    Ryan heard screams – muffled shrieks – and gunfire.
    His heart raced as he strained to move and see what was happening. But the connection between his brain and body was severed.  
    The monsters had gotten into the room, that much he knew. Beyond that, everything was darkness and muffled chaos.
    Please God, please don’t . . .
    More screams, and then something grabbed Ryan’s legs and pulled. He slumped from the wall and onto the ground, looking up at the ceiling.  
    And then it appeared over him, the monster.
    Oh God.
    Ryan closed his eyes, pictured Mary’s bright eyes, so happy and filled with joy. So full of love. So full of ... life.
    And then pain.
    I love you, girls.
    Ryan’s body shut down as the darkness swallowed him.

    **

    Ryan woke to a cool, wet rag dousing his head.
    He opened his eyes and the brightness blinded him. Carmine’s face swam into focus as his eyes adjusted to the light.  
    He was laying on Joe’s couch.
    “He’s awake, Gramps!” the boy said, as excited as a child on Christmas morning.
    Ryan tried to move, but his body was still racked with pain. His stomach, back, and neck felt as if they’d been crushed in a giant compressor that stopped just short of breaking every bone in his upper body.
    “I thought you was never gonna wake,” Joe said, wheeling himself next to Carmine.
    “What happened?” Ryan said, nervous and scanning for his rifle, remembering his last moments, as chaos erupted around him.
    “You’re safe now,” Joe said. “That thug is dead and so are the monsters.”
    “How?