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

pass, for reasons Charlie didn’t understand. Perhaps it was because Adam was so nice to everyone, practically fawning over them. Or maybe there was some target painted on Charlie that always made him the butt of the jokes, the one most likely to get bullied. The one who couldn’t do anything right. The pussy who always chose the path of least resistance. Whatever the case, he found himself in the familiar position of trying to fly under the radar in a pack of wolves. Trying to avoid scrutiny. Trying not to fuck up.
    By the time they reached the gate, they got a clearer look inside the car’s cabin. Whoever was inside was slumped over the steering wheel, unmoving.
    “Who is it?” Charlie called, shotgun raised.
    The shape in the car moved, slowly, and the driver’s door opened. The shape stepped out, and into the moonlight.
    Adam’s face was bloodied, his left eye swollen shut, shirt shredded and covered in blood.
    “Jesus!” Vic said, “What happened?”
    Adam stumbled forward as Boricio unlocked the gate and pulled it open.  
    Adam shuffled forward then leaned against the car; his hand slipped on the hood, and he nearly fell to the ground. Charlie rushed to his aid and put an arm around him, helping him stand upright.
    “They killed Jeremy and took the truck,” Adam said, eyes on the ground.
    “Who did this?” Boricio asked, enraged.
    Adam’s eyes wouldn’t leave the ground. Charlie couldn’t tell if he was afraid to report the bad news to Boricio, or if he was simply too weak to look up. “It was that crew we ran into on the road last week, the pale guys on the motorcycles.”
    Boricio stared at Adam, laughed, then glared at Charlie. “I told you we should’a killed those cum colored fuckers!”
    “They didn’t do anything,” Charlie said defensively.
    “Tell that to the walking roadkill,” Boricio said, pointing at Adam.
    “I meant they didn’t do anything last week. They didn’t pose a threat.”
    “This ain’t a fucking Sadie Hawkins dance,” Boricio yelled, “And we don’t fucking wait for invitations or for motherfuckers to ‘pose a threat.’ We strike first so we can stay alive.”
    Charlie shook his head, not wanting to have this argument again.
    “Let’s get you inside,” Vic said, helping Adam towards the house.  
    “Lock the gate,” Boricio barked to Charlie, throwing him the keys, as he followed Adam and Vic inside. Charlie shook his head, then caught a glimpse of Callie standing on the balcony, looking down, concerned. He sighed, then turned back and closed the gate, taking an extra moment to lock it, knowing that once inside, he would get an earful from Boricio.
    By the time Charlie made it back inside, Adam was sitting beside two battery-operated lanterns at the kitchen table, shirt off, as Callie cleaned his wounds with a rag and a fresh bowl of water. Adam’s face was bruised and his nose bloody, probably broken. Blood seeped from a thin red line slashed across his chest courtesy of the sharp side of a knife. The wound looked scarier than it was, though, as it didn’t seem to run too deep.  
    Adam cringed as Callie hit a tender spot. “Sorry,” she said.
    “They got you after you made the pickup, or before?” Boricio asked, pacing back and forth.
    “After,” Adam said.
    “Fuck!” Boricio slammed a fist on the black granite kitchen counter. “So they got the truck and the supplies.”
    “Yes, sir,” Adam said.
    “OK, Lone Ranger, I want you to start from the beginning and tell me exactly how in the fuck this shit went sideways.”
    “Well, everything was normal. We hit the store, loaded the truck, and were about halfway back when all of a sudden we heard the motorcycles and saw the lights behind us. At least six of them, all on bikes. They drove in front of us and blocked the road, with guns aimed at us.”
    “And you didn’t just run the fuck through them?” Boricio asked, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that’s a holy trinity of fucking stupid. Why wouldn’t you floor it?”
    “I was afraid they’d shoot us if we didn’t stop.”
    “Well fuck a duck, son” Boricio said, “looks like you just screwed the pooch. What happened next?”
    “We got out of the truck and one of the guys, the bald one with the patch, asked us what we had in the truck. I’m pretty sure he knew, though. So I told him ‘supplies’ and he said they didn’t belong to us, that we’d stolen them from the store, and he was gonna take them back and we ought not