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

over the scattered pile of sticks, clutching his stomach, which made Boricio picture Joe, and the way he smiled down on Boricio when he was doubled over just the same.  
    Ricky cried “NO!” as Boricio’s foot landed hard on his face. It was the last intelligible sound he made, everything after that was just screams and cries and sobs and whimpers as Boricio started on Ricky with his fists, then finished with a pile of sticks, grabbing them in handfuls and stabbing them all over Ricky’s twitching body.  
    Suddenly, a scream.
    Ricky’s mom, who rushed over to the boy to make sure he was okay. The boy was bloody, but he’d live.
    Then she grabbed Boricio by the back of the neck, dragging him away, as Boricio kicked, swung, and cursed at her, trying to break free.
    But she was holding on to the back of Boricio like he was the buckle of a belt.  
    “Let me go, you dumb bitch!” Boricio cried.  
    Ricky’s mom didn’t say a word. She dragged him across the yard, and then the street, until he was standing on his bottle-littered porch while Ricky’s mom pounded her tired knuckles on the broken screen.  
    Boricio’s mom was at the door a moment later, eyes bloodshot, hair hanging in damp and clumpy ribbons. The smell of cat piss and burning plastic poured from the house.  
    Ricky’s mom was screaming so loud, Boricio could barely make out a word she was saying, and wasn’t sure how much his mom would be able to gather. She sure looked like she had a problem standing there listening, though she knew she couldn’t leave.  
    “You’re raising a monster!”
    ”He almost killed my son!”
    “How can he do that? They’re friends!”
    “I’m calling CPS immediately!”
    “You all deserve to get locked up!”
    The last thing Ricky’s mom said before throwing Boricio through the doorway and marching back to her house was, “Your boy is broken.”  
    Broken? That would explain a lot.
    Boricio’s mom slammed the door and slapped him across the face. “You think I need this shit now?” she yelled, her face as red as her eyes.
    Boricio didn’t cry, but he did fall to the floor and crawl backward toward the kitchen. She was wearing the look that meant his body was gonna hurt real bad, real soon. At least it wasn’t Joe. Joe was worse. Much worse. Most of the time his mom protected Boricio from Joe, kept him safe from the worst of his temper. Kept him out of the dark room, away from the hotplate, safe from the baseball bat. But tonight, Boricio might not be so lucky.
    “Just wait until your father gets home!” his mother screamed, her foot landing smack in the middle of Boricio’s crumpled body. He cried. She said, “You don’t have anything to cry about you crazy cocksucking parasite!” She finished her sentence with a hard kick to her son’s side. Boricio felt like he was bleeding inside instead of out. The doctor had said that was the most dangerous kind.  
    His mother kept kicking him and screaming: “You dumb shit, diarrhea for brains, more trouble than you’re worth, stupid sonofabitch! I will NOT be yelled at, and I will NOT be humiliated, and I will NOT be threatened. That dumb bitch outside did all three. Because of you!”  
    She stopped kicking and Boricio stayed in a pile crying. She said, “That’s nothing, Bo. You wait until Joe gets home. He’s gonna make sure you’re sorrier than a skinned cat.” Then she left the room, slamming the door so hard that a picture frame hanging in the living room fell and broke. The picture was the last school picture taken of Boricio, way back in kindergarten.
    “Fuuuuck!” his mother screamed.  
    The smell of cat piss and burning plastic bled through the crack beneath her door and spread like a fog through the house.  
    Boricio thought about leaving since home was the last place in the world he’d want to be when Joe got home. But Boricio had no idea where he could go. He didn’t have any food or money, and the farthest he’d ever been out of the neighborhood was to school a couple of miles away. Leaving the house would be scary, but less scary than whatever his mom would do once she opened the door, and a world better than Joe.
    Boricio cried harder, thinking about what would happen when Joe walked in the door.  
    Once he could breathe again, he went to the kitchen and took the four packs of Ramen from the cupboard and put them in his backpack, along with two cans of Shasta, a box of powdered potatoes, and some mustard. He added a