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

bear. If they were beneath his skin, and in his stomach, where else had they migrated to? His brain, his heart?  
    How long until they inflicted permanent damage?
    His body shook, and cold sweat coated his hair and flesh as Ryan racked his brain in search of a plan. He could make himself puke, but that wouldn’t get rid of the ones under his skin. These parasites, whatever they were, wouldn’t surface on their own. They would either multiply and turn his body into a festering host, or they’d die out, in time.
    But he couldn’t wait that long. He had to get them out now!  
    Another knock on the door, Ryan turned to the door, angry, “What?!”
    “You okay?” Gramps said from the other side. “Carmine said he thought something was wrong.”
    “Go away!” Ryan screamed, staring in the mirror at his sickening reflection.
    Ryan bent over and retched into the toilet again, more black bile and worms spilling into the bowl, and all over the floor.
    “Fuuuuuck!” he screamed while puking more of the living bile from his body.
    He wiped his mouth with the towel, then looked in the mirror again and saw a slight flash of movement beneath the flesh of his right cheek.
    Oh God, no.
    He moved in closer to the mirror to inspect.
    More movement.
    He yanked the mirrored medicine cabinet door open so fast, the mirror shattered against the wall and glass shards fell into the sink below. He searched inside the cabinet for something sharp enough to tear his flesh, while whatever was beneath his cheek began to bulge, as if it were trying to come out on its own.
    At first, nothing. Then his eyes found a suitably sharp object — the shards of mirror in the sink. He grabbed a jagged triangle piece and brought it to his face, its point centimeters from his bulging flesh.
    Stab it. Stab it now!
    Another knock on the door, “Ryan?” Gramps said.
    “Go away!” Ryan said, his voice hoarse, dry, and barely his own.
    He watched as his cheek bulged like a hand pushing through a plastic bag until his flesh opened in a bloody hole and something black, with pinchers, oozed from the hole. This worm, or whatever, was bigger than the things in the toilet. As thick as a caterpillar, at least.
    Ryan was paralyzed with fear and disgust as the black caterpillar-like thing pushed itself from the wound and scurried onto his cheek, with hundreds of tiny wet, black legs.
    Ryan screamed, dropped the piece of mirror into the sink, and grabbed the caterpillar, then pulled on it, tearing the rest of its length from his cheek, like black rope, as the hole in his face ripped wider. Oddly, he felt no pain, only disgust as the insect continued to stretch to nearly a foot and half in length as he pulled it out, then threw it into the sink along with chunks of bloody fat tissue.
    He reached up to his open wound, blood dripping down his face and neck, trying to push the tear closed. It was too large; there wasn’t enough skin in place to cover the gaping hole.  
    On the other side of his face, more movement.  
    More insects.
    Ryan screamed a long, animal cry and grabbed the doorknob, which was slippery in his bloodied hands, and whipped the door open. Gramps and Carmine stared at him in horror. If they’d had guns, he was sure they would have shot him on sight.
    “What the...?” was all Gramps could get out, his eyes large and worried.
    Carmine was speechless.
    Kill them!
    The voice spoke in the back of his head, not foreign, but his own, a craving to hurt them both. To rip into their flesh. To end their lives, and chew on their guts.
    He reached out, toward Gramps, his fingers splaying impossibly wide, and shaking. Bones shifted beneath his hands and fingers, causing them to crack and bend at unusual angles, as if his fingers were somehow growing new joints. The agony was too much. He screamed and, at the last second, swung himself into the wall, avoiding Gramps.
    His hand punched through the plaster of the wall, and Ryan looked back at Gramps and Carmine, and wanted to say sorry, or something, but all he could do was scream, as Gramps put his hands in front of Carmine to protect the boy.
    As if he could.
    The buzzing began again in Ryan’s head.
    Ryan had to get out of the house before he killed them both.
    He pushed himself off the wall and launched down the stairs, then out the front door, trying to contain the growing scream within, until he was far enough away not to attract the monsters to the house where Gramps and Carmine were