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

hiding.
    Have to get away, far away.
    Ryan ran faster than he’d ever run in his life, not caring who or what he ran into. If he ran into the creatures, let them kill him now. That would be better than ending up as a host for their worm-like offspring, or whatever was inside him.
    As he ran, he felt movement in his body - his guts, his arms, and his face - as if the things inside him sensed his panic and fear, and were growing more active in response. He reached up to the hole in his face and probed, his wet fingers searching the bloody fat for more insects. He tore something away, but wasn’t sure if it was part of him or the insects.
    He kept running, adrenaline and fear bleeding through him, alongside the panic and disgust. He was maybe five streets away when he finally screamed, continuing to run as he wailed, until his body was exhausted and his voice was all gone.
    He passed two of the monsters, maybe the ones he’d seen before, and glared at them, daring them to come at him. They stared at him with knowing, as if he were no different from them.
    The buzzing returned in his head, louder than ever. He slapped his hands over his ears to silence the sound and shook himself violently for extra measure, but there was no silencing the misery burrowed into his mind.
    The buzzing had patterns, like language, almost. If it was language, was he hearing the monsters around them in the world, somehow communicating telepathically. Or was he hearing the voices of the untold number of insects swimming within him, communicating with one another on how to best fester inside their new host?
    He screamed again, his voice cracked and throat raw, until the buzzing started to die.
    He kept running, thinking now of Mary and Paola, and how he’d never see them again. He was infected. He was going to die like this; he was certain. Die without ever seeing his daughter again.
    He collapsed to the ground, in the middle of the street, and wept. Not for himself now, or at least not for his physical self and the things that ravaged his insides.  
    Ryan cried only for his family.
    Memories swirled through him: everything he’d done; all the guilt; how he’d abandoned his family for what, a stupid, superficial girl with nice tits who wasn’t a tenth as smart, caring, or loving as Mary? If he hadn’t cheated, he would be with them right now. Whether that meant with them in the post-apocalypse, or with them in the graveyard, it didn’t matter – he’d be with them .  
    Instead of alone.
    He wished like hell he could go back in time, to before it all went wrong, and make things right. There was no way he could go to Mary and Paola like this, and let them see what he’d become, or worse, pass the infection to them.
    He sobbed into the cradle of his bloodied palms, rooted to the ground, and decided he would die right there. He would wait until death claimed him, one way or another.
    The buzzing grew so loud it drowned out everything else. He sat in the street, kneeled, head in his hands, rocking and crying, begging God for a merciful death. He wished he’d thought to bring the gun with him. He would end it all right now.
    Then a light came from above.
    God?
    He looked up, finally hearing the sound of the chopper’s rotor blades, which had been drowned out in his cranial buzzing.  
    “Stay put,” an electronically amplified voice said as the chopper descended upon the middle of the street.
    Ryan did as the voice instructed. Was this the help Gramps had promised would come? Or was this death?
    Either way, Ryan was ready.
    The chopper landed and two armed men, in black paramilitary outfits and sealed helmets attached to air tanks on their backs, rushed toward him.
    One of the men flashed a weird blue light on Ryan, then turned to the other, and through a speaker said, “He’s infected.”
    The other man raised his gun and fired a shot into Ryan’s neck.
    Ryan smiled at the thought that death had come so quickly.
    But he wasn’t dying.
    Instead, Ryan fell to the ground, immobilized, his world a blur. The men lifted his limp body and carried him to the chopper.
    If they’re not killing me, what are they doing?
    Is this help?
    Ryan tried to speak, to tell them about Gramps and Carmine, to go help them too, but he blacked out before he could utter a word.

    * * * *

JOHN

    As John’s body hit the ground of the balcony, the thing that wore John’s body like a stiff suit the past few months, and was nameless before that, was freed