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

side of the door.
    Scott looked up to Mary, eyes glazed. “I’m so sorry, Mary,” he sobbed when he saw her.  
    Mary said nothing, just opened fire on the pair of bleakers at the bedroom door, then shifted her aim to the third bleaker who managed to take the rest of her bullets without having the decency to drop.
    FUCK!
    “Stay inside!” she yelled again, then ran to the end of the hallway, swinging her arm in a wide arc and lodging the butt of her gun into the surprisingly soft back of the bleaker’s skull.  
    The bleaker turned to Mary, its mouth, with its jagged rows of malformed teeth, agape. She took another wide swing, making matching entry and exit wounds on each of the bleaker’s cheeks, chunks of wet black flesh and teeth hitting the wall and floor. What was left of the monster’s mouth collapsed on itself as it rattled a wretched sound of surprised anger, stumbled, then fell to the floor, thrashing.  
    Scott slid the rifle along the floor to Mary. She picked it up and swung down, taking out the rest of the creature’s skull until it stopped moving.
    “Where are the bullets?” she asked, sure that she’d drawn the attention of the four bleakers downstairs and would need to be armed.
    Scott pointed to his duffel bag at the end of the hall – the same bag they’d found him with two months ago when they first saw him, dehydrated on the side of the road in lower Tennessee. It was a kid’s bag, black, with white lettering which read: BOMB TECHNICIAN: If you see me running, you'd better start running too!
    Mary stepped past him, feeling a bit shitty not to bend down to check his wound but also recognizing that she needed to prepare for the other monsters or none of them would get out of the house alive. She reached into the bag, retrieved the box of bullets as sounds of the bleakers stumbling up the stairs caused her hands to shake. She slipped the first bullet into the magazine, then the second. A bleaker was at the top of the stairs, clicking and shrieking, mouth open wide.
    She slid the third bullet into the magazine, then tried to squeeze the fourth, but it was a tight fit. She struggled, hands shaking, fingers betraying her, pressing hard to get the bullet into the chamber as the creature moved closer. She wished like hell that the boy didn’t have a bolt action. But that’s what she had. Four bullets. Four bleakers.
    Fuck!
    The fourth bullet slid into place and she clicked the magazine into the gun’s stock, glanced up to see the bleaker barreling towards her, slid the bolt back and forth loading the chamber, then raised the rifle as the bleaker was nearly on top of her. The shot ripped through the bleaker’s chest and launched it back into a second bleaker who had come into the hallway.
    “Desmond,” she screamed, “I need you up here NOW!”
    No reply. She fired a second shot, taking out the second bleaker’s face.
    Outside was a thunderstorm of chaos. It sounded like more bleakers, more engines, more gunfire, more shouting.  
    More of everything.
    Mary managed to squeeze off two more shots, bringing down the third bleaker, before the final one — that she knew of, anyway — got through and was on her. The monster clawed at her arm, tearing the fabric of her sweater, but narrowly missed her flesh as she squeezed out of the way. Her rifle fell, just out of reach as the creature stood to its full length and glared down at her with its alien eyes. Its mouth opened wide and it leaned over, shrieking so loud that she had to cover her ears or risk her eardrums being burst.
    The bedroom door behind the bleaker swung open and Luca ran into the hallway, screaming.
    “NO!” He charged toward the bleaker, punching the back of its body. Luca looked to be 14, rather than the eight years his lifetime provided. And though 14 was bigger than eight, it wasn’t big enough to stand against the six foot five or so bleaker who turned around and swatted an angry black fist at the boy, sending him sprawling back along the bloody hardwood floor. The bleaker turned back to Mary, who watched as Paola slipped into the hall and put her arms under Scott’s armpits and dragged him into their room. Scott’s eyes were closed and Mary feared the worst.
    Once she had Scott inside, Paola cried out, “Luca, come back!”
    Mary screamed. “Do what she says, Luca! Now!”
    The bleaker turned its attention back toward Luca. The boy got up, sliding in Scott’s blood, then scrambled into the bedroom, buying