Free Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) by Sean Platt, David Wright Page A

front of him, looking down at Luca cross eyed.
    “Will!” Luca screamed, again in his mind, but with everything he had.
    Luca heard the cry of silence.
    The man with the lobster tacos was dead.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 10 — Charlie Wilkens — Part 2

    Charlie had no time to grieve as his friend’s dead corpse threatened to crush him.
    Instead, he pulled the boy toward him, then Adam’s body on top of them both, shielding their huddle from the erupting chaos and bloodshed. The truck continued to rock back and forth.
    It had to be a terrible nightmare Charlie would wake up from any second.
    Nothing in reality ever gets this bad.
    Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!
    But he wasn’t waking up.
    The boy cried under Charlie. Charlie put his hand over the boy’s mouth and whispered in his ear, “Shh, it’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.”
    Charlie kept repeating his promise, over and over, as if repetition bred truth.
    More screams amid the echoes of tearing flesh and deathly gurgles that flooded the death chamber. Charlie squeezed his eyes tight and continued to repeat the phrase over and over.
    “It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay …”
    Gunfire erupted outside and Charlie felt warmth from a thin ray of hope as the truck finally stopped rocking.
    The kid squirmed his mouth from Charlie’s hand and cried out.
    Charlie said, “Shh, wait.”
    Bodies continued to shuffle, kick, scrape, and scream everywhere around him as Charlie held tight to Adam’s body, praying like hell that the monster wouldn’t smell his attempt to play dead, then head back over to feast on his flesh.
    The shrieking outside stopped, though the screaming, and now shrieking and clicking inside the truck continued. It seemed as if at least two creatures were inside with them.
    Two monsters among a dozen people. It wouldn’t be long before the creatures had killed everyone and turned their attention to searching for survivors, and finishing their jobs. Charlie hoped like hell that whoever was outside would open the truck before then. He would take the boy and run, as fast as they could, and never look back.
    After what felt like minutes, the gunfire stopped, but the truck stayed sealed. The screaming inside the truck had ceased, replaced by the sound of clicking, shrieking, and dying.
    Oh fuck, they killed everyone.
    We have to keep quiet.
    Charlie’s grip on Adam’s body slipped and he let go of the kid’s mouth to grab Adam’s body to use as a shield. The child’s cry brayed loudly over the swiftly fading final seconds of death all around them. One of the creatures shrieked, then advanced toward them in the darkness.
    Fuck!
    Charlie was torn, not sure if he should stay put, push the kid out to let him die, or scream for help. He was tempted to let the kid die, but shame kept his arms wrapped around the child. He screamed instead, “Help! There’s a kid in here alive! Help! Help! Help! Help!”
    Charlie started to pound on the wall as both creatures shrieked, and continued toward them.
    He had seconds until they were on him.
    Something clicked, just inches behind him.
    Charlie turned to face the black surrounding him, clenching his hands like claws and bracing for impact.
    The door to the truck suddenly rolled toward the sky, slapping the top of the truck with a clank of metal as twilight illuminated the carnage inside the truck, with two creatures looking like some twisted and mutated monstrous set of Siamese Twins.
    Fresh gunfire erupted into the truck, and the creatures’ bodies danced under a hailstorm of bullets. The few bullets that didn’t sink into their flesh, whizzed by and into the back of the truck, plinking off or sinking into the metal with a series of hollow but nerve rattling thuds. Charlie pushed himself against the boy as close to the wall and as low as he could get as the boy continued to cry.
    When the creatures both finally fell, and the bullets stopped blasting, Charlie called out, “There’s two survivors in here.