“One more chance, Luca. Open the door. Let me in.”
Luca couldn’t move.
“Little pig, little pig, let me in,” Boricio sang as he began shaking a container. Luca listened, trying to figure out what the splashing sound in the hallway was. Then he smelled it — gasoline.
He’s gonna start a fire!
“I’m gonna huff, and I’m gonna puff, and I’m gonna burn your fucking house down!”
Flames erupted in the hallway along with the sound of Boricio’s laughter. “Roast, little piggy! Roast!”
Luca screamed. He was trapped.
Suddenly, he heard a sound outside the window. Scratching.
He turned and saw Dog Vader outside clawing at his window.
“Dog Vader!” Luca exclaimed, rushing to the window. He unlocked it and began to pull the window open, when the door behind him burst open and Boricio walked through, entirely engulfed in flames, but unharmed.
“Come here, lil’ pig.”
Luca lifted the window and shoved the screen forward, crumpling it as he dove through the window, and landed not outside, but in another hallway.
Dog Vader was gone, much to Luca’s sadness.
And another door appeared at the end of the hall.
Luca walked to the door, praying this would be the one leading back to reality. The door creaked open before his hand even touched the knob.
He was in a church, light pouring through stained glass windows, casting the church in a rich sea of colors. The pews were empty, and a boy stood at the front before an open coffin. The boy was Boricio, but a bit younger than the last version Luca had seen.
Luca walked to the front of the room, and stared inside the casket. A skeleton of a woman was tucked within the velvet. She looked like she might have been pretty once, but the years had not been kind to her.
“Is that your mother?” Luca asked.
Boricio turned, this time not hostile, but staring, emotionless. “Yes, I should have stopped Joe. She might still be alive.”
“I’m sorry,” Luca said. “Are you sad?”
“I don’t feel anything. I know I’m supposed to. It’s not like I want her to be dead, but I just don’t care. Not anymore.”
“Why not?” Luca asked.
“Because I’m a monster. The shrinks all say I should be locked away.”
Boricio turned to Luca, eyes wide and vulnerable. “Do you think I’m a monster? Are you scared?”
Luca stared at him, “You’re not a monster. You’re just . . . broken.”
“Broken?” Boricio asked, confused.
“Yes, something is not quite right in your head. Something that should have been different, but it’s not. I can feel it.”
“So I can’t help it?”
“Help what?” Luca asked.
“Being a monster.”
“Maybe I can,” Luca said, and reached out.
“What are you doin’, ya queer?” Boricio said, pushing Luca away, but too late.
Luca grabbed his hand, and their fingers locked as bright blue light flashed between their palms, warm at first, then burning hot, growing so bright it quickly eclipsed the room.
“What did you do?!” Boricio cried out as the blue light engulfed them completely.
“I have to show you something,” Luca said, even though he wasn’t sure where they were going.
**
They were suddenly in the living room of a large, spacious house overlooking the sea.
“Where are we?” Boricio asked, still a child, eyes wide in amazement. “This is some house! This yours?”
Luca shook his head, “No. But I feel like I should know where we are.”
Boricio’s brow furrowed, “Me too. I feel like I’ve been here before.”
The sound of keys came from the other side of the front door.
“Uh-oh,” Boricio said, “Someone’s home. They’re gonna bust us.”
The door opened and a young dark haired boy, around 12 or so, came in holding four plastic shopping bags stuffed with groceries. He walked right through Boricio as if he weren’t even there.
“He can’t see us,” Luca said.
Boricio looked at the kid as they followed him into the kitchen, watching him set the sacks down on the black granite counters. The kid looked up and called out to someone who was still outside, “You got it all?”
“Yeah,” a man’s voice said from outside, “Just getting the mail.”
“OK,” the boy said as he began to unpack the groceries.
“He looks so familiar,” Boricio said, stepping just inches away from the kid. “Holy shit! Is this me?”
Luca’s eyes widened. It was Boricio, a 12 year old version.
“It is me! He’s got the same scars on his arm,” Boricio said, pointing to two circle scars on his left forearm, identical to those on his own arm.
“Joe gave me these when I was six,” Boricio said. “So, is this the future me? I’m a happy kid in this nice house?”
“I dunno,” Luca said, confused. Something was different about this dream, and this Boricio, than the others, but Luca wasn’t sure what.
Suddenly, the eight year old Boricio was joined by a second Boricio, an adult version.
“No, this shit never happened,” the adult Boricio said, staring at the house. “This isn’t my past or my future.”
The 12 year old Boricio finished unpacking and looked toward the living room. “Any mail for me, Dad?”
“Dad?” adult Boricio said, his brow knotted in confusion. “I got a Dad who owns a rich bitch pad like this?”
“No, it’s just junk mail,” a man said, still out of sight.
His voice is so familiar.
Something weird was happening. Weirder than any of the dreams or mind trips Luca had been on. Luca racked his brain trying to figure out what his brain was only sensing.
Boricio’s dad emerged from outside and closed the front door, “Just junk mail,” he said, throwing the junk mail on the counter. “Thanks for putting the groceries away.”
Luca stared in disbelief at Boricio’s dad. It can’t be!
But it was — Will.
Adult Boricio’s eyes stared in disbelief, “What the beer battered bullshit?”
Twelve year old Boricio looked at both versions of himself, now seeing them.
“What the...?” they all said in unison.
The blue light that had engulfed Luca and Boricio erupted like lightning, buzzing and crackling, then struck all of them at once, including Luca.
And in a flash, they were back in the dungeon.
**
Luca opened his eyes, his body alive with electricity flowing like fire. He looked down. The wounds on his chest were gone.
“What the . . .?” Desmond said.
Everyone was staring at Luca and Boricio in a daze of confusion, or awe, or both.
Boricio stared back, eyes wide and frightened. “What did you do?” he said to Luca.
“What happened?” Brother Peter asked.
Boricio turned to Brother Peter, and shook his head, then looked back at Luca, staring as though his gaze could solve the puzzle.
Suddenly the door swung open, footsteps clopped down the steps, and Mary and Paola appeared, with Brother Rei behind them, holding them at gunpoint. “This shit ends now,” he said. “You are all going to tell me who is planning what, or I start shooting, starting with the children.”
* * * *
RYAN OLSON: PART 2
Ryan stared at his arm, watching the worm-like shapes swimming beneath his flesh.
He pressed hard, trying to squish one of the fuckers, but it was too quick, or his skin too fleshy, to do anything but force the worm to redirect its path. There were maybe 15 or more shapes writhing beneath his skin, on his left arm alone.
God knows how many are inside the rest of my body.
Panicked, Ryan moved closer to the mirror, flashing a light across his face, searching for movement. Nothing there,.
<
br /> Yet.
He pulled his shirt up to check his chest, and nearly vomited when he saw hundreds of tiny shapes moving beneath his chest, stomach, and sides.
“Fuck!” he screamed, feeling invaded and disgusted.
He felt a burning need to find something sharp to tear them from his body. Now!
Seconds after Ryan screamed, Carmine knocked on the door, “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just go!” Ryan said, unable to keep the escalating panic, revulsion, and rage from his voice.
He had to do something to get these things out of his body.
Ryan’s disgust of insects, and anything else that slithered through dirt, was borderline phobic. The thought that these things, now splashing in the toilet, were also inside him, was too much to 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 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 from its mammalian shell.
When the humans left the room, It left John’s husk through his mouth, then floated in the air, in its true form, like liquid smoke, lighter than air, flowing back into the house, in search of a fresh host.
Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone) Page 47