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

down, concerned. He sighed, then turned back and closed the gate, taking an extra moment to lock it, knowing that once inside, he would get an earful from Boricio.
    By the time Charlie made it back inside, Adam was sitting beside two battery-operated lanterns at the kitchen table, shirt off, as Callie cleaned his wounds with a rag and a fresh bowl of water. Adam’s face was bruised and his nose bloody, probably broken. Blood seeped from a thin red line slashed across his chest courtesy of the sharp side of a knife. The wound looked scarier than it was, though, as it didn’t seem to run too deep.  
    Adam cringed as Callie hit a tender spot. “Sorry,” she said.
    “They got you after you made the pickup, or before?” Boricio asked, pacing back and forth.
    “After,” Adam said.
    “Fuck!” Boricio slammed a fist on the black granite kitchen counter. “So they got the truck and the supplies.”
    “Yes, sir,” Adam said.
    “OK, Lone Ranger, I want you to start from the beginning and tell me exactly how in the fuck this shit went sideways.”
    “Well, everything was normal. We hit the store, loaded the truck, and were about halfway back when all of a sudden we heard the motorcycles and saw the lights behind us. At least six of them, all on bikes. They drove in front of us and blocked the road, with guns aimed at us.”
    “And you didn’t just run the fuck through them?” Boricio asked, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that’s a holy trinity of fucking stupid. Why wouldn’t you floor it?”
    “I was afraid they’d shoot us if we didn’t stop.”
    “Well fuck a duck, son” Boricio said, “looks like you just screwed the pooch. What happened next?”
    “We got out of the truck and one of the guys, the bald one with the patch, asked us what we had in the truck. I’m pretty sure he knew, though. So I told him ‘supplies’ and he said they didn’t belong to us, that we’d stolen them from the store, and he was gonna take them back and we ought not to get in his way.”
    “And then?” Boricio asked, full attention on Adam’s story while Vic paced in the shadows where the kitchen opened to the dining room.
    “Well, Jeremy said hell no, so the guy with the patch shot him right in the head. I wanted to shoot the guy, but there were six of them and I knew I couldn’t get them all. He told me to give him my gun.”
    “And you did?” Boricio’s upper lip twitched.
    “Yeah,” Adam said, eyes on Boricio like a child afraid he was about to see the slapping side of a belt. “So the guy took my gun, then hit me in the face with his shotgun. All the other guys started laughing. He asked me for the keys and I asked him if he was gonna shoot me. He laughed and said if he’d planned to do that, I’d already have maggots making babies in the holes. So I handed him the keys, and he was all, ‘See, I told you I wasn’t gonna shoot you’ then headed to the back of the truck to see what was inside. The other guys followed, except one, who stood over me. I don’t know what took so long, but they seemed to be looking in the back of the truck forever. Then the guy who was watching me went to join them. I got up and ran into the woods, but they came after me, and knocked me down. I thought for sure that was it. The bald guy came over, leaned down, slid the knife across my chest, and said, ‘Tell your people that we own Dunn, and we’d better not see them again.’ Then they left me there. I walked a half a mile or so, without a gun or anything, praying I wouldn’t run into one of them monsters. Then I found a house, went inside, got the keys to a car, then drove back here as fast as I could.”
    “Thank God you’re alive,” Callie said, looking up at Charlie, quietly urging him to say something.
    “You did a good job,” Charlie said, figuring someone should praise him if Boricio wasn’t.
    Boricio laughed, “If shitting the bed and losing a truck along with one of our men is what constitutes a good job these