Dead Moon: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (7 page)

12

So, I’m hanging thirty feet off the ground by something that wants to eat me. Not good, but I can’t really do a lot about it either. If I attack, it drops me, and if I don’t attack, it kills me.

Decisions, decisions.

The hands flex and the thing lifts me higher. I’m not sure where the strength is coming from, but it’s sure as hell there. The durable material of my jacket is the only thing keeping me from joining the other Goblins and becoming paste on the ground below.

My armpits are on fire from the fabric rubbing and chafing as I’m lifted higher towards the Goblin’s agape mouth, its serrated teeth just inches from my face. It jerks me up again, bouncing my body against the rail, and I feel my ribs cry in protest. I reflexively twitch from the sting and my arm brushes against something hard on my hip.

Recognizing the shape of the object, I calmly reach to one of my newest editions and grip it. As quickly as I can, I draw the combat knife, swinging it up and burying it into the Goblin’s head. The razor sharp tip punches a clean hole straight through one of its empty eye sockets with a crack and a pop.

I’m expecting to fall now, but I don’t. The creature’s claws are locked in and not about to let go anytime soon. Its body slumps, acting as the other side of a teeter-totter and once again I’m stuck, dangling above the ground from the height of a three-story building.

The fire escape platform shudders as a body lands with a boom. The dead Goblin’s body shifts and I slide back down a little.

Shit.

I glance between the dead one’s legs and see another set of feet. The fifth and final Goblin has apparently joined us from across the alley. If it gets to me now, I’m even more royally screwed then I was before. Drawing my holstered gun isn’t an option since it’s being pinned inside my jacket. I try for Joan’s, but it’s just out of reach behind me, my fingertips barely grazing it.

The fire escape, groans in protest. It’s being overloaded with excess weight, just like the one above that broke away and dropped me.
Uh, oh.
I guess they haven’t been refurbished in some time, rusting out with the elements.

A sound like a snake hissing while eating sandpaper grinds through my head as the lone Goblin hisses at me and reaches over and around its fallen comrade. It greatly wants to finish what its brethren couldn’t. I can’t let that happen—and I won’t. I glance down again, the fabric of my collar obscuring my view a little. I can’t see exactly what’s beneath me, but I know if I fall a foot or two in the opposite direction I’ll hit where the three other Goblins now lay.

Not having any other choice, I reach back up and grasp the hilt of the knife. Then, I yank. It pops with another sickening slurp, and does two things. First, I’ve got my knife back. Second, the movement jars me free from the dead Goblin’s grip.

I fall, but not before I reach out and snag the last Goblin’s wrist. There’s no way it could’ve expected this. My presumption is immediately proven and I feel no resistance at all. My dead weight, along with its off-balance stance, creates the perfect carnival ride to hell.

It shrieks as we fall, but I don’t. I prepare for my landing. It’s going to be close. Falling together, I wink at it, fully knowing it can’t see the wink. It’s more for me than for it. Then, it’s gone, landing with a bone crunching, wet
thwap.

I, on the other hand, land in the grossest, most over-due-to-be-emptied dumpster on planet Earth. The splat from the Goblin hitting sounds nearly identical to that of me landing in the rotted out mess I just did. But… I’m alive.

“Thanks,” I say, patting the nearest trash bag. I shudder as my hand comes away covered in a viscous slime. I have no intention of looking at it, so I just sit up and wipe it on the side of the container.

Wanting nothing better than to rid myself of my foul-smelling surroundings, I stand, but quickly have to conceal myself again. Six more Goblins are at the end of the alley and are headed my way. I have no shot at outrunning them in my current condition, and shooting it out won’t do it either. It’s not the amount of Unseen coming down the alley that frightens me, it’s the amount that will hear the shots and come to investigate the noise. I once again think about the millions of people that lived on the island.

“I guess, I’m waiting it out,” I whisper to myself. The stench of the dumpster should mask my scent perfectly too. It’s the only positive thing I can come up with and even then it’s not easy to stay
that
optimistic about it. On the other hand, none of them actually
saw
me enter the trash receptacle either…for
obvious
reasons.

This might just work. But, if even one of them gets curious and comes snooping around over here.

Maybe not…

The sniffing gets louder and more feverous as one of the noseless bastards shuffles its way over to me. I hold my breath and wait, not sure what to do next. If the thing peeks in and gets a good whiff, I’ll no doubt have to kill it. I can’t risk it finding me and alerting its companions. But if I do that, I’ll be slaughtered for sure.

Especially trapped in this thing
, I think as I look for anything to hide behind. I quickly discard the idea of moving. The noise will be just as bad. Either way, if I’m found, it’ll basically be like trying to fight my way out of a smelly broom closet.

Scratching grates my ears as it tests the metal container, doing its best to figure out if the dumpster is alive or not.

Not alive, damnit,
I think trying to push my will upon the creature.
NOT alive.

My insides squirm as a clawed hand reaches over the rim and flexes, getting ready to hoist itself up and investigate.

And it does.

The top of its head appears and I slowly get my knife ready for another quick strike. My left hand is already reaching for my other gun, but I stop. A call of some sort barks from somewhere further down the alleyway. Then, its head lowers and the hand releases from the edge of the receptacle as the snarling continued. Almost immediately after the crescendo dies down, I hear the curious one follow, leaving me to
literally
rot.

“Some bitch,” I say, repeating my Jackie Gleeson impression from before. I lay my head back against the filthy innards of the dumpster and sigh, closing my eyes. “Could definitely use Trigger right about now.” But I know deep down that Bandit’s car couldn’t help me right now. The whole reason I haven’t just driven to the museum is because the roads are completely inaccessible by car. There are easily thousands of wrecks lining the streets. Even the tight alleyways have cars and other debris jammed into them. As soon as shit went south, people freaked and ran.

That’s probably how most of the
survivors
died. They panicked and tried to rush out of the city. Some even ran over others on foot, not caring about their neighbor. I saw some of it first hand as soon as I stepped out onto my street, seeing the chaos unfold before me.

I slowly stand, quickly peering out from inside my hiding place. Seeing that the coast is a hundred percent clear, I steady my footing and half-jump, half-fall out, landing hard on my ass.

The groan that escapes from my lips sounds like a deer letting out a fart before it dies… I’ve never actually heard a deer fart, or hunted one for that matter, but that’s what I imagine a dying buck-fart would sound like.

I sit up against the receptacle, nursing another new injury. My ribs are absolutely killing me. Falling from the seventh floor of a building can do that to you. I may leave this daring escape out of my story whenever I get a chance to tell Jill. She’ll call me a nut job, or a loony.

“Not too far from the truth.”

I go to push off the ground, but stop when my hand brushes up against the cold steel of my pry bar. I stand and kiss the clawed end for saving my life. I wobble into a somewhat upright position, having to lean on the garbage can for balance and support. The street is only twenty feet or so to my right and looks clear from where I stand. Looking across 1st Avenue, I smile when I see what has just become my next destination. The sign reads,
Harvey’s Menswear.

I look down at my garbage-soaked clothes, turning towards the clothing store. The breeze kicks up and I smell myself, gagging.

Ugh.

Ripping off my jacket, I enjoy the cold wind blowing through the alley. It’s the first time in a while I’ve had time to even think of the temperature. It feels like I’ve been sweating from exertion for the better part of the last thirty-six hours. I know better though. It’s too damn cold to sweat like that, but my mind feels like it has. It’s tired—maybe still a little tipsy—and generally when I feel this exhausted I’ve been sweating in some capacity.

It’s decided then. “Harvey’s it is.”

Daddy needs some new digs.

13

I hurry across the intersection, watching for trouble the whole time. Back on the other side of 1st Avenue, I dive towards the high-end clothing store’s doors. They are big and glass, but I can’t see through them.

Interesting,
I think, pulling open one of them.

If they are what I think they are, then this could actually be a rare advantage for me. At least while I’m here anyways. As soon as I enter I shut them and look, being able to see through them perfectly.

Two-way mirrored doors. Like a fun house or in my case, a police station’s interview room.

I quickly zigzag through the store, finding whatever I can. Not bothering with a dressing room, I completely strip down and throw on my new wears, ripping off tags and annoying size stickers as I go. My jacket is a pain in the ass, being the most expensive of what I found. I have to go to the front counter and find the stupid sensor removal tool that every retail worker seems to have a problem using. I snag the sensor and pop it free on the first try, smiling to myself.

The simple pleasures in life.

I slip my holster back on and then the jacket. I have to wear a size bigger to account for the gun. It’ll bulge and poke into the back of the jacket if I wear the proper size, giving away that I’m carrying.

Not that it matters now.
I could have two six-shooters strapped to my hips right now and it wouldn’t matter.
All I’d need is the hat.

Nevertheless, it’s more comfortable to wear it looser in my case. I’m kinda’ inbetween sizes anyways, so the extra-large doesn’t look like a garbage bag on my broad shoulders.

Just for shits and giggles, and needing an extra minute to recover, I put the price tags on the counter. Adding them up proves extremely comical and I laugh the entire time while I do it.

Four hundred dollars! That’s what I would have spent on my new clothes—plus tax. I’m not exactly sure why a t-shirt, a thermal long sleeve, a leather jacket, and jeans would cost so outrageously much, but whatever. I didn’t pay for them, so, what do I care?

Maybe it’s the boxers and socks that put me over the mark?
Either way, I’m super comfortable and snug as a bug in my new—warmer—attire.

Snug as a bug? Great… Thanks, Mom.

It’s no surprise that I’ve picked up some of my parents euphemisms and overall quirkiness. We all have them. Some are just more hidden than others. Not me, though. I wear Mom and Dad right out on my sleeves. Well, what I meant was… Never mind—forget it.

Next, I reattach the knife and shove the spare Glock down the back of my pants, but not before I double-check that the safety is still engaged. The Taser is next, going into my jacket’s right hand pocket. It’ll be a quick and easy extraction if and when I need it.

I turn and stare back into the full length mirror and look myself over. I pretty much look exactly the same as I did before, but with clean upgrades. Jacket and jeans are the standard for me, just normally not expensive ones like these.

Satisfied, I head back to the entrance and stop, standing just inside the front door of the abandoned high-end retail shop. I breathe deep as I contemplate my next move. I know the city like the back of my hand, so direction and course aren’t a problem. The real issue is the random hordes of monsters roaming the city looking for a fresh meal.

Fresh
is actually irrelevant when it comes to the age of their meal. While I’ve been running, I’ve seen Goblins here and there eating the dead. It’s something I recall seeing now that I’ve had a chance to slow down and think. I’m not sure if they’d eat the
long-since-dead
, but I really don’t plan on being around to find out.

Kids are another oddity I haven’t come across. I’ve literally seen no children alive or otherwise. It’s another of the mysteries that I hope to never solve. I’ve had enough issues with dead or dying kids while working. I don’t need that here too. But it may be pretty obvious why.

Too small and too weak of competition.

I remember the first time I saw the Unseen… When the woman changed and then attacked those high schoolers. She dove at the first one, before it could turn to face her.

She bit down on the kid’s neck, much like what happened to Betty.

A vision of Betty’s death replays in my mind and I watch again as her life fades. I even feel her coldness again as I grip her lifeless hand. Shaking the vision of her death out of my head, I grasp the door handle.

I refocus off of Betty and back onto the memory of Siren as she drops the lifeless teen. The other five Gremlins—the kids—attacked, slashing and clawing ferociously at the Siren. She barely felt it. The lady, completely decked out in fluffy overpriced furs, roared and fought back. I turned away before the end, not needing to see who won the fight. I suspect it was the Siren though. The smaller Unseen were horribly outmatched even though they outnumbered the lady six-to-one.

The cold metal handhold breaks me from the remembrance, and it’s for the first time since changing that I’ve felt cold. I was so used to it in my other gear that I stopped noticing it. I’m guessing it’s because I only had a t-shirt on under my thinner, older jacket. The only time I’ve felt good since leaving my place has been inside the library or Betty’s building. Like everyone else in the city, they had their heat on before losing power. It’s only been off for just over a day as of now so it was still comfortable inside both places.

I let go of the handle and look at my hands. Even though I’m much warmer and completely dry, they shake. I’m horrified right now. My police duties and crime scene experience have nullified some of the awful things I’ve seen, but I’m still scared shitless. Mostly for my wife.

She has none of the qualifications to handle this sort of thing—minus being a decent shot with the small caliber pistol she carries. It doesn’t pack much punch, but Jill is a pretty okay shot with it. Hopefully, she brought it with her to the gala. She normally does, not trusting anyone other than me with her safety. We may have had a rocky marriage of late, but she’s always trusted me…and I her.

It’s what cemented our relationship. An idiot friend of Jill’s wrecked her car on the way home from a party and called my then girlfriend to help. She brought me along, having been staying the night at my place. We had been dating for around six months at the time and the connection between us was instant. She brought me because of my connections with the police and ability to change a tire if need be.

Her friend—we won’t name any names—didn’t anticipate Jill bringing her cop boyfriend though. I had actually planned on looking the other way, but the drunkard went off on my lady for me being there.

Not cool.

Ten minutes later,
Suzy McBitchy
was in handcuffs, crying in the back of a patrol car for drunk and reckless driving charges. I even helped her into the backseat, reading her Miranda rights while giggling the whole time.

“Next time you call a friend out to help you and they bring a nice policeman with them…” I smile, laying it on thick, “try to behave.” I’m about to let the girl go to jail in peace, but add. “Oh, and by the way.” Her head snapped up at me, looking like a venomous, snot-covered, mascara-running snake. “When you get out of the drunk tank, look for some extremely hilarious photos on Myspace.” The social media website was the hottest thing online at the time, having just been launched. There were rumors of another social media outlet set to debut the following year.

“Facebook will never work,” I said at the time.

Before Jill’s friend could respond, I slammed the door in her face. I then looked over the roof of the patrol car as it pulled away, seeing Jill’s smile.

“You’re not actually going to post those are you?”

I shake my head. “Didn’t take any…” I cock a thumb at the patrol car’s taillights. “But she doesn’t know that.”

I actually laugh aloud at the memory. It’s one of the many funny ones. We had a lot of those when we were in the early ‘love bird’ stage of our relationship. Even into the first few years of marriage we had them, but as time went by, and as we got busier and busier in our careers… Well, you get the point.

We’ll have more of those… I promise.

The rebuilt resolve I’m experiencing feels great. It’s something I haven’t really felt yet. Friday night, as soon as I threw open the door to my apartment and ran down the hallway, it was there in full force. Nothing was going to stop me. But since then I’ve almost died four or five times, it’s quickly been slipping away. At first it was a one-hundred-percent guarantee I was going to get to Jill in time. Then, I was hoping to get there. Earlier, when I watched Betty’s life slip away, I barely felt it. And of course falling seven stories and landing in that muck heap didn’t help either.

My hand moves to the decorative vertical pipe that acts as a door handle, the kind that look they should be on a giant-sized commercial refrigerator. I grip and am about to pull it open, but stop. A mob of Goblins nears, flowing out of the adjacent alley, the one I just came from. My heart stops for a moment, but I relax, remembering that the glass doors I’m standing behind are of the
two-way
variety. They can’t see me.

Moving like a living wave, I watch as their heads all pitch and bounce as one, turning and sniffing in unison. It’s like they are thinking as one or maybe being controlled by remote.

“The hell?” I whisper to myself.

I’ve been so busy avoiding, or in most cases, running from them, that I’ve never really been able to observe them. Knowing I won’t have very many opportunities like this, I halt my escape and dissect their every move.

Each one of the dozen or so Goblins sit, crouched in the middle of the street, looking like a flock of gargoyle statues. Their heads all sway back-and-forth like before, still enjoying that Stevie groove from before. The choreography is unnerving to say the least. The fact that these things could be working in unison makes me rethink everything I thought I knew about them.

Which wasn’t much.

“If you can work together… What else can you do?” I bite my lip after speaking the words. The group looks my way, as if seeing me through the reflective doors of the store. I know they can’t, but the fact that they even looked this way has me on edge.

Working together…

I think back to the lone Goblin that killed Betty. It acted before the rest of them did. So did the one that attacked me in front of the stairs before that. Could they have been some kind of advanced scout or a kind of reconnaissance? So far I’ve only thought of them as an angry mob, fighting each other for their prize, but now… I’m not so sure.

Then,
she
steps forward…

Another of the Unseen emerges from the dark alley, causing the grunts to part. She’s at least six-feet tall and rippling with toned muscle. And I should know… She’s almost completely naked except for some sort of necklace dangling low down her bare chest. The only article of clothing she’s wearing is a shredded skirt of some sort. It’s a Siren like the others I’ve seen, but this one moves differently. She walks…confidently. She isn’t slashing and shrieking her way forward like some of the dominant females in nature. This one is in control of the situation. Then again, I haven’t had the opportunity to observe them for this long without having to turn tail and run.

Especially for this long,
I think, absorbing everything I’m seeing.

“Know your opponent, Frank. Know their weaknesses.”

Dad’s advice means absolutely bupkis right now, but I follow his instructions and continue to ‘Know Thy Enemy.’

Stopping at the front of the pack, the Siren growls, something angering her. Then as quickly as she arrived, she’s gone, turning and disappearing back down the alley. As soon as she moves off, so do the Goblins. They follow their pack leader without question.

Is that what she is?

“Well, damn,” I say to myself. “This just sucks now, don’t it?”

For whatever reason, I don’t think it’ll be the last time I’ll see that one. She was undeniably different. Even the one in the nighty attacked me with unbridled fury.

Abaddon seems to have affected a few of them a little different than the others. It’s like some of the evolutionary alterations peeked on a higher level than the majority.
Just like humanity.
Some people are inherently smarter or more physically gifted than others. Genetics, as a whole, seem to be working the same with the Unseen.

After watching that, I need to be even more careful than I already was trying to be. What it also means is I need to take my time getting through the rest of the city. Jill may need my help, but that can only happen if I stay alive.