Moonflower: chapter five

“We need to get out of here.”

08/23/24

Fourteen days until Ring inspection

   Over the next week Jacob learned only bits and pieces about the unusually charitable woman keeping him alive. Diana left before he woke every morning, carefully sneaking down from the relative safety of their high hiding place and scavenging the block all day to bring back what little food and supplies that were left to find before the disorienting darkness of nightfall made the streets too dangerous. They barely spoke between her trips. Silent chewing over meals of expired chips and shared cans of preserved ingredients became the norm. 

   Jacob's leg didn't feel quite as weak now that he had some food in him, and it was a relief to notice that his daily crawl around the room was revitalizing his muscles. By some miracle, Diana had found a few scraps of bandaging and a bottle of disinfectant spray a few days in, applying it to his painful gash every morning and night before covering the nasty wound—though no amount of attention could fix the broken bone underneath. The display of care was strangely… tender. It put him at ease, and Jacob began the tentative habit of asking her about herself through clenched teeth while the medicine set in.

   It turned out she had turned twenty-six that February, making her only a year his junior. She had an older sister; a place called Salem, Oregon was her hometown (no relation to the Salem of the witch trials apparently); she loved to build miniatures as a hobby and she hated collaborative board games… and that was about it. He still felt like Diana Koh only wanted to talk as much as necessary after their argument on his carelessness, so he tried to keep the intrusive questions to a minimum.

   Jacob was continually terrified of slipping in his facade as a fellow scavenger as he told half-truths and warped stories to string her along. Yes, he was an ex-prisoner—the jail number on his clothing couldn't hide that fact—but he told her he had been lying low from Goliath since day one. A four-year-long impossibility, he knew, but this stranger had no idea what it was like in the city of Dawson, so it was one that he could survive on.

   Remaining in the half-constructed office building was a good idea for sheltering during his recovery, but a poor one for their escape window, with King’s Street still more than a mile away. It would take time to reach it and then travel back to the breach—and it wouldn't be a straight shot, either. It would be necessary to cross the open street at some point to reach the station entrance, and doing so would inevitably expose them to the snarling gaze of an otherworldly monster on the hunt.

   The map of the train station was becoming more and more detailed by the day. Jacob was paranoid about it. He knew she would throw him out the second he was no longer useful, so he always kept a fact in reserve, writing only a few things each entry to foster the illusion that it was necessary to keep him alive. The station was at the center of the city and far from the view of the watchful prison roof at the north edge of the Ring, which was a small kind of relief to him. Jacob would put up with nearly anything to get as far from Goliath and the rest of Dawson City Jail as possible—and though he had never been involved in looting or maintaining the Ring, he had hours of silence to dredge up every passing word on the subject from his passing conversations with Brayden.

   With little else to occupy his thoughts than his own impending doom, Jacob had plenty of time to memorize his surroundings. The floor he was hidden in wasn't a finished area at all but an open space once under construction. There was not one wall without windows on the four corners surrounding them, nothing but a handful of building materials left to gather dust on the floor inside, and a kind of cot sitting at the edge of the space. No doubt it had been left behind by some survivor who was long dead by now. Jacob wondered if it was his shot that had doomed that life, or if the creature had found them on its own. Either way, they would never return to the lonely sleeping place that he now occupied. Diana insisted he take the cot since his leg needed every kind of tending they could afford to give it, and he accepted the generous offer without question, regardless of the guilty knot growing in his stomach. The comfort of the elevated mat was a small one, but each night spent not sleeping on the cold floor was something to be incredibly grateful for.

   Despite his pigheadedness, she seemed to remain set on helping him. It was clear that Jacob did not have her best interest in mind—unlike what she seemed to have for him. Had the danger he posed to her proved his uselessness? Maybe it would be today that she would tire of his dead weight and leave him behind on that cot… after all, she did always leave with the backpack of food swung over her shoulder.

   Every possibility swirled inside his head each gloomy morning, creating a whirlpool of apprehension and distrust, but each night she would come back and continue to tend to his wounds all the same.

   The bedridden inmate boredly tapped his pencil to the notebook, leaving tiny lead marks over its already spotted pages. He watched with interest as a lost ant inched up the bars of his cot. It looked back and forth curiously, no doubt searching for an exit from the dust of this lonely top floor.

   Jacob smiled a crooked grin. “Me and you both, little fella.”

   With a steady finger he let it climb up, quietly humming a lazy tune as he carefully deposited the insect by a broken seam in the window, watching with envy as it found its way out and crawled away to freedom. The morning air inside the room was stale in his lungs despite the occasional cracks in the glass separating them from the outside world. It was a strange sight, the contrast of their predicament here. The Ring trapped them inside and yet it gave them the opportunity to look out just beyond the city walls from these lofty windows. The tops of the green trees looked like fresh clover in summer grass from so high up, and the sporadic flocks of birds traversing the clouds and catching the sun on their wings made him smile unconsciously. He had not caught sight of the wild outside of Dawson since the day he was booked into jail. After the prison guards abandoned them there, no one left the building. The containment had almost killed them, yes, but it was their savior as well, keeping the men locked away in relative safety from the terror the rest of the population was warring against.

   The threat from another world… 

   When they had emerged from the prison, the city was hauntingly empty, bombed into oblivion and left as a lifeless shell. Most of humanity was already torn to pieces or cowering to starvation in some dirty back room, so the decision to stay inside the security of their prison felt as close to safety as was possible anymore. At the time he only cared about his beating heart, but now Jacob yearned for the smell of the gentle breeze, fresh air in his face, and the warm sun on his back. Where would he have gone if he had run on that very first day?

   Before he could pontificate long, the door to the stairwell crashed open, Diana frantically swinging it shut behind her and slamming her back to the thin metal barrier as Jacob sat up and snapped the book shut. He double-checked his watch for the time as if he wasn't seeing daylight streaming through the windows. She was way too early to be back now.

   “It w-was waiting for me!”

   Her panicked words tightened every muscle in his body.

   “I… I think it knows we're here.”

   She scurried over to his cot, wildly folding the worn-out blankets and stuffing them into the big backpack as he sat frozen in sinking dread. “I was about to go from the other building, I hesitated a second and then… then I saw it. Those white claws…”

   The long bangs tangled over her face to obscure his view, but when she finally gazed up into his shocked expression, he could feel the emotion deep in her wide eyes. He had seen that look in the mirror a hundred times over: it was terror.

   “I almost went out there. If I hadn't hesitated…”

   There was a pause.

   “We need to get out of here, Jacob. And I don't want to hear about the exit!” She swung the bag over her shoulder with determination and held out her hand. “King’s Street Station—we're going there now.”

   “We should just leave,” he repeated urgingly as she drew back her hand with a frustrated huff, the frightened prisoner gesturing out to the destruction around them. “King’s Street is like ten blocks away an’ in the middle of the city, there's no way we can get to the station and make it back t’ the exit in time!”

   “No.”

   She was being infuriatingly stubborn, dead set on refusing any of the common sense he was using to dispel this imaginary clue of hope she had concocted for herself. It aggravated him so much. Why would anyone be so eager to throw away this golden opportunity? Forget her family, what about her own life? It had been four years of hell—there was no fucking way they would still be alive, much less out there in the vast and empty world for her to find. He couldn't wrap his head around it.

   His agitated silence confirmed her assertion and she sat beside him, flipping open her notebook in his lap to his crudely drawn map.

   “We just have to make it from where we are now to the other side of the street, then we can sneak through the rest of these buildings over the next couple days until we reach the station entrance. See?” Her encouraging tone was doing little to improve his mood as her finger excitedly traced a route through the maze. “Not so bad, it only looks like it will be about a few hundred feet to cross the road out there and then we can get going.”

   “A few hundred feet of no cover.” His sentiment might have been grim, but it was true. “You saw it stalkin’ us. It could jump down from anywhere—it could be anywhere.”

   The thought hung heavy in the dry air. Diana inhaled slowly. It was like the action wiped away her fear, her nervous gaze steeled to certainty.

   “We need to cross. I have to try, Jacob.”

   He stared back. She was either crazy or the most devoted person left on the planet, and it was growing more and more unclear which everyday. If she was crazy, then they were both fucked. But if it was true devotion? Nothing would stop her from chasing that white whale through the violent currents of the forgotten ruins of this world, and if he couldn't keep up… He knew the risk. It was the only one left that he could take if he wanted to live.

   She released a cleansing breath, eyes finally landing on his. “We're out of time. Let's see how that leg is.”

   She had made up her mind, and he had no choice now. They had to move.

   Jacob shifted on his butt and reached for Diana's help. Gripping his hand, they pulled together to lift him to his feet from the spot he had grown all too familiar with. The limb was bruised and the tissue underneath had hardly healed at all, but what sent a chill down his spine was not the ugly color, but the shape of it. His leg was twisted. The shin was at an angle now, enough that his foot was more pointed inwards than it had regularly been. Jacob bit his cheek as the abysmal sight of his own body washed over him.

   He favored the lopsided leg, holding it in the air as it prickled with pins and needles, elevated slightly above the ground as he slowly settled on the other foot. Hesitantly, they tested it. He tried to hide the sharp breath he sucked in as a stinging shot of pain surged up his bent shin. Worryingly, the woman who’d been supporting him was stepping backwards, studying him critically as he wobbled on one leg on his own. Her piercing brown eyes scrutinized his every move from a few feet away in the creeping sunshine.

   The sweat began to build as he stalled. Shit, could he do it? Jacob ground his teeth and put the pressure on, taking one tentative step to prove it.

   Immediately, the foot gave way and he tumbled forward. Diana lunged to catch him but only managed to grab hold of his arm before he fell, landing on his knees and breaking the hard impact with his hand. That didn't stop him from crying out in pain, his knee absorbing the terrible impact and drawing a weak whimper as he lay helpless and trembling on the gritty floor.

   “Ah, f-fuck…”

   His heart was pounding in his ears, and it wasn't just because of his throbbing leg. She would be forced to leave him if he couldn't stand on his own. He had to get up now.

   “I-I can do it—”

   “No you can't.” Diana was at his side but he couldn't stomach the eye contact. He just knew the disgust she must be feeling toward him in that pitiful moment, the resentment for all her misplaced efforts.

   Get up, you fucking waste.

   He put pressure on her arm, struggling desperately to heave himself up for a second attempt. She made an annoyed noise and tried to push him off but he grabbed her leg instead.

   “Jacob, let go!”

   “I can do it!”

   Wrenching away, she left him to pitch forward, his foot dropping miserably behind him with a dull and sickening THUD. The breath was coming quickly as the blood rushed to burn like a furnace in his cheeks. “Don't… don't leave me.”

   Now she just sounded angry.

   “Jacob—” He heard her turn back sharply to scold him, looking frustrated at his insistence but stopping short when her eyes finally found his crumpled form. 

   He was pathetic. A tear stained a path down his dirty cheek as he slowly fought to lift his torso. His already-weak arms shook as they strained to hold up his weight, the leg laying crooked and useless behind him. His chest was heaving from the effort, but he was refusing eye contact as he grappled to conceal the agony he was so clearly suffering, and begged her pitifully for her help through clenched teeth.

   “Please,” he gasped into the filthy floor. “Please d-don't leave me.”

   “I'm not. We'll find another way.”

   Embarrassment and shame spread the red flush to his ears.

   “Please—”

   “Jacob.”

   He finally forced himself to look up and found her kneeling in front of him, her hand closing just over the scar on his left arm, a sympathetic softness lifting her voice like an angel.

   “We'll find another way.”

   What? Hot, frustrated tears rolled down his chin. This wasn't real. He could barely speak, shaking his head, unable to process such an inconceivably gentle response in a world like theirs. She was nearly level with him now.

   “I… just need to think.”

   She stood, turning her back to him and pacing to the wall, deep in thought.

   “There has to be another way…”

   Nothing but that sentence could be heard for the next few hours. Jacob wasn't sure if it had actually been a few hours, but it certainly felt like it. He laid immobile on the floor without a word as he watched Diana walk in circles, his hand squeezing his thigh to try to suppress just an ounce of the pain he was struggling to endure. Not only was the outward ache eating away at him, but his inner dignity was pretty bruised, too. It hurt to hand over his inability to another, for them to willingly take it and search for a way around when he could give her nothing but struggle in return.

   He studied her face anxiously. Diana was mindlessly chewing on her thumbnail, still patrolling the cold floor, the wheels turning inside her head. In a flash, her eyes suddenly lit up and she was pivoting back to face him with a snap of her fingers.

   “Wait, the sewers!”

   “Thought of that,” he answered hoarsely, disappointed. “They closed ‘em all back when they sealed the Ring—”

   “Inside the buildings?”

   “What?”

   She looked up, touching the pillar of the unfinished structure with a sly smile. “This construction site is at the stage where it has to be directly connected to a sewage system. Ha! Those five grueling years for that Bachelor’s in architecture are finally paying off! My bet is on none of those idiots knowing that.”

   That eager grin of hers was back as she knelt in front of him like an excited puppy.

   “You'll be able to walk through there with a splint. I'll help you!”

   It was new to him to see anyone looking anything other than pissed off at him, and it was strange how her animated eyes brought a glimmer of hope to his as well.

   “O-okay.” Jacob nodded weakly, offering a small smile in the uncertainty. “Okay.”

   Diana was gone for a long time. The setting sun was bathing his lonely nook in pink and golden light before she returned with a pile of scraps and garbage. PVC pipe, zip ties, and pieces of actual plaster. She dumped them all in front of him and started sorting through the mess with nervous chatter.

   “Okay, so I haven't actually tried something like this before…”

   Now Jacob was rolling his eyes. “Oh great.”

   “I've seen it done!” She lifted half a pipe and shrugged innocently. “How hard can it be? Now, uh, just hold still…”

   “Ah!” He winced hard at the touch of fire the PVC pipe pressed to the side of his leg sent up his body, frantically pushing her hands away from him on instinct. “N-no, don't touch it… please…”

   She pulled back quickly, obviously not intending to hurt him any further. “The walking really strained it, huh?”

   He whimpered quietly and rubbed around the rough skin to try and soothe the intense cramping. “Y-yes…”

   “Right.” As she put a hand on his forearm to settle him, he picked up on a surprisingly subtle softness in her voice that was new between the two strangers. She was looking into his face with sincerity as she comforted him patiently. “I know this is going to hurt but you have to try. It's the only way.”

   Jacob's jaw ached. He was anxiously holding it clenched shut, but her supportive recognition of his pain was acting as a sedative to his fear, helping him relax. He gulped down his hesitation, his muscles tensing with a quick nod as he nervously handed over the control she needed to save his life.

   “Do it.”

   Another shot of agony. It hurt like hell but both of them knew that she was right—this was the only way to get him out of the building and across that street alive. The burning question of why permeated the goodwill of this moment as he watched her attach the zip ties in haphazard places as the dusk settled outside. The wounded pariah would be dead ten times over if it wasn't for this foolish savior and her stubborn attempts to keep him breathing. All his life, he had lived and fought for himself. No one would be there to catch him, so he needed to be damn sure he never fell. But today, here, after the end of the world? The universe had caught him, the kindness of the moon wrapping his wounds as the stars watched them curiously behind thin clouds in the wide open sky.

   If only she knew the truth about him.

   “There.” Diana sat back, admiring her handiwork with a contented shrug. “It's a little janky but it's the best we can do.”

   He swallowed hard and carefully touched it, the sharp sting of the plastic zip ties tightening every sinew in his body. Jacob flinched but he knew he had no other choice. He didn't have a secret stash of food to siphon off of like Javi Torres had in the Dawson City Jail kitchens—this plan with Diana was his last lifeline. They needed to get out of there soon, but his mind was scrambling to put it off for one more second as the feat that it would take for them to venture outside chipped away at his resolve.

   “Where'd you learn t'do that?” He asked her apprehensively to fill the awful silence.

   “Ha, I broke my leg when I was ten.”

   It was a shock to see her smiling about it. “Oh?”

   She glanced up and their eyes met. Jacob would take anything to distract him, but in truth, he was strangely fascinated with the history of this absurdly altruistic woman. Maybe it was because she was so different from the prisoners he had been packed shoulder to shoulder with for the past four years—or maybe it was because she looked at her life with such a clear guiding light… a vision he had never experienced himself.

   The walls she had erected to protect her true emotions were wavering from his one simple prodding word. Her face changed as she decided to trust him with it, tucking her bangs behind her ear and smirking at her own story.

   “Well, during the recession my dad was working two jobs and my mom was a teacher. My parents were doing their best, but it was tough for them.” Her fingers fiddled with the leftover ties as she recalled the past aloud. “They sent me and my sister to my grandparents for the summer to give us a chance to enjoy ourselves. They had this wooded ravine behind their old house… man, it was such a perfect spot for kids. Big trees and prickly berry bushes and stuff. Lilly and I loved to explore together like we were Indiana Jones. One time, we found an old rope tied up on a tree branch. Lilly thought we could use it to cross the brambles into the forest, though I thought it was a little thin to hold our weight… ha, but you know how older siblings are.”

   He stared back with a shake of his head. “Not really.”

   She squinted slyly and quoted her past in a mocking, high pitched voice. “‘Don't worry, Diana, it's not that far! Here, I’ll let you try it first.’”

   “Ah,” he snickered, picturing the sudden drop and squeak as the ten year old swung out at full speed and fell straight into the spiky shrubs. “Gotcha.”

   “She was panicking and all ‘please don't tell Mom!’ as I lay there, bawling, completely stuck in those stupid brushes… At least I got a good month's worth of chores out of my sister for it.” She stood and dropped the pack from her shoulder with a smug look. “And now you know the story of why I don't trust Lilly when she says not to worry about something.”

   The wind was whistling through the cracked roof, clouds filtering in and chilling them in the cool summer night air. Jacob was pensive. Yes, he was feeling grateful beyond imagining for the goodness she had extended to him, but he knew what happened to people who did not place borders on their charity. It was a strange experience to be worried about her, but he couldn't deny to himself the fact that he was. This lesson was more important than she could understand.

   “You know you won't always be able t'do this.”

   Diana glanced at him, inquisitive about his suddenly serious tone as he continued evenly, with a brutal but kind honesty. “Ya can't help everyone, an’ someday, you're gonna have to pick yourself.”

   There was no answer for a minute. 

   “Well.” Slowly, she sank down to sit beside him, holding her bag close in front of her like she knew what he was saying was true. Her face was resigned to it. “Good thing that day's not today, huh?”

   The truth brought him to silence again. “Mm.”

   “We should probably get our strength up for tomorrow,” Diana stated, back in her positive spirit as she pulled out the last can and offered it in an open hand. “Here. You need it more than I do.”

   He took a second to stare into the human decency he couldn't fathom. He may not have the guts to ask her why, but he would take what the moon offered him. He had to.

   “Thank you.”