moonflower: chapter four

The Plan

08/15/24

Twenty-two days until Ring inspection

   A dull ache in his bones slowly dragged him back into consciousness. Jacob lifted his head from where he had been cradling it with a low groan, blinking the sleep from his weary eyes. Every muscle burned. The fall the night before had bruised him, sure, but the real hurt was coming from his leg. The injured man squinted down at it in the darkness of the unfamiliar room. No, it hadn't been a dream. The flesh was still torn, the majority of his jumble of pain emanating from the grisly gash in his shin. A slow and steady inhale controlled the flash of panic that  gripped his heart at the sight of it. He was alive, and that was all that mattered. He had survived.

   Even after the unexpected can of ravioli the peculiar woman had freely given him, he was still desperately craving food, the knot in his stomach beginning to twist tight once again. He leaned forward and pressed an arm against his stomach, but that soothing trick barely helped. Was it morning yet?

   Jacob's elbow knocked a pen off of the open notebook beside him as he struggled to stretch his stiff limbs, favoring the wounded leg. Something was written on the page.

   Out looking for food. Don't move.

   He huffed disapprovingly. Not one for an abundance of caution, was she?

   There was a little arrow penciled in at the top. Curious for what his keeper had left for him and eager to think of anything other than the fantasy of a nice warm plate of breakfast, Jacob followed the arrows' pointed direction across the floor. His gaze passed over the tiny lantern before the glint on the shiny plastic bag a foot away nearly sent him jumping to grab for it.

   Jacob practically inhaled the chips she had left him before fumbling with the empty packaging, ripping the two halves of the bag apart and thoroughly licking the interior. The salt stung his cracked lip but he ignored it. Even after every crumb was consumed, he was still so hungry, glancing around anxiously for something to distract himself with.

   Jacob recognized the place they were hidden away in as some kind of an office space. Short divider walls separated cubicles in the enclosed darkness, papers and office supplies left preserved in place as if it was the hour the disaster had struck. He could almost hear the morning hustle and bustle… sounds of printers whirring, computer notifications dinging, and water cooler gossip in soft chuckles suddenly cutting to silence at the echo of the news on the TV. It was as quiet as the grave now. Jacob couldn't shift very far without wincing in pain, and the only item of note that he could see was a family photograph, framed on the dusty desk closest to where he lay. The overgrown plant beside it draped its dark green leaves like a sympathetic hand beside a funeral photo. Two men and a child. They looked so happy… It was like a portal into a different dimension, the joy on their faces and the fresh mountain air behind them now as foreign to him as the moon.

   He shook away the bitter taste it gave and glanced back to his side.

   Her note sat next to his patch of ground, the rest of the pages no doubt filled with information to clue him in on what kind of woman was holding his life in her hands. Surely she wouldn't mind him looking… Flipping to the front of the book, Jacob spent the next few hours baffled by its contents with nothing but his rumbling stomach to keep him company.

   Studying her methods of journaling was nothing short of bizarre. There were zero personal touches, no descriptions, no little doodles of a sun with sunglasses in the corner. Just a dictation of facts, and not even of where she went. This much food found, that much food eaten, date. Math problems for calorie rationing were as close as she got to creative, and it seemed she had only been taking notes for about a month. He was impressed by the disciplined entries but annoyed that there was so little to learn about his new keeper from its pages—other than the fact that she seemed very single-minded.

   The only thing of deviation was a short scribble a week ago.

   Wade. King’s Street.

   Whatever that random downtown city street could have meant was beyond him, but the name… Perhaps Wade was the man they had sacrificed to the creature days ago? The gory image of his mangled corpse flashed across Jacob's mind.

   So much blood… He shoved the awful thought down and continued.

   King’s Street. What would be the purpose of going there? Jacob had been to the place before the catastrophe. The only things there worth mentioning were a shitty McDonald's and a train station that Goliath's goons had converted into storage and set up shop in shortly after they crawled out of their jail cells. Sure, it was in the city center, but there was nothing left in it but danger. What could she possibly want there that was so damn important to lure her into this death trap?

   The creak of the door in the perfect darkness startled him up. The woman shook her head, smirking to herself as he swore from the fright.

   “Holy fuckin’…”

   “I don't think that thing would open a door like that,” she smiled, “it's not a Velociraptor.”

   He frowned at her untimely joke but her bemused composure continued.

   “Ha, sorry. My dad loves that movie.”

   Dropping the bag by the cubicle wall, she lifted two cans from her pack and stepped towards him. Jacob lurched back on instinct but his gaze was locked on the shiny tin with starving blue eyes.

   “Here.” She was holding one out to him freely, a positive smile on her lips.

   He stared back.

   Her frustrated eye-roll was so dramatic. “Oh my gosh, I'm not going to force feed it to you but I can hear your stomach from the freaking hallway.” She held it out again, a little closer this time, her slim fingers open wide with foolish generosity. “Take it.”

   Did he have any other option?

   Cautiously, Jacob lifted the ration from her hand and studied it in his lap. She was still standing in front of him, an expectant eyebrow raised in wait. He avoided eye contact as he mumbled his thanks and fiddled with the pull-tab lid. “Th-thank you.”

   She sighed.

   Just as she was turning away, his words stopped her again. “… for savin’ me.”

   The enclosed room was quiet for a moment. A faint, dull light trickled in from the miniscule gaps in the drawn slats of the window blinds, just enough that he could watch her annoyed expression relax ever so slightly.

   “Yeah, uh… you're welcome.”

   It surprised him that this odd woman would sit by him so calmly, opening her can only a few feet to his right and rummaging in her pocket for an energy bar. He shifted his useless leg in front of him and bit his tongue in frustration. Fuck, he wouldn't be able to move for weeks—if the limb could even still be saved.

   The why of her actions was starting to itch at the back of his mind. He scanned the unconcerned girl as she tinkered with the can. “Your accent. You're not from the South, are ya?”

   “Nope.”

   His brain was warning him that he shouldn't trust her, but his curiosity about the world outside the captivity of the Ring got the better of him.

   “What's it like out there?”

   She glanced up. Her somber eyes answered his question before she even said a word. “Empty.”

   For the second time in a row Jacob caught himself flinching as she stood up to explore her heavy coat pocket before she produced an intimidating weapon. The blade of the knife folded out with a flick, its flat edge nearly four inches long, a threatening tool that she was only using to pop open the seal of the lid before rooting around in the can of chunky meat. Not one for conversation, it seemed, but the intimidation factor was high enough—intentional or otherwise. He cleared his throat.

   “Um…”

   The quiet prompt didn't distract the woman from the task in front of her. The silence was killing him.

   “How did ya end up in Texas?”

   “Ha… It's a long story,” she evaded easily, snapping the knife closed again. “And I think I'd rather hear yours.”

   Diana sat down and casually leaned on her backpack, crunching on the energy bar as she waited patiently for his answer. He didn't know why, but there was something frightening in her mellow stare… Maybe it was because he was trying to hide something and she was so damn direct. This new wanderer didn't seem to be interested in mind games or clever lies. It was like her road led right through him, and she would march directly to its end without hesitation, tearing through him or leaving him broken by the wayside. How far would this charity go?

   He cleared his throat and his gaze fell to the floor. “W-well, I was in prison when it happened. Everyone else inside was dead by the time I climbed out, so I've been hidin’ from the creatures on my own, livin’ off scraps since day one.”

   “Hm.” She made a brief understanding noise and looked away before speaking again. “I'm looking for some people.”

   Jacob glanced back up, surprised by her gentle probe. That honest stare returned as she listed their names.

   “Kevin Koh, Christine Koh, and Lilly Koh. Did they come through here?”

   Goliath had made sure the prisoners never asked questions of the bait they kept before the ritual of the monster’s slaughter, but he knew the answer to her question all the same. “Never seen a family of three.” He scooched up, a little braver. “Are they your family?”

   She nodded coolly to confirm it.

   He rubbed his collarbone and dared to press her further. Those sleepless nights had really made him stupid, hadn't they? “Koh… That's Korean, right?”

   “Singapore.”

   “Ah.”

   Silence. Ugh, this was excruciating. 

   Jacob's gaze tailed the stranger as she dug through her weathered pack and removed a clean tin jug. The potential for water made him sit a little straighter, nervously hoping that she might just share the precious commodity. Diana noticed his darting eyes and passed it over.

   Knowing just how difficult it was to come across a clean water source in the city, he glugged it down greedily, wiping the few residual drops into his facial hair with the back of his hand.

   “Jacob… What can you tell me about King’s Street Station?”

   Something in the uncharacteristically careful cadence of her question caught his suspicion. His brow drew together disapprovingly.

   “I can tell ya that you won't get in.” He took another sip of water and screwed the lid back on before handing it back to her with a shrug. “It's a death trap, ma'am.”

   Diana didn't take it. Instead she fiddled thoughtfully with the empty wrapper in her hand, subtly coaxing him to give up more precious information as he took another sip. “I heard that everyone who got evacuated was supposed to be taken on the trains. There's a big train station right at the center of town, on King’s Street. I met a man not too far out of the city—Wade. He was going to be my guide…” Her disheartened gaze met his. “Until they shot him.”

   He maintained his composure at the mention of his mortal sin. “That's… too bad he couldn't get you there first.”

   She wasn't looking at him anymore. “Yeah.”

   “But I can tell you right now, maybe it was f’the best.”

   Her next expression wasn't exactly a placid one. “Excuse me?”

   He would have to be careful here. The only reason Jacob knew how few survivors had come through was because he had been in Dawson Jail from the start, cowering by Goliath's side in silence as he ran the deadly show. Their number of sacrifices were dwindling as the last of the humans left alive continued to get picked off—and the idea that anyone had survived inside this city was out of the question. They had been very thorough. No one lived, at least not long.

   He thought for a moment on how to best word his critical answer.

   “Well… How long ago did y’get separated from your family?”

   Wadding up the wrapper and stuffing it in her pocket, Diana's tone was casual and light. “When it all started.”

   “What?” He sat up straight, the carefully crafted delicacy thrown out in an instant. “Wait, you've been searchin’ for ‘em for four years?”

   The woman looked into his shock like what she was saying wasn't absolutely insane. “I was in the bunker until a month ago—”

   “What?!”

   An irritated scowl was her only response. The last thing he wanted was to upset this precarious balance the pair had struck, but to suggest that anyone could survive this? This?

   “You're tellin’ me you've been underground this entire time? Even with the bombs goin’ off?”

   She shrugged, growing more defensive by the minute as she adjusted the straps on her tank top sheepishly. “It was a well-stocked bunker, for your information.”

   No way.

   Jacob leaned back, his hand on his temple. It had felt impossible that his situation could get any worse but now he was trapped at the end of the world with a delusional maniac. “You gotta be shittin’ me…”

   Diana had a strange intensity rising in her. The idea was an impossibility so absurd that it was almost laughable, but looking at her, her stony expression stopped him from doing so. She was perfectly serious, and he was perfectly terrified.

   Careful, Porter.

   He adjusted his tone to plead reason. “Diana, look around you. These things eat humans—only humans—and there were a million of ‘em on day one. They swept the continent, destroyed everythin’. No one made it out but people like you an’ me who were literally locked away for the entire thing.” He was practically begging now, pushing hard. “You know where you'll find your family? In a ditch somewhere, with all the rest of humanity's bones. What did you see that could possibly make you think they'd made it through the end of the world?”

   “You want to know what I saw?” Diana glanced away, shaking her head like he hadn't been through half the horrors she had survived. He felt his cheeks growing hot. She had only been out here for weeks, she had no idea what he had lived through. “I saw death, I saw cruelty. Human beings throwing each other down just so they could be that one inch further from hell.” When their eyes met again, hers held a burning determination. “But my family's not like that. They're waiting for me right now, I'm sure of it! They left something in that station and I will find it. Now, I don't know what you saw in that prison but—”

   “What I saw—” He stopped himself short, breathing out a stiff sigh before shaking his head and easing back down to another quiet sip of water. “It doesn't matter what I saw. The only thing that matters is gettin’ out of here. What you're plannin’? It's a suicide mission.”

   “And what do I have left to lose?” She gestured at the ruin around them in urgent frustration. “This? This isn't an existence. You want to keep living like this? Terrified about each step you take with no one around you who gives a crap about you?”

   The room was quiet.

   Jacob pictured all the bones they had created, all the half-eaten human carcasses they had found when they dug out of their prison cells. There was nothing left in this life but to hide… The miracle she was imagining was a fantasy—nothing more.

   His voice lowered as he spoke the sober truth. “You want me to tell you how this story ends?”

   “I didn't ask for your opinion,” she stated firmly, “and I certainly don't need your permission.”

   He frowned and looked away coldly.

   “Do you have family, Jacob?”

   The abrupt sincerity of her question startled his eyes back to her. He swallowed, shaking his head and quieting his voice. “No.”

   “Then you don't get it.” Diana climbed to her feet and wandered over to the cubicle to collect herself. She stared into the framed photo as she exhaled deeply, clearly unsettled by the reality presented by his persistent prodding. When she looked back those unfamiliar dark eyes had a spark of fire in them again. 

   “They're alive and they're worried about me, I know they are. I promised I'd be right behind them and that's what I'm going to do.”

   He shrank back. The dull pain in his leg was a relentless reminder of just how helpless he was at that moment, at the whim of a stranger who was dead-set on getting herself—and by proxy, him—killed.

   The knowledge of the ruthless prisoners Goliath had assigned to guard the place sentenced the already-doomed idea. Even if she did make it, all of the men at King's Street were wearing the same exact dull gray uniforms as he was. Though he had been lucky that Diana had not yet seen any other prisoner than him up close there was no way she wouldn't notice them at the train station. She would know that he was one of them, one of those who had lured her inside… and that would be the end of him. He needed to keep her away from there, to do something to warn her off.

   “Diana…”

   “Shh.”

   “Please—”

   “Shh!” she hushed him harshly, suddenly alert and standing absolutely still.

   Something was rumbling outside the door.

   She stepped back. “Jacob—”

   Jacob was already gone, up and dragging his limp painfully towards the nearest cubicle, leaving Diana abandoned to frantically snatch up the evidence of their supplies herself.

   “Shoot!”

   The flashlight slipped from her belt and rolled towards the door where the mumbled words were becoming frighteningly clear.

   “No!”

   She had to leave it, clambering to her feet with her pack and dashing into his hiding place just as the doorknob twisted open.

   Their refuge was the tiny desk space cordoned off by thin cubicle walls. It was so small that Jacob and Diana could only stay hidden by flattening their backs to the wall closest to the door, their shoulders pressed together as they struggled to limit the sound of their frightened breathing. He was closest to the cubicle opening, his shoulders obscuring Diana's view of what was going on.

   A gravelly disembodied voice called out.

   “Hey, check this out.”

   They had picked up something.

   The flashlight.

   “Someone's here.”

   Silence.

   Standing like this was excruciating. Any weight on his leg sent shocks of pain up his body, but he knew the men lurking just a few steps away. If they found him with her they would kill him, or worse: bring him back to Goliath.

   He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut. He could almost feel the soft foot taps as they came closer. When he opened them again, Jacob watched with dismay as the shadows inched across the stone floor, the air burning in his chest.

   Please, no…

   A whispered word was followed by an immediate rustling. Just like that, they had left, a muffled noise that Jacob could not make out calling them away. The sound of their hurried feet faded further into the distance until the floor was silent once again.

   He relaxed and raised his eyebrows to signal her they were clear. She dropped her shoulders with a deep sigh of relief.

   Jacob slowly peeked around the edge before immediately yanking himself back. The tiny point of the monster's single green eye floated in the open doorway, sending the blood pounding in his ears. Diana sensed the terror and shifted to let him move the precious extra inch further from the exposure of the opening.

   Goosebumps prickled on his arms as the croaking breathing grew nearer. Jacob closed his hands over his mouth and Diana followed suit, the silence between its clicking inhales and raspy exhales deafening as they stood frozen, trapped in place. Tears formed in his eyes from the unblinking stare he was boring into the edge of the door. A claw tapped just beyond the thin wall and Jacob squeezed his hand harder.

   Nothing.

   He couldn't hold the air much longer. His eyebrows twitched as his throat began to undulate, begging for breath as they waited for something, anything to happen.

   It lumbered just inside, the front of its enormous head peeking into the cubicle beside them—mere inches away. It was creeping into their space on all fours like a wolf spider stalking a fruit fly. The face was grotesque, almost human but absolutely not, the pupil-less damaged eye in his view glossed over with blindness as a clear lid slowly blinked over it. Its wide mouth was jagged with deadly teeth that carried the stench of decay. The bone-white skin moved strangely over its protruding skeleton as it peered around the side of the desk opposite them with its one good eye, the brown stains of faded blood decorating its body a haunting reminder of every meal it had consumed, every offering Jacob had faithfully delivered. He felt a tear stripe down his cheek as the creature began to turn its ugly head.

   The sound of the prisoners in the distance snapped the monster away from them, its piercing roar shaking the photo to the desk and dropping Jacob to his knees as it tore through the corridor and away from the concealed duo.

   They gasped for breath the second it was gone. Diana grabbed a fistful of his shirt and dragged him up out of the tiny room, still choking on his hands and knees. His limp slowed them as she secured the backpack and raced for the open door.

   “W-wait!”

   She skidded to a halt. “C'mon!”

   “I… I can't…”

   Her fists were in his clothes. “You have to, c'mon!”

   It was torture to drag his body through the hallways. His lip was bleeding from his cringing bite as she hauled him up an endless stairwell, moving higher and higher to escape the danger below. Her nails were digging into his side as she held his waist in a death grip, her panicked rush for safety carrying them all the way to the top floor.

   The stairwell ended in a door Diana burst through, Jacob toppling to the ground as she raced across the construction zone to the windows that lined the entire liminal space. There were only two slats of flooring piled on the empty ground but she grabbed them anyway and lugged them over to a window, uselessly boarding it up, shaking as she blocked out the gray skyline at only one corner of the four walls of windows.

   “Diana!” he shouted through clenched teeth as she frantically darted around for more protection. “W-we're on the top floor, it can't get up here… The creature never climbs this high.”

   She stood panting for a moment before dropping to her knees with her head in her hands and pressed to the ground. Jacob sank beside her, finally finding the chance to breathe.

   The pause stretched on. Diana was still hiding her face as Jacob recovered, watching her form shake a foot away from his. The muscles in his rigid limbs relaxed, some kind of empathy for the woman working to ease his own fear.

   He pushed the hair from his face and reached a hand out to touch her back. “Diana—”

   She lurched up, shoving him away, frightened and yelling.

   “Hey hey hey, it's alright!” His hands were low in front of him as he tried to calm her. “It's gone, they're all gone. It’s just us.”

   Her eyes were huge but they understood. Slowly, she gazed around the room, then back to him as her gasping became more controlled.

   “Are y’okay?”

   She stood, restless hands adjusting her disheveled clothing. “Y-yeah, I… I think so…” 

   Their anxious eyes met. Suddenly she was looking very angry. 

   “What the hell?! You couldn't have helped me hide the stuff back there? We almost got caught because of you!”

   His defenses flared up as he sputtered apprehensively. “Well I, I…”

   “Well?”

   The intensity of her fiery stare agitated him.

   “I don't fuckin’ know!”

   That eye roll and glare combo was becoming her signature move. “Can you stop swearing every five seconds?”

   Jacob felt his ears burning, a cocktail of shame and fear bubbling up inside him. He hadn't thought for a moment about her in that office, only reacting on instinct, flying to safety from those hardened men only he knew the danger of and stranding Diana behind him. His panic would have gotten them both killed if it wasn't for her. He looked away as he sat with that awful feeling.

   “Are you okay?”

   She was reserved in the question, but her care only made him feel more pathetic.

   Jacob looked down shamefully. “Yeah.”

   Her voice was a bit calmer now. “Where did those guys come from?”

   Every muscle in Jacob's body released the humiliation from the moment prior. She hadn't seen them. Oh, finally, a stroke of luck! He glanced out the tall windows over the city, watching a flock of birds lift over decaying towers to touch the clouds where their tower was safely nestled. The prison was just four blocks away, but thankfully time had erased the damning insignia from the lumbering gray building.

   “There,” he pointed as Diana stood peeking above him. “That's their base.”

   The dirty tips of her fingers pressed to the discolored glass with apprehensive curiosity. “Who are they?”

   “Goliath's men.” His gaze fell to his lap as she watched him slipping, speaking with a grain of truth for the first time since they had met. “He's practically a fuckin’ warlord. Got control of everythin’ in this city, and anyone who's still alive in here answers t’him.”

   “Why?”

   He ground his teeth, the regret tinting his words with bitterness. “Y’ever wonder why it's so hard to find food out here when there are no people? Goliath used those most loyal t’him to gather it all while the creature was injured. Now you do as he says or—”

   “Or you starve.” Diana was mortified. “Oh my gosh…”

   “Plus, his place is protected. This creature, the one who was stalkin’ me and almost just caught us? It's wounded, starvin’. It can't tear through buildin's like the other ones can. Goliath feeds it by lurin’ survivors to be eaten, he keeps it alive so another one—a stronger one—doesn't take the city. They're territorial as fuck.”

   “Holy…”

   Jacob glanced at the woman. He didn't know if he should be telling her this, but Diana was listening, a sympathetic note in her voice and her face scrunched up in confused abhorrence. She couldn't understand Goliath's cruelty. How could she? She had been living below ground for the past four years of armageddon with no need to kill to survive or sob from the ever-present dangers that lurked around every corner. She hadn't been pushed to the point that everyone else who was still breathing had been.

   He almost wanted to tell her what it was like, the paralyzing fear, but this sanitized version was all he could let her know.

   “Can't you just kill it?”

   “No way in hell.” He thought of the creature growing thinner and thinner from fewer meals gifted to its horrible end. “They're too fuckin’ strong, but they can starve.”

   She shook her head, folding her arms over her chest uncomfortably as if shielding herself from such an idea. “What the hell…”

   “Diana, there's a way out of here.”

   He visualized the numbered sectors of the map as she turned away, flustered.

   “Fourth and Crawford. It's right by their base, but it's the best we got and it's not far from here. The next inspection will be three weeks from now, we have t’get outta here before they find the breach an’ fix it to seal us in!”

   Not even their near-death encounter could dissuade her. “I'm not leaving without a clue.”

  She was so fucking stubborn. His fingers balled into fists. She may have saved his life twice before but she was going to get him killed now! 

   “Even if you make it past the guards and into the station alive, the creature won't let you leave! Are you willin’ to fuckin’ die for this?”

   “Yes!”

   The frustrated statement echoed in the empty space. She really meant it, didn't she?

   Jacob pulled the gray overshirt tighter around him and exhaled sharply. Her back was pressed to the glass as he looked out of it, watching the green trees bathed in mist sway gently in the morning wind. Freedom.

   “You know the system…” Diana's keen eyes were scanning the toes of her dusty boots as if they held all her answers. “Wait, you know the system! You're going to help me.”

   He cringed as he shifted his leg closer. “How the fuck could I help you?”

   “I need to go to the train station, you know how to get me in—”

   “If ya didn't notice, I can't fuckin’ move.” He gestured down to his quaking limb as she scowled disapprovingly at his string of unceasing curses. “Plus, there's no one there but Goliath's men! They cleared out the city a month after I crawled outta that prison, and they only use the station for storage now. There's nobody left inside Dawson—no one.”

   Diana shook her head defiantly and hurried over to the backpack, rifling through the pockets before producing her notebook and holding it out to him with excitement. “Write down everything you know… maps, guards, entrances, anything to get me in there!”

   Jacob clenched his jaw.

   Diana's tone was unwavering. “I will do this—with or without your help. You can stay right here if you want, but I am going to King's Street Station.”

   He shrunk back. She was right, it was no use. Jacob could barely move, the chances of him successfully scavenging for food or even climbing out of that breach were a million to one with his damaged leg. If he wanted to live, it would have to be her way.

   “Shit.”