Moonflower: chapter six

Cat and Mouse

08/24/24

Thirteen days until Ring inspection

   Down the stairwell, through another floor, and down two more flights of stairs. Unfinished walls of chipped concrete mixed with rebar surrounded the pair as they wove through the abandoned office building. Jacob blinked in the light from glassless windows. They may not be in the open air yet, but that did not mean they were out of danger. If the crippled creature was stalking them as Diana suspected, it could be hiding anywhere—a chilling thought that made Jacob's palms slick with sweat as they made their way down to the ground floor.

   Diana pushed open the last door with her hip. Her arm was held firmly around his waist, supporting his narrow frame as they stepped down to the patterned ground. It looked like construction had gone farther there than in the rest of the building, vinyl flooding the entire floor and even a foyer information desk. But what should have been a lively workplace was now left empty to dissolve into disarray. Pushed over tables, stacks of materials, and bits of garbage were scattered all the way to the broken glass front doors. Outside, you could see the morning mist softly lighting the overgrowth of the aftermath of the end of the world, but here, inside? A tasteful designer purse sat layered in dust on the only table remaining on its feet. It was emptied of any useful belongings, of course, but there it was, sitting upright and waiting like its owner would return to collect it any minute now. Life so ordinary, ended abruptly with one fell swoop.

   Diana opened her mouth to say something when the slow shivering whine of a claw on metal cut through the silence like a knife through flesh. They stood perfectly still, the pair's locking gaze speaking what they could not. It was here.

   They couldn’t turn back now. Ducking behind the nearest stack of flooring, they waited terrified, the knowledge that their very lives relied on them remaining as still as humanly possible cementing them in place. The ugly sound rippled through their enclosed environment a second time. Was it to their left, or to their right? Jacob couldn't tell, and from what he could read in Diana's concentrated stare, she had no idea either. He tightened his sweaty fists helplessly and tried to prepare for the worst.

   Every second was torture as they waited for something—anything—to happen. Nothing but the stalking steps of the huge, hyper-intelligent killing machine filled his mind in the frozen air. Jacob's nails began to dig painfully into his skin.

   No no no…

   Sweat beaded down his spine as he began to tremble, the air coming faster and faster in his lungs as he fought desperately to stifle the sound, the involuntary reaction only frightening himself further into a panic. He couldn't control his hyperventilating and felt a rush of heat to his face as he realized he was about to burst at any second.

   No, what if it finds us? It can’t find us, it'll tear me apart, I can't die here, I-I can’t, I can't, I-I—

   The steady pressure of her hand squeezing around his wrist tempered the tension in his quivering body like water to burning metal. Jacob looked up into her determined composure and nodded nervously, taking a deep breath in, while Diana returned the gesture alongside him to encourage another. The room melted away around him as they kept unwavering eye contact and deliberately breathed together. It was as if they were two lungs in one body—in and out, in and out, the rhythm getting slower each time until she had eased his anxiety back down to a timid calm.

   Thank you, he mouthed noiselessly with a small smile.

   They were sitting perfectly silently now, the croaking sounds of the creature still echoing in his head. He looked around but couldn't find any sign of danger. It was disorienting, the octagonal shape of the room throwing every sign of its position into uncertainty. Diana used her chin to point to the side. An unmarked door sat thirty feet and two tables away from their hiding place, the closest escape to where they sat hidden. Jacob nodded and held his breath. Diana was up from her squat, crouched and ready, the backpack fully secured over her shoulders and her hand around the solid hilt of the knife—as if mere steel would do any good against that enormous monster. Following suit to her preparation, Jacob bit his lip to keep himself from crying out from the painful throbbing as he took a second to crouch at her side.

   Diana counted out on her fingers. One, two, three.

   Barely breathing, they scurried to the next spot, the hush only disrupted by the slight scuffle Jacob's wounded leg made as he fell beside her on the dusty floor. He took a second to steady himself before suddenly noticing that he wasn't hearing anything anymore. The ragged breaths of the creature had disappeared. When he looked over, Diana's startled expression betrayed the same fear.

   The clicking had stopped and neither of them could see the whole room from behind the table. Had it… left?

   They didn't move for several minutes. The first-hand knowledge of the creature's long-suffering patience did not help his pounding heart, its frantic thumping pushing him to the edge as he battled himself to regain control over his quickening breathing. If they waited too long, it might pick up on their scent and come back—a horrible concept when they were still trapped in place. Diana tensed her jaw before mouthing it's now or never and holding him under his arm to brace him against her for another move. He would have waited in that spot for a century, but he swallowed hard and chose to put his trust in her boldness. With his feet in position, he was ready to follow her example.

   Just before they could make their last run for it, the table lurched violently with great force as the blur of the monster jumped on top of them, snapping down with its horrible teeth.

   Jacob screamed as it missed by inches, only taking half a second to grab her wrist and bolt towards the door. “Run!”

   The piercing shriek of the creature was like a multitude of voices from every life it had taken. Diana leapt over the table, narrowly missing the swipe of its deadly cracked claw and bolted after him. They threw open the door and slammed it shut behind them. Jacob braced the thick barrier with his body, desperate to keep the monster out as it smashed into the metal on the other side.

   The door handle lever wiggled up and down, and Jacob nearly had a heart attack when he heard the bolt click open. He grabbed the handle in a death-grip to keep it shut, shouting at her over his shoulder, exasperated. “You said it wasn't like a Velociraptor?!”

   “Hold the door!” Diana was already rushing down the service stairs in front of him. “I'll look for the entrance!”

   “Hurry!”

   The creature didn't stop screaming, the screeching sound putting pressure on his brain as the protrusions of its claws digging into the heavy door put pressure on his back. The haunting echo of that horrific screaming was something he could feel deep in his chest in an almost  visceral sense. It was like hundreds—no, thousands of people were crying out in pitiful waves of agonizing shrieks for him to open the door, for him to save them, too. Tortured words and indefinable sounds mixed together, but Jacob had survived long enough to know to resist its siren song—and even if he hadn’t learned that, there was no way he would open that door for anyone. He was not dying today.

   Jacob choked back his own scream and bit his lip harder from the pain in his leg.

   “Diana?” he called out over its wails, the gripping knot in his gut growing as his boots scraped uselessly against the concrete for a footing, fingers white from his iron grip on the doorframe rocking at his back.

   “Diana?!”

   His stomach dropped with no answer returning.

   “Diana?!”

   “Jacob!” She was back, pounding up the stairs and slamming her back beside his to help hold it shut. “The tunnel entrance is down and two to the left. We go on three, alright?”

   He nodded shakily as she stalled.

   “Okay.”

   They didn't have a second to breathe, yet Diana was closing her eyes to mumble something under her breath, the words barely audible in his cringe from the creature and the high-pitched whine of its claws behind them.

   “And the coin slots in payphones go this way…” 

   “Diana?!”

   “Okay, okay!” Her lips drew into a fearful smile. “Ready?”

   “Fuckin’ hell—”

   “Okay… on ‘break,’ okay?”

   He held his breath.

   “One, two, three—break!”

   With her arm snatching around him, they nearly tumbled down the stairs, sprinting through the hall at top speed. The consuming pain in his shin begged him to stop but he just couldn't, his legs pumping faster than his body could take, the door to their escape just in sight.

   A roar and the screeching of claws on metal echoed close behind. Diana seized the handle and Jacob lunged through the door as it grabbed for them. She shoved it shut, squeezing the huge clawed hand between the steel and stone before crying out as its wild convulsions scratched her and threw her to the floor. Jacob was on top of the door before it could pry it open.

   “Help me!”

   She scrambled to her feet, the cries of the monster deafening them both as they pushed with all their strength. The claw finally slipped out of the pinch and the door clanged shut, sealing them in, the whimpering rage of the creature penetrating their safety.

   “C'mon!”

   Diana hauled him to his feet and they stumbled through the darkness, the water and damp all around them soaking their shoes as the stale stench infected their lungs. She threw open the next door and they clamored up the ladder into another building, hurrying through the unfamiliar hallway and up another agonizingly endless staircase.

   There was nothing but adrenaline and fear rocketing through every vein in his body. One more step, one more flight, one more floor. None of it was enough to get away from the harbinger of death looming inches away in the back of his mind.

   As the last door banged shut behind them, Diana skidded to a stop to hold him back.

   “Jacob! Jacob, wait!”

   He was frantic from the rush. “What?! What—”

   “It's okay…” The gasping didn't inhibit her calming tone. “It's not following us anymore… We're safe up here, yeah?”

   Oh. He looked down to find his quaking hand intertwined tightly with hers, the knuckles white with effort. He swallowed hard, consciously releasing his death grip on her and awkwardly shaking his head.

   “Y-yeah, yeah… ah… s-sorry…”

   They let go and both dropped to the ground, heaving for breath.

   “You did it…” She managed to glance over at him as she panted—completely exhausted, but smiling. Was that pride in her eye? “You actually did it.”

   He gulped and shrugged, trying to look nonchalant about the whole thing despite the nerves still shivering up his body.

   “Well…”

   He extended a weary hand.

   “Now we're even.”

   She laughed and shoved it away. “I'd hardly call that even!”

   Laughter felt so good after the fear. The release melted him into a puddle on the floor, his hands coming over his face to wipe away the dirty tears. His ceiling of exhaustion had been met and then some.

   “Thanks for… holding the door shut…”

   He looked up at her staggered sentence. “Huh?”

   “In the tunnel.” Diana ran a hand through her long messy hair, tucking the bangs behind her pink ears. She was flushed from their narrow escape. “I couldn't hold it alone, so… thanks for, uh, covering me.”

   His stare lasted a second longer than it should have. Holding the door back there had been a purely selfish move of self-preservation, he knew, but Jacob had not heard the words thank you in so long that it felt altogether foreign to him. Blinking hard, he snapped back to reality, nodding and offering a small grin through the soft panting. “Yeah, of course. Um… uh, how-how’s your arm?”

   He felt the same cringe in her expression when she lifted it up to the light to check. The gash extended straight down her elbow to almost her wrist, trickles of blood coloring the green of her jacket that had been torn open by the monster's reach. Her teeth clenched as she tried to wipe at the nasty cut.

   “What the heck…”

   “Here.” Jacob rummaged through her pack and produced the nearly empty disinfectant spray, pulling the last piece off the roll of clean bandaging material.

   Diana raised her eyebrows in a concerned look. “But Jacob, you need these more than I do.”

   He shrugged casually. “Naw, I'm okay. Y’should take care of that before it gets infected or somethin’.”

   It was a lie. His leg was killing him, the muscles inside the dirty wrapping feeling as if they might snap at any second from the exertion, but the tinge of gratefulness growing inside him was almost lessening the pain. It was an odd phenomenon, something he had never experienced before, but with his weariness he didn't have the energy to question it. Jacob sat back as Diana nodded bravely and cleaned herself up. Out of nowhere she started snickering, lifting the white wrapped limb into his view and pointing with her chin to the old scar on his forearm.

   “Look, we match!”

   He rolled his eyes at the joke as Diana shook her head through giggles, using laughter to cover how painful her arm must feel as she climbed to her feet with her jaw tense, still as single-minded as ever.

   “C'mon, get up. We're on the other side of the street now. We're halfway there.”