Moonflower: Chapter Thirteen

The Candle Of The Wicked

09/07/24

One hour to sacrifice

   Jacob slipped out of the armory and obsessively checked his watch. Six o'clock exactly, almost time to move. His tense muscles trembled from nerves as he tried to look like he was walking as casually as possible through the sparsely-populated jail corridors towards the cell block, simultaneously sneaking his hand into his pocket and leaving the remote trigger he had just acquired safely inside.

   As a building, Dawson City Jail had multiple cell areas, but the isolation ward was on the opposite side of all the others, facing inward towards the city. It was where they had always kept their “bait,” and where he knew Diana must be locked up.

   The paintball gun was conspicuous on his shoulder, but he had to get it closer to the one door in the prison that led out to the roof—their only exit. He restlessly checked the building plans he had snuck from Brayden’s clipboard. Taking a cleansing breath, Jacob reminded himself that he was as prepared as he was ever going to be for this impossible task. He’d spent every minute of that afternoon doing his best to memorize the critical points he needed to hit and the fastest way out after—not to mention the optimal place to stash his backup plan. Not that this first plan wasn't going to work… It had to work.

   Jacob tried whistling like in the movies but immediately figured out why it was only a Hollywood tactic. The occasional inmates loitering around lifted their eyebrows at him in annoyed curiosity, so he stayed silent after that, meandering through the intricate back hallways that the jail had formerly used for service, and stashing the rifle in an old electrical closet where he had left her packed bag earlier. Finally, everything was in place.

   An involuntary jitter shivered through his limbs as he neared the isolation cell block, and anxiously checked his watch again. 6:06pm. This was it—it was now or never.

   “Hey!” He had to hide the cringe from the high break of his voice as he tried to catch the guard’s attention, running up to the stout man and panting hard like he was in a hurry.

   “Goliath… he's askin’ for you. There's a… fight breakin’ out in the cells. Hurry!”

   They bought it. He skillfully snagged the set of keys off the panicked guard’s belt as he rushed past, and made sure the man was gone before dropping the act and peeking around the corner. So his years of shoplifting had been of use after all.

   After making absolutely certain it was clear, he darted into the cell block alone, closing the door behind him.

   In the past, this containment hall had been filled to the brim with innocent people who had wandered into Dawson, hungry and desperate, only to be captured and left waiting to be used as an offering for the soulless beast outside… but now every whitewashed cell was left empty and dusty. All except for one.

   Jacob scanned each room, his lurching gait echoing through the corridor.

   “Diana?”

   There was no response as he checked in the darkness of the next cell.

   “Diana?”

   An unidentifiable lump moved in the corner of the room two cells down. He could barely make out the silhouette, but he hurried towards it, peering into the inky blackness inside as he hissed quietly.

   “Diana?”

   “You fucking bastard!”

   She lunged at the gate separating them, swearing loudly, disheveled and furious and not at all as quiet as he was trying to be.

   “Shut up, will you?” Jacob whispered harshly in a panic. Fumbling with the keys, he cursed silently as the bars clattered against his clumsy hands. She released her angry grip on the door and took a step back with confused derision in the scowl on her face.

   “What the hell are you doing?”

   “Gettin’ us outta here.”

   Her eyes opened wide. For once she actually listened to him, her mouth snapping closed with shock as she watched his fingers shake and turn the lock in an intense, hurried silence.

   He finally swung the cage open and reached in for her hand.

   “C'mon.”

   There was a pause. She stood perfectly still inside the cell, the weighed risks reflected back at him in the wary shine of her discerning eyes. He understood the conflict painted on her face, and felt the shame bringing his heart low. How could she choose to trust him after what he had done? By all logic she shouldn't. She had no reason to—and every reason to never put her life into his hands again—yet he was asking her to.

   His voice was soft in the silence. “Please.”

   Seconds stretched together into an eternity. Jacob's brow drew together, his pale, frozen blue eyes pleading as his fingers opened wide.

   The moment hung on the edge like a single drop set to ripple an ocean. Finally, she breathed in deeply, slowly reciprocating by sliding her smooth palm into his hand and fitting her fingers in between his. Jacob felt a warmth rise in his chest as they cemented their hold on each other, and he looked up to see her earnest nod.

   He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the noise of clattering weapons and the growing sound of harsh voices grew near. They were out of time. Yanking her out of the cell, they turned to make a run for the exit but were immediately met with a corridor quickly filling with armed men. Twisting the opposite way, Jacob stumbled back, finding that path was blocked, too. They were pinned down.

   His hand held Diana's thigh protectively, keeping her behind him as they faced the armed mob together. His voice was shaking but forceful. “Let us through.”

   “Us?” The big man's cackle filled the cells as he pushed through the crowd to stand square in front of the escapees, flipping Diana’s stolen knife up to his shoulder casually. Goliath.

   Brayden stood awkwardly behind him, small and nervous, hands clasped tightly around his notepad. The pages were opened to where the plan of the building should be. He met Jacob's gaze, an expression of regret coloring his ruddy face before his eyes dropped back down to the floor.

   The man in charge spun the knife skillfully in his hand. 

   “Motherfucker, you're one of us. Think about what you're doin’ here, kid—”

   “I've thought about it,” Jacob snapped back, the resolution in his tone surprising everyone including himself. The corridor creaked as Goliath took a step forward in an effort to intimidate him, but Jacob didn't flinch, his voice and stance retaining an unwavering calm. 

   “I'm not yours to control—not anymore.”

   The giant cocked an eyebrow and shifted his attention to the woman behind him.

   “Ah, so that was your plan? Take your little girlfriend here and make a run for it?” He chuckled deeply. “A regular Romeo and Juliet.”

   Jacob ground his teeth, his mind racing as the leader took another stride closer.

   “And, assumin’ you do get past all these good men and their rifles, what's your plan then? Walk two feet out into that forest an’ get eaten by a different, stronger monster whom I haven't crippled?” He raised an eyebrow in sarcasm. “Good plan.”

   “I'm going to find my family,” Diana shot back from behind him with an angry flame.

   Goliath only laughed. “Is that so? Your little family left you behind there, missy? Ha, then they're no different from the rest of us, I'm afraid.”

   Jacob had to stiffen his hand on her waist to stop her from lunging forward.

   “How dare you—”

   “They sacrificed your life to keep themselves breathin’,” he sneered cruelly, obviously finding twisted enjoyment in goading her on like that. “Who wouldn't? Looks like we're all in the same boat here, after all.”

   That familiar unfeeling gaze landed back on the traitor. “Ah yes, Jacob Porter. The wounded animal.” His voice was more serious now. “You've always been like this, haven't you, son? I bet it goes farther back than the day we met in that cell. Shakin’ too fuckin’ hard to do jack shit about a thing in your own little pathetic excuse for an existence.”

   Jacob felt the air coming into his lungs faster and faster as Goliath moved up a pace, too close for comfort in this tight hallway. His heart rate increased from the pressure of the disparity their height difference created between them. The two men were standing only a few feet apart now.

   “You want to be like her? Her empathy is her weakness.” Goliath's words were cutting and steeped in bitterness, as if what he was saying was personal to him. 

   “You were always meant to be like this, Porter. One of the prey rootin’ for scraps, sniffing around the feet of the most powerful force at the table, never havin’ the guts to strike out on your own. You need me. You should've taken my offer, boy… you're a dead man now.”

   Jacob's eyes flared. “Why? Because you said it?” His steel gaze scanned the throng around them. Each individual man was gaunt, gray, and dirty, worse than they had been the day they broke out of those prison cells. “Is that why we're doin’ this?”

   The crowd shifted uncomfortably.

   “Four years of trappin’ innocent people and feedin’ ‘em to that beast and for what? Look around—there used t’be three hundred of us!”

   Brayden glanced back up from his feet, a cautious and fearful hope growing in his wide copper eyes as the guards most loyal to Goliath bore angry glares into the brave speaker.

   “Now we're hungry, exhausted, scared for our lives. All of us except for one.”

   Turning back to the sturdy giant in front of him, Jacob furrowed his brow, his voice rising but piercing eye contact unwavering with the real monster of this city. “We're out here killin’ for scraps of food that he’s holdin’ from us! Javi wasn't stashin’ food because he was selfish, he was dyin’ while you were takin’ your fill of our rations!”

   A ripple of voices echoed in the enclosed hall. A growing hint of doubt was palpable in the stuffy prison air.

   “We don't have t’do this to live, we never did.” His plea to the weary inmates narrowed to the leader. The pariah and the giant—in that moment, it felt like they were the only ones inside Dawson City. “I'm done, Goliath. Done with the hunt, done with killin’. Every step I take here is built on the bones of innocent strangers. They had families, had lives that meant somethin’—just like ours! This isn't what we wanted. These people didn't do anythin’. We don't need this to survive—we can be better than they were t’us. But you—” For once in the 1,602 days since he had been booked into this cursed jail, Jacob was seeing the man before him with simple clarity. 

   “You're just doin’ this because it puts you on top, and it's only goin’ to end with each and every one of us bleedin’ out into the dirt under your boot. There has to be another way! Your fuckin’ bloodlust is gonna get you killed—get us all killed!”

   The room fell silent as the big man shifted his weight forward with a creak. “Careful, boy.”

   The epiphany of the moment filled him with strength. Jacob had never spoken words so explicitly. “It wasn't weakness when Diana pulled me from that street… Her humanity makes her far stronger than you'll ever be. You're worse than the warden was, Goliath—you don't care about nothin’ but yourself.”

   Deafening silence filled the hallway. No one said a word or even moved, and Jacob waited to breathe, every nerve in his body hoping against hope for someone to step up against the monster they had all created… but only the quiet remained.

   Goliath raised an eyebrow, his deep and smooth voice cutting through the air like the knife in his hand. “And who is goin’ to join our little Braveheart here on his mission to die?”

   Silence.

   “Anyone?”

   Jacob swallowed hard at the heaviness of the tense atmosphere crushing in around him. In a moment his wide eyes met Brayden's, but the desperation did him no good. The young man only shifted his stance, pushing up his glasses and closing his mouth in silence.

   Jacob's heart dropped into his stomach as he faced the truth. They would never stop the massacre. Not now, not ever.

   Goliath gazed down at him with terrifyingly arrogant pride. “Nobody leaves Dawson City.”

   Diana's firm hand on his back drew him back to reality. He breathed deep, knowing now that he had no other choice. They couldn't let this slaughter continue—there was only one way out now.

   The trigger in his pocket came out in a flash, every pair of eyes trained on the tiny plastic detonator in his palm, held forward for all to see.

   “What is that?” The answer dawned on Goliath and his big laugh returned to mock him. “Ah, I get it! Let you through or you'll blow us all to kingdom come.”

   Jacob shook as he held the detonator in front of him. The leader covered the last foot of separation, now only inches away despite the young man's desperate threat.

   “But you won't, will ya, son?” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper as he sneered down at him. “You're too afraid to die.”

   Jacob flipped the safety top open, thumb hovering over the trigger.

   “I'm done bein’ afraid.”

   The explosion threw everyone and rocked the entire block. Lights went out, the stone brick and mortar crumbling beside them in an instant, the bright light and a wash of rain from the outside streaming in through the fallen wall to blind them all. Jacob was sent tumbling to the floor just like the others, but he was already prepared to spur himself on through the shock, and recovered in only a few seconds.

   The blood-curdling roar of death echoed inside the torn-open prison. It had heard them.

   “This way!” he shouted, gripping Diana's hand like her life depended on it and clamoring over the other dazed inmates. The pair stumbled out of the room, ears ringing from the useless gunfire echoing behind them and the mangled screams of the hunters becoming the hunted. Just as he had planned, the creature they had starved and taunted for so long was here for its reckoning, and no soul was innocent under its haunted gaze.

   Every gray hallway blended together as they sprinted through the breached jail. With a fumbling hand Jacob ripped the map from his pocket, pointing them back to where they needed to be through the danger, inmates screaming and running and shooting all around them. No one was even looking at the fleeing duo anymore as they tried to navigate this maze—the monster in their walls was the only thing that mattered now.

   He caught the shape of a huddled form in his peripheral vision as they approached the crossroads he was looking for. Jacob skidded to a stop at the split when he realized the young, shell-shocked inmate was Brayden himself.

   Diana clutched at his arm. “Which way now?!”

   “Just a second,” he insisted, his fingers sliding out from between hers as he ran over to the traumatized kid in the corner—the only one left to be saved. “Brayden, come on, get up!”

   Jacob reached for his shoulder and frantically tugged at his dead weight but it was no use. The twenty-one year old was quaking on the floor, his cracked glasses fogging up as he hyperventilated against the wall, his eyes squeezed shut to block out the horrifying chaos. He was paralyzed with fear. Jacob melted at the recognition of that fear, gently touching his arm and encouraging him to look up with a calming and hurried tone.

   “It's not too late. C'mon, we can make it outta the city, but we have t'move now.”

   Brayden's brown eyes had never been more vulnerable. There were tears hanging in them as he sputtered, the words steeped in unshakable regret and immobilizing paranoia. “I-I'm scared, Jacob.”

   Jacob softened with sympathy, the gunfire and mayhem happening around them nothing to him in this intimate moment. “Me too.” He nodded his head to the side. “But I don't think she is.”

   The sight of Diana's iron will gazing back at him from down the hall seemed to steady him. Brayden whined quietly as the traumatic scene faded around them. Even in this darkness, there was light to be found. He rose, frightened but moving, his fingers now tightly interwoven with his friend's. Jacob smiled by his side to soothe him and turned back in the direction of Diana.

   He hadn't made it one step when the knife connected. Goliath had thrown it with incredible accuracy, splitting the air and embedding the blade right into Brayden's spine, the young man's hand slipping from his as he fell into a heap instantly. Jacob didn't have a second to react before the giant was nearly on top of him, yelling obscenities and yanking the bloody weapon from the still-warm body on the ground, running towards the object of his fury, the one who was burning it all down. One of his eyes was shut tightly and bleeding from combat as he screamed, knife poised in the air for a furious swing.

   “Nobody is leavin’ this place!”

   Diana was faster. Like lightning, she had made a grab from behind for the blade, but his grip was simply too strong to break.

   Goliath's spit pelted her face as he twisted around and roared with rage.

   “You little shit!”

   His enraged attention was locked on her now. Lunging, he threw the woman to the wall and battled against her speed with heavy blows that cracked the concrete surface, the knife clattering to the ground as she managed a desperate jab at his arm.

   Jacob stumbled back and crawled away from the fight as fast as he could, the blood from his only friend splattering his boots and hands as he dragged himself backwards through the growing puddle under the corpse. He raised a shaking hand in front of his face and touched the red, quivering fingertips together. So much death… His vision blurred and his body took control. He was on his feet, instinctually limping away from the danger at his back.

   Wait, no! Diana!

   His head was screaming at him to keep running but his will strengthened against the odds and pointed him back to her. Diana was still fighting for her life thirty feet away from where he stood. Shit, he had to do something now!

   The realization that the paintball gun was hidden away in that same hallway threw Jacob into action. He tore the closet door open and fumbled to yank the rifle out through the screams of terror behind him, but they weren't Diana's. The enormous alien was here, gunshots and shrieks leading it down the hallway behind them, every inmate in its path consumed in gore the instant the fury of its claws and teeth reached them.

   Goliath had thrown her to the ground in the moment of distraction, both of them tangled on the floor as the leader violently slammed her back into the concrete and she cried out in agony.

   Jacob lost his grip on the gun as he shook like a leaf, the scene unfolding before his very eyes as vivid as a nightmare as the panic rendered him useless. The creature was tearing apart the men only feet behind them, but Goliath didn't fucking care. He was on top of her, Diana scrambling and screaming to get away but his weight keeping her pinned as he grabbed viciously for the opened blade only inches out of reach.

   Jacob only had one shot, and he damn well couldn't afford to miss.

   Steady, steady…

   He lifted the sight to his eye, blinking the tears from his lashes. Diana's thin form and the lumbering man tangled in his view, making a clear shot impossible in the desperate fight. The knife was in the air and he knew this was his only chance.

   Jacob breathed in, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.

   The neon green mark of death painted the goliath's face, blinding his vision in his last good eye. He swung the blade down wildly but Diana was quicker, yanking herself free of him with a shout. Snatching her knife from where it had clattered to the floor, she crawled to her feet and pounded down the hallway towards Jacob, escaping with her life thanks to his shot. The piercing cry of the creature that carried hundreds of haunting voices was deafening them all.

   Goliath roared, wiping the paint from his face just in time to see the monster he had kept on a string for so long take its final revenge.

   Jacob dropped the empty gun and grabbed Diana's hand as she reached him, urgently dragging her away from the screams of horror cut short by the creature's razor teeth, bone ripping from body behind them as the two survivors bolted for the exit.

   They fled down the empty corridors, searching for the one door Jacob knew led to the outside roof. When they finally found it, he nearly threw it open, the rainstorm and free air on the rooftop washing over them like a wave. The pair was just yards away from escape. The water pinged off the bars of the cage, the protective net surrounding the look-out extending far over the building, but only one catwalk led off to the perimeter barrier. In a second they were running down it through the puddles, the freedom of green treetops in sight.

   Diana reached it first. Jumping the long gap and successfully scrambling up the side, she lay flat on top of the final Ring wall, her hand desperately stretching down for him through the haze of the downpour.

   “Jump!”

   Jacob went to leap for it, but when his boot hit the edge of the wet stone it slipped and he missed, smacking straight into the concrete and falling—but Diana's tight grip caught him first. She cried out as she heaved him up the last few feet of the wall, his feet scrabbling at the slick sides before he tumbled over the edge with her.