by Matt James
Jill doesn’t answer, sensing the answer already.
General Gilmour provides it.
“We do what we must, even if we don’t have all the facts. Regardless of what Abaddon was, destroying it and sending it back to hell was the best decision to make for our country and for the lives residing in it. This was an act of war in my eyes, and we will do what we are paid to do.”
I then watch as the General pulls a phone from his pocket and reads the screen. Upon finishing the message, his face falls flat.
“What?” I ask.
He checks his watch as if he’s late for a meeting or something.
“You can believe whatever you want Mr. Moon, but we need to formulate a response. Cities all around the east coast are burning and overrun with these…Unseen…and—”
“Wait—we? Are you offering me a job?”
He stands. “As of now, yes, but if you refuse, we will move on without you. Your intel on these abominations would prove very helpful out in the field and from what your wife here has said your skills as a fighter are impressive, to say the least.”
I glance at Jill.
Apparently, this isn’t the first time the general has paid our tent a visit.
Before I can give him my formal answer, he describes in detail the fallout around the country.
From Maine to the Carolinas to the Midwest are mostly still intact structurally, but the populace within the affected area isn’t. The infection, as the General described it, numbers into the millions, most scattered throughout, no one really knows for sure though.
Local law enforcement, as well as the National Guard, have taken care of a lot of them, but the country is nowhere close to safe. Even with the help of some equally armed civilians, the United States is still at war with the Unseen.
An act of war… The General’s words ring in my ears, and I can’t argue with the approach. The citizens of the United States are under attack, and the military’s job is to react and repel them.
Gun control has been a hot topic in the country as of late, and I ask about it. The general just laughed.
“No one is saying a peep about the civilians helping out with the eradication process. In times like these, people helping each other in any way is what’s important. Once we get things under control, we’ll let the politicians worry about it, but until then…”
I motion for Jill to help me stand, but it’s Gilmour that comes to my aid. He reaches down and plucks me from my bed. I barely have to help. The old dog isn’t as rickety as I thought.
“About my offer…”
I look to Jill who hands me back my ruined, but dry jacket. Her hand grazes mine, and I feel the love from her. I also remember why I did what I did to find her. I don’t want to lose her now after everything we’ve been through.
Making up my mind, I gingerly slip into it and stand tall, trying not to wince in pain.
“I’m sorry, General, but—”
“Sir!” a voice interrupts from the front of the tent. “You have a call.”
Eyeing me, but nodding his understanding to the soldier. Gilmour picks up his hat and puts it back atop his head, pulling it down firmly. I didn’t have a chance to entirely give my refusal, but he obviously understands.
“Come with me, Detective.” And then to Jill. “You too, Mrs. Moon. We’ll see that the two of you are taken care of and cared for properly. We owe you that much.”
I nod my thanks.
He then turns on a dime and stomps towards the man standing at the entrance. He’s dressed for war in black fatigues and has an intimidating assault rifle slung across his back. The soldier hands Gilmour another cellphone, his expression cold and clinical. His eyes say it all, everything I would expect them to say. He’s someone not to be trifled with.
While his dress and demeanor easily scream Special Forces warrior, the black-clad man also has a lot of intelligence behind those emotionless eyes. I know from personal experience with a couple of cops that were retired Army Rangers. They were two of the smartest men I’ve ever met. Just like the two cops, this soldier’s eyes flicker back-and-forth, studying every little nuance that Jill and I can offer. Then he turns and follows his commander without saying another word.
I spot my holster and Glock on a table as I near the exit and grab them as I walk by. I quickly eject the clip and see that it’s been reloaded and that there are two more fresh ones in the other side of my holster. The gun has been expertly cleaned too, giving me an almost brand-new weapon. I breathe a bit easier and do my best to follow the two soldiers.
Geez, they really don’t mess around with time wasted.
We step over the threshold and are instantly slapped by the cold as soon as we depart from the warm structure. Jill grabs my hand, shivering against the cold, groaning in protest at having to endure the god-awful weather again. I do my best to shield her from it, wrapping my good arm around her, letting the holstered gun dangle gently in my left.
Two bruised peas in a pod.
As we step away from the tent, I see what I pretty much expected to. The shipyard has been turned into a makeshift military camp, right on the banks of the Hudson—Jersey side. I take in the scene and see decked out Hummers aligning one side of the installation, ready for battle. While on the other side I see a flock of olive tents dotting the landscape. Then, off somewhere else, I hear the unmistakable whir of helicopter rotors.
Impressive.
The middle of the compound is populated by weird looking satellite dishes and small workstations. Science types along with other military personnel are co-mingling, frantically darting from one group to another as they relay information. I can’t hear what’s being said over the harsh winter breeze, and quite frankly, I don’t even know if I’d understand the jargon being spoken. Either way, everything here screams of intel gathering. Lots of secret stuff.
The sky is the next anomaly I notice. First off, it isn’t red. It’s bright and sunny with very little to no snow falling. I glance over to what’s left of Manhattan and see that it too is extinguished, confirming that whatever Abaddon was is now gone. The second thing I look at is the sun itself. It’s in the twelve o’clock position—straight overhead. How long was I out?
Shaking my head, I bring my eyes back down to the men directly in front of us. A man I recognize steps out from behind a stack of crates, someone who’s being here is a little odd, but at the same time makes total sense.
But why would the NASA specialist from TV be here if the meteor has already landed and been destroyed?
“Dr. Kent,” I ask, “what are you doing here?”
41
“Yes?” the white-haired scientist says, looking up mid-sentence. He glances to me and then to the general, shooing away the pair talking to him. Apparently, the general takes precedent above all else. He steps away from the other lab coat wearers and smiles. “May I help you?”
“My name is Frank Moon,” I say, offering the man my hand.
“Ah, yes,” he says, nodding furiously. “The policeman they pulled from the Hudson.”
“One question and I’ll let you get back to what you’re doing,” I say.
“Go on,” he says, acting a little nervous.
I’m about to ask him why he’s here, but another more personal one pops into my head, and I decide on that one instead.
“Our folks are in Palm Beach County—Wellington actually, and—”
“And you want to know if Abaddon’s effects made it to them?” he says, finishing my inquiry.
“Well… Yes…”
“It did,” he answers, “but there were only a few cases of the changes and only near the east coast. If your parents were, in fact, still out west in the Wellington area, then they should be okay. Either way, local law enforcement is working around the clock to rectify the situation.”
The muscles in my neck and back relax as Dr. Kent puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it. The gesture is both a humanitarian show of congratulations and a period on the
discussion as a whole. With a nod of his head, Kent turns back to his colleagues and continues the conversation I had taken him away from.
“Sorry, Dr. Kent, one more thing.”
He turns again, forcing another smile onto his face.
“One thing I’m still unsure of…” His eyebrows raise impatiently waiting for my question. “Why did we lose power? It obviously wasn’t an EMP or anything like that. Just the electric went out. Did we lose multiple grids or something?”
“Honestly, Detective Moon.” He shrugs. “We have no clue. It’s one of a hundred things we are still trying to figure out.”
And with that I let him return to his duties.
“Moon,” the general says, turning my attention back towards the tent. “Before we send you off, could you at least go over some of the tactics you used while you were out in the thick of it? Any assistance in how best to defeat them would be helpful.”
I nod and follow him to another, much larger tent, deeper into the makeshift compound. He enters first, taking off his hat and sitting at the nearest workstation. He plops down and leans back, rubbing his forehead.
“So,” I say, sitting across from him, Jill to my left, “what do you want to know?”
* * *
An hour later I stand, again ending my debriefing of the events involving my escape. This time I focused on the monsters and the ways I killed them. I was also asked about what weapons I implemented and why. The general even wanted to know my thought process during the encounters.
“You think and react like some of my best men here, Detective Moon,” he says, standing. “I really wish you’d reconsider leaving. We could obviously use all the help we can get.”
“Like Dr. Kent?” I ask, baiting him.
“Exactly,” he says, “but as to exactly why he’s here… I’m afraid you aren’t at a high enough paygrade to get that answer.”
I shrug. “I’m not at any paygrade, General.”
“Touché,” he quips, picking up his hat.
“The offer is still on the table to slide into one of them though—as an advisor of course.”
I quickly shake my head. “Sorry, General, but my answer is still no. My wife and I need to head down to Florida and start over.” I look at her. “Maybe try again to start that family that we’re overdue on.”
Jill smiles wide and grips my arm.
He nods in understanding. “As a father of five and a grandfather of eight… I can respect that. Good luck to you both.”
We shake hands, parting ways as respected men of honor and exit the tent in unison. As soon as he steps foot outside, he begins barking orders at a fever pace, no longer my equal in front of those he commands.
“Incoming!” a voice shouts from off to our right, back towards the water.
I’m about to look up, but a familiar and dreadful red-hue lights up the sky above our heads. It pulsates just like the one I saw outside my window.
That’s why Dr. Kent is here!
They—meaning the government—must have known about another attack. It’s why the general wanted to bring me in. It wasn’t to help clean up the mess Abaddon created. It was to combat the next wave.
“Don’t look!” I shout. I then pull Jill into my chest, shielding her eyes while closing mine. As expected, the warbling strobe of light intensifies and then winks out. After another few seconds, I chance a peek, opening my eyes.
Chaos ensues around us as men of power bark orders. But not all the people here are moving because of the shouted instructions. It’s only when the general, along with a few others, wail in agony and start digging at their faces that everyone else around the compound realizes what just happened.
Some of the men and women here heeded my warning and looked away from the duplicate meteor. It entered and burned just like Abaddon did when it broke into our atmosphere. But not all of the people stationed here heeded my warning. About half of them are in the midst of changing, becoming the creatures of my current and future nightmares.
I act without conscience and draw my gun, putting a bullet in the back of the general’s skull. Ending his pain and suffering is the most humane thing to do at this point. But it also kept him from harming anyone, including us.
“Frank!”
I turn and unload into another—a siren. She’s dressed similar to my nurse, in a white apron, hair net, and deep brown skin…
It was my nurse! Dammit!
“Come on,” I yell, shooting another. “Get back to the water!”
Jill turns and flees, heading for the closest dock, leaping bodies and trashed equipment. I’m right on her heels, shooting anything that even looks at us. I watch as some of the more specially trained soldiers snipe the monsters, taking them out with controlled bursts. Some of the people here will no doubt survive, but I don’t plan on playing those odds. The two of us are leaving and leaving now.
We arrive at the dock, our shoes pounding over the wood. Jill shouts to me, and I look at what’s tied off, seeing what she’s pointing at. It’s a Coast Guard cutter, and it’s abandoned, waiting for the next time someone needs to be plucked from the freezing waters below.
Or until a couple of shmucks need a getaway vehicle—I mean, getaway boat.
Jill and I both leap aboard in unison, pushing off. Two goblins are hot on our heels, but I put a bullet in each, stopping their advancement cold. A few seconds later Jill starts up the large craft with a rumble and a roar of its massive engines.
Being from a coastal town in Florida, we both have some boating experience. Thankfully, Jill obviously remembered her share of it. I would have stumbled my way through it, but inevitably gotten the watercraft going.
I look up as we pull out heading south.
“It’s the Four Horsemen,” I say, watching as not one, but four of the new editions streak across the sky, heading for different corners the hemisphere.
“More names?” Jill asks, stepping up next to me.
I shrug, not looking away. “Can’t help it.”
I’m about to ask who’s driving, but she beats me to it. “We can drift for a second, nothing can leap that distance.”
We’re a good fifty feet away, the expanse increasing with the seconds. I look back up and watch, staring in awestruck wonder and fear.
Three of them are just specs, hundreds of miles away, but burning bright enough to see from that distance. The one that passed over our heads is headed west across the nation’s breadbasket. America is definitely going to get another one of these things. If the flash didn’t turn another million or so people into crazed monsters, essentially killing them, then the earthquake-producing core will kill other untold millions for sure. Buildings will collapse, and fires will rage.
And then the red dome of death will turn the rest into greys, making this look exactly like Hollywood has depicted an alien invasion to be. Tall, lanky aliens slaughtering humanity. But what they never thought about was that the aliens are actually humans. It’s not intelligence from above. It’s us brutally killing each other.
There’s another headed east. I’m not sure if it’ll make land or just plummet into the Atlantic, but I’m praying for the water. Unless it will affect the ocean life like it did the dogs. Imagining a pod of killer Unseen-Orca is absolutely terrifying.
The third horseman is soaring due north, headed for the Arctic. I don’t even want to think about what a grey-polar bear hybrid could do if it makes it into a populated region.
And the fourth… It’s headed south, towards the tropics.
Mom and Dad.
“Get us moving,” I say, turning back to Jill. She nods a look of worry on her face. “I promise you… We’ll be okay.”
She stops. “It’s not us I’m concerned about... It’s everyone else.”
I watch as she heads back inside, thinking to myself.
For ages experts around the world have talked about how mankind is in its next extinction phase. In our current case, we’re expected to eradicate ourselves versus
the planet doing it, like it did in the past—an ice age or something.
I slowly follow Jill into the warm wheelhouse and place my chilled hand on her cheek, making her flinch and shriek. She punches my chest, getting what she wanted out of me. I whimper and cough, feeling my horribly bruised ribs flex back into position.
I again watch the horseman that’s headed west disappear into the low clouds. Are we about to experience our sixth extinction? Maybe, but man has survived some pretty nasty things so far in our short time on Earth. We may be able to survive this too.
Putting my arm around Jill, I squeeze her into me, feeling safe for the first time in days. I know we aren’t, but being with her right now gives me hope. Being alive gives me hope.
Sighing, I look to the eastern shore—towards what was my home for the last decade. There were some pretty shitty memories there, and decisions I regret to go along with them, but not all were bad.
Are we destined to go out like this?
Can we survive?
If we can’t endure, humanity as a whole may have very well run its course.
Let’s hope I’m wrong.
HOME SWEET HELL (Dead Moon Book 2)
By Matt James
Description:
Frank Moon’s life is completely in the toilet.
As a detective with the NYPD, Frank thought he’d seen everything, especially after barely escaping the hellscape that was Manhattan. The meteor, Abaddon, brought with it a sickness—a disease—upon the planet. A terrifyingly savage species was born that day, Earth's newest super-predator, the Unseen.
Frank and his wife now find themselves down in their old stomping grounds of South Florida intent on locating their families. Unfortunately, their triumphant homecoming doesn’t include a crowd of excited onlookers or even a banner that reads, “Welcome Home!” The only things that greet them are the horrors of a ravaged world.
