Dead Moon 2: Home Sweet Hell (Dead Moon Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thrillers)

by Matt James

  Quickly, I navigate the high-tops and reach out for Jill’s face.

  I gently peel the hair away from her face and am happy to see her open mouth huffing and puffing for air. Leaning in close, I whisper into her ear. “Jill.”

  “Shhh,” she replies, confusing me. “He’s still here.”

  Jill wasn’t unconscious…she was playing dead.

  Shit.

  I turn and find Baldy hulking over me. I’m not sure if he acquired his size when changing into a brute, or if he was always a big dude. Regardless, he’s a giant of a man.

  And he’s fast on his feet.

  With one quick move, he shoves me in the chest and sends me airborne over Jill and the bar itself. I crash through a dozen hanging wine glasses, slam into the other side of the U-shaped bar, and drop into the gap between. For once, when I land, something soft pads my fall. I go to get to my feet, placing my hand down to give myself a boost. When I do, I feel something squishy beneath my fingers.

  I puke when I see that it’s someone’s exposed intestines. I can’t hold back my disgust this time.

  A man wearing a cap with the restaurant’s logo on it has been eviscerated, and my hand ended up directly in his open gut. I try my hardest to wipe it off, just as Jill crashes to the floor next to me, barely missing the same fate as me. Her face is bruised and swollen, but otherwise, she looks okay.

  Our eyes meet, but our happy reunion is cut short. Baldy’s hand appears above us, gripping, and breaking the edge of the thick bartop. He’s as strong as Bubba the trucker! We don’t dawdle for long and scurry away on our hands and knees. We make it to the open end of the bar and bolt for the side door containing the outside seating.

  Just when I grab the push bar, I’m snagged from behind and yanked off my feet. Jill shouts, and on impulse, I roll to my right as I land. Baldy’s fist pulverizes the floor where my head was a second ago. I get to my feet and raise my fists, realizing I don’t have my gun anymore. I go for Jill’s in the back of my jeans, but find it missing.

  Baldy is holding the latter, inspecting it with his grotesque, empty eye sockets. It’s incredible to watch him in a way as he gazes at the pistol. It’s also terrifying. Then, he sniffs the barrel, sneers, and crushes the gun with his bare hand. The weapon caves in on itself and folds together. Seeing the brute’s inhuman strength, I back away from him, knowing that I’ll be as broken as the gun if I get too close. I’m lucky to still be alive as it is.

  Leaning around Baldy, I spot Jill, who smartly hasn’t tried anything stupid. “Find my gun!” She nods and moves off while I back further away from Baldy. I want his attention on me right now. Jill needs to find that gun.

  Shuffling backward, I put ten feet between him and me. The first thing I find as any sort of weapon is a barstool. I fling at him and watch as it comically bounces off his chest. The whole time he stalks me, he’s speaking. The language definitely isn’t English, but nor is it any other dialect I’ve ever heard before.

  Unseenish? Do they have their own language now?

  I check on Jill’s progress and see that she’s successfully made it back to the double-sided bar. She’s currently scouring the area for my missing gun. Now, in the middle of the main dining hall, I stop my retreat and stand my ground. I’ve got nowhere else to go without leaving Jill alone and out of sight—and that’s not happening. Baldy stops as well, which confuses me. Usually, an Unseen would just pounce on its prey and rip them to shreds. Even sirens, for the most part, don’t display this much control.

  I rip a steak knife free, removing it from one of the pinned bodies. Baldy doesn’t do anything to stop me. His lack of interest in me fighting back makes me feel small and feeble like I have that much less of a chance to survive.

  “Come on!” I yell, lunging forward. Holding the knife in a backhand grip, I plunge the blade deep into his chest.

  He doesn’t even flinch when it pierces his left pec.

  And now, I have no weapon…again.

  Scared shitless, I stumble and trip backward over something. I clumsily land in the nearest booth. That’s when Baldy finally makes his move and leaps at me, but before he can get a hold of me, I slide underneath the table and slip beneath him, just barely fitting between his legs. In the second it takes for me to make my escape, I get a look at what tripped me.

  The front half of a decorative blue marlin lies broken on the floor. I recognize the animal too. At one point in the past, it was mounted to the wall along with its other fish friends. I reach for its signature spiked bill, grunt, and snap it off.

  I’ve got myself another weapon.

  A crack startles me and staggers Baldy. The result of the sound is a smallish hole in his chest. I spin and see Jill, pistol in hand. She pulls the trigger again and sends another 9mm round into the big guy’s chest. Even with twin bullet wounds, he doesn’t go down. In fact, the ordinarily fatal injuries hardly seem to bother him.

  “Die you bastard!”

  He swings at me with a strong overhand hammer blow. I duck right and, instead of killing me, he obliterates a high-top table. Jill squeezes off two more shots, but like the pair before them, these also do very little.

  Baldy grips the back of my shirt when I try to turn and run and then clutches my belt as well. With ease, he lifts me over his head and slams me down on top of the bar. The air is forced from my lungs, causing me to cough hard.

  “Frank!”

  I can hear the worry in Jill’s voice, but I can’t respond.

  Jill… Can’t… Breathe…

  Then, I really can’t breathe when Baldy’s hand finds my neck. He squeezes, wickedly grinning in the process. Still gripping my fishy spike, I jam it into his chest and shoulder muscles over and over again. The fifth such attempt has no force behind it and barely breaks the skin. My vision fades. I let go and find the hilt of my still-impaled steak knife, the one in his chest, but I’m too weak to pull it free.

  I’m about to black out, but then my guardian angel slides into view and places the muzzle of my gun against the back of Baldy’s head. When it touches him, his grip loosens slightly.

  “Fuck you.” Jill squeezes the trigger.

  Point-blank, the bullet enters Baldy’s brain, and I watch the lights go out in his head. Just like that, he collapses atop me and then flops to the floor. Gasping for air, I cough hard.

  “It’s okay, Frank. Calm down.”

  I do, taking deep breaths, in and out. Jill helps me down from the bartop and embraces me. There, we hug it out for a minute. When we part, I cut off Jill before she can even ask.

  “She’s…fine,” I croak, putting up a hand.

  “Where is she?”

  “Outside in a locked car.”

  Instead of rushing outside, Jill and I take advantage of the situation and grab as much water as we can. Food will have to wait. There isn’t much we can choose from a place that usually cooks it before serving it. I even grab a couple of beers from the fridge from behind the bar too. Jill raises an eyebrow at me.

  I shrug. “We deserve these.”

  Rolling her eyes, she follows me to the door, but I stop just inside it. Right there, within all the mayhem, I pop open the pair of Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat ales and hand her one. Like me, Jill loves herself an ice-cold brew. And like me, she downs half of it on the spot, but not before clinking them together. We quickly finish them and let out twin “ahhhs” before tossing the bottles aside with a crash.

  “Oh,” she says, holding out my gun, “here.”

  I accept it and slip it into my shoulder holster. Not wasting any more time, we push through the doors and quickly head to the car. Halfway there, I see Hope pop up from the backseat. Giddy, to see both of us alive, she throws open her door and runs to Jill and me.

  Well, mostly Jill.

  She releases Jill and wraps her arms around my uninjured leg. She nuzzles into me some more and says, “You kept your promise!” She squeezes harder. “You came back.”

  I glance from Hope to Jill
, then back to the girl. “Told you I would.”

  Jill has no idea what promise I made Hope, and from the smile on her face, I don’t think she honestly cares what it was. She’s just happy that we’re together again.

  “What did he want?” I ask, searching the parking lot. We aren’t out of the woods yet. There are still Unseen nearby, and we need to get moving.

  “I don’t know,” she replies. “But he was different than the others. He talked to himself a lot. He sounded curious—violent, yes—but curious.”

  Holding herself tight, Hope looks at us both. “Can we go now?”

  I playfully toss her hair. “Sure thing, kiddo.” I eye Jill. “Just gotta find some keys first.”

  I could probably locate a set back inside the restaurant, but I don’t have the stomach for it right now. Plus, I don’t dare drag Hope in there. Jill’s been through enough too. So, instead of returning to Baldy’s lair, we search car-to-car until we finally discover a vehicle with its keys still in the vicinity.

  Unfortunately, the owner of those keys is still sitting right outside his vehicle. He seems to have died right there in the parking lot, in a pool of his own blood. I don’t pay any attention to how he might’ve died, only that he is, in fact, dead.

  The bright yellow Jeep Wrangler with the tricked-out lift kit isn’t exactly inconspicuous, but it has a full tank of gas and plenty of room for us all. Now that I think about it, the thick tires will be perfect for traversing the current landscape, or if we decide to take a leisurely drive across the African savannah… We'll, more-than-likely, have a need to move fast and the need to run over things in the process.

  Speaking of moving fast… Where’s Babe?

  I don’t like how the pig pulled a Houdini on us.

  I back out of the parking space and see a lone goblin in my mirror. Gritting my teeth, I give the Jeep a little gas and slam into the creature hard, bouncing him off the rear fender.

  “What was that?” Hope asks from the backseat, not noticing what I did.

  “Nothing,” I reply, trying to hide my amusement. “It was nothing.”

  I know it shouldn’t make me happy, but it really did, and I really dislike those things. Gripping the steering wheel, I look around.

  I need something else to hit…

  20

  We circle around the mall and choose the lesser used road just to the south. Stribling Way runs west before turning north and meeting up with Forest Hill. The mall grounds are essentially boxed in by Forest Hill to the north, 441 to the east, and Stribling to the south and west. People that live in Wellington that also want to avoid mall traffic, often use Stribling when coming into town from the south.

  My parent's church is on the south side of Stribling, but I can’t see the building from where I am. The small plot of farmland between me and the sanctuary is too tall, looking very ready to be cleared and started anew. It’s a great project that sells the crops to the local populace.

  It was a great project, anyways…

  Now, there’s a charred tractor lying on its side at the border of the cornfield. It’s just another reminder of the new world in which I find myself in. I spy Hope in the backseat. Her presence confirms the newness of the world around me.

  Halfway down Stribling, the two-lane road banks north. There, a three-way roundabout was built a few years back to help with the growing traffic and unusually high accident rate for the quiet area. The wreck wasn’t because of there being a three-way with no traffic signals either. It’s usually the people in the area that don’t know how to follow basic traffic safety.

  Here, it’s easy. I’ll show you… When there’s a stop sign, you fucking stop! Or God forbid someone actually yields if there’s a yield sign present.

  Not surprisingly, there’s an SUV in the center of the roundabout. It must’ve been going too fast and hit the curb and gone airborne. Now, it’s wedged nose down in a dense patch of shrubs and low growing palms. The car’s owners are nowhere in sight either.

  As we circle around the wreck, I notice that the windshield is blown out. Drawing a straight line from the SUV to the road ahead, I spot the driver, who is face down on the pavement. He/she was thrown from the moving vehicle when it was jarred to a stop.

  I don’t stare long enough to discern the sex of the dead.

  With Stribling being mostly empty, I gun the engine and feel the power of the souped-up Jeep. The vehicle’s owner went to great lengths to enhance this thing’s performance. Granted, I’m only going 40mph, but with as slow as we’ve been moving so far, it feels like twice that.

  Unfortunately, it only lasts a few seconds. The intersection at Stribling and Forest Hill looms ahead, and it’s not as clear as I’d like it to be. A triple T-bone accident marks the center of the T-shaped juncture. Stribling dead ends here for what it’s worth.

  Stribling’s southbound—wrong way—lane is clear, and I use it. Then, I carefully navigate the Z-like accident. The middle one took it in either end, one hitting them in the left-rear quarter panel and the other slamming into their right-front quarter panel. I know it’s a lot to ask for in a crisis like this, but if they had only used a little more caution…

  Stop it, Frank. You would’ve freaked out too.

  I wasn’t out in the world when it initially happened. I had the luxury of watching it from the safety of my bedroom. I still can’t get over the first time I witnessed one of them change. Even now, I have goosebumps thinking about it.

  “You okay?” Jill’s hand finds my knee.

  “Huh?” I glance over to her and see the worry on her face. “Oh, yeah… Just thinking, you know?”

  She pats my leg and looks out her window. “Yeah, I know.”

  Back on Forest Hill, and continuing west, we pass the Wellington library. A friend of mine used to work in the children’s department. Regrettably, she passed away when she was thirty due to a sudden and fatal aneurysm. Heather was the closest thing I had to a sister growing up. Even after almost a decade, I still miss her terribly.

  Jill’s fingers tighten on my leg when she sees the library. She was close with Heather too.

  After another half mile, Forest Hill begins its trek north, bending with the terrain. Just beyond the center of that curve to the north is our parents’ neighborhood.

  Nottingham Estates.

  I’ve always gotten a kick out of living in a place called that. Everyone knows Nottingham from the Robin Hood tales—and, of course, its sheriff. Alan Rickman was the best. We moved to Nottingham when I was in high school, relocating from another neighborhood within the city. The head of security at the time, Bert, was known as the “Sheriff of Nottingham” to those of us that resided within the gated community. Bert still holds the same office to this day.

  I slow and make the right onto the property, seeing Nottingham’s guard gate just ahead. The guest entrance is clear, but the resident gate is still closed…sort of. Two cars, a Mercedes and a BMW, have wedged themselves tightly, keeping the automatic gate from closing. Now, it's opening and closing, repeatedly bonking the passenger side of one of the vehicles.

  While clear of debris, the visitor’s entry gate will have to be opened from inside the guard shack. It was Bert’s post for all these years. Stopping next to his sliding glass door, I put the Jeep in park, check my surroundings, and climb out.

  I smile when I see a familiar handwritten note taped to the inside of the glass. Over the years, Bert would routinely place a sign on the slider when he had to use the restroom.

  It reads, “GUARD IN RESTROOM.”

  But my smile fades when I see a pool of blood originating from inside the bathroom. My shoulders sag as I move closer and see a foot. The owner’s leg is mostly out of view, as is his body. Quietly, I slide open the door, reach inside, and depress the gate button on the inside of the wall to my left. For just a moment, I wonder whether I should check to see if it’s Bert’s body. The other side of the shack is destroyed, giving me a glimpse of how the attacker had gotten ins
ide.

  Like the slider I’m using, there’s also another on of the “exit side” of Nottingham’s only entrance or exit. The glass is no more. Bert probably tried to hide in the bathroom but didn’t make it in time.

  With respect to Bert, I slide the door shut and turn away. Jill is staring at me through the Jeep’s side window. All I can do is softly shake my head.

  Jill reacts by shifting in her seat and facing forward. She doesn’t weep or even shout in anger. Jill does nothing because there’s nothing that can be done. And I feel the exact same way. Solemnly, I climb back into the running vehicle, and shift it into drive and pull away. A stop sign unconsciously pauses my progress, making me act like everything is hunky-dory.

  I grit my teeth, wishing I could punch Abaddon in the face.

  In front of us is the clubhouse, which has a panel van parked inside its front door. It is a straight shot from the gates to the front door, something I could see happening if a person’s ability to drive a car was compromised.

  Say, like, ripping out one’s eyes?

  My own eyes shift away from the van, and onto my rearview mirror. I watch the visitor’s gate slowly swing shut as if it was a period at the end of a sentence—the sentence being Bert’s agonizing death. This leg of our journey is complete, but unfortunately, it isn't the final leg.

  I guide us left onto the circuitous road, Nottingham Trail, and make for the rear of the community. The road is one four-mile-long path that encompasses the interior of the neighborhood.

  The only other roads here are the twenty-six, alphabetical streets that hold the community’s homes. The streets themselves all continue inward toward the center of the large, circle-shaped property. And behind every house, and at the middle of the neighborhood, for that matter, is water. From the air, the place looks like a giant wheel with twenty-six spokes.

  Connecting all the residential roads are bridges. Each one attaches to the next and then the next and then the next. My father walks them every single morning, rain or shine. As a kid, we always used to joke that he could run circles around those twenty years younger than him. The joke was a reality for the most part. Even now, Dad stays in incredible shape for a man in his late-sixties that doesn’t go to the gym.