Chapter 2 of Under A Killing Moon

<- Welling Up | Waking Dreams ->

Earlier: Michael

Dewhurst Library. A relic of a dream of a brighter and better city. Like many others, Michael found it somewhere to stay relatively warm and dry without having to justify his existence or pay for the privilege. He spent the afternoon in the reading room, leafing through a few books that caught his interest to kill time until the alarm went and it was time to head to work. He tried not to watch the clock, that bred anxiety and ate the little time he had to himself, but he couldn’t help himself. Ten minutes left, just enough time to finish the chapter. The guy on the next table over checked his watch. Then the girl on the other side. Then the people beyond them, and the ones beyond them, radiating out like a wave of anxious clock-watching until it filled the room and they all turned as one to stare at Michael. He slunk down, buried his head in the book and pretended not to see it, and when he glanced again the room was as it was before. No stares, only the uneasy memory of dozens of eyes boring into his soul. The alarm could not go off quick enough, and he headed to work with his head down.

It was sometime after midnight when Michael got out of Oasis. The bar was still open but the crowd was thin due to the season and management decided to reduce costs by cutting hours from surplus staff. That suited him fine. The incident at the library had left him on edge and he had felt eyes on him all night. He needed to clear his head and decided on some retributive violence against the system. With spray paint and collapsible baton in hand, he started on a circuitous walk to psyche himself up and to approach the parking lot by a different direction. Halfway there, he heard a scream and saw a junkie attacking a doctor. His grip on the baton tightened. Maybe it wouldn’t be glass getting broken tonight…

Earlier: Jerome

A few hours after sunset Jerome made his way from the Fixit Shop to the club. He headed for an inconspicuous basement doorway tucked between a payday loan shop and a palm reader on Franklin street, a sign on the door read “Chakri Herbery, Authentic Thai Remedies” under a logo of a golden disc. Jerome greeted and was ignored by the guys behind the counter as he walked past the displays of herbal supplements and through an unmarked door. Down a flight of well-worn stairs was the gym, racks of weights and equipment sitting against bare brick walls with the fighting ring sitting at the heart of it all. He tried to keep to his usual corner and work through his reps out of the way of the more serious types, but Mr King laid an arm on his shoulder and smiled in a way that brooked no argument. Reps and working punchbags could only go so far, it was time to get into the ring.

Jerome found himself set up against one of the meatheads, a tanned heavyweight with frosted tips called Chet who insisted the swastika on his shoulder was a manji. The fight went better than he expected, blocking his opponent’s attacks and hesitant to strike back until something caught his eye. Among the dozen people watching the fight was someone Jerome had never seen before – an older man with steel-grey hair and black eyes, dressed in a grey tracksuit with creases so sharp it seemed to have been ironed. He was milling about the crowd, moving through it without noticing the existence of anyone else, unblinking black eyes set on the fight. On Jerome.

Chet took advantage of Jerome’s distraction to get around his guard. Jerome instinctively slipped around the strike and retaliated with a fierce strike that sent Chet sprawling and shook himself out of the daze. He froze, realised what he had done and immediately tried to apologise. Chet ignored him and instead laid into Jerome with a chain of powerful blows. The last thing Jerome saw before his head hit the mat was the black-eyed man leering close to the ring, lips split into a wide grin that showed far too many teeth.

Mr King helped Jerome to his feet, checking him over to make sure nothing was broken and chiding him only a little for letting his guard down. Good hit, mĕe, do that more often… Of Chet or the black-eyed man, there was no sign. Jerome spent another hour at the club trying to burn off the adrenaline, but no matter what he did he could not wind down. He was still wired when he got home and decided to take a run to try to try and clear his head. And there he heard the altercation

Choosing Violence

Ethan was trying in vain to flee from the man whose teeth were closed about the meat of his forearm. A cry of “what the fuck, Jacob?!” came from an alleyway he had passed earlier. Anabell, who had been tracking her friend down to give him another dose and keep him from going cold turkey, had just seen him go for Ethan like a starving man for a steak. Most of the few other people on the street were keeping their distance, better to not get involved and who knew what diseases the junkie was carrying. But not all of them. Michael tightened his grip on his collapsible baton and steeled himself to mete out furious anger, but before he could do so chaos ensued.

Anabell crossed the road at a sprint and slammed into Jacob to the sound of a scream that she didn’t even realise was coming from her own throat. He shuddered back from the impact and she froze, she had been aiming just to separate him from the doctor, she thought she had been… Taking advantage of this moment of confusion, Jacob wheeled around and turned on Anabell, eyes like pinpricks, Ethan’s blood about his mouth and flecks of skin and muscle between his crooked teeth. Before she could react, he launched himself at her, spindly hands closing about her like a vice and his teeth digging into her flesh.

Jerome saw all this from half a block away and dithered until the urge to act overcame his learned instincts to not get involved. He tried to get between the brawlers and separate them just as Michael moved to strike Jacob. In the chaos, Michael’s baton was knocked from his grip and Jerome took an elbow to the temple, sending him staggering back in pain. Anabell tried to wrench herself free from Jacob’s iron grip to no avail, as he started to drag her with him toward an alleyway, aware he was outnumbered. In between the sharp mumbles of hungry and cold was an alien word that rumbled like a growl deep in his throat: “uu-raa-tha”

Michael grasped for a weapon and found one of his cans of paint, which he promptly turned on Jacob as improvised bear spray. Half-blind and choking on paint, Jacob staggered on still. He dragged Anabell into the alleyway one-handed, feeling and flailing his way to a door which he wrenched open with a squeal of half-rusted metal.

Throughout all this, Ethan had been struggling to find his feet and his phone, the 911 operator still on the line trying to get someone to answer to him. He tried to explain what had happened, slipping into cold medical professionalism to bury his terror, and demanded police and EMTs as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Jerome and Michael decided to take matters into their own hands to stop this before Anabell was dragged into a dark fate long before the BCPD arrived. They succeeded, far more so than they intended. Michael had scooped a bottle from the alleyway and intended to break it over Jacob’s head, and instead drove the broken end of it into his ribcage with a wet, tearing sound. A moment later, Jerome’s kick, intended simply to knock Jacob’s legs out from under him, shattered his knee with a sickening snap. A keening, inhuman wail rose from Jacob and he released Anabell, half-falling, half-staggering into the darkness of the open door.

Into the Dark

Silence fell on the alleyway. Uneasy looks were shared. Jerome stared at the ground, muttering how he never meant to do that. Michael simply crumpled to his knees, gorge rising in his throat and spattering onto the cold concrete. Anabell was the first to speak, insisting she was going in there to get her friend back as she dusted herself off and tied her sleeve tight over the wound that friend had left in her. Ethan tried to fuss, insisted they should wait for the police and EMTs and, when that failed, buried fear with professionalism. He ordered Jerome to keep an eye on Michael and followed Anabell through the door into the dark. Jacob had been his patient…

Jerome lingered uncertainly in the alleyway, not sure what he could do for Michael who had by now gotten himself together and was wavering on the edge of retreat. He fell back on nervous politeness, introduced himself and following the others into the dark. Michael followed soon after, unsettled by something he had seen in Jerome’s eyes but not wanting to be left alone in the gloom of the alley.

The door lead into the back rooms of a goodwill shop, obviously long abandoned. Half-empty shelves and racks of unwanted clothing hung hung in a dust-filled gloom, lit only by the city lights filtering through a filthy skylight. Yet it was enough to see a trail of blood spatter, disturbed dust and boxes shoved aside leading to another door. Beyond were stairs leading down into a darkness rich with the smells of vermin and mouldering cloth. The four argued, Ethan insisting that Jerome and Michael stay there but no-one was convinced safety, preferring the safety of numbers as they proceeded down into the basement.

Down the stairs was a basement storeroom, half-filled with lumpen sacks each large enough to hold a human torso. Several had split open, gnawed edges revealing clothing and the cold glint of verminous eyes. The faint city lights could not reach far and they resorted to torches – Ethan’s examination torch and something jury-rigged that Jerome had been tinkering with. Under those faint lights shadows revealed themselves to be clusters of roaches that fled for darker corners. The trail of blood led to another door lay on the far wall, paint peeling from old, half-rotten wood, and slightly ajar.

Beyond this older door lay more stairs, much older and bowed with age and decay. Anabell cautioned the others to take care, this looked like an entry to the Vaults and such places were dangerous to the unwary. With that said, she started down them, stepping light and fast with a practiced mix of haste and caution. The stairs clung tenaciously to a stone wall and lead down into a cavernous expanse, vast enough that they could hear their own voices echoing and their puny torches could not see the walls.

At the bottom was a stone floor, unfinished and rawly cut with chisel marks still visible in places, and a broad pair of double doors like those of a storm cellar set in the floor, thrown wide to expose narrow stone stairs. The stairs delved even deeper, down a narrow defile half-choked with leprous white roots and rhizomes protruding from the raw stone. And at the bottom lay Jacob, twisted and broken and dead. The body was grotesque, limbs rendered multi-jointed by sharp breaks and flesh shorn to expose bone, his ribs splayed out like jagged cannibal teeth, and yet his eyes were still open, pupils pinpricks against an unseen dreadful light.

Rising Consequence

Sounds far above dragged them from their stunned silence at the dreadful sight. It seemed the right thing to not be caught in this unpleasant place by someone else, so they begin to make their way back up the stairs, wordless and anxious. Ethan lingered until last, waiting until alone to close Jacob’s eyes and allow himself to show a moment of emotion. By the time the group reach the basement filled with sacks of clothing, the sounds above have become a voice “Blackmouth PD. Anyone in here?”

Ethan shouted up to the cop without a second thought. Michael and Anabell dived to cover, hiding amidst the sacks and rags and vermin, while Jerome stalled, unsure. The cop came down the stairs slow, cautious, flashlight out in one hand with his other resting above his pistol. He swept the room, seeing only the Ethan and Jerome before freezing at the sight of something behind them. Where the door leading down into the cavern had been is a blank wall with Jacob’s mangled, ruined form nailed to it…

Backup was called in and Jerome and Ethan were checked over by the EMTs. jerome was in shock, mumbling questions to himself about how the body could have moved. More innured to shock, or perhaps more able to suppress himself, Ethan began to give a preliminary statement to the patrol officers, delivered with just enough theatrics and volume to distract them from Michael and Anabell sneaking out into the night.

Two detectives arrived before forensics. Whitfield, a serious and intense man who seemed to know the patrol officer who found Ethan and Michael in the basement, and Matthis, an older, more worn man who arrived a few minutes later. They moved to a safe distance, well out of earshot, yet Ethan found himself able to pick up snippets of their conversation. Whitfield wanted to know what had happened to his CI, Matthis promised he would be the first to know but to not go pushing his way into other people’s cases again, especially outside his department.

Matthis talked to Ethan and Jerome to try and get some more information. Ethan stuck to the story that he had spun to the patrol officer, that he had been attacked by Jacob and Jerome had helped him, Jacob had fled into the derelict shop and he wanted to try and help him because he had treated him at the ER earlier that night and he felt he had a duty of care. Jerome was a different story, still in shock he mentioned details that Ethan had not, like Anabell and Michael, though he did not know their names.

Later that morning, after Ethan and Jerome have been finally allowed to go, after forensics have come to take their photos and while plans were being made to remove the body, something began to stir in the basement. First one rat, then two, then a dozen, then a hundred, all look at what has been wrought, staring at the twisted corpse with bright, cold eyes.

People Appearing (in order of appearance)

  • Michael O’Connell – Unsettled by being watched.
  • Jerome Gévoudan – More capable of violence than he thought.
  • Mr King (first appearance) – Pleased with Jerome’s prowess.
  • Chet (first appearance) – Less pleased with Jerome’s prowess.
  • The man in a grey tracksuit – Enjoyed the sight of Jerome and Chet’s fight.
  • Jacob (death) – Struggled violently, died unnaturally.
  • Ethan Clarke – Did what he thought was the right thing.
  • Anabell McCullogh – Tried to do right by a friend.
  • Officer Jiménez (first appearance) – Shocked by discoveries.
  • Det. Whitfield (first appearance) – Interested in Jacob’s death.
  • Det. Matthis (first appearance) – Investigating and curious.

Locations

  • Dewhurst Library – struggling institution, barely hanging on.
  • Oasis – trendy nightclub in gentrified area west of Merritt.
  • Chakri’s – herbal supplement shop and private gym.
  • The streets of Merritt
  • Abandoned Goodwill shop
  • The Blackmouth Vaults