Kenneth Calhoun - Black Moon

She was able to kick him away when he became violent. His head hit the wall and he realized what he was doing. He quickly gathered up his clothes and fled. They didn’t see each other much after that, until she met with him to tell him it was over, even though it crushed him.

Both of us, she thought.

FELICIA knew she couldn’t take the freeway. Bodies of jumpers were there, piled in the shadows of the overpasses.

They passed through the cluttered surface streets, sometimes swerving onto sidewalks, over lawns, as they moved through the mess. She decided she wanted to look for Lila one last time.

She pulled up to the house where they had stayed the night. The gate groaned as she passed through and entered the house for a quick search. Still no sign of the kid. She called for her up and down the street and, back behind the wheel, she dared to honk the horn. This excited Chase, who shouted, “The sheep will not come back!”

When a couple of men appeared at the end of the street, staggering toward them, Felicia drove slowly in their direction. The sun was going down and she reluctantly turned on her headlights, begrudgingly acknowledging that time was running out. Only a couple more hours until the implant put her under. The men watched her glide past and she scanned them in return, searching for any sign of Lila. They were pretty far gone, twitching faces, murmuring mouths. They peered in, maybe astonished to see the lucid look in her eyes, the steadiness of her hands. Frowning now, so Felicia kept going, thinking there was nothing more to do. She told Chase this with a sudden sob. It hit like a sneeze. She wiped back the tears and drove on.

She told Chase about Lila as she worked her way slowly out of the labyrinth of obstructed roads and tangled housing developments. Progress was slow. She wished the clock in the car worked, but guessed that she had only another hour before downtime hit. She eventually found her way to a highway through the chaparral. Here Felicia could actually pick up some speed, rushing along under the low ceiling of stars.

Then, in the headlights, she saw what appeared to be a building in the road. As she closed on it, she saw that it was a bus, spilled on its side, blocking both lanes.

She tried to ease around it, but there was not enough shoulder. They’d have to turn around, backtrack to an intersection several miles back. She knew now that she needed to pull over. It was because I waited so long for Lila, she knew.

THE car sat at the end of a street for a neighborhood that was never built. There were only the roads and wooden stakes in the dirt, marking off imaginary homes.

She had decided that she would stay in the car with Chase. In the backseat, rather than out in the weeds. She recalled the soft thump of snakes on the road from the night before, the roaming packs of dogs.

Chase didn’t resist the chain.

Felicia looped it around his hands and then around his body and the car seat. She kept pulling it tight, taking up the slack, as he talked into her hair, breathing indecipherable words onto her neck. It was a long chain. She wrapped it around his waist and the car seat a few times. She looped it around his thighs, and as she did this she noticed that he had become aroused.

Felicia looked up at him and saw that he was there, present, his eyes sad and heavy, his face contorted, pained, and she held him, kissing his forehead. “We just need to get through tonight,” she told him. “Tomorrow I’ll take you to people who can help.”

He tried to raise his arms—to hold her, she thought—but they were chained down. He thrashed.

“Chase! Don’t. Just sit still.”

His face started flashing through emotions, like the woman she saw earlier on the street, as he strained against the chains.

She couldn’t watch it. It was like his face was flashing every moment of his life.

Felicia fled to the backseat, her hands shaking. It must be close to ten, she thought. She sat directly behind him, talking to him. Trying to soothe him.

The car shuddered as he rocked side to side. He shouted nonsense and groaned. It was like a child’s tantrum, or seizure.

The chain bit into the back of the seat.

Felicia covered her ears, clamped her eyes. His rage seemed to peak. She glanced up and noticed that in her struggle to secure him, she must have knocked the rearview mirror askew. Should she straighten it? She couldn’t have him seeing her sleep. He would kill himself trying to get to her.

But she could hit downtime any minute now. Any second, even.

So she sat wondering, eyes darting to the mirror, to the broken clock.

Damn it.

She jumped up and squeezed between the front seats, reaching for the mirror.

Then nothing.

THEY USED GLASS BRICKS THAT WERE stacked by the pool to shatter the sliding door. Shards exploded inward. The sound alone threw Biggs from the bed as the blinds slats swung and twirled wildly and morning light flashed around the room. They came charging in, howling with rage: mostly children, a couple of adults. Some kind of roving pack. They must have seen him through the blinds, which he had opened to let in the evening light and then neglected to close. Maybe summoned by his snores, they had peered through the glass and spotted him crashed out on the bed—a sleeper.

There were already four in the room, and more pushing in from outside, by the time he had gotten to his feet. Their screams were piercing as they entered the small, hard space. They stumbled over the books and clutter, some falling to their hands and knees. Small kids, maybe five, seven years old. One looked like a toddler. They were followed by two men, eyes wide with a kind of warped astonishment. A woman in a hospital gown too. All animated by an unnatural fury.

Dazed, disoriented by the pills he had taken, Biggs lifted the mattress as a barrier. They kept coming, red-eyed and shrieking. They had seen him sleeping—due to his drug-induced carelessness—and they would not be deterred. He threw the mattress over them, pinning some underneath and giving him the few seconds he needed to make it to the door. Others stomped over the mattress and those underneath it, reaching for him.

His only escape option was to push through them, plow past the shattered sliding door, and run toward the pool, groggy from painkillers. As he neared it, the howling pack came rushing after him. He ran along the tiled deck, putting the pool between them. One or two children toppled into the dark water.

Others came around the pool, trying to cut him off at the far end, but he beat them by a few steps. He scooped up a metal deck chair and swung it behind him, letting it fly at the oncoming adults. He made it to the gate and kicked it open. It swung wide, wobbling on its hinges, then slammed into the vine-covered wall, smashing hibiscus blooms. He charged down the side yard, running along the oleander hedgerow and out onto the street. His movement was automated, instinctual. Pure flight.

He had his locks in his cargo pants pockets. They were banging hard against his legs as he ran. Something else, too, a plastic rattle. The bottle of pills, he recalled, stuffed in his pocket the night before.

They were painkillers, right? He had taken a couple, to numb him to a terrible notion. An idea that had gotten into his head that he could not shake.

Oh, Carolyn. What?

There were a couple of ways to interpret the clues, but both scenarios made him feel very far from knowing her. She had, it seemed, for a few weeks at least, carried life inside her. But it had ended, either by her choice or naturally. And she had said nothing to him about it. Not a word. She had escaped to the cave of her childhood room, had attempted to heal there, or at least to paint over the damage.