Chapter 26
“Mooooon…” a voice crooned from behind the heavy door. The heavy thumping had stopped a few hours ago, but now there was an intermittent scratching. And a voice. “Moooon.” It called again in an almost melodic voice. Smooth, but somehow wrong as if it were coming from two sets of throats. “Let us in Moon.” Giving a peak above his desk Moon held the gun right next to his temple, wavering, finger not even on the trigger. “Shut up.” He said. “Let us in Moon and we’ll save you, we’ll save you from all the others, from all the darkness and death.” “Horse shit.” Moon said. A few gunshots rang out muffled behind the heavy door. Then a familiar voice rattled him, Richard called from the other side of the door “Moon! You’ve gotta open up! Help me! ” “Where the hell have you been?!” Moon screamed raising above his desk veins standing out in his neck and spit flying from his lips dotting the papers on his desktop. “I’ll tell you in a minute but you gotta let me in! there’s a lot of shit you don’t know!” Moon stood up and walked over to the door. “Richard, where the hell you been?” “Danny double crossed us and tried to take me out. He had that little prick Stephen convinced I was the thief and they jumped me, but they didn’t finish the job! Now let me in before something out here does!” Moon pressed his had hard against the door, then pressed the release button letting it open with a clunk and a hiss. Opening the door Richard was standing there covered in dirt. He stumbled inside the room and Moon sealed the door. Turning back Moon asked “What the hell is going on?!” “Why don’t you tell me?” Richard asked. Moon looked down and thought for a second. “WE found the scum bag who stole the merchandise. Finally after all the blood spilt ad bones broke it was an outsider. No one knew him. He let the whole story go, then he said something, something strange some kind of spell, and all this blackness just poured out of him. He said he was a monk.” “That’s right.” Richard said. “He lost someone and blew his fuse. He opened up a gateway like we saw in Iran. That’s what those creatures are out there.” Moving over to the sink he began to wash his face. “They go down pretty easy with bullets. They’re not made of flesh and bone, more like smoke and soot. When you puncture them it leaves wispy trails and they kind of… deflate… and decay… “ “But they’re not just smoke.” Moon said. “I heard them pounding on this door like a two hundred pound battering ram.” “No,” Richard said, “They’re not just smoke. They’re solid too. More than that, I think in their natural form they’re soft, changing shape. Have you ever seen an octopus fit through a small hole? That’s because they have no bones, so they can fit their entire body through a hole the size of their beak. That’s what these things are. No bones, no true form, just what they assume. But the damndest thing about it, sometimes they take forms I know. Familiar shapes. If I can hear them before I see them, whatever I imagine them to be, they become. Every time.” Looking down he said “This is some kind of nightmare we started when we brought those things back from Iran. Those globes.” He paused “Those souls.” “The magician.” Moon replied “He knew this would happen, this is his damned fault. IF he hadn’t offed himself I would kill him. He must’ve known this was coming.” He laughed a bit, “Coward.” Leaning back in his chair he said “So what now? Can’t stay here forever. You got a car out there?” “Cars are no good, anything in the street gets taken. The buildings aren’t much good either, anything alive drew them, so now all the apartment buildings are infested. By the time I made it here, I was out of ammo, out of breathe, nearly out of flesh.” He pulled up his sleeve. Down his forearm he had an open sore that ran don and wrapped around like a tentacle. “One of those things grabbed me and did this.” Moon held up his pistol. I’ve got another one in the des, shotgun in the closet,” he pulled open his desk drawer and sitting there was a grenade. “And that.” They both just stared at it. “Well, if the buildings and the streets are all unsafe, I guess we could go below the building and the streets.” “The sewer?” moon said “You expect me to go moshing through some sewer.” “Unless you have a better idea.” “No better idea.” Moon said. “One question though, how do you expect to get to the sewer. From what I hear out there it sounds pretty crowded.” They both listened to the sounds outside the door the scratching and very faintly the gnawing sound. Giving way to a sense of panic Richard walked over to the desk, pulled the drawer, grabbed the grenade, went over to the bathroom moon had in the back pulled the pin and flushed it down the toilet. “YOU lost your damn mind?!” Moon asked. Richard pushed him over and behind the bathroom door just as a huge explosion shook the small room. Moon looked up as the smoke cleared and saw a gaping hole where his bathroom used to be. Richard looked up, then looked at Moon and smiled. “You said you had a shotgun in the closet?”
