Moonbeam
By William P. Lazarus
Copyright 2015
Shortly after Adam Palmer held a small revolver to his head,
the Moon told him to stop.
Palmer
distinctly heard the Moon speak to him. It
spoke in a pleasant, almost kindly, yet firm voice. He had often talked to the Moon, telling it
how pretty it was. He even had a framed
image of a gaudy Aztec moon goddess hanging in his Findlay, Ohio
apartment. This was the first time the
Moon actually spoke back.
He placed the gun on an end table and stared through the
open window.
“Why?” he asked.
“Not now,” the Moon told him.
Palmer thought about the comment for a moment. Why not? Searing heat had frazzled electric
lines. No one in the country had any
electricity except for people with portable generators, and they provided
little relief from the soaring temperatures.
Residents along the coasts could go in the ocean, but dead fish floating
in on the tides had thoroughly befouled the beaches. Dead bodies only added to the pollution.
Rising water from melting ice had swamped coastal
communities anyway. Palmer was far
enough inland in Ohio to escape, but lacked fresh water. Lake Erie was too far north and supposedly
had been seized by a small army headed by a self-styled king. At least, that’s why a stranger said last
week while en route to southern Ohio.
The stranger had not stayed.
There was nothing in Findlay anyone wanted.
There certainly wasn’t any food. Refrigeration was a memory, leading to
anarchy in former grocery stores and restaurants. Pets were either released or devoured. Palmer’s cat, Tinkerbell, now was foraging in
the bushes outside the apartment house.
At first, it scratched to come in at night, but Palmer resisted. He didn’t want to share the cat food. Now that his larder was depleted, it didn’t
matter. Tinkerbell brought him a small
anole last week. He ate it gratefully
and had not eaten since.
Finally, Palmer walked outside his apartment. The hallway of the apartment house was
littered with debris. No one was going
to pick up the discarded clothes, books and other flotsam of civilization. Someone had bashed a hole in a wall. Exposed
wires dangled harmlessly. The stench of
death lingered everywhere. Otherwise,
there was only quiet.
Palmer knocked on the apartment of the older woman who lived
next door. Mrs. Huddleston had
essentially barricaded herself inside with her pet Chihuahua named Precious. Palmer had talked to her maybe once or twice
since chaos had descended two months ago.
He had not tried in a week. Mrs.
Huddleston always kept a pantry full of food and so was well prepared when the
power vanished. However, as Palmer well
knew, the food supply would run out eventually.
No one answered his knock.
Mrs. Huddleston usually quavered a hello, and he would identify
himself. She trusted him, but no one
else. They would talk briefly, mostly
lying about their condition.
He knocked again. The
rap echoed down the hallway and faded away.
Finally, Palmer lowered his shoulder and rammed it into the wood. The door shuddered. Then, weakened by the high temperatures, it
simply fractured. The doors were cheap
anyway. The residents in the apartment
house used to joke that the locks kept the doors upright. This time, the chain held only a small part
of the wood. The rest splintered with
large cracks creating a jigsaw pattern.
Palmer reached in and unhooked the chain. The door fell open. He
heard a strange, vicious growl. Precious
looked up at him with fury on its face.
It was next to Mrs. Huddleston’s inert body. The dog did not charge Palmer, but simply
issue warnings that rumbled up its small throat. Mrs. Huddleston had refused to leave her
apartment, fearful that someone might grab her beloved pet and eat it. Now, Palmer could see, the dog was
reciprocating. It had flecks of meat
dangling from its mouth. As Palmer
watched, the dog bit into Mrs. Huddleston again.
Palmer backed out.
That meal would only last so long.
He walked downstairs.
Few people were out. They were
all gaunt skeletons. Someone had started
a fire and was burning something. A
strange aroma had drawn a few scraggly, famished souls from various
shelters. Standing in the darkness of
night, they gathered around the fire, hoping for a morsel.
An historian, Palmer knew what was happening. He thought of ancient sieges where desperate
people ate other humans, where mothers put their own children in the fire. Few would survive this siege to tell such
stories.
Silently, his stomach aching, he slowly went back to his
apartment. He did not bother to close
the door. He picked up his gun and
walked to his window. The Moon turned
its full face toward him.
“Now,” the Moon said.
