Heartbeat (Morta Fox Book 1) Read online

  HEARTBEAT

  Morta Fox #1

  D.N. HOXA

  Copyright © 2016 by D.N. Hoxa

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  I

  The sound of silence was heavy, especially up on the top floor of the Howling Building. Shadows moved—real, or just a figment of my imagination—like they always did. And I watched them, afraid to even let my breath come out with a sound, no matter how small, like I always did. The feeling of being watched was always there, settling in the pit of my stomach, the second the moon took on the dark sky. I sat and waited for whatever it was, all by myself, swallowing the fear that turned into a ball in my throat.

  When it got too much, I sometimes pretended I was with someone up there. Anyone. A friend.

  What an illusion. No one wanted to talk to me. I was a freak. I’d been a freak among the normal. And I continued to be among the homeless and the junkies in the streets.

  I would have made my mother proud.

  So, alone I stood, and alone I looked at the darkness ahead. At what was left of the city of Boston. There wasn’t much. The Massachusetts Bay stretched forward, as dark as the sky. I could see all of it, yet there was nothing to see.

  I was in the Howling Building, at least fifty feet above ground. It used to be a church. It still had some pieces of colorful glass left in the corners of the broken windows. That, and the golden cross on top of it, were the only indicators of it once being a house of God.

  It took its new name after the explosion, when it became home for dogs who would howl all night and day. Until the ROB killed them all. Pity, since they harmed no one. But lucky for me, the building became my shelter.

  When I got bored, I jumped off the window and made it all the way up to the round roof. I wrapped my arm around the golden cross at the top of the building to make sure I wouldn’t fall. I took out my pack of cigarettes and my match, and inhaled deeply. The smoke moved and spread in my mouth, on every surface and every crack of my teeth, then went down to my throat. I loved how it killed me. Slowly. Painlessly. I loved the taste of it.

  Up there, I could even say a word every once in a while without fearing that someone would hear me.

  The ROB Wall of Protection stood proud in front of me, making it impossible to see the streets on the other side. Protection. What a joke. As if they didn’t know that there were still people on the other side of it who needed their protection, too. As if they didn’t know that people starved, every single day on this side of the wall, while they threw leftovers away.

  Ever since the explosion almost twenty years ago, when the Renewed Order of Boston was created, things only got worse. I didn’t remember much of the world before. I was three at the time and lucky enough to have been living in Boston, the only city on earth where bombs didn’t go off. Well, at least the better part of it.

  After that, the ROB created the “safe” circle, and built a wall around it, isolating the parts of the city that still worked from the rest of what was left after the explosions.

  No one knew what caused them. They went off everywhere, and all at once. Some mountains and unpopulated areas were still intact, but no one dared to move from fear of what was out there. I guessed that was why I’d never moved, either.

  I used to live on the inside of the wall until two years ago. I had a mother and two older sisters. My mother was a prostitute, or escort, the way she liked to be called. Escort, because she only fucked the wealthy. The powerful. Prostitutes didn’t care who it was as long as they got a little money out of it. What a perfect logic.

  She was dating the mayor of Boston at the time of the explosions, hence the house in the very center of the city, and away from all the mayhem across the world.

  My two sisters, Harley and Jessica, were the jewels in her crown, perfect in every way, just like my mother. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. Hair a light golden brown, eyes big and green, face heart-shaped, skin flawless. No wonder every man lusted after her. No wonder all three of us had different fathers. I, too, like Jessica, looked just like her, except for the hair. Harley was just as beautiful, but she was not like my mother. She was lucky; I always envied her.

  My hair was a shade lighter in color than that of my mother, and the only thing I liked about myself. The only thing that reminded me that I wasn’t completely hers. I was someone else’s, too. She played her games so masterfully that everyone we’d ever come across loved her. Respected her. A single mother of three girls. What a hard, hard life. Poor her.

  She was everything but poor. I hated her. I hated every second of living with her. I hated her as much as she hated me. And she did hate me from the second I was born.

  One night, after fighting with her like I usually did, I ran to my room, crying, and took off out the window. She didn’t know that I’d picked the lock of the bars she’d mounted outside it long ago. I sneaked out, kept my hood drawn, feeling as pathetic and as alone as ever.

  Two hours later, I came back to find the house torched. ROB soldiers everywhere with guns and masks and expressionless faces. I hid behind the cars and the bushes, and got close enough to hear them speak. Apparently, someone had gone inside, had killed the owner and her three daughters, and had set the house on fire with an explosion. They figured it was thieves. Someone from the outside who’d somehow managed to get past the walls.

  I ran as fast as I could. I couldn’t go back. What would I go back to? I was always alone anyway, so it wasn't that hard.

  I threw my first cigarette butt from the top of the Howling Building and watched it fall down until I could see it no more. Norman’s voice echoed through the night. It was good to hear it. The bar, or the shithole that sold alcohol on the other side of the wall, kept people there all night, and occasionally, Norm, the owner, threw someone out in the streets. He didn’t want trouble in his joint. The man had been a doctor before the explosion, or so they said. Now, he was left with nothing but that place and a bad breath of stinking alcohol.

  A long time passed before I heard another sound—a noise that came from below me, and this time, it wasn’t Norman. I leaned as far as my position would let me without falling. I saw the shadows again, which was a bit strange. I’d never seen them in that time before, never so close to dawn.

  I kept looking and followed the movement, until I heard something crack. Right after that came a scream, but muffled, as if whoever was trying to scream had something in his mouth. Adrenaline pumped the blood to my heart, which was already pounding in my chest and ears. Without so much as another thought, I started to crawl back from the roof and inside the broken window.

  I was as silent as always, not a sound made from my movements, a trick I’d practiced since I was five to escape my mother’s wrath. I became a professional in no time. I desce
nded the stairs, heart in my throat, not enough air in my lungs, my body freezing cold. Something was wrong down there. Nobody killed anybody on this side of the wall. Not unless the ROB soldiers came out. I would’ve seen them if that had been the case. And the scream I’d heard was definitely a scream of someone hurting.

  I made it outside, shaking from head to toe. The cold air seemed heavier down there. Or maybe it was just my imagination. Maybe it was because my blood was all but frozen.

  Outside, I hid in the dark and behind the wooden and metal trash on the streets, leftovers from cars and shelves and a million other things. I stopped when I heard another sound, a whoosh in the silent air, something sliding down the concrete wall, a body falling to the ground. I didn’t know how I got my knives out of my pockets, but the next thing I knew was that I was jumping forward with all my strength, knives in hand, and chin quivering.

  A man was lying on the floor, right next to the wall. His chest glistened under the dim light of the moon. Like it was wet. And it was red.

  I was shaking with fear. Before I could go to him, movement caught my eyes. Fast as lightning, another man turned around the corner. That motherfucker had slit the man’s throat and killed him. I had no idea what I wanted to do about it, but I sure as hell didn’t expect him to stop and wait for me when I ran after him around the corner.

  He was tall, much taller than me, and considerably wider. His whole face glistened like it was covered in wet paint. Wet red paint.

  My gut turned.

  “W-w-who are you?” I managed to say, arms stretched in front of me defensively, knives in hand as if I would know what to do with them if I needed to.

  The man smiled a sickening smile.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Disbelief always made me grow balls for some reason. “You just killed a man and you’re smiling?”

  I took two more steps forward. My hands shook terribly. The metal of one of my knives reflected the light of the moon on his chest. He took a step backwards and hissed. Actually hissed, like a freaking snake.

  That made me braver, heated the ice in my veins somewhat, and I took another step forward. He had nowhere to go and I had cornered him. Now, what I would do with him, I had no idea, but he was going to pay.

  I took in a deep breath and prepared to call for help, when he stepped to the side and out of the shadow. Moonlight fell on his face and chest. My hands shook violently. I forgot how to breathe, and think, and move.

  His face was no human face. It was a monster’s.

  Teeth as big as my pinky fingers hung on his upper jaw, one on each side. The others were small, but pointy as well. His mouth was covered in blood. His eyes, gleaming, colorless spheres, felt like they were touching me with cold, sharp needles. He closed his mouth but the two teeth still hung outside his lips. His hair was long and shiny, one with his black leather jacket. He took another step to the side and fell into the shadows again.

  I wasn’t breathing. I was completely lost, nothing but my eyes moving. They followed his shadow as he climbed the wall behind him, too fast to be normal, and then disappeared from my sight.

  My knees gave and I fell on the dirty ground. Air came into my lungs in short, heavy gasps, and my vision blurred completely. I kept seeing those teeth in front of my eyes. His mouth looked almost like a piranha’s. I’d never been more scared in my life.

  What was that thing? Where did it come from? Were the movements I always saw in the shadows him? Or were there others like him?

  My head was a mess. I considered screaming. Screaming with everything I had in me, like I never did before. But what good would that do? How would I explain the dead man with the cut throat behind me? No, that wasn’t it.

  Anthony.

  All of a sudden, it was crystal clear. I had to get to Anthony.

  I scrambled to my feet and I slowly moved backwards, making too much noise. But I couldn’t control my feet. The fear had swallowed me whole. I trained my eyes on the space around me, on the darkness, and tried to not let them wander back to the dead man lying against the wall. He had his throat slit, but now I was sure that it wasn’t slit with a knife.

  I reached the main street, paranoid, scared, and very much shaking. I looked around for one last time, and then I ran.

  I kept jumping in place every time the image of the man came alive in front of my eyes. Less than a mile, and I would reach the wall. I just hoped that I could find the edges I’d used to climb down when I first crossed to the other side, two years ago.

  I never looked behind me. If I did, and I thought that I saw movement, I would freeze, and I needed to be unfrozen. I needed to be able to move and run.

  I reached the wall, the cold concrete as dead as the night under my fingertips. Only, it wasn’t night anymore. The sun was casting bright orange light around me. I hadn’t even noticed. I looked up and saw no broken concrete, nowhere to climb. I made my way west looking up, hoping to find the holes I knew were there. Good thing I was short and tiny, and I could easily support my weight and climb almost anywhere.

  Finally I saw them, the holes in the wall, made by those who had tried to break it but couldn’t. No one could break a four-foot thick concrete wall. Not anymore. I put my knives away in my pockets, and I prepared to climb without looking around. I couldn’t care less if someone saw me. I needed to get to Anthony and fast.

  He used to be my mother’s lover before she was killed. He had his family, sure, but no man could resist Mom’s charms. Once she set her eyes on someone, he was done. I always pitied them. She had a heart made of ice.

  Anthony was on the Director’s Board of ROB. If there was someone who could do something about this, it was him.

  I made it to the top in no time. I looked down and would have felt a little dizzy if I wasn't so freaked out. Fifteen stories high with nowhere to hold onto was high, even for my standards.

  Getting down would be the tricky part. I had to walk another ten steps to my right to find the holes on the other side of the wall to help me climb down. And when I did, I jumped to them, wasting no time to check. It was past dawn and people were going to be out soon. I didn’t think they’d appreciate someone from the other side trying to break into their precious safety zone.

  The problem was, I realized, that the holes had been covered almost halfway up the wall. I looked down, hanging on for dear life on the edges of the small, dirty holes, trying to figure out if I would die if I just let go. It wasn’t that high, if about twenty feet wasn’t high.

  I heard the bell that signaled the start of a working day in the ROB. In the next five minutes, people were going to come out of their homes to get to their jobs, and I would be spotted and probably killed on sight.

  Good thing I knew that, since it made my decision for me. If I was going to die, I was going to die because I wanted to, because of something I did. Not because someone shot me, thinking I was the enemy.

  I let go.

  It felt like I was falling head first, though I jumped with my feet. I had my eyes squeezed shut tightly and air stored in my lungs. That could've very well been the second before I died.

  My body landed with a deafening noise, and my head slammed hard against the ground. I felt like I became one with it, dissolved until I was as hard as it. I didn’t dare open my eyes or draw in breath.

  A second passed.

  Searing pain stabbed my leg, my hip, shoulder, and the back of my head. I must have fallen on my side. My leg felt weak as a toothpick, and my ribs felt broken. But I was alive. I was alive, and I was breathing.

  I opened my eyes and was greeted with clouds of brown dust. But at least I could see them. I tried my good hand, the one lying on top of my stomach, and my fingers moved. The bell rang again. I’d run out of time.

  I bit my tongue to keep from screaming from the pain and cried it away silently with my tears. I sat up and moved slowly, blazing hot pain cutting through my every cell.

  I breathed fire. My foot was the worst. I barely moved it
a little to the side. I wasn’t going to be able to walk on it, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. I was going to have to walk.

  I put my good hand on the concrete, freshly painted wall, and I took a second to catch my breath. I rose on my good knee and took my body up on it. I bit my tongue to hold another scream and tasted blood in my mouth, moving down my throat, making me nauseated. I hated blood. Hated the very sight of it. It drained all my energy.

  Doors began to open. The closest building was at least ten feet away. There was no way in hell I was going to make it. But I tried anyway.

  I hopped on one foot and fell on my hand every few seconds, and then hopped again, until I made it almost halfway. The vision of the teeth popped in my head whenever I breathed. It gave me enough strength to want to hop a hundred miles to do something about it. To tell someone about him.

  “Hey! You! Stop right there!” someone shouted from my left. I cursed shamelessly under my breath, though I was sure whoever it was that was calling me, heard.

  I turned around and saw a man, no older than me, dressed in the military green of the ROB soldiers, gun in hand, slowly coming to me.

  Damn my luck. I stopped, standing on my good foot, and swaying to the sides. Standing was much harder than moving with one foot, I realized. I fell on my knees, and a scream escaped me once my bad leg connected with the ground.

  “Hey, are you okay?” the soldier asked, coming even closer with his gun pointed at me.

  “Anthony Bush.” I said the name as if it was my medicine. I looked up at his concerned and suspicious face. Behind him, my audience was watching me with hatred and disgust, but most of all with panic. Men and women, children of all ages had formed half a circle around me, waiting for what I would do, sure that I would grow horns any second now.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to put your hands behind your neck,” the soldier said.

  “I can't,” I said through gritted teeth. Couldn’t he see the blood on me? “I need to see Anthony Bush.”

  “I’m going to put handcuffs on you now and take you with me.” He spoke slowly, like I was some sort of a retard. I rolled my eyes and showed him my bad leg.