The Man on the Moon (The Man Duology)

Chapter 13

BANG!

Five men, at least, burst through our hotel door. They were all in hooded jackets, with tracksuit bottoms to match. Two of them had baseball bats, the others just had their fists for protection.

"Everyone out of bed!" One of the men yelled at us, swinging a baseball bat in our direction.

Jumping out of bed, Harvey and me stood next to the TV. Shivering in my boots, I protected my stomach with my hands. Although, I knew my bump was not overly noticeable, but to me it was the size of a hot air balloon.

Harvey inhaled sharply next to me. One of his shaky, olive hands grabbed mine. Pulling me closer, he leaned us up against the radiator -- as far away from the men as possible.

Four of the men pulled every single draw in our room out, and tipped the contents onto the floor. Luckily, Harvey had hidden our money in his boxers; they didn't care to look through our delicates. Idiots.

One of the men stood in front of us, stroking his facial hair. "Where's your friend,"

"F-f-friend?" Harvey sounded so small compared to him.

"Yeah," As his hood began to fall down, more of his dark skin was revealed. Not wanting to show us his true identity, he quickly pulled it up before we saw anything else. "Deion."

"Who are you?" I began, but Harvey shushed me, insisting he should do the talking.

"We are also his friends," The man chuckled, with a hint of evil thickening his laughter, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Where is he? If you tell us, we won't hurt anybody."

"The last we heard of him?" Harvey began recalling the day before. "He was on his way to find his mother."

Suddenly, the men erupted into laughter all at once. Glancing at Harvey, I gulped and nervously bit my lip. Fear is the worst feeling. It's air borne. Lingering in the smoky regions of the atmosphere, it is waiting for its next victim. It waits for the most vulnerable unfortunate to walk by, until it slithers to face you. Unaware of it, you're facing its green, mean face. You're absentmindedly going about your day. Doing your shopping, looking after your children, grabbing coffee -- your day-to-day schedule. But fear's schedule is attacking. And that's exactly what it's about to do. To you.
It's thick, slinky body slithers down the pathway. Until it reaches you, it is storing the energy to pounce into your immune system. It keeps low, and out of sight, until the time is right. When the time clocks around, it invades your privacy. Fondles your toes, tickles your calves, slides into your earlobes. Your face feels flushed, your heart beat races -- only to keep up with the fast pace of your fear. It's a virus. And there honestly isn't a feeling like it.

As fear invaded my brain, the men scoped out our room. Just to check if Deion was here -- hiding. Which, he wasn't. Once they were done, they gave us a few frightening threats, as expected, and an order for if we saw Deion around. Nervously, we nodded at their request -- just to make them leave. When they eventually abandoned our Deion-free hotel room, fear went with them. A sigh of relief was released from Harvey, as he pulled me into a hug. Gripping tighter than before, I laid into his comfortable skin.

Suddenly, a large wave of glass smashing interrupted our embrace. Looking towards each other, we thought exactly the same thing. Harvey's truck.

Fleeing from our hotel room, we ran out into the open -- just wearing out pyjamas. As soon as we saw that the men had beaten his car, Harvey literally yelled. I think he was in tears.
Desperately, he ran over to it and began patting the hood of the car. The windows were smashed and in a thousand pieces on the floor. The car doors had baseball bat dents in them. The lights were smashed too -- mixing with the window's glass on the concrete. The windshield had hardly been touched, but there were quite a few scratches.