There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (112 page)

             
                            *******

At that same moment, with his father now beyond reason or help, Bud watched Rupert claw at his throat. Gasping for air. Bud’s Timberland hiking boot had caved in Henderson’s exposed Adam’s apple, cracking the sheriff’s windpipe in two. Rupert was unable to draw a breath.

He lay on the floor of the Bunker, flopping around like a bass in the bottom of a boat. His red eyes became dimmer as his life force ebbed away.

Henderson’s glasses had flown off his head and landed on the dead body. Maggots squirmed in vain over the frames in search of fresh flesh. Bud walked over and stared at the unrecognizable corpse, trying to ascertain its identity, and how it came to be here, but he couldn’t begin to form a guess. Then again, it was no more a mystery than how Henderson had ended up in his Bunker! How had
either
of them learned of its location? What were they doing down here? Waiting on him? For Bud’s friends? It was frustrating to know he would never realize either of their motives. As always, Bud felt no fear of the sheriff. He stepped over the man to get past him. He’d felt the Rabid’s windpipe crack underneath his foot, and he knew Henderson wouldn’t be getting up again.

Shit, even boogeymen have to breathe!

              Bud let the ax and his hot Zippo drop to the floor, the lighter’s blue flame winking out, allowing himself finally to feel the fire in his fingertips, sucking them deep into his mouth. He found his way over to the coffee table and fumbled with a pack of matches, striking one and lighting the Coleman. The propane lantern lit the shelter and the adjoining alcove, banishing the dark to the farthest corners. It raised Bud’s flagging spirits and refreshed his faltering hopes.
Yes
, as God had ascertained early on in His career,
light was good!

Raising the lantern in his hand, Bud approached the worm-ridden corpse again. For some reason he felt an affinity for this poor lost soul, and was reluctant to leave his side.
A kindred spirit, that’s what he was, and I never even knew him.
Strangely enough, he felt as if he’d let this person down. He knew without doubt or reservation that this was a
victim
of a Rabid, and not a Rabid himself. There was something terribly sad about his dying all alone down here, far away from his family and friends.

A grave with no marker. Just like Joe’s dad.

It was the body of a slightly built young man, not much bigger than Rusty, and by the looks of his Moon River Academy polo shirt, a fellow student at that—the school’s black crest embroidered over the left breast (girls wore a pink crest). The flesh was so liquefied that not even the boy’s parents could have identified him.

Bud missed the significance of the book looped around the kid’s neck. The sad truth was, he’d never noticed it
or
the boy who wore it before. He was tempted to reach into the corpse’s pockets, to try and find a wallet, but a look at his watch told him it was already past noon.

He’d used up seven hours already!

Bud ran to the back of the shelter, ignoring his common sense screaming at him to beware dark shadows—not to mention that last set of unexplained tracks.
Where’s that barefooted asshole hiding at?
He’d wasted enough time as it was. From here on out he would have to leap before he looked.
My father’s life depends on it!

             
                            *******

Josie took another breather at a tangle of wind-blown trees and brush, keeping the thick brush-wall to her back. Too thick and tangled for a Rabid to maneuver in. She shrugged off her backpack and waited on Tubby and Rusty to catch up with her. She could scarcely believe how far back her charges were lagging. The boys were walking abreast, several yards away, while Bill struggled to keep up, another thirty paces further back. So far back he was almost lost from view. She felt guilty, making them keep to such a brisk march, especially Bilbo, but if they didn’t reach the clearing before nightfall she knew they’d probably never make it out of the woods at all. Before that happened, though, there’d be the matter of a certain promise to keep.

Like Old Yeller in the corncrib.

She checked her watch, as Tubby and Rusty plopped down beside her. “12:15,” she said, tapping the face of her Timex. “Don’t get too comfortable, boyos. We’ve got to pick up the pace if we want to be underground before nightfall.”

              Tubby wiped his brow with a sleeve of his army coat. “Huh? I thought you said it was only three miles to the lake. Why should it take…wait a second…we’ve easily walked that distance by now! Jeepers, Josie! Are we
lost
?”

             
“No, Ralphie. It’s just going to take us longer than I expected. If you haven’t noticed, love, these feckin’ windfalls are kicking our bleeding arses!”

Rusty knew better. He’d been in these woods as often as Josie, and nothing looked familiar anymore, the landscape far too altered to recall. Yep. They were as lost as those two Kraut kids in the old fairy tale. Pointing that out, though, wouldn’t do them any good. Josie was doing the best she could. Besides, he couldn’t see where he would have done anything differently. Maybe they shouldn’t have taken the cemetery trail through the Pines, but for all they knew, the other paths were just as inaccessible.

Rusty pushed his glasses up on his nose. “If we push Bilbo any harder, I don’t think he’s gonna make it. That virus will eat him alive if he doesn’t get some real rest soon. Man’s barely keeping up with us as it is.”

Josie was barely listening, staring off into the woods behind them. “Speaking of Bilbo,” she said, looking scared. “Just where is that man?”

                            *******

Bud emerged from the Bunker, armed to the gills. Confident enough now to take on anything. The only thing missing from the picture was the knife clenched between his bared teeth. He checked his backpack for supplies once again. He’d emptied his belongings onto one of the bunk beds and re-packed it with a Maglite, one fully loaded .45, an extra clip, and a brick of shells. He then added a box of shotgun shells, a full water bottle, and almost as an afterthought, a can of lighter fluid and the flare gun, loaded with two flares. A razor sharp, twelve-inch buck knife rested in a leather sheath attached to his belt. The Mossberg pump-action 12 gauge, which he carried in his right hand, had six shells in its rack, and was a far superior weapon than the old Remington he’d left with Josie.

Thinking of Joe made him remember something else. He went back for another .45 and one of the Maglites. He’d leave them for her and his dad at the top of the ladder-well. Maybe it would be enough to keep them on their toes when they came down this way. He didn’t have time to be more specific with a note.

He checked his watch again to make sure he hadn’t made a mistake about the time.

Just as he’d thought: it was 12:15 and they still hadn’t made it to the clearing! If they’d gotten an early enough start—and he felt certain Josie would’ve insisted on leaving shortly after sunup—then they should’ve been here by now.
Christine would’ve made up for my head start. Where the hell are you, Joe? Fuck! Something’s happened! I just know it! Go back, Bud! Go back and find them!

Bud slammed the door on this fruitless train of thought. He couldn’t be in two places at once. Besides, he didn’t even know which trail they’d chosen! As much as he wanted to go off in search of his friends and his ailing father, it was up to him to find the vaccine.

He gave the Pines a cold, hard look, and then turned his back to them. As if his favorite stomping grounds had somehow betrayed him.

Oak Swamp’s unforgiving waters awaited him…

                                          *******

“Bilbo couldn’t have been more than twenty yards behind us,” Rusty insisted. He stood up to get a better look. “I don’t understand it! Where could he have gone to?”

              “Maybe that Rabid that’s been following us snatched him,” Tubby said softly.

             
Josie nixed that. “No way, Ralphie. Bill’s had the bug for a few hours now. He wouldn’t be the one they’d snatch first. Besides, I just saw him a few seconds ago! Right over there,” she said, pointing past the blow down.

“Maybe he took a wrong turn…”

              “Wrong turn, my ass!” Rusty blurted. “A blind man could’ve kept to that part of the trail! Now Bill’s lost, too?”

             
“Jiminy Christmas! So we
are
lost!”

             
Josie ignored her friends.
“BILLLBBBOOOO! WHERE ARE YOU?”
she bugled between her cupped hands. She ran back to where she’d last seen the man.
“FOLLOW MY VOICE, BILL!
BILLLBBBOOOO!!!”

             
“CALL OUT TO US, BILBO!”
cried Rusty.

             
“Guys, do you think that’s a good idea, yelling like that?” Tubby asked them. “What if those things hear you?”

Josie cut him with a black look, and then bellowed just as loud as she could:
“BILBO!!! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!!! BIIIIIILLLBBBOOOOOOOOO!!!”

             
             
*******

Bud was wading through the swamp in tea-colored water up to his neck, his eyes peeled for cottonmouths, when he heard a voice call out, far off in the distance behind him…

“Bilbo!!! Where the hell are you!!!
BIIIIIILLLLBBBOOOOOOOOO!!! ”

Heart in throat, Bud stopped where he was, struggling to keep his footing, and listen at the same time.

Who was that calling my dad? Josie???

The woeful voice just faded away, though, the cry thus far not repeated. Bud strangled back an angry sob and continued on with his mission, steadying himself with one foot, before moving the other forward. Despite the urgency, he couldn’t just stomp his way heedless through the swamp. Deep holes existed here, as well as those feared nests of water moccasins. Stepping into either of those things, a deep hole or a snake pit, would’ve been the end of Bud, his father, and most likely Josie and his friends. The smell of smoke was growing stronger, too, though he was barely conscious of the fact. It hardly seemed of consequence. Bud held the shotgun and his backpack over his head, trying to keep them dry, and the effort was taking its toll on his aching shoulders and trembling arms. He still had a ways to go, though, before he reached the chain-link fence, surrounding the old Army Base. Past the tall fenceline was a vast lawn, stretching all the way to the base buildings, shielded from view by a stately row of live oaks and huge azalea bushes. Hardly of consequence to Bud. His main concern was the razor wire on top of that security fence. That shit was no joke! The Center’s guard dogs, the Dobermans, barely gave Bud any pause. If they insisted on giving him shit, then the Mossberg would set them straight. Bud had considered going the long way around, traversing the ankle busting, rock covered beach, on the North End, to get to the Center, but the swamp was still the quicker and more manageable route of the two. Like Josie earlier, Bud was now second-guessing his initial instincts.

No turning back now, Buddy boy. Just a little further. One foot in front of the other…

The fence was no more than a hundred yards away when he heard someone calling out his father’s name again, somewhere off in the pine forest…far, far, behind him.

“BIIIILLLLBBBBOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

Yep. Josie O’Hara, looking for his lost dad…

                                      *******

Josie called a halt to the search. They’d backtracked for a mile or so, calling out Bill’s name every few seconds, when she stopped short at a familiar looking palmetto bush. Josie held up her hand and caught Rusty in mid-yell. His echoes continued eerily calling out to Bilbo Brown.

“What is it?” Tubby asked, looking between them.

             
“This palmetto shrub…”

             
“Yeah?”

             
“Where’s the piece of red cloth I tied around this frond, just a little while ago?”

             
“Are you sure it’s the same one?” Rusty said. “They all look the same to me, Tits.”

             
“I’m
sure
, Gnat.”

             
“Maybe it fell off,” Tubby said, frowning. There was a sinking feeling in his gut he didn’t want to acknowledge, much less say out loud.

             
“I already looked. Besides, this is the
second
place missing a marker.
One
might have fallen off, blown away, whatever. But two? Shite, I don’t think so.” She looked around them, scanning the silent trees and bushes.

             
“The Rabid that’s been following us?”
Rusty whispered. He looked around the woods and then up at the treetops. The sun had already reached its apex for the day and was now on its downward turn in the sky. A chill tickled the back of his skinny neck. Out here in the Pines, exposed as they were, he felt like he had a bit part in a bad horror film. That dude, who in every slasher flick he’d ever seen, goes down into the basement to investigate the “Strange Noises” coming from the cellar, despite everyone in the audience telling him to get the hell outta there. It never ended well for that oblivious asshole.