There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (24 page)

The light! Oh, the cruel, caustic light! Why does it burn so????

She hated the light as much as the water and couldn’t get away from its ultraviolet rays fast enough! She struggled to stand on her trembling legs. The sickness was getting worse. The Gray could literally smell it coming out of her pores, reeking of the Overseers’ whip. Causing her to snap at the very air. She could no longer stop her head or legs from shaking, either. Even when she slept. It was exhausting. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The madness in her mind implored her to seek out the living, to bite them, maim them…
to kill them
.

That
was the worst. The never-ending torment. Would she never know peace again? 

             
She would find a bit of shade and rest a spell. She would hide and wait. The children would be along eventually, and then she could bite and bite and bite…

And maybe then, in the wash of blood to follow, the ringing in her head would go away. The fire in her eyes would cool. She made her way into the piney woods and at once caught the earlier scent of the children. She walked a ways before finding a good spot in which to escape the light and to ambush her prey. She crawled under an umbrella of palmettos by the path, and smelled the air before laying her aching head between her paws. Seeking out an altogether different scent this time.

Still no trace of the white-coated Overseers…

For all she knew they were still locked safely behind the tall fence line, along with the others of her kind. She’d assumed that the manmade madness would likewise remain behind. After fleeing the kennel she’d lived in her entire life, she’d had to make an almost impossible decision. The lesser of two hardships. 

Which way to go
?

She’d chosen the rock-filled beach as her escape route, staying as close to the shady treeline as possible. To both avoid detection and the sun’s rays. It had been a grueling endeavor, slowly picking her way through the jagged rock field, but the swamp lay beyond the paltry treeline, and that watery course was of course untenable. And yet despite her getaway, the madness had stayed with her every step of the way! Growing worse, in fact…

Man
!
What manner of Master would revere you so? Give you such unbridled dominion? Maybe one day His patience for the Overseers would run out. Tire of their cruelty and carnage, and take away their whip.

Oh, but to witness that happy event! Weary of the wretched world, and her place in it, the Gray sniffed the air again
.
No children…but wait. What’s this?

A wicked wind? A coming storm? And a big one, at that! She would need shelter in the days to come, to wait out the coming deluge. Maybe the Master’s patience had finally run its course! Even a dying dog could hope.

She whined piteously, wishing it was so.

             
                                        
 
*******

Bud swam as close to the tumbledown as he could before climbing up on the bank. He looked to his right, where Josie was keeping watch, and gave her the high sign. Tubby cheerfully returned his wave, as if he didn’t have a care in the world; Josie was too intent on the surrounding woods to give him anything more than a cursory nod.

             
Bud paused at the top of the bank, peering directly at his friend Rusty Huggins, who finally gave him a half-hearted thumbs-up. Bud nodded his head in return. He was sorry he’d berated his friend like that. It wasn’t Gnat’s fault he was so easily freaked out. In a world where nearly everything and everybody was bigger than you, it must be hard to find the courage to stand tall.

The possibility that the dog might be lying in wait on the far side of the Bunker, or maybe even
inside
the bomb shelter itself, gave Bud pause to better scout out the area. The tall grass hid most of her tracks from view, though. Then he saw the unmistakable large paw prints imbedded in a bare strip of sandy soil.

The fucking things were as huge as a lion’s paw!

Heading back
into
the Pines...

Bud dropped down the rabbit hole.

              Despite the evidence to the contrary, he couldn’t help but feel he was heading into a well-laid trap. In these close quarters there would be no way he could expect to survive an attack from an animal that large and that insane. He tried lighting his Zippo but the wick was wet and wouldn’t hold a spark. Didn’t matter. He knew the twists and turns of the Bunker by heart, and it wasn’t long before he was feeling around in the pitch-black for a box of Fire Chief Matches, half-expecting to feel a hot, rank breath on his cheek, a split second before those fangs rearranged his face like so much warm Silly Putty.

             
Just as he thought he might go mad, Bud found the matches. He struck one, but his hands were shaking so bad it quickly snuffed out. He grinned in the dark, wondering what Rusty would make of that, seeing him so scared. Big Bad Bud Brown.
Yeah, right. Buncha bullshit, that.

He lit another match, cupped it, and lowered it to a candle, all the time trying not to look around in a fit of panic. He made himself light another candle before allaying his fears. The meager halo only chased the darkness into the corners, where it gathered, heavy and sullen. Bud tossed the matches back onto the table and carried one of the candles with him into the storeroom. He felt no satisfaction that all his preparations might very well have saved them this day. This might not be the crisis he’d been dreading, but by God, it
was
a crisis! Dropping three new D’s into one of the Maglites, Bud Brown wondered if maybe he was wrong in his thinking. Maybe this was but a
Prelude
to the foretold dark days. After all, that dog did have the same blood red eyes as his mother’s killer. Other than that, though, he couldn’t see any connection between the two. Especially after all these years! Still, maybe this was how the nightmare would begin anew—not with the return of the Red Eyed Man, as he’d always imagined, but with this strange dog he’d never even seen before.

If they hadn’t just that very day found their fourth, th
e
Last Cree
p
, he wouldn’t have given the idea much credence. Tubby’s inclusion, however, changed everything. Bud wondered:
Could it be coming to a head so fast?  

No, he decided with a shake of his head. He was letting his imagination get the better of him again.
A fucking red-eyed cur didn’t kill my mother!

He pushed in the button on the Maglite and blew out the candle, setting it down on the shelf.

He immediately stabbed the powerful light behind him, searching out every nook and cranny.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Bud retrieved the key from the empty can of Dinty Moore. He rushed to the footlocker and opened the lock, setting it on the floor. He wasted no time in thinking the selection over, but grabbed the easiest weapon to fire, and the most deadly: one of the Mossberg twelve-gauges. It was already loaded with six shells, the kind of heavy, double-aught buckshot that could blow a hole through two men, standing front-to-back.

On his way out, Bud grabbed a blanket from the shelf and their jackets off the table…

             
              *******                           

Josie O’Hara gnawed at her nails. Bud had been gone for far too long. She was about to go check on him when Bud at last crawled out of the rabbit hole. He crouched low, the shotgun held at the ready, looking left and right, keeping the water to his back. When he was satisfied the dog wasn’t lurking about, he scurried back the way he’d come.

              “C’mon, guys,” she called down to Ralph and Rusty, the two them deep in discussion. “Here comes Bud.”

             Tubby helped Rusty up the slope. The poor fellow was more frightened than anybody he’d ever seen before. Not that Tubby could blame him. That dog had crashed into Rusty like Lawrence Taylor steamrolling Joe Thiesmann! Yeah, and it was a miracle Rusty hadn’t broken his leg like Thiesmann, either. Taking care of Gnat had actually been a good thing for Tubby. It kept his mind off his own close encounter in the woods. At one point Rusty had turned to him and asked, “How can you not be sc-scared, T-Tubby? I’m s-so scared I c-can’t stop s-shaking, and all I want to do is cry like some f-fucking w-wet end!”

              Tubby could only blink at that. He wasn’t used to compliments that didn’t come from his parents, nor was he at ease around such casual profanity, which seemed to be Rusty’s forte. “I was plenty scared out in those woods, believe me you! When that big gray dog stepped out of the bushes… Swear to God, Rusty! I thought was a
goner
!”

             
“Did you
piss
your pants?”
Rusty spat back savagely. Fresh tears filled his eyes.

             
“No…but only ‘cause my Petey had crawled up into my belly! I don’t think I could’ve peed if I wanted to!”

             
Rusty laughed through the tears. “Petey? What the hell’s your
Petey
?”

Tubby had blushed, glancing up nervously at Josie.
“You know…my dingus, my weener, my…peenie.”

Rusty had laughed again, louder this time, causing Josie to glance their way. “You’re all right, Opie. I’m glad I voted for you now. But between you and me, dude?” Rusty paused, and Tubby looked at him expectantly. “Don’t go telling the others you named your dick,
Petey
. Okay?”

Tubby had grinned, forgetting for the moment that there was a rabid dog waiting for them out in the woods. Rusty had just informed him that he was
a
Cree
p
.

“What were you guys talking about down there?” Josie asked Rusty, as the two boys joined her on top of the bank. It was good to see her best friend smiling again.

“This guy named Petey,” Rusty informed her. He grinned back at Ralph, blushing now from head to toe. “You don’t know him, Joe. At least I
hope
you don’t!”

The boys giggled wildly, like Beavis and Butthead on a nudie beach.

Josie, knowing an inside-joke when she heard one, rolled her eyes.
Boys!
Probably had something to do with their genitals. Guys were always going on and on about their precious pee pees. She turned her focus back on Bud.

Josie watched him until he was safely by her side again. He handed Josie her coat and slipped his back on after Tubby declined his offer of the jacket. Tubby wasn’t nearly as cold as they were. There were
some benefits to being overweight—fat makes for great insulation.

Josie helped Rusty with his jacket.

“Here,” Bud said, putting the blanket over Rusty’s shivering shoulders as well. “Thought you might need this, too. Bring it with you the next time we’re here.”

Gnat nodded and pushed his glasses up on his small nose. Tubby could see that the gesture had both touched and embarrassed Rusty.

Bud Brown sat on top of the bank with his legs dangling over the side, his back to the woods. Tubby thought that that simple gesture was the bravest thing he’d ever seen. He didn’t think he could turn his back on that dog’s hiding place in a zillion years. Bud turned to him and said, “Keep an eye out while I catch my breath.”

“Sure,” Tubby said, scanning the clearing.

“Ya’ll ready?” Bud asked them. He wiped the sweat from his face with the hem of his school shirt. His stomach, like his arms and chest, rippled with hard muscle.

“Are you sure about this, Bud? Maybe we could wait for it to die.”

“No, Gnat,” Bud said, shaking his head. “If that sick animal ends up hurting someone because we were too scared to do anything…well, I couldn’t live with that. And I don’t think you could, either, man.”

“You’re right,” Rusty said, looking down at his soggy high-tops. Personally, he thought Bud was giving him too much credit.

“If we’re gonna do this thing, then let’s get it on,” said Josie. She looked more than a little scared herself.

“Hoss?” Bud asked their newest member.

Tubby blinked in surprise. He didn’t expect his opinion would matter. “Uh-
me?”

“Unless you plan on staying behind while the rest of us smoke out that rabid cur, then yeah. I mean
you
.”

Josie put her hand over heart.
“
Creep
s
go it together…”

“…always and forever,” Rusty finished with a roll of his eyes. As club mottos went, it was pretty lame, invented when they were little kids, and yet it had always summed up their one-for-all and all-for-one philosophy.

Tubby took a deep breath. He felt his Adam’s apple bob up and down his neck like a scared mouse under a rug. He gulped it down. “I’m with you fellows.”

Bud led the way into the Pines, Rusty clinging to his back like a wet tee shirt. Josie followed Rusty, and Tubby took up the rear. He kept looking back at the empty path behind them as they traveled slowly up the Old Oyster Trail. He was certain he’d seen movement in several bushes alongside the path, but as he waited breathlessly for each inevitable attack, nothing at all transpired.