There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (89 page)

             
Yeah, Right! It took you five shots to kill the feckin’ dog!
Instead, she turned her attention to Jumbo and Ted. She needed room for a clear shot, and they were in her way. At first, their erections had embarrassed her, but after a while the Rabids
(yeah, that was a good word for them)
began to lose all semblance of their former humanity.

             
Like the Chief, a gruff but caring sort, Josie had known these men most of her life. Seen them argue over checkers in front of the Firehouse; rolled her eyes at their tired old jokes in Peg Leg’s, and watched them become excited as little boys at the circus on those rare episodes when their assistance was called upon. Jumbo, a six-foot- eight, ex-linebacker for Michigan State, and Ted, a wiry gentlemen barely reaching five-foot-eight, were physical opposites, but otherwise occupied the same tender plane. Service to their fellow man was their mutual calling. Except for their familiar faces, though, they bore no resemblance to the Jumbo and Teddy of old.

             
Pulling savagely at the bars, they called Josie by name, trying to draw her near. She ignored their angry call, and focused instead on the more cunning of the three.

             
The thing that used to be Chief Briarson roared in triumph. He pulled out a set of keys from the row of file cabinets and taunted Josie with his find, jangling them madly in the air. Josie tried aiming at the Chief but couldn’t get a clear shot with those bozos at the door.

“Josie!” Tubby jumped up and down, pointing hysterically at the Chief. “Josie!”

“I know! I know! Let me think, will you?” Her green eyes lighted upon the bullhorn at Tubby’s feet. “Ralphie, the air horn! Blow it right in their faces! Get them out of the way!” She assumed a firing stance as Tubby picked up the air horn.

One bullet. One chance. Don’t you blow it, Tits!

Tubby got as close to the outstretched arms as he dared and pointed the air horn right at the Rabids. The result was immediate and just what Josie had prayed for—the deafening roar filled the room, sending Jumbo and Ted fleeing down the stairs, shrieking in abject terror. Briarson, on the other hand, merely crouched down and covered his ears. Eventually the air began to run out, and Tubby released the button at once; saving that last little bit of compressed air should they need it again.

As soon as the silence returned, the Chief stood up and grinned. His eyes glittered brightly in the lengthening shadows, creeping now through the plate glass window.

“Aaawww, my sweet, sweet Josie,
”
he rattled, in a voice eerily similar to Betty Anne’s that afternoon; like some androgynous demon.
“Do you taste as good as you smell, sweetheart? Hmmmm? Well, I’m going to find out, yesss I ammmmm. I’m going to suck the nectar from your loins till you scream in ecstasy! And then I’m gonna let you do the same for meeeee. What do you say, fat boy? Wanna watch your girlfriend swallow my firehose?”

Josie waited until Briarson put the keys into the lock before walking up to him. She placed the barrel of the revolver against his temple, and said, “Thanks for letting us out, Chief.” 

The Chief slid boneless to the floor, a neat, round bullet hole smoking beside his left ear.

“Get the keys, Josie!  For God’s sake,
the keys!”

             
Josie tore her eyes from the man she’d just killed. There, emerging from the staircase. Jumbo and Ted, back again, slithering towards them, like two dusty pit vipers on the floor. No other description was apt. For a second she watched, hypnotized by the sinuous contractions that enabled them to move in such a reptilian manner.

             
The effect was altogether disabling.

             
She managed to look away in time to snatch the keys from the lock. “Lay on that horn, boyo! Lay on it till it your feckin’ thumb falls off!”

             
                            *******

As Bud and Rusty raced down the service road, the air horn finally petered out to nothing. The following silence was nearly as panic inducing as the braying wail had been earlier. “Faster!” Bud shouted, aware that his small friend was slipping behind him. It was getting dark now and he couldn’t leave Rusty to fend for himself.

             
Hang on, Josie!
his mind implored her.
Hang on just a little longer! Oh, God…What if I’m too late?

             
Bud chased that traitorous thought from his head, even as Ham’s last words echoed in his ears:

            
 
It’s Josie I got my mind on! She’s on her monthly and I can smell it!

Up ahead, backed up to the loading dock of Peg Leg’s, was Mr. Peteovich’s old Dodge pickem-up truck.

“Dear God, please let the keys be in it,” Bud prayed, without even realizing. It’s tough being an Atheist when death turns its avid eyes on those you love. “Rusty, the truck!” The pick up was sitting in the same amount of water as the Jeep, but this vehicle had more wheel height. The water didn’t quite cover the front tires.

Thus the engine was only partially submerged.

Bud slid onto the bench seat, his hand scrabbling madly for the ignition…the keys weren’t in it. He slammed his hands on the steering wheel.

Rusty leaned over his seat and flipped down Bud’s visor. The keys dropped into Rusty’s outstretched hand.

              Bud stabbed the key into the ignition and cranked it. The old engine sputtered for a second, and then caught fire, the exhaust belching bubbles underneath the floodwaters. Bud dropped the stick into reverse and floored the accelerator, emerging on dry land. He popped on the lights, dropped the stick into first, and floored it again. Something darted out of the Pines and struck the side of the truck, startling Rusty into a full throated scream. Up above the tops of the buildings, Bud could see red-tinted smoke, coming from the docks. The
Betty Anne
on fire. Ham Huggins was dead by now, his shrimpboat serving as his funeral pyre.
If there’s a God in Heaven, I implore you, Lord, please let that poor man be dead by now.

             
It was Ham’s bad luck the
Betty Anne
hadn’t exploded. That would have been a mercy compared to the consuming flames, surely engulfing the boat by now. Ham’s once lovely wife and Tubby’s folks had nothing to fear from the flames. Their souls had long since departed. Yet at the moment, Bud couldn’t have cared less. Not even for his friend, Tubby Tolson, also at the moment in mortal peril. Bud’s sole concern was for the rightful owner of his heart. The one he’d cheerfully given it to, making her his main reason for living now. For going on even one more minute.
You were right, Josie! I never should’ve separated us like that! If anything happens to you I’ll kill myself—

Ham’s voice rumbled in Bud’s head:
Hush that selfish noise! This ain’t the time for that!
The Living gotta take precedent over the Dead. And that’s just what Josie and that Ralph boy is gonna be if’n you don’t hurry!

Hurry, Bud! Hurry!

Bud decelerated as they came to the end of the service road, and made a left, back towards Main. Tires screaming, Bud hit the curve going too fast, the Goodyears on the right side leaving the ground for three-heart-pounding seconds. The headlights of the pick up illuminated a naked little girl, skittering across the road on all fours, her feral eyes ablaze. She darted behind some overturned garbage cans in front of the Green Grocer and hissed at the truck as it roared by her.

“
HOLY SHIT! Did you see that fucking thing?!” Rusty said, holding on to the dashboard for dear life. He wasn’t sure what scared him more: the red-eyed things suddenly roaming the streets of Moon, or the fact that Bud was driving like a loon.

“Yeah,” Bud remarked softly, “it was one of the Portman twins. Kari, I think.”

“Looka there!” Rusty said, pointing excitedly at the smoke coming from behind the Town Hall buildings. “I think the dock’s on fire!”

“Not now, Rusty. Help me figure out where that air horn last sounded.”

“It must’ve been Bidwell’s office,” Rusty said, frowning. His eyes remained focused on the smoke. He wondered:
The Betty Anne…Daddy? Is that you?

Bud aimed the pick-up in that direction and floored the accelerator. The headlights caught sight of the dead Mastiff at the foot of the stairs. By the messy headshot, Bud figured it must’ve been rabid, and that Josie O’Hara had put it out of its misery.
“Big Red,”
he said, nodding his head. He put the truck in park, leaving the engine running, and grabbed the shotgun on his way out the door.

He emptied the box of shells on the tattered bench seat and filled his pockets with them.

He glanced over at Rusty, still fixated on the smoke, billowing into the night sky. Tears filled Gnat’s eyes and spilled down his face. “Rusty…”

“That’s the
Betty Anne,
isn’t it.”

It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation.

              “Come on, man. Please. Don’t do this now.”

Rusty glared at him through the fogged lenses of his glasses, the truth passing unspoken between them. Something growled off to their left. Footfalls rushing towards them. Bud turned around in time to see what had become of the other Portman twin. Unlike her sister, Katie still had on her socks. Running right at him in the middle of the street, her tiny hands raised over her head, little pink fingernails curled into claws.

Bud hesitated just long enough to ascertain that something else was coming at them from Rusty’s side. The once barren streets were suddenly crawling with his rabid neighbors. People he’d once claimed to hate.

Now he knew better.
If I really hated them, then why’s it so hard to pull the trigger?

Sighing, he emptied one barrel into Katie Portman, point blank, obliterating her from the face of the earth, and then swung the shotgun in the other direction.

“
BUD!”
Rusty screamed.

Bud didn’t have time to aim. Something that looked like Miss Beasly was rushing straight for his friend. Naked as the day she was born, only more wrinkled and worn. The heavy buckshot caught her right between her drooping breasts and slammed her across the sidewalk, into the Town Hall building, where she left a large brownish smear on the stuccoed wall. Despite the mortal wound, the woman struggled to her feet. She stared stupidly at the ragged hole in her chest. Bud breached the barrels; popping out both spent shells, and slammed in two fresh ones.

He snapped the barrels back into place, all the while walking up to Miss Beasly. He blew her head off her shoulders, pushing down the memory that this had once been one of his mother’s dearest friends.

“JOSIE!”
he shouted desperately into the night. All around them were the sounds of bare feet running on pavement.
Why are they all naked? What’s that about?

“TITS!”
Rusty joined in the chorus.
“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU, GIRL?!?!”

The sound of a window shattering down the street seized their attention. Before they could ascertain its location, sixteen-year-old Ronny Broome leapt out at them from underneath the stairwell.

The shotgun discharged at close range, the shell ripping through the young man’s throat.

Unable to draw a breath through the baseball-sized hole in his neck, the boy spasmed on the road like an epileptic having a grand mal seizure.

Bud quickly reloaded and raced down the street, towards the Firehouse. Rusty caught up to him and pointed at something in the middle of the glass-littered road.

“Bud! That’s my
dad’s
gun! The .38! Josie must’ve thrown it through that plate glass window up there!”

A pair of shadows staggered towards them, in the middle of the road, side by side; two pairs of scarlet eyes burning bright and hot. Bud brought the walnut stock to the crook of his arm and took aim. The fiery rush of double-aught, not having a chance to disperse, took out parts of both heads at once. Reloading, Bud was moving past the two bodies before they even hit the ground.

“JOSIE!”
he croaked hoarsely. “
CAN YOU HEAR ME?!”
His voice, never the same after that long-ago night, was almost done in by all the shouting.

Bright red eyes glowed from every corner. Closing in now. Those who weren’t so far along in the illness stayed in the shadows. Watching. Biding their time.

“BUDDY BOY!”

The voice was Josie’s, coming from the second tier. Bud looked up to see the broken window. “Rusty,” he said, pointing to the breezeway above them.

“WE’RE UP HERE! IN THE JAIL!”

“WE’RE COMING, JOE!”

“
WATCH OUT! TWO OF ‘EM ARE UP HERE!”

“Behind us, Bud!” Rusty cried.

Bud spun around and Rusty ducked underneath the smoking barrels of the 12-gauge shotgun.

Barely even aiming, Bud put one shell directly into the chest of Jessica Soffit, one of Tansy Wilky’s nasty protégés at the Moon River Academy.