There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (93 page)

“Eventually he was fired because he spent more time trying to mutate the damn disease than he did in controlling it! There were even rumors he’d been trying to sell his permutations to outside sources.”

Josie gasped.

“I know, right? After losing his high profile job with the CDC, Bidwell began searching for a position with an independently owned research facility.”

“So that’s where our Research Center comes in?”

“In a roundabout way,” Bill said. “You see, because of the scandal involved with the CDC, no one legitimate could afford to hire Bidwell. Because of the possible fallout, you understand. But to put him on the payroll as an
advisor
? Sure. That was doable.”

“Pretty smart when you think about it.” Bud said. “While his left hand is cooking up trouble, his right hand is on the pulse of the island. Taking care of us, and risking our welfare all at the same time. What a douche bag.”

“Wasn’t Jessie Huggins ever suspicious of him?” Josie asked. “He had to have wondered why a man so overly qualified would want to hang up his shingle here.”

“My guess is Bidwell left much of his past off his resume. As I recall, like the Sheriff’s position, there weren’t too many applicants. Jessie Huggins couldn’t afford to be too particular. Case in point: our upstanding Sheriff. Jessie didn’t exactly run background checks on these fellows, you understand. He was probably overjoyed just to have an honest-to-goodness doctor on the island! Besides, it’s not like I ever suspected the man, either.”

“So while he had his ear to the wall, here in town, he was in fact working for the Research Center?”

“Bidwell
is
the Center, Bud. Well,
was
. Early on in his tenure there, he went from being an undercover researcher to being the C.E.O. In fact, he’s their main stockholder now. The Center used to specialize in animal testing. Consumer products, primarily—but as the general public became more aware over certain cruel practices utilized in that process, the Center began to lose its main source of revenue. That’s where Bidwell came in. He shut down any testing that wasn’t viral in nature. In short, the Center became a research facility for the prevention and cure of viral diseases. Such as the West Nile virus and the ever-adapting flu virus—and, of course…rabies. The Army was, until very recently I believe, footing most of the bill.”

Bud’s jaw muscles visibly clenched. “Why did they pick Moon Island for their crazy fucking experiments?”

“Because it
is
an island, son. One of the farthest islands from the mainland on the whole eastern seaboard. This place is perfect for that sort of testing when you think about it. If something nasty escapes, it has nowhere to go but in our laps.” Bill spread apart his arms in an expansive manner. “And as you can see…we’re easily quarantined.”

“It sounds as if their intentions were at first headed in the right direction,” Josie said. “When did it go wrong?”

“From the very beginning. Oh, I’m sure they were pursuing those other avenues as well. That was the Center’s cover, after all. For you see, Bidwell’s
true
work, his
calling
, if you will, is against the law.”

“The making of a stronger rabies virus?”

Bill nodded. “More specifically, son, the selling of such a disease and its eventual cure.”

“Wait…. You got all this from seven pages?”

Bill checked his watch and stood up from the table. “Let’s talk while we make the rounds. I have something to show you in the cellar. I don’t suppose you still have that Smith and Wesson you were telling me about?”

Bud remembered the revolver on his bed. “Shit! I left it in my damn room again!”

“Relax. The shotgun should be sufficient for now.”

“
Should
be?” Josie said. “Aren’t we safe in here?” 

“Just a precaution,” Bill assured her with a smile.

Josie saw the uncertainty lurking behind it, though. The thought that the Rabids might find their way inside the museum had barely occurred to her. As soon as they’d locked the front door behind them, she’d instantly felt safer.
It’s the lights,
she thought, looking up at the buzzing fluorescents.
The lights which lull you into that false sense of security. The lights which keep the Boogeymen at bay.

Yeah, Tits, but lights can always be turned off!

As they passed through the apartment and into the museum, Josie couldn’t help but notice all the ideal hiding places. The dark shadows giving shelter to the things that go
“
Bump
”
in the night.
The Dark Side of the Moon
now seemed to take on a more literal connotation.

They checked the front doors. Bill peered out into the street between the plywood sheets.

“See anything, Pop?”

“Just Robbie all by his lonesome. Street seems quiet. Remind me to bring him in later. I want to recharge his batteries in case we need him again. I have an idea on where to go if this place is breached tonight.”

“I need to talk to you about that, too.”

They made their way down the hall. “Yeah? Don’t tell me you’re still thinking about getting a boat and sailing off to the mainland, son. Cause there’s no way the Coast Guard will let us off this damn island. They’ll sink us before we get halfway across the river.”

“I know that, Dad. Hell, I’ve been dreaming about this awful night since I was nine years old!”

Bill stopped as if thunderstruck. If not for the circumstances, the look on his face might have been comical. “You have, haven’t you? You know, up until this second I hadn’t connected your old dreams to what’s been happening here. They’ve all come true, though, haven’t they? The red-eyed things…the insanity involved…the Cave, where we’d all hole-up until the crisis was over. Jesus, son! The museum! Is
this
the Cave in your dreams?”

Fascinated, Josie looked from one to the other. She felt like she’d just stepped into one of her favorite author’s novels at a pivotal juncture.

Bud shook his head. When he was younger he used to run to his father at night and tell him about his nightmares, of a mysterious cave where the “Red-Eyed Men” would chase him and his friends down a steep and slippery hole. Of fire, blood, and death. As time went by, Bud could see that his visions worried his dad. His father would try to reassure him, tell him it was just a bad dream, meaningless figments putting on a late-night horror show. Nothing more than his fevered imagination, hard at work.

Eventually, Bud realized his father couldn’t help him and ceased running to him. Leaving Bill to assume his son’s nightmares had in fact ceased to be a problem. A fact that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Then Bud discovered the bomb shelter out by Lizard Lake. The
Cave
of his dreams! The underground sanctuary that would save the people he loved most in the world. He’d never told his dad of his discovery. Why, he wasn’t quite certain. Probably so as not to worry the old man any more than he already had. But Josie knew.

“The Bunker.”
She said it so softly that Bill barely heard her. “What’s that, Josie? Bunker?”

As they checked the back door again, Bud told his father about the safe haven that awaited them out in the Pines. A place they could hole-up indefinitely, until the virus burned itself out above them.

“There’s two months’ supply of food, and believe it or not the plumbing still works down there! There are enough guns and ammo to hold off a small army. And it’s certainly comfortable enough for the five of us.”

“So that’s what you’ve been spending all your money on,” Bill chuckled. “I won’t ask you how you got those firearms, since you’re too young to have purchased them on your own. I know I wouldn’t like the answer.” He sighed. “But desperate times, and all that. You say there’s room for five of us, Buddy boy?”

“It’ll be cozy, Pop, but sure.”

“How about eight?”

Bill led them down the cellar steps, into a series of partitioned rooms, the drop ceiling low over their heads. His dark room opened up into Bud’s makeshift gym, where the large emergency generator chug-a-lugged in a shadowy, cobwebbed-filled-corner. Nearly lost in the dusty shadows was the door to their workshop. Entering the cluttered workshop, Josie backed up in fright.

Handcuffed in one corner of the room, his left wrist latched to one of the steel-legs supporting a heavy workbench, lounged the lab rat, Mr. Clean!

Josie pointed at the man. “What’s he doing—” 

“Look who’s here,” said a voice, nearly right beside her. Already on edge, Josie screamed.

“Easy, Joey.
Easy
,” Bill said. “It’s just Garfield.”

             
Bud swung the 12 gauge around and pointed it at the owner of Moon Man’s.

“Don’t shoot me, Tex,” said Tim Garfield, who was armed himself, a .22 rifle held tight in his hands. He tried to smile but his twitching lips couldn’t pull off the trick. He was slouched next to another person, sleeping on the floor. The dozing gent was facing the wall and had a blanket wrapped about him, though the room was stuffy and hot.

Bill gently pushed the shotgun barrels towards the floor. “That’s Mr. Pete, asleep. I found him and Tim on the beach this afternoon.”

“The
beach
?” Josie laughed humorlessly. “What were ya’ll doing down there? Working on your tans?”

“Pulling my leaking rowboat ashore, my dear.”

“Damn, Timbo! Were you trying to row all the way to the mainland?”

“If that’s what it would’ve taken, Bud…But no, I’ve got a motor on it now. At the time, Mr. Pete and I were just trying to get away from those Firehouse fiends. After sitting offshore, watching Lonnie and his boys rape and kill indiscriminately, we knew we had to find some help.”

He saw the look in Bud and Josie’s eyes. The judgment. Branding him and Mr. Pete cowards for not doing more. Or maybe he was only projecting what he felt deep in his heart. “I know what you’re thinking! But you didn’t see those fucking things!”

“You’re wrong, Tim,” Josie said. “We
did
see those things, and I assure you, Bud and I aren’t judging you.”

“Damn straight,” said Bud. “Hell, It sounds like you guys were lucky to get out of there alive.”

“Thanks for saying so,” Tim sighed, his heart clearly unconvinced. “Anyway, I had a tank full of gas. Plenty enough to reach the mainland. We got about halfway across the river when a Coast Guard ship came up alongside us. At first we thought they were going to rescue us. Only the crew didn’t offer any assistance. The Captain asked if we were coming from the island, and naturally we said yes. Before we could get another word out, they ordered us to return to shore. Mr. Pete tried to reason with them, tell them what was going on, but it was pointless. We saw the scared looks on those sailors’ faces. They thought we had the same disease as those monsters out there! They towed us to within sight of the West Side beach, and then, just to make sure we didn’t try leaving again, they raked my bow with a machine gun, which forced the fucking issue. We thought once we got to the beach, Lonnie and the others would attack us again, you know? But instead of coming after us, when they saw our boat returning to shore, they just went back into the Firehouse! If you ask me, those red eyed fuckers are scared of the water.”

Bud realized Garfield was speaking in what must have been his natural speaking voice. Gone was the Stewie Griffin inspired inflection, which had been around since the inception of that animated show. It had been a long time since he’d heard Tim’s actual speaking voice. He wondered at the terrors Tim and Mr. Pete had witnessed in the past two days. Terrors enough to change the way a man spoke.

“How’d you get past the Coast Guard, Buddy boy? Has the blockade been lifted?”

“That’s a good question,” Bill said. “Just how did you sneak past them, son?”

“Sneak? We didn’t sneak past anybody. In fact, I didn’t even spot them until we were nearly in the harbor. We radioed in a distress call but all we got was dead air.”

“Bet they heard you,” Bill said. “Loud and clear.”

“Yeah.” Bud said. “That’s my thinking, too.”

“You keep saying that,” Josie said testily. “But it doesn’t make sense! The Coast Guard not offering any assistance, I mean. That’s their feckin’ job!”

“That’s why they didn’t stop you from entering the harbor,” Mr. Clean said, in a calm, friendly tone. Being handcuffed to the workbench didn’t seem to faze him at all. “And offering assistance was the last thing on their mind, I can assure you. They want to keep this outbreak isolated to one location if at all possible. That’s standard procedure in the event of an outbreak of this magnitude.”

“What’s the deal with the lab rat?” Josie asked Bill.

Bud scowled. “He’s from the Center?”

Bill sat on a steel stool. “This,” he said, smiling down at the bald man, sitting on the floor across from him, “is my other source of info you were wondering about.”

“Howdy,” Mr. Clean said with a salute.

“Why the handcuffs, Pop? He wasn’t bit, was he?”