There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (98 page)

Josie sensed his distress. “Bud? What is it, love?”

“I think something got into the museum today. The back door was open when I—”

As if on cue, the lights went out.

Chapter Sixtee
n
:

And Now the Screaming Starts…

“Shit on a stick!” Bud swore, pulling Josie away from the open doorway behind them. Somewhere in the cellar, a metal object clanged on the concrete floor. 

             
“
Shhh
!” Bill hissed.
“Whatever it is, it just shut the generator off.”

             
“Maybe it just ran out of gas.”

             
“Not likely, Joey. It had at least another five hours left in the tank.”

             
They heard a pair of bare feet shuffling in the next room. Edging closer to their workshop.

             
“W-w-hat’s going o-on?” Tim said, coming awake in the pitch black.
“Why are the lights out?!
BILL
?!”

             
“I’m right here, Timbo. I need you to be quiet now, okay?”

             
“Oh God, they’re in here, aren’t they?”

             
“Shut up,”
Bud growled.
“Pop, where’s the flashlight?”

             
“I’m looking for it, son.”

Without the blat of the generator in the background, the sound of Bill rummaging around seemed inordinately loud. Whatever was on the other side of the door had to know they were in here by now.

Something slurped hungrily in the other room, the drool spattering on the floor
.
“Blooooood.
MMmmmmmmm
.
Yeeessssss. For meeeee.”

             
“No. No. No. No. No. No,” Garfield blubbered, over and over, as if by denying it the horror might go away.

             
The same guttural voice giggled in the dark.
“I smell blood on the comely little cunt. Come on out, sweetheart! Come out, come out, wherever you a-r-r-r-e-e-e-e!”

             
Once more, Josie’s menstrual flow had led the Rabid straight to her. The way blood in the water attracts a shark, so, too, were the Rabid drawn to the blood of the uninfected. Especially the monthly flow of a woman.

             
Upstairs, a scream. Muffled and abrupt.

             
“Bud,” Josie said, “that was Rusty!”

             
“Stay where you are, son!” Bill said. “I found it!”

             
“For God’s sake do something!” Tim cried.

             
A weak yellow beam turned on; it ran across the frightened faces by the workbench and searched the room beyond the open doorway. The stuttering beam fell upon something—dashing out of the light so quickly no one got a good look at it.  Pale, dirty skin was the consensus.

             
“That shotgun loaded?”

             
“One in each barrel, Pop. More in my pocket.”

             
“Good deal. Follow behind me, Bud. I’ll try to pin the fucker down with my flashlight, maybe get some of this WD40 from the workbench in its eyes, and then you take it out with both barrels, hear me?”

             
“You got it.”

             
“Bill, give me the keys, man,” Cutter begged from the floor. “Don’t leave me handcuffed down here!”

             
Bill handed the keys to Josie. “Don’t give it to him unless you have to, Joey.”

             
Josie nodded in the dark. She pulled Bud to her and kissed him hard. “Be careful, tiger!”

             
He took the .22 from Garfield’s trembling grasp and handed it over to her. “You too, Big Red. You too.”

             
                            *******

Awake in an instant, Rusty Huggins opened his eyes in the dark. He could hear Tubby snoring softly across from him. Otherwise, they appeared to be alone. “Josie?” he called out tremulously. Goosebumps pebbled his arms.
No
…we aren’t alone!
Something is in here with us!

He could hear it breathing; feel its hungry eyes upon him. He searched the darkened room and found them…a pair of dim red orbs, some twenty feet away. Seemingly hovering of their own accord.
“Tubby, wake up, man!”
he said, jerking upright on the sofa. The blanket fell to the floor. The floating eyes watched him. They flickered like the eyes of a Jack O’ lantern whose candle has all but guttered out. “Tubby!” he said, louder this time.

“What is it, Rusty? Why’s it so dark in—”

              Screams filled the living room.

             
                            *******

Bud followed his father into the weight room, where the generator was also located. He closed the door behind them—as if those flimsy sheets of plywood could keep his Josie safe. His eyes and the 12 gauge followed the beam of his father’s flashlight, ready—maybe even
eager
—to open fire. The cellar had become his very own Hogan’s Alley. A testing ground to see just how much he’d learned.

Keep your head, Buddy boy,
the familiar voice in his head intoned.
Make each shot count.

He rattled the shells in his pocket, taking comfort from the plastic and copper casings, so cool and callous to the touch. The foul stench that seemed to attach itself to the infected hit Bud full in the face. Like a clogged gas station toilet, ripe with piss and shit, it took your breath away.

Bud took a step back as if struck. If he’d been in a larger space, then the sour reek would surely have led him straight to its location. The stink seemed to be coming from everywhere at once and yet nowhere in particular.

             
“I think it went into my darkroom,” Bill said. He set his can of makeshift mace down on the floor. “Let me re-start the generator and we’ll have the upper hand. Here, hold this.” He handed Bud the flashlight, and pulled the ripcord on the generator. It sputtered anemically. He yanked again, and again. In the corner, at the foot of the stairs, a furtive movement caught Bill’s eye.

A shadow, growing larger, coming fast…
             

Bud was aiming the light through the open doorway, into the darkroom, when his dad cried out behind him:
“LOOK OUT, SON!”

             
The Rabid, which had been hiding in the stairwell, slammed into Bud, taking him hard to the floor. The shotgun flew from Bud’s hand and slid across the concrete basin, spewing sparks in its wake.

Instinctively, Bud slammed the flashlight against the thing’s shaggy head. For an instant, right before the cheap plastic casing shattered into a dozen shards, the light illuminated the bestial face above him, the Duracell batteries skittering away like frightened mice.

The room once again went pitch black.

Bud had the thing
(Lester?)
by the neck, squeezing its corded throat for all he was worth, but it was like trying to strangle a Rottweiler.
“Don’t worry about me, Pop! I’ve got a hold of it! Get that generator started!”
 

Holding the flailing creature at arm’s length, Bud took a battering on his chest and biceps, sacrificing his upper torso to the Rabid’s pounding fists. Anything to keep those gnashing teeth at bay. His arms shuddered from the bruising rain, but held fast and strong. He heard Josie cry out from the other room. The doorknob rattling…

“BUD!!! WHAT”S HAPPENING OUT THERE!”

“Don’t open that door, Josie! Don’t you dare open that fucking door!”

The Rabid screeched and snarled—a guttural, incomprehensible language that sent shivers down Bud’s spine. Like nearly everything about the infected, it was unnatural. Vocalization, whether you understood it or not, just wasn’t supposed to sound like this. Like a tinny recording played backwards, the volume barely audible one second, loud as hell the next. Bud could hear other voices in the background. Indistinct. Some human, most not. Crying, cursing, consuming. A legion within the host. Its skin was hot to the touch. A fever beyond Bud’s ken. He could feel its muscles and veins writhing just underneath the surface. Like parasitic worms caught in a caustic soup.

But the eyes were the windows to the soul, weren’t they? And unlike other Rabids, these eyes were all boarded up, vacant.
Why can’t I see its eyes?
Bud wondered.
The red, glowing, eyes. Where are they?

His father, frantic, continued to yank at the pull cord on the generator.
“HANG ON, SON!”

             
“Hurry up, Dad!”

             
At last the Rabid got lucky and caught Bud flush in the throat with a balled fist. Bud felt his grip loosen as he tried to draw a breath. He was on the verge of blacking out when the generator kicked in. The light in the cellar was so bright and so sudden that he had to squeeze his eyes shut.

The Rabid screamed and leapt off Bud. In an instant, it was out the door and up the stairs like a scalded cat, yowling miserably all the way.

              “Bud! Are you all right?” Bill said, running to his son’s side. “Did it bite you?”

             
Coughing, Bud sat up and shook his head.

Josie came running in and wrapped her arms around Bud. She didn’t have the .22 with her anymore. Garfield was peering out from behind the door, his eyes wet and shiny, the gun shaking in his hands.

“Oh, Buddy boy! I thought—”

             
“I’m all right,” he said, pulling away from Josie. He ran over to the shotgun on the floor and picked it up. “We’ve got to get the .38 I left in my bedroom! If those things open the doors to the outside…”

             
“What about Rusty and Ralph?”

             
“Bud’s right, Joey,” Bill said. “Let’s get armed first, then we’ll be better able to help the boys. Besides, Bud’s room is in-between the front door and the living room.”

             
Josie nodded her head. “Where the boys are.”

             
Garfield called out from the doorway. “Bilbo! Is everything all right now?”

             
“Yeah,” he said, taking the key from Josie and tossing it to the frightened man. “Close and lock that door, Timbo! Push one of those benches up against it, too. I’m going to lock the door at the top of the stairs as well. You’ll all be okay in there. We’ll be right back, I promise you!”

             
                          *******

He ran blindly through the dark, tears coursing down his face. The tears surprised him, really. He didn’t think he would’ve had any moisture left in his body after shedding so much of the stuff for his mom and dad. He wasn’t sure whom he was crying for, either. Tubby or himself.

After watching the Rabid jump his friend on the easy chair, Rusty had bolted like a startled rabbit.

Leaving Tubby to die all alone.

After all, running scared is what cowards do best.

“I’m sorry, Opie,” Rusty said. “Sorry for being such a shitty friend.”

He prayed as he ran.
Please God…please let Ralph Tolson rest in peace. Even better, Lord…may he lie
still
.

He slowed his roll and edged over to the wall, running his hand along the rough bricks there. Despite it being pitch black, Rusty had been through this mossy tunnel enough times to sense his whereabouts. He was close to the cellar; had to be. He inched his way along, feeling for the cellar door, hoping his friends were downstairs, getting the damn generator re-started.

Suddenly the lights kicked back on.

Two inhuman screams overlapped each other at once—one behind him, in the Overlook.
The one that got Tubby! Scream motherfucker! Scream!
The other one beneath his feet somewhere, in the basement.

He blinked at the cellar door, right in front of him.

Rusty looked back the way he came: The tunnel exit, where the hedge lions stood guard, was far behind him now. Across open ground. His instincts, nonetheless, were pulling him that way, towards the warm friendly light. He took a step in that direction, the lobby lights making all sorts of promises they couldn’t keep.

Any second and that bitch is gonna bust open the Overlook’s front doors! In between the lights and me…

He turned and looked the other way.

Into the dark bowels of the museum, the eerie blue glow leading off into oblivion. Naturally, he was reluctant to take that serpentine course. The cellar, maybe…