Moon Regardless

by Nick Manzolillo

  Lacy’s smile doesn’t seem as fake as Paul’s gut tells him it has to be. She seems curious, and the way her hands are clasping behind her back is more than businesslike. The way she told Paul that she would protect him gives him the sense that her teeth are serrated and that she is ready to bite, over and over, at a moment’s notice.

  “I feel as though some people are a little overdressed,” Paul whispers in Lacy’s ear, trying to be polite.

  “That’s because this is the comfortable part, Mr. Jones,” she replies. “Once we get into our gowns for the celebration, we take off our masks.”

  “What’s your last name, dear?” Paul asks. Last names are important; they connect people. Plus, Paul may know a relative.

  “Lacy is new; I thought it was pretty. I thought up a last name, too, something Japanese, but then I thought it went against the whole idea of pretending to be something that you aren’t, so I dropped it. I’m thinking of a last name that has to do with the moon and the stars, but I’m not sure.”

  Okay, she’s a hippy chick. Doable. “What happened to your old name?” Paul asks.

  “It belonged to someone boring and predictable who was satisfied with simple things and silly boys.” There’s a flicker of sadness across Lacy’s face that’s only visible in the way her cheeks seem to droop for a moment, but then she laughs. She probably hates her old self. Paul can relate.

  “Okay, maybe I’ll come up with my own name for you. So, what’s the actual celebration?” There’s a fluttery feeling in Paul’s chest, similar to heartburn. He knows what this is. These people worship some pagan Earth goddess or collect potions from roots and herbs in the woods; if anything, they stole from the Wiccans.

  “A late-night swim if the moon overcomes the clouds. Either way, there will be a great fire and a burning,” she muses.

  A chubby man with curly hair and thick Clark Kent glasses yells a nasally “Finally!” as a door between a large vase and a display case containing leather bound books bursts open. A man in a suit holding a silver platter strolls into the room. The chubby man is accompanied by an elegantly dressed, mostly attractive woman as he drags her over to the platter. The woman, fancy as she looks, has wide eyes, and she doesn’t look entirely comfortable. Just how open to the public is this little gathering?

  “Our citizens below had an appetite tonight, up to three servings!” The man who looks like a butler holding that silver tray saunters over to the curly haired guy. The tray is a platter of squirming, pale worms with black, pointy things at both ends. The chubby guy in too much plaid pops one into his mouth and moans. “Hallelujah!” he shouts as Lacy squeezes Paul’s arm. The woman the chubby man is with reluctantly selects her own worm, her face puckering up as if she’s sipped cheap tequila.

  “Trust me, baby. This is where it’s at!” The curly-haired man is telling his date, and the girl is young; Paul wonders if she belongs to the group, or is she the man’s plus one?

  “We tend to call them lunar larva; I have no idea what their scientific name is. They’re rare, active only during the full moon and bred in soil like plants. Before you become judgmental or squeamish, you should think for a minute about LSD, shrooms, and all the wonderful things people do to escape their reality. Toad licking? Gasoline sniffing?” Lacy smiles at him, and Paul’s stomach is devoid of nausea. Hallucinogenic worms? Okay, that’s not so bad. Like the one in a bottle of mescal, drink the worm and see the stars.

  “They give you more control over where you wish to steer your imagination. They’re very rare.” Lacy is almost too anxious to defend what Paul just saw, and maybe that’s what Johan intends her to be: a buffer.

  “Where do you get them?” Paul finds himself asking as if the pulpy plate of dirt eaters he’s looking at are an exotic blend of wine.

  “Where do you think? Australia, the toxic kingdom. After Johan became the man to listen to, he went on something of a vision quest to the land down under. According to the older citizens, he made a bunch of great discoveries. The worms are as much a tradition as anything else, and I find it charmingly fitting, given how horrible their very existence is.” Lacy’s teeth flash as she grips Paul’s arm, her fingernails digging ever so lightly into his skin. She’s wearing a black bracelet with a faded design. Paul can make out the corners of what must be a star. “There’s no better justice than breeding them and chewing them up.” Her flash of anger (or is it insanity?) makes Paul want to move outside, where the air is fresh, and there are no squirming creepers in sight.

  “Politician Paul!” Johan’s voice makes Paul think of a kindly old relative who’s thrilled to see him. What makes Johan anything but genuine? What’s wrong with Paul where he can’t consider a man who embraces him with open arms to be good, just because of his strange passions? “Lacy, you’re not tempting him with sampling this hatching of larva, are you?” Johan asks.

  Johan shakes Paul’s hand, and there’s an awkward moment before Johan gestures to the wing of the house Paul has yet to explore. “Let’s gather everybody for dinner, right dear?” Johan points to Lacy and draws his finger toward the guests clogging the main hall before he gently grabs Paul by the arm. “Tonight, we’re going to push the envelope just a little. If you feel uncomfortable at any moment, Lacy will take care of you. She’s new; she’ll understand. The dining table is scattered with whiskey. Scotch is at the center, and toward me, there will be Canadian imports, and running right down the table will be the more American stuff. Feel free to choose your seat according to your preference.”

  Johan abruptly turns and places a hand on Paul’s chest right above his heart. He thinks the priest with something to hide is going to comment on his Miskatonic tie, but then his hand travels to Paul’s belt. Some old awkward disdain for another man touching him below the belly button results in goosebumps along Paul’s neck. “You don’t have that gun on you, no? Good. Things may become rather intense, and if you shoot one of us, that would make you less special than we prefer you to be. For that matter, what you’re about to see is consensual. Well, most of it....”

  Following Johan along around the curve of the hallway, Paul gets a good look at the dining room table and the naked men and women shackled beside it. There is a long table cloaked in purple cloth, sprinkled with an uneven assortment of candles. Great heaving bowls of meat rest beside trays of vegetables in between royal bottles of booze. There are also cats scattered across the table, assorted in shades of color, scattered between the conventions of a dining table like china displays. Petrified and presumably the products of taxidermy, given how life-like they appear, the cats are in various walking positions. Some are resting and hunched over, while others are on their backs, peering out with lifeless black-marble eyes. Paul soon disregards them because of what else pervades the room.

  There are thirteen men and women around the table, shackled to the floor, bound by their feet and hands. Toward the head of the table, there is a man and a woman with ball gags in their mouths. The unhappy pair kneels on either side of Johan’s humble head chair. Hanging behind them, and taking up most of the back wall, is a large purple banner with a seven-pointed star and a number of spiraling circles from biggest to smallest. Johan reaches to pet the backs of each prisoner he walks past before finally ruffling his hands through the curly red hair of the woman by the head of the table. Paul could choke on his own tongue when he recognizes the woman as the mayor of Providence, who immediately rests her head submissively against Johan’s knee.

  These are politicians and rich folks, all stripped bare; they don’t even seem distraught. There are no tears or struggling attempts for freedom. Some have their eyes closed, and their heads tilted up to the ceiling. Their pupils are glazed. Could it be the worms drugging them? The lunar larva that gives them the reins to their own mania? This is a hidden world indeed.

  “I couldn’t have you miss this one, Paul!” Johan says his name like Paul needs to be reminded of himself. Does
he?

  The other guests, some forty Candle Lighters, file into the grand room. They pay the nude prisoners no attention as they scoot into their chairs. Some of the people who Paul guesses are guests of the actual Candle Lighters giggle, but perhaps because of whatever drugs they’re on, they find nothing too strange here. One old man bumps his chair into the foot of a shackled nude man and even mutters a humble “excuse me.” Paul takes a seat at the halfway point of the table, purely because the thought of sitting too close to Johan and the mayor is too much for him. An elbow nudges him, and Lacy’s grinning as she takes her seat beside him.

  “Remember, any questions….” Lacy lets the question mark hang like a hook as she shrugs toward the naked man behind her.

  “Are they here because they want to be?” Paul whispers.

  “Of course not! But it’s part of their job. Who ever really enjoys their job? It’s fine. These celebrations are only monthly,” Lacy says.

  “What happens if they say no?” It’s fucking good seeing Franco over there, no doubt about it, especially after the things her campaign spewed about him. Good, but if anybody told Paul to strip naked and slip on a ball gag, even for all the respect, luxury, and pussy in the world, he’d give himself a heart attack attempting to beat the living hell out of them.

  “They resign. You’re telling me you never asked your friends growing up what kind of sick stuff they’d do for a million dollars?” Lacy has to only be in her mid-twenties, but she sounds older. Has Paul become so used to professional people that he’s become disconnected? Lacy continues, “Imagine what they would do for something more important than money. They’ve seen what you’ll see, eventually, and when that happens, you’ll understand.”

  It’s dawning on Paul that these people aren’t the misunderstood weirdos he assumed they were. They’re in control. They don’t want to be understood or led into judgeless coexistence. What are they doing, and why is he here?

  A whining bell strikes three times, followed by a silence that only Johan dares break. One of the petrified cats is staring Paul in the eye through the reflection on his plate. They don’t all have marbles? He glances at the closest feline, and no, there is that same black emptiness. He must have imagined the yellow-pierced spark of color on his plate.

  He refocuses on Johan’s words, just as the priest gets done thanking everybody for making it out tonight. “We come together as citizens under new testament, in a time where our own friends and family are being taken from us. Early Wednesday morning marked the fifth killing of one of our own this summer cycle. There is a heretic, full of hypocrisy, with every life he takes. The public has been notified.” Johan, with his hands clasped behind his back, casts a glance to the mayor by his knee. She appears as though she’s almost purring. He runs a hand through the hair of the other man beside him. Recognizing the mole on his cheek, Paul realizes he’s the mayor of Newport.

  “We must remain extra vigilant,” Johan continues. “Keep our pleasures behind closed doors, such as those of our own hungry Komodo. Keep your knives sharp and your guns loaded; keep your teeth filed and your masks ready. The outsider fears us, for we are civilized. We must also pity the outsider, for, in his confusion, he preys upon his own kind. Our place in the universe shifts with every passing day, and more than a single point in our two hundred and thirteen years, many an eye is upon us. Eat, be merry, and stomp your feet for the dirty ones below and let us celebrate!” Johan’s curse rips through the room, followed by a loud procession of foot stomping in which even the chained, naked ones partake.

  From beneath the floorboards comes a near-ghoulish chorus of laughter and whistling. Paul leans to Lacy, and she’s already answering him. “The kids’ table is in the basement, near the worm farms. Not everybody likes to be as prim and proper as us; some just like to sit alone in the dark and pant. I’ll introduce you later.”

  “In one sentence, tell me what the Moon Shack is,” Paul asks as the stomping dies out and the sound of plates clinking fills the room.

  Lacy leans her lips to Paul’s cheek, and her words are punctuated by the sticky smack of her gloss as she says, “Shelter from everything you might ever fear, as long as you have the ability to commit the undoable.”

  A man to Paul’s left who was engaged with a conversation of his own abruptly leans toward Paul’s ear, making him jump a little in his seat. “It’s a celebration of humanity,” says the man, an old guy with short, buzzed white hair and blue eyes wide and unblinking. Then he leans across Paul and addresses Lacy. “Date?” he asks with a click of his tongue over his teeth. Paul wants to push him away; he stinks like stagnant pond water, and the cologne he’s using hardly acts as a mask. Regardless, sudden movements may not be wise at this table.

  Lacy laughs coldly. “Date? This guy?” For a moment, Paul is insulted. Not that a woman who insults you is un-beddable. “He is the one Johan has chosen,” she says with breathless adoration. The old man with eyes that seem to be too young pulls back from Paul, his mouth dropping open.

  “Hi, Paul Jones.” Paul puts up a half-hearted smile and offers his hand like it’s a flimsy morsel waiting to be snatched away. It’s clasped, gently, as Taylor McKinley introduces himself.

  “Proud spawn of Charles McKinley.” He cracks a grin, and his teeth are too clean and immaculate for a man who looks to be in his seventies.

  Lacy leans against Paul’s ear, filling in the blanks. “The son of my idol. He’s one of the original prophets. I’m not sure if Johan intends for you to meet him.” Paul’s not sure if she’s talking about Taylor or, impossibly, his relative, who would be somehow older than this guy….

  Johan’s attention-seeking bell rings. Paul can’t get a good look at the instrument over the Candle Lighters around him, but it’s one of the saddest metallic sounds he’s ever heard. Who knew a bell could have such depth? “My dear friends, the clouds have parted,” Johan announces. Paul can literally hear his smile as there’s a unanimous clatter of silverware dropping along the table. It’s no surprise this isn’t about everybody having a peaceful dinner.

  Lacy pulls on Paul’s arm. “Come with me while everybody gets changed.” She’s pushing her chair back, brushing an elbow against the shackled naked man behind them. Toward the head of the table, silver robes are being passed around and snatched up by eager hands. There is an excited murmur throughout the room.

  “I’m going to introduce you to the kids at the kids’ table,” Lacy smirks, tugging him along, and he almost hates how well the shape of her body wriggles beneath her dress. If anything is clear, this shouldn’t be a time of pleasure. Plus, she is way too young for Paul; she hardly seems to be twenty-eight.

  Lacy leads Paul into the main hall, and then he’s eyeing that basement door instead of her ass, and he doesn’t want or need to meet anybody else. Why can’t whoever is in the basement come up here? Why is Paul being led into the dark, cramped place? If they shackle up the actual government officials, then what would they do to a lowly hotel manager?

  Paul’s flinching nervousness causes him to eye an open book in the display case by the door. At first, he took the leather bound volumes to be collectibles or perhaps some assortment of pagan bibles. The open, yellowed pages are scrawled with what looks to be purple highlighter. Are those doodles in the margins? Paul makes out the word “fuck,” and it reminds him of when he used to mess around with schoolbooks when he was a kid.

  The basement steps are sleek and finished, reminding Paul once more that this is no mere house. The lighting is dim, and he recalls what Lacy said about some people preferring the dark. So, is this where the freaks live?

  “After playtime, she would bring me a rag soaked in dirt, addin’ to the blood and dust on my skin, telling me above my blood, I am of Earth. She covered me from head to toe,” a big man’s voice bellows. Paul’s nostrils fill with the stench of tobacco and incense. The basement is stacked with wooden crates and scattered wit
h not one but at least five circular tables pocketed with scraggly men and women. This really is where the monsters are kept.

  The closest man to the stairs is a big bald guy who looks like a pale-skinned Buddha. He’s turning in his flimsy fold-up chair, craning his rolling neck to peer at Paul.

  “This is the virgin,” Lacy says proudly, and Paul thinks she said “version” for a moment until the actual word hits.

  “Hey!” He turns to her as her laugh is echoed throughout the closest table. Disinterested, scattered conversation rattles onward elsewhere in the dim of the subterranean floor.

  “We mean that as in you’re important. We’re aware you’re a man with prowess.” Lacy’s lips are no longer seductive, but Paul feels the stir anyway.

  “She means you ain’t popped no cherries.” A man at the table laughs, and these are green felted pool tables they’re sitting at. The assortment of men at the first table reminds Paul of a group you might find at some factory rec room. Hell, hanging with a bunch of dirty guys drinking whiskey and playing cards isn’t such a bad way to spend an evening, but this bunch? The Buddha is shirtless, and the scars ribboning around his torso almost look like some kind of fungus.

  One kid at the table is covered in what may be dried blood, and he stands up, walks around the table, and sticks a hand Paul’s way. His hands are clean from his wrist to his fingertips, so Paul has no choice but to take it. “Derek Woodbury, sir. I recognize you from the hotel.” He’s polite, a young guy; if it weren’t for the smears of red clinging to his wife beater, he’d almost seem respectable.

  That summoning bell is ringing from upstairs. “So he’s cool!” says one of the men who looks like a normal guy in his thirties, dressed as if he’s going out bar hopping. He then swings out a mangled, bloody something, smacking it onto the table just as Paul realizes what some of the darker stains along the green felt are. The blood covering Derek is explained as the mutilated black cat’s stomach flops open.