The Shadow of the Moon

by Michael Dunn

  “Bring your car around. We need to get the hell out of here.”

  Tony nodded, stepped over the bodies and through the now blood-sticky floor, hearing his sneakers stick to the hardwood floor like it was covered in chewed bubble gum.

  “Larry!”

  Larry turned to see JP snapping his fingers. “We have to go now.”

  Larry nodded and gently closed Benny’s eyes, then JP and Larry picked up Benny’s body.

  Less than a minute later, Tony backed his dilapidated Bel Air next to the front door, when he heard the grinding noise. JP and Larry set Benny down, got their clothes out of the car and got dressed.

  “What the hell?” Tony whispered to himself, but unfortunately, this is not the time to investigate.

  Tony got out and opened the trunk. JP and Larry were carrying Benny while Tony covered his nose. Already, Benny was starting to smell.

  “Hey, hey, cover his chest!” Tony said, cutting in front of the other two to spread blankets on the floor of his trunk.

  “What?” JP asked.

  “He’s leaking a lot of blood.”

  “That’s what happens when you get shot in the chest!” JP shouted, just short of freaking out.

  “He’s going to leave a huge blood stain in the trunk! It’s the kind of thing people notice if they look in the trunk after tonight, especially if I get pulled over. This is New Mexico, not New York, or Chicago. A body-sized blood stain is gonna raise a few questions,” Tony explained.

  JP thought about it for a moment.

  “He’s right,” JP said to Larry. “Set him down.”

  They set Benny down and JP removed his shirt exposing his relatively hairless chest and pasty skin. JP took his shirt, wadded it up, and stuck into the hole in Benny’s chest. It stuck out of his chest like a rag used as a gas cap.

  “Larry, use your shirt to clean Benny off.”

  “But JP…”

  “Do it!”

  Larry obeyed. He removed his shirt and spit into it since he did not have any water available. There was water at the bar, but climbing over the corpses and across the sticky floor, it might as well been a mile away. Then, Larry gently wiped the blood off Benny’s mouth, cheeks, and chin.

  “Hey, Florence Nightingale, wanna hurry up?”

  Larry looked up and glared at JP and if Larry hadn’t been so afraid of JP, he would have slugged the fair-haired bully, but instead, Larry picked up Benny’s shoulders and set Benny in the trunk of Tony’s car. Once the body was in, Tony wrapped him with another blanket, before JP slammed the trunk shut.

  “C’mon.” JP said, and they took their usual seats in Tony’s car.

  Tony at the wheel, JP at shotgun, and Larry took the back seat behind JP. There was an empty seat behind Tony where Benny usually sat.

  Tony put the car in gear and they heard that grinding noise again.

  “What the hell was that?” JP asked.

  “I don’t know. It just started again.”

  “Can you get us home?”

  “Yeah, pretty sure. Hold on.” Tony sped away from the former VFW/Moose Lodge.

  “As long as it does not kill us before we get home, we’re fine.” JP said.

  “I never thought my car would be used as a hearse.”

  “Tony, just shut the fuck up.” JP said, and lit up a cigarette. He knew he was in big trouble for this and had to think of a way to get himself out of it.

  JP turned on the radio. Lobo’s “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” was playing as the car sped away.

  Four minutes, twelve men, and one teenage werewolf were dead.

  Chapter Six: The Funeral Pyre

  April 10th, 1971

  When Jack finally arrived at the former VFW/Moose Lodge at 10:10, missing the exiting teens speeding out of there by a full five minutes, he slowed his car down to a crawl when he saw that the south wall had been destroyed with a bulldozer sticking out of it. Jack braked and nearly crept up to the building, inspecting the damage from the safe distance of what would be the new Burger King parking lot. He saw the tread tracks of the bulldozer from the gravel lot that led to the Moose Lodge. The closer he inched to the ravaged lodge, the more his heart began to sink.

  “Good God…” Jack’s voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the hum of his own engine.

  He tried to look in from the safety of the driver’s side window of his Oldsmobile slowly passing the wreckage as he inched the car closer, but the bulldozer was obscuring his view.

  Parking his car at a safe distance, Jack got out, popped his trunk, and pulled out his shotgun, before lighting up a badly needed cigarette. He checked the gun again making sure it was loaded. It was, but not with the shells he ordered from Tank. He was too late to get those.

  He ratcheted his shotgun and thought about what he would tell the guys, even though they already knew.

  My wife made me late.

  2

  “You’re going hunting?” Dee asked suspiciously while she wiped down the kitchen before heading to bed. “In the woods?” Her brow pulled together as she looked at her husband in disbelief. “On the first night of the full moon? Why?”

  Dee had grown up in town, just like Jack, and knew the rules, the secret rules of Bestiavir, and just like Jack, she had heard all the local legends about the monster that dwelled in the woods behind that awful trailer park.

  “I know what you’re hunting for! The whole town knows! That drunken nimrod, Bruce Rivetts, told anyone who would listen. I heard all about it at the grocery store and I swore up and down that my husband was not going to be part of such foolishness!”

  “You mean the grocery store gossip club?” Jack asked.

  “That’s not funny, Jack.”

  It was true. The best local news source was the produce department.

  “Everyone has been talking about you and your friends behind your back, saying that you’re a bunch of forty-something-year-old men wanting to be ten again running off to chase an invisible monster! Terry, Ralph, Bruce, sure, but you, Jack? I thought you were more sensible! Really! It’s embarrassing and for what? Fortune and glory that will never come?” Dee was not stupid by any means, but played the role of the slightly batty housewife dutifully, mostly because that was what was expected of her. She saw herself as more ‘Lucy Ricardo’ than ‘Carol Brady,’ red hair included. She had a high-pitched voice that became almost like a dog whistle to Jack’s ears when they were fighting. After a couple decades, he thought he would be used to it.

  Annoyed, Jack said through gritted teeth, “I don’t care about any damn fortune and glory.”

  Then Dee was taken aback by her own realization.

  “This is about Suzie, isn’t it?” Dee asked slowly, now a little scared of Jack, took a step back, backing out of the living room and back into the kitchen.

  Jack did not respond.

  “This is because Suzie is dating Tony, isn’t it?” Dee spoke so fast she almost shrieked.

  “Dee, it’s more than that! You don’t know the boy!”

  “It’s because he lives in a trailer, isn’t it? You think he’s beneath us! And what do you mean, ‘I don’t know the boy?’ He’s been here several times! Tony is the sweetest boy I have ever met, and he treats Suzie like a queen. We couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend for her!”

  “HE’S NOT LIKE THAT!” Jack snapped and Dee shuddered, then cringed, and stepped away from him. Jack had never hit his wife and rarely raised his voice over their nearly nineteen-year marriage. Usually, he was quiet and disconnected, but this subject turned him into a different person.

  Seeing that he had scared his wife, Jack resigned to a much calmer voice and said, “Tony and his people might be hiding that monster, possibly even feeding it.”

  Then Dee giggled, which soon became laughter. “Have you met this boy? He’s as much of a monster as one of those Monkees boys on TV.” Dee laughed again. “You think seventeen-year-old Tony is the ancient Beast of Bestiavir?”

  “I don’t k
now! He might be feeding the beast or maybe his family is. I mean, they are from that trailer park that’s supposed to tend to that monster.”

  “So, you and the boys are going to the woods by the trailer park with guns and…” Dee’s voice trailed off, her mouth hanging open in the middle of the word for just a moment before her eyes widened, a spark of realization flaring behind her green eyes.

  “You’re planning on killing him, aren’t you?”

  Jack’s grunt was non-committal.

  Dee’s eyes went wide and then she roared pointing a menacing finger at him. “Don’t you dare! You are not leaving this house! Just because you don’t like him, you’re trying to make him into some monster and, and, and you’re using this hunting excuse to ‘accidentally’ kill him. I realize most fathers hate their daughter’s boyfriends, but don’t you think you are overreacting a little? My dad thought you were a no-good cripple when you came back from Korea limping, and sure, he wanted me to stop dating you, but he never planned on killing you!”

  “You don’t understand! I have told you over and over again I did not want Suzie dating that boy, but as usual you ignored me and overruled me!”

  Then Jack mimicked his wife in a high, whiny voice. “‘Oh, Jack, he’s so sweet. He has a good job and he even built his own car.’”

  Dee glared at him with her arms crossed as she went to the liquor cabinet. The liquor cabinet in the Keaton household was much like the axe or fire hose encased in glass: break only in case of emergency. Dee only drank on the rare occasions when her nerves were rattled. She grabbed a glass, slammed it on the counter, poured herself some vodka, and took a shot. Jack didn’t like it when she drank and she drank for that reason.

  Jack didn’t say another word and headed out the door to his car. He glanced at his watch. It was five minutes to ten and he was going to be late.

  3

  Jack finished his cigarette on the slow walk toward the battered lodge and flicked it to the side, shotgun in hand. Each step made him not want to go any further. Worst of all, everything was quiet.

  “This can’t be good,” Jack whispered to himself and prepared for whatever was waiting inside.

  Peeking inside from behind the bulldozer, shotgun gripped tightly and close to his chest, the scared accountant eyed the carnage left behind. Thinking he had prepared himself for the worst, his mind was not ready for this.

  “Oh dear Lord,” Jack whispered, staring agape and incredulous.

  The north wall ahead of him was barely intact, because of all the bullets lodged inside. The window was shattered from the outside in from all the glass on the floor. Someone, or something, must have jumped through it and did some damage.

  For all I know it could have been that sweet, lovable Tony, Jack thought, mocking his wife.

  The sight of the bodies of his life-long friends lying on the ground in front of him made him sick, and when he got a big whiff of that stench, he vomited on the ground outside the lodge.

  Jack was not a crying man, and had not cried since that foxhole in Korea when he prayed to God to spare his life, but he could not stop these tears. These men were his friends, and he had known most of them since he was a child. Some of the best times in his life were spent with these men and there they were, lying on the floor, and not just dead, but mutilated. Tank Bolin didn’t even have a head. Ralph Mullins had four deep slash marks through his chest. Bruce Rivetts looked like he was ripped apart and partially eaten.

  Jack never believed that bullshit story Bruce had told them, and didn’t know how many of the guys believed his story, but all of them placated Bruce. Jack spent a week’s pay on the special shells from Tank.

  Tank must have had a banner week, Jack thought. Too bad he wouldn’t see another one.

  Normally, you couldn’t get Jack away from the VFW, now he did not want to be there. Tears falling from his eyes and shaking to the point of collapse, Jack fought to keep going, because if he stopped, his fear would overtake him. He took it slow and tried to control his breathing to prevent himself from hyperventilating. He told himself he had to be careful. Whatever did this might still be there.

  Jack got another whiff of the dead bodies and wanted to throw up again. He gagged a couple times and fought it, but finally gave in, losing more of his dinner on Bruce Rivett’s Happy Meal of a corpse, then staggered onto the bar to keep him from falling. He took a moment to catch his breath and wiped the drool from his mouth by lifting his shirt to his nose, preferring the scent of his Old Spice deodorant to the stench of dead bodies and his own vomit. Jack never needed a drink so badly.

  He needed a few deep breaths to relax before he was able to step inside. The floor was sticky from all the blood and gore, and Jack both heard and felt the bottom of his hiking boots sticking to the floor. It felt like walking on a floor full of spilled wine.

  As he turned to go behind the bar, Jack slipped on one of Elmer Geitz’s spilled organs and caught himself on the bar. The beleaguered accountant did not have enough anatomical knowledge to know which internal organ he slipped on, and he turned away, wincing at the sight. He did his best to keep his eyes on the top of his shoes, so he wouldn’t have to look at the carnage. Once behind the bar, Jack lit up another cigarette, hoping it would help mask the smell.

  He poured himself a generous helping of Jack Daniels, downed it straight with one gulp and without a chaser. He needed to take a moment to relax and think about what to do next.

  Jack picked up the rotary phone behind the bar, and called his friend and other VFW/Moose Lodge member, Deputy Sheriff Ty Anderson, who couldn’t make it tonight because he was on duty. Jack called him at the sheriff’s office.

  “Ty, its Jack. I’m at the lodge, or what’s left of it. It’s a real SNAFU over here, a true cluster-fuck. What happened? We got hit and we got hit bad. Someone or something knew we were coming. I need you out here ASAP… and bring some gasoline, a lot of it. No one, Ty, no one. They’re all dead. All of them. We need to take care of this before morning. Yeah, I’ll call Clyde next. See you out here.”

  Jack tapped the cradle and waited for the dial tone to return. He called Clyde Townsend, the Valencia County coroner and part-time VFW/Moose Lodge member, who thought it was wise to sit this one out. Jack woke up Clyde and apologized for it, then told Clyde what happened and that if he had any love or respect for his friends, he should get out of bed and come over.

  “Yeah, I got a cover story,” Jack told Clyde over the phone. “Just come on over and pronounce them dead. Oh, and bring your camera.”

  Jack hung up and left the lodge and took the bottle of whiskey with him. He went back to his car and waited for Ty and Clyde and smoked the rest of his pack. The waiting allowed him to relax and think of how to get out of this one, or more importantly, how to make it go away.

  “Shit!” Jack snuffed out his cigarette and remembered he had left his shotgun by the entrance. Can’t forget that, he thought. Then he realized he was not the only one to spend a lot of money on special weapons. All of them had. If there was a second attack someday, those weapons would be needed.

  He kept an arm over his nose, almost in his armpit, like he was Count Dracula hiding behind his cape as he kicked the weapons toward the busted wall. Jack had the dry heaves twice, and it took nearly ten minutes to get all the guns out.

  Jack was cleaning the blood and guts off the guns and setting them neatly in the trunk of his car when Ty Anderson showed up. He was still dressed in his Deputy Sheriff uniform and arrived in the sheriff’s squad car.

  “Evenin’ Ty. Did you bring the gas?”

  The fat, jowly deputy sheriff nodded with his mouth hung open. “What happened?”

  “See for yourself.” Jack said and pointed toward the bulldozer barricading the wall.

  Ty walked slowly with his mouth agape and was barely able to comprehend what he was seeing. His friends and people he has known all his life were lying on the bloody drenched floor ripped apart.

  Ty screamed, “Oh my God
!”

  Then he threw up too. Jack was glad he had already stepped in and removed all the guns.

  “Now you see why I asked Clyde to come.”

  Jack slammed the trunk shut after he had cleaned the last gun he took from the mess. “Let’s wait for Clyde.”

  They didn’t wait long. Clyde hurried after talking with Jack, because Jack was not a man known for playing jokes or having much of a sense of humor. He parked his car next to Ty Anderson’s police cruiser where Jack and Ty were sitting on the hood.

  Clyde dressed hastily and looked pallid. He was a short, fat man with thinning black hair he combed across his head. He had a moon face and large, bug eyes, which made Jack always thought of him as a nervous, but taller Peter Lorre with a little bit of J. Edgar Hoover.

  “What the hell happened?” Clyde asked. He had only seen the bulldozer crashed in the beloved lodge.

  “I have to show you,” Jack said. “But you won’t thank me for it.”

  Clyde had the same reaction as Ty, minus the vomiting. During the war, he had been a field medic, and as a coroner, his job was dealing with death, but he had never seen anything like this.

  “Shouldn’t we have said something for the dearly departed?” Ty asked.

  “No,” Jack answered curtly, because his earlier sorrow now turned to rage.

  “What’ll we tell… everyone?” Ty asked.

  Jack thought for a second. “We tell them that I came here at ten-thirty and saw the place on fire, and it was almost out when I came by. There was no need to call the fire department, just the police, then I called the coroner and you two arrived.”

  “Think that’ll work?” Ty asked.

  “Yes, it will work as long as the three of us agree that is what happened.” Clyde answered and nodded.

  “Why not tell them the truth?” Ty asked.

  “What truth?” Jack snapped. “We don’t know exactly what happened here, but we all have our suspicions and I can almost guarantee no one really wants to know, because if they really wanted to know, they would have found something in those fucking woods decades ago. My God, you’ve lived in Bestiavir your whole life and never figured that out?”