The Shadow of the Moon

by Michael Dunn

  As the old man dug, he thought about his lost love’s prophetic phrase, the shadow of the moon. Annabelle didn’t know the word “eclipse.”

  Since lunar eclipses happen at least twice a year, that really didn’t help deciphering the prophecy, but over the years Bordeaux learned there were other types of eclipses, such as Saros eclipses, which occur every 18 years and 11 days. The last time real trouble came to the trailer park was eighteen years before in the summer of 1953, when one of their own, Creighton DeLuca, got involved in a very messy and very public murder scandal that nearly exposed the community to the world. The community was saved from the outside world when Bordeaux put down Creighton and Creighton’s wicked socialite lover, Lucille Brochard.

  Trouble happened again, eighteen years before that as well. In the summer of 1935, bank robbers, styling themselves after Bonnie and Clyde, chose to hideout in the trailer court and attempted to hold the residents hostage. They nearly brought unwanted attention. If it wasn’t for the arrival of their sister community from Bisclavret, New York, the Paradise Trailer Park would have fallen that year.

  Eighteen years earlier in the summer of 1917 and five years after the New Mexico territory was invited to join the rest of the United States, trouble came to the trailer park again when Mexican scout troops from the Border Wars found their way up through New Mexico waiting for Mexico’s reaction to the German’s Zimmerman telegram. The telegram suggested if Mexico attacked the southwestern United States, Germany would return what the U.S. took from Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Unfortunately for the Germans, the Americans intercepted that telegram. When the Mexican scout troops advanced, the uninformed scouting party wandered into the woods behind the trailer park, and found an unwelcome surprise. No one escaped, because if one soldier made it back, he would most certainly bring more.

  The cycle continued throughout Bordeaux’s life when he and the long deceased Joseph Whitecloud escaped Hamilton Dean’s demonic circus in the summer of 1899, when the Beast of Bestiavir rumors began.

  This was a year of the Saros, and Bordeaux didn’t want to know what the end of summer was going to bring.

  The old man came alert when he heard Tony’s car speed off Bray Road racing toward the trailer park thinking, Those boys know better than to do that.

  He then heard JP screaming for help from Tony’s car. Bordeaux dropped his water jugs and ran to see what happened.

  Chapter Eight: Repercussions

  April 10th, 1971

  Tony raced off Bray Road and onto the long, and often missed, dirt road that led toward the trailer park, speeding past a private property sign with the wildly misleading warning, “Trespassers Will Be Shot on Sight.”

  Tony skidded and stopped the car underneath the streetlight. The residents of the community had started to step outside, preparing for the change when the boys arrived.

  “We need help!” JP shouted from the passenger side.

  Tony got out of his car and popped open the trunk. Larry jumped out of the convertible and was behind the car in a second meeting Tony there. Those who were already outside came running and those who heard his scream from inside their trailers came running out.

  Robert Bordeaux marched toward them and asked, “What happened?”

  Tony and Larry took out the blanket-covered body of Benny Naschy. Mrs. Naschy saw what they were holding in the bloody sheet and began to scream, so did others who saw what the boys were carrying.

  With much contrition, JP said to Bordeaux, “We had an accident.”

  Then JP explained what happened.

  After hearing this, the old man growled, his eyes flashed yellow, then smacked JP to the ground.

  The crack upon JP’s jaw was so loud, the on-looking residents thought Bordeaux must have broken it. Like most households, the discipline of the young was the direct responsibility of the parents, unless someone did something that jeopardized the community’s fragile existence, then the responsibility was left to Robert Bordeaux. Nobody wanted to stand up or question the authority of the nearly century old community founder and leader.

  Bordeaux stood over the insolent adolescent with clenched fists. He was rake thin, rugose, and looked almost as feral in human form as he did as a wolf. The residents in the community were afraid of the old man and they had every right to be. Despite his advanced age, he was the toughest of them and could kill everyone in the community within minutes and this was his community. Bordeaux had built this sanctuary decades ago and would be damned if some snot-nosed little punk was going to destroy it.

  When JP tried to get up, Bordeaux kicked him in the gut. The boy groaned, doubled over, and then coughed up blood. JP received the brunt of the punishment because he was the leader and none of the others would have partaken in such a dangerous and stupid stunt if JP had not talked them into it. Tony and Larry took their beatings and knew enough to stay down. JP’s mother, Roxanne Grenier, shuddered and cried as she watched the beating. Tony’s father held onto Roxanne both to comfort her and to prevent her from interfering.

  “How could you do something so stupid?” Bordeaux growled to JP. The remnants of his French accent were still in his speech, especially when he was angered. “You could have gotten all of us killed!” Bordeaux snarled at the beaten youth, and watched as JP feebly tried to talk.

  “Speak!”

  “I heard (gasp) they were (gasp) coming here tonight to (gasp) hunt for us. They were armed (gasp) just like in the movies. They knew what we are.” JP puked after speaking.

  “No, they don’t know,” Bordeaux said, as he shook his head. “They might suspect, but they don’t know, and they would have found nothing just as they always had! This wouldn’t be the first time they’ve come here and it wouldn’t be the last.”

  “Sooner or later they would have found something…” JP said, then coughed harshly.

  “Only speculation and rumor!” Bordeaux roared. “That’s all they have ever found! This community has survived for nearly seventy years without the outsiders ever finding anything! It has even survived without you!”

  Bordeaux picked up JP and smacked him in the nose again, and by the sound of the impact, it must have broken the boy’s nose this time if he hadn’t before. The boy fell and Bordeaux left him there. The older residents of the community had seen the old man fiercely attack and kill one of their own before when the community was threatened. This community was one of the last bastions of hope for their kind before extinction. Each of the residents lived in a daily fear of what would happen if the rest of the population found out they existed outside the movies and fairy tales.

  “Listen up, people, here’s what we are going to do,” Bordeaux called out to the alert and petrified residents. “First, we are going to bury young Benecio in the woods. We tell everyone the boy ran away from home with no note.” As the old man told the people of the community, Maria Naschy, Benny’s mother, was crying and wailing as she held the body of her dead son.

  “If the police arrive, keep the story straight. No one knows anything. You three boys were here all night at Larry’s house watching TV, and you don’t know why Benny ran away, got that?”

  Everybody nodded. The boys nodded violently, too scared to disobey.

  “I’m very sorry,” Bordeaux put his hand on Maria Naschy’s shoulder, and spoke in a more tender voice toward the grieving mother. “We have to do it this way to protect ourselves. I wish there was some other way.”

  To the rest, Bordeaux said, “Okay, people, show’s over. Go home. Get ready to change soon.”

  Bordeaux pulled a few men from the group, including Gard Brandner, Tony’s father, to dig a hole to bury Benny’s body in the woods. He then turned to the beaten JP, who was coughing up blood and lying supine, staring at the full moon above.

  “You stay here,” Bordeaux commanded JP, who sat, stayed, and obeyed.

  Bordeaux returned minutes later finding the beaten and bruised JP waiting for him, too afraid to move. The old man closed his eyes and
squinted, then took a strong deep breath through his nostrils and let it out slowly through pursed lips like he was blowing on hot soup.

  “I assume your bloodlust has been… sated?” Robert asked, motioning to the moon above.

  JP nodded vigorously.

  “Good. When this is all over tonight, I need to see you. I have a project for you and young Brandner. If you want to get back on my good side, you will listen and do what is expected of you. Can you do that?”

  JP nodded, too scared to do anything else, and then the old man headed for the woods.

  JP saw his friends leaving to their respective homes. Gard and Eunice Brandner led Tony home, before Gard went to bury Benny. Soon, they would all have to change. Both Henry and Mary Wagner had their arms around Larry as they made their way to their trailer. JP walked next to his mother, hoping she would follow their lead, but instead, Roxanne Grenier stepped away from him. She was crying too, and could not bear to look at him after what had happened.

  Fine, fuck you too, JP thought, and then ran ahead to the woods, preferring to spend this evening alone. As he ran toward the woods for another change, he was not sobbing for what he had done, because he believed he did it to protect the community. He was weeping because Bordeaux hit him and since the boy never had a father, Bordeaux was the closest that he had. Come Monday, there was going to be hell to pay.

  Chapter Nine: The Next Day at School

  April 12th, 1971

  “It’s about time,” Tony said from the driver’s seat, ready for school after an awful weekend. He checked the purple welt on his left cheekbone in the rearview mirror. The welt would be gone by this afternoon. JP came out of his trailer, wearing his practically trademark white polo shirt and new blue jeans.

  “I have to make sure I looked good enough to go to school.” JP smiled behind the mirrored sunglasses hiding the huge shiner on his right eye. His lip was split, his nose flattened, and there were huge plum colored bruises on his left cheek and jaw, but they would be mostly healed by late afternoon, if not a bit sooner. The marks were already starting to fade.

  “We only have two months left. I gotta make’em memorable.” JP smiled, but even as he tried to hide the corresponding wince, it was obvious to Tony it hurt JP to smile.

  “Fine, whatever, just get in the car,” Tony sighed. He shuddered to think what Suzie would say and had contemplated asking her to find another ride, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Plus, he needed to see her after what had happened this weekend. He turned the key and heard the engine purr.

  Taking his cue, the platinum blond jumped in the passenger seat while Larry sat quietly in the back, taking his place behind Tony. There was a vacant spot in the back passenger seat where Benny use to sit. He kept his head down and did his best to keep from noticing the absence, because Larry couldn’t look over there without wanting to cry.

  “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot,” JP said. “Bordeaux has a job for us.”

  “Yeah?” Tony asked, as he put the car in drive.

  “Yeah, he wants us to pick a fight with Jeff Morrison and his friends.”

  “Sure, okay,” Tony said with a shrug.

  With that, they left the trailer park and headed toward Bestiavir.

  The Paradise Trailer Park was two miles west of the city limits off Bray Road and just past the Navajo Reservation.

  Bestiavir was a small suburb that fed off Albuquerque, and would have been considered rural if it was not a mere twenty-five minute drive from the city, past Los Lunas, and then heading north on Highway 25 to Albuquerque. It was the perfect middle ground for people who liked to have access to the big city, but did not want to live there.

  Underneath the Norman Rockwell veneer most small towns possess, if you only drive through or stay long enough to gas up the car and get a cup of coffee, Bestiavir was a town that knew how to keep secrets. It had become a town by accident, having started life as a garbage dump for the people of Albuquerque, a graveyard for rusted carts, broken Model T’s, and worn out iron machinery, but somehow bloomed into a thriving community.

  Bestiavir had once been a mining town, but when the silver was clawed out of the ground almost a century ago, the town’s wealth dried up like a well in the desert heat. It was nearly a ghost town by the turn of the century, yet was slowly growing again in the passing decades.

  The town was modeled after all other towns with its rich and poor sections, its merchants and community dwellings, its banks and restaurants, its parks and services, and its churches and schools. It was not a romantic town by any means, often viewed as the slow, ugly child of Albuquerque and was treated as such. Affluence was foreign to many who lived there. Imagine the sweet little town of “Mayberry” from the “Andy Griffith Show” with a bad hangover and coming down with the flu and you’re almost there. The residents were a mixed breed of White, Hispanic, and Native American.

  Ed Tallfeather, of the local Navajo tribe, owned a Phillips 76 gas station and full-service garage where Tony worked after school and weekends. The first fast food chains were encroaching upon Bestiavir marking their territories, followed by outlet stores and strip malls within the coming decade.

  They passed Picardo’s Diner, where Roxanne Grenier had worked since she was a teenager, and rumor had it that was where JP had been conceived. The rumor had died out a number of years ago after a multitude of inquisitive and taunting boys ended up visiting the nurses’ office at the local middle school for multiple bruises. The First Southwest Bank of Bestiavir was owned by Sam Kelner and had a prime location on the corner of State and Main. Chances were if you bought a house in Bestiavir, Sam’s bank held the mortgage.

  Bolin’s Blades and Bullets, which sold guns, knives, and army surplus was further down Main Street with a new For Sale sign in the window.

  However, despite its slow crawl toward upward mobility, the town had its own quiet rules. There was nothing out of the ordinary during the day, but at night, people were more cautious, especially during the nights of the full moon, “the special nights” when people stayed inside and locked their doors. When night fell, even the most talkative back-porch historian went mute. Keeping secrets was the social pact forming the foundation of all small towns.

  The residents were aware of the strange and grisly murders over the decades. Usually the victim was a vagrant with their throat ripped out or a criminal on the run found partially eaten, but rarely was it someone from Bestiavir. Since the locals were normally spared, and occasionally saved on those nights, it still raised more than a few eyebrows. Decade after decade the people got used to the stories, turning them into legend.

  Tony pulled up in the driveway of the two-story Southwestern style Keaton home. The Keatons had moved from the center of town to the new subdivisions that had been growing on the east side of Bestiavir when Suzie was a freshman. Even their quiet corner of the southwest was expanding, a cause of concern for anyone with secrets to keep. Bordeaux had recently been to the Brandner home to discuss that very issue with Gard Brandner, a conversation Tony had been invited to sit in on while his mother prepared a meal for her family and community leader. Moving the community had been discussed, perhaps to Canada, or near their friends in Montana or upstate New York, where there were less people to encroach upon their secret. This thought did not sit well with the teenager in love. He knew it would probably be best for his family and friends if they left, but he didn’t want to move, because he couldn’t imagine losing Suzie, and would do anything in his power to keep that from happening.

  The moment Tony pulled into the driveway, Suzie was out the front door. In his haste to put the car in park, the scraping noise returned, which escaped the teenager’s notice as he jerked the door open, leaping from the front seat toward Suzie.

  Suzie ran to him, curling her arms under his shoulders wrapping herself around her boyfriend as she buried her head against his chest.

  “Thanks for getting me out of there. They are driving me nuts for the last couple days,” Suzie
said.

  “What happened?”

  “On Saturday night, my parents were fighting all night about you and me, and then my dad headed to the VFW, and several of my dad’s friends were killed in a fire. Thank God my dad was late, otherwise… he would have died too.” Suzie started to cry. “I almost lost my dad that night.”

  “There was a fire at the VFW Saturday night?” Tony asked.

  JP and Larry heard that too and their ears perked up. Tony hadn’t talked to Suzie all weekend. He was busy Saturday night, and then worked from Sunday morning to afternoon, then caught up on his homework, and slept the rest of the day.

  Suzie nodded.

  “What happened?”

  “They don’t know how the fire started. When my dad got there, it was already ablaze. He called the cops and the coroner, who identified the bodies. They were all people I knew.”

  Tony’s eyes went wide, as he held her close for a long moment before the two pulled away to get in the car after hearing a tap on the glass. Turning to the vehicle, he rolled his eyes and sighed as he saw his blond friend gesturing for the two of them to hurry up.

  “Tony, what happened?” Suzie asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Your face is all bruised!”

  “JP and I got into a bit of a… disagreement yesterday. We sorted it out, though, don’t sweat it.”

  “What was it about this time?”

  He was silent for a moment as he arranged his thoughts. “It’s because… Benny… on Saturday night he…”

  Meeting her gaze, Tony bit his lower lip as his eyes grazed over the empty back seat where Benny used to sit. “He ran away.”

  “Oh my God! Why?”