The Shadow of the Moon

by Michael Dunn

With a slight shrug, Tony said, “He didn’t even leave a note. He didn’t say a word, not even to his parents or Larry.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll find him. I mean, how far could he have gotten on foot?” Her words rang hollow in his head.

  “Yeah… yeah, I’m sure you’re right.” Tony said, as he walked around the front of the car to open the door for her.

  “Yeah,” Tony nodded, and got into the car.

  “Morning, Suze,” JP said as he crawled into the backseat. Suzie Keaton was the only person JP relinquished his seat out of respect for Tony.

  “Morning JP,” Suzie said as she shut the door on the passenger side. She looked in the passenger side behind Tony. “Morning Larry.”

  Larry nodded.

  Tony peered over his shoulder, a worried hue touching his eyes for just a moment as he watched his friend for a moment. Larry had always been like a little brother to him, but he was also the least stable of the four of them. Three now, he corrected himself. There was no telling what would set him off anymore.

  Suzie looked at Tony. “And I saved this for you.”

  They kissed.

  “You know school is about to start,” JP said, before faking a cough into his fist.

  “Right,” Tony said, nodding, and put the car in reverse.

  “What’s that grinding sound?” Suzie asked, as Tony backed the car out of the driveway.

  “I don’t know, but I’ll have them look at it at the garage tonight.”

  Suzie smiled for a moment, leaning back in her seat, her eyes fixed out the window. Even though she had lived in Bestiavir her entire life, the rising sun reflecting off the desert never failed to catch her attention. She relaxed, looked at her boyfriend, and smiled. It was a momentary pause from the firestorm that awaited her at school.

  Chapter Ten: Animal Attraction

  April 12th, 1971

  During the drive to school, Suzie smiled looking at her boyfriend. She felt for Tony a certain animal magnetism, something she had not felt for anybody before, except maybe Sean Connery as James Bond. She thought Tony was very sexy with his long, shaggy brown hair. He was just so cute.

  She had been to a few of his basketball games and although her boyfriend didn’t have a very good jump shot, he fought ferociously for the ball and ended up with the most rebounds. His ruthlessness on the basketball court won him a first string position, but his demeanor off the court was a one hundred and eighty degree turn. He was quiet, unlike his best friend, John-Paul Grenier, who was well-known in school, but not very well-liked. Unfortunately, JP did the talking for Tony, and because of that, Tony had a bad reputation by proxy.

  It was in English Lit, nine months earlier, when her eyes met with his and she was captivated in Mr. Richardson’s class at the beginning of their senior year. Suzie would never forget when she first saw Tony as someone other than a cute boy in the hall or in the back of a class. It was like a light turned on in her heart, but there he was, two desks behind and a row to the left, almost like magic, and yet he had been there all along, quiet and unassuming, like he was hiding in plain sight. Now, when she looked at him, she felt a veil of illusion had been pulled away and she saw how handsome he was. These feelings were not new. She had them for other boys before, but never as strong as they were for Tony Brandner.

  After finishing the novella, ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,’ the class began studying the book Dracula the previous September, which was obviously Mr. Richardson’s favorite book by the way he went on and on about it. Mr. David Richardson was a tall, skinny guy with big teeth and large glasses, just out of college, and not much older than his students.

  Mr. Richardson read from his notes on the text. “Here, Professor Van Helsing is instructing his soldiers what they are going up against. He is, in a sense, like a wizard instructing his knights on how to slay a dragon, but Dracula was on to them and struck first. Dracula is a slippery character. He can transform into a bat, a rat, and a wolf, the meaner creatures in nature.”

  In the back of the room, JP coughed the word “bullshit” into his fist, and the whole class laughed. Suzie turned around to see who said that and saw Tony Brandner again, who was stealing a glance at her before quickly looking away.

  “Do you have a problem with this book, JP?” Mr. Richardson asked.

  “Some parts, yeah, like the wolf being one of the meaner things in life.”

  While JP and Mr. Richardson were debating the book, Suzie and Tony continued sneaking glances at each other. They would look, and the instance the other would look back, they’d turn away. Tony was not listening to what Mr. Richardson was rambling about, nor was Suzie taking notes about the roles of men in Victorian England. Instead, she was writing Tony Brandner’s name all over her notebook.

  The class ended and Mr. Richardson advised the class to start thinking about writing their thesis on the book. “Okay, class, remember, the test on Dracula is on Friday, and then we begin Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on Monday.”

  Tony and Suzie stopped outside the classroom and shared a mutual “Hi.” Both wanted to say more, but neither could think of the words they wanted to say and walked away to their respective classes believing they had blown it.

  It was not long before Tony worked up the nerve to ask her out, and Suzie could tell he was preparing for a big “no,” and she also knew JP had a hand in coaching him through the process. Talking came easily to the platinum blond boy.

  Suzie could only imagine how JP must have prepped Tony to get the courage to talk to her. He must have given Tony lines to say, like an actor preparing for a part, and all Tony had to do was memorize and deliver them with conviction and authority. She imagined Tony must have spent hours practicing. It was kind of flattering when she thought about it.

  Tony found the moment of truth outside English Lit class after they had finished the test on Dracula. Suzie made her way out of the classroom and into the hall where Tony called her to wait. JP was off in the distance and over Tony’s shoulder. She saw him standing there waiting.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” She noticed he was nervous, but then again, so was she.

  “Did you do you well on the test?” Tony asked, and scratched the back of his neck.

  “I think so. Um… did you like the book?” Suzie asked.

  “Yeah, I liked it better than ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’ I think Stevenson got a lot of things wrong.”

  “Oh? Such as?”

  “Well, he thinks there is a simple dichotomy between man and the inner monster.”

  “You don’t believe there are monsters hiding under a human disguise?”

  “Well, um… uh, yeah, I do, sometimes.” Tony’s eyes wandered as he said it. “But that’s not what I meant. The monster is evil not because it is hideous. It is evil, because it lacks empathy and compassion, or control, or simply doesn’t know any better, and that is what makes it evil. Take the Manson family, for example. Those stupid kids Charlie conned into killing for him looked no different than anybody else, but they lacked the control and the will to resist his commands.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” Suzie said. “I thought all they needed was a magic potion or a full moon to turn into a monster.”

  “Not exactly,” Tony said smiling. He took a deep breath and continued to follow Suzie down the hall before he continued.

  “Anyway, I was wondering ifyouhadanyplansthisweekend?” Tony scratched the back of his neck while asking.

  Suzie laughed and tried to decipher what he had said so quickly. “Uh… no.”

  “Ok, then I was wondering if you, um, well, I was hoping that you, uh…”

  “Are you trying to ask me out?” Suzie asked.

  “Um… yeah,” Tony nodded.

  Suzie smiled. “I’d love to. Here, let me give you my number.” She tore out a page from her notebook and scratched down her number. Tony took the paper and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

  “Ok,
thanks. I’ll call you tonight.” He said, smiling.

  Suzie beamed and said, “I’m looking forward to it.”

  They parted ways and when Tony caught up with JP, who had been listening from a distance, he patted Tony on the back. Suzie heard what they said.

  “Way to go, slick.” JP said.

  “I got it, didn’t I?” Tony told him.

  Tony called her later that night and she could tell he was nervous, but not as nervous as he was earlier that afternoon. Yet, once the conversation began, his nervousness slinked away, and talking became easier and more natural. They talked for hours at a stretch, which soon became a regular ritual. They went out on the following Friday and began dating regularly.

  Now her senior year was perfect. She was bright and was waiting to hear if she received a full ride scholarship to the University of New Mexico, her father’s alma mater. She had won the election for class treasurer. She had a wonderful boyfriend, whose car coincidentally matched the school colors, except for the rusty parts. Life could not have been much better.

  2

  Tony parked his car in his usual spot in the high school parking lot and the four got out of the car and headed to class. Tony and Suzie held hands as they walked toward the front door. As they entered the school, several people, mostly girls, ran up to Suzie, hounding her with questions, and every one a Barbara Walters in training, hungry to know anything about the biggest event that had happened in town for quite some time. Small-towners can keep secrets, just not from each other.

  Since Jack Keaton was the lone survivor of the blaze (at least those who were planning on being there that night), they assumed maybe his daughter would know more details, but she didn’t. Suzie’s closest friends were the first to greet her like she was a school hero, followed by her school friends (ones she only saw when school was in session) chasing her for information, pursuing her to the lockers, and separating her from Tony.

  “What happened the other night?” They asked, almost collectively.

  “What?” Suzie asked.“I-I just heard the place was on fire when my dad got there, but he didn’t tell me anything else.”

  When the crowd realized Suzie could not feed their hunger for news, they left her alone. The bell rang and the students headed for class.

  The three boys waited for the crowd to dissipate.

  “I guess her old man torched the place after we left,” JP whispered to Tony, who only nodded.

  Tony stared dumbfounded and realized JP might have been right, the old vets meant business coming to the trailer park.

  Tony said, almost trance-like, “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Makes our few bumps and bruises a trivial penance compared to what could have happened.”

  3

  Larry slipped away from Tony and JP upon entering the school, which wasn’t hard since Tony and JP were usually too focused on themselves to notice. He went to his locker, spun the combination on the lock, but couldn’t open it. Fighting back the tears over losing Benny other night, he wanted to rip the locker off its hinges and crush it. Instead, he hid his rage and anger just beneath the surface. For a brief second, calling upon a moment of imagination that was usually beyond him, Larry wondered if that was how JP felt all the time, but then he dismissed the thought as soon as it came, forgetting it altogether.

  The events of the Saturday night raced through his head slowed down when and after Benny was shot. He remembered how great it felt killing Bruce Rivetts at that moment, but the morning after, he felt worse, nauseous, and Benny was still dead.

  Goddamn JP! Larry thought. Why did we listen to him?

  His eyes were filling with tears and he was doing his best to stay calm, performing the breathing exercises he had learned since childhood, otherwise, he would have ‘wolfed-out’ right then and there, and then he would really be a liability to the community. Unleashing a torrent of rage in the middle of the high school would definitely bring a lot of unnecessary and unwanted attention to the trailer park, more than what might have occurred Saturday night.

  “Larry.”

  Larry jumped when the science teacher, Mr. Hull put his hand on Larry’s shoulder jerking him out of his daydream. Larry turned toward the amateur botanist, terrified, and his eyes flashed yellow for a moment. Mr. Hull stepped back, a little scared himself, and then pretended to himself he didn’t see that.

  “I-I-I heard about Benny.”

  Larry was so scared his lower lip was trembling so hard it was practically vibrating.

  “Whah-whah-what?”

  “I heard he ran away. His mother called and told the office this morning.” Terrance Hull’s voice trailed off as he spoke.

  “Yeah, he-he did….” Larry looked like a sad kicked puppy as he choked out the words.

  “Are you okay?” Hull’s eyes held his concern.

  Larry kept his eyes low, turning his head away from the compassionate teacher and muttered, “No.”

  “Maybe you should go home, take the day off?” Mr. Hull said, nodding.

  Larry nodded in response, and muttered, “Yeah, thanks.” He then left the building and Larry cried all the way on the long walk home alone.

  Chapter Eleven: Talk of the Town

  April 12th, 1971

  Throughout the day, the talk in the halls and the classrooms was about what had happened last Saturday night, and the trailer park boys, with their acute hearing, heard almost all of it. Only a few of the rumors mentioned it was odd, or appropriate being Bestiavir, that such a tragedy occurred on a night of the full moon. All the awful and weird things that happened in Bestiavir happen during the full moon. However, most of the rumors were more pragmatic – twelve alcoholic veterans got roasted when an open flame (from a cigarette or a Zippo lighter perhaps) got too close to some high volume alcohol and incinerated the place in seconds, which was a far more plausible than what had really happened.

  Tony, Suzie, and JP met again in English Lit.

  “I guess you’re quite the popular girl today.” JP said, smiling.

  “No, they wanted Walter Cronkite, not me.”

  The students took their seats when the bell rang.

  “Ok, class,” Mr. Richardson said as he began writing on the chalkboard. “Since we only have a little more than a month left, we’re going to cram in The War of the Worlds.”

  The class growled quietly.

  Mr. Richardson wrote his notes on the blackboard on The War of the Worlds, focusing on the historical aspects of the book.

  “Just because the antagonists aren’t human doesn’t make this a new story. It’s about what happens when one civilization or society invades a foreign society, one unlike itself, and each finds an amazing discovery. For the humans, they learn the others from myth and legend actually do exist, and the seemingly superior Martians are surprised to learn that it is the not brute strength that does them in.”

  Once the bell rang, Tony and Suzie walked out of the classroom together when Suzie stopped and looked at him curiously. She touched his face.

  “What is it?” Tony asked.

  “Your bruise. The one that you had this morning. It’s almost gone.”

  “That is… good news.” Tony forced a nervous laugh.

  Suzie looked over Tony’s face, pushing it to one side then the other with her fingertips, like a mother making sure she got all the dirt off her child’s face. His face looked much rougher when he picked her up that morning.

  “My God, I wished I healed as quickly as you.”

  Tony shrugged. “What can I say? Genetics.”

  She smiled. “Well, I’m glad. The bruise was covering such a handsome face.” She kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you after school.” Then she headed to her next class.

  2

  During Mr. Landon’s Anatomy and Physiology class, JP daydreamed of sitting in the front row, next to the pretty, blonde Sandra Kelner, whose parents owned the bank in Bestiavir. On JP’s left would be Deborah Garner. She wasn’t rich, but she was better looki
ng than Sandra Kelner and already learned looking good can get you far in life.

  In JP’s dreams and fantasies, he was well-liked and popular among his classmates who didn’t hate nor fear him despite where he grew up, and the secret he had to keep. He was one of them, in the beautiful in-crowd, and oh, how much fun they would have. He imagined he slept with Deborah a couple of times, but they kept their trysts on the hush-hush, so her boyfriend wouldn’t find out. JP would dump Kirsten and start dating Deborah officially, eventually, but sometimes he would sneak off with Sandra from time to time. It would be a wonderful soap opera, and they would all have fun together.

  In his daydreams, JP often thought of asking Tony to join his nearly royal high school clique, but as much as JP wanted Tony to join, JP knew he never would. He knew Tony would think it was stupid and somewhat despicable since Tony’s needs were simple, which sometimes frustrated JP. He and Tony could have it all, that is, if he could only convince Tony to want it. Then suddenly, JP’s daydream was shattered when the boy in front of him spoke.

  He was Harold “Running Cloud” Jones, the youngest son of the doctor on the reservation. He was a bright kid, with a wide, friendly face, a bright smile, and dimples that made the girls like him. Harold liked to pursue the white girls who were daring and rebellious enough to date a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. In many respects, he and JP were a lot alike, complete with a deep hatred of each other.

  Harold disliked JP for the same reasons the rest of the school disliked JP, but unlike the others, Harold knew the truth about JP, Tony, and the rest of those vile creatures masquerading as humans. Harold never had real problems with any of the rest of those awful skinwalkers. He was indifferent to Benny and Larry, and surprised he actually liked Tony, but the Indian boy felt JP’s death would make the world a better place.

  The campfire tale about the alliance with the reservation and the trailer park nearly seventy years ago once riveted Harold as a boy, how Robert Bordeaux and Joseph “Redman” Whitecloud escaped an evil circus and came to the reservation. Their shaman and others taught Robert Bordeaux how to control the beast, but the rest of the reservation gave him a wide berth, and let him go when he completed his training. They drugged Bordeaux on those nights before the change and locked him up and sentries stayed watch all night armed with silver bullets.