The Shadow of the Moon

by Michael Dunn

  Suzie, now a rich young woman thanks to the astute financial planning of her Captain Ahab of a father, enrolled at the University of New Mexico that fall, and since she was a married woman with a child, she didn’t have to live in the dorms (and was encouraged not to). Officially, she was a non-traditional student at the ancient college age of nineteen.

  On the nights Suzie did get some sleep from the crying baby, she dreamt about her father. He wasn’t the crazed madman of his final months, but his other self – the loving, happy family man Suzie remembered pushing her on the swing. He looked well-rested and glowing, all the menacing appearance had melted away. When Jack died, the monster inside him died too. He told Suzie he was sorry, and had no idea what he was doing, and would come by from time to time to watch over his grandson. In the dreams, he was holding his grandson singing to him and when Suzie arrived in these dreams, Jack handed her son to her.

  “He’s going to be a little hellraiser, that one,” Jack would say, a little worried and a little proud simultaneously.

  Some nights Jack would leave his daughter with a warning.

  “A monster’s coming honey, one far worse than you and Tony could imagine being. The storm’s coming back and you better prepare for it.”

  Then before Jack left, he said, “Tell your mother I love her, and I am sorry, and I’ll be waiting. No hurry.”

  Then Suzie woke up.

  After handing off the newly fed and newly changed baby to Dee, Suzie wandered to the garage. Tony was changing the oil in his mother-in-law’s station wagon and singing along to his new favorite song on the radio, Don McLean’s “American Pie.” His new car, a 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1 was in the driveway and the radio on.

  Tony spent much of his free time in the garage and once they moved in, he made it his own. One of the first things he did was destroy, with utter ferocity, the cage that Jack built. He went to work in the mornings (now a full time mechanic), came home from work, ate dinner, played with his son or watched TV with his wife, then he retreated to the garage – the garage was now his sanctuary.

  He received money from the insurance company and hush money from the town, put some of it away for a rainy day, and used some of it to buy a used Ford Mustang Mach 1.

  He had heard from his friends in a brief letter from Larry. John-Paul moved to Bisclavret with the rest of them, but didn’t stay long, and moved on to whereabouts unknown. Larry suspected William Endore asked John-Paul to leave. Constance got a job at the local hospital and adopted the orphaned girls, except Lori Wagner, who moved in with Christy and her husband.

  Larry married Amelia, which hardly surprised Tony, before leaving for the army. Since the war was winding down, he was not sure if he was going to be deployed to Southeast Asia or not.

  Tony hadn’t written back and probably wouldn’t, not realizing how much Larry needed his reply. His attention was focused on his new family and keeping his anger in check, which was hidden just beneath the surface. He started to think maybe John-Paul had been right about everything, and if he hadn’t been too busy getting laid that night, he could’ve helped in the fight and maybe some more would’ve lived… or maybe he would have been killed too and Scott wouldn’t have been conceived that night. Maybe Bordeaux knew what he was doing when he practically told Tony not to come home that night. All in all, he was doing all right, and a lucky man in most accounts, but he didn’t know how long that would last.

  The storm clouds were still in the sky, off in the distance, almost beyond sight, because the next Saros wasn’t due until August of 1989, and that was a long ways away.

  Thank you for reading The Shadow of the Moon, by Michael Dunn. We hope you have enjoyed the story. To contact the author, you can reach him through email at theshadowofthemoon1@gmail.com.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Predators

  Chapter Two: Things Overheard

  Chapter Three: The Woods

  Chapter Four: Hunting Grounds

  Chapter Five: The Last Stand of the VFW

  Chapter Six: The Funeral Pyre

  Chapter Seven: The Shadow of the Moon

  Chapter Eight: Repercussions

  Chapter Nine: The Next Day at School

  Chapter Ten: Animal Attraction

  Chapter Eleven: Talk of the Town

  Chapter Twelve: No Scratching, No Biting

  Chapter Thirteen: Memorial Service

  Chapter Fourteen: Date Night

  Chapter Fifteen: Prom

  Chapter Sixteen: The Curse

  Chapter Seventeen: The Second Life and Death of Tony’s Car

  Chapter Eighteen: A Brand New Suzie

  Chapter Nineteen: Member of the Pack

  Chapter Twenty: Werewolf 101

  Chapter Twenty-One: Training

  Chapter Twenty-Two: The Newborn Werewolf

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Fresh Meat

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Jack and the Wolfman

  Chapter Twenty-Five: JP Makes a Deal

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Monster in the Woods

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Out of His Misery

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Graduation

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Caravan Arrives

  Chapter Thirty: The New Hunters

  Chapter Thirty-One: Prey

  Chapter Thirty-Two: The Approaching Storm

  Chapter Thirty-Three: At the End of the World

  Chapter Thirty-Four: The Morning After

  Epilogue: Feeding Time