Beneath a Winter Moon

by Shawson M Hebert

  Jack started barking furiously and spinning around in place again until he saw that the two men were looking his way. He barked some more.

  “Not lifted,” Thomas said as a chill wind froze sweat to his eyebrows. “Look there.” He pointed toward Jack. On the ground were wide, deep marks in the snow made by the helicopter’s pontoons. They headed straight for the cliff’s edge, where Jack stood, now…looking down, tail wagging.

  “No fucking way,” Delmar whispered.

  They ran to the edge, knowing what they would find. When they looked over and saw the wreckage in the dim light of the moon, they flew into action. They scrambled around the edge looking for a way down. They found no obvious way down, so Thomas ran back to the cliff’s edge, swung the rifle from his shoulder and fired a shot in the sky. The rifle shot cracked and echoed through the freezing night air.

  “Jesus!” Delmar shouted. “A little notice, next time?” He ran to Thomas’s side.

  It was difficult to make out much at the bottom. The helicopter lay nose down at an odd angle with the tail-section up and to the left, the entire cockpit jammed between massive boulders. Suddenly a head popped out of what had once been the cabin door. They could not tell who it was down there in the darkness of the canyon. Delmar shoved Thomas happily and they smiled. Perhaps they were all okay. The shadowy figure scrambled all the way out of the helicopter and made onto a nearby boulder, where it raised an arm and fired.

  A flare shot skyward, and with it came a slight illumination.

  “It’s Jenny,” Thomas said, and then shouted as loud as he could. “We’re coming!”

  Jenny waived, but did not shout back.

  Thomas wanted to ask questions but knew it was a waste of time. They could do nothing to change this situation until they were down there with the aircraft.

  “Looks like we are going to have to go the long-way down,” Delmar said.

  He was right. It took them half an hour, but they found a narrow but dangerous trail that twisted and turned its way down into the canyon. It was treacherous going. The trail was covered with snow and the moon was barely glowing as it sank into the horizon. They were using mini-flashlights held in their mouths so that they would use both hands to hold on as they moved.

  They kept their bearings and when they finally reached ground, they saw they were within a few hundred meters from the helicopter. Jack, who had apparently come up the trail to begin with, had long-since left them and had gone back to the wreckage.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Did you see that?” Brad asked as he tugged his dogs to a halt. He got the constable’s attention and pointed skyward.

  “What?” The constable asked.

  “A flare. I saw a flare,” Brad answered.

  Elmert spoke up. “The Svensons would have had flares on their helicopter…and I doubt that this man on horseback would have. This land is so remote that if it were me and I were poaching I’d figure that a flare gun and flares would just be dead weight. Well, this area used to be remote…until this year, anyway.”

  “Did you see it?” O’Reilly asked.

  “Yeah…sir. Just as it fizzled out. It came in the opposite direction from us…toward the northeast.”

  The constable took out his radio and made a call to the cabin. No one there had seen the flare. “Have our helicopter make a pass to the north and do a quick sweep. If that was the Svensons’ then they are on the ground and obviously need some help.” He waited until Corporal Seffert confirmed that he understood and then pressed the mic again. “If we haven’t found our horseback rider by daylight, we are going to head in the general direction of that flare.”

  At the cabin Alan heard Seffert talking to the constable. He frowned, knowing that this likely confirmed that the Svensons’ were in some kind of trouble and that someone should have already found them.

  The Beast sensed that he could not take as much time to stalk and play with these humans because their dogs would sense him soon, and dogs could be unpredictable. They were somehow connected with humans and did not react like animals of the wild. He felt disappointed and still somewhat puzzled that he did not feel the lust in this hunt that he normally felt when preying on humans. He rarely hunted them, so regardless of the reason for attacking, he should be elated. But, there had been times when he left wayward humans alone and went hunting for other prey…because his instinct told him that if he killed, the momentary lustful joy might soon be replaced by an overwhelming force of the humans who would eventually drive him away. However, he did not feel that way, now. There was no doubt that these humans were his or that they would die under him as he fed on them, ripping out their warm, beating hearts. He howled, a low, wailing howl. It was time.

  “Did you hear that?” asked Constable O’Reilly.

  “Hear what?”

  Seffert’s voice over the radio made O’Reilly jump. He had accidentally pushed the talk button on the mic.

  “Uh, we just heard a howl…and the dogs are acting stupid.”

  They were. They began whimpering and cowered at Brad’s feet a moment after the howl. Elmert stood stock-still, as if frozen in place, blood draining from his fingers as he gripped his rifle as tight as he could.

  “Alan wants to ask you something, sir,” Seffert’s voice cackled over the radio.

  No reply.

  “Sir, Alan would like to fly his airplane back now and swing the north and see if he can either spot something down there or maybe get a signal. Do you copy?”

  There was no reply, and Seffert shrugged at Alan. “Sorry dude. That must be his polite way of saying no.”

  “Wolf?” Elmert whispered in the dark. He had stepped forward and was now leaning over the constable’s shoulders to focus on Brad, who was standing a few paces up ahead and barely visible in dark woods.

  The constable nodded. “Had to have been.” He turned to glance at Elmert, then focused again on Brad’s form.

  Seeing his dogs’ distress and realizing what might happen if he tried to hold them during a confrontation with wolves, he bent down and quickly unsnapped the leashes from their harnesses.

  “Must be wolves,” Brad confirmed, emphasizing the plural while patting Sally on the head. “Has to be more than one to have spooked Sally so badly.”

  Sally suddenly let out a low growl and Brad would have reached down to try to calm the Alpha, his favorite girl…but he was sailing through the air now, his body slamming head-first into a tree before he could even begin to understand what was happening.

  The constable barely saw the shadowy form that had rushed in and thrown Brad Samson like a sack of bread and by the time he heard the sickening crunch of Brad’s head caving down into his spine, it was too late to react.

  There was just enough light, and just enough life left in Constable O’Reilly’s body for him to get a good look into the huge, maddening yellow and black eyes of the monster that stood before him, pulling the entrails from his overweight body. Blood splattered across O’Reilly’s face and eyes, and he would have fallen to his knees but the black-furred terror was not finished ripping at him. Finally, after a horrendous hand filled with razor-sharp claws tore the heart from his chest, the constable fell to his knees and collapsed. His face pushed into cold, damp fur and the last thought that he had was whether or not the stench that he smelled was coming from the thing that attacked him or from his own intestines as they were torn from him.

  Elmert had staggered back and somehow managed to keep his footing long enough to turn and run. He didn’t even think to aim and fire the rifle. Instead, he pulled at his radio-holster, finally freeing it and bringing it to his mouth.

  “Oh God help us,” He moaned as he pushed the talk button. “We’re attacked….we’ve been attacked…Oh Jesus God!”

  Not waiting for a reply, he pushed the talk button once more, panic rising to the highest threshold, settling in his throat. “It’s not a bear!”

  He heard something beside him and he forced himself not to look. And th
en he did look. He felt a momentary relief seeing that it was Sally, running up beside him and now passing him and leaving him behind. He wanted to call the dog back…to yell ‘wait’ as if she might comfort him or help him.

  Why was no one replying to his radio call?

  “He’s locked the talk button and can’t hear me,” Seffert said to Jaffey and Alan, who stood, their faces pale and mouths open. “He doesn’t know he’s locked the damned button.”

  The three men stood in the kitchen, staring at the radio. They heard only the occasional squawking that must have come from something hitting Elmert’s radio. Elmert was obviously running, but from what? Where were the constable and Brad?

  As if Elmert had read their minds, a panting, exhausted voice huffed over the radio. “I think their dead…Christ….I think it killed them. It threw Brad into a tree and it…it ripped open the constable’s guts. God….his guts were flying out…”

  “We have to do something,” Alan said, the frustration and fear evident in his voice.

  “We can’t do anything until Elmert tells us where the hell they are.”

  It was Jaffey who spoke up. “We can get the pilots to search. Remember the transponders in their radios? They need help right now, corporal!”

  Seffert leaned forward, grasping the edge of the counter with both hands. He shook his head. “Why the hell did the constable not wait until morning? It made no damned sense.” He stepped back from the counter and avoided Alan and Jaffey’s stares. “Damnit!” he yelled. “Damnit!”

  Just then, they heard Elmert’s voice. He sounded exhausted and as if he were in pain, barely getting in words between the deep breaths. “I’m putting the radio away so I can shoot. I haven’t heard the thing behind me yet, but I am sure it’s coming. It…it’s not human…but it’s, it’s a nightmare….oh please God….please send help. Wake me up!” Elmert suddenly whispered. “Please God it’s just a dream. If you can hear me….if anyone can hear me…please help.”

  Elmert put the radio in his Gore-Tex jacket pocket and held the M-16 to his shoulder. He clicked the selector switch to automatic and wrapped the sling around his elbow for support, and then he started running again. The night seemed to have become even darker since the attack merely minutes earlier. He was having more trouble seeing the trail in front of him and it was harder to see the trees. He feared tripping or running into one of the trees, but his fear of the monster he’d seen kill his two companions was much greater.

  Monster…it was a monster. That Travis guy…he’d said the tracks were like a werewolf. Elmert felt a dull, slow pain in his stomach as he realized that Travis had been right. Werewolf…there was no other way to describe it. He switched hands so that he carried the rifle in his left, so he could dig into his right jacket pocket. He found the radio.

  “It’s a werewolf,” he whispered, loudly, knowing how crazy it sounded. “It’s just like Travis said….it’s a no-shit, real werewolf.” He ducked just in time to miss a low branch, and then found that he had entered a thicket. Brambles tore at him from all sides, slowing him to a walk as he tried to fight his way through. He could not turn back. The werewolf would be on its way now…surely having finished its killing of the other two men. Elmert said a silent prayer, asking that the mythical creature lose interest in him and go some other way…maybe after the dogs instead.

  His hope died with the howl that came from so close behind him, maybe twenty yards away. Too close. Elmert put the radio back into his pocket, and an instinct other than flight finally began to kick in. I have to fight! There was no choice but to make a stand. If he wanted to live, he would have to confront the thing. With a heavy sigh, he stopped and turned, twisting away vines that pulled at his Gore-Tex jacket and hood. He crouched down and tried to catch his breath as quietly as he could. He had an M-16 and three, thirty-round magazines. No animal could withstand that firepower, right? He’d blow the things head right off its shoulders.

  The young officer was tangled in the remnants of a massive thicket of summer vines. Though the blooms and green leaves were gone, the vines still carried their prickly thorns and hundreds tugged at him as he crouched and waited. The thicket would give him an advantage, he knew. He had made it perhaps two hundred paces deep into the brush…and if the creature followed, he would hear it coming long before it was close enough to attack.

  Elmert’s military and police training began to surface as he was forced to wait for his pursuer. He didn’t consider that he had fled, leaving men behind. He did not feel guilt and he was controlling his fear. He had the weapon. He had an M-16 with 30 rounds locked and loaded, never mind the other loaded magazines in his Gore-Tex jacket. The creature could not possibly win now that Elmert was ready.

  Was it truly a werewolf? Could it really be? How is it possible? A snap of a branch jolted him far away from his thoughts. The thicket was too dark for him too see more than perhaps ten feet, but surely he would hear the thing coming long before it reached him. He did his best to control his breathing…to slow down and keep it quiet—but he could do nothing to stop his trembling.

  He heard it moan. The sound wasn’t a howl like before. The sound was even spookier…a high-pitched moan. Elmert squinted in the dark as he tried to see…the damned thing sounded…human. Another snap in the brush as the bite of the chilled night air came back to Elmert’s senses. He had been oblivious to the cold ever since he ran, but suddenly he felt ice from head to toe. So cold. The thing grunted …maybe twenty feet away as Elmert strained to get a glimpse of the being. He slowly, ever so gently, pulled the M-16 into a better firing position, bracing the stock against his shoulder.

  Jaffey came from nowhere to snatch the radio from Seffert’s hands. “And I thought you were the one with the most damned sense.”

  Alan backed away quickly, surprised.

  “Hey!” Seffert exclaimed. “Give me that!”

  Jaffey ignored him at first, and then pointed the radio at Seffert. “Those are your men out there…your friends! One of them has just told you that they are under attack by some animal and that one of them might be dead by now.” He grimaced at the young corporal. “And you are doing nothing but spitting out crap about light and weather conditions? Damned useless boy.” He spit that last word at Seffert.

  Alan stood, astonished as Jaffey turned and ran to the door, stopping long enough to grab a rifle. Alan ran to catch up.

  “We can’t talk with Elmert because his talk-button is on,” Jaffey said as they ran to the helicopter. “But, what we can do is get our helicopter up and over where we think they are and hook up with their transponders. The pilots can find them.”

  Seffert had a hurt, puzzled look on his face as he ran after them, but he did not try to stop Jaffey. “You’re right,” he called out as he caught up to them. “We can get our helicopter up and looking now.”

  The three men had reached the cockpit when they heard a burst of gunfire over the hand-held radio. The men froze. Jaffey turned to hold the radio out so that they could all hear. After the gunfire there was a moment of silence, and then a horrible scream. The scream was piercing and final and they didn’t have to be experts or professionals to know what the sound really was. It was a cry of death.

  “Lord in heaven,” Jaffey said, swallowing hard as new sounds came through the speaker. At first, there was a gurgling noise and static, but then they heard the attacker howl. The howl was fierce and guttural and something was so unnatural about it that all three men felt the prickles dance on their arms and necks.

  “What was it?” Seffert asked but really didn’t want to know.

  Now, there came a strange, crunching sound over the radio and then nothing, indicating either the radio no longer functioned or that the button was freed from its locked position.

  “Let’s get the crew up and ready to move,” Jaffey said.

  The three-man crew was supposed to be in the helicopter, waiting to fly out on a moment’s notice. They couldn’t see them in the cockpit, so Jaffey figured tha
t they were probably all asleep in the passenger cabin.

  Seffert slapped hard on the closed cabin door on the starboard side. “Hey, you guys! We need you to look for the constable.”

  Likewise, Jaffey had gone around to the port-side door and banged. Alan peered into the passenger-cargo section through the slightly open door. No one was there.

  “Guys,” Alan said. “No one’s here.”

  “Yeah,” Jaffey said. “No one’s in the cockpit, either.”

  “Where did they go?” asked Seffert.

  “Well,” Jaffey said as he walked around the front to stand by Seffert, “that is the question, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t see them go into the cabin. I guess we might have missed them when we were listening to the radio calls.” Alan said.

  “They didn’t go in the cabin,” Jaffey replied. “No way.” His face was twisted in anger. “Damnit to hell! We need to get out there!”

  All three men looked toward the forensic tent outside the cabin. Of course…the crew had decided to get an hour of shuteye in the tent.

  “Oh booooys,” Jaffey said loudly as he moved toward the tent, “We have a job for you.”

  He threw back the door of the huge tent. It was empty.

  “Where the fuck,” Jaffey said, his frustration reaching a crescendo.

  Seffert leaped up on the porch and ran into the cabin to double check for the crew. Alan and Jaffey waited, but within half a minute the corporal was back in the doorway, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Seffert, you see if they ever got the base station set up. If they did, come and get me and Alan. We are going to check out the barn.”

  “Me?” Alan stammered. “I’m going to the barn?”

  “Yes, you,” he replied, then nodded to Seffert. “Come to the barn either way. If that base-station is operational, I want to be the one who makes the call.” Jaffey was pointing a thumb at his own chest.

  “Why would they go in the barn?” Alan asked.

  “How the hell should I know? They aren’t in the helicopter, the tent, or the cabin…and that leaves the barn or the forest…and I doubt they went into the forest.”