Beneath a Winter Moon

by Shawson M Hebert

  Though he felt guilty about using the shower and taking the clothes, the emotions were minuscule in nature compared to his guilt for murder—and so it had been easy to justify the theft. It was a small thing in comparison to these events and no doubt the events yet to come.

  He stood at the front door of the home, ready to take his first steps outside—as a murderer and no doubt, a fugitive. A brass lock-shaped key holder was still in place on the wall beside the door, and on it hung two sets of keys. One set was undoubtedly keys to a vehicle, so he grabbed them and stuck them in the pocket of his blue jeans. He looked down at the pants and at the white tennis shoes. The original owner of the clothes had been a larger man than Alan, but the belt held the jeans up just fine, and the shoes would do. He wore a plaid flannel shirt and a winter parka, and inside the pockets of the thick coat was a pair of leather, fur-lined gloves. He felt another pang of guilt about the clothes, picturing the elderly wife presenting her loving husband with a pair of winter gloves as a gift. He shook the guilt away—he could not change what had happened. Before opening the door he noticed a pile of mail on a small table. He reached over and grabbed the mail, hoping to find an address that he was familiar with. He sighed. The postal address gave only a route number—one that was unknown to him. He tossed the mail onto the remnants of a torn couch and opened the door.

  Alan stepped outside into the early morning sun and breathed deeply as the cold winter chill wafted into his face. He looked around, searching for the vehicle that he knew would be there, finally finding it under an old ramshackle carport. He groaned softly, seeing the motor home. At least it’s small, he thought. Not like the big ones that the tourists drive from the states.

  The driveway was long and overgrown trees slapped at the motor home as Alan drove away. He decided he would go back to the city…once he found a familiar road…and would then decide what was next. He knew he had to find Deluth again, but he had no way of doing so. He supposed he could call the local authorities and ask for him, but he sensed a danger in that prospect and was not sure he wanted to do it. The motor home came to a stop as the rocky driveway finally ended, and Alan was faced with a snow-covered road. Squinting against the bright light, Alan saw the sun was to his left, and decided, for no good reason, to turn to the right and head east. He would find a gas station or roadside stop—and only then would he find out where he was.

  As he drove slowly on the snow-covered road, he recalled bits of memory, flashes of images, but they were blurred and so quick that he could not make them out. He knew the images were of the dark and of his terrible deeds the night before and he shook his head from side to side to try to make them go away. Tears streamed down his eyes as he fought to keep his vision clear. He was a monster, just as he had believed back in the hospital. He was a horrible, murderous beast who needed to die—but the thought of his death seemed just as repugnant as the realization that he had murdered those people back there. It’s not my fault, he thought. “Damn it!” he yelled, pounding his fists on the steering wheel. “It wasn’t my fault!” He screamed and shook his head. “This is not my fault!”

  * * * * *

  Snow saw movement in the wood line to the left, and was surprised to see a stranger moving quickly toward the helicopter, pulling what looked like a body behind him. Snow aimed the pistol at the strange man as he opened the cockpit door.

  “You the one called Snow Eagle?” The man said, oblivious that Snow’s pistol was aimed directly at his face, now at point blank range.

  Snow frowned. The man was covered in blood.

  “I am. Who are you?”

  “My name’s Thomas Devereaux and this is my dog, Jack.” He dropped one end of the makeshift litter, flipping it back to expose the Husky. “He’s hurt, but he will be okay. We’ve been through a lot.”

  “What’s going on? Where is captain Deluth?”

  Thomas reached for his cargo pocket, but Snow re-aimed the pistol and grunted.

  “I’m reaching for what Deluth told me to give you, that’s all. I do have his MP-5 slung across my back, and his pistol inside my jacket, but I am going for neither, I assure you.”

  “Slowly,” Snow said.

  When Snow saw the blood-stained paper in Thomas’s hand, he said, “Slowly bring it here, but keep your other hand on top of your head.”

  Thomas nodded and did as he was asked. As he gently handed the paper to Snow, he said, “Compliments of the captain. The man said there was no time to waste and he said that Alan Tucker was loose and that you would know all about that once you read this note and the paper that he gave to you before he left the helicopter with his team.”

  When Lieutenant Snow Eagle took a longer moment to study Thomas’s face, he felt a powerful sorrow for the man. Here is a hollow man, he thought. His father had told him stories of hollow men…men who had lost their souls or lost their way in life—many would leave, never to return and many would turn to alcohol or mischief. This man before him would have left, Snow knew. This was a hollow man.

  “I’m Lieutenant Snow Eagle...everyone calls me Snow…it’s easy to remember.”

  Thomas nodded.

  “Can you tell me about the others? Where are the Svensons’ and their helicopter?”

  Thomas clenched his teeth. “They’re—gone—they are all gone.”

  Snow frowned, but nodded.

  Thomas laid Jack on one of the passenger benches and ran straps through the dog’s harness. “We’ll be home soon enough, boy. You just lay there.” He stroked Jack’s face. “Thanks for saving me back there, Jack. If you hadn’t done what you did, I’d be gone, too.”

  Thomas’s words were soon drowned out by the whir of the rotors, but Snow had heard enough of them to quell most of his suspicions. He thought that he could trust Thomas. “Come up here and sit in the co-pilot’s seat,” Snow called to Thomas. “You have to tell me what happened.”

  Thomas strapped in next to Snow, and slipped on the flight helmet just as the helicopter lifted off. He turned to Snow. “There is too much to tell…so why don’t you just ask me some questions and I will answer them as best I can.”

  “Okay,” Snow answered, shifting some of the controls and maneuvering the helicopter. “What happened to Captain Deluth and the rest of his men?”

  Thomas shook his head. “They were attacked on their way to investigate the thermals you saw this morning. Deluth lived long enough to make it to the cavern where Jack and I were recovering from our own attacks.”

  “And he told you to leave him and come to me?”

  Thomas frowned, “Not exactly…he told me everything, asked for my help, deputized me, and then he—well, he died.”

  Snow felt that was not the whole truth, but he decided not to press the issue just now.

  “What about Jeremiah? What about him?”

  “Dead,” Thomas answered. “I killed him just after sunup…and removed his head.”

  Snow looked at Thomas. “How did you do what the other failed at?”

  Thomas looked away. “Trapped him in a pit inside a cavern. He could not get out. I lost my best friend—and almost lost Jack in the process.”

  “What about the Svensons? Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Steven died in the helicopter. Jenny…” he paused, pushing away the memory of her gruesome death. “Alastair—Jeremiah killed her. He also killed Daniel, another of my friends.”

  “So you know all about what he was?”

  “I do now,” Thomas said. “Seeing is believing, Lieutenant Snow.”

  “Deluth told you the rest?”

  “Nothing I didn’t already know…or suspect. That he was a part of a larger effort to contain these attacks. He said that another man who was infected by Alastair is on the loose at the coordinates I gave you. He said that we need to do our best to find him and keep him from getting off the grid. Another team like Deluth’s is supposedly on the way, but won’t be here for hours.”

  Snow nodded, banking the helicopter.
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br />   “I promised to help, Lieutenant, but Jack needs medical attention as soon as possible.”

  Snow nodded. “We don’t have enough fuel to do a whole lot. We’ve enough to get to the wrecked van—and to look around a bit, but that’s it. We’ll be back on the ground soon enough.”

  “How long before we reach the area?” Thomas asked.

  “Thirty-three minutes if these coordinates are correct. Did Deluth give you instructions as to how to handle Alan if we find him?”

  Thomas looked away, turning his head to look out of his window. “If we find him, I’m going to kill him, Lieutenant. This is going to end.”

  Snow didn’t like the answer, but knew it was the right one. “I know him, you know…” Snow said before thinking.

  Thomas looked over at him. “No. You don’t,” he said, flatly.

  Snow looked at him incredulously, but then understood. He said nothing more, and turned back to his controls.

  * * * * *

  Alan struggled to get the motor home back under control. He was driving up a particularly steep incline when the backend of the vehicle started to fishtail. He cursed as he swung the steering wheel left and right, finally satisfied that the motor home was straight again and under control. As he reached the bottom of the incline he noticed a small building in the distance at the base of another tall hill. He hoped that the place was open and had a phone. He had seen road signs indicating the highway that he was on, and thankfully, it was one he was familiar with, but hours away from home. He didn’t get out this way much, and if he did, it would have been in his Cessna, and not in a vehicle. Highways were for chumps, he used to say to his friends…the sky is the way to go.

  He pulled up to the building a minute later, and was disappointed to see that although it was a gas station, it appeared to be closed or perhaps even abandoned. He hopped out and walked up to the front door where he could peer through the window. He could see the various shelves of odds and ends that anyone might expect to find in a small station in the middle of nowhere. He saw no indication of a telephone but decided that he had no choice but to take a closer look.

  After walking around the station, looking for any signs of life and finding none, Alan took a small brick from outside the door of the station, probably used to prop it open on warmer days, and smashed the glass near the lock. Inside, Alan found what he was looking for, a phone. It was ancient-looking, huge and black with a spin-dial, but it would do. Yes, he thought, hearing the dial-tone.

  He tried Kathy’s house, but there was no answer. He left her a message that he did not have a number to give her to call, but that he was okay for now and in desperate need of getting into touch with Captain Deluth. He told her to tell him—no one else, not any other police of any kind—that he was on highway eighteen and headed back into town. He said to tell Deluth that he was in a motor home, an old brown one, then Alan chided himself for not having checked the license plate. He ran outside and memorized the tag, but by the time he got back, Kathy’s answering machine had stopped recording. He cursed and dialed the number again, this time leaving the tag number. He told Kathy that he loved her, but to stay away from him and reiterated that he only wanted Deluth or one of his men to know all of this information. He hung up the phone.

  Alan thought about calling his parents’ home, but he had no idea what to say, and if they heard his voice, they might call the police out of concern—well, his mother would have. His father would call them with the hope that Alan was in trouble. Realizing he was hungry, Alan grabbed some bags of chips and stuck a soda in each of the coat pockets on his way out the door. He hopped back into the motor home and began driving.

  A half hour later, Alan saw a roadblock up ahead. His blood ran cold as he thought that the roadblock might be somehow connected to his actions. He quickly realized that it was useless to try to turn and run. The police would catch the old motor home in seconds. Shaking with fear, he slowed the vehicle to a stop and jumped out.

  Captain Russeux, cold and pissed, tapped a junior officer on the shoulder. A vehicle was coming, the first one they had seen in an hour. Russeux shook his head, silently cursing the higher authorities in the RCMP. They had woken him at dawn, with orders to form road blocks on three separate roads, telling him to stay at the one on highway eighteen. They were looking for Alan Tucker, no less, who had escaped from the hospital the day before. Russeux could not understand the high priority of this, and he was skeptical of the escape story. He had it on good authority that Alan was carried out of the hospital by some government types.

  Russeux cursed as he saw the vehicle stop, still some three hundred meters away. “He’s running!” Russeux yelled. The other officers were already moving. Russeux jumped into the lead car as the tires spun on the icy road. They finally gained traction and the vehicle raced toward the motor home and the figure that was running toward the wood line.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “This is Lieutenant Snow. To whom am I speaking?”

  Thomas could not hear the other side of the conversation. He frowned and listened to Snow as he explained where they were and what they were doing. Thomas raised his eyebrows as Snow explained that Deluth’s team was down, and that Thomas had put the werewolf out of commission—and had been approached and deputized by Deluth himself.

  Snow finished the conversation with “Roger…understood—we will be over the area within three minutes.”

  Thomas looked over at Snow, an eyebrow raised.

  “That was Deluth’s supposed commander. Alan Tucker has been spotted near the wreckage. He was supposedly driving some old motor home and jumped—ran into the forest.”

  Thomas didn’t say anything.

  “We will be there in one minute.”

  “He’s on foot? Are you sure?”

  “It’s what the man said.”

  Thomas unbuckled his safety belts and hopped into the rear of the aircraft.

  “What are you doing,” Snow asked.

  “I’m going to help out Mr. Tucker, Lieutenant,” Thomas answered as he threw back the cabin door, icy wind swirling through the cabin. Thomas clenched his teeth against the cold as he strapped the huge weapon’s safety belt around his waist. “I’ve got a lot of time firing one of these,” Thomas yelled through the microphone of the flight helmet. “Get me close, Snow.”

  Snow looked back at Thomas. “If we can even see him,” he said.

  Thomas looked over at Jack, who had stuck his snout out from under the blanket that covered him. “You just stay put Jack, and try to ignore the loud noises.” He knew that the weapon fire would likely scare the dog, but hopefully he would get used to it after a few moments. Thomas reached over and tugged at the blanket, once more covering Jack’s head from the icy wind. He patted the blanket and moved back to the gun.

  They saw the road block below, two cars stationed in the middle, and two other vehicles on the side of the road a few hundred meters west. There, they saw three men, one speaking into a microphone.

  Snow switched the radio dial as he swung the helicopter low over the officers. Russeux held the radio handset to his mouth, apparently trying to call the helicopter. Thomas again heard a one-sided conversation in which Snow said they were going after Alan, but stopped short of explaining why or on whose authority. Snow told the officers not to mount an on-foot effort to catch Alan—not that Russeux was about to run into the forest after the boy. Thomas raised an eyebrow and looked back over to Snow.

  Snow shrugged. “They told me to tell the officers to stand down and not to pursue on foot in the forest.”

  Thomas nodded. He removed his flight helmet and pulled his parka hood over his head, then put the helmet back on. Snow pointed to a set of goggles hanging on the back of the co-pilot’s bench. Thomas grabbed the goggles and removed the helmet again so that he could don them.

  Snow flew the helicopter in a zigzag pattern over the tops of the trees. He told Thomas that he was now over the area that Russeux had believed Alan ran int
o the wood line. Thomas gazed down through the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of anything moving, and he cursed each time Snow banked the helicopter in a way that had Thomas facing skyward, rendering his view ineffective. Thomas finally conveyed this to Snow, who apologized, saying that he should know better, as search and rescue had been his job for two decades.

  Within a couple of minutes, Thomas spotted Alan, running through the snow. He shouted at Snow and pointed downward. Snow saw Alan just as Alan looked upward towards the helicopter. The pilot felt a twinge of guilt when he saw Alan, recognizing the young man’s face, even at this altitude. It has to be, Snow thought. Sorry, Alan. It has to be.

  Thomas felt no guilt as he swung the weapon around, trying to get a bead on Alan. He felt empty inside. He expected to feel the same slight butterfly-like sensation that he felt during combat. It wasn’t guilt, and Thomas had always thought it was the sensation that should always manifest itself when a person, no matter what the situation…but it was not there as he pulled back the charging handle and released it, slamming a round into the chamber of the massive door-gun.

  Thomas grunted with the first burst of weapons-fire. The gun hopped and vibrated in his hands as he held down the butterfly-trigger, releasing a long burst. He cursed when he saw Alan dive behind a tree just as the rounds left the muzzle. It was as if Alan knew the rounds were about to come his way.

  “Watch him!” Thomas shouted through the headset. “Stay over him! Do not lose him.”

  “What in God’s name…” Russeux muttered. He and two other officers watched as the rounds jolted out of the helicopter. “What the fuck are they doing?” He scrambled into the front seat of the squad car and frantically grasped the handset. “What the fuck are you doing, Snow? Have you lost your damned mind?” Russeux yanked the cord so that it would allow him to stand outside the vehicle. One of the junior officers shook his head while pointing to the helicopter. Another long burst of weapons fire burst forth.