Red Moon Rising

by J. T. Brannan

  I sigh, exasperated at his question. “You were there, Ben,” I say. “It was the party Artie had for his brother Pat, who’d come up to visit him from Seattle.”

  I watch as Ben shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Ms. Hudson,” he begins uneasily, “what day is it today?”

  I look hard at him. “Sunday.”

  He shakes his head sadly. “I’m afraid not,” he says after an uncomfortably long pause. “It’s Thursday.”

  I feel chilled to the bone. Did I sleep for four days? That would explain why the crime scene has gone from my house, at least. But how would that be possible? Nobody could sleep for four days. And yet I was in a coma for six months. Could Ben be right? Is there still something wrong with my head?

  I briefly consider the fact that’s he’s lying, but realize that he wouldn’t do that; the date is simply too easy to independently verify.

  I shake my head, trying to take it all in. “Maybe . . . maybe I slept. I had something to drink, and . . .”

  “I think you misunderstand me,” he says softly. “Today is the Thursday before Arthur Jenkins’ party. It’s October ninth. His brother Patrick is still in Seattle. The party hasn’t happened yet. It isn’t until October eleventh, this Saturday night . . . two days away.” He raises his big shoulders, lets them drift back down, looks me in the eye. “It’s not real,” he tells me. “What you claim to have seen; it can’t be real.”

  2

  The doctor looks at me, asking the same questions, over and over.

  “Have you been experiencing headaches? Any pains or sensations out of the ordinary?”

  I am vaguely aware of being on the couch in Ben’s office, reclined; my head on a white cushion, my feet draped off the arm at the other end. I try and concentrate. Have I answered any of the doctor’s questions yet? Or have I zoned out, my body here but with nobody at home upstairs?

  I shake my head, trying to think, get rid of the fuzzy cotton-wool feeling. “I don’t think so,” I manage finally.

  “Nothing at all?” she asks again, and I see her now for the first time; late thirties, maybe forty, fit and trim, thick hair pushed back with a clip, rimless spectacles resting on her nose; safe, professional, reassuring. I wonder what sort of doctor she is.

  “No,” I say, more positive this time. And it’s true; I’ve had no headaches since coming to Alaska, except for the usual pre-menstrual symptoms I’ve always had. Severe migraines, severe cramps, but nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing related to the “accident”.

  I look across the room, see that we are alone; Ben has left us to it. Good for him.

  I lever myself upright. “What’s going on?” I ask the doctor.

  “It’s hard to say,” she says. “I’ve contacted medical personnel back in New York, they filled me in on the basics of your case. I’m not an expert in this field by any means, but it seems to me that what you are experiencing is linked in some way to the damage you received to your brain. From the gunshot,” she added unnecessarily. “The frontal lobes are obviously the location of our higher consciousness, they deal with how we interpret the world around us. A gross simplification of course, but an accurate one. Damage such as you received might well cause altered perceptions, difficulties in relating your experiences to reality.”

  “You’re saying I might be going crazy?” I ask, too surprised to be scared yet; though I know the fear for my future well-being is hidden just around the corner.

  The doctor smiles at me. “Not at all,” she says easily, “not at all. It might mean nothing, just one aberration which scares us all, but then never happens again. Or, it might be symptomatic of some deeper problem, which might reoccur over the long-term. That’s why I’ll be referring you to Doctor Newholme at the Neuroscience Centre at Alaska Regional Hospital. He’s the real expert around here, and he’ll speak to the doctors back in New York and Boston who are familiar with your case.”

  She smiles at me again, puts one hand on mine. “Don’t worry about a thing,” she says. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, and you’ll be good as new. But for now,” she says, reaching into a leather bag on the floor next to her, pulling out a bottle and pushing it into my hands, “I want you to go home and get some rest. Take two of these, three times a day, they’ll help with the confusion and the anxiety you’ll be feeling. Do you work?”

  I look at the bottle, straining to read the label. I tell her about the horses, how someone is there covering for me.

  She nods her head. “I’d suggest getting them to continue covering you for a few more days, just to be on the safe side. Do as much as you can yourself of course, but it’s probably wise to have some back-up.” She didn’t need to say, in case you have another episode. The message was clear nevertheless. “I’ll make the appointment with Doctor Newholme, see what he has to say, and then we’ll take it from there.”

  I pocket the bottle of pills and nod my head, resigned to my fate.

  Despite the reassurances of the doctors back home, the attack has caught up with me at last.

  And I fear that I’m finally going insane.

  As I approach my farm, the big tires of my SUV crunching the gravel beneath me, the sun high in a cloudless sky, the radio grinding out the same tunes as always, I am again unsure; but this time, I’m unsure of what I’ve been told by the doctor.

  Could I have imagined the whole thing? The further I get from Palmer, the more convinced I am that what I saw last night was real. I turn down the long driveway to my property, see the fields stretching out on either side; the other farms, the forests, the mountains beyond. The girl had been pointing to those mountains. Why? Ben and his deputy seemed to have some sort of an idea last night, exchanging worried glances when I mentioned it, Ben silencing Rob when he mentioned someone who lived up there. Was it someone they suspected? Or perhaps someone they wanted to protect?

  Or was everything happening only in my mind? Then I hear the radio DJ announce a competition, a fishing trip on the Kenai peninsula. His jocular voice offers, “A superb opportunity for the world’s best salmon fishing for anyone who can –”

  “Call in with the year the next song was originally released,” I finish, just before the DJ says exactly the same thing. The station cuts to commercials, and I brake the car reflexively. How could I have known that?

  But the same competitions are run regularly on this station. Maybe it was just a lucky guess?

  “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, Elton John and Kiki Dee,” I say out loud. I don’t know the year. 1976? ’77?

  I pause with bated breath, halfway down my driveway, my fingers clenched around the wheel. I see my knuckles going white as I listen to adverts for Bob’s Used Cars in Anchorage, Palmer Cleaning Services, a public announcement against littering; I loosen my grip, trying to relax.

  The DJ is back. “Welcome back everyone, we’ll get right on with the next song, and remember, if you call in with the year of release, you can win a fishing trip to Kenai, compliments of King of the River! Here we go!”

  The familiar beat starts up, a rhythm I remember only too well; and not from the distant past, but just a few short days ago. The music pours out around me.

  I don’t believe it; I was right, it is the same song.

  I shiver, my blood turning cold. Déja vu is one thing, but this? How could I have possibly known? Because you’ve lived this day before.

  I shake the thought out of my head. It’s impossible. The prosecutor in my head switches on, cross-examining me on the stand.

  – Could you please explain yourself, Ms. Hudson? I thought you said that you’ve lived this day before?

  – Err, yes. I think I’ve already experienced this Thursday.

  – So you’re saying that you’ve travelled back through time?

  – I’m not sure, but yes, I think so, I must have gone through Thursday, Friday and Saturday, then when I woke on Sunday I had somehow gone back through time, Sunday was now Thursday again.

  – I see. Have you recently
experienced any significant head trauma?

  – I . . . Yes. Yes, I have.

  As I play the scenario out in my mind, I know how it sounds. It sounds as if I’m crazy. But I did know which song was going to come on. I stop and listen again. I’ve not imagined it; it’s still playing. But maybe I’m just imagining that it’s playing? Can anybody else hear it?

  I roll the car forwards, my mind in tatters. I pull up in front of the house, see a young girl out in the fields. For a split second my heart stops. But this girl is not naked, she is not bruised, she is not running for her life from

  (the mountains!)

  who knows where. She is fully clothed, blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, brushing down a chestnut gelding. She is the girl Dawn sent to look after the horses. She waves at me.

  “Amy!” I call over to her. “Can you come over here please?”

  “Sure!”

  She puts down the brush, strokes Lara’s cheeks, and trots over to the car. “Hi Jessica,” she says when she gets here, young cheeks red as roses with the fresh air, “I hope you’re okay, Dawn said –”

  I hold up a hand to silence her. I feel bad about the rudeness, but I need a fast answer. “Can you hear the song on the radio?” I ask. Amy nods. “Do you know what it is?” I ask innocently.

  I see Amy as she cocks her head to one side, listening. “I’m not really sure,” she says. “I think I’ve heard my dad listening to it though.” She listens more. “I’d guess it’s called Don’t Go Breaking My Heart though, from the words, wouldn’t you say?”

  I nod my head, deep in thought. “Yes,” I murmur quietly, “I think you’re right.”

  “Is there a competition or something?”

  “Yeah, but you need the year.”

  “Sorry, no idea about that. I could call my dad though, if you want?”

  I shake my head. “No, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter really.”

  I vaguely realize that if my mind truly is rebelling, I could be imagining Amy, conjuring someone up in order to corroborate my fears. The prosecutor in me knows that this is a far more likely scenario than anything else, unpalatable though it is. Or if the girl’s real, I could be intentionally mishearing her, changing her words in my head until I hear only what I want to hear.

  I realize Amy has been talking. “Sorry Amy, what did you say?”

  “I was wondering if you wanted me to stick around for a while?”

  No! my mind screams. I want to be left alone! But the welfare of the horses always comes first, and I realize that – whatever the cause – I’m in no fit state to be looking after anything. I remember what the doctor said about keeping help around for the next few days.

  “Yes,” I say at last, “yes please. And will you be around for the next few days? I might have some other appointments, and I’d rather someone was here to look after everything.”

  Amy smiles at me. “Sure thing,” she says, obviously pleased to help.

  I realize then that I’m still sitting in the car, talking to her through an open window. It must seem strange. I guess it is strange.

  I close the window, turn the ignition off – John and Kiki mercifully quiet now, but making me wonder again if I just imagined the whole thing – and open the door, swinging myself out.

  “How about a cup of coffee?” I ask. That’s sounds normal, I think, although I wonder – deep down – whether I’ll ever be normal again.

  3

  I sit in the fields, grass feather-light at my fingertips, warmed by the sun.

  Amy is in the stables giving medicines to the horses that need them. I tried to act normally whilst I drank coffee with her, but I knew that the more time we spent together, the more suspicious she became that something was wrong. I can’t blame her; my mind is set on one thing only, and everything else is extraneous. What is going on?

  I checked the internet, just in case Ben had been lying to me, but there is no doubt about it; today is Thursday, October 9th, the Thursday before Artie’s party. There’s no information about any dead body, and I don’t suppose there would be, given that she doesn’t die until Saturday night. Doesn’t she?

  There are no red moons expected anytime soon either, according to various websites. And yet the image of that blood-red moon, towering above it all, watching with silent understanding, is still hard to put out of my mind. It sparked something – memories? – that I cannot grasp, although I keep trying. The memory is there somewhere, like those black lines that sometimes float in your eyes; it goes when you concentrate on it, forever out of reach.

  And now I’m back outside, lying where the girl lay that night, broken head cradled in my lap. The feelings come back to me, so intense I cannot deny them. Seeing the naked body running through the long grass towards me, red light playing over her otherwise pale flesh, collapsing into my arms, her blood running over my own skin; her face bruised, swollen; teeth cracked, broken; her eyes, so terrified, so desperate, the most helpless eyes I have ever seen, eyes that must have seen unspeakable horrors, endured unimaginable suffering; eyes which finally went dark, the spark of life leaving them forever, leaving an empty shell where there had once been a beautiful young girl. I will remember those eyes forever, and instinctively I know – my internal prosecutor-self be damned! – that I imagined none of it. I’m not crazy. I am not crazy.

  I get up and stagger back to the house, reaching for the telephone. I dial Artie’s number, the house a blur around me. I know how to prove it. I will prove it.

  “Hello?” Artie’s voice answers.

  “Hi Artie, I’m really sorry to bother you. I don’t know why, but I was just wondering if your brother, the one who’s coming up here, I was wondering if he has a beard?”

  I’ve met his brother, I know I have. Tall and strong, like Artie. Hair thinning, but he definitely has a beard, a full beard. And he was there alone, wife and kids left back in Seattle.

  “And is he coming alone, or with his family?” I ask anxiously before Artie has even replied to the first question.

  “Why,” Artie laughs, “are you interested in him?”

  Of course that would be what Artie thinks. I shouldn’t be asking, of course, and yet I need to know. I laugh nervously. “No, nothing like that, I just have a . . . premonition, and I was wondering if I was right. Sounds weird, huh?”

  Artie laughs again. “Yeah, it does kinda. But not as weird as some, I guess. Well, the answer is that Patrick has never had a beard, not so long as I’ve known him anyway, which is pretty much his entire life. And his wife and kids will be coming with him I’m afraid, so you’ll have no luck there.” His tone is playful, but I’m not in the mood.

  “Honestly Artie, I am not interested in your brother. I was just wondering, that’s all.” I pause, my brain hurting inside my head. “I have to go.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll see you Saturday night, yeah? You still coming?”

  “Yes,” I say uneasily, although I really don’t know if I will anymore. “I’ll see you then.”

  I put the phone down, cradle my head in my hands. I know I should have asked more questions. Does his wife work as a travel agent? Is her name Julia? Do his kids have exams coming up? But my first two had been shot down in flames, and I no longer have the heart to pursue it; Artie probably already thinks I’m one sandwich short of a picnic, and I don’t want to make things worse. Rumors spread quick in small towns.

  My mind goes back to the radio competition, and I start to realize that it must have only been a coincidence. A coincidence, fed by paranoia.

  The doctor was right; I imagined the whole thing.

  I open my bag, take out the bottle of pills and stare at it. Minutes go by, my eyes transfixed, the opaque glass pulling me in like a dream. I remember the doctor telling me to take two pills, three times a day.

  I see the girl’s eyes in the glass, looking at me accusingly, the red moon high behind her.

  I unscrew the cap and take four, washing them down with three fingers of gin.


  I hear a ringing in my ears; my head is fuzzy, confused, heavy.

  I am in bed, and I know I’ve been here for some time. Not sleeping, but not fully conscious either. Drifting; just drifting. I don’t know where.

  It is dark outside, and I check the time. Just after eleven at night; still Thursday.

  Still October 9th.

  The ringing persists, and I finally understand that it is the telephone. I grope for it clumsily, knocking it off the bed stand.

  I snatch it up from the floor, answer the call. “Hello?” I hear myself say, a voice outside of myself.

  “Jessica? Are you okay?” It is Artie, and I become slightly more alert.

  “I’m . . . yes, I’m okay.”

  “Sorry to call so late, but I just had to ring you, I don’t know how you knew, but it’s hard to believe.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, levering myself up onto one elbow, curious.

  “My brother. Pat. I just picked him up from the airport – by himself, his wife and kids decided to stay at the last minute, his wife’s busy, his kids have got exams – and, get this, you’ll never believe it – he’s grown a beard. A beard! Never had one before, and there he is at the airport, and I barely recognize him. A beard! How did you know?”

  I stare at the bottle of pills by my side, a quarter gone; the gin bottle is half empty too. “I don’t know,” I murmur, too many thoughts rushing through my head now, closing it down, darkness spreading across my vision. The mind can only take so much before it reaches its limit. Mine has been reached, beyond any doubt.

  I pass out, the phone falling from my inert hand back to the bedroom floor.

  DAY THREE

  1

  Noises filter through my slumbering consciousness.

  Birds calling in the distance, their song muted; the scrape of metal on metal, piercing, shuddering; voices, drifting in from rooms beyond my own.

  Still unable to open my eyes, inured by sleep, I try and listen to the voices. They are the voices of men, women; working voices; professional voices.