Harvest Moon

by James A. Moore

  There weren’t very many kids in town who were technically among the elite, apparently, but a few of the families managed to scrape up the tuition fees every year. Not that it really mattered. The business the academy brought in was enough to keep Beldam Woods’ businesses going without anyone feeling they’d had to compromise on their ethics somewhere along the way just to stay afloat. The increase was also seasonal, so the town hadn’t grown enough to attract any of the chains that would have driven the smaller businesses to financial ruin.

  Most of the people in Beldam Woods looked at the academy as a blessing and even those that didn’t would have agreed it was a necessary evil. Denny still just thought of it as part of his route and a nice place to leer quietly.

  Leering was definitely on the agenda, too. There were girls walking to classes all over the place, and each and every one of them dressed in a short-skirted uniform with knee socks and white blouses to go with the green plaid. If he’d been at the Ugly Mug he might have made a few choice comments, but no way in hell was that happening with Patrick in the truck. Just watching the girls made him want to squirm. It was like looking in a window at the finest buffet spread he’d ever seen and not having eaten in a week.

  Patrick said something to him, but he ignored it. He was distracted by a particularly fine-looking brunette with a mane of dark, curly locks he’d seen around town a few times. Erika Carmichael. That was the little girl’s name. From what he’d heard she was only sixteen, and he figured there should be laws against bodies that hot that weren’t available for groping.

  He was watching her skirt sway as she walked and then he was watching the side of the building she was walking around as the truck lurched to a stop and his head bounced against the windshield.

  Denny almost got stupid enough to protest as he rubbed the tender spot on his skull. The look on Patrick’s face convinced him that would be a bad idea.

  “Get your ass out of the truck and unload the milk. Now.” Patrick’s voice was grating and rough. Denny nodded and moved quickly, grabbing the first of seventeen crates to be unloaded. He knew he could take his time. Patrick always went over to the lake on the property, normally armed with a few loaves of bread. He liked to feed the ducks. What his partner was pissed off about was the fact that he was ogling little girls. Well, Patrick can kiss my hairy ass. I’m looking, not touching. He went about unloading as fast as he could, just the same.

  Twenty minutes later he was done, and his back felt like someone had decided to carefully stretch every single muscle to the breaking point and then hold each of them there. He might have complained more about it if that wasn’t a regular part of the day. He knew Patrick would help if he asked, but he didn’t like to feel like he owed the freak anything.

  Patrick wasn’t back yet, so he pulled out a Pall Mall and lit up, savoring the taste of the tobacco as it breezed into his mouth and then his lungs. Classes were in session, so there weren’t as many girls to look at. Still, the sun was well up now and the autumn weather was pleasant enough. Most of the trees still held on to their leaves—like it would be rude to drop them too soon, he thought—and the colors were dazzling. Patrick would be feeding his little feathered buddies for a few more minutes, like as not, so Denny decided to take a walk and look around. He wandered slowly toward the Gymnasium, where he’d seen his favorite of the girls heading earlier. He could hear several voices from just around the side, and he knew they shouldn’t have been voices he could hear by the fact that all of them were whispering.

  Denny peered around the corner and saw several of the girls who should have been in gym class smoking cigarettes and his little favorite, Erika, writing something on the wall in bright orange chalk. Her shorts looked about five sizes too small. Not that he was complaining. He let his eyes wander over each and every one of the students, and mentally peeled away what little was covering them.

  They were drawing a crude representation of a man on the wall. He was balding, overweight, and wore glasses. His pants were down around his ankles and they had given him a particularly small penis, which he was holding with one stick finger and his stick thumb. The look on his face was pure, idiotic lust. Denny liked the picture. He’d always felt that George Burgess, the headmaster at the academy, was probably about that well hung himself. The twerp had gone to school with him and later moved on to Harvard. He thought that made him better than Denny. Denny figured he could still kick the loser’s ass.

  The girls giggled and then, after hastily putting out their cigarettes, moved back into the gym through the side door they’d propped open. Denny was left alone, looking at the drawing. Half a minute later he heard Patrick calling him. The man’s voice was not at all amused. No. That wasn’t quite right. He sounded really, really pissed off. Denny didn’t know why and wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  They drove back in relative silence, the only sound from either of them being the words muttered under Patrick’s breath. Denny didn’t want to ask what was wrong. The look on Patrick’s rough face was one that came close to murderous. Denny didn’t like to admit to himself that Patrick scared him, but today, Patrick scared him a LOT.

  “Patrick? Man, what is it?”

  Patrick sneered, his lips peeling back from his teeth with all the kindness of a feral dog. “Shut your face, Denny.” He slammed his hands into the steering wheel. “Just shut your damned face.” The man looked calm enough, but Denny also knew that was about when you had to worry with Patrick. He’d seen his partner lose his temper a time or two and it was never pretty. Certainly, it was never pretty for the ones who made him blow his top.

  They drove on in silence, and Denny stared out the windshield, determined not to cause any other offenses. After almost three of the longest hours of Denny’s life, they pulled into the parking lot of the dairy. Patrick was out of the truck almost before he’d turned the engine off, grabbing the containers of empty glass bottles and hauling them across to the loading docks.

  The sun was fully up and the air had already warmed substantially. Denny did his best to keep up with his partner’s aggressive speed, but fell short of the task. The man was big enough to be a terror and strong enough to carry ten of the crates of bottles at a time. Of course, in his defense, Denny wasn’t breaking bottles with each load. Patrick slung the damned crates like they were bags of grain, with little regard for what shape the product was in when it landed.

  Denny was absolutely petrified. There was every reason to believe that someone would have to pay for the broken bottles, and as part of the team that set them down, he’d likely be paying at least a portion of the damages. The job paid well enough, but that didn’t mean he had money sweating from his pores. He listened to the sound of several bottles shattering at once before he finally got up the nerve to protest.

  “Listen, Patrick. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help,” he gestured with his arms. “’Cause I do. But you’re breaking everything. You go on home. I’ll finish up.” Patrick turned his head slowly, looking over one meaty shoulder, his eyes narrowed down to angry slits. Denny considered the very real possibility that the man was going to do unto him as he had already done to several milk bottles, and took a few steps back. “Look, dammit! I can’t afford to lose this job, Patrick!” His voice was shaking and that seemed fair enough, considering how hard his heart was thudding in his chest. “I got a house to pay for and I’d like to maybe get that damned Mustang of mine back in running order some day, so you just calm down.”

  Patrick stared at him for several seconds, and Denny forced himself to draw in a breath and exhale. He didn’t much like the odds of his getting away from the man if he decided to charge. Then Patrick nodded his head, slowly, as if it caused him pain, and turned away. He did not speak. He did not make any gestures. He just turned away, leaving Dennis Jason Halloran a very happy man. He was also very lucky, though he didn’t know that.

  He’d have probably had a heart attack if he knew just what he was dealing with when it came to Patrick
.

  II

  Josh waited outside for Melissa, trying to ignore the way his stomach insisted on knotting itself into a ball of bubbling nerves. She came outside almost ten minutes later than they’d arranged to get together, and looked in his direction with something like surprise.

  “Josh? Oh crap, I’m sorry. I forgot about us walking together.”

  “Oh, it’s okay. No biggie.” He looked at her hair, which was haphazardly tossed into a ponytail, and at her face, which was far too pale.

  “What’s wrong?” He moved a few paces closer as she looked around the area, searching for God alone knew what.

  “Heather didn’t come home last night.” She spoke softly, as if by whispering she could hide the facts away like dirty laundry.

  “She’s missing?”

  “Josh, she always comes home. Okay, late sometimes, but she always comes home.” He liked her face, always had, but the worried expression she wore did not fit with the way he thought of her. She looked older than she should have.

  “Well, did your folks call the police?”

  “Yeah, and they’re out looking for her.”

  “They just told you to go to school?”

  Melissa nodded and looked off toward the woods. “Yeah, but I’m sorry, Josh. I can’t go to school. I have to go look for her.” Her hands were in constant motion and her body seemed like it couldn’t possibly stand still.

  Josh thought about what she’d already gone through and nodded his head. He couldn’t imagine losing his folks like she had. And if something had happened to Heather, too….

  “Aren’t you gonna get in trouble?”

  “Not if they don’t catch me.” She shrugged and looked at him for a second. “Finding Heather is more important.”

  “Where did she go last night? You said she went to the movies, right?”

  Melissa nodded her head and started walking. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Well, we could call the theater…”

  “I already tried, but they don’t open for a few hours.” She was answering him, but she sounded distracted. She had bigger things on her mind than the boy who lived next door to her.

  “Well, maybe you should go to school and let the police find her, Melissa.”

  “No.” She shook her head and he saw her eyes narrow a bit as she looked his way.

  “But—”

  “Josh, I don’t trust the police, okay? They didn’t help with my mom and dad.” She blinked hard and her voice cracked a bit as she spoke. “They didn’t help with them. They won’t help now.”

  Josh looked at his watch and realized he was about to be late for school. He’d never been late in his entire life, and the thought of starting now was enough to make his stomach twist into a new shape.

  Melissa looked past him and into the woods and then back toward town, her lower lip jutting out in a pout. “I’ll look for her myself.” Her words weren’t meant for him. He knew that.

  Melissa was cute, and now that he’d actually had a little while to get to know her, he was hoping they could become friends. He also hated the idea of being late to school and had been raised to take responsibility for his actions.

  Okay, I’ve already got good grades. I’m acing everything. I’ve never played hooky and I have never been late. Skipping one day can’t be that bad, can it? Besides, Melissa is all alone. Aunts and uncles are all she has left, besides Heather, who’s missing.

  “Okay. So let’s go look for your sister.”

  “What?” She looked at him again, her mouth open with surprise.

  “I said let’s go look for Heather.”

  “No, Josh. You have to go to school.”

  “So do you.”

  “I have to look for Heather.” She waved a hand dismissively. “I can make up the homework later.”

  “So can I. Let’s go find Heather and get it done.” He was losing his nerve and if she said anything else he’d back down. He didn’t want to, but he knew that he would. Breaking the rules was not in his nature.

  “Josh…” Had a girl ever looked at him that way before? She was frustrated with him. He could see that. She was also close to tears because her sister was missing and he could only imagine what that was like. But she managed a small smile and her eyes softened a bit.

  “Time’s wasting, Melissa.”

  “Okay. You can come.” She started walking, not looking at him at all; her eyes scouting the ground like it might hold the secret of where her older sister had gone.

  “Thanks.” He started following the girl he’d seen next door a hundred times, aware that he had found a reason to talk to her, no matter how it ended up. If he was grounded for breaking the rules, he could accept that. But he didn’t really think his parents would be too upset, not as long as he had a good reason for skipping school.

  They hadn’t gone too far before Melissa reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing his fingers for a moment in silent thanks.

  Josh swallowed the butterflies trying to crawl from his stomach to his throat and walked a little faster. Beldam Woods wasn’t the biggest town in the world, but they had a lot of distance to cover.

  III

  Patrick Winter walked away from his job and decided that his employers could go to Hell if they had a problem with him leaving twenty minutes early. He’d never once called in sick in the last fifteen years, and if they didn’t like it, they could shove their damned job where the sun didn’t shine.

  A very small part of him felt a pang of guilt for the thought. The Davidsons—who owned and ran Mayflower Milk—had never been anything but good to him. That was, of course, part of the problem. Howard Davidson had just about adopted him as a member of the family; always remembered his birthday and always gave a damned nice Christmas bonus. Like as not they’d be calling his house in a few hours, just to make sure everything was all right. He’d come up with something as an explanation, but he didn’t know what.

  Sure as hell can’t tell them the truth. They’d just die on the spot. The notion brought a bitter smile to his lips. He didn’t figure any of the people in town would take it well if they knew he was the son of a woman their ancestors had torn apart almost three centuries earlier. News like that seemed to bring out the worst in people. At least in his experience, this was, to be honest, rather vast.

  He could have taken the roads without anyone even giving him a second thought. A few centuries of walking the earth had given him time to learn a few tricks, so he still looked human. Instead, he walked through the woods. He had always liked the places where humans didn’t go so casually. Especially when he had to think.

  They’d killed his mother. That was just the way it was. In their limited minds, he supposed they felt justified in tearing her apart. She did not feel that way; neither did he. At the time, he’d planned on wreaking vengeance on the entire town, but his brothers had other ideas. Also, at the time, he hadn’t been strong enough. Most of him had been shattered, or burned to the point that actually doing anything at all was an effort.

  He walked, his boots scuffing through the autumn leaves, crunching and hissing through the dried debris of a season of living. It was almost properly the season of death again, and that was appropriate. He might have seemed to be aimless in his walking to the casual observer, but he had a goal in mind.

  Aside from the small house where he lived, there were three places Patrick Winter visited every day. The first was the dairy. He went by even on his days off, almost out of habit. The second was the large pond at the private school. He liked to feed the ducks there when they were around and he liked to look at the water and think when the waterfowl had flown south, as they had already done for the season. The ducks knew what most humans did not: it was going to be a cold, cold winter, and a violent one, too. The last place he visited every day, regardless of how he felt, was the most important one.

  He visited his mother. The woman who had given him life was still in his mind every day, and he still spoke to her about what
he’d done and what he felt. She was the only person he’d ever felt comfortable speaking to. Even his siblings didn’t understand what he had to say. They normally mocked him, not because they were cruel—which they could be—but because they weren’t capable of feelings in the same way he was. They were siblings, but they had remarkably little in common. He blamed their fathers.

  His mother could do no wrong. She had cared for all three siblings, maybe even loved them in her own way, he supposed, and she had protected them when she could. She had deserved better than what she got, and he had deserved to have a mother.

  So he visited her every day, walking to the place where he had hidden her remains, or at least the part he needed. He moved slowly, deliberately, his feet knowing where to settle and where to avoid stepping. The path to his most sacred place was well-layered with traps, and anyone who was foolish enough to walk it without forewarning was almost guaranteed to die a painful death. The way was not guarded with bear traps or trip wires, but with a few hundred organic surprises. Given a few centuries to practice, Patrick had gotten very, very good at building surprises.

  He reached his destination after a few minutes, moving to the small clearing in the woods and squatting next to an oak tree that was easily as old as the first Colonial settlement in the area. The bark was heavy and broken in spots, leaking a thick syrup. Deep in the earth, nestled in the protective roots of the oak, his mother’s skull rested where it had since he’d stolen it from the ashes of her funeral pyre.

  “It’s time, isn’t it, Mother?”

  The wind sighed and he listened.

  “Does it have to be this way?” He looked down and stared, as if he could see her under the years of dead leaves and the layers of bones he had sacrificed to her every Halloween. “There are some of them I have grown fond of. Some I would spare.”

  The wind howled then, lifting the recently dead foliage from the ground and lashing it against him from every direction. He did not flinch. He knew better. Where the leaves and sticks cut his flesh, the blood that ran down was blacker than tar.