FULL MOON COUNTRY (FULL MOON SERIES (vol. 2))

by Terry Yates

  “Dr. Kyler!”

  “Huh?”

  “Dr. Kyler…look!”

  With the cobwebs clearing, he shot up into a sitting position, only to be met by Lauren’s yellow-tinged face looking down at him. The problem with Lauren was her normal expression and her alarmed expression looked exactly the same. A bully had once told her that she looked like one of those comic book characters that always have exclamation points coming out of their heads.

  “Dr. Kyyylleerr!”

  “What is it, Lauren?” he asked, still wincing from the pain in his back. He felt like he had been stampeded by a herd of buffalo all named Killer.

  “The TV. Come look at the TV!”

  Kyler winced and looked down. He’d slept on an army blanket with a sheet over him. It felt so rough, Kyler wasn’t sure if it was a sheet or a towel. From his sitting position, he had started to drift again, his eyes clouding over with purple dots.

  “Come on, Dr. Kyler!”

  Lauren grabbed him by the shirt collar just as it seemed he was about to fall through the neck hole. She grabbed a handful of his wavy hair, which she’d seen on the island, was actually very curly, and shook him roughly.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow! Lauren!”

  Kyler had a tender scalp and Lauren wasn’t relenting, plus her shaking his melon back and forth was making his neck and back hurt.

  “Are you going to get up?”

  Kyler shook his head one last time, expecting to see his mother standing over him.

  “What is it, Lauren?” he asked rather tersely. He didn’t mean to sound snappy, especially at Lauren, but he was still too sleepy to really care, and by her expression, it looked like she hadn’t really taken offense, but there again, Lauren’s expressions gave little away.

  Kyler yawned, rubbed his eyes then stood up. All of the children were in front of the small, black and white television set that sat on his card table, one of the few pieces of furniture that Kyler, Willette, and Hebman had in their portable quarters. The Schmidt Twins, Werner and Astrid…Kyler had found out their names the day before from the large German man, one Peter Valkenberg, a full time masseuse and a part time body builder, stared at the television from the edge of one of the cots, neither seeming to notice him. Dustin sat in one of the three card table chairs that the doctors were allowed, and leaned in from the side of the television, trying to get a better view of whatever was so god damned important as to have to wake him up for. Heather was sitting in one of the other chairs with Meredith Bayfield sitting on her lap, a rare sight indeed, because Kyler had never seen her with anyone but Anthony, who for his part, had parked himself on his knees, with his elbows on the table, and his cheeks in his hands, and all of them were right smack dab in front of the set. Ben Rollins sat in the last chair and swung his legs slowly back and forth as he watched the TV intently.

  “Look!” Meredith squealed as Kyler reached the table. “A doggie!”

  “Doggie? What dogg…”

  Before the second “doggie” got out of his mouth, the television set came alive with the sound of people screaming as they ran through the streets of…the words “Los Angeles” comes across the screen. All Kyler could tell was that someone had used their cell phone to film some catastrophe that happened in Los Angeles, he was guessing last night, but at that moment, the camera was wobbling back and forth as if someone was either running with the phone or had just had a kickass Long Island iced tea. But after a moment, the camera stopped moving and Kyler finally saw what had Lauren all bugged out. The film had freeze-framed on a shape…a shape that was so familiar to Kyler…a shape he hoped he’d never see again. Although it was a little blurry, there was no mistaking the large silhouette of a werewolf. There was no doubt about it…the size, the mouth, and more noticeable…those big yellow fiery eyes.

  As the news reporter began to talk about the devastation the beast had caused starting in East L.A. and ending in Central L.A., Kyler looked down at Lauren who was already looking up at him.

  “How?” was all that he could say.

  Lauren pointed to the screen, basically telling him to shut up and listen.

  The newscast showed different filmed images of the creature. Only one, a straight on view of the beast, showed any clear definition of the werewolf. It was standing atop a car and looked as if it were about to jump on another. Kyler wanted to slap himself for suddenly thinking of the game Hot Lava that he and his friends would play when they were kids and no grownup was around. That’s when you jumped from chair to couch, to a second chair, back to the couch, to the coffee table to the first chair to the couch again, the whole time pretending that the floor was hot molten lava, and you couldn’t touch the floor or you’d die. It looked like the werewolf was playing the game only using cars instead of furniture, crushing them under its huge, massively clawed, feet.

  “Big Doggie!” Anthony crowed, taking his face out of his hands and looking up at Kyler.

  “Yep, Anthony,” he answered slowly returning his gaze to the television.

  “What is it?” Heather asked, unconsciously stroking Meredith’s hair, which had already started taking on her natural afro-curl. With no one around to brush it…he was pretty sure than none of the Wartler’s bothered to…it had begun to stick out in all directions.

  “It’s a w…” Lauren started

  Before she could finish, Kyler interrupted her with a noise that he had originally meant to be the word ‘no’. But while his mouth said ‘no’, his brain was trying to say “it’s not a werewolf”, so it came out something like “nwwallyatisn’t” in a register that sounded like a squeaky door and an old rocking chair had sired a child. Noticing that all of the children were looking up at him, Kyler tried to force a smile, but it did little good. He had dark circles under his eyes and his own hair stood up, so he guessed he looked more like a Tim Burton character.

  “It’s a…uh…bear…or a big dog…eh…or something,” he said slowly, never taking his eyes off of Lauren, hoping that she understood that he didn’t want the other children to know about such things after all of the crap that they’d been through.

  “Yeah,” it’s probably a bear,” Lauren echoed, slowly nodding her head.

  “That was a bear?” Dustin asked, pointing his thumb at the television.

  “Well, that or a large dog. What else could it be? Hmm? Now, what say we all wash our faces, get our teeth brushed, and go out and get some breakfast. Huh?” Kyler switched off the old television set. “What do you say?”

  “It didn’t look like…” Dustin started.

  “Bear.”

  “But those claws…”

  “Bear.”

  “The eyes! What about…”

  “Bear.”

  Seeing that he was defeated, and that the doctor was up to something, Dustin sat back in the chair and folded his arms.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Kyler told the group softly, trying not to make eye contact with Lauren.

  It was then that Sam Fong and FranAnne came bursting through the door, FranAnne in fatigues, and Sam in what Kyler thought to be the brightest Hawaiian shirt he’d ever seen.

  “Did you see it?” Sam asked loudly, his eyes wide. “You aren’t watching it on the TV?”

  As Sam walked to the table to turn the set back on, FranAnne stepped up to him.

  “How did it get here? We killed ‘em all on No Name Island!”

  Kyler was livid.

  “Hey!” Kyler yelled to Sam as he was about to turn the television set on. Although Sam didn’t turn on the television, he did stay bent down with a shocked expression on his face. Kyler turned back to FranAnne.

  “What is it with you two?” he began to scold them, hands on hips like a fed up mom.

  “What?” Sam asked, finally straightening up, his expression the same.

  “What do you mean ‘what?” Kyler snapped.

  Sam and FranAnne looked at each other and shrugged.

  “What is it, Doctor?” FranAnne asked agai
n, this time shrugging her shoulders at Kyler.

  Kyler motioned behind him at the children, first with his hand, then seeing that neither Sam nor FranAnne seemed to know what he was doing, he waved both hands behind him as if he were tossing an invisible pail of water.

  “Them!” he motioned angrily. “Here I am trying to tell them that it’s a big doggie or a bear, or something that’ll get put down quickly, and you two come stumblin’ in with your size twelves…”DID YOU SEE IT!”…”I THOUGHT WE KILLED ‘EM ALL ON NO NAME ISLAND!” C’mon!”

  Sam and FranAnne had seen Kyler wound up before…he did kick Potts in the balls after the Colonel had grabbed him by his bottom lip…but his tirades had never been aimed at them.

  “Sorry,” they both muttered simultaneously, looking down and shuffling their feet.

  Kyler felt like an ass. He’d just yelled at probably his only two adult friends in the world, not to mention two of the bravest people he’d ever met. Both of them had fought the werewolves back on the island and both were heroes as far as he was concerned, so he felt a bit like a shit for yelling at them.

  “It’s just…” he started, deflating his shoulders and holding his arms out. “It’s just…”

  “It’s just that he’s trying not to scare them by telling them that the thing on television isn’t a werewolf,” Lauren spoke up, walking up behind Kyler.

  Kyler was hurt. He’d thought that if there had been one person he could trust, it was Lauren O’Hearley, the eleven-year-old genius, but not even she seemed to be on his side this morning.

  “It’s all right, Dr. Kyler,” Lauren said, looking up at him with those emerald green eyes of hers. “I’ve already told them about the werewolves.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “When we were with the Wartler’s.”

  “The Wartler’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “What moment presented itself that gave you the sudden notion to tell these kids about No Name Island?” Kyler asked.

  “Whenever we were going through bad times at the Wartler’s, I told them about Nicholas Klefka and No Name Island and the jet crash and…my parents…and let them know that there were worse things than living with the Wartler’s.”

  Kyler wasn’t too sure that living with Ma Wartler and her sons was worse than being on an island with a werewolf.

  “And how did they take your tale of No Name Island?” he asked her.

  “I got about what I expected,” she answered.

  “Which was…?”

  “The usual…blank or semi-frightened stares.”

  Kyler bent down over her.

  “That’s ONE of the reasons that we all decided…and I believe you were one of the group, that elected to keep as mum as possible about the w-e-r-…uh…”

  “We didn’t believe her,” Dustin told Kyler as he stood up, leaned over and turned the television set back on.

  “We thought she was wacky,” Ben Rollins chimed in.

  Kyler was thrown a little. Ben Rollins probably hadn’t said three words since he’d been here. The eight year old had remained silent, only speaking when answering questions. Kyler had not had the time to check the children thoroughly, but he had an idea that this little boy had probably been through several major shitstorms.

  “Well, she’s not wacky,” Kyler told him, rubbing his thin, yellow hair. “She’s smarter than almost anyone I know.

  “So, your parents really were killed by…werewolves?” Heather asked, a look of guilt beginning to form on her face.

  “One of them was…the other…some bad people killed him.”

  Lauren dropped her head silently. Kyler placed his hand on her tangled, auburn colored head. If there was a God, he needed to give this child a break. The last month or so of her life, this child had shouldered more burden than most people would get in a lifetime.

  “What’s a…wherewooff?” Meredith asked, looking up at Kyler, her brown eyes wide in surprise.

  “Volf?” Werner asked the group, pointing at the television.

  The group turned to the television set. More footage was being shown of the werewolf.

  “They say it killed over twenty people last night,” Sam started, now looking at the television. “And another thirty-something have been hospitalized…including several cops.”

  “Hospitalized?” Kyler asked quizzically.

  “Well…yeah…some people got away with just scratches and…”

  “Bites,” Kyler finished softly.

  CHAPTER 32

  Denny Lusk had been afraid to go into any of the houses. He found a First-Aid kit in Harlan Gaskins’ squad car, but all it had in it was one large gauze bandage and some white medical tape. There was no Hydrogen Peroxide, no alcohol, hell there hadn’t even been any band-aids, just a bottle of Ozarka water.

  He had just stood up from bandaging Rhonda Weaver’s wound when he heard the sound of a car pulling up behind him, the tires digging into the blacktop, making them sound like they were sticking to the tar. He turned around just in time to see a Harmonville squad car pull up behind the Berry’s car, which was just behind Harlan Gaskin’s squad car. He was standing in a ditch so he couldn’t see who was driving. It had to be either Sheriff Carter or Earl J. Avery. When he heard the driver’s door open, he ducked down to look under the car. When he saw the size of the boots that landed on the blacktop, he knew that it was Sheriff Mary Sue Carter. Earl Avery, her deputy, wore at least a thirteen.

  Denny stepped out of the ditch just as Mary Sue Carter reached the front of the car.

  “Denny Lusk?” she started, removing her sunglasses. “What in God’s name happened here?”

  Sheriff Mary Sue Carter was twenty-nine, and a local girl who married her high school sweetheart, Joey Carter, the day after high school graduation, and then moved to Ardmore, where she got a job as a croupier in the casino where Joey bartended. Between them, they made a fortune…for a young, married couple, anyway. That was until, they found themselves drinking after work all night, and smoking weed and snorting meth until all hours of the day, until they found themselves out of money and employment. After she’d caught her husband of two years with their speed connection, Mary Sue had had enough. She’d packed her bags the next morning, the whole while Joey sleeping off a three-day stretch of speed and connection nookie.

  Her grandpa Jim met her at the bus station that day. She could tell by the look on his face that he was shocked at her appearance. Mary Sue had gotten thin and reedy during her two years away. She cried when he hugged her, took her bags, and then took her home. Just before he died two years ago, her gramps got her a job as a deputy on the Harmonville Police Department. Mac Wilson was running unopposed in the Sheriff’s election when he dropped dead. The Harmonville City Council got together and had to choose between Mary Sue and Harlan Gaskin, who thought that he should be appointed interim sheriff considering his ten years in the department. Earl Avery had technically been on the police force longer than Mary Sue, but he wanted no part of being sheriff, not to mention the fact that Earl just wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. He hadn’t even finished high school, which was normally a prerequisite for employment as a civil servant, but Harmonville only had twelve hundred residents, and not a lot of folks were standing in line to be a small town cop. The pay was awful, and most of the people in town grew up with you and showed you very little respect.

  The City Council would’ve probably given Harlan Gaskin the nod had he not done one thing…opened his big mouth. He said that no one would take her seriously as sheriff because she looked too much like that actress Rebecca D.-Something-or-Other…starts with a ‘m’…the whore in Risky Business. Because of this, all but two of the City councilmen voted for Mary Sue, mainly because they’d have their wives to deal with if they didn’t. The two who didn’t vote for Mary Sue were friends of Harlan’s. All of the men had taken a look at her when he’d said “whore in Risky Business”. As a matt
er of fact, a few of the Council-ladies tipped a glance her way, too.

  When Mary Sue had taken over as sheriff, she immediately went after the drug dealers, which of course, was of particular interest to her. She got most of the meth labs and big weed growers, as well as a few stills shut down. In each and every case, she knew someone involved, so her popularity wasn’t so great among many of the townsfolk. Everyone had a cousin, uncle, aunt, or brother busted by Mary Sue and ALL were innocent according to the stories they told their relatives. They were holding it for someone…they didn’t know it was in their house…and of course, her personal favorite…it was planted on me! The election was in a few months and she really didn’t think she had a chance even if she ran unopposed. Her time in the city had changed her according to many residents. It had indeed.

  “Something…or somethings…,” Denny started after taking a moment to try to form his words. “There were at least two of ‘em…maybe three.”

  “Three what?”

  Mary Sue looked around and saw that the entire neighborhood was littered with corpses, but they didn’t look like corpses for there was no one body…at least in her immediate vision…that was entirely whole. It looked like an overrun slaughterhouse. It just looked like sides and sides of beef that were wearing clothes. Harlan’s car was pretty much in tact, but the car behind it looked like it had been in a lopsided fight with a giant chainsaw.

  “Sheriff Carter? Could you give me a hand with Mrs. Weaver, please? Sheriff?”

  Mary Sue looked away from the scene and back to Denny.

  “What?”

  “It’s Mrs. Weaver. She’s hurt.”

  “Misses…” Mary Sue shook herself to. “What? Who?”

  Mary Sue had not noticed Rhonda Weaver lying in the ditch. She moved past Denny and down into the ditch.

  “Mrs. Weaver?” she asked, dropping down to one knee.

  “They’re all dead,” Rhonda cried weakly.

  “What happened, Mrs. Weaver?”

  Mary Sue pulled back Rhonda’s shirt. Denny’s gauze bandage almost completely covered the wound. Rhonda Weaver wasn’t obese, but she had a decent girth on her. Three kids, good cook, and too tired at the end of the day to ever exercise, Rhonda had a little meat on her. Mary Sue could see that part of the wound was underneath the tape.