There's Blood on the Moon Tonight

by Bryn Roar

  “Yeah? How do you know that?”

  “Because of the drops of blood! A blind man could’ve followed that blood trail down the road…

  “Drip. Drip. Drip,” Rusty sighed.

  “Oh, dear Jesus,” Tubby lamented again.

  “Her driver’s license was found in the car with his bloody fingerprints all over it. That’s how he got her address. No one knows why he went there. To kill the whole Brown family was the consensus. For whatever reason, when he discovered that nine-year-old Bud Brown was the only one home that night, I guess he thought it would be more fun to scar a little kid for the rest of his life. He opened the door to the house with her keys and left them in the lock, where Bud’s dad found them the next day, still sticky with his wife’s blood.”

  “You mean…” Tubby couldn’t finish the sentence. It was too awful to say out loud.

  “That’s right. Bud was by himself all night long with his mother’s head in his lap. It wasn’t till his dad came home that morning…about six a.m.…that the alarm went out. By then it was too late. The killer was smoke in the wind. Bud had screamed so loud, and for so long, he wasn’t able to speak above a whisper for another three months.”

  “Is that why his voice is so raspy?”

  “I think it fits Bud to a tee. Like Dirty Harry.”

  “Oh, God, the poor kid.” Tubby wasn’t kidding. It was such a sad tale he felt like crying for the guy.

  “I know. Messed up, ain’t it?”

  Tubby nodded sickly. “So they never found out who did it, even with the fingerprints?”

  “No. The killer wasn’t in any system, and despite the DNA they had from the semen—”

  “Oh, no, Rusty! You mean he…” Tubby looked around before whispering it. “Raped her?”

  A tear rolled down Rusty’s face. “Every which way, I’m afraid. Bilbo, being an ex-cop, makes sure the prints are run every month or so. The DNA checked against any new felons. He and the sheriff tracked the Red Eyed Man, as Bud calls him, into the Pines, where the trail fizzled out. Rupert closed the case. Said the killer must’ve drowned in the swamp or broken his neck in some sinkhole. Or just plain escaped. Bud didn’t get a good look at him anyway. He was too fucked up to be of much help.”

  “Who wouldn’t be? You know what it reminds me of, Gnat? That part about the guy’s shiny red eyes?”

  Rusty’s eyes widened, a light switching on in his head. “Fuck a damn duck! That gray bitch today!”

  “I wonder if they’re connected somehow.”

  Rusty shook his head. “I don’t see how. Unless…”

  “Unless what?” Tubby asked, wondering at the sudden fear in his friend’s eyes.

  “Unless it has something to do with the Center.”

  *******

  Bud and Josie were almost out of the Pines when something rustled in the brush alongside them. The pair stopped as if frozen. Bud didn’t need to ask Josie if she’d heard it, too. Whatever it was, it was a creature of some weight, unconcerned with a stealthy approach.

  They could hear the patter of drool, dripping onto the ground. Branches cracking underfoot. The sound of a nose. Sniffing and snuffling. Seeking them out.

  Bud felt Josie shiver beside him as he withdrew his .38. “Keep walking,” he whispered, tugging her along by the hand. “Don’t show any fear. He’ll smell it on you.”

  “He’ll smell it on me regardless, Bud! Shoot the damn thing! Even if you miss, maybe it’ll scare him away!”

  “Can’t take the chance, Red. This peashooter only has six rounds.” Bud marveled at his incompetence. Walking out here in the dark, forgetting the damn flashlight, and taken his least powerful weapon!

  Through the trees ahead, they could now make out the streetlamps on Huggins Way. Bud felt as if he could reach out and touch them. He had a feeling that once they made it back to the road they’d be safe. Like Home Base in hide-and-go-seek. The agitated animal seemed to have the same notion. They could hear it scurrying ahead of them, trying to cut them off. It didn’t take long, either.

  The creature jumped directly on the path in front of them, twenty feet away. Bud pulled Josie behind him. Even though it was too dark to see it, there was little doubt as to the animal’s species. The rumbly wet growl was all too familiar. The fiery eyes dispelled all remaining doubts.

  They glowed in the dark!

  “Oh, Bud!”

  “Shhh, Joe. Don’t excite it any further.”

  Bud raised his gun and aimed it between those ruby red lights. His hand was trembling and he worried he wouldn’t be able to hit the animal before it was all over them. There was precious little space between him and the rabid dog. If he was lucky, he’d have time for one clean shot. Bud couldn't make out anything of the animal itself.

  Just the spectral eyes, moving side to side…

  A memory came to Bud of that long ago night...

  Those eyes had glowed too!

  Anger swelled in his breast and settled the trembling in his hand. There was no longer any doubt in his mind now. Somehow, someway, these rabid animals were connected to the Red Eyed Man. Also no longer in question was their commonality. It has to be the Center! Which meant someone else was ultimately to blame for his mother’s death. The Red Eyed man had only been the effect—the true cause had yet to be determined.

  As his anger grew and grew, Bud felt the hot blood surging through his veins, bringing him a strange sort of peace that was absent much of his life.

  The trembling in his hands ceased at once.

  What manner of man am I, he wondered, that the threat of violence should bring me such inner peace?

  The creature paused in its advance, sensing a lack of fear from the boy. More puzzling still was the aura of anticipation enveloping his adversary. An eagerness to fight, perhaps? The red eyes blinked in confusion, glaring at the uninfected one second, back to the sanctuary of the dark woods the next. Fight or flight? Fight or flight?

  The question hung in the air until the frightened girl whimpered, triggering an ancient impulse to pursue the weak and afraid. It rose up from its crouch and charged.

  “Shoot it, Bud,” Josie screamed. “SHOOT IT!!!”

  *******

  The brightest lights in the business district came from the marquee of the Dark Side of the Moon Wax Museum. In fact, at this hour, they were the only lights burning, besides the street lamps, that is, and the faint flickering glow of the Drive-In, further down the road.

  Rusty and Tubby paused to admire the chasing lights, running so festively around the marquee.

  Bill Brown had designed the facade of the building to look like the entrance of an old single-screen movie palace. The kind that used to grace the Main Streets’ of Every Town, U.S.A. Before the days of the multiplex brought about their sad demise. In the row of glass-covered 1-sheet cases, on either side of the entrance (two on each side), Bill Brown had placed posters featuring the museum’s main attractions:Murderers’ Row, The Chamber of Retribution, Hollywood Horrors,andThe King of Horror. At first glance, the posters furthered the impression you were entering a movie theater from yesteryear. The stylish artwork was a throwback to movie posters of yore, when an artist’s imagination captured the essence of a film, rather than just a dull photograph featuring the stars of the movie, as is the case with most 1-sheets today.

  To Tubby’s delight, Rusty informed him there were reproductions of the posters on sale in the lobby. The artist’s signature style was hauntingly familiar...

  Rusty tapped the glass on the 1-sheet case. “Bet you can’t guess who the artist is.”

  “Frazetta!” Tubby said, snapping his fingers.

  “Damn, boy! I thought for sure I’d stump you on that one!”

  Frank Frazetta was an artist whose work was familiar to any fan of the old Warren line of publications: Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella. The necrotic nephews and oh, so naughty niece to Famous Monsters of Filmland.

  Tubby was duly impressed. Finally, he managed to tear his gaze f
rom theMurderers’ RowandThe Chamber of Retribution posters. “Jeepers! Is Bud’s dad rich?”

  Rusty looked at him sideways. “Why do you ask?”

  “For starters, the commissioned artwork by Frazetta! A pauper certainly couldn’t afford one of those, not to mention four of them. And then there’s this building. It takes up a whole block! It must’ve cost a fortune to build this place. Unless, of course, it’s all surface and no substance. But somehow I doubt that’s the case.”

  “Hell, Opie, it’s even better inside.”

  “Okay, so how does a place this size, in a town as small as Moon, get enough business to support itself.”

  “Matter of fact, it doesn’t. Oh, it’s real popular with the kids in town, and it actually has a growing reputation among certain enthusiasts, but if the Browns’ were short of cash they’d have no choice but to sell her.”

  Tubby looked more confused than ever.

  Rusty sighed. He didn’t like talking about his friend behind his back like this, even if he knew Bud wouldn’t mind. “Bud’s mom left behind a lot of money from her side of the family, see. And then there was the life insurance. She’d taken out a million dollar policy on herself and Bill, several years before she died…

  “And with the Double Indemnity Clause…”

  Tubby whistled appreciatively.

  “I know, right? Good investments have further increased their cash flow. That’s how most of the rumors around here got started. Even though Bilbo was a cop in Beaufort, and at the time of his wife’s death was writing out a speeding ticket, he was the primary suspect because of the money. Insurance and otherwise.”

  “Even though they had someone else’s DNA?”

  A lot of people around here thought Bill had hired out the murder to one of the lowlife’s he’d met on the job. All that money was sure motive enough. But anyone who knows Bilbo knows money isn’t what drives the man. His wife was always after him to quit his damn job. She had more than enough dough to support their family.” Rusty shook his head in admiration. “Bilbo wouldn’t have it. He liked being a cop, and was working towards the day when he could open this museum with his own damn money! Besides, anybody with half a brain could see how much he adored his wife. How her death tore him apart.”

  “But they are rich, right? Bud and his dad?”

  “Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. My old man is pretty well off, too. I know he’d give it all away, though, for the chance to see his best friend again.”

  “What happened there?”

  “That’s another sad story, Ralph. One we’ll talk about some other time. What I’m trying to say is, money’s nothing but a tool. It doesn’t make you rich. Not where it really matters, it doesn’t. That’s what Bill Brown taught me a long time ago. My daddy, too. Luckily for Bud and his dad, I guess, Mrs. Brown left behind a whole lot of tools to get them through life. Her will stated in no uncertain terms that Bill was to use the money to pursue his life-long dream of opening this here museum. ‘The Dark Side of the Moon Wax Museum’ was how the pretty lady put it…

  “As long as he retired from the police force, that is.” Rusty chuckled. “Mrs. B ended up having the last word on that. When she was alive, he’d refused her help in getting the museum started. Bilbo knew it was a financial risk, and he never would have put her money on the line like that.”

  “However,” said Tubby, smiling.

  “However,” Rusty said, nodding his head. “Seeing as how it was her dying desire, he had no choice but to abide by his wife’s last wishes. Bud told me once that building this place saved his old man’s life. What he meant by that, I can only guess. I assume he meant that for a time his dad was suicidal. Not that you’d ever guess it by knowing him. Bill Brown, despite having the most vanilla sounding name in the world, is one righteous old dude.”

  Trying to look righteous himself, Rusty spat on the sidewalk; but unlike Bud, who never missed, half of Gnat’s loogie ended up on his army coat. “Even with all the evidence pointing away from Bill,” he said, wiping away at his sleeve. “A lot of folks around here had him tried and convicted. I guess it was easier to believe that he’d killed his wife, than entertain the notion of a red-eyed lunatic running loose on Moon, with his pecker pointing the way. Even Bud’s sister, Dottie, bought into all that hateful speculation. She split and now lives in North Carolina. Some college up in the mountains. Good riddance, I say. Now that I’m thinking about it, don’t ever mention her name around Bud. He hates that traitorous bitch. Can’t say I blame him much either. Shiiit! I’ve known Bill Brown most of my life, and I can tell you there’s not a better man on Moon…except for maybe my old man. Anyway, to answer your question, Opie, that’s how they can afford to run this place while it stays in the red.”

  Rusty adjusted his glasses. “Eventually, Bilbo plans to build one just like it in Myrtle Beach, and when they do, you can bet that motherfucker won’t run in the red! All she needs is a steady influx of tourists to keep her going. Something Moon Island is in short supply of. So, yeah. As far as dough is concerned, they’re rich enough, and likely to get a whole lot richer. But rich or not, I wouldn’t trade places with Buddy boy. No sir. Not even if I was that toothless asshole, Charlie Noonan.”

  “Where do the Browns’ live now? They still on the West Side?”

  Rusty smiled and pointed at the museum.

  “No way! In the museum? Gee! Now that’s cool!”

  It was after ten o’clock and the museum had closed for the night. A professionally painted sign in the box office window declared its hours of operation.

  Monday through Thursday:

  11:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

  Friday and Saturday:

  11:00 a.m. to Midnight.

  Admission:

  Adults: $20.00. Kids: $10.00.

  CLOSED ON SUNDAYS

  Halloween: OPEN ALL NIGHT LONG!

  Costumed Trick ‘r Treaters get in free!

  They approached the lobby doors, Tubby stepping back in surprise when Rusty withdrew a key from his pocket and slid it into the lock. “You got your own key?”

  “We all do. You will too, now that you’re aCreep.”

  “Gee. Mr. Brown doesn’t mind?” Tubby asked, looking around nervously.

  “Bilbo? Shiiitt, Opie! That man’s one of us.”

  They were entering the museum when a gunshot rang out somewhere in the vicinity of the Pines. Rusty let go of the door and followed Tubby out into the street, looking back towards home. Except for the shadows hanging over the road, Huggins Way appeared empty.

  “You think that was them?”

  Rusty blinked rapidly, his fear-filled eyes magnified by the Coke bottle lenses of his glasses. “I-I don’t know. M-maybe it was just the—”

  Tubby took off running towards the Pines. Rusty hesitated for a moment and then took up the chase. “Wait up, Ralph! We don’t know that was them!”

  “What if it was? They might need our help!”

  Rusty caught up with Tubby, who was already flagging badly. Tubby’s ragged breathing and the pounding of their sneakers were the only sounds on Huggins Way. No other shots rang out. No screams. No nothing.

  They were approaching the Moon River Academy when two shadows broke free of the Pines, startling the boys even more than the gunshot had. They skidded to a stop, leaning back towards town, waiting to see what the streetlamps would illuminate before hauling ass.