There's Blood on the Moon Tonight

by Bryn Roar

  “Stay where you are, son!” Bill said. “I found it!”

  “For God’s sake do something!” Tim cried.

  A weak yellow beam turned on; it ran across the frightened faces by the workbench and searched the room beyond the open doorway. The stuttering beam fell upon something—dashing out of the light so quickly no one got a good look at it. Pale, dirty skin was the consensus.

  “That shotgun loaded?”

  “One in each barrel, Pop. More in my pocket.”

  “Good deal. Follow behind me, Bud. I’ll try to pin the fucker down with my flashlight, maybe get some of this WD40 from the workbench in its eyes, and then you take it out with both barrels, hear me?”

  “You got it.”

  “Bill, give me the keys, man,” Cutter begged from the floor. “Don’t leave me handcuffed down here!”

  Bill handed the keys to Josie. “Don’t give it to him unless you have to, Joey.”

  Josie nodded in the dark. She pulled Bud to her and kissed him hard. “Be careful, tiger!”

  He took the .22 from Garfield’s trembling grasp and handed it over to her. “You too, Big Red. You too.”

  *******

  Awake in an instant, Rusty Huggins opened his eyes in the dark. He could hear Tubby snoring softly across from him. Otherwise, they appeared to be alone. “Josie?” he called out tremulously. Goosebumps pebbled his arms. No…we aren’t alone! Something is in here with us!

  He could hear it breathing; feel its hungry eyes upon him. He searched the darkened room and found them…a pair of dim red orbs, some twenty feet away. Seemingly hovering of their own accord. “Tubby, wake up, man!” he said, jerking upright on the sofa. The blanket fell to the floor. The floating eyes watched him. They flickered like the eyes of a Jack O’ lantern whose candle has all but guttered out. “Tubby!” he said, louder this time.

  “What is it, Rusty? Why’s it so dark in—”

  Screams filled the living room.

  *******

  Bud followed his father into the weight room, where the generator was also located. He closed the door behind them—as if those flimsy sheets of plywood could keep his Josie safe. His eyes and the 12 gauge followed the beam of his father’s flashlight, ready—maybe even eager—to open fire. The cellar had become his very own Hogan’s Alley. A testing ground to see just how much he’d learned.

  Keep your head, Buddy boy, the familiar voice in his head intoned. Make each shot count.

  He rattled the shells in his pocket, taking comfort from the plastic and copper casings, so cool and callous to the touch. The foul stench that seemed to attach itself to the infected hit Bud full in the face. Like a clogged gas station toilet, ripe with piss and shit, it took your breath away.

  Bud took a step back as if struck. If he’d been in a larger space, then the sour reek would surely have led him straight to its location. The stink seemed to be coming from everywhere at once and yet nowhere in particular.

  “I think it went into my darkroom,” Bill said. He set his can of makeshift mace down on the floor. “Let me re-start the generator and we’ll have the upper hand. Here, hold this.” He handed Bud the flashlight, and pulled the ripcord on the generator. It sputtered anemically. He yanked again, and again. In the corner, at the foot of the stairs, a furtive movement caught Bill’s eye.

  A shadow, growing larger, coming fast…

  Bud was aiming the light through the open doorway, into the darkroom, when his dad cried out behind him: “LOOK OUT, SON!”

  The Rabid, which had been hiding in the stairwell, slammed into Bud, taking him hard to the floor. The shotgun flew from Bud’s hand and slid across the concrete basin, spewing sparks in its wake.

  Instinctively, Bud slammed the flashlight against the thing’s shaggy head. For an instant, right before the cheap plastic casing shattered into a dozen shards, the light illuminated the bestial face above him, the Duracell batteries skittering away like frightened mice.

  The room once again went pitch black.

  Bud had the thing (Lester?) by the neck, squeezing its corded throat for all he was worth, but it was like trying to strangle a Rottweiler. “Don’t worry about me, Pop! I’ve got a hold of it! Get that generator started!”

  Holding the flailing creature at arm’s length, Bud took a battering on his chest and biceps, sacrificing his upper torso to the Rabid’s pounding fists. Anything to keep those gnashing teeth at bay. His arms shuddered from the bruising rain, but held fast and strong. He heard Josie cry out from the other room. The doorknob rattling…

  “BUD!!! WHAT”S HAPPENING OUT THERE!”

  “Don’t open that door, Josie! Don’t you dare open that fucking door!”

  The Rabid screeched and snarled—a guttural, incomprehensible language that sent shivers down Bud’s spine. Like nearly everything about the infected, it was unnatural. Vocalization, whether you understood it or not, just wasn’t supposed to sound like this. Like a tinny recording played backwards, the volume barely audible one second, loud as hell the next. Bud could hear other voices in the background. Indistinct. Some human, most not. Crying, cursing, consuming. A legion within the host. Its skin was hot to the touch. A fever beyond Bud’s ken. He could feel its muscles and veins writhing just underneath the surface. Like parasitic worms caught in a caustic soup.

  But the eyes were the windows to the soul, weren’t they? And unlike other Rabids, these eyes were all boarded up, vacant. Why can’t I see its eyes? Bud wondered. The red, glowing, eyes. Where are they?

  His father, frantic, continued to yank at the pull cord on the generator. “HANG ON, SON!”

  “Hurry up, Dad!”

  At last the Rabid got lucky and caught Bud flush in the throat with a balled fist. Bud felt his grip loosen as he tried to draw a breath. He was on the verge of blacking out when the generator kicked in. The light in the cellar was so bright and so sudden that he had to squeeze his eyes shut.

  The Rabid screamed and leapt off Bud. In an instant, it was out the door and up the stairs like a scalded cat, yowling miserably all the way.

  “Bud! Are you all right?” Bill said, running to his son’s side. “Did it bite you?”

  Coughing, Bud sat up and shook his head.

  Josie came running in and wrapped her arms around Bud. She didn’t have the .22 with her anymore. Garfield was peering out from behind the door, his eyes wet and shiny, the gun shaking in his hands.

  “Oh, Buddy boy! I thought—”

  “I’m all right,” he said, pulling away from Josie. He ran over to the shotgun on the floor and picked it up. “We’ve got to get the .38 I left in my bedroom! If those things open the doors to the outside…”

  “What about Rusty and Ralph?”

  “Bud’s right, Joey,” Bill said. “Let’s get armed first, then we’ll be better able to help the boys. Besides, Bud’s room is in-between the front door and the living room.”

  Josie nodded her head. “Where the boys are.”

  Garfield called out from the doorway. “Bilbo! Is everything all right now?”

  “Yeah,” he said, taking the key from Josie and tossing it to the frightened man. “Close and lock that door, Timbo! Push one of those benches up against it, too. I’m going to lock the door at the top of the stairs as well. You’ll all be okay in there. We’ll be right back, I promise you!”

  *******

  He ran blindly through the dark, tears coursing down his face. The tears surprised him, really. He didn’t think he would’ve had any moisture left in his body after shedding so much of the stuff for his mom and dad. He wasn’t sure whom he was crying for, either. Tubby or himself.

  After watching the Rabid jump his friend on the easy chair, Rusty had bolted like a startled rabbit.

  Leaving Tubby to die all alone.

  After all, running scared is what cowards do best.

  “I’m sorry, Opie,” Rusty said. “Sorry for being such a shitty friend.”

  He prayed as he ran. Please God…please let Ralph Tolson
rest in peace. Even better, Lord…may he lie still.

  He slowed his roll and edged over to the wall, running his hand along the rough bricks there. Despite it being pitch black, Rusty had been through this mossy tunnel enough times to sense his whereabouts. He was close to the cellar; had to be. He inched his way along, feeling for the cellar door, hoping his friends were downstairs, getting the damn generator re-started.

  Suddenly the lights kicked back on.

  Two inhuman screams overlapped each other at once—one behind him, in the Overlook. The one that got Tubby! Scream motherfucker! Scream! The other one beneath his feet somewhere, in the basement.

  He blinked at the cellar door, right in front of him.

  Rusty looked back the way he came: The tunnel exit, where the hedge lions stood guard, was far behind him now. Across open ground. His instincts, nonetheless, were pulling him that way, towards the warm friendly light. He took a step in that direction, the lobby lights making all sorts of promises they couldn’t keep.

  Any second and that bitch is gonna bust open the Overlook’s front doors! In between the lights and me…

  He turned and looked the other way.

  Into the dark bowels of the museum, the eerie blue glow leading off into oblivion. Naturally, he was reluctant to take that serpentine course. The cellar, maybe…

  His hand touched the doorknob and jerked away instantaneously. What the hell am I thinking!? I can’t go down there! One of Them is down there—

  No…It isn’t…It’s coming up the fucking stairs!

  As fast as its bare legs would take it from the light down there! Up the steep flight it came. Growling. Gibbering. Galing. Like a rabid wolf. Hungry, hurt, and insane. Freezing Rusty Huggins, right where he stood…

  *******

  Bill Brown peered out into the tunnel. The Rabid had left the cellar door open, and Bilbo stood in the doorway, looking cautiously about.

  “Where do you suppose it went?” Bud asked his dad. Josie was safely sandwiched between the two.

  Bill turned towards the exit, where the bright lights of the lobby gave the hedge lions a peculiar halo effect. He looked the other way, further into the attraction; where it curved deeper into the make believe menagerie of Stephen King. The dim blue lights, emulating dusk’s last gasp, barely made a dent in the tunnel’s black heart. For the first time since opening the museum, the “Laugh Track,” as he and Bud ironically referred to the artificial wails of terror, actually gave Bill Brown some pause. “It’s got to be in there,” he said, pointing into the tunnel. “Bud, you and Joey stay here. You said you left the .38 on your bed?”

  “We’re coming too, Pop. The guys—”

  “Don’t worry, son. If they’re still inside, I’ll bring ‘em out with me.”

  Josie grabbed his arm. “Bilbo…”

  He patted her hand. “It’s okay, honey. I need y’all to make sure that thing doesn’t get back down the cellar stairs. I doubt that a locked door would pose much of a problem for its kind. Our only hope tonight is keeping the lights on while those things are off hunting easier prey.” He looked at his son. “Give me ten minutes, Bud. If I’m not back by then, you and Josie get downstairs. Lock and nail that door shut with as much timber as you can find on the other side. And guard that generator with your life! There’s plenty of spare gas in my darkroom to keep it running all night. Then at first light you take everyone to your bunker.”

  “At least take the shotgun with you,” Bud said, choosing to humor his dad. No way was he leaving his old man out here to fend for himself.

  Bill ignored the proffered weapon and jogged over to the Overlook before his son could put up a fuss.

  “Och,” Josie observed, as Bud fumed beside her. “So pigheadedness really is hereditary!”

  *******

  Like the façades of an old Western town, to make the storefronts and saloons appear larger than they were, the front of the Overlook gave the impression of a rather grandiose hotel. The two-bedroom apartment within, however, wasn’t much larger than the little suite the Torrances’ shared in Stanley Kubrick’s film version.

  The front door was ajar, the lock splintered. Bill pushed it all the way open with the toe of his work boot. The lights were full on, the living room at first glance uninhabited. The blanket he’d placed over Rusty lay on the floor in front of the couch. Neither boy was anywhere in sight. Bill was turning away when something caught his eye. The easy chair was still fully reclined. And occupied!

  A blanket covered the fat looking lump underneath.

  *******

  Rusty climbed wearily into the Stand By Me treehouse. He crawled through the hatch, closing it softly underneath him, and collapsed on the floor. Despite being exhausted he was oddly exhilarated. For once in his life, panic hadn’t ruled him! At the last second he’d broken free from his fear and dashed into the winding tunnel, away from the baiting light. At first he thought he’d gotten away scot-free. The Rabid from the cellar had gone the other way! Without so much as a backward glance, it ran straight into the Hotel’s hedgerow maze, where the looming green shrubs must’ve made it feel more at home. But then the other Rabid, the one that had killed Tubby, entered the scene, stage right.

  Flying out of the Overlook like a Tasmanian devil, her rage a terrible thing to behold. Unlike her counterpart, she took heed of the running boy and took up his immediate pursuit. Luckily for Rusty, he’d had a huge head start. He’d made the most of it, too, getting as far as the treehouse before running out of gas. He’d considered hiding in Cujo’s Barn, but that sunless stall seemed a more likely abode for the Rabid to roost. The treehouse, on the other hand, sat bathed in harsh floodlights. The sight of which brought a relieved smile to Rusty’s face. I’ll be safe in there, he thought. The smile vanished, replaced with a grimace. As long as the lights stay on...

  Laying there on the treehouse floor, he was reminded of that old Vincent Price movie: The Last Man on Earth. His parents were gone, Tubby was gone, and for all he knew, Bud and Josie were gone, too.

  He might very well be the last man on earth! Or at least the last sane man on the Moon…

  He rolled onto his belly and crawled over to one of the knotholes in the pine wood walls. The cheap splintered boards reeked of sap. It brought to mind the Piney forest.

  If I can just last out the night, I’ll make for the Bunker at first light...

  He peered out into the tunnel, trying to ignore the conversation, taking place all about him. From outside, in the tunnel, the voices were just audible. You could almost picture the four young boys playing cards around an upended peach crate. Laughing and ranking each other out. From inside, where the speakers vibrated directly overhead, the voices were decidedly jarring; the incessant chatter of oblivious ghosts: “Hey, Teddy, you hear the one about the French guy who knocked up the alley cat?”

  “Hey, I’m French, you dill hole! I knock.”

  “Already!? I didn’t deal you no pat hand, you four-eyed pile of doo-doo!”

  “This pile of doo-doo has a thousand eyes!”

  Wild giggles abound.

  “Hey…you guys want to go see a dead body?”

  And so on, and so forth. The dialogue as so many King fans had pointed out over the years was different from both the film and novella, but Bilbo wasn’t about exact reproductions. What was the point of that? Any asshole can make an exact copy of something brilliant. Like that remake of Psycho. Besides, parents didn’t like to hear profanity while in the company of their rugrats. Scare Junior silly? Sure, no problem. It’s cute when he craps his pants like that. But just cuss around their precious poopsie and you’ll be sure to feel their full parental wrath.