There's Blood on the Moon Tonight

by Bryn Roar

  And yet it was the loudest, most heart-wrenching wail Bill Brown had ever had the misfortune of hearing.

  But it was the eyes Bill remembered most. Those wide-open blue eyes. So huge. So scared. So damaged. It was as if the boy had fallen into his own frightened eyes.

  Adrift and all alone, in that vast cerulean ocean…

  Once Bill took that cold, dead weight from his son’s lap, and removed him from the house, the boy never again looked so vulnerable, so lost. So scared.

  What emerged in Bud, and shined through his blue eyes ever since, was an implacable steel, forged and hardened in the searing fires of a madman’s barbarity. Never again would that boy be so helpless or misplaced!

  It was the main reason Bill had allowed his son to go his own way since his mother’s death. That stone cold look in his eyes. It said, “Tread on me at your own peril.”

  For the first time in eight years that steely look was gone, replaced with the wide-open eyes of a lost and scared little boy. “Daddy…”

  “It’s okay, Bud. Everything’s gonna be all right. You’ll see. You can let me out as soon as we get to the beach. First we need to pick up the others from the cellar.”

  Josie joined Bud at the trunk, taking hold of his hand. “The beach?” She looked down at Bill. “I thought we were going to the Bunker.”

  “Bud’s right. We can’t get through the Pines at night. We’ll have to wait at the shore till first light.”

  “Because the Rabids won’t go near the water!” Rusty said, joining his friends at the trunk. “Especially that pounding surf by Crater Cove!”

  “That’s right,” Bill said, coughing. Instantly his face lost all color. Feeling faint he shoved the stump of his finger on the floorboard. A cruel light filled his head. The three kids peered down at him, their eyes wet and anxious. Bill grimaced. “We can build a bonfire close to the waterline. That way, if any of those things make a run at us, we’ll see them coming from across the beach. Then all we’ll have to do is go for a little swim until they get lost.”

  Remembering the gray’s trepidation at Lizard Lake, Josie nodded her head. “You know, that just might work.”

  “Then let’s bounce on outta here,” Rusty said, eager to leave the darkness.

  “What do you say, Bud?” By the light of the open trunk, Bill could see his son close his eyes, as if praying. When he opened them again, the scared little boy was gone, the blue eyes once again filled with steel and ice.

  Father and son smiled at each other. Bud nodded his head and without a word slammed shut the trunk.

  Bud stared at the back end of the Fury for a moment more and then got into the car. He inserted the key into Christine’s ignition, and turned to Josie sitting beside him. Rusty was in the back seat, staring down in wonder at his snoring friend. “Thanks for coming to get us, Red. Getting Christine was brilliant, by the way.” He didn’t mention the blood on the Fury’s hood, nor the section of gut still stuck in the mangled grill. It spoke for itself.

  “She saved me life,” Josie said, patting the dash. She saw the worried look on Bud’s face. “He’s going to be all right, love. You’ll see.”

  Bud said nothing to this bright encouragement. His heart was telling him that Josie was right. His head, however, kept reminding him that not once in his dreams had his father ever appeared in the Bunker. No. Not once…

  *******

  Getting Christine turned around had been problematic. By the time they returned to the cellar, more than twenty minutes had elapsed since the lights had gone out.

  When Christine rounded the last curve in the tunnel, and her highbeams ran across the opened doorway, they knew they were too late. A myriad of bloody footprints led in and out of the cellar door.

  “Did y’all leave the door open like that?” Rusty asked them. On the ride back, Josie had told him all about John Cutter, that Clint Bidwell was dead. Rusty understood what they were up against now. He also knew what the bloody footprints meant for the men downstairs.

  “No,” Bud said, tightly. “It was locked.” He knew it was pointless to go down those stairs. He also knew he could never live with himself if he didn’t.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Buddy boy, you can’t—”

  “Joe…you know I have to go.”

  Josie nodded her head. They had to at least try.

  Rusty didn’t share their conviction. “You don’t even have a flashlight, man!”

  “If someone is still alive down there, I’ve got to give him a chance to get out. Besides, John Cutter saved my dad’s life. I owe that man a debt.”

  “I’m coming with you,” said Josie, steeling herself against Bud’s certain response.

  “Josie, if something happens to me, you’re my dad’s best chance at getting that vaccine. There’s still the Center, you know. Remember what John Cutter said about the vaccine samples in his fridge?”

  Josie fumed. “In the checkerboard lunchbox.”

  “That’s right. Six plus seven equals RS13.”

  “You screwy bastard,” Josie said, giving in to her anger at last. It infuriated her that Bud would use his dad for leverage like that. “Why do you always have to play the feckin’ hero?” she said, jabbing her finger into Bud’s chest. “Who do you think you are, tough guy? Rambo?”

  “Yo, Adrian, I gotta do what I gotta do.”

  Josie wasn’t amused. “That’s Rocky, you arse.”

  “Come on, Red. Not now, okay?” He rubbed his bruised pectoral. The girl was stronger than she realized.

  “All right, you feckin’ arsehole!” Josie raged. “As always, have it your own feckin’ way! But just so you know…if you’re not outta there in ten minutes I’m coming down after you! And by the way, Sly…your impressions really suck arse!”

  Bud blinked before the gale force wind that was Josie’s full Irish wrath. He knew when he was licked. Truth was, he’d rather tangle with a mad Rabid, than a mad Josie, any old day. He meekly nodded his head.

  “Okay, Big Red. Ten minutes.”

  “Damn,” Rusty whistled from the back seat, “and I thought Bud was the baddest motherfucker on this island.”

  “Now you know better,” Bud said, giving Rusty a helpless look. He leaned back in the car. “Keep her running, Joe. I might be coming back in a hurry.”

  Her eyes softening, Josie nodded her head.

  Keeping an eye on the cellar door (where are the owners of all those bloody footprints?) Bud sidled over to the trunk and whispered to his dad that he was going to go get the others. He didn’t see a need to tell his father of their suspicions; he didn’t have the patience or time to argue with him, too. There was no audile response from the trunk.

  Christine’s headlamps illuminated the stairwell more than enough. The light was so bright, in fact, that there was little chance of a Rabid following him back into the creaky flight. The doorway at the bottom of the stairs was another story. It was a yawning black hole, devoid of even the least flicker of light.

  Bud took a deep breath and realized he was no longer dizzy. His head throbbed like an abscessed tooth, but at least he was steady on his feet again. Josie yelling at him like that had cleared every cobweb in his head.

  Still in the sanctuary of the stairwell, he checked his loads. Along with the four live rounds left in the .38, he had two fresh shells in the Remington. The remaining shotgun shells in his pockets were irrelevant. If there were more than six of those things down there, he wasn’t going to have time to reload anyway. He paused at the last step. Beyond lay darkness so deep, it may as well have been ink.

  Bud decided to call out. After all, it wasn’t as if they weren’t aware of his presence by now.

  “CUTTER! TIM! MR. PETE!”

  Bud waited, his shotgun pointed into the gloom. He listened closely, the silence stretching interminably. He allowed himself finally to leave the stairwell. That’s when the laughter began. His blood froze in his veins. For one terrifying moment he was certain his mothe
r’s killer had returned for him. It was the same soulless giggling he’d heard eight years before in his bedroom.

  Welcome back, Buddy boy, it seemed to say.I’ve been waiting on you.

  Standing there in the dark, Bud had a curious epiphany. Calm, cool, and lucid. True Evil has many faces, but only the one croaking voice. It abandons its shells like so much refuse by the roadside: Jack the Ripper becomes H.H. Holmes, becomes Ed Gein, becomes Charles Manson, becomes Ted Bundy. A never-ending litany of lunatics. Different faces, same soulless laughter. Once you got past the mimic trying to fool you, the true voice was unmistakable. This knowledge, while not in the least encouraging, seemed to at least free him from his past.

  For knowledge truly is power.

  Besides, little Buddy boy Brown didn’t exist anymore! That red-eyed fucker had killed that poor kid as sure as he’d killed Bud’s mother. The byproduct of that vicious night shrugged off the fear, the way Mike Tyson used to shrug out of his silk robes, back when he was the meanest motherfucker on the planet—Pissed off and ready to make somebody his bitch.

  “Come inside and playyyy.”

  The voice was devoid of anything resembling humanity. It was the mimic, shed of its disguise.

  “Be right there,” Bud replied. The cold, hard edge to his voice surprised even himself.

  Damned if he wasn’t eager to get this shit on.

  “Did you bring the bitch with you?” said another, ignoring the bravado in the young man.

  “She’s in heat! She’s in heat, the big titty bitch!”laughed yet another.

  Hmm, thought Bud. One little, two little, three little Indians. Just when he’d decided that none of the others could have survived, came a pitiful cry. “Bud! For the love of God, man! Don’t leave me down here like this!”

  Tim Garfield.

  A slurping sound followed. A dreadful, gut clenching sound that made Bud fear for Garfield’s soul. “Tim! Are you okay?” It was a damn stupid question.

  “NO! T-T-They’re d-doing things to m-me, Bud! PLEASE STOP THEM! DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN, MAKE THEM STOP! NNNNOOOOOOOO!! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! IT HURRRTTTTSSS!! WON’T YOU PLEASE MAKE THEM STOP!!!”

  Manic laughter roared out of the darkness. Garfield’s misery brought them much joy. Bud banished the stark images from his mind. “Hang on, man! I’m gonna get you out of there! How ‘bout the others? Are they—”

  “They killed John Cutter. And M-mister Pete, he…oh God…I can’t…Nnuunnnnh! Nuh! Nuh! Nnnnnnuuuhh! P-P-Please s-stop them, Bud! They’re hhhhhhuuurting meeeee!!!”

  Explosive retching and more hateful laughter.

  And right below those unsettling sounds…the wicked wet work of rape.

  Bud retreated up the risers until he was once more in the lap of light. He whipped off his shirt and wrapped it tightly around the end of the shotgun barrels, his hands shaking, though not from fear. A cold rage gripped his heart, imploring him to vent his violence. To let loose the scalding temper he kept so closely in check.

  His body trembled from the surplus of adrenalin, surging through his veins like hot steam.

  He tied off the knot and retrieved his Zippo from the back pocket of his Levi’s. Never Say Die!

  Checking his watch, he took the Lord’s name in vain. Time was slipping away. He’d already wasted five minutes down here, and he didn’t want Josie to witness this other side of him about to be unleashed. This raging psycho, so eager to shed the blood of another. He fired his grandfather’s Zippo and lit the makeshift torch.

  The T-shirt ignited into a ball of blue flame, and Bud Brown followed it eagerly into the cellar.

  He had the .38 held out in his other hand and was forced to fire it at once. Something naked and wild came at him from his father’s darkroom. Bud got off a lucky shot and he knew it, too. The .38 slug caught the Rabid between its fiery eyes and carried the body to the floor. Bud wasted no time in trying to ascertain its identity. Already, another of the Rabids was rushing at him. This time he wasn’t so lucky. His first shot went wild, the second, still low of its primary target. A lung shot. The light from the torch drove the wounded Rabid back into the darkness of the weight room. One round left in the revolver, Bud thought. He stepped into his makeshift gym, scanning it as quickly as possible. Already his shirt had nearly burnt through. Bits of the cloth dropped from the end of the barrels in molten embers of poly/cotton. Something ghostly looked out from the open doorway of his father’s workshop. Bubbles of blood percolating from the hole in its chest. The smiling face loomed disembodied three-quarters up the doorframe. A pale countenance straight from his nightly dreams. Bud used his last .38 shell to shoot it in the head. The Rabid fell back into the workshop with a strangled gasp. Its bare, bloody feet poked out of the darkness and drummed a staccato riff on the concrete floor. Bud’s makeshift torch was almost out now. He stood in the open doorway and looked into the room. Regret ensued. He wished a futile wish that he’d never come down those creaky stairs. He blew the remnants of the torch into nothingness with both shells of the 12 gauge. The last Rabid flew from its perch atop Garfield’s battered and bloody buttocks. Even in the midst of all that gunfire, the creature had been unable to quell its ravenous desires. In the bright glare of the blast, Bud had seen all that was necessary.

  Tim’s .22 lay on the floor beside his pitifully rocking body. Its long barrel dark with blood and other matter, too obscene to contemplate. Cutter was simply no more. Just bits and pieces of him strewn about the room, his severed arm still handcuffed to the table-leg. His head perched atop a stool. The look on his face oddly peaceful.

  Maybe the poor guy didn't have the disease after all, Bud thought, morosely.

  He cringed at the sight of the ravaged soul crying before him. In the absence of any uninfected females, the Rabids had turned their furious lust on Tim Garfield and the old Polack. Then again, gender probably had little to do with their evil desires. With shaking hands, Bud held up his lighter and flicked it on.

  Poor Mr. Pete. He lay on his stomach in a large pool of his own blood, a ragged smile upon his throat. Bud couldn’t tell where most of the blood came from—his gaping neck wound, or his equally gaping rectum.

  Bud could only hope that the old man had met his end before the rape. Garfield had not been so lucky.

  “Kill me, Buddy boy. Don’t leave me like this…”

  “Tim, come on, man. Don’t ask me to do that. I’ve already had to put down one friend tonight, and it’s just not fair! I’m just a fucking kid! We can still get the vaccine—”

  “I don’t want the motherfucking vaccine! Can’t you see what they did to me? How they ripped me apart? I can’t live with this shit in my head! Oh dear God, why did you let that happen to me!?!” More racking sobs.

  “Please, Bud, please. I’m begging you. Put an end to my nightmare.” Tim crawled before Bud. He grabbed the smoking barrels and placed them on his forehead. “Please…Please…Please…Please…”

  Bud snapped the lid on the Zippo, extinguishing the light. He snatched the shotgun from Tim’s hand and breached the barrels. The distinct sound of the spent shells hitting the concrete floor and bouncing hollowly away, and then the comforting echo of a live round snicking into place was all the answer Tim Garfield wanted from anyone ever again. He felt the hot shotgun barrel pressing into his forehead again, giving off a strange sort of solace.

  “Thank you, Bud. Thank you so—”

  *******

  Josie and Rusty flinched in their seats at the sound of the shotgun blast. Following a series of such blasts, that last loud report had somehow seemed more declarative in nature. More ominous. A sad period at the end of a sentence. They shared an uneasy glance. Seconds later, the lights flickered on in the tunnel. The generator was back on! Good thing, too. Only moments before another Rabid had announced its arrival by the glow of its ember eyes.