FULL MOON ISLAND

by Terry Yates

  “What happened?” Potts asked. He had learned his lesson and dropped the severed leg before he reached this group.

  “You tell us,” Gringo answered, looking down at the ground.

  Potts walked to his side and looked down to find a human head staring blankly back up at him.

  “Good Christ, it’s Pvt. Gunderson,” he said softly. It had probably been his leg that he had been holding. “Pvt. Fulton, put that baby down. Pvt. Hawkins, hand that woman to one of these men and come with me.”

  Neither moved for a moment, but continued to look at the severed head.

  “Did you two sacks of jack rabbit shit hear me? I said…”

  “Sir…” Sgt. Cohen cut him off. “Pvt. Gunderson was their friend.”

  “We don’t have time to grieve and reminisce right now! Do what I tell you to do! Now put that woman and that baby down, draw those weapons, and come with me! Sgt. Cohen, I want you to check the perimeter for more bodies. Whistle if you find anything.”

  Cohen nodded and trotted off ahead, the whole time wondering how he was going to whistle over this wind. Fulton and Hawkins gave Shelly and the baby to Sam and Gringo. Sam gently laid Shelly Dixon on the ground, walked into another patch of weeds, looked around to make sure there were no other body parts, then proceeded to barf his guts out.

  Kyler was gently slapping Samantha’s face trying to revive her when Potts and the two privates rejoined the group. Noticing that their weapons were drawn, Pvt. Gibson drew his. Kyler stood up as the trio reached them.

  “What did you find?” Kyler asked him.

  “The head that went with the leg,” Potts answered looking around.

  With this, Nurse Walling shot up from the ground where she had been trying to revive Samantha Gould.

  “Can’t you, for once in your life, act like a human being and try to at least pretend that not everyone is a soldier under your dictatorship?” she screamed into his face.

  “Stuff a thermometer in your ass and get out of my face before I beat you with Gunderson’s leg!” he retorted.

  “That was Gunderson’s leg, Sir?” Pvt. Gibson asked.

  Potts looked at Nurse Walling, then back to Gibson. “Yes, Son, it was Gunderson’s leg,” he answered softly, “and we just found his head over there, so stop asking stupid, asinine questions and follow me! Munn! Get up!”

  Cpl. Munn was being attended to by Opal who had his head in her lap. “I said get up, Corporal! We have work to do! I said now!”

  The corporal groaned and muttered something about model airplanes, when Potts nudged him in the head with his boot.

  “Get up, Munn, it’s time to be a soldier again!”

  Much to everyone’s astonishment, Opal Munn leapt off of the ground and was at Potts’ side before anyone was even sure they’d seen her do it. It happened so fast even Potts almost fell backwards from surprise.

  “Please, General,” she pleaded softly, placing her hand on his wrist. “I’m an old woman who has absolutely no one left in this world but that young man right there. He’s no soldier…you know that. Why else did you let him stay with me now and in the hospital when you had the other soldiers looking for that thing that bit me? You knew he’d be of no use to you in that situation, yet you let him stay with his old, decrepit grandma. Please, General.”

  Everyone waited for the inevitable. “Go die, Old Lady,” “Blow me, Toothless,” or “shouldn’t you be busy knitting your own shroud and dying somewhere…” But none of those unforgettable Pottsisms were uttered from his lips. He simply looked down at her hand, which was still on his wrist and smiled as close a smile as he possibly could muster on such short notice.

  “Of course, Miss…Munn, is it?” he said softly. She smiled and nodded silently. “He may stay with you…and it’s Colonel, by the way.”

  “Of course it is,” she replied, removing her hand from his wrist. “Your authoritative voice naturally made me think that you were a general. Thank you.”

  Opal smiled at him, then sat down, once again, putting Wilbur’s head in her lap. No one said a word as Potts walked away toward the other side of the field with Pvt.’s Fulton, Gibson, and Hawkins in tow.

  “I never thought I’d see that,” Locklear O’Hearley said aloud.

  “Me either,” Nurse Walling chimed in.

  “Sometimes a gentle touch is all that’s needed,” Opal told them, smiling as she stroked Wilbur’s hair.

  CHAPTER 19

  The group sat huddled in the wind and rain for an hour while Potts and the soldiers searched the vicinity for other body parts…of which they found bits of Gunderson, some of Koontz, a little of King, all of Albritton…except his face… and all of Bethea…except his head…none of Martinez, or Dixon…whom Potts had put in charge of the detail. The five bodies were scattered over several hundred yards. Potts figured that Dixon and Martinez were either dragged away or escaped. Either way, they were of no use to him right now. The creature had torn through there like the hurricane had, but with much more ferocity.

  Potts and the soldiers rejoined the group who stood as they approached.

  “Okay, let’s move out, people. We’ve cleared the way so to speak of any…so to speak…uh…heads…and…um…limbs…and whatever...guts.

  “Colonel!” Nurse Walling yelled over the wind.

  Shelly Dixon moved to the front of the crowd, and stepped right up to Potts.

  “Did you find Marcus?” she asked, still trembling.

  “Who?”

  “Cpl. Dixon,” Sgt. Cohen said.

  “Oh him…the black guy? No. Didn’t find him OR the Mexican guy.”

  “Martinez, Sir,” Said Sgt. Cohen exasperated at the Colonel’s insensitivity.

  Shelly smiled. “So he could still be alive then?”

  “Sure, I suppose…yeah…why not?” Shelly clasped her hands together as Potts began to address the group. “Okay, we’ve got about another quarter mile till we get to the base…if it’s still there. And it looks like that thing’s been through here if anyone hasn’t figured that out yet, so let’s keep an eye out. It’s daylight, but this wind and rain can still be a little deafening, so let’s stay in a group. Sergeant, you bring up the rear…and keep your weapon out. Hawkins, you keep to the left flank, Gibson, you take the right flank. The rest of you, I want to stay in a tight cluster.”

  “What about me, Sir?” It was FranAnne Fulton. “Where do I go?”

  Potts turned to her. “Oh…Fulton. You…uh…you stay with Cpl. Nixon’s wife.”

  “Dixon, Sir,” Fulton said, parroting Sgt. Cohen.

  “Yeah…whatever…Stay with her.”

  Obviously dejected, FranAnne saluted and walked to Shelly’s side.”

  “Okay…everybody up,” Potts ordered, basically meaning Cpl. Munn and Opal who were the only two that hadn’t stood up yet. Gringo picked Lauren back up off the ground. Kyler had checked her vital signs and so far so good, though she had remained unconscious the whole time. Her stitches were holding. She was in as good a shape as she could possibly be under the circumstances.

  “Here,” Locklear said, holding his arms out to Gringo. I’m her father. I’ll carry her the rest of the way. Gringo looked at Kyler who nodded. Since they were out of the water, he trusted the older Locklear to carry her at least part of the way. He wasn’t sure he could handle a quarter of a mile, but he could see…no feel that Locklear was feeling pretty useless at this point. Like most fathers, Locklear probably felt that no one should be carrying his sick daughter but him.

  With Pvt.’s Hawkins and Dixon now covering the flanks, it was pretty much up to Kyler and Sam Fong to carry Michael Blum. Gringo, still tired from having carried Lauren for so long, joined Samantha who was fully over her faint now and of course Sylvia, who still couldn’t see.

  Potts started to lead the way, then stopped for a moment, and turned around. He walked back through the group and approached Wilbur Munn, reached down, then took the corporal’s pistol from his holster.

  �
�We might need this if that thing comes back,” he said, never taking his eyes off of Opal, who seemed to smile blankly at him, her eyes following him as he walked away. As he reached the front of the group, he turned around.

  “Everybody ready?” he asked, not expecting an answer. “Okay, let’s move it, people!”

  “Excuse me, Colonel…Sir.”

  Potts turned around. It was Gringo who had hailed him.

  “Yeah?”

  Gringo looked around at the others for a moment. “What do you think it is…that thing that killed all those men?”

  Potts looked at the rest of the group, then found Michael Blum who was looking back at him. Potts smiled in the boy’s direction.

  “Why…a werewolf, of course,” he answered, still smiling.

  With this, he began to walk away. It had finally been said. Werewolf. The one thing that everyone had suspected, but no one in their right mind wanted to say. Werewolf. Wolfman. Lycanthrope. Lon Chaney, Jr.. Sydney Toler. Dee Wallace. Christopher Lee, Benecio del Torro, Jack Nicholson…and…of course, Michael Landon. It was something that they’d all seen in horror films since the 1930’s, but that no one passed the age of…well, Michael Blum believed in, but there it was, very simply, in a nut shell, wrapped up in a big pink bow. It was a werewolf, which usually only came out at night when the moon was full, but who was to say? Maybe that was just fantasy and werewolves could be werewolves at any time.

  As the group began to move, Kyler and Sam Fong picked up Michael Blum and began to follow the crowd. A few moments later, Kyler watched as Gringo whispered something to Samantha.

  “I knew something was going on here.”

  Kyler wondered what Gringo was saying. At that moment, he looked behind him and saw Sgt. Cohen pick something off of the ground and put in his breast pocket.

  CHAPTER 20

  The group was moving at a steady pace, each step moving them closer to what they hoped would be safe shelter. They had to stop a few times to give Sam and Kyler a break from carrying Michael Blum, and Locklear had begun to stumble every few feet from trying to carry Lauren. Gringo took over for him and Locklear rejoined Ariella.

  The wind and the rain continued to beat down on them at a steady pace, but they had gotten used to it, continuing to silently plod along, Shelly Dixon still smiling the whole way. He had allowed her to carry the gym bag with her daughter in it. That, mixed with the news that her husband’s body hadn’t been found alongside the rest of the soldiers, put her in an extremely good mood. She would hold the bag up and hum and sing into it. The baby cried for a time, but quickly settled back into her slumber. Kyler only hoped that they could get to the base before the gym bag got soaked. The child was too young to handle even the smallest cold, and if something did happen to her, it would be all she wrote for Shelly Dixon. Losing her two newborn twins and her husband would make her royalty in the old Crackerbox Palace.

  As they reached the top of what seemed like the tenth hill, Potts stopped suddenly, causing everyone behind him to bump into the people in front of them almost causing Potts himself to fall down the hill. He had stopped because it was the last hill. Down below them was the army base…in surprisingly good shape. The hills had served as protection from the gale force winds, causing them to blow over the small base. It had done some damage, destroying one of the barracks and what looked like a small office/house. Several more buildings had their roofs blown off. A storage shed was also destroyed, but the mess hall, the largest building on the base, stood in almost pristine condition. A few shingles were gone, but on the whole, it looked brand new compared to what they had seen of the island when daylight had come. Another barracks looked like it was in pretty good shape, as was another small office/house, and a small rec room which stood next to it. Kyler couldn’t have asked for anything better to have Lauren O’Hearley and Shelly and Kayla Dixon recuperate in for a while.

  There was almost a joy to the group as they followed Potts down the hill. When they reached bottom, he headed straight for the mess hall. Debris littered the place. Hundreds of pieces of wood that had once been buildings were scattered all over. Two jeeps were turned over, as was a small car, whose red color seemed out of place among all of the green and khaki. It looked more like a tornado had hit the place. They sloshed through the three or four inches of water that covered the ground. Luckily, someone had constructed a reservoir system that sent excess water out of the small valley and straight to the ocean.

  When they reached the canteen, they could see that one of the small, screen doors had been blown off its hinges and was lying against the side of the building as if some giant had yanked it away, then gently set it aside. As they stepped inside, the soldiers turned on their flashlights. They could see that most, but not all of the windows were broken out, with small pieces of glass littering the floor. Several long tables had been knocked over, some destroyed but most still in good shape. Broken cups, plates, and silverware were everywhere.

  “Looks like they had some party in here,” Gringo said, breaking the silence.

  Sam Fong looked around for Zack Olsen who had been carrying the small generator while he had been helping with Michael Blum. “Let’s see if we can find a place to set this up,” he said, shining his flashlight around the room.

  “Turn off your flashlights unless you need them,” Potts told everyone, taking off his raincoat. “There’s enough light in here right now to get by. Let’s not waste the batteries. Some of you men turn some of these tables over so the wounded can have a place to lie down. The rest of you, start cleaning up some of this trash, and let’s see if we can find some brooms to sweep this water out of here. Sgt. Cohen, get back on your radio and find out when those helicopters will be coming back.”

  Cohen nodded his head and found the bag which had carried the walkie-talkies, and then walked to a corner next to a window and began sending his mayday signals. Kyler, the O’Hearley’s, and Zora LeMarque began to clean off one of the long tables so they could lay Lauren on it. She was top priority for Kyler at the moment. Nurse Walling could look after Kayla Dixon and the others for the time being. They laid Lauren’s unconscious body down on the table. While Kyler began to check her out, Zora and Ariella began to dry her off as best they could. First, he checked her sutures which amazingly enough looked secure. There was no leaking, nor was there any puss forming around the incision. Her vital signs were good, her pulse was strong and her eyes responded to light. He began to think that maybe he’d pulled it off. Maybe she would be all right. His body language must’ve told the O’Hearley’s everything that they needed to know, because they began to smile…so did Zora LeMarque.

  “You looked relieved, Doctor,” she said, still smiling, that Belgium accent floating right through him. “Is she going to be all right?”

  Kyler looked at Locklear and Ariella, who looked back at him, their smiles disappearing. Hell, what did he have to be afraid of? He thought he had done a good thorough job of taking the appendix out and cleaning out most of the infection. She wasn’t out of the woods yet, he knew that, but dammit, everything looked good right now and he was tired of having to look grim all of the time.

  “Personally, I think she’ll be all right.”

  With this, Locklear and Ariella both breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Let’s not get too excited. She’s still very sick, but I think she’ll pull through.” There, he’d said it. Now he had to hope to God that she did. “Dr. O’Hearley,” he said to Ariella, “check her pulse every twenty minutes or so for the next couple of hours. If it stays strong, I think she’ll be okay.”

  Ariella managed another rare smile and nodded her head. Relieved, Locklear walked away toward Zack and Rob Olsen to see if he could be of some help. Rob was still in severe shock and was still barely functioning. Zack could probably use the break. He was still in a little shock himself from the death of his mother.

  Kyler stepped back and stretched. He was beat. He hadn’t had any type of rest, sleep, or otherwise f
or a full day and a half. As he came down from his back bending, arms splayed stretch, he found himself almost face to face with Zora LeMarque. Not face to face actually. She came up to his chin. He almost jumped back, startled, but luckily his lack of sleep slowed his “Gotcha Dork-o-meter” and instead, he just grunted a little. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week herself. The dark circles under her brown eyes only seemed to add to her attractiveness. Jesus, he’d love to see her when she’s rested.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” She said, looking up into his eyes and smiling. Kyler could feel his wet, pasty cheeks beginning to flush.

  “I’m sorry?” was all he could think of to say.

  “Sit down…” she repeated. “Here.” She pointed to a chair that was right behind him.

  “Oh…uh…my legs are…okay…I guess…” he stammered, his tired eyes gazing down into hers. A guy could lose himself in those eyes.

  “Please…sit.”

  She put her hands on his shoulders and gently sat him down in the chair. His face was in the line of fire with that soaked shirt and black bra. He tried to avert his eyes from the big double zero, but it was damn near impossible. Zora chuckled as she moved around behind him, and began to gently massage his shoulders. She dug her thumbs into each lat muscle sending what seemed like pure electricity through him. He almost jumped up in the chair, but managed to stay grounded through sheer will. He wanted to scream out that he loved her, and needed her, and had to have her no matter what he had to do to get her. Cut off three toes? Cut off five toes? Cut off the whole foot? He didn’t care. He’d cut off his head and fry it in a pan for her at that moment. After she massaged his shoulders, she went for the neck. When she dug her fingers into the nape of his neck, he thought he would come apart at the seams. He embarrassed himself by letting out what was supposed to be an “oh, that feels good” sigh, but what came out was an involuntary “I’ve got the biggest stiffy from here to Matagorda” moan. He immediately opened his eyes and saw that everyone in the room was smiling in his direction. Wonderful.