FULL MOON ISLAND

by Terry Yates

  “Be careful, Hawkins,” the third voice said.

  Even with the voices more audible, it still couldn’t understand the grunts that the two-leggers made. It brought its rump in, and lay as flat as it could. It would wait a moment. It didn’t want any of them to see him until he was on them.

  As it waited, it felt something hot and wet coming from above. It was hitting it on top of the head and running down its back. It tried to look up and to see what was happening on top of the big rock, but the water hit it between the eyes, stinging them, and causing it to have to close them. And then it smelled the water. Acrid. Pungent. It was a smell that all animals were greatly familiar with. Its what they expelled when they drank too much water or wanted to mark their territory. Other times, it was expelled on each other to show who the leader of the pack was.

  Whatever way that the body water was being used; it had become angry at the audacity of whichever two-legger was doing it to him. It was matting its fur and leaving the aroma to sink into it. No beast would use IT to mark its territory, and it was about to show all three who the leader of the pack was. It snarled as it ripped its claws out of the bricks and began to quickly climb the giant rock.

  Private Hawkins had just zipped up his pants and begun to walk away from the roof’s edge, when the building began to shake beneath him. It sounded like someone was hitting the side of the building with a sledgehammer. Potts and Sgt. Cohen spun around and looked at him, anger written across both their faces.

  “What on…” Potts started, but quickly stopped when he realized that Hawkins wasn’t making the noise. It was coming from behind him.

  Potts and Cohen ran to Hawkins just as he was turning around. The three looked over the side at the same time to see the werewolf no more that thirty feet away and moving toward them at a high rate of speed. Hawkins ran to the other side of the roof to retrieve his machine gun as the other two pulled their pistols and began to rain bullets down on top of the thing.

  The beast roared as the bullets hit him, some bouncing off and some penetrating its skin. It stopped for a moment, the force of the bullets hitting it hard on impact. It tried to force its way upward as the Potts and Cohen continued to shoot at it. Once they had spent their rounds, they stopped and reached for another clip, giving the beast a chance to move up another ten feet, until Hawkins peered over the side of the building and began to shoot it with the machine gun. The beast paused again, the bullets raining down on it faster and harder now.

  “Keep firing, Hawkins!” Potts yelled, as he and Sgt. Cohen reloaded their pistols.

  The werewolf flattened itself again against the wall and tried to inch up as he continued firing.

  “It’s still coming!” Cohen screamed, now reloaded and once again firing down at the creature.

  “Well, keep firing!” Potts screamed back at him.

  The three continued to fire, making sure to reload at intervals as to keep the werewolf at bay, but it was no use. The thing continued to move up the wall, snarling and growling in blind anger now. It was no more than twelve feet away. It was slower now, because the closer it got to the top, the more impact the bullets had on it.

  “Keep it hot!” Potts barked as he ran away from the edge and over to the other side of the building.

  Cohen and Hawkins continued shoot down at it, neither taking their eyes off the monster.

  “Aim for the eyes!” Cohen yelled.

  It was no more than seven feet away now as the two soldiers began to get nervous, because they weren’t going to stop it. Sure, they were slowing it down, but between the three of them, they had hit the thing with several hundred bullets, and there it was, still moving toward them.

  “Where’s Col…”

  Before Hawkins could finish his sentence, Potts appeared at the edge carrying the coffee pot, still three quarters full that they had brewed in the commissary, and brought to the roof. He looked over the edge.

  “Shit!”

  Potts had not expected the werewolf to be so close. There was now no more than five feet between its claws and his face.

  “Fire! Fire! Fire!” he screamed.

  As Hawkins and Cohen fired, Potts took the coffee and carefully aimed the spout at the werewolf face, which was now turned toward him and was looking him dead in the eyes, both rows of teeth shining through the darkness. Potts began to pour the hot coffee over the top of the beasts face. It howled in pain as the coffee landed in its face and down into its eyes, scalding them. The pain in the monster’s eyes, forced it to shut them tightly.

  The pain that it was feeling was immense, but now it was furious, its hackles standing straight up. Even with its eyes closed, it knew that it only had to reach up a little farther and it would be able to grab the ledge. They were tough, this small group of two-leggers. But it would show them in just a moment, which of them was king of the island. Just a few more feet to go and they would see its greatness. They would feel its wrath…and its razor sharp teeth.

  As it prepared to make its final lunge to the top, it noticed that the two leggers had stopped pelting it with the hot little stones. As a matter of fact, it was quiet. With all of the smoke in its nostrils, it couldn’t smell the two-leggers anymore. Had they run back inside the giant rock? Although the pain in its body was excruciating, it was not going to go back down.

  The beast pulled its right claws out of the brick and reached up. Its forepaws took hold of the top of the ledge. Still there was no sound of its prey as it removed the other set of claws and reached up and took hold of the ledge with its other forepaws. Now it was dangling from the building’s ledge. Just another second, and they…if they were still there, would be his.

  It pulled itself up and cautiously peeked over the ledge. For a moment, it saw nothing, but then something moved out of the corner of its eye. Before it could react, a blinding pain shot through its forepaw. It howled as it saw that one of the two-leggers…the dark one, had stabbed its paw clean through with a strange sharp, metal stick and held on. The two-legger’s face was no more than two feet from its own. Its eyes were wild and its teeth were clenched. The werewolf could smell its desperation.

  As it was about to reach out and claw the two-legger’s face off, it felt the same blinding white-hot pain in its other paw. One of the others had stuck another metal stick into its other paw and held it there just like the dark one. It was now pinned to the roof and hurting badly. For a moment, it felt helpless, but as with most wounded animals, it began to fight wildly against its attackers. It snapped its jaws at the dark one, but it was too quick and ducked out of the way, still managing to keep its own forepaw on the metal stick. It tried to snap its jaws at the older one, but it also ducked out of the way while keeping the werewolf’s paw pinned.

  It raged as it snapped back and forth at the both of them, but it couldn’t reach them. The only chance it had was to bite their hands, which it attempted to do, but before its teeth could reach the older one’s hand, the leader of the two leggers, appeared in front of it and sent a metal stick into its jowl and let go. It roared and howled and screamed. It didn’t understand how the small frail two-leggers had ensnared him. Blood began to flow into its mouth as it howled in agony. It had very little time to react, before the leader sent another metal stick into its other jowl.

  “We’ve got it!” Potts screamed, taking a step back. “Don’t let go of the knives!”

  The creature flew into a rage as it fought the soldiers, who were a bit unnerved themselves being so close to something that hundreds of bullets and four knives wasn’t killing.

  “I don’t think I can hold on much longer, Colonel!” Sgt. Cohen yelled at Potts. The sergeant could actually feel the creature’s hair and blood on his hands.

  “You’ve got to!” Potts yelled back, picking up his pistol. “You, too, Hawkins!”

  “Whatever you’re gonna do, Colonel, you’d better do it soon!” Hawkins screamed over the roar of the werewolf. He could actually feel its breath on him, and twice now its j
aws had come close to his hand.

  As the monster yelled and screamed, Potts took another knife out of his boot and sent it into one of the jowls. He had been aiming for the thing’s eyes, but it moved its head and the knife hit the upper cheekbone, but it stuck.

  “What do we do now?” Cohen asked loudly.

  He got his answer soon, for the werewolf began to shake and pull and tug, trying to free itself. The creature was like a fox in a bear trap. It was going to do what it had to do to get away. It knew that it had been temporarily defeated and had to escape to fight again. The two men continued to hold the knives in its paws while it struggled. Potts wanted to take the machine gun and shoot it till its head came off, but he couldn’t risk bullets hitting Hawkins or Cohen, so he took at his pistol and aimed for the creature’s eyes. As he pulled the trigger, the beast howled louder. It continued to struggle against the knives and the bullets.

  It put its hind legs against the wall and began to push away from the building. Sgt. Cohen and Pvt. Hawkins could hear, then feel the animal’s skin tearing through the knives. Potts stepped up to the werewolf with his forty-four just feet from its face. For a moment, it looked at Potts with the most murderous expression that Potts had ever seen on any foe’s face. He fired into the beast’s forehead, a small chunk of skin and bone flying back at the colonel and both his men. It screamed and howled even louder, spewing foam from its mouth in all directions. Potts, Hawkins, and Cohen turned their heads away, not wanting to get any more of the thing’s body fluids on them.

  The tearing skin became louder as the thing finally pulled with all of its might and tore its paws away from the knives, screaming in agony as it did so. It fell away from the building, howling as it fell. After a moment, they heard the sound of a loud thud. Cohen and Hawkins looked up to see that their knives were still in the cement, but the werewolf’s claws were gone, blood and flesh in their place.

  The three soldiers looked over the ledge just as the werewolf was standing up. It held its forepaws limply in front of its body and licked them a few times as a dog would. It shook its head in agony, a low whimpering sound emanating from it. For a moment, the soldiers almost felt sympathy for the creature that was once a man like themselves…but that changed once the beast stood up and glared up at them, its yellow eyes accusing them, telling them that it would be back again. It let out one last angry howl and limped away, still holding its paws out in front of it.

  “I think we pissed it off, Gentlemen,” Potts said, lighting a cigar that he’d found in one of the offices.

  “So, you think it’s coming back then?” Hawkins asked, as he watched the creature run towards town.

  “Oh yeah,” Potts answered, chuckling.

  CHAPTER 56

  “This way! No…shit!” Sam Fong exclaimed. The four of them were stuck in the middle of another long hallway, and Sam couldn’t remember which fork to take.

  “Come on, Sam. Think!” Kyler told him, knowing full well that saying “Come on…think” seldom helped the situation at all.

  “Try to picture the place and retrace how you got back if that helps,” Zora threw in.

  FranAnne remained silent as she looked both ways down the hallway. She had her pistol drawn and she was biting her lip. She wanted to hit Sam on the head to jostle his memory, but she thought better of it. None of them had heard a sound from either Joe or the now white maned werewolf.

  Sam closed his eyes and looked down, and bobbed his head up and down, trying to retrace his footsteps in his brain.

  “That way,” he said, pointing right.

  “Are you sure?” Zora asked.

  “Yes!” he said and took off running.

  They sprinted down a long hallway. As they passed a small corridor, Zora looked to her right. Something moved.

  “Wait!” she said, stopping suddenly, while the other three slid across the floor, trying to stop.

  “What?” Kyler asked. He didn’t like standing still with a werewolf on the loose.

  “I saw something.”

  Zora ran to the side hallway entrance, and was quickly joined by the other three. They peered down the long hallway, which was well lit, except at the very end, where it was dark.

  “This looks familiar,” Sam said.

  “There!” Zora exclaimed. “See that?”

  At first they couldn’t see anything, but after a moment, they saw a figure move in the darkened part of the hallway. It had no particular shape, but there was someone there.

  “Let’s go,” FranAnne told them, but Kyler held her back.

  “What if it’s the werewolf?” he asked, now whispering. He had almost said Klefka again, but caught himself.

  “If it was the werewolf, it would probably be headed our way by now, don’t you think?” Sam answered.

  As the four stood still, they heard a sound…the sound of a baby crying.

  “That’s her!” exclaimed Sam.

  With this, the four of them ran down the hallway calling Shelly’s name, but getting no response. As they neared the darkened part of the hallway, the could see Shelly in her nightgown, holding the baby, and quickly reaching for something.

  “Shelly!” FranAnne yelled.

  They heard the baby cry as they neared Shelly.

  “Shelly! What are you doing?” FranAnne yelled.

  When they reached her, it looked as if she had been looking for something on the wall. She ran her free hand along the wall, as if someone had erected a wall right in front of her.

  “What are you doing down here?” Kyler asked, putting a hand on her shoulder and turning her around.

  “I was just…” she began, clutching the baby to her chest.

  “We’ve got to get back to the others,” FranAnne told her. “That thing is in the building!”

  “Oh really?” Shelly asked, placing her hand on her neck to make sure that her bite was covered.

  “Yes. Now come on,” FranAnne said, taking her elbow.

  “I need to wait for…I’ve got to…” she stuttered.

  “Wait for what?” Zora asked, taking the baby from her, and handing her to Kyler.

  “No!” Shelly screamed, reaching up and trying to take the baby, but FranAnne and Sam held her back.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Sam told her. “And now!”

  “No!”

  “It’s already got Wilbur and Miss Munn,” FranAnne said, putting her hands on Shelly’s shoulders.

  “No!”

  Shelly tried to fight them, but she was no match for the four of them. FranAnne and Sam each grabbed an elbow and began to drag her kicking and screaming.

  “No! I have to stay! I’m waiting…”

  “Let’s go,” Kyler said, holding the baby.

  Kyler began to run while Shelly continued to scream.

  “Be quiet,” Sam hissed. “That thing will hear us.”

  “I don’t care!” she yelled again. “I don’t care!”

  Before any of them knew it, they had stopped. Shelly continued to scream loudly.

  Sam and FranAnne tried to put their hand over her mouth, but she bit them both.

  “What are we going to do?” Sam asked, sucking the bite on his hand.

  Finally, without a word, FranAnne slapped Shelly hard across the face. Shelly staggered for a moment, trying to focus on FranAnne who was just as shocked as she was that she had slapped her.

  “You fuckin’ dyke!” she screamed at FranAnne.

  “That thing’s not gonna kill me…but it’s gonna get you! Oh yes…it’s gonna…”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Zora came up behind her, put her arms under Shelly’s armpits, and proceeded to lock her fingers behind Shelly’s neck, putting her in what Kyler thought to be the old wrestling hold called the Full Nelson Lock. Kyler didn’t know what good that was going to do them. Zora was shorter than even Shelly. It’s hard to use that hold on a taller opponent, even if that opponent is only an inch or so taller, because the one using the hold isn’t suppo
sed to have to stand on their tiptoes to deliver it.

  As Kyler, Sam, and FranAnne watched, Shelly began to go red as she fought the hold. Drool began to flow down the side of her mouth. FranAnne put her hand on Zora’s wrist to stop it, but Sam grabbed her hand and held it back. He’d watched enough wrestling in college to know a sleeper hold when he saw one. Kyler stood in awe as Shelly’s eyes finally closed, and she began to go limp. As she did, Sam bent down in front of her as Zora released her grip and picked the unconscious Shelly up and threw her over his shoulder.

  Kyler was stunned. “How in the hell…” he started.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Zora interrupted.

  Without another word, they began to run back toward the sleeping quarters, Zora leading the way.

  “Please stay quiet, Kayla,” Kyler whispered to the sleeping child. “Please stay quiet.”

  As if on cue, the baby began to cry…and not just a little. She began to wail, her face turning a bright crimson.

  “Shh…shh…” Kyler cooed, which was hard to do when you’re sprinting. It came out more like “juj…juj…”

  The four ran left down a hallway, and then quickly turned right at the next one. The others blindly followed Zora who seemed to have confidence in her sense of direction. She took another quick right, then another, until they passed the locker room. As they neared the entrance to the laundry room, Kyler stopped.

  “Here,” he said to FranAnne, handing her the crying baby.

  “What are you doing?” Zora asked him.

  “I’m going to search one more time for Opal,” he answered, and then ran into the room, leaving Sam, FranAnne, and even Zora, a little antsy.

  “Opal!” They heard him whisper. “Opal! O…”

  They heard a thud, followed by an “Aw shit!”. A moment later, Kyler came out of the room with his pants covered with blood and other bits of Wilbur Munn.

  “Didn’t find her,” he said sheepishly.

  “Wilbur’s still there, I take it,” Zora came back.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s get out of here then,” FranAnne said.