SKELETON

by Peter Parkin

  Richard glanced up at the black figure, shocked at what had just happened. He was starting to feel faint. He heard himself asking, "Why?"

  "Because you're human filth."

  Richard felt his knees starting to buckle. He struggled to remain standing just as a matter of pride. He tried to talk but the words wouldn't come. The man in black leaned in to him, so close that Richard could feel his moist breath seeping through the woolen balaclava.

  "You sick little fuck. You know what? None of us have much time left, but I'm going to make damn sure that sick little fucks like you don't hurt any more people during whatever time we do have. So that's why I'm here. And that's why you're going to die tonight."

  Richard couldn't help himself. He started to sob. Then he screamed in horror as he watched the blur of two fingers racing toward his forehead.

  CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

  It had been another lovely dinner and Fiona was so tired she went to bed even before they'd had a chance to think about dessert. Tonight, they'd had a nice romantic pasta dinner together—washed down with a 1998 Chianti. Dennis thought he remembered that being a good year, but it didn't really matter. It had tasted great, regardless.

  He knew the wine had gone to Fiona's head, but more than that—even though she would deny it—she was still having a tough time dealing with the horror of Nevis. And the death of Brett. It would take time. Dennis would give her all the time she needed, and more love than she could have ever imagined. She was his treasure.

  He filled his coffee cup and headed up to his study. It was only 11:00, too soon for him to hit the sack. He sat back in his leather chair and opened a case file. This case involved a string of burglaries throughout the Georgetown area of the city, his area. He had a particular interest in this one for that reason alone.

  Dennis was about halfway through the file when the phone rang. Strange, he thought, to get a call this time of night.

  "Hello?"

  "Hi Denny. You know who this is, but don't say my name."

  Dennis felt like he'd been caressed by a ghost. His heart began pounding in his chest at the exact instant that his hand went numb. The phone slipped from his grasp and crashed to the floor.

  He froze for a few seconds and wondered if perhaps he'd fallen asleep and simply been dreaming. That notion was dispelled quickly when he heard the familiar voice calling out his name from down on the floor.

  He reached down and picked up the phone. "Uh...where are you?"

  "Can't tell you that."

  "I don't know what to say. I'm stunned."

  "Denny, take a look out your window and tell me if you can see the moon tonight."

  Dennis glanced outside—it was a clear night and the moon was half-full. "Yes, I can see it. It's nice and clear."

  "Good. Take another look, towards the south pole of the moon at the lower right-hand corner of the semi-circle. Tell me what you see."

  Dennis looked outside again. He stared hard. There was something. He put the phone down and aimed his telescope. Puzzled, he picked up the phone again.

  "It looks like there's a little chunk missing—or it's a shadow? I don't really know what I'm looking at."

  "A chunk is missing. It can only be noticed when the moon is half-full. That's when the missing section stands out. When it's full, there's too much illumination to see it."

  "Do you know this for sure?"

  "Yes, I do. The spot you're looking at is pretty much bang-on where the Shackleton Crater is. When they nuked it, that section of rock became fractured and it weakened over the decades. Those so-called meteors and fireballs that have been seen on several continents recently weren't meteors at all. Sure, the information given to the Press identified those things as meteors. But I have inside information. The rock debris recovered from the impact sites; they're moon rocks. They've been positively identified. But the public will never know this of course."

  Dennis took a sip of his coffee, and then winced. It had gone cold on him. He walked over to his water cooler and poured himself a glass. If he was going to drink something cold, he wanted something that was meant to be cold. He guzzled it.

  He half-whispered into the phone. "The moon's fucked now, isn't it?" "In more ways than you might realize. I'm sure you've been puzzled, like I've been, about the weird weather patterns over the past few years— the fierce hurricanes, early tornado seasons, abnormal tides, complete islands disappearing, brutally hot summers, bizarre winter storms. Not to mention volcanoes going into overdrive everywhere including the middle of the ocean, an incredible increase in earthquake frequency, and unexplained animal and fish deaths."

  Dennis was starting to get a sick feeling in his stomach. A sense of foreboding was beginning to engulf him, and his eyes began to get blurry. He knew his blood pressure was rising.

  "Yeah, I've been paying attention to all of those things."

  "Well, Denny, you and I both know that the moon affects the earth in serious ways. Without it we'd be doomed; if it was farther away from us we'd be doomed; if it was too close we'd be doomed. Where the moon has historically been, has maintained a sort of equilibrium for us."

  "Yes." Dennis braced himself for the words that were coming—he didn't know what those words were going to be, he just knew they were coming.

  "When they nuked the moon, it became destabilized—irreparably. It's moving much faster now and its orbit is much tighter. The public wouldn't notice anything; most people never look up at the sky anyway. They take our moon for granted. And it's normally about a quarter million miles away from us, so even a reasonably tangible difference in its distance wouldn't be noticed. Not yet anyway."

  "Spit it out. What are you saying?"

  "I'm telling you this because after everything that's happened I feel you deserve to know. Enjoy life, get things in order, treasure the world such as it is."

  "Again, spit it out!"

  "The moon is 20,000 miles closer to us today than it was a decade ago.

  Within about ten years we're going to get hit. It'll keep coming closer until earth's gravity suddenly just sucks it in.

  "Denny, our moon will become the largest asteroid mankind has ever recorded. Except that no one will be alive to record this one. It will be an extinction event."

  His heart was pounding. A burning pain shot through his chest, up through his shoulder and down his left arm. Dennis' thumb hit the 'off' button on the phone and for the second time in the last few minutes the poor little instrument crashed to the floor.

  Dennis staggered over to the water cooler, popped an aspirin, and sucked back the refreshing liquid. Then he splashed some on his forehead, and promptly lowered himself to the floor fearing that he might just keel over at any second. Dennis took some deep breaths and relaxed for a few minutes until the chest pains subsided.

  He'd had these before, a long time ago. After a battery of tests, his doctor had reassured him that they were just stress-related; no damage done to his heart. That was just after his father's death. Well maybe it was just stress again, but he decided he would keep the aspirin close at hand anyway until the reality of what he'd just heard sunk in.

  Feeling much better, he stood up and walked back to his telescope. He re-focused it back on the moon again and just stared. Under his breath he cursed, "Jesus Christ."

  Suddenly he felt her from behind, nestling in close to him. She wrapped her arms over his shoulders and clasped her fingers across his chest. He could feel her head resting against his back and it felt wonderful, comforting.

  "What are you looking at, Denny?"

  He licked his dry lips. "Oh, nothing, sweetheart. Just enjoying the view." She gently pressed one knee up between his legs and sighed. "Why don't you just come to bed? I can promise you that the view is even better in there."

  He turned around, took her into his arms and hugged her tightly. "That's a promise I'm going to hold you to for the rest of your life."

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Peter Parkin was born in Toront
o, Canada and after studying Business Administration at Ryerson University, he embarked on a thirty-four year career in the business world. He retired in 2007 and has written seven novels with coauthor Alison Darby.

  Alison Darby is a life-long resident of the West Midlands region of England. She studied psychology in college and when she's not juggling a busy work life and writing novels, she enjoys researching astronomy. Alison has two daughters who live and work in the vibrant cities of London and Birmingham.