Beneath a Winter Moon

by Shawson M Hebert

  There it was again. Kyle realized he had begun to hold his breath. It was so quiet that he believed he could hear the pulse in his throat. He suddenly wanted to get away from the door and the window beside it but found that he was frozen in place. He could not have forced his legs to comply even if he truly wanted them to. He waited a moment that felt as if it had dragged on for hours, and when he heard nothing more he chided himself for being such a wuss. He slowly let some air escape though his lips. Shit! He thought he heard something breathing. Whatever it was, was breathing heavily and but not panting like a wolf or a dog. Kyle wanted to breathe air back into his lungs. He wanted to move away. He was even tempted to let his legs turn into jelly and then let his body just slide down to the floor in a heap. He wanted to do any or all of those things but he could not. Not after hearing those sounds. He heard a low growl.

  It was not a wolf—something inside him screamed that it was not a wolf. He dare not move, now. If he did, whatever was on the other side of the door would hear him. He knew it would hear him. He knew it as surely as he knew the sun would come up in the morning. The animal outside was just waiting for Kyle to make the mistake of moving.

  Kyle heard a soft clattering noise and pictured the claws of some wild beast tapping on the wooden porch floor as it moved just a few feet away opposite the door. He could hear that the animal had moved closer to the front door…closer to him. I have a rifle! It should have made him feel better but it did not. He forced himself to bring the weapon up and across his chest. Shit! He had not cocked the lever. The Winchester was a lever-action rifle, just like the ones heroes carried in the Hollywood westerns—the lever had to be cocked before the rifle could fire. He let out a shaky and ragged breath. He had to cock the rifle.

  He loosened his vice-like grip, realizing that the fingers of his right hand were already through the lever. With the backs of his extended fingers, he slowly pushed downward….ever so slowly. He pressed the backs of his fingers hard against the cold steel of the lever as he moved it slowly toward the cocked position. When Kyle felt that the lever was almost in place, he slowed even more. His hand was moving impossibly slow now as he tried to prevent the rifle from making its usual loud click when the lever reached home.

  He heard the claws on the wood once more…and this time, when he heard the breathing, he knew it was against the opposite side of the door. It was listening. He eased the lever.

  CLICK!

  The darkness around Kyle suddenly exploded as the door came crashing into him.

  * * * * *

  “At some point don’t we have to accept that Kyle isn’t receiving? Don’t you think it is time to turn on your downed-aircraft beacon or whatever you call it?” Daniel put the questions to Steven and Jenny at midnight. It had been dark for more than three hours, and there had been no luck at all with the radio.

  There was a moment of silence in the darkness. “It’s been on, Daniel. The problem is that the system—the satellites that run the system just recently switched to complete digital.” He sighed heavily. “My beacon is analog.”

  As with most Canadian aircraft, especially commercially licensed aircraft, there was a very long lag in replacing the analog beacons with digital, and there had been no crackdown by aviation officials. The satellites, however, were now set to auto-detect only the digital signals.

  “Explain that to me in more detail,” Delmar said, trying to hide the irritation in his voice.

  “The signal cannot be read by the satellite systems…only by searchers or others who are specifically looking for analog.” It was Thomas who had answered.

  “So, that means that no one who isn’t specifically looking for us will find us…okay…that sucks.”

  Thomas knew that Delmar was only frustrated and was not angry with Steven, but his voice conveyed the opposite. It took a long time to become familiar with all aspects of Delmar’s temperament, and most would likely see anger where there was merely frustration.

  “We stay here and try to keep warm until daylight or until Kyle gets an air-rescue up here. He probably heard enough to know we are stuck and has radioed for help.” Steven said.

  “Probably…” Delmar muttered.

  “Look, we are all safe and sound and we can stay relatively warm in here, especially with the gear you guys have with you. We just need to sit tight and keep the hot air to a minimum.”

  “Hey…” Delmar began to protest.

  “That is enough, you two,” Jenny said. “It doesn’t matter right now. Save it for when we are back in town in front of a warm fire.”

  “Sorry,” Delmar halfheartedly grumbled, not wanting to go toe to toe with Jenny.

  “Don’t apologize, you big goof. You’ve got more than a right to be pissed…but it’s pretty tight in here and it’s a long time to daylight.”

  Steven sighed.

  “Right,” Delmar said. “You are right. No problemo.”

  Thomas leaned back into the seat’s webbing and sighed. He had folded his thin bedroll in half so that Jack could lay on it, off of the cold floor of the helicopter, and he was wishing now that the soft padding was underneath his own rear end. He kept one gloved hand hanging down so that he could occasionally stroke the Husky’s fur.

  “Want to sing a song?” Daniel asked.

  “Are you serious?” Delmar asked.

  “Why not? I can’t sleep…everyone is awake.” He poked Delmar’s arm. “Even you are awake…and that is something, isn’t it?”

  “If I promise to go to sleep right now can we not sing any songs?”

  Daniel chuckled. “I guess so.”

  “Would you look at that moon,” Jenny said.

  Thomas opened his eyes and shifted forward to take a look out his window. Shining through the thin cloud cover was the largest full moon that he had ever seen. Daniel whistled, leaning over Thomas’s lap to get a clear view.

  “Now that is beautiful,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah, I’ve been looking at it,” said Delmar. “Reminds me of a night in Panama on the Atlantic side. I don’t know what causes it to sometimes seem so big, but on that night it was so huge…like this one. It was a dark orange then, but it was amazing.”

  “The clouds and the haze give it a spooky look,” Thomas said.

  “It’s Annigan, the moon god, looking down on the earth for his sister, Malina,” Steven said. “He forgot to eat for many days as he looked for her, so he left, filled himself, and now comes back full and strong.”

  After a moment of silence, Thomas asked, “Who is Malina?”

  “Malina is his sister, the sun goddess, who hides each night from Annigan because he is pure evil.”

  “So, what happens if he catches his sister?” Daniel asked.

  Steven shuffled in his seat, trying to stretch his long legs. “The end of the world. Day and night become one.”

  “Nice,” Delmar said in the darkness. “Is that some local folklore?”

  “Not really,” Steven replied, “It’s an Inuit legend that I learned when I was in Greenland—when I was a kid. My grandfather used to insist that my father let me go out at night to learn about the stars and the moon. He said I needed to know the history of my Inuit brothers and sisters.”

  “You never mentioned siblings,” Thomas said inquisitively.

  Steven laughed, “No, I don’t have any. He meant the people of Greenland. I was supposed to stay there. My father was supposed to take over the trading post and post office when grandfather died.”

  “He didn’t stay?”

  “He always wanted to fish. He was out one day with a group of fishermen, doing some crabbing. He never came back. I was fifteen.”

  “Sorry,” Thomas said, “you never mentioned it before.”

  Steven sighed. “My dreams were in the sky, you could say—maybe not quite as high up as the moon.” He chuckled. “I made it to the sky, though…for the most part, anyway.”

  “So, your mother brought you back here?” Delmar asked.

&nb
sp; “Yep. She jumped at the chance to come back. We just swapped one cold green land for another.”

  Jenny leaned her head against Steven’s shoulder.

  “What about you, Delmar?” Steven asked. “Did your father or grandfather ever tell you stories about the moon and stars?”

  Delmar huffed and shifted back in his seat. “My father was too busy drinking and beating the hell out of me and my sister to have had time to teach us anything but pain.”

  Daniel punched Delmar hard in the arm.

  “Owwww! Jesus, Daniel.”

  “Damned ornery bastard,” Daniel said in a half mocking voice. “Here we are having a nice conversation about the moon and stars and loved ones, and you have to wreck it.”

  “Shit, Daniel…he asked me, so I answered.”

  Thomas laughed. “You should have known better than to ask Delmar anything, Steven. He’s like a little kid. He always tells it like it is…even when it is not the time or place.”

  Steven and Jenny both laughed and Delmar and Daniel joined in.

  “Sorry,” Delmar said. “I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.”

  They talked for a while longer, until one by one, they dozed off, their breath fogging the windows of the aircraft.

  * * * * *

  Samuel Tucker sat at his desk with his feet propped up in an empty chair, his mind wandering. He really disliked his job at the airfield—the night shift, monitoring flights through the night. There would be one or two each night but they were regulars and didn’t require much by way of tracking. The job required no physical labor—which was good, because Samuel had more than doubled his weight since high school and could no longer do much of anything for very long. The pay was decent, it was union of course, and he brought home enough money each week to keep himself supplied with beer and to keep his wife, who had also more than doubled her weight since high school, satisfied. Overall, it was a decent living but he pretty much hated it. He had moved beyond wondering how he had ended up staying in this lonely, cold shithole of a town. He knew exactly why he was here and he resented that, too.

  Samuel had been a promising student in high school, making good grades and doing well in football and baseball. He was popular and he was an all-around good kid. His dream was to be what he called a “nature journalist,” which he defined as a man who traveled into wildernesses, jungles, and the outback, living or working in the native population while writing articles for the AP and for magazines like National Geographic. His teachers encouraged him and his parents were prepared to take out a second mortgage to get him through college. Then he had met Ellen.

  Everything changed when Ellen moved into town during his senior year. They fell in love and Samuel decided he could not live without her. She could not afford college and neither could her folks…and she was not willing to work for it. At first, Samuel stuck to his guns—he was going to college. Then, during a short break-up, he had caught Ellen with Timothy Autry, whose father owned one of the outpost and guide companies. Tim didn’t need college and had plenty of money to take care of Ellen if she stayed with him.

  So, that was it. Ellen was pregnant soon after marrying Samuel and then pregnant again three years later. Samuel did odd jobs around town until landing the job at the airfield. Years passed and one of the boys, Alan, became a pilot and had managed to get a loan to finance his own plane. He had his own, small charter but did okay. Samuel’s youngest son, Dwayne had graduated high school with a decent scholarship to a city college but decided he didn’t need college. Instead, Samuel thought, Dwayne believed he could just live off of his parents until he was thirty. Samuel tried to get the boy to take on a decent job and the most recent conversation with Dwayne had ended badly when Dwayne blurted in the middle of it that he was wondering if he could borrow enough money to get his nose pierced. The kid wanted a nose ring. That was all—just a nose ring. His boy could not see the future beyond his own nose.

  Samuel was jealous of Alan and disliked Dwayne. He resented his wife and he generally just barely managed to tolerate everyone and everything else—that was probably why he was asleep during the three or four times that Kyle’s radio calls came through. Samuel had traded his sense of responsibility for spite and an all around bad attitude.

  A loud knock on the tower door scared Samuel so bad that he almost fell out of his chair—both chairs. It turned out that a local amateur radio operator—actually a teenage boy, had received one of Kyle’s radio calls. An angry father, one who knew Samuel very well, shook a finger at Samuel and said he knew that he’d been sleeping or else there would not have been repeated radio checks after the call. Samuel listened as the man read what his son had written down on a piece of notebook paper:

  “This is Kyle at Crazy Horse base, relaying call from Crazy Horse actual. Actual was unable to land at destination LZ or alternate LZ. He is changing his flight path to 300 degrees north by northwest and is planning an emergency weather landing in the bluffs at approximately 287034.”

  “You have to admire that guy’s radio etiquette,” Samuel said. “So, that was it?”

  “Yeah, except for some radio checks and a couple of apparent attempts to answer Steven.” The man turned for the door. “Brian didn’t write any of that down, but he said it sounded like Kyle was answering Steven in such a way that he—Kyle—believed they might be in some sort of trouble.” He paused and looked back at Samuel. “Do your damned job and look into this. We all like Steven and his wife, who is with him, by the way, and it would not bode well for the man who slept through their distress call. Any distress call.” He slammed the door shut behind him before Samuel could reply to the threat.

  “Bastard,” Samuel muttered.

  He sat back down and worked some controls on his radio, and did an area-wide radio check. He received a few replies, to which he requested any knowledge of transmissions from Crazy Horse or Crazy Horse base. There were none. He called for Kyle and for Steven on the emergency channel as well as the normal channels. There was no answer. He resolved that what he would do is run a radio check every half hour until he found out something. That would ruin his plans for sleep, but it just might keep him out of trouble—and Samuel hated trouble.

  * * * * *

  The Other howled in ecstasy as it ripped a large strip of muscle away from bone. The long, black jaws were covered in blood and gore, but the creature did not care. Chunks of flesh fell to the ground as it chewed. Hideous hands with two-inch claws were clamped firmly into the chest of the kill. He did not use the hands to eat with—he did not have that much control. The hands and their long, razor-sharp claws were for ripping and tearing. Although the Other’s build, in general, was like that of a man, he did not possess human skills. He could grip things in his powerful elongated fingers, but he did not have the ability to use them as a human would. His extraordinary legs were thick with muscle and built more like that of canine, joints reversed, allowing him to leap impossibly high and far into the air. He was just as comfortable running on all fours as he was on two legs, but instinct kept him upright and kept his hands free for grasping, ripping, and tearing. His feet were more canine than human—just as large, but formed like that of a wolf. Something caught his attention. He froze, silently sniffing the cold winter air. He was puzzled. The smell, although somewhat familiar, brought something to him. He sensed danger—an eminent threat.

  He stood erect, his incredibly tall form towering over the torn, human corpse. He roared. Although he did not know it, the extraordinary sound alerted every animal within earshot that he was different. His roars and howls seized the hearts of all animals and froze them in place as they sensed their doom.

  He cocked his black head to one side, a piece of human skin sliding off the matted black fur of his massive neck to fall on the ground with a splat. The danger—the beast—howled back at him. Although it was far away, he recognized the howl immediately. Instinct overpowered his need to devour the human kill. The howl was danger and his mind flowed through bits and pi
eces of memory until synapses fired on the correct action. He turned and looked down at his prize. He would have to leave it. With a barely audible whimper, he turned and ran at full speed for the trees.

  He ran north much of the night, plowing through low-lying branches, jumping over fallen trees and rotten stumps as he made his way through the thick, snow-covered forest. He ran up high bluffs and hills, scraping claws on rocks and using his strong arms to pull him up over small overhangs. He did not know he was moving north, he simply knew he was moving where he needed to—where instinct drove him. He had to get far away from the danger but there was also something else.

  He sailed over a large pile of deadfall and brought himself to a stop. He panted heavily, his breath turning into heavy fog as it escaped his lungs. He sniffed, closed his mouth and slowed his intake. He listened, his large, black pointed ears turning unnaturally into the wind. He heard the beast’s howl again, this time much farther away. He again felt a slight but nagging loss for his human kill and sensed that the Beast had likely claimed it as his own. He waited another moment, listening. Just as he turned back north and started to move, he heard another howl, only this time there seemed less threat and anger in the call. He let out a grunt, instinct telling him that the immediate danger had passed.

  He sniffed the crisp night air and was surprised to detect human odor. Humans should not be here in this place. He did not understand how he knew that, but it was there. Puzzlement changed to an animal glee as his heart quickened and saliva dripped into his jaws. He had lost a kill to the Beast…but his rival would not have any reason to suspect humans were here. They were his for the taking…and he would take them. He howled, but tried to keep his jubilation hidden. He would not want the Beast to come.

  CHAPTER FOUR