Full Moonster

by Nick Pollota

  We had reclaimed each base, but it hadn't been fun.

  Pensively, I ran a hand through my hair and scratched the outside of my brain. Could this be one of those scenarios? Was Hadleyville a lost Bureau location? Battling hellspawn armed with our own weapons was every agent's worst nightmare. Every sane agent, that is. However, it was our job.

  Summoning some pluck, I eased back the hammers on both Magnums. “Come on, gang, let's go visit beautiful downtown Hadleyville."

  In battle formation, we crept across the backyard and angled around the side of the house. That was when we realized why the perspective had been wrong on the building.

  There was no front. Or more correctly, the entire front of the home had been squeezed into the rear. Smashed? The building was only about a foot thick. Similar to a Hollywood false front used in a movie. Yet the whole structure was there. Just compressed.

  Before moving past the house, Mindy eased her sword out into the front yard and wiggled it about. When nothing happened, she proceeded onward. One by one the entire team boldly tagged along. In passing, I noticed that the windows weren't even broken. And from somewhere inside, a light was still shining. Ai carumba.

  Looking uptown and down, we could see that every house on this outer block was mushed the same way. The street was bare of cars, and the homes on the other side seemed okay, just odd somehow. As if it was difficult to focus my vision on them.

  “Oh, Raul?” Kathi sang out, just as I was about to too.

  Thoughtfully, the mage scratched his head with his wand. That made me nervous, but then I relaxed when I realized that he was only doing it to aid the thinking process. Raul often went into itching fits when in the immediate presence of evil magic. This odd tendency of his had saved our butts more than once.

  “Possible,” the pale wizard conceded at last. “If Hadleyville is indeed the source of that ethereal explosion, a reaction like this one is theoretically possible."

  Stepping over a pile of smashed plaster ducks, Donaher held his pocket microscope pen to an accordioned window.

  “Could there be survivors?” Kathi asked hopefully, squinting to see more clearly.

  “No way,” the Catholic priest stated flatly. In perfect harmony, the inside light flickered and the faded away. Bummer.

  Ahead of us stretched a flat green lawn and a smooth black driveway made of macadam. Dividing the two was a path of irregularly spaced blue Virginia flagstone. We took the path.

  Reaching the sidewalk, I observed that the street was completely empty of cars and incredibly clean. The black asphalt seemed brand new, just like the driveway, without a Popsicle stick, leaf, or newspaper in evidence. Nor any potholes. That was suspicious. Potholes were the official state animal of West Virginia.

  With George and Kathi flanking her, Mindy stepped off the curb and onto the street, her eyes constantly moving in search of danger. But as her sneaker touched the hard macadam, the material parted in a watery manner and, with a blub, she sank out of sight.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I moved as never before. Dropping my guns on the crumpled lawn, I insanely reached out, grabbed ahold of the rapidly sinking blade of Mindy's sword, braced myself with both legs, and yanked backwards with every ounce of strength I possessed! Searing pain filled the universe beyond imagination, and I fainted.

  * * * *

  Trembling and sweaty, I came awake sitting on the grass with an oily black form lying nearby. It was roughly human-shaped, with the bloody end of a sword sticking out of one end. Chanting wildly, Raul lowered the end of his staff. A steamy discharge bathed the deadly quiet form of our friend. For a moment, the body was completely masked; then, as the billowing fumes dispersed, Mindy groaned and struggled to sit upright.

  “Blah,” she said and spat black onto the sidewalk.

  Like a living snake, the ebony fluid undulated along the concrete and into River Street.

  As the team gathered close, I glanced at my hands. There was a pink line across each palm, and on every finger in a staggered pattern. When I closed my hands, the pattern joined to form a straight line. Warily, I flexed my hands expecting agony, but everything felt fine. There was no pain.

  “You have the good Father to thank,” Jess said, offering a hip flask.

  Unscrewing the cap, I took a healthy swallow. Ah, ten-year-old blended Kentucky whiskey. Now that was a healing spell.

  “Thank Donaher for what?” I asked, returning the flask.

  She stuffed the container into her camera bag. “Kathi magically healed your wounds, but when one of your thumbs was rolling away, Mike made a catch just before it reached the street and sank."

  Wow. Talk about giving a fellow a hand.

  As I struggled to my feet, an amazingly clean Mindy came over and, grabbing my coat lapels, proceeded to administer a kiss that could only be measured in amperes of high voltage. Something around the gigawatt range.

  “Thank you,” she said afterwards.

  Embarrassed, I retrieved my Magnums from their resting spots on the ground and wiped some blood spots off the handles. Egads, I guess my brain had temporarily gone on hold. On the other hand, my ploy had worked and saved Mindy.

  Balancing his humongous rifle expertly on his right hip, George pushed back the cap on his head. “Well, this explains why a group of somethings went out to steal cars on the highway. I bet there isn't a working vehicle left in this whole town."

  I agreed with that assessment.

  “So how do we get across the street of death?” Father Donaher asked, brushing out his moustache. “Build a raft?"

  Jessica chuckled. “Thank you, Huck Finn."

  “We can fly,” Raul offered, raising his staff.

  Mages! They would use magic to open soda cans, and then be actually surprised when they ran out of power in the middle of a battle. Sheesh!

  “No, we need a bridge,” I said, scanning the surrounding area.

  Father Donaher tapped the barrel of his shotgun against a nearby telephone pole. “How ‘bout this?"

  “Perfect,” I acknowledged, drawing my ultra-light-weight Magnum. Removing the silencer, I assumed a regulation firing stance and snapped off six shots, neatly cutting the wires free from the crossbars of the pole. We Wyoming boys were born with a pistol in one hand and a beer in the other. Which explained why my penmanship was so bad.

  Most of the wires slumped to the ground, but one line fell to dangle into the street. There ensued a brutal tug-o-war which ended with the cable snapping off from the pole across the road and whipping into the macadam like a strand of spaghetti.

  Having seen worse, we were unimpressed. Once my team spent an entire summer stationed in Detroit.

  “Ms. Jennings?” I requested, stepping aside.

  Shifting her hips, Mindy swung her sword and the blade went through the telephone pole to no apparent result. Then the thick pole slid apart on a sharp angle and toppled over to loudly crash onto the far sidewalk with pinpoint precision.

  The street bubbled with anger. Hmm.

  “Raul, Kathi, maybe you'd better fly over as escort,” I instructed the mages. “Just in case."

  Gripping her staff, Kathi gave a nod and levitated into the air, while Raul snapped off a salute and started running towards the sky as if ascending an invisible staircase. The big show-off.

  One at a time, we each crossed over. Mindy skipped across as if she was on the balancing beam in the gym. Father Donaher slowly shuffled along, refusing to lift a foot from the surface of the pole. Holding his big M-60 machine rifle in both arms to aid his balance, George reached the far side with no problem. Jessica simply strolled along, while I scooted on hands and knees. It was undignified, but efficient. Especially since I can't swim.

  Upon reaching the other side, I heard a sharp wooden crack. I stood to see the telephone pole break into several pieces and sink into the street. That was when I noted the pair of fins moving along the macadam surface. Snorting my contempt, I rejoined the group. It was only a transdimensional
shark. You could kill ‘em with a standard Army bazooka. Big deal.

  The houses on this block were made of semi-transparent glass. There were some loose stones lying on the ground, but as nobody seemed to be home, we decided against testing the old adage.

  Skirting the houses, we scrambled over a backyard pine-board fence and found ourselves on the outer rim of a blast crater. I couldn't think of anything else to call the pit.

  Concentric rings of devastation marked where downtown Hadleyville had once stood . At our feet lay a band of jumbled wilderness, with machines and plants haphazardly piled together in pure chaos. Next came a circle of bubbled glass. But inside that sat an island of normalcy: orderly streets, undamaged homes, and a shopping mall with a mirrored building in the far distance. However, I was starting to believe that in this goofy place, the more normal something appeared, the greater the danger was. The first fluffy teddy bear I encountered was getting a grenade smack in the kisser.

  Checking my sports coat, I found my long-range folding binoculars and trained them on the Hadleyville Hotel. The obvious question was, had the center of town magically exploded outward, or had the whole place gone boom, with only the center of town shielded from the blast?

  A modest ten-story building with a nice neon sign announced a heated swimming pool, color TV in every room, and happy hour at the Kon Tiki Lounge every Friday at six. The Pou-Pou Platter was extra, but then, isn't it always?

  But my sunglasses revealed a steady ethereal wind whirling around the upper structure of the building. Purple lightning crackled against bloated crimson clouds that moved under their own volition. A thick primordial ooze dripped down the sides of the eerily twisting building, while dark muted shapes moved with inhuman purpose behind warped windows.

  The parking lot was a smooth expanse of empty black macadam. I could guess what happened to the cars. I'm surprised the lot wasn't burping, with a giant toothpick sticking out of its entrance ramp.

  “Hey, there's an electronic crawl sign over by the Kon Tiki Lounge,” Jessica announced, fine focusing her pocket binoculars. “Welcome ... to the...” She dropped the binoculars. “Oh no."

  “The what?” I demanded, trying to find what she had seen.

  “Welcome to the First International Occult Convention of Hadleyville,” she read in a tiny voice.

  Hoo boy.

  “What now, comrades?” Kathi asked in concern. “Should we attack? Call for assistance? Run away?"

  Chewing a lip, I seriously debated that. “Not yet. We haven't encountered anything really dangerous. Let's go further. Our answers should be in that hotel."

  “Agreed,” Donaher muttered. He held his oversized gold crucifix in both hands before him in a defensive position. “I sense great evil there. Yet everything inside is not evil."

  “Fabulous,” Mindy groaned. “Some innocent bystander hiding in a broom closet, I suppose."

  Touching her forehead out of habit, Jessica began to probe the building. Suddenly lowered her hand and flashed red in embarrassment.

  “Could it be a trapped desk clerk?” she asked, helpless as a normal human.

  Taking a firing stance, George snapped the bolt on his M-60. “A hostage? Sacrifice?"

  “I cannot say for certain,” the priest said slowly. “But I strongly suggest we proceed with extreme caution."

  “All is not as it seems,” Donaher added softly.

  Shielding his eyes from the sun, George tilted his head to gaze up at the moaning structure. “Anybody got a clever idea how we can find out what happened inside the hotel?” he asked bluntly.

  Ghostly figures moved in and out of the pulsating walls, while blood started to run out of one window to be licked up by another. The front door was full of sharp teeth, and a fleshy tongue-like carpet lay panting on the concrete sidewalk.

  Drawing the Model #66, I checked the scenario load: armor-piercing shell, silver bullet, blessed wooden bullet, mercury-tip explosive round, phosphorus incendiary slug, and a hollow-point dum-dum. Good enough. I was loaded for were.

  “Sure,” I said, easing back the hammers until they clicked into firing position. “We go inside."

  “I was afraid you'd say that,” George mumbled, hitching up his belt. “Want me to stay here and guard our escape route?"

  “Nope."

  “I'll help,” Kathi offered kindly, beaming.

  “Sorry. Need you both to administer smelling salts in case I faint."

  Smiling, Mindy playfully punched the plump gunner on the arm. “Come on, guys. How often do we get to march into the jaws of death incarnate?"

  “Total so far, or this year alone?” Raul asked rudely.

  “Sissy merlin,” she sneered in contempt.

  He stood erect. “And proud of it."

  Without warning, Raul jerked backwards and fell sprawling to the ground. A heartbeat later an echoing cra-ack! of a large caliber rifle rolled over us.

  “Jules Verne!” I bellowed as the rest of my team headed for the center of the earth.

  “Pink Floyd!” Father Donaher then loudly added, ramming shells into his shotgun.

  Arching an eyebrow, Kathi stared at the priest. “Pink Floyd?” she repeated puzzled, as hot bullets zinged by overhead. “Dark Side of the Moon? Wish You Were Here?"

  “The Wall!” Raul shouted, and gesturing from his prone position, a chest-high barrier of shimmering ethereal energy formed. Four more rifle rounds nosily ricocheted off the magical shield.

  “Are you okay?” Jessica asked urgently. Edging closer, she yanked apart the top of her camera bag and pulled out a medical kit and plastic bottle of Healing Potion #4. It was the good stuff, strictly reserved for emergencies only.

  Tugging at the ragged hole in his starry black T-shirt, Raul frowned as the molded body armor underneath came into view. There was a gray metallic smear directly above his heart. “Hey, they completely obliterated the Orion Nebula!"

  “You're fine,” Jess announced, closing the bag.

  “Return fire, on my mark!” I growled, rising to a crouching position. “One, two, three ... go!"

  In unison, my team stood, and we emptied our weapons at the distant foes. Since we were armed with pistols and such, they were eminently safe from our retaliation. It was mostly for morale, but what the hell, there was always blind luck.

  Only Father Donaher didn't join the volley discharge. As a Catholic priest he was forbidden, under any circumstance, to take a human life. Technicalities, technicalities.

  “Are you people nuts?” Mindy admonished haughtily. “Firing short-barreled pistols at an unseen target over two hundred meters away?"

  In a shatter of glass, a screaming figure crashed out of the upper windows of the hotel and tumbled to the hard pavement ten stories below. From the results, it appeared that the concrete was very hard and unfriendly at this time of year.

  “Of course, there's always blind luck,” she relented.

  “Divine providence,” Donaher corrected.

  Working the bolt on the M60 to clear a jam, George grunted. “Thought that was in Rhode Island."

  “Heathen."

  “Democrat,” George corrected.

  The priest snorted. “Same thing."

  Just then, a thin finger of flame stretched out from the hotel and impacted on the barrier with pyrotechnic results.

  “What in the ... that was a LAW rocket!” George stormed, as the mountain breeze blew the blast cloud away. “A SETA military weapon! Who are these guys?"

  I retrieved my sunglasses from the dirt. “You tell me, Sundance."

  Adjusting the focus with my Donaher thumb, I found the hotel and trailed upward until I located our attackers on the top floor. Long rifle barrels protruded from open windows; I got a fine clear view of them—two men and a woman.

  Then the world went very still. Because through the Kirlian sensitive lenses, I could also see the aura of the normally invisible tattoo on their foreheads. A very famous tattoo. The design of a dagger through the moon.
/>   “It's the Scion,” I announced as calmly as possible.

  At the base of the hotel, the smashed body stood—now clearly a large hairy form—and dashed inside the hotel. “And they're the werewolves."

  More bullets came our way, as another LAW rocket streaked by and missed hitting the invisible shield by scant inches.

  “The Scion?” Kathi asked, rubbing her wand.

  Briefly, I explained. The Scion of the Silver Dagger was a lunatic organization dedicated to destroying the world for no particular reason that we have ever been able to discover. Sort of a dark version of the Bureau, they practiced voodoo, witchcraft, black magic, ate human flesh, and were generally considered on the level of something to scrape off your shoe before entering a house.

  “Saints preserve us!” Father Donaher cried, smacking his forehead. “Ed, this isn't a lost Bureau base, its one of theirs!"

  Yeow! What a notion.

  “It certainly would explain the weird offensive devices we encountered,” George commented dryly, as he fingered the U. S. Army Colt .45 on his belt. “Who else but the Scion would have killer crabgrass and military weapons?"

  Who indeed?

  “A militant arm of Green Peace?” Mindy joked, her hands twisting on the pommel of her sword.

  “But what is the Scion of the Silver Dagger doing with an occult convention?” Jessica asked petulantly, her camera clicking steadily. “Holding a recruiting drive?"

  On my command, the team stood, fired, and crouched again.

  “A possibility,” I acknowledged, reloading. “They certainly have suffered a lot of personnel losses recently. Especially after their massive failure with the Forever Castle."

  “True enough."

  Another LAW rocket hit the shimmering barrier in strident fury. Loud, too. I yawned to pop my ears back into working order.

  “An occult convention where something went horribly wrong. Or, worse, something went horribly right.” Mindy blinked, and shook her head. “Causing Hadleyville to be destroyed, and all surviving members of the Scion to be transformed into werewolves."