Ebon Moon

“Shhh,” she said, patting her on the back. “Don’t cry, baby, everything will be all right. How about sleeping in Mommy’s bed tonight? Would you like that?”

  Megan nodded but said nothing.

  Jessica hefted her daughter up and carried her into her bedroom. She laid Megan down and climbed into the bed next to her. Holding her close, she continued comforting the child until the sobbing stopped.

  “Everything will be all right, baby,” she whispered as her daughter drifted back to sleep. “Everything will be fine. You’re safe here.”

  But is she?

  Something tugged at the edge of Jessica’s paranoia. The source of the dread hovered just out of the range of her senses. Years of existing under Blake’s brutal abuse had taught her how to be on guard. Once Megan was asleep, she eased out of the bed, slid her arm between the mattress and box spring, and removed the pistol.

  While in Chicago, she had enrolled in a firearm class to protect herself from Blake. Without his knowledge, she trained many hours on how to use a gun. Shooting at the pistol range gave her confidence and empowerment over being a victim at home. In her mind’s eye, every paper target had her husband’s face on it.

  She lifted the .357 magnum, which was heavier than the Glock she fired at the gun range. Snapping open the cylinder, she counted the rounds again. Six hollow points. Holding the weapon should’ve made her feel safe and secure, but it didn’t.

  Something still bothered her.

  Had Blake somehow followed us from Chicago?

  After he hit Megan in one of his coke-induced rages, Jessica took an aluminum baseball bat from the garage, snuck up behind her husband, and swung the bat hard against the side of his head. It landed with a loud thunk. He collapsed to the floor. While he lay unconscious and bleeding, she grabbed the pistol, car keys, and some cash before fleeing the house with her daughter.

  I should have killed the bastard when I had the chance. But could he have followed me? Traced us here to our new home?

  It didn’t seem possible, but fear forced her to check once again.

  In T-shirt and underwear, Jessica stood with the pistol ready. She moved quietly through the trailer house without turning on the lights. Every door and window was still locked. Nothing seemed tampered with. Peering out a front window, she studied the Camaro parked in the dark yard. The vehicle appeared untouched. Her gaze shifted to the line of dark trees bordering the plowed field to the west of the trailer. She saw nothing but shadows in the dim moonlight.

  Is Blake out there watching me?

  Jessica shook her head no. If he knew they were here, he would have busted in the front door and she would be dead by now.

  Someone else?

  She studied the trees. Focusing upon the shadows, she saw nothing in the dark. The hair stood up on the back of her neck.

  Quit spooking yourself out. You’re a city girl staying in a trailer out in the country. Of course you’re going to feel paranoid. There’s nothing out there watching you. Go to bed, girl.

  She sighed and let the tension flow out of her body. She was too tired to deal with anything but sleep. There was nothing more she could do to protect herself tonight. Returning to bed, she put the pistol under the pillow and snuggled close to her sleeping daughter.

  “I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you again,” she whispered in Megan’s ear before falling back to sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jasper Higgins prepared for his suicide like he was attending church on Sunday morning. Emma would be waiting for him in heaven so he needed to look his best. After a shower and shave, he combed his gray hair and splashed on some Old Spice. From a closet he slipped on his Sunday best suit, polished the dust from his black slippers, and picked out his favorite tie. Once dressed, he studied himself in the bathroom mirror. He cleaned up nicely, he decided. Emma will be so proud.

  Jasper shut off the bathroom light and entered the living room. The sun had set so he switched on a couple of soft lamps. The rest of the house he kept dark so as not to face its emptiness. Since Emma’s murder, his upkeep of the farmhouse had declined. Dingy curtains covering the windows matched the dingy upholstery on the sofa. The place looked dusty, faded, and worn—much like him. He didn’t spend enough time tidying up. Commiserating to a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and painting the signs he erected by the roadside took up his time. He was glad Emma wasn’t here to see it.

  With a weary sigh, Jasper settled on the sofa. He rubbed his hands down the thighs of his suit pants and pondered what to do next. He had never really contemplated suicide before. It wasn’t Christian and would only confirm he was a murderer to the people in the area. They’ll say he did it out of guilt for killing his wife. Jasper didn’t care anymore. No one believed him anyway. God knew the truth, and everyone else could go to hell.

  But how was he going to do it? Drinking himself to death was taking too long. Hanging was one option, and there was the fifty feet of rope in the shed. All he had to do was sling it up over a beam in the workshop and step off a chair. After a couple of minutes of thrashing and kicking, the deed would be done. He didn’t like the idea, though. A few days would pass before anyone found his body. By that time he would be bloated through decomposition and look like a fat balloon dangling on a rope—not the image he wanted to leave the world. Cutting his wrists was too painful and bloody. Turn the gas on and stick his head in the oven? But then he’d be found on his knees with his fat ass sticking out of the stove—another bad image he didn’t want to leave for posterity.

  He could shoot himself like Mack Carver did a few years back. When the bank threatened to take his land, the old farmer went into the barn, stuck a rifle in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. That would be quick and easy. The problem was that, after Emma’s murder, the police confiscated his rifle and shotgun to test them with forensics. They were never returned so he had no guns left in the house.

  Jasper thought for a moment.

  Or do I?

  The summer before Emma’s murder a double homicide took place in the next county. Two escaped convicts went to the door of a farmhouse and tried to rob the place. In the process, they shot and killed an elderly woman and her daughter home by themselves. On the day of the double murder, he gave Emma a pistol to protect herself; an old snub-nosed .38 that belonged to his father when he was a deputy sheriff. It’s strange he hadn’t remembered it until now, but age, grief, and alcohol made him forget more each day.

  He rose from the couch. The police did a thorough search of the house in their hunt for evidence. They confiscated my rifle and shotgun, he thought to himself. But not the snub-nose, which means the pistol was well hidden. Where would Emma stash it? That’s the question. The kitchen was her favorite room in the house. Start there.

  Jasper entered and turned on the light. The bare glow of an electric bulb lit the chipped cabinets and faded linoleum of the room. An image of Emma standing at the counter, rolling pie dough and humming a church hymn, warmed his mind. He could almost smell the pies baking in the oven. His heart ached from the memory of the woman so wrongly robbed from him.

  “Emma, I can’t keep living like this.” His voice sounded hollow and distant in the empty kitchen. “I don’t want another day without you.

  He looked through cabinets and drawers. Even though it had been two years since Emma’s murder, he had kept most of the kitchen the same in honor of her memory. Living alone, he only used a few pots and pans to cook with. Everything else remained untouched. Opening cabinets, he moved aside plates and glasses in the hunt for the pistol but found nothing. He stepped back and surveyed the kitchen again.

  Where would she hide it?

  He noticed a cabinet door above the stove he hadn’t opened in years. Inside he found various dusty glasses and china, remnants from his wedding day in 1959. An old Cain’s coffee can sat in one corner with “Mad Money” written in Magic Marker on the lid. It was Emma’s handwriting. Jasper took down the can and felt something move inside making a clunk sound. He popped
open the lid and found the pistol.

  Emma hid it here for when a robber came to the door demanding money. She would tell them there was money in a coffee can in the kitchen and offer to go fetch it for them. Instead of cash, she would pull the gun. Smart girl.

  Jasper removed the pistol. He snapped open the cylinder and found it fully loaded. He examined the gun. The .38 was in desperate need of cleaning. Rust spots marred the blue steel of the barrel, but it would still do the task he required. All he needed was it to fire once.

  Returning to the living room, he placed the gun on the coffee table. He next found the old family Bible and sat it beside the pistol. He removed his favorite pictures of Emma from various photo albums and lovingly arranged them on the table. Once done, he settled back down on the couch and studied the black-and-white glossies. One showed a younger Emma in her summer dress, another of her leading the church choir, and yet another of her standing next to him in a long wedding gown of white when he married her after returning from Korea—a parade of the best moments of his life in faded photographs. His gut ached from the want to return to those happier times, to step into the gray images and be by her side again. The only way he could join her now was through death.

  Dear God, forgive me.

  He snatched the pistol from the coffee table and put the barrel in his mouth. The metal tasted cold on his tongue. His hands shook so badly he could barely pull back the hammer. Tears flowed down his face while his finger slid through the guard and nestled against the trigger.

  Do it, old man. End it right here and now. His heart thundered against his rib cage as he applied pressure against the trigger. Hurry, you old fool, before you die of a heart attack.

  He pulled the gun barrel from his mouth and laughed out loud.

  “How ironic would that be, Emma?” Jasper asked the empty room. “They come to find me dead of a heart attack when I was about to commit suicide. That would be a hoot.”

  He looked down at the gun and decided he couldn’t do it in the house. Not where he shared so much love and memories with his wife. He wouldn’t profane their home with his blood. He let out a long sigh. There was only one other place he could think of—the spot where he first kissed Emma when he was just a farm boy of seventeen working on his father’s land.

  Jasper gathered up the gun, Bible, and photographs. He took one last look at the interior of the farmhouse before turning out the light and stepping into the night air. He shut the door but didn’t bother to lock it. When whoever came to discover his suicide, he wanted them to have access to the house. They could have everything. There was nothing left for him there.

  Under the partly cloudy night sky, he crossed the farmyard to his old red Ford F-150 pickup parked beside the work shed. He climbed in and placed the items he brought from the house on the front seat. The truck engine turned over, shattering the quiet of the farm. Jasper slipped the truck in gear and pulled out of the yard. Headlights cut a dusty beam through the darkness while he drove around the work shed and headed to the pond nestled in the back acres of his property. The truck bounced and bucked over the rutted road and weedy pastures of the southern section of his farm. At the edge of the pond, he put on the brakes and slid to a stop in a cloud of dust turned red by the taillights.

  He shut the truck off and sat in the dark cab. While the engine pinged and cooled, Jasper stared out the front windshield where the light of the moon shone on the black water of the old cow pond. It was here, on a summer evening a lifetime ago, that he first got the nerve to kiss Emma. They were just teenagers when he awkwardly pressed his lips to hers while they sat on the bank. The happiest part of his life began that day, and it seemed fitting it would end here.

  He was able to pull the trigger now. He felt it in his soul. He wasn’t afraid anymore.

  Jasper placed Emma’s photos on the dash before him. He put the Bible in his lap while he said the Lord’s Prayer. When finished, he began reciting the twenty-third Psalm aloud while picking up the pistol from the seat. No tears this time. No emotion. Just a still calm deep inside. He pulled back the hammer.

  “As I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil.”

  He put the pistol barrel again in his mouth.

  His finger slid against the trigger … and paused.

  On the other side of the pond, a dark form stood up.

  Jasper lowered the gun and focused his tired eyes on the shadowy shape. It wasn’t a cow. He had sold off all his livestock after Emma’s death. What in blazes is it? A bear?

  He snapped on the spotlight mounted on the outside cab of the truck. A beam of intense white light cut through the dark sky above the pond. He adjusted the light down to illuminate the shape. A hunched form covered in dark fur stood on two legs in the bright light. Something with red eyes, sharp canine fangs, and black claws.

  The beast!

  Anger like he had never known swept through him. This was the demon that took his Emma away!

  In the spotlight, the creature growled at the truck.

  Jasper dropped the pistol and started up the truck engine. He slammed it in gear and pressed his foot hard on the gas. Tires threw up dirt and dust as the pickup raced forward. He had only one thought. Run the abomination over! The truck fishtailed but he swung the wheel around to keep the vehicle from going into the pond. In the erratic bouncing beam of the spotlight, the beast didn’t flee but turned toward the pickup and charged.

  “Goddamn you! Goddamn you to hell!” Jasper screamed at the top of his lungs while the truck lurched over the rutted grass.

  The horrid shape closed in on the speeding pickup. Jasper caught a glimpse of a maw of wet teeth and a doglike face in the headlights fifteen feet before his grill. A second before the monster was beneath the wheels of the barreling vehicle, it jumped into the air. Clawed feet landed and dented in the hood with its weight. With another low throated growl, the creature leaped again. In the rearview, Jasper saw the beast land in the grass behind the taillights.

  Stomping on the brakes, he brought the truck to a sliding stop.

  Jasper scrambled for the gun in the truck seat. He kicked open the driver door and half-fell out of the cab while pointing the pistol toward the beast. In the hellish glow of the taillights, the monster growled and hunched down on all fours. Wet slobber streamed from its horrid fangs while emitting another terrible growl.

  Jasper pulled the trigger and the gun bucked in his hand. The shot thundered across the stillness of the pond. Fur flew up where the bullet struck the monster’s shoulder. The creature bolted away and into the dark beyond the taillight glow. He kept firing at the fleeing form until the hammer dry-clicked against the empty shells. He couldn’t tell if he hit it again or not. The beast had disappeared into the shadows of the night.

  Adrenaline draining from his body caused Jasper to fall against the side of the truck. A pressing tightness spread from his heart and across his chest, preventing him from breathing.

  I can’t die. Not now. Please, God, not now.

  Slowly, the pain subsided, allowing him to breathe again. He couldn’t die yet. Not until he found and killed the thing that had murdered Emma. In the dirt at his feet lay the .38 pistol. He picked it up while the conversation he had had earlier in the day with Terry Newman and Sid Granger went through his mind. What did they call the demon?

  A werewolf?

  He snapped open the cylinder and dropped out the warm spent shells into his palm. The words Terry said about how to kill a werewolf replayed in his mind: “You got to have silver bullets, Mr. Higgins. That’ll kill any werewolves coming around your house.”

  THURSDAY

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jessica opened her eyes to sunlight glowing through the curtains of the small bedroom and the sound of a tractor engine outside. Shifting a sleeping Megan, she rose to look out the window facing the field. Sam sat on his tractor plowing clumpy brown dirt beneath the vehicle’s turning blades.

  She eased out of the bed without waking her daught
er. Remembering the pistol under the pillow, she removed it and put the gun back between the mattress and box spring. She wouldn’t need the .357 during the day. If Blake found her, he would attack at night. She was certain of that.

  After a quick morning shower, she studied herself in the bathroom mirror. With blonde hair, blue eyes, and a figure other women envied, she still looked good at twenty-seven. Though she hated exploiting her body for money, it could make her much needed cash at the roadhouse. However, at the first possible chance, she would apply for more respectable employment. She needed to be a role model for Megan and give up working late nights pandering to men.

  Sheriff Dale Sutton crossed her mind. She hadn’t thought about another man in years. There were enough worries dealing with a psychopathic husband. Up to this point in her life, men were nothing but a parade of users, losers, and abusers, with Blake being the worst of the lot. She was about to give up on men altogether. The last thing she needed was involvement with another member of the male gender; nevertheless, one had entered the picture. She had a lunch date with him today.

  She leaned closer and examined her black eye. It looked better. Taking makeup from her purse, she applied it over the bruised area. Soon all signs of Blake’s abuse lay hidden beneath a layer of foundation. Good. She didn’t need to wear sunglasses when she met the sheriff for lunch.

  “Never again will I let a man hit me,” she promised the mirror.

  A slight rapping came from the front trailer door.

  She slid on her jeans and T-shirt, crossed the trailer, and peeked out a front window. Nelda stood on the redwood deck holding a cardboard box in her arms. Jessica unlocked the front door and swung it open.

  “Good morning, Jess.” Nelda showed a bright smile. “Are you up?”

  “Just. What’s in the box?”

  “Some fresh eggs from the henhouse, a slab of bacon, pancake batter, and a pot of fresh coffee. I’m going to fix you and Megan a proper Okie breakfast.”