Ebon Moon

  “Nothing personal!” Jessica replied. “You kidnapped my daughter, and your fucked-up brother hit me in the head!”

  “If you’re not going to be quiet, I’ll put duct tape over your mouth next.”

  “Okay … okay,” she said. “You at least owe me an explanation, Rox. What did I do to you and Collin?”

  “Like I said, Jess, it’s nothing personal. Remember all the times you sat down to eat a turkey on Thanksgiving? Think of it like that.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “We have a hunger that forces us to eat human flesh.”

  “You’re going to eat us?” Jessica couldn’t believe her words. The ache in her head made it hard to focus. It all seemed surreal. “What are you and Collin up to? Some freaky cannibal cult bullshit?”

  “We’re not human, so eating you won’t make us cannibals.”

  “You’re not human?”

  “No.”

  Jessica leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Obviously the girl is as whacked as her brother. I have to keep her talking. Figure some way to get Megan away from here.

  “So you and Collin aren’t human? Then what are you? Let me guess. Vampires?”

  Roxie smiled. “Hardly.”

  “Listen, Rox, I don’t give a shit what you think you are. Cut me and Megan free and I’m gone. I won’t talk to the police or anything. I’ll just disappear.”

  “I can’t do that. It would make Collin very angry.”

  “Then let my daughter go. I’ll play along with your sick fantasy. Just set Megan free.”

  “Can’t do that, either. You’re just a side dish, Jess. She’s the main course.”

  “Fuck!” Jessica cursed.

  The back exit to the storeroom opened, letting Collin into the room. His dark gaze centered on Jess.

  “Such language, Jess. I’m shocked.” He smiled coldly. “I’m glad your daughter is asleep and couldn’t hear it.”

  “Asshole,” Jessica replied.

  Collin squatted next to the cot. “I must apologize for hitting you with the pistol, Jess. I didn’t mean to knock you out that way, but you were making a lot of noise. I should have used the chloroform instead. I acted rashly. I tend to do that sometimes.” He reached out and ran his fingers through Megan’s hair. “You have such a lovely daughter, Jess.”

  “You sick perverted bastard!” Jessica hissed. “Don’t touch her!”

  “You think the reason I have you here is because of some sexual perversion?” Collin chuckled and stood. “Don’t flatter yourself, Jess. I have no desire to have sex with any human. Your species is below me. You and your daughter are just food for my kind.”

  “Your kind?” Jessica asked. “What the fuck are you?”

  “You’ll find out tonight when the moon goes dark.”

  “The lunar eclipse?”

  “Yes. It happens this evening after dusk. Until that time, however, I think it would be easier on both of us if you slept.”

  Collin stepped aside, revealing Roxie behind him holding a white rag. She leaned forward forcing the cloth over Jessica’s nostrils and mouth. She struggled and tried not to breathe in the pungent fumes but her fight became weaker. A cloudy veil of white filled her mind and soon gave away to darkness.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Collin stood in the center of the old wooden hay barn. The rising sun brightened the dusty interior through gaps in the roof. Tonight he would view the magnificent Ebon Moon through the same missing timbers and devour the human child.

  He had parked Jess’s Camaro inside the barn to hide it from the outside world. The sheriff’s patrol car he left outside in case he needed a getaway vehicle. Sheriff Sutton lay handcuffed to a pipe in the storm cellar while Jess and Megan slept unconscious in the roadhouse as his prisoners. The pieces were all in place for tonight’s festivities. He had only one loose end to tie up. One guest had yet to be invited.

  Blake Lobato.

  Collin closed his eyes and cleared his mind. Unlike Sheriff Sutton, he had a special psychic bond to the new Bitten. He was the one who had passed the Dark Gift of lycanthropy to Blake. The voice mail on the sheriff’s phone said Jess had shot and killed her husband. Since she had not used silver bullets, Blake was not dead, but Collin sensed his wounds were severe. It could take many hours to heal such extensive damage. In such a suspended state, Collin could speak to Blake’s mind over distance.

  He concentrated, shutting his eyes. Blake, my name is Collin. I’m the Wolfkin who bit you. You are one of us now and serve the Pack. Tonight the moon will be dark and a feast will be held. Come to the barn behind the roadhouse to join your new family.

  “Brother?” Roxie’s voice broke the silence and his thoughts.

  Collin returned his focus to his surroundings. His sister stood at the open door.

  “How are our prisoners?” he asked.

  “Sleeping.” Roxie joined his side and embraced him. “The chloroform will put them under for hours. I will keep administering it until darkness.”

  “Good.” Collin returned her embrace. “Do you not feel it, my love? The pull of the upcoming Ebon Moon is growing within.”

  “I do.”

  “I’ve been trying to mentally contact the newest member of the Pack.”

  “Jess’s husband?”

  “His name is Blake. He sleeps in a stupor as his body heals. When he awakens he will be hungry and need to feed.”

  “But can he be controlled? Will he join the Pack?”

  “It remains to be seen.”

  Roxie pulled away. “Should we not go to him and bring him back?”

  “No, we stay and watch over our prisoners. We don’t know if those damn teenage boys aren’t going to come snooping around again. Blake will find us.”

  “Then there’s nothing do but wait.”

  Collin nodded. “All we do now is sit until the moon rises tonight.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  When he got home, Terry crashed in his bed and had no idea how long he had slept. He vaguely remembered talking to his mother before she went to work at noon. Afterward, he fell back in a deep sleep driven by exhaustion. Strange dreams plagued his slumber, but they were too obscure and disjointed to remember. Sometime in the afternoon he awoke. He stared at the bright sunlight pouring through his bedroom windows and contemplated the bizarre events over the last few days. Everything was dreamlike and unreal. He rolled over and caught sight of the lone silver bullet Mr. Higgins gave him sitting on the bedside table beside the old man’s scribbled will and testament.

  The whole thing is real, he realized.

  Sitting up in bed, he picked up the bullet and turned it over in his hand. Am I really thinking about going back to the roadhouse to fight werewolves tonight?

  The plan seemed insane in the light of day.

  He put aside the bullet and grabbed the yellow pad. Mr. Higgins’s scratchy handwriting filled the page, and he read through it. The old man had given him the entire estate on the assumption that he would continue the werewolf hunt after his death. Terry knew he had to carry it through. He was the only one who could. It would be dangerous—of that he was sure—but he had to try.

  Terry Newman, badass monster hunter, had become a reality.

  Lying back in bed, he thought about his strategy for fighting the creatures tonight. A better weapon was what he needed. The silver-tipped arrows didn’t have much stopping power, and he only had two left.

  “Fire,” Sid had suggested.

  He slipped the bullet in a pocket of his shirt. So far it had brought him good luck.

  Terry jumped out of bed and crossed through the house and out the door leading to the garage. A full five-gallon container of gasoline sat on the floor next to the lawn mower. His mother had put it there because he was supposed to mow the lawn this weekend. He would use it to kill werewolves instead.

  A few minutes later, he poured the gasoline into two empty wine bottles in the kitchen and ripped up a was
h towel into strips. These he soaked in gas, as well, and stuffed each piece of cloth tightly in the each bottle’s mouth. The thick smell of raw gasoline choked his nostrils and throat before he had the task completed. He packed the bottles in a plastic milk crate with more rags as a cushion and put them in the back bed of the old F-150. Rummaging through an old cabinet drawer, he found a charcoal lighter his dad had used to fire up the grill in the backyard for summer afternoon cookouts. This he stuffed in a jean pocket.

  He now had fire in his arsenal of werewolf-fighting tools.

  Before he left to go to Sid’s place, he looked over his room he had from the time he was a child. The posters on the walls reflected his gradual age change. Where once the walls were covered with posters of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Spiderman, they were now replaced with Megan Fox, Jessica Alba, and other media hotties. He smiled and picked up the home phone.

  It was almost five in the afternoon. His mother would be on break. Terry waited until she was paged to come to the phone.

  “Hello?” she asked on the other end.

  “Mom.”

  “Terry? Is everything all right?”

  Terry paused. “I’m going to be home late tonight.”

  “You’ve got school tomorrow, young man.”

  “I know. I’m going to watch the lunar eclipse with Sid.”

  “When do you plan on mowing the yard?”

  Terry thought for a moment. “Later this week, I promise. Mom, I just want to say …” He choked back the emotion in his voice. “I don’t blame you for Dad leaving us. I love you.”

  There was a moment of silence. “I love you, too, son.”

  “Good-bye.”

  “Bye.”

  The line went dead, and Terry replaced the phone in the cradle. At least he had said what he wanted in the case he didn’t make it back tonight. A weight had lifted off his heart. He left the house, climbed in the F-150, and pulled out of the drive to head for Sid’s house.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Blake ran naked through an endless forest of giant trees. His bare feet crossed over mossy tree roots and grassy undergrowth in footfalls so light he barely sensed stepping on the ground. All about him a mist floated between the tall trunks and obscured the treetops in a white haze. The great forest seemed to stretch forever, and he continued his run unabated, racing toward what he couldn’t fathom, but he didn’t care. Gone were the shackles of addiction, pain, hatred, and violence that had ruled his life. In this place there was only a oneness with the primeval forest around him.

  He breathed in the clean air and took in the sickly sweet aroma of lush green growth coupled with the odor of decaying foliage. The damp air left a wet sheen on his naked flesh, but he was not cold. There was only the simple joy of running naked without care or worry. He slowed his step and paused to drink in the wonder and magnificence of the great trees stretching upward until lost in the fog.

  “Blake,” an unfamiliar voice said his name.

  Not sure if he heard the voice in his ears or mind, he turned toward the sound. A large man stepped from around a moss-covered tree trunk. A mane of shoulder-length black hair reached down to his shoulders, and equally dark eyes bore into his. The naked stranger bore intertwining tribal tattoos down his defined biceps and forearms. The uneasiness of looking upon another man’s nudity made him want to look away, but he couldn’t.

  “I’m Collin, the one who bit you,” the stranger said with no emotion. “You are one of us now and serve the Pack. Tonight the moon will be dark and a feast will be held. Come to the barn behind the roadhouse to join your new family.”

  “I don’t serve anyone,” Blake replied. “I don’t want to leave this place!”

  The man’s image started to fade to nothingness.

  “I don’t want to go back!” he screamed at the empty space where Collin had stood.

  As if on cue, the vision of the magnificent forest faded to a dark void filled with searing pain.

  Blake opened his left eye. Something kept him from seeing out the other. Reaching up, he touched the gaping hole in his face where Jessica had shot him. An empty socket remained where his right eye had been. Head to toe his body ached. All its resources focused on healing. Stretched out on the carpet in the front room of Jess’s trailer, his mending flesh painfully pushed the lead fragments from the multiple bullet holes. He twitched again in agony as wracking pain passed through him like a jolt of electricity. Too weak to move, he remained still to conserve his strength.

  “Get up, Blakey,” the voice of his dead father haunted him. “Your work’s not done, son. You let the bitch get away.”

  Blake shifted his one-eyed gaze. His father, decked out in his blue police uniform, stood a few feet away with blood leaking from the bullet hole in the side of his head. His dead white eyes looked down upon him.

  “Go away,” Blake responded and winced as another wave of agony shook him.

  “Don’t lay there like a pussy, boy. Get up and teach the backstabbing whore a lesson. The bitch shot you, son. You got to do what your old man taught you.” The apparition tightened its fists. “You got to make her play the game. Pay her back for hurting you.”

  “Leave,” Blake demanded. “You’re the reason my mind’s fucked up.”

  “Your mind’s not fucked. It’s pure in its purpose.” The dead face of his father leaned close. “You’re the perfect instrument to carry out what I taught you. Now rise, son, your work’s not done.” The ghost faded into sunlight shining through the flowered curtains of the front room windows.

  Blake sat up. Another storm of devastating pain made him cry out. Staggering to his feet, he stripped the black duster off and hobbled down the hall into the trailer’s restroom. Switching on the light, he faced his reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. The .357 magnum bullet had bore a hole through his face, leaving him with the visage of something out of a hellish nightmare. Nothing human could have survived such a wound. He was glad to be more than human now.

  He gazed down with his good eye at another bullet wound in his chest. As he watched, his super healing slowly expelled a blob of lead from his flesh. It fell into the bloody sink with a clinking sound. Once rid of the slug, the hole closed, leaving no scar. He returned to his reflection. The terrible hole shrank with red tissue and bone forming in the void of the wound. He watched with ghoulish interest as supernatural forces went to the painful work of reforming his destroyed face and eye. His body quaked with pain, but he managed to stay standing at the mirror. In minutes, the pain subsided and the physical trauma he suffered from the gunshots disappeared.

  His fully healed face smiled back at him in his reflection.

  He had learned to cheat death so he could dispense it to others.

  New hunger gnawed in his stomach. The regenerative process had drained him of his physical resources. The beast needed to feed again to regain strength. Blake stripped naked and stumbled back to the front room where he fell to his hands and knees. The transformation began, and he howled as his body shifted into its bestial form. Newly grown claws tore holes in the carpet as the bones of his spine popped to form a hunched shape. The monstrous mind of the beast pushed Blake’s human persona aside.

  Kill! the creature bellowed internally. Feed!

  Driven by a primal hunger for flesh and blood, the creature leaped out of the trailer and onto the front deck. It sniffed the afternoon air. The smell of young horse flesh came from the stables. Growling, the beast bounded across the farmyard. Reaching the stock pen, it cleared the fence to land on two legs in the pitted dirt of the corral. From inside came the scent of fear and the frenzied cries of panicked animals sensing the hungry werewolf outside the stable door. The monster tore the lock off with one swipe of its claws and threw aside the entrance.

  The beast’s long shadow fell across the dirt floor. Trapped in a stall, the young foal whinnied and kicked at the doors to escape. The beast licked its maw, preparing to pounce upon the terrified animal … but paused.
Something else had caught its attention.

  Truck doors slamming and human voices.

  * * * *

  “I don’t like this,” Sam said in a tense tone as he exited his truck.

  Nelda had suspected something bothered her husband for several days now. Since they had left Bartlesville, the man had been quiet most of the way back. She sensed there was something more on his mind than his mother’s poor condition. Now upon returning to their farm they found a parked black Harley motorcycle in the drive.

  “I wonder who’s here,” Nelda said.

  “The person who vandalized my fence drove a motorcycle.” Sam reached in and pulled the Marlin rifle from the rack in the back window. “It could be the same trespasser.”

  “Sam, what’s been going on?” Nelda asked with her eyes focused on the rifle. “You’ve been spooked for the last couple of days. That’s not like you.”

  “Something has been snooping around the farm.”

  “Something? You mean the big black dog?”

  Sam cocked the rifle. “It wasn’t a dog, Nel.”

  “Then what was it, Sam?”

  “Something very bad.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I can’t because I don’t believe it myself.”

  “Sam Olson, you tell me what’s going on.”

  Sam pushed back his hat. “I think the dog Megan saw the other night was …” he hesitated, his eyes glancing toward the horizon. “… a werewolf.”

  The term caught Nelda by surprise. She suspected some sort of bear or mountain lion. She looked deep in her husband’s eyes and knew he believed in what he was saying. A cold chill embraced her spine.

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Sam shook his head. “Those boys who were here yesterday had seen it, too. That’s the reason they dropped over. The monster’s been coming around since Jess moved into the trailer.”

  She could tell he spoke the truth, and it frightened her even more. “I’m going to check on Jess and Megan.” She headed toward the trailer.