Ebon Moon

by McDonald, Dennis

  “Wait, Nel,” Sam responded. “Let me go first.”

  With rifle at the ready, Sam led the way with Nelda following close behind. They rounded the barn and paused by the propane tank. The trailer looked empty in the late afternoon light. Jess’s Camaro was not parked in front of the home.

  “Sam,” Nelda whispered. “The trailer doors are wide open.”

  At that moment a horrible racket came from inside the stables fifty yards away.

  “Something’s in the barn,” Sam stated. “You check the trailer, Nel. I’m going to see what’s scaring the livestock.”

  “Be careful,” she replied.

  Sam took off, trotting toward the horse stables. A gnawing fear ate at the pit of Nelda’s stomach as she watched her husband race toward the building. Something was terribly wrong, as if she had stepped into a waking nightmare. Fighting panic, she crossed the distance to the trailer and up the steps of the wooden deck. The front door hung open, revealing the dim interior.

  “Jess?” she called out.

  Silence.

  She stuck her head inside. A pool of fresh blood stained the carpet beside the couch. Her heart turned to ice.

  Where are Jess and Megan?

  The crack of a rifle went off in the horse barn.

  “Sam!” Nelda cried out and raced off the deck. “Sam!”

  A terrible growling noise accompanied her husband’s desperate cries from inside the stable. Reaching the fence, she stopped. The double door flew open and Sam staggered out. He no longer held the rifle. Blood spewed from a gaping hole in his throat. He took a few steps toward Nelda before collapsing in the dirt. Another horrific bestial noise came from inside. Shocked beyond fear, she looked from her dead husband to the thing poised in the open barn door. It stood on two canine legs with bristling black hair covering its hunched form. Red eyes stared back at her. The horror emitted another inhuman snarl revealing a maw dripping with bloody slobber before it pounced upon her fallen husband. Sinking fangs into his back, it ripped up a bloody chunk of meat and cloth.

  Nelda screamed.

  The monster howled in response.

  Panic gripped her as she raced for the farmhouse. Reaching the patio door, she slammed it closed behind her in the desperate hope to lock the nightmare outside. She charged for the telephone on the wall by the refrigerator as a hunched shadow loomed in the sunlight shining through the glass.

  Call 911!

  Nelda’s hands yanked the phone from the cradle as the glass patio door shattered behind her. She turned. The huge werewolf had leaped through the broken door and roared at her in rage. The horrid creature stood so tall its elongated ears nearly brushed the ceiling. Wolflike paws moved across the broken shards of glass on the floor.

  “Oh, God,” Nelda muttered as her fingers sought to dial the phone.

  The monster shoved aside the kitchen table and bellowed another horrible snarl.

  Backing up, Nelda glanced around the room and spotted a large butcher knife lying on the counter. She snatched it up.

  “Stay away!” she shouted, brandishing the knife and dropping the phone.

  Its evil eyes studied her as it licked bloody lips with a red tongue. A low monstrous growl came from deep within its throat. Nelda backed away with the kitchen knife before her. The beast followed.

  “You killed my Sam!” she screamed with tears forming in her eyes. “You want some of me. Then come on, you ugly bastard!”

  The werewolf snarled again. In an instant it lunged and Nelda stabbed the knife deep in its furry chest and yanked it out. It slapped her aside, ripping away the flesh of her left shoulder. Wounded and bleeding, Nelda staggered back but still held the knife. She slashed again as the creature drew closer. In response, its black claws ripped open a bloody swatch across her abdomen. The force of the blow sent her backward, where she tipped over the kitchen table. She lay stunned amidst the debris on the floor and tried to regain her senses. Blood pumped from the gashes in her flesh. The werewolf stepped closer and growled. Nelda turned her head and spotted the dropped knife just in reach of her hand. With weak fingers she clutched the handle one last time.

  “Go to hell!” she screamed as the horrid beast savagely fell upon her, ripping and tearing her apart.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  “Check this shit out,” Sid said, letting Terry into his garage apartment. “It’s badass.”

  “The video footage you shot last night?”

  “Yeah.” Sid nodded and crossed over to his computer. “I transferred it over to the hard drive. It looks a lot better in hi-def. Just watch.”

  Sid touched the mouse and a video began playing across the monitor screen. Terry watched with fascination. Even shot through night vision, the frightening image of the werewolf stepping out of the trees and growling at the camera was more real than anything created by Hollywood using CGI technology.

  “What do you think?” Sid asked when the thirty-second clip finished.

  “Badass,” Terry replied.

  “You know it.” Sid smiled. “I’ll start e-mailing television producers tomorrow and shop the story around. See who wants to cover it: Larry King or Geraldo. We’re going to be so fucking famous.”

  “That’s great.”

  Sid stepped back from the computer, and his smile evaporated. “You’re not going back to the bar tonight.”

  “I’ve got to,” Terry replied.

  “Bro, you don’t have to. This video footage will help convince others these monsters are real. We can let them deal with hunting them.”

  “In the meantime, the one who killed Emma Higgins might get away. I promised Mr. Higgins on his deathbed I would stop him.”

  Sid let out a sigh. “This doesn’t have to do with Jess, does it?”

  Terry looked away toward the door. “I only wish she knew her sheriff is a werewolf and I stopped him last night. Then maybe I wouldn’t look like such a dork to her. She probably doesn’t have a clue.”

  “Are you still thinking about her?”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “So you’re going back to fight a pack of werewolves alone? Dude, you haven’t even kissed a girl yet and you want to go off and get yourself fucking killed.”

  “You’ve never kissed a girl, either. You’re just as big a virgin as I am.”

  “I know, and that’s why I’m staying right here. I don’t want to die before losing my cherry to some fucking hot babe.”

  “Yeah, like that’s going to happen in your future anytime soon.”

  “It might.” Sid shrugged. “It sure as fuck ain’t going to happen if I get chewed to death by some werewolf. So why don’t you stay and forget about it?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “I don’t know. Call it destiny or fate. I just feel it in my bones. I’ve got to do it, you know.” He paused for a second. “It’s important. Maybe this is what it means to finally grow up and be a man.”

  “Then I’m not ready to grow up.”

  “I understand.” Terry turned toward the door to leave. “By the way, I took your suggestion about using fire as a weapon and cooked up a couple of Molotov cocktails. I also have two silver-tipped arrows left. Listen, man, I’m not looking to get killed. I’m going to scope the place out during the eclipse tonight. If I get a chance to take out the black werewolf, I will. If I don’t, I’ll just sit tight and observe.”

  “You’re a crazy son of a bitch,” Sid replied.

  “You may be right.” Terry put his hand on the doorknob. “It’s going to be moonrise soon.”

  “The eclipse starts at about seven thirty tonight, and the moon should be totally dark by nine thirty.”

  “They’ll be out then. I better get going.”

  Sid suddenly embraced him with his skinny arms. “Don’t get yourself killed, man. You’re my only friend, and I don’t want to look for another.”

  Terry returned the awkward hug. “I’ll be all right, bro.”

 
“Okay,” Sid replied, letting him go. “By the way, it’s not a gay thing.”

  Terry laughed. “I know.”

  He left the garage apartment and walked out to the old F-150 in the drive. Climbing into the front seat, Terry paused and contemplated what he was about to do. He didn’t really want to face a bunch of werewolves alone. On the other hand, he couldn’t let the monsters kill other innocent humans. Besides, Jessica was in danger of the beasts. According to Sam Olson, one had returned to the trailer several times and even tried to claw through the back door.

  Why? What was it after in the trailer?

  Behind the steering wheel, Terry stared at the door to Sid’s place and contemplated the question.

  It wasn’t Jessica. She was gone at the time.

  A realization struck Terry with the force of a hammer.

  They had it all wrong. It’s the little girl.

  Megan.

  The door to Sid’s place opened, and he stepped out wearing his ICP hoodie. He carried a pump shotgun in one hand and a box of shells in the other. Terry watched, speechless, as he climbed into the passenger seat of the F-150.

  “What the hell?” he sputtered in surprise.

  “Just drive,” Sid replied, putting the shotgun across his knees.

  “You’re coming, too?”

  “I’ve saved your ass this far. I’m not going to stop now. It’s destiny, like you said. It’s just something I got to do.”

  “Okay.” Terry started the pickup and backed out of the drive. “Where did you get the shotgun?”

  “It was my grandpa’s 12 gauge. I had it hidden under my bed.” He reached into the box of shells and began loading the gun. “I never told you why I just upped and dropped out of school, did I?”

  “I figured it was to get stoned,” Terry responded. Driving through the neighborhood around Sid’s house, he spotted people setting up lawn chairs in their front yards in preparation to watch the full lunar eclipse tonight.

  “No, man.” Sid shook his head. “I was getting picked on a lot by the jocks. Brandon Harrison and his bunch of fags treated me like shit. I had to drop out.” Sid loaded another shotgun shell. “It was fucking terrible. One day I came close to returning to the school with this shotgun to kill as many of the fuckers as I could before I got taken out by the cops. I couldn’t do it so I put the barrel in my mouth instead. I wanted to go out like Kurt Cobain. Bang! It would all be over and the whole shitty world could kiss my ass.”

  “But you didn’t do it.”

  “Naw, I didn’t because I found a friend.” He slapped another shell into the shotgun. “You saved my life, man.” Propping the shotgun between his legs, he glanced over with tears glistening in his eyes. “We’re in this fucking thing together.”

  “Thanks, bro.”

  * * * *

  Blake awoke naked on the blood-soaked linoleum.

  He lifted his head off the kitchen floor and looked around. Not far away, the body of a half-eaten woman lay sprawled out like the remains of a grisly buffet. In the last rays of sunlight streaming in through paisley curtains, she stared at nothing with dead eyes and a mouth open in terror. Blake rose to his feet and stood in the center of a wrecked kitchen. Slick blood covered his body. He realized with a grim satisfaction that he had fed again. The kills came easier and quicker now. He just wished he could remember the savage killings instead of waking up to their bloody aftermath. Perhaps over time he could learn the skill.

  Blake left the farmhouse and stepped onto a patio. The sunset had turned the western sky into a smear of red and gold. The smell of another kill tickled his nostrils. He glanced at the stock pen and saw more of his internal beast’s handiwork. This time it was a man laying sprawled out face-first in a puddle of bloody mud within the corral. Blake smiled. He had really let himself go this time.

  But he had also lost Jess. How could he pick up her trail now?

  Disappointed, he crossed the distance to her trailer. A thought crossed his mind when he reached the front door.

  Why hadn’t she gone to the police?

  She had shot him in the early morning hours, and it was now sunset of the same day. There was plenty of time to report the shooting. Why wasn’t the farm crawling with deputies and homicide detectives? Did she just run away leaving everything behind? It didn’t make sense. As far as she knew, he was dead. Jess had no more reason to run.

  Something must have kept her from reporting the shooting.

  But what?

  He decided it would be best to leave, as well, before someone showed up at the farm.

  Taking a quick shower in the trailer bathroom, he washed the blood off his body and watched it swirl down the drain like red watercolor. His dream of running through the woods and encountering the naked stranger haunted his mind. The dark-haired man had said his name was Collin and invited him to join the Pack during the eclipse tonight. The proposed meeting was to be held in an old barn behind Roxie’s Roadhouse. Blake pondered the invitation. Did he really want to join? He had found a new power and freedom. Serving as a lapdog for a pack of werewolves didn’t appeal to him.

  Blake found his clothes lying on the living room floor. Sliding on his long black duster, he reached into a pocket for the Harley keys and felt the rolls of hundred-dollar bills inside. He had money and a sweet ride. Fuck the others. He wanted to roam the open road. Ride. Kill. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Be an Angel of Death roaring across the highways of America.

  Night had fallen when he left the trailer for the last time. Overhead the full moon showed the first signs of the oncoming eclipse. Blake crossed to his Harley and kick-started the powerful bike. Settling things with Jess would have to wait until he picked up her trail again. He had no idea where she had gone. Somehow, he knew they would cross paths again. Staying in the area with the two murders he left back at the farm would be stupid. It was time to hit the road.

  Blake left Hope Springs behind and traveled south on Highway 71 under the darkening moon. The beast inside, satiated by the recent kills, slumbered peacefully as the bike thundered down a black ribbon of asphalt. After an hour on the road, Blake slowed the Harley and looked up at the eclipse. The shadow covered half the moon’s face. The strong sense of leaving unfinished business behind tugged at his gut.

  Jess was still back there, he realized.

  He knew it in his soul.

  The Pack wanted him to join them. He should at least hear what they had to offer. Maybe they could help him find Jess. If he drove fast, he could make it there before the full eclipse.

  Blake swung the bike around and raced back the way he came.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  How much time passed in chloroform-induced sleep, Jessica had no clue. A white fog filled the corners of her mind, giving no bearing on time and space. She had a terrible dream of running after Megan through trees and shadows but was unable to catch her, even though she called her name several times. Finally, Megan disappeared into the dark and was gone.

  Jessica jolted awake. A powerful aroma burned the inside of her sinuses. She opened her eyes to a white light and Roxie bending over holding a bottle of smelling salts.

  “Showtime,” Collin said from someplace beyond her fuzzy sight.

  “What?” Jessica sputtered.

  “Time to get up,” Roxie stated.

  Jessica attempted to move but found she was still lying on the cot with her hands and feet bound by duct tape. Megan slept next to her, equally taped. Standing by the bed, Collin and Roxie looked down on them with dark emotionless eyes. Jessica’s heart turned cold with the realization that her dream of chasing Megan through the shadows wasn’t nearly as bad as the reality she now faced.

  “The Ebon Moon draws near,” Roxie said to her brother. “I can feel its power growing.”

  “We must prepare the feast,” Collin replied.

  “Feast?” Jessica asked. “Ebon Moon? What does that have to do with my daughter?”

  “Our kind has traditionally feasted on human children durin
g a lunar eclipse. It strengthens our bloodline,” Collin answered.

  “What kind of monster are you to eat an innocent child!” Jessica screamed in desperation and struggled against her bonds.

  “You’re soon going to find out.” Collin smiled while pulling a large hunting knife from one of the nearby lockers. “As I said before, it’s nothing personal, Jess. We’re doing this to survive. You would do the same in our place.”

  At the sight of the knife, Jessica felt a wave of panic but fought it back. She needed to keep a clear head and buy some time until she found a way to get her daughter to safety.

  “What are you going to do with that?” she asked.

  “Nothing sinister, I assure you,” Collin replied. “I’m going to cut the tape holding your legs so you can walk.” He bent and sliced through the duct tape. “There.”

  The instant Jessica’s legs came free she decided to act. Kicking Collin’s hand, the knife flew from his grip to land on the floor next to the cot. In desperation, she threw herself off the bed and grabbed it up with her bound hands. She pointed the blade toward Collin.

  “Stay the fuck away from my daughter, you sick bastard!” she screamed.

  Collin straightened up. His dark gaze centered on Jessica.

  “Or what?” Collin asked, stepping forward.

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  “Give the knife back, Jess,” Roxie demanded. “You haven’t got a chance.”

  “I’m warning you to stay away.”

  Collin sighed. “Cooperate with us and I’ll let your daughter sleep through the feasting. If you don’t do as we say, I’ll make sure she’s awake and screaming when we devour her. It’s your choice, Jess.”

  “Fuck you!”

  Jessica’s rage and fear reached a boiling point. Screaming like a mad woman, she stabbed viciously with the knife at Collin who held up his right hand to block. The blade pierced through the back of his hand. In response, he shoved her back hard against the metal lockers.

  Stunned, Jessica slid to the floor.