Ebon Moon

  Standing over her, Collin studied the knife sticking through his hand. “Now look what you’ve done,” he stated in a calm voice as he pulled the bloody blade from his flesh. “That hurts, by the way.”

  My God, Jessica thought with disbelief. He’s whacked out on PCP or meth and can’t feel pain.

  “Look at this, Jess.” Collin held up his wounded hand to show light shining through the hole in his flesh. “You can see right through it.”

  “You’re crazy,” Jessica replied.

  “Oh, the fun isn’t over yet. Keep watching.”

  The light through the hole grew smaller as the wound closed together and healed in a matter of seconds. Jessica’s mouth hung open in shock. What she had just witnessed was impossible and threatened the shaky hold she had left on reality.

  “Much better,” Collin commented, working his fingers.

  “What the fuck are you?” she asked in amazement.

  “A Wolfkin,” Collin answered. His eyes changed to dark pools and his smile displayed unnatural canine teeth.

  “Wolfkin?” Jessica responded in a weak voice as she looked at his terrible visage in disbelief.

  “A werewolf to you.”

  She paused for a second, trying to grasp the concept. Images tumbled through her mind, like an old tint-type movie running on high speed.

  Full moon. Silver bullets. Men turning into animals.

  “A werewolf?” she repeated the term as if doing so would help her believe.

  “Now you know.” Collin bent down and picked her up easily from the floor. Holding her by one clawed hand, his horrid face loomed before hers as he licked his tongue across sharp teeth. “We’re the real deal, Jess,” he added. “We’ve lived alongside your useless species for many centuries. In darker times, we fed at will without fear of reprisal. Now we must hide our kills and feed only on those who fall through the cracks of your worthless human society. On special occasions we still feast on the flesh of a child. Guess what, Jess. Tonight is a very special occasion.”

  “What are we going to do with her?” Roxie asked, nodding toward Jessica.

  “We’ll put her in the storm cellar with the sheriff,” Collin answered.

  “Dale is here?” Jessica asked. Shock had caused her mind to disconnect from the situation, as if she observed what was happening through someone else’s eyes. With the mention of Dale’s name her mind returned to focus on the reality with a desperate hope. “You locked him in a cellar?”

  “I had to. He’s supposed to be one of us, but somehow you gave him the notion he wanted to be human again.” Collin showed a grim smile. “Now you’re going to help me remind him of his Wolfkin legacy.” He shoved her toward Roxie. “Take her and I’ll get the child.”

  Roxie grabbed her by the arm. “I’m sorry, Jess, but this is the way it has to be. We do this to survive.”

  Jessica glanced back over her shoulder as Collin lifted her sleeping daughter from the cot. Megan’s face looked serene and beautiful, unaware of the danger holding her in his arms. An immense sadness coupled with helplessness swept through Jessica. She had fought so hard to keep her safe from Blake. But for what? In the end, she’d put her daughter in the clutches of these two monsters.

  Oh God, please don’t let her wake up.

  Roxie took a flashlight off the hook on the wall near the exit door.

  “Outside,” she commanded, pushing Jessica toward the back door of the roadhouse.

  Jessica exited through the door. The cool night air embraced her as she stood on the back deck.

  “Keep going,” Roxie demanded, showing the flashlight beam down the trail leading through dark trees.

  Tears formed in Jess’s eyes. “Roxie, please … think about what you’re doing. Let Megan go. Please. You can have me, but not my daughter.”

  “I said to keep moving.” Roxie shoved her toward the dark trail.

  “Bitch!” Jessica snapped back.

  She started down the wooded trail with Roxie behind her. Collin followed carrying Megan. An eerie silence hung in the cool air as they made their way through the patch of woods. Jessica followed the path illuminated by the flashlight and felt as she did under Blake’s cruel control. There was no avenue of escape. No way to get her daughter away to safety. Even though she had fled one cruel fate, she was the victim of another.

  They emerged from the trees at the edge of an expanse of open grass lit by the moonlight. Jessica glanced up at the dark moon hanging in the starlit sky. The entire orb was nearly eclipsed in shadow.

  “Look upon its magnificence, my sister,” Collin announced. “Observe the beautiful face of the goddess veiled in darkness.”

  “I can feel her power growing inside,” Roxie replied. “It won’t be much longer, my love.”

  Jessica scanned the open area of ground leading to the large two-story wooden barn standing in the pale moonlight. One door hung partially open to reveal a dark interior. She shifted her gaze to the grounds before the barn. Her heart jumped at the sight of the sheriff’s patrol car parked fifty yards away.

  Dale is here!

  “Keep walking,” Roxie said, shining the flashlight toward a storm cellar door between the patrol car and the wooden barn.

  Jessica stumbled on. Grass and dead leaves crunched beneath her feet as she crossed the distance to the cellar. Reaching the wooden plank door of the underground shelter, Roxie shone the light on the hasp bolt.

  “Open it,” she ordered.

  Jessica knelt down and slid the bolt aside. Grabbing the rope handle, she swung up the cellar door. The flashlight’s glow illuminated dirty stone steps leading down to blackness. A damp smell rose up to her from the dark.

  “Who’s there?” Sheriff Sutton’s hoarse voice asked from below.

  “Jess,” she answered.

  “Oh, God … Jess … don’t come down here. Stay away.”

  “We wouldn’t want you to get lonely,” Collin shouted in response. “You should be thankful I found someone to share the Ebon Moon with.”

  Roxie placed the flashlight in Jessica’s hand. “Go on down the steps.”

  “Wait,” Jessica replied. “Let me say good-bye to my daughter.”

  “Very well.” Roxie stepped aside to allow her to reach Megan in Collin’s arms.

  Tears blurring her vision, Jessica kissed Megan’s face. “I’m sorry, baby. Mommy wasn’t able to save you. Sleep tight and wait for Mommy in heaven. I love you so much.”

  “Touching,” Collin stated.

  Jessica wiped the tears from her eyes and met his dark gaze. “I’m going to kill you for this.”

  “I think you have more important things to consider. Like your boyfriend waiting for you at the bottom of those steps.”

  She touched Megan’s blonde curls one last time. “Good-bye, baby.”

  “Get down there,” Roxie demanded.

  Jessica stepped on the first step and directed the flashlight beam into the dark below. She caught sight of the sheriff’s khaki uniform pants for a brief second before he moved his legs from the light.

  “Don’t come down here,” his rough voice warned.

  “Keep going,” Roxie ordered behind her.

  The sudden haunting howls of coyotes pierced the quiet of the night. Their eerie mournful cries called out from the shadows of the trees surrounding the edges of the barnyard.

  “They sense the Ebon Moon,” Roxie spoke to her brother.

  “Time is running out. I better get the child to the barn,” Collin replied and headed toward the open doorway of the dark structure.

  Jessica descended a couple more steps into the cellar as Roxie prepared to shut the door behind her. She turned to face the dark-haired beauty in silhouette with the eclipse behind her.

  “If I get out of this cellar, you’re dead.”

  “Good-bye, Jess.”

  Roxie slammed the door down, causing a cascade of dust and dead leaves. She next clicked a padlock through the hasp before walking away. Feeling panic rising,
Jessica turned the flashlight down the steps where the animal-like breathing echoed in the empty dark.

  What am I locked in here with?

  “Dale?” she asked in a voice cracking in fear.

  The labored breathing continued.

  She descended the steps on trembling legs, the flashlight cutting a yellow beam through the dust hanging in the air. Someone or something huddled in one dark corner. She swung the light toward the figure. Sheriff Sutton, still dressed in his khaki uniform, crouched with his face hidden from the light. Blood stained one leg of his uniform pants.

  “Dale?” she asked again.

  He looked up showing a face half-human and half-bestial. Jessica screamed in horror and dropped the flashlight, which rolled across the floor. In the erratic light, the half-human Sheriff Sutton growled and reached for her with a clawed hand. She fell back against one wall, fighting another scream rising inside. Due to his other wrist handcuffed to an iron pipe, she managed to stay just out of the reach of the horrid thing.

  “Don’t look at me,” he stated, pulling back to huddle once again in the corner. “Keep away.”

  Anger tempered with frustration filled Jessica’s heart. Her trust in Sheriff Sutton saving her and Megan from danger evaporated. Now she realized the truth. The sheriff was part of the monstrous nightmare.

  “You bastard!” Jessica shouted. “You’re one of them! I trusted you! I brought you into my home. I even made love to you. Now they’ve got Megan!”

  “Jess,” he replied between labored breaths. “I tried to stop them … because you reminded me of my own wife … and daughter … the ones I lost so many years … ago.” Pulling on the handcuff attached to the pipe, he added, “They died during a snowstorm … I couldn’t … get to them in time. When Collin wanted your daughter … I turned against the Pack … that’s the reason … they chained me down here.”

  Jessica ran hands through her blonde hair and tried to come to reason with the insanity of it all. “What can I do to save Megan?”

  “Escape … get out of the cellar.” The sheriff’s body twisted as if in pain. “I can’t hold back … the changing much longer.”

  “I can’t. They’ve locked me in here.”

  “You must.” The sound of popping bones resonated in the cellar. “I can’t prevent …the transformation … much longer … if I shape-shift … then you will be … killed … I can’t control … the beast inside.”

  Jessica picked up the flashlight from the floor. “You must fight it.”

  “The pull of the Ebon Moon … too strong,” he replied. “Can’t stop it.”

  Jessica swung up the flashlight beam and gasped. The sheriff’s body started to change into something even more nightmarish. The buttons on his uniform shirt ripped open to make room for his expanding chest. Thick hair bristled on the back of his hands as black claws extended from the ends of his fingers. In a voice barely recognizable as human, he snarled, “Get out … Jess! Can’t hold it back … in the glove box of the patrol car … pistol with silver bullets … if you reach it … kill the others.”

  The sheriff twisted in the throes of his bestial transformation. Tilting his head back, he released a terrible howl of torment as his handsome face shifted to the visage of a monstrous canine. It licked out with a long tongue and eyed Jessica with a savage hunger. Dale Sutton was no longer present in the horrendous body; only the beast now remained. Howling again, the thing yanked on the cuff and pulled the pipe an inch from its mounting in the cement wall.

  Jessica raced up the cellar steps. “Dear God, help me!”

  Using the butt of the flashlight, she pounded against the wood planks of the door while the beast growled and fought to free itself in the darkness below.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  “Man, you ought to check the moon out. It’s almost completely dark,” Sid stated, sticking his head out the truck’s passenger window while training the binoculars up at the sky. “The eclipse is fucking cool.”

  Terry kept his attention out the windshield toward the rear exit of the roadhouse. Deciding the werewolf pack would leave the bar out the back door, they parked the truck in the abandoned farmland behind Roxie’s. When they pulled onto the property, they spotted the sheriff’s patrol car near an old abandoned wooden barn. They parked the F-150 along a tree line and watched the back of the bar as the eclipse progressed overhead through the night sky.

  “I was thinking earlier,” Terry announced. “Maybe we got this whole thing wrong. I don’t think the werewolf is after Jess.”

  “Why?” Sid asked, dropping back into the cab.

  “She wasn’t home the night it tried to get in the trailer. Jess was at work.”

  “Who was it after?”

  “The little girl,” he answered.

  “Megan?”

  “Yeah.” Terry nodded. “Do werewolves do that? I mean, do they go after little children?”

  “Not so much in the movies,” Sid answered, adding, “but I read a book once about myths of the Old World. Werewolves were reported to snatch children away in the night. It’s a scary fucking image. Running off under the moon with a child in its jaws like a bloody doll.”

  “What do they do with the children?” Terry asked, still keeping his watch on the back of the bar.

  “Eat them.”

  A light showed at the door.

  “Let me have those,” Terry said, reaching for the binoculars.

  “What’s up?” Sid asked, putting the field glasses in his hand.

  “I saw something.”

  Focusing the binoculars, Terry spotted three dark figures emerge from the back of the bar. One carried a flashlight. Together they cut a path through the trees heading toward the barn and the sheriff’s patrol car.

  “Something’s happening,” Terry relayed to Sid.

  “What?”

  “I can’t tell much from this distance, but some people just left the roadhouse.”

  “The werewolves are on the move,” Sid replied.

  Terry grabbed up his crossbow and popped open the driver door. “I’m going to get a closer look.” Reaching into the bed of the truck, he slipped on his hunting poncho. “You stay here and keep the walkie-talkie open just like before. If I get into trouble, I’ll radio you.”

  “Don’t get yourself killed.”

  “I won’t, dude.” Terry patted his front pocket. “I brought Mr. Higgins’s silver bullet with me as a good luck charm.”

  “I hope it fucking works.”

  “Me, too,” Terry replied, pulling two Molotov cocktails from the milk crate in the truck bed. He slipped them into pockets in the poncho along with the lighter. “Just sit tight. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Okay, Rambo.” Sid slid over behind the steering wheel and pulled his shotgun to him. “Just radio when you’re coming back so I know it’s you. I see anything else getting near this truck I’m going to shove this shotgun up its ass.”

  Terry nodded. “Okay.”

  He took off toward where he had seen the others trekking through the woods, and he soon discovered moving through the brush in the dark was too slow and noisy. Deciding to continue along the edge of the tree line, he headed toward the barn in the distance. At the halfway point, Terry crouched, pulled out the binoculars, and spotted the shadowy shapes of three people walking past the sheriff’s parked patrol car. The group stopped before an underground storm cellar door. One bent to open it. Even through the binoculars, it was hard to determine details of the dark figures. Low voices floated through the night air to him, but he couldn’t make out the conversation.

  The sudden howls of coyotes caused his skin to turn to ice. He scanned the surrounding area to find the source of the haunting cries. The animals were hidden in the trees beside him. Glimpses of their eyes reflected the fading moonlight. The eerie howling increased in intensity. Something supernatural had drawn them to this site. He glanced up. The eclipse now covered the moon’s face. With his heart pounding in fear, Terry put down th
e binoculars, grabbed up the crossbow, and contemplated returning to the truck.

  Fifty yards away, someone slammed down the cellar door with a crash.

  He snapped his attention back in that direction. Two shadowy figures headed toward the barn. The third person was still inside the cellar.

  Why?

  He swallowed back the fear caught in his throat and decided to take a closer look. Keeping a low profile, he jogged the distance to the back of the patrol car and squatted beside the rear bumper. The howling of the coyotes had risen in volume like the mournful wails of lost souls. Yellowish eyes watched him from the dark. Terry gripped the crossbow with sweaty hands and risked a glance around the back of the car. The two figures had disappeared in the barn. He turned his attention to the storm cellar.

  A woman’s scream came from inside.

  * * * *

  Collin placed the sleeping for of Megan in the soft dirt of the barn floor. He looked up through the hole in the roof at the eclipsing moon overhead. The shadow had grown to cover its face. From deep inside, the beast spoke to him.

  Feed me.

  Yes.

  He cut away the tape binding the hands and feet of the sleeping child and studied Megan in the dim light. Clad in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, the sight of the little girl’s tender flesh caused his stomach to rumble. Very soon she would be ripped apart to satiate his hunger and feed his soul with her life energy. He breathed in the aroma of her succulent body. Saliva flooded his mouth at the thought of the forbidden feast he was about to partake.

  “Something’s wrong,” Roxie whispered, breaking his thoughts.

  Collin turned to his sister waiting by the Camaro parked in the barn. She was half-crouched with senses focused on the open door to the outside.

  “What is it?”

  “Someone’s moving about,” Roxie replied. Her long raven hair splayed across her shoulders as she glanced at him with dark, bottomless eyes. She sniffed the air again. “Hunters.”

  “Those damn teenage punks,” Collin snapped back. “They must be back.”

  Roxie slid off her shirt and undid her jeans. “I’ll stop them.”