Moondeath

by Rick Hautala

  Ned shook his head. “Not really.”

  “Just as well,” Julie said. “It’s getting late, and it would just keep me awake.”

  Ned snickered.

  Julie crossed her arms and regarded Ned for a moment. “You said you wanted to talk to me. What about?”

  Ned smiled and shook his head. “As if you didn’t know.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Of course you do,” Ned said with sudden intensity. “You know damn right well!” He slammed his fist on the table. “I know that you’ve been the one doing it, doing it to me!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Julie asked. She tried to sound mocking, but there was an edge of tension in her voice.

  “The change!” Ned said. “The transformation!”

  Julie’s eyes narrowed as she studied Ned. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Julie,” Ned said standing up slowly. “I know you’re the one who’s been making it happen.”

  “Are you crazy? What are you talking about?”

  Ned laughed, a deep, hollow laugh. “I just want to know, why me? Why did you pick me to do it to?”

  “Do what?” Julie shouted. “What are you talking about?” She tried to stare Ned down, but his eyes riveted her and she had to look away.

  He took a few steps toward her. “How have you been doing it?” The intensity in his voice was like fire. “At first I thought it was, you know, just dreams, nightmares. But I realized pretty soon that it was real, that I was really taking on that other shape and, and hunting at night!”

  Julie brought her hands to her mouth and shook her head. “I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “It has to be some kind of magic, right? I thought for a while there that I was losing my mind, until I knew it was really happening.”

  “Nothing’s happening!” Julie said, edging away from Ned as he advanced toward her.

  Ned threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, sure, nothing’s happening. Just how many people have died this year, killed by that mysterious wild animal?”

  “I don’t know anything about them,” Julie said. She had backed into a corner. Ned reached out quickly and grabbed her arm in a vicelike grip.

  “First your husband, and then my brother Frank. I figured you had to have something to do with it.” His grip on her arm tightened, and Julie winced from the pain. “Of course, once I knew it was real when it was happening, I used it to, to even a few scores of my own. But I know that you’re the one who started it and I want to know why. Why did you pick me?”

  Julie shook her head from side to side, and tears welled in her eyes. “I didn’t—” she gasped. “I didn’t mean for you…”

  Ned started to twist her arm back. “I want to know why you picked me. Maybe, just maybe you were interested in me.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to affect you,” Julie said, her voice strained. “It wasn’t. I was trying, trying to, to get rid of Frank.” Ned twisted her arm back further, and the pain screamed through her shoulder. “I wanted it to affect Frank. I was, I was using magic to, to get rid of him. He was getting too serious, wanting to get married, and I, I wanted to get rid of him.”

  “So you used me?” Ned said with a snarl.

  Julie shook her head violently. “No. No! I was trying to attract evil forces to him, to destroy him. I tried to control his dark side, the beast in him, and turn it against him.” Her voice broke into a braying sob. “I, I wanted him dead!”

  “And you used me!”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Julie said, pleadingly. “You have to believe me! It wasn’t supposed to turn on anyone else. His dark side was supposed to kill him, no one else. But then, then once people started being killed, I didn’t know how to stop it. I thought once Frank was dead, it would all end.” She lost sight of Ned in the swimming vision as her eyes overflowed.

  “It didn’t stop,” Ned said evenly. “It hasn’t!”

  “You have to believe me, Ned, I didn’t want those other people to die! I didn’t want you to be the one who did it! I thought, I thought it was Frank, and once I realized it wasn’t, it was too late.”

  Ned eased the pressure on Julie’s arm. He smiled and said softly, “But it’s not too late.”

  Julie shook her head, trying to regain her composure as the pain in her arm subsided. Ned stepped closer to her, pressing her back. He grabbed her by the shoulder and tried to pull her toward him. She resisted, twisting away.

  Ned continued to talk in a soft, smooth voice. “I thought you had picked me because you, you wanted me.” His hands slid down and pulled her closer, grinding his hips against hers.

  “Get away from me!” she said angrily. “Get your goddamn hands off of me!”

  Ned smiled, holding her tightly to him. “We can be lovers, you and I. And who knows what we can do, now that we know each other’s secrets.”

  “Get the Christ away from me!” Julie screamed.

  His hold on her didn’t let up. He leaned his face closer, so close she felt his heated breath on her cheek. “You can come with me,” he said. “I have a place where we can stay, where nobody will ever find us. Don’t you realize what we can do? We have the power of life and death over everybody, everybody in this town!”

  She pushed at him, trying to get away. “No! No!”

  “We can be lovers,” Ned said intensely. “You can be mine!”

  “I don’t want you!” she said heatedly. “I don’t need you to be my lover!” His looming, shadowed form pressed her back against the wall. She felt as though she could barely catch her breath, but then, with a suddenness that surprised even her, she lifted up her knee and caught Ned squarely in the crotch. With a howl, he doubled up and dropped to the floor.

  Julie jumped over his crumpled form and, grabbing her coat from the chair, dashed for the door without a glance back. She heard Ned groaning and scrambling to his feet as she flung the door open and raced outside. She dashed around the side of the house and disappeared into the shadows of the trees.

  From a safe distance, she heard Ned hollering as he stood on her front porch. His voice lifted into the night and echoed back from the far shore of the lake.

  “You will be mine!” his voice boomed in the stillness of the night. “You will be mine!”

  .IV.

  Monday, December 22

  The funeral for Jeff Carter was held at two o’clock in the afternoon at Riverside Congregational Church. It was a closed-casket funeral.

  After a short eulogy and two verses of “Never My God to Thee,” a slow-moving procession of cars drove out to Pine Haven Cemetery.

  Bob drove last in the cortege and, as he crept along through the fine falling snow, he kept asking himself why there had been a closed casket? The reporter on the radio and the newspaper article in the Cooper Falls Eagle had reported that Jeff had died of exposure. Bob kept glancing at his fingers, clenching and unclenching them on the steering wheel. He commanded himself to relax, but moments later he would notice that he was tense again.

  A closed casket, and he died from exposure? Exposure?

  And then another though intruded: Lisa!

  Throughout the service, he had kept his eyes fixed on her. She never looked up from the floor, never looked around. The ritualistic mutterings barely registered on Bob as he stared at Lisa’s slouched, shaking shoulders. She looked much older, more tired and worn than he had ever seen her.

  And why was she ignoring, making it almost a point, ignoring him? He thought secretly that she would have been almost glad to be rid of Jeff. Granted, it was a horrible way to die, but, but…He couldn’t believe he let himself think such thoughts.

  The line of cars, headlights burning feebly in the snow, drove past the two cemetery gates on Railroad Avenue, turned left onto Old Jepson’s Road, and finally turned into the last gateway. Bob felt a wave of uneasiness as he drove past the stone pillars. He raised his hand and thoughtfully rubbed the cheek that the w
hite cat had scratched. Bob turned the car heater to low and opened the window to relieve the stuffiness in the car.

  As they drove up toward the cedar grove, Bob felt he knew why Lisa was being distant with him. He probably shouldn’t have expressed his thoughts so openly when he went to her apartment Wednesday night. Although he was increasingly convinced that there was a supernatural agent acting in Cooper Falls, she probably had concluded that he was really crazy. After time to think, and with the shock of her husband’s death, Lisa must have finally rejected the idea of a werewolf, and, with it, him.

  It could also be that Lisa was waiting a decent interval before furthering their relationship. Perhaps her shock and grief were not so deeply felt as they appeared? Bob hoped that might be the case, but he felt that was wishful thinking.

  He also found himself wondering if Lisa was wearing her silver cross. That would have told him plenty!

  The hearse pulled to a stop at the grave site. Snow had been plowed aside, and a deep rut had been dug in the frozen ground.

  The deep six, Bob thought, gritting his teeth. He put the car in neutral, pulled on the brake, and got out. He stayed on the fringe of the mourners and kept moving around, trying to get a position from which he could see Lisa’s face.

  Revered Alder had his hymnal open and was reading the service for the dead. Lisa, still looking down, had her gloved hands covering the bottom half of her face throughout. She was shaking, but whether it was from the bitter winds or from crying, Bob couldn’t tell.

  “Ashes to ashes,” the reverend intoned, taking a clump of frozen soil and crumbling it in his hand. “Dust to dust. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed is the name of the Lord.”

  The pall bearers stepped forward and, after hefting the casket, slowly began lowering it into the ground. Reverend Alder scanned the group of mourners and then asked them to pray for the soul of Jeff Carter.

  “Oh, Lord, we ask you to receive the soul of your servant Jeff Carter…”

  As in the church service, Bob found it difficult to listen because of the thoughts that intruded. His silent prayer was that he was grateful Lisa had been released from a life with a man who must have made it pure hell for her at times.

  When the prayer was over, everyone slowly filtered across the snow-covered graveyard back to their cars. Lisa stood alone for a moment at the grave site and threw a small bouquet of flowers onto the coffin. Two groundskeepers came forward and began to shovel dirt back into the pit. Stones and frozen earth rattled loudly on the coffin lid.

  From a distance, Bob watched Lisa. She walked toward him through the swirling snow and, when she was beside him, looked at him with a cold, distant stare. Without a word, she strode past him. Bob raised his hand and opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  What could he possibly say? he wondered frantically.

  Lisa went down to her car and stood there talking to Reverend Alder. Bob walked slowly over to the grave site and looked down at the casket. It was completely covered with dirt.

  “Should’ve waited ’til spring to plant this one,” one of the workmen said. The sound of his shovel scraping up frozen dirt set Bob’s teeth on edge.

  The other workman looked angrily at his partner and then at Bob. “Pity,” he said, softly. “Friend of yours?”

  Bob shook his head. “No. I am—was a friend of the family. I didn’t know him very well.”

  “Hell of a way to die,” the workman said, turning back to his job. Bob headed back toward his car. Revered Alder had left, and Lisa was standing beside her car. Bob picked up his pace and walked over to her.

  “It was a nice service,” he said awkwardly. His lips had dried out from the cold, and they stuck to his teeth as he spoke.

  Lisa kept her eyes averted but still stood there.

  “Jesus, Lisa, what’s the matter? Since I got back on Friday, you’ve been ignoring me. Will you level with me? What’s the matter?”

  She turned to look at him, her eyes bright with suppressed anger. “I would think,” she said evenly, “that you would have a pretty damn good idea!”

  Bob reached to touch her shoulder but she drew away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, I can’t blame you for being pretty upset and all, but I—”

  “Yeah. You!” Lisa snapped. “You just couldn’t wait, could you?” She glared at him and then opened her car door. Sitting down, she looked back up at Bob, her teeth biting into her lower lip, making it drain white.

  “Oh come on, Lisa.”

  “Well?” she asked grimly.

  “Don’t make this any harder than it already is for yourself or for me. You can’t deny that Jeff wasn’t the model husband. I know he hurt you, a lot. But if you—”

  “He wasn’t always like that!” Lisa screamed. Her eyes glistened with tears and rage.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Bob replied evenly. “What matters is how he treated you recently. No matter what you had before, that doesn’t excuse what he put you through this last year.”

  “You wanted him to die, didn’t you?” Lisa asked sharply.

  Bob shook his head.

  “Don’t try to bullshit me, OK?” Lisa asked. Her voice was sharp and cutting. Bob wanted to hold her, comfort her, calm her down, but the longer he looked at her, the more he felt his anger rise.

  “You want it straight? I’ll give it to you straight!” Bob yelled. “The closed casket didn’t fool me. Not for a minute. I know! I know it was the werewolf that killed Jeff. No, don’t act surprised, you must have seen the body.”

  Lisa shook her head. “No, I never did.”

  “Jeff didn’t die of exposure, Lisa. Just like Wendy Stillman didn’t get raped, and Frank Simmons didn’t get shot in a hunting accident, and Alan Tate wasn’t hit by a car!” He smacked his open hand on the side of the car.

  Lisa looked up at him, her face twisting with pain and tears streaming down her cheeks. “I, I don’t know what to think!” she screamed, choking off with a sob. “I don’t know what killed Jeff, but you’re right: it wasn’t like it was reported. I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  “Look,” Bob said softly, reaching for her.

  Lisa pulled away violently. “Just leave me alone!”

  “You’re too upset. You should go home and get some rest. Maybe after the holidays, you can think about moving in with me.”

  “What?” She looked at him, wide-eyed. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “You’re going to have a tough time pulling things together. I think maybe what you need is—”

  “What I don’t need is to be shacking up the first chance I get after my husband’s funeral! What in the hell do you think people will say?”

  Bob was stung by her response, but he felt a sudden, irrational anger bubbling up within him. “What I don’t care about, Lisa,” he said, keeping his voice even, “is all of this small-town bullshit! That’s always how it is, isn’t it? The small minds clicking and the big mouths flapping, all of them poking their noses into everyone’s business but their own. And when they’re through, they’ve succeeded in ruining someone’s chance for a little bit of happiness.” He lowered his voice and softened it. “I care about you, Lisa. I have since I met you. I don’t want any bullshit gossip to ruin it.”

  “Oh?” Lisa said, her voice cracking. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Lisa heaved a long sigh and, gripping the steering wheel, leaned back in the car seat with her arms straight out. “You don’t have to play any games with me, Bob. Not any more.” She paused. “I know all about what happened with you and Beth Landry, and how you lost your last teaching job.”

  It was like she had just hit him in the chest with a sledge hammer. Bob felt the color drain from his face, and a burning lump formed in his throat. “I, I—how did you find out? Did you—”

  “Things might have gone a little smoother, Bob, if you had leveled with me from the start.”

  “There was nothing to hide,” Bob said fe
ebly. He knew his voice betrayed him.

  “Then you should have told me from the start,” she said firmly.

  “I don’t know what you heard, Lisa, but you should let me explain. That whole thing was a railroad job. That student, Beth Landry, was after me, trying to get me into the sack. When I didn’t pick up on her advances, well, I guess she figured if she could get me, she’d get me. I, I just don’t see how that affects us.”

  “You should have been honest with me about it. You should have told me before I heard it some other way.”

  “What other way?” Bob asked, his anger flattening.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Lisa answered. “What matters is that you weren’t honest with me and it makes me wonder what else you’re holding back from me.” Her eyes glistened. “You don’t seem to understand, Bob, that relationships are built on trust. Trust and honesty.”

  Bob stood up straight and scanned the now deserted cemetery. Snow drifted between the gravestones. The sky was a leaden gray. The cold air numbed his face, making him squint. He jumped when Lisa’s car suddenly started up.

  “Lisa,” he called. “Lisa!”

  She rolled up her window and put the car into gear. As she pulled away slowly, he walked along the side of the car calling her name. She ignored him and sped up, pulling away from him. Bob was left by the side of the road, listening to the receding sound of her car. Snow swirled at his feet, and for the first time in a long time, he cried.

  Chapter Thirteen

  .I.

  Wednesday, December 24—Christmas Eve

  Reverend Alder shrugged his shoulders to make sure his vestments were hanging just right. It was minutes until the Christmas Eve candlelight service began, and as he stood in his office doorway he looked long and hard at Bob, who was standing beside Lisa. Bob felt uncomfortable under the minister’s searching gaze. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not sure what to do with his hands.

  “I had hoped to see you before this,” he said, with just the right combination of sternness and welcome.