Harvest Moon

by James A. Moore

  Craig kicked him in the chest this time and sent him sprawling across the mulch and mushroom covered ground. He pushed himself off the ground with his left hand, keeping the firearm aimed roughly at the local historian, and then kicked the ax further away with his foot.

  Treacher made another whining noise in his throat and Craig resisted the urge to just start dancing on the idiot’s face. “What the hell were you thinking, Treacher?” His own voice was a little strained and nervous, but next to Alan, he sounded positively macho. “You have a death wish?”

  “Unnnh…I didn’t…I didn’t know it was you, Craig. Honest to God. I thought it was one of them.”

  “One of whom?” It didn’t look like the man had any fight left in him, but Craig didn’t feel like risking it. His nerves were on edge and the adrenaline running through his system had his knees trying to dance all over the place.

  “One of the witch’s sons.” Alan’s voice cracked and his face collapsed as he said the words. He actually started crying, and Craig couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for him. “They’re real, Craig. As God is my witness, they’re all real.”

  Craig looked at the man in silence for almost a full minute, fighting off the chills that Alan’s words brought. When he’d recovered sufficiently, he slapped cuffs on the whimpering man’s wrists and used a zip tie cord on his ankles.

  “What happened to the kids, Alan?”

  “What kids?”

  “There’s a campsite worth of stuff lying over there and a few bottles of beer. You having a party out here with Old Bones and Patches? Or were the kids who left the sleeping bags behind involved?”

  Alan blinked slowly, his eyes wild as he thought about what Craig had just said.

  “It’s started.” He hung his head in defeat, his eyes calming and his face ashen. “I’m too late. They’ll bring her back now.”

  “Did you see anyone out here or not, Alan? And I don’t mean the damned Pumpkin Man, either. Did you see any kids partying out here? Did you hear anyone?”

  Alan did not respond. He simply stared at the ground and the thick black mushrooms that were growing in greater numbers than Craig had ever seen before. After checking the area as carefully as he could and securing the ax, Craig called his location in and then dragged Alan back to his squad car.

  And if he felt like someone was watching him the entire time he was moving his prisoner through the woods, well that was to be expected. He had just had a close call with a man who seemed likely to need serious psychotherapy. It surely couldn’t have been that there was actually someone watching his progress. Surely not.

  At least not anyone human.

  II

  Beldam Woods is not exactly a den of lowlife criminal scum and the morally destitute. That does not mean that there isn’t a little crime in the community.

  Until Erika Carmichael and her friends came to the school, that sort of nonsense never happened at Watersford Academy. There was no way in hell that George Burgess could actually pin the vandalism of his prized Chevy Bel Air on the girls, but he knew in his heart that they were responsible. At the very least, it was Erika.

  She might not have been the one that smashed out the window and rolled the car across the campus and down to the duck pond, but she was the person who arranged it. Watersford was a secure campus, but it was not exactly an armed forces base. There were no police for the private school nor was there really a need. So it fell to the Beldam Woods Police to handle the matter.

  Glenn Donner was a stocky man who looked like he could bend steel bars with his hands, but he also had a baby face that always made the Headmaster think of the kid that played the Beav in Leave It to Beaver. He was never going to be handsome; but he managed a little intimidating. He was also, thankfully, a very competent police officer. Before an hour had passed, he’d dusted the entire car for fingerprints and even before that, he’d called over the kid they used for taking pictures of any crime scenes. The kid looked hung over as all get out, but he worked carefully and it seemed like he had a clue as to what he was doing.

  Needless to say, most of the students seemed to find a reason to go over to the pond and look at what had been done to his car. The paint was ruined, sprayed with graffiti and obscene messages. The windshield—which had taken him months to find and have installed—was shattered.

  Was George angry?

  In a word: yes.

  What would he do about it? None of the things he was thinking about doing. He had a damned fine job and he had insurance. It was hardly like he’d planned on going anywhere in the next few days, anyway. He watched the kid, Robbie Harris, take more pictures and noticed when he started looking at the more interesting sights, like the small army of adolescent girls walking around in short skirts. He reminded himself to call the young man Rob instead of Robbie, as he had heard from a few of his students that he preferred that. Not that he could blame the kid. The “y” sound at the end of most names was something he’d never understood. Not even his grandmother got to call him “Georgie” after he hit the ripe old age of four.

  Elizabeth Chambers, one of the local girls who attended classes at Watersford but still lived at home, was forming a large gathering of the other girls around herself. Shannon Whitechapel and Lauren Murphy were with her, and unless he was mistaken, he could just make out the curly tresses of one Erika Carmichael toward the back of the crowd. Beth Chambers was a pretty little thing and she knew it. So, naturally she fit right in with Erika’s crowd.

  The girls were up to something. He had no doubt about that. He just had no clue as to what that something might be. He intended to find out, and when he did, he’d do everything he could to get that little bitch Erika expelled. Beth looked his way and got a worried look on her face. That wasn’t hard for her. She was very attractive, but had a face that almost seemed predisposed toward sadness. Even her smile always managed to look worried or depressed. She said something too softly for him to hear, while her hand nudged Erika’s shoulder.

  The milk delivery truck came through, winding down the road and slowing considerably as the driver looked out at the girls. From a high school kid that was acceptable; from the man driving the truck, who was normally the one who lifted out the crates every day, it was not. He made a note to call the Mayflower Milk offices and register a complaint.

  “I guess we’re about done here, Mister Burgess.” Glenn Donner looked at him and smiled as politely as he could.

  Burgess smiled thinly. “I suppose it’s still illegal to actually skin the culprit alive?”

  Donner grinned, his face reduced to that of an eight-year-old. “I’m afraid so, but if there aren’t any witnesses…” The cop closed up his notepad and looked around, scanning every face. He might have lingered a little more on the girls, but he looked at everyone, his features completely neutral. “As soon as we find out anything, sir, I’ll let you know.”

  A few minutes later the crowd began to disperse, aided by George’s glare.

  III

  “How hard do you think your boy from last night is gonna fall?” Beth Chambers spoke with exaggerated mild curiosity. Erika knew better. Beth had been out with Barry a few times, and while she had never said exactly what happened, Erika knew it was bad. That was one of the reasons she’d picked Barry in the first place. That and he was about as dumb as a stump. Inside of five minutes she knew he would do almost anything to get up her skirt, and knew that he would force the issue if she made him. Instead she’d promised him one helluva time tonight for his help with what she wanted done last night.

  Erika smiled and batted her eyes with mock innocence. “Barry? Oh, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never even met the boy. I was busy with my friends at the Haunted Hayride and all those cool carnival events. Just like I’ll be busy tonight.” She toyed with lighting a cigarette, but decided against it. Georgie was already going to be in a bad mood. She didn’t want to push his buttons, because she just knew he would suspect her of being behind what happened.
She looked around and made sure that she knew where the headmaster was. He was walking toward the creep from the milk truck, his hands flexing into fists and relaxing as he paced.

  “But if I did know anyone named Barry, who was thick as cement and maybe needed to be taught a lesson about how to treat my friends, I’d guess he was in pretty deep. Especially since I might have made sure there was a little evidence from his wallet that made its way into Burgess’s car.”

  “So that’s what? Vandalism? Breaking and entering?”

  “And probably Grand Theft; and strike three for a loser. He’s been nailed before, you know.” She looked around again before focusing on Beth. “Seems he got busted with a little weed and then got himself a D.U.I.” She shrugged and watched Georgie talking animatedly with the milk man. The delivery guy looked her way and licked his lips nervously. He could be fun if she could figure out the right angle to use.

  “When did you get so vicious?” The question would have sounded cruel if not for the note of admiration in Beth’s voice.

  “Right around the same time I came here.” She shrugged. “I used to be a lot tamer. Honest.”

  “Yeah? What changed?” Beth was looking a bit puzzled, which was an expression she almost always seemed to wear. Erika couldn’t imagine her looking actually happy anymore. That too was a reason for Barry to go down in flames.

  She thought back to her first week here, and how the voice had called her from her sleep and onto the campus in the dark of night. She remembered the feelings of dread and the tight, burning fear that had made her whimper as she walked through the ground fog that crept across the grounds. That had been a year ago this Halloween. Her skin goose pimpled and she rubbed her palms over her arms in an attempt to get warmed up again.

  “Me, I guess.” She shrugged, doing her best to forget the voice that had called to her, summoning her down to this very pond, and the trees not far away. The voice that promised her she’d never be lonely again, if she would just open herself up to a little help from an old woman who would make everything all better, if given a chance.

  And had she taken the opportunity? Yes, of course she had. And had things gotten better?

  She looked at the headmaster where he was tearing into the delivery guy. She could hear Burgess pointing out that she was underage and smiled to herself. Oh yes, things have definitely gotten better. All because she had paid attention to the voice in her head that told her how to make it a happier world for her to live in. Erika felt her heartbeat quicken and felt the sudden moist tingle between her legs. Thinking about what she had planned for King Georgie just plain got her excited.

  Erika wondered if he would scream when the time came. “God,” she said under her breath, licking her lips at the prospect. “I really, really hope so.”

  IV

  “She’s attractive enough,” Jack mused. “But I would hardly consider her the sort of girl we’ll need for the Harvest.”

  Patrick stood next to his brother and watched the girl as she stared at the school’s administrator. The headmaster was taking Denny Halloran to task for ogling the students. “It doesn’t matter what you or I think, Jack. It’s what she wants, and that’s what we’ll do.”

  Jack shrugged. “That’s a given, brother. I’m just rather surprised, really. I would have expected her to choose someone a little older and, well, less of a bitch, really.”

  “She wasn’t a bitch when she got here. That’s our mother’s doing.” Patrick flexed his shoulders. It was hard readjusting to what he had hidden away for so many decades. “She seemed like a sweet kid. The sort a parent could be proud of.”

  Jack looked at his brother and shook his head, his face a mask of contempt. “Honestly, I can’t begin to understand what you see in the humans. They’re cattle.”

  “They’re cattle that managed to kill us a few hundred years ago, Jack. You’d do well to remember that.” Jack held out his arm, watching as Patrick laid the flesh over the withered, bark-like skin of his own arm. “Hold still. The boy’s skin doesn’t like you.” Jack held himself still, feeling the burning sensation where his skin and the innocent boy’s met and reluctantly merged. Having a brother who could manipulate flesh had its advantages.

  Bobby moved his hands, the bones clacking together in a whisper so as to avoid making too much noise. Hundreds of years since they’d really talked and still his siblings fully understood what he was saying, despite the lack of vocal cords. “We’re doing pretty well for corpses, Patrick.”

  “Only because she prepared the way for us. If not for her spells back then we could not have survived.”

  Jack snorted, his long hair whipping around his head in the autumn breeze. “Speak for yourself, Patrick. I’m only here to repay an old debt, not because Mother summoned me back from the dead.”

  “Yes,” he sighed. “We’re all aware of how special you are, Jack. No one here would ever forget that.” His voice sounded bored with the conversation already, which was fair, because he was bored with the conversation already. “Truly, Jack, you are most certainly the favored son. How foolish of me to forget that you set yourself up as a harvest god in another part of the country.”

  “Bitter, Patrick?” Jack dismissed him with a wave of his hand, focusing on the females across the wide grass expanse from the trees where they hid themselves.

  “We have more important things to discuss than your status as a scarecrow.”

  “I resent the implications. Besides, do I call you a bag of flesh?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  Robert reached out his massive hands and touched them both on their shoulders. He didn’t need words to make it clear he thought they should stop bickering.

  “We need to get everything set up. Halloween is only two days away and the Harvest Moon is nearly upon us.” Patrick spoke softly, chastened by his brother. They could squabble later if they felt the need.

  Jack stared silently at the young girl out among so many others. “I can’t quite understand the choice, but if that is the one she wants, she will have her.”

  Robert backed away from the other two, speaking not at all and moving with an uncanny grace that shouldn’t have been possible for someone carrying his bulk.

  The other two waved noncommittally. He did not wave back.

  Jack shook his head. “Has it occurred to you that our brother has no sense of humor?”

  Patrick allowed a small smile to play around his lips. “He misses his mother. That and he said it took him over a century to dig himself out of the ground.”

  “Wasn’t he the one who decided to bury himself?”

  “Of course. He just hadn’t expected the people to consecrate the ground a few years after he went to sleep.” Patrick stepped away from the cleared, manicured lawns of the Watersford Academy as he spoke and Jack followed, laughing hard enough to scare the birds for the next hundred yards. If anyone on the grounds noticed, the brothers ignored them completely.

  “Only Robert could have that sort of luck.”

  “Well, Robert and our mother. It took me a long time to clean that taint off of her.”

  “True. I suppose we’ve all been busy, haven’t we?”

  “Well, we have to be busy again. There’s too much at stake and everything is happening at once.”

  “That, dear brother, is what makes it interesting.”

  Patrick nodded his head and looked at the thinning crowd, drawn again to the girl that was chosen. She was a pretty little thing, bordering on beautiful. He understood why she was chosen well enough, but wished there was another way.

  “Tomorrow night,” he mused, “is Mischief Night.”

  “Indeed. What shall we do about it?”

  “What else? We’ll make mischief. Robert has already told me he plans to work as a diversion for the main event. I can’t see him actually waiting for the Harvest to be complete.”

  “Ahhh.” Jack nodded his head slowly, a wide grin parting his weathered lips. “Old Bones is going to make his pre
sence known?”

  “That’s the plan. He intends to leave the local law enforcement agencies reeling.”

  Jack reached into his jacket and pulled forth the burning ember he’d been granted at his birth. Patrick looked at it with a certain amount of awe, as he always did. “That should prove interesting. I can’t be here for it, of course. There’s a celebration I have to attend in the west.”

  “Can’t go a year without taking sacrifices?”

  “Not if she’s to come out of this properly. There’s a fine young lady over in the mountains that needs me to take her soul. It’s long overdue, really, but I had to wait for her to be the proper age.”

  “Will you be back tomorrow then?”

  Jack traced the flesh where Patrick had put the small patches of Josh Kinder’s skin on his own and smiled. “Of course, Patrick. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  V

  Rob Harris finished the last roll of film for work and took some shots just for fun. Beth Chambers was hanging with a few girls who were a bit too young but looked very fine indeed, and he snapped shots of them in their schoolgirl uniforms. The dark haired one, Erika, had legs that were about as perfect as they could get. The one with the blond hair, on the other hand, was either amazingly well built for fifteen, or she was stuffing a watermelon into each half of her bra. Either way, the look was appreciated by his camera’s lens. The girls saw him taking pictures and, as a unit, preened.

  Rob’s next official mission for his camera also involved Beth, so he had an almost legitimate reason for hanging around. He was supposed to take pictures at the Leonard Cinema, once around the haunted house the academy kids had built for the weekend, before the entire place was overrun. Lucky for him, Beth was the one who was supposed to show him around. Reflecting back on the make out session the two of them had shared at her place a few nights earlier, he had to admit he could think of much worse tour guides.