FULL MOON COUNTRY (FULL MOON SERIES (vol. 2))

by Terry Yates

  “Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one…zero…blast off…”

  Kyler took one last quick breath, then turned his face down to the girl’s, and pushed open her eyelid. As expected, a large, brown orb took up the whole socket. Pritchard gasped.

  “She’s…” Pritchard started, his hand covering his mouth

  “On the wrong side…”

  “But that’s impossible! There weren’t any bite marks!”

  “It must’ve put one on there somewhere,” Kyler told him, while searching her neck and shoulders for bite marks.

  Potts’ one eye was having trouble concentrating on all of them at once. With his hand on his pistol, and his one eye constantly moving, he didn’t have much time to do anything but watch for sudden movements. He had no time to think or to feel. Even though they wouldn’t change for another day, they were getting stronger and their bite could still be deadly.

  Only once, did one of them try to interact with him. It was an older, black woman. She didn’t have the bat face, but her eyes were completely brown.

  “Are you a doctor?” she had asked him, her eyes staring into Potts’. There was no life to them. All he could see was a dark, empty, abyss.

  “No Ma’am,” he answered, in as quiet and soft a voice as he could possibly muster. “I’m a colonel in the United States Army.”

  “The Army?” she asked, looking around as if she was hearing a voice that only she could hear.

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “Why is the Army here?”

  “We’re just here to make sure you and the other patients are given the best treatment possible.”

  Potts wasn’t sure what the “Willie’s” were, but he had an idea that he was getting a big dose-full all at once.

  “But I feel fine!” the old lady crowed, raising her nightgown over her big, brown thighs, and dancing around. Her smile mixed with the lifeless eyes made her look like one of those monsters in the old Fangoria comic books that he used to read as a kid.

  Potts knew that it had only been a few minutes, but it felt like hours. Where were those guards? They should’ve been back by then.

  No sooner had he thought about the guards, than he heard the gate open…as did all of the bite victims. Potts gripped the butt of his pistol. He wasn’t going to look away until one of them spoke.

  He watched the faces of the bite victims as their heads followed the guards. He didn’t realize anything was wrong, until he noticed that the bite victims’ eyes were cast way downward. Whoever was moving up next to him must be extremely short, and since they were standing to his right, he had to turn almost completely sideways to see whom it was. He thought he would scream, for standing before him, right smack dab middle of the pen, stood Lauren O’Hearley, looking up at him as if she needed a glass of water.

  “Jesus Christ, Kid!” Potts was trying to keep his voice low, but with the shock of seeing a child standing in the most dangerous place that a child could stand, almost unnerved him.

  “I have to talk to…” Lauren tried to say, but Potts had already put his hand on her shoulder and was quickly moving her backwards. “I have to talk…” she kept trying to say, but Potts continued trying to move her backwards, while still keeping an eye on the bite victims. For her part, Lauren was doing a good job of pushing against him. “I’ve got…” she tried one last time.

  “Kyler!” Potts whispered loudly over his shoulder.

  Kyler looked up from Sarah Lewis to see a highly agitated Potts holding Lauren by the shoulder, his hand still on his gun.

  “Lauren?”

  Potts could see that Kyler was too busy with the little girl to drop everything, so he continued to push her toward the gate.

  “I’ve got to talk to you!” she exclaimed again, still pushing against Potts.

  “Not now!”

  Potts continued to push against Lauren until, much to his and Kyler’s surprise, she suddenly began wildly slapping at his hand. She looked almost feral as she fought against him.

  “Listen to me, you stupid, stubborn, one-eyed son-of-a-bitch!” she screamed up at him, the yellow in her face now mixed with red.

  Potts stopped, suddenly shocked for a moment. Kyler watched the two of them looking at each other, half expecting the bite victims to all go “wo-o-o-ooh!” like the studio audiences always did on the WB sitcoms.

  “Kid, this better be good,” Potts snarled, trying to keep his one eye in two different places.

  “You said that the moon wouldn’t be full until tomorrow night,” Lauren gasped, almost hyperventilating.

  “What?”

  “The moon. You said it wouldn’t be full until tomorrow night.”

  “Kid you…”

  “Answer me!”

  “Yes! Yes! Tomorrow! All of our intelligence says tomorrow! Now get out of..”

  “What is that then?” she asked, pointing over Potts’ shoulder.

  Both Kyler and Potts looked over their shoulders to see what would have normally been the most beautiful pink and red sunset either of them had ever seen. The sun was still above the horizon, but not by much. Rising above the sun was the moon, barely shining silver, but there all the same.

  “It’s full,” Kyler said softly.

  “Yeah, but isn’t it always when it first rises…then it changes to whatever shape it’s gonna take?” Potts asked, hoping one of them was egghead enough to know the answer.

  “That’s going to be a full moon,” Lauren said, as if Copernicus himself told her.

  “Eh…” was all that Kyler was able to utter.

  “What’s happening?” Dr. Pritchard asked quietly, still staring at the moon.

  By this time, Proudfoot and Wilson had taken notice of the situation.

  “What’s going on?” Wilson asked, leaving the patient that the two doctors had been examining.

  “I don’t…” Kyler started.

  He didn’t get to finish. He’d seen movement just to his right, and turned his head toward it. For Richard Kyler, time stood still, the way it always does just before a car wreck or any life or death situation that happens in an instant. There, no farther than six inches from his face, was young Sarah Lewis’ face. Her dark hair barely hung to her shoulders. She had the kind of hair that should have one long, pink or yellow plastic barrette holding it out of her face. Her eyes were closed, and her face was almost angelic…and then she opened her eyes. Immediately, she went from the most cherubic child he’d ever seen to the most evil, vile looking creature that he’d seen in…well, months. Like the rest of them, her eye sockets were completely brown, filled with whatever dark goo that wolves or demons have in their eyes. At first, the little girl had been looking just past him, but after a moment, she turned her head and looked him in the eyes. All he could think of was The Stepford Wives and vampires! Vampires, he wanted to chuckle, what a silly thought!

  The little girl scanned his face and his features, as if he were the first human being that she’d ever seen. Her brow became furrowed as she scanned, first his forehead, then his right cheek, his mouth, and up to his other cheek, before finally looking him in the eyes again. At that moment, Kyler wanted to drop a matching set of stink pickles right then and there, but he couldn’t pull himself away.

  Time started again when the girl moved her face within inches of his…and let out a loud and long howl that was so high, loud, and shrill that Kyler immediately flew backwards, ass-over-elbows-squared, landing almost upside, his left foot momentarily getting stuck in the bars. He sat up just in time to see Sarah Lewis take Dr. Pritchard’s hand, open her mouth, and clamp her teeth down on the fleshy part between the thumb and the index finger, and begin to gnash wildly, the skin tearing with every tug of her head, resembling a hungry dog with a particular tough chew toy…growl included. Where Kyler had jumped straight backward through sheer instinct, Pritchard had frozen in place through sheer fear. He looked like a statue, his eyes and his mouth wide open in terror as the girl bit him.


  Kyler picked up the chair, lion-tamer style, and came at the girl from the side, trying to separate the girl from Pritchard. He knocked over one of the portable light stand and the IV drip long before he got to them. When he reached them, he closed his eyes, and with all of his strength, rammed the chair between the girl’s face and Pritchard’s hand. As the chair separated them, Kyler could the doctor’s skin tearing away from his hand. Pritchard screamed as he pulled away. The thing that had once been young Sarah Lewis was in a crouch, face to the air, her bloody mouth opening and closing as a large sliver of doctor skin slid down her throat. Like most canines, she licked her chops when she was done and looked at the two men apparently anticipating more.

  “Dr. Pritchard!” Kyler screamed at the doctor, holding the chair in front of him. Pritchard leaned against the fence, holding his wounded hand under his now red lab coat. “Dr. Pritchard! Come here!” It was having no effect. The man was in shock. “Col. Potts!” he screamed over his shoulder. “Colonel!”

  The girl began moving to the right side of the bed, never taking her blank eyes off of Dr. Pritchard. For some odd reason she reminded Kyler of Mowgli in The Jungle Book, had Mowgli, of course, had big lifeless eyes, and blood dripping from his mouth.

  As she lined herself up with Pritchard, Kyler quickly stepped between them, chair in hand, and now thrusting it warningly at her, not wanting to scare her, but wanting her to know that he meant business. Sarah dropped to the floor, landing in a crouch, her little feet making a slight ‘pat’ sound when she landed on the plywood flooring where the doctor chair had sat.

  “Colonel!” he yelled, his voice rising higher.

  “I’m a little busy over here,” Potts yelled back, in an extremely calmer register.

  Kyler gave a warning thrust of the chair, then quickly looked over his right shoulder, where for a few nana-seconds, he saw the bite victims, bat-faced or not, leaning up against their bars and staring at the moon, all beginning to whimper, like puppies do…or dogs and/or wolves did just before they turned their heads to the sky, and let out a long loud howl.

  Kyler had long ago turned his attention back to Sarah Lewis who had tried to out flank him when he’d turned around. He hadn’t seen Potts or Lauren. He hadn’t had time. The little girl was on the floor now, and Kyler was having to thrust downward, which was becoming increasingly difficult for his long frame to deal with.

  “Get behind me, Dr. Pritchard,” Kyler said lowly as he moved in front of the doctor, while never taking his eyes off of the girl. “Dr. Pritchard?” The man was still in shock.

  Suddenly, the little girl dropped into a low crouch, her head up and forward, while her stomach touched the floor. She then arched her shoulder blades, causing her elbows to point at the sky. Her back legs were bent upwards in an unnatural position causing her to look much like a…spider.

  “Oh, God…please don’t do it…please…please…please…”

  But she did…just like he knew that she would, and she didn’t disappoint. She began to scuttle sideways, just like most arachnids do when they’re trying to evade brooms and shoes, and other forms of human weaponry. The way she moved, reminded Kyler of a video game spider that would scuttle sideways, up and down, and forward and backward.

  She quickly scuttled left and then right, trying to dodge the chair that Kyler was now thrusting for all he was worth. He could feel Pritchard behind him, but the man wasn’t moving or saying anything. Good old shock mixed with loss of blood. Nothing like it for stopping a man cold.

  The bite victims were looking at the moon, their backs turned to Potts, who’d already drawn his ‘45’, but kept it pointed toward their feet. His left hand was behind him on Lauren’s chest. He knew that something was going on with Kyler, but he didn’t have time to help, because of the kid, and because all of the bite victims had gone from looking up at the still dim moon…to baying at it. One, each after the other, began to howl, until it had almost an echoing effect. Potts had been about to fire his gun in the air for help as a last resort, but he was pretty sure the howling was going to do it, because he could hear the sound that only running soldiers make when they are on the move.

  He heard the footsteps stop at the gate. He knew that there were four of them. He’d been a soldier long enough to know how many sets of running legs there were at any given time, whether it was six or sixty, he knew the count. He heard the gate fly open, and so did the bite victims, because they all turned around, except two of them, the old black woman and a young man in his early twenties, who were both doubled over and screaming as if their blood was boiling.

  Without turning around, he pushed Lauren into one of the soldiers.

  “Get her out of here.” He continued to talk as low as possible even though it was becoming increasingly harder with all of the bite victims either howling or moaning in pain. Potts counted twenty-three of them.

  “Sir!” a private yelled, pulling Lauren away.

  Potts took a step back ward to see that the three other soldiers stood to his right, rifles at their waists.

  “Hold steady men,” he said softly, holding his right arm out. “Kyler, get out of here!” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “Don’t you think that I want to do just that?” Kyler yelled back, still not taking his eyes off of what once had been Sarah Lewis, who continued to scuttle back and forth, faster and faster, until Kyler was having trouble keeping up with her. Suddenly, to his right, another chair joined his in the struggle. Kyler took a quick look to see that it was Leo Proudfoot who, he must admit had a much cooler look on his face than he knew that he had on his. He looked like he went to the Potts School of Stoicism.

  “Come along, Doctor,” he heard a voice say behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lt. Wilson pulling Dr. Pritchard out of the room. He might be an asshole, but he was no coward.

  After Wilson had pulled Pritchard out of the room, Kyler and Proudfoot jabbed at the girl/spider/wolf, trying to get their backs to the door. As if she knew, the creature lunged at both of them, snapping her teeth as she jumped at the chairs, but each time being thwarted by the two doctors.

  “What is it?” Proudfoot asked, jabbing as the two tried to get around her.

  “The beginnings of a werewolf, Doctor, and whatever you do, don’t let her bite you.”

  The two men continued to thrust their chairs at the girl, until they had finally managed to get their backs to the open doorway, whereby they were met by one of Potts’ men, who’d all come running once they heard the howls.

  “Go, Sirs!” the soldier told them, aiming his rifle at the little girl.

  The three began to move backwards out of the room.

  “Go, Sirs,” the soldier repeated after they had cleared the room.

  Neither Kyler nor Proudfoot needed to be told twice. Both doctors dropped their chairs and began to run down the fenced in hallway until they reached Potts, who along with three soldiers now, stood in the opening, all facing the bite victims, the guns at the ready.

  “They’re turning,” Kyler said over Potts’ shoulder.

  “Thanks for the forecast there, Sage. Now go see to our group. Go!” Potts snapped.

  “We’ve got to get those patients out of here,” Kyler told him, pointing to the non-bite victims.

  “Kyler, we can’t…”

  “We’ve gotta get ‘em, Colonel.”

  “Jesus, Kyler…”

  “The others will kill them! We’ve gotta get them!”

  “God…” Potts started, shaking his head. “You and you! Help Dr. Kyler move those patients out of there!” he ordered two of his men. You! Go help with the little girl. You, he said to last soldier.”

  “Sir!” the young man barked.

  “We’ve only got three eyes between us, and twenty three of them, so until we get reinforcements, it’s you and me, Bub.”

  Kyler and one of the soldiers ran into the first room on the left. Kyler and the soldier started to help the man whose chest was gone and was
in his final hours. He weakly waived them away and silently pointed to the other patients.

  “We’ll be back,” Kyler said, smiling down at the man as he helped a teenage girl to her feet. The old man smiled and slowly nodded back. “I’m Dr. Kyler, and we’re going to get out of here now, okay?” Kyler said softly, but quickly, almost nose to nose with the young, blond waif. She couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, and she was at least five-foot-four. She couldn’t afford to lose a lot of blood.

  Kyler put the girl’s arm around his shoulder and began to walk her out of the room as quickly as he could. When he reached the grass hallway, he half ran-half dragged the young girl toward the gate. As he reached Potts, he could see that Potts and the soldier were slowly walking backward, because several of the bite victims had started moving toward them.

  “Hurry up!” Potts yelled, not looking at Kyler. He was aiming his revolver straight at a young man who was no more than fifteen feet away and getting closer. The other soldier had his rifle up to his eye and was aiming back and forth, going from one bite victim to the other. “Go! Go!”

  Kyler pulled the girl down the hallway toward the gate. A soldier and the patient whose shoulder had been severed, followed behind. Proudfoot was helping an elderly black man, while another soldier was helping another young man.

  Potts looked up at the moon. Yep. It was gonna be a big round peach-of-an-ass moon, and it was going to be full in less than a half-hour. What had happened? Every single source said that there would not be another full moon until tomorrow night, but here they were with not a goddamned thing they could do about it, so he had to take care of business.

  “Get everyone inside the hospital!” Potts screamed as loud as he could, slowly moving into the hallway.

  Kyler and the girl reached the gate just as FranAnne and Jefferson were reaching it.

  “Here,” Kyler said, panting. “Take her and the children up to another floor and…”

  Before he could finish, the group heard a commotion behind them.