There's Blood on the Moon Tonight

by Bryn Roar

  The Gray appeared to be wary of direct sunlight, reluctant to move completely out of the forest’s shade. Even within the dappled shadows she seemed distressed by the light, breaking through the branches of the trees here and there. Whenever the dog inadvertently stepped into one of these mote-filled, saffron shafts, she would jerk her body away—as if the muted light was somehow caustic.

  Bud considered running back to the Bunker for a gun. Unfortunately, by the time he got back with it, the worst of what could happen, would have already happened.

  Josie couldn’t remain silent any longer. “Ralphie!” she hollered between her cupped hands. “You get over here this instant!” Tubby kept right on backpedaling, though, towards the edge of the lake. “Watch out! You’re gonna—”

  “He knows what he’s doing,” Bud said. He pulled Josie towards the lake as well.

  “Bud, what’re you doing? That dog has rabies!” she cried. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t doing something to help their new friend. “If it bites Ralph—”

  “Another name for rabies is hydrophobia,” Bud replied calmly. At the edge of the lake now, he came to a stop. He watched the progress of the dog as it creakily pursued their newest member. The fat boy’s instincts were good. Bet he’s seen Old Yeller a time or two. As soon as the dog noticed the water, she reared back in fright.

  Now she was the one backpedaling!

  “Oh,” said Josie, getting it now. Hydrophobia literally meant Fear of Water. “Keep going, Ralphie!” she said, forgetting herself again. “You’re almost there!”

  Realizing her prey was about to escape into the hated water, the Gray suddenly seemed to lose either her fear or the rest of her sanity. She lunged forward and snapped at Tubby’s legs, just as he found the lip of the ledge, her jaws coming together in a violent crash. In the still air it sounded like a bear trap clapping shut. Then the tearing sound of cloth, and Tubby Tolson falling head over heels into the waiting lake below.

  The dog scrambled back again, whimpering like a scared puppy. She teetered there, looking like she might keel over, and then emitted a mournful howl into the pale blue sky. Her bowels and bladder released their watery waste at once, infusing the humid air with a foul odor.

  The Gray didn’t appear to be aware of either bodily function. She didn’t squat, or even lift up her bedraggled tail, but let the piss and shit run down her shaking legs. Nor when she was done did she kick dirt over her scat—as is normal, healthy behavior in all canine species.

  Bud and Josie held their collective breath, waiting for Tubby’s head to come up for air. Finally, he did so, sucking in great gulps of the stuff.

  “Did she bite you?” Bud called down to him.

  His voice carried a quivering edge that Josie was unfamiliar with in her ever-stalwart friend. This discomposed tone, even more than the raging, rabid dog, chilled her to the marrow of her bones.

  Tubby didn’t seem to hear Bud, anyway. His eyes belonged to the gray bitch, still howling her frustration up at the skies. Abruptly, she ceased her cries and snapped her hulking head towards Bud and Josie.

  Seeing how close to the cursed water they were, she turned her attention to easier prey.

  Bud followed the Gray’s blood shot eyes back to Rusty Huggins—still standing where they’d left him.

  Shit! He’d forgotten how afraid his friend was of dogs—and here was a hulking bitch straight from the hairy rectum of hell. “Get your narrow ass over here, Gnat!”

  “It won’t go in the water, Rusty!” said Josie, also seeing her friend’s predicament for the first time.

  Rusty just stood there, though, his eyes as big and wide as pie plates, blinking rapidly behind his thick specs. His legs trembling almost as much as the sick animal’s. Unlike the dog, though, Rusty couldn’t get his to move. While a telling stain spread across the front of his khakis, a thin stream of urine puddled around his Converse sneakers.

  The dog’s crusty nose snuffled the air hungrily, pulling the pheromones of Rusty’s panic straight from the northeast breeze blowing in her face.

  It was like waving a red flag at an angry bull.

  Bud turned to Josie, shrugged his apologies, and shoved her sideways into the lake.

  *******

  Rusty was all alone. Lost in his own fear. He had seen the dog, partially hidden from view in the deep shade, and had already diagnosed its deadly illness before his friends had even noticed the animal at all. Like Tubby before, Rusty realized that despite his many phobias he had never truly been frightened before this moment. He thought it was probably akin to when he declared himself to be “Starving” before supper or lunch, when he’d never known that condition either. And as the dog turned its awful red eyes upon him, the fear fell on Rusty like one of those vicious summer storms that sometimes roared in from the Atlantic. The fear was black, rumbling, and swallowed him whole, leaving only his eyes to function properly. His breath was ragged and shallow and he knew his brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Any second now and he was going to faint.

  He felt the hot piss running down his leg but was too scared to feel any shame. Through the corner of his eye, he’d seen Bud and Josie, frantic, waving their arms about, their mouths forming soundless shouts and warnings. He heard nothing save his own shallow breathing. Then, suddenly, Josie was inexplicably gone…and Bud was running towards him. No, not at me…

  At the DOG! What is he thinking! Bud was running straight for the dog! Holding something aloft in one hand.

  Whatever it was, it gleamed in the sun like a drawn sword.

  The rabid beast couldn’t seem to care less. Its red-rimmed eyes knew only Rusty Huggins. There wasn’t even the tiniest speck of white showing in the sclera—and nothing resembling sanity resided within those awful crimson depths…

  *******

  Bud Brown knew what he had to do. Those eyes! Those red rimmed eyes! He censured the hysterical voice in his head. No time for that shrill nonsense now. He turned to Josie and, before she could blink, he dumped her into the drink. That redheaded concern out of the way, shouting profanities in the lake, Bud took a bracing breath…and then raising Tubby’s metal lunchbox over his head, he charged at the dog—howling lustily at the top of his lungs:

  “!!!HEYYYOOOOOUUUBBBBBIIIITTCCHH!!!”

  Undeterred and unimpressed, she continued towards Rusty in that shambling, determined gait. Like one of George Romero’s zombies, hungry and without soul. The dog was less than ten yards away from Huggins now, and Bud realized he’d never get to them in time. He would only get one shot before the gray bitch was all over Gnat—and then rabies would be the least of his friend’s worries. Those huge choppers would make short work of the little guy.

  Bud skidded to a halt, still thirty feet away, and put the crosshairs on that big wobbling head. Then he chucked Tubby’s good luck charm with all his might.

  The lunchbox left Bud’s hand in a straight and true arc. Right away, he knew it was spot on. Would it be enough, though, to stop the attack?

  The lunchbox tumbled end-over-end, striking the Gray right in the back of her shaggy head, between the ears, where the skull met the spine. The thermos caromed one way, the carrot sticks and Spiderman the other…

  The dog collapsed forward like a gray wave, tumbling right into Rusty, dog and boy rolling together, their limbs flying akimbo, seemingly interchangeable, ending up together in a limp and motionless pile.

  In the lake, Josie bellowed: “What happened, Bud? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!”

  “No! No! No,” Bud groaned, sprinting towards the inert bodies. Without stopping to consider the likely lethal consequences, he grabbed the dog’s hind legs and dragged the great beast off his small friend, lost somewhere underneath all that dead weight.

  Her hairy legs felt hot to the touch, as if she was running a high fever. She slid off Rusty like a big side of beef, her head thudding heavily on the ground.

  Left behind on Gnat’s shirt and pants was a sudsy swath of saliva. Bud dropped her legs an
d rushed to his friend’s side. Rusty was unconscious and his skin had an ashy look to it that scared the hell out of Bud. Like the homesick E.T., dying in Elliot’s arms. He gave Gnat a quick once-over but couldn’t see any bites in evidence.

  She might not have bitten him, but the bitch left enough of her saliva to infect him a thousand times—

  “Did she bite him?”

  Bud jumped at the sound of Josie’s voice. He didn’t hear her come up from behind him. Despite the heat, she was shivering. Lizard Lake was notorious for its cold spots. Or maybe she was shivering for a different reason.

  She knelt beside Bud and looked into his eyes, pleading for some assurances. She decided she’d slug him later on for knocking her ass into the damn lake. This was hardly the time for retribution.

  “I don’t think so, but look at all the damn slobber, Joe. Help me drag him into the lake. We’ve got to wash this shit off before it somehow gets into his bloodstream.”

  “Let me help,” Tubby said, coming up to join them. He gave the huge dog a wary look, walking past her. The Gray’s eyes were closed; her slimy tongue lolling out the side of her massive head. She didn’t appear to be breathing. “This is all my fault, after all.” He leaned over Rusty, dripping cold water on the boy’s slack jaw.

  Rusty squinted up at the people looking down at him, attempting to focus his notoriously bad vision.

  “W-where’s m-my g-glasses?” he stuttered.

  Josie looked around and saw them lying next to the dog. She eyed the animal uncertainly…

  The beast looked as dead as her old hamster, Mr. Smee, buried in a cigar box in her backyard. “Wow, Bud,” she said, slipping the glasses back on Rusty’s face. “You really creamed that big bitch, didn’t you?”

  At “Big Bitch”, Rusty began flailing about.

  Bud pushed him back on the ground. “Oh, now you want to run! Where was all this energy when we needed you to shag ass a few minutes ago?”

  “Let me up!” Rusty hollered. “Let me up!” His paralysis returned, though, as soon as he saw the gray bitch, lying mere inches away. Gnat went stiff in an instant.

  Bud rolled his eyes and nodded his head at Tubby.

  “Help me tote Rusty over to the lake. Then you can tell us where the hell that Vermicious Kanit came from.”

  “Uh, boys, don’t look now,” Josie said in a faraway voice. “But the Vermicious Kanit is waking up…”

  Bud let his eyes slide over to the gray pile of fur, struggling now to lift her head off the ground.

  Bud hadn’t killed her, just merely knocked her senseless. He should have known a lunchbox couldn’t dispatch a creature that size—even if it was Nolan Ryan doing the hurling. Still flat on her side, panting and wheezing, the gray bitch shook her head and blinked her smoldering eyes. Her thick tongue, slimy with snotty strings of saliva, slipped out the side of her cavernous mouth. It sagged there, limp and discolored.

  Her breath was as foul as a festering wound. A sickly sigh that carried the scent of rot and ruin.

  Yet again, it was her strange eyes that grabbed you by the balls—as if the devil himself was stoking the fires, burning bright and hot inside her head.

  It wasn’t a natural thing, Bud Brown decided, those shining red eyes. “I know you,” he said under his breath.

  The dog seemed to smile. As if to say: Of course you know me! We’re old friends, you and I…

  “Bullshit,” Bud swore under his breath. You’re just a rabid dog. Not evil, just very, very sick. Then, to his friends, he snapped: “Get your asses back in the lake!”

  Josie shot him a look and then grabbed Tubby by the hand. Bud watched their backs for a moment more, and then tossed Rusty onto his shoulder. Gnat had slipped back into a near catatonic state.

  The Gray shook her head again, the ropy saliva slinging to either side, and then struggled uncertainly to her feet. Like a newborn calf, she swayed and trembled.

  Bud heard a large splash behind him, and then another smaller one. Tubby and Josie, safe now.

  Reluctant to turn his back on the rabid dog, Bud slowly made his way backwards, keeping her in front of him. The Gray took a tentative step towards him, then another. She shook her head again, more vigorously this time, and seemed to regain her senses. She growled and bristled, her legs picking up steam. Then, without further ado, she was running straight at Bud!

  Surprised at her rapid recovery, Bud took a giant, panicked step backwards…and all at once, he and Rusty were falling down the grassy embankment together. In a clotting cloud of red dust, tall grass, and little green lizards.

  They slid to a stop at the lapping shore, panting and wild-eyed. Bud yanked Rusty to his feet and dragged him into the lake, dunking his head under the water, again and again. As if his friend was on fire.

  Rusty fought his way to the surface and shoved Bud aside. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he sputtered and coughed. “Are you trying to drown me?”

  “Can it, you meathead,” Josie said, swimming over to Rusty’s side. Tubby was dog-paddling right behind her. “Bud was only trying to wash all that canine slobber off you! Did that werewolf bite you, love?”

  Rusty thought about it for a second, looking down at himself. Then he shook his head. “No. I-I don’t think so. Listen, Bud, I didn’t know—

  `“Shhh,” Bud said. He pointed up at the gray bitch, staring down at them from the edge of the bank.

  Then in a whimpering instant, she was gone.

  The surrounding Pines lay still and quiet. The birds and insects silenced by this strange new danger in their midst. From a bird’s-eye view, all appeared normal. Just four kids treading water in the clear blue lake below. Of course, they couldn’t leave the lake or that crazy cur licking up her piss down there would have them for supper. They were safe as long as they stayed where they were. Only problem was, the fat kid couldn’t swim for shit.

  Seeing Tubby’s difficulties, Bud said, “Let’s get up on the bank.” Realizing the wisdom in this, no one objected. Too frightened of the water, the Gray wasn’t likely to come down that sheer slope.

  Tubby crawled onto the sandy shore and collapsed face down on the grassy bank. Gasping, he turned his head towards Bud, who was helping Josie climb out, when his lunch came rushing up. It lay steaming next to his head.

  The Twinkies looked like bits and pieces of a yellow sponge, swimming in a pea green soup.

  “You all right, Ralphie?” Josie commiserated above him. She patted him on the head and smiled.

  He burped and gave her a pallid grimace in return. “Yeah, sorry about all the pu—”

  He blinked up at Josie’s wet shirt in awe, the words stolen from his gaping mouth. Golly! his mind declared in wonderment. Josie’s frigid nipples were sticking out like two cherries on an ice cream sundae. The school polo had molded around each of her sodden breasts, the cold water making the clingy material near transparent.

  Even under the circumstances, Tubby couldn’t help but gawk like a randy simpleton.

  Bud hadn’t noticed at all. He was too busy scanning the ridge over their heads “Unless that’s your dickless dog up there, he said, pointing up at the sky, “and she’s pissed at you for forgetting to feed her, I can’t see how this is your fault.” He stood up as well as he could on the near vertical bank and tried to locate the rabid animal.

  “I’ve never seen that crazy critter before in my life,” Tubby said, flopping over on his back. He managed to tear his eyes away from Josie’s chest. He wished she would do the same for him, stop looking down at him. He could just picture the pathetic sight he must’ve made—that steaming pile of green and yellow goo beside his head, his boy boobies as much on display as Josie’s magnificent mammaries. Any second and the pretty redhead would add her puke to his ponderous puddle.