FULL MOON ISLAND

by Terry Yates

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Zora had moved up next to him and was checking out the wound for herself. He carefully ran his fingers over the bite. Yep, she was healing just like Opal, and that was a scary thought.

  “When did you start feeling better?” Zora asked Samantha.

  For a moment, Kyler wanted to ask “who’s the doctor here…”, but he resisted. First of all, she had actually shown real interest in the wound and secondly, he was smitten like a schoolboy having his first crush. Samantha looked at Kyler as if to find out if it was all right to answer her question. Kyler nodded his okay. .

  “When I woke up this morning,” she answered softly, her high voice sounding like a child’s. “I got up to go pee and all of a sudden, I notice that I didn’t hurt anymore.”

  Kyler and Zora looked at one another.

  “Well, I’m going to need to look at it every few hours today, so don’t stray too far. Maybe Dr. Millard will come back with the rescue copters and we can get him to have a look see. What do ya’ think?”

  At the sound of the words “rescue” and “copters”, everyone within earshot suddenly began to smile. As a doctor, he was never supposed to believe in vibes. They were just something that the longhaired hippies of the sixties stole from the East Indians to use to describe a good or a bad feeling. With the shit that they smoked back then, Kyler wondered if they even knew the difference. Did they have “Good Vibes”, “Bad Vibes”, “Okay Vibes”, “Better Than Yesterday Vibes,” or “Benign Indifference Vibes”? “Cosmic Vibes”, “Far Out Vibes”, “Outta Sight Vibes”, or “Pardon Me, Did You Just Fart Vibes”? He wasn’t sure, but he definitely felt a buzz in the air. It was that same feeling kids got during that last twenty minutes of the last day of school, knowing that in a short time, they would be free.

  “Okay?” Samantha answered in her sing-song voice as Kyler re-fastened her bandage.

  “Now, if you feel anything weird throughout the day, I want you to tell me, okay?

  “Okay!” she squealed, giving him a kiss on the cheek before she, Gringo, and Sylvia walked happily away. Kyler watched them for a moment.

  “You’re worried that she is going to turn out like Opal, aren’t you?” Zora asked, also watching the merry trio.

  “Yes, and I’m not sure that we can deal with two Opal’s right now. Do me a favor, please?” Kyler found himself putting his hand on her shoulder as she looked up into his eyes again. “Could you keep an eye on her for me? If she starts acting…” He was trying to find the right words without giving too much away. “Oddly…will you come get me?”

  “By oddly, do you mean that if she starts running faster than humanly possible with Gringo draped over her shoulder, I should come get you?”

  Kyler took a step backwards. “You saw that?”

  “How could I not? She passed me like I was standing still.”

  “What in God’s name was that all about?” Kyler and Zora turned around to see Potts standing behind them. “Was that the model gal that I just saw skipping around the room?”

  “That was her,” Kyler answered.

  “Oh Christ…” Potts muttered. Right then, Potts seemed less like a colonel in the army, than Kyler could ever have imagined. His clothes were rumpled and he was unshaven. Even his short hair somehow seemed to be askew.

  “My words exactly,” replied Kyler, now looking down at the both of them.

  With a sudden boom, the door flew open. It was Sam Fong. “The hurricane’s passed,” he said with a smile on his face. “It hit hard, but it looks like the majority of it skirted around us.”

  Everyone that was left in the room let out an uproarious cheer. Zora put her arms around and Kyler’s waist and hugged him, turning her head sideways and placing it against his chest. Even if she hadn’t bathed in a couple of days, her hair still smelled unbelievably sweet.

  “Well, Colonel,” he said, not wanting to disengage his body from Zora’s. “Maybe a little luck’s come our way, after all.”

  Potts gazed around the room. Kyler could see that the celebratory atmosphere was having no effect on him.

  “What is it, Colonel?” he asked, finally letting go of Zora, but still keeping a hand on her shoulder.

  “The storm may be over,” he replied, “but we still have a killer running loose outside somewhere.”

  “What makes you think he survived the hurricane?” Zora asked him.

  Potts unholstered his revolver. “Well…lessee…he’s already survived one hurricane, a plane crash, and no telling how many bullets. I’m not completely sure he can be killed, Miss LeMarque, but I’m going to find him while it’s daylight.”

  They watched as he removed the clip from his pistol, checked what ammunition was left in it, and then inserted it back into the butt of the gun.

  “I’m gonna see if it can be hurt during the daytime,” he told them matter of fact.

  With this, he walked away. Kyler and Zora continued to watch him as he walked over to the table where Hawkins still slept, even with all of the chatter going on around him. They watched as Potts shook the private’s shoulder. Hawkins didn’t even stir until Potts began to shake him hard enough to loosen his fillings.

  “Get up,” they heard him tell Hawkins. “We’re goin’ huntin’.”

  Those words seemed to jostle Hawkins awake like a cup of Cajun coffee. He sprang up from the table and, like Potts before him, checked the ammunition in his revolver.

  “Yes, Sir!” Hawkins said in that cadence that only servicemen and women can do. “What are we hunting, Sir?” he asked as he holstered his pistol.

  “We’re gonna try and kill what we couldn’t kill last night.”

  Hawkins smiled as he saluted. Anyone could tell by the expression on the young man’s face, that he wanted revenge for Gibson, Bethea, Gunderson, King, Koontz, Martinez, and more than likely, Corp. Dixon.

  “I want you, Sgt. Cohen, and even Pvt. Fulton there, to meet me in the room where we stored the weapons.

  “Fulton!” he shouted. “Fulton!”

  Like Hawkins, FranAnne had remained asleep through all of the whooping and hollering. Where it had taken Potts an eternity to awake Hawkins, FranAnne had sat up and was in half salute by the second call of her name.

  “What is it, Colonel?” she asked sliding off the table, her hair going ten different directions.

  “Let’s go,” was all that Potts told her.

  “Yes, Sir!” She hopped off of the table. Since she had slept in her boots, all she had to do was put on her cap that Hawkins had picked up off the ground the night before, and she was ready. Potts motioned for the two of them to follow him. FranAnne and Hawkins followed Potts as he walked out the door.

  “I guess I’d better go, too,” Kyler told Zora. “There might be someone out there that needs medical attention.” Feeling more and more comfortable with Zora, he patted her gently on the shoulder. “Do you think that you and Dr. O’Hearley can look after Shelly Dixon while I’m gone?”

  “Of course,” she answered him using that million-dollar smile of hers.

  “And…”

  “And keep an eye on Opal and Samantha.”

  He smiled at her one last time, and then grabbed whatever medical supplies he might need, and followed the three soldiers out of the room.

  CHAPTER 40

  Kyler, Potts, FranAnne, Sgt. Cohen, and Hawkins walked through the lobby’s two steel doors, all of them except Kyler carrying machine guns over their shoulders. As they stepped outside, the first thing that they all noticed was the sky. For the first time in three days, rain wasn’t falling from it. It was still dark and cloudy outside, but it was obvious that the second hurricane had passed…and it was obvious that there had been one. Immediately upon stepping off the porch, they had to step over two large trees that had been ripped out of the ground by their roots and blown toward the building. The ground was soaked. Mud and debris were everywhere. Three large tree trunks, a car, and a jeep had completely obliterated th
e security fence. Kyler squinted his eyes, trying to see if anyone was still in the cars, but he was still too far away and Potts had ordered them to stay behind him, until he told them otherwise.

  The cool, early morning breeze couldn’t have felt more perfect. It was cool enough to keep the summer heat off of them, but it was warm enough not to need a jacket.

  The island had looked bad enough after the previous day’s hurricane, but compared to right now, yesterday’s hurricane had been no more that a slightly gusty wind with a few sprinkles of thundershowers. Almost every inch of ground was now covered by debris. Most of what had been the roof of a house lay in front of the gates. More trees and tree limbs were lying everywhere. Kyler saw a computer terminal lying on top of a Keep Left sign. There was a guitar sticking through a fallen tree, and there was a huge bowling trophy covered in mud lying amongst a tire, a boat motor, and what had once been an old roll-top writing desk. There was even an ancient cast iron bathtub lying close to the jeep.

  “Mother of shit,” Hawkins said, breaking the silence. “I never thought anything could be as bad as what I saw yesterday, but damnation!”

  “Watch the mud,” Potts told them. “It’ll take your boot off if you aren’t careful.”

  The five of them moved silently past the area where the fence had once been. Kyler walked away from the group for a moment to check inside the car and the jeep. The car was on its side and the jeep was upside down. The car was closest to him. He tiptoed around several trees and a telephone pole there until he got to it. It was a small Subaru. The door was gone and the windshield nonexistent. Kyler made his way to the underside of the car, which was too high for him to see into. He would have to walk around to the other side of the car to check for passengers. The water on the ground was several inches deep. Thank God, they were on high ground. He slowly made his way to the other side of the car, twice almost slipping in the mud. When he got around to the front of the car, he tried to look in through the windshield. He didn’t see anyone, but they could’ve fallen across the seat or down into the floorboard. He squatted down as far as he could so that he could see through the part of the windshield that was nearest the ground. He still couldn’t see anything, not to mention that most of that area of the car was buried under the thick mud. He peered closer into the car. He would have to leave it for right now, hoping that later on he wouldn’t find out that someone had been inside the car and they had died just minutes after having been discovered buried alive…two days after the hurricane.

  He stood up, almost slipping in the mud again. He looked at the jeep and decided that there was no reason to inspect it. It lay upside down, the mud halfway up the doors. No one could’ve survived being completely buried in the mud for more than a few minutes. He hoped that both cars had simply drifted from where they had been parked when the hurricane hit. Hell, they might’ve drifted away with the first storm, and just ended up here after the second one.

  “Tell me, something, Doc. Are you gonna have to inspect every single car, truck, jeep, or tank that we come across? Potts yelled to him, still standing with the others at the former gate entrance.

  “That all depends,” he answered with a smart-assed tinge to his voice.

  “On what?”

  “On…” He couldn’t think of a good comeback. “Ah…”

  “That’s what I thought. At least try to stay with us until we get clear of this place. And try not to fall in the…”

  Before Potts could say “mud”, Kyler had begun to look like one of those Vaudeville dancers from the 30’s and 40’s that moved their arms like windmills while quickly sliding their feet in place, both forwards and backwards, their legs flying through the air, as if they were slipping on ice. Kyler looked like he had been studying their moves for years and had taken the dance to parts unknown. The soldiers couldn’t keep from smiling as he struggled to keep his balance. He had dropped his pillowcase full of medical supplies early on in the dance. Just as he seemed about to get his footing, his legs ran backwards in place a few more times before they gave in, sending the doctor flat on his back, the mud splashing out in all directions. He lay there for a moment with his legs and arms splayed out as if he were trying to make a mud angel.

  “Need some help, Doc?” Potts laughed.

  “No, I’m fine,” Kyler answered, still lying in the cold mud which was beginning to seep into his ears.

  He sat up just in time to see all four of the soldiers holding their sides in uproarious laughter. Embarrassed, he jumped up and steadied himself before reaching down and carefully retrieving the pillowcase whose whole bottom was covered in mud. He looked inside to find pretty much everything covered in the muck. Without a word, he threw the pillowcase over his shoulder and walked out of the mud hole to join the others who could not stop laughing. FranAnne was bent over letting out a sound that sounded to Kyler like a drunken cowboy “yipping” his way out of town while shooting his guns off. Potts, Cohen, and Hawkins were laughing at her as much as they were at him. Kyler couldn’t keep from smiling himself. These four had probably never laughed together at one time, so Kyler felt rather happy with himself, even though his whole backside was cold, wet, and dirty. Potts laughing had made it all worth it. He could never have imagined him laughing unless he had possibly witnessed a little old lady slip on a banana peel and fall down a manhole.

  “Where exactly are we going, Colonel?” Kyler asked.

  The question completely wiped the grin off Potts’ face, as well as the others. Kyler felt bad for having ruined the moment, but he couldn’t take it back.

  “We’re going back to the base. Maybe that thing has a homing device like a lot of animals do.”

  “What are you going to do when you find him?”

  “I told you earlier what we’re going to do. We’re going to try and kill it while…before…you know…before he turns into that thing again.”

  Kyler moved past the other three soldiers until he was in front of the colonel. “So, if you find him alive, you’re going to walk up and shoot him?

  “Or blow him up,” Potts replied, opening his coat to reveal several hand grenades. “Just like that?” Kyler asked, snapping his fingers to accentuate the question.

  “Just like that.” Potts returned the snap.

  “Is that really…honorable?” Kyler was playing to him again by using words that were popular with the armed forces. Honor. Courage. Pride. Dignity. Valor.

  “Is it any less honorable to continue to let something kill your fellow man if you’re able to stop it?” Dammit! Potts had boomeranged his question right back at him. Seeing that the doctor didn’t have an answer, Potts reached behind his back and pulled out a spare revolver. “If you’re going with us,” he said, holding the gun out to Kyler, “I want you to carry this.”

  Kyler thought for a moment, then looked behind him to see if he could see the hospital. A thick fog covered the whole horizon, the hospital nowhere to be seen, but it could be possible that the fog was just so thick that he just couldn’t see it.

  “I think I’m going to go that way,” he answered, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder. “If there’s anyone hurt, they’ll most likely be next to the town part of the beach.”

  Potts nodded as he continued to hold the gun out to Kyler. “Go ahead and take it,” he told him, “just in case you get lost or in trouble in the next few minutes, you can fire it up into the air. It’s a pretty loud piece of iron…of course, after about twenty minutes or so, we’ll be out of earshot…even for that cannon.”

  Kyler didn’t really want to take the gun, not because he was like one of the doctors on M*A*S*H, but because he just didn’t really know how to use one. He’d grown up in the city where the only people he knew to have guns were the cops and the people who made it necessary for the cops to carry them. Potts held it out further, motioning with his head for him to take it. Kyler looked over his shoulder one more time. It did look rather spooky toward town. He turned back to Potts and took the gun. Potts al
most smiled again as Kyler put it into the back of his already muddy trousers.

  “Guess I’ll see you in a little while,” Kyler told the quartet.

  “Be careful,” Sgt. Cohen said, managing a weary smile.

  “You, too.”

  The soldiers began to walk away, leaving Kyler alone.

  “Unless you hear otherwise,” Potts yelled over his shoulder, “be back before dark.”

  Kyler waved at their backs as they walked single file away from him. You really screwed up this time, Kyler thought to himself. He didn’t particularly want to go into town all by his lonesome. It already looked like someone dropped an H-Bomb right where he stood. There was no telling what the town would look like now. He didn’t get a close look at yesterday’s devastation because it was still dark and rainy, but what he saw…floating telephone poles…floating cars…floating animals, for Christ’s sake, made him think that a second hurricane wasn’t going to have been any kinder to the small village than the first one had been.

  Kyler hated mud, especially now since his whole backside and arms were covered with it…and it was cold. It was bad enough when it was wet, but he hated it worse when it was dry and would cake on his hands and fingers. He had enjoyed playing football and other sports in it when he was a kid, but now he just couldn’t stand it.

  He began walking toward No Name Village with his arms out and his legs spread far apart, with the pillowcase dangling from his hand. If he didn’t find a nice, big water puddle between here and town, the first thing he was going to do when he reached the beach, was walk right into the ocean.