FULL MOON ISLAND

by Terry Yates

  He turned the lights off, but left the door open. Personally, he liked the room to be as black as the devil’s ass when he slept, but he would bet his last quarter that most of the people in the room, himself included, wanted that light shining through. As he turned to walk to his cot, he saw that Zack was now lying down. He wasn’t under the covers, but at least he was resting. Kyler figured that he’d doze off soon with as little sleep as he’d had in the last three days. He saw that Samantha was still sitting in the chair, looking up at the television screen, which was now snowy without a DVD running. He watched as her head moved back and forth as if she were actually watching something on the screen.

  He walked over to his cot, which was next to Zora’s, sat down, and looked at the woman whose rhythmic breathing told him that she was fast asleep. He watched her face in the dark and wondered, like Zack with his father, what she was dreaming about. He wondered if maybe he was in there somewhere. Probably not, he tried to convince himself, but she had kissed him earlier that day when he had been covered in filth. He doubted that it was some sort of fetish with her…kissing men covered in raw sewage and mud, so maybe he did have a chance with her. He wanted to reach over and kiss her on the cheek, but he didn’t have the nerve, so he just slipped off his shoes. He wasn’t sure that was a good idea, because you never knew on this island, when you would have to jump up and run for your life. He took them off anyway, because his feet just hurt too much. He hadn’t noticed it till now, but they were throbbing. He could feel them pulsating. He would have to look for a bigger pair of shoes tomorrow, but for now, all he wanted to do was sleep.

  He took one last look at Samantha, whose head was still moving back and forth as if she were reading some invisible subtitles. The pain in his back and neck, and on his head reminded him of their encounter in the commissary kitchen. He couldn’t get the smell of the raw meat that had been in her hair out of his mind. He knew that he should probably go and check her out for injuries or trauma, but after their encounter, there was no way he was going to touch her…at least tonight anyway.

  He pulled back the covers and slipped his feet and legs under them and then lay down on his back. He pulled the pillow up under his head, and then pulled the covers up to his chest. He folded his arms across his chest and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what the next day was going to bring. Would they be rescued, or was Potts right in thinking that maybe the Army was going to leave them to their own devices? Most of the islanders had been rescued. Surely, they would want to return home and at least see if anything was salvageable. Several hundred people aren’t going to be quiet about not being able to return to their homes. They would bend the politicians’ ears until something had to be done. Of course, they would be rescued. It was stupid to think that they wouldn’t. This wasn’t a movie like Three Days of the Condor, Capricorn One, or the X-Files, where the government is plotting something and eliminating everyone who knows anything about it. It couldn’t be that easy to pull off something like that. You couldn’t just kill hundreds of people without someone knowing about it, or someone involved saying something, either because of conscious or self-preservation. There would be too many people involved for someone not to come forward. He smiled at the thought…until he remembered what Potts had said about the government not letting one hand know what the other was doing. Maybe everyone is a cog in the machine and don’t realize what the ultimate goal of their job is. Maybe they think they’re doing something extremely mundane, while in reality, they’re wreaking havoc without even knowing it. Normally these scenarios would keep him awake all night, but he hadn’t been lying there for more than three minutes before he fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 60

  Normally when Kyler, or anyone else for that matter, was extremely exhausted and sleep deprived, they seldom remembered their dreams, but Kyler slept fitfully that night. He had dreamt that he awoke to find Samantha Gould standing over him. Her eyes were yellow and she was sniffing him like she had done in the kitchen. Her hot breath was blowing against his neck.

  “I want to eat you up,” she had hissed into his ear.

  The next thing he knew, he had bolted up in bed with his hand out as if to shield himself from her, but she wasn’t there. His heart was pumping faster than normal and he could feel cold sweat running down his forehead. He thought that he might’ve screamed himself awake, but he looked around and saw that no one on their cots had stirred. The light was still on in the hallway so he could see everyone plainly. He looked over at Zora who didn’t look like she had moved since she had fallen asleep.

  He lay back on his hands and turned his head to the ceiling, taking in large gulps of breath to slow down his heart rate. After a moment, he turned his head to the front of the room where he could see that the television was still on, it’s snowy white light flickering and the sound making that hissing sound that all TVs make when there’s no station available. He sat up a little more to see if Samantha was still watching the blank screen. She was. Her head was still moving back and forth as if she was reading. He watched her for a moment wondering what was going on in that head of hers. If she’d been looking up at that screen for the last couple of hours, then she must have a crick the size of St. Louis in her neck. Before he could even finish that thought, he noticed that her head had stopped moving and she had lowered it to eye level. He knew it…a crick in the neck. But she didn’t rub her neck or even stretch it. She simply continued to look straight ahead. After a moment, her head began to slowly turn around. He’d half expected it to turn completely around like in The Exorcist, but it didn’t. She put her arm on the back of the chair and swiveled her body around and looked right at him. It was everything he could do not to fall back down on the bed and yank the covers up over his head like a five-year-old that had seen the jacket that was hanging in his open closet door, transform itself into the boogeyman.

  When their eyes met, she smiled at him, chilling his insides like ice. Did she know that he had dreamt about her sniffing him while she slept…or had she really done it? Now he was beginning to feel more like a three-year-old whose jacket in the open closet had turned into the boogeyman, which was even scarier. The two of them played stare down for a few more seconds before she turned back to the TV…and without saying, “They’re here”, in a little girl sing-song voice, which is what he had expected. He lay back down on the cot and stared at the ceiling again for a few more seconds, his whole body shaking now. Then…like a three-year old whose jacket in the open closet had turned into the boogeyman…he pulled the covers up over his head.

  CHAPTER 61

  “Wake up, Doctor Kyler!” someone whispered loudly. “Wake up!”

  Kyler felt someone shaking him.

  “Richard!”

  Kyler pulled himself awake, not sure where or who he was.

  “Hey!”

  There was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. He looked up to find FranAnne standing over him, shaking him.

  “Wha…?” Kyler said loudly.

  “Shhh…” FranAnne put her hands to her lips.

  “What is it?” Kyler whispered, sitting up.

  “I’ve got to show you something,” she told him, bending down on one knee in front of him.

  Kyler nodded and swung his feet off the side of the bed, and looked around. Everyone was asleep, including Samantha.

  “What time is it?” he asked softly.

  “A little after six.”

  “Daylight?” he asked.

  FranAnne nodded and stood up as Kyler slipped his shoes back on. She motioned for him to follow her. He yawned once, and then turned around to see if Zora was awake. Nope. She still hadn’t moved. He would’ve been worried about her, but he could see that she was breathing, so he could relax. He could see FranAnne’s silhouette waiting for him in the doorway, the hallway light almost blinding his sleep deprived eyes. He tiptoed around cot after cot until he was out in the corridor, following FranAnne down the hallway.

  “What is it, FranAnne?” h
e asked trying to keep up with the fast walking private.

  “It’s down here,” she answered.

  “What’s going on?” he asked in a more demanding tone.

  She was silent as he finally caught up with her. They rounded hallway after hallway, making right and left turns so fast that Kyler couldn’t keep up with them. He hadn’t been this direction before. He’d only gone to the shower, the laundry room, and that little hallway where they’d found Shelly trying to walk through the wall.

  “By rights or by protocol, I should be showing this to Col. Potts first,” said FranAnne, finally breaking the silence. “But I couldn’t find him, and I figured it was just as important for you to see it first as anyone…you know, since you’re a doctor.”

  “See what, FranAnne? Where are we going?”

  “As it got closer to daylight, I got braver and braver, and widened my perimeter hoping that the werewolf had turned back into…well, whoever it was. So, I kept going further and further until I was almost lost. And then…”

  FranAnne stopped in front of a closed door, and held her hand out.

  “This…”

  Kyler looked at her for a moment. He could see that she had dark circles around her eyes. She stood silently waiting for him to open the door. He moved to the door, put his hand on the metal doorknob and opened it. He had to look around for a moment, not sure what he was supposed to be looking for. He slowly peeked his head around the corner. There, sprawled on the floor, lay who he guessed to be Opal Munn. He wasn’t exactly sure because the body was on its stomach and the head was turned away from him, but it was a naked elderly female with long, white hair that was lying haphazardly over most of the back. He saw marks of all kind over the buttocks and the back of the legs, one of which was twisted almost completely off.

  “Opal Munn?” he asked, looking back at FranAnne who slowly nodded.

  Kyler quickly moved to her side and bent down next to her. Her eyes were open in a lifeless stare. As he turned her over he could see that her face and neck had purple marks all over it. As he rolled her on her back, her head lolled to the side away from him. Her chest was covered with the purple marks and he saw what looked to be stab wounds on her shoulder blades and neck.

  “Doctor?”

  “Yes?” Kyler answered, looking up and FranAnne.

  “Have you looked at her legs?” she asked him.

  Kyler took her by the shoulders and turned her back over. He moved down to her legs. The twisted leg stayed turned over, the foot facing downward. There were bite marks all over her legs, some so bad that large chunks of flesh had been torn away.

  “Damn, I guess it got her,” he said.

  “Doctor? Those bites are small.”

  “Vicious, though. They almost look like dog…”

  He couldn’t finish the sentence, for the sudden realization of what had actually happened hit him so hard that he thought he might wretch.

  “Opal?” he asked, his voice cracking.

  “Yes. The white hair, the twisted leg…”

  “The bite marks, the bullet marks, and the knife marks.”

  Kyler wiped his mouth. This frail little old lady had been a six and a half foot werewolf only the night before. She had killed her own grandson…torn him in half, and ate his flesh. Kyler plopped down on his butt.

  “Potts was right,” he said. “There were two of them.”

  “I guess I’ll go and get Col Potts now, she said.

  “That won’t be necessary, Private Fulton.”

  They both turned their heads to see Potts, Cohen, and Hawkins standing in the doorway.

  “Colonel, I…”

  “Stow it, Private,” he said walking toward them.

  Kyler almost found it amusing that such a die-hard army veteran would use a nautical term.

  “Don’t take it out on her, Col…”

  “So the old lady was the werewolf, huh?” he said, ignoring Kyler, and looking almost smug at having been right.

  “Looks like you were right,” Kyler answered, standing up.

  “It must be an age thing,” Potts said, staring down at Opal.

  “What do you mean?” Kyler asked him.

  “She’s dead, and we put a hell of a lot more firepower into our guy than you did to her, and here she is stone dead while our guy got away.”

  Potts was right. Kyler heard Nicholas Klefka tell him that there were ways to kill him, but he wouldn’t tell him how. Of course, he knew that beheading worked, but Opal hadn’t been beheaded. She’d been shot and stabbed and bitten, the same as Klefka had been two nights ago, and from what Potts told him, last night as well.

  “What do we do?” he asked Potts.

  “I don’t know about you, Doctor,” answered, grimacing at Opal’s dead body. “But we’re going hunting for your burn victim now that we know for sure that they can be killed.”

  Kyler saw the soldiers’ faces drop. None of them had slept and they looked ragged. Kyler figured that spending the night looking for something that loves to kill, but is hard to kill in return, would rag out even the most hardened veteran.

  “Where are you going to look?” Kyler asked him.

  “We’ll probably start in town this time,” Potts answered.

  Potts grimaced again as he looked at Opal’s naked body.

  “There’s enough loose skin there to start a shar-pei farm,” he said before turning to the soldiers. “Go grab some ammo and meet me at the elevator. The three saluted and ran out of the room.

  “What are you gonna do?” Potts asked Kyler now that the two were alone.

  “The first thing I’m going to do, Colonel, is to go tell the others.”

  He waited for Potts to order him not to, but Potts simply turned around and began to walk to the door.

  “Go ahead. It doesn’t matter much now,” he said as he walked through the open doorway.

  CHAPTER 62

  Kyler followed Potts, Cohen, FranAnne, and Hawkins out the front door just as he did the morning before, but Potts had already warned him that he wouldn’t be giving him another gun to lose. When Potts had asked him why he was going with them again, he lied and said that he was going to see if he could find some more medicine after having dropped so much of it in the mud. No one even thought to mention the fact that just that morning, Zora and Ariella O’Hearley found a room adjacent to the infirmary that was chock full of pharmaceuticals. He wouldn’t have to break open any more vials and hope for the best. But Kyler had another reason for going. He needed to check something out, and he needed Nicholas Klefka to do it…if he was alive. Who knows, maybe they did kill him last night and he crawled off to die somewhere, but if not, then Kyler was going to try to talk to him again. Something about Opal had puzzled him, but he wasn’t sure what.

  He followed them down the hill and past the grassy spot where he had seen Klefka. It was sunny and mild, but the landscape would tell anyone that there had been not one, but two hurricanes blow through there. Debris was still strewn everywhere and he had to watch where he was going. He was almost surprised to still see the jet sitting out in the now calm and extremely blue ocean.

  As they made their way down the hill, Kyler stopped. The others walked a good twenty yards before one of them turned around and spotted him just standing there. They all stopped and looked at him.

  “What are you doing?” Potts asked him.

  Kyler felt dumb because he was just standing there with his arms at his side, looking stupidly at them.

  “I…uh…” he started. “I’ve got to pee…yeah…pee. You go on without me. I’ll catch up.”

  Without a word, Potts turned around and began walking toward town. The other three waved at him, and then quickly fell in behind Potts.

  As soon as they were out of sight, he walked back up the slope where he had talked to Klefka. When he got to the top, he started looking in the weeds, most of which were still flattened from the wind and the rain.

  “Are you out here?” he whispered, whi
le searching through what grass was still standing. “Klefka…Nicholas…are you out here?”

  He got no answer, but continued to search.

  “Nicholas, are you out here? I need to talk to you. Nicholas!” He grabbed his mouth, realizing how loud he had yelled the man’s name. “Nicholas!” he whispered.

  Kyler continued to search the area.

  “Come on, Nicholas. It’s important. We’ve got to talk.”

  Kyler reached into his pocket and pulled out two plastic vials and shook them like a pair maracas. He somehow felt like he was in a Clive Barker directed “Tic-Tac” commercial.

  “I’ve got medicine,” he said, continuing to shake the vials. “I’ve got aspirin and morphine this time, Buddy. Nicholas!”

  He continued to shake the vials and call Klefka’s name. As he was about to give up and move along, he thought he heard a voice. He stopped still, closed his eyes and listened.

  “Nicholas?” he whispered softly.

  “Over here.”

  The voice was soft and faint, but it still startled Kyler. He hadn’t really expected him to be there at all after having called his name so many times.

  “Nicholas? Where are you?”

  “Over here,” the weak voice responded.

  Kyler moved into the direction that he thought he had heard the voice come from. He stepped over what looked to be like an old medicine cabinet, the mirror cracked and broken, and moved toward a large pile of debris that was surrounded by high grass. A small, bent tree that had weathered the storm stood about five or six feet from the pile of debris. Under the tree, Kyler saw Nicholas Klefka sitting on the ground, his back and head resting against the trunk of the tree. He was facing the ocean, so all that Kyler could see of him was his left profile. Even from twenty-five feet away, the doctor could tell that the man had suffered a long night. He was completely naked this time, so Kyler could see that his whole left side was covered with the purple bruises that the bullets left on his body. His hands were lying limply on his chest as if he were doing a cheap impersonation of a praying mantis.