Of Moons and Monsters

by P. T. Phronk

  Stan opened his eyes but couldn’t bring himself to look. “Probably?”

  Bloody lowered her head and raised her shoulders. A dog version of a shrug. She’d never been unable to identify someone she knew by smell before.

  “How can you not know?” Stan snapped.

  Bloody shook her head and exhaled, frustrated.

  “You should come and look, Stan. I’m seeing why she’s confused.”

  Stan approached, then finally allowed himself to look where Paul pointed his flashlight. It was the size of a body, but it wasn’t a body. Perhaps it had been, but … no, there were no body parts where they should have been. There was flesh, but it was arranged in a bunched and torn pile of sheets, not a body. The stream had washed it clean of blood, but purple veins and arteries spiderwebbed across its mottled, pale surface.

  “What is it?” Stan asked.

  “You’re askin’ me?”

  Bloody breathed heavily. Her eyes watered.

  Stan kneeled beside the terrible thing. Unconsciously, he reached for the camera he’d normally have around his neck, but it was no longer there. He’d have to take in the details himself.

  Hair—or maybe fur—covered some parts of it.

  “Could it be a dead animal? Half decomposed, missing most of its fur?” Stan asked.

  Paul kneeled beside Stan. “I’ve been called to deal with dead animals a lot. One of this job’s little perks. Once an animal gets to rotting, it’s hard to tell what it is. But it’s still shaped like an animal.”

  Stan looked for any detail that could identify it. There were wrinkles, freckles, a bulge underneath one sheet of skin. Nothing that he recognized from his mom, though. Thank God.

  “One of your missing persons?”

  Paul bit his lip. “Could be. This ain’t like the people who gone missing when we were kids, Stan. Let’s turn it over.”

  Stan’s voice was shaky. “I guess. Sure.”

  Both of them grabbed sticks. Bloody rolled her eyes as they prodded at it, trying to turn it over, but mostly just managing to move it downstream a little. It was like trying to roll over a wet sleeping bag. Dark blood streamed from jagged tears in the surface as they disrupted it.

  Finally, Paul managed to brace it while Stan flipped it.

  “Oh, man,” said Stan.

  Paul dropped his stick and wiped his hands on his pants. “Is that a bone?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Paul kneeled. “Holy crud.”

  Globules of gore surrounded a stiff gray object pointing from the mud under the fleshy mass. It resembled bone, but small valleys and pits ran lengthwise along it, and it was naturally pointed at the end.

  “I think it’s a horn,” Stan said.

  “Maybe this, uh, this thing, maybe it got stuck on a buried antler in the stream. That’s why it stopped here.”

  “Maybe,” Stan said. But the horn came free of the mud with a gentle poke from his stick, and the red stuff stuck to its wide end looked fresh.

  “What’s that beside it?” Paul asked.

  “Jesus.” Stan had to look away for a moment. “You sure you don’t know who this is, girl?”

  Bloody shook her head again, her jaw clenched tight.

  Stan poked at one of the globs, flipping it over so it became crystal clear what it was: a human ear.

  Bloody grunted sharply. She stiffened and jutted her snout in the direction of the lake.

  “Someone’s coming,” Stan whispered. Bloody sniffed the air. She pointed in one direction, then shifted her head slightly, paused, then shifted it slightly again. Stan watched her movements closely. “More than one someone,” he said.

  “Dammit. I can’t be seen here. Let’s go,” Paul said.

  “We need a sample. Paul, give me the gun so I can watch your back.”

  “You want a piece of this? You want me to take it?”

  “Paul, you’re the fucking cop here.”

  Paul shoved the shotgun into Stan’s hands, then took a handkerchief from his duty belt. From another pouch, he produced a multi-tool, then unfolded a knife from it. Stan raised an eyebrow. He knew Paul was a police officer, of course, but to actually see his timid childhood friend going all Batman with the tool belt was an odd sight.

  At least it beat the pastel-accented backpack Stan wore, which he’d found in a closet and hadn’t used since high school.

  The fog swirled. Bloody turned, her nose twitching.

  “How close?” Stan whispered to her.

  She shrugged. A crunching sound came from somewhere. With the fog and the trees and the tinkling of water, it was impossible to figure out a direction.

  Bloody was more flustered than usual. Maybe being human again had dulled her abilities. Maybe it was something else.

  Another crunch.

  “Paul, hurry.”

  “I’m trying, dangit.” He gagged as he sawed off a mushy bit of the mass.

  A sound came from down the stream, but then it was off to the side. Or was it two different sounds?

  Bloody backed away.

  “We need to go.”

  Paul wrapped the mush in his handkerchief.

  A shadow formed in the fog. Stan thought his mind was playing tricks on him again, but Bloody saw it too. She growled at the reaching silhouette.

  Heavy footsteps stomped from another direction.

  “Run!” Stan shouted. He followed Bloody as she pounced away. He thought he was going back toward his mom’s house, but after a few steps the night surrounded them and he lost sight of the stream.

  He felt a presence behind him. “Paul?”

  “I’m here,” Paul said, but he sounded far.

  Bloody’s tail bounced ahead, just within reach of the flashlight.

  The trees shivered around them. Sounds of sticks breaking and undergrowth being trampled filled the night.

  The night played tricks. Were the sounds Stan’s own footsteps or someone else’s?

  Fog seemed to surge around them.

  Paul screamed. The high-pitched sound made Stan wince.

  “Paul?”

  Nothing.

  “Paul!” Stan shouted.

  He turned around. Tangled roots and the thick air seemed to keep him from moving, but he had to help. He struggled back to where he thought he’d heard the scream, but every faded tree looked the same.

  Something hit Stan in the shoulder. He must have run into a branch.

  The flashlight glinted off two orbs ahead. Stan fumbled the light. When he aimed it at the same place again, the eyes were gone.

  A groan off to his left. “Paul!”

  He pointed the light and ran toward the sound. A silhouette formed in the fog ahead. A hunched humanoid figure, its back turned, heaving with jerky movements over top of something on the ground.

  “Pau—” Stan began, but another pair of eyes formed over the hunched figure. An object flew from the darkness and hit Stan in the head hard enough that he felt his whole skull vibrate. Then a pressure on his toes. He looked down. There was a wet, muddy rock by his foot.

  He had the shotgun, but what would he even shoot at?

  Bloody barked. She tugged at the leg of Stan’s jeans. He took a last look up, and realized the hunched figure was silhouetted by Paul’s flashlight, lying on the ground in front of it.

  Movement surged behind it. Bloody tugged so hard it hurt. Stan came to his senses, whipped around, and sprinted after Bloody, concentrating only on her tail.

  Crashing footsteps followed them, coming from every direction. A gust of cold air brought with it a damp, animal smell. Another rock sailed over Stan’s shoulder, forming swirls in the mist.

  The crashing faded as they got further. Stan kept the cold air to their backs, and the smell grew faint.

  “Where are we?” Stan asked. Ahead, Bloody stopped. She shook her head.

  There was only white where the flashlight shone, and black everywhere else. It was impossible to figure out which direction was which. They conti
nued on, but after dodging around stumps and going up and down hills, Stan suspected they were turned around back where they started. Or not.

  “We’re lost,” Stan said.

  Bloody rolled her eyes and sneered. No shit.

  “You’re supposed to be able to find anything. Just get us back to my mom’s house.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She looked around, then climbed onto a nearby log. After thinking for a moment, she hopped down, grabbed a long stick, and dragged it so it was leaning against the log. She gestured for Stan to join her.

  “You want to build a shelter? Come on, something is out there.”

  She grabbed another stick.

  “I guess you’re right, we make more noise going in circles than we do lying hidden.” He grabbed some sticks and contributed to the little lean-to. Soon there was a bundle of sticks covering just enough space for Stan and Bloody to crawl into.

  Stan lay there, pine needles sticking into his back, the shotgun beside him. Bloody crawled in onto his belly. Her breathing was fast.

  “It’ll be okay. We’ve been in tight situations before, right? We always get out,” he whispered.

  Her big brown doggy eyes looked into his, sad and scared, but they softened. She smiled, took a deep breath, and snuggled up to rest her head on his chest.

  After shutting the light off, Stan was completely blind. All he could feel was Bloody’s soft breath on his neck. All he could hear was the rustling of leaves in the trees.

  Until a wailing cry filled the night. The way it echoed from every direction at once, it was as if it came from inside Stan’s head. But Bloody’s ears twitched too. She squeezed up tighter to Stan. It came once more: WAAAHHHEEE! Like a giant tea kettle blowing off far too much steam—a cry so strange that it was unrecognizable as male or female, human or animal.

  Crunching footsteps approached fast. Rising from sleep, blinded by morning light, with only a second to react, Stan burst from the bundle of sticks he’d dozed off under. He forgot that Bloody was sleeping on top of him. She flew, waking up mid-air and failing to right her pudgy body before she hit the ground.

  Stan found himself pointing a shotgun at a moose.

  The moose, having no idea what a shotgun was, stared at him with big, dumb eyes, probably wondering why the hell he’d covered himself with sticks.

  Bloody righted herself and coughed.

  “Fuck, fuck! Sorry, girl.”

  She snorted at him, then noticed the moose. Her tail immediately started wagging uncontrollably. A happy bark escaped her lips. She always loved seeing other animals, which didn’t happen much in New York. She’d likely only put up with Stan dragging her on his crazy paparazzo missions so she could wag her tail at cows and horses as they crossed the country.

  And here was a beautiful animal, up close, its fur dotted with morning dew. The moose was taller than Stan, and made Bloody look as small as a rat. She approached with her head bowed, in a rare show of submissiveness.

  “Careful,” Stan said. Growing up, he’d heard stories of moose starting fights with cars. And winning.

  She nodded as she inched forward. The moose dipped its head to sniff the tiny dog, its antlers so big that if they snapped shut like some giant venus fly trap, they’d encompass Bloody entirely. Her little nose touched its big nose for a moment as they learned each other’s scent. Then the moose exhaled, its breath so powerful that Bloody’s fur blew back from the force of it.

  Stan watched the small moment of beauty. As the moose trotted into the fog, turning back once to acknowledge Bloody, as if saying nice to meet you, Stan forgot for a moment. He forgot that his mom was hurt and missing. He forgot that he’d abandoned Paul to who-knows-what. But realizing what he was forgetting made him remember. He winced and patted Bloody’s head.

  “Come on, girl, let’s get home.”

  5. Fear Pressure

  WITH THE MORNING SUN PROVIDING a grayish light through the fog, Stan and Bloody found the stream they’d followed the night before, and started in the opposite direction. They came across the spot where Annie had transformed into Bloody. The extra flesh she’d shed to cut down to dog-size sat in a neat pile.

  “You think that’s what we found last night?” Stan asked. “If it’s Wilcox who took Mom, well, we know he works with, you know, people like you. He could even be one. Maybe we found the leftovers of a transformation.”

  Bloody shook her head and barked softly. She walked over near the spot she’d transformed last time, and stamped out a little flat area. If she were a regular dog, it’d mean she was looking for a place to poop. But she wasn’t a regular dog, so instead she was finding a place to shift back into a human.

  Stan turned away. He had to hold his hands over his ears; he couldn’t stand to hear the cries of anguish and the odd sounds of skin stretching and bones expanding. When it was done, she washed off in the stream, then put on the clothes they’d brought along in Stan’s pastel backpack.

  “Well, we fucked that up pretty good, didn’t we?” Annie said.

  Stan turned around, nodding. “We went to find a missing person and ended up losing another one. Can you tell where Paul is?”

  “Can’t tell where anything is. When I made my brain think hard, I could tell if something was around. Get little hints. But there was no direction to it like usual. The fog was thick. Maybe it was the fog. Maybe it broke my way of smelling, same way it breaks our seeing.”

  “That’s not normal fog, then.” Stan looked back the way they’d come from, hoping Paul would pop out of the whiteness.

  “Uh huh. But anyways, more important, I need food.” She looked like shit, as she always did right after transforming; her skin hung limp and pale, and dark bags drooped under her eyes. Until she could make up the weight difference between small dog and big human, she’d be starving and weak. Annie wasn’t truly human again until she had a few cheeseburgers in her.

  She headed to the fridge as soon as they burst into Stan’s mom’s place. A bottle of mustard was the closest thing, so she grabbed it, turned it upside-down, and squeezed it into her mouth.

  “That’s disgusting,” Stan said.

  She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and slammed down the empty bottle. “Yeah? Next time it’s your turn to gain two hundred pounds without so much as a protein shake.”

  Within ten minutes, the fridge was empty except for the old beer. Stan put on a fire and tried to warm himself enough to stop shaking, though he knew it wasn’t because of the cold. Annie sat beside him and let out a prolonged burp.

  “That’s disgust—” Stan began, but was interrupted by the back door bursting open.

  The smell of crap flowed into the house, carried by a gust of cold air. Paul stood, framed in the doorway, covered in lumps of brown.

  “Okay, never mind, that is disgusting,” Stan said.

  Annie giggled. “Did you shit yourself?”

  Paul’s entire wrinkly face was curved in a frown. “I did not shit myself,” he said.

  Stan found himself caught up in Annie’s giggling. He leaned back in the couch, convulsing with laughter.

  “Are you okay?” Stan finally asked.

  “I’m fine,” Paul said.

  Stan and Annie looked at each other, and that set them off laughing again.

  Paul let out a groan. “You know what? Just tell me where the bathroom is.”

  “It’s … it’s over … it’s,” Stan tried to get it out, but he was out of air.

  Paul took off his boots. “I’ll find it myself then.”

  Seeing Paul in his mother’s flower-decorated bath robe was funny, yes, but it also brought back somber memories of Mom in it, so Stan was able to contain himself as they all sat by the fire with coffee that Paul had prepared.

  Annie blew the steam from her coffee. “The fog,” she said, “is a recent thing?”

  “We get fog this time of year, sure,” Paul said, “but just in the mornings, you know? And never that bad.”

  “Maybe it’s one of Wilco
x’s tricks,” Stan said, pacing in front of the fireplace.

  Paul gulped. “Tricks?”

  “He’s, you know, resourceful. Remember when I asked you to dig into him? And his credit records disappeared the day after you found them? He’s got friends in high places—normal places, and not-so-normal places. Vampires are more powerful than you can imagine, Paul, and he’s hunted them for a long time. He’s had to match them. Plus, he knows we killed one, so he’ll be prepared to match us.”

  Paul put down his coffee and massaged his hairless scalp.

  “Are we ready to talk about what happened last night?” Annie asked.

  Stan asked Annie for every detail of what she smelled while they are out. Her tracking skill was the one advantage they had here, but the fog was fucking with it. The blob they’d found near the lake was unfamiliar, but she detected just a hint of Wilcox around it. The sample Paul had taken was in the freezer; she would give it another look next time she transformed. When she had more time and wasn’t being attacked from every angle.

  “Someone or something really didn’t want us in the woods,” Stan said.

  Annie’s nose twitched. “Smelled like a something. I thought I got a whiff of the same thing before, when I was on the other side of town, after the crash.”

  “I didn’t get a good look at it. Or them. Was there more than one?”

  “I think so.”

  “And that wailing.” Stan winced. “It wasn’t human. Or if it was, I wish it wasn’t. I don’t know if it was the things attacking us, or something else they were attacking.”

  Paul sat in silence as they talked, chewing his lip, in his own little world.

  Bloody stared at the table. “Speaking of not human …”

  “What?” Stan asked.

  “There’s something else. I smelled it before we got too deep in the fog.”

  Stan twirled his hand in the air. “Well? What is it? Anything might help.”

  “It won’t,” she said.

  “Well we don’t have much to go on! Christ, any detail could be the thing that lets us find my—”

  “Stan, shut up. It was Dalla.”

  “What was?”

  “I smelled her. Her … her blood, coming this way fast.”