Of Moons and Monsters

by P. T. Phronk

  Something in Annie’s brain responded to the smell of blood and the promise of finally catching her prey. Her claws grew longer and fur sprouted from more places. Wilcox swiped at her, but the bullets lodged in his brain must have slowed his reflexes.

  Bloody tore until it was muscle and viscera flying in addition to skin and fur.

  Wilcox managed to squirm away, up onto the table where he’d met with Stan and John. If he managed to gain the upper ground and heal for just a moment, they’d all be dead.

  The window shattered.

  “Not again,” Bree said.

  Linda crashed through the window and dragged Wilcox backwards by the scruff of his neck. She flipped him onto his back, then drove her head down, pinning him to the table with her antlers. With thick stakes of bone driven through both arms and his head wedged against Linda’s, the wolf was as powerless to move as she had been in his school laboratory. As Bloody had been when he assaulted her by the church.

  So Bloody kept tearing away, until his hind legs were on the floor, and his belly was shredded to nothing, spilling squirming loops of intestine.

  Finally, he stopped moving.

  Bloody caught her breath, turned around, then inhaled to let something clever spill out of her mouth: one of those metaphors she was getting so good at, or maybe even a compliment for Bree.

  But Mike was giving her that look again. That you’re dripping with blood and just did something horrible look. Then his gaze focused behind her and he shifted to his oh shit! look.

  A wet slopping sound overtook the dripping from the table. Wilcox squirmed away from Linda’s antler prison. Except … Wilcox was also still pinned to the table.

  A pink thing fell away from Wilcox’s shredded husk, and splatted at Bloody’s feet. At first she thought it was more guts, but then it started to crawl.

  It was Wilcox—the man, without the wolf. A naked, pink human the size of a toddler, but with long, stick-like arms and legs. He’d started transforming while she was tearing the wolf apart, and this was about as far as he got. Bloody could picture this happening inside her when she transformed—the human part growing, spreading, absorbing the canine parts to fuel itself, until the human was all that was left. Except Wilcox had been forcibly denied that last stage, leaving only this malformed fetus.

  It looked up at her, fear in its pale blue eyes. She snatched it up and held it by the neck. The thing’s face was Wilcox’s face exactly, except smaller and more wrinkled. It even had his beard. Its spidery arms were too weak to fight back, flailing uselessly.

  Bloody looked back at Mike. She felt like she needed him for this. Was this too far? Was this decision animal or human?

  Mike nodded, gave his yes, it’s necessary face, then looked away.

  “Do it,” the fetus said.

  Bloody ended it.

  She thought she’d have felt unhinged happiness when Wilcox was dead, after all he’d put her through. Instead, she felt only everyday satisfaction. Like checking off another box on her shopping list.

  Linda snorted and let out a whinny that somehow expressed joy. She removed her antlers from the table, then turned to rejoin the commotion outside. When Bloody joined her, she saw the reason for celebration: Stan was back.

  28. Disturbing Behavior

  THEY EMBRACED. STAN HUGGED BLOODY, then Linda’s snout wedged between them, and even Mike reached over to pat each of them on the back.

  “Whatcha got there?” Stan asked, pointing to the thing in her hand.

  Bloody held up the tiny head that she’d ripped from Wilcox. “He’s dead. I’m keeping this to make sure it sticks this time.”

  “That’s … Wilcox? Wh—why is it so small?”

  “It’s a werewolf thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Stan felt dozens of eyes staring at him. The crowd seemed to be waiting for him and Bloody to say something, with expressions of horror and hope in equal measure. With her comforting clawed hand on his back, Stan climbed the steps of Town Hall, where the standoff between Miriam’s shaggs and Joey Bussichio seemed to have cooled off a bit.

  They turned to face the crowd. “He’s gone,” Stan said. “He got what he came for. I think. So he went away.” The crowd continued to stare. He felt his face turn hot. This was like that school play, in ninth grade, when he forgot his lines and froze up, mortified by his own memory betraying him. And just like that time, he spotted his mom near the back of the crowd. With her calm eyes encouraging him and a subtle nod of her antlers, he was back on track. “The man I just met with isn’t a demon. He’s a person, like all of us here. Not an ordinary person, but someone who feels love and hate like any of us, and when you were told he was a demon, that only fueled your hate. Your fear. All so another person could manipulate you.”

  Bloody cleared her throat. “That other person, by the way, is dead, also.” She held up Wilcox’s tiny wrinkled head. “Don’t ask. But it’s him. Dead. Whatever promises he made you? Probably not gonna happen now.”

  Gasps floated up from the crowd, especially from the group of shaggs near the back that had been following the leather-clad leader. Joey continued to look like he wanted to kill every single one of them, his nostrils flared the size of marbles.

  Stan continued. “So we’ve got nothing to fight over. Show’s over, go home, clean up, let’s go back to our little lives, our laws, our families, our homes.”

  Everyone seemed to want him to say more, but Stan was done, so he limped down the steps, and Bloody followed. They passed Paul on the way, in his stiff red sheriff’s uniform. “I’ll take it from here,” Paul said.

  “Thanks, Paul.” He hugged his old friend, tears in his eyes. Others around them whispered Paul’s name, questioning if it was really him behind the mask.

  “It’s me,” he said, gagging for a moment on the water running into his lungs before finding his voice again. “Not quite human any more, but still the sheriff, for now.

  “Thank God you’re back from the dead,” Stan said. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. Look at this place.”

  “We’ll clean it up. Starting with Joey. But you did throw ‘laws’ into your little speech there, so you two better get out of here before those start being enforced.”

  So as Paul put handcuffs on Joey, causing his followers to half-heartedly protest, and the shaggs to start scattering before the law was applied to them too, not to mention the sun coming up and cooking them, Stan left, heading back to the lodge to pack up and leave this town forever.

  On her way out, Bloody caught up with Bree. She was surveying the damage to the front of Tweed’s, checking if the window frame was as wonky as the first time it had been crashed through, when Stan had swerved his car into it.

  “Sorry about that. Again,” Bloody said.

  “Wha! What a day. That wolf there probably would’ve eaten me if you hadn’t come along, so I should be thanking you.”

  “Meh, let’s just call it even.”

  Bree kicked at a brick that had been knocked loose from the diner. She was trying not to look at Stan, but her eyes flicked up at him, giving her thoughts away. Stupidly, irrationally, Bloody still felt a pang of anger just because Bree had the audacity to look at Stan. “Even, then,” Bree said.

  “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, rebuilding this town,” Bloody said.

  Bree watched her husband being stuffed into a police cruiser, red-faced and screaming at the officers who had finally shown up. “Me?”

  Linda stood just ahead of them, where Miriam was trying to communicate with her. Her ears perked up and she looked over when she noticed them talking. “Yeah,” Bloody said. “I don’t know how all the city politics shit works, but I know that at some time, Stan liked you, and I know Linda liked you. So you’ve got something to you. And with Joey there in jail, I’m guessing you’re the richest, most powerful gal in town now. You can use that to shift this place into something better.”

  Linda nodded. “Linda approves,” Bloody said. “Didn’t she used to hel
p run this town?”

  “Wait, that’s Linda?” Bree asked, her voice suddenly panicky.

  Bloody chuckled.

  Miriam approached. “We’ll help. This day was like a dam breaking, releasing pressure. We Qallupilluit can find ways to assist in rebuilding, in exchange for peace, and some forgiveness running in both directions for what has occurred the past several weeks.”

  Bree looked like she was about to pass out, but she started talking with Miriam about the specifics of turning the town around, giving Bloody and Linda a chance to slip away. They joined Stan, then wordlessly limped back through the town, past all the shattered windows, crashed cars, and dead bodies.

  She looked for Mike, but he had slipped without anybody noticing—being noticed was something he was always good at not doing. She had a feeling he’d again be avoiding the world of people and monsters for a while. Which sounded like a great fucking plan.

  “Stop the car!” Annie shouted.

  They were leaving town from the opposite end they’d come in, as if this whole nightmare had happened as they were passing through, in one end and out the other. At that other end, Ducks Bar sat, looking even worse than usual.

  Annie got out and ran toward the man smoking outside the splintered door. Stan watched from behind the new windshield of his car, which Paul had helped him get fixed up quickly. Paul would also help get Linda to New York discreetly—something that wouldn’t be easy with her new size and weight.

  The man smoking outside of Ducks looked uneasy. He dropped his cigarette and stomped it out, as if getting ready to run. But then Annie grabbed him gently by the waist, pushed him against the dusty stucco wall, and kissed him.

  Dean Shaw was one of those guys whose name Stan knew, and who he recognized when he saw around, but wasn’t sure if he’d ever really met. Now, stupidly, irrationally, Stan hated him more than anybody else.

  The kiss seemed to last for an agonizing minute, then they spent an even worse minute staring into each other's eyes, not saying anything, but seeming to communicate with raw feelings alone.

  Stan looked away. “It’s not all about me,” he whispered to himself. His eyes stung.

  Annie returned to the passenger seat and slammed the door. “You all right buddy?” she asked.

  Stan put on a smile. “I’m just so happy to be getting out of this God damn town,” he said.

  “You and me both,” she said, rolling down the window to stick her head out and let her gray-streaked hair wave in the breeze. “It’s over, Stan! We did it!”

  As they flew up the highway, Stan thought about what John said: spend time with your mother. Get to know your friends better. “It’s over!” he shouted, turning on the radio to Annie’s rock station. He pretended the tears streaming from the corner of his eyes were from the wind whipping through the open windows. That wind pushed at his hand when he stuck it outside, but his bandages held tight, and he still had his middle finger, which he raised in salute to the town of Newbury.

  (FOUR)

  ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER TOWN CONVERTED. Except this one felt different.

  It only took minutes for John to retrace Wilcox’s steps and find the cave under the waterfall. Wilcox, for all his faults, was a clever experimenter. John could feel his own blood all around him; it was in many of the shaggs that had descended from him over the years, in vampires that stalked the woods and hid themselves from the world of humans, and in odd masses that he couldn’t recognize—part-animal things that Wilcox had crafted out of the raw materials of blood and bone.

  There were symbols on the walls designed to keep John away from this place, but their patterns were designed to leave an exception for the shaggs, and when Wilcox created the wards, he failed to realize they all shared the same blood. So that trick didn’t work.

  Then there was the fog trick. John had never seen that one before either. He found globs of waxy white gunk smeared down the cave’s wall. He scooped some of it into his hand. More raw materials sat in boxes, tanks, and Tupperware around the cave.

  A member of his bloodline approached from behind. More were coming.

  “Welcome, welcome, welcome!” John said as shaggs joined him in the cave. “Have a seat, there’s plenty of room.”

  The shaggs that lined the cave all wore leather, and they were all from the same family, all descended from John himself. The one they deferred to—their leader—was the woman whose lover had been killed by Joey Bussichio. Her followers jumped from the pool of water in the middle of the room, then set up their gas masks and water tanks so they could join the meeting on dry land.

  John looked from the water tanks, to the boxes lining the room, to the gob of wax in his hand. He tossed it into the stream, where it bubbled and created fog that began to fill the cave like a sauna.

  “This fog allows you to walk in the daylight?” John asked.

  “Yes,” the lead shagg said. “Among other purposes, Mr. Neville said. It also kept the location of this sacred place hidden to the dog woman.”

  “Nifty,” John said. He stared at the water tanks that allowed the shaggs to walk on dry land. These sad creatures in buttfrick nowhere had managed to shrug off nearly every curse placed upon them. “Wilcox was clever, and he did much for you, I’m sure. But he was not kind. I am kind, a real nice guy, and I can do much more for you. I can create a world for you where your reality can catch up with your imagination. Will you follow me there? Are you ready for this journey?”

  The shaggs discussed the proposition amongst themselves and asked John questions, which he answered honestly. Because even as he realized what often came out of his mouth sounded like bull crap, he believed in it. He believed in a better world for his bloodline—at least those who were still alive.

  The shaggs quickly came to believe what he believed. So they gathered around and linked arms in a tradition that was foreign to John, but that he quickly caught on to and played along with. After a set of prayers in a funny language, the kneeling shaggs chanted words more familiar:

  “All hail the demon. All hail the demon. All hail the demon!”

  “Shucks, guys, thanks,” John said. “I really don’t need unwavering religious devotion, but can you do just one thing for me? Can you help me move some boxes?”

  29. Reprise

  3 MONTHS LATER

  EXISTING OUTSIDE of reality had its perks, but the drawbacks were a bitch. Dalla’s New York mansion could not be seen from the outside except by people who already knew it existed, and even then, only in mirrors. That made it hard to receive deliveries or get contractors to do work on the place.

  It took another dream consultation with Morgan to find someone willing and able to knock out a few walls and install a few window, opening the place up and letting some sunshine in. With the dark corners illuminated, it looked less like a vampire’s dungeon and more like a place for humans. They’d shifted it.

  Was it inhabited by humans though? The open-concept layout gave Linda some room to move around, but her antlers would still knock over Dalla’s knick-knacks and occasionally leave gouges in the walls, so she spent a lot of her time in the basement, hanging out with the horrible hairless creatures down there.

  Annie was human most of the time, but constantly itched to shift into something more comfortable. She’d mounted Wilcox’s tiny head on a piece of wood and hung it on the wall, to remind her of the wrong way to be a werewolf.

  Stan? Well, he had the blood of a few different vampires running through his circulatory system, but he’d managed to stay frail and human.

  He sat on the couch by the fire with his head in Annie’s lap. He’d grown a beard in the past two months, and stroking it seemed to calm Annie down, keeping Bloody inside.

  “Cheese?” Annie asked.

  Stan nodded and sat up.

  She plucked a cube of cheese from the coffee table and handed it to Stan. He fumbled it before he could pop it into his mouth, dropping it to the worn wooden floor.

  “Five second rule,” he
said before picking it up and eating it before his hands had a chance to shake again. It tasted fine. The floor hadn’t had a chance to transform it. He washed it down with a swig of beer.

  Stan lay back down. Annie stroked his scraggly beard, which had several new gray hairs in it. She watched birds flitting around outside the window, instinctively turning to avoid coming near the mansion.

  “Will I ever turn back into who I was?” Stan asked.

  “Is this more of your philosophical bullshit? Can’t you just enjoy being what you are? We don’t have anything trying to kill us, so just eating cheese and existing is fine by me.” She popped two cubes of cheddar into her mouth.

  Stan remembered his conversation with John, high above the world. He never told anybody else about that little talk.

  Linda came up from the basement and nudged the door closed behind her. She joined Stan and Annie in the living room, lying on the floor in front of the fire. Maybe Annie was right. This was fine. Linda was learning to control her mostly-canine vocal cords to communicate, and only craved animal blood. She could even be cured, if Morgan was able to do anything with the notes and materials that Paul sent over from Wilcox’s workshop in the school—but not from the cave, because somebody else had cleared that hideout.

  Annie was fine. Even if she turned into a dog once in a while, fully or halfway, it didn’t do much harm other than having a mess to clean up.

  Even Stan could be fine. If he kept himself awake and distracted, he didn’t have too many flashbacks to torturing shaggs and watching his mother get torn apart. And his mangled hand stopped shaking after only a few drinks.

  He watched the birds outside the window, enjoying the fact that they could fly, not concerned with all the luxuries of human life in New York City below them.

  Something else moved behind the birds.