There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (116 page)

He couldn’t bring himself to ask the whole question, but Josie’s state of undress, and the hand-shaped bruises forming on her neck, arms, and legs begged an honest answer. She grabbed his face until their eyes locked.

“
No
, Buddy boy,” she said, her lips trembling. “What Bill did for me down there was the most courageous thing I’ve ever seen. Now I know where you get it from.”

             
“I’m so sorry,” Bud said, crying.

“Don’t be sorry, love. Bilbo saved my life! That’s how I’ll always remember him, too.” She popped up like a Jill-in-the-box. “Oh, dear Lord!”

              “What is it, Joe?”

             
“The boys!
We’ve got to go get them!” She tried getting up but Bud held her fast. “What’re you doing? Didn’t you hear what I just said? They’re out there all alone! We’ve got to find them before it’s too late!”

             
“You stay put,” he ordered her. “I’ll gather up your things. It’s getting cloudy, and no telling what those Rabids will do if they get a little shade. Not to mention if they see you like that! You’re safer here by the water.”

             
Josie conceded the point, allowing him to leave her side. She hugged her arms across her chest and watched the greedy clouds above once more steal the precious sun.

             
                            *******

Crawling without caution into the rabbit hole, Bud glanced at his watch: 5:13. They had at most fifty minutes of good daylight left. Less, if the clouds kept building up like they were. Barring some miracle they would be coming back through the Pines after sunset. Anxious to get going, he’d left his backpack where he’d dropped it, so he had no flashlight to show the way. His Zippo was lost to him, too, lying somewhere in the alcove below. He would have to stumble his way through the—
Maybe not…

Bud could see a faint glow in the Bunker below. He remembered Josie saying how Bill had knocked the flashlight from her hand.
It must still be on.
 

             
He landed in the alcove and began looking for his father’s body. The air was thick and oppressive. Death and grief pressing down on all sides. Bud’s heart was thumping so hard he thought it might tear right through his ribs. The lump in his throat so large, it made him gasp for air. It brought back memories of that first time by his mother’s grave, alone at his insistence. He’d missed her funeral; his doctors and father didn’t think he was ready to face the truth. They were right, of course. Two months later, and he still hadn’t been ready to face the truth. That his mother was really gone. He’d cried for over three hours that day, the full enormity hitting him right there in the lonely cemetery. Mom was really dead. Now his pops was gone, too.
Déjà’ vu, baby. Déjà fuck you, too.

Bud circled the other two bodies; his eyes never straying from the sad figure, sprawled naked just inside the shelter. He slowly approached his father, afraid he might somehow disturb the old man’s rest. A rest William Beauregard Brown deserved so very much.

He couldn’t help but wonder if his dad and mom weren’t somehow,
somewhere
, together again.

As if in reply to his heart’s lonely query, he felt a sudden change in the Bunker. The air now somehow lighter,
cleaner
. The oppressive weight lifted from the room. Even the flies had at last taken their leave.

His father’s sacrifice had made this place, once more, a sanctuary
from
Evil.

Bud knelt by the old man, averting his eyes from the messy hole in Bill Brown’s head. He took the man’s still warm hand in his own. “Pop…I want you to know that Josie’s okay. She told me what you did for her. How you saved her. I’m just sorry I couldn’t do the same for you.”

He stood up and began walking away, stopping halfway to the storage room. Without turning around, he returned his father’s last earthly thought. Saying it out loud.

“I love you too, Dad. I love you, too.”

                            *******

Rusty watched the waning sun, his heart sinking with it.
Where’s Josie?
She should’ve been back here by now!

He checked his watch. 5:43. The clouds above were burning orange, the temperature dropping steadily.

Has something happened to her—

The sound of crashing underbrush broke his train of thought.
What the hell was that!? Josie?

No. The noise was too abrupt, harsh. Like a bobcat pouncing on an unsuspecting fawn in the palmettos. With dark coming on, Josie would’ve been more circumspect. He looked down at Tubby. The boy had been in-and-out of consciousness. Right now he was somewhere in-between the two planes, moaning in pain.
“Shhh, Opie. I need you to be quiet,”
Rusty said, bending over his friend.

Tubby squinted up at Rusty. He nodded his head and licked his dry lips. Rusty got his water bottle and held it up with a questioning look. Tubby’s smile came across as a grimace. Rusty put his hand under Tubby’s head and lifted it slightly so his friend could swallow without choking. After Tubby was finished, Rusty took some of the water and bathed his friend’s fevered brow.

He bent down until his lips were beside Tubby’s left ear.
“Something’s up there. Moving around.”

Tubby mouthed the question:
Joe?

Rusty frowned doubtfully.

Tubby said something else but Rusty couldn’t hear it. He bent closer until his ear was next to Ralph’s mouth.
“Thanks for staying with me, Gnat. You’re my hero.”

Rusty shrugged bashfully. For the first time in his life he’d allowed himself to be brave. In the face of all his fears, Rusty Huggins had finally weathered his storm. He’d had no idea it would be so easy! Feel so intoxicating. All these years he’d assumed that courage was a tangible thing. Something certain people had been born with; like Bud and his dad, while others, like himself, had been cursed craven cowards from birth. Nothing more than a genetic characteristic, really. Like hair, eyes, and skin. He’d never considered the idea that courage was nothing more than a choice. The decision to do the brave thing, no matter the consequences. No matter the
fear
. Courage, as he’d always assumed, wasn’t the
absence
of fear. Courage was merely a
choice
in the face of fear, a decision, by God, to
face
the fear!
Rusty had another thought on top of that.
Does this mean that Bud Brown gets scared, too? Well, fuck a damn yellow duck! Who’d a thunkit? Big Bad Bud scared…

They watched the shadows lengthen above them; listening for suspicious sounds, but after the initial disturbance the woods above were oddly still; the crickets and cicadas mute. Not a good sign, they both knew.

Rusty pointed out the wishing star, far above the boughs of the overhead pines. Evening’s creeping blanket was upon them. Neither boy saw the other lift up their heart’s desires to the silent star above, their lips moving soundless and urgent. Rusty was about to tell Tubby that they would have to spend the night, when something blocked the remaining light from up above. “Shit on a stick,” Tubby said, looking past Rusty’s head.

Rusty knew it had to be bad; Tubby was not the profane sort. He looked up and saw two red eyes staring back at him.
A shitty stick, indeed
. The Rabid shouldn’t have been able to see them, covered as they were in the sinkhole’s shadows, but see them it did. The face itself was lost in evening’s early gloom, whimpering at the sight of so much fresh blood. So nearby, yet so inaccessible.

Other Rabids quickly joined the first. First one, and then another. They circled the sinkhole; the way wolves will circle their prey, looking for an opening. The drop was too far, though, even for their manic kind.

“What’re we gonna do?” Tubby wondered aloud. No sense in whispering now.

Rusty breached his daddy’s Remington and checked the loads again. He had fired this same weapon many times, out on the
Betty Anne,
and was fairly proficient with it.

He was tempted to take the easy shot and blow apart any of the jack-o-lantern skulls peering down at them, but after some consideration, he realized that wasn’t a good idea.
No telling where all that bloody shit might end up. Probably right back in our damn faces!
No, he would just have to play it cool for now. Save his ammo in case…

Well…just in case.

“You think they’ll come down after us?” Tubby asked him. Saying what was on Rusty’s mind.

Rusty looked down at him. In the failing light, he could barely see his friend’s face. Good thing. He didn’t want Tubby to see how scared he was.

“No,” he lied, feeling ashamed. Truth was, he thought it was only a matter of time before the Rabids grew bold enough to do just that very thing.

“I hope they’re too brain damaged to figure out how to get down here,”
Tubby whispered.

Rusty sat down beside him; his legs crossed together, his shotgun held at the ready. He tried thinking of something to take their minds off their considerable worries. “Opie…you mind if I ask you something personal? I mean,
real
personal?”

Tubby tore his gaze from the red eyes circling above them. He shifted his leg by accident, and it felt like somebody just stabbed him in his shin with a steak knife.

“OWWWWWWWWW!!!”

One of the Rabids hooted like a hyena.

“Shut the fuck up! You corn holing bitch!”
Tubby raged in return.

Surprisingly enough, the Rabid did just that, ceased its hooting. Its red eyes blinked back at them stupidly.

Rusty applauded. “My
man
! You
go
boy! Tell those nasty
motherfuckers
how it is!
You hear that, you butt-licking bastards? My man here called you a corn-holing
beeyaatch!
Why don’t you monkeys take turns fucking each other, and just leave
us
the hell alone!”

“Stop it, Rusty!” Tubby said, laughing so hard now he was crying.
“Don’t make me laugh, man!
It hurts!”

“Sorry, Opie. But tell the truth and shame the devil—don’t it feel good to laugh at those assholes? To not be frightened every time we see those red eyes staring back at us? Man, I hate being scared of someone who’s too fucking dumb to wipe his own ass!”

Tubby smiled in the dark. He was still afraid, though.
Very
afraid, as the movie went. “So what’s the personal question, Gnat?

Rusty looked away from the red eyes. It was almost dark now and the damn things looked too much like monster fireflies, flitting here and there in the evening air. He didn’t want to liken such an abomination of science to one of God’s more whimsical creations. He coughed in his fist and sniffed. “Remember when we were in Bidwell’s office, getting examined by that toothy doofus?”

“How can I forget.”

“Well, what I wanted to ask…”

“Spit it out. You wondering how I got to be so fat?”

Rusty frowned. “Howzat?”

“I saw the look on your face that day, Gnat. One of disgust.” It surprised Tubby that he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. After all that he’d been through in the past 48 hours, his obesity seemed an irrelevant thing at worst.

Rusty giggled. “
Shiiitt
, man! You thought I was checking out your flabby gut and titties?”

“Well, what then?” Tubby said. He wondered if he was unaware of some other physical deficiency in his body.

“Ahh, forget it,” Rusty said, too embarrassed to pursue it any further.

“Oh, no! You can’t leave it at that! You owe me.”

“
Owe
you?”

“Damn straight, my
brother
!”

“Shhh, Opie! You want those goons to think you’re ringing the dinner bell? Besides, you talk street like Elmer Fudd. It don’t sound natural coming out your mouth.”

“Sorry, Tupac
.
But you
do
owe me. I broke your fall! Bet it was like landing on a giant marshmallow.”

“Man, I bet you hold that weak-assed shit over my head for the rest of our lives.”

“Broken leg ought to be worth something. Now give. What’s the personal question?”

“Okay, okay, but the whole thing’s been blown out of proportion now. I was just wondering, man, were you always so…
Big
...down there?”

“Junk food, extra helpings, and no self-control.
Doi!
I thought you said this wasn’t about my weight?”

Rusty rolled his eyes. He knew where Tubby was coming from, though. Tubby assumed people only saw him for his obesity, while Rusty felt sure that those same assholes only saw him for how runty he was. “It’s not your gut I’m rapping about, dummy. It’s your…”