There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (126 page)

Despite how glorious it felt to be out of their cinder block coffin, and despite the fresh air, sunshine, and the rustling of the golden leaves, Josie felt something was strangely amiss. She almost had her finger on it when Tubby limped out of the rabbit hole behind her. She went over to help him to his feet. They would need to fashion some crutches for him before they could be on their way.

“Gee whiz, it’s good to get out of there,” he said, adjusting the shotgun he’d slung across his back. He studied the serene lake and surrounding woods and felt no danger in the air.

Josie nodded, catching his exact same thought. “Yeah. I feel it, too. So far, so good, huh?”

Rusty crawled out next and stood beside them, brushing off the dirt from his khakis, the hem of which hovered two inches above his shoes.
If Buddy boy were here, he’d bust my balls for wearing high waters.

The world was quiet and still. No one said a word as they looked about, wondering what on earth they should do next. Rusty made the decision by kneeling and praying, as his parents had taught him to do in moments of gratitude or grief, both of which he was feeling now. Josie helped Tubby to his knees and the three of them gave thanks to God. Thanks for their survival—and for those who hadn’t. They prayed for the world. These three, who had been to hell and back. Now, more than ever, it was important to believe in the essence of something
Good
. Something
Right
. Something that in the end would claim victory over the Darkness. Something that would now allow them to live out the rest of their lives in relative peace.

Like the beleaguered Job, they’d had enough.

They were halfway through the Pines when Rusty stopped dead in his tracks. The revelation was so obvious they all wondered at not seeing it right from the start.

“Where’s all the stiffs?” he said.

Tubby, who was slowly taking up the rear, using his makeshift crutches to get along, wheezed, “How’s that?”

Josie turned and stared at Rusty. “Aye! You’re right! What happened to all the Rabids we killed that night? The woods should be littered with their feckin’ bones!”

Tubby pulled the shotgun from his back. He wondered if the corpses lie hidden in the green carpet of palmettos and ferns, all around them, waiting until some fresh new horror could awaken them.

“Come to think of it, doesn’t this trail look as if it’s been cleared of storm debris? Look!” Ralph shouted, pointing at the furrowed sand, right in front of them. “Look at all the dadgum rake marks! They’re
everywhere
!”

They were indeed furrows left by a rake, or more likely
rakes
. And like Tubby said, they were all over the trail! The kids huddled over the straight lines, as if an alien race had left them just for
them
, intent on communication.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Rusty spat on the ground, just like Bud used to do.

“We’re not alone here,” Tubby replied softly.

Josie shrugged apathetically. “Let’s just hope it isn’t the military then. Either way, I’m tired of hiding. Whoever it was, we have them to thank for disposing of the dead bodies. That wasn’t a chore I was looking forward to.”

“Josie, if it was the Army—”

“One step at a time, Ralphie. First, let’s find out
who
it is…then we’ll decide on what to do about it.”

They traveled slowly through the forest, listening for telltale sounds, allowing Tubby to go at his own pace. The curious thing was, despite the huge amount of work done (the disposing of the bodies and the clearing of the Old Oyster Trail), they couldn't hear anything resembling nearby humanity. At least the birds had returned.

The trees were alive with their cheerful song, the avian choir endeavoring to drown out the lesser chorus of crickets and tree frogs. It was wonderful to hear those happy harmonies again. If nothing else, it meant the old danger was no longer creeping about.

    Their journey halfway done, Josie crouched behind a splintered stump, looking out at Main Street, Rusty and Tubby right behind her. Tubby leaned his homemade crutches on the stump and tried to catch his breath. Despite his weight loss, he was in his worse shape ever; his muscles atrophied, his wind all but gone. Panting, he wiped his forehead and looked out onto an empty street.

Well, not quite empty. There was still evidence of Hurricane Jack’s visit littering the roadway. Broken storefront windows, and the odd car or truck flipped over on its side. The Wilky’s sailboat was still in the middle of the street. The same storm debris from before.

Not
everything
was the same. Although he remained in the middle of the street, rusting away in the elements, someone had set Robbie back on his feet. The Tin Man, waiting for Dorothy to come along with an oilcan.

Now
that
was odd. If the military had taken the time to clear a path through the woods, then why not clear Main Street as well? It didn’t make much sense.

A cool wind blew down the lonely avenue, moaning balefully in the open windows. A multi-colored newspaper page drifted ghostily up the dirt lane. As it drew nigh, Josie snatched it out of the air and checked the date.

“October thirty first,” she said, reading it aloud. “Halloween.” It was the front page of a
U.S.A Today.

     MUTANT RABIES VIRUS SPREADING OUT OF CONTROL!

              NO CURE IN SIGHT! TIME RUNNING OUT!

Underneath the blaring headline, a color-coded map of the world showed the disease’s expansion, an angry red tide spreading across the entire globe. The elements had faded most of the crimson ink into a pink blush. Josie didn’t bother reading any further details. They’d lived with the virus for way too long as it was.
She didn’t stop to wonder how the newspaper had made its way to the island, either, but let it drop to the ground, where an updraft picked it up and carried it on its haunted journey.

“Maybe they’ve left the island,” Tubby said, rubbing his aching leg.

“My guess is it was the
Army
cleaning up their mess,” Rusty said. “Getting rid of all the stiffs and evidence, making sure that
Ground Zero
was Rabid free. And once they were done, they left Moon Island for the lizards to reclaim.”

“Yeah!” Tubby said, snapping his fingers. “And they cleared the Old Oyster Trail of storm debris so they could more easily cart away the corpses!” He grabbed a hold of this comforting theory like a security blanket. He didn’t want wish to contemplate otherwise.  

“Maybe,” Josie said, not really caring at this point. She got up from behind the stump and left the Pines, stepping boldly onto Main Street. Tubby and Rusty followed close behind. She sniffed the air. “But if nobody’s here…then why do I smell something burning?”

They followed the acrid scent, passing the fire-scarred storefronts along the way. The wind funneled through the shattered windows, sounding a mournful dirge. They journeyed past the skeletal remains of the Town Hall Building, the Firehouse burned to its bloodstained concrete pad, to the very edge of the Town Hall Lane hardtop, where it ran into the sands of the South Side Beach.

As they drew closer to the ocean, the smell became thicker. More noxious.

The first to set foot on the beach, Josie turned and exchanged knowing looks with her friends. No one said a word. They all recognized the aroma simmering
beneath
the smoke: the smell of roasting human flesh. “So that’s what happened to all the dead bodies,”
Josie said.

Tubby’s leg was paining him something awful now. The soft sand wasn’t making it any easier on him, either. His crutches couldn’t find any solid purchase.

“Let’s make for firm wet sand,” Rusty said, lending Tubby a helping hand. “Below the high tide mark over there. Opie ain’t gonna get very far on this soft sugar sand.”

They found firmer footing and continued slowly towards the thick gray column of smoke, further north. The seagulls had returned to Moon and had reclaimed the beach. They squawked and hopped about in annoyance, as the three kids waded through their blustery midst.

Rusty was glad to see them back. Their salty shrieks reminded him of his dad, out on the shrimp boat, sailing into the setting sun. The seagulls surrounding the
Betty Anne,
like a halo made of wings.

Rusty toed off his sneakers and let the gentle tide lap over his hot, sore feet. The gentle tumble of the surf made him feel as if everything was going to be all right now. That like the predictable tides, their lives might once again know a peaceful, if yet monotonous routine.

Looking out at the water, he rubbed the silver porpoise between his fingers and made a wish. Nothing stirred on the shimmering sea. No sails or working masts, even though it was a good day for shrimpin’.

A dolphin broke the surface several yards out, and Rusty’s breath caught in his throat. The smiling dolphin seemed to stare right at him. Another dolphin joined the first, their sleek wet heads side-by-side above the water, both of them staring back at the slim boy on the beach.

Then they were gone, with nary a splash or sound.

Rusty Huggins nodded his head.

Further up the beach, Josie pointed at the horizon. “Look! The Coast Guard’s gone.”

“Probably took off weeks ago. Especially if they thought there weren’t any survivors left here.” Ralph looked over his shoulder, wondering why Rusty had fallen so far behind. Rusty had the most peaceful look on his face over there, staring out at the open sea, a beautiful smile upon his lips. Tubby opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it with a snap. Disturbing that kind of reverie would’ve been like interrupting a child’s prayer.

Rusty wiped his eyes and rejoined his two friends.

The closer they got to the smoke, the closer their suspicions became fact. It was the old Circle Jerk fire-pit, enlarged to encompass the approximate length and width of a football field. A sprawling mound of ashes and bones began at the top of the beach, where the sand dunes flattened out, and continued all the way down to the high-tide mark, where the ocean pulled away at the burning bodies. Foraging crabs and crows were in the midst of a great feast. The sea and its denizens had nothing to fear of rabies. And yet the seagulls, carrions of the first order, kept their distance from the infected corpses.
Curious
. 

Tire tracks ran from the mound of ashes and into the thin strip of scrub pines and palmetto trees, which shielded the back end of Main Street and Huggins Way.

“That’s where they came and went to dump the bodies,” Rusty pointed out. He felt Tubby poke him in the ribs. He looked over to see Josie silently crying.

“He’s in there, you know,” she said, letting the tears fall unchecked. “Bud, I mean. I didn’t think I wanted to see his body after all this time, but now…I don’t know. I never got to say goodbye.” It hit her that, like her father, she wouldn’t be able to give her Bud a decent burial.

That train…it took everything I ever cared about. Everything I ever loved. Aye, it can have me too, now.

They stood there for a while longer, staring at the final resting spot of so many of their friends and neighbors. People they knew and loved. Some they didn’t like at all. And not one of them deserving of this fate. Like the old black and white pictures of the open ovens at the Nazi Death Camps, it all seemed so unreal. The smoke was coming from deep within the pile of ashes.

Rusty pointed out that the last fire set could have been days ago. “It’s not putting out much heat anymore,” he said, testing the air in front of the pyre with his hands. “The military must’ve moved on up the coast.” He turned to Josie, now wiping her face dry. “All right there, Joe?”

It was a question Rusty and Bud must have put to Josie a thousand times before, and always she’d replied in the same affirmative manner:
Aye! All right!

Not so, this time. “No,” Josie said, shaking her head. “No, Rusty. I’m not all right.”

They left the smoldering ashes behind them and continued up the beach without further discussion. It was an unspoken decision among the three. An instinctive choice on their part, for it was in that direction which their homes lie. Why they’d chosen the beach to get there seemed unimportant, even though Huggins Way would’ve been the quicker route. After being stuck underground for two months, they were in no hurry to leave the great outdoors. In single file, they walked alongside a tall wooden fence, blocking their view of the other side.

In the middle of the fence-line, four great big poles rose nakedly up into the sky, stripped forever of their glorious movie screen. Tubby stopped to peek through a knothole in the fence. The grass had once again overtaken the empty lot. It was as if he and his family had never even lived there. The pretty yellow house peeking over the fence looked so forlorn and empty. Storm shutters still covered the windows, reflecting the suns rays, reminding Tubby of a dead man with shiny coins on his eyes. To keep the eyes of the corpse from popping open. This was one particular corpse they’d let lie in peace. They would not be taking up residence here, or lifting the coins from its eyes. 

He rejoined his friends and they resumed their slow journey. They were in for a surprise when they rounded the bend, and started down the crescent shaped beach of Crater Cove. Josie looked up at the high bluff and gasped.