There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (19 page)

Bud said it in such a flat, bored tone, that the conclusion seemed forgone. Tubby reproached himself for getting his hopes up so high. His eyes downcast, he shrugged as if it was inconsequential. “Oh…sure. I guess I can start home now. Maybe I’ll see you around. And hey, thanks again for helping me out earlier with Lester.”

He didn’t wait for a reply but turned on his heels. Beginning the long, sad trek home.

He heard Josie say something to Bud, and then she was calling him. “Hey, Ralphie! Wait up, tiger!”

He liked the way Josie O’Hara said his name. The way her full lips pursed around the
R
. When he was younger his mom used to call him Ralphie, and he’d hated it. The way
she
said it, made it sound so babyish. Coming out of Josie’s mouth, though, the name sounded somehow…roguish. Sexy, even!

She grabbed him by the arm and spun him around, her slender fingers cool on his flushed skin. “Look, Ralphie, despite what you think we’re not giving you the brush off. I’ll bet you my complete set of Stephen King first editions that by this time tomorrow you’ll be
a
Cree
p
.”

“Gee, Josie. You really mean it?”

“Sure I mean it! But you’ve got to understand, love. We’ve never considered another person for membership before. And believe me, not including me own brother, who asks me
every
damn day, there’ve been plenty who’ve tried. Bud’s very particular. To be honest, Rusty and I were shocked that he even invited you out here today. He’s never done that before either! Even so, we’ve got to give everyone a chance to have their say.”

“You mean…”

“Well, yeah. If anyone says no, then…

Josie saw the dejection on his face and quickly put in: “Hey, you
know
my
vote, and it was Bud’s idea to bring you up for membership in the first place. So…”

“So…it’s up to Rusty?”

“Uh-huh. Personally, I think you’re a shoo-in.”

Tubby watched Josie rush back to her friends. The three of them convened for a moment more, and then one-by-one they dropped down into the so-called bunker.

Tubby stood there, his mouth gaping open like a moron.
Jiminy Christmas!
There really is some sort of fort down there! What a tough place for a clubhouse!

He turned and made his way back along the edge of the lake, the same way they’d journeyed. In front of him, a brown rabbit hopped across the narrow path. It paused to look up at Tubby, and then in a tan flash it disappeared into the forest beyond. Apparently, in a big hurry.

Late! I’m late! For a very important date!

Tubby laughed. If ever there was a
Wonderland
, it had to be right here on this weird little island.

Then like the tardy rabbit itself, Tubby disappeared into the waiting forest.

The Pines seemed much quieter than before. When he was with the others, hadn’t there been the constant hum of crickets in the background? Birds chirping in the trees? In the distance Tubby could hear a thrumming sound. Mechanical like. Coming from the western edge of the lake, before the forest turned to swamp.

Through a green screen of lofty limbs, he could just make out a facility of some sort. Metal pipes going every which way. A humming, felt more than heard.

“Huh. That must be the water treatment plant over there. Well, at least I won’t be drinking a glass of water with a green loogey floating in it!”

Since he had a few hours to kill before he could go home, Tubby decided to do a little exploring on his own. First he needed to tend to his grumbling belly.
The rumbly in his tumbly
, as his mother liked to say during snack time.

The sun was bright and the air so hot he could see waves of heat shimmering in the still afternoon air. Hard to believe Halloween wasn’t much more than two weeks away. He wondered if th
e
Creep
s
still went Trick or Treating. Last year he’d gone as Frankenstein’s monster and had lived to regret it.

The memory came back in a cold rush…

Chuck Rowell, a neighborhood bully who’d tormented him mercilessly back in Atlanta, had caught Tubby on his way home with a sack full of candy and a First Place ribbon he’d won for the best costume at the school’s annual Monster Mash. Chuck had heisted his swollen pillowcase, blew his nose on Tubby’s blue ribbon, and for good measure had yanked the rubber bolts off Tubby’s neck. He still had the scars there to remind him.

He remembered walking home empty-handed, his neck bleeding on either side, his blue ribbon dripping snot, thinking to himself:
Will it always be thus?

Back in the piney wilds of Moon Island, Tubby found himself answering that question.
Maybe not, Ralph. Maybe fat boys like you can be happy, too…

Maybe. Just maybe…

                       
*******

According to Bud, The Bunker, as he called it, was actually the last remnant of an observatory/radio tower dating back to the early 40’s when the military occupied much of Moon Island as a lookout for German U-boats. Before America entered the fray it wasn’t
that uncommon to spy German submarines trolling the Atlantic Seaboard, in search of supply vessels bound for desperate England. After the war the Army used the north end of the island for maneuvers before eventually leasing it out to the plainly named Research Center. Rumor had it the Center was a testing facility for biological weapons, although there had never been any evidence to bear out that conclusion. The Center had its own docks on the north end, and, according to Jessie Huggins who’d visited the facility on one long-ago occasion, was entirely self-sufficient and well maintained. It didn’t matter, either, that the elder Huggins had passed away several years ago; his word still held serious sway among the citizens of Moon, and therefore the caretakers of the Center went about their business largely ignored and unchallenged. Islanders still referred to the Center as the Army Base, but in fact the last real vestige of the Army’s presence on the island was the curious old bomb shelter that th
e
Creep
s
had made their own.

             
It lay hidden underneath the rubble of the old observation tower, on what was the highest point of elevation on the whole island. Graffiti tagged the sections of cement on every flat surface, some dating back to 1957, when the departing Army felled the tower.

             
Rusty could find his father’s and Mr. O’Hara’s initials with his eyes closed. Josie too, for that matter. He had often seen her running her hands over her daddy’s name, trying to steal a piece of him back. It was a mystery to Josie and Rusty both, how their fathers (back when these woods had been
their
playground) never discovered the bomb shelter underneath the rubble. Bud didn’t see it that way. He felt the Bunker was waiting for
him
and him alone to first uncover it—even if he never voiced that odd notion out loud.
My friends think I’m loopy enough as it is.

Built underneath the sturdy slab foundation of the tower, back in the days of McCarthy and the Big Red Menace, the Bunker had withstood the blast of the dynamite, which had so completely taken out the tower itself. Bud had been by himself the day he discovered it, poking around, looking for spent casings and any other Army trash he could find, when he noticed a deep fissure underneath a large and long slab of concrete. Without stopping to consider the dangers of crawling around underneath all that rubble, Bud wriggled his way down into the dark hole. Beer cans, wine bottles, wrinkled condoms, and cigarette butts littered the dusty ground.

For two generations, teens hanging out at the lake had used the cavity as a dump, which might also explain why no one had bothered to explore it any further.

Luckily for Bud and his friends, Lizard Lake had years ago lost its allure to their so-called peers. Now most of the teenagers on Moon liked to hang out at the South End beach on weekends, at a place called the Circle Jerk, where Mr. Huggins allowed them to maintain a campfire. For that reason, and because most Mooners were superstitious about the Pines, th
e
Creep
s
had the lake and the vast woods virtually to themselves.

A few days after his discovery Bud showed Josie and Rusty what he’d uncovered out by the lake. Together, the three of them widened what they christened the Rabbit Hole, while at the same time shoring it up and better concealing it. Unless you knew what you were looking for, you could now stare right at the entrance without even knowing it! You entered the hideaway by crawling in on all fours. Like a rabbit. Certainly preferable to sliding in on one’s belly, which they’d had to do before enlarging the tunnel access. Once you crawled past that opening, you made a sharp right-hand turn in the dark. A clever switchback the kids had devised to further camouflage the entryway. Then a fifteen-foot slide down a smooth, cylindrical concrete pipe brought you down into an antechamber th
e
Creep
s
called the alcove. Before the blast put it on a slant, the hollow shaft had been a ladder-well (it still had the rungs on one side), leading down into the Bunker’s antechamber.

             
Because of the significant lip on the ladder-well there was little danger of falling down the shaft unawares. The demolition of the tower had regretfully taken out the hatch of the ladder-well. Otherwise, the Bunker would’ve suited Bud’s purposes
perfectly
. He said it was probably overhead, caught up somewhere in all that other rubble.

To exit the Bunker you simply used the ladder-rungs to pull yourself up and out of the well. Because of their placement, it was a little awkward at first—not much different, though, than climbing up the backside of a jungle gym; just took some practice and upper arm strength.

Rusty made the corner and then proceeded to bump his head against the switchback. “Fuck a duck!” It was his favorite profanity and he used it as frequently as possible, sometimes adding
rubber
or even
yellow duck
should the occasion call for that particular emphasis.

The darkness fell on him at once. His heartbeat quickened and a clammy sweat broke out on his forehead. Once again, claustrophobia had grabbed Rusty by his tiny balls. Confined spaces scared him spitless. He preferred the clubhouse on top of the wax museum—though he’d never confided as much to his friends. They were already too aware of some of his other phobias. Dogs, bullies, and the dark, just to name a few. Rusty was a coward at heart, and that was of course no secret at all. Besides, he knew that Bud preferred this stupid hole in the ground to the museum rooftop. Josie once told him that Bud would often camp out here by himself in the Bunker—something Rusty wouldn’t have done on a million dollar bet.

He could hear his friend ahead of him, sliding down into the alcove. Rusty lifted his legs over the lip and tucked his head down so he wouldn’t hit it on the overhead rungs. The dark slide down, as always, seemed to take forever.

Once in the alcove he stayed put until Bud fired up a few candles. With the stuttering light came relief.

Rusty felt the weight of the underground room ease up on his chest. They were below ground level now and could stand all the way up, the ceiling being a few inches above Bud’s head at this point.

Josie almost slid into the back of Rusty’s legs.

“Outta the way, Gnat! Didn’t Betty Anne teach you not to play in traffic? What a maroon.”

“There ain’t no traffic on Moon, you ditzy redhead,” he said, stepping into the light.

The portal to the Bunker itself looked very much like an old bank vault. Not at all what you’d expect of a small air raid shelter. But then again, this wasn’t a backyard bunker, built by some Nervous Ned from the 1950’s. Back when nuclear war seemed so imminent. This was the real deal, built by an Army to save the highest-ranking officers on this lonely island outpost. The one-foot-thick steel door was cylindrical in shape and looked nigh impregnable. Several steel bolts (about the width of Popeye’s forearms) lined the length of this monstrosity. A large hand crank, which looked sort of like a Captain’s wheel, occupied the middle section. Spin it clockwise, you extended the locking bolts; spin it counter-clockwise, and the heavy bolts retracted, allowing you (hopefully) to leave the Bunker.

Rusty had his doubts.

Looped loosely around the spokes of this iron wheel was a short heavy chain, from which also a hefty combination padlock dangled unlatched. Josie and Rusty never questioned its purpose. One day, like so many items in the Bunker, it was just there. Several cinder blocks propped open this impressive monolith. Rusty had put them there many moons ago, fearing the door would otherwise close of its own accord and seal them underground. Bud liked to dog him about that, but Rusty didn’t let it bother him. Except for the three of them, nobody knew about this place. If that damn door closed, this concrete crypt could very well be their final resting place. 

Bud stepped into the Bunker.

Long and narrow, the Bunker’s walls, floor, and ceiling had been constructed of concrete and countless strands of reinforcing rebar. Poking out from the middle of this depressing gray ceiling was an exhaust vent. It was twice as long and wide as a normal cooling vent, and brought air in and out (the Bunker was never stuffy), though Bud had yet to find its outside source. He thought it was probably somewhere in that pile of rubble over their heads. Thankfully the demolition hadn’t crushed or blocked its crucial access. A small living space occupied the front half. It contained an old couch, two flanking stuffed chairs—all of which were leaking their padding—and a scarred but sturdy ‘50’s era coffee table.