There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (31 page)

             
“Oh, I’m interested! And the money doesn’t matter. Like Bud said, I want to be a filmmaker someday. And what better way to start on that path than being a projectionist! Tarantino used to work at a video library, you know. Shit, this beats the hell out of that!”

             
“That’s great! You and I working together…what’s wrong, Rusty? Why the long face? ”

             
“My old man. I don’t think he’ll let me quit the shrimp boat. He’s got it in his head I’m gonna take over the family biz someday. And I
hate
the smell of shrimp!”

             
Tubby sighed sympathetically. He was going through the same thing with his dad. He loved working at the movie theater, but his path lay elsewhere. “I don’t suppose that charm you worked on my mom, works on your pop, huh?”

             
“Nah,” Rusty shook his head. “Parents are always immune to their own kid’s bullshit.”

             
“Yeah, I’m beginning to see that,” said Tubby. Suddenly he smiled. Earlier Rusty had helped him out; now he had an idea on how to return the favor. “I’ll get my father to call your dad. Don’t worry about it, Gnat. He’ll fix things. He’s like you…good at smoothing things over.”

             
Rusty shrugged. “I suppose it can’t hurt.”

             
Tubby changed the subject to something he’d been wondering about ever since Bud brought it up earlier. “Uh, Rusty…if it’s not too much to ask…what exactly happened to Bud Brown’s mother?”

             
Rusty wondered if he could put Tubby’s question off until Josie could answer it better. She knew how to be more tactful about such things. Rusty didn’t want to say anything that might hurt Bud. Then again, if he told Tubby he didn’t want to talk about it, wouldn’t that only further validate his insecure notion that he didn’t belong?

             
He came to a halt and gave Tubby a hard look.

             
Tubby paled. “Hey, listen…it’s none of my business. I’m sorry I even asked.”

             
“You’re right. It ain’t none of your business. Just like it’s none of
my
business. Or even Josie’s business. It’s
nobody’s
got-damn business! But since you’re Bud’s friend…you
are
Buddy boy’s friend, ain’t you, Tubs?”

             
Tubby looked down at his sneakers. “I don’t know much about being, or even
having
a friend, Rusty. All I can tell you is this: None of you guys know how grateful I am to you for helping me out today.
Especially
Bud Brown. You don’t have to tell me a thing. But if you do, I promise I would
never
use that information to hurt him.”

             
Rusty reached out to pat Tubby on the shoulder. “I don’t mean to come off so melodramatic…but dude, this
is
some melodramatic shit. So don’t take this the wrong way; I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, but I wouldn’t be a friend to Bud, or to
you
, if I didn’t say this right out loud. If you do hurt Buddy boy with what I’m about to say…then you and I are through as amigos. Got it?”

             
“I understand,” said Tubby, wishing he’d never brought it up at all. “Really though, I don’t want to know anymore. Let’s just forget the whole thing.”

             
“I’d like nothing more. But the fact is, once some of the kids around town find out you’re one of us, they’ll tell you anyway…and their
version
is grade-A
boolshit!
”

             
“All right, Rusty. So tell me the grade-A truth.”

             
Rusty continued slowly up the street. Tubby wobbled along, remaining silent as his new friend gathered his thoughts. Night had fallen hard on Moon Island, the moon and stars above muted somehow. An ideal setting for a scary story—thunder and lightning, the only elements missing. Way off to their left, they could hear the surf shushing ashore at Crater Cove. To their right, the Pines loomed tall and dark, like the ramparts of a medieval castle. The street lamps spotlighted the dirt road up ahead, every twenty-five yards, as the boys drifted into town. Crickets chirping and the soft patter of bugs knocking themselves senseless against the sodium-arcs made the quiet seem all the more unsettling. The night seemed so forbidding that Tubby nearly jumped out of his skin when Rusty began the sad, sordid tale…

             
                        *******

“Oh, sweet Sonny Jesus,” Tubby lamented afterwards. He had never heard anything so awful in all his life. Not in a book. Not in a movie. Not even in his worst nightmares.

              As they walked underneath a buzzing street lamp, Tubby turned to see if Rusty might not be having him on, although for the life of him, he couldn’t see how anyone, except maybe Lester Noonan, would think such a story amusing. If Rusty was pulling his leg he was one heck of an actor. In fact, Gnat looked queasy and gray.

             
As if the tale had poisoned him somehow. 

             
They walked along in solemn silence, leaving Huggins Way behind them, stopping in front of Moon Man’s display window. Robby the Robot had a closed sign hanging from one mechanical claw. The display graph, where Robby’s mouth was, showed ragged lines, jumping high and low, as the robot snored away in sleep mode.

             
Tubby was looking right through the robot, though, seeing an altogether different scene in the window…

             
Mrs. Brown’s severed head, tossed cruelly into the air, again and again, like some loop of film running endlessly through a projector…

             
Her eyes open and blinking…

             
Criminy!
What a creepshow!

             
He knew he was in for some wicked dreams. Despite that, he was too curious to leave it alone. There were some gaping holes in Rusty’s story that needed filling.

             
“Where did Mrs. Brown get killed? In the house…right there with Bud?”

             
“No. The killer caught her in the parking lot of the Academy. Back then the Browns lived on the West Side. In Reva Heights. Named after my grandmoms. I think their house was almost eight miles from the school. That’s why she didn’t just walk home. Mrs. Brown was the President of the PTA, and she was the last to leave the school that night. As I recall I was sick, so my mom, who was the V.P., missed that meeting.” Rusty shivered, and Tubby could tell his friend was thinking:
There but for the grace of God…

“The next morning they found evidence of her murder in the parking lot; right where her car had been parked according to witnesses. Huge pool of blood, Ralph. So huge, there was little doubt as to where she’d expired.”

              “But why’d the killer go to all that trouble to take her…her
head
back to her home? It doesn’t make any sense. And how did he even know where she lived?”

             
“Crazy doesn’t have to make sense, Tubby. It does what it damn well pleases. They found her car up the block from the Brown residence. Mrs. Brown’s nude body…what was left of it…was sitting up in the passenger seat, strapped in with the seat belt. Her hands in her lap. All prim and proper. Listen to this shit…the nut job was so insane he carried her head from the car, all the way up to her house. Plain as day for anybody to see!”

             
“Yeah? How do you know that?”

             
“Because of the drops of blood! A blind man could’ve followed that blood trail down the road…

             
“Drip. Drip. Drip,” Rusty sighed.

             
“Oh, dear Jesus,” Tubby lamented again.

             
“Her driver’s license was found in the car with his bloody fingerprints all over it. That’s how he got her address. No one knows why he went there. To kill the whole Brown family was the consensus. For whatever reason, when he discovered that nine-year-old Bud Brown was the only one home that night, I guess he thought it would be more fun to scar a little kid for the rest of his life. He opened the door to the house with her keys and left them in the lock, where Bud’s dad found them the next day, still sticky with his wife’s blood.”

“You mean…” Tubby couldn’t finish the sentence. It was too awful to say out loud.

“That’s right. Bud was by himself all night long with his mother’s head in his lap. It wasn’t till his dad came home that morning…about six a.m.…that the alarm went out. By then it was too late. The killer was smoke in the wind. Bud had screamed so loud, and for so long, he wasn’t able to speak above a whisper for another three months.”

“Is that why his voice is so raspy?”

“I think it fits Bud to a tee. Like Dirty Harry.”

“Oh, God, the poor kid.” Tubby wasn’t kidding. It was such a sad tale he felt like crying for the guy.

“I know. Messed up, ain’t it?”

Tubby nodded sickly. “So they never found out who did it, even with the fingerprints?”

              “No. The killer wasn’t in any system, and despite the DNA they had from the semen—”

“Oh, no, Rusty! You mean he…” Tubby looked around before whispering it. “
Raped
her?”

A tear rolled down Rusty’s face. “Every which way, I’m afraid. Bilbo, being an ex-cop, makes sure the prints are run every month or so. The DNA checked against any new felons. He and the sheriff tracked the Red Eyed Man, as Bud calls him, into the Pines, where the trail fizzled out. Rupert closed the case. Said the killer must’ve drowned in the swamp or broken his neck in some sinkhole. Or just plain escaped. Bud didn’t get a good look at him anyway. He was too fucked up to be of much help.”

              “Who wouldn’t be? You know what it reminds me of, Gnat? That part about the guy’s shiny red eyes?”

             
Rusty’s eyes widened, a light switching on in his head. “Fuck a damn duck! That gray bitch today!”

             
“I wonder if they’re connected somehow.”

             
Rusty shook his head. “I don’t see how. Unless…”

             
“Unless what?” Tubby asked, wondering at the sudden fear in his friend’s eyes.

“Unless it has something to do with the Center.”

                           ******* 

Bud and Josie were almost out of the Pines when something rustled in the brush alongside them. The pair stopped as if frozen. Bud didn’t need to ask Josie if she’d heard it, too. Whatever it was, it was a creature of some weight, unconcerned with a stealthy approach.

              They could hear the patter of drool, dripping onto the ground. Branches cracking underfoot. The sound of a nose. Sniffing and snuffling. Seeking them out.

Bud felt Josie shiver beside him as he withdrew his .38.
“Keep walking,”
he whispered, tugging her along by the hand.
“Don’t show any fear. He’ll smell it on you.”

             
“He’ll smell it on me regardless, Bud! Shoot the damn thing!
Even if you miss, maybe it’ll scare him away!”

             
“Can’t take the chance, Red. This peashooter only has six rounds.”
Bud marveled at his incompetence. Walking out here in the dark, forgetting the damn flashlight, and taken his least powerful weapon!

             
Through the trees ahead, they could now make out the streetlamps on Huggins Way. Bud felt as if he could reach out and touch them. He had a feeling that once they made it back to the road they’d be safe. Like Home Base in hide-and-go-seek. The agitated animal seemed to have the same notion. They could hear it scurrying ahead of them, trying to cut them off. It didn’t take long, either.

             
The creature jumped directly on the path in front of them, twenty feet away. Bud pulled Josie behind him. Even though it was too dark to see it, there was little doubt as to the animal’s species. The rumbly wet growl was all too familiar. The fiery eyes dispelled all remaining doubts.

             
They glowed in the dark!

             
“Oh, Bud!”

             
“Shhh, Joe. Don’t excite it any further.”

             
Bud raised his gun and aimed it between those ruby red lights. His hand was trembling and he worried he wouldn’t be able to hit the animal before it was all over them. There was precious little space between him and the rabid dog. If he was lucky, he’d have time for one clean shot. Bud couldn't make out anything of the animal itself.

             
Just the spectral eyes, moving side to side…

             
A memory came to Bud of that long ago night...