There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (46 page)

Bud pulled the .38 from the pocket of his shorts and aimed right between the chimpanzee’s eyes. Suddenly her head disappeared in a cloud of pink and red mist, coinciding with a report from a firearm.

The ape, with nothing left above its shoulders now, fell to the ground like a sack of spuds.

Bud looked curiously at the revolver in his hand, doubting his own senses. The safety was still on. Realizing they weren’t the only humans in the area, Bud shoved the gun back into his shorts. He turned to Tubby and helped him stand up. The sounds of pursuit seemed to be coming from all around. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he urged his wheezing friend.

Tubby couldn’t speak. He simply nodded.

“I got it, sir!”
shouted a voice close by in the thicket.
“A clean head shot!”

Another voice answered the first, off to the boy’s left somewhere.
“Cutter, have you got a visual yet on who screamed?”

“Negative, sir! He’s on the run! I think he was attacked by the chimp!”

Tubby watched helplessly as Bud spun about in a circle, looking for a way out, when his friend’s face lit up.

I hope you know what you’re doing
, Tubby thought, as Bud led him away through the brush to their immediate right. Bud didn’t seem concerned with the noise they were making, either.

“I hear him!”
shouted the first voice again.

             
From the south a third voice entered the fray:
“Don’t let him get away! He might be infected!”

Tubby realized they might actually be in serious trouble. Bud didn’t pause in their headlong rush through the shrubbery. A bullet sizzled somewhere over their heads, followed by another whizzing wasp.

“Stop where you are! We’re only trying to help! It’s urgent that you stop right now!”

“I think there’s more than one, sir!”

“Fuck! If they’re infected—!”

“Stand down! I order you to halt at once!”

The crashing of the underbrush behind Tubby was getting louder; their pursuers no more than twenty yards behind them now. Another bullet whined nearby. So close, he could feel it whistle by. It thunked into the trunk of a pine tree right in front of Bud, exploding chunks of brown bark into the air. Bud juked to the left, leading Tubby into an even thicker stand of brush.

He pushed down on Tubby’s back, instructing him to stay low. They now proceeded at a much more cautious pace, trying not to disturb the fauna about them.

“Cutter, for god’s sake, man, put a cork in that damn rifle!” shouted the second voice, very close now. Almost on top of them. “It’s only a couple a kids!”

             
Tubby knew that if he stood up out of the palmetto bushes, he’d be face-to-face with their pursuers. Was this Bud’s idea of a good hiding place? If so, it wouldn’t take long before they found them, cowering in the groundcover like frightened fawns. Bud crawled to a stop, and so did Tubby. The bushes were too thick for them to see what the men looked like, but there were at least three of them.

             
They’d come to a halt as well, panting heavily in the breathless humidity. They squeaked when they moved. As if they had on bio/hazard suits. Like the ones they wore at the Center or any Michael Crichton movie.

             
“Listen up, boys! We know you’re around here somewhere! Why don’t you stop wasting our time and come on out. Despite this idiot who fired at you, you have my word we’re not going to hurt you.
Cutter!
Is the fucking safety on that weapon engaged?”

“Yes, sir,” came the abashed reply.

“Keep it that way. See, boys? We’re only here to help you. Did that chimp injure either of you?
Boys
?”

From their hiding place, they heard the man curse under his breath.
“Stupid little shits!
Well, what’re you waiting for, assholes?
Find them!”

Then the whisking sound of blades, threshing the vegetation all about them…

Bud looked over at Tubby and smiled as if he was having the time of his life. He held a finger to his lips and gestured with his head. Tubby managed to acknowledge the smile. Despite the eager blades, so near by, Bud didn’t seem at all concerned. He moved his head enough for Tubby to see their unlikely salvation.

.
                            *******

“What do you think we should do, Joe?”

Rusty had somewhat regained his composure. More for her sake than his own. Josie wiped her tear-stained face on her arm. “We have to go after the boys; find them before the sheriff does. If Rupert finds that weapon on Bud…”

Rusty scratched his head. “The trick is, looking like you got some damn good reason for being out in the woods. Not suspicious…like our clueless friends out there.”

Seeing the wisdom in this, Josie pondered their next move. She heard her brother in the lobby, calling out to her and Rusty, wondering where they were. At once, she knew what to do. Josie opened the box office door and rushed over to her brother, ignoring the offered coat. “Joel, go get me your fishing pole and tackle box.”

“You going fishing, Joe?”

“No, tiger. But I need to look like I am.”

             
                            *******

Bud and Tubby crawled over on their bellies to the yawning black hole before them. It had a diameter of about five feet, and was only God knows how deep. Behind them, their pursuers were chopping away at their stand of groundcover, closing in with each second. Tubby, however, was more scared of the sinkhole than he was of the men with their machetes and squeaking rubber suits.

             
What if it’s bottomless? A deep cavern, falling away into that midnight river of the Floridian Aquifer, far, far beneath this sunny topsoil. What a forsaken death that would be!
Before he could contemplate further, Bud was sliding headfirst into the black depths. At least no drawn-out death wail followed his entry.

             
Tubby took a deep breath and dropped into the void, right behind his friend. He felt himself slide, for what felt like a very long time, before coming to a stop at what he prayed was the bottom.
Yes! A
dry
sandy bottom!

             
He looked up, and the sight of the blue sky far above the gaping fissure made him want to weep out loud. Bud grabbed him by the top part of his arm and pulled him into the humid gloom. Tubby was loath to leave that ragged sphere of light, but was even more unwilling to lose sight of his friend. The smell of rich soil was thick in his nose, and the roots of various trees and plants clutched at him like skeletal fingers. He followed Bud underneath a root-draped overhang, until they had to crawl once again on their bellies. To Tubby, it seemed they had gone beyond the dimensions of the sinkhole.

“Watch where you’re going, Cutter! There’s a sinkhole right in front of you!”

“Fuck me! Suppose that’s where the kids went?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“You have
got
to be kidding me, boss.”

“Well, that’s where
I
would go.”

“They found us, Bud!”
Tubby whispered.

The overhang narrowed until Ralph was sure he’d end up getting stuck. Plugged, like Winnie the Pooh in Rabbit’s home hole. Only, not nearly so comical.

Roots clutched and yanked at his hair. Panic set in, as thoughts of being buried alive inevitably ensued.

Bud’s hands were suddenly under Tubby’s arms, pulling him into a larger, airier chamber. Large enough to sit up in. Bud clamped a filthy hand over Tubby’s mouth.

“Shhh!”
he hissed.

A split second later, the glow of a flashlight illuminated the outer crater. “Nothing’s down there, sir.”

“They might be crouched out of sight in a corner. Go on, Cutter—get your ass down in that hole.”

By the light bouncing around the outer chamber, Tubby was able to determine the confines of their gopher-like burrow. The root system of a large tree had created a small chamber, about five-feet-wide by three-feet-high, barely enough for him to sit up in. Bud had to hunker his head down to accommodate the clumpy ceiling.

Tubby peeled Bud’s hand from his mouth and gave him the ok sign. Bud put a finger over his lips.

Tubby nodded.

An earthy
Thud!
from the other side of the chamber echoed in their ears. A rain of dirt fell upon their heads, and the sinkhole filled with a dusty yellow glow. Tubby drew his legs in as far as they would go, away from the grimy light. Something slithered underneath the leaves in the corner across from him. Tubby’s imagination shifted into that Twilight Zone of terror. He stared at the rotting blanket of leaf litter, imagining the remains of some luckless kid who’d fallen down this stupid hole, many, many moons ago, buried underneath the moldering mound…

A lonely little boy, waiting all these years for someone like Tubby to join him. To stay and play. Just like that lost spirit in
The Shining
’s playground pipe…

He nearly screamed when the man on the other side abruptly shouted:
“They’re not down here, boss! They must still be
…Wait a sec…
Now what do we have here?”

The flashlight beam swept the narrow route Bud had taken them. With the light filling the crawlspace, Tubby could scarcely believe they’d been able to squeeze through that tiny burrow. Evidently, so did their pursuer. “Fuck that,” he swore, clicking off his lamp, throwing the boys back into darkness. “All right, throw me down a line!” he said, giving up the hunt.

Something heavy slid over Tubby’s foot and once again he nearly screamed.

“Just a little ‘ol corn snake,”
Bud whispered in his ear.
“More scared of you, than you it.”

Tubby felt faint.
“Golly. Then that’s one scared little snake.”

             
                            *******

Josie took the same route into the Pines that Bud and Tubby had taken, not wanting to run into the authorities any more than they had. Although if she did, she’d have a better excuse for being out here than those lunkheads. She shifted her brother’s tackle box in her hand, and leaned his fishing pole onto her shoulder like a carbine, trying to convey an image that wouldn’t garner a second look.

             
Just a chick with big tits going fishing. Sure! You see ‘em every day,
she thought, smirking.

Despite his obvious reluctance, Rusty had offered to tag along—and to his obvious relief, she’d let him off the hook. “Don’t take any dumb chances out there,” he’d said to her at the back door of the museum. Joel, still unaware of the crisis, was in the lobby playing a video game with a stack of quarters his big sister had given him.

“I’ll be back in two, three hours tops. If for some reason the boys slip past me and get back before I do—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure Bud loses that piece. But look here, girl. If you’re not back in three hours, I’ll have to call my dad. Tell him what’s going on out there.”

Despite the grief that could cause them, Josie saw by the look on Rusty’s face that he was dead serious. She didn’t have the time to argue with him, either. She sighed and checked her watch.
An hour and a half to find them. The same to bring ‘em back. Okay, I can do that!
 

             
Like Bud and Tubby, she almost made a quick stop at the cemetery. It had been a few days since her last visit, when she’d left the daisies at her father’s grave, but there wasn’t enough time for that now. Besides, there was another of the Center’s SUV’s parked outside the graveyard. It was best she keep moving. She was skirting the graveyard when she heard a vehicle coming her way…

             
The sound was coming from
inside
the Pines! She scaled the wrought iron fence and ducked behind the retaining wall, seconds before a Ford Explorer exploded out of the scrub wall. Its wheels spun in the clearing, caught sod, and sent it churning in its wake.

Josie peeked out from between two iron bars and watched the 4x4 slide to a stop beside the other parked Explorer, ten feet from where she was hiding. There were three men in the SUV, dressed in bulky white suits. The kind of get-up a person would wear if he was handling infectious materials. No headgear in evidence, though.

The back door of the Explorer opened and one of the men stepped out and closed the door behind him.

“See anything, Cutter?” said an angry voice inside the truck.

“No, sir. Looks like they gave us the slip. Or they’re still hiding in the woods. I’ll check with the Sheriff to see if anybody has reported seeing the chimp.”

“Or reported getting shot
at
,” a second voice said in the Explorer. “That would be more likely.” The tone was accusatory.

Josie could see that the man named Cutter was standing on the running board of the Explorer, attempting to get a bird’s-eye view of the clearing behind them and the road ahead.
Are they looking for Bud and Ralph? And did he just say something about a
chimp
on the loose?! Jaysus pleezus! What the heck is going on out here?