There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (90 page)

Jessica had always been a self-involved, know-it-all-bitch, but Bud took no pleasure in killing her. And yet her messy death served a purpose. The other encroaching Rabids beat a hasty retreat, leaving the side street once again empty. Bud’s deadly efficiency with the shotgun had at last sent them packing to parts unknown.

“How did this thing spread so fast?” he said, taking the steps four at a time. Rusty, right behind him, didn’t have an answer. In fact, he was wondering the same thing. The front door stood open and Bud ran in without thinking.

“LOOK OUT, BUD!”
Josie screamed, just as Ted Tousant crashed into him.

They fell outside the office door on the walkway beyond, with Bud on the bottom of the heap.

Rusty stood ten feet away, rooted in place on the breezeway, not knowing what to do, too scared to help.

Bud brought the shotgun barrel up lengthwise into Tousant’s throat. Pushing the Rabid’s head up and away from him. Spittle from Ted’s writhing mouth dripped on either side of Bud’s head. Splattering his forehead.

Closing in on my eyes! Fuck this shit!

Bud brought up both of his boots into Ted Tousant’s belly and flipped the surprised man over him. Ted’s back hit the top of the railing, and then gravity took over, pulling him over the side. Tousant dove headfirst into the pavement below, his skull cracking open like a pumpkin thrown into the street by punk kids on Halloween.

Rusty rushed over and helped Bud to his feet. From inside the jail, Josie wailed,
“BUUUUUUDDDDD!!”

             
Jumbo Colt had never left the cell; he was still trying to push his way in. Bud tapped him on the shoulder with his shotgun, but Jumbo paid him no mind. Just kept yanking on the cell door. It seemed the illness had left some of the Rabids with more thought processes than others. There didn't seem to be any reason to it, either. Some were slow and stupid. Others, calculating and quick. It was a tiny blessing in a sea of strife.

             
Bud raised the shotgun and was about to put the barrels to Jumbo’s head, when he realized the spray of brain matter might very well hit Josie and Tubby.

             
He looked around and saw the fire ax on the wall.

             
“Get back!” he warned his friends. He watched them turn away, and then he cleaved Jumbo’s head in two.

As soon as Tubby got the cell door open, Josie rushed into Bud’s arms.

“I’m okay, Red. Just a little bruised and battered. He didn’t bite me, though. How ‘bout you guys?”

“We’re fine,” she said, looking Bud over for serious injuries all the same.

“That was real smart, Tits, ducking into the cell like that,” Rusty said, taking his turn embracing her. They grinned happily at each other.

“Was that you shooting up the place down there?” Tubby asked Bud.

Bud hawked a loogey on the dead Rabid at his feet. “Yeah. The island’s gone crazy with these damn things. We need to get back to the museum and batten down the doors. Then maybe think of a way to get to the Bunker.”

“What about the vaccine?” Tubby said. “If we wait till morning—” 

“Our fathers are dead, Ralph,” said Rusty. His voice held steady but Josie could see the awful grief lurking behind the Coke bottle lenses.

As if to underline what Rusty was saying, an explosion rocked the town. The fuel tank at the Marina igniting. Across from where Rusty had docked the
Betty Anne
. “No,” Josie said, sobbing.
“Oh, dear God, no!”

“I don’t understand,” Tubby said. “The vaccine—”

“I’m sorry,” Bud said, shaking his head. “But your dad…Rusty’s too…they’re gone.”

Tubby looked from one to another. Seeing this wasn’t some horrible joke, he took off for the open doorway. Bud caught him and wrapped him up in a Half- Nelson.
“LET GO OF ME, BUD! YOU COCKSUCKER!”

Bud applied pressure to Tubby’s carotid until the big kid collapsed unconscious in his arms.

Rusty sobbed at the pathetic sight. “That’s the first time I ever heard ol’ Opie cuss.”

“Guys…you better take a look at this,”
Josie whispered urgently from the doorway. She was peering cautiously over the railing to the street below.

Bud gently laid Tubby down on the floor and joined his other friends at the railing. The street below was once again full of the red-eyed things. He recognized most of them, the rest were so far along they were indistinguishable from wild animals. Milling about the pick up truck, drawn by its running engine, no doubt. He drew in a sharp breath as one of them leaned into the cab and turned off the headlights. It was just a matter of time now before they figured out he and his friends were up on the second floor.

“How we gonna get past them?”
Josie whispered.

Bud pulled her back into the office and softly closed the door. “Guess we’ll have to shoot our way past them.”

Rusty paled. “With
one
shotgun? They’ll be all over us as soon as you have to reload.”

Bud shrugged, not knowing what to say.

“There’s a gun locker over there.” Josie pointed across the room. “Ralph and I couldn’t get past the lock.”

Bud checked out the stand-up gun cabinet for himself, yanking futilely on the door handles. “We’ll have to blast it open,” he said. “Be prepared to select a firearm fast. We’ll have to load them quickly, too. The gunfire will be like ringing the damn dinner bell up here.” He leveled the 12 gauge and pointed both barrels at the intersection between the two steel handles. “Get back, this is liable to—

“What now,” he said, hearing a clanking commotion outside. He lowered the gun and frowned. “It sounds like something…like something…”

Josie found the right word for him. “Like something
mechanical
. It sounds like something mechanical.”

They tiptoed over to the open window and looked down into the street below, where the red-eyed things were once again in panic mode. It was almost comical, the way most of them were scattering, while others looked like scared rabbits caught in headlights, not sure which way to run.
And that’s exactly what they are!
Headlights!

Bud couldn’t see what was behind the twin bright lights, moving steadily up the street. They were spaced too close together to be a car, too far apart for a motorcycle. The
clank-clank
noise it was making, as it advanced unhurriedly down the street, sounded hauntingly familiar…

Josie looked over at Bud, who was starting to grin. “If I didn’t know better,” she said, “I’d swear that was a…”

“A damn robot walking down the street?”

“The Tin Man,”
Rusty gasped. 

Chapter Fiftee
n
:

Furious Fireflies

Tubby awoke to find himself on the floor of the Sheriff’s Office, dizzy and disoriented.
Where is everybody?
he wondered woozily. He sat up and nearly passed out again, the blood rushing from his head like a flushed toilet.

I attacked Bud, and then they left me here to… 

Seeing Bud and the rest gathered at the broken window, Tubby gasped in relief. “Hey! What’s going on?”

             
Josie knelt by his side. “We’ve got company outside. You all right there, tiger?”

             
Despite his feelings of profound gratitude, Tubby couldn’t stem the flow of sarcasm spewing forth. “Considering that my parents are probably floating face down in the stinking harbor right now—yeah, I’m just swell, Josie.
Gee
…thank you for asking.”

             
Bud yanked Tubby to his feet and shoved him beside Rusty, pointing his finger in their pop-eyed faces. “Look,” he said, grinding his teeth. “I know ya’ll are in hell right now. I’m one of the few people who can honestly say I
know
just how you feel. Josie can sure as hell relate, too. And some day if you want a shoulder to cry on, she and I are at your disposal. But not today, guys.
Not
today
! We just can’t afford the distraction of your grief right now.

“Besides, your parents wouldn’t want—”

              “How would
you
know what our parents would want?” Rusty shot back, slapping Bud’s finger aside. He resented Bud trying to quantify their grief, to equate it with his
own
loss—no matter the eerie similarities. If Bud knew how he and Tubby felt, then he should’ve known to can that trite bullshit.

             
“Because your dad told me before he died.”

             
Like the look on his face, Rusty’s resentment crumbled. “What do you mean…
before
he died? I don’t understand, Bud. How could you possibly know that?”

             
“Ham set that fire himself after we left, Rusty. I tried to talk him out of it, but…well, you know your dad.” The determined glint in Bud’s eyes faltered a little. Unable to look Rusty in the eye, he stared down at the floor. “That’s just how he wanted it, and there was no arguing with him. You
heard
the man! That strange, croaking voice.” Bud shuddered. He took a deep breath and looked up again. “He was sick, and getting sicker by the second down there. He knew that so-called vaccine wasn’t going to save him. He was having bad thoughts, Rust.” Bud’s eyes shifted over to Josie for a second before finding Rusty again. “So don’t you go blaming him, you hear me? If you need to blame somebody, blame
me
. I helped him do it, and by God I’d do it again! He saw a threat to those he loved, and he took care of it.” Bud smiled in admiration. “Really, did you expect anything less from your old man?”

Bud looked deep into his friend’s bleary eyes. “Rusty, his last words to me were that you should remember your mother for the fine lady she was, not that fiend you saw on board the boat today…

“And that he
loved
you.”

             
Rusty blinked. “He…he said that?”

“Yeah, little man. He
did
. And then
he told me to take care of you.” Bud’s face took on its old familiar scowl. “
All
of you! And fuck you if you don’t like it! Now, if we’re all done here crying, let’s—”

             
Without warning, Tubby grabbed Bud by his shirt and pushed him up against the wall. “What about
My
dad? What were
his
last words? Huh? Did you even speak to him at all! You lousy bastard! He was still alive down there!”

             
That he allowed Tubby to manhandle him like that shocked Josie even more than Ralph’s explosive outburst. She watched in wonder as Bud actually patted Ralph on the head! “Easy there, Hoss.
Easy
. Frank was dead before you even left the boat this afternoon. He died trying to save your mom. I’m sorry, Ralph. I know it’s no consolation, but at least your folks didn’t suffer from the disease.”

             
“Oh, didn’t they?” His rage spent, Tubby let go of Bud’s shirt and wandered listlessly over to the window

             
Rusty stood in front of Bud, his eyes wet and hurt. “Damn, Buddy boy. How could you not tell me? At the very least let me say goodbye to my father?”

             
Bud looked equally pained. “I’m sorry, man, but if you knew what he was going to do—”

             
“I know. I never would’ve left the boat. Still, I—”

“Oh, shit!” Bud exclaimed. “I almost forgot!” He pulled the silver chain from his shirt pocket and put it in Rusty’s hand. “Ham wanted you to have this.”

Rusty stared down at the chain in his trembling hand. How could something so light feel so heavy? Grief settled like a stone in his gut as the truth hit home. Samuel J. Huggins was dead. He was actually dead! The orphaned little dolphin proved it so. Never in his life had Rusty seen the silver charm off his father’s bull neck. Not even when the old man took a shower.

Rusty took the chain and lowered it reverently over his head, whispering his father’s name as he did so. He pressed the silver dolphin over his own, much smaller heart, rubbing it against his frail chest. The thick, callused pads on Ham’s fingers had long ago worn away the etched lines that had once formed the smiling dolphin's face. And yet Rusty could feel them there just the same. More peculiar was the heat coming off the silver charm. While the chain was cool against his skin, there was a comforting sort of warmth throbbing from within the dolphin.

A piece of Ham perhaps? Passed on to his aggrieved son. Looking out for him still…

The logical part of his brain told him it was probably from being in Bud’s pocket so long. Rusty, however, chose to believe otherwise. Some things, he decided, no matter how unlikely, are just worth believing in. He looked up at his large friend and nodded his thanks.