Moonbane

Pettis shifted in the dark, grunting. A long vertical crack of light suddenly beamed into the room. Sound flooded in—something snarled in the distance.

Pettis grunted again; the crack doubled in width, doubled once more.

There was now a one-inch line of the bomb shelter visible. I saw nothing but bright light that hurt my eyes, something dark in the distance that looked like the top of a locker.

Cool air brushed my face.

I felt as if someone had given me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. A luxurious breath of oxygen climbed down my throat; my lungs screamed Yes! Yes!, pushing sour carbon dioxide out.

“Oh, God!”Pettis’s daughter suddenly cried.

For a long time, in the coffin-like quarters we occupied, with the lack of fresh air, the nearness of human bodies, the cramping of my body, I had been unaware of the weight of Pettis’s wife on my lap. Her head had been cradled there, and she had not moved at all, except to cough once, soon after Pettis had sealed the door. I now put my hand to her face and felt coldness.

“She’s dead,” Amy Pettis wailed.

Doc’s hand went to her throat, seeking pulse. “Yes,” he said.

Pettis was silent. When he spoke he only said, “I have to close the door.”

Pettis shifted again, and the door began to close.

It stopped. Pettis cursed. There was a loud sound right outside our prison, and the door flew back, flooding us with blinding light. Shielding my eyes, I saw moving shapes, broken furniture—and a hulking figure that stood directly in front of us, screaming in rage, reaching in to pluck us like rabbits from a cage—

Pettis pulled the body of his wife to the opening and pushed it out of the bomb shelter.

“No!” his daughter screamed.

The thing outside wailed. The body was yanked savagely from Pettis’s hands. I saw the glow of the wolf’s yellow eyes, a patch of dried blood on the woman’s forehead, the cold blue gleam of her dead limbs, and then heard the terrible tearing sound of the wolf feeding.

Pettis jammed the door closed. His rapid breath, which he fought to bring under control, was mixed with the hitching sobs of his daughter.

“How…could…you…do…that!”

Doc tried to calm her, but she grew hysterical, lashing out over me to try to hit her father with her fists.

“How…could…you…”

Pettis leaned over me. I thought he was going to take her in his arms but instead he brought her face close to his and covered her mouth with his hand.

“If you’re not quiet, they’ll kill us all.”

Her sobs quieted. He let her go, and she fell back with a gasp. When Pettis pushed the button on his watch to check the time I saw her pull up into a ball, hands tightly around her knees, face turned to the wall.

“It’s five twenty-two,” Pettis announced. “If they leave us alone for thirty-four minutes we’re safe.”

For the next half hour we listened to the horrible sounds just beyond our door. More than one wolf had joined in the feed, and we all knew that when they were finished with Moira Pettis they would come after us.

For twenty minutes we were left alone. Then a crack of light appeared in the door.

Pettis threw himself against it, trying to hold it closed. Screams of protest and rage rose on the other side. Doc and I moved to help. The three of us raked our fingernails against the cold steel, trying to hold it in place.

The door was pulled open another half inch, A long sharp claw curled into the opening. The muscles in my arms were about to burst out of my skin.

“No, you bastards!” Pettis shouted, but the pressure was too great and the three of us were thrown back as the door flew open. A hulking brown shape filled the doorway, eyes wide with fire.

There was a deafening shot. The wolf threw its paws to its head. One of its yellow eyes burst, a flow of blood spattering us. There was another shot. I turned to see Pettis’s daughter aiming her .45 a third time as the beast collapsed in front of us, blocking the door. We pushed it out of the way as three other wolves fell on their dead, unmourned comrade.

And then there came a sudden change in the air. One of the wolves crouched back on its heels and sniffed. The other two paused in their feeding. They went back to their work, tearing huge chunks of meat from the corpse, the crude beginnings of a pyramid of white bones beginning beside them.

Again they became tentative. In our cramped space, Pettis and I added our own firepower to Amy’s, and two of the wolves went down. The remaining beast backed away, snarling with indecision, then turned and loped away.

Pettis looked at his watch.

“The Moon’s set,” he announced.

“Thank God,” Doc said weakly, his face ashen.

Pettis left our prison first. He checked the corners of the room. The barricade had been hurled aside, leaving a clear path to the doorway. He walked to the kitchen to check the hole in the ceiling.

“All clear,” he called.

I stumbled out, and behind me, Doc crawled out on all fours, stretching himself slowly up to full height, holding his back.

Amy had sat curled in her corner of the morgue, crying.

The floor was littered with stacks of bones. Moira’s skeleton, partially assembled, the skull fatefully left at the top of the ribcage, empty eye sockets staring at the ceiling, mouth pulled open in the scream of the dead, was one of perhaps fifty. Some were separated into neat pyramidal piles, others in haste had been left like the girl’s mother.

Pettis returned from the kitchen. His eyes rested on the remains of his wife. His face went blank. He crouched in front of the morgue opening.

“Come on, Amy,” he said, gently.

She sat unmoved, face away from him. He moved to go to her. Suddenly she struck out at him, scratching at him with her fingernails.

“You bastard!” she screamed. “Look what they did to her!” She pushed him back, out of the morgue, forcing his head down toward his dead wife’s staring, unseeing skull.

He let her do what she wanted. He stared into the skull’s eyes, then he stood and held Amy firmly against him.

She fought him, beating with her fists and crying. Then she collapsed, her arms going around him and holding him, her face buried against him.

“Oh, God, Daddy. Oh, God…”

“It’s all right, baby,” he soothed, stroking her hair. “It’s all right.”

“No it’s not!” She pulled her face away and looked up at him. “It’s never going to be all right! You knew what she was afraid of! You knew she wanted things just to stay like they were, with you and her and me! I know she was wrong—but do you know how scared she was that you would get killed helping all these other people?”

“I know, baby. I know.”

His daughter grew fierce. “Maybe she was right! Maybe we should have gone away together like she said, just the three of us, safe—oh, God…”

He pulled her head against him again, brushing at her hair. “It’s okay, baby,” he said. His gaze lifted to Doc, then to me. “It’s okay.”

His daughter continued to cry in the new morning, and all of us wondered if he was lying to her.

CHAPTER 15

Orders for the Day

We spent the morning clearing out wreckage in our bomb shelter. Except for Moira’s remains, which we buried, we swept the bones into a gruesome pile and carted them out to an alley behind the hotel. After clearing out the rest of the wreckage, we were left surveying what was left of our fortress.