Bad Moon Rising

of the chair and onto the floor, pulled him close, wrapped him up in a cocoon of the blanket and her own radiant heat. He did not embrace her, or cling to her; but he let himself be gathered in, shivering and shaking as the waves of shock crashed over him. She kept pulling him close and kept shimmying away from the chair until they were both tucked into the corner formed by the big wooden breakfront that served as TV stand and bureau and the wall. Jonatha pulled the blanket tighter and tighter around them and then pulled it over their heads just as the shivers started to hit her, too.

(4)

Ten-thirty on Mischief Night, and the town was lost in a sea of sound and movement. Beyond the parking lot and the iron fences the town was in full revel as Mischief Night burned its way toward midnight. Music blared from the streetlight-hung speakers. Traffic was stopped on Corn Hill to allow a continuous rolling block party. It was Mischief Madness & Mayhem, Pine Deep’s legendary night before Halloween blast, modeled after Mardi Gras and powered by the lingering real-world adrenaline rush of the post–Ruger and Boyd massacre. Instead of driving tourists away, now that the killings were over, the town attracted three times the usual number of merrymakers; everyone wanted to suck in a chestful of real danger, real mystery, real frights—so long as they didn’t actually get hurt and there was beer.

The entire starting lineup of the Pine Deep Scarecrows, wearing only their football helmets, streaked down ten blocks of Corn Hill and then scattered into the crowds, which opened to receive them. Everyone loved it.

BK and Billy Christmas held court at the banquet hall at Harvestman Inn. BK was at the head table, flanked by two screenwriters—Stephen Susco and James Gunn. The three of them were shouting over the noise to discuss Quentin Tarantino’s flick, Grindhouse. Across from him, Billy was in his glory, with Brinke Stevens on his left and Debbie Rochon on his right. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. Brinke was a petite brunette with big dark eyes and a wicked smile; Debbie was bustier and had an infectious laugh. Both of them had a stack of racy studio 8x10s in front of them and there were lines of eager fans stretching all the way down the hall and out into the street. Next to Debbie sat John Bloom who, as faux redneck Joe Bob Briggs, wrote reviews of classic drive-in movies that were legendary. He kept telling jokes in his lazy Texas drawl that had the other three laughing so hard they looked like they were going to stroke out.

Jim O’Rear, a stuntman and fight choreographer who also freelanced as a haunted attraction consultant, was talking movie fight scenes with Sam and Mischa, two of the kids who played monsters at the Hayride. The two adjoining tables were packed with members of the Horror Writers Association and a delegation from the Garden State Horror Writers, all of whom were firing horror trivia at each other faster than automatic gunfire. Whoever lost had to do a shot of tequila. Nobody minded losing.

The other corner of the room had a small stage where Mem Shannon and the Membership were whipping out down-and-dirty blues that had over two hundred people dancing and sweating.

On all four walls there were huge rear projection screens on which horror films played. Susco’s The Grudge 2 on one screen; Gunn’s Slither on another; the original Dawn of the Dead played out over the table where its star, Ken Foree, sat in sober conversation with two theater grad students from the college; and opposite that Brinke Stevens was losing her clothes in the legendary B-film, Sorority Babes in the Slime-ball Bowl-O-Rama, an event that sent up a howl from the audience loud enough to rattle the windows.

Outside the Inn, the party rolled back and forth, up and down every side street and out into the countryside. There were continuous horror movie marathons at the Dead End Drive-In and on the grounds of the Hayride, and the campus football field was one big blues-rock slam party as Al Sirois and Kindred Spirit set fire to the night.

The members of BK’s team who didn’t draw the long straws that allowed them to come to the gala at the Harvestman Inn were patrolling in pairs on the campus and at the Hayride. A few of them, despite all warnings and threats from BK, were drunk, and the rest were feeling lighthearted and loose. There were a few trouble spots—a pickpocket working the crowds at the concert, a few shoving matches between irritable drunks, some pranks that got out of hand—but nothing the team couldn’t handle. Everything got handled.

Every time BK used his cell phone to call one of his team the only response he ever got was “It’s all good.”

Karl Ruger made damn sure that was all that got onto the radar. Wearing a Count Dracula rubber mask and costume, he wandered through the revelers. His own point men—Golub, Carby, McVey, and a few others—were positioned in key spots around town. Even Polk walked the streets, wriggling through the crowds, keeping an eye out, reporting in as ordered. Lois Wingate, dressed as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, walked arm in arm with Ruger. They made a charming couple.

The Dead Heads were all locked up safe and sound. The vampires who couldn’t pass for human were in the nests. Ruger’s orders for the evening were simple: “Nobody hunts, nobody dies.”

Not tonight; not on Mischief Night.

Tomorrow was Halloween and that was when the killing would begin again. Yeah, Ruger thought as he walked hand in hand with Lois, that’s when the real party starts.

Chapter 31 Midnight

(1)

Crow and Val sat on opposite sides of Weinstock’s bed. They were dressed in clean hospital scrubs—a loan from one of the many doctors they’d gotten to know during their recent stays. Their own soiled clothes were in a plastic bag.

“They say you’re going to be fine,” Crow said. “They don’t think the rotator cuff’s torn.”

Weinstock looked at him for a moment and then turned away. “What does it matter?”

Crow frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was bitten!” he said in a tortured voice.

“Saul…”

Weinstock turned sharply, eyes flaring. “Don’t you understand? I was bitten by a vampire!”

“He just bit you, Saul,” said Val. “He didn’t kill you.”

“I’m going to die! I’m going to come back as…as…”

“No you’re not!” she snapped.

“I’m damned! Don’t you get it? I’m going to die and then I’m going to come back as a freaking vampire and —”

Val bent forward and stared at Weinstock until he stopped talking. She bent and kissed him on the tip of the nose. “You are not damned, you dope! Jonatha told us that you have to die by a vampire’s bite and then either be forced to drink blood or drink it when you revive. Neither of those things happened. This is just a wound. Right now you’re hurt and you’re scared. We’re all scared.” Her smiling mouth started to tremble. “Mark only bit you. He didn’t drain your blood, he didn’t kill you, and he didn’t make you drink his blood. You’re not going to turn into what he was.”

Weinstock stared at her for a long moment, then he wrapped his uninjured arm around her and pulled her close. After a moment she sat back on the bed and fished for a tissue in her pocket, didn’t find one; Crow held one