The first in a series of short stories involving the mysteries and terrors that only prowl benieth the silvery glow of mother luna...
A ghostly pale orb hung brightly in the deep night sky, a thin veil of cloud diffusing its outline so as to make it seem even more spectral. In the old days some used to say that the dead went to live on the moon, and certainly, more that it’s fair share of murders had been committed under its waxing gaze. This knowledge did not comfort the traveler, not that it was much meant to, but that could not be helped. He did not at all like that he was traveling this particular stretch of roadway in the dead of night. Even more, he did not like the way the shadows moved in the trees, and the wind stirred the leaves just so, so that his imagination conjured all manner of bogeymen and nightmares to fill the darkness. Mankind has feared the darkness of night and the foreign and alien world it creates from our bright and ordinary existence in the sun for as long as it can remember. And this man was no exception.
His car lay forsaken some few miles behind him; he had thought he would have enough gas to make it to his destination, but the oil was old, so the car wasn’t so efficient anymore. The small canister of gasoline in his hand would make an occasional noise as it brushed against his leg. This, merged with all the other chirps, creaks, and calls of the nighttime forest, fueled his drive for fuel. Fear can be a wonderful motivator.
He would startle every now and then from some sudden snap or hoot from the trees to either side, sometimes even from the metallic clang of the aluminum canteen in his hand. Each time, he would chastise himself mentally for the raising of the small hairs on his neck, and the small adrenaline surge along with. He began muttering to himself quietly, partly to have some control over the sounds he heard, partly to give himself courage. He reminded himself that he was a grown man, that he shouldn’t let his imagination run away with his rationality. Even these galvanizing statement though, were said very quietly so as not to attract the attention of the shadows. It was in this manner, the traveler made his way along the darkened road, under the cold light of the moon.
A twig snapped off to his right.
He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes straining in vain to pierce the darkened forest as yet more adrenaline seeped into his blood stream. His heart beat just a little faster. He resumed walking and scorning himself as he heard the crow or raven or whatever caw and flutter from the canopy. Completely oblivious to the sets of eyes that observed his movements.
The just barely sensed the sound of rustling leaves; the soft crunching of movement on the just-fallen autumn leaves.
Probably just a squirrel you anxious fool, he told himself irritably and continued walking.
The road curved a little to his right, just ahead of him. As the angle of the moonlight entering the trees changed, his eyes shot to the right. Did I just see something move? A small branch danced teasingly in the wind, just outside the moon’s reach. He breathed a sigh, and began traveling again. Yet, his frazzled nerves would not relent; something still seemed out of place. The road ahead curved to the left again, the shadows adjusting with it. Humans had been out of the jungle just long enough, that their senses had dulled, his specifically from the television broadcasts and heavy metal radio that he enjoyed at high decibels. As he rounded the corner however, he beheld a sight that made his heart beat even faster; the sickly fluorescent lights of a small Texaco station.
Forgetting for a moment everything else except his jubilation at the end of his nervous trek down the road. Forgetting for a moment all the imagined murderers and serial killers of his own dark imagination, he broke out into a shambling run toward the lights of redemption.
Forgetting, if he remembered in the first place, that running triggers the prey response in predators. The traveler remembered very quickly however when he heard a soft sound, like a huff or a grunt, and rapid footfalls in the leaves.
He spun around, trying to pinpoint the sound’s location without the aid of keen hearing or swiveling ears. He spun back and forth, the sound reflecting off the trees on the opposite side, where was it coming from? In a panic, he turned back and broke into an all-out run towards the lights of the convenience store. If he could just make it inside, make it to the light, the bad things couldn’t touch him. The fluorescent light would wrap him up in a blanket of protection, just as proof against monsters as our bed sheets were when we were children.
The fifty feet or so seemed to take miles to cross before he flung open that impossibly sluggish door and shoved it closed behind him. He collapsed and slid to the yellow linoleum floor, heaving breaths as his heart pounded in his ears, the sound of blood rushing a soft whooshing that seemed to wax and wane with the heart beats.
“Holy shit man, what’s got you so spooked?” A teenage kid with long greasy brown hair tied back in a ponytail sat behind the counter, a Snickers bar in his hand and a portable black and white TV next to him with what looked like a college football game of some kind.
The traveler made a motion with his hand, unable to speak until he caught his breath some minutes later. “Something... (Gasp) chasing me… (Wheeze) out there…”
“Well, what were you doing walking down the road in the middle of the night?”
With dawning horror, the traveler looked first at his empty right hand, then out the glass of the door behind him at the small red canteen, barely visible on the road about twenty feet from the pumps, at the edge of the light. “I need gas. I dropped my can out there…”
“Well go get it; I can’t just pump the gas into your hands.” The kid was only partly attentive to him; he was mostly focused on the ball-game with the poor reception.
“Something’s out there though, it fucking chased me!”
“Probably just a bear, make enough noise and he’ll leave you alone.”
“Bears won’t chase you!” the traveler protested.
“Might have been a cougar then, but if it were, either you wouldn’t have ever known it, or you’d be dead already. And yes bears will chase you if you run. Did you run?”
“No, I was breathless for no reason whatsoever!” His anger and sarcasm took fuel from the endorphins in his blood.
“Oops, sorry man. Spaced it.”
The traveler sighed angrily, and stood up. He quickly felt foolish for panicking; it was easy to forget the terror of the unknown in the face of a Little Debbie display full of bright Twinkies.
“Just whistle or something when you go out there and the bear’ll leave you alone.”
“What makes you so sure it was a bear?”
The teen shot him an angry glare over the counter. “Dude, I fucking saw him on my way to work today five minutes from here, and he likes to steal the sweets from the dumpster.”
“Okay, okay.” Feeling angry and ashamed of himself for getting scolded by a teenager, he now felt he had to prove he wasn’t afraid if the dark. Male pride bolstered him along as he swung the door open again and marched out into the cold fall air. The clouds obscuring the full moon had thinned away, making it almost as bright as it was near the lights. The traveler whistled the melody for some Metallica song while he walked the strangely long way back to the gas can. It was rational really, he thought as he bent down to pick up the can, bears make the kind of sound he’d heard, and bears were in the area this time of year.
The whistling seemed to be working, so he walked up to the pump, stuck the nozzle into the can and squeezed off his last five bucks. He went inside to pay the kid, who didn’t even seem to take his eyes off the TV while his left hand rung up the sale.
The whole whistling way back to his poor car, his mind wrapped itself around the rationalizing of the bear probability and kept the demons in the darkness at bay. His moon-shadow a welcome companion on the road.
Yet, something was still troubling him as he poured the fuel into the parched tank. He looked over the top of the car at another bush waving innocently in the breeze,
His blood ran cold when he realized why those branches bothered him so much…there was no breeze tonight. This realization came to him too slowly though to protect him, his ancestral memory too deeply hidden to save him. In a panic, he fumbled to screw on the cap, a tore open the drivers side door. He slammed the door shut, and keyed the ignition.
The headlights tore into the trees directly ahead of him, illuminating…trees. There were no slavering beasts, no human psychos, just leaves. He sighed with relief, basking in the false safety of the headlights, and closed his eyes for a moment.
Mankind had feared the darkness for eons…and there is a reason why.
Only the moon, so high and bright in the autumn sky saw the shadow emerge from the dark black forest. Only la Luna heard the shrill scream tear through the night over the deafening cacophony of the car’s blaring radio and shattering window. Only she would know the answers to the police’s questions when they found the car with the bloody shattered glass and the discarded red gas can. Only the shadows know the fate of the traveler, who vanished on the night of the Hunter’s Moon.
When Juliet, a young English woman, disappears from a Festival in Nerja, Spain, disgraced veteran detective Leon Prado of the Spanish National Police suspects an elusive serial abductor. A curious videographer, Amanda Salisbury, inadvertently films J
A ghostly pale orb hung brightly in the deep night sky, a thin veil of cloud diffusing its outline so as to make it seem even more spectral. In the old days some used to say that the dead went to live on the moon, and certainly, more that it’s fair share of murders had been committed under its waxing gaze. This knowledge did not comfort the traveler, not that it was much meant to, but that could not be helped. He did not at all like that he was traveling this particular stretch of roadway in the dead of night. Even more, he did not like the way the shadows moved in the trees, and the wind stirred the leaves just so, so that his imagination conjured all manner of bogeymen and nightmares to fill the darkness. Mankind has feared the darkness of night and the foreign and alien world it creates from our bright and ordinary existence in the sun for as long as it can remember. And this man was no exception.
