Bad Moon Rising (Pine Deep 3)

None of them were watching the window. The open, gaping, inviting window.

4

Terry ran through the streets faster than a galloping horse. At first he dodged from shadow to shadow, but as he changed he grew bolder. The crowds on the street were thinning as the tourists and residents of Pine Deep fled into houses or out into the country, or died. Many hundreds of them wandered around in a drug-induced haze or had become so intensely freaked that they ran screaming into the shadows—victims of Vic Wingate’s psychedelic-laced candy. Terry could smell the drugs in them, could smell how it flavored and distorted their sweat. He ignored them as he ran.

Around him the people of the town—of the town, no longer his town—died in the thousands. Corpses littered the ground or slumped over wrecked cars or drifted through the night with red smiling mouths. Fires burned everywhere, raging in some places with inferno fury. The air was thick with the mingled smells of smoke and blood.

No one tried to stop him as he ran. A few people saw him and ran screaming into the darkness, the very sight of him tearing apart what little sanity they still possessed after the explosions and the mass killings. One or two just stared at him with eyes that were filled with nothing, reflecting the emptiness of minds blown dark by too much horror.

The pale-faced ones shrank away, yielding to him, letting him pass.

Through the city streets he ran on two feet, even though those feet were not structured for the job, but if he kept his weight far forward, then the very speed at which he moved kept him balanced, and every once in a while he would tap the ground with his hands to steady himself. As the burning stores and houses thinned out and he broke out into the clearer, cleaner country air, he finally dropped to all fours and ran along at an amazing speed, his powerful muscles rippling and bunching under his tough new hide. Moonlight shone down on him, sparkling on the silvery tips of each of the hairs in the fur along his shoulders and back. His claws left crescent-shaped divots in the blacktop as he raced along the dark road.

Far overhead a flock of night birds had begun to follow him. They began riding the lofty thermals, but he was moving too fast for that, and so they dropped lower and began flapping their ragged wings to keep pace.

Mile after mile unfolded beneath him as he ran, and the manor houses gave way to the long stretches of farmland. Vast avenues of blighted corn and wheat rustled in the breeze; knobbed rows of diseased pumpkins watched as what was no longer Terry Wolfe passed on its way to Dark Hollow.

5

There was no Pine Deep Police Department during the Red Wave. By the time the first explosions had rocked the town, the only living members of the department were Gus Bernhardt, Ginny—who ran the switchboard—and Jim Polk.

Now it was just Polk. Well, maybe Tow-Truck Eddie, too, but Polk didn’t care much about him either way.

The volume of the screams was fading now as the tide turned from the hundreds with Ruger against the thousands in town for the Festival, to the thousands with Ruger hunting the hundreds who were trying to flee. The math was working out the way Vic had planned. All of the explosions had gone off. The bridges were gone, along with the power plant, the gas lines, the cable, phone lines, cell towers, all the police cars, and the TV and radio stations. All exactly according to plan, and it was getting a bit quieter in town—not that Sergeant Polk noticed. When it had all started he’d clamped earphones over his head and

waited it out with the Grateful Dead screaming in his ears. He thought the irony would amuse him, but it just made his stomach feel worse.

He sat in Gus Bernhardt’s oversize swivel chair, crossed ankles propped on the chief’s desk, a nearly empty bottle of Wild Turkey cradled against his crotch. On the computer table that jutted out from the desk, Polk’s pistol sat gleaming in the light from a pair of candles. The gun was fully loaded with hollow points and ready to hand. He’d already replaced the two rounds he’d used on Ginny. Her plump body law sprawled under the desk, but some of her was splashed all over the front of the dispatcher’s console. As for Gus, the vampires had taken him in the first minute. The fat bastard probably fed a dozen of them.

Polk looked up at the clock. 7:33 P. M. Just a little over three hours since it all started.

He took a long pull on the Wild Turkey and stared out the windows at the havoc. Some people still ran by screaming, some in Halloween costumes, some in funeral dress with horror-movie faces. In the distance, against the darkness, he could see the glow of fire molded around the soft edges of the twisting column of smoke rising from the phone company building. The front window of the chief’s office had a long jagged crack that ran crookedly from upper left to lower right. Polk had watched in fascination as the original blasts had sent that crack skittering across the glass. He was amazed that it held, even when the power station blew. It still might go, he figured, since the wind was picking up outside. He knew that he should move, that he was dangerously close to the glass, but he just sat there and took another sip of bourbon.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the doorknob jiggle, and he turned to watch Jennifer Whitelaw from the CVS down the block desperately trying to work the handle. There was a long line of blood trickling down from her scalp and it ran alongside of her nose. A few drops had splashed onto her blouse. She beat on the door and even kicked it. Polk watched as her face changed from hope to confusion to anger and then to a revelatory mask of accusation. Then she was gone. A white hand appeared out of the gloom and snatched her away. Two tiny droplets of blood had flown from her face as she was jerked back and they splattered against the glass. The splashes were head-high to the door and Polk thought they looked like red, condemning eyes.

He drank the bourbon.

By his crossed heels was the thick manila envelope Vic Wingate had dropped off that afternoon. Fifty thousand bloodstained dollars in tight bundles. Another big chunk of Ruger’s drug money. Polk had counted the money and as he turned over each bill he saw at least one drop of old, dried blood. Fifty thousand dollars, and a half-pound bag of coke to sweeten the deal. And the note: FOR SERVICES RENDERED. Vic’s little joke.

Vic has smirked as he handed it over, had given Polk a neat little bow and a sly wink, like he was giving a dollar to a kid, sending him off to the movies so he could screw his big sister. That kind of a sly wink.

The bottle was almost empty and so was Polk. He nursed the whiskey and listened to the Dead and watching the dying outside. Beside him the pistol ached to be held, it longed to be kissed. There should always be a last kiss, he reflected, after you’ve collected your blood money.

6

Tonight Pine Deep’s Dead End Drive-In lived up to its name. Every single car was an island of death. Shattered windows, doors standing open, upholstery splashed with blood, the gravel around the cars littered with shreds of torn clothing, cracked eyeglasses, broken cell phones.

Pine Deep’s nature made the slaughter so successful; the tourists believed what was happening was a joke, all part of the show. By the time the truth of it was impossible to deny, half of the them were dead; the rest fled and were hunted.

Perhaps because he was on a stage and had a different perspective on the events as they unfolded, or perhaps he’d been in too many movies that dealt with this exact sort of thing, Ken Foree alone managed to keep his head. He knew the difference between stunts and real violence. When he witnessed the slaughter he knew that this was no stunt. He didn’t know what it was, but it was real.

As one of the mindless Dead Heads began crawling over the edge of the stage, Foree snatched up the heavy microphone stand and swung the weighted steel base with every ounce of strength he possessed. The disk-shaped base crushed the creature’s skull. As it fell dead, he leapt down from the stage and charged the second creature.

When that one went down he started shouting for the patrons to run, and when those who could still move got into gear he led them in a mad dash to the projection booth. He was able to cram eighty people in the concrete pillbox. That’s all that could make it before he had to slam the steel door in the face of five more of the shambling killers. The projection window had metal shutters, and Foree slammed them shut and threw the slide bolts.

The creatures beat on the door and screamed in rage and hunger. The people packed inside screamed, huddling down in the dark, pressing their hands to their ears.

The person nearest him clutched his sleeve. “Can they get in?” she begged.