Beneath a Winter Moon (61 page)

Alan rolled over on his side, stretching his stiff muscles as he did so. He yawned and shivered, curling his body up into a fetal position. He wanted to go back to sleep, but sunlight poured in from a window, shining directly on his face. He yawned again, then frowned. He thought he had covered that window with tin foil at Kathy’s request.
She must have uncovered it
, he thought. His mouth tasted foul, rotten. He licked his lips and then forced his eyes to open all the way. He needed to get up and…

He saw that he was not in his bed, not in his room, not even in his home. Suddenly, memories came flashing back. Memories of the mountain and the hospital—then memories of Deluth and being told he would be transported to a new facility. He rolled on the unfamiliar bed and planted his feet to the floor, rubbing his eyes and trying to figure out where he was. He looked around the room. It was definitely a bedroom. He was definitely on someone’s bed. He looked at the nightstand and saw a digital clock—9:21a.m

He was naked, but worse, he was dirty. He looked at the bedspread he had been laying on. It was a light orange and yellow, covered with white daisies imprinted into the fabric. There were brown and black stains all over the bedspread. He looked down at his body and rubbed at the dirt. It did not come off, and appeared more like stains than dirt.

“Hello?” he said, loudly. “Anyone home? Deluth? Lieutenant Snow? Hello?”

He stood up and looked around the bedroom. Some picture frames were overturned on the nightstands, and there were mud colored tracks on the carpet leading to the bed. An ominous feeling shadowed over Alan as he looked at the tracks. They were much too large to have been his, and their form looked—wrong. He followed their trail to the opposite side of the bed and saw a huge, brown stain there, and some sort of—something that looked like the sack of livers and hearts that came inside the body of a chicken from the grocery store. He almost gagged at the site.

“What the hell?”

The memories came flooding back. He’d been bitten. Deluth had believed him and said that he would help. He had been infected by a werewolf and here he was, naked, dirty, and looking at some sort of guts on the floor inside a bedroom he didn’t know, obviously in a house he was not familiar with.

“Dear God in heaven,” he mumbled. “God, please…”

He went to the door of the bedroom and peered out into an adjoining hallway. It was dim, as there were no lights on inside the house, and the hallway couldn’t receive much of the morning sunlight. Cautiously, Alan stepped out into the hallway.

“Hello?” he shouted again. “Anyone home? I’m sorry—I can’t remember what
happ
…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. His entire body froze in place as he stared into the living area of what must have once been a peaceful and happy home. It was no more. The destruction was as complete as if a tornado had hit the room. Glass from a ruined window littered the carpet and overturned furniture. A coffee table lay upside down with two of its legs broken off. A television, its screen smashed, sat sideways, having been dragged off of its table. The cord was still plugged into the wall.

“Please God,” Alan whispered. “Please let the house be empty.” He cautiously stepped forward. There were no bodies in the living area—and Alan held a glimmer of hope that no one had been home when he—in werewolf form, had entered. He rounded a corner slowly, covering his eyes with one hand, the way a child might while watching a horror movie. He looked through the gap between his fingers. He saw them, and dropped to his knees.

There were two bodies in the kitchen, an elderly man and woman, both completely stripped of their clothing. Their bodies lay in awkward, twisted positions on the floor, which was thick with congealed blood and viscera. Their stomachs and chests were torn open, and unidentifiable pieces of their insides, still connected inside the hollow bodies, hung out in tangled trails.

Alan vomited. He wretched onto the area where living room carpet switched to kitchen floor tile, and as he heaved he saw that his hands were finger deep in the muck that had once been the lifeblood of two human beings. He flung himself backward, scrambling away into the living room, frantically wiping his hands on the carpet. He had to get the blood off. His body revolted against the sudden movement, as his stomach heaved with more intensity. Alan could do nothing but stay on his knees as his body rejected everything it could from the contents of his stomach. When the heaving stopped, Alan wailed and rolled onto his side, crying out to God—to whoever would listen. He screamed in agony, tears flowing across the brown stains on his face and chest as he tried to remember something—anything—about the previous night.

Moments passed, then minutes. Alan managed to calm himself. He had to think of what to do next. Obviously he was guilty of murder—most gruesome murder and if nothing else, he must be stopped. He thought of finding a phone inside the home and calling the police to give himself up. But what good would that do? He would be locked up, of course, but he would still become—the monster. Could a cage even hold him? And what would he tell the authorities? They would examine the bodies and come to the conclusion that a beast had committed the atrocities, not a man. How could he convince rational people that he was a werewolf? How could he make them believe?
They would believe if they saw me change
, he thought…but that was too risky. He might break free and go on a feeding frenzy inside whatever confines they utilized.

Could he die, he wondered. Was he now, somehow, immortal? Could a silver bullet kill him—like in the movies? He shook his head. What he needed to do, now, he knew, was to get out of this house, find out where he was, and what happened to Deluth and their plans. If Deluth was still around, maybe even looking for him, then that was who he needed to find.

Alan found suitable clothes in the bedroom closet, and laid them out on the bed. There was a bathroom connected to the bedroom, and so he climbed into the shower, letting the hot water wash away what he now knew was dried blood. He had found a clock radio on the counter of the bathroom and had turned it on. It was tuned into a country music station. As he showered, he listened, but was unable to determine where he was. He thought he had heard the disc jockey’s voice before, but wasn’t sure. He hoped he was not too far from home.

Though he felt guilty about using the shower and taking the clothes, the emotions were minuscule in nature compared to his guilt for murder—and so it had been easy to justify the theft. It was a small thing in comparison to these events and no doubt the events yet to come.

He stood at the front door of the home, ready to take his first steps outside—as a murderer and no doubt, a fugitive. A brass lock-shaped key holder was still in place on the wall beside the door, and on it hung two sets of keys. One set was undoubtedly keys to a vehicle, so he grabbed them and stuck them in the pocket of his blue jeans. He looked down at the pants and at the white tennis shoes. The original owner of the clothes had been a larger man than Alan, but the belt held the jeans up just fine, and the shoes would do. He wore a plaid flannel shirt and a winter parka, and inside the pockets of the thick coat was a pair of leather, fur-lined gloves. He felt another pang of guilt about the clothes, picturing the elderly wife presenting her loving husband with a pair of winter gloves as a gift. He shook the guilt away—he could not change what had happened. Before opening the door he noticed a pile of mail on a small table. He reached over and grabbed the mail, hoping to find an address that he was familiar with. He sighed. The postal address gave only a route number—one that was unknown to him. He tossed the mail onto the remnants of a torn couch and opened the door.

Alan stepped outside into the early morning sun and breathed deeply as the cold winter chill wafted into his face. He looked around, searching for the vehicle that he knew would be there, finally finding it under an old ramshackle carport. He groaned softly, seeing the motor home. At least it’s small, he thought. Not like the big ones that the tourists drive from the states.

The driveway was long and overgrown trees slapped at the motor home as Alan drove away. He decided he would go back to the city…once he found a familiar road…and would then decide what was next. He knew he had to find Deluth again, but he had no way of doing so. He supposed he could call the local authorities and ask for him, but he sensed a danger in that prospect and was not sure he wanted to do it. The motor home came to a stop as the rocky driveway finally ended, and Alan was faced with a snow-covered road. Squinting against the bright light, Alan saw the sun was to his left, and decided, for no good reason, to turn to the right and head east. He would find a gas station or roadside stop—and only then would he find out where he was.

As he drove slowly on the snow-covered road, he recalled bits of memory, flashes of images, but they were blurred and so quick that he could not make them out. He knew the images were of the dark and of his terrible deeds the night before and he shook his head from side to side to try to make them go away. Tears streamed down his eyes as he fought to keep his vision clear. He was a monster, just as he had believed back in the hospital. He was a horrible, murderous beast who needed to die—but the thought of his death seemed just as repugnant as the realization that he had murdered those people back there.
It’s not my fault
, he thought. “Damn it!” he yelled, pounding his fists on the steering wheel. “It wasn’t my fault!” He screamed and shook his head. “This is not my fault!”

* * * * *

Snow saw movement in the wood line to the left, and was surprised to see a stranger moving quickly toward the helicopter, pulling what looked like a body behind him. Snow aimed the pistol at the strange man as he opened the cockpit door.

“You the one called Snow Eagle?” The man said, oblivious that Snow’s pistol was aimed directly at his face, now at point blank range.

Snow frowned. The man was covered in blood.

“I am. Who are you?”

“My name’s Thomas
Devereaux
and this is my dog, Jack.” He dropped one end of the makeshift litter, flipping it back to expose the Husky. “He’s hurt, but he will be okay. We’ve been through a lot.”

“What’s going on? Where is captain Deluth?”

Thomas reached for his cargo pocket, but Snow re-aimed the pistol and grunted.

“I’m reaching for what Deluth told me to give you, that’s all. I do have his MP-5 slung across my back, and his pistol inside my jacket, but I am going for neither, I assure you.”

“Slowly,” Snow said.

When Snow saw the blood-stained paper in Thomas’s hand, he said, “Slowly bring it here, but keep your other hand on top of your head.”

Thomas nodded and did as he was asked. As he gently handed the paper to Snow, he said, “Compliments of the captain. The man said there was no time to waste and he said that Alan Tucker was loose and that you would know all about that once you read this note and the paper that he gave to you before he left the helicopter with his team.”

When Lieutenant Snow Eagle took a longer moment to study Thomas’s face, he felt a powerful sorrow for the man.
Here is a hollow man
, he thought. His father had told him stories of hollow men…men who had lost their souls or lost their way in life—many would leave, never to return and many would turn to alcohol or mischief. This man before him would have left, Snow knew. This was a hollow man.

 “I’m Lieutenant Snow Eagle...everyone calls me Snow…it’s easy to remember.”

Thomas nodded.

“Can you tell me about the others? Where are the Svensons’ and their helicopter?”

Thomas clenched his teeth. “They’re—gone—they are all gone.”

Snow frowned, but nodded.

Thomas laid Jack on one of the passenger benches and ran straps through the dog’s harness. “We’ll be home soon enough, boy. You just lay there.” He stroked Jack’s face. “Thanks for saving me back there, Jack. If you hadn’t done what you did, I’d be gone, too.”