Full Moonster Read online

  It was a pleasant success after our failure in the Yukon last month. A werewolf had escaped from us by the unprecedented ploy of jumping out of a jet plane at 40,000 feet. By the time we got the pilot to turn around, decrease altitude and slow enough for us to parachute after the monster, the beast was already dead and a local vet had disappeared. Almost certainly bitten and now an unwilling enemy of humanity. Poor soul. As one of our very few outright failures, the memory of the incident badly rankled us.

  On the rear couch of the RV, a redheaded giant finished his prayers with a rumbling, “Amen.” Removing the purple sash from around his collar, Father Michael Xavier Donaher folded the cloth into a neat bundle and placed it inside a small suitcase with the rest of his priestly paraphernalia: rosary, Bible, scapula and shotgun. As always, the good Father was dressed in a black cassock, black pants and track shoes.

  “Faith, and what do we know about the history of Hadleyville?” Father Donaher rumbled in his phony Irish brogue. “Any known ghosts? Local monster legends? Devil cults? Young Republicans Club?"

  Placing her 35mm Nikon camera back into the bag between us on the front seat, Jessica pressed a few buttons on the dashboard and cycled up a small computer keyboard and monitor. Booting the on-board system, my Oriental wife keyed in the security codes and accessed the West Virginia data file. This state had always been a hot bed of paranormal activity, so while in Wheeling for gas, we used a cell modem at a payphone to download the appropriate ASCII file into the van's gigabyte zip drive memory bank from our big InfoNet Cray SVG Mark IV mainframe located in Chicago.

  Suddenly, I went cold. Ye god, I had actually understood that hacker babble! Gotta get out more.

  Her slim fingers dancing on the keyboard, words began to scroll onto the screen. “Established as a municipality in 1774,” Jess started. “Was a coal mining town until the vein was exhausted in 1905. Population dropped from 20,000 to 400. Wow. Big bootlegging operation in the ‘30s. Town converted to tourism in the 1950s. Built a luxury hotel specifically designed for conventions. They hold about one a month there: plumbers union, Shriners, Elks, WesCon, which is some kind of a science fiction convention, all sorts of stuff."

  The screen scrolled some more. “Current mayor is a Eugene Synder, police chief is Steven Kissel. Owner-slash-manager of the hotel is a Lucia Read. Apparently the three of them pretty much run the place."

  “Interesting,” Donaher remarked, sliding fresh shells into his Remington shotgun. “Sounds like your typical small town. Isolated, incestuous and innocent."

  “Except it ain't there no more,” Jess noted.

  True enough. We had already been on our way here when the telex came in from the state police and suddenly our recon mission to Hadleyville was elevated to Full Investigation. When any town stops answering every phone, CB, Ham radio, computer modem, Western Union telegraph, fax, and email, this raises suspicions. But when the event occurs at nigh exactly the same time as a transdimensional rift, bingo! We go in, hard, fast and with guns drawn.

  Sitting on the third couch, was a pale slim man softly cursing as he struggled to unfold a road map and made a botch of the job. Nice to know there was something the mage wasn't good at doing. Dressed rather conservatively this morning, Raul Horta was wearing a sleeveless black T-shirt decorated with a starry picture of the Milky Way galaxy marked with a tiny red arrow indicating that ‘You Are Here'. Neon-blue jogging shorts displayed his incredibly pale legs, and his bony feet sported tan yacht-style moccasins complete with ropes, portholes, anchors and a minuscule steering wheel.

  “Only a few more miles to the Hadleyville exit,” announced Raul's voice from behind the map. He crossed his legs to the sound of the ocean. “Unless I'm reading this wrong and we're actually in Brazil."

  “Okay, how about landmarks?” I requested, heroically trying not to tumble the RV off the inclined road. Geez, hadn't any of the builders heard of that nifty invention called a level?

  “Landmarks?” Raul repeated, turning the map turned around, sideways and then went upside-down. “Ah! There we are. Make a left past the next runaway-truck crash ramp."

  “A major historical landmark,” George quipped from underneath a camouflage cap. Uncrossing his arms, the gunner straightened his cloth headgear and sat upright. A proper soldier, Mr. Renault had been trying to catch a nap before a possible battle. Appropriately, our plump killer was wearing mottled green U.S. Army fatigues, complete with high-top black GI boots and web-style gun belt holding a holstered Colt .45 automatic. On the seat next to him was a banjo which made an unnaturally large depression in the cushion.

  “Not true,” Jessica denied, loading a clip of tranquilizer darts into a spare Nikon. Her cameras could shoot in more ways than one. Say cheese or die!

  “In West Virginia, a truck crash is just another way of saying that tourists are in town,” she finished with a grin.

  “Ha. I laugh,” George replied sleepily. Lowering the brim of the hat, he started to snore. Sprawled on the floor, Amigo politely began to echo him.

  Depositing the Nikon into a cushioned bag full of telephoto lenses, Jessica began loading infrared film into an underwater camera. The love of my life had good balance and fine composition. Took nice pictures too.

  “Here comes the Hadleyville exit,” Mindy said, continuing to sharpen her long curved katana. As always, our lady ninja was sensibly dressed in combat sneakers and a muted gray jogging suit, which gave her maximum freedom of movement, plus could hold an arsenal of edged weapons.

  I squinted at the roadway. “What? Where?"

  Stroke. Stroke. “Wait."

  Methodically, Ms. Jennings ran a rectangular block of depleted uranium along the edge to clean the blade. Ultra-thin strips of the superdense metal curled up from the block and tumbled to the carpeted floor with tiny thumps. The Ginsu people would kill to get a hold of that sword. Which is the only way to remove it from the deadly hands of Mindy Jennings, girl ninja.

  A minute later, the RV rounded a bend and we saw the exit. Someday, I would have to discover how the hell she did stuff like this. Smell the paint on the sign?

  On the side of the road was a set of empty wooden poles, the pale clean wood at the top clearly announcing where a sign had formerly been located. Hmm. Was somebody trying to hide the very existence of the town? Or just sidetrack the idle curious?

  Slowing alongside, it was possible to see a green-and-white metallic sign lying partially hidden in the grass. And just beyond was a double line of rubber yellow cones closing off the exit ramp. A brand new sign said that the road was closed for repairs.

  “Isn't this the only route in or out of town?” Father Donaher asked, tugging on the ends of his long red moustache.

  Placing an ear against the colored paper, Raul briefly consulted the map. “Yes, it is,” he confirmed.

  “Oh, Kathi!” I called.

  A plush recliner swivelled about to display the amazingly buxom, Katrina Sommers. Wearing only denim short-shorts, ankle strap sandals and a skimpy red halter top, the tan actress would have been considered a major traffic hazard in any civilized nation. A recent addition to her ensemble was a tiny tattoo of a butterfly decorating her right shoulder. The tattoo used to be on the opposite thigh. I was surprised to learn that butterflies migrate. At least, Kathi's did.

  Waving her fingers about as if saying goodbye to a friend, the wizard formed trails of sparkling lights in the air.

  “Nyet, Edwardo,” she said in heavily accented English. “Bridge intact is."

  The lovely Russian mage had only recently joined our covert team, and her knowledge of the English language was nowhere near as good as her command of the occult arts.

  With a nod, I loosened both of the .357 Magnums in my double shoulder holster. “Okay, battle stations."

  That statement was immediately followed by a series of metallic clacks as a wide variety of weapons were prepped for instant combat. Except, of course, for the two wizards. Gunpowder-and-magic mix about as well as sex-and-g
lue.

  But each mage held a metallic staff. The wizard wands had always been there, only now they were visible to the naked eye. A master wizard, Raul's staff was four-feet-long and made of pure silver topped with gold. Just a beginner mage, Kathi's was only made of stainless steel. But since she possessed the stolen power of three adult wizards, it was also four-feet in length. Precisely as long as Raul's. Exactly to the micron. Once in the middle of the night, I had accidentally caught them drunk, in the closet, measuring each like a couple of teenagers. Sheesh! Mages. They're the main reason why antacids were invented.

  George awoke.

  Wary of a trap, I carefully rotated the steering wheel and maneuvered onto the berm to bypass the safety barrier. Momentarily, a meter on the dashboard flickered, indicating that we were in the process of running over needle-sharp railroad spikes buried in the loose gravel. There was only the faintest burbling noise as our self-repairing tires handled the inconvenience.

  As we spent most of our duty time traveling, aside from the standard amenities, the massive RV was equipped with: front-launched Amsterdam Mark IV All-Purpose missiles, side mounted .50-caliber machine guns, twin aft 40mm grenade launchers and miniature Claymore mines in the door handles. Moreover, the hull could be electrified, and the razor-edged door could instantly snap closed under 8,000 pounds of hydraulic pressure. The van could also instantly change color, travel underwater, through fire, and sported a quadraphonic Bose stereo with digital CD player. Although a true technological marvel, the upholstered fort got terrible gas mileage. Ah well, nothing was perfect.

  Then a thought occurred, and I turned to smile at my beautiful wife. She smiled back, and the temperature of the van rapidly increased by twenty degrees. Correction. Almost nothing was perfect.

  Maintaining an even speed, the long RV rolled onto the old country bridge. The stout oak trestles rattling and clattering under our twenty-four tons of military armor.

  When we reached mid-span, another meter ticked, showing that a device underneath the bridge had just bombarded the van with an EM pulse which should have fried every working circuit in the vehicle.

  The wheels started humming again when we reached macadam, and I increased the speed, only to hit the brakes a second later. A tree lay across the road blocking any possible advance. Annoyed murmurs arose. It may have only been my imagination, but it was certainly starting to appear as if somebody really didn't want any visitors going to Hadleyville. Maybe tourist season was finished for the spring.

  “Brace yourselves,” I calmly announced, hitting the buttons for the nitrous-oxide injector and the automatic front jacks at the same time. With a roar, the gigantic van lurched forward and over the horizontal oak. We hit the ground with a moderate jar and rolled sedately onward. I tried to hide a smile and failed. God, I love doing that.

  Moving at a slow pace, the RV barely crested the next hill when the road leveled out nicely. A couple of miles later, at the bottom of a low valley, I slammed onto the brakes so hard that Amigo almost went through the windshield.

  Sprawled in the middle of the road were dozens of dead bodies. Or rather, what remained of them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Slow and easy, the team exited the van, watching where they stepped so as not to disturb anything of importance. But with a sick stomach I knew it would be hard to find anything significant in all this blood.

  Maybe a dozen bodies dotted the concrete, sprawled in dry pools of caked brown matter. A buzzing cloud of insects darkened the sky. I had smelled worse, but not in this universe.

  There was no sign of their cars.

  Jessica started clicking her camera, taking shots of the crime scene. Raul and Kathi put their heads together to confer, then majestically waved their wands. Instantly, the cloud of flies went buzzing away and we got a clear view of the bodies. The corpses had no hands or heads. Yuck.

  The last to leave the van, I flipped a switch activating our Dead Man box to record our conversations, and I armed the self-destruct. If anybody, or thing, tried to enter without our consent, they would suddenly be flying towards Mars in several large chunks.

  “Raul, George, do a perimeter sweep,” I ordered, Magnum in my left hand. “Mindy, you're on guard. Jess, photo everything. Kathi and Donaher, stay with me."

  The team separated to their assigned tasks. George paused only a moment to grab a spare belt of linked .30 ammunition for his banjo.

  Pulling a fountain pen from inside his cassock, Donaher removed the cap and telescoped out a long surgical probe. Removing another pen from my own shirt pocket, I twisted the middle twice and gave it to him. Gazing through my pen, he prodded the ends of an arm, and neck stump. He tried very hard not to step in the blood and almost succeeded. Steeling myself, I went through the pants, shirts and dresses. Every pocket was clean. Not even lint remained. A very professional job.

  “Well?” Kathi asked after a moment.

  “Removed by amateurs,” the big priest stated coldly.

  Eh? “Explain,” I demanded, rocking back on my heels.

  “They cut off the hands at the wrist, here, where the joint bones are their thickest,” Father Donaher demonstrated. “A classic beginner's mistake. Plus, while the wrists were done in one shot, the neck took two. I postulate the implement as a wedge of smooth steel, very sharp and thin. A butcher's cleaver would be perfect. Maybe a machete, but it would have to be new."

  “How do you know that?” Kathi asked, puzzled.

  “Machetes are manufactured from cheap steel,” Mindy answered, stooping over to inspect something on the ground. “They dull fast and resharpening always leaves irregularities in the blade length.” Dead bodies didn't bother our martial artist in the least. Lord knows she'd made enough of them in her time.

  Camera clicking steadily, Jessica gave a shiver. “But why remove the heads and hands? Symbolism? Demonic ceremony?"

  “Lunch?” Raul added somberly.

  Zounds. What a mind the man had.

  “To hinder identification,” George said around the beef stick in his mouth. Hefting his heavy banjo to a more comfortable position, George suddenly seemed to realize the food was there, made a face, and threw the snack into the weeds.

  “Sure be hard as hell to tell who is who, if the fools had also taken the feet along with the wallets and rings,” he said scrubbing his mouth with a handkerchief.

  True enough. Footprints were like fingerprints, totally unique, and they never change. Both the FBI and Bureau 13 had identified many a weird corpse by processing prints off feet to compare with hospital records taken of babies at birth. It was a long and tedious process, despite the recent augmentation of government computers. But it did work. Eventually.

  “Besides, they may be ... wearing the heads as a disguise,” I finished. It was a very strange business we were in.

  “Appears as if the victims were physically pulled out the windows of their cars,” Donaher said, brushing a tattered coat sleeve. “Note the tiny glass particles on their clothes? And here, and over there, on the road."

  Yanked out of the closed window of a moving vehicle? Wow. Our mysterious perps were seriously tough hombres. Even worse than South Philly cops.

  Curiously, I glanced about for any splotches of green or yellow or black fluids. “Any blood that isn't human?"

  The priest frowned. “None that I can see."

  “Damn.” I frowned.

  Standing in the middle of the roadway, I tried to reconstruct the sequence of events in my mind. “Okay. Cars are driving along this road. Something, or things, jump onto the vehicles and pull the drivers out through the windows.” I glanced around at the trees and safety barrier. “So how come there are no automobile wrecks? What'd they do? Eat the cars?"

  Putting two fingers in his mouth, George gave a sharp whistle. “Over here!” he cried and motioned us closer. “Skid marks!"

  Long irregular streaks on the road surface told the story of brakes applied hard. Many of the tracks overlapped each other.


  “How many vehicles?” Raul asked, pulling off the shoes of a corpse to take toe prints.

  “Ten, twelve cars,” I estimated.

  Holding her wand out of the pools of blood, Kathi distorted her face into an expression of disgust. “Which implies many killers."

  “Ominous,” Raul agreed, applying a sheet of shiny white paper to the soles of the headless man. The acid in the skin began to form recognizable patterns of the specially treated paper. It wasn't an invention of the Bureau's, just standard FBI issue field equipment.

  Kneeling on the berm, Mindy prodded the laurel bushes which edged this section of the road with the tip of her sword. “They came through here,” she announced. “And hid behind this clump of evergreen trees."

  “Any details?” Donaher growled, grimly jacking the pump-action on his Remington 12-gauge shotgun. Father Mike considered killing monsters a holy chore. One he performed with pleasure and relish.

  She squinted at the leaves. “Fifty ... maybe sixty. Humans."

  Everybody stopped.

  “Humans?” George queried with a frown. “You sure?"

  “Dress shoes, high heels, slippers, bare feet, boots, and a lot of sneakers,” she replied in answer. “This soil is nicely moist and holds the tracks well."

  “Sneakers?” Donaher asked, rubbing a hand across his wild crop of red hair. “You sure?"

  Mindy gestured. “Take a look."

  Careful not to disturb the tracks, Mike and I ambled closer and stared at the dirt. It appeared to be perfectly smooth and unmarred. But that's one of the reasons we had Ms. Jennings along. She could follow a drop of rain in a typhoon. I, on the other hand, often experienced trouble locating my car keys.

  “See,” Mindy said, fingering the blank ground. “Definitely not human norm. Vaguely similar to the stride pattern of hoofed demons, but different. Smoother, lighter."

  “Little demons?” Kathi asked scowling.