Hunter's Moon

I remember sitting around the fire. Katie was on one side of me, Jan on the other. Doug-and-Trina were beside Papa. I don’t remember where Johnny was - he must have been somewhere close. The fire wasn’t one of our best efforts and had begun to die even before the sun set, and Jan was cold. She asked Papa, who was sitting on the other side of her, if he would get more wood for the fire. Papa said that he was too tired and comfortable, and that if she wanted to warm up she should climb on his lap. Jan put on her biggest “please” face and asked me. I turned to Katie, hoping to get out of it, but she said she was cold, too. I dutifully got up to find some fallen branches on the hill. I ignored Papa’s call of “whipped” as I walked away.

The skies were clear as darkness fell, so the temperature was rapidly plunging. I tried not to think about how, if this was a horror film, it was always the person who left the main group who was the first to die. How if this was Friday the Thirteenth, Part 27 there would be this sudden rush of noise behind me and suddenly I’d feel a blade shoved into my back or a machete slicing open my jugular. Not for the first time I cursed Doug and Papa’s taste in date night movies.

At least I was on the opposite side of the hill from the Johnson family graveyard. If I was in a Night of the Living Dead remake, my friends would encounter zombies before I did. There would be zombie versions of Papa (no great change) and Jan... I quickly tried to think of something else. To put those thoughts out of my mind, I focused on my search for firewood. Late summer storms had damaged several of the old apple trees. I gathered the fallen branches, breaking them against some of the larger tree trunks so they would be easy to toss into the fire. I tried to avoid rotting apples, but I heard a tell-tale squish as my right Nike stepped on one that was hidden by fallen leaves. Grumbling that my prized footwear had become Pear Jordans (I know, I’m still ashamed of that pun), I picked up my offerings to the fire gods.

I had just bent down to pick up a last piece of wood when I heard the crackle of leaves. Something was close to me, waiting in the gathering gloom. I grabbed the sturdiest stick and prepared to brandish it as a weapon and slowly turned around. Another noise of scuffling feet came, closer than the last. I swallowed hard and tightened my grip on the stick.

I was just about to call out, when I saw a beam of light cut through the woods and hit me in the face. It was Jan, she’d come down the hill to look for me. She had a flashlight; always prepared, that girl. Back then she carried around this huge purse that seemed to have everything in it from gum to super glue, to band-aids to (apparently) flashlights. I forced my breathing to slow, not wanting to let on I’d been frightened and she was kind enough not to let on that she knew. She was apologizing for making me leave the warmth of the fire when the noise started; a low, steady rumble, like a train. If I’d been in town it would not have drawn notice; but we were miles from the nearest railroad line. The wind picked up, seemingly out of nowhere. It was blowing straight up the hill. I looked up and could see clouds rushing in from the west, blocking out the faintly glowing stars and the fast setting sun. I dropped the firewood and found Jan in my arms. We ran uphill, holding each other’s hands. Peppercorn-sized hail began to fall. As we reached the clearing at the top of the hill, I saw Papa by the edge of the old path. I think he had been looking for us. Jan dropped my hand and ran to him. The embers of the fire were blowing everywhere; I saw Doug-and-Trina trying to extinguish some coals that had fallen on their blanket as the hail fell even harder, propelled by the wind. I looked around, but couldn’t see Katie anywhere.

Then I noticed Johnny, near the old well. I could see his eyes and they were wild; at the time I thought he was as scared as I was. Looking back though, I can’t be certain of the scene. I’ve dreamed of that moment countless times over the years, and in those dreams he always appeared to be furious. I don’t know if somehow I projected my fear onto him initially or if some thing about that night stuck in my mind and turned his look into fury. Maybe I’ll never know for sure. But that wasn’t the important part. What happened next was.

I saw a flash and it was as if the earth opened up and swallowed Johnny. Then everything went black.