A lunatic moon

Chapter One - Finding Mike

The town of Glen George is a small rural community that boasted two churches, Glen George United church and then in the other direction, down Meadow's Road west, Lynnville Baptist church for the other folk. It had a small elementary school from kindergarten to a class of grades 3 and 4 combined. It also had a general store in the center of town at a three-way stop, with one of everything. It'd been run by the same proprietor for the past seventy years, Singe Ludlow. Although Ludlow's carried many different items, such as rubber boots, rat traps, giant balls of twine, poison smoke gopher bombs and a large rotating bin filled with screws, shiny spiral nails, and six inch spikes. The store was better known for its stock of bread, milk, cigarettes, cold soda, popsicles and candy for the village children, as well as the small Post office operating out of the far corner.

Glen George was a very old country town. Some gravestones in the cemetery date back to the 1780s. Long before the war of 1812 when the Americans were repelled at Stoney Creek. This meant that some of the families in the community were generations old. This also meant that some of them were dirt poor. They stood out like sore thumbs in the general community at school, mostly because they always appeared unwashed and their clothes were shabby hand-me-downs. A lot of them also smelled of the farms that their families operated. Pig farms, cattle farms or chicken farms.

Glen George also had a Motorcycle Sales and Service just outside of the village, by the railroad tracks. It had been run for the past 20 years by Roger Flack, with a little help from his wife Jamie and to a very minimal extent their son Gord Flack. They had all kinds of new Yamaha and Honda Street bikes displayed in rows in the parking lot, as well as a large selection of dirt bikes for the kids. It was the countryside after all and some families had dirt tracks in the fields behind their houses, for their kids to boot around on Honda 50CCs and Yamaha YZ80s. Other people had larger properties where they might need a quad runner for repairing fences. Although Roger Flack ran a fairly popular business selling and repairing motorbikes and in the winter Skidoos, his son Gord was mostly less than useful and ended up getting in the way more than anything else. On most days, Roger would ask his son Gord to leave the shop and go find something else to do.

Gord didn't have many friends in Glen George but since it was a small town, the nature of children in small towns is to play with whoever might be available. Even if during the school week those friendly dynamics morphed into outright bullying in the schoolyard. Such was the case with Gord Flack, if there were nobody around to play with, one might reluctantly call on Gord to pass the time, if one could tolerate his immaturity and embarrassing quirks. Just until back to school on Monday morning, where he'd once again become a popular target for bullying. It wasn't as if Gord was a typical stereotype that bullies might normally single out. He wasn't pimply-faced, he wasn't morbidly obese, nor was he short, scrawny and freckled. He had a clear complexion and was as tall and wide as most other boys his age. In fact if anything he was a little bit stout and stronger than most. Girls didn't find him particularly good looking at all, he was a frumpy, husky, wide faced boy, with a painfully awkward personality. If anything, It was his personality that was his undoing. He was annoying and sorely lacked in social skills. He'd giggle too loudly at things that weren't funny. He'd embarrass you in front of girls to make himself look better, like fart and point the finger at you. In some circles this wouldn't be that big of a deal, especially if there was some camaraderie already established, but Gord didn't know how to establish camaraderie. If he ever managed to, it was always short lived, immediately sabotaged, with him loudly telling a stupid joke in bad taste.

Of course, there were wealthy families too around about the village. Whose fathers worked a forty minute drive away in the big city of Hammerton, where there was industry, office buildings and banks. A lot of these families had lived in the big city at one point, eventually choosing to move to the country, in hopes of providing a better life for their children. One of those families was the Fergusons, a family with five kids. The children were, Danny Ferguson the oldest at 16, followed by Kevin 15, then lastly, the twins Bobby & James who were 14 years old. Their parents, Arthur, (or Art as he liked to be called), and Louise Ferguson had wanted to leave the city, as soon as their oldest Danny and Kevin had started getting bullied when they started at the East end middle school where a lot of bad kids went. Many of them were already smoking and into drugs. Since Danny and Kevin were good kids and hadn't made any friends there, they became easy targets and it quickly turned nasty. The city school more or less turned a blind eye to it, since this was the 70s and things were a lot different then. Then they had no such thing as zero tolerance for bullying and the schoolyard justice had its own way of creating balance on the playground. That next summer Danny's father bought a big old red brick house, smack dab in the center of town, at the crossroads and just two houses from

Ludlow's General store and so the Ferguson family moved to Glen George. His father, Mr. Arthur Ferguson had a good paying job at a well known publishing company and could afford it. The kids didn't mind a bit, there was a lot to see and explore for a bunch of city kids. There were ponds and creeks for fishing. Lots of trees and forests for building forts and hiking in. There was an old set of railroad tracks that ran through town. It went all the way from Hammerton, the big city they'd just left and worked its way through town, intersecting two main roads, before heading to the next big city fifteen miles due west of them. Glen George was essentially a one stop town, marked by a three-way intersection with the general store as the main event. The road stretched between two cities, with a turn-off perpendicular to the store, running a winding route away from Glen George up a few miles to the highway. The Fergusons lived one house away from the store, in the center of town, further ensuring that everybody knew where their house was.

Danny had always been a bit of a loner, but also a prolific explorer and it didn't take him long to fall in love with the fields, forests and streams of Glen George. It also didn't take him long to make his first fair weather friend Gord Flack. It was Gord Flack who sussed him out and his twin brothers Bobby and James. Gord had heard there were new kids in town and wanted to be the first to win them over and show off a little. So he invited them to check out Glen George Cemetary. Not the most entertaining option in making new friends, but then neither Danny, Bobby, or James had seen it yet. Kevin just wasn't interested and stayed home. So they set out to the graveyard and marveled at the age of some of the old tombstones. In one section of the cemetery there were old white marble stones whose names were barely legible but they dated back to 1785. Glen George had been settled by Dutch pioneer farmers and had been a prosperous boom town once. In those years, the town had boasted a full train station, a proper hotel, a general mercantile, 3 blacksmiths, a sawmill, a grist mill, a couple of churches and a small schoolhouse. Danny was absorbed with the oldest tombstones and so didn't see Gord climbing on one of the large family monuments. He only turned when he heard his younger brothers Bobby and James telling Gord to get down off of it. Bobby was disgusted at how disrespectful Gord was being and was beginning to lose his cool. Danny and his brothers had been taught to respect other people's graves and they were all surprised that Gord apparently didn't give a damn and was now mocking the family name as well, while he climbed all over the large granite gravestone. Bobby asked him again to 'please' get down. James chimed in agreeing with his twin brother, "Yeah Gord. Don't do that anymore, get off of it!"

Bobby walked on over, frowning up at Gord. "Come on Gord get down, didn't you hear them? That's disrespectful and you shouldn't be doing that." "What does it matter? Their dead anyway. I don't think it's gonna bother them if they're dead!" He laughed. " What would you do if I pissed on it though?" Gord taunted, moving his chubby fingers toward his fly...A shit-eating grin lit up his round face. "Aw c'mon man, you better not try, cuz I won't let you..." Bobby said stepping towards Gord. He reached for his arm to pull him off, but Gord just laughed and climbed a little higher, standing on top of it. He reached again for his zipper, his beady eyes squinting. "Hey! That's enough." Danny yelled, "Get off of there!" "Go on and make me!" Gord taunted.

Bobby's arm shot out and grabbed Gord's pant leg, he gave it a strong tug spilling him off the stone and he landed hard on the grass, the air knocked out of him. His face turned red, initially with embarrassment, but then quickly to anger. Although he may not have been liked well, it was still early days for Gord and he hadn't become the central target for bullying in the village as of yet. That would come later, in some part spawned by what was about to happen next. "Hey fuck off Bobby!" Gord hissed, clearly winded. Getting up and brushing dirt from his pants, he suddenly lunged at Bobby and shoved him hard with both hands. "Fuck you! I can do what I want." Bobby fell on his butt, surprised and hurt, now it was his turn to get angry. He quickly jumped to his feet "You can't piss on someone's tombstone. What if that was YOUR family huh?" He strode towards Gord. Gord smirked and said, "Yeah well it's not." And took a slow looping swing at Bobby. Bobby was stunned at this sudden change in Gord's behaviour, but he easily dodged the swing and grabbing him around his chubby waist with both arms, tackled Gord to the ground straddling on top of him in the graveyard grass. He nailed Gord with a solid shot to the side of his face and then Gord went apeshit. He reached up with both hands and grabbed Bobby's hair in two tight fistfuls and wrenched him off onto his side. Bobby started punching him in his stomach, but Gord was chubby and it didn't seem to have much effect. They wrestled on the ground, rolling around while Gord kept pulling Bobby's hair. Bobby punched him in the head again and grabbed his shirt collar. Then Gord did something that shocked all three of the Ferguson kids, he turned his head and bit down hard on Bobby's forearm.

"Arghh! What the..?" Bobby yelled. "He just bit me!" "No way!" Danny shouted, "This guy's a dirty fighter!" Danny was shocked at seeing his little brother locked in a fight with this strange kid. But biting and pulling hair was also commonly considered dirty fighting among the boys. Growing up they'd all had a few moments where they had ended up locked in battle, but pulling hair and biting were always a no-no. So Danny stepped in and tried pulling Gord off his brother Bobby, but Gord hung on to Bobby's hair with both hands. Bobby lashed out again with his right fist and punched Gord, one, two, three times in his right eye and finally, Gord let go. Danny helped Bobby up from the ground while James made a move for Gord. "No, don't," Danny said and held James back with his hand gently on his chest. "leave the little sissy fighter alone, he might bite you." Disgusted and hurt the three Ferguson boys walked quickly out of the cemetery towards home. Now and then casting dour looks over their shoulders, Gord continued calling names after them, as they walked away. That was the day they found out that little Gord Flack was more than a weirdo, he was a little unpredictable too, an outcast and not always pleasant to hang out with. There were other kids in town to make friends with and they'd be better off without him. The Ferguson boys also knew they'd been in the right to pull Gord off the tombstone, especially before he pissed on it, which they all had no doubt he would have done. And when the story was spread at Glen George elementary school, how he pulled hair and bit when he fought. That sealed his fate and he made two instant enemies. Two of the biggest farm boys in the school, Craig and Darryl, who were also twins, took a special liking to Bobby and James. Craig and Darryl were some of the first kids from the village to greet Danny, Kevin, Bobby and James when they moved to Glen George from the city. A slew of village kids stood gathered around the moving truck, to get an eyeful of the new family that day, city slickers nonetheless. The two biggest, as well as the friendliest of these kids, were Craig and Darryl. The same age as the Ferguson boys, they lived about a mile up the road toward the highway. They even helped bring cardboard cartons of stuff in from the moving truck and instantly befriended Bobby and James, but when they heard how Gord flack had treated them at the cemetery, they were furious. Not only did they feel bad for their new friends, by the way they'd been treated so poorly at the cemetery, but they also had family ancestors buried there. Word was, they had never cared for Gordie much anyway. So they didn't let him leave the schoolyard at the end of the first day back to school, not without a short but brutal beating first. for his actions against the new kids in town and his disrespect for the tombstones. His black eyes and busted lip were a testament to that and he would have had a hard time explaining it to his parents. No doubt he did it with a lie.

Time passed and the memory of the fight at the graveyard grew dim but was never forgotten. Eventually, Gord Flack began walking around like he owned the town again. No matter how great he thought he was though, all of Gord's bravado seemed to come from the fact that his father owned a motorcycle sales and service, one of the biggest businesses in this small town. It also insured that he was able to impress any few fair weather friends he had with promises of riding one of the dirt bikes around the shop's gravel parking lots from time to time. So with guarded judgement, Danny Ferguson became one of Gord's few fair weather friends in Glen George to kick around with on rainy days. By no means though was he the only friend they had in town. They had a few closer, nicer friends than Gord and one of them was Mike Vansickle. Danny and Mike got to be very close. The kids in the village all knew each other and the boys who were close, both in and out of school, hung out after school and on weekends. In the summertime they all played on the same softball team together. Mike lived across the road and past the general store. He was a good guy and a solid friend with strict parents, but like all teenagers do at some point, they grow up to test the limits of their parent's rules. That's what got him in trouble that night he tried walking home along the tracks, drunk after a party in town. If he'd stayed on the road and kept trying to thumb a ride, he probably would have made it one way or another. Hitchhiking on a country road with no streetlights in all that fog, there are no guarantees though. So the next morning when he wasn't in his room getting ready to work with his father at their auto repair, (Glen George Garage, up on the highway), his mother started making phone calls. Her first call was to the Ferguson's and Danny answered on the second ring.

"Oh hi, Mrs. Vansickle." He said. "No, I haven't seen Mike at all. I don't know what he did last night. I know there was a party at the gravel pits in town, but I didn't go." She explained that Mike had left for town after dinner the night before and had been hitchhiking as usual.

"I've told him over and over, I don't want him doing that, but he doesn't listen."

She didn't like him hitchhiking, but without a car, or a ride from someone, it was the only way to get to town. So a few of the parents just put up with it, hoping that somebody from the area would recognize them and pick them up. Danny hitchhiked back and forth himself and never had any trouble. Rides were never a sure thing though and he'd made the seven mile walk home from a party more than once. It was quite a mission too, there were no street lights out there and you were at the mercy of the weather. A seven mile hike, even along a straight road, is not an undertaking for the timid. Danny knew for a fact that dumbass Gordie Flack had never done it in his life. It might do him some good though.

A few minutes after hanging up with Mike's mom, there was a knock on the door. It was the side door where the driveway was, so probably somebody that knew them. The Ferguson's front door led off Glen George Road and was only used by the kids when they went for the school bus in the morning, or their father, when Mr. Ferguson sat on the front porch to smoke. Robbie called, "Door!" from the living room where he watched T.V. When Danny opened it he was surprised to see Mike's sister Carrie.

"Do you know where Mike is?" she asked. She was a year older than them and although Danny saw her plenty when he visited Mike, didn't hang out with her, or her friends. They were a different crowd at school. He only talked to her if he was over visiting Mike.

"Naw, Haven't seen him at all. I just talked to your mom on the phone too."

"She's freaking out." Carrie added.

"Is your Dad at the garage right now?" Danny asked.

"Yeah and he's pissed too."

"I can imagine! Well, it's totally not like Mike to come home. The only thing I can think of is that he got wasted and passed out somewhere. He might be trying to get home now..." Danny trailed off, thinking of the different possibilities. Not wanting to imagine his friend dead in the ditch somewhere along the road after getting hit by a car. The high school they all attended had a bad reputation for student fatalities and drinking and driving. Even a few deaths were labeled as 'misadventure' by the cops. Cops who had said those very deaths were from kids getting high and drunk at some party or another. Kids who had then went to meet their end in 'stunts gone wrong'. One of Danny's closest friends had died the year before in a mysterious drowning.

Carrie stood in the doorway wringing her hands, looking nervous. She kept looking over her shoulder. "Can you let us know if you hear anything at all?"

"Sure, of course. Yeah, right away." Danny replied, suddenly feeling bad for Carrie. She looked like she was about to say something else, but instead thanked him and left. He thought he'd seen fear in her eyes, before she turned and walked away. Fear or dread. Are they the same thing? Danny wondered, hoping Mike was alright, as he watched her walk down the driveway and turn in the direction of Gord Flack's house. He hoped Carrie would have good enough sense to not ask Gord anything. Not only was he a liar and enjoyed exaggerating, but Danny knew Gord had a big old crush on Carrie Vansickle. Not that he was jealous or anything, but Danny knew that the last thing she needed, was Gord giving her the old eyeball.

He shut the door and walked to the living room where Robbie and James were watching an episode of 'Unsolved Mysteries'.

"Mike didn't come home last night." He said to his brother. "He's gonna be in big shit." then he walked all the way upstairs to the renovated attic, where he and the twins, had their bedrooms. He grabbed his Walkman and checked the batteries, picking out a couple of choice tapes to listen to on his walk. He'd decided to go back the tracks this afternoon for something to do, maybe look for stuff in the woods. He'd found some neat old bottles and other stuff in the forests around Glen George during his wanderings around the village. In the old days, before municipal garbage collection, whatever couldn't be burned in a firepit was dumped out in the woods or at the edge of their property. Danny liked finding these remnants and also knowing that he was probably the only person around with such an impressive collection of old medicine bottles, assorted animal bones and other artifacts forgotten to the past. He had them proudly displayed on two long shelves up in his room. His other brothers weren't into the same things Danny was. They were more athletic, happier playing sports like football and soccer than hiking around, exploring and looking in the woods and abandoned farmhouses for things to add to his collection. One of the farmers he sometimes talked to, even had arrowheads he'd found while ploughing his field. He even showed them to Danny, who thought it was super cool to be able to find something like that.

He put the tapes into a battered grey 'World Famous' shoulder bag along with his walkman and an old jack knife he carried everywhere. The bag held a wild assortment of odds and ends designed for short term survival in the wild. There was a magnifying glass he'd used to start fires if his matches got wet, a few fish hooks carefully packaged and taped together in a folded piece of paper, about fifteen feet of fishing line wound around a stick. He had an old pill bottle with wooden safety matches that had been dipped in wax to keep them dry and working. There were spare batteries for his walkman, which in Danny's mind was a critical part of any hike. In fact, there was a little bit of everything in the old canvas bag, that he could imagine he might need in the case of an emergency. When he'd been a cub scout in the city, he'd learned to 'be prepared'. Danny took that tenet seriously and did not like being caught out unprepared in any situation. Once he had everything needed, he grabbed his hat and went downstairs. Robbie and James were still watching T.V.

"Where you goin'?" He asked as Danny passed through on his way to the side door.

"I'm going back the tracks," he replied, "wanna come?"

"How far are you going back?"

"Uh, back to that little pond where the old fort is." By 'old fort', Danny meant a small shed that had been built years before at the base of a massive old Maple tree. It looked like it had either been built very well by teens as a ground level tree fort, or by their parents as a way to keep the entertained near the pond. Danny and Robbie had found it one time while exploring and had tried swimming in the pond one summer. That had been an awful mistake since the pond was only a couple of feet deep, with black mud, and leeches. Surrounded on shore with saw grass. The saw grass would slice up your shins and ankles, like so many paper cuts, on your way walking into the water and that's what attracted lots of thin, black, hungry leeches. They never swam there again.

"Naw, I'm gonna stay here for now, it looks like it might rain." Bobby said, turning back to the T.V. Danny left and walked down Glen George Road to Meadows Road. He walked past his friend Cam's house on the way and then picked up the pace going past Gord Flack's house. He turned up Meadows Road, past the small school on the right and to the tracks that intersected Meadows Road. As he started walking back the tracks, he noticed that behind him, off to the west there was a bank of dark rain clouds working their way over. He cursed at the thought of getting soaked but figured at the same time, he might be able to beat them to the tree fort by the pond. Inside the fort, there was a long bench on one wall and even a big hinged shutter that you could hook open with a chain and a hook or keep shut. Even with the shutter open, it was dry inside when it rained. Unless the wind was blowing the rain sideways, then you could just close it. So he walked quickly now, scanning the way ahead. A lot of the time you could see animals crossing the tracks like groundhogs, or a furtive fox. In fact, because the tracks ran straight for about a mile here, you could see a long way. It was hard to tell with the heat shimmering off the old railroad ties, but it looked like there might be something on the tracks way up there. Impossible to say what it was, at this distance it just looked like a black lump between the rails. He squinted trying to determine if it was moving at all... It didn't look like it but with the wavering air from the heat...The closer he got, the more he could see that whatever it was, it was big and there was more than one. But now he could also tell that it wasn't moving. It could be a deer or something that got hit by a train. That would be rather unlucky for the deer, Danny thought. Trains hardly ever used these tracks anymore. There might be one each afternoon and then another in the middle of the night. The railway ran not far behind their house and he would have frequent dreams about trains. It made the house rumble and it would blow its horn on the way into town and then again, leaving the village as it crossed Glen George Road by Flack's motorcycle shop. It never even occurred to him that Mike could have been struck by a train since the odds of that were so low. Especially at night. Not just because it could be heard coming from miles off and with a headlight so bright it would turn the night into day as it barreled along. The ground shook and the rumble of the engine was plenty enough to alert you a train was coming.

He hurried closer and closer, racing the rain, curious as thunder rumbled across the fields in a warning. Now he could make out colour to the items ahead, blue white and red. He felt his heart pounding and fear washed over him. It was no animal. Oh Christ. It was a human and it was cut in half! It must've been hit by a train... Danny was very panicky now. Was this Mike? Was this his friend, now dead after getting mowed down by a train? How? Could he have fallen asleep on the tracks while walking home? He couldn't imagine Mike doing that when he was so close to home. Especially if he was supposed to wake up early and work with his dad at the garage. He came up on the body carefully and noticed debris everywhere and blood. The body was dressed in blue jeans and a white t-shirt that was soaked with blood. It had dirty blonde hair and Danny didn't have to see the face to identify it as being Mike...it was him alright. He crept closer, seeing now that the debris was shreds of fabric and parts of a thin tan jacket Mike always wore when the late summer nights grew chilly. There were also chunks of flesh and clumps of bloody hair. He spotted a wallet on the ground laying open but didn't touch it. Tip-toeing around the bits, Danny stopped, standing between the rails he craned to look at the scene laying before him. It was terrible. He'd seen plenty of road kill while hitchhiking and the odd animal carcass on the tracks, so was able to examine the body without running away screaming. One of Mike's arms lay separated, its elbow hooked casually over a rail, fingers touching the stones. He'd been cut in half, his guts exposed with his hips and legs at an angle to his torso. Carefully, Danny stepped back and giving Mike's body a wide berth, walked around to view it from the other side. Here he could see his face and the eyes were wide open, but dull with death. His throat had been torn open so deep, Danny thought he saw white vertebrae peeking through the gore and gristle. The other arm was still attached but tucked under Mike's torso. So Danny was unable to see that all the fingers on Mike's left hand were gone. Finally, the initial shock cleared and Danny started to react, panting and sobbing with horror and grief. He didn't feel the tears rolling down his cheeks, his heart thudding hard in his chest. He was having a hard time just catching his breath. Walking back around the scene, he broke into a run. He had to get home. To his parents. To a phone. He needed to see someone, anyone, just to tell them. This was too much to bear on his own. They'd have to call the police, he wouldn't be able to tell Carrie himself. Just the idea was too much right now. His mind raced as he ran. Those injuries! It didn't look like what would happen to you if you got hit by a train. Mike's body had been torn apart, into pieces like maybe he exploded on impact, but it looked more like he'd been torn apart by a wild animal. His throat...the shredded clothing, more though, it had been the look on Mike's face. His eyes had been wide open. His mouth had been wide open too, almost like he'd been screaming at the instant of his death. If you were hit by a train wouldn't you get thrown into the ditch on either side of the tracks? If you had body parts severed, wouldn't it be a clean cut, instead of ragged tendons stretched out to their limits like white cords and bundled muscle? And there wouldn't be chunks of you scattered about...would there? Too many thoughts, too much horror. He began screaming in short high pitched squeals as he ran, then shrieking the same thing over and over.

"Oh god no! God no! Oh no! God no! Oh god no! Nooo! God! Oh no!" He started stumbling and tripped on a railway tie and went sprawling on his hands and knees, cutting one palm badly and skinning both knees on the rocks. He knelt there panting as his tears dripped, beading on the creosote that wept from the tarry railway ties. He swallowed trying to catch his breath and his throat felt raw. He wasn't far from the road now, so he picked himself up and instead of screaming, instead of letting his mind race out of control, Danny focussed on one thing...getting home. He peeled his pants from his skinned knees and started running again. Thunder rumbled in the distance now. It hadn't rained after all, it had just gotten really, really dark.

When he got to the village he ran past Gord's house, who stood immobile like an idiot, watching him run past. His fat white face and liver lips were slobbery as he yelled, "Hey! Danny!" Gord yelled. "Where ya goin'? Heyyy! Danny!" But Danny ignored him and cut across lawns in the direction of his driveway. He took the steps two at a time and burst through the door, bent over with his hands on his knees gasping for breath.

"Danny? Is that you?" He heard his mother say. From the corner of his eye, he saw her walk into the dining room with a concerned look on her face. He looked up at her and then burst into tears, his knees buckled and gave out. He sat down hard on the wooden floor with a thump and started sobbing.

After he was able to tell his mother what had happened. Louise Ferguson immediately went to the phone, first calling his father at work to come home, then calling the police. Once that was done, she came back into the dining room to check on Danny and patch up the palm of his hand that was now crusted over with dried blood. He'd cut it when he'd landed on a sharp stone and at the time he hadn't felt a thing. Now though it had become a dull throb and he hissed at the sting when she squeezed bactine over it. Robbie sat in a chair beside him comforting his older brother. Robbie's twin, James and Kevin were both out. James had gone to the nearby bass pond to fish and Kevin was off somewhere on his bike. By the time the cops got there Danny was exhausted and sat numbly at the table, staring at a half-eaten sandwich on a plate in front of him. He heard the two cops talking to his mother and the intermittent crackles and squawks from their radios. They were full of questions of course, Danny knew it was going to be his turn to respond to a bunch of questions that he had no answers to. He quietly ate the rest of his sandwich and downed the milk his mother had made him while he waited. Finally one of the cops, a tall thin guy with a tired looking face, pulled up a chair and sat down beside him, where Robbie had been sitting.

"Hi there Danny, I'm Sergeant Clifford Bell. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions about what you saw today?"

"Yeah, sure." Danny said, "I don't know what I can tell you though. It'd be easier for me to just take you there."

Seargant Bell hesitated and looked Danny up and down, then went back to looking him straight in the eye, trying to get a read on him. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, "If you feel up to it, then yes I'll need you to take me there. But first I want to ask you just a few questions about your friendship with Mike and get a little background on him." Danny just shifted in his chair and nodded assent.

In fact, the sergeant had more than a few questions and by the time he was done, Danny was getting antsy. It was a weird feeling. He was antsy to get this over with, so he could grieve by himself. He also wanted to put things together in his head, which was spinning with images of the horrific scene on the tracks and so many questions, he couldn't think straight. He knew that he needed to put it in the hands of professionals. There was nothing he could do for Mike on his own. The sooner he led the police to his body, the sooner they could inform his family and figure out what happened. He suspected they would rule it as a tragic accident. Mike had been drunk, he'd passed out on the tracks on the way home and had been hit by a train. somehow though, Danny didn't think that was right. He'd seen dead animals on the tracks before, that had been struck by a train. The remains were either cleanly severed, wrecked knotted balls of fur and bone, or simply flung into the ditch upon impact. He'd once come across a deer that had suffered a direct hit. He'd smelled it long before he found it rotting in the summer sun. It had been laying half in and half out of the ditch. Maggots rippled like a wave amongst its fur, as clouds of flies spun into the air when he rushed past, gagging at the stench. Never though had he seen an animal so thoroughly destroyed as Mike's body had been. There'd never been chunks of flesh scattered about or long ragged wounds. He broke from his ghastly reverie, realizing the cop was repeating his name over and over.

"Danny! Danny!" He was saying. Danny looked up and felt himself trembling. "Hey buddy, you alright? Are you able to lead us to your friend now?"

"Sure." Danny muttered and stood up shakily.

Seargant Bell took him by the elbow and gently led him towards the door. He looked back at Mrs. Ferguson. "I'm sorry Ma'am, we need to know where this fellow is. We'll have Danny back, just as soon as possible."

"I understand." Danny's mother said, wringing her hands with worry.

Danny's little brother Bobby stood by her. His face was pale and his eyes were rimmed with red. He'd been crying too.

The Sergeant opened the rear door for Danny, as his partner climbed in behind the wheel and began talking on the radio. Bell got into the front seat and turned to Danny, "Okay Danny just tell us where to go. We're probably going to have to walk part of the way right? So we'll park the car as much out of sight as we can. we don't want everyone in the village to know that you're helping us out here. Okay? I'm sure you've had enough questions for one day." He gave a sad smile and turned to face the front as his partner backed the car out of the Ferguson's driveway.

When they turned left up Meadows Road, Danny spotted Mike's sister, Carrie, walking back from her search for Mike, probably on her way home. when she saw the police car with the two cops in it she froze, staring, as it drove past towards the tracks. Danny slouched down, as low as he could, trying to make himself invisible. Bell's partner glanced up at him in the rearview. "Do you know that girl, Danny?" He asked. "Yeah..." Danny whispered. "That's Mike's older sister, Carrie. She's walking around, asking if anyone's seen him." He peeked out the back window in time to see her spin around and continue on her way, hurrying now.

The two cops spoke softly to each other. Danny couldn't hear what they said. All he could hear was his heart thudding in his ears and the crunch of gravel under the car tires. When they came to the tracks, Bell turned to face Danny again. "Is this where we need to go? Which way, left or right?"

"Right." Danny said. "Back the tracks, towards those woods way over there. Mike's about halfway..." He trailed off. Fearful again, of seeing Mike spread out all over the ground and having to smell the blood and gore. He hadn't been dead for long, but Danny had been reminded of the smell at the local butcher shop when he'd gone to get bacon and pork chops with his mom. The smell of raw meat and a slightly rancid undertone of death. He shuddered involuntarily. The police car bumped its way over the tracks at the top of a small hill and it slowed near the bottom of the other side. They pulled over, parking as far onto the soft gravel shoulder as possible. Bell's partner got out and opened the door for Danny. He hesitated before getting out, suddenly wishing he could just go home. Up to his room where it was safe and quiet and he could sit and sort things out, without any questions, without any fear. What if the cops thought he'd killed Mike? He'd been the one to find his body after all. He dismissed the thought just as quickly as he thought it, getting out of the car. They'd parked so far over on the shoulder, Sergeant Bell had some trouble walking around the side of the car. He started to slide down the steep embankment and stopped himself by grabbing a handful of waist high weeds. His partner and Danny waited for him to come up onto the road. They walked up the little hill on the road to the tracks and turned onto them. They walked in unspoken silence for a while, with just the crickets to keep them company. Both cops had turned their radios down, but Danny could hear the occasional crackly call come through. Eventually, Danny could make out the dark shapes that made up the remains of Mike between the rails. He caught the cops glancing at each other and Bell shaded his eyes with his hand. "What's that up there?" He asked.

"Yeah, that's Mike." Danny said softly. His thoughts turned back to Mike's sister Carrie and how he'd seen her still walking around looking for Mike and talking to their friends. He wondered if she'd spoken to Gord Flack and if he'd mentioned seeing Danny earlier, running home like the devil was on his heels. Gord had a big mouth on him and surely he would have connected seeing Danny with Mike's disappearance. But Mike hadn't disappeared, at least not for long, since here he was, albeit in more than one piece, ravaged and on the ground. As they approached, Seargent Bell's partner, whom he understood was called Sam, held up his hand and said, "Alright Danny, just wait here for a minute."

"I've already seen him." Danny protested, moving around Officer Sam. Suddenly Sam's arm shot out grabbing Danny by the shirt, pulling him back. "Hey!" he said, "Just wait here a minute! Look kid, we don't even know what we have here yet ok? This is evidence and you've already been..." He was looking Danny straight in the eye suspiciously. Bell put his hand on Sam's shoulder, "It's okay Sam." He was looking at Danny too, who was pale, trembling and obviously frightened by the roughness that officer Sam had dealt him.

"I just wanted to show you something. I thought it was important." Danny stammered.

Bell took Danny's elbow carefully leading him forward, "What is it you wanted to show us Danny?"

"It's on the other side." Danny said pointing past the shreds of Mike's jacket, now stiff with blood and strewn around. His body lay facing away from them, the arm hooked over the rail, like an old friend. Bell and Danny walked around the scene, briefly stepping down into the ditch to avoid it. Danny noted how they'd given much more care to avoid coming in contact with any blood than he had when he'd found it. Just now he recognized the pattern of the sole from his shoes, stamped in the tacky blood that was now drying on a railway tie. He knew he'd be a suspect. He found the body and that's just how cops think. He figured he'd be grilled at the station a lot more after this. As they reached the other side, Sam remained where he was, fiddling with a Polaroid camera. He started taking pictures. Now they stood where they could see Mike's face, his mouth wide open in a perpetual scream, eyes staring. His cheeks were lightly spattered with blood.

"See there?" Danny pointed, "His throat. Look at that gash! I don't think that came from a train..." Suddenly He felt a wave of nausea that came from out of nowhere. He fought it, trying to stay strong, but wavered, stumbling backward. His ears started ringing and the edges of his vision began greying out. He could see Bell's mouth moving, but couldn't hear him. All the strength drained from his legs and he could stand no more. He sat down hard on his butt and tried to break his fall with his hands. He knew Seargent Bell was standing over him, but the ringing in his ears was still too loud. He gagged as saliva flooded his mouth, he felt like he might puke. Everything seemed muffled, as if with cotton. He leaned forward and brought his knees up, sweating now with his head between his legs, breathing hard. Gradually the ringing faded and his ears cleared. He could hear Sam asking, "What happened? Did he faint?" Bell responded, "Yeah, he's ok. It's the shock, it's a little bit much for him. He's just a kid." That last remark made Danny angry. He wasn't a kid! He was fucking seventeen for Christ's sake. Hardly a kid. As he sat with his head between his knees, catching his breath and shaking his head from side to side. While he sat there recovering and silently cursing Bell for calling him a kid, he realized he'd been staring at a knife. An open jacknife, probably Mike's, was lying lengthwise alongside a railroad tie half covered in the stones.

As a matter of fact it WAS Mike's, he recognized the green and brown handle. and could see the scuff marks on the blade where Mike had carefully sharpened it. He could see dried blood on the blade and handle. Any second now, the cop standing over him would see it too, so he shifted his leg blocking it from view. For some reason, he didn't want them to have it. He knew it was evidence and probably important too, but they didn't know Mike, not at all. Mike had been his friend, his brother's friend all of their friend's friend. He wanted something to remember Mike by. He knew Mike would want him to have the knife. If the knife was an important piece of evidence regarding Mike's death, then it was important to Danny as well. In as strong a voice as he could manage, he said, "I'm okay now, I just got dizzy for a second there." Bell reached out his hand to help Danny up, but he waved it away. "That's okay." he said, "I'm alright." Bell looked down at him frowning, "That's fine Danny, but I want you to rest a minute. Walk back through the ditch here and go sit down over there for a few minutes. We need to take some pictures and take a look at some things before we take you home." When he turned away to wave Officer Sam over to their side for some Polaroids of Mike's wounds, Danny secretly took the knife and folded it closed with one hand. As he stood up he pretended to tuck his shirt into the back of his pants and slipped the knife into his back pocket instead. He walked back through the ditch and sat on the rails, far enough away that he couldn't smell the gore anymore. He hadn't noticed it too much when he first found Mike's body, but as the sun had warmed things up considerably, he could smell it strongly now. The butcher shop smell had been replaced with the steady stink of the first stages of decomposition. It was sickly sweet and turned his stomach. Now though he was far enough away that all he could smell was the tarry scent of creosote weeping from the old wooden ties, mixed with the spicy scent of herbs and wildflowers in the ditches that lined the tracks. He watched and waited as the two cops spoke softly between them, pointing at things and taking notes. Occasionally Sam would take a snapshot of the gruesome tableaux before them. Finally, they were done and they all walked back to the police car together in silence. When they got in the car, Bell turned to face Danny in the backseat. "Okay Danny, we're gonna take you home now and drop you off. We have a lot of work to do, but I promise we'll figure out what happened to your friend there. In the meantime I want you to take it easy and get some rest. Stay clear of those tracks, as it's going to be pretty busy with people coming and going for the next couple days. I don't want to see you down there at all, just stay away alright? You promise?"

"I promise." Danny muttered. "I didn't hear you." Bell said. Sam looked at him hard in the rearview mirror... "I promise!" Danny said louder this time. "Okay, good." Bell turned back, jotting something down on his pad. "Let's take Danny home." He said to his partner, "We're gonna have to get at least another car out here." As an afterthought, "And stop any trains from coming."

When they dropped him off at home, his dad had come home from work already, his car parked in the driveway. Art Ferguson approached his son, giving Danny a big hug. "I'm sorry to hear about Mike. Why don't you go upstairs and get some rest until the police leave? Danny nodded silently and a few tears escaped as he broke off the hug with his dad. He lingered in the background just long enough to hear them tell his mother, "It looks like he's been struck by a train...horrible accident...going to tell his folks...please don't talk to anyone yet. Just keep Danny indoors for now please, until we have a chance to notify the next of kin."

"An accident?" Danny thought, fingering Mike's knife in his back pocket. No way. That was no accident. He wondered if the cops would eventually come to the same conclusion, or continue to float the 'accident' theory. After his mother gave them the phone number for Mike's house and their address, the two cops got in their car and drove off up the road, presumably to tell his parents the bad news. Danny had just about enough that he could take and trudged upstairs to his room, his other brothers and little sister were nowhere in sight. When he got to the renovated attic where the bedrooms were, he could hear Bobby in his room listening to music. Danny quietly closed the door and flopped on his bed.

The cops played it exactly as Danny had feared. Two days later, a story in the city's paper told of a tragic accident where a local teen had been hit by a train. The article said that alcohol and drugs were a factor in the accident and that Mike had probably fallen asleep on the railroad tracks coming home from a party. It also cautioned parents against allowing their children to 'play' on railroad tracks and that teens thinking of walking home from a party intoxicated, should stay the night instead, or arrange for a ride from a designated driver in advance. There had already been a lot of teen deaths in Danny and Mike's high school that year. They were all apparently associated with kids leaving parties intoxicated and either driving drunk or dying by misadventure on their way home. Danny always thought that was the stupidest description anyone could use while describing a mysterious death. Misadventure? What exactly did that mean? Nothing at all, Danny always thought. You couldn't get any vaguer than that. Misadventure, as if you went on a hike and walked right into a grizzly bear's open mouth. Misadventure, like a cartoon where short sighted Mr. Magoo walks off a cliff to his demise. He also wondered if any of these so called deaths from misadventure resembled Mike's at all. He assumed Mike had been killed by an animal and that he'd used his knife trying to fight off whatever had been big enough to rip him apart. Danny wondered what kind of animal could have done that. In past years there had been the occasional tiger and even a lion that had escaped the African Lion Safari in a nearby county. Sure something like a tiger could have done that to Mike easily, even a wild animal like a cougar could do some serious damage. They were rare in these parts, but it wasn't impossible. Hell, even a big, wild boar could kill a grown man. They didn't have any bears around here so that was unlikely. Why hadn't the cops considered that? Before they'd gone that day, Seargent Bell had left his card, because Danny had seen it sitting on the table by the phone. He'd even considered calling it more than once, to confess about taking the knife, but was afraid of what kind of trouble that would bring. All sorts, Danny imagined. So there goes that idea...right out the window. Danny took out the knife that he'd kept hidden in his pocket since picking it up from the tracks and opened it up. It still had blood on it, dried deep inside the grooves of the handle and inside the part where the blade closed into. He didn't think it was Mike's blood either, probably the animal's. He tested the blade with his thumb, it was sharp. He remembered the pride Mike had taken sharpening it and how he'd demonstrated that by slicing a sheet of paper with it. It was razor sharp. Danny considered the predicament he was in. He knew he'd fucked up by taking the knife. It was proof that Mike hadn't been hit by a train, but it was too late to 'fess up now. He could even be charged with withholding evidence, or obstructing justice, or something along those lines. He could go to jail for taking the knife. He wondered if it would matter to Mike and what he'd want. He'd want the truth to be found out, Danny figured. So how was he going to do that? He had a big bad secret and there was nobody he could tell. He'd kept Bell's promise and had stayed away from the tracks and where Mike had died, but he also had a shitload of questions he wanted to ask the cops. In the days that followed his discovery of Mike's body, he'd seen police cars parked at the little village school that was near the tracks. He'd even seen a big white and black van with 'FORENSICS' stenciled on the side and that was why he was so surprised that they ruled Mike's death an accident by misadventure. It made him frustrated and angry. It also made him feel extra guilty about taking the knife. Why couldn't they see the obvious animal wounds that he, a seventeen year old 'kid' could distinguish? They were supposed to be the professionals after all. It almost seemed that they'd been lazy and had taken the easy way out. A dead body on the tracks, all torn up like that? Hit by a train, nothing more, nothing less. Danny was going to have to prove them wrong, but how? He was going to have to go back to the scene and look for proof. Turning in the knife was out of the question, so he was going to have to give the cops something else.

The next day Danny awoke early. He'd been at the playground at the school by the tracks the evening before. there hadn't been any police activity and as far as he could tell they'd wrapped up their investigation and had stopped coming all the way out Glen George to watch over the scene. The last car had left late that afternoon. One lone cop had sat there by himself for a good twenty minutes after the others had left...One local news van, and one other squad car. Danny had watched him slowly smoke a cigarette, then toss the butt on the road and pull out, tires spitting gravel into the cattle corn. He didn't think they'd be back. So, early that morning, he'd been up and out, while his mom had still been having her tea. He'd gone to the cemetery up Meadows Road, had a quick smoke and dropped down the back hill to the creek. From there he'd followed the creek back up to the tracks, where it went under, through a rectangular concrete tunnel. From there he had climbed the steep grade through Sumac, up to the tracks and by the top, standing midway between the village and the woods, you were already well past halfway back to the scene. By the time he reached where blood still stained the ground, there was absolutely nothing left to see. The cops and forensic crew had picked the area clean, there were no ancient candy wrappers, aging cigarette butts, or errant scraps from Mike's clothing. Zilch... He wasn't sure what he hoped he'd find. Obviously not the knife. That particular item still sat snuggly in the back pocket of Danny's jean shorts. Most likely it was the most important piece of evidence that proved Mike hadn't been hit by a train. The one thing that he'd used to defend himself, still had the dried blood of his killer on it and Danny had stolen it. He knew he had the exact spot, the blood was still there. No way to wash it all away without water and it still hadn't rained yet. Danny squatted to get a closer look at the stained rocks. There was hair pasted to a few of them. It wasn't really hair though. It wasn't Mike's hair, he was blonde, this was dark brown, almost animal hair. It wasn't quite fur either, it was much too coarse. He picked up a twig and poked at it a bit. Yeah, it was short and stiff, almost like horse hair. He felt as if he was being watched and scrambled to his feet looking around. Nothing... he looked back the tracks and up the tracks towards the village. Nobody in sight. He saw some cows milling around in a field further down towards the woods, but nothing else moved. It was usually quiet like this out here. Between his brothers and their friends, they were the only ones to come back this way. He wiped his hands on his jeans and pulled out his cigarettes, lighting one with a paper match. He took a couple of drags and shrugged. If he was going to play detective, he figured he'd walk back a little bit further, maybe to the woods, and see if he could find anything else. He got to the edge of the small forest, where the air changed and became cooler and considered cutting across a field to a small pond he and Kevin had discovered a couple of summers ago, but stuck to the tracks instead. He wanted to follow the same route Mike had taken the night he was killed. So if that meant walking at least to where they crossed the old highway, then that's what he'd do. Not much sense in going past that point, Mike had been attacked this side of old Highway 52. Any clues would be in this area, around the woods. He walked through the tunnel of trees and came out the other side, the sun shining strongly now, directly overhead. Lunchtime. He stopped and looked around, so far there'd been nothing to see, but when he looked down, he saw a fresh cigarette butt. it looked like a Player's light cigarette and he knew it was Mike's. Mike was the only one in their group that even smoked that brand, with its white filter and distinct blue and gold bands. A chill ran through him as he realized his dead friend had been here just days earlier, standing, or walking, in this exact spot just before being ripped apart. He bent down and picked it up, rolling it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger.

Mike. What the hell happened to you?

He looked about and saw a ramshackle looking, single story house, a few hundred yards away. It was surrounded by waist high weeds and had a swayback roof with curling tiles. At first Danny guessed it was abandoned, but then he saw an old man standing on what passed for a porch, staring at him. Danny raised his hand in a wave and the old man just turned and went inside. Huh... Well, he figured if he was going to play detective, he was gonna ask the old man a few questions. What the fuck. He didn't care what the old coot thought, he was usually beyond caring what other people thought of him, so he'd bounce a couple of questions off the old guy, what harm could that do anyway? A grassy lane, what looked to be a tractor path, ran from the railway up beside the old house joining its gravel driveway. Danny walked deliberately up the lane with weeds swishing against his knees. He kept his eyes peeled for the old guy but didn't see him anywhere and the windows of the house were covered in tattered plastic, so they were no help either. He stepped up onto the sloping porch and could immediately smell a foul odour emanating from within the gloom of the old place. Old boxes and newspapers were stacked up high just inside the doorway. Danny leaned forward, peering through an old rusty screen and went to rap on the frame of the screen door, when he heard a raspy voice directly behind him.

"What do you want?" the old man demanded and Danny jumped out of his skin. He spun around quickly, surprised to see the man standing just a few feet away. He hadn't heard him come through the grass and he hadn't heard any other doors to the house opening or closing. Didn't this old guy just walk inside? Danny thought. Swallowing hard, Danny said, as strongly as he could manage, "Hi there. Sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions...if you don't mind."

"About what now?" The old man replied.

Danny had been taking him in as they faced each other and he was alarmed by what he saw.

The old man stood stooped over, like how a hunchback would stand and he may not have been as old as Danny had first thought. In fact it was hard to tell. The guy could've been as old as seventy, but at the same time, he could have passed for being forty something too. He had a filthy ball cap jammed on his head, pulled way down low so the brim covered his eyes. Dark eyes, menacing eyes that glittered when he moved. He looked like he was bone thin, by the baggy, dirty clothes he wore, but he carried himself with some kind of coiled strength. Like an old fashioned spring, that with one wrong move could explode, knocking your block off. Even though Danny stood taller on the porch and should be looking down at him, the guy seemed to grow, filling his vision, like some optical illusion or something. He felt entranced and he had to tear his eyes away from that glittering stare. Danny stammered, trying to find words.

"About my friend that died the other night." He couldn't tell if he had yelled the words, or whispered them, or if he'd even said anything at all. He found he was locked in the stare again and physically turned his head away, breaking the spell, or whatever it was... his mouth had gone dry and swallowed, trying to find some spit.

The old man grinned at him. What the fuck? What's so funny about that?

But now it was a grimace and the old man wrung his hands, his long fingers twisting into each other. "Well that's just awful about your friend." He said with a snarl. "Tell me more. What exactly happened to him?" I didn't say it was a him, or her...

Danny realized now that the stink wasn't coming from inside the house but from the old man himself, or maybe it was both. Danny finally found himself and stepped off the porch, out of the gloom and into the sunlight, feeling stronger now. "He died on the railroad tracks about a mile from here." He said pointing towards the village. "He was attacked by something. A creature." He added, avoiding the old man's eyes.

"Hmmm..." the old man said and pivoted towards Danny, floating like. "You sure he wasn't mowed down by a train?"

"I'm sure." Danny said, "He had his throat torn out."

"Wild dogs'll do that to you." The old man grinned, or grimaced again. "We got em around here ya know? I hear em howling sometimes." Fingers twisting, nails black with filth, or age...

"Yeah I know." Danny said, "I've seen them myself." and he thought of the poor unwanted mutts brought from the city and dropped off in the country by their heartless owners. "This was something else..."

"The Lion Safari." The old man said. It was a statement as if he'd read Danny's thoughts and this time he was smiling.

"I was just wondering if you'd heard anything last Friday night, maybe 2 or 3 in the morning?"

The old man chuckled and Danny had a vision...bloody chunks of bone in a blender, at least that's what it sounded like. Horrible. Thick and clotted. oh my god...

"I would have been fast asleep by then." The old man muttered. "I get to drinking..." and he trailed off. Then with an alarming speed he was at Danny's side clutching his bicep, hurting him. "Now if that's all you've got, I have work to do." He released his grip before Danny could even protest and hustled into his house, slamming the old wooden door from within.

Danny looked around at the waist high grass and the old house, folding in on itself with time and neglect. Work?!

...

Time passed and a couple of weeks went by relatively uneventfully. Mike's funeral had been a depressing occasion. His mother and sister crying in the front pews of the church. Some people, relatives he guessed, had gone up and laid flowers on Mike's coffin, closed casket obviously. Danny felt compelled to do something, he wasn't sure what. So he went to the front and stood at Mike's casket, he reached out and touched the cold polished wood. It was the best he could do as a send off. He didn't plan on watching them bury him at the cemetery. He'd be visiting there on his own plenty enough, he figured. He turned and looked at Mike's sister Carrie, who'd been crying the entire time and she glared at him with red rimmed eyes. Danny thought, What? What the hell did I do? I just found him for Christ sake! That's bad enough... But he didn't say a word. He just cast his eyes downward and without waiting for his brothers, left the church. He went outside and lit a cigarette. Some of the parents that stood off in the parking lot gave him disapproving looks for smoking and he figured he'd hear about it from his mom, or maybe his dad, he was still only 17 after all, but fuck 'em. What did he care? Jesus. These people! He thought and kicked at a stone. Suddenly the door opened and Kevin came out, followed by Bobby and James.

"That sucked!" Bobby and James said in unison and plopped on a bench. Kevin was quiet. Aloof, or hurting.

"Well, what did you expect? It's a fucking funeral!" Danny said. More disapproval from the parking lot.

"Don't swear." Kevin mumbled, eyeing the parents warily. "We're at church."

"Right. Like God gives a shit? Look what he let happen to Mike!" Maybe a little too loudly, because at this, one of the parents shook their head and started walking over. Before Danny had a chance to hear what they'd say, he stepped on his cigarette butt and stalked off towards home.

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Somewhere in the depths of the old house came a crash. The old man stumbled into his stinking kitchen, the dregs from a whiskey bottle sloshed in his hand.

"Ha ha!" he cackled throwing open his fridge, "Here we gooo...! Here we go again." He sang .

He stared coldly at the contents of the refrigerator. Nothing much was in there. An empty bottle of ketchup, an old open can of beer, some jars of something, he didn't care what and a human leg, a child's leg. The thigh muscle had been gnawed to the bone. The calf untouched, was shriveled and dark. It was old. He closed the door and it clapped shut. He spun around, taking a swig of whiskey and spun again, more whiskey. He careened towards the screen door and pushing through it, drained the last of the whiskey bottle. It fell from his gnarled hand into the weeds and he groaned, looking up at the night sky. In a final fit of laughter, he collapsed on the sloping porch, twitching. The full moon, unfeeling, looked down from above.

From far away he heard a voice calling his name.

Jean...Jean.....come home...

Jean... getting closer, but still very far away. Jean where are you? Come back. You have to kill the beast.

Inside him an old machine kicked into life, gears turning, engine revving. Bones cracking, tendons stretching, muscles popping into place, skin morphing...his blood thickened, turning black, like one of those canals in olde Paris, hiding the bodies of the dead, slow and dark and stinking, ancient and long forgotten. The machine revved faster now. Jean's groans climbed into wails of agony, screaming in pain and now howling with fear. The fear had never left him. NEVER!

He stood in the forest clearing, Captain Jean Baptiste Duhamel and the boy, Francois Valet. By a beautiful river in the Cevennes mountains, facing the beast. It paced restlessly before them. It was furious, having been pierced by two of Jean's arrows. They stuck out at angles from its back. Any other creature, Stag, or even a large brown bear would have been felled by these wounds. Jean's bow was powerful and his arrows were tipped with iron, sharpened by the blacksmith into razors, yet the beast was only angered. There had been no blood trail to follow. It was too dark even with the light of the full moon. The boy, Francois trembled visibly and the lance in his hands quivered. "Spread out." The Captain said to him. He feared for the boy's safety, Christ, he feared for his own. He had been teaching the boy how to hunt, but he should have never agreed to bring the lad. Even though the boy protested loudly and insisted that he avenge his sister Marie, he should not have brought him out here. Yet nothing could be done now, so here they were. He and Francois separated in the sunny clearing, creating a gap between them, in case the beast chose to flee. Slowly, Captain Jean drew his bow tight, his muscles straining and loosed an arrow at the creature's snarling face. With incredible speed, it dodged it, he'd missed. He drew his sword instead. The boy took this as a sign to attack and lunged with his lance. "NO!" Jean yelled, but the boy's aim was true and the tip of the lance disappeared into the beast's left eye. It howled with anger and grasped the haft with both claws, the boy hanging on for dear life to the other end. It pulled the point from its eye and before anything could be done it swung the lance. The boy bounced off a tree and fell to the forest floor. The beast rushed in and fell on the boy. Bright red blood sprayed high into the air and as Jean closed the gap swinging his sword, wishing to save Francois. The beast darted swiftly, disappearing suddenly from view. His sword cleaved the air instead and he stood defeated, looking down at the headless boy. Blood still pumped from the ragged mess of his neck, his young heart refusing to die. Jean stared in wonder. How? What is this mad creature? What kind of demon is this? How can it be killed? Then he heard its grunt, behind him... The King's Captain, Jean Baptiste Duhamel swung his sword as he'd been taught. Both hands are on its hilt, combining speed and force in his pivot from waist and foot. Sword held waist high in a killing stroke meant to disembowel, meant to cut his opponent in two, meant to finish the fight once and for all...and of course, he thought grimly. It's much faster than I am. And he was right. While his sword swept through air and only air, the creature drew its claw across his stomach. Slicing easily through his thick leather waistcoat and his cotton garment and his belly fat and its muscle and as Jean sank to his knees holding his intestines in place with cupped hands, a ten man portion of the King's guard charged into the clearing in full battle armour. The beast disappeared quickly into the vast woods of the foothills in the Cevennes...no one gave chase. Jean survived, but he'd failed. He'd failed his King, he'd failed Francois, and worst yet he'd failed himself and the impoverished town of Gevaudan and its many victims. He exiled himself. Eventually leaving France and taking a ship overseas to America, huddled miserably, seasick and puking in a perpetual storm, with a score of poor Dutch immigrants...

His mother's voice called to him. Jean! Come home! You must kill the beast!

But don't you see Mother? I AM the beast now, I've become the beast.

The moon grinned down like a fucking lunatic now.

So he had. So he had.