Red Moon

Joe 'Red' Digger had seen most things. As a time-served officer around the rocket base he'd tackled some pretty wild shit over the years. 

Drunken pilot brawls, affairs, domestics, spoilt kid fights, amorous politicians in too deep, burglary, car theft, extortion and even homicide.

But that dark night, when the moon reigned in a cloudless sky, what went down in that alleyway was something new.

Something grotesque.

He needed a drink. A stiff drink and maybe more than one. A whole goddam bottle might just do it. He was off duty so who gives a damn.

The bar was rammed with late night revellers looking for a good time after the working week. Let's face it, unless you're in NASA, work round here ain't what it's cracked up to be and a skinful on a Friday night is what the good doctor ordered here around the base, especially now the space programme was slowly winding down. Times were tough and the rockets were staying home. It was the final flight that week, delivering the first supplies to the brand new space colony on the lunar surface. Women, children, men, astronauts all, a thousand of them, their beating hearts pounding together, chancing a heroic but precarious life under a glass dome, a dome which had cost a trillion and paid for by super-rich tycoons. Then it was up to them, the colonists, to bring fresh new blood to the moon and eventually spill out onto Mars.

With the last mission leaving soon, people were increasingly tetchy round town, the future as unwelcome as a sheep in wolf's clothing..

The cops were one of the targets for all the frustration and anger welling up like poison in the place.

Officer Red, as he was known at the station, was no rocket scientist but he was a keen scholar of human nature and what he'd seen tonight was in no way natural.

It was an abomination.

His right hand was shaking, which he steadied with the other and got hold of the glass. The liquor tasted bitter but was having the desired effect of taking the grislier edges off his memory. A little more and he might just be able to face going back outside and walking home. He was off duty.

He stared at his tumbler of gold and tried to make sense of it all.

Grease monkeys, cops and the odd crew member were out in the bars, making the most of the good times while they lasted. Red had been slowly ambling down the street on his way to the pool hall to meet up with Deek his Station buddy, when he'd heard a loud scream in the alley. Despite being a moonlit night, the cloud cover was thick and it was dark and there were no real lights down there, save for some dismal lamplight coming from a tenement window high up on the top floor.

Another scream and Red was riveted to the spot. It sounded like a woman in trouble. He'd decided to go in and see what's what and maybe help, off duty or not.

"Who's there?" He yelled.

Silence.

"Everything OK?" He yelled again.

Nothing at first but then suddenly, out came the most terrifying scream of all, a scream so blood-curdlingly chilling that Red felt goosebumps break out all the way up his forearms.

"Hello? Police!" He bawled walking slowly into the black alleyway, his own personal snubnose drawn.

It was a growl that came next, a hideous growl, as if some wild animal was holed up down there. 

"What the ...!" Gasped Red.

Then came terrible sounds of chewing and slurping as if something was feeding. Something large.

The screams had given way to an agonised moaning and then as the bone-cracking started there were no more sounds from who Red was now sure was a woman.

Shuddering, he entered the darkest part of the alley, where no light existed with the moon behind clouds.

His gun drawn he took small steady steps passed rank bins and crap piled up on both sides.

Behind on the bigger piles he saw it.

Moonlight broke in and there it was, illuminated in the pallid rays, a hideous collosal snarling thing hunched over what was left of the poor woman, blood pouring out of massive wounds.

The creature turned to face Red, it's huge mouth bristling with blood-soaked fangs. It growled with such malevolence that the policeman froze to the spot gearing for his life.

His hands gripped his pistol and shaking uncontrollably he pointed it straight at the fell beast crouched before him. 

It was then that it stood. At it's full height it was at least 8 feet tall, powerfully muscled, the hands, feet and face covered in thick gore-matted fur. And what a dreadful face, the drooling mouth curled with insatiable malice, the small nose flaring and the scarlet eyes glaring with pure evil. It spat out a glob of tattered flesh and skirt and stooped, it's lethal-looking claws poised and an awful snarl growing louder in its throat.

Red knew instinctively the beast was going to pounce and he made the sign of the cross before pumping it with an entire round of bullets.

The beast didn't die but was distracted enough to hesitate and as the moon vanished behind fat veined clouds again, so too the creature suddenly disappeared down the alley, loping on all fours and clearing the wire fence at the end with ease and off into the night with a final frustrated growl.

Red was considering all this, the whisky clutched tightly in his quivering hand, but it was one particular thing that he just couldn't get out of his head, a fact that was as mind-numbingly astonishing as the vile fiend itself. 

It had been wearing an astronaut suit!

.... an astronaut suit from the Base, with the name Graff on the shoulder, a suit ripped and torn like bandages.

Deek walked into the bar looking for Red, who had by now missed the pool match. 

"So this is where you ended up eh!"

"Oh, hi Deek, yep, I must have forgot the time" 

"Jesus, Red, you look like you've seen a gid-damn ghost!"

"Oh, I'm reckoning I'm coming down with something, one of those winter bugs"

Red raised his whisky glass.

"Old Johnny Walker is helping"

"God dammit, you're shaking my friend. C'mon, let's get you home. You've got the lurgy for sure!"

After a nightcap Deek went home himself and left Red tucked up in bed.

The moonlight pierced the blackness in his room like tattered veils and he fell into a fitful sleep, his nightmares terrible and tense as a despicable dog stalked him across the Base and up the giant gantry of a rocket, where the dog tore off its space suit and then it's pelt to reveal a man underneath. Graff. Chester Graff, the astronaut. Leaping into the air and clutching a screaming Red, they both fell from a great height into the shrieking sable night below, the man growling into Red's face "For your own sake copper, forget you ever saw me!"

Red woke up drenched in perspiration and clutched his sodden sheets tight.

"Jesus Christ! He's a fucking werewolf!" He yelled, sweat pouring off his brow.

The policeman was in work that day, hardly capable of doing a normal job but grateful it was mostly shuffling papers round his desk, mostly missing person cases.

He drank coffee after coffee from the corner percolator and kept staring out of the window throughout the day.

Near shift change, Deek came up to him.

"What you looking at partner?" Staring through the murky glass as well.

"Oh nothin'. Just wondering if it's another full moon tonight that's all. Makes 'em all crazy, right!"

"Sure does, those tricksy pale rays sends the perps wappy!"

"C'mon, let's finish up here and go down to Linda's and grab us a steak. Waddaya say Red?"

"Yeah, sure. Some food sounds good."

Linda's was packed with the usual crowd of hungry folks; cops off and on duty, office staff, NASA boffins and in the far corner the crew of the next mission including ....

Commander Chester Graff.

Red froze and tried not to gawp at the man from his dream.

Deek and Red, the two friends, sat down and picked up the beers they'd ordered and toasted their health.

Clinking his glass far harder than he'd meant to, Red's Coors slopped out onto the checked tablecloth.

"Best watch it Officer, you're going to drown your friend!"

Red looked up and to his horror saw Chester Graff stood right there.

Red shuddered.

"Why Officer, you're shaking! I'd say you've had one too many already!" Laughed Graff.

Linda came up with menus but Deek simply ordered two house steak specials.

"Howdya like 'em boys? Your steaks?"

"Officer ...," Graff looked at Red's badge, "Digger here would like his meat rare Linda, the bloodier the better I'd say, wouldn't you Officer Digger? You're lacking the right stuff! Iron probably!"

Red just stared at Graff who was smiling widely, showing off perfect Commander teeth lined up like stiffs, nodded at Deek and then walked back to his crew.

"Do you know that guy Red?" Whispered Deek.

"No. Do you?"

" We've shot pool a few times but I don't know him well," said Deek, fiddling with his knife and fork.

"Mighty strange him coming over though," he concluded as Linda's buxom daughter Betty arrived with the steaks.

"Need anything with these boys?" Said Betty wiping a tear from her eye.

"Why Betty, what's the matter?"

" Oh, Officer Deek, well, my sister Honey never came home last night. Me and Mama are worried sick," explained Betty.

"Have you told the Police?"

"Yeah, tonight. It's been 24 hours now. We filed a Missing Persons".

"Well that's good. Our colleagues on the night shift will get right to it and that's for sure Betty," said Deek standing up, his hand over-zealously rubbing the waitress's back, where her bra-strap was under her uniform and a tiny drip of saliva forming on his lower lip.

Commander Graff and his crew got up to leave and walked past Betty, as she was staring at Deek.

"Couldn't help overhearing you young lady. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about and your Sister's hanging out somewhere. She's probably gone to watch our last flight and got a good spot on the bleachers.  Now if you'll excuse us, we bid you good night and see you when we get back."

Graff tipped his cap at the two friends, a wry grin on his face

"Officers."

Having finished up their bloody steaks they stepped out into the foggy night. It was as black as thick molasses round the Base.

"No full moon!" Exclaimed Red.

"No, there is Red, it's just covered up with all this Goddamn fog," offered his partner.

"How do you know that? I can't see anything in this pea-souper!"

"Oh, I just feel it buddy. Born and bred up in hill country you get a sense for stuff like that," explained Red's partner.

"I need to tell you something Deek. I need to tell you something that's bugging the hell outta me."

"OK."

"And when I'm telling ya you need to promise me that you'll keep yer hillbilly trap shut and let me finish!"

"Oh,OK!"

Red described what he'd seen the night before and Deek kept schtumm till the end.

" And I'm telling you Deek, Graff's a fucking wolfman and he fuckin' well ate Honey right in front me last night!"

Deek was silent at first but then looked Red squarely in the eye.

"Fuck me Red, have you heard yourself! werewolves, astronauts, Honey slaughtered! It's bullshit and you know it!" Quipped Deek.

"Bullshit you reckon eh, well why don't we check out the alley and then you'll fuckin believe me .... Partner!" Riled Red.

They reached the alleyway in the car and there was no sign of any foul play, no Honey or anything.

"I don't understand it, she was gutted right here. It should be slick with blood!" Roared Red kicking over a metal bin.

"What the ...?"

Red picked up a torn white suit thick with gore. It'd been shoved in with the rest of trash: a tattered astronaut's suit with Graff stitched on the shoulder!

"You fuckin believe me now Deek!" Yelled Red holding up what was left of the clothing.

It was then he noticed the other shoulder badge. 

"What's this?"

He showed it his partner who was looking up and getting more agitated by the minute.

"It's the name of the final mission. Jesus Christ, don't you read your emails Red!"

"What, you telling me the final mission is called .....

..... Operation fuckin' Wolfpack!"

"Yeah, that's what it's called. So fuckin' what Red!"

"So fuckin what? Don't you get it! It's not just Graff who's one, the whole bastard crew are werewolves!"

Deek just stared.

"What times the launch?"

"In an hour."

"An hour! For fucks sake! Deek we have got to get to that launchpad and stop that flight!"

"Why?"

"Because there's a Wolfpack flying up to the moon where a thousand fuckin' people are penned in like sheep! Kapish!"

"Kapish!"

They drove like bullets and reached the pad as T minus 30 minutes clicked on the counter and the silver crew bus careered toward them.

"What now Red! That fuckin' bus stuffed full of werewolves is coming straight at us!"

 "I've been thinking Deek, what if it's OK? What if they can't change up there? After all, they can't fuckin see it once they're stood on it. What if no there's no fuckin werewolfin' on the moon?"

Officer Digger stood there scratching his chin, whilst he thought about it further.

"But they do Red, they do change!" Replied his partner in an unusually snarly way from behind the patrol car; it's flashing crimson light making it hard for Red to see him.

"They turn into the biggest bastard werewolves that ever existed; fuckin' mega wolves!" Growled Deek.

"Deek! What the fuck!" Winced Red 

"And your right Red, you nosey cunt, there's an awful lot of sweet sweet honey up there just drippin' in that big fat hive!"

At that moment the full bright moon appeared within a break in the fog. Deek leapt over the bonnet gnashing, a fully grown wolfman.

"Nooooooooooooooo!" Screamed Red.

"And then we'll just come back and eat the rest of the fuckin' world Officer Digger!"

Red spun round to face Commander Graff or his now massive wolf-self, as the Deek-wolf bit deeply into his soft neck.

"You really are red!" He laughed as thick hot blood gushed down his hungry throat.

The entire crew had now changed too and after devouring Red like rabid bears the Wolfpack howled at the full moon, which come tomorrow, they'd reach and really fill their bellies with honey! 

Fuck yeah!