Bad Moon Rising (standard:horror, 637 words)
Author: kendall thomas	Added: Dec 19 2002	Views/Reads: 3562/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A boy wonders why he's different.

BAD MOON RISING 

By Twisted Wabbit 

. 

 It was June . . . A full moon was rising. 

“I don't understand,” Larry said.  “Why do I always have to go to my
room when there's a full moon?” 

Dad, mom and teenage Sissy all stared at him from around the dining room
table, then glanced uncomfortably at each other.  They were finishing 
supper. 

“You know why, son,” dad said, awkwardly clearing his throat.  “We've
gone all through this a hundred times.  It's because you're different.  
You're not, uh, like the rest of us.” 

“How am I different?” Larry demanded, clenching his fingers on the edge
of the table until they blanched. 

“How?  Why won't you ever tell me?” 

“Because we can't; we just can't; it's for your own good; and that's all
there is to it.  Finish your supper, and I'll take you to your room.  
It's getting late; soon the moon will be rising.” 

* * * It was an old Victorian house with three stories.  Larry's room
was on the third floor.  There was only one window, and it was secured 
with iron bars and boarded over so that not the faintest trace of light 
could get through. 

Larry slumped on his bed and pretended to be dejected -- as he normally
would have been in the past, but this time things were going to be 
different.  A week earlier, he had accidentally found the place where 
his father hid the brass key -- in an old leather trunk in the cellar 
-- that he used to lock the thick oak door of his room. While everyone 
was away, Larry had taken the key to a locksmith and had a duplicate 
made, returning the original to the trunk. 

Now he would be able to leave his room after the full moon had risen. 
For the first time in his life he would be able to find out the reason 
for this inexplicable confinement that had been a ritual ever since he 
could remember. 

At the stroke of twelve, Larry slipped his duplicate key in the lock and
opened the massive door, which creaked ominously.  He felt his way down 
the dark stairway.  The door to his parent's room was open, but they 
were not there.  Sissy's room was empty, too.  He continued down the 
stairs to the parlor on the first floor. 

There weren't any lights on anywhere.  The house was silent as a tomb. 
Yet the front door stood open.  Moonlight bathed the floor of the front 
porch beyond the doorway.  The trees and lawn were cast in a silvery 
glow. 

Where had everyone gone?  They never went out this late at night.  And
certainly not without him. 

He stepped onto the porch, and then, beyond; the light of the full moon
bathed him for the first time.  It caused a tingling sensation.  He 
looked at his arms.  They were becoming hairy.  He felt his face.  He 
had a beard.  His mouth and nose had become elongated suddenly  There 
was a sharp pain as the muscles in his chest and shoulders bunched and 
swelled, ripping his T-shirt to shreds.  His body was covered with 
thick, coarse hair. 

He had never felt so alive in all his life.  His pulse throbbed. 
Slobber fell from his jagged teeth.  He was so hungry.  He had never 
been so hungry in his life.  He wanted meat.  Bloody and raw.  He 
stared up at the distant light of a neighbor's house.  There would be 
meat there.  He started off at a lope, claws digging into the earth.  
Blood-curdling howls pierced the quiet air. 

On the branch of a locust tree, nearby, were perched three large bats: 
two females and one male. 

“Well, momma, at least our son runs like a bat-out-of-hell,” the daddy
bat said, shrugging. * * * 


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