Moonweavers (14 page)

“
You guys do kind of fade out from time to time.  Like a bad reception on a television.”
“Yea, that’s what is left of the light spirit within you.  It’s just not enough to stay in our realm completely I suppose,” the professor replies.  “It’s just enough to get you there.  You are kind of on your own afterward.  I suspect with another charge of full moonlight, you would get a whole new charge for this sequence within you that is still mooner.  It’s quite similar to Link’s DNA actually.  If he charges it up just right during that last moonlight, he could pretty much sustain our realm until the next moonrise, although the signal would be just a touch weaker.  With some simple mind training, you might even be able to see better than him.”

“
Aye,” the captain says.  “It’s like being up in the crows nest.  A broader prospect of reality.  In rougher seas or rainy and foggy weather, you can’t see as well.  Aye.  But when the brain isn’t stormed up inside, you can see to the ends of the earth.  Right, professor?”

“
Yes, Captain Kale.  Precisely.”

“
So why aren’t there more guardians than this?” Scott asks.

“
Because this place blows,”  Jade says sarcastically.

The professor interrupts,
“Well, you see Scott, just like you have freedom of choice now, when you die you have freedom of choice too.  You can choose to stay and guard the world or you can go to your higher God or whatever your belief might be.  It’s totally up to you.  A lot of people just stick around to watch their family and take care of them.  It depends on the individual actually, Scott.  We the guardians have a belief of a higher power and that our planet needs our help.  So to put it all in a nutshell, protect earth, its humans and other species that roam the planet.  Like Tab here, she is free to go home to her ranch and family and help us in this perimeter.  But it is really just up to her.  Of course, if you go running toward the bad guys, we might have to kill you.  We call it our second life.”

“
Does that mean that you have to fight other ghosts that go bad?”

“
Aye, it happens,” says the captain.  “Some of us even get under too much pressure.  We snap.”

“
This is true,” the professor replies.  “Same with other beings out there.  Some of them have no emotion.  You were one of the lucky ones, Scott.  You had time to study our planet and understand it for what it is.  Other entities from beyond do not have that luxury of choice or free thought.  It’s like they have a sole purpose.  These are the true threats, where their choices cannot be chosen at all.  These are the true threats, for they do not know what they do.  Or care.”  The professor lowers his head.  “That’s why I’m here.  If the black matter wins, we have no choices.  We cease to exist.  All bullshit aside, Scott, we need you.  United we stand.”

“
United we stand,” Scott replies back.

The captain raises the tin of rum and replies,
“Drink it wide and drink it deep, for tomorrow this damn boat may sink.  So sail it fast and sail it well and you might be able to speed through hell.”  Then he chugs down the pint with a third of it running through his beard.  Then he sets the mug down on the table, gives a satisfying gasp. 

Jade returns to the couch to be by herself, Scott notices.  Putting one paw in front of the other, he trots over to the girl. 
“Thanks a lot, Jade,” he says to her. 

“
Aw, it was nothing.  You caught on pretty quick.”

Scott jumps on the couch and starts to lick Jades neck and face.  She giggles a little. 

“Okay, okay, I get it, I get it.  You’re welcome,”  Jade replies.

For the rest of the day, the two were inseparable.  They watched television, snacked in the kitchen, talking about old tv shows and sitcoms that they both found interesting.  From that day on, they both seemed a little less lonely.  Jade was happy to find someone with similar interests, like Scott.  During the commercial break of the cartoon that they were just watching, Jade turns down the television, looks at Scott and says,
“Do you miss where you come from at all?”

“
Not really,”  Scott answers.  “It was a pretty bleak existence,   I mean, sure, I had a handful of friends, but we never really communicated, I guess.”

“
Oh, you poor thing,” Jade says and pats the dog behind the ears.

“
Aw, you get used to it after the first  years or so.”

“
Well, I have to say you and Links are the best aliens I know.”  Jade giggles.  “Oh, you’re the only aliens I know.  No, seriously, Scott, you’re pretty darn cool in my book.”  She pats him on the head a little harder.  “Yes, you is,” she says in a cute exaggerated voice.  “Nope, when I was growing up, before we moved into the city, we used to have a dog.  His name was Gizmo.  Why when I was six years old,  Gizmo was my best of friends.  Wherever I went, little Gizmo was with me.  I think you would have liked Giz.  I think that’s in part why I came here.  The city just wasn’t for me anymore.  Know what I mean?  Kinda like the moon wasn’t for you, Scott.  I guess in a way, this is a second chance for both of us.”  Jade grins widely.  “So, what do ya say?  Gimme some paw.”  Scott suddenly sits up, lifts his left paw and taps Jades hand in a high five.  He quickly scoots back down onto the couch, noticing that the cartoon had reappeared on the television.  They both sit and watch the show, laughing simultaneously at the bits of comedy as they roll through the airwaves.

             
Links moves swiftly up the mountain, a trip he has made many times before.  For hundreds and hundreds of years he has been here.   He knows this mountain.  Every rock, every footpath, every tree.  It has always been his home.  He makes it to the peak of the mountain in thirty two minutes.  His very best time at this would have been twenty nine, but he had a lot to mull over on the way up, slightly distracting his advance.  For some reason that is unknown to him, it seems he can communicate with the old ones easier on top of that mountain.  It’s probably one of the biggest reasons he has never left the area.  All of the seven old ones seem to gravitate around a mountain all along the earth.  It gives out information and receives orders on that higher plain.  He sits and patiently waits knowing the others will be up their mountains in a matter of minutes too.  When he feels that they all have reached their peaks, he will begin to communicate with them.  This is how it has always been.  Using his telekinesis, he tells of the wolves and the new mooners and of the black matter that he senses deep within the mountain that he has yet to tell the ghosts or any of the guard.  But he senses it just the same.  Not wanting to alarm the guard until he had orders to do so from the older ones. 

“
How much has the black matter grown?”, one of the others ask.

“
A little more each day, I’m afraid,”  Links replies.

“
The werewolves that got away, do they know of its presence?” asks another.

“
I don’t think so, but in a matter of time it may happen.” 

“
If its getting through the rifts that easily, we might be in for some big trouble.  We have to contain it before it grows or else we will be doomed.”

“If we can get it to slip in something airtight, we can close it within it.  It will be trapped.  That’s where you come in Links.  Any suggestions?”

“
I can talk to the professor.  Maybe he can come up with something.  And if we hide it in the cave just right, maybe it will just slip in there by accident and we could cork the top.  Its worked in the past.”

“
That seems like the wisest option,” speaks another.  “But you’ll have to hurry.  If it gets too big, there will be no way to contain it.”

“
I shall,”  Links replied in his deep ape like voice.

“
If you need more assistance, don’t be afraid to ask, Links.  Maybe we can neutralize the black matter before it is a threat to anyone.”

“
I will try, my brothers.”  Links answers.

His descent down the mountain is much faster than the way he climbed up.  He simply jumps right off the ledge, lands on another peak and jumps off it
’s ledge.  He continues three more times until he is all the way at the bottom of the mountain.  Links wonders how he is going to tell the others about the black matter right in their own backyards, closer than its ever been before, but he knows he must.  The last time the black matter made it to earth, it was in Antarctica.  Luckily it wasn’t highly populated or it might not have been beaten.  When it happened then, they sealed and buried it way up in the Himalayas.  It is sealed for all eternity and guarded by one of the older ones.  Now three hundred years later, more of it has seeped through.  As the mooners learn to slide down and stay, so does the matter.  As his heavy heart approaches the cabin, Links hopes they can do it again. 

             
                                         
10

As the moon slowly rises, one of the wolves are playing with a rat in the corner.  He come to realize as he changed, so did the varmint.  The rat slowly changed into a wolf like figure, but with a very long tail and smaller.  It follows him down the tunnel to meet with the others in opening with Zoth.  Zoth looks at the little crittert.  “If we can change the rat, we can change the humans”, he says.  When the varmint came closer and stood in line with the others ready to serve its new owner.  Trapped like a rat to do Zoth’s bidding.

“
Or bigger animals”, another wolf replies.

“
Very true,”  Zoth says.  “Lets head to town and rebuild our army.”  And they all run.  It was a smaller pack than before, but more determined, as they quickly run through the tunnels to the entrance of the crevice within the cliff.  They literally rip and tear their way to town toward the lights.  They kill any animals within sight.  Coon are attacked from the ground along with possum and other night animals of the dark, turning them and they follow in line with the others and their army slowly grows bigger as they head toward the lights of town.  Some change, some are just ripped apart and just die.  They head toward the busy traffic along the highway that’s just on the other side of town.  Zoth orders all the little critters to cross the road.  They form a straight line and walk.  The cars are speeding down the highway.  A man driving a pickle truck is the first one to emerge on the scene of the animals crossing.  He quickly slams on his brakes and the vehicle loses control.  The pickle truck slides and falls on its side uncontrollably skidding to a halt on the other side of the lane.  The animals are just beyond where the truck lands, scurrying to get out of its way.  Next to come is a severe domino effect of all the cars crashing and colliding from both lanes into the truck as the animals go toward the bank of the road.  When the sound of glass and metal colliding in the air and the horns stop blowing, the wolves come up for their attack.  Scraping and scratching at all the windows and doors and climbing through the others that crashed to get to their human army.  And it continues to grow as the other infected ones help in the carnage as they claw out of the cars and open them for the wolves to come in and attack.  With one and one agenda only.  To do Zoth’s will.  There were eight other vehicles in the accident besides the truck.  They all hide in the ditches and wait for more cars to hit the pile up.  Some of the cars are on fire and blow up while others leave an eerie light along the road.  Any one who comes to help that notices the raiders pounding on the windows, get out of their car or back up and run the other way saving themselves from a mob of wolf men and other creatures.  Zoth orders the herd to head out toward town as they all leave the ditches on to their next mission.  They go out toward the woods on the other side of the highway and run in sequence in a pack toward the lights of town once more.  The lights lead them to a suburb along the outskirts of town.  Zoth sits in the middle of the street as the herd divides two per house.  Ten houses within the suburb are immediately violated with body parts from the attacks.  Zoth calmly sits in the middle of the street listening to the screams of the families within the suburb houses, as they slowly emerge out of their dwellings.  All of them emerge to find their new leader of the pack in wolf form.  Zoth starts howling out loud and the others join in with a continuous howl like the night before.  The screaming is done.  More emerge from the houses with the continuous howl of the night.  The crickets stop chirping.  There is no sound at all other than the howls, except for maybe the wind blowing its menacing wolf song throughout the night.  Zoth feels more powerful than ever before as he leads the pack.  Coming from three followers to eighty two all within hours.  Knowing that the sun is slowly going to rise soon, he leads them back toward the mines and the safety within the crevice of the bluff.  They all start to change to their normal forms before they reach the bluff, but they follow like the birds do in their migrations, not really knowing why, but just doing their migration back toward the crevice within the bluffs wall.  Some faster than others, but all toward one destination.  A woman in a cellar at the suburbs, holds her children in the basement, in the dark, in shock.  Suddenly she moves towards the cellar door as the rays of light peek through under the gap beneath it.  She opens the door and finds blood everywhere in the kitchen area.  She looks through the house, finding no signs of anyone.  Not even her husband, who told her to go downstairs and lock the kids in the basement to begin with.  She yells for her husband, “Tom! Tom!” frantically, but she has no reply at all.  She hears the fire trucks and police in the distance getting closer as they find a way to go around the pile up on the highway.  She runs back down the stairs to her children and they all come up the basement holding hands.  Two boys and one girl.  She quickly leads them toward the back door, trying to avoid the mess in the kitchen completely.  She tells the children to look away as they walk out the door.  “Just keep staring toward the door,” she says as she pulls them along.  They do so.  The little girl is the last one in line and she doesn’t even open her eyes as she enters the kitchen, too scared to see anything at all.  She takes them to the back yard and around the house to the front, where she can see the police, fire trucks and ambulance lights appear in the middle of the suburb.  Police are the first to emerge out of their cars, holding their holsters and unbuttoning them ready to draw if need be.  The paramedics quickly run toward the children and woman, examining them thoroughly to make sure they have no injuries at all.  Some even put their medical jackets around the children to warm them up as they shake standing along the ambulances back door.  The police start to ask the lady questions about what happened.  He says, “Hi, I’m Sergeant Cobb.  I know you are in shock right now, but we need more information on what exactly happened here, ma’am.  Can I start by asking your name?”  As he pulls out a pen and paper, he flips the top of the leather bound note pad and clicks the top of the pen.  He looks up toward the lady to get the reply from the question.  The woman stutters a little, as her upper lip shakes with her body.  The cop not knowing if she is scared or cold, gives a downward look and a sigh.  He again replies, “I am sorry ma’am, but we need to ask you questions.”