Moonlight Madness
by D. Grant Mulhern

            “One more hand, Joe, come on,” Stu McCreedy said around a mouthful of cigar.

              Joe Beeman downed the last of his beer, crushed the can and stood up, steadying himself against the edge of the card table.  He’d had a few too many, from the way the room was spinning.  He grinned.  “Can’t.  Promised Sue I’d be home ‘fore midnight.”  He shrugged.   “Sorry.”

              Bill Ogden nudged Carl Murphy, nodded towards the kitchen clock, and snorted laughter.

              Joe squinted at the clock—a piece of driftwood Stu had fashioned into a timepiece himself—and frowned, trying to make out the hands in the dim light.   It couldn’t be.  Could it?  Oh, sweet mother of Christ…

              “Oh Joey!  Looks like you got some splainin’ to do,” Stu chortled and blew a ring of smoke at him.

              Joe grabbed Carl’s wrist and squinted at his watch, needing a second opinion.   But there was no doubt this time.  The digital read-out there told the tale.  It was almost two-thirty.

              “Shit,” he muttered and shambled to the door.

              “You all right to drive?” Stu called after him, not really caring.  But it was too late anyway.  He was already gone.

 *                             *                              *

Joe stomped on the pedal of his old Chevy half ton.  If he didn’t get home—and soon—he’d be up shit creek with the old lady.   Not only had he promised to be home by midnight, but he’d also told her he was laying off the sauce.  And now here he was, almost three hours late and pissed as a parrot.   Christ.

              He’d shacked up with Sue over three years ago, almost on a whim, and he was beginning to regret his hasty decision.  Things had been good for the first few months, a lot of laughs and even more balling.  But over the last two years or so, she’d turned into one first class fucking nag.  Get your feet offa the table.  That lawn ain’t gonna mow itself.  I told you to pick me up at four…and on and on.  If he’d wanted to live with his mother, he wouldn’t have moved out of his house when he was sixteen.

              Joe blew through the Junction of highways 4 and 17 without even looking and pushed his old heap up to ninety.  He was never going to hear the end of this one.  The last time he’d gone on a bender, he was relegated to the couch for a week and a half and had to cook his own meals.  This time he’d be lucky if he even had a roof to sleep under.

              His old Chevy was gaining on a station wagon and Joe swerved recklessly out into the passing lane and floored it.  The Chev’s engine groaned under the strain, and Joe had a moment to wonder if the old truck was finally going to rattle itself apart.  He flew past the station wagon and veered back into his own lane without even checking the rear view.  The driver of the station wagon blatted angrily and flashed his lights.

              “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered and finally looked into the rear view mirror.  Not at the car behind him, but at his own red rimmed, blood shot eyes.  Like two piss-holes in the snow, Stu would have said, had he seen them.  He chuckled at this and turned his attention back to the road.

             The chuckle died in his throat.

           Lights.  Headlights.   Not forty yards in front of him.  A horn blared.  Lights flashed frantically from what seemed like all around him.  Tires screamed.   Joe closed his eyes and wrenched the wheel to the right, bracing for the impact.   A muffled sob escaped him.  But there was no impact.  No shriek of twisting metal, or explosion of windshield.  Only the shrill blare of a horn one second, and the next nothing.

              Joe opened his eyes.

              The highway was once more a dark, deserted expanse laid out before him.   He wanted to check the rear view mirror for the car, but he dared not take his eyes from the road.  He exhaled sharply; unaware he’d been holding his breath in the first place.

              Jumpin’ Jesus.   That was close.

              Joe slowed the truck to a more reasonable 55 and wiped his brow with the back of his hand.  It came away slick with sweat—and no wonder.  He’d damn near offed himself and taken someone with him.  Sure, he was gonna catch proper hell from Sue if he wasn’t home very soon (truth be known, the damage was already done), but it sure as shit wasn’t worth dying over.  Piss on her, anyway.  He was a grown man, and if he wanted to play some poker with the boys, well, it was his right as a man.   He worked hard all day at the plant.  Far as he could see, he’d earned a little R&R.  If the high handed bitch didn’t like it she could go fu—

              What the hell?

              In the distance was the flicker of lights where there shouldn’t have been any—nothing but miles of farmland around these parts. Was it a farmer working late?  Doubtful.  The only field out in that direction was sunflowers and there wasn’t much you could do with them until harvest time, which was still over a month away.  It almost looked like it was coming from the old Moonlight Drive-In, but that had been closed for…

              Joe thought about it, and realized he didn’t quite know.  It had been closed for all his thirty years, and maybe longer.  It had been quite the popular spot when his folks were young, but the owners had been killed in some kind of accident—Joe couldn’t remember exactly what—and the place had closed down shortly after.

              As he drew closer to the site, he became more and more sure that it was the old drive-in.  When he finally came to it, he turned into the entrance.  A sign, lit by a single bare bulb under heavy attack by every moth in the near vicinity, announced, “Moonlight Madness!  All Niter!  Come On In!”

              Joe checked his watch.  It was three a.m.  He could go in, sleep it off and head home at sunrise.  Sure he’d be late, but at least he wouldn’t be drunk.  Sue would be pissed for a while, but as long as he didn’t smell like a brewery when he got home it might be a plus in his favor.  He could always invent some story.  Truck wouldn’t start and it was too late to call, blah, blah, friggin blah.   Besides, he hadn’t been to a drive-in movie since he was a kid.  Could be fun.   Even if he did fall asleep.

              And that pretty well clinched it.  He was a grown man, and he would do whatever the hell he wanted.  After all, the house was in his name, wasn’t it?

              Damn straight.

              Joe drove up to the booth.  In it sat a sallow looking woman with rollers in her hair and a nametag that read either “Edith” or “Edna”.  In the dim light, he couldn’t make out which.  “How many?” She asked without even looking at him.

              “Just one.”

              This time she did favor him with a look.  A suspicious one.  “You better not have any of your little friends hiding in there,” she snapped.

              It’s a goddamn truck, lady, he almost said, then thought better of it.  “Just me,” he smiled instead.

              “Two dollars.”

              Wow, cheap.  Joe paid with a ten, his paltry winnings for the night, and waited for his change.  She handed it back through the small archway cut into the glass.   Joe took it and stuffed it into his front shirt pocket, barely noticing the tacky feel of the bill.  He shrugged it off.  Must be chocolate or something.  The old girl probably sits there all night wolfing down Paydays.  He wiped his hand on his shirtfront as he pulled onto the grounds.

              The place was packed, despite the late hour.  Cars were lined up hither thither and yon, and for a brief moment Joe considered just turning around and leaving.  The chances of finding a spot looked pretty slim.  Just as the decision was looking final, he spotted a space between a large Cadillac and a Jeep Cherokee one row back from the screen, just left of center.  Joe swung in.

               The movie looked old, like something from the early sixties.  The people on the screen looked like rejects from Happy Days, all pegged jeans and duck’s ass pompadours.  It was either Rebel Without a Cause, or West Side Story.  But he wasn’t sure.  It didn’t matter much either.  After all, he was only there for a snooze.

              Joe cracked the window for ventilation, settled back into his seat and closed his eyes. He was almost ready to drift off, when the maddening scent of popcorn wafted into the truck.  He tried to ignore it, but his gurgling stomach would have none of that.  He tried to remember the last time he’d eaten anything more substantial than the potato chips and pretzels he’d had at Stu’s, but couldn’t.  Finally, his stomach won out and Joe decided to head for the snack bar.

              He slid out of the truck and cruised past the Caddy, but not before noticing it’s two occupants.  It was a large 1950’s model, and in it sat a young couple, no older than sixteen.  The boy had a flat top haircut and wore a red cardigan sweater with a large yellow A emblazoned on the front left side.  The girl, curled up beside him and munching popcorn from a large tub, had her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, her bangs curled under at her forehead.  She had on a light blue angora sweater and a string of pearls that looked too expensive for a girl her age.

              Must be some kind of theme night, Joe thought as he made a beeline for the concession stand.  Hope her mother knows she borrowed those.

              Along the way he saw muscle cars and woody station wagons.  There were even a few motor cycles.  Some were old, some were new and some even had sidecars.  Never seen anyone take a crotch rocket to a drive-in before, Joe smiled and shook his head.  Takes all kinds.

              “Hey man, got any pot?” The voice seemed to be almost riding the thick smell of marijuana that floated on the evening breeze.

              Joe looked over to his right and saw a VW Microbus with large garish flowers and peace symbols painted on its sides in bright day-glow colors.  Longhaired men and women lounged around it in the grass—and even some on top of the van.  They all looked completely spaced.    Joe ignored them and kept on trucking.  Never mind the wannabe hippies, he was on a mission.

           The concession stand was nothing more than a glorified shack.  Inside was a long Formica topped counter with a large glass popcorn maker on one end and a soda fountain on the other.   The air was redolent with the smell of stale popcorn and old grease; grease and something else.  But what?  Sweat?  No, it was a little earthier than that, almost fetid.

           Just as long as it ain’t the food, Joe thought.

            Behind the counter, at the grill, stood a dour looking man in a white tee shirt.  The name “Walt” was embroidered on the front right pocket of it.  A small paper cap sat askew on his balding dome, and a cigarette—mostly ash—hung precariously from his pursed lips.  He favored Joe with a look of disdain Joe didn’t much care for.

  “Help ya?” he asked.  He seemed even less interested in Joe than the woman at the ticket booth had been, if that were possible.

              “You sure can,” Joe said cheerfully. “How about some of that popcorn I’ve been smelling since I drove in here.”

              “Yer a new one, aren’t ya?”

              Joe wasn’t sure what the man meant.  He frowned.  New to what?   “Lived around here all my life,” Joe replied.

              The man grunted.  Joe decided to forget the comment.  Right now the only thing he cared about was getting some food into him.  He scanned the menu board above the man and decided he’d like some fries as well as the popcorn.  He placed his order and the man went about preparing it.

              “So it’s an all nighter tonight?”  Joe asked.

              “Yup.”

              “So the movie you’re showing now, West Side Story, right?”

              “Yup.” Nothing more nothing less.

              Joe nodded.  “And the next one?”

              “West Side Story.” he said.

              Joe frowned, “Did you say—?”

              “Yup.”

              “Is there a remake?”  He hadn’t heard of one being made recently.

              “Nope.”

              “I don’t get it.”

              “You will,” the man replied without looking at him.  He dumped a basket of raw french-fries into the deep fryer with a hiss and a sizzle.

              Joe shifted his feet.  He couldn’t decide if the guy was pissing him off or giving him the creeps.  He considered leaving, but decided he’d try to make small talk instead.

              “So, what happened to the folks who used to own this place?  What was it?  Thirty some years ago?”

              The man turned his dark gaze to Joe.  “Thirty-seven.”

              “Really?”  Joe said.  “Huh.  What happened to them anyway?  I heard it was some kind of accident.”

              The man smiled.  There was no humor in it.  “Car crash.   Goin home one night from here.  They were hit by a couple of drunk teenagers.  No one survived.  That answer yer question?”

              Joe didn’t understand what he had done to draw such hostility from the man.  It was obviously a touchy subject with him.  He was about to let it drop when he decided to ask one more question.  He didn’t know why he needed to know, he just did.  “What were there names again?”

              There was a brief pause, and then: “Walter and Edna Reese.”   The man said.

              Joe nodded, as if he had known all along but couldn’t remember.   The man’s nametag read Walt.  Related?  Probably.  Maybe this was Walt Junior.  That would explain the hostility.  Joe had been probing into affairs that were none of his concern.  He felt bad.  Not only because he’d been snooping, but because the Reese’s had been killed by a drunk driver.   Joe had no business being behind the wheel tonight, and he knew it.  All of a sudden he felt very tired.  He wanted to go home.

              “Anything else?” The man slid a foil bag full of fries and a tub of popcorn in front of him.

              “Uh, no that’s great,” Joe smiled weakly.  “How much do I owe ya?”

              The man leveled another of his dark gazes at Joe and leaned in close to him.  Close enough that Joe could feel the heat of his breath.  It smelled like something dead. “How many did you kill?” he whispered.

              Joe drew back.  What did he say?

              “I don’t get you, friend,” he muttered.  Joe had never hurt another living soul in his life.  He’d been in a bar fight once, back in his twenties, but afterward he’d offered to buy the guy a drink.  As far as he knew, the guy was alive and well over in the adjacent town of Pikestaff.   Hell, he’d never even been hunting.

              “When you hit that car back there.  How many?”

              “What are you talking about?”  Joe swallowed, making an involuntary hitching sound.  He could feel an irrational panic welling up inside of him.   He even caught himself sneaking a glance over his shoulder, to make sure that no one else had heard them.  But there was no one else there.

              “How many’d you have?” the man went on, a smile like scar tissue flickered on his face.  He tipped his hand up to his mouth as if drinking from an invisible bottle.  “Three?  Four?  Or were you at it all night?  A real tough guy.”

              “You’re crazy.”  Joe yanked the money from his shirt pocket and threw it on the counter.  This time, in the full light of the room, Joe could see what was on the tacky bills.  It looked like blood.

              He felt his head swimming.  The room seemed too bright.  That underlying smell of fetid decay was stronger now.  He wanted to leave.  Needed to leave.

             He scooped up the food and hustled to the door, not looking back.

 “How many of us do you people have to kill before you fucking get it?” the man called out from behind him.

         How many of us?   Joe plunged through the double doors into the coolness of the night.  He felt numb.   What was he talking about?  And further more, where had that blood come from?  It wasn’t chocolate like he’d first suspected.   Guess old Edith/Edna wasn’t eating Payday’s after all—

 Joe stopped dead in his tracks.  Edna?  Was that her name, or was the memory of her nametag a case of selective recall on his part?  Edna the ticket lady and Walt the concession man.  Edna and Walt.  Edna and Walter Reese.

 How many of us do you people have to kill—

          — Oh my God!

 Joe felt sick.  He wasn’t hungry anymore.  He looked down at the food he was carrying and a small whimper escaped him, soon to be followed by the scream that rose in his throat.  The fries were not fries any more—if they ever were.  Neither was the popcorn.  The foil bag was now filled to overflowing with the severed fingers of God only knew how many people.   There were small children sized ones, and longer adult ones.  One finger had red nail polish still visible on it.  Fuck-Me-Red, Sue called it.  Another hairy knuckled finger still wore a gold wedding band.   The tub that was once full of popcorn, now held a mound of slimy, blood-glazed eyeballs that looked as if they had been torn from their sockets.  They too were in various sizes and shades.  He could even see a long black eyelash pasted across one milky-blue iris.

 Joe threw them to the ground with a hitching sob and vomited between his shoes.

 “Where’s my pot, man?” an angry voice demanded from behind Joe’s bent form.

 Joe stood slowly and turned around.  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and peered into the dimness.  It had come from the VW Microbus.  Or what was left of it.  It was no more than a tangle of twisted metal and broken glass, as if it had been hit by a Mack truck since the last time Joe had seen it.

   A form shambled toward him from the darkness.  It had long, stringy hair.  As it came into the light cast from the movie screen, Joe could see that something was terribly wrong.   It looked male, but part of what looked like a beard was obscured by a flap of skin hanging from the man-thing’s right cheek.   It was covered in blood.  A cigarette dangled from its cracked and bloody lips.  Small white maggots squirmed in its dirty hair.

          “Where’s my pot, man?”  It grinned, licking its lips with a cracked, slug-like tongue.  “My pot!  My pot!  My fuckin POT!”  It cackled at that one, as if it were a particularly juicy little joke.

 Joe didn’t stay to find out where it’s fuckin pot was.  He spun on his heels and dashed for his truck.

  What the hell was going on?  Was this some kind of elaborate prank or something?  If it was, it sure as shit wasn’t funny.

 Joe skidded to a stop.  He’d planned to use the old Caddy with the young couple in it as a reference mark to find his truck, but it no longer seemed to be there.  All Joe could see was a hulking mass of debris.  A mass of debris with tail fins.

 “What the fuck!” he hissed.

 “”Hey, ya mind?  We’re tryin to watch a movie here.”  The voice was garbled.  It seemed to come from far away.  It had a tinny quality to it that Joe didn’t like.  It seemed to be coming from the wrecked Caddy.

 Joe drew closer, unable to stop himself.  The top of the car had been caved in quite badly.  Broken glass littered the ground around it.  Joe could feel as well as hear it crunch under his boots.  He bent slightly to see if there was anyone still in the car, but it was so badly crushed he couldn’t tell.

 As if in answer, a voice drifted out of the wreckage, “Beat it, ya perv!”

 A bloody hand shot out from what used to be the car’s window and hooked a thumb at Joe, making the “beat it” gesture.  A girl’s voice giggled from deep within.  “You’re sooo bad!” it cooed.

 Joe stumbled backward and fell on his ass with a bone-jarring thud.  The bloody hand was pulled back into the car, but not before he noticed that it was missing two fingers.  Joe thought of his “french fries” and had to fight back the urge to throw up in his lap.

 He was losing it.  That was it.   Too much to drink and not enough sleep had combined for one mean hallucination.  That was it.  That had to be it.

 Joe pulled himself to his feet and brushed off the seat of his pants.  He was just going to leave now.  Fuck it.  He’d had enough for one night.  All he needed was a little sleep and he’d be just as right as rain.  He turned to his truck and his heart nearly stopped.  The thin veneer of his sanity was almost torn away in that instant.  He blinked hard as if what he saw might be an illusion too, another trick of his overtaxed mind.  He opened his eyes.  But it was still there.

 His truck was in worse shape than the Caddy beside it.  The front end looked like a warped accordion.  The windshield was completely blown out, and a fan of blood was splashed across the crimped hood.  There was a good sized chunk of bloody scalp—hair and all—stuck to the mangled driver’s side wiper.  The frame itself looked as though it had been picked up and twisted by some giant’s hand.  Joe stared dumbfounded at the carnage that was once his truck.   Just what the fuck was going on around here?   Had the world gone completely insane?

 “The world is perfectly sane, but sometimes I wonder.”  The voice came out of nowhere, and this time Joe did scream.  He spun around, tangling his feet up underneath him, almost spilling him on his ass once again.

 Behind him stood Walt the concession man and Edna the ticket lady, hand in hand.   Only now, most of Walt’s head was gone and Edna was sporting a large, ragged hole in her abdomen the size of a dinner plate.

         Well, now I know where the blood came from, Joe thought, and giggled.  Pardon me Edna, but your dinner is showing! He giggled some more.   Oh my, I think I’m losing my mind.

            “As you can see, we have quite a collection of  folks like you,” Walt swept a hand about the enclosure, and Joe saw—really saw for the first time—the truth of the situation.  The place looked like a scrap yard.  And it was.  Of sorts.

              “Why am I here?”  Joe said in a very small voice.  “What’s going on?”  But Joe had the sinking feeling that he already knew.

              Walt grinned.  Or at least as much as his mangled face would allow.  “Why, don’t you see?”  Walt said, “You’re just like the rest of them now.  No regard for anyone but yourself.  Like peas in a pod, really.”

              Joe couldn’t help it.  He began to cry.  “I’m not like—like them,” he whimpered.

              And then he remembered.  And it all became sickeningly clear.  The near accident, when he had taken his eyes off the road and almost plowed into that car.   Only now he wasn’t so sure anymore.   Did he hit them?  Was he dead?  Or was this some guilt induced, comatose nightmare he was having from a bed in the IC unit of the Gryphon Falls hospital?

              Faintly, in the distance, the lonely lament of sirens floated on the air like the cry of a loon.

              “All coming back to you now?”  It was Walter Reese’s voice.  Chiding.  “You’re all the same.  No different than the punk kid that hit us that night.  Just another hero who thought he could handle it.  Feel like a hero now, Joe?  Why don’t you take a look, see for yourself.”

              Joe turned, a man in a waking nightmare, and gazed upon the reflection in the passenger side window of his truck, the only one still intact.  And what he saw would have stopped his heart, if it were beating.

              Joe Beeman wasn’t going anywhere.

              For Joe Beeman, the All-Niter had just begun.

 ©2001 D. Grant Mulhern