Moonlight

'Why are you here Archie?' A lone teen thought as he stood in front of Walker peaks, the twin spiraling mountains that stood as a backdrop to his tiny home town of Moonwood. At the base of the mountain where the two intercept was supposed to be a bonfire party. In the distance Archie could see the faint glow from the fire.

This was his last chance to walk away, to go before things got serious. Archie’s father already told him that he couldn’t go to the party since it was a school night but he snuck out anyway. If he chose to leave right then he could still get back home before his father noticed he was gone.

Archie took a deep breath and then let it out, summoning all the courage he had he started toward the party. As he reached the tree line he could hear loud music playing and other teens talking loud and dancing.

The party was centered in a clearing just at the foot of mount Juju, the mountain had another name but nobody had used it in so long most people had forgotten it. A majority of the kids in at the party were dancing around the bonfire and laughing it up but a small few were sitting on logs near the edge of the trees cheering them, clapping, and drinking.

Archie stayed close the to the edge of the party where he wouldn’t be noticed. He was used to making himself invisible and unnoticed. He found an unused log and sat down to watch everyone. He was surprised how many kids from Richmond High were there. This party was supposed to be the official pep rally for Moonwood high’s Sabers, his school’s football team and their first game of the year against their longtime rivals The Richman Wildcats. But he guessed when there were drinks and dances to be had people didn’t really care who was from where as long as you didn’t wreak the mood.

As Archie eyed the crowed he saw two people that would definitely wreck his mood: Brandon Jones and Mitchel Peters. Those two had been a pain in his butt since the first grade. Every chance they got they picked on him. At first it was just simple stuff like stealing pencils or tripping him but as it went on it only got worse and now that the three of them are sophomores in high school they did practically everything to him but shove him in a locker. And the only reason they didn’t do that was because he was too big to fit in one.

Archie had planned to avoid those two like the plague for the rest of the night.

“Hey Archibald!” A voice said as someone slapped him on his back. Archie knew who it was without looking. There was only one person in the school that called him by his real name: Desmond Winters.

“Hey Desmond.” Archie said dryly. Desmond frowned and sat down on the log next to him.

“Now what kind of greeting was that?” He asked.

“The greeting a guy gives when he’s wondering why he bothered to sneak out of his house just to see a bunch of idiots dancing around a bonfire.”

“Because his best and only friend asked him to come.”

“I Have a friend?!” Archie exclaimed sarcastically. Desmond frowned and slapped him on the arm.

“Smart ass.” He mumbled.

“Third smartest in the school.” Archie said with a smirk. Desmond frowned and looked away from him. Archie turned to looked at Desmond, he was a short and stocky kid with brown hair, hazel eyes and thick bottle cap glasses. “Oh come on don’t be like that. You know I was just joking.”

Desmond looked over his shoulder at Archie, he was sporting a big toothy grin that showed the gap between his two front teeth. “I know.” He laughed then turned back to face Archie.

Desmond and Archie were a lot alike stature-wises. Archie was the same height as Desmond but that’s where the similarities ended. Archie had bright red hair and green eyes which he got from his mother while Desmond had dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Archie preferred to keep his hair short, Desmond likes his hair long and tied back into a ponytail.

“So what’s the reason you ask me here for anyway, neither of us can dance and I’m allergic to alcohol…”

“Oh come you’re not stupid. It’s the first major party of the year, I mean everybody’s here. Justin Hershell, Adam Manning, and Linda Fields.” Duncan said point out the people he mentioned.

“Isn’t that Linda’s best friend next to her.” Archie said.

“Huh, oh yeah that’s Ivy Ford, she’s only an A-list because she’s friends with Linda. But think about it Archibald we get in with the it crowd at the first party of year we’re set for the rest of the year…no the rest of our high school careers.”

Archie started blankly at his friend. “You know if you put as much time and effort into school as you do into getting popular you’d probably be the fourth smartest person in the school.”

“Oh come on…”

“I’m serious. One of these days your get famous quick schemes are going to get you killed or at least very badly hurt.”

“Hey maybe…”

Archie groaned and rolled his eyes. “I’m going to see if there are any other nerds here besides us, maybe one of them will have a drink that won’t put me in the hospital.”

Archie stood up and started walking around the clearing staying close to the woods. He knew that if there were any other nerds at the party they’d want to stay as far away from the football players as possible, especially if they were drunk. He walked around the entire clearing and saw nothing but a bunch of drunk teens and athletes. He didn’t really suspect to find anyone without alcohol he just wanted away from Desmond before he roped him into one of his schemes.

He was about thirty feet from the log that he’d left Desmond on when he saw Mitchel, Brandon, Justin and Adam walk up to him. Archie stopped dead in his tracks then quickly hid behind a nearby tree and watched the exchange. Desmond didn’t look like he was in distress to Archie but he knew Desmond and he couldn’t identify danger if it slapped him in the face, plus he was probably going to try one of his get popular quick plans.

Archie couldn’t hear what they were saying to Desmond but he knew something wasn’t right when he saw Desmond jump up eagerly from the log and follow Brandon, Mitchel, Adam and Justin into the woods.

'Desmond what are you doing!' Archie thought angrily. He followed after Desmond and company from a distance through the woods. They didn’t walk that far from the bonfire but far enough that nobody could hear him scream.

The group led Desmond to another clearing and they weren’t the only ones there. Linda Fields, Ivy Ford and Amanda Marshal were there as well.

Archie moved behind another tree that was closer so he could hear what they were saying.

“…so Desmond what’s this plan I heard you talking about at school?” Mitchel said.

“Oh you’ll love it, I bet you noticed how many students there are from Richmond High well my plan to totally freak them out is have a guy run out of the woods wearing one of their uniforms covered in fake blood gripping his side and screaming then suddenly collapses on the ground.” Desmond said.

“While that certainly would freak people out where are we going to get Richmond High uniforms?” Brandon asked.

“Actually I have some with me.” Desmond said with a smirk. He took off his backpack and pulled out a couple of Richmond high uniforms.

“Well what about the fake blood?” Justin asked. Desmond handed Brandon the uniforms and dug into his backpack again and pulled out a couple jars of colored corn syrup.

“I was going to convince a few of my friends to pull this with me but since you guys are so interested we could do it instead.” He said with a confident smile.

'Forget what I said about fourth smartest he could easily become second.' Archie thought. Mitchel started laughing loudly then walked over to Desmond and put his arm around his shoulder.

The gesture put Archie on edge, in all the time he’s known Mitchel he’s seen do that several times, what he did after that was never good.

“Desmond, Desmond, Desmond…I mean it’s nice that you brought this great prank to our attention but…and don’t take this the wrong way… we don’t need a nobody like you to pull this off. So Why don’t you scamper off home and do whatever it is you useless geeks do.”

Mitchel patted Desmond on the back then shoved him to the ground. Archie started to run out from the tree he was hiding behind and ran to Desmond’s side when he saw Ivy walking over to Mitchel.

“You know Mitchel as fun as it is to watch you abuse defenseless nerds what exactly did you call us out here for?” She said pointing at herself, Linda and Amanda.

“Not that it’s any trouble.” Linda quickly said.

“Oh yeah that… well girls Brandon and I had planned to pull a different prank that we needed a girl for.”

“What prank?” Amanda asked with a suspicious look.

“Well I remembered hearing about those animal attacks a few counties away so I suggested that we dress some girl up like she’s been attacked by an animal and run into the bonfire but we didn’t have any fake blood.” Mitchel said. “But since Desmond was so kind as to give us these uniforms and fake blood we can go ahead with the prank and even add a part about the Richmond student maybe even tie a rope around his leg to make it look like he gets dragged off.”

“No you’re not!” Desmond shouted. He suddenly jumped up from the ground and stomped over to Mitchel. “You are not going to be use my stuff to pull off your prank after you brush me aside like last week’s tuna!”

Mitchel laughed. “What are you going to do to stop me?”

“Give me back my stuff!” Desmond snapped. He reached up and grabbed Mitchel by his collar. Mitchel glared at viciously at Desmond then punched him in the nose, there was a loud crack as he hit him. Desmond fell back holding his nose and squirming on the ground.

Mitchel walked over and grabbed him by his shirt and reeled his other fist back to punch him again.

“STOP IT NOW!” Archie yelled at the top of his lungs as he ran out from behind his tree. Mitchel froze, started by Archie’s shouting. Archie ran and rammed into Mitchel with his shoulder knocking Mitchel away from Desmond. Mitchel stumbled back but Brandon and Adam caught him before he fell. Mitchel jerked out of their grasp and looked to see who it was that hit him, when he saw it was Archie he smirked and stood calmly.

“Well look who it is everybody? Archie-boy! Get ready to quiver in your boots guys because he’s going to kick all our asses.” He said sarcastically.

Archie ignored Mitchel and turned to check on Desmond, it wasn’t the smartest idea to turn his back to Mitchel but he was more worried by his friend than danger.

“You ok Desmond?” He asked. Desmond was on the verge of tears covering his nose with his hands while blood dripped down his chin. “Move your hands so I can check your nose.”

Desmond moved his hands out of the way and Archie winced when he saw his nose. It was obviously broken and the blood gushing from it didn’t make it look any better. Archie reached into his pockets for a napkin or something.

“Lean forward Desmond while I find something to mop up the blood.” Archie said. He grabbed Desmond backpack and reached inside. He had three rolls of toilet paper inside. Archie pulled those out and gave Desmond a bewildered look. “Why do you have three rolls of toilet paper?”

“Another prank idea, in case this was a bust.” Desmond mumbled.

“So another one of you’re stupid get popular quick schemes.” Archie pulled off a few sheets of toilet paper and dabbed up the blood on Desmond chin. “I don’t know why you’re so fixated on being one of those popular idiots, none of them could have an original idea if it crawled out their ass and called itself a tapeworm..”

“You do remember that they’re right behind you right.?”

Archie froze at the sound of cracking knuckles behind him. “I do now.”

Mitchel snatched Archie by the collar and lifted up off the ground and to his eye level eye level.

“You’re going to pay for insulting me and ignoring me!” Mitchel growled. He reared back one of his arms, ready to slug Archie in the jaw when Brandon grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

“Mitch I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Brandon said. “Did you forget that his father is the one conducting the drug tests we need to play tomorrow. Do you really want to chance him doing something to mess with our tests?”

Mitchel frowned then let Archie go. He fell to the ground and glared back up at Mitchel while fixing his shirt. Mitchel turned to Brandon and slapped him on the back.

“So are we going to prank some Rich brats or what?” He said to the others.

Archie stood up and moved to turn his attention back to Desmond when something at the edge of his vision, past all of jocks and popular kids caught his eye. A faint figure moving in the bushes by the trees. But no sooner had he seen the figure, did it vanish.

“What was that?” He mumbled. Desmond was standing now, with both his nostrils stuffed with toilet paper.

“That was you nearly getting pummeled by Mitchel.” Desmond said his voice sounding a little nasally. “You’re lucky your dad’s the only doctor in town.”

“No not that, I thought I saw something in the bushes just past the tree line.”

“Really?” Desmond scanned bushes by the tree line then shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t see anything.”

Archie scanned the bushes as well and admitted he saw nothing anymore. The only thing he did see was Mitchel, Brandon and the others setting up to play their improvised prank on the Richmond kids and the others at the bonfire. 'Maybe it was just my imagination…' He thought.

Linda looked away from the group and saw that Archie and Desmond were still standing there and frowned.

“You two freaks are still here? I thought Mitchel made it clear go a-a-a-a…”

Archie arched his eyebrows at her. He was about to make some stupid sarcastic remark when he noticed the look on her face. Sheer terror. It was then he felt something warm splash on the back of his neck.

Archie reached back and wiped his neck then looked at his hand. His fingers were bright red and covered in blood. It took Archie a few second to process what was on his hand. Bewildered he looked at everyone only to find them all frozen in terror, and staring at something behind him.

He could suddenly hear something breathing ragged behind him and all too aware that Desmond was no longer standing beside him. Archie slowly turned on his heel to look at whatever was behind him.

What was behind him was a creature, a tower of muscle and fur standing well over three feet past his head with something dangling from its mouth. It stood with both arms hanging from its side, long curved claws at the ends of each of its fingertips. Archie strained to look up at the creature, when he did he realized what it was in the creature’s mouth much to his horror.

Desmond hung limp in the creature’s mouth, he stared down at Archie with lifeless eyes. The creature didn’t seem to realize anybody else was there, it just stood there.

Amanda suddenly found her voice and let out a loud blood curdling scream. The creature eyes darted to Amanda, it dropped Desmond, letting his body fall on Archie then let out an ear piercing growl. In a flash it leapt into the air and pounced Amanda, Archie could hear her terrified screams and the wet sound of tearing flesh.

Mitchel, Brandon, Linda, Ivy, Justin and Adam all screamed and ran in blind terror toward the tree line. The creature growled and ran after them, pouncing on Adam, it’s powerful jaws tore into his neck then tossed his body aside it ran after Justin and slashed at him with it claws nearly cutting him in two.

Mitchel, Brandon, Linda, and Ivy made it to the tree line and ran into the forest but they were running in the wrong direction of the bonfire and town. The monster ran after them letting out a whopping howl as it ran.

With shaky hands Archie pushed Desmond off him and sat up. He tried to force himself to calm down as he looked at Desmond’s injuries. The right side of his neck was basically hamburger, he’d been bleeding badly from it a few seconds ago but now it was just a tiny trickle. He applied pressure to the wound and felt for a pulse, there wasn’t one.

“No, no, no you can’t die on me you stupid idiot!” Archie shouted. He started doing chest compressions desperately trying to jumpstart his friends heart. “Come on beat, breath, do something just don’t die!”

He started pounding on Desmond’s chest with a clenched fist, a last ditch effort his father taught him. He stopped after a few minutes, tears running down his face. He knew it was useless, even if he did get his heart beating again there wasn’t enough blood in his body to keep him alive, the fact the bleeding in his neck had stopped was proof of that. Archie finally gave up, he sat there and stared at Desmond’s body. He could hear the screams of the others in the distance one after another but he didn’t care, he couldn’t care. He felt numb.

He heard a rusting sound coming from the bushes and slowly looked up. The creature stepped out of the bushes and into the clearing. In that moment one emotion broke through the levee his mind created and surged to the surface: fear. The creature was on all fours and moved slowly towards Archie when it was a few feet away from him it stopped and swept its head right and left sniffing the air then walked closer until it’s muzzle was only a few inches from his face

'This thing is blind…' He realized as he looked into its clouded eyes. The creature sniffed him a few more times then started to walk away. Archie shifted his weight on his left leg to stand up, a twig underneath his foot snapped and Archie froze.

The creature's head spun around to Archie's direction and growled. It stalked back over to Archie and sniffed him. The beast stepped back and a broad, vile, smile crept across it’s chops. It opened its mouth and snapped it shut a few inches from his face.

Archie stayed still, not moving or even breathing. The monster snapped at him a few more times then moved back a few feet and stood watching blankly in his direction with its milky eyes.

'It knows I’m here, it’s playing with me… I’m going to die…I’m going to die... do something think, think…!'

Archie sat there for what felt like eternity then jumped up and ran toward the monster. It's smirk widening as it raised a clawed hand. Archie jumped, dodging a swipe from the creature’s claws and stepping on the creature’s head, vaulting over its body. Archie hit the ground running, he wasn’t an athletic person but he ran with the form of an Olympian. He was nearly at the tree line when his body suddenly crumbled to the ground. His back exploding with an unimaginable pain. Archie let out a pained scream.

He was so close to the tree line only a few more feet and he would have made it. The beast walked around to his face and grabbed his head in his claws then lifted him to its eye level. The same broad, wicked smile from earlier beamed across its jaws.

Archie felt himself quickly losing consciousness. 'I can’t believe the last thing I’m going to see is that things ugly face…' He thought as his eyelids fluttered closed.

***

“Archie! Archie! Archibald Elsie Griswold wake up right now and get ready for school!” His father shouted.

Archie groaned and sat up as his mind slowly awoke from a fog. He blinked a few times, wiped the sleep from his eyes, then looked at his surroundings. He was in his bedroom, lying on his small twin bed, naked.

'My room… did I not go out last night… wait why am I naked…and why do I feel like I ran a marathon!?'

“Archie! If you’re not up in three minutes I’m coming in there with a bucket of water!” His father shouted again, this time pounding on the door.

“I’m up dad!” Archie called out, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed.

“I’m still coming back with the water if you’re not out soon!”

Archie stood up and looked over at his night stand for his phone, when he found it wasn’t there he looked under his bed, not that he could find anything with all the books underneath it.

“Huh.” He said. Archie stood up and looked around his room. “Man where did I put that thing, I better hurry up and text Desmond. I already know he’s going to chew me out for not going to that stupid bonfire. He probably was going to hatch another one of his stupid get popular quick schemes.”