The Moon Sets on Us All Jason Warwick _____________________________________

The cloaked man sits in his home, as worn down and disheveled as it might be. His unkept hair, a mop upon his crown not all too dissimilar to that of the hound brushing its head against his idle fingers, blends with the silver moonlight piercing the gaps in the worn curtains. The man clutches his cloak tightly to his body with a shaky grip as cold air invades the home from the crack under the door, shivering at its advance. It grew worse with each year, or perhaps he had grown more vulnerable to its wintery grip. He runs his fingers through the messy brown hound’s fur on its head, giving it a small scratch before forcing himself from his chair, a thing with twice his years yet twice as sturdy.

“Creations of man seem to last longer than the creations of God . . .” he thinks, shaking his head at the bitter thought, as if trying to shake off water from his coat. Such thoughts were unebcoming of someone of his faith. He’d been granted his time, short as it may have been compared to the various objects surrounding him, including a nearby photo which catches the man’s attention for a time along with the glistening in his eyes. He runs a few fingers across the smudges now trailing along his cheek, before makign his way over to the fireplace, throwing in a log or three. It didn’t matter much; the cold would just be back tomorrow. He grits his teeth at the thought of having to brave said cold to gather more logs just to be granted a short reprieve.

A sudden crash of his window interrupts his bout of bitterness, as a small spherical object compromises the dusty glass pane, before granting the floor a fresh coat of red paint as the man falls to the floor clutching his head. After a few moments of diziness, the haze over his sight clears as he looks up towards the window, its curtains now blowing in the wind. His attention, however, is soon consumed by the sound of the hound’s barks ripping into the air, his head turning towards the door as he sees the guardian throwing every pint of hostility within its frame at whatever lay on the other side of the wooden barrier. Rubbing the wound on his head, he stumbles over to the door gritting his teeth, his hand gripping the doorknob with a ferocity normally beyond him. His other hand twists the lock, the satisfying click of years past absent and replaced with that of a rusted grinding of metal against metal. This only serves to further add to his irritation as he flings open the door, ready to let the world itself know his fury before stopping, his eyes widening in a rapid escalation of fear. Before him stood something better not put to words, if it even could have words truly attributed to it. A thing, a shape, staring not at him but through him. Its shadowy visage makes no advance onto the man as he falls back in horror, though the shock alone wouldn’t have been enough to bring him down to such a state as he clutches his chest at a newfound pain. His senses begin to harass and berate him, from the pain in his heart to the rampant barking of the hound, as his world begins to spin furiously. He drags himself over to the nearby bed, reaching for something underneath of the large respite. His hand finds it, a small wooden case with the sign of the cross upon its top lid and a lock sealing its contents from the world. The man reaches into his pocket, withdrawing a small key as he shakily goes to unlock the case, the key colliding with the sides a few times before reuniting with its iron homestead. The man nearly finds himself falling towards the floor but manages to hold on just a bit longer, hastily taking a small bottle from the box and ingesting its contents almost greedily, like an alcoholic to whiskey. His hand grips the bottle, his fingers tightening more and more with murmured prayers leaving his lips, the bottle cracking from within his iron grip. Before long the pounding in his ears begins to cease, his expression of desperation soon replaced with one of a fury long lost to him as he turns his attention back to the case. Opening it slowly, he sees the extensions of his being within. A gun, a long-nosed revolver capable of holding three bullets alongside a bottle of blessed water and a knife emboldened with silver. These items shine in the moonlight, their gleam restoring to him some semblance of sanity as he grips the gun firmly, turning quickly towards the door with intent rushing to his finger. His eyes widen, however, as they twitch from left to right, as he realizes the barking had ceased long ago. The shape was no longer there, and neither was the hound.

He turns his eyes to the window. Yes, the window! It was still smashed; it was all real! It had to be! The cold air upon his sweat soaked brow, the newly painted floor, the glass reflecting the full moon in the sky all served to reassure him as he slowly forces himself from the floor. Grabbing the box’s remaining contents and securing them to himself, he storms towards the door, grabbing his brown brimmed hat on the way out. He swiftly spots the tracks left by the hound, quickly giving chase, his own feet forming prints in the ground though far deeper given his heavy steps. It is not long until a high-pitched noise pounds his ears, causing him to recoil before realizing just what it is: the whimpers of the hound. He hastens his advance through the dense woods, before he finally comes upon the source of the cries. The hound lay there, whimpering profusely as it tries in desperation to free itself from a steel bear trap clinging to its leg as the cold clung to the man like a child desperate for attention.

Before he can do anything, however, he suddenly hears something from behind, spinning around quickly though almost falling from the sudden movement. His eyes narrow as he steels himself at the sight of the “thing,” its eyes piercing the surrounding trees and glaring at him as he raises the revolver, going to fire and end this nightmare once and for all. The bang rings throughout the night, the cold air bearing the waves of sound with grace, though this is not the only sound that erupts into being. The man emits a scream, clutching his side in shock as he feels something tear into it, blood seeping through his shirt and cloak. He looks up, the thing having not moved even an inch as it continues to just stand there, staring into his being. His breathing hastens, his lungs picking up the pace as they are called to action. He turns his attention back to the hound, his friend, his companion. He eyes the mechanism, rusted from years left unattended out here. Recognition followed by guilt fills the man as he raises the revolver, fear gripping his heart for a faint moment. Two bullets were all that remained, two bullets laden with silver, perhaps his only chance of making it home alive. With his newfound shortcomings, could he really and truly trust himself to make the last bullet count? He closes his eyes in pain, a tear dripping down the side of his face, as he fires. A loud clang is heard, as if by some miracle he missed, releasing the trap as the hound quickly ran off into the night, leaving the man alone with the Thing.

He turns his head, as he once more loses sight of the Thing. His eyes twitch this way and that, piercing the night before he is suddenly surrounded by the sounds of snapping twigs, crunching leaves and thwacking branches. The crows warn him, danger approaches, their organized flight serving as a warning to the warrior of the night as they had many times before. He was a fool to come out here, alone and already leaking blood alongside being half out of his mind. The cloaked man ushers into the night, a heavy breath clutching his lungs as he pushes his aging body on into the moonlit forest, following the trail of the hound back home. He sees it all around, the Thing taunting him from within the confines of the trees. He thinks he has it, quickly his hand shoots to his bottle as he throws it, a smash being heard but no scream. He had seen it this time, the impact, the strike! He had hit it with water most holy, and it didn’t even care! He sees it approach, his hand turning instead to the cross hanging about his neck, gripping it with a righteous ferocity honed by years of faith. Prayers emit from his lips, holy commands to stay its path, and yet it seemed to only hasten at his pathetic attempts to struggle. His eyes widen as he loses his footing, still clutching his bleeding side as he stumbles away back towards his home, his sanctuary.

He hobbles back within his home, his heart begging him to stop, his limp leg starting to fail. “Tell me ten years ago I wouldn’t have been able to run out of these woods, and I would’ve spat in your face and took off…” he thinks bitterly, knowing he’d have had a better chance of survival anywhere but here. He quickly shuts the door, forcing its lock back into place as he braces himself against the oak frame. “It won’t stop, why can’t I stop it? I’ve stopped everything before… why not now? Silver, bullets, the Lord’s strengthened words… nothing.” He hisses this last word out loud, his fist finding a home as it impacts with the door. “All these years I’ve spent, fighting, growing, winning. Now I am back at the beginning… as defenseless as I was the day I was born. Is this the fate that awaits us all?” His mind races with these thoughts as he limps towards the shattered window

He had tried it all, and it didn’t even flinch, didn’t even struggle. Yet all he could do in the face of it is struggle to even force a breath from his worthless lungs. It was as if his failing body was some sort of stage play for the being, as the image of it laid back in a chair, sipping sparkling wine at his suffering, enters his mind. He laughs for a moment, though doubles over in pain at the motion. Wasn’t even permitted moments of levity anymore, it seemed. He peers out the window, as he sees it, until he doesn’t. Then he sees it again, until he doesn’t. Again, gone, again then gone again. It was watching, waiting, laughing. That last part wasn’t true, but he felt as if he was being toyed with like a child with food. It encircles the abode he had sequestered himself within, almost seeming to be everywhere and nowhere at once. Was this some cruel trick of the light emitted from the moon, or had he truly lost his senses to the lulls of unconsciousness?

He groans in pain as his leg finally gives in, his bleeding worsening as he drags himself over to the nearby corner. His eyes flick from side to side, seeing shapes in the shadows, shapes under the crack of the door. The drip drip of his wound fills his ears like a ringing church bell. This was it, the end of all things. He slowly grips his trusted companion, raising the revolver towards the door as it starts ramming itself against its own frame. Tears coating his eyes, he forces them to close as he looks away, slowly pulling the trigger with the last vestiges of strength that remained in his body . . . *Click*

A jam?! A malfunction at this hour?! All was truly lost if even his trusted companion had failed him so thoroughly. One bullet to his name was all he had, and the Thing couldn’t even afford him that in these desperate moments. The door escalates its cries for release, its frame slowly cracking more and more over time. The man envied its strength, its durability, its power to keep going despite it all. At least until it finally fails, flying open forcibly and slamming against the wall as the cold air rushes in, alongside the sight that would haunt anyone for years to come. The Thing stood there, its enigmatic shape blotting out the moonlight, seemingly directing all focus to itself and only too itself. The man wanted to scream, to fight, to run away and come back stronger. His throat had gone raw, his leg dead where it lay, and his revolver lay broken. He braces himself for the worst, starring the Thing down in the pitch void of its eyes. And almost as soon as it came, it was gone. He hadn’t even blinked, and it had disappeared like a fleeting memory. A nightmare chased away upon being woken by a caring mother in the dead of night. His breathing begins to slow, but not due to relief. The end of all things, it was here. The red carpet had been rolled out in the form of the blood painted floor, and there he lay at the end of it. He felt small creatures begin to pull at the lids of his eyes as a feeling of immense fatigue entered his mind and body. This he could fight though, for this he didn’t need anything but his own will and perhaps some coffee, though sadly he was devoid of the latter’s emboldening properties at this moment. He turns his attention to the nearby window, as the moon lowers and the sun begins to rise into the sky. Tears form in his eyes, as he lay there all alone. He hears something moving, not even going for his weapon before feeling instead the familiar moppy haired frame of the hound propping up his arm. He smiles, the tears hastening as he welcomes the warmth the being provides. “One last sunrise…” He says to the hound, as his eyes slowly drift shut one final time. The fight was over, the moon had set, and it was time for this soldier of the night to return home.

Final Resting Place (for my drawing hand) Alexandra Palau _____________________________________________________

Quack Party Aliya Leon ________________________