Winter Moon

Jack rose to his feet. "Yeah. Heather. Where is she?"

"Went down for two more," Harlan said, "like she doesn't know the house

is on fire."

In the backyard, there were reflections of fire on the snow now,

probably from the main roof or from Toby's room. Even if the blaze

hadn't yet spread all the way down the front stairs, the whole house

would soon be engulfed when the roof fell into second-floor rooms and

second-floor rooms fell into those below them.

Jack started toward the kitchen, but Harlan Moffit put down the fuel

cans and grabbed him by the arm.

"What the hell's going on here?"

Jack tried to pull away from him. The chubby, bearded man was stronger

than he looked.

"You tell me your family's in danger, going to die any minute, trapped

somehow, but then we get here and what I see is your family is the

danger, setting fire to their own house by the look of it."

From the second floor came a great creaking and a shuddering crash as

something caved in, wall or ceiling.

Jack shouted, "Heather!"

He tore loose from Harlan and made it into the kitchen just as Heather

climbed out of the basement with two more cans. He grabbed one of them

from her and guided her toward the back door.

"Out of the house now," he ordered.

"That's it," she said. "No more down there."

Jack paused at the pegboard to get the keys to the caretaker's cottage,

then followed Heather outside.

Toby had already started up the long hill, trudging through snow that

was knee-high in some places, hardly up to his ankles in others. It

was nowhere as deep as out on the fields, because the wind relentlessly

swept the slope between the house and the higher woods, even scouring

it to bare ground in a few spots.

Falstaff accompanied him, a brand-new dog but as faithful as a lifelong

companion. Odd. The finest qualities of character--rare in humankind

and perhaps rarer still in what other intelligent species might share

the universe--were common in canines. Sometimes, Jack wondered if the

species created in God's image was, in fact, not one that walked erect

but one that padded on all fours with a tail behind.

Picking up one of the cans on the porch to go with the one she already

had, Heather hurried into the snow.

"Come on!"

"You going to burn down the house uphill now?" Harlan Moffit asked

dryly, evidently having glimpsed that other structure through the

snow.

"And we need your help."

Jack carried two of the remaining four cans to the steps, knowing

Moffit must think they were all mad.

The bearded man was obviously intrigued but also spooked and wary.

"Are you people plumb crazy, or don't you know there's better ways of

getting rid of termites?"

There was no way to explain the situation in a reasonable and

methodical fashion, especially not when every second counted, so Jack

went for it, took the plunge off the deep end, and said, "Since you

knew I was the new fella in these parts, maybe you also know I was a

cop in L.A. not some flaky screenwriter with wild ideas--just a cop, a

working stiff like you. Now, it's going to sound nuts, but we're in a

fight here against something that isn't of this world, something that

came here when Ed--"

"You mean aliens?" Harlan Moffit interrupted.

He could think of no euphemism that was any less absurd. "Yeah.

Aliens. They-"

"I'll be a fucking sonofabitch!" Harlan Moffit said,

and smacked one meaty fist into the palm of his other hand. A torrent

of words burst from him: "I knew I'd get to see one sooner or later.

Read about them all the time in the Enquirer. And books. Some are

good aliens, some bad, and some you'll never figure out in a month of

Sundays--just like people. These are real bad bastards, huh? Come

whirling down in their ships, did they? Holy shit on a holy shingle!

And me here for it!" He grabbed the last two cans of gasoline and

charged off the porch, uphill through the bright reflections of flame

that rippled like phantom flags across the snow. "Come on, come

on--let's waste these fuckers!"

Jack would have laughed if his son's sanity and life had not been

balanced on a thin line, a thread, a filament. Even so, he almost sat

down on the snow-packed porch steps, almost let the giggles and the

guffaws come. Humor and death were kin, all right.

Couldn't face the latter without the former. Any cop knew as much.

And life was absurd, down to the deepest foundations of it, so there

was always something funny in the middle of whatever hell was blowing

up around you at the moment. Atlas wasn't carrying the world on his

shoulders, no giant muscular hulk with a sense of responsibility, the

world was balanced on a pyramid of clowns, and they were always tooting

horns and wobbling and goosing each other. But even though it was

absurd, though life could be disastrous and funny at the same time,

people still died. Toby might still die. Heather. All of them.

Luther Bryson had been making jokes, laughing, seconds before he took a

swarm of bullets in the chest.

Jack hurried after Harlan Moffit. The wind was cold.

The hill was slippery.

The day was hard and gray.

o