Winter Moon

He faced the invisible edge of the damned thing, then leaned to his

left, looking around at what he thought of as the "front" of the

doorway. He shoved his left hand into it as deeply as before.

He was surprised at his boldness and knew he was being too quick to

assume that the phenomenon was, after all, harmless. Curiosity, that

old killer of cats--and not a few human beings--had him in its grip.

Without withdrawing his left hand, he leaned to the right and looked at

the "back" of the doorway. His fingers had not poked through the far

side.

He pushed his hand deeper into the front of the portal, but it still

did not appear out of the back. The doorway was as thin as a razor

blade, yet he had fourteen to sixteen inches of hand and forearm thrust

into it.

Where had his hand gone?

Shivering, he withdrew his hand from the enigma and returned to the

meadow, once more facing the "front" of the portal.

He wondered what would happen to him if he stepped through the doorway,

both feet, all the way, with no tether to the world he knew. What

would he discover beyond? Would he be able to get back if he didn't

like what he found?

He didn't have enough curiosity to take such a fateful step. He stood

at the brink, wondering--and gradually he began to feel that something

was coming.

Before he could decide what to do, that pure essence of darkness seemed

to pour out of the doorway, an ocean of night that sucked him down into

a dry but drowning sea.

When he regained consciousness, Eduardo was facedown in the dead and

matted grass, head turned to his left, gazing up the long meadow toward

the house.

Dawn had not yet come, but time had passed. The moon had set, and the

night was dull and bleak without its silvery enhancement.

He was initially confused, but his mind cleared. He remembered the

doorway.

He rolled onto his back, sat up, looked toward the woods. The

razor-thin coin of blackness was gone. The forest stood where it had

always stood, unchanged.

He crawled to where the doorway had been, stupidly wondering if it had

fallen over and was now flat on the ground, transformed from a doorway

into a bottomless well. But it was just gone.

Shaky and weak, wincing at a headache as intense as a hot wire through

his brain, he got laboriously to his feet. He swayed like a drunkard

sobering from a week-long binge.

He staggered to where he remembered putting down the video camera.

It wasn't there.

He searched in circles, steadily widening the pattern from the point

where the camcorder should have been, until he was certain that he was

venturing into areas where he had not gone earlier. He couldn't find

the camera.

The shotgun was missing as well. And the discarded Discman with its

headphones.

Reluctantly he returned to the house. He made a pot of strong

coffee.

Almost as bitter and black as espresso. With the first cup, he washed

down two aspirin.

He usually made a weak brew and limited himself to two or three cups.

Too much caffeine could cause prostate problems. This morning he

didn't care if his prostate swelled as big as a basketball. He needed

coffee.

He took off the holster, with the pistol still in it, and put it on the

kitchen table. He pulled out a chair and sat within easy reach of the

weapon.

He repeatedly examined his left hand, which he had thrust through the

doorway, as if he thought it might abruptly turn to dust. And why

not?

Was that any more fantastic than anything else that had happened?

At first light, he strapped on the holster and returned to the meadow

at the perimeter of the lower woods, where he conducted another search

for the camera, the shotgun, and the Discman.

Gone.

He could do without the shotgun. It wasn't his only defense.

The Discman had served its purpose. He didn't need it any more.

Besides, he remembered how smoke had seeped from its innards and how

hot the casing had been when he'd unclipped it from his belt. It was

probably ruined.

However, he badly wanted the camcorder, because without it, he had no

proof of what he'd seen. Maybe that was why it had been taken.

In the house again, he made a fresh pot of coffee. What the hell did

he need a prostate for, anyway?

From the desk in the study, he fetched a legal-size tablet of ruled

yellow paper and a couple of ballpoint pens.

He sat at the kitchen table, working on the second pot of coffee and

filling up tablet pages with his neat, strong handwriting. On the

first page, he began with: My name is Eduardo Fernandez, and I have

witnessed a series of strange and unsettling events. I am not much of

a diarist.

Often, I've resolved to start a diary with the new year, but I have

always lost interest before the end of January. However, I am

sufficiently worried to put down here everything that I've seen and may

yet see in the days to come, so there will be a record in the event

that something happens to me.

He strove to recount his peculiar story in simple terms, with a minimum

of adjectives and no sensationalism. He even avoided speculating about

the nature of the phenomenon or the power behind the creation of the