Full Moon Hike by Julie Steimle (ebook e reader TXT) 📕

“What’s going on?” Dawn staggered into the room, rubbing her head.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But I can guess those hunters decided to raid the Deacons’ lodge. But I could sworn that I had….”

“What about the rangers?” Will murmured, peering through the glass.

Still shaking my head, I shrugged. “I haven’t a clue where they are.”

But then I noticed faintly lit outlines of men walk by with rifles in their hands. Yet as I peered at them, I realized it was not the same hunters as last time. It was two new men. One of which seemed familiar to me somehow.

“Is that—?” Travis pointed at him also.

Will shook his head. “No way. He’s supposed to be retired.”

Dawn gasped, covering her mouth.

My parents stared.

“No, it’s not him,” my dad said. “Look at his face. See the scars?”

Everyone nodded.

I stared at the face also, and that was when it hit me. He looked a lot like Mr. McDillan, my History teacher. It wasn’t him, but it certainly had to have been someone related to him.

Turning to Dad, I asked, “Does your cell phone work?”

My dad shook his head. “Not up in these mountains.”

I growled and stomped my foot on the floor. “Dang!”

“Who do you want to call?” he asked me.

“Mr. McDillan, of course,” I said. Then an idea occurred to me. “Do you think the rangers’ station has a land line?”

Scratching his head, my father nodded. “Yes. But what can calling Mr. McDillan do to help?”

Shrugging, I said, “I don’t know. But he at least understands there are extenuating circumstances. Maybe he can explain them to that man. They’ve got to be related.”

Dad looked to Mom, carefully weighed his words as he exhaled and then said to me, “Eve. Mr. McDillan probably would also hunt the Deacons if he saw them. You should know this.”

Tears formed in my eyes as my heart pounded harder. “I know, but what else can we do? I know the McDillans are dangerous hunters, but Rick is my friend. And though his dad may hate me and think I’m some kind of terrible monster, I’ve got to do something to stop this. I can’t just stand here and watch it happen.”

Something happened as we stood there. The look on my father’s face changed from worry for me to a clearing of tension, like he finally understood something. He slowly nodded and sighed like one who had given up on a battle. “So, that’s your true nature.”

I blinked, wondering what he meant.

He reached to me and pulled me close in a hug. I heard his heart beating hard, knowing he was still anxious about me. “Be careful out there, and try not to bite anybody.”

Blinking more, I nodded. “You want me to go out?”

“You want to help them,” he said, and patted me on the head. “Just…be a good girl and remember who you are.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant until I felt the hands and arms of the rest of my family. I was a McAllister. I had few true friends, but I was going to save my newest friend with all my heart.

They let me go. I walked to the cabin door. Opening it, I went outside.

The moon was calling to me. It was now on the waning side of the full moon, but it still glowed bright in the sky. I could hear the cry of imps in a few cabins, but it was not imp cries I needed to listen to. It was the hearts of the terrified and hearts of the hateful. There I would find my friend, his father, and the hunters on their trail. Pulling out my wings into a broad dragon-like span, I launched into the sky.

Up in the air, I ignored the imps that were calling to some in the punks’ cabin to spray paint the walls. I went invisible to make sure the hunters would not spot me, and I flew lower to the ground to pick up their heartbeats. The first one I noticed was the quick panicked beat of a somewhat large animal that was almost human. I knew it was Rick. He had ducked underneath a bush, shaking with his eyes fixed on the clearing between the woods and the camp. His father’s heart I could not detect. However, I could hear that of Mr. McDillan’s relative. He was obvious, standing in the clearing with a lit cigarette in his mouth. He stood not next to a hunter like we had earlier supposed, but next to a forest ranger that anxiously watched the cigarette ashes fall on the gravel.

“…here in the forest. You have to understand, Mr. McDillan,” the ranger said to the hunter. “You have only one night left. After today, they’ll be full human again.”

My blood boiled. So that’s how they got in. One of the rangers was a traitor.

That McDillan replied with a voice akin to my teacher’s, “Not to worry. We’ll rid these woods of that menace. You were right to contact me. You should have never hired second-rate hunters to do a master’s job. The McDillans have been in the monster hunting business for years.”

“But what if you don’t get them tonight?” the ranger asked.

The hunter shrugged. “Then we try for the next full moon.”

“But what if Mr. Deacon finds out that I…. He’ll fire me.” The ranger cringed, whispering it, wringing his hands as he looked from one end to the camp to the other. “I can’t afford to lose this position.”

“You should have thought about that before,” I muttered through clenched teeth, though they didn’t hear me.

But Rick’s wolf ears turned. He shook a little and whispered. “Eve? Are you there?”

I landed in the shrubbery behind him. Being somewhat immaterial, the plants were not disturbed, so no one could hear me. I crouched down and whispered back. “Stay here. I’ll take care of this.”

“You’re not supposed to be out here.” But then Rick shook his head. “That man is a killer. Dad tried to lead the other hunters off into the woods, but this one is waiting for our return. I don’t know what to do.”

“Stay here,” I said again. “I know he’s a killer. He’s related to my History teacher, the one I told you about.”

Rick’s wolf body stiffened.

“You just have to last the night. He can’t kill a human.”

“I don’t know about that,” Rick muttered. However, he crouched lower and remained quiet.

I pushed off the ground again, flapping.

“But what about that other monster?” the ranger asked the hunter.

The hunter gave the ranger a smug look, sucking on his cigarette before blowing out lots of smoke. I smelled the nicotine, and as I flew up I made a face at him, wishing idiots like that didn’t come into the fresh air only to ruin it.

“Not to worry,” that McDillan said, dropping the rest of the cigarette to the ground and putting it out with his toe, rubbing it into the gravel. “That demon can be killed any time of the day.”

“But the men she attacked—” The ranger’s body tensed up thinking about it.

“They’re alive,” that McDillan said rather casually and with a trace of boredom. “She only bit them, and her bite was not infectious.”

I only bit them? They were alive? As I flew over the pair feeling immense relief that I hadn’t killed those hunters after all, I wondered why then Will had said I had gone back to normal.

“Alive? She was covered in blood when those… blondes brought her to the ranger’s station.”

Covered in blood? That explained why Will was hosing me off. Maybe the hunters were alive but severely mangled.

That McDillan barked a laugh. “Perhaps, but those three men walked out of here, didn’t they? Her bites were not intended to kill. Otherwise she would have gone for their jugular, or worse, she would have stayed to drink their blood instead of just biting to scare them off. I personally want to see this monster for myself. If it is what I think it is, I really want to see it.”

I heard gunfire up in the mountains. A wolf howled in another spot, mocking them. Mr. Deacon obviously knew those woods better than anyone. It was only Rick who was truly in danger. McDillan the hunter cocked his rifle, waiting and listening.

Deciding that I didn’t like long drawn out confrontations, I flew back to Rick’s imp and talked to it.

“I want you to do something for me,” I said.

Rick tilted his ears. “Are you talking to me?”

Sighing, I hissed to him. “No. Your imp.”

He covered an amused laugh and pressed himself lower to the ground, waiting.

The imp regarded me for a second and then said, “What?”

With a mischievous grin, I whispered to the imp, whose face brightened up. He gleefully zipped off, and I waited for the results.

An explosion of screams erupted in the punks’ cabin like a chorus of dissonant angels. Then with a boom of the wood door flung open wide, I watched five college-aged idiots spring from their cabin like popcorn as the spray cans they had been using to vandalize the cabin walls sprayed them, writing nasty words all over them as the imps chased them out with the bed sheets, floating after them like ghosts. I could see the imps doing it all, but I was sure no one else could. The punks screamed in terror, ducking down as they ran toward the parking lot. But even as they took one step in that direction, the spray cans and bed sheets flew in the way with a snap of fabric and charged at them so that the punks had no other alternative than to run towards the ranger and that McDillan who were standing there staring. They tried to dodge out of the way. But that was the most fun to watch, because I told the imps to attack the ranger and that hunter as well. Try as they might to get out of the mess, the ‘ghosts’ spray-painting the punks doused both men with zest.

“Go, Rick!” I called to him. “Run home. I’ll keep them off of you!”

The wolf darted out from under the bushes to his lodge. But even under the barrage of bed sheets and spray paint, that McDillan saw him—just before he got a face-full of blue.

Batting away the floating spray can, the hunter lifted up his rifle. But Rick was already through the gates and indoors before the hunter could take one shot. The man hopped out of the fray after him. That McDillan was swift, but not as swift as a wolf. However, he was also limber and a great deal faster than my teacher who loved gory history. Even as the imps chased him with cans of red and blue spray paint, he hurdled over the other punks who were yowling and weeping for the ghosts to go away. He climbed through the fence to the Deacons’ lodge. The body-guards already whipped out their pistols to do their duty and fired at him.

That McDillan really was fast. He scrambled up the side of the lodge and break into a window. I realized then that even if he were illegally entering someone’s house, as long as Rick was in wolf form he could get away with it.

I could not allow that.

I launched into the air again, diving straight for the lodge. Making sure I could pass through the wall, I rushed right into the house and materialized. Rick the wolf jumped when he saw me.

“Eve!” He scooted back with his tail tucked and ears flattened. “I said not to do that!”

“That McDillan broke in upstairs!” I grabbed him by the back of his shorts and yanked him away from the stairs.

We both heard the rifle cock.

“I can see you, demon,” that McDillan said, walking