Entry #67

And the Moon Will Tell
by Sandra Seamans


Blood dripped from his knife as Bubba Lange pulled it from the girl's body. Her white-blond hair glowed in the soft moonlight and he almost regretted his actions. Almost.

Bubba looked around, spooked by the sudden hush of the woods as the moon slipped behind a cloud. The girl’s whispered words lingered in his ears. He tried to shrug away the feeling of panic, but the leaves of the towering Oaks whispered Bubba's sins on the cold breath of the night breeze, as the moon once again split the clouds. He held his knife in front of him as the shadows moved in to surround him.

His Granny had warned him about the night folks who inhabited the woods, but he’d brushed it off as silly superstition. Now he wondered if Granny's fairy tales had a smidgeon of truth in them. Fear pounded his heart.

He dropped his knife, falling to the ground as the moon glinted off gun barrels. He'd been caught out. Impaled by the white light of the full moon. Sweat poured from his body as he prayed for mercy from the night and its creatures.

The girl was bathed in the rosy glow of dawn when the search party entered the clearing. She was barely alive, kept from bleeding out by the cold depth of the night.

Bubba Lange was dead, killed by his own guilt.

"I told him, the moon would tell," she whispered as they loaded her into the ambulance.