Vacation in Moonville

Jon Aretakis

Grady’s bladder felt ready to burst and the circulation in his legs had nearly stopped. He considered pulling over to take a leak in the woods. However, he quickly realized being in the middle of nowhere was not a valid reason for stupidity. The robbery had gone flawlessly. He refused to risk an encounter with the authorities over a petty offense. Besides, he had almost arrived at the cabin. He finally reached the final stretch of his long drive. Highway 96. He could not figure out why anyone would call it a highway, except perhaps because it was paved. It seemed a scrawny road compared to the highways he traveled back East. The road weaved its way along side the Klamath River, through countless acreage of forest and into the heart of the Klamath Mountains. A road sign came into view.

Moonville
Population: Unknown
Elevation: 10,250 feet.

He drove further down the road and saw another sign: GAS. The sign stood just off the Highway in a dirt lot. A small convenience store with a garage on one side stood toward the back of the lot. Two green and white gas pumps with plastic shaped dinosaur emblems on top stood in front of the store. Grady pulled into the gas station, parked next to the gas pumps, stepped out of his rental car and walked briskly but tensely toward the entrance.
As he stepped inside, the pungent smell of cigar smoke filled his nostrils. He immediately spotted the bathroom and darted into it in search of relief. A few moments later, the sound of the toilet flushing might as well have been bells going off in heaven. Grady felt better. As he walked out of the bathroom, he realized his long journey across the United States in the gutless rental was officially over. He had arrived and would soon be drinking beer while counting his share of the loot. Life felt good. He felt good. Everything felt good. If anyone asked, he was officially on vacation.
A short elderly man with a bulging belly and a scruffy gray beard sat on a stool behind a counter and puffed on a cigar. He sat next to a small table that had a handful of clear stones, a few yellow nuggets and a sawed-off shotgun on it. He held one of the clear stones up to the light of a nearby window and studied it. As Grady approached the counter, the elderly man put the clear stone on the table, stood up from the stool and approached the cash register. Grady noticed the elderly man’s left eye was made of glass. He could not help but observe the glass eye because the painted silhouette of a naked woman covered its center. While the elderly man’s right eye looked up slightly at Grady, his glass eye never moved. It stared straight ahead. Grady looked at the man’s fake eye several times just to make sure he was not hallucinating. The sight brought a faint smile to Grady’s face. The man stood behind the counter, puffed vigorously on his cigar and grimaced at Grady.
“Good day, mister. How can I help you?”
“Just the necessities. Gas, beer, cigarettes and whiskey.”
“Easy enough. You just passing through?”
“On vacation. Meeting a friend at a cabin on Red Forest Mountain. We’re going to spend a few days fishing. Is Red Forest road close?”
“We’re at the base of Red Forest Mountain. Take the next left off the highway, right after the Trading Post. That’s Red Forest road. There’s no road sign. It’s a dirt road, but it travels all right until it rains. Then it makes for a slippery ride.”
“Going fishing are you? The fishing’s one of the main reasons I moved here. I love fishing. That and mining minerals. When I’m not sleeping, mining minerals or fixing a car, I’m standing next to the Klamath trying to coax those trout out of the water with the use of my fishing pole and a shiny lure. My favorite part is flipping those slippery little creatures in a frying pan with some butter.”
Grady stared at the gems on the small table behind the counter. “Are those gold nuggets?”
“They are. Gold nuggets and a handful of uncut diamonds.”
Instantly, he considered robbing the old man but decided to pass on the sudden opportunity since he already had a trunk full of money. The gems looked to be a nice score but why risk it. He could buy all the gems he wanted once he crossed the border. Still, he found it a difficult invitation to pass up.
“You find them around here?”
“I do. Diamonds the hardest to locate, but they my favorite. After I cut them, they reflect light just like stars. That’s what makes them my favorite. They like little stars. You drive up from the city?”
“I did. Hell of a drive too.”
Grady had a hard time taking his eyes off the gems. The old man walked back to the small table, picked up the gold nuggets and diamonds and slid them into his pants pocket. He picked up the sawed-off shotgun and slid it into his leg holster.
“I’ll check your fluids and tire pressure too. After a long drive on roads like these, better to be safe and do a quick check on the car. You in a hurry?”
“Not at all. I need to stretch my legs. Appreciate you checking the car out for me. You’re right, can’t be too safe.”
“My pleasure.”
Grady walked over to the refrigerator, opened the door and pulled out a twelve pack of his favorite beer. He opened the twelve-pack, removed a can of beer, set the twelve-pack on the counter near the cash register and followed the old man outside to the gas pumps. He sat down, leaned up against one of the gas pumps, cracked open the beer and stared up at Red Forest Mountain. “It sure is beautiful around here. Why do they call it Moonville?”
“Because of the full moons,” remarked the old man as he used a tire pressure gauge to check one of the tires. “Sometimes they are so full, seem down right magical. As the story goes, back in the eighteen hundreds an old miner around these parts panning gold from the Klamath would spend his night’s staring at those full moons. One day while panning, he grabbed himself a chisel with hammer and etched the word Moonville into a large boulder down by the river. To this day, it’s still etched in that boulder too, right down by the Klamath. Year’s later surveyors came into the area. That there Highway was nothing but a horse trail. Those surveyors mapped the area and made plans for putting in the highway. Besides being mystified by the full moons, them surveyors took notice of that boulder and officially dubbed the area Moonville. People round these parts mighty proud of this town. There isn’t a place like it anywhere.”
The old man finished checking the tire pressure in the rest of the tires. He reached through the open window of the rental car and pulled the latch that popped the hood. He walked to the front of the car, lifted the hood, pulled an oily rag from his pocket and began to check the fluid levels.
 “You can’t miss the moon and stars around here. When the moon in full bloom, it and a trillion stars appear so close, the Milky Way herself seems only a rocks throw away.” 
The old man walked to the side of the car, unscrewed the gas cap, pulled a gas pump nozzle from one of the pumps and inserted it into the car’s gas tank. He flipped a lever on the gas pump and began to fill the tank.
“These gas pumps look like refurnished antiques?”
“They’re original Bennett Sinclair Dino gas pumps. When I first found them, they were all busted, rusted and shot up. Ruined by the wind, the rain and any misfit who had a chance to throw a rock or put a bullet through them. Only thing they were good for back then was making a noise when one of their parts hit the ground or whistling when the wind hit them just right. There was just something about the place that seemed to deserve saving, so I fixed her up. Ran off the raccoons that were living in the shack and rebuilt most of it. It took time, but I finally finished it. Mighty proud of it too. You won’t find gas pumps like them anymore. They living fossils.”
   Grady stood, gulped down the rest of his beer, tossed the empty can into a near-by trashcan, stretched and inhaled deeply. “Everything smells so fresh. Where I come from it isn’t like that.”
“You’re in Moonville. Like I said before, it’s God’s country. I’ll tell you something about Moonville. The people of Moonville are different then others. The moon so big it changes people if they stay around here long enough. I can feel the changes. More importantly, they don’t take kindly to strangers. There are many spectacular beauties around here and we aim to protect them. A word of warning, mind your manners and don’t liter. Locals don’t take kindly to outsiders trashing this beautiful place.”
 “I’ll keep the information in mind, appreciate the advice.”
             “Just trying to be helpful.”
The old man closed the hood of the car and finished filling the gas tank.
“All finished. She’s good to go. Step into my office and I’ll ring you up.”
Grady paid what he owed and thanked the old man for his help. He stepped back into his rental car and headed for the cabin.
With the driver’s side window down, Grady drove up Road Forest road while he sipped on another beer. He noticed the sun was setting and some dark rain clouds were moving in overhead. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the crisp mountain air. He continued up the mountain until he noticed a mailbox with the numbers 313. He pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. It read 313 Red Forest road.
            He pulled up to a cabin, parked his rental, grabbed the twelve-pack and stepped out of the car. As he approached the front door, it swung open and a man dressed in black stepped out.
            “You made it.”
            “I did, as did you.”
            “We did it. This time next week we’re down South with new identities.”
“We’ll live like kings.”
“That we will.”
             “I have a new plan,” said the man in black as he smiled and pulled a marijuana joint from his coat pocket. “First, we’re gong to smoke this joint and then we’re going to get shit faced drunk and some where in between we’re going to take a ride down to that store, the Trading Post, for food and supplies.”
“We should be careful. We’re still in the United States?”
“Yeah, but they isn’t looking for us here. The cops looking for us on the other side of the United States, so relax. All we going to do is relax a little.”
As they drove down to the store, the sky turned dark and the rain started to come down. Grady remembered he had forgotten to remove the stolen money from the trunk. The thought quickly disintegrated into the crisp mountain air when the man in black handed him the bottle of whiskey and he took a swig.
As they entered the Trading Post, Grady noticed an eleven-foot tall wooden statue of a Bigfoot. The statue stood in a near-by corner and had been cut from a single tree. By the looks of it, Grady guessed it to be chainsaw art. He thought it carried a certain artistic flare. Florescent lights stretched across the ceiling, flickering illumination over the large room. The smell of damp wood and fresh brewed coffee filled the air. Signs hung on the walls: Fresh Bait, Bamboo Fishing Poles Half Off and Ice Cold Beer. Racks filled with fishing, hunting and camping merchandise lined the floor and walls. A few baskets filled with lemons, oranges and apples sat on a table next to the main display counter.
 The main display counter was mainly made of glass and crowded with handguns and knives of every size. Behind the counter, a gun rack stocked with rifles and shotguns was mounted on the wall. A Native American Indian, with long silver-gray hair, dressed in Levi’s and an Indian poncho sat behind the counter on a wooden stool and played his guitar.  As Grady and the man in black approached the counter, the Indian moved slowly from his stool to greet them.
“Evening gentleman, what can I do for you?”
“We need some supplies,” said the man in black.
“That is an interesting statue,” said Grady.
“That’s a Bigfoot, the great legend of these parts.”
“Have you ever seen one?” asked Grady
The Indian smirked. “Only in my imagination, they don’t exist. Just Indian myth created by dreamers, who’ve usually had too much to drink.”
The first thing Grady noted when the stranger entered the Trading Post was the sheriff’s badge. Grady watched as the sheriff took off his cowboy hat, shook the rainwater from the rim and walked toward the main counter. Grady did not say a word to the man in black. They knew what to do. They calmly gathered up some groceries and headed for the counter. Grady wished he had his gun on him but he had left it in the glove compartment of the car. He felt relived when the sheriff reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a flask of whiskey, unscrewed the cap, tipped the flask to his lips and took a swig. He must be off duty, thought Grady.
“Just need to use your restroom. Won’t be a minute,” said the sheriff.
“Whatever you need sheriff,” responded the Indian.
Grady realized they had a small window of time to pay for the groceries and get out of the store. While at the register, Grady grew impatient. The Indian man seemed to take forever while ringing up the groceries. The sheriff would come out of the bathroom at any moment. The last thing Grady wanted was to have a conversation with the man wearing the badge. However, just as the thought floated through Grady’s mind, the sheriff came out of the bathroom and walked toward the counter. Shit! Fuck! I don’t need this right now, thought Grady in a silent panic.
“Evening gentlemen. Didn’t expect to see any strangers in here tonight. Not a wise night to be out traveling. It’s really coming down out there. You boys just passing through?”
“We’re staying in my cabin up the road for a few days on vacation. Going to do some fishing.”
 “Welcome to Moonville. My name’s Earl, Earl Woods, but you can just call me Woods.”
“Nice to meet you sheriff,” said Grady.
Grady and the man in black finished paying for their groceries and politely exited the Trading Post.
As they drove down the Highway, white veins of lightening lit up the dark sky. The loud crack of thunder rumbled, a heavy rain poured down and a thick blanket of fog rolled over the forest floor. As Grady turned onto Red Forest road, the car slid sideways.
 “Be careful!” screamed the man in black as he grabbed onto the safety handle above the passenger side window. Grady jerked the steering wheel, trying to regain control.
“Hold on,” screamed Grady. The car spun out of control and came to an abrupt stop. The engine died.
“You’re a scary driver.”
“Shit happens,” responded Grady.
“Yeah, apparently when you drive.”
“Let’s just get back to the cabin.”
Grady turned the key. The car did not start.
“Now what?”
“Patience. It’ll start, probably just flooded.”
Grady reached into one of the grocery bags and pulled out a few beers. He handed one to his partner, cracked open the other and took a drink.
Grady stared through the windshield. The lights from the car illuminated the rain.
Grady noticed something large move through the beams of the headlights.
“Did you see that? Something moved out there.”
“I didn’t see anything?”
“Something is out there.”
“You’re high. It’s your imagination. There’s nothing out there in this storm?”
            Grady chugged the rest of his beer, rolled down the window and threw the empty can out. He turned the key and the car started.
“I saw something and it was alive and large. Whatever it was, we’re leaving it behind.” Suddenly a large, hairy creature appeared in front of the car. It raised it arms over its head, slammed its fists into the hood of the car and let out a horrific roar. It bent down, picked up the front of the car and flipped it end over end, sending it flying a short distance down the road. 
“Holy shit,” screamed the man in black.
“I told you there was something out there.”
A large hairy hand smashed through the passenger side window and yanked the man in black from the car by his hair. Grady reached into the glove compartment and pulled out his pistol. He heard the man in black scream and whimper in agony. He crawled from the car and watched as the large creature tore the man in black’s head off. Grady steadied his shaking hands, raised his pistol and fired until the gun was empty. The creature took numerous shots to the head. It stumbled to one knee. With both hands, the creature brushed offensively at its head wounds. With anger in its eyes, it peered at Grady. It dropped its chin to its chest as apricot size blood drops ran down its face and splashed on the ground. It raised back its head, stared up into the sky, let out a horrific cry and dropped dead.
Grady walked over to the man in black, who was missing his head. Grady knew it was pointless to try and help him. He was definitely dead. Better to grab the money and get back to the cabin. Grady walked to the trunk, which had been popped open due to the attack and grabbed the duffel bag filled with cash. He noticed car headlights coming toward him. The car pulled up next to him and came to a stop. The sheriff and the Indian stepped out.
“We heard shots fired. What happened?”
“Sheriff, I’m happy to see you. That creature attacked the car and killed my friend. Ripped his head clean off.”
Grady pointed to the dead creature but suddenly realized it was not a mysterious creature at all. It was the old man from the gas station. The old man was naked and his eyes were open. Grady looked into the old man’s eyes and noticed the painted silhouette of a naked woman.
The sheriff walked over and picked up the empty can that Grady had tossed out the window.
“We don’t take kindly to people who liter.”
“No, we sure don’t,” said the Indian.
“You want him?” asked the sheriff to the Indian.
“Figure I do. But I’m not going to ruin my clothes.”
The Indian took off all of his clothes, howled and turned into a giant Bigfoot.
Grady raised his gun and pulled the trigger but his gun was empty.
The Bigfoot growled and hissed as it moved closer to Grady.
“Wait a minute. Sheriff, I have money. Lots of money.”
Grady quickly opened the bag and nervously pulled out bundles of cash.
            “Son, you can’t give us anything we’re not going to take after you’re dead. You littered and in Moonville that means you die. Don’t worry. We don’t waste. After we’ve killed you, we’ll eat you,” said the sheriff while he took off his clothes and turned into an enormous hairy Bigfoot with massive muscles.
Grady tried to run but escape was futile. The creatures jumped on top of him and tore him to pieces. Grady’s body parts flew through the air and his blood soiled the ground. As he lay on the ground and his limbs were being ripped from his torso, he noticed the storm had cleared and the moon was the fullest and the biggest moon he had ever seen. It was a beautiful moon, he thought.