I'll Come to Thee by Moonlight

Won Honorable Mention (11th-100th) with this piece in the category of Mainstream/Literary Short Story. I was pretty happy when I found out I placed: I doubted I would since I questioned the quality of it. Well, tell me what you think. Thanks for reading.

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Then look for me by moonlight,

Watch for me by moonlight,

I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.

~ Alfred Noyes

That night the moon lay swathed in midnight silk, its stare vacant yet pure like a baby’s. Wily trees twisted upwards towards the pocked disk, cradling it within their autumn-clad branches in bursts of reds and oranges, like crowns atop the brown pinnacles. The raindrops on their bark twinkled like grounded stars mimicking their celestial siblings, winking off to sleep as their counterparts awoke in the sky. The swiftly descending chill gnawed my nose as I probed the moon's silvery image, tucked neatly between a fold of black cloud. I begged silently for it to awaken, Please, please, my chocolate eyes wide and stirring in its silent prayer. Hesitantly, as if responding to my beckoning, the blanket unfurled to reveal the great full moon.

Moonlight flowed down towards earth, chasing the darkness away and bathing everything in an ethereal shine. Its ghostly fingers touched me too, battle-scarred and ugly; a stinking little cur, yet it still touched me. I had sighed, slumping against the rusty chain-link fence surrounding me, begging silently for more, "More moonlight!" until the fence buckled oddly against my weight and I was forced to move backwards unless I wanted to wake the others. I drank the light in like a plant, my tongue lolling out dumbly, lusting for rejuvenation. I felt exposed, like a crustacean shedding its hard exterior to show the soft pink that lay beneath. I was just screaming for a fish to swim by and swallow me or be caught in a net.

Just then, a voice within me whispered tauntingly from a recess of my mind, Silly, silly Astro, you're already in that net. A growl bubbled from deep within my chest in protest: a net, no matter how strong the fibers are, can be broken. I am not finished, this is not my fate! A rush of panic coursed through my veins, turning my blood ice cold and made my eyes bulge. Silence met my conscience and then the voice answered more potent in volume, purring viciously, taking full advantage of its invisibility. Astro, you forget that you are nothing; a somebody has no need for the likes of you. A pause followed, long and tense. The speaker had wanted their words to sink in and let the fangs of their words grip my heart. Not even little Kyra wanted you. And victory was theirs.

I felt my heart skitter clumsily in my chest and heard the little pop as all the warmth in my body was drained. My face drooped at the sound of the name, cotton-soft but undermined by subtle memories of fear. The taste of metal worked its way into my mouth and a wave of unstoppable anger flowed over me. My face wrinkled in rage and my teeth bore themselves towards the invisible enemy. In a vicious attempt to drive the thing inside of me out I slammed my face against the fence repeatedly, but was only rewarded with broken skin. Shik shik shik, the fence had protested yet I paid no attention, snarling and bashing wildly against the concrete and the brick interior adjacent to an ancient shack. One by one my neighbors awakened, disturbed by my little outburst, and the air grew heavy with our combined ire and pain. Soon the night was filled with our bays, howls and growls. We would have shattered sound itself if the human hadn't come out.

Pried from the shadows of the shelter’s entrance came a meaty man, his arms decked out in red tribal tattoos and his head peaked, shaven, and blackened from grime. He wore a scowl no dog could match and his beady eyes sparkled madly beneath the folds of his massive brows. The way he had stood there with his body teetering forwards slightly as if in anticipation, his wide arms fanned out and his lips curved upwards in a hateful grin sent a chill through my spine. I had seen this stance many times so instinctively my eyes drifted down to look at his hand. Clasped between his pudgy fingers sat a slender instrument, long and leathery with a flat piece of metal as the head. At the sight of it I cringed, for us dogs had experienced the pain of its bite and saw the nasty welts it left on your fur. The hellish vigor the Devil wielded the weapon with was far most frightening than the pain you felt though. Yes, the Devil is what I called him. Human jargon was screamed at us between fat, chapped lips and when he snarled you could easily see his uneven and dingy teeth. He always dressed in ribbed tanks that reeked of sweat and jeans that hung loosely beneath his girth. The Devil didn’t believe in hygiene and was not one to accessorize. The sound of his biting voice and the sight of his leather baton cocked in the air usually made us shut up, and that night no exception. As quickly as the disturbance had started it ended, and all was rendered silent again. Then as the tension in the air dissipated, the man retreated back into his miserable hovel, his obese abdomen and hungry eyes reminding me of a spider in wait for its next meal. I myself cowered beneath the shade of my quarters, the shadows swallowing me whole and hiding me from the moon's pocked face. It peered over the roof of the shack, but I kept my face hidden from it, continuing my admiration in secrecy. It was as the godly essence was questioning where I was but made no attempt to bring me out.

Then suddenly I was seeing five moons as a sharp pain ripped through my body. The pain struck me to the ground as if the Devil had whipped me; the gaping hole where brick met skull went unnoticed. Blood issued from my wound like a whale’s spout, a curtain of crimson veiling my face and blinding me. My legs felt like wet noodles and soon gave out underneath me, leaving me sprawled awkwardly across the floor and my consciousness, slipping into the median of slumber and awareness. I was the marble statuette drowning in a fountain of purple blood. I wanted to savor my last hours before daybreak, and yet despite how hard I fought to keep awake, I still drifted off to sleep. I let the grayness of peace cool my body and drenched myself in spring vapors, but before darkness could engulf me I felt a powerful presence. I had told myself that it was little Kyra sitting by my side stroking me like she used to in the old days, when we spent all our time in the park. Thinking about it now I know deep down I knew it to be a lie. I hadn’t let myself recognize Death hovering over me, creating this illusion of content, and simply believed it to be true. Silly me: I caused my own undoing.