Gruberfest Entry - Hunter's Moon (400 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.86 on 19 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by QuinnTheEskimo (View user info) at 2007-10-11 15:45:46 EDT
Hunter's Moon
If you had asked Nathan if he was a bad guy, he would have told you "No." He wouldn't have had to think about it, and there would have been no hint of deception in his voice. However, if you asked him what he did for a living, he'd say "Burglar." Of course, once you found out he was a burglar, you might have asked him "But doesn't being a burglar make you a bad guy?" And he would have answered, "There are plenty of people worse than a burglar. I grade on a curve."
He was a good burglar. He wasn't good in the sense that he never got caught. No, Nathan got caught stealing plenty of times. He had a fairly long criminal history, and most of the charges were B and E, with a little petty theft thrown in for flavor. Nathan was good more general way; he was patient and kind and he wouldn't take more than he needed from a person. He didn't enjoy burgling, it was something for him to do while between jobs. At least, thats what he told himself.
Like most good burglars, good being used in the sense of never getting caught, Nathan had a calendar that kept track of the waxing and waning of the moon. For burglars, you see, keeping track of the moon is important. If you break in on a moonless night you'll need a flashlight, and flashlights attracted unwanted attention from nosy neighbors. There were many stories concerning the first few years he had burgled to support himself where he had been caught because of a flashlight.
When Nathan burgled, he would sometimes stake out a house for a few days and try to get a sense of the place. He would try and figure out things like who lived there, and when were they home? Once he figured that out he would walk up to the house, dressed as a UPS or pizza delivery man depending on the time of day, and break in.
Sometimes however, you don't have time to stake out a house. When the bill is due tomorrow, you need money today. This is what Nathan told himself as he cruised up and down suburban streets with names like Belle Terre, and Terre Verde. His flashlight was at home because tonight he had a full September moon to work under.
He knew that in September the full moon closest to the solstice was sometimes called the Sanguine Moon, or Blood Moon. Nathan, however, liked when it was called the Hunter's Moon. It made him almost like his work, "Out late and working by the light of the Hunter's Moon," was something he would mutter to himself while he worked.
He couldn't tell you what made him pick a house. His only real rule was no dogs. Dogs were a wild card that Nathan hated having to deal with. After a few hours or rolling around suburbia, he decided on a place. It was a two story, which meant that he'd be able to hear people getting up and moving around. It also had a window that was hard to see from the street, but would be easy to crawl into. Finally, then fence was chain-link, which meant a quick and easy getaway if he had to run.
He donned a Domino's cap and walked across the lawn. Confidence was key right now. If you were caught sneaking, people got suspicious. He walked past the front door, climbed over the fence quickly, and set to work.
The first thing Nathan did when breaking in was check the back door. Sometimes, he'd get lucky, and instead of smashing through a window and risking waking everyone up, he could creep in undetected. Tonight, he was lucky. The back door was unlocked.
The house, much to Nathan's dismay, looked like it had already been ransacked. Every drawer in the kitchen was opened, their contents spilled here and there. The refrigerator was the only thing untouched. Nathan considered rummaging through it in search of a late-night burglar snack, but decided against it.
Nathan explored the rest of the downstairs. There were piles of newspapers, dirty clothes, ratty furniture, and stains on the carpets and the walls. The linoleum in the bathroom was peeling back to reveal gray cement, and the toilet bowl was empty of water and instead filled with black mildew and mold. The smell in the whole house was unbearable, like rotten eggs and sour milk and feet all together at once. It was nearly making him nauseas.
He sneaked upstairs, something he only did when he couldn't find a safe or DVD player downstairs. The upstairs smelled even worse. Something about it reminded him of hospitals, but he couldn't tell you what. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Nathan leaned into the master bedroom, and was awestruck.
Sleeping, looking so still that she could have been dead, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, without exception. Dark, thick hair framed a face with large eyes, closed now in sleep. Her full lips were parted slightly, and he skin so fair that if might have been ivory. He was cemented in place, he couldn't stop looking at her for almost a full minute.
Finally, slowly, carefully, he walked to the woman's bed. He saw that her face was caked with make up, and although Nathan didn't know much about women, he knew they didn't sleep with make up caked on their faces. He leaned in close to her, reached out a hand to touch her tender skin, and she was cold.
Nathan drew back in revulsion. She was dead. He walked backwards towards the door, his eyes never leaving the beautiful corpse.
"Are you here to take her from me to?"
Nathan turned and saw a bald man in tattered boxing shorts, holding a small caliber rifle in his hand.
"I'm just leaving, man. I don't have anything, I just want to go."
"Don't give me that!" The bald man shouted. "I know, I know what you want! You want my little angel, don't you? You're after my little angel. I found her, she's mine and she belongs to me!"
Nathan looked around, trying to find a way out and a weapon and something to make this surreal moment make sense. "Just let me go, man. I wasn't going to hurt you."
"I know. But you were going to take her from me." The bald man said, and shot Nathan in the gut.
* * *
Flickering light at first made Nathan think of his flashlight.
"Waking up?" The bald man asked. "Oh, no. Oh dear."
Before he had full control of his limbs, they were cuffed and chained together. Nathan lay, curled up in a ball, on a workbench in the man's basement.
Nathan blinked, his eyes adjusting to the light. The bald man was hustling to and fro, not really doing anything.
"I just don't know what to do!" He cried. "This is just too much. I can't handle it." He was saying, as he looked at a can of paint. "Why do all these bad things always happen to me?"
Thats when he noticed Nathan laying bound on the workbench. "And its little fucks like you that make this so hard for me!" The bald man shouted, spittle flying from his lips, his eyes and veins bulging from his face.
The bald man picked up a shovel, and brought it down across Nathan's face. "You little fucks." The bald man said, as he wiped the blood from the shovel onto his jeans. "You little fucks are always making it so hard on me."
* * *
Nathan's eyes were again opening and adjusting to light, except there wasn't much light adjust to. Everything was dark. His face was tacky and the collar of his Domino's shirt was stuck to his cheek, like the bloody dismembered ear of a dog. He tried to move, but his hands and legs were still bound. He wasn't on the work bench anymore.
"Sorry, friend." It was the bald man, his shining head peering at Nathan from the top of a hole. "I really am. But, I can't have little fucks like you making this harder for me, can I?"
Nathan squirmed. He tried to answer but he was gagged. He tried to move but his limbs were still bound. He was sore all over like he had been thrown down a mile of stairs.
The little bald man was smiling from the top of a hole. Nathan realized he was in a grave, and began tearing at his handcuffs.
"Good luck getting out of there, little fuck." The bald man said and disappeared from view.
And then the dirt began to fall.
At first Nathan was able to shake some of it off. For a split second he thought he could wriggle out of the hole. After all, it was maybe only seven feet deep. But the dirt was falling too fast, and Nathan was too worn out. Wriggle was he would, he was slowly becoming encased in earth.
At first the weight of it wasn't unpleasant, sort of like a hug. He managed to keep most of the dirt out of his nose by lifting his head and snorting. His hole was becoming brighter as the moon rose higher into the sky, but the light served only to accentuate his coming darkness.
Nathan shifted and wriggled and rolled around, trying to stay on top of the rising earth as it fell in on him, until only his head was poking from the dirt. The bald man poked his head back over the edge of the grave, and smiled. "Good by, little fuck." He said.
More dirt came raining down, blocking out the light of the Hunter's Moon.
User Reviews
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-12 11:07:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2007-10-12 09:47:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
1.5
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2007-10-12 09:47:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2007-10-12 09:11:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice. Good luck
http://www.ubersite.com/m/112357
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2007-10-11 23:33:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I love you.
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2007-10-11 23:32:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I didn't like some of the descriptions you used, and a few more boring patches kind of threw me off. I just feel like you could do a lot better.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2007-10-11 22:55:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Please- pay a little more good attention to your editing, Mr. Chitlin. . .
I started to give you a +1.5 due to grammatical fuckups, but I liked the story so
well I had to slip it a +2.
This could be expanded upon and be turned into something very good.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2007-10-11 22:29:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-10-11 17:20:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You know, Ballare is really bad at titles, and this is no exception.
I RESEMBLE THAT REMARK
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-10-11 19:43:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2007-10-11 16:46:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm really digging your stuff!
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Sounds gay when I say it.
Good show. I'm not going to make it, man. My apologies.
The NLCS starts in about an hour, and I had a deadline this week. What little spare time I had was spent reading to the kid, or teaching her to ride a bike, or building Lincoln Log houses with her (I'm an awesome dad), or not really arguing with indoninja. I hate Lincoln Logs.
I made my deadline though. It was my 151st technical report/plan/paper. At an average 30 pages, single spaced, that makes 4,530 pages (single spaced) that will only ever be read by a lonely bureaucrat in a shabby office in a shabby building in a shabby part of town. He is miserable, and gets donut grease on my work. No kind words. Just a stamp of approval, or a return to sender with a cover letter that includes the phrase "what the fuck" on it somewhere.
Take my advice. Stay outta school, kids. Get a real job. Taxidermy is nice.
In short, Grueberfest made me realize more than ever that I hate writing to meet a deadline. In fact, I'm quitting my job, leaving the family, and moving to a cave in the mountains. I'm going to trap a wolverine* and raise him as my own. I'm going to call him "Larry." We're going to eat grubs that Larry finds for us in old rotten logs. Larry will keep me warm at night. Wolverines are warm.
It's either that, or k-k grants me an extension** (with your approval). But even then, I make no guarantees. It would depend on my mood after the game.
In any case, I'd like to thank k-k for the opportunity to play. It was fun. Sort of.
*We have no wolverines in Arizona, but wolverines are badass.
**K-K, do not grant me an extension.
Submitted by Zampano (user info) at 2007-10-11 18:22:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
As time goes on, I find myself liking your stuff more and more.
Keep it up.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2007-10-11 17:57:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2007-10-11 17:56:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Not bad, but I was more interested in the bald guy's story than Nathan's.
Submitted by EatMeCompletely (user info) at 2007-10-11 17:39:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-10-11 17:14:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Post, Lungfish, post!
Let me see what I'm up against!
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2007-10-11 16:46:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm really digging your stuff!
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-10-11 16:39:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2007-10-11 15:30:35 CDT (#)
Ranking: 2
SEE, I told you all that Chaos-Jester was fucking crazy.
He went and buried that poor guy alive.
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Yes, poor Drogo. No wonder he's been missing.
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2007-10-11 16:30:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
SEE, I told you all that Chaos-Jester was fucking crazy.
He went and buried that poor guy alive.
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-10-11 16:13:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah, I felt it was a corny ending, too. I just hope its good enough to send me to the next round.
Submitted by The_taste_of_Monkeys (user info) at 2007-10-11 16:09:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 but you're lucky for getting it cos I HATE it when a story/movie/comic/whatever has the title as one of the lines in it. Hate it.
Its be like having a line in Predator where Arnie turns to Poncho or Mack and says "What we're dealing weeth ees some kind ov Predator!"
Annoying.