The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

BY MOONLIGHT, by John Gregory Betancourt
Even by moonlight, the farm looked like a disaster area. The barn had started
to lean, so much paint had peeled off the main building that its walls looked like
sun-bleached driftwood, and at least half of the outbuildings had collapsed. I
drove forward slowly, my rental car nosing among the scattered clumps of
rusted-out machinery like a reluctant explorer, until I reached the house’s front
steps.
They say you always come full circle, but it was hard to believe I’d spent the
first eighteen years of my life here. How long ago had it been now? I thought
hard and couldn’t remember today’s date, not the year anyway. Nineteen ninety
something. August 14, I thought. Time didn’t mean much anymore.
It had been at least fifty years since I’d seen this place.
Returning for my father’s funeral had been hard enough; I’d hoped driving out
to the farm one last time would be easier. I could have prevented it. I could have
made him one like me. He didn’t need to die.
But he would have wanted it this way, him with his unsmiling Christian ways.
I had an uneasy feeling, like I’d returned to the scene of some crime I’d
committed, but of course that couldn’t be true. I’d always been careful to cover
my tracks; nobody could ever follow me here. Was it guilt? I could have
laughed. My kind didn’t feel guilt. Nevertheless I had the vague feeling I’d
betrayed someone, left some promise unfulfilled.
Shutting off the car’s engine, I climbed out and paused, turning slowly,
listening to the wind in the fields and the hum of insects. My darker senses took
in the whole of the land around me, cataloging the living and the dead. A few
gophers, a stray dog prowling the gully behind the house, birds drowsing safely
in their nests, a snake languorously swallowing a mouse…And, farther away, at
the next farm over—Old Man Jessup’s place, but he’d be long gone by now—
young lovers sat on the front porch, holding hands, kissing. I could feel the
rising intensity of their passion.
Abruptly I called in my vision. Business first, I thought. I walked up the
creaking old steps to the front door and pulled out the key. The lock clicked, the
door opened easily, and a musty, stale smell hit me in the face. I wrinkled my
nose and stepped in.
The carpets were dirty and worn through in places, the wallpaper was peeling,
and the furniture looked broken and tattered. Even so, a lump rose in my throat.
Less than I’d thought had changed in the years since I’d left.