The Man Who Ate the Moon

It was a Tuesday night, and the air was thick with the smell of fried dough and cheap cologne from the county fair. My nephew, Derrick, and I had just watched his older brother Marcus score the winning goal in the town soccer championship, and my brother-in-law, Paul, had promised us a triple-scoop sundae at the old Dairy Dip on the edge of town. Derrick was bouncing on his heels, still buzzing from the game, and Marcus was grinning and joking about how he’d order a banana split with extra cherries.

We were walking along the cracked sidewalk that ran parallel to the abandoned railway tracks, the streetlights casting long, crooked shadows. It was about ten o’clock, and the fair’s distant music was a faint, tinny tune. I was telling Marcus about the time I’d tried to eat a whole gallon of ice cream in one sitting when Paul suddenly just stopped. He didn’t stumble or slow down; he just halted, like a puppet with its strings cut.

Derrick and I turned to see what was wrong. Paul’s face was slack, his eyes wide open but not seeing. His pupils had swallowed his irises, turning his eyes into two black pools. I felt a cold jolt in my gut. ‘Paul?’ I said. He didn’t respond. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Then, his head twitched to the side, and he fixed that dead stare on Derrick. His voice came out flat, as if it were being pushed through a long metal tube. ‘Let’s not get ice cream anymore.’

Marcus dropped his grin. He looked at me with that ‘what the hell is going on’ look kids get. I tried to laugh it off, but Paul’s face was wrong. His smile, when it came, was too wide, and it didn’t reach his eyes. He turned and started walking back toward the house, his gait stiff, like he was marching in a funeral procession. Derrick grabbed my hand, and I could feel his palm sweating. We followed, but at a distance.

Halfway down the block, Paul began to mutter. It wasn’t English. It was a guttural, rolling language that seemed to be fighting its way out of his throat. Some words sounded like they had too many consonants, others like they were being stretched out. I thought I caught the word ‘Hunger’ repeated twice, but I couldn’t be sure. Derrick whispered, ‘He’s speaking German.’ I shook my head, because I didn’t want to believe it. My Paul knew maybe ten words of German from a high school trip, and this was nothing like that.

The muttering grew louder, and Paul’s head began to loll from side to side. His hands twitched and curled into claws. I said, ‘Paul, we’re going home, it’s fine, just relax,’ but he didn’t seem to hear me. Then, without warning, he whipped around. His neck twisted so fast I heard a pop. His eyes were that same dead black. A smirk crawled across his lips, and he spoke in a voice that was not his own. It was deeper, wetter, like something speaking from under a pile of mud. ‘You think you’re getting away from me?’

Derrick let out a whimper and hid behind me. I felt my heart hammer against my ribs, and I was suddenly aware of how dark the street had become. The streetlamps were flickering, and the fair music had completely stopped. A fog was rolling in from the tracks, thick and low to the ground, carrying a scent like copper and rotten flowers.

Paul took a step toward us. His shadow stretched out behind him, but it was wrong—it was too large, and it didn’t match his movements. It seemed to writhe on its own. ‘The moon is full tonight,’ he said in that awful voice. He pointed a long, trembling finger up at the sky. I looked. The moon was out, but it was not full. It was a sliver, a thin crescent. But for a moment, the clouds shifted, and I saw that the dark part of the moon wasn’t empty. There was something there, a black shape that seemed to be peering down at us.

Derrick whispered, ‘He said he ate the moon.’ I didn’t know what that meant, but the temperature dropped about ten degrees. Paul lowered his arm and started walking again, but now he was heading not toward the house but into the fog, toward the rail yard. He was muttering again, and this time I caught words that sounded like ‘the feast is ready’ and ‘we have been waiting.’

I knew we had to get out of there, but my legs wouldn’t move. It was like something was holding me in place. Derrick was shaking, but he managed to say, ‘Aunt Ruth, what’s happening to Dad?’ I couldn’t answer. I just watched as Paul disappeared into the fog, his shape dissolving like smoke. A moment later, the fog cleared, and I could see the rail yard. There was a figure there, but it wasn’t Paul. It was a tall, spindly thing with too many joints, and it was standing under a dead tree, its head tilted as if it was listening to the ground.

Then the streetlights snapped back on, the fair music returned, and Paul was standing there, blinking like he’d just woken up. He looked at us with confusion, his eyes normal again. ‘Hey, why are you two just standing there?’ he said. ‘I thought we were getting ice cream.’

We never spoke about that night, not really. But Derrick and I both know that the thing that walked with us through the fog wasn’t Paul. And sometimes, when the moon is a thin crescent, I see a shadow in our backyard, standing under the tree, and I hear a voice in my head saying, ‘The feast is ready.’ I don’t tell anyone, because who would believe me? But I’ve stopped looking at the moon, because I’m afraid that one night, I’ll see something looking back.