Blood on the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

moment later, spitting out garbled epithets.
    Lloyd entered the alley, inching his way along a brick wall. He pulled one of his .45s from his waistband and flipped off the safety. He was almost within firing distance when his foot hit a tin can, the sound reverberating like hollow thunder.
    He fired just as Beller did, and the flash from their gun barrels lit up the alley blindingly, illuminating Beller, crouched over a dead Negro man, the man headless, blown apart at the shoulders, his neck a massive cavity of bloody, charred tissue. Lloyd screamed as the recoil from his .45 lifted him into the air and slammed him back to the ground. A dozen shots tore into the wall above him, and he rolled frantically on the glass strewn pavement as Beller fired another burst at the ground, causing glass and blacktop shrapnel to explode before his eyes.
    Lloyd started to sob. He flung his arm over his eyes and prayed for courage and the chance to be a good husband to Janice. His prayers were interrupted by the sound of footsteps running away from him. His mind clicked in: Beller was out of ammo and was running for his life. Lloyd willed himself to stand upright. His legs wobbled, but his mind was steadfast. He was right: Beller’s empty M-14 lay across the torso of the dead man, and the .45, spent and burning to the touch, lay a few feet away.
    Lloyd deep breathed, reloaded and listened for sounds of flight. He caught them; off to his left he heard the scuffle of feet and strained breathing. He followed the sounds by the shortest possible route, scaling the cement alleyway wall and coming down into a weed-strewn back yard, where the breath-noise mixed with the sound of a radio playing jazz.
    Lloyd blundered through the yard, mumbling prayers to engulf the music. He found a walkway leading to the street, and the light from the adjoining house let him pick out a trail of freshly spilled blood. He saw that the blood led into a huge vacant lot, pitch dark and eerily silent.
    Lloyd listened, willing himself to assume the ears of a highly attuned animal. Just as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness and let him pick out objects in the lot, he heard it: a snapping of metal on metal, coming from the direction of a portable construction toilet. It was unmistakable: Beller was still armed with one of his evil customized .45s, and he knew Lloyd was near.
    Lloyd hurled a rock at the outhouse. The door creaked open and three single shots rang out, followed by the sound of doors slamming all the way down the block.
    Lloyd got an idea. He walked down the street, scanning front porches until he found what he was looking for, nestled among an evening’s array of potato chip bags and empty beer cans–a portable radio. Steeling himself, he turned on the volume and was bombarded by rhythmic soul music. Despite his headache, he smiled, then turned the volume down. It was poetic justice for Staff Sergeant Richard A. Beller.
    Lloyd carried the radio into the vacant lot and placed it on the ground ten yards in back of the construction toilet, then flipped the volume dial and ran in the opposite direction.
    Beller burst out the door of the outhouse seconds later, screaming, “Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!” Blindly, he fired off a series of shots. The light from his muzzle bursts illuminated him perfectly. Lloyd raised his .45 and aimed slowly, pointing at Beller’s feet to allow for recoil. He squeezed the trigger, the gun kicked and the elephant clip emptied. Beller screamed. Lloyd dug into the dirt, stifling his own screams. The radio blasted rhythm and blues, and Lloyd ran toward the sound, the butt end of his .45 extended. He stumbled in the darkness, then got down on his hands and knees and bludgeoned the music to death.
    Lloyd stood up unsteadily, then walked to the remains of Richard Beller. He felt strangely calm as he carried first the entrails of the former civilian soldier to the outhouse, then the lower body, then the disembodied