Winter Moon

spring-thawed earth did not move. After a while he stopped expecting it to move.
        When he was in full control of himself again, he walked between the low stone columns and out of the graveyard. All the way to the house, he wanted to spin around and look back. He didn't do it.
        He entered the house through the back door and locked it behind him.
        Ordinarily he never locked doors.
        Though it was time for lunch, he had no appetite. Instead, he opened a bottle of Corona.
        He was a three-beers-a-day man. That was his usual limit, not a minimum requirement. There were days when he didn't drink at all.
        Though not lately.
        Recently, in spite of his limit, he had been downing more than three a day.
        Some days, a lot more..Later that afternoon, sitting in a living-room armchair, trying to read Thomas Wolfe and sipping a third bottle of Corona, he became convinced, against his will, that the experience in the graveyard had been a vivid premonition. A warning. But a warning of what?
        As April passed with no recurrence of the phenomenon in the lower woods, Eduardo had become more- not less-tense. Each of the previous events had transpired when the moon was in the same phase, a quarter full. That celestial condition seemed increasingly pertinent as the April moon waxed and waned without another disturbance. The lunar cycle might have nothing whatsoever to do with these peculiar events-yet still be a calendar by which to anticipate them.
        Beginning the night of May first, which boasted a sliver of the new moon, he slept fully clothed. The.22 was in a soft leather holster on the nightstand.
        Beside it was the Discman with headphones, Wormheart album inserted. A loaded Remington twelve-gauge shotgun lay under the bed, within easy reach. The video camera was equipped with fresh batteries and a blank cassette. He was prepared to move fast.
        He slept only fitfully, but the night passed without incident.
        He didn't actually expect trouble until the early-morning hours of May fourth.
        Of course, the strange spectacle might never be repeated. In fact, he hoped he wouldn't have to witness it again. In his heart, however, he knew what his mind could not entirely admit: that events of significance had been set in motion, that they were gathering momentum, and that he could no more avoid playing a role in them than a condemned man, in shackles, could avoid the noose or guillotine.
        As it turned out, he didn't have to wait quite as long as he had expected.
        Because he'd had little sleep the night before, he went to bed early on May second-and was awakened past midnight, in the first hour of May third, by those ominous and rhythmic pulsations.
        The sound was no louder than it had been before, but the wave of pressure that accompanied each beat was half again as powerful as anything he had previously experienced. The house shook all the way into its foundations, the rocking chair in the corner arced back and forth as if a hyperactive ghost was working off a superhuman rage, and one of the paintings flew off the wall and crashed to the floor.
        By the time he turned on the lamp, threw back the covers, and got out of bed, Eduardo felt himself being lulled into a trancelike state similar to the one that had gripped him a month earlier. If he fully succumbed, he might blink and discover he'd left the house without being aware of having taken a single step from the bed.
        He snatched up the Discman, slipped the headphones over his ears, and hit the Play button. The music of Wormheart assaulted him..He suspected that the unearthly throbbing sound operated on a frequency with a natural hypnotic influence. If so, the trancelike effect might be countered by blocking the mesmeric sound with sufficient chaotic noise.
        He raised the volume of Wormheart until he could hear neither the bass throbbing nor the underlying electronic oscillation. He was sure his eardrums were in danger of bursting, however, with the heavy-metal band in full shriek, he was able to shrug off the trance before he was entirely enthralled.
        He could still feel the waves of pressure surging over him and see the effects on objects around him. As he had suspected, however, only the sound itself elicited a lemming-like response, by blocking it, he was safe.
        After clipping the Discman to his belt, so he wouldn't have