Hello, gentle listener. How lovely to be back with you again so soon. We hope you enjoyed part one of our 200th episode celebration last week, here's part two,

courtesy, yet again, of our dear old fiend, Ian Sputnik.

Oops, I meant, friend, of course.

Nocturnal transmissions is proud to present Ian Sputnik's Full Moon. Rebecca pulled the heavy bolt across the front door.

Picking up a lantern, she made her way to the kitchen.

On the table she pushed the pile of cutlery to one side

and picked up the pistol.

It was heavy in her hand.

She could barely lift it.

Was it the weight or fear that made her hand shake as she practiced aiming it?

Maybe it was a mixture of both.

She picked up a bullet and put it in a pocket.

It was a conscious decision of hers not to load the gun at that moment, as if not doing so would delay the inevitable.

She breathed in long and deep to steady her nerves and made her way upstairs.

Retrieving the round of ammunition from her dress,

she rolled it between her fingers.

It glistened in the light of the lantern,

and she paused, marvelling at its beauty.

It was her father who had shown her at such an early age how to melt and shape metal into a bullet.

The silver spoon she had chosen made just the right amount of material for one, perfect, round.

Loading the weapon, she walked quietly down the corridor. It was a peacemaker, the type that she had seen in the dime novels about the Wild West. The local sheriff would usually be armed with one. She moved past her parents' room and stopped.

It was 29 days since her father had been killed by the beast.

...