It was a quiet day in this man’s Army. The Army was that of the United States of America, though some preferred to call their forces ‘Union’. This was because some south of the Mason/Dixon line wanted that title too but, to those in the north, they were Confederates; traitors.

Blue versus Gray, North versus South, Union versus Rebel, the American Civil War had ground on for near unto three years before it really went bad, at least to Justice’s recollection, cloudy as it was. His information was mostly second hand, really, patched together after he recovered from his own experience as a de facto prisoner of war. It went something like this: the full moon in May 1864, a blood moon, had opened up a passage into another place through which something emerged into our world. Something great and terrible.

Astrologers reading the stars led the way, trying to sound the alarm as the moon had just begun waxing, by storming one of the few public speeches Abraham Lincoln gave concerning his re-election as President of these divided, yet still called United, States. He crowed about the Atlanta Campaign, selling it as the beginning of the end of this horrible war, proof that his was a successful Presidency, in spite of the great division among the people.

The Astrologers, seeming like superstitious lunatics (literally, since they were talking about the moon) were rounded up, beaten, and left in the hoosegow until the President was well and gone. The incident was in all the papers but only to mock the Astrologers. The alarm remained unsounded. This was a time for celebration, not doomsaying; the war was almost won!

But as they happened these events were far afield from Justice Haymaker, stationed way over there in Utah Territory. Instead word of the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse being joined reached his Company on what turned out to be the last day of the battle. Regardless, John, brother to Smitty, a grunt in the same Company as Justice, had just lived the first day of the battle, his letter to John reading that the Campaign was going well. General Grant was sure to sweep Lee and his rebel scum into the ocean given a few more short days. Turned out that wasn’t true, not that John or anyone else in Utah would know that, at least not for a very long time.

The moon rose in the East as always but, for some reason, was visible in the middle of the day. Justice studied it with curiosity, lip curled in a tense sort of curiosity. “Say, uh, Smitty … that look funny to you?”

Smitty, a burned and reburned ginger redhead whose folks were Irish with a capital “eye” tore himself away from his correspondence, one of the only forms of entertainment they had guarding the trails of Utah. The war the Mormons fought for independence had ended some six years before but when the US Army withdrew, the Utes and other tribesmen started raiding the trails, disrupting trade. Squinting against the abnormally bright cheeseball in space Smitty struggled to glean anything. It’s a daymoon, Justice. They happen sometimes.

“Man, it ain’t even five. I don’t care what you say, that’s weird, and it’s fuckin’ huge!” Never before had he seen such a thing; it was like the sky was falling. “Tell you what, I wish I had one of them newfangled camera do-dads. Or a paint set.”

“Hold up. You paint? Since when?” Smitty asked, confused.

“I mean, well, I don’t, but … somethin’. It don’t make no sense to me and what if I wanna prove I saw this, y’know? Lookit. It’s pink!”

“Justice, buddy, them cam-ara things only show light and dark. Ain’t no pink to butt up against the blue, y’know?”

Disappointing. Then again he didn’t have the camera to begin with. Still… “Ah … shit. Well, you’ll be my witness then, right?” One set of eyes could lie but two was truth, right!?

“Hand on the Holy Bible.” Smitty grinned before going back to his letter. Good old Smitty. If only he weren’t Catholic. Justice wondered silently if he could convert the man. Be sure to save his soul.

But, hell, they weren’t in Church and it wasn’t Sunday anyway. Today there was still that moon. Justice looked on at some length, as the thing seemed endlessly fascinating. Awe at the sight of the moon was surely no new phenomenon but, at the same time, Justice wasn’t one to be prone to it. Lucky man that he was though, he was the only one to see the pink moon, slowly darkening, spit a number of red sparks that seemed to rain down on the horizon to the Northeast. “Smitty! Shootin’ stars, man!”

Smitty looked up slowly, catching the much less impressive last few streaks across the sky, not connecting them mentally to the moon. “Yeah, okay, Justice, that’s great. You’re watchin’ for Utes and such, right?” Looking over one last time Smitty saw the last one disappearing in the vicinity of the Valley. “Wait, hey, maybe one of the rocks’ll splatter that Brigham Young and we won’t have to worry about him no more, huh?”

Justice sucked his gums, grit his teeth a moment then asked: “What do we care about Brigham Young?”

“You kidding? Sumbitch was the first rebel in the You-ess of Ay. I bet that damned dirty Jefferson Davis got the idea to secede from Young tryin’ to take Utah Territory for him and his. Them Mormons, they got them a third book of the Bible, Justice! And they wanna take all the women!”

This put the fear of God in Justice. “All of ‘em? How you mean!?”

Smitty leaned in conspiratorially, a mean scowl twisting up his face. “Every one of them bastards got ten wives, Justice. Why you think studs like us ain’t got no ladies? All of ‘em got snatched up by Mormons!” Smitty clasped his hands, flexed his spindly arms and punched his bony left palm with a bony right fist to add impact to his words.

“Uh-huh.” responded Justice, a bit nonplused by his friend's baggage, trying not to talk about how he, a six-footer made of compressed man muscle had been with many a lady (even if they weren’t very ladylike) so as to not set poor Smitty off even more.

Time passed and the moon, now called the “Blood Moon” by most of the camp, not that they had any context for it, raised high above the horizon. Everywhere a strange rumbling could be heard, seemingly coming from the Valley. It was quiet, like distant thunder, but omnipresent and building in a way that made everyone uneasy.

Stolen story; please report.

Of their Company, Justice was one of the only few to see actual combat; fighting for the Union when the Confederates had penetrated into the Northeast. While some of the men were trying to relax and some were preparing for what they thought was coming rain, he felt the need to know more. He started to tell Smitty but, seeing his lips moving, reading that letter yet again, he decided to walk off by himself.

Made primarily of logs driven into the dirt, the guardpost was meant to hold a fully realized Company of one-hundred men but, last count, it was only about thirty. Since they’d been posted there almost no trouble had come their way. The Mormons were upset at first, mostly just making noise. After a few skirmishes even the natives weren’t pushing their luck anymore so the reduced staffing seemed fine. When the Utes buried the hatchet the other, smaller tribes did the same. Now all the residents of the Valley had to say to the United States army was “thank you” or, more commonly, silence. Y’know, since they’d still rather be their own country.

Certainly, with all this peace breaking out, nobody would care if Justice went AWOL for five minutes. Captain hadn’t given permission to run all around willy-nilly but he never punished anybody for it neither. Everybody always came back! Besides, he had something, or someone, to check on.

Just a few hundred feet outside of camp there stood a nice English Oak tree, maybe the best shade tree Justice had ever seen. Beneath that tree, heavy chain and collar binding him to a post driven deep into the earth, was an adolescent brown bear. A lot of guys knew about this, some liked to help feed the growing critter, others were stationed too close to miss it. The cover generated by the brush and trees were enough to hide the gentle soul from most any other threat. “Gronk!” shouted the bear, excitedly.

“Glen!” Justice shouted, running the last fifty or so feet to get himself a big old bearhug. He’d raised the bear from a cub after killing its mother. It was an unfortunate mixup where the mama bear thought she was protecting her cub but Justice, a rare sort of man, managed to wrestle himself free of her claws, which left him striped with scars all over his body. If she’d been a big male like Glen was turning into maybe he would’ve been dead. Instead Justice managed to get some separation between them before splitting her skull at the eye socket with his heavy-headed woodcutting ax.

When mama fell the scared little cub came out, thinking she was calmed down, not understanding death, but quickly catching on that she wasn’t there. Though grieving the cub was easy enough to mollify with food, keeping him around and alive had been rough since he’d signed up to fight in the war. “It’s okay, buddy. I know. Shit, dinner!” Justice somehow forgot that bears like to eat. “I forgot to get ration donations from the guys. Got so damned distracted by the … the moon.”

Looking up at the blood moon again Justice had trouble looking away, physically, this time. “What is … happening?” The rumbling he’d come to investigate, still in the background, was definitely stronger here but less audible; like an earthquake. The moon, now as deep a crimson lake as any pool of blood, seemed to speak to him.

“All that my sight touches shall be under my dominion. Submit … or suffer the death of reason.” Was that real? Justice blinked several times, deaf to the plaintive wailing of his 300-pound pet. Glen, however, was very aware that something was very wrong.

“Who … who are you?” he asked the moon. In horror he realized that a dark and evil visage had overtaken the normal face of the Man in the Moon. The face grinned and Justice realized, suddenly, that he was seen. Dissolving, the face seemed to descend, pouring as a glittering liquid from the moon down to somewhere in the Valley. All he could do was stand, paralyzed by his terror.

Glen started rubbing his face against Justice’s own, the motion finally breaking the man’s line of sight on the moon. Held in a fugue state, now broken, Justice gasped “shooting stars!” The red sparks that had been spitting forth from the sky, seemingly they came from the moon itself, dropping from on high to rain upon mankind. He saw them now for what they were … and they were an army!

“Shit!” shouted Justice, glancing over at red, glowing eyes, thousands strong. He kept his eyes open in spite of fear, locked onto what looked to be a thousand men in suits, women in their evening wear, and children ready for church. “Mormons! The whole goddamned Valley is coming for us!” He wanted to run but what of his pet? The oncoming army of possessed families not registering as important anymore as Justice struggled with the lock in Glen’s collar. “Son of a bitch the fuckin’ thing’s rusted! Damn key won’t turn!” Giving up on the key he turned his attention to the post, only a foot of which was sticking out of the ground. Grabbing it in both hands he pulled straight up, trying to free it from the packed earth!

Seemed the Earth was really shaking now, frantic, infinite footsteps seeming too much for the world to bear. “Glen! You gotta help! Pull on me!” and Justice hauled with his full strength, his bear catching on enough to grab him from behind. With a one-man, one-bear roar the pair loosed the steel-and-wood post from deep in the ground and ran like hell back towards the guardpost.

“The Mormons are comin’!” shouted Justice, over and over, as he approached, hauling the post like it was a leash. The guard at the outskirts, patrolling for any varmints, human or otherwise, coming in without permission, ran in to warn everyone else. He couldn’t understand Justice but he knew something was up.

As he came to the space just outside the outermost tents a dozen men lined up, two rows deep, six men to a row, and someone called out. “Get down Justice! We gotta shoot that bear!”

“No!” Justice roared! “The damned bear’s with me! The Mormons are coming!”

Beat. The rest of the camp was quickly coming together. “What’s so funny?” one man asked.

Smitty again. “Justice says the Mormons are comin’! Can you imagine? Those pansies laid down their arms six years ago so Brigham Young could keep Buchanan from putting his head up on a spear tip.”

“Yeah!” shouted some random soldier. “Also their prophet followed an angel named Moron!” and every man in the camp, now gathered here, cracked up laughing. It was short-lived.

The din of the crowd became louder than the Company’s laughter and the mood sobered within seconds. Finally, as the rumbling in the earth and the roar of the titanic mob grew overpowering, Captain Leyfield pushed to the fore. “Haymaker!” he paused, noticing Glen and the chain running from him to Justice. “We can talk about that bear later. For now what the Devil is going on!?

Now very sorry he’d actually stopped to warn these flat-footed idiots Justice took in a shaky breath. “I don’t know, sir. Looks like every Mormon in Utah. Out of the corner of his eye a flashing spark from the sky erupted from the blood moon, now clearly raining down on the mob. “Look, sir; they’re … they’re here!”

Cresting the hill, armed mostly with tools, some with their hunting rifles and some with just bare hands, they descended upon the camp. Justice saw deerskin among their number; tribesmen. Utes, Powhatens, and who knew how many others, were swept up in the same screaming madness as the Mormons. Justice was only vaguely aware as Glen fled, running faster than a man could move and all the Union soldiers, himself included, fell into formation. They got one shot off each before the mob crashed against them.

Everyone else was swept away instantly in a sea of men, women and children, all with glowing red eyes. Justice’s uniform was ripped to shreds in seconds as he clobbered several men, breaking at least one neck and stomping flat at least one head. He did his best to push aside the womenfolk and young’uns as he couldn’t conceive of doing them harm, not yet, though they sure wanted him dead. Then something shocked him; one of the falling sparks struck him from on high, his body went rigid, and, as the words “you are mine!” shattered his consciousness Justice Haymaker was gone.