by Zakarrie C
The Beast of Bodmin Moor
Zakarrie C
Author's Note
If you are reading these words, thank you. To keep myself busy between books for my publisher, I wished to make some stories available to read for free. Self-publishing a few on Kindle Unlimited felt the comfiest way for me to do so. Every word has been written from my heart, with my tongue in my cheek. I hope you enjoy my miscreant’s misadventures even a smidge as much as I loved writing them.
∞∞∞
This is an #ownvoices story, Phin's reality reflects my own.
Blurb
Two years ago Jake McCain encountered a compelling stranger at the Glastonbury festival. Two days later his life, as he knew it, was over. Enter Jack. They have…cohabited ever since. Much to Jack’s despair, Jake has remained dogged in his bid to be the most bloody-minded human a jackal ever had the misfortune to manage.
Phin Finley has embarked on a magical mystery campervan tour of Cornwall. Free to potter about, doing as he pleases for the first time, he wants to prove he can do just fine without having a fatal mishap. Or causing one. Or losing his trusty bicycle clips. Even if he is a tad too…Phinish for most folk’s comfort, his mum’s peace of mind and dad’s constitution.
Theirs is a tale about finding your (happy) place in the world, making (foxy) friends, and the legendary Beast of Bodmin Moor.
Copyright © 2020 Zakarrie Clarke
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This work is a gay romance intended for adult readers.
Cover image: Brian Lary @ freeimages.com
For LouLou, with love
Thank you for being so ineffably scrumptious
…and for remaining always, Utterly Yourself.
‘There is no doubt that Bodmin Moor is a creepy place. Should you happen to find yourself alone there as dusk is falling, try not to think about the layers of legend, horror and mystery associated with this wild and rugged landscape, and in particular, whatever you do, try not to let your mind dwell on The Beast… ’
http://www.cornwalls.co.uk/myths-legends/beast_of_bodmin.htm
Contents
Title Page
Author's Note
Blurb
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
1. Jack
2. Phin
3. Jack
4. Jake
5. Phin
6. Jake
7. Phin
8. Jake
9. Phin
10. Jake
11. Phin
12. Jake
13. Phin
14. Jake
15. Phin
16. Ja/ck
17. Phin
18. Ja/ke
19. Phin
20. Jake
21. Phin
22. Jake
23. Phin
24. Jake
25. Phin
26. Jake
27. Phin
28. Jake
29. Phin
30. Ja/ke
31. Phin
32. Jake
33. Phin
34. Jake
35. Phin
36. Jack
37. Phin
38. Jake
39. Phin
40. Jake
41. Phin
42. Jake
43. Phin
44.Jake
45. Phin
46. Jake
47. Phin
48. Jake
49. Phin
50. Jake
51. Phin
52. Jake
53. Phin
54. Jake
55. Phin
56. Jake
57. Phin
58.Jack
59.Jake
60. Phin
61. Jake
62. Phin
63. Jake
64. Phin
65. Jake
66. Phin
67. Jake
68. Phin
69. Jack
70. PJ
71. Jack
72. PJ
73. Jack
74. PJ
75. Jake
76. Phin
77. Jake
78. Phin
79. Jake
Epilogue
Phin
More...
1. Jack
Jack inhaled, low and deep, drawing the scent of darkness into his lungs, ripe with promise, as laden with riches as the shriek of silence. For all was not still this night, nor any other. The rustle of nocturnal creatures rang as clear as a whisper on the wind. As audible as every beat of Jack’s heart…strong, steady, sure. He stood, drinking in the magnificence of a moor drenched in moonlight, bleached to bone and shadow. A rugged, brutal beauty that beckoned to the Need, kindling afresh its ever-flickering flame when dusk drew its veil over the day. Warming him through as he waited. Waited, watching, every night…for Him to come.
Jack snapped his head around with a sharp sniff, dredging the breeze for its faint trace of that scent. Yes. There it was; as heady as opium, as seductive as a clarion call. Saturating the air with the smell of cinnamon doughnuts dipped in brandy. A sweet, husky warmth that made Jack thirst for so much more than he should.
I wouldn’t say no to a decent bloody drink, either, grunted Jake, his ever-ornery human.
Is this where I humbly apologise for not coming complete with pockets? Jack guessed.
Pockets? I wish you’d never come at all…snorted Jake in disgust.
I do believe that was your department, dear sir…A truth too irresistible to let slide.
Shut up.
This was Jake’s go-to retort when his face would have flushed beetroot red, had he been wearing it at the time.
Jack was beginning to give up hope that Jake might ever come to terms with a fate he found about as fortuitous as herpes. Hope. That was a sore point; a concept Jake had denounced as cruel as the craggy rocks onto which the Wreckers once lured unwary ships. Jack knew all-too well that his human was convinced he had none. No future that didn’t ‘doom’ a potential paramour to the fate that had befallen Jake.
Paramour? F’fucksakes, you’ve been watching far too much French porn. Tell me…what would be the point of hoping? You sure as shit can’t eat Him. I sure as hell can’t talk to Him.
Jake wouldn’t even permit them to settle beside Him and luxuriate in His very presence. Oh, how Jack coveted the slow caress of a palm along the serrated sweep of his spine…as forbidden as the burrowing of fingers into fur. A thought that sent a ripple of phantom pleasure thrilling through Jack’s body, twitching every hair to attention in a ruffling sigh of sound.
Jack crept forward a few inches, low in the long grass, stomach skimming across scrubby tufts and ancient crumbs of rock as he crawled closer.
He’d seated himself on a patch of springy moss amidst the ruins of an engine house. Remnants of a time when the ‘Old Men’—tinners and miners—had given their lives to the Cornish quarries. Lives that lingered still in the scars they’d left scattered across the moors.
There were far more obvious places in which He could have chosen to while away a few hours; stone circles, standing stones, tors…even a Neolithic burial tomb. None of which had lured Him from this very spot since. Jack had expected Him to move on after a
few nights when its charm faded with familiarity, but His fondness for this tumble of granite strewn in a bleak expanse of nothingness never seemed to wane.
The rush of relief that flooded every fibre of Jack’s being when that scent assailed his snout was lethal. Particularly here—in the one place he’d felt fairly safe—protected by legend and lore. Where all evidence of his existence had been credited to ‘The Beast of Bodmin Moor’. Jack had never seen hide nor hair of a huge black panther, nor caught so much as a whiff on the wind, which did tend to suggest he wouldn’t find himself slaughtered by a five-foot feline any time soon. Nevertheless, Jack was guiltily grateful for an ‘existence’ that safeguarded his own anonymity. Better yet, the Beast’s myth had but been enhanced by Jack’s midnight feasts, which was a bonus not to be sniffed at. Much to his amusement, he’d become something of a boon to the Cornish Tourist Board…rather than a monstrous predator who left the moor littered with carcasses.
Jack lay low; watching, breathing, luxuriating in the heady fix wafting his way. It would have to be enough. It had to be…and yet, the Need was relentless. A yearning that set his senses aflame, prodding him moorwards, boiling through his blood, bones, body. Sinews straining with longing. Lust. A desire as devouring as the instinct to tear, shred, take…slake. Claim Him as his own.
Worst of all was the Want, because Jake wanted him just as much. He was somehow…unlike other humans. Entirely himself. It was an innate recognition, as inviolate as truth. A certainty gleaned by instincts as sharp as the glint of silver in moonlight. Who was He, this strange creature of the night who wandered the moors like a wraith? The clumsy grace of those overlong limbs was that of a new-born foal, observing the world through eyes wide with wonder; windows to a soul untainted by the petty trivialities’ humans prized. There was an air of the ethereal in his fearlessness; his scent carried no taint of unease, nor care for consequence. Might he be…fae? Jack didn’t have the foggiest idea whether faerie folk roamed the Earth or not. He’d never met a Vampire either…and Jake?
Jake had known nothing of his own kind until it was far, far too late…
2. Phin
Phin sat atop a craggy crumble of rock, absorbed in his happy place, as content as can be. He felt somehow more right on the ancient moor than anywhere else, as if he’d found his very own sliver of heaven. A sacred spot where the twenty-first century had quite forgotten to do charging in like the cavalry, hell-bent on rescuing it from perfection.
When the campervan had rumbled up the windy road and Phin first saw its vast sweep of scrubland, he’d felt strangely home, all of a sudden. ‘Strangely’ because he’d never had a ‘home’, not a proper, permanent one. His family just did following Major Finley from one posting to the next and set up camp in an endless parade of Army accommodations. Homes don’t have barbed wire.
Phin could do breathing here, alone in his tumbledown haven but never lonely. Loneliness was feeling alone in a room full of people. Phin had never been comfy in company; it was tricky to do concentrating on seeming ‘normal’ to more than one person at a time amidst the siege of Too Much. Too loud, too bright, too many colours clashing in a cacophony of sound, as if all his senses had been bunged in the washer and switched to spin-cycle.
All this was so befuddling, it was impossible to do believing big fat fibs on top. They made Phin scratchy. He liked facts. Letting his mind waft off to ponder fascinating things stopped him from fretting about people. Instead, he was supposed to do paying attention while people pretended feelings—to make them seem kind—when they weren’t. This was not Phin’s best thing. It was an important skill called being sociable.
Phin hated feeling like a fraud. Everyone seemed to do concentrating on things he couldn’t care less about; the impression they made on others, how they were ‘seen’. A concern that had nothing to do with donning orange jumpers, which would have been an understandable worry. Phin wouldn’t be seen dead in such a detestable hue. That was an idiom, not a fact, as it didn’t make sense in the scheme of things. He would be dead, and ergo, unable to see. Let alone be in any fit state to insist that his corpse was not desecrated by a despicable sweater.
Nope, Phin didn’t feel comfy in human company, but he did adore animals. He could do trusting them—even predators—they were honest. They never did acting kind before biting your head off, did they? He loved that animals dotted across the moor were allowed to do roaming. The cows often pottered across the road and parked up when they fancied a rest or a gaze-about. They didn’t give a stuff, just stood there, staring over their shoulders with mild disinterest if a queue of cars did honking at them. For all the world as if that might persuade them to do shifting their furry butts.
An animal’s love was unconditional. They never, ever, made you feel not good enough. Or aware that you’d let them down when you couldn’t help but be yourself. Phin had known this forever, but the older he got and the more of his dad's dreams he dashed, the clearer it became. It also polarised his family, with Phin stuck in the middle like an equatorial embarrassment. His poor mum and elder sister loved him despite himself and defended Phin with lioness finesse. Then did suffering the consequences of dooming his dad to a son who would never do him proud. Quite aside from subjecting him to social humiliation horrors that made his younger sister’s hair curl. Her intrepid efforts with an evil contraption that made her smell like a singed cat were no match for her ‘batshit brother’.
The more Phin tried to do working people out, the less he knew, let alone understood. Folk were a confusion too far to a head stuffed with Too Much…well, everything. His eyes didn’t seem to see the same things as everyone else’s—or the world in the same way—he wasn’t sure which. Maybe both. Phin’s brain wouldn’t do working like theirs, either. It was ‘just wired differently’, his mum said…a belief she’d done expounding overandoveragain, ad nauseum to his dad. Who thought this was piffle…so he’d spent the last twenty-odd years trying to rewire Phin and do proving his point. Efforts uncannily akin to something called a ‘contradiction in terms.’ If Phin wasn’t wired wrong, then why did his dad keep trying to fix him? Making his mum endure his endless tussle of wills ate away at Phin’s heart, so he’d decided it was high time she got some hard-earned peace.
The spoke in their family wheel was as obvious as the nose on Phin’s face (not half as obvious as the rest of him, but idioms needn’t concern themselves with seventy-four inches of trivial detail). The solution was simple; remove said spoke. If Phin took himself off, it would free his lionesses from lots of friction, and Phin from fretting about causing it. Having determined on this, he hadn’t been too fussed where he went. Going—the thrill of getting there—mattered the most.
Phin had to admit that landlords, deposits and contract stipulations were p’raps disasters waiting to happen, so he’d bought himself a campervan with the savings his gran had stashed away for him. He’d always done retreating to his inner world when the wider one felt too confounding to fathom, so he’d fixed on finding that feeling elsewhere. A safe place in which to do pottering about with less fear of mishaps and making folk miffy. A rural idyll, where traces of ye olde times might linger still.
His family had latterly been stationed in Dorset, which had fast become his favourite place they’d stayed for many a moon. Figuring that the further west he went, the more he might like it, Phin decided to do heading to Devon and then onward, into Cornwall. A plan that seemed to ease his mum’s fears a smidge—which made it more perfect—she’d suffered more than enough on his behalf. Nothing would stop her worrying about whether he’d done remembering to pack his bicycle clips and a clean hankie, but that was ‘her job’ she insisted, so Phin would just have to ‘suck it up’.
Cornwall it was, then. Kernow; ancient land of his Celtic kin. Still stubbornly steeped in its own heritage and clinging to its right to remain itself. A feeling Phin could do understanding all-too well.
3. Jack
It was with a ghostly glide of muscle over bone tha
t Jack crept a little closer, inching towards Him, nearer than he’d ever dared venture before. Too close for comfort, but far from close enough to satisfy the craven clawing in his guts.
He shifted a little, as if to settle in, and extended His right leg. Long, so long…it stretched across the tumble of rock towards Jack, as if the devil himself was hell bent on driving him demented. It was all Jack could do to suppress a whine, so he slammed his lids shut, which only intensified the need to nuzzle it. To nudge it with his nose, rub his fur along a lavish sweep of thigh…snuffle soft skin shrouded in a sheath of tight denim.
A tut pinged from plush lips when He attempted to slip a hand into the pocket of His coat. With a huff of impatience, He clambered to his feet, unfolding himself to his full, glorious height. Towering so tall that the top of His tufty head seemed to brush the stars from Jack’s lowly crouch on the ground. Once upright, He slipped His fingers in with ease and rummaged in the pocket of the buff-coloured trench He invariably came wrapped in each night; vast swathes of fabric that shielded Him from Jack’s ravenous gaze.
It was then that a whimper of want made an abrupt bid for freedom, shattering the quiet like an air raid siren. He jerked his head up, shooting a puzzled glance over each shoulder, but His pulse rate didn’t spike, and no trace of fear tainted His scent. When no further sound indicated that aught was amiss, His shrug seemed to conclude He must have imagined it, so He bent to place a palm on the rocks for support—Shit. With a sudden, horrifying lurch to the left, His foot slipped on the rubble and a snatched-off cry shredded Jack’s senses.
