High Moor

by Reynolds, Graeme

  Steven stood frozen for a moment, too shocked to move. Then he regained his senses.

  “Oh fuck this.” He leaped to his feet and hammered on the basement door. “George, open the fucking door. For Christ’s sake, open the door.”

  Steven heard John roar and renew his assault on the cell door below. Stairs creaked. The wind howled around the house, and the sporadic patter of rain turned into a steady hiss. He hammered on the door again. “George, get a bloody move on.”

  A flash of lightning illuminated the darkness of the sitting room. Another werewolf crouched on the carpet, ears flat against its head and teeth bared. A blur of movement came from the window, and a second creature landed beside the first. The monsters curled their lips and snarled. The bass growl merged into the low rumble of thunder from outside.

  The door swung open. Steven threw himself inside, colliding with George. Both men rolled down the wooden stairs and landed in a heap on the concrete floor. The gun slipped from Steven’s hand, skittered across the room, and came to rest in the far corner.

  Steven looked up. The cellar door was still open. He untangled himself from George and started back up the stairs. Too late. The enormous form of a werewolf filled the door frame.

  Where John and Mirela were bipedal, this creature moved on all fours. Long, pointed ears lay flat against the monster’s head. The long, tapered snout was wrinkled into a snarl, lips pulled back to reveal two rows of razor-sharp fangs. Muscles moved like liquid beneath the layers of coarse, black fur. Terrible clawed feet, each toe ending with a black, curved talon that wrapped around the stairs, splintering the wood. It tensed its muscles, ready to pounce. Steven held his breath and prepared to die.

  The thunderclap retort of the pistol and the smell of gunpowder filled the cellar. The werewolf’s head exploded in a cloud of hair, blood, and brains. Another shot rang out, shattering the foreleg of the already dead monster. The creature slumped to the floor.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Caroline stood against the back wall, the gun held in front of her. Tears of terror and rage streamed down her cheeks. She walked towards the foot of the stairs, with the gun trained on the dead werewolf, and continued to pull the trigger of the empty weapon until Steven took it from her.

  George got to his feet and put his arm around his trembling wife. ”Is that all of them?”

  A dark shadow filled the doorframe. Steven felt his heart sink. He had no more silver bullets. They were all as good as dead.

  Unless.

  The final werewolf looked at the terrified people with triumph in its eyes. It descended the stairs at a slow, measured pace. The clack of claws on wood counted down the last few seconds of Steven, George, and Caroline’s lives. After what seemed like an eternity, it reached the bottom. It snarled and tensed its muscles to pounce.

  Then Steven unlocked the door to John’s cell.

  The door burst open as John hurled himself against it. No trace of the ten-year-old boy remained in the creature standing in before them. It stood on two legs, well over six and a half feet tall. Coarse, brown hair covered sheets of rippling muscle. It sniffed the air, snarled at the three cowering humans, and then leaped at the other werewolf.

  Claws flashed out as he swung at the silver-grey monster. It jumped back, only just avoiding the blow. It bared its fangs and snarled, then circled around to his left. John crouched and matched his opponent’s movement. Then the silver werewolf pounced. Fangs flashed at John's throat, but he jerked his head back at the last instant and the teeth sank into the flesh of his shoulder.

  Caroline took a step forward, reaching out her hand. “Oh God, John.”

  Steven grabbed her wrist and pushed her towards the cell. “Both of you, get inside while they’re distracted. Move.”

  George couldn't tear his gaze away from the two werewolves. “But the door only locks from the outside.”

  Steven nodded. “I know, George. Now move your bloody arses before they remember us.”

  “Steven, you don’t have to.”

  “I do, unless you have a better idea.”

  George shook his head and looked at the floor, unable to meet Steven's gaze. “No, I don’t.”

  Steven ushered them both into the cell, closed the door, and slid the bolt home. “Don’t be sorry, George. Take care of your family.”

  The fight intensified. The beasts crashed against the walls and smashed a wooden chair in the corner of the room into pieces. John lashed out with his claws and tore four ragged wounds in the side of the silver werewolf. The creature yelped and ducked under a follow up blow, then dove forward and bit a chunk of flesh from John’s thigh. John roared in agony, slammed into the other werewolf, and they careened across the basement, towards Steven.

  Both creatures were wounded. Whereas the silver werewolf was showing visible signs of weakness, the pain only seemed to fuel John’s rage. His attacks became more brutal and frenzied. Claws sliced through fur and muscle, fangs tore pieces of flesh from the silver werewolf’s body until its fur was soaked with blood. The silver werewolf feinted forward, as if to return the attack, and then retreated from the enraged moonstruck. John pounced on it when it tried to flee up the stairs, and clamped his huge jaws around its neck.

  The werewolf thrashed and snarled, but failed to break John’s hold. The jaws tightened. Bones popped. Veins and arteries sprayed blood. Clouds of red mist filled the air and covered the walls. Then John’s jaws closed. The severed head of the silver werewolf hit the floor with a wet thud before rolling down the stairs and coming to rest at Steven’s feet.

  Steven backed away until he came up against the stone wall. He watched as John tore the now human corpse into shreds of blood-soaked meat. John sniffed the air and turned around to face Steven. Scraps of torn skin hung from the side of the snarling beast’s mouth. It began to descend the stairs, cautious at first, but growing in confidence. The wounds on its body were horrific. Ragged slashes across its abdomen oozed thick, crimson blood. Chunks of flesh had been torn from its shoulders and thigh, deep enough to show the bone. None of this seemed to bother it, as it stalked the former police officer.

  Steven had nowhere left to go. He closed his eyes and waited for John to start eating him.

  Ten seconds passed. Steven opened his eyes in time to see the werewolf slump to the floor with four darts sticking out of its right side. George peered through the small barred window with Steven’s tranquiliser pistol in his hand.

  Relief flowed through him; he fell to his knees. He looked up at George and managed a weak smile. “Oh fucking hell, George. You did it. You saved me.”

  George grinned back. “Well, it was the least I could do. It would be rude if I let our son eat you alive after everything you’ve done for us. Now get off your arse and let us out of this bloody cell before he wakes up.”

  ***

  22nd July 1986. Treworgan Farm, High Moor. 06.17.

  The storm had passed. The rain first eased, then stopped altogether. The black clouds moved away, and the first glimpses of the early morning sun glimmered through the trees to the east. Steven stood on the porch and lit a cigarette. After he took a long drag, he coughed until he was almost sick. He looked at the cigarette, dropped it onto the muddy ground, and crushed it under his heel.

  Picking up the shovel, he walked out into the yard. The rain had washed the blood into the earth and put out the fires during the course of the night, but the front of the house was still like an abattoir. Burned lumps of unrecognisable meat were strewn over the entire area, but it was worse when Steven saw something that he did recognise. A hand, or a scrap of tattooed skin, or part of Carl’s head. He steeled himself and shovelled the remains of Carl Schneider into black plastic bags.

  He worked in silence for more than half an hour, filling one bag, then another, then another, until he was satisfied that he'd gathered all of Carl Schneider’s earthly remains. Then he leaned against the shovel and wept in silence.

  George walked out of the house
and across the yard. Steven didn’t look up until he put his hand on his shoulder and said, “I’ve taken the ones from the house to the back yard. Dug a pit like you said.”

  Steven choked back his tears and turned to look at George. “How’s John?”

  “He’s hurt pretty badly, but I don’t think there’s anything fatal. Caroline cleaned him up and bandaged him as well as she could. He’s in a lot of pain, but I think he’s going to be alright. The wounds were already clotted over when he changed back.”

  Steven nodded. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

  George motioned to the black sacks. “Are they going with the rest?”

  “No. The others we burn, but Carl gets a proper burial, or at least as close to it as we can manage. We owe him that.”

  ***

  22nd July 1986. Treworgan Farm, High Moor. 09.30.

  The bonfire had died down over the last couple of hours until all that remained in the fire pit were smouldering embers and charred bones. The stench of burned meat hung in the air like an oppressive cloud.

  Steven, George, and Caroline stood next to a hole in the ground at the far edge of the property, near the woods. John sat on a wooden chair, his face pale. Three plastic sacks lay at the bottom of the hole.

  George looked at Steven. “Do you want to say anything?”

  Steven nodded. “Carl Schneider was a lot of things. He was a brave man, a complete pain in the arse, and he was my friend. He came over here to save us from the monsters that we didn’t even know were among us, and gave up his life so that we might survive. There’s a passage in the Bible about that kind of sacrifice, but for the life of me, I can’t remember it. Hell, I don’t even know if Carl was religious. What I do know is that, if there is a God, then Carl will be up there with him now, drinking his whiskey and laughing at me for being such a sentimental idiot.” Steven took out a silver hip flask, undid the top, and poured the amber liquid into the grave. “Here’s to you, Carl. I saved you some of the good stuff. Goodbye, my friend, and thank you. You will be missed.”

  Caroline and John wept while Steven and George shovelled earth back into the hole. When the task was complete, Steven stuck his spade into the earth as a makeshift headstone.

  John looked up at his father and the ex police officer. “It’s over then?”

  Steven nodded. “For now, yes. There might be more of them out there, but for the time being, I think we’re safe.”

  “What if more come?”

  “Then we’ll be ready for them, but I hope it won’t come to that. If you’re careful and stay hidden, then with any luck, this is the last we’ll see of them.”

  "So what do we do now?”

  End of Part 2

  Part 3

  Chapter 23

  30th October 2008. A1 Motorway. North East England. 11.36.

  The rain started to fall as John passed the Scotch Corner services. A thin damp mist condensed on the windscreen and fogged the interior of the car. He flicked the windscreen wipers on and turned the heater up to full. The warmth cleared the windows but did nothing to lift the dark mood of the car’s occupant. He turned the radio on and listened to the news broadcast. More nonsense about someone resigning over a radio practical joke that went too far. He snorted and hit the scan button, skipping past classical music and people with stuffy voices talking about something irrelevant. He eventually settled for a classic rock station and relaxed back into his seat.

  Flashing amber beacons lined the side of the road and stretched off into the distance where the drizzle imbued the lights with a pulsating orange corona. A lorry, three cars ahead, honked its horn in frustration. The traffic moved forward fifty feet and then stopped again. John drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music and played things over in his mind.

  Someone had sent him a message. The appearance of a werewolf in High Moor, and the encounter with Malcolm Harrison, couldn’t be a coincidence. It could be a trap. But if it was a trap to flush him out of hiding, why now, after all these years?

  More to the point, why the hell am I walking straight into it?

  He knew the reasons. If this was just a coincidence, then High Moor had a werewolf. Unless Steven was still around, he was the only one who knew about it. The only one who could do anything about it. Then there was Michael.

  Michael’s body was stolen from the hospital morgue the day after he died. Steven and his Father assumed it was the Pack removing evidence, but John always hoped that his friend had somehow survived. If it was Michael sending him a message, then he had to go back. Michael would have done the same for him.

  The traffic started to move once more, and after a few miles, John cleared the road works. The landscape changed, becoming familiar yet strange. Wind turbines dotted the horizon, and the landscape of his childhood was eaten away by the grey and orange cancer of new housing estates until only sporadic patches of green were visible on the distant hills.

  After John left the motorway, the changes became more pronounced. Dual carriageway bypasses replaced old, barely remembered roads. Houses and shops on the outskirts of town had been torn down, only to be replaced with orange brick-and-glass monstrosities that imposed themselves on their surroundings and matched neither the older buildings, or one another. He passed the school, rebuilt after the fire in 1986. Where once, the school fields were surrounded by low wooden fences, they were now encased in a ring of seven-foot-tall steel railings with vicious spikes at the top and a yellow notice stating “Trespassers will be prosecuted.” The place was more like a prison than a school.

  The market place in the centre of the town was gone. In its place was an ornate paved square with a bandstand in its centre. Its false grandeur contrasted against the faded squalor of the shopping precinct beyond, with its abandoned, graffiti-daubed shops and litter-filled walkways. Those shops still open were either charity shops or discount chain stores with names like “Poundsaver”. Most of the town now shopped in the large supermarket, built on the site of the old fire station.

  Only a few establishments that John remembered from his youth remained. An old hardware store with a hand-drawn sign that had been faded when his father was a boy. A bakery where his mother once worked. A photographer’s studio with paint peeling from the doors and window frame, and a thirty-year-old plastic sign bleached from exposure to the elements.

  An old lady, wrapped up in a knee length overcoat and headscarf, pushed a tartan shopping trolley along the uneven concrete pavement. Her face was a creased mask of regret and cynicism, and she hunched her shoulders as she walked in an attempt to stave off the rain and biting cold.

  An overweight man in his early twenties, wearing jeans, a Newcastle United football shirt and little else, despite the rain, emerged from a bakery with a large pasty in one hand. He shot John a glassy stare and shoved the greasy food into his mouth. Chunks of filling fell to the floor and splattered across his trainers. The man seemed not to notice.

  A gang of youths in hooded tops stood in the doorway of an empty shop, casting nervous glances along the street. A young child, no more than ten years old, cycled past on a BMX and, as he passed the group, he handed them a clear plastic bag containing white powder, then pedalled away as fast as he could. The gang moved out of the doorway and crept away, around to the back of the shopping precinct and out of sight.

  John turned off the high street, towards the moor itself, only to find that the once-open expanse was gone. Now, a new housing estate covered the entire area. Even the old mine had been demolished and new properties erected on the site. John wondered if that had been such a good idea.

  He drove past the moor and out of the town until the urban sprawl thinned and the tight-packed houses were replaced by open fields and small patches of woodland. John felt butterflies in his stomach. He hadn’t been back to the house since the day after his seventeenth birthday, the day after he killed his parents.

  A sudden wave of regret, loss, and guilt surged in his chest, and he pulled the ca
r into a lay-by until the tears subsided and he was able to drive again.

  He missed the turning and had to backtrack once he realised he'd gone too far. Thick weeds choked the track. The only indication that it existed at all would have been the overgrown hedges that flanked each side, if not for the fresh tire tracks in the mud and the flattened vegetation.

  John reversed the car back onto the main highway and drove another half a mile before he stopped and parked on the side of the empty road. He got out of the car and put on a pair of thin leather gloves. He walked around to the rear of the vehicle, opened the boot, and after checking that he was alone, produced a thin metal torch and a 9mm pistol from one of the bags. He checked the ammunition, chambered a round, and tucked the weapon into the waistband of his jeans. Then, he crossed the road and set off across the fields toward his old home.

  He kept close to the hedges and made slow progress, pausing often to listen for any sounds that were out of place, until the woods that marked the boundary of the property came into view. He removed the pistol from his jeans and crouched behind an overgrown hawthorn bush. The air was filled with the sickly sweet scent of rotting leaves. The steady patter of the rain and the distant hum of traffic were the only sounds that he could distinguish. There was no birdsong, only a brooding silence. John took a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to bring his racing heart under control, and then crept through the trees, around to the rear of the house.