Blood Moon

by Graeme Reynolds

  The children had been gathered together in a circle, holding hands as they waited for the clock to strike twelve. Then, after the obligatory singing session, all that remained would be the uncomfortable wait for the parents to arrive and take their offspring away. Sharon really hoped that Helen had some booze back at the house. All she wanted to do now was put her feet up and do some real damage to a bottle of Chardonnay.

  All eyes were on the clock at the rear of the church hall as the seconds ticked away. A few nervous giggles escaped from the children. Bella’s face was still creased into a scowl over the tuck shop incident and she refused to hold the hands of the two little girls to either side of her, something that neither of the other children seemed to be bothered about.

  Angela caught her eye, raised her eyebrows and gave her an encouraging smile. The message was clear. One last push. We’re almost done. She forced her most cheerful smile onto her face as the clock ticked closer to midnight.

  Tonia’s voice held a tiny, almost imperceptible strained edge as she spoke. “Alright, Children. It’s almost time. Ten. Nine.”

  The children joined in with a weary monotone, all of them presumably as ready to go home as the adults. “Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

  The lights went out, plunging the church hall into pitch blackness. Even the comforting orange glow of the streetlights outside was gone. Children squealed in alarm and Sharon heard Tonia curse under her breath from across the hall.

  “Okay, everyone, it’s just a power cut,” Angela shouted above the screaming children. “Stay where you are and behave. I’ll go and get the torch from the kitchen.”

  Quite predictably, the children neither stayed where they were, nor behaved. The little blonde girl to her left released her hold on Sharon’s hand, although when Matthew tried to do the same she tightened her grip on his wrist.

  Squeals and laughter echoed through the darkness, despite Tonia’s exasperated pleas.

  “Woooooooooo!”

  “Johnny poo’d his pants! Johnny stinks!”

  “Get off, you booger!”

  “Miiiiisss! Someone just hit me!”

  The removal of sight seemed to sharpen Sharon’s other senses. There was a faint, musky odour to the church hall that had not been there before, and beneath the squeals of misbehaving children she could make out another sound. A snapping, tearing noise, as if someone were cutting through an old hessian sack with a fistful of sharpened twigs.

  The children heard it too. The jubilant cries of mischief lapsed into an uneasy silence as the strange sounds continued at the rear of the church hall. Sharon tried to visualise what could even make a noise like that, or what could possibly be happening in the darkness. She tightened her hold on Matthew and tried to open her eyes wider in the hope that she would see something – anything.

  The noise stopped and, for a moment, there was silence. Then something let out a savage animal growl.

  1st January 2009. Sandpiper Public House, High Moor. 00:01

  The town was plunged into darkness and silence. Mandy didn’t stop to think, adrenaline and alcohol coursed through her body and she just reacted, lashing out with her foot to where their would-be assailant had been standing. She was rewarded with a satisfying crunch of shoe against something soft and a cry of pain. She grabbed her mother’s wrist. “Come on, Mum. Run!”

  Her mother didn’t need to be told twice, and they both kicked off their shoes and ran towards the relative safety of the pub. The music had stopped, but that had not apparently dampened the spirits of the Sandpiper’s patrons. A rowdy chorus of Auld Lang Syne, interspersed with cries and cheering, echoed across the empty car park.

  Mandy lost her footing, tripping over a buried kerb that sent her sprawling. Pieces of gravel shredded the palms of her hands and knees, but she barely felt it.

  Her mother reached out her hand. “Come on, love, we’ve got to get inside before…”

  Helen didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence as the man who’d called himself Joseph Austin crashed into them. Mandy tried to scramble to her feet – to get away from their attacker – when her stomach exploded in agony and the breath was forced from her body. She collapsed back into the snow, desperately trying to suck air back into her lungs.

  “You fucking little bitch! How do you like that? Did you really think you were going to get away with kicking me in the bollocks?”

  She heard the whoosh of air as what she assumed was a booted foot connected with her left side, sending another bomb-burst of pain through her. Her mother let out a scream of rage and hurled herself at the man, but he seemed to have anticipated the attack. His fist lashed out and connected with the side of her mother’s head with a loud crack that seemed to resonate around the car park. Her mother collapsed face down in the snow and did not get back up.

  The man wiped his hand across his face then kicked Mandy again. “You two are going to pay for that. I swear to God, I’m going to make you wish you were dead.”

  Mandy found her voice and screamed for help, praying that someone from the pub would come to their rescue, but her cries were lost in the cacophony emanating from the building. She crawled to where her mother lay and wrapped her arms around her. “Please. Leave us alone. We won’t tell anyone. Just don’t hurt us.”

  “It’s too late for that, you little cunt. I’m going to fuck your bitch mother, then I’m going to cut her while you watch. I’m going to…”

  The man’s voice faltered and he took a step back, away from them both. Mandy couldn’t make out the expression on his face, but she didn’t need to. It was clear from his body language that Joseph Austin had just seen something that had terrified him. Something that was just behind her. She had to see. Mandy forced down the wave of terror that threatened to drown her and slowly turned her head.

  Two glowing green eyes shone out from the darkness, and a deep, guttural snarl echoed around the empty car park. Mandy got the impression of immense mass and power from the shape. Given recent events in the town, it really didn’t take long for her mind to realise what it was she was looking at. A werewolf. Less than ten feet from her.

  She let out a small whimper of terror, draping herself over her mother’s prone body as the creature bunched its muscles and pounced.

  Mandy squeezed her eyes tight closed, waiting for the terrible pain of the werewolf’s fangs rending her flesh. She felt the air displaced by the monster’s passing, but the expected agony did not materialise. The thing had leaped straight over her and her mother and was stalking towards Joseph Austin, who backed away from the creature, waving his knife out in front of him.

  “Stay back. Get away. I’m fucking warning you!”

  That, apparently, was all the prompting the werewolf needed. With a roar, it hurled itself at the man, knocking him to the ground. Talons tore through fabric and flesh as if they were as insubstantial as gossamer. Jaws crunched through bones, and within a matter of seconds, the man’s screams had turned into little more than wet gurgles, while the snow beneath him blackened and steamed.

  Mandy was in no doubt they would be next. She shook her mother, desperately now. “Mum, wake up. You’ve got to…”

  Her hands were sticky and the air was filled with a thick, coppery stench. She looked down at her mother and saw that her eyes were wide open, an expression of surprise on her face. Black ichor dribbled from an inch long hole in her temple. Austin hadn’t just punched her mother. He’d plunged his blade into her skull. Her mother was dead.

  A terrible keening sound filled Mandy’s ears and it took her a second to realise that the source of the noise was her. Her mam was dead and it was all her fault. If she’d worn what she was supposed to, they would never have had to come out here, and Joseph Austin would never have murdered her. The loss was a raw, aching chasm opening up inside of her. Her mother would never call her down for breakfast again, or hold her tight, ruffling her hair and kissing her on the forehead in the way she did when she was in a good mood. Sh
e was dead. Dead. The world contained nothing but grief. Pain. Loss.

  Then Mandy remembered the werewolf.

  Part of her wanted to just lie there and wait to feel the beast’s teeth and claws tear her apart. She deserved to die. Everything was her fault. But then she remembered her Father. Ian. Anna, Kat and Amy. Matthew and Auntie Sharon. There were werewolves loose in High Moor and she needed to be with her family. Warn them. Keep them safe. Save them to atone for failing her Mother.

  She kissed her mother once on the forehead, mirroring what her mum had done to her so many times, not caring that she could taste blood in her mouth. Then, she carefully laid the body in the snow and backed away from the feasting werewolf, towards The Sandpiper.

  1st January 2009. St Paul’s Church Hall, High Moor. 00:03

  Sharon’s stomach tightened into a hard knot of raw terror and her legs seemed unable to support her weight. The utter darkness was more than disorienting; it was all-encompassing – more like a presence than a mere absence of light. If not for the sensation of her feet against the wooden floor and the sudden awareness of gravity bearing down upon her, she might have struggled to know which way was up. As it was, in the wake of the massive adrenaline surge, she struggled to clear her mind long enough to orient herself. And in this situation, to hesitate would almost certainly result in her death and the death of her nephew. She was under no illusions about what shared the darkness with them.

  The children began to scream as they realised that they were trapped in absolute blackness with monsters. Monsters that could see in the dark. Monsters with razor sharp fangs and claws that could slice through flesh with ease. Monsters that had not yet moved from the far end of the church hall. Sharon knew why with a sickening certainty. They were savouring the terror of their captives. Choosing their targets. When the end came, it would come swiftly, and she knew then who the first three to die would be. Tonia, Angela and herself. Kill the adults and the children would be easy prey. As if to confirm her suspicions, the growls dropped an octave. She pulled Matthew behind her, putting herself between the creatures and her nephew for all the good it would do.

  The snarling became a roar of sheer bloodlust, and the glowing eyes streaked across the dark expanse of the church hall. The terrified screams of the children increased in pitch and volume. Racking sobs mingled with howls of anguish. Bella’s voice rang out, louder than the others. “No, get away! I’m going to tell my mammy! NOOOOO! IT HURTS! MAMMMYYYY!!!”

  Wet ripping noises, like someone peeling an over-ripe orange, mingled with the agonised screaming. Some of the children ran from their attackers, colliding with each other in the darkness, while others curled up, sobbing quietly as they waited for death or salvation. Part of Sharon was glad of the darkness. She really didn’t want to see the source of some of those sounds. However, the mute terror of not knowing when the creatures would turn their attention towards her and Matthew was so much worse.

  Something brushed against her leg – a brief sensation of coarse fur on skin and a residual sticky wetness on her flesh. She yelped and leaped away. Her foot slipped on something soft and wet, and she fell to the floor, her ankle twisting sharply beneath her as she landed. Sharon ground her teeth at the searing pain, but refused to cry out. Hoping – praying that the beast would pass her by. Choose a different victim.

  Hot rank breath on her face. The barest hint of a snarl held in check. The screams from the children faded into the background; the only thing she was aware of was the sound of her own heart pounding in her chest and the sense of something powerful mere inches away from her. She could visualise the mouth curling back into a snarl and hoped that it would be over quickly. Then a beam of light cut through the darkness as Angela arrived from the kitchen with the torches.

  Time slowed, and in that dilated, drawn out, terrible second, among the deep, dancing shadows, Sharon saw a werewolf for the first time. Oddly enough, it wasn’t as big as she’d expected it to be. More like a large dog – an Alsatian or a Husky – than the dreadful things she’d seen on the internet. The creature’s muzzle was soaked in blood and its snout was indeed wrinkled into a snarl, revealing fangs that no mere dog could ever possess. Another of the creatures had its snout buried in Bella’s stomach, its head thrashing from side to side as the girl screamed in unimaginable agony. Bella’s size had protected her to an extent. The monster had needed to chew through layers of fat before it got to her vital organs, but that had just prolonged her suffering. The other creature was stalking two young boys in the corner of the church hall, seeming to relish the fear emanating from its intended prey, while two more children lay face down in spreading pools of blood. The rest of them were either curled up in foetal positions, crying, or had their backs flat against the far wall.

  Sharon saw all of this in a fraction of a second, the scene burned onto her retinas. Then time reasserted itself and all hell broke loose.

  Tonia let out an inhuman screech and hurled herself across the church hall at the beast stalking the two boys. Somehow she’d managed to pick up a heavy wooden chair and she swung it at the unsuspecting werewolf with all her might. The force of the impact shattered the wood into jagged, foot-long shards. Tonia didn’t hesitate and drove one of them into the creature’s back with so much force it burst out of the werewolf’s stomach.

  The monster howled in pain and surprise and began to snap at the makeshift stake that remained just out of reach. Tonia took a step back, apparently surprised at the success of her attack. That was when the other two creatures turned their attention to her. The beast before Sharon leaped over her and barrelled into Tonia’s side; its jaws clamped down on her arm, severing the appendage in a single bite. The other creature tore itself away from Bella, trailing a streamer of the girl’s intestines behind it, and slashed the woman’s Achilles tendon with its talons. Tonia’s leg buckled under her and she fell to the floor, vanishing in an instant beneath the enraged monsters.

  Sharon couldn’t move. The horror she was witnessing was too much and, for a moment, her mind seemed to shut down. Tonia was still screaming beneath the onslaught of claws and fangs from the two werewolves, while the injured one whined and snapped at the makeshift stake that impaled it. It would only be a matter of seconds before she shared her friend’s fate, she knew.

  It was Angela that snapped her out of her resigned fugue state. “Everyone. The cellar. Get into the cellar. Now.”

  The torchlight seemed to be a beacon of hope, illuminating Angela and an open door that ran beneath the stage to the storage room below. Sharon pulled herself to her feet, ignoring the white bomb-burst of pain erupting from her injured ankle. Matthew was by her side, trying to help her, and while he lacked the strength to be much use, his presence banished the last of her hopelessness, replacing it with a righteous anger and a determination to get her nephew through this ordeal. She didn’t dare look back until she reached the doorway and had ushered Matthew safely inside.

  Tonia’s corpse was spread over an eight foot patch of gore, hardly recognisable anymore. One of the werewolves continued to feast on the bloody fragments, while the other had turned its attention to its stricken companion and had fastened its jaws around the wooden stake. In a matter of seconds the object would be removed, and Sharon had heard stories of how quickly these things healed.

  Most of the children were now in the relative safety of the cellar, but the two boys that were being stalked prior to Tonia’s assault were still frozen in place in the corner of the room, their faces blank masks of terror. Sharon started to move towards them when Angela put her hand on her shoulder and shook her head. “No. Get downstairs. I’ll get them.”

  The look on Angela’s face said it all. She knew the chance of getting to the children was slim, but she had to try. She was responsible for these children, and to abandon those two boys would have made Tonia’s sacrifice mean nothing. Sharon nodded her understanding and Angela ran across the slippery, blood-drenched floor to where the children cowered, gathering one
up under each arm. She’d made it almost halfway across the room when first one child, and then the other were torn from her grasp.

  She turned and screamed out in fury, advancing on the werewolves that were tearing the young boys apart, all reason long gone. Then the third werewolf, apparently already healed from its wounds, hit her square in the chest and began to tear into her body while she beat at it.

  Sharon couldn’t watch anymore. She pulled the heavy steel door closed, fastened the bolt and descended the stairs to the crowd of weeping children.

  Matthew hugged her fiercely then stepped back and held her at arm’s length, regarding her with a strange expression on his face. “Auntie Sharon?”

  She somehow managed a smile. “Yes, Matthew?”

  He pointed to her leg. “Does that mean you’re going to turn into a monster as well?”

  She looked down and saw four deep, parallel gashes across her calf. The marks of a werewolf’s claws.

  Chapter 15

  1st January 2009. Sandpiper Public House, High Moor. 00:06

  Mandy stumbled out of the car park towards the front of the pub. A few people stood close to the building, backs pressed against the wall in an attempt to avoid the worst of the falling snow while they smoked their cigarettes. Of the two bouncers that had guarded the door earlier, only one was present. A bald man in a heavy black jacket who leaned against the door frame talking to a couple of girls that were in Mandy’s year at school. She pushed her way past the girls to stand in front of the doorman.

  She’d been trying to frame a coherent thought, but as soon as she opened her mouth, the words rushed from her in a torrent. “You’ve got to help me! There was a man in the car park and he killed my mum and then a werewolf killed him you have to call the police and get everyone inside then lock the door before… oh, God… before it comes and kills everyone!”