Blood Moon

by Graeme Reynolds

  He wanted a drink. Wanted nothing more than to escape into oblivion, but this also was impossible. His heightened metabolism aside, there were already rumblings of discontent. To show weakness now would be to invite one of the others to challenge his position and, in his current state of mind, he feared he would not be able to muster enough enthusiasm to mount a proper defence. He almost wanted it. An end to the guilt of what he had done and what he had created. An end to the responsibility. Let the rabid dogs turn on their leader and do as they would. It would not be his concern after they’d finished tearing him apart.

  Melissa Grove knocked twice on his door and, without waiting for a response, let herself in. Another display of his weakening authority and dwindling respect. She appeared excited. Agitated almost. She held out the satellite phone to him. Daniel felt a sudden wave of nausea and regarded the object as if it were a venomous snake. Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.

  He sat up on the bed. “What is it, Melissa?”

  She beamed at him. “A message came through just now. Said you should call straight back.”

  Daniel sighed, got to his feet and took the device from her. When she didn’t leave he raised an eyebrow. “Was there anything else I can help you with?”

  The woman’s smile slipped a little. “No… It’s just… well, we can’t wait for our next mission. Everyone’s anxious to know what our target is going to be. I thought I’d…”

  “I am the sub alpha of this unit, Melissa. This call is for my ears and mine alone. If we have another assignment, I’ll relay the information to the rest of you in due course. Now… if you don’t mind?”

  He could sense the disappointment and anger radiating from her. Melissa was going to be a problem. The young wolves had, sickeningly, kept a tally of their kills in High Moor and Melissa was top of their league table by a significant margin. The loss of her family to the human assault on Christmas Day made her single-minded viciousness understandable to a point, but they all treated this like it was some sort of sick game. She reminded him in many ways of Connie. That thought alone was enough to trace an ice finger of fear down his spine. He wasn’t sure what he could do about it, but it was becoming very clear that he would have to do something soon. He waited until the blonde woman turned and stormed from his room before putting on his shoes and jacket. He walked out of his room and down the stairs, past rows of expectant faces, then picked up a set of car keys, left the house and drove along the farm track to the snow-covered village a mile away. He did not want any of his young charges listening in to what was said. Not on this call. He refused to be responsible for another massacre. Krysztof and Lukas could go fuck themselves.

  He drove for another ten minutes before pulling the Ford Focus into a lay-by on the A40 and took a few moments to slow his breathing until the adrenaline had subsided. Then he picked up the satellite phone and called the number he’d been given.

  The phone rang five times before it was answered. He didn’t give the alpha time to respond. “Krysztof, listen to me…”

  The voice that cracked through the speaker, however, did not belong to Krysztof. The person he was speaking to was the last person he would have expected. “Daniel, it’s Marie.”

  “What? Marie? But how…”

  “Listen to me. It all went to hell over here. Krysztof executed Michael, then the Russians attacked. It’s… it’s not good, Daniel. There are only about a hundred of us left, and hardly any with field experience. Steffan is making preparations to keep them all safe until I get back from England.”

  “England? You can’t be serious? They’ve increased security at all the ports and the military are on full alert. It’s suicide to come here, Marie. Take the others and save yourselves.”

  “I can’t do that, Daniel. Not when almost a third of us are locked up in that internment camp. I’m going to get them out. And you’re going to help me.”

  Daniel managed a small smile, in spite of himself, and felt the cold fist around his heart relax its grip a little. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I need intel. I need you to run reconnaissance on Lindholme until we get there. Defences. Troop movements. The whole lot. We can’t risk going in there blind.”

  “Understood. When will you get here?”

  “Soon. I have a few things over here that I need to take care of, then I’ll be coming over with whoever I can find that’s combat ready.” Her voice softened. “Daniel, I know what you had to do, and I know you. You can’t hold yourself responsible for that. It was all on Krysztof. You were just…”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “I know. I was just following orders. My grandfather would be so proud.”

  “Daniel, I need you on this. I can’t do this without you. Get the intelligence and don’t take any stupid risks. We can’t risk alerting them. If they know we’re coming it will get very ugly. Take care of yourself, Daniel. I’ll see you soon.”

  The line went dead. Daniel looked at the satellite phone in his hands, then smiled. Perhaps God did answer the prayers of the damned. This solved all of his problems. He could never undo the terrible things he had done, but perhaps he might be able to earn a little redemption.

  6th January 2009. Lindholme Detention Centre, Doncaster. 13:35

  John leaned back, taking satisfaction at the popping in his spine. Their captors had seemingly relaxed their restrictions on the High Moor survivors and the pack wolves mixing, although the two groups still regarded one another with fear and suspicion. It was hardly surprising, given the circumstances. The pack wolves looked on the two hundred infected as a potential army of moonstruck that would tear them apart in a little over a week, while the survivors drew little differentiation between those they were incarcerated with and the pack of monsters that had swept through their town on New Year’s Eve. If not for Sharon Fletcher’s assistance, he doubted if he’d have been able to get them to listen to him at all. As it was, almost three quarters of the survivors had done their best to put their differences aside and work with the pack wolves – Dmitri, Kasha and Sonja – to at least try to learn how to understand and control the changes they were about to go through. Those who refused had been moved into a single structure, the one closest to the main gates, and were left alone. Still, that meant that when the moon rose, there would still be around fifty moonstruck werewolves loose in the compound. That really was not good. John knew better than most what just one moonstruck was capable of. Fifty of them… well, dangerous didn’t even come close.

  The lack of military interference bothered him as well. There were no more tests. No more visits to the medical centre and, apart from the thrice daily deliveries of drugged food, no soldier set foot inside the compound. John wasn’t sure what that meant, but he had a nagging suspicion it was not a positive thing. If the military had no more use for them, chances were their life expectancy was days – perhaps less.

  He brought his thoughts back to the present, to the group of people sitting before him. Thirty men, women and children. All infected. All werewolves with no idea of what to expect when the moon rose and the change tore through them. All relying on him to somehow explain the unexplainable. Tell them how to come to terms with the fledgling monster growing inside them. Teach them somehow to control their fear of the thing all of them feared the most. He’d been at this for a little over a week and really didn’t feel as if his efforts were getting through to them. It was not like he was an expert. For most of his life he was a prime example of exactly what you should not do. All he had to go on was what Marie had taught him in that cabin. The thought terrified him. All it would take was one person to push too far and initiate the transformation unbidden, and one of the circling Reaper drones would drop a Hellfire missile on the building. Every one of these sessions was akin to playing Russian roulette with high explosives. The thought did little to calm him.

  “Okay, I’m going to go over what we did last time. Close your eyes and slow your breathing. Concentrate on it, and on my voice. Bre
athe in… and out… in… out. Feel the rhythm. Imagine that everything around you is fading away. The only things that exist are my voice and your breathing, and with every breath you take the more relaxed you are getting.”

  Some of the people in the group were fidgeting. Not really managing to come to terms with the relaxation exercises. John took a mental note of who they were. If things didn’t improve, it may end up being necessary to move them to what some of the pack were calling Moonstruck Mansion. He wouldn’t give up on them, though. Not until the very last minute. Until then, he’d pray that somehow these people would learn to accept their ‘other self’ and keep pushing in the hope that he’d get through to them.

  “Now, I want you to sink deep into yourself. There is another within you. It’s young. Little more than a puppy right now. You’ll find it by following the heat it emits. Imagine turning your face towards a heater. Feel the warmth on your face, then will yourself to get closer. Not quite close enough to touch, but close enough that you can feel it, and it can feel you. There is nothing to be afraid of. This is part of you. No different to your arm or leg. It can’t hurt you and you can’t hurt it. Accept it. Feel it. Let any fear you might feel fade away and just be there beside it in the warm and dark. As if you were sitting by a fire with a dog by your feet. Relax, concentrate on your breathing… and just be.”

  His attention was caught by Sonja waving at him through a window. He quietly got to his feet and let himself out of the building. “What’s up, Sonja? I’m in the middle of a session. Can’t it wait?”

  She shook her head and pointed to the flurry of activity beyond the chain fence. Troops were packing equipment into trucks, and as one was filled, another took its place. “What do you think is going on?”

  John felt sick to his stomach. The military were clearing out. Removing themselves from the facility. It was possible they were setting up somewhere else, another internment camp more suited to the population, but somehow he doubted it. What he’d learned of the military during his confinement was that they rarely did things quickly. “I don’t know, Sonja. But something tells me whatever’s happening isn’t good.”

  7th January 2009. Lindholme Detention Centre, Doncaster. 13:35

  Rose strode along the corridors of the prison, keeping her gaze fixed straight ahead. The clipboard she carried was just for show. The soldiers had gotten used to her presence, and none of them gave her a second glance as they went about their business. The removal of the majority of the research equipment and files had all but ended. The Colonel had tried to reassure her that they were moving the sensitive material to a more secure site, but had refused to elaborate further. Rose may have had her share of flaws, but she prided herself on being able to spot bullshit a mile away, and every word that came out of Colonel Richards’ mouth had reeked of it. Something was up, but whatever it was, no one was letting on. She’d already made her mind up to do some digging of her own and get to the bottom of this surprise redeployment, but first there was another pressing matter she needed to attend to. She needed to find out what had happened to Steven Wilkinson.

  Her enquiries about the old man had been savagely rebuffed by the Colonel, and Doctor Channing was equally evasive about him. She liked Steven. His brusque, flirtatious manner had been charming after a fashion. More to the point, he had been nothing but helpful during his time on the base. Most of the knowledge and countermeasures they’d not got through direct contact had come from the old werewolf hunter. Doctor Channing had a certain reputation among his peers, and she was not about to see Steven mistreated by the vicious son-of-a-bitch. She had been his Doctor, and that still counted for something. She needed to know that he was all right. Besides, it was not like she had much else to keep herself occupied. Her own research had effectively been put on hold after she’d assessed the refugees from High Moor. She desperately wanted to find out what her colleague was up to.

  Rose used her key card to gain access to the makeshift medical facility, but instead of continuing to her own offices, she carried on along the corridor, through two more sets of doors to where Doctor Channing had set up shop. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, but she didn’t want to risk being discovered. She had a flimsy excuse prepared if she was challenged, but knew that it would not stand up to close scrutiny. The last thing she wanted right now was to get another bollocking from the Colonel. She felt that she was on rather thin ice with him as it stood. Any more insubordination from her was likely to see her being put on a charge at the very least.

  She paused outside Doctor Channing’s laboratory – in reality it had been the prison’s medical centre before all of the inmates had been shipped out to other facilities. This was it. The moment of truth. She fought to contain the nervous fluttering in her stomach, then pushed down all the fear and uncertainty and strode through the doors, ready to face the consequences or, if need be, lie through her teeth.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she found that Doctor Channing was not in the room, but regretted it when the stench of the place hit her. The smell of disinfectant did little to disguise the mingled stink of blood and human excrement. The laboratory was disgusting. Surgical implements covered in drying blood covered every surface. Microscope slides were scattered across benches and empty food wrappers rested in pools of gore. Canisters of volatile chemicals were stacked haphazardly on top of one another. Blood-stained curtains were drawn around individual beds, with some of the blood-spatter bearing the unmistakable patterns of arterial spray. This wasn’t a laboratory. Any samples in this room would be hopelessly contaminated – worthless. It was like something out of a horror movie. Or a slaughterhouse. Doctor Channing had clearly lost his grip on what little sanity he had left.

  She reached for a blood-stained stack of medical charts. The writing was largely indecipherable, even for a doctor’s handwriting, but she eventually managed to find Steven’s among the dozens of others. Dozens? What the hell was going on here?

  That question could wait until she found Steven. She checked the bed number on the chart and carefully made her way across the filthy room, making sure to avoid any obvious patches of blood or other bodily fluids, until she came to the curtain around Steven’s bed. Taking a pen from her pocket to avoid touching the soiled plastic sheeting, she pushed them aside, crying out in spite of herself. She thought she’d prepared herself for the worst. In reality, she couldn’t have expected this. It was… inhuman.

  Steven Wilkinson was strapped naked to a bed. No one had bothered to clean him up, or even attend to his most basic of needs. The mattress was stained with blood, urine and excrement. They’d not even bothered to catheterise him. But that was far from the worst thing. It was not even close. The old man had been opened up from crotch to throat – his entire torso cut open and laid bare. Silver clamps prevented the wounds from healing themselves. His ribs had been sawn open and some of them removed to allow Doctor Channing easier access to his internal organs. He had, in essence, been autopsied while he was still alive – and worse – fully conscious. There were no drips beside his bed. No fluids, morphine, blood or antibiotics were being administered. He rolled his eyes towards Rose and there was, for the briefest of moments, a flicker of recognition among the unmistakable clouds of agony that he was clearly in. A tear rolled down his cheek and he mouthed the words. “Help me…”

  Rose backed away, her hand across her mouth. This was worse than anything she’d ever witnessed. It was beyond barbaric. It was absolutely monstrous and she knew that she had to stop it. Colonel Richards, for all his faults, would never have agreed to this. No one deserved to be condemned to this living hell. She didn’t want to look behind the other curtains. She had a pretty good idea of what she would find. Instead she turned and hurried from Doctor Channing’s ‘laboratory’ and made her way back towards Colonel Richards’ office, any pretence of composure long forgotten.

  The door to the Colonel’s office was slightly ajar. She was about to knock, then let herself in, when she heard a v
oice she recognised. The voice of the country’s new interim Prime Minister. A man that had visited the facility at Crickhowell before events had escalated. She paused outside the door and listened into the conversation.

  “How are matters progressing with the relocation, Colonel?”

  “We’ve moved out all essential personnel and most of the pertinent research material. We’ve had to keep a strong enough force in place to avoid suspicion, and of course, Doctors Fisher and Channing are still at the facility. They will be among the unavoidable casualties when the plan goes into effect.”

  “Good. Very good. We can’t take any chances, Colonel. The timing of the strike needs to be precise. The public outcry would be unfortunate if they discovered we were targeting civilians and members of our own armed forces along with the lycanthropes.”

  “Everything is arranged, Sir. When the moon rises on the eleventh, we will have a Hercules inbound from Brize Norton and the thermobaric device will be deployed before any of them have a chance to complete their transformation. The complex and anything within it will be utterly destroyed, but in the event that anything manages to escape the blast, the drones will finish them off. We can then explain that we were left with no alternatives.”

  “Very good, Colonel. What about collateral damage outside of the target area?”

  “I’d expect catastrophic damage to anything within a mile of the target, and probably significant structural damage to anything within five. It might be wise to close the motorway and Doncaster airport to be on the safe side.”

  “Out of the question, Colonel. This cannot appear to have been premeditated. If the press get a sniff of it there will be hell to pay, and I don’t need to remind you that there will be a general election in the next few weeks. Rest assured, Colonel Richards, there will be a rather comfortable position for you in the MOD after this operation concludes.”