Blood Moon

by Graeme Reynolds

  Phil gave him a look devoid of all hope. “Save my wife, Steven,” he said, and removed his zippo lighter from his pocket. The fumes in the air were thick; the light distorted by the flammable chemicals. The creatures surged across the room, recognising the danger they were in. Steven gave his friend one last look, wanting to remember the brave man who had come here to save him, then threw himself at the laboratory window.

  The glass exploded around him as he twisted in mid-air so his body was facing along the corridor. He hit the ground in a full run, his claws sinking into the cheap linoleum, shredding the plastic, hurling him away from the laboratory and the horrors it contained. He registered Phil’s screams as the beasts fell upon him. Then, for a fraction of a second, there was a horrible silence as the air in the corridor rushed past him. It was as if the room he’d escaped was taking a breath, inhaling every last scrap of oxygen available to it. Steven knew he’d run out of time. He had no chance of getting clear. He threw himself at the door of a supply cupboard to his left, just as the fireball tore through the building.

  The world was filled with noise and searing pain. Steven’s fur ignited. He breathed chemical fire into his lungs, burning his mouth and throat. His flesh began to bubble, crack and blister. He could no longer see anything other than a terrible redness, and realised his eyeballs had started to boil in his skull. The pain was terrible. Even after the torture Doctor Channing had inflicted on him, he’d never experienced anything like this. The feeling of being slowly burned alive while his wolf side did its best to heal the massive damage. There were limits even to his regenerative abilities, and right at that moment, Steven Wilkinson wished for death. For the sweet, cool oblivion of the grave instead of the endless burning of his flesh. He was in Hell. Condemned to an eternity of agony as he combusted and regenerated, only for the new flesh to be stripped away in the conflagration.

  Steven lay in the burning building and waited for death to claim him. When his eyeballs grew back in a white flash of unmitigated agony, he knew that he was not going to be that lucky. Smoke and heat dried out his eyes, but he was unable to blink to clear them. His eyelids had not grown back yet. He needed to get outside, away from the inferno that had been Lindholme Prison. He forced his ruined body to stand, each second more painful than the last, every movement, no matter how slight, sending a cascade of torture through his seared nerve endings as he drove himself to move through the blazing corridors and the thick, acrid smoke to where his tormented wolf sensed clean, cold air.

  He remembered his promise to Phil, and this spurred him on despite the protests of his broken body. His friend had sacrificed himself to destroy Doctor Channing’s monsters. He had only asked that Steven save the life of his wife. And Steven had no intention of reneging on that promise. He picked up his pace, dodging burning timbers crashing from the ceiling, and running past the mangled corpses of anyone unfortunate enough to have been in the building at the time of the explosion until he saw a glimmer of starlight through the flames. He redoubled his efforts, almost crying out in relief as the frigid air soothed his burning flesh. He leaped out of the remains of Lindholme Prison into the middle of a war zone.

  ***

  The Merlin helicopter banked sharply to the right, allowing Paul his first proper view of the battleground that Lindholme detention facility had become. It was so much worse than he could ever have imagined. The place was swarming with werewolves. And not just the four-legged variety he’d encountered before. Huge, muscular bipeds scaled the observation towers, despite their occupant’s best efforts to defend their positions. He saw a man literally torn in half by one creature as he emptied his magazine into another. The unfortunate soldier’s torso fell twenty feet to the bloodstained ground, trailing intestines behind it like the streamers on a kite. The few remaining troops covering the entrance were doing their best, but for every one of the monsters their weapons cut down, another two seemed to take its place. One of the wooden barrack blocks exploded in a fireball, swiftly followed by another, while explosions erupted from within the swarming masses that surged across the exercise area. Those were the last of the drone’s armaments, he knew. That meant the troops left on the ground, and those within the helicopters, were the only thing preventing the werewolves from escaping. If they should reach a populated area like Doncaster, the damage they would inflict really did not bear thinking about.

  The machine guns on their helicopter opened up, tearing into the werewolves scaling the towers and clambering across the roofs of any buildings still standing. High velocity silver rounds shredded flesh, leaving the broken, naked corpses of men, women and children to lie in dark pools of their own blood. It was a slaughter, but there were so many of them that it felt as if they were trying to stop the ocean with a bucket. Two hundred survivors from High Moor, plus the captured pack werewolves, made a formidable fighting force.

  A huge fireball erupted from the main prison building, blowing the doors completely off their hinges and shattering the reinforced windows. The shockwave rocked the helicopters and sent most of the soldiers at ground level sprawling face down into the snow, where they were torn to ribbons by the advancing lycanthropes.

  Colonel Richards screamed into his headset, “Get us down there, now!” The pilots obeyed the command and dropped the helicopters in formation outside the ruins of the prison. The Special Forces soldiers disembarked and took up firing positions as the helicopters took to the air once more and their heavy machine guns rained death onto the compound.

  Paul pushed away any fear or doubt. This was it. Game time. He cocked his SA-80 and began firing at anything with fur. It was exhilarating. And with every werewolf his rounds took down, he began to count. One… Two… Three…

  The troops began to move forward, towards the compound, firing at any targets they could while the other squads provided covering fire. The helicopters circled overhead, the tracer rounds from their machine guns lighting up the air like fireflies. Paul realised then that the tide had turned. If they kept this up there was a good chance they might actually survive the night.

  ***

  Sharon honestly had no idea what she was doing. The wolf side of her nature urged her on, its instincts finely tuned to deliver fast, efficient killing blows. Sharon couldn’t allow that to happen. She would never forgive herself if she let it take over and seriously injured her niece, or worse, killed her. Unfortunately, Mandy was not under any such constraints. Vicious talons ripped through the air, narrowly missing Sharon as she weaved, feigned attacks and dodged the ripostes from the enraged Moonstruck. She barrelled into Mandy, sending her crashing to the floor, and clamped her jaws around the girl’s neck, applying just enough pressure to cause pain but not enough to do any permanent damage.

  Lie still! Stay down! She willed, but instead Mandy’s arm lashed out, her claws leaving four savage wounds in her side. The impact sent Sharon sailing across the compound. She could taste blood in her mouth and her ribs burned in agony. The wounds were not healing, but she didn’t think Mandy had inflicted any serious damage. Not yet, anyway. She struggled to her feet just in time to see the moonstruck hurl itself towards her. There was nothing she could do to avoid the teeth and claws of the beast that had been her niece. She closed her eyes. Don’t blame yourself, love. It’s not your fault. Then the building she’d escaped from erupted in a massive fireball.

  Wooden splinters the size of her forearm filled the air, impaling Mandy like a bug. The moonstruck was carried by the blast over the top of Sharon’s head before crashing into the remains of the perimeter fence. It howled in pain and fury, struggling to get to its feet while slashing at the wooden shards protruding from its body.

  Sharon scrambled to her feet and began rushing to her fallen niece’s side, but then stopped herself. What was she going to do? Help her? Remove the wooden stakes so Mandy would be free to attack her once more? There was no restraining her, or reasoning with her. Wherever Mandy was, she was not in control of the savage monster before her. The creat
ure that had been a fifteen year old girl would stop at nothing. It would kill, and keep killing as long as there was something for it to kill. There was only one thing Sharon could do to prevent her from hurting anyone. One mercy she could grant the girl. There was no other choice.

  The moonstruck thrashed on the ground, but only succeeded in driving the splinters further into its flesh. Sharon’s heart broke, but she steeled her resolve and allowed her feral instincts to guide her, shutting off as much of her humanity as she could. Letting her wolf do what was necessary. She stalked closer, waiting for a moment to strike. Her muscles tensed, and she drew back her lips to reveal her own lethal fangs.

  A burst of automatic weapons fire cut through the air between Mandy and herself, the snow erupting in a series of small explosions. Sharon could smell blood in the air and then saw the hole in Mandy’s shoulder. Her niece’s body began to spasm, contorting as bones realigned themselves. The moonstruck’s muzzle shortened and the terrible bone daggers retreated back into its mouth. Hair pushed its way back into Mandy’s pores and the creature screamed in utter misery. It took only a few seconds, and the monster was replaced by a naked girl, bleeding from a ragged wound in her shoulder and from the shards of wood protruding from her body.

  Mandy looked up at her, her face a mask of agony. “Auntie Sharon? Help me! It hurts. It…”

  She never got the chance to finish the sentence. The front of Mandy’s head exploded in a spray of blood, bone and brains. Sharon watched in horror as her niece’s head seemed to deflate like a burst balloon. That pretty face, so much like her sister had been at her age, erased. Utterly destroyed. Sharon felt the loss and rage wash over her like a red wave. She howled, and when her lament had ended, there was very little of Sharon Fletcher left. Only the wolf remained.

  ***

  John spent an entire half second looking at the thirty moonstruck before him before deciding on a course of action. Ignoring the blazing pain from his still healing injuries, he threw himself away from the door, dropped to all fours and tried to put as much distance between the werewolves and himself as he could.

  The compound had descended into absolute chaos. Two of the buildings to John’s left exploded in rapid succession. Another missile tore into a crowd of moonstruck as they funnelled through the main gate, while the final Hellfire missile detonated at the rear of the compound where the pack werewolves had gathered. The air was filled with gunfire and the screams of the dying – both human and werewolf. Bodies covered the ground, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds or torn to pieces by the onslaught of missiles from the Reaper drones. The military forces were not doing much better. Moonstruck swarmed over them like a plague of locusts, scaling the observation towers and butchering them where they stood. The battle seemed to be evenly matched until five helicopters roared over the compound, spraying death from their heavy machine guns, tearing through pack wolves and moonstruck indiscriminately. John knew at that point they were doomed. A werewolf, no matter how dangerous, could not hope to fight against an airborne threat like this. The helicopters landed between the burning prison and the detention facility, and armed reinforcements raced from their holds before they took to the sky again and continued their slaughter.

  John, however, had other problems to consider. He didn’t need to look behind him to know that the moonstruck were hot on his heels. If he slowed his pace even a little, they would fall on him and tear him to pieces in seconds. His injuries were healing, but even on his best day he could not face so many.

  Face them. No. But perhaps he could aim them.

  He leaped to his left, towards the perimeter fence, and charged through the burning hole where one of the missiles had exploded a few minutes earlier. Attacking the soldiers head on was suicide. They were moving forward in squads, covering each other’s advance with trained military precision. A direct assault would be met with a hail of silver bullets from automatic weapons that would make short work of both him and the pursuing monsters behind him. But they didn’t seem to be covering their flanks at all. He increased his speed, angling himself away from the compound, then back towards the attacking troops. The thought of consciously killing another human being sickened him, but at this point he really didn’t have a choice. It was kill or be killed, and if he did nothing, every single werewolf in that compound was going to die.

  He got to within about thirty feet of the advancing soldiers right flank before they noticed him. By then it was far too late. Roaring with feral rage, John Simpson led his group of thirty moonstruck straight into the heart of the attacking soldiers, abandoning what remained of his humanity in the process.

  The moonstruck hit the soldiers like a wave crashing against a rock. John could smell the panic emanating from the soldiers. Silver bullets whined past his head but he didn’t stop to think about the danger to himself. The moonstruck had, for the moment, forgotten all about him and were tearing the soldiers apart. In their terror, any pretence at organisation had disappeared. Weapons were discharged seemingly at random, with as many rounds finding soldiers as werewolves. John didn’t stop to think. He gave himself over to his wolf, tearing throats out with his claws, spilling entrails across the blood-stained snow. Losing himself utterly in the slaughter he was committing. And, despite the last shreds of his conscience screaming at the back of his mind, he found that he loved it.

  ***

  Marie watched the battle unfold, tears streaming down her cheeks. A conflict like this had its own particular rhythm – an ebb and flow. Timing was everything in a situation like this. If she acted too soon, before all of the players were in the field, she stood to lose it all. But still, even in her long years on field teams, she had never witnessed anything like this. Even the massacre in Bosnia all those years ago was nothing in comparison to the slaughter taking place at the detention centre. So many lives lost. Her every instinct had urged her to act once she’d been certain that Daniel had managed to prevent the thermobaric bomb hitting the prison, but she’d known there would be reinforcements. It was only now, with the arrival of the helicopter gunships and the deployment of the Special Forces, that she was ready to make her move.

  She turned to Melissa, who stood eagerly beside her like a guard dog straining at its chain. “Now. Go.”

  Melissa grinned and let the transformation begin. The rest of her team, the ones responsible for the butchery in High Moor, followed suit and raced towards the battle below. Marie knew they wouldn’t stand a chance with the gunships still circling, raining fire on everything that moved. If they’d sent something like an Apache in, there would have been no chance at all. But the Merlins were primarily transport vehicles. Which meant they were vulnerable to small arms fire.

  She hefted one of the sniper rifles and lay prone in the snow. Beside her, Andre, one of the few field trained pack members, picked up the other and trained it on one of the Merlins. She allowed her breathing to fall into a steady, predictable pattern, following the movement of the aircraft until she was able to predict its path. Then she held her breath and squeezed the trigger, taking satisfaction in the shattering of the reinforced glass and the spray of blood and brains from the pilot’s head. Andre’s weapon barked less than a second after hers, and both helicopters veered sharply off before colliding with the burning prison. She already had the next Merlin in her sights as her first target exploded, and within moments, it too traced a steep downward trajectory before erupting in a fireball. Andre’s rifle went off twice more, and the last of the helicopters fell from the sky. She didn’t take any time to relish the victory, however. Melissa’s team had already reached the perimeter of the compound and were slaughtering soldiers and moonstruck alike with unrelenting savagery. She put down the sniper rifle, picked up an AK-47 and turned to the similarly armed members of her field team. Her trained, silver immune field team.

  “Come on, what are you waiting for? It’s time to get our people out of there. Let’s see how the bastards cope with opposition that shoots back.”

&n
bsp; As one, the werewolves shouldered their assault rifles and raced towards the battle below, with Marie leading the charge. They were going to pay for what they’d done to her people. They were all going to pay.

  ***

  It was all going to hell. Paul honestly had no idea what could have happened to the helicopters, but one thing was for sure: without air support, the chances of them making it out of here alive had dropped to almost zero. The heavy machine guns had torn the monsters to pieces, but now that all five of the helicopters had been taken out it meant the surviving military personnel were very much on their own. There was no chance of an evacuation. The only way any of them stood a chance was to make sure every last werewolf lay dead. And Paul found he didn’t mind one little bit. If he was going to die, he’d take as many of the fucking things with him as he could.

  He strode through the compound, rifle shouldered, firing at anything that moved. The air was filled with smoke and the thick coppery stench of blood, mingled with burning aviation fuel. Indistinct shapes flitted in the shadows. A pair of phosphorescent green eyes became visible through the smoke. Paul put a silver bullet right between them, feeling immense satisfaction as they winked out. He called on his training and let it guide his aim. One shot, one kill. He didn’t have enough ammunition to adopt a ‘spray and pray’ approach like the yanks tended to do. By his reckoning, he had around fifty silver bullets left. He was determined to make sure that amounted to fifty dead werewolves. If there were any left after that, he’d face his fate without fear. If nothing else, it would mean seeing his family again.