The Moon Stealers Box Set. Books 1-4 (Fantasy Dystopian Books for Teenagers)

by Tim Flanagan

  'Why is it changing?' Steven asked.

  'It’s adapting and feeding. I’ve never seen a bacteria grow at such a rate. It almost appears to be evolving before our eyes every time the cells of the bacteria split and divide,' replied Coldred.

  'A recent sample of the local river water near where the meteor was found also shows traces of a similar bacteria,' interrupted Seward.

  'But how could it have got in there? Have any other meteorites been discovered in the area?' Steven noticed how none of the men had any notes; obviously they wanted their meeting kept on a strictly unofficial basis.

  'None yet. But it seems logical that there could be more,’ answered Seward. 'There have also been reports of small animals, rats and water voles, appearing dead along the banks of the river.

  'In the last week we have also received another more worrying report,' Coldred added. 'A local farmer sent some of his cows to the abattoir to be slaughtered for the meat market, but the butcher at the abattoir noticed that the meat inside one of the animals was an unusual colour, almost like it was decaying from the inside. I took some blood samples and the test results showed the same bacteria, but it had changed even more rapidly than the one in our laboratory. These samples also showed some similarities to another bacteria that we already have on Earth. It's called Streptococcus Pyogenes. You may have seen it in the newspapers before; the tabloids call it the flesh-eating bacteria.'

  5. The Statue of Saint Vitus

  Parsley Bottom Church was not far from Max's house so it didn’t take the boys long to reach the broken gate that led into the graveyard. They lay their bikes on the sloped grass verge off the road and looked over the small stone wall.

  'Doesn’t look like anyone’s here,' said Max.

  'No,’ replied Joe. ‘It’s very quiet isn’t it? Why is it that graveyards always seem to be so quiet? I can’t even hear any birds.'

  There was a cold stale that drifted across the graveyard towards Joe and Max, heavy like a cloud of fog floating across the sea. Joe tried to peer further over the wall. The night frost had melted in the morning sun leaving the stone wall cold and wet against his hands.

  'Peter!' shouted Joe. His voice echoed off the side of the church. 'It’s Joe Allen. Where are you?'

  A rustling sound from the grass verge on the opposite side of the lane made Joe and Max turn around suddenly, thinking that Peter was behind them, but they couldn’t see anyone.

  'Come on.' Joe entered first, followed by Max who was slower and more cautious.

  'Peter!' Joe shouted again. 'Are you sure he was coming here?' he asked Max as he looked around.

  'Definitely. Look over there.' Max pointed to the corner of a sleeping bag that poked out from behind a gravestone. They walked round the stone and found a screwed up sleeping bag covered in silvery trails. 'If Peter didn’t stay here, someone else certainly did.'

  'What’s it covered in? Look at that!' Joe prodded a silvery covering of slime with the end of a stick. It was all over the lower part of the sleeping bag as well as some of the gravestones. 'It looks like a family of slugs have been having a party.'

  They followed the slimy trail towards the side of the church nearest to the river. The ground around here appeared to have been dug recently and there were scratch marks in the mud as if a dog had been digging in the wet soil. Some of the ground had been cleared away from the lower stones in the church wall and around the edges of an opening had been created. The slime appeared to be thicker in the entrance to the opening.

  Joe leant down and tried to peer into the hole but the smell that came from inside was harsh and felt like it was burning the back of his nose. He quickly pulled his head away and held the collar of his shirt over his mouth to prevent him from breathing any more.

  'Could you see anything?' asked Max from a safe distance behind.

  'No,' said Joe, 'but it smells really bad in there, it’s too small for anyone to climb into. Maybe a fox fell in and died,' he added unconvinced. They both turned away and started to walk back towards the sleeping bag they had found behind the gravestone, not realising that they were being watched.

  ‘Look over there,’ said Max to Joe, ‘what’s that?’ He pointed towards a brown shape with a red stripe near to the thick wooden door of the church. Max was beginning to feel uncomfortable about being there. He looked around the graveyard hoping that no one had noticed them; the last thing he wanted was to get into trouble.

  ‘Shouldn’t we go back and tell your dad?' Max said hoping Joe would agree.

  As they approached the brown shape, they recognisable it as a teddy bear. Joe picked it up.

  ‘Dudley,’ he read the name on the label that stuck out from behind the red scarf on its neck. ‘Mrs Crisp had said there was bedding and his teddy bear missing from his room.’

  ‘Well, Peter was definitely here then. Can we go now Joe? Graveyards give me the creeps,’ Joe asked, trying not to think about all the dead bodies that were in the ground beneath them.

  ‘Wait, the church doors are open. He may have changed his mind and gone to sleep inside instead of staying out here.’ The surface of the wooden doors was dry and old, cracks cut deep into the wood like claw marks on a tree. It was studded with black iron rivets, some of which had gone rusty and leaked a red stain onto the wood beneath them. There was a small plastic sign screwed onto the door above the handle telling them that the church was closed and that visitors should go to Manor Cottage to obtain the key. But today the door already appeared to be unlocked.

  Joe pushed against the heavy door which, despite its weight, swung smoothly inwards. The metal knocker made a loud clang that echoed inside the empty church as it swung back and hit against the door.

  Joe took a step inside the entrance to the church. The air was cold and slightly damp. ‘Come on. Let’s check in here. If there’s no sign of him we’ll go,’ he said to Max who was still standing outside.

  ‘Are you sure we’re allowed in there, the sign says it’s closed? It’s not a Sunday or anything, so maybe we shouldn’t go in. What if someone finds us? They may think we’re vandalising it or something. My dad would kill me!’ said Max trying to think of as many reasons as he could for not going inside.

  ‘But the door’s unlocked. Don’t worry so much. We’re only trying to find Peter,’ Joe reassured Max as he pushed the door shut before opening the inner door to the church.

  Max took small steps behind Joe who was now stood behind rows and rows of wooden benches. On the table in front of Max were hymn books stacked neatly, as well as an empty metal collection plate and some printed sheets of paper with information about the church. The air inside the tall space smelt stale and dusty.

  ‘Peter,’ shouted Joe once again, but slightly quieter than he had outside.

  ‘Careful where you’re standing,’ Max warned Joe as he looked down at the floor. Beneath Joe’s trainers was a clear slime on the floor that was similar to what had been around the hole and sleeping bag outside.

  ‘It goes down here,’ said Joe as he pointed to a trail of slime that led between the benches. ‘Come on.’

  Max lifted up the bottom of his shoes to check he hadn’t walked in anything then followed, being much more cautious about where he put his feet than Joe.

  The giant empty cavern of the inside of the church made each sound echo around them. Occasionally they heard the odd creak from the wooden beams supporting the roof above which made them look up nervously. Carved stone faces looked back down at the two boys disapprovingly and the stained glass window at the far end of the church cast twisted coloured shapes onto the stone walls.

  The trail of slime continued towards a separate part of the building on the right of the church where Joe now stood in front of a large stone statue. A lot of slime was gathered around the base of a statue of a young boy. Around the boy’s head soft faced angels flew weightlessly, frozen in stone. The boy seemed to have the lower part of his body inside a round pot with solid stone flames licking up from around
the bottom.

  ‘Saint Vitus,’ said Max reading from the brass plaque at the base of the statue. ‘Who’s he? And why is he in a cooking pot?’

  Joe looked down at the slime around the base of the statue, ignoring Max’s questions.

  ‘Well, it looks like Peter’s not here either,’ Max added hoping to put an end to their search.

  ‘Why would there be a lot more of that slime around this statue and not the others?’ thought Joe aloud.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe some dogs came into the church and dribbled on the floor?’ Max was getting nervous again and wanted to go as soon as possible, so he just said the first thing that entered his head. ‘Maybe they all slept in here.’

  ‘It all seems a bit strange to me. It smells like the slime from around that hole outside. And anyway, how would a dog open the front door?’

  ‘Well, someone must have let the dogs in and maybe they followed the person here? What are you doing now?’

  Joe had started to climb onto the stone base, but his trainers were slippery from standing on the slime so he kicked them off. The loud slapping sound they made as they hit the floor rebounded off the church walls making Max jump and nervously look around. Joe managed to get his left foot onto the thick lip of the cooking pot and push himself up until he was standing behind the statue with his arms around the neck and shoulders of the stone boy. First he looked down towards Max, who was now telling him that standing on statues was a really bad idea and God would probably punish them both for it, but then he looked around the statue itself. There was a mark on the wall just above his head. It looked like a badly drawn circle with several lines sticking out from the edge. He traced his finger in the shallow scratch then noticed that there were also two scratched letters inside the circle. Although there was a slight shadow cast underneath the wall, Joe was sure that the letters were P and C.

  Where Joe’s own feet were balanced on the statue he could see some muddy marks and down at the base of the cooking pot behind the statue, was what looked like a chocolate bar wrapper.

  ‘Peter’s definitely been here, his initials are scratched on the wall and there’s a chocolate wrapper down here.’

  ‘The wrapper could have been there for ages,’ replied Max.

  ‘But there are muddy foot marks here too, and the mud’s still soft.’ Joe almost slipped off the statue as he heard the clang of the metal door knocker bang against the outer door.

  Someone was entering the church.

  ‘Come on,’ said Max quietly as Joe leapt off the statue to land next to his friend. He quickly grabbed his trainers from the floor then they both ducked down so they could look down the length of the church towards the entrance from beneath the benches. Joe could feel the pulse in his neck thumping so hard that it made his head shake. They couldn’t see anyone but they could hear that someone was now inside the church by the loud wheezing breaths they took and the knocking sound of a wooden stick against the stone floor.

  ‘What are we going to do?' asked Max. 'I told you we weren’t allowed in here.’

  Joe lifted his head and peered over the benches. A figure of an old man slowly walked into view; he was dressed in a neat brown suit and had a white beard that rested on his chest.

  ‘Who’s he?' whispered Max into Joe’s ear.

  ‘I don’t know, but Mrs Crisp said she had seen a white bearded man watching them. Do you think that could be him?’

  A faint whisper echoed near to where Joe and Max were.

  ‘Pssst.’

  Joe looked at Max with a confused look on his face and silently mouthed the words, ‘what was that?’ Max shrugged his shoulders. He had heard it too.

  ‘Hey!’ The whisper was slightly louder and Joe realised where it was coming from. On the opposite side to their hiding-place was a small wooden door where a red-haired girl was signalling for them to come over to her.

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Max.

  ‘Whoever she is, I think I’d rather go with her than stay here. There must be another way out.’

  To get to the door would mean crossing the centre of the length of the church, where no benches would hide them from the man's view.

  They waited.

  Joe watched the man walk to the table with the hymn books on but then he disappeared behind a thick stone pillar. A few seconds later he reappeared at the hymn book bench again but a sheet of paper fluttered down to land on the floor. Joe froze. With an obvious effort, the man slowly knelt down, resting his body weight on the stick whilst his other hand scratched at the corner of the paper to try and lift it.

  This was their chance. Quietly Joe and Max crawled along the length of the bench then darted across the open central area to hide behind the benches on the other side of the church. On their knees they then crawled towards the red-haired girl who opened the small door she was hiding being and let them in.

  Back at the hymn book table the man suddenly stopped wheezing and lifted his head above the bench to look intently towards the small door that Joe and Max had just passed through. The face was old and wrinkled with small blue eyes staring out from underneath thick white eyebrows but, despite the appearance of the aged body, there was an inner strength that seemed to radiate from him. He took a long sniff of the air before standing upright and following the trail of slime down the centre of the church towards the statue.

  Joe and Max ran down a narrow passageway, towards daylight that came in through another small door. No one dared say anything until they were out in the fresh air, then Max let out a long gasp of nervous breath.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Joe to the red-headed girl. He was still holding his trainers.

  ‘You're welcome,’ she said smiling. ‘I’m Scarlet. I saw you looking around the graveyard from up in that tree.' She pointed to the wooded area across the river. 'That’s my dad’s land over there. You looked like you had lost something, so I thought I’d come over to see if I can help. What’s wrong with your trainers?’

  Joe looked down at them. The rubber sole of the trainers looked like it was melting. He scraped them against the side of a gravestone leaving a trail of soft black rubber on the edge.

  ‘It must be from the slime you stood in,’ Max said to Joe, who was now wiping them on some wet grass. All that was left of the sole was a thin layer of rubber where, in patches, it was bare to the white lining on the inside.

  ‘I wonder where Peter's gone?’ said Joe.

  6. Newton Rise Abattoir

  Three miles away from Parsley Bottom on the road to Harrogate was the farm town of Newton Rise. The farmer's markets, which was held in the main square every Wednesday had become a tourist attraction in the summer where everything from local honey and fresh breads to prize-winning cattle and waxed jackets could be bought.

  On the outskirts of town was the old abattoir, a boring grey concrete building protected by a high boundary wall and black iron gates that barred the entrance. At the front of the building were two large shutters big enough to admit lorries, whilst on the right side a covered walkway led from a field into the main building. By contrast the interior of the building shone white and gleamed with the steel machinery.

  In the staff canteen a man sat hunched over a cup of steaming tea at the first table nearest the doors. There weren’t many people in the canteen at this time of the afternoon and he was happy to have some time away from his work colleagues to rest his weary body on the plastic chair. He had already tried to eat some biscuits but today he couldn’t keep anything inside his stomach, it seemed to be permanently tight like someone had reached inside him and wouldn’t stop squeezing.

  He pulled a tissue from his trouser pocket and wiped his nose. Before returning it to his pocket he checked it to look for more signs of blood.

  Gilbert Rackham had been working at the abattoir since he was just seventeen years old. He didn’t particularly enjoy the work he did but at least it paid his bills and kept food on the family table. He would probably keep working there until the day he retired
. But, the work had changed over the last few years and instead of being an important part of the market town, the abattoir was becoming a symbol for animal cruelty and on occasions Gilbert’s children had been bullied by their school friends who didn’t agree with their father’s job.

  As he sat at the table fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers, he thought back to the strange events of the last few weeks. It had started when he noticed something odd about a cow that had come from Parsley Bottom. So much had happened since then. After four hours the cow had been removed from the building and he had been interviewed twice by official looking men, as well as having all of his clothes removed and swabs taken from his skin and fingernails. He had asked why so much precaution was necessary, but no one would give him an answer. He was just forced to do as he was told.

  Gilbert tried to think about the meat he had seen and what it was that made it so different to that of a normal cow, apart from the dark colouring of the flesh inside. All of the other cows from the same herd had seemed normal. So why was this one so different?

  His mind wandered back to the canteen he was sat in. He didn’t know what was happening to him recently. He seemed to have no energy despite wanting to eat more than usual and he had a constant ache in his legs and arms. Every morning it was getting worse, but he didn’t want to mention it to his wife; it was probably just his age or maybe he was coming down with the flu. The skin on the back of his hands was getting thinner showing the bones clearly beneath.