Under a Ghostly Moon (Jerry Moon Supernatural Thrillers Book 1)

by William Moore

  Chapter 2

  Anna

  It was ten past eight by the time Moon entered his building, which was a handsome, four-storey, Bath sandstone edifice that had once housed a wealthy merchant's family and servants. Now it was owned on a buy-to-let mortgage by a shady individual who Moon suspected had underworld connections. Ideally, Moon would rather not have to deal with this dodgy character but because of the inflated state of the housing market he had found that could not afford to buy his own place on a nurse's salary, when he returned to Bristol after his training. At least his rent was manageable; in some parts of the city people who the mortgage companies considered too poor to afford a mortgage were forced to rent for twice the amount that a mortgage would have cost them. Moon had never been able to fathom the logic behind this.

  As he climbed up to the second floor landing he peered a little nervously through the banisters. To his relief no one was there so he quickly traversed that section of staircase and unlocked the door to his flat. A faint fragrance of violets tingled in his nostrils and a tiny, plaintive voice echoed up the stairwell, "Jerry, come and play!" This was what he had feared.

  "Hi, Anna," replied Moon with a weary smile, peering over the banisters to where a pair of huge brown eyes hovered in an indistinct cloud of face shaped mist. "I'm sorry, I can't play at the moment; I've been working all night."

  "Oh, pooh!" said Anna, and Moon caught the hint of ringlets shaking in agitation on either side of her face. "No-one ever plays with me now!"

  "I'll come down and talk with you later," he promised.

  As he turned to enter his flat Anna's querying vibe floated up to him. "Why did the big girl hurt herself?" Drat, he had never found out how this worked but spirits seemed to be able to sense when someone else had died.

  "It was a mistake, mostly, Anna. When you're that age emotions seem far too important, they can make you very silly sometimes."

  "Well then! I'm glad I'll never be that age," replied the tiny ghost emphatically. And that was the reason why Moon tried to avoid her. Lovely as she was, Anna's own personal tragedy always left Moon feeling sad when they were together. This morning, the raw memory of Shelly's suicide made this even more poignant, chaffing like a raw wound and making him relive all the emotions he had hoped to smooth over before he slept.

  Anna would never be older than four because, some time in the early nineteen hundreds, her father had thrown her downstairs in a drunken rage. During the early days of his psychic awakening, while he was still trying to validate his gift and desperate to prove that he wasn't going crazy, Moon had found confirmation of their sad tale in the local archives. He was only glad that he seldom had to brave the fourth-floor landing where the guilty drunk had hanged himself in a fit of grief and remorse. His restless spirit now made life a misery for the upstairs tenants, who thought he was a combination of bad wiring and very noisy mice.

  With a final goodbye to Anna, who poked her tongue out at him as he blew her a kiss, Moon stumbled into his flat. He was dead tired, and wanted to get some decent sleep in before the evening so he would be well refreshed and fit to pursue his true passion in life, which was journalism. Moon hoped he'd eventually be able to make a living from his efforts as a freelance journalist. He had already had a couple of features printed in Bristol's entertainment magazine, Venue, and had even managed to have one small article accepted by the Guardian newspaper. He tended to view his nursing career as primarily financing his eventual rise to media stardom. Impressed by a recent article he had written for them about the lifestyles of the travelling traders who toured the local music festivals, Venue had contacted him earlier in the week to ask if he would write them a two-pager on the local Goth sub-culture. Eager for the work, Moon had agreed, so he now had a deadline to meet.

  It was a sunny Friday in late March and bright sunlight filtered through Moon's bedroom curtains making him sleep fitfully. The racket made by the road works outside drilled through his earplugs and added to his discomfort, so he eventually woke at a quarter past two from a dream in which Shelly and Gordy twirled faster and faster in a staccato demon's dance, while he tried frantically and unsuccessfully to break them apart. It was unseasonably warm and sleeping in the sun blazing through the curtains had left him sweaty and dehydrated. Thirst and an overfull bladder propelled him out of bed and he shuffled zombie-like to the bathroom for double relief. A shave, a shower and a few minutes in his kitchenette later and he was happily ensconced in a dangerously prolapsed armchair, watching afternoon TV and eating sugar-coated kids' cereal dry from the box while washing it down from a pint mug of tea with Dennis the Menace grinning from one side of it. On the telly Quincy had just watched a dozen police cadets faint while he autopsied a corpse and Moon grinned for probably the thousandth time at the joke, which accompanied the show's credits. Being able to watch Quincy on afternoon TV was one of the things that made working night shifts not too bad.

  After Quincy finished, Moon went out to do a bit of shopping and to get some money from a nearby cash point. He returned home to potter about, do a few household chores and then play a few levels of his latest computer game. Later, he planned to visit a local Goth venue to start his research. Anna was absent both when he went out and returned, having gone wherever ghosts go during the full daylight hours. On the whole spirits seemed to prefer the night to full daytime and the colder months to summer. He had a theory that perhaps solar radiation interfered with their ability to manifest.

  When he had first begun to perceive the spirit world, he had tried to find some decent guidelines on how to cope with this new intrusion into his life but had eventually given up in disgust at the sheer volume of utter twaddle written on the subject. If it wasn’t written by an old biddy with sugarplum fantasies about the afterlife it would be by some oily American con-man out to make a quick profit by starting his own cult. Moon was a scientist at heart, he liked cold, hard facts, but it seemed that a person's experience of these phenomena was invariably coloured by their own beliefs. He had even spent a few weeks with the Spiritualists, but he had quickly been put off by the religious emphasis of their teachings. Eventually, he realised that he would have to make his way through this particular maze alone. He knew that he would probably end up colouring his findings with his own views just like everyone else, but at least they would be his views and not someone else's.

  So far it had been very confusing. For instance there seemed to be no predictable set of reasons why someone would become a ghost. The 'unfinished business' concept was a loose explanation but, while some cases, like Anna and her father, were understandable, other spirits just seemed to hang around to see what happened. For instance, Moon had been surprised on one ward meeting to find that the girl wearing a sister's uniform who sat in a corner during handover and said very little was actually the shade of a ward sister who had died seven years earlier but who liked to look in to make sure everything was running properly. Perhaps dedication to work could become a kind of 'unfinished business' in itself, he mused before he was rudely drawn back into the present by the sight of his barbarian hero being hacked to pieces by ferocious skeletons. "Damn!" he swore, reloading his last save game. "Even in games, I can’t avoid my life being complicated by dead people!"

  Later, Moon pondered what to wear to the Goth band-fest he was going to that night. The venue was the Hangman's Rest, an old coach inn near the modern day centre of Bristol. It was a notorious hang-out for the Bristol Goths and he didn't want to stand out too much. He knew the general Goth colour scheme was black and silver, with a touch of blood red or purple, all combined with a twist of dark fantasy and a hint of vampirism. He regarded himself in the half-length mirror set in his wardrobe door. He was below medium height, stocky in build and had thick, wavy sandy-coloured hair, a genetic heirloom from his Scottish grandmother, cut short so as not to offend the older patients. There was very little dark or Byronic about him. He knew the Goths went in for piercings and tattoos and he did fare a little better on that co
unt, as his left ear was pierced, and also his tongue, which had been done as the result of a drunken dare when he was a student. Tattoos again came under the 'don't upset the patients' category, besides he had been thoroughly put off tattoos when he was on a student placement in a liver transplant ward. Many of the Hepatitis C patients were heavily tattooed and he had wondered how many had caught the disease by that route.

  Eventually, he opted for a plain black T-shirt, black jeans and a black leather biking jacket, which he had not worn for several years. He still felt he didn't look very Gothy but at least he had made an effort. Slipping a small Dictaphone into his pocket, he exited his flat, greeting Anna cheerfully as he headed down the stairs. The small ghost was engrossed in a game of some kind. Moon looked over her shoulder and was unsettled to find her playing with four glowing blue globes like the ones he had seen earlier. "What are they, Anna?" he asked. "Do you know?"

  "Pretty," vibed Anna, "I like them."

  "I've seen them before," said Moon, trying to be patient. "But I don't know what they are. I'd like to know, Anna."

  Anna shrugged. "I don't know? They're friendly, see they like it when I tickle them." Anna caught one of the globes and tickled it, making it glow brighter suddenly and increase to nearly twice its size for an instant. Anna giggled. "And they remember things - old things - some of them not very nice." She shook her head so her ringlets jiggled.

  "I know," replied Moon. "Can you touch them, Anna, or do your fingers go through them?"

  "Oh, yes I can touch them. They feel like icy feathers."

  So they were like ghosts, thought Moon, or at least made of the same stuff, whatever that was. "Thanks, Anna; you've been a very helpful girl."

  Anna stared quizzically at Moon's retreating back. For some reason her new pets had decided to follow Moon to the Hangman's Rest. A very adult expression of concern invaded her chubby face as she stood and smoothed the nebulous frills of her lacy dress with her tiny hands. "Oh, Jerry Moon," she said to herself. "I don't know what you're getting yourself into but I think you're going to need some serious help." Then she shrugged moodily and went off to tease Mrs Foley, the middle aged widowed bank clerk, who rented the flat directly beneath Moon's.

  Chapter 3

  The Hangman's Rest was situated on one of the main roads into the centre of Bristol, within walking distance of Moon's flat. The light was just reaching the cusp of dusk and true darkness when he strolled into the pub's car park, which used to be an enclosed courtyard and still looked like it should be a refuge for coaches and horses, rather than the cars and a motley collection of motorbikes which were parked along two sides of the pub. Moon usually avoided visiting the place because the local gallows had once stood nearby and with his 'gift' he was never sure which of the clientele were alive and which were deceased villains revisiting their old drinking grounds. That it was now a favourite dive for Goths and bikers made this task all the more difficult.

  Over the pub doorway hung a sign in garish colours, depicting a gallows outlined by moonlight from which a rope extended into the foreground, where it was tied in a noose around the neck of a grinning corpse. The half-rotten cadaver winked out at the beholder and held up a tankard of Ostrich beer. Beneath was the caption: 'Worth coming back for!'

  Moon thought this was in exceptionally bad taste, especially because the corpse was the spitting image of one of the resident spooks, who was currently leaning on the drainpipe beside by the pub door and eyeing up the local Goth chicks as they entered.

  The entrance queue looked like a 'Transylvanian rejects' convention. Moon wondered what they wore during the week; he doubted if many of those with day jobs got away with wearing that sort of costume at work. Most of the people present were teenagers or in their early twenties, but Moon was surprised to see quite a few older people there. Then, perhaps he shouldn't have been. According to his research, Goth had risen out of the ashes of the punk and new romantic genres in the early eighties, so it was perfectly possible that two generations were queuing up to enjoy the show.

  When he got to the door an anaemic-looking girl with long, dyed black hair scrutinised him doubtfully from behind a beer stained table, which served as a makeshift ticket counter. Moon wondered vaguely how these Goth chicks always managed to look so pale. Was it all make-up or did they really sleep all day and shun the light? "Sorry," she said, "but I can't let just anyone in, we've had some trouble."

  This completely bemused Moon, who was used to just wandering in to see pub bands in Bristol with little hassle except for the occasional entrance fee. He wondered whether his lack of piercings and tattoos and his general ordinariness had somehow marked him out for this treatment. "Well, I'm not out to cause trouble, I'm just here to see the bands, like everyone else."

  "Yes," replied the girl. Her eyes, rimmed with purple eye shadow, seemed huge and dark, half hidden as they were, behind a spider web pattern veil held in place with a hairclip fashioned like a crushed purple rose. Moon's eyes dwelled with momentary fascination on a small black widow spider tattoo which seemed to be in mid-scurry up the left side of her cleavage. She was actually quite plump, he realised - it was amazing what pale make-up and good corsetry could contribute towards achieving that essential half-starved undead look. "But, like, do you know anyone here?"

  Moon struggled to remember the name of the tall, leather- clad Goth who, after several free pints offered for the sake of research, had suggested he try the Friday band night for a slice of Goth culture. 'Spuggy', was it, or 'Sproggy'? Oh, yes: "Stroggy! He told me this gig was worth a look in."

  There was a gasp from a skinny girl behind the ticket seller. "Stroggy? But he arranged this gig. He's the lead singer for Stoker's Kiss. You'd better let him in, Avril!"

  Avril shrugged. "Five quid then. Give us your hand." Moon handed over the fiver and smiled at Avril's friend while the back of his hand was stamped with what, on examination, turned out to be a black pentagram.

  Avril's friend grinned back, exposing a set of gleaming white fangs. The effect would have had greater effect if she was more physically striking. Unfortunately, with her slight figure, long hair and dark eyes, she reminded him of an over-friendly spaniel who had, long ago, fallen in love with his left leg while he was visiting an ex girlfriend's parents for tea. As Moon entered the pub she came up to him and asked, "So, how come you know Stroggy?"

  "I'm doing an article on local Goth culture," he replied, "Stroggy helped me a bit with my research." He pointed over to the bar. "Can I get you a drink?"

  "I'll have a Green Fairy, White," she replied with another spiky grin. "My name's Sonia, by the way."

  "Jerry Moon," he replied, having to shout over the death metal band who were playing first set. "Most people just call me 'Moon'."

  "I like Jerry. It's a friendly name." She grinned again, exposing double canines on either side of her mouth. "Do you like my fangs? I got them off the Internet."

  "Very impressive," lied Moon, beckoning to the bargirl to order their drinks. He frowned at the guttural roar coming from the stage. "Is this really what you guys are into?"

  "What? Coffin Shaker?" Sonia grimaced. "Some of the guys like them but I prefer the more romantic bands like Stoker's Kiss or Phantail. Goth's a real subculture. There's quite a lot of variety, really."

  Moon nodded, as he watched a teeny Goth girl walk up to the bar. She was dressed like a cross between a Manga schoolgirl and Wednesday Addams. Over one shoulder she carried a tote-bag shaped like a black coffin. In a gesture of individuality

  the kid had stuck a 'baby on board' car sticker on the back of the bag. He smiled; these people certainly had his sense of humour. "So, how did you get into all this?"

  "My older sister was in at the start. She's eight years older than me and I thought she looked really cool. Plus the music she listened too was so much better than all the boy-band crap everyone else was into."

  Moon nodded again, "Anything's better than boy-band crap," he agreed. Except Hip-Hop, he added in h
is head. If people claimed to make music they could at least have the decency to try to sing.

  He scanned the audience. It was strange, for most of the pub bands he went to see the audience was like any pub-full of people: little groups of friends with the odd loner thrown in. This seemed more like a class reunion - everyone seemed to know each other… Then suddenly time seemed to slow down to an eternity. For an interminable instant his eyes locked with those of a tall leather-clad figure with burning blue eyes and waist length blond hair. A light blue aura seemed to surround him and his pale, blue-tinged features looked like they had been hewn expertly out of marble. He was flanked by two stunningly beautiful girls, who seemed to have got everything right that Sonia and Avril had got wrong. They effortlessly achieved the elegance and style that the other Goth girls in the room aspired to. Stunningly clad in clinging red-tinged black velvet, each wore a matching choker with a silver ornament at her throat in the shape of a flying bat. The pale beauty of their skin glowed like back-lit alabaster. Surely no makeup could create that supernatural glow? Then the moment passed and he found that he was just staring at a trio of particularly attractive but fairly 'normal' looking Goths.

  Coffin Shaker finished their set with one final cacophonous growl from their lead singer - a short Goth with Alice Cooper- like make-up on his face, who was wearing what appeared to be a PVC basque with chicken bones piercing it at odd intervals. Then the band members leapt down from the stage to embrace and chat with friends and lovers, who seemed to constitute a sizeable fraction of the audience. "Does everybody here know everyone else?" asked the mystified Moon.

  "Well, it's quite a close-knit scene," explained Sonia, sipping her Green Fairy absinthe alcopop. "Most of the bands are local and we all hang out in the same places so, of course, we tend to have at least a nodding acquaintance with everyone else."