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

by William Moore

  "That seems to rule out our two main suspects, doesn't it? If Animal's writing software in Glasgow and Andy's joined the fundies."

  There was a pause and Moon could almost feel Sonia thinking at the other end of the phone. "I guess so. But, Jerry, Andy's still in town. Just because he's got religion doesn't mean he isn't involved."

  "Of course, I see what you mean! Nailsea isn't that far outside of Bristol and it's certainly close enough to drive into the centre by car. Do you know if Andy had any issues with Uri - any reason why he might want to frame him for murder?"

  "Not that I know of. He'd have known about the 'vampire' rumours of course, but that's all. But, murder though, Jerry? Andy was one of us and Dominic was, if not a close friend, at least one of his pool buddies. Do you really think he would be capable of killing him?" He heard her worried sigh brush across the receiver.

  "Who knows, love? I'm no shrink, so I couldn't say. Anyway, you let the police have the new information from yesterday, so they've probably come to the same conclusion. Hopefully they'll take the investigation from there. I don't think there's much more we can do about it."

  "Yeah, they thanked me for the information but it would be much easier if we could just tell them what the ghosts told you."

  Moon sighed. "It's frustrating for me too but what can I do. I’ve heard that psychics sometimes help the police but I doubt it's that common. You'd need to find a sympathetic copper to begin with..."

  "What about Whatley? You said yourself that he seems to think there's something supernatural about this case. Perhaps he'd be open-minded enough to consider what you have to say."

  "He's more likely to arrest me for wasting police time. I don't know, Sonia, perhaps I can pass on the information some other way. I'll try to work something out."

  "All right, I'll phone you when I get home tomorrow, okay?"

  "Okay."

  "I love you, Jerry." The statement had a ring of decisiveness about it.

  Moon was happily surprised. "You sound like you mean it this time."

  "Well, I've decided that perhaps it's time to let go of the past. You're the best, Jerry, even if you do have a tendency to see and hear things that aren't there."

  "Huh, look who's talking. You and your weird feelings; if we're lucky they'll let us share a padded cell between us." Their laughter turned into more tender words as they reluctantly drew their conversation to an end.

  Moon's Wednesday shift was providing nursing cover for the overflow beds in the Day Surgery Unit. When there was a high demand for beds on the wards the night managers would allocate reasonably well patients - mostly those who were to be discharged the next day - to the five recovery beds used for Day Surgery patients during the daytime. This was a far from ideal arrangement but, at times when there had been a real bed crisis in the past, Moon had seen all the beds and the theatre trolleys in Day Surgery occupied by inpatients. Tonight, however, he and Claire, one of his colleagues from the night pool, only had five patients to look after and the shift was looking to be very quiet. There weren't even any spirits haunting the Unit to break up the monotony because it was situated in a relatively new part of the hospital. There had been very few deaths there to his knowledge and, apparently, none of those who had died there had remained earthbound.

  There was little more to do, once all the patients were tucked up in bed, than to keep an eye on them. After they had updated the patients' notes, he and Claire sat at the nurse station reading or chatting quietly into the middle of the night. At about two in the morning Claire went into a side room off the Unit to take her mid-shift break and Moon was left on his own to look after the patients. To Moon it always felt like the early hours of the morning existed in a slightly different reality. Even if you were used to being awake at that time, there was a slightly brittle edge to the senses, as if everything was somehow sharpened. It was the time that his supernatural senses were at their most acute, so he wasn't greatly surprised to suddenly find a spirit standing in front of him. On first glance she looked like a girl in her early teens wearing a sodden, tattered, mildew-stained shift, which may once have been white but was now a variety of shades of mottled green. Her face might have been pretty if she'd looked alive but her appearance was that of a drowned corpse. Her waterlogged skin had a sickly blue-grey tinge. Her eyes were pearly white and glowed slightly like the eyes of the drowned underwater dead. Her hair was lank and colourless, except for the dangling patches where it was tangled with dark green pondweed. Her teeth when she smiled - and she was grinning at Moon now - were a set of uneven motley green fangs. This wasn't a ghost, it was something else entirely; something dark enough and nasty enough for Moon to be suddenly very concerned for the safety of his patients. "What are you doing here? Are you out to cause trouble?" he vibed defensively.

  "Thou mayest call me Jenny Greenteeth"

  The creature produced a strange echoing, bubbling sound, like laughter underwater. "Worry not, Jeremy Moon. I come not for any of thy charges. I wouldst speak with thee, 'tis all." Her voice was similar to her laugh, it sounded like it was deadened by water.

  "Who or what are you? And why do you want to talk to me?"

  "Thou mayest call me Jenny Greenteeth, for that is both who and what I am." The spirit leered at him again.

  Since he had discovered his Gift Moon had been forced to endure some hideous sights in his life, but this thing was beginning to put the wind up even him. The name it gave him rang a bell but he couldn't place where he had heard it. So he asked, "And what does a Jenny Greenteeth do?" He wished it would stop grinning like that - he could foresee some unforgettable nightmares looming in his imminent future.

  "My sisters and I haunt the still waters. It is our task to make sure the drowning stay drowned. Those who fall into my embrace seldom leave it alive."

  Ah! Moon remembered now. A former girlfriend had owned a book about the folklore of good and bad fairies and he had read about the Jenny Greenteeth in the 'bad' section. To Moon the author’s decision to call such monsters 'fairies' had always seemed in very bad taste. "If you're not here for my patients, Jenny, then why are you here?" asked Moon. And how do I get you to leave? - he thought to himself.

  Jenny reached out a long-fingered hand with talons like hooks and snared one of his tiny ghostly companions. Cradling it in the cage of her fingers, she held it up before Moon. "It is about these that I have come," she replied. She didn't look any better highlighted in the blue light cast by the minute ghost globe. "A drunken fool fell in the canal and I rode back here with his corpse so that we could give you a warning."

  "We?"

  "Aye, we who are known as the ‘Dark Ones’… The villain who did this," she thrust the spirit globe forwards, "has started to prey upon or kind. If thou doest not find the cure for this, it will go hard with thee from us."

  "Is that a threat?" Moon wondered what it was about him that made every supernatural beastie in Bristol think he could help to sort out their problems for them. At this rate he was likely to end up on the hit list of every goblin from here to Bath if he didn’t do what they wanted.

  "Thou mayest take it as such." Her grinning face hardened into a mask of malice. "I wouldst afford it such import if I were thee."

  "But why do you think I can help?" Unintentionally, Moon

  said this aloud, eliciting groans and other disturbed noises from the nearby patients. He shook his head. "Why do all the spirits in Bristol seem to think I can help with this?" he asked again, mentally.

  "Because thou hast the Gift, thou hast also the power," she replied.

  Moon was confused. "Power? I know that I have the gift to see creatures like you but I have no special power."

  "Then thou must learn to use the power that thou doest not think thou hast." She laughed, then her bloated face became serious. "But learn quickly, Jeremy Moon, for the Dark ones have little patience." There was the sound of a door opening as Claire returned to the Unit. "I must go, Jeremy Moon, the still waters call to me,
but thinkest thou on what I have told you... and act thee quickly for thine own sake." She disappeared in a greenish mist. All that she left behind to mark her going was a small pool of dirty water.

  "What? I thought I saw..." said Claire, staring at the place where the Jenny Greenteeth had vanished.

  "Saw what?" asked Moon, hating himself for having to play innocent

  "Oh, I don't know, never mind. Anyway, what's that?" She pointed to the pool on the floor.

  "I'm not sure - I think we might have a leak somewhere. It just appeared." Moon got up from his seat. "I'll find something to mop it up with."

  After he had cleared away the pool of water - Moon was fairly sure that if it was analysed it would prove to be identical to the contents of the canal - he went into the side room with a cup of tea for his break. Most nurses tried to sleep on their night breaks but Moon found that grabbing the odd forty-five minutes or so only made him feel more tired, so he would usually just put his feet up and read. Tonight, however, he had a phone call to make.

  The side room they used for their breaks was a doctor's examination room. Moon sat himself at the desk, fished out his mobile phone from his back pocket and looked up Uri's number.

  Moon used the desk phone to call out. They were close to both the Cardiology and Emergency departments and he would rather not risk causing interference on any of the nearby vital signs monitors. A female voice answered the phone. "Hello, the Maddock residence." She sounded irritated but not tired and the slight Welsh lilt to her voice made Moon suspect it was Roanne.

  "Hi, it's Moon, could I speak to Uri please."

  “Oh, hi Moon. I’ll get him for you.”

  There was a pause then Uri came on the line. "Moon, it's nearly three-thirty in the morning, my ladies and I may not be sleeping but the household is. I hope you have a good reason for calling me at this time."

  "Sorry, Uri, this is the only number I have for you. I've had a bit of a scare and I need your help." Moon described his recent visitation and the ultimatum he had been given.

  "So, I suppose that you would like me to help you develop your powers of spiritual self defence, is that it?"

  "Yes, if I have any, that is."

  "I'm sure you do, Moon. Anyone who has the ability to interact with the spirit world the way you do should also possess a powerful enough aura to be able inflict damage on the denizens of that plane of existence. What nights are you not working? We should arrange a time and place for your first lesson as soon as possible."

  "Well, I'm off duty from Friday to Monday but I don't think Sonia will take too kindly to our not being together over the whole weekend." He had been looking forward to spending some very active nights with Sonia that weekend.

  "Far be it from me to stand in the way of true love, Moon, but this could save your life. It should not only help you to protect yourself from this ghost taker but also these domovoi - these goblins that are threatening you."

  "Okay, let's say Monday night for definite and I'll ask Sonia if she's happy for me to meet with you over the weekend. Erm, there's just one thing, you realise that she's likely to want to come along."

  There was a slight pause as Uri considered this. "Well, I suppose there's no harm in her coming with you. You've already let her into our little secret. I have sensed, also, that perhaps she has some hidden psychic 'talent' as well."

  "It wouldn't surprise me. She definitely has some borderline psychic ability. You know. She senses atmospheres and that sort of thing."

  "Hmm, in which case she may be able to provide you with some… what is the term? ... some back-up. Why don't you ring me once you have had a chance to discuss this with Sonia, then you can both come over to our place and I will give the two of you a crash course in psychic self-defence? How does that sound?"

  "Great," replied Moon guardedly, unsure that he fancied taking Sonia into the vampires' lair. Did he trust Uri that much? Strangely… now he thought about it, it seemed he did.

  Uri gave him the address of the house that he and the girls shared with the Maddocks, along with directions and a mobile phone number. "If we are to meet late at night please call me on the phone and don't ring the bell. I would rather not disturb the family. I do not want them drawn into this business at all if we can help it. Part of our commitment to them is to keep them safe and that includes not letting them fall into danger. Although, I think perhaps that many of them would willingly do so out of loyalty to my ladies and myself."

  "You really think it's that dangerous? This thing hasn't harmed any humans so far as I know."

  "I'm not sure, Moon. If it is dangerous enough to frighten the Dark Ones… well, one can't be too cautious when dealing with an entity that powerful."

  "Okay, Uri, I'll call you once I've had a chance to talk to Sonia."

  He got back off break at about four-thirty. Claire, sitting huddled at the nurse station, looked ill at ease. "What's up?" asked Moon quietly, so as not to disturb the patients.

  "Oh, thank God you're back, Moon. You know, I'm sure I saw a ghost when I came back onto the ward earlier. I've been scared witless the last hour worrying that it might come back." Her eyes were wide and liquid with fear as she turned to look at him.

  "What did it look like?" asked Moon.

  "Well, I didn't get a clear look because it vanished just as I arrived, but it looked a bit like a woman... only really horrible – like she had been dead for days. Are you sure you didn't see her? She was looking right at you."

  "No, I didn't see anything." Moon hated lying but he couldn't think what else to say. "Are you sure you weren't still partly asleep? Your mind can play tricks on you when you're very tired."

  "Well… this is my eighth shift in a row – maybe that did have something to do with it. Perhaps you're right Moon - it wouldn't be the first time I've come back off break a bit disorientated." Claire worked eight nights on and eight nights off, which she claimed suited her. Moon could see the attraction of the long breaks but thought the physical impact of regularly working eight consecutive nights must be pretty unhealthy.

  Moon smiled. "That's why I don't sleep on my breaks; I feel worse if I do." Their conversation quickly devolved into to one of the ghost story sharing sessions that hospital staff members occasionally indulge in during their night shifts. Claire had enough personal anecdotes of that sort to convince Moon that she could be quite psychic herself. However, any gift she had seemed to be suppressed by her fear of the ghosts themselves.

  It began to get light around five o'clock and shortly afterwards the patients were stirring so Moon and Claire were quickly caught up in taking vital sign observations and the other minor preparations that needed to be done in preparation for the arrival of the day staff. With so few patients in the unit, the handover to the day staff was short and Moon was finished and on his way home by twenty past seven. During his walk back through Cotham he replayed his encounter with the Jenny Greenteeth in his head. It seemed unbelievable that such creatures out of folk-lore actually existed. But then, if someone had asked him if he believed in vampires a few days ago he would probably have laughed at them. The spirit world was turning out to be a much more interesting' place than he was certain he could handle.

  Chapter 14

  Moon needed to buy some essentials so he decided to go out that afternoon and wander up to one of the several rather tatty looking supermarkets that were randomly scattered along the Gloucester Road. Later, he stopped for lunch at one of the cafés that were situated alongside a boulevard-like stretch of the road where the pavement widened sufficiently to allow tables to be set outside without impeding the flow of pedestrians. The locals called this part of Gloucester Road 'The Prom' for no particularly obvious reason that Moon could see. It had probably been a more picturesque place to walk in the past, but now it was like just any other part of the busy city street.

  He purchased his meal at the café’s small bar and carried it to a pavement-side table, where he sat down and started to tuck into his burge
r and chips. As he watched the pedestrians browsing the shop windows or hurrying on to whatever urgent destination called them, he spotted something that stirred in him a mild sense of alarm. For some reason Bristol seemed to attract more than its fair share of eccentrics, several of whom frequented the Gloucester Road. Among the more extreme of these unfortunates was a petite, ageing Afro-Caribbean lady who swathed herself in white and wore a veritable Fort Knox's worth of gold chains around her neck and arms. From each of these chains dangled at least one gold crucifix. She would habitually stop people in the street and then subject them to a fire and brimstone sermon for as long as they would put up with her. Moon realised with panic that this fiery harridan was currently storming straight towards his table.

  "What you gonna do when the Master comes a' callin'?" She asked, pointing dramatically at Moon.

  "I think I’ll probably just ask him for some form of identification. Then, once I’m certain he’s who he claims to be, I’ll lodge a complaint about the shoddy way he's been running things for the last fifty million years," replied Moon, hoping that this would throw her off balance enough to allow him to give her the slip. He looked around desperately for an escape route.

  This would be prophetess wasn't going to be fobbed off with sarcasm, however. "You may mock! You may mock..."

  "Thank you," replied Moon. "I will."

  She didn't even pause in her flow, "But retribution is comin'. Comin', I tell you!"

  "Yeah, well it's about time because the service has been terrible, we're long overdue for a change of management and a refund if you ask me... Look is there any point to this? Because my lunch is getting cold and I'd rather like to finish it before this so called

  'Master' gets here."

  "But He is here! He is here!" Her eyes opened wide enough for Moon to see the whites all around.