High Moor 2: Moonstruck

by Graeme Reynolds

  Marie gave Connie the finger and applied thick strokes of eye make−up to her face, giving her eyes a sunken appearance. Satisfied, she put down the eye−liner and picked up her jacket from the hanger. “OK, all done. Let’s get this over with.”

  “About fucking time. The car’s parked across the street, and before ye ask, Ah’m driving.”

  “Whatever. Let’s just go.”

  The two women stepped out of the room into the hotel’s dingy corridor and walked to the staircase, descending to the ground level. Marie was about to open the door into the foyer when Connie put her hand on her arm and shook her head. When Marie looked confused, Connie whispered. “Coppers. Outside. Ah can smell the bastards. Ye wait here and ah’ll see what’s going on.”

  Connie stepped through the fire door, into the reception area, while Marie stood against the wall and peered through the glass. As Connie had said, there were three uniformed police officers standing at the reception desk, along with a blonde woman in a business suit. They turned to Connie as she walked through the door, and the woman stepped forward to offer her hand.

  “Miss Hamilton? Or is it Mrs? I’m afraid that it doesn’t say which on your registration form.”

  Connie spoke with a calm tone, all traces of her accent gone.”Yes? Can I help you? Is something the matter?”

  The blonde woman smiled and shook her head. “No, nothing to worry about. I was just wondering if you would mind if I asked you a few questions?”

  “Of course. I don’t mind, but right now isn’t very convenient. I’m supposed to be meeting someone and I don’t want to be late. Could we arrange something for Monday, perhaps? I’d be happy to come down to your station and have a chat at, say, 2pm?”

  The blonde woman nodded and smiled again. “It really wouldn’t take very long. I just need to establish your whereabouts on the fifteenth of November, at around five thirty in the evening.”

  Connie shook her head. “I’m sorry, but without checking my schedule I’m afraid I really couldn’t say. Things have been so busy that the days just seem to run together. Look, I really hate to rush, but can we do this later. I have a rather pressing appointment, and I don’t want to keep my client waiting. Can we do this on Monday?”

  “Of course, I’m sorry to have kept you. I’ll be at High Moor station on Monday afternoon. Just come to reception and ask for DC Garner. Olivia Garner.”

  Connie nodded and shook her hand. “Thank you for being so understanding. I’ll check my diary and let you know what I was up to when I see you.”

  Marie stepped away from the door and made her way to the end of the corridor, then slipped out of the emergency exit into the dark alley beside the hotel. She stood in the shadows, watching as Connie left the hotel and walked along the road towards the city centre. The police officers stood by the doorway for a moment, speaking in low voices as they watched Connie glide through the crowded streets. The uniformed officers got into a police car and drove away, while the woman pulled up the collar of her coat and hurried after Connie. A few minutes later, Connie clambered over a stone wall at the rear of the car park. “Bastards have made us. Oskar and his crew better finish the job tonight, because it’s time for us to get the hell out of this shit−hole.” She started to walk across the road, to where her rented car was parked, then turned back to Marie. “Well, are ye coming, or do ye just fancy changing in the middle of the fucking town centre?”

  Chapter 6

  12th December 2008. University Hospital of Durham. 17.35.

  The first thing that Steven noticed was the noise. Far away and indistinct, but insistent. It tugged on the threads of his awareness and punctured the peace of the darkness in which he floated. The next thing he noticed was the pain. A hot glow that started from the smallest coal in the centre of his back, growing in size and intensity until his body burned. It filled him, lighting up every nerve ending in a white blaze of agony. Fire crackled along his spine, fusing ruined bone and reconnecting the shredded nerves. He screamed, but the sound never left his lips. Instead, it reverberated inside of his mind, combining with the pain into waves of absolute torment. Consuming him. Burning away everything that he had ever been. Turning him into something else.

  His eyes snapped open, and he gagged at the hard plastic pipe in his throat. His body was slick with sweat, soaking through the polyester pyjamas so the material stuck to his skin. An alarm rang outside: the air stank of death, even beneath the overpowering stench of disinfectant. He tore the ventilator tube from his swollen throat and, still disoriented, swung his legs off the bed and pulled the IV drips from his arm.

  He was obviously in a hospital, but the reason eluded him. He tried to think through the drug−induced cloud in his mind, but all he saw were fragments. He remembered the school. He’d been doing something in a school with…

  The memories surged back, memories of he and John Simpson sneaking into the school to confront the monster that had once been Malcolm Harrison. The short−lived battle, the terrible pain as the werewolf crushed his spine with its jaws. He looked down at his legs and wiggled his toes.

  “Oh fucking hell. How long have I been here?” He stumbled to the window and pulled back the blinds. It was dark outside. The neon pinpricks of the city’s streetlights shining against a velvet background, while to the east the first sliver of the full moon rose above the cathedral.

  “Oh no.”

  His body began to spasm and he fell to the floor, dragging the ventilator with him. He tried to stand, to hold back the raging, alien presence in his mind. “God, no. Please. Not here.”

  Bone daggers burst through his gums, filling his mouth with a bloody froth, while his jaw dislocated and the ends of his fingers split open in a spray of gore, to allow dark black talons to emerge. His skin itched and burned as hair burst from his pores and flowed across his body.

  He was vaguely aware of the door to his room bursting open and two dark silhouettes standing in the doorway. Then the world turned red.

  ***

  12th December 2008. Waldridge Fell Country Park. 17.35.

  Marie removed her clothes and put them in the boot of the hire car. Connie’s were already in a crumpled heap next to the steel strongbox that held the team’s tactical kit. She stepped away from the vehicle and closed the boot, rubbing her arms to ward off the biting cold. Connie stood, stark naked, in the bushes that separated the car park from the open fell beyond. Clouds of condensation billowed from her body. She smirked at Marie’s discomfort.

  “Are ye feeling the cold, petal? Ah thought your lot didn’t mind a wee chill. Get a bloody move on before some poor bastard catches a look at yer bare arse waddling across the car park.”

  Marie jogged across the open tarmac to where the other woman stood. “Connie, I’m sure I’ve told you before, but please do me the favour of fucking off. I’m not in the mood for your shit.”

  Connie puffed out her bottom lip. “Aw, pet. Are ye upset because Oskar and the others are putting yer little moonstruck boyfriend down? Ah bet he’s on his knees, begging for his life right this second.”

  Marie shoved the other woman with both hands, sending her back a few steps. “I told you. Pack it the fuck in.”

  Connie grinned and her eyes became two flat, green phosphorescent disks. “Ah, get over yerself. Ah’m just playing around. Come on, the moon will be up any second. Let’s get away from the road so we can change.”

  Marie exhaled and nodded her acceptance. The two women made their way through the hedgerow into a small willow coppice bordering the moors. The ground was cold and wet under Marie’s bare feet. Twigs caught between her toes, and a patch of brambles left bright red scratches across her legs. Frost had begun to form on the open expanses of grassland. Each blade glimmered in the starlight and crunched under Marie’s feet. The lights of the city illuminated the sky to the south−east, while the first white glow of the new moon shone from the horizon.

  Connie’s change had already begun. Marie turned her head so that
she wouldn’t have to witness it. Connie could transform from human to beast faster than anyone she’d ever met, but it didn’t make the sight any less disturbing. In some ways, the ease with which Connie turned made it worse. As if she were closer to the bestial side of her nature. Within moments, the transformation had completed and a huge russet monster stood in the clearing beside her. Marie suppressed a shudder as Connie sniffed the air and then slipped through the trees, into the darkness.

  The moon came into view, bathing Marie in a cool white light. She closed her eyes and waited for her beast to break through.

  Nothing happened.

  Marie’s heart fluttered, the first instinctive realization that something was wrong. She searched her feelings for that other presence, her constant companion since she was eight years old but found no trace. She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing, then willed the change to happen, but it had no effect. Her wolf was gone. For the first time since she was a little girl, she was alone. She choked back a sob and tried to contain the grief that welled within her.

  Then, a few hundred yards to the north, she heard Connie howl and her blood ran cold. Somehow, she was human. And the pack had very specific rules about how to deal with humans who knew of their existence. Connie’s senses, now that she’d turned, would register this in a matter of seconds, if she hadn’t already. Marie’s heart lurched as adrenaline surged through her system, then she turned and sprinted back towards the parked hire car.

  ***

  12th December 2008. University Hospital of Durham. 17.30.

  Gregorz sipped his coffee and suppressed a grimace. Vending machine coffee was vile at the best of times, but with the full moon approaching, his enhanced senses were able to pick out the individual flavours and chemical tangs from the foul black liquid. He picked up his phone and checked it for a message from Oskar, even though he’d done so only seconds before.

  Daniel shifted on the hard plastic chair. “Gregorz, we need to move. Now.”

  He nodded. That they were leaving things so late was absurd, but the orders had been explicit. The consequences of ignoring them, especially if it put Oskar’s mission at risk, would be severe. “We’ll give Oskar another minute.”

  “You said that five minutes ago. The moon will be up in another five, and we’ll have a much more serious problem to deal with. There are cameras here, Gregorz. Lots of cameras. If a moonstruck tears through a hospital and they film it, then it will be over for all of us. Forget Simpson. He’s contained. Even if Oskar fails to complete his mission, the casualties will be limited and there is still a chance to fix it. This is where the most damage could be done, and we have to deal with it. Right now.”

  Gregorz picked up the phone again and exhaled. If this went wrong, then he would have to live with the consequences, but if they sat here and did nothing, then disaster was assured. “You’re right. We’ve already waited too long. Make your way to Wilkinson’s room and I’ll arrange the distraction.”

  They both got up from their seats. Daniel hefted the canvas hold−all, nodded to him, and made his way out of the restaurant while Gregorz headed for the staircase to the floor below. The urge to race down the stairs rose within him, but he forced himself to stay calm. He walked quickly through the outpatients area to the toilets, then opened the door and stepped inside.

  The toilets were empty, apart from a man urinating in the far cubicle. He was whistling to himself, and did not seem to be finishing any time soon. Gregorz checked his watch and sighed. He had only minutes before moonrise. Not nearly enough time. He walked over to the cubicle, grabbed the back of the man’s head, and smashed it into the porcelain tiles. The tile cracked under the impact, and the man slid to the floor, unconscious. Gregorz grabbed a toilet roll and several handfuls of paper towels, stuffed them into a waste bin, then, with the aid of some lighter fluid, set the bin alight. Smoke and flames billowed from the waste receptacle. Moments later the smoke detectors triggered the fire alarm. Gregorz slipped from the toilets and made his way up the central staircase to rendezvous with Daniel.

  The hospital was in pandemonium. So soon after the last fatal fire, everyone was taking the alarm very seriously indeed. Nurses directed patients and visitors to the nearest fire exit, and began the arduous process of moving those who were unable to move themselves. He pushed his way through the tide of people to reach Daniel. The German’s eyes said it all, and Gregorz knew it too. He’d felt it the same moment as Daniel. The moon had risen. Instead of a quiet assassination of a comatose man, they had to cope with a newborn moonstruck werewolf in a crowded hospital. Daniel handed him a pistol, then they opened the door to the darkened room and stepped inside.

  Wilkinson’s transformation had just completed. The creature crouched on the tiled floor, snarling at the intruders. Saliva dripped from razor sharp fangs, and its muscles tensed. As Gregorz and Daniel raised their pistols, the creature lashed out with a huge, taloned claw and hurled the ventilator at them. It smashed into Daniel, knocking him back into Gregorz. His pistol discharged as the ventilator hit, and the window behind the bed shattered, spilling shards of glass onto the pavement below. The beast regarded them for a moment, as if it understood what it faced. Just as Gregorz brought his weapon to bear, it snarled once more, then leaped through the broken window. For a fraction of a second it was silhouetted against the rising moon. Gregorz took his shot, then the beast disappeared from sight.

  Daniel picked himself up. “Did you get it?”

  “I don’t know. It was fast. Faster than a newborn should have been, and it knew. Somehow the damn thing understood what those guns meant. Have you ever seen a moonstruck run before?”

  Daniel shook his head and walked to the window, looking out onto the gravel path surrounding the hospital, and the trees beyond. “There’s no sign of it. Come on, we should get out of here. I’ll try and pick up its scent once we are outside.”

  “Just like the good old days, eh, Daniel?”

  Daniel tried to smile, then shook his head. “If you ask me, my friend, the good old days were vastly overrated.”

  ***

  12th December 2008. Finchale Road, Brasside. 17.35.

  John squeezed his eyes closed and tried to control his breathing. He’d been bundled into the prisoner transport van, and two guards had shackled his ankles and wrists with handcuffs. A chain had been passed through both sets of cuffs, and fastened to a steel ring on the floor of the van. The two guards had climbed in beside him, and the vehicle had left the prison on the five−mile journey to the secure unit. That had been an hour ago. The Friday evening traffic around Durham City had been even slower than usual, with the freezing conditions causing a number of accidents, clogging the roads of the city with frustrated commuters. It had only been when it turned off the main road on the way to Frankland Prison and its psychiatric assessment unit that the van managed to pick up any speed at all. Of course, it was all too late now. The moon would be up in a matter of seconds, and despite the restraints, the interior of the van was too small for the two men locked in with him to escape the ferocity of his wolf.

  He felt it trying to push through, and he erected well−practiced, familiar walls in his mind to try and slow the beast’s progress. Not that they had ever made any difference. He’d not even been able to hold the transformation back for long enough to save his parents. The beast was not happy about John’s attempts to restrain it. He felt some of its emotions leaking through into his own consciousness. Surprise, confusion, and grief, like a mistreated dog that had been lavished with love for once in its life, before being discarded and abused once more. The hurt the beast felt quickly changed into anger at the betrayal, and it hurled itself against John’s feeble barriers with renewed strength, fuelled by the rising moon. John’s teeth itched and sweat poured from his body, soaking through the prison clothing.

  One of the guards reached across and put his hand on John’s shoulder. “Here, mate, are you alright?”

  ***

  Oskar cro
uched in the bushes and smiled as the headlights of the prison van approached. He let out a low whistle to signal Troy and Gabriela. They would place the traffic lights on the road to prevent any other vehicles from interrupting them, and then taking up their positions. Troy would make his way down the road to help him take care of the Moonstruck, while Gabriela would transform and chase the creature down if it got past them.

  It was time for him to complete his part of the plan. He crept from the undergrowth and deployed a strip of spikes across the road, just as it passed under a stone railway bridge, after which he retreated to cover once more and drew his weapon.

  It was at times like these when he felt the most alive. He could visualize the disparate parts of his plan coming together before him, like the components of a complex machine. He’d left nothing to chance. Not this time. While Frankland Prison was only a mile away, the radio jammer that he’d activated in the rear of their rented van would ensure that no call for help would reach the authorities. The red traffic lights were positioned a quarter of a mile away on either side of the bridge, and there were no pedestrians. Not any more, at least. An old man had been walking a decrepit Labrador along the roadside a little while ago, but Gabriela had taken care of them, dragging the corpses into the woods, out of sight.

  The headlights of the approaching van flared as it crested a slight rise in the road, then started down towards the tunnel. Oskar tightened his grip on his weapon in anticipation, running his tongue across his dry lips. The van would hit the spikes in three seconds. Two. One.

  ***

  All four tyres on the vehicle exploded simultaneously, and John’s world turned upside down. He hardly felt his arm break, nor the shattered bone slice through his flesh and clothing. His head struck the floor and then he flew forwards, to crash against the rear wall. He opened his eyes, but could not focus on the face of the security guard standing over him, or make out the words coming from his mouth. The world was distorted, as if he were seeing and hearing it from underwater. He concentrated, trying to bring it all back into focus. The sound came back gradually, as if someone was turning up the volume on a muted television set.