High Moor 2: Moonstruck

by Graeme Reynolds

  The door exploded in a shower of razor sharp splinters, and something from Olivia’s worst nightmares landed on the entrail−covered bed. The creature looked like a wolf on steroids. Corded muscles flowed like liquid beneath layers of thick, red fur. The monster’s ears lay flat against its head and the long, tapered snout wrinkled up into a snarl, to reveal rows of razor sharp fangs. Terrible clawed feet, each toe ending in a black, curved talon, dug into what remained of her husband. It snarled at her, and Olivia knew that it was over. She lashed out with the lamp, throwing every last shred of her strength and desperation into the blow. Connie simply ducked, allowing the lamp to pass over her head. Then the creature leapt.

  The impact slammed Olivia back against the far wall, and knocking the breath out of her. She struggled to move, to breathe. “Please…” was all that she managed to choke out before Connie’s head darted forward. The monster’s jaws sank deep into her stomach, then ripped outwards in a single movement. The pain was unimaginable, but it was nothing compared to the anguish Olivia felt as she saw a tiny arm protruding from the werewolf’s jaws. The monster bit down, spraying blood from the sides of its mouth, then swallowed.

  The terrible emptiness that Olivia felt then eclipsed even the pain. She was hollow. The new life within her torn away and devoured. She couldn’t protect it. She couldn’t protect any of them. Then Connie darted forward and clamped her jaws around Olivia’s throat, and she found, in that last second of her life, that she was grateful for the release.

  ***

  13th December 2008. Catcleugh Reservoir, Northumberland. 10.24.

  The twenty minute drive that Marie had promised turned into an hour and a half of sheer misery for John. His tired muscles cramped up in the confined space, and the fibres from the carpet stuck to his clotting wounds, so that every time he adjusted his position he tore them open once more. The boot, without the benefit of the car’s heater, was freezing cold. His shivering body rubbed itself raw against the coarse man−made fabric. Every bump or imperfection in the road seemed to be magnified. Eventually he allowed the steady thrum of the tires on asphalt to lull him into a half waking state. He could hear the car’s radio, but couldn’t make out any of the details. There didn’t seem to be any music, only the low murmur of voices. Marie had not spoken a word since they’d left High Moor.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the car slowed and turned off the smooth road onto something that felt like a gravel track, complete with some particularly deep pot−holes that compounded his misery. More than once the jolt was so severe that his head banged against the metal boot lid. Eventually, the vehicle came to a halt and Marie opened the boot. She passed him a t−shirt, a pair of jogging bottoms and a pair of trainers. “Sorry about that, John, but we needed to put a lot of miles between High Moor and ourselves, and I couldn’t risk having you visible in case we got pulled over.”

  John tried to sit up, wincing as another crusted scab ripped away from his skin, and pulled the t−shirt over his head. “I thought you said it was only going to be twenty minutes.”

  Marie gave John a sheepish grin. “Yeah, I might have been lying about that. “

  He pulled on the jogging pants and climbed out from the car boot. “I figured that much out on my own. Where the hell are we, anyway?”

  “Catcleugh Reservoir, near the Scottish border. It’s isolated enough that we shouldn’t be disturbed, and I need some fresh water to clean your wounds up. It’s not like we could just take you into a public toilet in the state you’re in.”

  The reservoir certainly was isolated. The area surrounding the vast expanse of water was mostly scrub grassland, with snow−capped pine forests lining the hills in the distance. A steady torrent of water gushed from the sluiceway far beneath them, feeding a stream that meandered through the snow−covered valley floor. The air was bitterly cold, but fresh and invigorating when compared to the stale, blood and body odour stink of the car boot.

  Marie opened the back doors of the car and removed a large bag, then began walking towards a set of stone steps. She motioned for John to follow and the pair made their way down to the edge of the frigid water.

  Marie wasted no time. She removed a first−aid kit from the bag and began washing John’s injuries with water from the reservoir. Thin rivulets of blood flowed from the open wounds and John winced as she poured the cold water onto him.

  “Ah, give over you big baby. It’s only water. It’s not going to hurt you.”

  “You aren’t the one freezing to death.”

  “You think that’s bad, then you probably aren’t going to enjoy the next bit much.”

  “What next bit?”

  Marie produced a bottle of iodine from the bag, unscrewed the cap, then poured the yellow liquid directly onto the parallel gashes on his chest. John’s cry of pain echoed across the water and, off in the distance, a flock of birds took to the sky, startled by the sudden noise.

  “Jesus, fuck! God that hurts.”

  “Well, if you can try not to scream the place down while I do it, I need to stitch some of these up. I’ll be as quick as I can, but it’s not going to be pleasant.”

  It wasn’t pleasant at all, but John managed to restrain himself to merely hissing through his teeth as the needle plucked at his torn flesh. Eventually, Marie was satisfied that she’d dealt with the worst of the injuries. “OK, there are some fresh clothes in the bag, along with a toothbrush and a razor. Get yourself cleaned up. I’ll be waiting for you, back in the car.”

  Ten minutes later, John ascended the stairs. His wounds cried out in pain with every step, and he could feel the stitches tugging at his skin as he moved, but he felt better than he had since waking up that morning. The clean clothes − a heavy woollen shirt, jeans and a ski jacket − made all of the difference. He still felt frozen through to his bones, but the garments kept the wind chill out, and he was slowly beginning to warm up.

  Marie sat on the closed boot of the car, drinking hot coffee from a thermos. She smiled as she saw John and poured him a fresh cup. “You took your time. I thought you’d got lost or something.”

  John took the cup, savouring the warmth that seeped through the metal into his numb hands. “Thank you. You have no idea how badly I need this.” He took a sip, letting out an involuntary sigh of pleasure as the hot liquid ran down his throat. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “We’re heading north. Right up into the arse end of Scotland. I’ve booked a holiday cottage for a few weeks, so we can hide out there until you recover and things quieten down a bit. Then we can work out what our next move is.”

  John took another sip of the coffee, “So, is now a good time for you to tell me how the fuck you’re still alive? I saw you gunned down with silver−fucking−bullets. I mean, Jesus, you were almost cut in half. How the hell do you come back from something like that?”

  “You have to understand, John, that what I do…what I did… put me in a hell of a lot of danger. Not just from other werewolves, but from hunters like your good old friend, Steven. Those of us on field teams spend years increasing our tolerance to silver, to the point where it barely affects us.” She gave an ironic, bitter chuckle. “At least, that was the theory.”

  “And Michael? You’re telling me that he’s still alive?”

  Marie nodded. “He’s not only alive. He runs the pack now. He’s the alpha wolf. The big boss dog.”

  John frowned. “Then why are the pack chasing us? Can’t you talk to Michael? Get him to help?”

  Marie shook her head. “John, it was Michael who ordered your death. By now, he won’t have had any choice but to order mine as well. You have to understand, the pack will stop at nothing to keep the existence of werewolves a secret. If people knew about us, if there was proof, then they would hunt us down and slaughter us. It almost happened once before, back in 1996. They won’t let it happen again.”

  John finished the last of his coffee and handed the cup back to Marie. “Honestly, I don’t understand any of this.
I mean, I design bloody websites for a living. I’m way out of my depth here.”

  Marie put the bag into the boot of the car. “I know. There’s a lot that you need to know before you’ll be able to understand. Come on, we’ve still got a long drive ahead of us.”

  John looked at the boot with a pained expression on his face. “I don’t have to go back in there, do I?”

  Marie chuckled. “No, I think we can risk you riding up front now. It’s time I told you everything, but be warned, you might not like some of what you’re about to hear.”

  Chapter 11

  13th December 2008. Olivia’s House, Bear Park. 09.42.

  Phil raced through the traffic, the siren on his commandeered squad car howling. He’d left the headquarters the instant he’d heard that Olivia had been attacked in her home. The first responders would only be arriving at the scene now, and Phil dreaded what they might find. He just prayed that Olivia was alright. Despite her smart, sarcastic mouth, Olivia was one of the most sincere, intelligent and compassionate people that he’d ever met. If anything had happened to her, then he honestly didn’t know how he would react.

  The road outside her house was cordoned off, with two uniformed officers turning the complaining motorists away. The ambulance hadn’t even arrived yet. The only ones in attendance so far were the armed response vehicle and a traffic car. Phil parked on the pavement, just outside the cordon and, ignoring the two traffic officers, marched straight toward the house.

  One of the traffic constables stepped into his path. “I’m sorry, sir, but Sergeant Grey and his team have only just gone inside. They need to sweep the property before anyone else goes in.”

  Phil’s face reddened and the vein in his temple began to pulse. “Officer, if you don’t get out of my fucking way then I won’t be held responsible for my actions. I hear there’s a post coming up in the Wildlife Liaison Office.”

  Phil didn’t wait for a response and pushed past the traffic officer. As he approached the front door, Paul Patterson, one of Rick’s men, stumbled out of the front door and vomited. He looked up at Phil with wide, staring, tear−filled eyes. “No, Phil. Don’t go in there. You don’t want to see…to see THAT.” Paul’s complexion turned from white to a light shade of green, and he doubled over once more. Phil’s heart sank as he stepped past Paul, into the hallway.

  The downstairs appeared normal, with no obvious sign of a disturbance. The living room was littered with empty beer cans and pizza boxes, and Olivia’s coat hung over one of the stools in the kitchen. The floorboards upstairs creaked so Phil ascended the staircase, to find Rick Grey and Mark Briggs standing in the corridor. Rick had his arms and forehead pressed against the wall, and both men wept openly, and neither of them so much as looked up when he got to the top of the stairs. “Rick? Mark? What happened? Where’s Olivia?”

  Rick didn’t look up, but motioned towards an open door with one arm. “The…the bedroom. She’s in the bedroom.”

  Phil’s stomach flip−flopped as a wave of grief and exhaustion washed over him. The reaction of Rick’s team had confirmed the worst. He knew that Olivia had been murdered, and that she’d not died a clean death. He didn’t want to see the body. He didn’t want his memory of the pretty, funny young woman to be tainted by the manner of her death. Phil didn’t want to see, but he knew that he had to. He had to see what had happened to his friend with his own eyes. Have it burned onto his soul like a brand so that he would never relax in his pursuit of her killer. He stepped past Rick, trying hard to conceal his shaking legs that suddenly lacked the strength to walk. His heart pounded in his chest and he paused just outside of the room for a moment, to steel his resolve. He took a deep breath, held it, then stepped through the doorway into a slaughterhouse.

  The room was covered in blood. Entrails hung from the lampshade, dripping sticky globules of crimson onto the gore−soaked bed. Propped up on the pillow, were the severed heads of Olivia and Matt, facing each other as if for one last kiss. The worst horror, however, lay alongside the grotesque tableau. What remained of Olivia’s corpse lay slumped against the bedside cabinet. Her slender neck was reduced to a tattered mess of ragged flesh and shattered bones, while her stomach gaped open, its precious cargo torn out. It was then that he noticed a tiny, severed hand on the floor beside the corpse and Phil could take no more. He stumbled from the room and bent over, with his hands flat against his legs as he tried to contain the surge of emotions that flooded through him. The abject horror of the scene in that bedroom, the overwhelming grief at the loss of a close friend and a small, cold, kernel of rage deep within his chest.

  Rick managed to compose himself sufficiently to put a hand on Phil’s shoulder and guide him away from the door. Phil shook him off. “No. Not yet. I need to see it one more time. I never want to forget a single detail of what’s in that room.”

  “Phil, when you find the fucker, I want in. The sick fuck that did this isn’t going to spend the rest of their lives in a prison cell. Do you understand me?”

  Phil moved back into the doorway and looked at the charnel house one more time, letting the details sear themselves onto his mind. Grief crushed his heart, sending sharp flares of anguish through his chest with every laboured beat. Despite the scene before him, it still hadn’t sunk in that Olivia was dead. He forced himself to focus on her severed head, mouth and eyes fixed open in a soundless scream. Was she still alive when her child was ripped from her? Yes, Phil thought that she almost certainly had been. She hadn’t just been murdered. She’d been made to suffer in the most appalling manner first. The coal of rage flared brighter. He turned away from the room and looked Rick straight in the eye. “Get in fucking line.”

  ***

  13th December 2008. Nauchnnyy proyezd, Moscow. 13.03.

  “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  Michael’s hand gripped the telephone so hard that the plastic groaned under the strain.

  Connie’s indignant voice crackled over the speaker. “What do ye mean? Ah did what ye asked. Ah took care of one copper and got the names of the others. Ah’ll take care of them next.”

  Michael tried to steady his breathing, in an attempt to calm himself down. It didn’t work. “What I told you to do, was take care of them quickly and quietly. How the fuck does tearing a family apart in their own home, and worse, letting them get a call off to the police, constitute quietly? Do you realise that your name and fucking photograph are plastered all over the internet?”

  Connie’s tone lost some of its arrogance as the amount of trouble she was in began to register. “Well, what would ye have had me do?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Connie. You should have made it look like an accident. You’ve been working on field teams long enough to know that. We leave no fucking trace, not go on a public killing spree in the middle of a crisis.” He paused as he considered his next words. “I want you out of the country. Tonight.”

  The voice on the other end of the phone acquired a whiney edge. “But, the job’s not done yet, and there’s still that fucker Wilkinson.”

  “Are you not hearing me? The job’s over as far as I’m concerned. The whole point of taking out those police was to prevent exactly this from happening. They’re putting as much effort into finding you as they are Simpson. Maybe even more.”

  “How am ah supposed to get out of the country? They’ll be checking all the ports.”

  “You know how, Connie. You’ll have to do a tunnel−run.”

  Connie was silent for a moment before responding. “Please, ye can’t be serious. The last time anyone tried that they got cut in half by a freight train.”

  “Do I sound like I’m fucking joking? I’m pulling a team out of Germany to meet you on the other side. They’ll escort you back to Moscow.”

  “But what about Wilkinson? We’ve been after him for years. We can’t just let him get away again, especially now he’s turned.”

  “He’s not your problem, Connie. Let me be very clear about this. You will leav
e the UK tonight. If you do not do this, then I’ll have to consider you as having gone rogue, and will take the necessary steps to prevent you causing more harm. Do you fucking understand me?”

  “Yes, Michael. Ah understand.”

  “Good, now get moving. The sound of your voice is getting on my fucking nerves. Gregorz, are you there? What the hell happened with the Simpson hit?”

  “We tracked Simpson, but as we moved in, Marie attacked us. It seems she found the tactical kit in Connie’s car and made some modifications to the ammunition. By the time we recovered, she’d made it out of the woods, into a public place. It seemed prudent to back off and await a better opportunity.”

  Michael shook his head, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. “Marie? I…I can’t believe that she’d do something like that.”

  “Well, not only did she come looking for Simpson, but she reduced the amount of powder in each cartridge to slow the rounds down. Daniel is still cutting pieces of silver out of himself. She came prepared to take us on, Michael. She knew exactly what she was doing.”

  “Do you know where they are now?”

  “Fortunately, Connie’s mobile telephone is still in the car. Daniel was able to track it. They are still moving, heading north. Assuming the battery on the phone lasts, we should be able to find where they go to ground. “

  “That’s something at least. Find out where they are heading, and keep an eye on them, but from a distance. Don’t engage until I give the order.”

  “Michael, I think it would be a mistake to wait. Marie is resourceful and well trained. It’s sheer luck that we were able to track her at all. If she realises that they’ve been found, she’ll simply disappear again. Once we find them, we should move immediately.”