Blood Moon (23 page)

A terrible keening sound filled Mandy’s ears and it took her a second to realise that the source of the noise was her. Her mam was dead and it was all her fault. If she’d worn what she was supposed to, they would never have had to come out here, and Joseph Austin would never have murdered her. The loss was a raw, aching chasm opening up inside of her. Her mother would never call her down for breakfast again, or hold her tight, ruffling her hair and kissing her on the forehead in the way she did when she was in a good mood. She was dead. Dead. The world contained nothing but grief. Pain. Loss.

Then Mandy remembered the werewolf.

Part of her wanted to just lie there and wait to feel the beast’s teeth and claws tear her apart. She deserved to die. Everything was her fault. But then she remembered her Father. Ian. Anna, Kat and Amy. Matthew and Auntie Sharon. There were werewolves loose in High Moor and she needed to be with her family. Warn them. Keep them safe. Save them to atone for failing her Mother.

She kissed her mother once on the forehead, mirroring what her mum had done to her so many times, not caring that she could taste blood in her mouth. Then, she carefully laid the body in the snow and backed away from the feasting werewolf, towards
The
Sandpiper
.

1st January 2009. St Paul’s Church Hall, High Moor. 00:03

Sharon’s stomach tightened into a hard knot of raw terror and her legs seemed unable to support her weight. The utter darkness was more than disorienting; it was all-encompassing – more like a presence than a mere absence of light. If not for the sensation of her feet against the wooden floor and the sudden awareness of gravity bearing down upon her, she might have struggled to know which way was up. As it was, in the wake of the massive adrenaline surge, she struggled to clear her mind long enough to orient herself. And in this situation, to hesitate would almost certainly result in her death and the death of her nephew. She was under no illusions about what shared the darkness with them.

The children began to scream as they realised that they were trapped in absolute blackness with monsters. Monsters that could see in the dark. Monsters with razor sharp fangs and claws that could slice through flesh with ease. Monsters that had not yet moved from the far end of the church hall. Sharon knew why with a sickening certainty. They were savouring the terror of their captives. Choosing their targets. When the end came, it would come swiftly, and she knew then who the first three to die would be. Tonia, Angela and herself. Kill the adults and the children would be easy prey. As if to confirm her suspicions, the growls dropped an octave. She pulled Matthew behind her, putting herself between the creatures and her nephew for all the good it would do.

The snarling became a roar of sheer bloodlust, and the glowing eyes streaked across the dark expanse of the church hall. The terrified screams of the children increased in pitch and volume. Racking sobs mingled with howls of anguish. Bella’s voice rang out, louder than the others. “No, get away! I’m going to tell my mammy! NOOOOO! IT HURTS! MAMMMYYYY!!!”

Wet ripping noises, like someone peeling an over-ripe orange, mingled with the agonised screaming. Some of the children ran from their attackers, colliding with each other in the darkness, while others curled up, sobbing quietly as they waited for death or salvation. Part of Sharon was glad of the darkness. She really didn’t want to see the source of some of those sounds. However, the mute terror of not knowing when the creatures would turn their attention towards her and Matthew was so much worse.

Something brushed against her leg – a brief sensation of coarse fur on skin and a residual sticky wetness on her flesh. She yelped and leaped away. Her foot slipped on something soft and wet, and she fell to the floor, her ankle twisting sharply beneath her as she landed. Sharon ground her teeth at the searing pain, but refused to cry out. Hoping – praying that the beast would pass her by. Choose a different victim.

Hot rank breath on her face. The barest hint of a snarl held in check. The screams from the children faded into the background; the only thing she was aware of was the sound of her own heart pounding in her chest and the sense of something powerful mere inches away from her. She could visualise the mouth curling back into a snarl and hoped that it would be over quickly. Then a beam of light cut through the darkness as Angela arrived from the kitchen with the torches.

Time slowed, and in that dilated, drawn out, terrible second, among the deep, dancing shadows, Sharon saw a werewolf for the first time. Oddly enough, it wasn’t as big as she’d expected it to be. More like a large dog – an Alsatian or a Husky – than the dreadful things she’d seen on the internet. The creature’s muzzle was soaked in blood and its snout was indeed wrinkled into a snarl, revealing fangs that no mere dog could ever possess. Another of the creatures had its snout buried in Bella’s stomach, its head thrashing from side to side as the girl screamed in unimaginable agony. Bella’s size had protected her to an extent. The monster had needed to chew through layers of fat before it got to her vital organs, but that had just prolonged her suffering. The other creature was stalking two young boys in the corner of the church hall, seeming to relish the fear emanating from its intended prey, while two more children lay face down in spreading pools of blood. The rest of them were either curled up in foetal positions, crying, or had their backs flat against the far wall.

Sharon saw all of this in a fraction of a second, the scene burned onto her retinas. Then time reasserted itself and all hell broke loose.

Tonia let out an inhuman screech and hurled herself across the church hall at the beast stalking the two boys. Somehow she’d managed to pick up a heavy wooden chair and she swung it at the unsuspecting werewolf with all her might. The force of the impact shattered the wood into jagged, foot-long shards. Tonia didn’t hesitate and drove one of them into the creature’s back with so much force it burst out of the werewolf’s stomach.

The monster howled in pain and surprise and began to snap at the makeshift stake that remained just out of reach. Tonia took a step back, apparently surprised at the success of her attack. That was when the other two creatures turned their attention to her. The beast before Sharon leaped over her and barrelled into Tonia’s side; its jaws clamped down on her arm, severing the appendage in a single bite. The other creature tore itself away from Bella, trailing a streamer of the girl’s intestines behind it, and slashed the woman’s Achilles tendon with its talons. Tonia’s leg buckled under her and she fell to the floor, vanishing in an instant beneath the enraged monsters.

Sharon couldn’t move. The horror she was witnessing was too much and, for a moment, her mind seemed to shut down. Tonia was still screaming beneath the onslaught of claws and fangs from the two werewolves, while the injured one whined and snapped at the makeshift stake that impaled it. It would only be a matter of seconds before she shared her friend’s fate, she knew.

It was Angela that snapped her out of her resigned fugue state. “Everyone. The cellar. Get into the cellar. Now.”

The torchlight seemed to be a beacon of hope, illuminating Angela and an open door that ran beneath the stage to the storage room below. Sharon pulled herself to her feet, ignoring the white bomb-burst of pain erupting from her injured ankle. Matthew was by her side, trying to help her, and while he lacked the strength to be much use, his presence banished the last of her hopelessness, replacing it with a righteous anger and a determination to get her nephew through this ordeal. She didn’t dare look back until she reached the doorway and had ushered Matthew safely inside.

Tonia’s corpse was spread over an eight foot patch of gore, hardly recognisable anymore. One of the werewolves continued to feast on the bloody fragments, while the other had turned its attention to its stricken companion and had fastened its jaws around the wooden stake. In a matter of seconds the object would be removed, and Sharon had heard stories of how quickly these things healed.

Most of the children were now in the relative safety of the cellar, but the two boys that were being stalked prior to Tonia’s assault were still frozen in place in the corner of the room, their faces blank masks of terror. Sharon started to move towards them when Angela put her hand on her shoulder and shook her head. “No. Get downstairs. I’ll get them.”

The look on Angela’s face said it all. She knew the chance of getting to the children was slim, but she had to try. She was responsible for these children, and to abandon those two boys would have made Tonia’s sacrifice mean nothing. Sharon nodded her understanding and Angela ran across the slippery, blood-drenched floor to where the children cowered, gathering one up under each arm. She’d made it almost halfway across the room when first one child, and then the other were torn from her grasp.

She turned and screamed out in fury, advancing on the werewolves that were tearing the young boys apart, all reason long gone. Then the third werewolf, apparently already healed from its wounds, hit her square in the chest and began to tear into her body while she beat at it.

Sharon couldn’t watch anymore. She pulled the heavy steel door closed, fastened the bolt and descended the stairs to the crowd of weeping children.

Matthew hugged her fiercely then stepped back and held her at arm’s length, regarding her with a strange expression on his face. “Auntie Sharon?”

She somehow managed a smile. “Yes, Matthew?”

He pointed to her leg. “Does that mean you’re going to turn into a monster as well?”

She looked down and saw four deep, parallel gashes across her calf. The marks of a werewolf’s claws.

Chapter 15

1st January 2009. Sandpiper Public House, High Moor. 00:06

Mandy stumbled out of the car park towards the front of the pub. A few people stood close to the building, backs pressed against the wall in an attempt to avoid the worst of the falling snow while they smoked their cigarettes. Of the two bouncers that had guarded the door earlier, only one was present. A bald man in a heavy black jacket who leaned against the door frame talking to a couple of girls that were in Mandy’s year at school. She pushed her way past the girls to stand in front of the doorman.

She’d been trying to frame a coherent thought, but as soon as she opened her mouth, the words rushed from her in a torrent. “You’ve got to help me! There was a man in the car park and he killed my mum and then a werewolf killed him you have to call the police and get everyone inside then lock the door before… oh, God… before it comes and kills everyone!”

The doorman’s face creased into a frown and his eyes narrowed. “Steady on love. Just calm down and get your breath back. What have you taken? Coke? Pills?”

Mandy shook her head. “I’ve not taken anything. You have to listen to me or everyone is going to die. Do you understand? There’s a massive fucking werewolf in the car park!”

The bouncer appeared a little taken aback but quickly regained his composure. “Look, I don’t know if you’re trying to wind me up…”

He never finished his sentence. A howl echoed around the building, the sound reflected from the unyielding concrete of the shopping centre until it seemed to surround them. It was answered by another, and another, and another from all around the town. A joyful lament that combined in a primal chorus, drowning out the sounds of drunken revelry from within the pub. The colour drained from the bouncer’s face and the smokers near the doorway looked up, eyes wide with terror.

The doorman seemed convinced by this. “Inside. Get inside, all of you. Now!”

Mandy needed no further encouragement and ducked beneath the man’s arm into the dark, cavernous interior of the
Sandpiper
. She felt her way along the cheap wallpaper, her eyes registering only vague outlines of doorways or the tacky wildlife pictures that adorned the walls. Then the front doorway slammed shut with the finality of a closing tomb, and what little ambient light there was disappeared, plunging her into absolute pitch darkness.

She knew she should have felt safer once the door was closed and the bolts in place, but she didn’t. The darkness was all-encompassing and the urge to curl up on the floor was almost overwhelming
. Maybe they won’t come. If I hide here, or lock myself in the toilets, then maybe I’ll be safe. The police will come soon. Or the army. I should just hide until they get here.

The thoughts were seductive whispers in the back of her consciousness, born from terror and desperation. Her limbs felt numb, heavy. As if the nerves had died and she was hauling around lumps of dead meat instead of arms and legs. She knew that what she needed to do, above everything else, was get back to her dad and Ian. She didn’t know what she’d say to them, but being with family would at least provide her with a temporary refuge – an illusion of safety. And if the werewolves came, then at least she’d die with people that loved her. She willed her leaden legs into motion once more and felt her way along the wall, guided by the raucous laughter in the main bar area, until her hands found the heavy wooden door.