High Moor (9 page)

25th April 1986. Mill Woods, High Moor. 05:47.

The darkness in the sky gave way to a dismal, flat grey. Shadows receded and then faded away. Sporadic bird song broke the silence as the world came back to life.

Steven had never been so glad to see the dawn. During the night, his mood had cycled between extremes of shock, terror, and misery. Carl had insisted on absolute silence to reduce the chance of another surprise attack. He hadn't even let Steven smoke, and the nicotine cravings had played across his already frayed nerves.

He turned to Carl and whispered, “Do you think it’s safe to get down yet?”

“Probably.”

“You getting down?”

“Nope.”

“I thought you just said it was safe?” said Steven, a little too loudly. He winced at the sound of his voice.

“I said it was probably safe. I don’t feel like testing the theory.”

“I thought you were supposed to be some kind of expert on these fucking things?”

Carl paused and scanned the forest, listening for any sounds that were out of place, then looked down at the younger man and chuckled. “Son, I’ve faced off with more than a few werewolves in my time. More than most people manage and live to tell about it, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t say I was an expert though. Not by any stretch of the imagination. What I am is the best you’ve got.”

“Fuck this, I need a cigarette,” said Steven, and reached inside his jacket. When he retrieved a sodden mass of cardboard, paper, and tobacco, he threw the pack to the forest floor in disgust. “Bollocks. So when did you start?"

"Start what?"

Steven rolled his eyes. "Collecting stamps. What the fuck do you think I mean? When did you start hunting werewolves?"

“That’s a long story.”

“You got anything better to do?”

The old man laughed. “OK, but it’ll cost you breakfast. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“It was October ’44. Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Partisans and the Red Army were doing a pretty good job at tearing the Nazis a new asshole. Belgrade was surrounded, and my bosses figured that the Germans would lose control of it within two, maybe three weeks. There were rumours of a research facility forty or fifty clicks south of the Jasenovac concentration camp, and they didn’t want all that Nazi science falling into the hands of Mother Russia. So, they parachuted me and four of my buddies into occupied territory, with orders to grab anything interesting and then high tail it out of there before the Russkies turned up.

“We were dropped in near the mountains and, once we got our shit together, we headed off towards our objective. Tino was our communications guy. He’d done a master's degree in physics before the war, so it was his job to try and identify the useful stuff when we hit the research station. Korky handled demolitions. Once we got what we needed, he was going to blow the place sky high. Harry was our close combat expert. Bad tempered son of a bitch, but I never saw anyone handle a blade the way he could.

“Our Sergeant was a big New Yorker called Pete. He was one of the hardest men I ever knew. Then there was me. A snot-nosed, ex ranch boy from Idaho. I’d been shooting things ever since I was big enough to hold a rifle. I was the team’s sniper.

“Things started going wrong on the second night. We were probably around twenty klicks from our objective when we heard all hell breaking loose. There was a fire fight going down a few kilometres northwest of our position. It didn’t last long. The woods echoed with automatic weapons fire for maybe four or five minutes and then just stopped. The Sarge thought we should do a recon to see what was going on. The bulk of the fighting was a few hundred kilometres to the east, based on our last intel. Last thing we wanted to do was walk smack into a major offensive. We were going to get in, check it out, and if it looked like things were going to get hairy, then we’d get the fuck out of there and scratch the mission.

“It took us a couple of hours to make our way there. We took it slow and careful, making sure that no one could get the drop on us. It was Tino that found them in the end. A squad of Krauts; eight or nine of them, torn to shreds. Hell, I don’t think there was any part of the poor sons of bitches left that was bigger than a football. There were plenty of empty shell cases lying around, but they were all German. No other bodies and no evidence of weapons damage on the corpses. Put the fear of God into us, I can tell ya.”

Carl paused, reached for his handgun and clicked the safety off. Steven opened his mouth to speak. Carl shook his head. A twig snapped, off to their right. Both men raised their weapons, hardly daring to breathe. A badger shuffled from the undergrowth and regarded the two men with curious eyes, then continued on its way.

“Jesus, that thing scared the shit out of me,” said Carl. “Where was I, oh yeah. We’d found the bodies and were on the verge of freaking out. The Sarge put a stop to that right away. Told us to get our heads back in the game. We moved out, weapons ready, back into the woods towards our objective. That was when the howling started.

“Now, I grew up on a ranch, and while wolves were pretty rare, I’d still come across one or two in my time. Loners that came down from the mountains, looking for food. Those howls didn’t sound like any wolf I ever heard. There were at least three of them, to the north, south, and east of our position. We headed west, never thinking that they were driving us that way.

“They took the Sarge out first. He was bringing up the rear when he was hit. He got a couple of rounds off before the thing bit his fucking head clean off. In the darkness, all we could see was a big black shadow tearing into him. Tino opened up on it, but he might as well have been firing blanks. The bastard just ignored him and carried on ripping the Sarge to ribbons. The moon came out then, and I got a good look at the thing. It looked like a wolf, but much bigger. The size of a fucking grizzly. That was when the others attacked. They came running at us through the trees. The guys rained bullets at them, but they didn’t even slow down. I’m ashamed to say that my nerve broke, and I ran. After a minute, the shooting stopped and the screaming started. After a while, the screaming stopped as well.

“I ran all night. I heard them howling, out there in the dark, but they never came too close. To this day, I have no idea why. All I know is that I came out of the forest into a village around midday; exhausted, dehydrated, and raving like a lunatic about monsters in the woods. Then I passed out, and the next thing I remember was waking up a couple of days later.”

The sporadic birdsong within the forest was now a chorus. The first weak rays of the sun filtered through the branches, banishing the pre-dawn chill in the air. Steven had never seen a more welcome sight.

“I reckon it’s safe to get down now,” said Carl.

Steven raised an eyebrow. “Probably.”

The two men laughed and clambered down to the forest floor, to the remains of their platform and the rest of their equipment. Carl sifted through the wreckage and swore as he retrieved his hunting rifle.

“The scope's got water in it, and the barrel's out of kilter. Ain't gonna be using this baby anytime soon. Damn, I really liked that gun.”

“Do you think we got it? Last night?”

“I think you hit it, otherwise there wouldn’t be enough left of us to fill a doggie bag. Whether it was enough to kill the bastard is another question.”

“So, what do we do now?”

“Well, the rain has gotten rid of most of the tracks. After I get something to eat and take a shower, I’ll come back here and see if I can pick up a trail. Maybe we’ll get lucky. You should get onto the hospitals and see if anyone was admitted with a gunshot wound. You also need to think of a name for your goat.”

“My goat? I…” said Steven, looking across to where the goat was tethered.

The goat looked at Steven, bleated at him in an accusatory tone, and then started eating the bracken.

“So was that it? Back in ’44? You woke up in a village and it was all over?”

“Hell, no. I wish it was. Come on, I’ll tell you the rest on the way back to the car.”

The two men retrieved their equipment from the remains of the platform and untethered the goat.

“Like I was saying, I woke up in a bed in the village. I’d turned my ankle pretty bad that night, even though I hadn’t realised it at the time. It was swollen right up, and I struggled to put any weight on it. I’d lost my sniper kit, but I still had my sidearm and a full clip of ammunition, and I still had some of my standard issue field gear.

“The house belonged to a woman called Mirela. She was as beautiful a girl as I had ever seen. Dark, curly hair flowing down her back, curves in all the right places, and amber eyes that looked straight into your soul. To tell you the truth, I was surprised to see anyone of Romany origin in the area. Most of them had been rounded up by the Nazis and sent to the death camps at Jasenovac. She told me that her village had escaped the Nazis' attention because they kept to themselves. She wasn’t kidding.

“The village itself was in a clearing, smack in the middle of the forest. There were no roads leading in or out, just a couple of trails. They had no power, got their water from a stream, and lived off the land. There were probably around twenty houses: log cabins with hardened mud interior walls, spread in a circle, around an ancient oak in the centre of the clearing. There was a blacksmith by the stream, one of the families kept pigs and chickens, and that was about it.

“I tried to talk to Mirela about what I’d seen in the forest, but she told me that some things were better left alone. I’d seen Lon Chaney Junior in
The Wolf Man
on my last leave though, and I had a pretty good idea of what I’d seen. When my ankle was strong enough for me to walk, I took my silver crucifix, melted it down, and replaced the lead bullet in one of my pistol rounds with a crude silver one. I had no idea if it would work on those things or even if it would fire, but I sure felt better having it.

“I stayed in the village for a couple of weeks. The others living there gave me a wide berth, and that suited me just fine. No one else except Mirela spoke English, and I sure as hell couldn’t understand a word they were saying. I just waited for my ankle to heal so that I could get out of that god-forsaken country and back to the States.

“It happened one night. Mirela was away somewhere, and I went outside to take a leak. I’d just finished putting my guy away, when I heard a sound from the undergrowth behind her house. I pulled out my pistol just as one of those creatures emerged from the trees, carrying a rabbit in its mouth.

“For a second, neither of us did anything. I stood there, staring down this huge black wolf with amber eyes. I don’t think it had expected to find me there and seemed to be unsure of what to do next. Then it dropped the rabbit, and I fired.

“The thing yelped and fell to the ground. All I wanted to do was run back to Mirela’s house and barricade myself inside, but my legs wouldn’t work. I stood there and watched the hair recede and the creature’s body flow back into the shape of a person. Mirela, bleeding from a chest wound.

“The realisation hit me like a hammer. Mirela was a werewolf. Most likely, every single man, woman and child in the goddamn village was one too. A whole fucking pack of them. I could hear doors opening around the village, and raised voices. I didn’t hang around to try and explain things. I took one of their horses and got the hell out of there. The next morning, I was picked up by a Nazi patrol and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp.”

“Jesus. So, after that, you started hunting them down?”

“Hell no, not straight away. When the war was over, I went back to my folks' ranch in Idaho. I stayed there for a few years, but got restless and headed to Africa to hunt big game. Didn’t hear about another werewolf for maybe ten years.”

“Fucking hell. I’m surprised you wanted anything to do with it. I'd have run a bloody mile.”

“Believe me, I thought about it. But, if I didn’t do anything to help, then no one else was gonna. Sometimes you just have to do what’s right. Anyway, changing the subject, you come up with a name for your goat yet?”

Steven smiled. “Yeah, I think I’m going to call it Lucky.”

Carl laughed. “That it is, Steve, that it is. Come on then, I believe you owe me a breakfast.”

***

25th April 1986. Traveller Camp, High Moor. 08:00.

Joseph lifted the pan of boiling water from the fire and carried it to his caravan. Despite the bright sunshine outside, the curtains were drawn, and the only light inside was provided by candles that flickered in the breeze as he opened the door. He placed the pan on a small table beside the bed and opened a leather pouch containing a set of surgical tools. He took the implements out, one at a time, and placed them into the hot water.

“Has there been any change?”

The dark-haired woman who knelt beside the bed looked up at him. “She’s getting worse, Joseph. She’s running a fever, and the wound won’t stop bleeding.” She placed a cold cloth onto the forehead of the semi-conscious old woman.

Joseph moved her to one side and leaned over. “Let me see, Yolanda." He removed the dressing from the woman’s shoulder. Fresh blood welled up from the ragged wound and trickled down her arm. Joseph threw the blood-soaked cloth into the waste bin and applied a fresh dressing. Flowers of blood blossomed across the surface of the white fabric.

Yolanda put her hand on Joseph's arm. “Perhaps it's better this way. Better for all of us.”

“She’s my mother. I won’t let her die. Not when there is a chance to save her.”

“She’s moonstruck, Joseph. Mirela has no control over herself anymore, and she is getting worse. She puts us all at risk.”

Joseph ignored his wife, removed a set of tweezers from the hot water, then peeled back the dressing. “Hold her down. I need to get the bullet out.”

Yolanda frowned, but complied with her husband’s wishes. “You are not listening to me, Joseph. She has already killed a child, and now someone got close enough to shoot at her. How long before
they
track us here?”

Joseph’s brow furrowed in concentration as he inserted the tweezers into the bullet hole. The old woman cried out in pain and shuddered on the bed. Her skin moved in waves. Thick white hairs sprouted and then retreated back into her flesh.