Moondog and the Reed Leopard

by Neil Mach

  ‘Can you turn on an interior light?’ she asked, leaning against the car-door for support. ‘It’ll make things easier.’

  ‘No,’ he said bluntly. She thought he frowned.

  After that, he handed her a black balaclava for a face mask, like the one’s cops use when they’re assigned dangerous missions. She pulled it over her hair, and it felt tight around her brow. Finally, he gave her a pair of black rubberized boots to swap for her trainers and black gloves, with metal bits around the fingers, which needed to be pulled on. Once she’d transformed herself into a rufty-tufty operative, she started to get the giggles. She attempted to see how she looked in the wing-mirror of the Hummer, but it was far too dark. Nonetheless, she felt super-strong and invincible.

  If only Jimmie could see me now... she reflected.

  They made their way, on foot, towards Groby Pool.

  Once they arrived at the sacred spot, Moondog pushed her to the darkest area. She had a hard time seeing in the gloom, but Moondog had no problem at all. She kept tripping over things and making crunching noises with her stupid fat feet. Now and then he would give a stern tut-tut because she caused so more clatter. He helped her stay upright with firm nudges. Eventually, her eyes grew accustomed to the murk, and then she saw they headed towards a timber structure. Someone had built a wooden platform on boards. On top of this wooden structure, she saw benches and a sign that contained a map. At first, she thought they’d sit on those benches, to cuddle and huddle, perhaps to share a warm flask of cocoa. But oh no! Moondog had other ideas… He pointed to a narrow space below the platform

  ‘What?’ she whispered. ‘I have to go underneath?’

  He demonstrated what to do. He squeezed his frame under the boards, feet first, then wiggled his stomach along the damp floor until he’d completely hidden below the timber decking. Eventually, all that she could see was his disguised face. She didn’t know if he was smiling or grimacing, because she only saw the whites of his eyes. He urged her to get alongside him, by grunting, so she folded herself under the decking, to snuggle down and join him with some enthusiasm.

  It proved tight under the damp planks, and they did not have much room to hold their necks up. So, once they settled, Moondog dragged his duffel bag to an elbow and pulled two black cushions from the top. He demonstrated how they would rest their chins on the softness. Once she’d done that, he pointed at the blank nothingness in front of them.

  ‘That’s the pool,’ he whispered.

  ‘I can’t see anything...’ she complained.

  They heard a colossal flutter then an agonizing eek-eek-eek and the noise came from somewhere close. ‘What was that?’ she shrieked. She instinctively grabbed his elbow.

  ‘Only a water bird. You must calm me down. You gave the poor thing a fright...’

  ‘What about me? The bird frightened me. I’m already getting the heebie-jeebies...and we haven’t even started.’

  ‘There’s probably worse to come —you have to calm yourself. Take deep breaths and relax your muscles.’

  ‘Shape-shifters? What do they look like? Could it become a bird?’ She stretched her toes. Then she let out a shaky breath. She might have unwillingly released gas, too. Though once she had relaxed in her position, she became conscious that she felt snug under the flooring. And although the hiding place was confined, at least she was with Moondog. His ripped body was close, touching hers. Plus, to be fair, it seemed a lot drier under the timber than on top, in the mud. She chose not to think about all the creepy crawlies that must live under the boards, though.

  ‘Is there any such thing as a shape-shifter?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he whispered.

  ‘Oh,’ Hopie made a pout. Not that he could see her expression in the darkness. ‘I thought you said we were looking for one. The way you described it, I thought that was what we are doing here. I imagined there was such a thing.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘But what if there is? What if we accidentally find a pookie? What do we do? Do we capture it in a box? Like they do in Ghostbusters?’

  Moondog gave an unnecessarily long sigh, ‘What are you going on about? We’re not here to catch a Pooka. Even if he was here, which he isn’t, we couldn’t catch it, could we? It’s a free and wild spirit. You can’t capture a free and wild spirit. And anyway, that would be unethical. Don’t you know anything?’

  ‘What are we doing this stake-out for then?’

  ‘We are looking for anomalies.’

  ‘What are hob-nomilies?’

  ‘Have you heard of werewolves?’

  ‘I knew it. I bloody knew it.’ She shifted her toes and rubbed her elbows along her ribcage.

  ‘Shh! Quieten down. It’s not a werewolf we’re looking for... Try not to get over-excited.’

  ‘That’s what the Sarge says too. He says I have an over-active imagination. He says I get too excited. Are you toying with me?’

  ‘It’s the best way to calm your nerves… ‘

  ‘Oh sure...’ Hopie was silent for a moment. Then she burst into life again, ‘How will we know when we see a hob-nomilie? What will we do when it comes? How will we see it in the first place if we don’t know what we’re looking for?’

  ‘We’ll use these.’ He squeezed over what felt like a pair of ordinary binoculars. She pulled them to her face and looked through them and saw, through the lenses, that the outside world was made of gold. Everything was clear. And gold.

  ‘Wow, these are really good…’ she said. She saw flecks on a mirrored surface laid out in front, ghostly trees in a golden distance, and a sky dotted with a trillion spheres. ‘This is amazing. What are those white pimples in blue?’

  ‘You’re using a pair of night vision glasses. The white spots are stars. Try to look for creatures on land or water. Don’t point at the sky. You can have them while I use this bigger thing.’ He pulled another instrument from his bag that seemed twice the size of her night glasses. ‘This is an expensive bit of kit. It’s a thermal imaging camera. We will know when a big creature intrudes into our scene because it will become incredibly still, and you will sense the atmosphere changing as it grows uncannily noiseless. You’ll be aware of the slightest sound. Your breathing will be shallow, your heartrate will grow faster, and your pulse will be more pronounced. Then your hackles will rise.’

  ‘For real?’

  ‘It’s a well-known fact. I know it sounds crazy, but it will feel as if your ears are pricking... ‘

  ‘It sounds a bit scary, now you’ve explained it.’

  ‘It’s not scary at all — it’s exciting...’

  ‘I have so many questions to ask.’

  ‘Well, you must keep them for later. Right now, we need to keep quiet. And I mean dead quiet. I’ll go through the rules. So, here goes: Rule number one: no lights ever. None at all. Do you have a lighter or flashlight?’

  Hopie shook her head.

  ‘Good. Rule number two: no talking ever. Absolutely no talking... If I need to your attention, I’ll pinch you, like so... If you need me, pinch back.’

  ‘Ouch!’ She returned the pinch as fast as she could.

  ‘Rule number three: no phones. Is your phone off? ‘

  ‘Erm? I think so.’

  ‘Turn it off now.’

  She had difficulty finding her phone under the multiple layers of clothing. Then she realized, with dread, that she’d left her phone in her purse. And the purse was in her handbag and the handbag in the Hummer.

  ‘Erm? I think I left it in your car by mistake. My bad?’

  ‘Excellent, that’s where it belongs. Mine’s in the car too.’

  She didn’t know if he meant to be sarcastic, so she attempted to shrug her shoulders. She couldn’t shrug because she didn’t have room. You can’t shrug when you’re stretched flat on your stomach. You can’t do much when your chest is crushed into the floor, with no room to breathe. ‘What if I cough or sneeze?’ she asked. ‘What if I make a noise like that?’

  ‘You
just broke rule number two —but I’ll let it go this once. You can’t help if you cough or sneeze. You might do other natural bodily functions too...’ He sniffed the air as if he knew she already had. ‘If you do one of those bodily things it can’t be helped, it doesn’t matter. Let it go. But don’t say a single word.’

  ‘Do you have guns?’

  ‘Guns? Why would I have guns? This is not a T.V. show — this is real life. ‘

  ‘Even so, it sounds dangerous. I’m getting a bit anxious now. Shouldn’t we have silver-tipped bullets or crossbow bolts, like Van Helsing, or something? I mean, we’re dealing with werewolves here. Don’t you have something like that? Don’t you have a police baton, or a zapper or C.S. gas? What happens if something goes wrong? How will you protect me?’

  ‘The people who make laws are the ones who carry weapons. People like your friend Jimmie carry weapons. People like us, me and you, we don’t. We’re the under-dogs. We’re servants to those who carry weapons. We come into situations unarmed. That’s the way of things...’

  ‘Is it? I hadn’t thought about things that way before. But even so, I think we deserve something to defend ourselves.’

  ‘At the coronation of the Queen, after they’d sealed a ghost inside her body, do you know what gift they gave her first?’

  ‘They sealed a ghost inside the Queen?’

  ‘After that bit. Put that aside for the moment… Do you know what gift they gave her first?’

  ‘I don’t know. A crown? A golden key for Buckingham Palace loo? Who knows? ‘

  ‘They gave her mighty sword.’

  ‘Well, I never.’

  ‘That sword is a representation of power. And after the ceremony, when escorted by a hundred cavalry soldiers, she paraded along the royal route in a carriage, to present the sword od state to all her subjects — so they appreciated that she possessed the power, and they didn’t. She was the owner of a mighty sword. And they weren’t. That’s the image of power: A woman sitting in a cart holding onto a weapon that she might use to cut her subject’s heads off. All power flows from that simple image...’

  ‘So? Was that a long way of telling me you don’t have a gun?’

  ‘I have this...’

  He fiddled with his top-most ‘Babygro’ pocket and pulled out a small object. She guessed, in the darkness, it was a man’s plastic comb. It couldn’t have been much bigger. And it was black and plasticky. She didn’t want to crumple his enthusiasm for the plastic comb, so chose not to say anything. But it looked like it would be no use in a deadly fight against a werewolf, vampire, pookie or hob-nomalie.

  ‘It’s a tanto...’ he explained as if she cared.

  ‘Great. I feel massively protected now. It’s good to know you brought your comb with you.’

  ‘Please shut up. We’ll have the opportunity to talk later when we eat our picnic.’

  ‘We’re having a picnic? In the middle of the night? ‘

  She got a pinch for that. She’d broken rule number two again.

  *

  After an hour into their vigil —though Hopie couldn’t properly appreciate the passage of time — she experienced some of the sensations Moondog had described earlier. Chiefly, her hackles started to rise.

  She perceived an imminent stillness. The air went static. The wind noticeably changed, in both strength and direction, then the edges of her nose wobbled and some small hairs on her forehead, hairs she never knew existed until then, began to tremble inside her balaclava.

  Moondog pinched her arm with such delicacy she almost missed it; then she concentrated her vision on an area of trees situated at about eleven o’clock from their position. The thing whatever it was, seemed a long way off.

  Then she saw it for herself.

  It was a ghost-like apparition, with a brilliant yellow border, and it glistened like gold-leaf in the strange radiance of her lens. The tree-shadows skewed the odd spectacle, composing what she thought was like a dreamlike oil-painting.

  Then, as she watched the picture through her special eyeglasses, she reasoned there was not one beast, but two. No, there were three. Three of them: Three yellow-brown and nebulously muzzy shapes, certainly there.

  As she stared through the viewfinder, trying hard not to blink, she saw a group of four-legged animals. Each animal moved soundless and cautious, and each stopped to tip a nose into the air. The last creature in line raised long ears to listen, but the others kept their ears pointed to the ground as if they needed to hear the approach of footsteps. Each animal had a small grey spot at the end of his body, a cute face shaped like an arrowhead, and a hot circle around what she supposed must be the mouth.

  The biggest of the three animals led the way, and this creature moved cautiously ahead of the others, always attentive, until it reached the water’s edge at Groby. Then he dipped his head into the fabulously polished water. And Hopie saw his tongue lap-up the silver and gold liquid. Then the second did it too. The last one stood guard, he waited, acting as the look-out for the others.

  She’d experienced an indefinable moment. It had truly been one of the most electrifying happenings of her life. She knew she’d appreciate it forever, appreciate him forever. Because it was the first time, she’d ever seen any wild animal, let alone a wild deer at a watering hole.

  If Moondog had seen her expression — hidden under the mask, in the darkest of cramped spaces — he would have seen a girl whose grin was as broad as a Cheshire cat’s.

  *

  The line of deer vanished as ephemerally as they arrived. An hour later, Moondog decided to call it a night. He’d gained some footage of the creatures and seemed pleased with himself. He freed his limbs from their squished hiding place and hauled Hopie’s shoulders, to pull her clear of the decking. Then he brushed her outfit down, with a few flicks of his glove. They wandered back the Hummer where he demonstrated how to get into the car silently, without slamming the door. They jumped in, and Moondog found a packed lunch hidden in the ‘safe’ on his centre console. He had earlier wrapped some rolls into tinfoil with vegetarian fillings. Plus, two brushed-steel flasks of soup.

  Hopie munched her first bap, ‘How did you know I was vegetarian?’

  ‘I didn’t. I am. That’s why I made them...’

  ‘This is nice...’

  ‘Do you like it? I baked the beets myself, then added field herbs and prepared a paste. Not a lot of Romanichal men cook in a vardo, but I like to prepare my nourishment. I take my own road on many things…’

  ‘Very good,’ Hopie said, after gulping another bite. Though she didn’t know what any of those words meant. In between mouthfuls, she started to chat. ‘May I ask you a direct question? I hope you don’t think I’m impudent. Why are you so cagy about the things that you do? Is cagy the right word? My mind’s gone haywire tonight… so maybe not. Why are you cautious and elusive about things? Things in general?’

  ‘I find it’s not a good idea to talk honestly and openly about things that scare most people. People scoff and think I’m a loony if I talk about anything spiritual. So, I avoid discussing it. It wasn’t always that way, of course — once my people were cherished and honoured because they knew secrets. But that knowledge is longer required — and our ancient wisdom has become neglected. That’s because people think science has all the answers. Of course, it doesn’t… In fact, science offers more questions. But that’s the way of things. People have lost their way; they are misguided by the men in control, the few who take everything from the many. These men in control, with their big swords and silver spurs, take away our labour, our muscle, our thoughts and deeds, and they even take away our freedoms and spirituality. It’s very sad. Most folks have forgotten their place in the natural rhythm of life. Have you noticed how people are fascinated by tales of death? Tales of death are the focus of television shows and films, books and games. Tales of death sell newspapers. If you said you attended the funeral of a loved one or you told a friend that you recently lost a loved one, they’d avoid dis
cussing it... they’d probably change the subject and might even distance themselves from you. That’s odd, isn’t it? They’re fascinated by tales of death, but they don’t want to encounter death as a real thing. I think it’s partly because they don’t like to assimilate the truth. They like to play around with notions and ideas but can’t face the truth: life and death, the afterlife and the end of time… these are all truths. They don’t want to think about such things. They even make jokes about death. It’s the same with magical and spiritual things… it’s a big laugh for them to go out on Halloween, dressed as ghosts and vampires. But when something truly spiritual gets into their face, they turn away — they don’t want to know.’

  ‘Er? I never thought about people’s fascination with tales of death before. I know what you mean about people’s attitudes toward dying. When my Father passed away — he was ill for a long-time —my closest friendships dissolved. That’s even though I needed them at the time. I always felt curious about my friend’s behavior, so you’re right. What has all that got to do with supernatural stuff though?’

  ‘You asked me to explain why I am cagy. Good word, by the way. I am trying to explain it: My job is like being an undertaker. People know we get stuff done, and they accept they might need our help, but they’d rather not think about what we do and how we do it. They hope they’ll never need our services.’

  ‘Are there many like you?’

  ‘There are lots of private investigators. Private eyes who do divorce work, collect debts, find lost relations, and track people. But there are not many detectives who investigate paranormal activity... I am one of a limited number.’

  ‘What’s the difference between paranormal activity and normal activity? Because, I tell you this, when I saw those deer tonight, I knew I had been transformed. It was magic. True magic. But wouldn’t I be right in saying that it was a paranormal experience for me?’

  ‘It was paranormal to you because you’ve never been stimulated in that way before… you have never experienced a set of sensations on a similar scale. But for someone who works with deer daily, for example, a gamekeeper in a country park, it would have been a mundane moment. And that’s one of the main problems about investigating paranormal events. They are supposed to defy ordinary scientific explanation so that they can be properly classified as supernatural phenomena. But nine times out of ten they are merely unusual episodes dressed up as special and witnessed by people who have no other frame of reference.’