Blue Moon Investigations series Boxed Set 1

by steve higgs

  ‘Need a hand, Frank?’

  Beaming, smiley face as usual. ‘I think I know what the Bluebell Bigfoot is. I brought some reference material over.'

  I looked at the pile of books and A4 pages on the passenger seat. ‘Shall I take these inside?'

  ‘I could use a hand,’ he agreed and together we scooped it all up and headed down the path to my place.

  ‘I thought you were looking for information on vampires, Frank. In particular, the one that is threatening to kill me and all my kin.'

  ‘Ah well, that was easy research, so I had Poison do it while I busied myself looking into the Bluebell Bigfoot. Don't worry though I have lots of information about Ambrogio and his followers.'

  ‘He has followers?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He is one of the oldest vampires in Europe, at least of those that are known to still be hunting and therefore he has many children'

  ‘Wait. Children?’

  ‘You know, turned vampires,’ Frank explained in a tone that suggested I was being particularly dense.

  I juggled the books I was carrying so I could get my keys up to the door and used them to push it open, shooing the dogs with my foot as I went to prevent tripping on them.

  ‘So,' Frank continued, ‘Ambrogio will have turned many former lovers’ etcetera into vampires across the many centuries he has lived. Of course, I can’t say exactly how old he is, but I was able to trace him back to 12th Century Rome as I showed you earlier, so let's call it an even thousand years at least. Each of these children will have turned some more, so he has quite a family. Then there are those that want to be turned.'

  ‘Vampires-wannabes,’ I interjected. I suppose it made as much sense as putting a poster of a footballer on the wall.

  ‘Essentially yes, Tempest. Vampire groupies might be a better term of reference though. They form groups and communicate with the real vampires in the hope that they can perform tasks for them. Then, through their display of loyalty earn their trust, and in so doing, the right to be turned.'

  Both Frank and I had arrived in the kitchen just a few paces from the front door. We dumped the piles of books onto the kitchen counter where it formed a breakfast bar. I grabbed the kettle and held it up to Frank by way of a question.

  ‘Always, Tempest. Milk, two sugars please.’

  NATO standard brew I reflected, remembering my army days. Funny that I could not hear milk and two sugars without connecting the military term for it. White no sugar was Julie Andrews… white none (nun) or Whoopie Goldberg for black no sugar (black nun): army humour.

  I flicked the kettle on. ‘I just need to let the dogs out,' I explained as I headed out of the room to find the boys in their usual feverish excitement by the back door. Seconds later I could hear them outside chasing unseen birds or cats as I came back into the kitchen. The kettle clicked off, so I made the tea while Frank sifted the pages and books into some kind of order. I glanced across as I stirred the milk in, I could see perhaps one hundred little, coloured flags stuck to pages in the various books he had assembled.

  ‘You were telling me about vampire groupies,’ I prompted.

  ‘Yes, vampire groupies. You met some the other day actually, Obsidian Dark and his bunch - local Kent vampire group.’

  ‘You mean they were not real vampires?’

  Frank stopped moving and stared at me, his face incredulous. ‘They were out in daylight, Tempest. Of course, they weren't real vampires.' I had momentarily forgotten that Frank took everything very seriously and that my flippancy was wasted on him.

  ‘No, Frank. Of course not. However, Ambrogio is a real vampire?’

  ‘Yes, Tempest. How is it that you came to be a paranormal investigator again? You don’t seem to know anything about the paranormal.’

  I was looking at the paperwork in front of me, wondering, not for the first time whether he might have a point. Did I need to engage in some serious study of the subject? Sighing, I replied, ‘I appear to know enough for now.'

  ‘Well, there seem to be some considerable gaps in your knowledge, Mr. Michaels. So many in fact that I am not sure where to begin.'

  ‘Let's start with you telling me about the Kent vampire groupies and how they fit in with Ambrogio and then tell me about Ambrogio and don't forget to include lots of detail about why he wants to kill me. How about that? Then you can tell me what you think the Bluebell Bigfoot is if it is not some nut in a suit.' I picked up my tea for a sip and wished I had a chocolate digestive to go with it.

  ‘Alllrighty-then,' said Frank, as he sat on one of the breakfast-counter stools. He sifted through a ream of paper - some loose single leaves and some a stack of pages stapled together. ‘Here we are,' he said producing what looked like a colour flyer.

  The flyer was for the Brotherhood of the Dead LARP vampire club. LARP I knew stood for Live Action Role Play, I found the concept ridiculous, but it was not my role to judge and I had no right to any opinion on other person’s hobbies and pursuits. The Brother Hood of the Dead met twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. The font was in red type and appeared to be leaking blood. The flyer advertised real vampire encounters, true believers welcome, come along and join the undead.

  ‘Where did you get the flyer?’

  ‘Off the wall in my shop.’

  ‘Lovely. Will they be kidnapping virgins and draining each other’s blood?’

  ‘No, but they will be fantasising about both those things I expect. We get them in the shop sometimes. The clubs all follow real vampires, they contact them, perform tasks for them, beg them to visit and turn them. That sort of thing. I believe they all partake in drinking blood which they claim to be human. I can’t tell you where they get it from or if it is chicken blood or something else, but they can be quite intense and a little scary when they want to be. And they are all believers.' Frank went quiet for a moment thinking. ‘You saw on the News that the Demedicus kid had human blood from one of the murder victims on his clothes?'

  ‘Yes, it was blood from the second victim - the little old lady. I got information from a friend on the force this morning. He has confessed to the murders, so I guess they keep him I until they can prove it wasn’t him.’

  ‘You think he is innocent?’

  ‘Innocent might be a stretch, but the kid I met did not give off a violent vibe. I doubt he could have overpowered the first victim either, so I don’t think he killed anyone, but I think he knows who did. He got the blood from somewhere. You said they perform tasks. Like what?

  ‘I don’t know actually. I am just patching bits together from conversations in the shop but typically I should think it would be arranging collection of their coffins and delivering them places when they visit certain countries, providing volunteers for them to feed on. Ooh, I bet Ambrogio will turn to them to deliver on his threats to you!’ Frank appeared excited at the prospect of vampire nutters attacking me.

  ‘Okay,’ was the only answer I could come up with. ‘So, what is the deal with Ambrogio? Why does he want to bathe in my soul?’

  ‘My guess would be that he is in direct contact with the Brotherhood of the Dead vampires, given how soon after the incident with Demedicus and Obsidian he emailed you, and that he has taken personal insult in your meddling. It could be that he is the founder of their group or that they do his bidding. He is an old vampire and therefore very powerful.'

  ‘Alright, Frank. I get the picture,' I cut him off. ‘I need to go talk to the Brotherhood of the Dead and get this settled now before someone does something stupid. You really think they would attack me just because some nutter tells them to?'

  Frank kind of shrugged. Helpful.

  ‘So, Ambrogio is a master vampire from Italy who may be controlling a bunch of local vampire groupies that may or may not have orders to kill me. Got it. Now tell me about the Bluebell Bigfoot.'

  Frank’s eyes lit up and his grin broadened.

  Investigating the Bluebell Big Foot. Monday, September 27th 1432hrs

  Frank had filled me
in on the recent sightings but had then produced older reports of a beast with a similar description from the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties. There were credible and, in some cases, detailed reports of a large bipedal creature that had been spotted at various sites in the area. No attacks were reported though, so the excitement, if one wished to call it that, was simply because they could not identify what they had seen. It was little more than background information and would have no bearing on what had been seen recently unless it proved to be the same chap doing the same daft thing for fifty years.

  Frank had also produced a picture that had been drawn in pencil by one of the persons that had encountered the beast in 1983. Mr. Carl Morris had drawn a creature that anyone could recognise as the known image of the North American Big Foot or Himalayan Abominable Snowman. Also known as Sasquatch, it was drawn in a fearsome manner as if caught frozen in mid-attack. The creature had a row of pointed teeth and huge canines such as one might find on a lion or other big cat. Both hands were raised to show clawed digits. The appearance of these features could have been taken from a werewolf drawing and I had to wonder how much Carl had embellished the drawing. Had he been attacked by this creature, surely, he would not have survived.

  Frank's theory was that the creature currently being spotted in the Bluebell Hill area was, in fact, a Cowlco, an ancient creature that hibernated for much of its life, was mostly nocturnal and fed only every several years. Frank showed me a drawing of one, similar in many ways to the drawing by Mr. Morris in an old book on mystical creatures. But he dismissed the drawing by Mr. Morris as, according to the text he was showing me, the Cowlco was not known to be carnivorous. I dismissed it all as utter nonsense.

  I had a list of sites where the Bluebell Bigfoot had been seen. There were only four of them and they were all within a couple of miles radius of each other. I noted where each of them was and fetched my walking boots. It was threatening to drizzle but it was still dry for the time being, so I called for the dogs. Not more than two minutes later we were out the door and piling into the car.

  The nearest site was less than a mile from my house. I parked as close to it as I could get, clipped the dogs to their leads and set off to see what I could find. I entered a field in which the McCarthys had claimed to have seen the Bigfoot several weeks ago. I estimated from the picture the paper had shown, that I was now stood in the general area they had been, and that the creature would have been in the treeline now opposite me and up the hill.

  Bluebell Hill is jolly steep in places, so it was a slog to go the short route that I took directly across the field. The field was firm underfoot but damp from recent rainfall. It appeared to be a crop field, possibly some kind of corn, which at this time of the year was nothing but tiny nubs of stalk poking from the dirt.

  I got into the treeline and worked my way along it. I was looking for signs of movement. A large creature will break twigs, leave footprints in the soil or scraps of fur on the branches of trees and bushes as it passes close by. I found nothing. The dogs were happy to look for rabbits and I had to keep calling them back lest they saw one and were too far away for me to retrieve. Dachshunds are small enough to get down a rabbit hole and difficult to get out.

  I got on my hand and knees to look at suspect scrapes in the leaf litter and soil a few times but soon decided that there was simply nothing to find.

  ‘Oi!' said a voice from behind me.

  I turned to face it and found the owner of the voice to be an older gentleman with a shotgun in the crook of his right arm.

  ‘This is my spot,’ he said.

  ‘Your spot for what?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘Don’t play silly buggers, young-un.’ I was such a fan of being talked down to. Ire already rising, I took a definite step forward into his personal space and then looked down at him. He was wearing a green tweed-mix with his socks rolled over the bottom half of his trousers and a heavy roll neck jumper to keep the cold out. His hair was a thick wave of grey and white with just a few bits of black left to show the original colour. The style of it looked like he had set it in 1974 when this look might have last been fashionable and then never changed it since.

  I gave him credit for not taking a step back, but it left me almost pressing chests with him. I was not going to step back either, so instead, I grabbed his shotgun. In one swift move I snatched the weapon with my left hand and pushed him back a pace with my right. With neither hand on it, the shotgun was mine before he could get his hands out of his pockets. I broke the breech and ejected the cartridge. It plopped onto the soil and was snatched up by Dozer who then ran off with his prize.

  ‘Hey, what the devil are you playing at?’

  ‘I am walking my dogs and I don’t like your tone.’ He reached for the shotgun, so I slapped his hand away. ‘Now, my question again. Your spot for what?’

  He looked distinctly less confident now. ‘For catching the Bigfoot.'

  You must be joking was what I wanted to say, but in my line of work, I would spend all day saying that. Instead, I went with a straightforward, ‘What?'

  ‘The Bigfoot was seen here. If it comes back, I am going to kill it and be famous.'

  I sighed. ‘If you shoot the Bigfoot you will find a man inside a suit and will be guilty of manslaughter, but you will definitely not be famous. Are there any more of you out here?'

  ‘I, I don't know,' he said looking around. ‘What do you mean about a man in a suit? Do you mean the Bigfoot isn't a real Bigfoot?' He looked stunned at the possibility that he might be wasting his time.

  ‘Of course, it is a man in a suit. Dear God, man. While you are out here getting cold and damp, the fool that has been dressing up is at work, or at the gym or doing anything other than wandering around in a Bigfoot suit waiting for you to shoot him. After the death yesterday, I doubt he will be seen again.' I offered him his gun and called to Dozer who still had the ejected case. ‘Go home. Stay there.' Dozer had seen that I was after the casing so had run off so I would chase him.

  ‘Are you sure it's not a real Bigfoot?' he called after me, but I had already walked away. I didn’t bother to answer and when I caught sight of him as I left the field, he was trudging slowly down the hill and back towards the road.

  The second site, where Dr. Bryson claimed to have seen the Bigfoot, was just as devoid of any trace of hair or fur or marks that might indicate a large creature had been through. I tried to find where he had discovered the footprint, but any trace of it was long gone. Leaves were falling to cover the ground so even if it was still here it would be well covered.

  I didn’t bother going to the other sites. Instead, I went home, made tea and looked up the people that had reported seeing the creature.

  It took a couple of attempts to find a number for the McCarthys, but I managed to catch Mrs. McCarthy at home. She recanted her tale to me quite willingly and it matched what I had read in the reports online and in the papers. I believed that she and her husband had seen something. I asked her what she thought it was, but she did not want to be tied to an answer. She expressed that she doubted very much that there was a Bigfoot roaming around Bluebell Hill but that she also had no idea what she had seen if it was not a Bigfoot. She also said that she would not be going anywhere other than the park to walk her dog for a long time.

  I thanked her for her time and called the next person. The next person believed they had definitely seen a Bigfoot, no doubt about it. Once again, I felt sure they believed what they were saying. The next name was the last on my list and the one I considered to be the most interesting - Dr. Barry Bryson. Dr. Bryson was a chap who ought to know his stuff given his knowledge of Zoology and such.

  Online searches revealed basic information such as a relationship with an estranged wife, pictures of a couple of children and information such as his education, career, and current employment. Dr. Bryson was the manager of a wildlife park less than a mile from my house. I switched my search and found the postcode, grabbed my keys and jacket a
nd headed out to see if he was there.

  I could have walked there with the dogs given the distance involved, but then I doubted a wildlife park would welcome domesticated dogs and leaving them outside in the cooling air for an indeterminate period seemed folly. Instead, I left them at home sleeping and whizzed two minutes around the corner to a place I had passed thousands of times, but never once thought to stop at.

  Kent Predators and Prey Wildlife Park was not a large place and looked like it badly needed a new investor. The car park could easily hold one hundred cars and I could see a sign for an overflow carpark leading to a field but there were only two cars present at 1504hrs on a Tuesday. Perhaps they did better in the holidays. The cars both had foreign plates, one I recognised as French and one had an E on it. Is that Spain or Estonia? I could not remember.

  The wooden fence at the leading edge of the property was old, worn and broken. The path leading into the main building was full of weeds and no longer even. A post where a litter bin would once have been mounted held just a fraction of the broken lid mechanism, the bin and the rest of the lid may have been missing for some time.

  I could see through the windows and into what looked like a reception/shop area, but there was no sign of life. I pushed the door open and went inside. There was no noise other than that from the motor of an old drinks dispenser whirring away to my left.

  ‘Hello?' I called with a measured amount of volume and authority. There was an almost immediate sound of movement from somewhere behind the reception counter and a lady appeared. She was perhaps in her early fifties, just over five feet tall and plump with a pleasant face. Like a stereotyped farmer's wife perhaps with red cheeks from seasons spent outside.

  She met me with a smile. ‘Good afternoon and welcome to Predators and Prey,' her greeting delivered with practiced polish.