The Moon Stealers and the Quest for the Silver Bough (Book 1)

9. The Night Watchman

Bob King was doing his usual hourly checks at the old Parsley Bottom Paper Factory for the night. It was cold and he was looking forward to a warm cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit, before settling down for a short nap. Bob had been a night security guard at the factory for just over four years and in that time there had only once been an intruder, if that’s what you could call a homeless person looking for somewhere warm to sleep.

The long outside wall of the factory that joined onto the car park was lit by lamps attached from above, and as Bob walked slowly beneath them he moved in and out of the beams like an actor moving across a stage. The only sound that could be heard was the faint metallic chinking sound of the keys loosely hanging around his waist. Bob whistled a nameless tune to accompany his keys and break the silence.

As he came to a door, he tried the handle to make sure that it was locked, before proceeding towards the back of the building. He lifted his wrist and checked the time on his watch, tapping it to make sure that the hands had not got stuck. Ten past two in the morning. He made a note of the time on the chart that was clamped to his clip-board.

At the end of the wall, he turned round and took one final look towards the car park, just to reassure himself that all was secure before moving to the back wall. There were no doors to check on this side of the building and further ahead was the small hut where Bob kept his kettle, biscuits, deck-chair and heater. The river ran alongside the back of the factory; moonlight reflected off the surface of the water as it trickled over the stones like last years faulty Christmas tree lights flickering in the night.

Knowing that he had 50 minutes to himself before the next security check at 3am, Bob started to walk a bit quicker, drawn to his hut and the thought of a warm cup of tea.

Suddenly a loud sploshing sound came from the river. He turned and walked slowly and cautiously to the edge of the river-bank, keeping the light from his torch on the ground in front of him so that he could safely see where the drop of the bank started. At the edge he swung the beam of light along the muddy bank then turned it up stream, as well as down.

Nothing.

There are many things that could have made a sploshing sound in the river, such as a small fish jumping out of the water, or an acorn falling from an overhanging oak tree, and Bob’s brain automatically came to these conclusions as the most likely reason.

As he turned away from the river to go towards his hut, something caught on the leg of his trousers almost making him lurch forward. Bob’s torch fell out of his hand and rolled onto the concrete path. He turned his head to look down at his trouser leg, but something else pulled it from underneath him. He landed heavily on his chest, the breath forced violently out of his lungs. Gasping quick shallow breaths, he tried to look down towards his feet once again, but all he could make out were dark shapes clawing their way up the river-bank and clamping themselves tightly around his legs. He tried kicking at them but more were coming out of the water and advancing up his legs. There was a strange, sticky bubbling sound coming from the shapes, getting louder and louder as more of them arrived.

Bob made an attempt to call for help, but he knew that it was useless; after all, he had just checked the grounds around the factory himself and he knew that there was no one else here.

He knew he was on his own.

This feeling of isolation seemed to give Bob an extra boost of energy and his instinctive need to survive kicked in. He tried to grab at whatever was attacking him as it slid towards his chest, but there was nothing solid to get hold of. It was like trying to grab onto a slug. His hands kept slipping off the soft, sticky cold surface that continued to slip through his fingers. He tried instead to pull himself free, gripping the ground above his head with his fingers, feeling the grit and mud gathering under his nails as he clawed desperately at the ground, but it was becoming useless; he was getting nowhere.

By now there was another strange feeling in his legs, but this wasn’t on the outside, this felt like it was coming from within his legs, moving like a cold sharp knife through his veins. He tried again to kick the things off, but now found that his legs wouldn’t move at all, his brain had stopped controlling them, they were paralysed. In a desperate panic, Bob tried even harder to claw his way out, his fingernails snapping and chipping away on the stones in the mud.

Then began a new feeling; a feeling of intense pain. It felt like someone had poured acid onto the skin of his legs; they were burning and itching so much, all he wanted to do was scratch them. His hands then started to become numb, followed by his tongue which seemed to become as heavy as a lead weight, stopping his cries for help. After all of the chaos and torture, his body became still and calm, he could still hear and see, but he couldn’t move any part of his body, not even to blink. Bob could only look at the ground he was lying on whilst the things continued to swamp his body.

They then began to drag Bob into the water. He knew that as soon as his body went into the river and his lungs filled with water he would drown, but even that seemed a good alternative to the agonising burning feeling that now crawled over the flesh of his entire body. As Bob slid down the river-bank and into the water, his body rolled so that he was facing upwards. The last thing he saw was the starry sky and the depths of space beyond. The icy water lapped into his mouth and gurgled down into his lungs, before Bob lost consciousness.

The creatures moved quickly over his body, taking what they needed in a wild frenzy, like a lion picking the flesh from a zebra, until there was little left except his wrist-watch which floated heavily to rest on the gravel of the river-bed.