The Ghosts of Thumberdown Moor
The Ghosts of Thumberdown Moor
A CHARLIE BONE FANFIC
Disclaimer: Alas! I do not own Charlie Bone, never have and probably never will.
Plot: Ah, now that would be telling……but it's set AFTER my other fic (Olivia's Birthday) which is currently in progress.
Chapter Three
The night drew on as the car continued through the countryside. By the time they drove into Thumberdown village, most of the children had fallen asleep again, with the exception of Emma, who was looking out at the undulating hills, with their patchwork of fields.
Suddenly, something caught her attention, and made her gasp in unconcealed surprise. For hidden in the shade of a tree was the unmistakeable grey shape of a beast.
To the casual onlooker, the beast would appear to be some sort of wolf, nothing special. But to Emma and her friends, they recognised the creature as something else:
Asa Pike, were-beast.
Emma's gasp had woken the previously snoring Tancred, and he was looking out of the window too, rubbing his bleary eyes.
"Did you see that?" Emma asked nervously.
"See what?"
"Asa was by that tree back there, I'm sure of it!" said Emma, leaning forward and shaking Charlie awake.
"Charlie! Asa was back there, I saw him!"
"You must have been imagining it, Em." Tancred said, still half-asleep. "Asa couldn't be out here, in the middle of nowhere."
"Yeah," Charlie chimed in. "He's back home with his parents, remember."
Emma felt annoyed. She knew what she had seen. "And do you know where he lives? It could be here, for all we know."
"I don't think so," was all Charlie would say.
Emma turned to Tancred in exasperation. "I know he was there!" she cried, forgetting to keep her voice down in her impatience.
Tancred put his finger to his lips, glancing around to check that the others hadn't woken at her outburst. Gabriel muttered something and shifted slightly, a black-and-white gerbil snoozing on his hair, and another three on his lap.
"It's dark, you could have seen a shadow," whispered Tancred.
"A grey shadow?"
"Well..." Tancred seemed at a loss for a moment, "Even if it was him, he's far enough away from where we're camping to be a problem."
"And don't forget that he's on our side now, after we saved him from the Bloors," Charlie cut in.
Emma sighed. Why where they being so thick? "He's a changer, though, or he could have been blackmailed into doing it."
"Doing what?" asked Tancred.
She shrugged. "I don't know. Following us, or something."
Tancred looked slightly unnerved at the idea of somebody stalking them all the way from the city. He glanced out of the window at the barely visible thatched cottages they were passing, chewing his lip.
"I don't know, Em," he said finally. "I don't see how the Bloors could have found out where we were going. Only our parents know, and they wouldn't give us away to the Bloors."
"It could have slipped out. The Bloors have spies everywhere." Emma insisted.
"Like Billy," Charlie said, and stared at them in horror as the penny dropped. "Oh. He could have told them."
"Or his parents." Tancred added, his hair crackling ominously. "We don't know how much control the Bloors have over them."
Emma's heart felt like it had dropped into her stomach. "I don't want to think that Billy would betray us on purpose."
"Probably not on purpose," Charlie tried to comfort her. "They might have forced him to tell them."
"That's just as bad."
Tancred frowned. "Why would they want to do anything to us now?"
"Why do they ever?" Charlie replied darkly.
"Good point."
...
By Emma's watch, it was after midnight by the time the car turned onto an open, moonlit lane that wiggled across the dark moor. She strained her eyes to try and see any sign of a good camping spot, but unfortunately it was too dark to see much more than a few metres off the road.
A short while later, Paton turned off the road and bumped across the rough turf, jolting everyone but Olivia into wakefulness. How Olivia managed to carry on snoring, Emma would never know.
Everyone started talking at once…
"What's going on?"
"Why have we stopped?"
"Who died?"
"Are we there yet?"
Paton chuckled and said excitedly, "Here we are, kids! The Sat-Nav says that this is a camp-site."
"Who trusts Sat-Navs?" Tancred muttered, but all the same, he got out the car when everyone else did, albeit with some complaints when Olivia stood on his toe in her high-heeled shoes. No, scratch that, a lot of very vocal complaints.
...
From the shelter of a gorse bush, a skeletal grey beast watched the group set up the tents with hungry yellow eyes….
So, how was it? Yes, I know, two updates in only a couple of days! I've just got this brilliant idea that I want to use, and this Fanfic is fun, although it was going to be an "on the side" fic.
I'll only update Olivia's Birthday if I get one more review for it. So tell all ya buddies, people!
Thankyou to my reviewers GoldenPeony (poor you being so busy & yes the trip did suck like mad) and ShadowRose18 (was it really that spooky?), thanks for all your compliments guys, and this chapter was dedicated to you two.
You know, reviews are really nice. They make me hyper. I like being hyper.
So…..
REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW!
