Exmoor: Project Genesis

By Robert Bavister

Exmoor

Another moor

Another beast!

A year has passed since the incident down at Bodmin Moor, and now the two survivors of the encounter with the moors legendary beast, Howard Smith and Christina Valentine, have continued with their lives, trying to put the past behind them, but ever remembering the responsibility of GenoCorp.

However, down on Exmoor, the local area is facing terror from a new beast a beast even bigger and more ferocious than the one that prowled Bodmin, and soon both Howard and Christina are going to have to relive the nightmare they experienced a year ago.

Meanwhile, behind closed doors and in luxurious board rooms, the creative minds behind GenoCorp, including one scientist named Professor Joseph Barnes, are analysing GenoCorps current operation: Project Genesis!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 30, 2006
• ISBN: 9781467012942

Robert Bavister

Robert John Bavister (born 21/02/1985) hails from Wotton-Under-Edge in Gloucestershire. Exmoor: Project Genesis is his second book published and the seuqle to his first book Bodmin Moor, and he intends to write many more for love and money (in either order). Since writing his previous book he has graduated from the University of Glamorgan in Treforest and attained an HND in Marketing. The character Howard Smith is very much based on him, although he andmost othercharacters are named after the vocalists from some of his favourite heavy metal bands. Along with writing his other interests include videogames andheavy metal music, and his favourite animals are cats.

Book preview

Prologue

The young couple sat down at the bench, kissing each other passionately. The boy wrapped his arms around the girl’s back, and she wrapped hers around his neck, their tongues still caressing the other with added passion.

The night upon Exmoor was a chilly one, the mist had come down thick and the moon was full in the sky the light penetrated the fog but was of no help as the fog was still too thick to see through.

Due to the lack of temperature the couple were wearing a bit more clothing than what they usually would. The boy, a six-foot two-inch short-haired brunet lad with green eyes was wearing a beige fleece, which clung rather attractively to his large, well muscled torso on his upper body, a pair of loose fitting blue jeans on his legs and a pair of brown walking boots on his large feet.

The girl, a five-foot four-inch long haired blonde with blue eyes was wearing a tight fitting white cotton sweater that hugged her slim body and wrapped perfectly round her ample breasts, on her upper body, a pair of tight fitting jeans on her slender legs, which accentuated her perfect curves, and a pair of white trainers on her feet.

The two had been out for a night on the town and had drunk quite a lot. They’d decided to spend the remainder of the night on a romantic walk on the moor, before coming along the bench upon which they were now seated.

The boy brought his hand to the waist of the girl’s jeans, making it pretty obvious what was going through his head.

How about it babe? he asked the girl, grinning slyly as he spoke.

You are a horny devil! she replied, giggling playfully as she did. She then lowered her hands to the button on her jeans and very slowly unfastened it, letting her zipper slowly release.

The boy’s hand slowly crept in, sliding it under her silk lingerie –

Snap!

There came a sound but where from? The two looked around… but saw nothing. Silence remained.

Guess it was nothing, the boy enthused and the two turned their attention back to one another.

The girl rolled her eyes up and dropped her jaw as the boy engaged his fingers again –

Rustle!

Another sound came, again they couldn’t sense where from.

This is really freaking me out, the girl stuttered in fear.

Then, from the mist, a figure emerged. At first it appeared as a blur but as it came closer it revealed itself to be… a man. A man both tall and broad, about three or four inches taller than the boy was. Though that was all they could make out.

Hello? the boy called out.

The man gave no reply.

Are you alright? the girl asked, doing her jeans back up.

Still the man gave no reply – then he stepped forward some more and into their vision. From this the couple could see him properly; he was wearing a black pair of jeans and a black jacket with the zip completely fastened and on his face… he was wearing some sort of novelty Halloween skeleton mask – and then he lifted his right arm, and revealed in his hand a huge butcher’s knife that he was wielding.

The couple screamed and leapt off the bench. The man took a huge lunge forward and slashed at the boy, cutting his left upper arm. The boy screamed in pain and backed away from the man clutching the gaping wound in his arm.

The man stepped forward again ready to eviscerate the two of them, then fate intervened.

The creature sprinted through the mist, following the scent of its new prey. It was a scent it’d got used to recently, of the hairless bipeds that occasionally roamed the moor and its ultra-sensitive nose had picked it up almost instantly.

It continued to run, its powerful limbs thrusting it many yards forward with each stride – and then it saw them. There were three of them, two males, one female, the two males rather large and the female of average size for that gender of the species. The largest of the bipeds was holding some sort of tool, something metallic. Maybe it was a weapon or something, but it mattered not to the creature, the biped had its back turned and its feeble hearing would not detect the beast until it was too late.

It sprinted further – and then it was close enough.

It pounced upon the biped, lunging its huge body forward and bringing its enormous forelimbs to the biped’s shoulders and then forced it down onto the ground with absolute ease.

The biped dropped its tool as it fell and the beast opened its jaws, bringing its razor sharp teeth to its prey’s neck – and then it drove them in, slicing through skin, flesh, bone and arteries. The biped went limp as blood started to spill out of its neck.

The couple stared aghast at what they saw before them. The creature that had attacked their attacker was huge, enormous even. They couldn’t quite make out what it was because of the thick fog but what they could see was enough to chill them to the bone.

What the fuck is it? It couldn’t possibly be…

Nah! No way, it couldn’t possibly be what they thought it was. It was surely only a legend, but then again, what else could it be other than the Beast of Exmoor?

Originally they’d dismissed such rumours as paranoid and superstitious folklore, but then again they’d remembered the story that had hit the papers a year ago about the two survivors who’d encountered the fabled Beast of Bodmin Moor. Nonetheless though, after hearing the eyewitness reports of what the beast was, they’d merely dismissed it as a mere delusion.

But now…

The boy stepped forward, for the creature had just saved their lives, and he sure as hell wanted a closer look at it. He crept forward a bit more until he could get a better look –

And then the beast looked up at him, and before the boy could react it pounced upon him, bringing its huge powerful front legs to the boy’s shoulders. Within seconds it’d brought the boy to the ground, and then quickly, as it had done to the man that had attacked them, it brought its mouth to the boy’s neck, and bit straight into him.

The boy went limp.

The girl screamed, and ran from the scene but alas, the beast soon took up pursuit of her, and soon, she was dead too.

One

Howard sat at the bar, swigging away at his pint of beer. He was feeling pretty down, as he had been feeling since the fateful incident one year ago. Both he and Christina tried to convince everyone about the Smilodon that killed Dave, Chris, Tamara, Amy and Mark, and about GenoCorp’s activities but sadly, no-one had believed them. Most newspapers had just simply reported that it was an escaped cat from a local zoo, others had said that it was a maniacal group of cannibalistic killers, while some had even accused him of killing the five and then trying to kill Christina. Most reports of course, were quick to catch on to the high consumption of beer and cannabis that they’d all got up to that night and merely assumed that the two had imagined the Smilodon through some intoxicated hallucination.

Jesus Christ we didn’t take that much.

Since the incident Howard had passed all his exams and got into the university that he’d applied for. From then on he had spent the year at university, studying a degree in business and soaking up the student lifestyle – which usually meant spending many nights drugged up to the eyeballs in his mates’ rooms or completely shit faced down the student union – and had just this very night come back home for the summer. He’d been up the pub for about an hour now, and was now on his fourth pint. He’d been drinking a lot slower than usual, as when he was at university he was usually through six to eight pints in an hour.

Nothing like getting totally arseholed on the taxpayers’ money!

Just then, someone approached the bar next to him. A boy a few years older than Howard, about two inches shorter with light brown hair and turquoise eyes. He was wearing a white t-shirt and light blue jeans. Howard had probably seen him in the pub a few times before, but didn’t really know him so never really paid him much attention.

The boy quickly ordered his drink and then turned round and looked at Howard.

Usually, Howard wouldn’t have given two shits about this except…

Hey, the boy asked, have I seen you before?

Probably, Howard replied, I drink in here often,

This didn’t sway the boy.

Nah, nah he continued, "I know I’ve seen you somewhere before… like you’ve been on