Bodmin Moor (novel)

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**Bodmin Moor**

Author	R J Bavister
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	N/A
Genre(s)	Horror/Thriller
Publisher	AuthorHouse
Released	February 17, 2006
Media Type	Paperback
Pages	104
ISBN	ISBN 1-425-91620-1
Followed by	Exmoor: Project Genesis

Bodmin Moor is a horror novel written in 2005 by R J Bavister. It centres around the myth of the Beast of Bodmin. It has been described by the author as a cross between The Hound of the Baskervilles and Friday the 13th.

According to the author R J Bavister a sequel has just been published.

1 Characters
2 Plot
3 Trivia
4 External Links

[edit] Characters

Howard Smith
Mark Jones
Christina Valentine
Amy Jenkins
David Lawson
Chris Thompson
Tamara Kirk
Ted Davison - farmer
Chief Inspector McDonald - police officer in charge of investigating Bodmin killings
Doctor Raymond Woodridge - scientist

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story begins with a gruesome murder on Bodmin Moor by an unknown creature, all that is known is that it is vastly physically superior to man.

From then on it follows the trail of a group of seven teenagers who are all celebrating the end of their exams and as a reuslt are camping down on Bodmin Moor. The main protagonists are Howard Smith, his best friend Mark Jones and his girlfriend Christina Valentine. Also in the group are four more teens, Amy Jenkins, David Lawson, Chris Thompson and Tamara Kirk, the latter two Mark invited on the trip unbeknowest to Howard, who is none too pleased when he finds out as Chris was basically his arch nemesis at school.

The group of seven, go down to Bodmin Moor from their homes in Bristol (never mentioned exactly where), but before they arrive on the moor itself they stop off at a local pub to have a drink. Once inside Howard and Mark order the drinks from the bar and - whilst in discussion with the barmaid - reveal their plans to camp on the moor. It is at this point that the entire pub goes quiet and the youths are warned not to go onto the moor, for they will surely fall victim to the Beast. The youths, as would be expected, are quick to ignore such warnings believing them to be nothing but countryside superstition.

Meanwhile, while all this is going on, a policeman named Chief Inspector McDonald is holding a press conference about the killings, and is soon quizzed as to whether or not he believes it to be the work of the Beast of Bodmin Moor. His reply as that all of the Cornwall police force perceive that to be complete nonsense, however, after the press conference is over it is revleaed that he does possibly believe in the myth.

The group later drive onto the moor and set up camp, Christina (if not all of them) still being freaked out by what the local patrons had said. Later on the group have set up all their tents and are currently sitting around a campfire, passing around a spliff as Mark is finishing off telling ghost story, which none of them group find scary in the slightest. It is then that Howard tells them a story of the Beast of Bodmin Moor, which absolutely terrifies the rest of the group. This ends with Chris taunting Howard as he had done previously on the journey down to Bodmin. Howard makes no reaction to this, but his thoughts sum up what his opinion of Chris is. The group, however, are completely oblivious that they are currently being watched the bushes by the Beast, which is currently assessing the group's behaviour.

Later that night, after everyone has retired to their tents, Amy Jenkins and her boyfriend David Lawson, are just finishing off having sex. After they have finished David reveals that he 'needs a piss'. Having said that he gets out of the sleeping bag and puts his clothes back on before clambering out of the tent and going off to find a tree to urinate on. Whilst he is doing this however the Beast is currently stalking him and when he isn't looking attacks and kills him, making David the first of the group to fall victim to the mysterious creature.

The next morning, Amy wakes up to find David still gone, but she thinks nothing of it as she assumes he's probably already up. As she exits her tent however and finds Howard, Mark and Christina already up and eating some baked beans, Howard asks if David is not up yet, which of course worries Amy slightly. She says that David was not in the tent when she woke up, which leads to a sense of slight worry going through the other three. At that Chris and Tamara arise from their tent two which the other four ask them if they had seen David, to which they had not. Hwoever, the general consensus around the group is that he was probably off collecting more firewood or having a swim in the reservoir, but they would go and look for him after breakfast. Hours pass, the suns sets and the mist settles and the group are still looking for David, with Chris and Tamara searching near the reservoir. It is then that Tamara suggests going skinny dipping in the reservoir, to which Chris at first objects but is soon coerced by Tamara into doing it. He tells her to go straight ahead while he gets rid of the last bits of gas from the baked beans. Tamara goes ahead and strips out of her clothes before getting into the reservoir. Chris, on the other hand, turns around and comes face-to-face with the Beast, which quickly kills him. The Beast is amazed by how quickly it is to kill humans (what it refers to as hairless bipedal primates) as Chris was notably the biggest and strongest out of all the boys (it was mentioned that at school he was a stereotypical jock) and the Beast overpowers him without any struggle. Meanwhile in the reservoir water Tamara is currently swimming around whilst waiting for Chris to join her. She thinks that he is playing some sort of practical joke on her and continually calls out to him to 'cut it out'. After a while she climbs out of the water and goes to put her clothes back on when she hears a noise. Forgetting her clothes she goes to check it out and soon finds Chris's corpse on the grass - and then she sees the vague outline of the Beast in the fog. She then screams and runs off, not bothering with her clothes, with the Beast hard on her heels. The remainders of the group - Howard, Mark, Christina and Amy - soon hear Tamara's scream and turn to where it came from, Howard and Mark aiming their torches so they could see. Howard - and it is assumed Mark - are briefly mesmerised by seeing Tamara completely naked as it was mentioned previously in the book that Tamara was exceptioanlly good looking and had a very large pair of breasts, but they soon snap out of it just in time to see the shadow of the Beast engulf Tamara and then the creature itself come crashing down on top of her, killing her immediately by breaking her neck. It is then that the other four characters discover what the Beast actualy is: it is a Smilodon - the fabled sabre-toothed cat. As the other three stare in shock and horror, Christina opens up a bottle of vodka and throws the contents onto the campfire, causing the flames to kick up and the cat to be startled whilst the four get away. They run to the MPV that they drove down to the moor in... only to find that the battery is now flat. They are now stuck on Bodmin Moor. The four youths sleep in the car for the night before going back to the campsite the next morning and gathering what they may need before walking in the direction of town. They all check their mobile hpones only to find that Howard, Christina's and Amy's have dead batteries and Mark's has no credit left on it. The four then walked off in the direction of the nearest town (which name is never scecified) whilst the Smilodon continues to eat away at the corpses of Chris and Tamara, having finished off David's. A few hours later on when the sun is high in the sky both Howard and Mark get hot wearing their black T-shirts (as they are both heavy metal fans) and take them off, to which Christina protests against as they would surely burn. Mark them produces some sun block and gives some to Christina and Amy, the latter of whom is initially not too happy about having to rub sun block on Howard's back but eventually she does so. As she does, she slowly find herself becoming more and more aroused as she rubs the sun block onto Howard's muscular back, umtil she is eventually done and thankfully, for her, neither Howard nor Mark are any the wiser about her obvious enjoyment of what she had just done. Christina did notice however, and is quick to tease Amy about it when the two lads are not listening. Amy, however, turns the tables commenting on how if she was lucky she could possibly try something sexual with both Mark and Howard. Christina at first appears very shocked and offended by this, but then finishes with "Don't tempt me." Meanwhile the Smilodon has finished its last meal and setts off to stalk the reamining four of the group.

A few more hours go by and the sun has completely set, and the group start to get hungry, so they stop while Christina rummages through her ruck sack to find some sandwiches to eat, at which point they notice the Smilodon catching up with them. It lunges for Amy but just misses, and the four then run on, Howard noticing a cottage up ahead which they run to and meet a local farmer called Ted Davison. Ted prepares to shoot the Smilodon with his shotgun but for reasons unknown Howard stops him. They then go into the farmhouse and Ted bolts the door.

Later on Chief Inspector McDonald gets informed of the four youths and heads off of Bodmin Moor. Back at the farmhouse Ted has just made the four some food as they are all starving, just before McDoanld turns up. He is then about to take the four off before the Smilodon breaks in through a window into the farmhouse kitchen and attacks and kills McDonald. Ted then gets in a fight with the Smilodon also and is also killed, his dogs also attempting to fight it off before they realise that their master is dead. The four youths run out of the farmhouse while this is happening. The four run on and eventually come across a place which to them seems odd. they then realise that they are not standing on natural grass and instead are standing on artificial turf which was rolled over concrete. they then realaise that a medium sized facility is built at this location so they go up to the place's door and knock on it, only to receive a call on the intercom. The door is eventually opened and the four enter the complex, and meet someone called Doctor Raymond Woodridge, who is initally cautious around the four. Once they have gained his trust, Woodridge explains that the place is an facility used by a bio-research company called GenoCorp, whom Howard's dad works for, and that the head of the facility is one Professor Joseph Barnes. Woodridge then shows the four aorund, although Howard is a little curious about the place, they are all happy to have some safety and to be able to get some rest. However, during the night when Howard has to answer a call of nature he notices Woodridge walking around, and can't help but feel suspicous so he wakes up Mark - much to Mark's dismay - and the two then go and spy on Woodridge, as well as eaesdrop on a conversation he is having on the phone. From what they hear, they learn that he is talking to Professor Barnes and is being ordered to kill the four teens, and that it was he who created the Smilodon, as well as hear him mention something called Project Genesis. After the conversation is over both Howard and Mark rush into the laboratory where Woodridge is and grab him in a headlock, Mark taking his gun. they are then joined by Christina and Amy, and the Woodridge decides to explain everything to them, whilst Amy searches his computer database. They learn that GenoCorp had been planning Project Genesis for some time now and had been created the Smilodon from finding a frozen corpse in an iceburg that had drifted near Argentina over ten years ago and he extracted its semen to impregnate a female Siberian tiger, and repeating he process over and over again in order to finally breeed an almost pure Smilodon. they have also been planning to do it with other species of prehistoric animals. The teens ask why and according to Woodridge it is so people could raise them as pets. Howard, infuriated by this, punches Woodridge in the stomach and yells at him about the lessons that they should have learnt about playing God from many warnings from the past. Christina however, asks that if the Smilodon could get out, then surely it could get back in - it could - outside the Smilodon crawls back in through a large air vent, finds the group, and then atacks and kills Amy. Mark aims the gun at the large cat and pulls the trigger, only to find out that Woodridge never loaded it in the first place. The four run off, Woodirdge in a ddiferent direction but the Smilodon chases him so the other three decide not to follow. Woodridge runs through many rooms, cursing Project Genesis and Professor Barnes, wishing that the Smilodon was eating him instead. He finally reaches an electronically locked door and then realises that Mark has stolen his keycard, to which the Smilodon soon catches up with him and kills him. Meanwhile the remaining three , Howard, Mark and Christina, have opened up a door to another room using Woodridge's keycard and find out all the species that GenoCorp have been creating. After Mark taking some pictures with his camera phone they realise that the Smilodon has soon caught up with them again and they run into a unisex toilets. Initally thinking that they are trapped they soon see an air vent above one of the cubicles. They open it up and start climbing in, Christina first, then Howard, but then Mark is just about to climb in when the Smilodon catches up and kills him. Both Howard and Christina, shocked by Mark's death, crawl through the air vent, this one being too small fort he Smilodon to crawl through, and soon jump out near an exit to the facility. Howard breaks the door open and they both run out onto the moor again, with the Smilodon chasing them again. Howard, now tired of running, turns round and picks up a rock which he throws at the Smilodon, then he picks up a large stick and engages the Smilodon in a one-on-one fight, in which Howard eventually emerges victor. He goes to kill it but finds he cannot, much to Christina's dismay, so he offers that she do it, and she goes to but again finds that she too cannot kill it as it is just an animal and cannot be held accountable for its actions. The two share a sentimental moment before a group of people turn up and dart the creature. They identify themselves as the local wildlife agency. The townfolk are there also, saying that they warned the two of them, to which Howard says that the creature was not supernatural at all.

The next scene shows Howard and Christina sitting together on a coach up from Cornwall taking them back home to Bristol. The two briefly hold hands, but nothing more comes of it.

Meanwhile, at the GenoCorp facility on Exmoor, Professor Joseph Barnes is told about the two survivors from Bodmin. He decides not to have them killed as no-one would believe them. He then informs the staff at the facility that Project Genesis would continue.

Spoiler ends

[edit] Trivia

The sequel to the book is named Exmoor: Project Genesis.

According to the author, the most common criticism of the book is that he forgot to proof read it, as is evident from reading it. Another criticism is of the 'colourful' language used in the book.

The author R J Bavister is a big heavy metal fan and many of the characters are named after the vocalists of some of his favourite bands. Howard is named after Howard Jones of Killswitch Engage, Mark after Mark Hunter of Chimaira, and Christina after Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil. Amy is also named after Amy Lee of Evanescence although Bavister does not actually like them.

Although, as previously mentioned, the characters are named after certain vocalists, nearly all the characters (mostly the girls) are modelled on people who Bavister has known in his real life, and Howard is partly modelled on Bavister himself, although Bavister admits that he does not consider himself to be as strong or as good looking as Howard is made out to be.

Another criticism that the author once received from one of his co-workers was that of the portrayal of genders in the book. In the book all the boys are tall and strong (Howard and Mark are both six foot, David is six foot two, and Chris is six foot three) whereas all the girls are petit and slim (all three of the girls are five foot two).