Where Black Wings Rest - Colin MacIntyre - Bog

David MacPherson has just lost both his parents in a tragic accident, and has to accompany their coffins all the way from Victorian London to an isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands, where they are to be buried, and where he is to live with his Auntie Mary and her two children, Paul and Sarah. 'After lunch, David decided to take some flowers to place on his parents' graves. As he came to the tiny track that led from the road down to the shore of the loch, he had a clear view of the burial plots. He could hardly believe his eyes. A stag... a pure white stag with magnificent antlers was standing in front of his father's grave, pawing at the newly filled-in soil with one of its front hooves. What was it trying to do? To dig up his father's grave? Why? Surely deer were herbivores, weren't they? "Hey!" he cried. The stag looked up at him. Even at that distance, David knew that it was the creature that had been spying on him from the undergrowth during the burial service. Although wild deer tend to shy away from humans, this particular stag stood its ground; even turning its attention back to the grave, its hoof still pressed on the freshly laid turf. David picked up a stone and started to descend towards the shore line. He checked the grave for any signs of damage. All he could see was the unmistakeable imprint of the animal's cloven hoof set in the lower right hand corner of the grave.' Little does David realize that his life is to be bound up with this uncanny creature as well as a mysterious cairn on the summit plateau of Creag Meagaidh (a huge mountain on the opposite side of the loch). The answer to the mystery of the cairn lies in the far North-West Highlands, 'Where Black Wings Rest'. - - - - EXCERPT FROM BOOK. In the darkness of the forest, something moves - shadows amongst shadows; shadows with glimmering eyes. Slinking, skulking, silently running - grey phantoms in a ghostly wood. Tree boughs creaking, bending, wildly waving about the creeping enemies. Sprinting, stalking, stealthily rushing; powder spindrift shooting high beneath preternatural paws. Cutting, carving, curving snakelike, through snow-shrouded night-wastes - deadly hunters in a lonely wood. Pray that nothing be out tonight! Yammering, yowling, wildly yawping, their chilling howls calling; summoning the cold, railing, tree-shredding north wind. Tracking, trailing, relentlessly tracing - a deadly pack, in pursuit of their prey - their ravening, demonic werewolf hearts beating ever as one. At the edge of the clearing, shady halting - triumphantly surveying their defenceless prey. For the House lies before them - dark without and dark within, as if trying to hide, veiled in curtains of swirling snow. Bounding, leaping, almost flying; these fierce, slavering creatures of the night, eagerly ploughing through the ever-deepening, drift-crawling snow - bearing the ravenous Terror. Three to the left, three to the right - perilous encroachment. "Are we all agreed? Is this where the fear is strongest?" "Yes! - Yes! - This is the place! Fear dwells here - but something else too." "They are here, my Captain," growls one of the pack-members, his eyes glinting with silver light. "We are expected," said the Captain. "Do they think that mere barred doors will protect them?" A hand grips the trunk of a young Scots pine tree. "Come, my children!" says the voice of a woman. "We must enter."