Blood Red

Chapter 23

The fire engines hauled ass down the road, their lights and sirens going full tilt. Boyd figured there might be something wrong when he couldn’t see the head of the driver in the first one. He knew for certain there was a little of the crazy stuff happening when the massive vehicle ran over the curb and clipped a fire hydrant. The resulting geyser shot up at an angle and started watering the closest lawn with a torrential downpour.

“You seeing this shit?” Boyd stepped back as the next engine came around the corner and skidded to a halt.

“What the hell?” Danny was looking at the first of the giant red trucks. It rolled to a stop and the driver’s side door opened.

A dead kid climbed out, grinning ear to ear. “That was so cool!” He looked at the new water fountain and jumped up and down, waving his hands like a monkey on fire.

A woman climbed out of the second vehicle, dressed only in a nightgown. The third driver climbed out without putting the fire engine in park and watched as the red truck rolled into a tree. He had a small frown on his face. “I was sort of hoping it would hit the house. Never liked that house…”

Boyd recognized all of the Tripp family when he saw them. “You fucken kidding me or what?”

The kid turned and looked at the detectives, but didn’t seem very impressed until he saw the girl with them. “Jayce!”

“Avery?” Her voice was very small.

Avery Tripp started toward her with an eager smile, his eyes flaring with their own light. Aside from the fangs, the glowing eyes, and the pasty white skin, the kid looked healthy and happy.

“Happy Halloween!” He started walking toward the little girl and Boyd took careful aim at the boy’s head.

Avery Tripp ignored him completely, heading straight for Jayce. For her part, Jayce slid in closer to Danny, who was eyeing the Tripp boy suspiciously.

“Oh, come on now, Richie. He’s a kid! What the hell am I supposed to do here?”

“You could try non-lethal force, I guess…”

Danny nodded and flipped the shotgun in his hand around so that the butt was held in front of him. “Stop, kid. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Both of the Tripp parents were smiling, amused by their son’s dilemma. “Come on, Detective. He just wants to say hello to Jayce, isn’t that right, Avery?”

Jayce was shaking her head, her dark eyes as round as plates. “You stay away from me, Avery.”

“Why wouldn’t you open the window when I knocked, Jayce? I wanted to see you.” His voice was light and sweet and his face was pure venom. He didn’t walk toward her anymore; he stalked her instead.

“Danny…”

“I mean it, kid. One more step and I’m gonna clock you.” Danny hefted the weapon and set himself up for taking a game-winning swing with his makeshift bat.

Boyd saw the motion before anything could go wrong. Alan Tripp came at him like a runaway train, moving with the deadly speed and precision of a guided missile.

He took aim and fired, and missed: the sonuvabitch dodged to the side and the bullet blew a hole in the yard behind where he had been a second earlier. Before he could try to get a bead a second time, Alan Tripp ran into him.

The impact lifted him off his feet and the yuppie fuck kept going, his teeth far too close to Boyd’s face for comfort. Powerful hands reached out and grabbed at his face and his neck. Boyd did the only thing he could think of and pulled the trigger on his pistol again. This time he hit well enough to blow half of the bastard’s back away.

Alan Tripp took it poorly. He shoved himself away and used Boyd as his brace. Boyd rolled with it, which meant that he didn’t break any bones. He hit the ground and felt the pistol escape his hand and slide toward the gutter.

When it hit the curb, the pistol fired and a bullet punched through the side of the closest fire engine, hitting something deep inside the engine that let out a hiss.

When Boyd stopped rolling, he too was along the curb. He didn’t explode or hiss, he just moaned. The back of his head and his left hand both felt freshly sanded.

He looked around to see Tripp coming his way, his previously almost human face suddenly dead and slack, even if the eyes in his skull were still doing the inner-light thing.

Before he could do anything else, Tripp had him by his ankle and was lifting him off the ground. There aren’t many advantages to being a short man, and if he’d ever needed proof he had it. The dead man tried to play crack the whip with him, shaking his entire body roughly. Boyd decided enough was enough and grabbed his regular service piece. He pulled the trigger after being tossed around enough to make him seasick.

The first bullet passed through gray meat and flesh and exited on the other side of Tripp’s neck. Tripp dropped him and, as he fell, Boyd tried for a second shot. He’d have missed it, because the angle was all wrong, but just as he was firing, he hit the ground and was jostled well enough that the second shot put a bullet through the dead man’s backlit eye.

Alan Tripp fell back as if pole axed and hit the ground hard. Boyd could see through the hole in his head to the curb beyond it.

That was around the same time that Danny broke the stock of his shotgun off against little Avery’s head. The heavy piece of oak shattered into so many toothpicks, and the Tripp boy fell on his face with a dent in the side of his skull that would have served well as a cup holder.

Little Avery came back up roaring like a midget lion on steroids. He fought like a kid, with flailing limbs and gnashing teeth. Unfortunately, as Danny was finally realizing, Avery Tripp was not an average little boy.

His fingers ripped the jacket on Danny’s back into confetti and his foot kicked into the detective’s stomach hard enough to double him over.

“You hurt me! Bad man! Bad man!” He was screaming, his voice that of a child, but the tone was completely wrong. He was going postal all over Danny and sounding an awful lot like he was just toying with the man.

Avery grabbed Danny by his hair and wrenched the man backward. He bared his teeth and prepared to chew half of Danny’s face off. He would have done it, too, but Jayce Thornton interfered. At only ten years of age, she’d seen enough movies to know which end of a shotgun meant business. She grabbed the ruined weapon by the remains of the stock and swung it around on her hip like a gunfighter in an old Western flick. When she aimed, she pushed the barrel into Avery’s side and then pulled the trigger.

Avery Tripp was cut clean in half by the shell. Jayce was knocked off her feet and landed on her ass a couple of yards from where she’d started. None of the Westerns her father liked to watch showed how much kick a 12-gauge delivers and she was completely unprepared.

The upper half of Avery growled and crawled in her direction while she sat on the ground and did a mental repeat of the action to see where she had gone wrong. He was dragging a heavy collection of organs with him as he went, and Danny stomped on what he thought was a lung as he tried to stop the rabid little fucker from reaching his destination. It was the sound of dead meat popping under his shoe that snapped Jayce out of her daze.

For the most part, the little girl had held herself together pretty well in Danny’s eyes, but she cut loose with a scream worthy of all three fire engines when she saw the thing that had been her classmate crawling across the ground and aiming to rip her limb from limb.

Danny didn’t figure one more trauma could do too much more damage; she got to watch while he blew Avery’s head into mincemeat.

Boyd sat up and very carefully backed away from the dead man he’d killed. It was wise of him. The dead man got back up, one large portion of his brain sliding out of the ruined head as he did it.

Alan Tripp took a tentative step forward, his legs twitching, and then he took another more confident step. By the fourth pace toward Boyd, he was doing just fine. And smiling with what was left of his face.

Boyd unloaded every bullet in his pistol into the remains of that head and only stopped when there was nothing left above the shoulders to fire on.

“Okay, that one was harder to kill.”

Danny looked at him and nodded. He was looking a little like he wanted to wake up from this bad dream. On the ground nearby, the little girl was staring at the ruin of Avery Tripp with horrified fascination.

Boyd looked around. The third member of the Tripp family was missing.

He walked across the street to pick up his other pistol. It still had a few rounds left and he was growing very fond of the holes the glazer bullets made in whatever they hit.

In the distance but coming their way at high speed, they heard the sound of police cruisers. Boyd had never been very fond of the sirens before, but they were sounding like sweet music as he started to reload his weapons.

“He broke my shotgun, Richie.”

“Be fair, Danny. You did that yourself.”

“I didn’t think his fuckin’ head would be so hard.”

“Well, we’ll buy you a new one.”

“Promise?”

“Have I ever lied to you about a thing like that?”

Danny looked at him and grinned. “You lie to me all the time, Richie.”

“I wanna go home!” Their new friend, the little lost kid, was starting to freak out. He made a silent prayer that her home was still there and occupied by loving parents.

“Where did the little missus get off to?” Danny was frowning.

“Back off, Danny Boy, she’s married.” He knew he’d made a mistake as soon as he said the words.

“And how has that stopped you and Whalen?”

“Again with the damned Whalen comments!”

Danny grinned and the three of them looked around as the first of the state troopers pulled up.

Boyd and Danny pulled their badges. Jayce just sat where she was and crossed her arms petulantly. She didn’t have a badge, so Boyd couldn’t really blame her.

The trooper climbed out of his vehicle. He was a tall drink of water with a face made for intimidation. “What in the name of God has been going on in this town?” His voice was better suited to Pee Wee Herman, but Boyd was glad to have another cop or fifty show up. He really wasn’t that picky at this point.

“Wish I could tell you. So far we got a bunch of dead people that won’t stay dead and a lot more people dying.” Boyd shook his head.

The trooper looked at the headless body of Alan Tripp, which was currently twitching and clenching its hands again and again. “The fog out here has been causing a lot of troubles. We’ve got a ten-car pileup on the interstate and more reports coming in. Jesus on a pogo stick, half the roads in this town are shut down.”

The other two state troopers were climbing out of their vehicles now and looking around with shocked expressions on their faces. One of them walked over to the closest fire truck and climbed into the driver’s seat to turn off the flashing lights. Boyd was grateful. The damned things kept his eyes from adjusting to the darkness.

“So.” Pee Wee Herman looked around and scratched at the back of his neck. “What can we do?”

“We’re looking for a man named Jason Soulis. He’s supposed to have the skinny on what the fuck is going on.”

“I’m right here, Detective Boyd. What can I do for you?”

Soulis came walking out of the fog behind the last of the trooper cars, a smile playing at his lips. Boyd did an admirable job of not pissing his pants if he did say so himself.

The trooper closest to him reached for cuffs.

Soulis walked past him as if he weren’t even there and headed for Boyd.

“Speak up, man. What is it you want from me?”

“Answers would be a good starting place.”

“Fine. They’re vampires. There are a lot of them.” He shrugged. “Is there anything else I can help you with? If not, I have business to attend to.”

“Did you make this happen?”

“Yes, actually, I did.”

Boyd didn’t like the way the conversation was going. He shook his head. “Why don’t you come along with us, Mister Soulis? We need to figure out a way to stop this shit and right now.”

“I really don’t have the time or the inclination.” He looked bored with the entire thing and Boyd ground his teeth together.

“I don’t fucken care what you have time for, you sick fuck. Make this stop.”

“No.”

“Then you give me one good reason not to blow your goddamned head off.”

Soulis looked over his shoulder just as the troopers were coming toward him. One look and all three men stopped in their tracks, their faces showing uncertainty.

“I like you, Detective Boyd. Why don’t you go home and get some rest?”

“Say what?”

“Go home. Get a good night’s sleep. Things will look better in the morning.”

“I have dead kids in the streets, you sick fucken bastard. Nothing’s gonna look better in the morning.” He felt the hairs on his neck starting to rise, not with a fear reaction—something he knew very well—but with a charge of static.

“Detective, I’m tired and I have no desire to hurt you or anyone else at the current time, but I will.” Soulis looked at him, pinned him with his gaze, that half smile still on his lips.

“This isn’t going to go the way you want it to, Soulis.”

“No?” Soulis closed his eyes and the sky opened up. Rain came down in heavy sheets. From nowhere the devastating downpour soaked everyone in an instant.

Boyd looked around, surprised by the ferocity of the weather’s assault, but he was looking at Soulis when the man opened his eyes. He was looking at the black pools of shadow where his eyes should have been and he was fully aware that at exactly the same time the man looked back at him the downpour stopped.

“What the fuck?”

“Precisely, Detective. That was just a little water. Imagine what I could do if I decided to get creative.”

Pee Wee made an inquisitive gesture, wanting to know if he should attempt an arrest. Boyd nodded slightly and the man grabbed Soulis by the arm, wrenching backward.

Soulis let him, his smile getting a touch more pronounced.

“Must we, Detective Boyd?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing or how, but it stops now.”

“No.” Blackness crept from the man’s skin, spilling from him like heat from a fire, engulfing his entire body. Boyd took aim, uncertain what to do. He couldn’t just fire; he’d hit a trooper. The darkness expanded outward until Soulis was completely hidden. A heartbeat later it began to contract, collapsing inward until it simply vanished. Soulis was gone with it, leaving Pee Wee holding the cuffs he’d already wrapped around the man’s wrists. The cuffs were still closed.

“Shit on this!” Boyd looked around and saw Danny doing the same thing. He had a migraine starting and he was not amused by the disappearing trick.

“Where the hell did he go?” Pee Wee was having a little trouble with the notion that his perp had just vanished.

“Well you’re the one that had his hands on the guy, you tell me!” Boyd glared.

“Screw you! You saw it too! He just disappeared.” The trooper didn’t look at all happy about the turn of events. He looked scared (maybe) and pissed off (definitely) but happy wasn’t a part of his expression.

“Let’s just all stop freaking out here.” Leave it to Danny to try placating the troopers.

“Dennison, call HQ and tell them we need backup. This is fucked up beyond all repair,” Pee Wee called out and one of the troopers with him headed back for his car.

The lightning bolt stopped him. The world turned brilliantly white and Boyd covered his eyes as the flash went off. The explosion of thunder shook the bones in his body and half deafened him, leaving his ears ringing even as his eyes tried to adjust.

When he could see again, Trooper Dennison was a burnt ruin on the ground. His badge was glowing white hot and his pistol looked like it had melted into its holster.

Most of Boyd’s body felt like he’d been fried alive. He knew he wasn’t deeply injured, but the current had carried far enough to send his nervous system into a frenzy. He could barely get any part of his body to respond to the simplest commands.

The little girl was crying her eyes out. He couldn’t blame her. Danny reached over and pulled the girl into his arm, settling her on his hip. She wrapped herself around him like a constrictor, her legs and hand pulling him as close as physically possible.

“You’re okay, sweetie. It’s all going to be okay.” He could just hear Danny’s words over the reverberations still bouncing around in his skull.

What the fuck are we dealing with here? This guy can’t be for real. He had no doubt that somehow Soulis had caused the lightning.

The two state troopers ran to their fallen friend. He was dead; Boyd knew it as sure as he knew his name.

“Danny?”

“Yeah, Richie?”

“You hand Jayce over to the troopers.” He looked at Pee Wee. “Hey! You need to get this little girl home for me, all right?”

“What?” Pee Wee had been even closer to the blast and he was having a little trouble hearing anything.

Jayce was clinging to Danny, and when she heard the plan she started crying again. The kid couldn’t make up her mind.

Before another word was spoken, both of the troopers ran for their cars. He couldn’t blame them; this was the weirdest shit he’d ever encountered.

Jason Soulis was standing in his front yard, staring down at them. His smile was darker than before and even through the heavy fog, he could tell the man was looking right at him. He hadn’t been there two seconds before, Boyd would have bet on it.

“Are we finishing this, Detective Boyd? Or are you going to leave this alone?”

Boyd looked at Danny and Danny looked back.

Both of them looked toward Soulis and pointed their pistols.

“Jason Soulis, you are under arrest.” To make his point very clear, Richard Boyd opened fire and so did his partner.

Hunter Williamson had been a state trooper for almost two decades. He liked the job and he loved the people he worked with. Stewart Dennison had been with the force for eight years, and he had been a good man.

So he was a little upset by the notion that a man who could disappear at will and cause rain storms just by thinking about it had just killed a good friend.

There was no denying what he had seen with his own eyes. The man he’d had in cuffs was responsible for what had just happened; he had no doubt of that at all.

The only question was what to do about it.

He looked to Martinez and saw that the other man felt exactly the same way.

“I don’t think we’re going to stop this guy with bullets.”

“I don’t think we’re gonna stop him at all, but I’m not letting him get away with that shit.” Martinez was practically screaming, but Williamson could just make out the words.

“I’m gonna run his ass down.”

Martinez nodded.

The local cop said something, but he couldn’t make out the words. Williamson called out for him to repeat himself, but the man looked away to where the murdering fuck he’d tried to cuff was standing on the lawn and looking like he was having the best time he’d ever had outside of sex.

Fuck ’em. Maybe they can keep the piece of shit distracted.

He climbed over the remains of his friend and back into his car. The engine had stalled thanks to the lightning, but it started up just fine. He didn’t bother with seatbelts or any of his usual precautions; he just aimed the cruiser and gunned the engine. The engine roared and the tires screamed and the car just barely missed hitting a fire engine as he drove over the curb and through the stream of the fire hydrant that was spraying down the neighborhood.

Behind him, Martinez was already rolling, gathering speed. The grass was soaked through and the car slewed sideways, sending up a thick wave of ruined lawn and mud before the tires caught properly.

Then he was moving and fast, gathering a proper head of steam as he aimed the cruiser at the sick bastard who claimed he’d caused all of the devastation.

The two local cops fired repeatedly at their target and Jason Soulis took a staggering step backward as his chest exploded. The smile was gone from his face, and he was falling to the ground. All the better.

Williamson compensated for the change in position and ran over the man. The car shuddered and jumped as it hit the prone form, and Williamson made sure to gun the engine even more. He felt the tires sliding through bone and gristle as he rocketed over the body.

Martinez was next and he aimed well and true, the front tires rolling straight for the man’s head and legs.

He was watching in the rearview mirror when the other trooper’s car slammed to a complete halt. He was still watching, stupefied, as the vehicle was thrown through the air, rolling end over end until it crashed into the closest fire engine.

The crushed, bloodied body of Jason Soulis stood up. His ribs were caved in and he still had a massive hole in his chest, but the freak was standing up.

Williamson hit the brakes, switched into reverse and started backing toward the thing that was now looking at the two local cops. He gained speed, swerving slightly as he adjusted to backward driving, and made sure his aim was as perfect as possible.

Soulis turned his way and braced his body. The car hit, the rear end crumpling inward and the rear window exploding on impact. Williamson was flung backward and then forward in his seat. His head slammed into the steering wheel and the air bag deployed, punching him in the face at high velocity.

As soon as it had done its job, the cushion began to deflate and Williamson helped it along, terrified. Nothing should have been able to stop a fucking car like that! Nothing!

He climbed out as the thing behind him lunged, driving hands through the roof of the car in an effort to reach him.

Soulis snarled, his face as far from human as it could be while sharing the same basic features. He looked at the man in absolute terror, his mind taking in the details and then refusing to acknowledge what he was seeing. The wounds were gone. The man’s clothing had been blasted apart, and tire tracks were clearly visible, but the white skin underneath was perfectly fine, unmarred and supported by what was obviously a whole ribcage.

He was still trying to work that out in his head when Soulis grabbed hold of him.

Pee Wee was screaming, and Danny was, too. Jayce was crying, and Boyd was pretty sure he had a few tears coming from his own eyes, but he couldn’t tell anymore. There was too much going on and no time to take it all in.

Jason Soulis held the state trooper up by one hand and climbed off the wreckage of the police car. He was grinning ear to ear now, and walking toward Boyd and Danny with absolute confidence in his abilities.

Williamson was thrashing like a freshly hooked carp and making faces that came pretty close to matching a fish’s expressions at that moment. Soulis walked closer and stopped five feet away.

“How much is he worth to you, Detective?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he can live or die depending on what you say.”

Boyd had his weapon aimed at the man. He wasn’t stupid.

“What? I’m supposed to trade you for him?”

“Something like that.”

“He’s a cop. He knew the risks.”

Williamson was still looking ready to jump out of his own skin, but he was also reaching for his service revolver. God love him.

“You can still walk away from this. I genuinely like you.”

“You can’t. I bet if I hit you in the head enough times you won’t go getting all better.”

Danny was doing his thing again, looking far away and keeping his aim on Soulis.

“It’s possible. Are you willing to take that risk?”

“Danny over there is ready. So am I.”

“What about your little friend?” He looked over to where Jayce was protected against Danny’s side. “If we call this done, I will let her live.”

“For all I know, she’s already an orphan. Maybe she’d want to be with her family.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a man as stubborn as you.” He had more to say, but just at that moment, Pee Wee opened up and started firing bullets into his chest and head. Six bullets at point-blank range blew holes into the monster with the human face, and Boyd and Danny took that as their cue. Danny moved his hand ever so slightly and pulled the trigger. Jason Soulis’s left eye exploded. An instant later his right eye followed suit. The next bullet took off the top of his skull and the one after that blew his jaw away.

Boyd focused on his chest. He had four glazer shells left and he used every last one of them aiming for where the heart should be.

Jason Soulis took enough lead to blow his body into pieces. What remained of him fell down and stayed down.

Pee Wee fell too, screaming again and crab-walking backward away from the remains.

Boyd loaded his weapon again and stepped closer. He fired every round into the body. Danny stayed where he was trying to calm down the hysterical girl in his arm. Williamson scooted a bit further away and started vomiting.

Boyd stared down at the corpse and waited for something to happen. He wanted to see if what was left would grow back again. Finally, convinced that nothing was going to happen, he moved toward the squad car leaning against the fire engine. Maybe if he was lucky there would be a can of gas he could use to burn the remains.

“Richie!” Danny’s voice got his attention and he spun, ready to fire again. The fog was lifting, fading away, and as it did he saw them coming. The crows. He couldn’t begin to count how many there were. They filled the air around them, and Boyd did the only sensible thing and backed away. Danny was ahead of him in that department and Pee Wee was leaving the area as fast as he could while still puking.

The birds circled briefly and then landed on the remains of Jason Soulis. They attacked what was there violently, plucking and ripping at the flesh and cloth, tearing away cold pieces of flesh and eating them.

Danny held the little girl in his arms and made sure she didn’t see what was happening.

There were a lot of the black birds and they were hungry. By the time they were finished there was little to look at except for the ruined clothes Soulis had been wearing.

“Well. That was disgusting.” Danny’s voice was weak.

“Yeah.”

“Red Lady?”

“What the fuck do you think?”

“Red Lady.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

They left, not a one of them having any desire to stay for another moment.