Blood Red

Chapter 24

The sun rose at the usual time, but it rose on a very different town than the one it had set on the night before.

Bodies littered the streets and lay scattered through several buildings as well. When they could finally get there, the state patrol vehicles rolled into Black Stone Bay and began cataloguing the damage.

The bodies of three priests were found at the Sacred Hearts Cathedral. They were found badly beaten, with their throats torn open. Someone had taken the time to write “Forgive them, Lord, they were only human” on the walls in the blood of the three men. Similar epitaphs were found in every single house of God in the town.

While the crimes were added to the list of damages inflicted, the details of the bloody notes were not made public. The matter of finding replacements for the priests, rabbis, ministers, and administrators of the various religious establishments was handled quietly and carefully. There might have been more scandal added to the issue, but with everything else that occurred that particular Halloween night and a few carefully worded comments from higher ups in the churches, the matter was left alone.

Over half of the police force was dead or missing. All four detectives were still alive, though two of them had been holed up in a bank vault overnight. They were found when the bank opened in the morning, both of them disheveled and very, very angry. Though they were vague about details, it seemed that an informant had gotten the drop on them. Sadly for him, he didn’t realize that there was proper circulation in the vault and that, in fact, being locked inside would not cause suffocation. He was arrested as he was packing his bags for an extended vacation.

Jayce Thornton was returned to her parents just before sunrise. They had actually been expecting her to spend the night with one of her friends, and were shocked to hear that she had been lost in the woods. It would be four years before she was given permission to sleep over anywhere again. It would be two years before she could go to sleep with the lights off in her bedroom.

The Silver Dollar Diner was in ruins. Something very bad occurred inside the building and the line cook was found cooking on the grill. Sally Harmon, who was a staple at the place, was never found.

Seven Halloween parties on the campuses of Winslow Harper and Sacred Dominion ended in disaster. The details remained blurry, but most everyone agreed in their descriptions of people dressed in black who came in and attacked at random and with unexpected violence. With all of the confusion, it was difficult to establish just how many people were killed. There were more people reported missing than actually murdered. It’s hard to prove murder when there is no body. Several corpses were found, but most of the students who disappeared were listed simply as missing. Detectives Boyd and Holdstedter were not amused.

“So we get to look like assholes, and those two get to come out of this with a better track record?” Danny was whining.

“Yeah, but on the bright side, we always look like assholes.”

“Oh, yeah. Never mind then.”

They were standing on the Cliff Walk, looking down at the waters where they crashed against the jagged rocks. They’d been there for over three hours. A good portion of that time they were supervising the divers who had to pull Kelli Entwhistle’s remains from the spot. She’d been found by a jogger early on. Her body was stuck between two rocks and her arm pointed toward Soulis’s place like an accusation.

Danny had looked down at the remains and shaken his head. “Sometimes,” he said, “I hate being right.”

He had been right, too. Most of her had been pulped into jelly by the waves. Boyd didn’t respond; he was too busy looking at the way her arm moved in the current. There was something there. He just couldn’t figure it out.

He caught it when the tide changed. The undertow was all wrong. When he thought about how the girl’s hand had moved, he looked to the spot and finally understood that there was something there, a cave or a well or something.

He and Danny spent a long time looking at it.

A big enough cave could hide a lot of bodies.

It could hide a lot of bodies that weren’t as dead as maybe they should be. It took a little work, and he had to pull some favors, but after Boyd explained it, Danny got a few things they would need.

Maggie got the letter from Jason Soulis in the mail the next day. It had been sent overnight express.

She opened it while Ben was sleeping and read it carefully.

It read:

She folded the letter up and placed it back into its envelope. The thick sheaf of papers she also found inside included a lifetime lease for the property and the understanding that the structure could not be altered or sold.

Maggie and Ben moved in a few months later, after their leases at the apartment complex expired.

“Hello?” The voice that answered was familiar and comforting.

“Mom?”

“Angie! Oh my God! Are you okay, honey? Your father and I have been worried sick, just sick! We kept calling, but no one answered, and when we talked to the police, they told us about poor Brian.”

“I’m okay, Mom. But I have to get away from here; there are too many memories…”

“Oh, honey, of course there are. You could come home if you wanted. You could stay with us.”

“Would it really be okay if I did, Mom?”

“Oh, honey, of course it would be. We haven’t seen you in almost a year.”

“I have a few things to take care of, but I can be there in a couple of days.”

“We can’t wait to see you, honey. Oh, thank God you’re all right.”

She flinched a bit. Even the mention of God seemed to cause discomfort, but she was almost certain she could endure. There were things she didn’t understand about what she had become, but she was learning.

“I love you, Mom. I can’t wait to see you again.”

“Honey, all you ever have to do is come on by. The door will always be open for you.”

“I’ll see you soon and I have a surprise for you.”

“Really? Is it a good surprise?”

“I think you’ll like it.”

They said their good-byes and Angie Freemont carefully packed her bags.

She felt a twinge and the baby kicked. He was feeling stronger too, recovering from all that had been done to the both of them. She ran her hand over her swollen belly and smiled, even as the first hunger pangs hit.

She was always hungry. How could she be anything else? She was eating for two.

The bodies were gathered through the course of the day. They were more than anyone wanted to consider, and a surprising number of them seemed to be at least a week old. Though it took time, eventually they were identified.

Witnesses claimed that several of the corpses gathered had been alive and well until the sun hit them. No one really believed the accounts. The bodies that had most of those claims had obviously been dead for several hours or days.

Boyd smoked his cigar and watched Danny as he maneuvered the radio-controlled boat.

“Fuck’s sake, Danny! It’s a big goddamn hole in the side of a cliff! How hard can it be?”

“About as hard as it is for you to get into Whalen’s pants.”

“What? Now you’re changing your mind about me and Whalen?”

“Hardly. I think you could get in her pants if you really wanted to.”

“She’s a married woman, Danny Boy.”

“So? She wants you!”

“So maybe if she was single, okay?”

“Being a dumbass about it.”

“You go around banging married women?”

That shut him up.

“So get the fucken thing in there already!”

“Relax, Richie. The best things take time.” He couldn’t decide if Danny was talking about Whalen or the damned boat, so he kept his mouth shut.

Finally the waves pulled back in just the right way and the water from the cave’s entrance spilled out. As the next wave came in, the boat was sucked into the underwater entrance.

“The SS Kelli has breached the defenses.”

“Good.”

“You wanna do the honors, Richie?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Boyd picked up the detonator and waited for one full minute as Danny kept urging the small motor further along. He waited until they could no longer hear the whining toy engine’s noises.

“Come on, Richie. Damn, I need coffee!”

“Fuck you and your coffee. It was my idea.” He pressed the detonator and the four sticks of dynamite let out a dull thump that was hidden by the waters.

They couldn’t see much at first, but after watching for a while they saw that the undertow wasn’t doing as many weird things anymore. There wasn’t a delay or a sudden gulping of the ocean.

“Did that close it off?”

“I guess we’ll know tonight, Danny Boy.”

“Yeah. I guess we will.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah. I’m bored, Richie.”

“Ain’t you always.”

He was miles away, but he could still hear them as they screamed. How could he ever not hear them? They were his children.

Jason Soulis stared out at the waters and looked at the dull gray clouds that hid the sun away. In the distance, he could hear the crows cawing and chatting to each other. Maggie could have her human and he wished her the best.

He preferred the crows. He knew where he stood with them and never once worried about their duplicity.

He really hadn’t expected the detectives to find the caves and supposed that was his fault for not realizing just how perceptive they were.

“I’m glad I let you live.” He smiled and stretched, stifling a yawn. “I suspect you will prove interesting to have around.”

Deep beneath the house he’d left behind, the vampires were trying to find a way out of their newly sealed prison. Far too much rock had fallen to allow them to simply swim out as they had before.

He wondered if they would die a second time, starved of blood and unable to feed. Or if they would change and evolve, become something better than what they were meant to be.

A few days in the cave had made several of them stronger than they had ever been before. Most often they were too weak and stupid to live for more than a single night. But the ones he’d created in Black Stone Bay? There were at least four he knew of that had survived their first night of freedom, and they were coming along nicely.

None of them stayed in the area. They were too smart for that. If that wasn’t proof of improvement, what was?

“We shall see, my children. We shall see what you can become.”

He listened to their frustrated screams and allowed himself a small smile.

Time would tell if the second phase was successful.

And Jason Soulis had all the time in the world.