James Moore - Blood Red

“Somebody bit him in the neck.” He didn’t recognize his voice anymore. He sounded completely alien to himself.

“Call it in, Danny. Do it now.”

Boyd drew his piece and looked around. The fog was heavy and the silence was ruined only by the gentle idling of the Mercedes’s engine.

Danny talked quickly and sedately into the radio. He came back a minute later with his usual smile gone. “Every fuckin’ car is busy and no one has heard from Whalen and Longwood. They aren’t answering their radio.”

Boyd held up a hand and motioned Danny to be quiet. Both of them listened. Closer to the Cliff Walk, they could hear screams echoing.

“Open the trunk, Danny.”

“You got it.”

Rules and regulations made it clear that officers had to carry their service firearms. Technically, there was nothing about not carrying a few extras with you for emergency situations.

Danny liked his guns. He got out the spares. Nothing illegal, technically, just bigger than the usual .38. The shotgun was a big comfort sometimes.

They left the boy where he was and kept the flashers going. Later they could feel guilty. For now, they had other things to worry about.

Maggie enjoyed herself. She didn’t think she would, but she was having a blast. There was definitely something to be said for anonymity and wearing the sort of clothes where no one was trying to see down her shirt or up her skirt. At least for tonight.

The dance floor was crowded and, with his costume on, Ben was more relaxed than usual. He was dancing, and she figured under most circumstances that was about as likely as him working as call girl.

No, that was her job.

She pushed the ugly thought away and grabbed Ben’s arm as a slower song started up. That was when he started getting antsy.

She should have expected it. He wasn’t exactly an aggressive man. Maggie leaned in closer and put her arms around his neck. It was a little awkward due to the wardrobes, but she managed to pull him in tightly and smile at him.

“Thank you, Ben Kirby.”

“What for?”

“Making me go out.”

He smiled and shook his head. “You needed a day off.”

“Yeah, I did. Thanks for noticing.”

He looked her over and a grin split the makeup on his face. “Hard not to. Your hair’s a fright and your makeup isn’t up to your normal standards.”

She turned her head as they swayed to the soft music, and managed to kiss his mouth without either of them getting their clown noses knocked off.

It was not a passionate kiss, but it was heartfelt. He closed his eyes and she watched the shiver run through him. She might have been worried about it being a tremor of fear, after all she had done and he had seen, but his lips kissed back and his hands slid to her waist.

And when the kiss was done, he released a trembling breath and looked into her eyes and saw something there that he liked.

He amazed her.

The door to O’Malley’s slammed open before she could say so.

Ben turned his head sharply and Maggie looked over his shoulder as ten figures in black costumes entered the place. A few people were making appreciative comments about their makeup. Maggie was not among them. While she had never seen a vampire—as opposed to an Undead, according to Jason—she knew immediately what they were. How could she not? They were all boys from the frat house.

And they had all looked better. To the very last, they had wounds that she had inflicted on them. Fatal wounds in some cases, disfiguring in others. According to Jason, they would heal given enough time.

Todd, a big jock she’d taken downstairs, reached out and grabbed a man in a Dracula outfit by his arm and hauled him closer, his mouth opening wide to bite down on the screaming icon’s neck. Several of the patrons standing nearest the incident tried to scramble away from the carnage with only moderate success.

The rest of the vampires moved into the room, grabbing indiscriminately. Maggie stepped back, drawing Ben with her.

Ben looked on, almost mesmerized. “Maggie, what the hell?”

“We have to leave, Ben. Right now. I think Jason let his vampires out of their cages.”

People were reaching full panic now, and pushing toward the far side of the bar out of desperation. One of them almost knocked Ben down and she shoved the man without thinking, as shocked as anyone else when he went airborne and slammed into three others trying to escape. Ben watched with wide eyes.

“Run, Ben!” She pushed a few more out of the way as the vampires came further into the bar, grabbing and biting like rabid dogs. One of them reached for her and she turned to stare it in the eyes. It was the birthday boy from the frat house. He didn’t recognize her, he was just hungry.

She stared into his eyes and he looked at her with absolute terror, backing away and hissing mindlessly. That was unexpected, but a good thing just the same.

Somebody got fed up with watching people get chewed on and broke a pool cue over the head of one of the frat boys. The good thing about mob rules was that a lot of people tended to follow the leader. That was also the bad thing.

Several of the people in the room tried to fight back. All they got for their troubles was a little more pain and a lot more bloodshed. The man with the pool cue struck Doug Clark across the back of his head. Clark turned on him fast and hit him so hard that his head exploded. The vampire’s fist went clean through the skull and into the wall behind him. Another man tried the pool-cue trick and wound up with both of his arms broken before he was killed.

A third got a little craftier and threw vodka on the dead thing coming his way. The vampire didn’t take the crowd into consideration, or the decorative candles that were still burning on several tables. He stumbled back into a person who shoved him sideways into a table, where he promptly caught fire.

Maggie lifted Ben completely off the ground and pushed. Ben worked better as a battering ram than she would have expected. People were knocked left and right and down to the ground as she pushed through the people in her way.

Somebody broke under her foot. She didn’t have time to think about it. The fire ran across the spilled vodka and caused even more panic. She hit the back door and the fire alarm went off. Maggie ran while Ben made an interesting array of sounds.

Right after they exited, one of the vampires grabbed and pulled the door shut. They didn’t wait around to see if anyone else got out alive.

The night had gone completely insane.

Boyd and Holdstedter walked through the fog at a fast jog, listening for the sounds of people dying. Most of what was going on seemed to be silence.

“You see where we are?”

“Yeah, the Cliff Walk.” Danny wasn’t throwing banter. He was all business. That was maybe the worst part.

“I’m seeing blood and I’m seeing candy bags. What I am not seeing is bodies.”

“This is fucked up, Richie.”

He scanned the area carefully. Not a single body to be found and not a person on the street, but there was enough scattered candy to keep a small army of kids hyperactive for a month.

“You ever see kids leave their candy behind?”

“Not without a good fuckin’ reason.”

They heard the footsteps coming down the street. They couldn’t help but hear them; the only other sound was the distant sigh of the waves.

The steps started slowly and then increased. Not one person, but several. Grown men in black costumes were coming at them. Maybe a few women, too, it was hard to tell.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me, right? Do these assholes actually have blood on their faces?”