James Moore - Blood Red

Coswell climbed out of the squad car after calling one more time for backup and pulled his pistol at the same time.

“Stop where you are.” He did his best to sound like he was in control of the situation. The man looked his way and let a very tiny smile curl the edges of his mouth before he kept going.

“Mister! Are you crazy? I said stop where you are. Now!” He’d been holding his firearm to the side of his body but now lifted it and got into a proper firing stance.

The fucker kept going. “One more step and I’ll be forced to restrain you.”

Tall, dark, and creepy looked his way and took two more steps. Coswell fired a warning shot five feet ahead of him. The bullet hit the brick wall, rebounded, and passed through the body in the man’s grip.

He dropped the body and looked at Coswell. “Was that entirely necessary?”

So he could speak after all. “I told you to stop moving, and I meant it.”

“Well, here I am. What seems to be the problem?”

“Murder? Bodysnatching?”

“Oh, I didn’t murder anyone.” He was smiling again. The sick fuck was having a good time with all of this. “I’m just moving the bodies.”

“Well, that’s called tampering with a crime scene. It’s against the law.”

“You just fired at an unarmed man. What? You don’t have handcuffs?”

“Put down the bodies and get against the damned wall, smartass.”

The man dropped the other body unceremoniously to the ground. It flopped down like a rag doll. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. There was blood all over his sweater and the dark jeans he was wearing.

“What’s your name, mister?”

“Jason Soulis.”

“Why were you taking the bodies from a crime scene?”

“I wanted them.”

Coswell was starting to get the idea that the man was teasing him and he didn’t much like the notion. “Turn, face the wall, and place your hands above your head.”

“No. You can have the bodies, but I really have other things to do right now.”

“Mister, I wasn’t asking.” Soulis was an arrogant little prick. A minute ago he’d been worried because the man was obviously stronger than an ox. Now he didn’t give a damn.

“I’m trying to be a good sport, Officer…” He was far enough away that reading the name on Coswell’s tag should have been impossible. “Coswell, but I really do not have time to deal with any more of this. I have things I need to get done and you’re becoming an inconvenience.”

“Face the wall, spread your legs, and put your hands over your head.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No. I’m leaving.”

“Mister, stay where you are!”

He heard the sound of sirens and smiled. He was about to get backup and that helped with the nerves that wanted to twitch.

Soulis looked past him and shook his head. “Now you’ve made things complicated.”

Soulis looked at him and scowled as two more cars came up from behind him.

Murphy and Torrance got out of their cars. “What’s the problem, Sarge?” Torrance was a burly man with enough attitude to scare the average perp into the back of a car without ever lifting a finger.

“The guy over there has been getting pissy about behaving.”

Torrance nodded and started toward Soulis, his face set in grim, unforgiving lines. “Get your ass against the wall and put your hands above your head, mister. Right now!”

He was just fine until he touched Soulis. Torrance grabbed Soulis by the shoulder and tried to spin him against the wall. Normally, that meant the person he was pushing got spun.

Soulis didn’t budge. “Don’t touch me.” The man’s face grew positively murderous.

Torrance pushed a second time.

Soulis grabbed Matthew Torrance by his arm and pivoted at the waist, sending the policeman into the wall. Torrance dropped as hard as the corpse the man had been carrying earlier. A large red smear ran where his face had struck the bricks.

“You stop right fucking there or I’ll shoot!” Murphy drew his firearm and took aim. Coswell did the same thing, both of them completely serious. Murphy pressed the talk button on his radio and called the words every cop loathed the idea of hearing. “Officer down! Repeat, officer down!” He continued on, giving their exact location.

“Torrance? You all right?” Coswell knew the answer even as he asked. There was no way the man was all right; half of his face looked like it had been pressed into an industrial steam iron.

Jason Soulis stepped toward the two of them and Coswell decided not to take any chances. He pulled the trigger and fired three shots. None of them were meant to be warnings.

The first bullet caught Jason Soulis in the center of his stomach. He didn’t even flinch. The second bullet passed through the spot where Soulis had been, which was currently filled with a thick black cloud of shadows.

The cloud dispersed in a matter of seconds, and when it was gone, so was Soulis.

“What the fuck was that?” Murphy was looking at the spot and shaking his head. “Where did he go?”

Coswell was about to answer when he saw the blackness creeping around his sides. He turned just as the cloud reformed behind him, and Jason Soulis reached for his throat.

Coswell screamed and backed away, firing his weapon again and again. His nerves were shot, and he was definitely feeling a little jumpy. The bullets slammed into Soulis and staggered him this time. Whatever weird-ass protection he was using didn’t seem so perfect at point-blank range. Soulis backpedaled madly, but his feet weren’t touching the ground. He ran into the front of Coswell’s squad car and flipped onto the hood. The windshield was a splattered ruin where the bullets that passed through the man found another target afterward.

Both men looked at Soulis’s body and fell silent.

“How the fuck did he do that?” Murphy was staring hard, his face pasty and white.

Coswell shook his head, at a loss for words. Then he remembered Torrance and moved over to see if the man was still alive. The perp could wait.

Up close he could see that Torrance’s skull had been pulped. There wasn’t enough solid bone left to even give a hint of its previous shape. “Jesus Christ.” He practically threw himself to the side before he lost his dinner. Unfortunately, one of the corpses from inside was directly in his way and he wound up vomiting on the mortal remains of the heavyset man he’d seen Soulis lift so easily. Dead eyes stared accusingly back at him as he finished with a series of dry heaves.

It was while he was blowing his meal that Jason Soulis got back up.

Lee Murphy was a good cop. He’d been with the department for ten years and planned on staying there for the rest of his life. He kept his plans. Jason Soulis grabbed for him as he started firing into what should have been a dead man.

The bullets knocked him back again, but this time he kept his footing and started walking forward, his lips peeled back to reveal hard white fangs where his teeth should have been. From under the shadows of his brow, the man’s eyes were burning, and Murphy stared into them as he kept pulling the trigger.

Jason Soulis caught Murphy’s wrists and pulled them apart, sending the now empty pistol falling to the ground. He kept staring hard and Murphy kept staring back, frozen with fear and then with pain as the man yanked savagely and dislocated both of his shoulders.

Murphy passed out. Coswell couldn’t blame him. The sound of more sirens coming didn’t even make the madman blink.

Coswell made himself crawl over to Torrance’s body and grab his weapon. He hadn’t thought to reload his own as yet.

“You’re beginning to piss me off, Officer.”

Coswell laughed, the fear sending him over the edge a little further than he was comfortable going, and started firing. He aimed for the head. His hands were shaking, but his aim didn’t completely suck and he got the man in the neck, the shoulder, and the chin. He saw the wounds as they were formed, and saw them as they healed, too. One instant there was a hole in the man’s jaw and the next it was gone, just… gone. The skin was unmarred; the bones he knew should have been shattered were intact.