Blood Red

Chapter 20

The fog came first, in a thick wet wave that swept over the shore of the bay and into the town proper at a maddening speed. There was nothing subtle about the stuff; it was overwhelming.

The houses along the Cliff Walk were works of art, every one of them an architectural accomplishment that had cost preposterous amounts of money even when they had been built, and were now so expensive that the taxes alone would have ruined a lot of lower-income families. The fog buried them completely as it rose and moved ashore.

Kelli lost track of her friends almost immediately. She was taking care of a little girl named Jayce Thornton. Jayce had planned to dress as a witch for the event and had lost her hat when the wind picked up. So the two of them stayed behind to look for it, and by the time they discovered the black, pointy affair, it had wedged itself in a tree. Kelli did her thing and climbed up the elm while the little girl watched her. The air had been misty when she started up, but the fog had struck and done its damage by the time she finally climbed down with the hat’s brim caught between her teeth.

In thirty seconds the visibility was down to nothing.

In a minute, she and Jayce couldn’t even see the sidewalk under their feet and all the damned flashlights did nothing but make the air glow brightly.

“Where are we?” Jayce was laughing, but she sounded a little nervous. Kelli couldn’t blame her. It was crazy dark out.

“Hey, perfect weather for Halloween. Let’s go find some goblins.”

She took the little girl’s hand in her own and they started walking, listening for the sounds of the others. Happily, the noises were still there, because it didn’t take them too long to find the rest of the group.

Erika was just about completely gone in the fog, and she used it to her advantage to scare the shit out of Kelli. One second, everything was just dandy and the next, the whiteness came alive and shot a flashlight beam in her face. The little ghost next to Erika did the exact same thing to Jayce. It could have gone south fast, but she managed to stop the witch from beating the bejesus out of the little ghost. If she’d been a little slower on recovering, she would have never stopped the fist Jayce swung at the ghost kid in time and there would have been a lot more boohooing and a bloody nose.

A minute later both of the kids seemed fine again and all was well, give or take the fog. They finished with the last house on the seaside of the street and were getting ready to head for the other side when things really did go wrong.

The little boy dressed as Spider-Man let out a very sincere shriek. As Kelli looked around for him in the fog, calling out his name—her list told her it was Nicky dressed that way— she realized he wasn’t anything because he wasn’t answering.

“Nicky? Hey, Nicky? Where are you?” she called, and soon her friends were joining in. They kept the kids gathered in a little island between them and called out, waited, called out again.

The fourth time they called out, Rita didn’t add to the cacophony. Kelli got a chill down her spine and when she called out again, she also called for Rita.

Rita didn’t answer, either.

“Okay, this is sooo not funny, guys.” Erika didn’t sound amused. There were parties to be hit and she wanted to be there already. She was only doing this for Kelli’s sake.

“Rita! If you’re joking, you can stop it!”

No answer.

Kelli moved in closer to the kids, quickly doing a head count. There were still sixteen. Only one had vanished.

Only one. And Rita hadn’t answered her.

“Okay guys, let’s all go.”

Several children started protesting at the same time and she waved her flashlight and her hands. “Calm down. We’re just going to move over to my place and then you can all check out what you already have, but Rita and Nicky might be lost and we have to find them.”

“Man, this sucks…” Barry Winston was a brat and there was no reason for that to suddenly change. Superman had never looked more pouty. His bottom lip was stuck out like a diving board.

“Barry, it’s just for a few minutes.”

“No it’s not! You’re just trying to ruin Halloween!” Eight years old and he was already a major-league drama queen.

“Barry, we’re going, now.”

Something came out of the heavy fog and grabbed Barry before he could respond. It was big and black and had the boy in its arms before he could even catch a breath to scream with.

They all saw what happened next. Damned near every flashlight in the group turned to Barry as he was grabbed. The dark shape that caught him stood revealed. Bill Lister had looked better before. His skin was loose on his face, and bloated with water. He was deathly pale, save where some kind of black fungus was growing on his features. His eyes shot back a silvery glare into the beams from the flashlights, and his teeth, the teeth she had always thought looked perfect in his handsome face, were bared, made longer by the way his gums had receded.

Bill looked directly into Kelli’s eyes as he leaned over and bit down, his mouth covering the wound he made, but not before she saw Barry’s blood leaking from behind the moldy lips.

Not a single person there thought for even a second that it was a fake-out.

Erika reached for the man and clubbed him over the back of his head with her flashlight. She didn’t recognize Bill; she’d never met him. Bill didn’t recognize her, either, but he attacked her for her efforts. His hand reached out and grabbed Erika’s face. He caught her pretty skin in the grip and it tore as easily as tissue paper. Erika’s scream was cut short by her jaw and nose breaking under the force he applied.

After that, everyone started running. Kelli managed to catch Jayce’s hand and the little boy in the devil outfit’s wrist before she turned and started hauling ass. Neither of the kids had a chance in hell of keeping up with her so she wrestled them both into her arms and ran faster. Jayce wrapped her legs around Kelli’s waist and the little devil did his best to monkey crawl over her back as they moved.

She had no plans, but spent most of her time looking at the ground to make sure her feet didn’t hit the curb and take all three of them down.

“They’re coming, Kelli! They’re coming!” Jayce’s voice was so loud and her speech so fast she could barely make out the words. She nodded instead of answering and pushed herself as fast as she could. She didn’t even have time to wonder what had happened to Bill. She was fixed on the dead look of him and the way his teeth disappeared into Barry’s flesh. Adrenaline kicked into her system at the thought and she groaned.

The little devil boy was pulled from her arm with enough force to strain her muscles. His screams vanished, rising higher into the air until Kelli had to turn and look. She saw him reaching for her, his toddler hand stretched out and his eyes grown frightfully wide. He kept rising, a black, fluttering form going with him until they were both lost in the fog. She kept running, breathing hard and suffering a stitch that started burning in her left side. Jayce’s legs around her waist were cutting off half of her air and she needed to put her down where she would be safe.

Jayce was screaming. So was Kelli. She made herself snap out of it and set the girl down. Somewhere along the way she’d stopped running on the road and wound up in uneven dirt and mulch.

“No! Don’t leave me, don’t leave me!” The girl clung to her with desperate strength.

“Hush, honey, I’m not leaving you.” She pulled off her jacket and wrapped it around Jayce’s shoulders. “You’re going to hide, okay?”

“Where are you going?” Jayce’s wide, dark eyes were filled with tears.

“I’m going to get help, and I want you to hide.”

Kelli was looking all around them. She’d screwed up. She had no idea where she was, but there were trees all around them in the fog and she couldn’t see the road anymore. One of the larger trees was close enough that she could make out the details. She moved with Jayce and pointed to a rotted-out hole in the center, what her grandfather had called a faerie door. “You see that hole, Jayce?”

“Y-yeah…” The little girl sounded dubious.

“Can you hide in there?”

“I don’t know.” She was starting to cry more, starting to get nervous and Kelli couldn’t blame her.

“Try for me, baby girl, okay?” Kelli took off her coat.

Jayce backed into the spot carefully and managed to crawl completely in. Kelli smiled.

“There you go. I’m gonna give you my coat and you use it to cover the hole up, okay?”

The poor kid was crying, but quietly, and she nodded her head. Kelli tucked her jacket in around her and tried not to cry herself.

“Okay. You stay right here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Finding her way wasn’t as hard as she expected. She just had to listen to the sounds of the screams. She said a silent prayer and jogged back the way she had come, searching for lights. Something above her dropped a plastic Spider-Man mask to the ground. The mask was broken in three places.

Kelli stopped and looked up, her heart thudding into overdrive.

Her baby boy looked back down at her. Teddy was crouched on a limb, Nicky draped across the heavy branch a good ten feet above her head. Nicky wasn’t moving at all. Teddy was licking his lips.

“Hi, Kelli!”

“Oh God, Teddy.”

“Miss me?” He sounded amused.

The worst part was, even with the blood on his face, even with a dead boy pinned under his weight, she was happy to see him. Some part of her was rejoicing.

“Oh, Teddy, honey, what did they do to you?”

Teddy stood up and Nicky’s body rocked threateningly as he moved across the branch to look directly down at her. “I’m coming for you, Kelli. And we can be together again.”

“Teddy, no…”

He didn’t listen. He dropped out of the tree, his preposterous black costume fluttering around him like batwings. He landed in a crouch and stood up. By all rights, his knees should have been driven through his shoulders from that height.

“You wouldn’t let me in, Kelli. I should be mad at you.” He was pouting, but it was a playful, mocking pout that she knew well from when bedtime came and he didn’t really want to go to sleep. Unlike Bill, Teddy’s skin was soft and fresh and firm. He was just very pale.

“Teddy… what happened?” God, she wanted to hug him to her. She knew better and had no intention, but he was so perfect to her and so alive.

Then she looked into his eyes and saw how perfect he really was. His sweet face and his crazy messy hair and his goofy costume and she knew she was being stupid. He would never hurt her, and every other sin was forgivable. She could take him to a doctor and get him patched up. “Oh, come here, baby boy.”

He moved closer, smiling. His eyes glowing with a light as bright as what she felt for him inside her heart. Such a wonderful boy and always so sweet.

The sound of his foot breaking the plastic Spider-Man mask made her look down. The instant she did, she knew she’d been played.

Kelli backed away fast, looking at his water-logged tennis shoe instead of at his face. The skin wasn’t pale; it was gray and filthy.

“Oh Teddy…”

She turned and ran again and heard his anger when he spoke again. “Get back here you BITCH!”

The words shocked her so much she looked over her shoulder and saw him as he started moving, gaining speed and coming up so fast he almost blurred. Kelli caught her foot on a root and dropped like a rock, barely covering her own face before she hit.

Teddy was fast, true, but he seemed to lack reaction time. He overshot and had to come back around.

Kelli was up and running again, this time with a rock in her hand. She’d brain him if she had to.

They came out of the fog in droves, some of them wearing the black costumes and some of them wearing the remains of whatever they’d died in. All of them stank of stagnant salt water and darker things, and they were hungry. The worst of it for the babysitters was being recognized by some of the frat boys. They got creative with where they bit and how long they could make the suffering last.

The children died quickly for the most part.

Jason Soulis watched it all, standing on the top of his roof as the attack took place. He willed the winds to gather stronger and summoned the fog to go further inland, and the elements obeyed.

The night was only just starting and he wanted to savor all of it.

One of the children ran away and he let him. The boy cowered against the side of his house and cried soft music into Jason’s ears.

He loved to hear children cry.

Soon enough it was done and the bodies were left behind. Jason had expected nothing else. The new ones were too hungry to care and the older ones had awakened enough to want to settle a few scores or just to be with their families.

It was going to be a long night.

Off to the left, he heard the girl from across the street struggling in the woods. He wasn’t alone. The rest of the new ones heard as well, and a few of them seemed to take particular interest: Lister and his wife, her previous employers, as well as a large one from the fraternity.

He watched as they moved toward the woods and the sounds of the struggle.

Kelli felt Teddy’s hand grab her shoulder and, as he spun her toward him, she brought the rock into play and cracked him across his face as hard as she could. Teddy’s face broke. So did the rock and two of her fingers.

He staggered back, teeth bared in a feral snarl, and he covered the left side of his face with his hands. She kicked him in the knee as hard as she could and felt the bones of the joint give out and break under the impact.

Teddy fell down and spewed obscenities at her.

Somewhere along the way, her rational thoughts were submerged in white noise. She couldn’t let it get away. This thing, this nasty, vile creature that had been Teddy Lister was a mockery of everything she’d loved about the boy and she would not let it live. She couldn’t, just in case it looked at her again and made her come close enough to think Teddy was still alive.

She took the largest piece of rock and hit it again and again, her fingers throbbing with each strike. He fought back, of course. He pushed at her with his arms and he hit her and clawed her, but she wouldn’t let it go.

“Elli… shtob… heb me.” Kelli, stop. Help me. She meant to. She intended to help Teddy the only way she could, by ending his misery.

She drew back her arm and hit him again. Again. Again. The motions were almost mechanical. When she finally stopped, there was nothing left of Teddy’s head that she could recognize.

She stood up and shook violently, repulsion washing away the madness that had taken her and grief bringing back her sanity. Her eyes burned from the tears she’d already cried, and she knew that things were only going to get worse. Bill was out there and so was Michelle. She loved them, too, if not in the same way or as intensely.

She would do it for them as well if she could.

Kelli tilted her head and realized that the screams were all gone. She looked at her bloodied hands and shivered as the first of the exquisite pains made themselves known. Her ring finger and her pinky were broken and hung slackly. Both digits were swelling and almost black already.

Her skin was sliced and diced from the rock cutting into her palm and her wrist was aching.

Kelli groaned deep in her chest and shivered as the pain and the grief met and danced across her mind and nerve endings.

She heard noises in the trees behind her and looked just in time to see them coming. The dark shapes did impossible things that left her feeling disoriented. They hopped from tree to tree, suspended sideways, as they landed in complete defiance of gravity’s laws. Some of them once again came out of the sky, dropping like stones only to land gracefully on the heavy branches. Others moved on the ground, a few of them crawled in predatory stances that shouldn’t have been possible for anything that looked human.

All of them looked her way, their eyes burning with cold light and their faces dead, slack things. When they moved again, it was solely for the purpose of hunting her down for killing one of their own.

The mind is an amazing thing; somewhere in the reptilian part of Kelli’s brain, messages were sent off and the body listened to the commands issued. Adrenaline fired into her system again, increasing her alertness and shutting down pain receptors even as she started to run. Her ruined hand became a minor inconvenience and the painful flare that was going off in her side calmed and became a faint whisper.

Kelli Entwhistle ran again, and as never before in her life. Her legs lifted gracefully, her feet falling with a feather’s touch and her eyes alert to every sight around her. She saw the monsters as they came for her, moving through the trees and then dropping to the ground, or soaring into the air as the woods fell away and were replaced by the immense houses of the Cliff Walk. The wind across her face felt like a perfect kiss; her heart surged with blood and her lungs drew in sweet breaths of oxygen that fueled and invigorated. The salty scent of the ocean cleared her senses even more and brought her world into perfect focus. She could see Jason Soulis atop his house, his handsome face bearing his elusive smile. She could taste the fog, the heavy brine of the ocean, and a dull metallic hint of iron from the blood that seemed to be everywhere.

She moved with a grace known only to a few creatures ever, none of them awkward and human, and despite her fear, despite the desperation and grief that wanted to crush her down, she felt fully, wonderfully alive.

Then the houses were past, and Kelli was running harder still, faster, fast enough to leave the dead things behind. She could have laughed she felt so good.

Alas, she could not fly. As the ground dropped away beneath her and she saw the ocean stretching across the horizon—her vision so perfect that even the thick fog failed to stop her from seeing—she came to the simple understanding that all things must end. Her flight from the monsters was done, and that too was a fine thing.

Kelli arched her body out as gracefully as she could and turned her drop toward the teeth of the bay into a dive. Her death was mercifully quick.

Far above her, above even the horde of shadowy forms that stumbled to a stop at the edge of the cliffs, Jason Soulis looked down upon the waters where the pretty girl from across the street had ended her grief, ensuring that she would never be his.

He brought his hands together three times in sharp applause and then spread his arms wide as he bowed low before her remains. With no weapons and no time to prepare for the threat he had presented her, she had drawn blood and killed one of his own. In the end she had won, and he always respected a worthy adversary.

Around the same time that Kelli Entwhistle was making her final curtain call, Boyd and Danny were listening to O’Neill finally lose his temper. He could, he admitted, have possibly been out of line when he made his comments the other day about being disappointed in their performance. Nancy Whalen and Bob Longwood had been in earlier and had gone on and on about how well they had handled themselves and how, without them, Brian Freemont would still be making fools of the police force and having his way with the young ladies at the local universities.

That part had all been good and, doubtless, was planned to make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside, so when he came down like the wrath of God, they would be ill prepared.

Yeah, like they didn’t know they were in deep shit for losing the cop who had been raping the local girls.

And yeah, like Boyd wasn’t prepared for that part.

What he wasn’t prepared for was that Brian’s remains had been found in his house. And outside of it. And in the neighbor’s yard. And in the trees.

There was no way in hell there could ever be an open casket ceremony for Brian Freemont.

And O’Neill was letting them know he wasn’t happy. He let them know for almost an hour before he was done. Boyd was thinking he might need hearing aids in the near future.

O’Neill gave them written warnings and told them to get the fuck out of his face for the next month or so.

“What I should do is have your sorry asses booked on suspicion just to make you sweat.” He must have been practicing his mean face in the mirror. It was almost working like he wanted it to.

“Are we done here?” Boyd sat in his chair like a good boy, his arms crossed over his chest to avoid giving the captain a proper ass-kicking.

“No, Boyd, we’re not done by half.”

“Are you firing us, Captain O’Neill?”

“No.”

“Are you arresting us?”

“No.” The man didn’t like where the questions were going. Boyd could tell.

“Are you giving us formal reprimands?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Give them over and shut the fuck up. I got work to do and I’m already behind.”

“How dare you?”

“It’s easy, you’re a bitch. You wanna fire me, I’ll always find another job. You wanna have me arrested? Go ahead. I’ll own your little ass for an ashtray by the time the lawyers are done. You wanna reprimand me, do your stuff. It’s within your rights. You wanna yell at someone? Go marry a weak-willed little woman, because I ain’t got the time for you or any of your bullshit.”

Boyd stood there with his hand out waiting for the reprimand until the captain handed it over. He signed where he was supposed to, made a rude comment where he was asked for his side of the situation on paper, and then took his copy. Danny took his and did the same thing, but without as many foul words.

Boyd waited until they were out of the building before he called his partner a suck-up.

“I think he’d have fired us if he had anyone lined up to take over the cases.” Danny was sounding all philosophical now.

“I think he needs to fuck off and die slowly.”

“We did lose a perp…”

“No, Danny, he was stolen.”

“Yeah. By flying girls.”

“How is it our fault if some missing persons show up and start flying around?”

“Well, we were supposed to find them.”

“And we did. We saw them. They’re found. Six fucken cases closed, just like that.”

“What did you write on your reply?”

“That if O’Neill could lick his own dick he’d have a marketable skill.”

“You’re lying.” Danny was grinning again.

“I only lie to suspects, Danny. Otherwise it’s just an omission of the facts as they may or may not pertain to the case.”

“Your girlfriend stuck up for you.”

“She’s not my girlfriend and so did Longwood.”

“He’s your ex-partner. He’s supposed to.”

“Fuck off.”

“You only curse when I’m right, Richie.”

“What a load of shit! I’m always cursing!”

“That’s because I’m always right.”

“I think I know how to resolve this.”

“What ‘this’?”

“You and your Whalen fixation.”

“Oh? I’m fixated?”

“Yeah, you are.” Boyd shot Danny a murderous look.

“Okay, so what if I am. How are you going to resolve this?”

“I’m either gonna sleep with her—which is doubtful—or more likely I’m gonna tell her all the things you’ve been saying.”

“You think she’ll kick my ass?”

“Her, or her husband.”

“Is he really that big?”

“No. He’s bigger. Scariest motherfucker I’ve ever met in my life.”

“No shit?”

“Completely serious.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re gonna play it by ear this time, Danny. We’re gonna listen to the radio, and see what happens.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course not, dickhead.” He rolled his eyes.

“Well, I thought maybe because it was Halloween you were getting all soft and sentimental.”

“Never gonna happen. No, we’re off to see Jason Soulis.”

“Again, Bullwinkle? That trick never works.” Danny did a pretty good Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Sometimes it was unsettling.

The radio was blaring nice and loud as soon as they started the Mercedes. Something was going wrong at the Cliff Walks.

Boyd put on the flashers and pulled on his seatbelt. He had to let Danny drive, because it was Danny’s car. Unfortunately, Danny drove at speeds that were just this side of physically impossible.

“Slow down, Danny.”

“Quit being such a sissy.”

Boyd lit another cigar, and Danny got the message.

He slowed down to under the speed of sound when they reached the fog. The headlights were damned near useless, but the car came with all sorts of extras, including a set of fog lights that turned the road yellow. It stopped them from running into the first of the bodies.

Danny slammed on the brakes and Boyd got out of the car. “What the fuck is this…” His voice was strained.

Danny stood right next to him and looked at the little kid’s corpse. He was maybe five, dressed as a devil, and some sick fuck had cut his throat apart.

Boyd crouched, careful not to touch anything, and looked closer.

“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.