CHAPTER TWO

Boston Police Detective Lieutenant Brooke Scanlon had seen plenty of grisly crime scenes, but nothing could have prepared her for the horror show in Eastie.  Fifteen apartments, 32 dead.  And it looked like wild dogs had done the killing.  But wild dogs couldn’t get into the building, let alone into the apartments.

Worse, there were the other attacks across the country.  Same MO, though that wasn’t being shared publicly, but separated by states and time zones.  The bare facts made it clear that this was some kind of organized attack, but the viciousness had all the hallmarks of insatiable rage.  The two didn’t go together.

The main entrance to the apartment building was a hive of activity. Scanlon tried as best she could to remain out of sight of the press who were also humming with anticipation. They may have missed their deadlines for the 6 o’clock news, but there was still 11 o’clock, and the newspapers. Not to mention the websites.

But no one was getting inside. No details were going to be leaked until she told a press conference herself. This was a hard case, but she was damned if her people were going to be as undisciplined as they were in Ohio.

The primary scene was unbelievably horrible. They were calling it the "Primary", but it was as near as they could tell the last scene of what happened. It’s just the place where the 911 call came from.

Thirty two dead, including the suspect. Well, one suspect, though they figured there had to be more than just the one. There were too many dead, and in far too horrible a fashion for there to have only been one suspect.

The suspect was killed, apparently by a distraught resident, but one that wasn’t being forthcoming right now. Overall, she couldn’t blame him too much for retreating into a shell.

"Detective," she heard from behind her. She turned to see a tallish man and a few besuited flunkies around him.

"Yes?"

"Special Agent Aaronson of the FBI. We’re here to be of any help that we can."

Great. The Feds. If history meant anything, they’d be trying to take over before morning. Of course, when it came time to see if there actually were connections between this and the other incidents, it could be useful to have them. Right now, though, she just wanted to make sure the crime scene was handled the way it should be.

"Good to meet you. I don’t think we need you just yet, but I’ll be happy to get back to you if you can be of service."

"Of course," he said, and there was a smile on his face. Scanlon turned back to the apartment building. Anyone who could smile at this was not to be trusted.

#

It was 9:00 pm on that Wednesday, and Scott’s brain had yet to wrap around everything that had happened. Other than a few people who were away or at work, everyone in his apartment building was dead.  It looked like the attack had happened around 5 o’clock, and they had found families, little old ladies, young children, all dead.

Boston was the 6th city to report an attack, And these were attacks, there was no question of that. It was organized, and ruthless, just as it would have been had someone strapped a bomb to his chest and walked into Quincy Market at lunchtime.

The police had questioned Scott, and again, and once more for good measure. Not that he was much help to them; he could only say the little bit he remembered in between bouts of vomiting. Right now, he was sitting in an uncomfortable chair at the police station, clutching a cold paper cup of tea that someone had handed him over an hour ago.  He hadn’t managed to get it to his lips.

Margie was gone. It wasn’t possible, she was so young, younger even than Scott. So much life. So many cliches that go through the mind because that’s the level of processing the brain can do in this deep a level of shock.

Scott was unaware of his surroundings, the flat, institutional gray walls, the large mirror that he would have known was one-way glass, the long table. Scott was very familiar with the one floor tile in front of him. The chip in the corner, the scuff marks, the overall grime from being washed too many times.

That was all he saw, and he didn’t even really see that. His mind just kept replaying over and over coming into the bathroom and seeing her. Her blood everywhere. Her open eyes lifeless orbs framed by the terror of her final moments. He closed his eyes and shook his head, but the blood stayed with him. It may not be on the clothes he was wearing now, but it was still on him in his mind.

His hand touched his cheek, which had been scraped, probably by the man that was dead on the floor of his kitchen. The man he must have killed. He had no memory of a fight, but there was a kitchen knife through the man’s chest and Scott had bruises and scrapes he couldn’t account for.

He tried to remember a better time, just that morning, when they were getting ready for work.  "Hey, pumpkin," he had said, and he mumbled now, "what do you say we just stay in this weekend? Sleep in, don’t get out of bed..." Tears started to come down his cheeks.

#

Photos had been taken of just about every angle in the apartment building.  The bodies were all down in the morgue by now, and they were being identified any way they could.  Fingerprints, dental records, DNA. It would take time, especially with the Feds’ systems overtaxed today, but they would identify everyone. It was the least they could do for their families.

Scanlon had been here for four hours now, and there was no indication of a lead, a direction to look. There was no obvious point of entry, which led one to think it was the most obvious point, the front door. There was no sign of a forced entry there, but there wasn’t anything anywhere else, either.

Scanlon’s cell phone rang. The Caller ID said it was the morgue.

"Scanlon," she said, hoping there was something.

"Hey, BS," the medical examiner on the other end said. It was Ginny Wexler, the lead ME for the city. "I thought you said we had thirty-two coming in."

"I did," she said, scowling. "I counted them a dozen times. Why?"

"Well, only thirty-one have made it here. Maybe you want to make sure that none got dropped along the way?"

They had used a fleet of ambulances and hearses to take the victims away. That was about two hours ago, and they damn well should have made it to Roxbury.

"Okay, Ginny," Scanlon said, finally. "Thanks for the heads up. I assume our John Doe with the kitchen knife made it to you?"

"Yes, he’s got a place of honor. I just want you to get the rest of whoever did this. I’ve seen all kinds of death, but this..." she trailed off for a moment. "This is fucked."

"I know.  Keep me informed.  The last thing I want is to have a body snatcher on top of it all." Scanlon hung up the phone and immediately called her boss. "Captain Reece, it’s Scanlon."

"How’s the house of horrors coming?" Reece’s voice was gruff, but like everyone it had been affected by the day’s discovery.

"We’ve apparently lost a body between here and Roxbury. Can you put a couple uniforms on making sure all the taxis are accounted for?"

"Oh, that’s all we need.  Yeah, we’ll find out for you soon."

"Thanks sir."

"You should come in. The young man who found everybody seems like he might be ready to give a coherent statement."

"Yeah, there’s not much else I can do here for now." She hung up and made her way downstairs, past the Feds, who looked at each other as though wondering what sort of lead would make her go.

#

Scanlon spent a few minutes watching the terrified man sitting in the interrogation room through the one-way glass. He was about 6’2" and 200 lbs, but his most notable feature was the diminished look about him, like he was a child suddenly thrust into the adult world.

She had trouble believing that this is the guy who took out the man who had killed his girlfriend, let alone did it with an 8-inch kitchen knife surgically inserted between ribs and though the heart.

Scott Reid had just given his statement of the days events to one of her colleagues. When he got to finding his girlfriend in their apartment, he just stopped and stared straight ahead. He again gave no indication that he had fought the assailant. It was time for another tack.

She came into the room and jerked her head to the side. Det. Butters folded up his notes and left the room. "Mr. Reid," she said, "I’m Lieutenant Scanlon. Can you think of any reason that you might have been targeted? Anything at all?"

It took a few moments, but she could tell that he was actually thinking about her question.

"I don’t think," he started, faltered, and then started again. "I don’t think you’re looking for a criminal."

"Well, no, you killed the criminal, right?"

"I guess," he said. He was still very confused. But he was talking, so Scanlon wanted to keep him talking.

"Who do you think planned this?"

"I think you’re looking for something more dangerous. Someone with less to lose than that."

"Like what, terrorists?"

"The blood was wrong."

Scanlon’s cell phone rang. "Dammit. Sorry, I have to take this. Scanlon."

"Detective, this is Officer Crowley downstairs. We checked with everyone. Only Hearst Mortuary says that their B hearse didn’t come back.  They thought it might have been held up in traffic until we called."

"’B hearse’?" she asked.

"It’s what they call the minivan they use."

"I assume they’ve called the driver?"

"No answer."

"Let’s get an APB out on that minivan, then."

Scanlon hung up the phone and returned her attention to Mr. Reid.  "We have federal agents looking into the terrorism angle, but somehow I don’t think Al Qaeda or the militias have started using--" Scanlon cut herself off.  They had both seen the carnage, no reason to prejudice the guy any more than he already was.

"Vampires?" Scott finished.

"Excuse me?" That was definitely not what she was going to say.

"Sorry, didn’t mean to say that out loud."

#

This part of Blue Hill Avenue was used to seeing flashing blue lights at all hours of the day and night.  Dorchester was improving as a neighborhood, but it was still a hotbed of random and gang violence.

Scanlon had received the call at about 10:30 that they had located the van. Someone from the crime lab would already be there, but she wanted to see it for herself.  

She pulled up to the scene, and though she realized that she shouldn’t be, she was surprised at the state of the black minivan.  Its front end was mangled and twisted around a tree, and the side door hung open, allowing a view of the ass of the crime scene tech who was looking for evidence. She thought it was Evan Arroyo, but from this angle she wasn’t sure.

"What do we have here?" she asked as she approached on foot.

"Two dead, both in the front seats," Arroyo said, not turning around. "Nobody in the back."

"Nobody, or no body?"

"Either. There’s plenty of evidence that a body was here, but whatever was strapped to the gurney is gone."

"Great. Okay, and how about the two up front?"

"That’s, if anything, more interesting." Scanlon didn’t like the way that was going, but stayed quiet. "The crash didn’t kill them.  They bled to death, but their wounds look like neck bites. They bled out, but there’s not enough blood here to make up for that." The crime scene tech, who Scanlon knew to be a ten-year veteran, blanched. "Not nearly enough," he said, this time turning to look at Scanlon.

"What do you mean not enough?"

"It looks like they were attacked from back here," he said, indicating the empty gurney. He mimed craning his head up between the front two seats and chomping.

"Are you talking about what I think you are?"

"Vampires? Or at least people who think they’re vampires."

"You’re the second person tonight to say that to me.  I’m going to stick with looking for human suspects, thank you." Scanlon took another pass around the van, and realized that there was much of anything else she could do that Arroyo didn’t have covered. "See if you can get anything more out here, and once the ME has taken these two in, have the van towed to the cave."

"You got it," Arroyo said.

"Also, don’t go blabbing about vampires. Things are pretty tense right now. The last thing we need is someone in the press thinking we’ve gone nuts."

"Detective, have you watched the news? The world has gone nuts."

#

Back in her sedan, Scanlon pursed her lips and tried to tie the loose strings in her mind together. They were right, of course, Arroyo and Reid.  The witness had said that the blood was "wrong".  There wasn’t enough blood left at either scene. Lots of blood, but not enough. Blood has to go somewhere. That’s just about the first thing anyone learns when doing murder scenes.  Either it stays in the body, or it bleeds out. It doesn’t disappear.

There was no question, they would have to bring this up with the Feds. They were going to need to coordinate with the other cities that had been attacked, see if the facts matched up. If it was a cult, which made more sense than vampires, the FBI would have a better idea who it was. Vampirism couldn’t be terribly common among larger cults.

"But cults wouldn’t be able to take out a whole building like that," she said out loud without realizing it. "And a cult would require too many people slipping in and out of a building to not be noticed."

"No," she responded to herself. "No, it’s not vampires. I’m not sure what it is yet, but vampires is not it. There is a logical, rational, natural explanation. We just haven’t found it yet."

Scanlon sighed. "Must stop talking to myself. Losing my mind on top of it all. Awesome."

#

The taxi dropped Scott off at the motel and drove off. There were unfortunate stains on the tile in the office, looked like large drops of blood. He was still wearing the police t-shirt and sweat pants that they had given him. They took his clothes as evidence. They were covered in blood anyway.

Key in hand, Scott counted doors until he reached his room. There was a bed, a chair, a TV, and a bathroom, a bedside table with a red LED clock and a dingy lamp. The floor was a thin, dirty carpet about fifteen years past its expiration date. The walls were some ungodly patterned wallpaper that had never been in style.

He had a plastic shopping bag that held his phone, his wallet and the rest of what had been in his pockets. He set the bag on the bedside table and went into the bathroom.

He saw a gaunt figure and jumped before realizing it was his reflection in the mirror over the sink. "Fuck." He walked up to the mirror and got a closer look. Massive bags under his eyes, a day’s growth on his chin, and somehow he was still alive. That part seemed the most unfair.

Scott used the toilet and wandered back out the the main room. He sat down on the bed and picked up his phone. He had a call he somehow had to make.

#

Evan Arroyo was finishing up taking pictures of the scene after the coroner had taken away the two bodies. He shot pictures of the blood spatter in the front and the bloody gurney in the back. It was after midnight now, and the street was eerily quiet.  Most nights there would be teenagers racing up the hill or groups of them on the street, but tonight there was just an occasional car.

Evan grabbed the radio from his kit bag. "Crime Scene to base, over."

"Crime Scene this is base, over."

"I need the wrecker to come to the Blue Hill Ave. scene and take away a black minivan." He provided the tags and told them where to take it.

"Roger. We’ll have ’em out to you in 30 minutes."

Great. 30 minutes of thumb twiddling. He took out his cell phone and started playing solitaire. "The exciting parts of police work. I has them." A few minutes later, about five rounds in, he finally got a winning hand. "About damn ti--"

Thud. He heard and felt something hit the van.

"Hello?" No answer came.  "Who’s there?" Still nothing.

Evan started to wonder if his brain had magnified an acorn falling on the van, but he dismissed that thought.  It was definitely bigger than an acorn.  He pulled his can of pepper spray from the kit bag and walked around the van to where he thought the noise came from.  Nothing there. He turned around to go back, and that’s when he saw it.

Vaguely humanoid, but not moving like anything human, shuffling like it didn’t know how the body worked. Wounds all over its body, wounds that did not bleed. A dead expression on its face.  Dried blood down its neck.  Long upper incisors gave it an ugly, sneering overbite.

Evan Arroyo took in all of this in the few seconds before the thing attacked him.