by Gurley, JE
Blood Lust
A Novel by
JE Gurley
This book is dedicated to my loving wife, Kim, who understands how seriously deranged a writer can be and still loves me. For all those long hours you spend editing my manuscripts, finding the mistakes I can never spot, thank you my love.
I also would like to thank fellow horror authors Weston Ochse and Jonathan Maberry for all their great advice and their friendship.
JE Gurley
12-15-11
Tucson, AZ
1
Death was the furthermost thing from Patricia Stewart’s mind as she danced out of the shower swaying her lithe, naked body to a tune by some girl band whose name she could not recall. The catchy melody had been running through her head throughout her date with Sian, the new young intern from her office. He had been a perfect gentleman all night holding her hand tenderly as he escorted her to her front door after their innocuous dinner and movie date, kissing her lightly on the cheek as they parted; no untoward pressure, no awkward hormonal groping. Patricia liked that. Too many of her dates had turned into free for alls with her resorting to all the wrestling moves her older brothers had taught her to discourage an overzealous suitor. She desperately wanted the right man to come along; would willingly sleep with him eventually. She was no virgin, but she would not be an easy conquest, not again.
She hummed along with the song, smiling as she thought of Sian. She thought that just maybe Sian was the right man. His attentive hazel eyes spoke of unplumbed depths of passion and his wide, quick smile advertised his quick wit. A familiar tingly sensation in her loins brought a blush to her face and she giggled aloud.
“I feel like a schoolgirl,” she said aloud.
She slipped on a pair of tiny white panties with red hearts running along the waistband and began to brush her auburn, shoulder-length hair in front of the steamy mirror, diligently counting each stroke. A sudden chill raised goose bumps on the damp flesh of the back of her neck. At first, she thought it was just a hormonal rush from the night’s sexual tension. Then she realized she had left the living room window open since it was a cool night. The room had definitely grown cooler and a horrible smell from the alley invaded the room through the open window. She would have to remember to close it before going to bed.
A shadow fell across her. At first, Patricia thought the bathroom light had flickered, prelude to another of the all-too-frequent brownouts the city had been experiencing lately. She glanced into the moisture-streaked mirror and noticed movement behind her. She slowly raised her hand and made one swipe down the mirror to clear it of condensation, revealing eyes, horrible, red baleful eyes, malevolent and cold, staring back at her above her own reflection. She turned but it was too late for even a scream. A flash of movement, barely a blur, quick and unstoppable, and her throat burned as if on fire. Patricia began to choke on her own blood. At that moment, fear rose in her with the foul taste of bile. She had been frightened before but had never known such fear as this. It began in her stomach and spread to her arms and legs, paralyzing her body. She could not move. She could not resist. Her assailant jerked the brush from her hair and shoved her against the sink, bruising her leg but she could not feel the pain. Then the shadow was upon her, feeding greedily at her open wound, the incongruous sound of a dog lapping at a water dish. She could feel hot fetid breath on her neck, the raspy tongue caressing her bruised flesh. She grew confused when she saw her reflection in the blood-splattered mirror, head lolling eerily to one side, a gray monster embracing her. Patricia closed her eyes to shut out the horrible sight and never opened them again.
The gray shadow lifted Patricia as easily as one might a small child, bounded across the floor and leaped out the open window, leaving no record of its coming except for Patricia’s still hot blood staining the pure white tile and porcelain. Her hairbrush, blood spattered as well, rested in the red-rimmed sink; reddish-brown hairs ripped from her head were embedded in the nylon bristles.
As silent as a shadow, the gray killer soared into the dark night, struggling slightly with its limp burden. Over rooftops and along deserted streets it flew toward its destination, its thirst only whetted by its quick sampling of human blood. Soon, it would feast on its victim’s blood more leisurely, preparing for the days to come.
2
I stood in the bathroom door and peered in, my knuckles white from gripping the doorframe. Death, pain and suffering were no strangers to me but I felt woozy as I surveyed the scene before me. Blood splattered the white tile floors and white walls. The sink resembled some macabre Rorschach inkblot test. I stared at the pattern and saw death written there. Crimson rivulets stained the pink flowers dotting the white shower curtain. Congealed ruby stalactites frozen mid drip hung suspended from the ceiling. I took a deep breath and caught the bitter, coppery scent tainting the air. The room reeked of recent blood – blood and fear. There were few signs of a struggle, but assuredly, there had been fear.
Like the other cases, there was no body. I followed a blood trail out of the bathroom to the open bedroom window where it abruptly disappeared. There was no body on the sidewalk three floors below, no bloodstain marking where a body had lain. I gazed up the un-scalable brick wall to the roof two floors above and shook my head. Her abductor would need climbing gear to haul a body up that sheer wall and a uniformed patrol officer up was there now checking out that possibility. I knew he would come up with a big fat zero as usual.
I turned to my partner, Lew Atwood standing in front of a dresser. His normally imposing figure seemed shrunken as he stared at the victim’s dresser littered with the paraphernalia of her life. “Just like the last two disappearances,” I said.
Lew took his time before answering. He had picked up a silver-framed photo of the missing girl. She looked pixyish – petite, blonde hair, bright sky blue eyes. She could not have put up much of a fight. Lew was a big man, bigger than me, with close-cropped sandy hair and green eyes that sparkled when he was happy but they had not sparkled in some time. Moisture limned them now. Lew’s large hands held the frame delicately, lovingly.
“She's such a pretty little thing, Tack. I don’t get it. What kind of monster would do this?”
I cringed. That was what the press was calling this serial kidnapper, the ‘Midnight Monster’, because he always struck late at night. Brushing my fingers through my brown hair, I noted that my disposable gloves came away oily, only natural since I had not showered in two days and nights. I resisted the urge to sniff my armpits, but I probably I stunk to high heaven. Lew probably didn’t notice although we had shared stakeout duty on the front seat of my Acura for the past two nights. Fat lot of good it had done. Now, another young girl had gone missing less than four blocks from our stakeout. I ripped the disposable gloves from my sweaty hands and tossed them to the floor in a fit of rage. Let the lab boys yell about cross-contamination. I didn’t care anymore.
“The world’s full of perverts, Lew,” I replied in answer to my partner’s question. “We’ve just got an exceptionally bitchy one on our hands.”
“Blood everywhere but no bodies. Your normal pervert wants them alive. Why hurt them?”
“Maybe he’s into necrophilia,” I suggested. The thought disgusted me. I had seen dozens of naked bodies of dead women and none had ever excited me sexually, only angered me. What type of sicko got off on dead bodies? I still held out hope that the missing girls were that – missing – but as the hours passed, it became less likely. In my mind, I was already considering them murder victims. If so, we were dealing with a serial killer.
“Who knows what motivates him? What I want to know is how the hell he gets in and out of these windows.” I exam
ined the broken window, carefully avoiding the shattered glass littering the carpet. “It’s always a window or a balcony. Hell, it wore me out just climbing three flights of stairs. This guy hauls bodies out windows like he’s got wings.”
Lew arched one bushy eyebrow as he looked at me.
“Just a manner of speech, Lew,” I added. I didn’t need my partner thinking I was punch drunk from lack of sleep, which I was rapidly becoming.
“Maybe it’s more than one person,” Lew suggested.
“It’s a possibility, but we’ve uncovered no evidence one way or the other. It’s hard to imagine two depraved maniacs of this caliber developing a kinship with one another. Most serial killers are loners. It’s a basic part of their character.” I shook my head, picking up a bottle of perfume from her dresser, a delicate scent suited for a delicate woman. I set it back down in its exact position. “God help us if you’re right, Lew, but I think we’re dealing with single kidnapper.”
Lew nodded his head slowly. “Probably so,” he said as he gently replaced the photo on the bedside table. His eyes lingered on it for a moment as if he expected her to speak. He turned to me. “You think they’re dead, don’t you?”
A noise in the hallway saved me from answering his question. Dr. Munson, the forensics chief, walked through the door with his assistant, Melody Steele. Munson’s gray hair was unkempt and he walked slightly stooped, as if he carried the weight of the dead on his shoulders, but his blue-green eyes were as sharp as ever. They missed nothing as they swept the room. The first thing he noticed was my discarded gloves on the floor. He shook his head, tsked silently, picked them up with a pair of tweezers and dropped them in a plastic baggy.
“I’ll label this as extraneous evidence, Hardin,” he said.
“That’s Detective Hardin to you, Doc,” I snapped and regretted it immediately. I was on edge from lack of sleep and lack of progress but there was no need to take it out on Munson. He had been working long hours along with the rest of us. He couldn’t supply answers when there was no evidence.
One thing about Munson, he didn’t give an inch. He looked me up and down coolly over the rim of his glasses. “Don’t screw up my crime scene, Detective Hardin,” he returned with as much vigor as I had used. “Oh, by the way, I spotted three blood drops on the street outside the building. By the spatter pattern, they fell from a great height, maybe thirty feet.” He cocked his head slightly and looked at me. “Mean anything to you?”
I looked back out the window down at the street three stories below and saw three yellow evidence markers at the edge of the sidewalk. How could a man exiting a window carrying a body get blood spatter on the street a good fifteen feet away? The answer was he could not. As I pulled my head back in the window, I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye on the roof above. I looked up and saw a dark shadow glide along the top of the wall. I blinked my eyes and it was gone. Too damned tired. I rubbed my burning eyes figuring they were playing tricks on me.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I mumbled, turning my attention back to Munson.
He shrugged. “I’ll type it and run a DNA comparison, but dollars to doughnuts it’s the same as the victim’s.”
I cringed inside. He, too, thought the Stewart girl was dead. While I pondered his enigmatic bit of information about the blood drops, he and Melody set to work, methodically scouring the apartment from window to bathroom for fingerprints and minute traces of evidence. I suspected that, like the other crime scenes, they would come up empty.
Melody was a piece of work, thirty-three, long blonde hair, green on green eyes and red luscious lips. At only five feet, four inches, she only came up to about my chin but she packed a lot of woman in her diminutive body. I watched her for a few minutes to take my mind off the job. Her tight skirt and blouse did little to hide her exquisite figure. When she bent over, it was like a Vegas floorshow. I noticed appreciatively that she did not wear pantyhose, which I detested, but stockings and a garter belt. I knew she was single and I had tried to summon the courage to ask her out on several occasions, but each time I remembered my failed marriages and chickened out. With my lousy track record with women, I didn’t need to get involved with a co-worker. Lew cleared his throat to get my attention. Reluctantly, I tore my gaze away from Melody.
“Focus on this, Hardtack,” he said, pointing to the photo of the girl. I nodded at his not so subtle reminder.
I allowed no one to call me by my given name, Thackery, which I hated. I do let a few people call me its derivative, Tack, but only Lew can call me Hardtack, the name of a dense, chewy cracker, a staple for soldiers during the Civil War. God knows how he discovered the name, but that’s Lew. He thought I was a hard man and deserved a hard nickname, Hardtack. I didn’t object. Lew had earned the right to call me Hardtack though luckily he only used it sparingly. He had pulled my bacon out of the fire on more than one occasion. Of course, I had saved his sorry ass a few times as well. After our first year as partners, we stopped counting coup and just started counting on each other.
I shook my head to clear the cobwebs and smacked my fist into my open palm in frustration. “There’s nothing more we can do here, Lew. Let’s grab a bite to eat and head home. Maybe I can think better with some sleep.” Home sounded good; home and sleep. Both were just dim memories.
To most people, the thought of food after wading through such a grisly scene would be unthinkable. I guess I have a cast iron stomach. I could eat sitting on the morgue slab while Munson performed an autopsy. Once you get past a person being dead, the rest doesn’t really matter, especially to them. The corpse was no longer a person, just flesh and bones. The thing that had made them a person – soul, spirit, life force, Qi, Ka, whatever – had fled the empty shell. I wasn’t sure about heaven but after all the carnage I had seen one human being inflict upon another I suspected there was a hell and I wanted to send this lunatic there ASAP.
Before I reached the door, Munson called out to me. “Did you notice this hairbrush?” He held a bloody hairbrush inside a clear plastic evidence bag.
I shrugged. “I noticed it in the sink,” I replied. “What about it?”
He walked over to me and held it out for my inspection. “It looks like it was ripped from her hair. Lots of broken reddish-brown hairs in it. Too many for normal use.”
I grimaced at the implications. “Did our perp rip it out of her hair?
He shook his head. “No way of knowing for certain but it appears that her assailant surprised her as she was brushing her hair. Only one set of prints, probably hers.”
“That could be why there’s no sign of a struggle. He was on her so quickly she couldn’t fight back.” As I said it, something struck me as odd. “Wait. If she were brushing her hair, looking in the mirror, she would have seen him behind her. Why didn’t she fight put up a fight?”
He smiled at me and shrugged. “I just examine the evidence. You’ll have to make the assumptions. You’re the one supposed to put himself in your suspects’ minds.”
I nodded. I understood what he meant about assumptions. Assumptions could do more than make an ass of you. They could kill. Munson wouldn’t call a five-dollar bill a five-spot until he had spent it and gotten change. He worked strictly by the book. Maybe that was why I liked him. I trusted him. I had worked with other coroners who treated their job only as a dead end profession and whose biased and often erroneous conclusions had ruined many court cases. He was right about another thing. I had to think like our perp. Putting myself in a predator’s head was what I did best. Usually it worked. However, this time I was lost. This bastard acted like no criminal I had ever encountered. He was fast and efficient, bold and vicious and I wanted his ass badly.
On the way down the stairs, I met the uniformed officer who had examined the roof standing by the door sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. I took a deep whiff of the coffee and immediately wanted a caffeine fix but it had to wait. “Were you just on the roof, Officer?”
H
e looked at me strangely. “No sir. I’ve been here five minutes.”
I shrugged. “I guess I just saw the shadow of a cloud pass in front of the moon.” He looked at me quizzically.
“No clouds tonight,” Lew said. “What did you see, Tack?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Let’s eat. I need some coffee but none of this swill the landlord brewed up.”
A twenty-four hour diner on Fourth Avenue served a good breakfast special – two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast and jelly, hash browns and coffee for six bucks. Lew and I were regulars so the waitress called out our order to the cook as we walked through the door and brought two cups and a pot of hot coffee. I liked that. I enjoyed my coffee and hated to wait for a refill.
Lew and I seldom talked while we ate. It was an unwritten rule, a time to wind down. There was plenty enough time for conversation in the car or in the office. Besides, we didn’t want prying ears to overhear our random thoughts concerning a case. Reporters ate breakfast too and there was already far too much speculation in the press about this case. If we spoke at all, it was generally about mundane things, like his current woman or my cabin in the woods, which now belonged to my ex-wife. This morning, we were silent by a mutually unspoken agreement, each of us wrapped up in our private musings about the case.
I was stymied. We had no witnesses, no fingerprints, no DNA except for the victims’ and so far, not even a body. Our kidnapper (Or murderer, I couldn’t help thinking) had scaled walls unobserved and carried off his victims. How could anyone do all that without making noise? No one had even reported a strange vehicle in the area. What was he doing, giving them piggyback rides?
After we finished breakfast, which I had eaten but not tasted, I leaned my head against the booth bench and closed my eyes for a few seconds. As I did, my exhaustion washed over me. Sleep had become a distant memory. I yearned to curl up and forget everything about the case for just a few hours, but I knew I couldn’t. Somewhere out there some crazy bastard was kidnapping, maybe murdering young girls. I had to stop him. I opened my eyes just as Lew tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.