Blood Red

Alan winced and realized that he’d been clenching his fists. A steady stream of crimson ran from the web between his thumb and forefinger. The physical wound hurt, but the memory of how he’d been injured was a thousand times worse.

“That wasn’t my boy. They don’t understand that. But I know my son, and Avery would never . . .” He couldn’t finish the words. They stuck in his throat like barbed hooks and he gagged on them.

Alan Tripp started for his house, ignoring the worst of the scrapes and cuts that adorned his bare feet. The ground was rough, covered with a thick layer of autumn leaves that hid a hundred different traps. His feet were suffering for every move he made.

He let himself go numb for the majority of his trek. It was easier on him when he wasn’t lingering on memories of Avery’s laugh or Meghan’s sweet smile. The pain wasn’t as great when he pushed away the scent of his son’s hair as he came inside from playing, or the taste of Meghan’s lips pressed against his own.

A blink of the eyes was all it took to have him recalling a thousand things he didn’t want to remember anymore. Christmas morning, the first year after he and Meghan were married; their first celebration of the holiday on their own. Meghan holding on to his hand with crushing force, her eyes open and her mouth a beautiful scrawl of pain as she gave birth to their baby boy. Her not-completely-joking promise to kill him if he ever let her opt for natural childbirth again. The first time he had to change one of Avery’s diapers by himself. The look on Meghan’s face when she saw the end result and her laughter, sweet as honey, that took the sting from the exasperated look she cast his way. Avery’s first step, his first word, his first time falling down and bruising himself: they were all beautiful, painful mementos of the life he’d had until just a few days ago. They were his life, his reason for living, his sole purpose for drawing in another breath.

Alan drew in a ragged breath and pushed those wonderful agonies aside. He sucked in another gasp of air and held it like a treasure as he thought of the look on Avery’s sweet, blood-stained face as he looked up from feasting on Meghan’s neck.

He could survive a little longer if he just let everything go but the anger. That was the most important element. Without his rage, he would have stayed in that room and eaten the pills they kept giving him for as long as they wanted him to.

But if he held it close, fueled it with tiny scraps of the pain that overwhelmed him, he could make his anger grow big enough to do what he had to do.

No creatures on this planet were going to steal his wife and son without suffering for it.

A branch punched into the sole of his left foot and drove a hot lance of pain into him. He stopped exactly long enough to yank out the irritation and continue on. He fingered the stick, felt the blood slick across his hand, and let that add more fuel to his anger.

Anger was his weapon. It was his shield.

There was something else that he would use, too: knowledge.

He wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but he thought he knew what he was facing. There were only a few things he’d ever heard of that came out at night and drank blood. Maybe the thing wearing Avery’s face had actually been eating the flesh of his mother, but if so, he took small bites.

No, it was the blood. Her neck was torn, not chewed away. At least I think it was. So damned hard to focus on anything.

Were vampires real? Was it even a possibility? He didn’t know, but he was going to find out.

He looked at the bloody stick in his hand and smiled tightly. Either way, a bit of stick through the heart will stop the thing that stole my boy.

Alan had a wood shop in the garage and plenty of wood he hadn’t quite gotten around to doing anything with.

That was about to change.

He had nothing left that mattered, but it was possible to find a substitute, at least for a while. He could fake a reason to live; he could make one up and use it for as long as possible.

His reason to live was that he had something to kill; something that looked like his son.

VI

Brian Freemont slipped out of his house a little after noon, and kept a cautious eye on the houses around him. He carried two bags of clothing and a third that held all of his weapons and enough ammunition to let him hold off a small army. He checked under his car, and inside it, too, before he finally threw his luggage into the backseat and slid behind the driver’s seat and started the engine.

His face was bruised and stinging from the blow he’d taken in the wee hours of the previous night. The lacerations were not deep, but they burned. He needed to get something he could use to clean the wounds, because there was nothing in the house.