Story: In the Blood

Blood streaked down the crumbling brick wall. “Shut up, shut up, shut up. SHUT UP!” Dark blood smeared down his face, streaming down from his forehead. The sound of his head hitting the alley wall echoed. “Shut up, shut up.” Dark eyes stared blindly, as his head knocked endlessly against the wall.

Blood tints his vision red, washes his mouth with the taste of copper and fills his nose with the scent of wet rust. “Shut up shutup, shuddup.” A rat snuffles at the growing pool of blood at the base of the wall. Flashes of red and blue light reveal the wasted form of the man. Thin pale skin pulled tight over sharp bones, weeping sores and abrasions cover this visible skin. Lips pulled back in a grimace, and his hissing breath whispers, “shut up, shut up, shuddup!”

“God, the smell,” Stanley coughs and pulls his collar over his nose and mouth. “Another gift from our man?”

“Looks like it Detective, same signature, same method, he even poured the bloody bits from his last victim in a circle around this one.” Collins shrugged, and sneezed into his handkerchief.

“Want me to take a look around and see if I can round up come witnesses?”

“Yeah, doubt there will be anyone; I bet parts of this wonderful piece of work are “witnesses” from the last kill.”

“Can’t hurt.” Collins shrugs, pivots and stalks out of the motel room. He takes a breath, filling his lungs with the clean scent of the street.

“That bad, sir?” An officer asks, holding back the reporters.

Collins shakes his head, runs a hand over his balding head, “You know it is. I’m too old for this shit, why can’t the crazies wait till after I retire, huh?”

The officer shrugs weakly, and Collins yanks up the yellow tape and walks under, storming past the reporters.

“Is it the Mercy Killer?” “Is this different from the other killings?” “Who is the victim?” “What are you doing to catch this murderor?”

“No comment, bug Detective Stanley when he gets his ass out, I got work to do.” The reporters fall back and then turn as once as the Detective steps out.

Collin ignores them and flicks on his flashlight. A drop of water hits him in the middle of his forehead. “Damnit just what I needed rain!”

He starts knocking on doors, “This what I get for moving out of the Big City, having to do all the legwork myself.” He grumbles, pulling the hood of his coat up he starts knocking on doors.

“Ma’am…”

“I didn’t see anything! Leave me alone!” The door slams in his face.

“Fuck.” This is what happens when there is a leak in the department and the public learns that the police think the witnesses are being slaughtered alongside the other victims.

“Shut up,” THUNK, “Shut up,” Thunk.

Collins shines his light down an alley. “What the hell,” the light flashes over a dumpster and the voice and noise get louder.

“Someone back here?” Probably some crazy bum, but he may have been a witness. God I thought moving out of the city got me away from these addicts.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

Collins walks around and shines the light on a huddled figure, soaked through in the rain, knocking his head again and again on the wall.

“Hey son, you’ll hurt yourself… aw shit!” Collins jumps forward and pulls the man away from the wall, his light having caught on the bloody flesh of his forehead. “Shh, shh, it’s ok. Shit!” Collin stares into a wasted face, that should have looked older, but looked like that of a boy, even for its wasted state. Dark eyes, glinted and stared blankly into his own, the head still swaying as if hitting the wall.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” chanting under his breath.

“Hey, shh, shh, kid, I’ll take care of you, ok? We get whatever it is to shut up alright? You’re
going to be ok.” The dark eyes focused briefly and Collins felt as if he had been stabbed through the eyes and into his soul with a razor. They eyes unfocused and the policeman started to breathe again. “Shit, some stare you got there kid.” Juggling the flashlight and finally clipping it to his belt, he carefully pick the man up. “Oh man, you don’t way a thing kid, when was the last time you ate? I got some good food at home, and if you don’t like that stuff, my girl, my daughter

Kara can make you up something real nice.

The boy kept chanting “shut up” but Collins kept talking calmly over him. “Don’t you worry about anything you have seen kid, I’ll take care of you, get some meet on those bones and figure out what you think is so noisy that needs to shut up and all.”

“Hey Vicki, operator lady, you there?” He pressed his radio on.

“Right here, Vinny, what you got for me?” The sound of gum crackled over the radio.

“Vicki, I covered the area, damn those reporters, people are too scared to say anything at all.”

“Uh huh, what’s that noise?”

“Just static,” Collins reaches his marked car and props the man against it, holding him pressed against it as he opens the passenger door. “I’m heading home now. Picked up a stray.”

“You and your strays, one day you’ll get bitten, Vinny.”

“Yea, yeah, I’ve heard it, but rather be bitten than have something gauged out.”

The radio static is his response.

“Ok kid, I’m gonna get you in this car and we’ll go for a ride home, k? Nothing going to hurt you.”

He grabs hold of the man’s chin and tilts it up, dark glazed eyes stare up at him. “I know someone is home in here kid, all we gotta do is show you that this world ain’t that bad, huh?”

Carefully organizing the man’s limbs he buckles him in. Shuts door and paces around the car.

With a groan he settles into his own seat, “I must be getting old, you don’t weigh more than a couple sacks of potatoes and here I’m panting and groaning like some old man.”

The wasted man head sways to the side, unfocused eyes gaze in Collins’ direction.

“Yeah, I know someone was in there, see? You aren’t hitting any walls or telling the world to shut up.”

Glazed eyes stare and slowly long lashes sweep up and down as a light flickers in their depths.

Collins twists the keys in the ignition. The car jerks and starts purring, “Ah, hear that? That’s a well-tuned machine, kid. You have to take care of your partner, especially if it’s a car.” He reaches back placing his hand on the worn passenger seat, twisting back as he reverses the car out of the driveway. “Well we are on our way home now kid, you should like it. And Kara will take good care of you she will, my girl, she’s studying to be a doctor.”


The man listens to the other’s speech, not understanding, soothing the jagged edges of the voices the rant, weep and scream in his ears. He forces himself to see, lights dart past as their vehicle zips down the quiet town streets. There is a stink of other blood, death and fear. Breath hisses from between his teeth, he sways his head away from the soothing voice and attempts to see out.

But only lights and dancing shadows press against his eyes.

The voice continues to speak, the sound lulls him, and his eyes grow heavy until there is no smell, no sight, just the soothing rambling of the other.


The sounds of locks being opened caught Collins' attention just in time to turn and face Kara as she opened the door.

"Oh my god! You are soaked thro- who is that?" Kara asked after her eyes had traced her father's arm to the man he was holding up.

"Another lost puppy, found him beating his head on a brickwall. I didn't find any needle marks, but his eyes are dilated like all hell so I think he's on something. He looked so pitiful crouched in that alley... oh and he might also be a witness to a murder."

Kara blinked, "Wow, that's the most words you've strung together in the past month. Well, bring him in and we'll get you both dried up and I'll take a look at him. All my med studies have to be good for something!" She stepped onto the door step and slung the young mans arm over her shoulder and Collins' shook his head shooed her away.

"With the amount it's costing me I sure hope so. He doesn't weigh much I'll take him up to the guest room and you run the bath."