Vampire Shift - By Tim O'Rourke Page 0,44

as if it wanted me to follow. So I did. Making my way across the field, I could see the dog had stopped by something lying stretched out in the snow. As I drew near, I could see the Labrador prodding it with its snout. He looked back at me and whined.

Approaching the dog, I could see that it was its owner lying face up in the snow. At first, I thought that perhaps the old man had lost his footing while out walking and had collapsed. But as I drew closer, I could see that the snow around him was stained crimson. Following the bloody splash marks, I made my way towards the dead man. I could see tracks around the body, and I was careful not to destroy them. Placing my hands over my mouth, I looked down at the mutilated body. Straightaway, I could see that this attack had been far more frenzied than the attack on the Blake boy. That had been bad enough – but this was something else. At least the boy had been left with his face.

The old man lay spread-eagle in the snow. Most of his face and neck had been ripped off. I could see the sinews and muscles that his face had once been attached to. His eye sockets were empty, just two black holes looking back at me. The man’s teeth were still intact, but without any lips, he looked as if he were grinning. His jacket and shirt had been slashed in two, revealing his torn open chest cavity. Several of his ribs had been broken and they stuck out of his chest like white-coloured fingers. His lungs had been half eaten and what was left looked like a pile of pink blancmange. The dog looked at me and whimpered. Reaching out for it, the dog licked what was left of his owner’s face, then ran off into the distance.

Kneeling down, I ran the tips of my fingers over the corpse, my eyes flitting back and forth – unconsciously taking in every minute detail. I dabbed at the blood around the main wound, then the blood further out around the edges, and then blood sprayed over the snow. I got up and paced around the man laid before me. Looking left and right, up and down, noting every little thing I could see, almost without knowing that I was doing it. Within seconds, I knew how long ago the killing had taken place, four people had taken part, the same three as before, but this time there had been someone new. And the tracks they had left were different – somehow odd. But it wasn’t just that. There was something missing. With the light fading fast, I set off back across the field and towards town.

Pushing open the door to the police station, I rushed in. Stomping the snow from my boots and brushing it from my hair and shoulders, I looked up to see Sergeant Murphy and Constable Potter standing in the office, on the other side of the counter.

“Bishop told us you would come back,” Potter said. “He also confessed that you know about…us.”

“I don’t have time for that now…” I started, still out of breath from my hike across the fields to the station.

“He hasn’t done you a favour revealing himself to you,” Murphy said, coming towards me, in that lopsided way of his. “In fact, he’s put you in even greater danger.”

“I’ll worry about that later,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I’ve found another one.”

“Another what?” Potter said, coming closer.

“Victim,” I wheezed. “This one’s bad though. It’s not like before.”

“How?” Murphy asked, his face looking worn and serious.

“They took his face. I’ve never seen anything like it. The attack was frenzied – savage,” I said, and just recalling that mutilated man lying in the snow, made my legs want to buckle beneath me.

Pulling up a chair, Murphy told me to sit down and calm myself. Potter handed me a cup of water and I noted that this was the first kind thing he had done for me since taking up my post in The Ragged Cove.

Once I’d caught my breath, I looked at them and said, “There were four of them. They left tracks in the snow. I could have only just missed them.”

“By how long?” Potter asked.

“Five minutes,” I said, looking at him. Again he rolled his eyes as if dismissing what I’d just said. “Look, blood behaves like many other