Bloody Freak (A Bloody Series Book #1)

                                         Bloody Freak

                                                    A Bloody Series

                                                          Book 1

                                        Copyright 2012 by Emily Barker

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, o
r stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actu
al events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

To my mother, for teaching me the love of the written word. My father, for helping me embrace my love of the strange. And mostly, to my husband, for being my real life hero.

Prologu
e

    "Where did you say you found this guy?" Greg Serrantos asked, his tone plainly stating that he was too busy to care. The man in question sat quietly outside Greg's office, looking for all the world like an accountant. Sweater vest and all.

    "He j
ust sat down next to me at the bar last night. Started up a conversation about being a werewolf," Tony Barns answered, shaking his head at the impossibility of the situation. "You know I'm usually pretty open minded, but as soon as he sat down I knew I wa
s
in for it."

    "From what you could gather does he really believe he's a werewolf or does he just want on T.V.?" Greg couldn't believe he even had to ask a question so ridiculous but they were desperate for someone to interview for the show since their
original guy had bailed out. They were supposed to be interviewing Carlos Rodriguez, a man who claimed his father had returned from the dead after a mishap involving a voodoo priestess. But nobody seemed to be able to locate him now.

    "Of course my fir
st thought was that he recognized me and was an eccentric fan. But he seemed pretty adamant about telling his story. He almost had me convinced he was a werewolf. Of course, I had about four beers in me when he came in." A frown appeared as he considered
t
his.  He was the youngest anchor in Columbus and everybody let him know how inexperienced he was. Greg especially gave him a hard time, if only to motivate him. Drunk or not, they had no choice but to go through with Tonys gut on this one.

    "Well, at t
his point I don't care if he thinks he's the damn Easter bunny, we'll have to take him."

    "So he's going on?" Tony perked up.

     Greg considered the decision, as if he were being asked what he was having for lunch.    

     "Yes, put him on. Call St
eph and get this together as quick as you can."

     "You got it." He said as he was leaving the office.

     "Tony", Greg called.

     "Yeah?"

     "If this goes bad, I'm holding you personally responsible."

      Tony visibly swallowed. "I'll do my
best, sir."

     "See that you do." He continued his work on his desk top. The whole situation was ridiculous, but for a man directing a news station who had promised a Halloween story not to be missed, he had little choice. Ratings were slipping at his t
oo small establishment. Sensationalism was just the last ditch effort. Honestly, what was the difference between a man claiming to have a zombie for a father and a man claiming to be a werewolf anyway?

    Across town later that night, Alexandria Lambert
was just sitting down at her couch, sipping a glass of Coke, about to dig into dinner, when the six o'clock news came on. Stories about a fire on the west side, a robbery down south and the newest convention downtown went by without a glance. All she car
e
d about was the guy with the zombie for a dad. At half past six she jumped up to quickly refill her glass. She flung herself over the couch, taking a gulp of her drink when something on the television caught her attention. It was a werewolf chewing on anc
h
orman Tony Barns. She promptly sprayed Coke all over her Salisbury steak and potatoes.

Chapter One

    Alex had seen some crazy shit in her fourty plus years on Earth, and she had seen a lot of it while
working for the Franklin County Forensic Lab in Columbus Ohio. This was easily the most surreal. Certainly the most memorable. She got the call to come in about thirty minutes after the incident occurred. The new photo guy, whose name she still couldn
’
t
r
emember, was bent over the neatly trimmed hedge outside the building when she arrived. Not a good sign. Walking into the front entrance and finding her boss through the maze of people milling about was tough. Most of them weren
’
t even really doing anythin
g
. Just staring off, eyes glazed as if they couldn
’
t stop seeing the carnage, even with their eyes open. Some of them, she assumed like her, must have witnessed the whole thing on live television. At least until the cameras had all been knocked over, only
s
howing the growing pool of blood spilling across the studio floor. Ken Farley, Alex's boss, stood near the doorway to Studio 8, where she could easily assume the incident had occurred. There were bloody paw prints leading away from the area, down the hall
w
ay to the back stairwell.

    "Ken. I came as fast as I could." She was already in her car when Ken had called.

    "So you saw the whole thing, right"? He asked. "You didn
’
t sound shocked to be called in. It was your night off."

    "Don't worry about
it. Of course I'd want called in on this. I was watching Channel Six for the first time ever just to see that Zombie guy. Who knew it would turn into this?" She motioned to the bloody tracks at their feet.

    "No kidding. I've looked at the evidence in t
here", he said with a nod towards the studio, "but I can't honestly believe what my eyes are telling me. I need you to go in there and tell me I'm crazy and that this is not what it looks like." He looked more shook up than she had ever seen him before. K
e
n was a twenty year veteran who could re-enact Monty Python skits while doing autopsies. He was not a man easily shaken. She couldn
’
t even come up with a proper response to his request because she knew what his eyes had told him was true. She couldn
’
t tel
l
him that, but she didn
’
t want to look him in the eye and lie either. If only she didn
’
t have to.

    "You want me to take a look now? I assume the photo guy is done. I saw him puking his guts up outside."

    "Yeah, you can go in. Just do a quick recon,
stay away from the desk and the back room for now unless you wanna throw on a Tyvek. From what I can tell all of the crew is accounted for in there."

    "Okay."  Surveying the scene from afar shouldn
’
t hinder her investigative skills, considering that s
he already knew they were dealing with a werewolf. Plus, she hated those stupid zip up suits.  Even a quick glance told her it was clearly a canine attack. Large paw prints littered the room, and the biting and tearing was clear from her observation. She
h
ad no clue how she was going to cover this up without help. It was too big a crime scene and it had happened on live television. While she was walking around the room thinking of how she was going to handle all of it, the obviousness of it hit her. The wh
o
le thing was completely deliberate. It wasn
’
t as if some random hungry wolf happened upon a news station and decided to stop by for a snack. This had to be the work of some Other community protest group. She vaguely remembered seeing a man sit down with T
o
ny before she got up to get her Coke. She had missed the actual transformation, but if he was mature he could probably have shifted in thirty seconds. All she needed to see was the wolf tearing into Tony's neck to know what she was seeing was real. This w
a
s the worst possible message that could have been sent. Surveying the parts of the bodies that she could see told her that the wolf had torn into at least six crew members, including Tony, in less than three minutes. He didn
’
t have much time to eat. Just
a
hit and run, a public display. Her suspect would have to have been the man Tony was interviewing.

    "Ken, do we have the name of the man that was being interviewed yet?" She asked. He peeked around the corner and looked away again.

    "You think that
it was the man Tony was interviewing?" He asked. Of course admitting that it was him would only work towards convincing Ken that what he saw was real. She tried to phrase her answer carefully.

    "Well, of course the footage will have to be analyzed, bu
t we still need to know who he is and his involvement."

    "Of course. His name, according to the paperwork we found on the managers desk is Larry Corder. He claimed to be a...," there was a significant pause, "...a werewolf. Tony stated to Greg Sarranto
s, the manager, that he ran into Larry at a local pub last night and that Larry requested personally to be interviewed."

    "And they put him on why?"

    "Apparently they needed a story for the Halloween show tonight and the man that was supposed to be
interviewed tonight is missing. PD is looking into the disappearance and any possible connection. Greg had to be taken to Riverside. He had a heart attack." His hand came up and tugged on his hair, which looked an awful lot like a nervous tick. She had n
e
ver seen it before.

    "Tell me the truth Al, did a werewolf come in here and eat seven people tonight?"

    Yeah.

    "Come on Ken. You know that
’
s not possible. If I hadn
’
t seen the bodies myself just now, I would have said this was an elaborate hoax
to get ratings." Seven bodies? She'd missed one. "I would have to say, given what I've seen, which isn
’
t much yet, I think it was special effects and somebody with a really big fucking dog behind the scenes to do the dirty work." There, that sounded good.

    "But you saw the guy change, right? It sure looked real to me." He was starting to get shrill, waving a hand in the air.

    "Ken, chill out for me, will you?" She pulled his arm down. "Maybe you should go talk to one of the deputies, see if they've
turned anything up yet." She gave him a gentle push towards the hallway to get him away from the mess. He went, mumbling to himself about the Addams Family. After careful consideration Alex decided to call her best friend, Brena. She would know what sort
o
f steps you were supposed to take in a situation like this. Maybe there was an Other cleanup crew you could call. The Government was supposed to take care of things like this, but calling them herself was out of the question. Bren would know what to do. S
h
e had lots of ties to the Other community that Alex couldn
’
t have, so she could get information on any wild political groups that could and would have perpetrated this sort of attack.

    "Bren? Did you see it?" Of course she would know what Alex was talk
ing about.

    "Yeah, I saw it. Not live, but they've already got copies of it on the internet. It's only a matter of time before this gets out of hand. They called you in on it?"

    "Yes and I can
’
t handle this on my own, you understand right? I don
’
t
have any way to cover something like this up without calling in our Government for help and I can
’
t do that. I've fed Ken a bullshit idea of special effects and some attack dog but the evidence is going to prove otherwise."

    “
I hate to tell you this, bu
t as soon as the footage of this leaked onto the internet, word spread that the Government was already getting involved. We need to get out of here while we still can. You know we can
’
t have those psycho henchmen anywhere near you."

    "Bren, I can
’
t lea
ve now," she whined. "I like this job. I have friends here, and I'm good at this. I don
’
t want to pick up and move again. It gets old, you know?" Brena was always the first to suggest moving if what she considered "The Enemy" came too close. That
’
s why sh
e
had all the connections where ever they went, to be well informed of when they were closing in and when to get out. If they moved now it would be the twelfth time in almost thirty years. Always right when they were finally getting settled in.