BLOOD RED.

by James A. Moore.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

No book is written alone and truer words have never been spoken. The author would like to thank Paul Miller for his insights, kind words of encouragement, and enthusiasm. Thanks also to my wife, Bonnie, for her amazing patience and love. You have always been and remain my heart and soul. Thanks also to Kelly Perry, one of the finest editors I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Under incredible time constraints, Kelly kept me on track and made Blood Red five times the book it would have been otherwise. For those reasons and a thousand others, this book is dedicated with awe and admiration to the people listed above. Thank you, more than I can say with mere words, thank you.

-James A. Moore.

QUOTH THE RAVEN.

AN INTRODUCTION BY SIMON CLARK.

"Stone the crows." A figure of speech uttered in exclamation. "A murder of crows." A collective noun for a gathering of crows. There are more, including the evocative "a story-telling of crows."

These devourers of corpse meat are found pretty much across the planet. There are over a hundred different species of the crow family, including the carrion, hooded, and American crows, plus rooks, jays, choughs, jackdaws, and Poe's iconic raven. Some are big and ominous-looking; as dark as black holes in the sky. Several of the species are small. One is even white.

Crows can be metaphor for the horror story. In the best tradition of Hitchcock's The Birds, crows tend not to arrive in a single battalion. A murder of crows assembles in ones or twos. You don't notice them infiltrating your neighborhood until suddenly you realize your house, or that children's climbing frame, is full of the black-feathered daemonic creatures. For me, the best horror stories are like that. The horror begins with a gradual accumulation of off-key details at near-subliminal level in an otherwise harmonious environment. The reader outside the book-and the hero inside the covers-doesn't realize that anything is seriously amiss until it's too late.

That's why horror is subversive. It infiltrates the reader's mind before it launches its attack. Sit with friends and discuss favorite horror movies and stories. A goodly bunch of those mentioned will feature an everyday, safe environment. Or what should be a safe environment. The home for instance. How many horror stories begin with the hero and family moving house to a new home only to find they hear footsteps on the stairs at the dead of night, or the lavatory inexplicably flushing? Psychologists will admit that the home and the self are inextricably linked. So the notion of your house being invaded or haunted by a ghost is, in effect, a metaphor for an invasion or haunting of one's mind. And one thing our culture teaches us is this: what should be our one safe place in the world-our home-is hideously vulnerable to supernatural attack. As children, didn't we fear the monster under the bed? Ghosts are already in the woodwork. Vampires, zombies, and assorted ghouls soon find a way across the threshold (heck, even those starlings in The Birds . . . remember the gush of our feathered friends down the chimney?). And it doesn't matter whether you're playwright-turned-caretaker in a swanky mountain hotel or a man of God. They're coming to get you.

Case in point: in 1715, the Reverend Samuel Wesley, father of John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist Church, experienced a poltergeist infestation at their home, the Epworth Rectory in England. At night he and his family were alarmed to hear groans and weird howling from the attic, accompanied by frenzied banging. Frequently, he was woken at night by what sounded like torrents of coins cascading onto the floor and the crash of breaking bottles. But when he investigated, he found nothing visibly amiss. Members of the household glimpsed a strange figure in white. His children eventually called the specter Old Jeffrey. See, no one's safe.

Nor are the inhabitants of the peacefully affluent Black Stone Bay, Rhode Island, in Blood Red. Oh, they think they're in no danger, but just as the crows settle unnoticed one by one on their houses, a sinister infiltration has already begun in Black Stone Bay.

In this novel of James A. Moore's you're going to encounter crows aplenty, and that's as much of the plot as I'm giving away. Of course, I can let other things slip . . . Quick! While the publisher's out of the room! Come close and listen: Blood Red is a beautifully written horror novel. The easy-going loquacious style is deceptive. Take it from me: anything that reads so well, with such attention to detail, is damnably hard to write. This prose style is the product of years of hard work, of staying home with the blinds shut when everyone else is out having fun in the sunshine. James A. Moore has paid his dues, honed his craft, and now the delight is all yours in reading a powerful and witty story, which opens in the elegantly tantalizing way that is the mark of exceptional talent. Pun intended but there's a rich vein of humor here as well as horror. Despite the carnage of the climax, the ending is genuinely poignant, too. And as you read, you're forgiven if you exclaim more than once "Stone the crows!" It's a kind of book that unveils surprise after surprise.

Simon Clark.

Doncaster, England.

July 2005.

Chapter 1.

I.

There are those who have and those who do not. The majority of Black Stone Bay, Rhode Island, had it in abundance. Along the shoreline that looked out over the Atlantic Ocean, a long run of mansions stood at attention or sprawled across their massive lawns, regarding the world with blind glass eyes that hid treasures most people would have thought excessive in the extreme. In the summertime, the bay ran thick with yachts and luxury sailboats, with a few smaller speedboats just to add a little balance.

The land could easily have accommodated a hundred times as many houses, but most of the people in town would never allow that to happen. A few had tried to change the minds of the people in power. They had all failed.

Of course, not everyone in the town was disgustingly wealthy; it just looked that way to the uninitiated. Someone had to serve those who ruled and it would hardly be convenient if the hired help had to drive for several hours to get to work. The flow of tourists that poured into Black Stone Bay to see the sights, eat at the numerous restaurants, and blow their money was as large as would be anticipated in any town that had ample seaside views and spacious hotels. That was to be expected, during the summer at least, and sometimes even in the fall, when the leaves changed.

And they needed servants, too; local help that could be hired at a reasonable rate. The town had a lot of blue-collar laborers; it just knew how to hide them from plain sight.

All in all, Black Stone Bay was relaxed and tended to stay that way. The people-whether inordinately wealthy or merely well-off-lived their lives from day to day with the usual numbers of problems and solutions. Certainly the people attending the two universities had their own concerns.

Neither the Winslow Harper University of Arts and Sciences nor the Sacred Dominion University were known for allowing anyone to stay in their programs without being exceptional. The student bodies paid dearly for the privilege of attending and they worked hard or they lost their money. Both of the schools were Ivy League caliber-or "Potted Ivy" as the locals called them with tongues firmly planted in cheeks-and both were acknowledged for their excellence on a yearly basis. All in all, however, the people were comfortable with their positions in life; maybe not always happy, but comfortable.

Mary Margaret Preston, or Maggie if she knew a person well enough, could have told anyone who asked all about the people of Black Stone Bay; she'd lived there all her life. The young lady in question actually attended Winslow Harper and was in the top five percent of her class. Like most of the students, she worked her ass off to keep those grades. Unlike the vast majority, she also worked a job to pay her way. Maggie had more sense than to work at a restaurant, a bank, or in any number of jobs that would have left her financially strapped and worried about paying the outrageous tuition fees. She had managed to find employment that let her choose her hours and paid well enough that she seldom felt financially desperate.

Maggie was a prostitute. Not a hooker. Hookers don't make the sort of money Maggie did. She had no illusions about the work. It was a job, and it paid well. There were risks, to be sure, but most forms of employment have risks. And in the long run it was a means to an end.

Maggie had always been careful. She came from a large family-was the baby, in fact-and was the first member of the clan to ever actually make it to college. She might want children in the future, but they weren't on her current agenda and she didn't intend to add them to her roster of things she had to do. Also, the list of diseases she wanted nothing to do with was large, and a good number of them were sexually transmitted.

Protection was worn or nothing happened. She had Tom to make sure of that. A ridiculous portion of her money went to Thomas Alexander Pardue-Monkey Boy to Maggie, but never to his face-to ensure that he picked the right sort of clients for her. Failure to pay his exorbitant rates could also result in a few tragic encounters with Tom's fists or even a knife blade. Maggie tried not to dwell on that part of their arrangement. He'd done things to a few of the girls over the years and she knew he'd do it again if he didn't get his way.

In exchange for his fees, he got her a clientele that could afford to pay handsomely for her services and worried about getting caught with her as surely as she worried about her career choice being exposed. The thing about getting a good education from a superior school was that the university had an ethics committee. If she was busted and they found out, she could lose her place at the school and her standing in the society she wanted to join.

Of course she'd been of professional use to most of the committee, so that wasn't really too much of a problem, but she liked to keep up appearances.

Maggie knew the score. She was a good student and she was a call girl. The two worked well for her. Both were temporary. She liked sex, but she wasn't a raving nymphomaniac. She also looked at actual relationships as something entirely different from the work she did. For the present time she did not date, had no desire to date, and would not let herself fall for anyone. Not even the dozen or so very powerful men who'd offered to make her life incredibly comfortable. She was doing just fine without their help, and saw no reason to give up her chosen lifestyle.

Monkey Boy knew the score too, though he kept trying to break the rules. Sometimes she had to let him succeed. She was still recovering from his latest need to show her who was the boss.

She could always tell when he was in that mood. He'd start by offering her drugs that she refused. Sometimes he'd insist, and she would take them, but not nearly as often as he wanted. In most cases she was able to handle the matter with a fake-out. Sleight of hand was a useful skill and one she'd learned from her uncle, who was an amateur magician. Uncle Albert was a sweet old man, and not nearly as warped as most of her family thought he was. He was just . . . eccentric in the extreme.

Now and then, as with earlier tonight, Tom insisted on "sampling the wares." That was his way of saying he wanted to get laid. The thing about it was that Tom only felt it proper that the girls protest first, the better to have an excuse for knocking them around a little. He was smart enough not to leave marks, but it hurt when he decided to do his thing. She was also pretty sure the only way the creep could get off was if the girl he was using struggled and complained.

The good news was that he didn't make demands too often, at least not of her. Maggie made too much money for him to slap her around a lot, and he wasn't as horny as he was greedy. She was also smart enough not to get hooked on the shit he served to some of the girls. They were the ones that he took advantage of whenever he wanted. Once they wanted another fix, they would do whatever he told them to do. She didn't play that game. He knew it, she knew it. He just needed to feel big from time to time and that meant doing what he insisted was his right.

Some day she was going to pay someone to kill the bastard, but for now he served a necessary purpose for getting her what she needed. It was all about the future, you see. Maggie focused on what she wanted in the future to the exclusion of almost everything else. It helped smooth out the rough spots, like Monkey Boy.

So she was a little sore, yes, but that was all right. She had a new client tonight, one that was promising to be very lucrative, too. He was also a rarity, because he wanted her to come to his house.

His house, as if the black stone mansion on the Point could be called a house. Maggie drove her Ford Focus up to the gates of the palatial estate and didn't even have to wait for long. The automated iron barrier slid out of her way smoothly as she reached it, and she moved further into the place.

She let a low whistle out past her full lips and admired the architecture. "Damn. I want one of these." Most of the houses on the cliff walk were accessible; meaning that people could, if they were polite about it, actually move over the lawns and see the exteriors of the homes without any difficulty.

This place was not like most of the homes; it had more in common with a medieval fortress, with its heavy black stone walls around the actual perimeter and a main building made of the same dark granite that earned the town its name. The house had been there for as long as she could remember, but this was the first time she had ever seen it close up. It was stunning, to say the least. From what she'd heard when she was younger, there were something like 80 rooms in the place if you counted the extensions for the servants' quarters. That the lawns were flawless was a given, the hedges just so, and the ancient trees on the property were at least as old as the United States of America in most cases.

She didn't have much time to actually look the entire place over before the door to the massive structure opened. Not one to ignore an obvious hint, she shut down her car and climbed out, ready to meet her new client.

He stepped through the door and smiled at her, a man of average height, reasonable build, and dark hair. There was nothing overly impressive about his features, but he carried himself like a king, with confidence and a casual acceptance of his authority over all around him.

He wasn't like most of the guys she dealt with. Half of them came off as cocky; the others came off as nervous or just plain horny. Very few of them ever seemed relaxed about the situation.

"You would be Maggie, yes?" His voice was deep, but the words were softly spoken.

"That's me." She smiled as she spoke, not bothering with false pretenses or putting any seductive tones in her way of talking. For all she knew the man she was looking at was the butler.

He did not move to greet her, but stood within the threshold of the front door and waited for her to come to him. Even that was a bit of a change from the norm. Half the time the men she dealt with practically rolled out the carpet for her. She didn't mind, but she noticed. It was important to understand what was expected of a client, especially one who was still an unknown quantity.

"Come in, please." He stepped back and left her room to get past him without trouble. She looked around, letting herself take in the decor and the furnishings with a quick glance. It was all very nice. Most of the furnishings were museum quality and laid out with a meticulous eye for design and there were around a hundred places where people could be hiding. She didn't like that part at all. Just because the man was supposed to be safe didn't mean she was willing to assume the situation was what it was supposed to be. Tom had made mistakes before and girls had been hurt. Maggie had no desire to become a statistic.

The furnishings had obviously been laid out some time ago. Everything was spotless, but the rugs over the hardwood floors hadn't been set down recently and the furniture on top of the expensive rugs pressed down on areas that had become accustomed to bearing their weight.

Maggie waited until the door was closed before she looked the man over more carefully. His age could have been late thirties to early sixties. He had that sort of face; lots of character lines, but not a lot of wrinkles. Nice clothes, but obviously not meant for power lunches or the like. This was him being casual. That was okay. She preferred that.

She took her time studying him, knowing full well that she was being studied in return. She looked in the mirror every day and knew what he was seeing. Her hair was dark and naturally curly, but she made sure to add a touch of gel to keep it in control. Her face was almost heart-shaped: wide, high cheekbones and large dark eyes above a nose that was straight with a slight upward tilt. Her mouth was generous but just missed being pouty, and her chin was strong. She had an athletic figure from several years of gymnastics and dance that her father insisted would make her a better woman in her adult years, and she'd made it a point to keep herself in shape. She was also, to use Monkey Boy's favorite term, built like a brick shithouse. Today she was dressed in a white cream blouse and dark blue jeans. She looked good. She knew it. It came with the territory. After half a minute of looking her over from head to toe, he moved closer and took her hand.

"I hope you don't mind if we eat first. I like to get to know people." He had an accent, and she was normally very good with deciphering the way people spoke, but she couldn't for the life of her decide where he came from.

"We do whatever you want to do. And thank you, you have a lovely home." The words were calculated. First she made sure he understood that this was business and then she complimented his choice in domiciles. If he wanted to pay her rates and have dinner, that was fine. If he wanted her to perform her services, that was okay too. If he wanted her to move in tomorrow and marry him the week after, that was no longer an option. This way, he at least understood where she was coming from.

She walked with her host into the dining hall-she couldn't justifiably call it a room-and took the seat he offered her. The food laid out before her was the sort normally found only in the finest restaurants. That was okay. To her way of reckoning she'd certainly earned a nice meal.

Before she could settle in comfortably, he was next to her, sitting to her right, and he watched as she took small bites of the food placed before her. The lobster was fresh and cooked to perfection. So was everything else.

He did not speak as she ate, but merely watched her. A lot of people might have been nervous, but not Maggie. She'd been in far stranger situations and, if the man got off by observing her eating habits, that was his prerogative.

When the meal was finished, he poured two brandies and they sat in what she assumed was his study. The books along the walls were not, as she had seen in several places, set there for decoration. It was obvious that either the man in front of her or someone else in the house read, and often.

"Now then, on to business." He spoke calmly, not seeming the least bit in a rush to get anything done. Considering what he was paying, that was perfectly fair. He had paid for the night, which meant that until she left the house in the morning, she was his to do with as he pleased, barring anything that she disagreed to.

He rose from his seat and walked behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders as he leaned down to whisper in her ear. Maggie held her breath, wanting to hear exactly what the man had to say. "I have a few unusual requests to make of you, Maggie . . ."

She listened. Half an hour later she left his home puzzled, but glad to accommodate the man who was paying her so well.

II.

It only took Kelli Entwhistle a few moments to realize she'd been duped. The silence in the house was enough to make her know that Teddy was up to something. And who would get the blame if he did something stupid? Why, that would be her, of course. They almost always blamed the babysitter when a kid managed to get himself into grief.

She put down the dishrag and walked out of the kitchen, looking around quickly with practiced eyes. Teddy Lister was a master at Hide and Seek. The problem seemed to be he never wanted to tell her when he was in the mood to play. At ten years of age, the little shit was practically an accomplished escape artist. She would have been pissed about it, too, but he was a damned cute little munchkin.

Bedrooms were empty. So were the rest of the rooms. One quick look at the attic door-where she had planted a very small piece of tape on the carpet to let her know if anyone went up the flight of wooden stairs-told her that Teddy had not gone that way either. That only left one other option worth considering.

Kelly grabbed her coat from off the chair where she'd draped it when she got to the Lister house, and slipped it on even as she reached for the back door's crystal knob.

Before actually leaving the building, she listened and, sure enough, she heard Teddy's voice and that of his best friend and number one accomplice in all things annoying, the equally cute and infuriating Avery Tripp.

She opened the door very, very carefully, letting the light spill out onto the back patio. It was well after sunset and the two boys were not supposed to be outside. One of the two was not even supposed to be at the house at all, but she had grown accustomed to that part of the equation. Avery Tripp was like a cabbage soup dinner: he kept coming back and stinking the place up when you least expected it. Mostly she meant the comparison in a good way.

The two of them were halfway down the stairs and, whatever they were doing, it had them far too engrossed to notice their babysitter sneaking closer. She made it all the way to the top step before a creaking board gave her away.

"Just what are you doing out here?" Kelli put as much venom as she could into the words, just to see how far they would jump. Avery flinched. Teddy let out a yelp and tried desperately to hide the magazine in his hands. Both boys had wide eyes and terrified expressions.

Rather than waiting for an explanation, Kelli walked down the four steps to where they were and grabbed the magazine from the trembling hands of her charge.

They managed to blush, even in the near darkness. Avery dropped a flashlight from his hand and all three of them watched it bounce and roll into the yard.

"Ohgodshe'sgonnafreak." It was one word, and came from Avery's lips in a high-speed whisper.

Teddy said what he always said when he got busted. "Avery made me do it."

Kelli looked at the cover of the Penthouse Magazine the boys had been looking through and smiled. She knew they had to be up to something, especially when it was too quiet in the house.

"Penthouse? Where did you guys get a dirty magazine?" Kelli looked at Avery as she spoke, knowing full well he'd brought it with him.

Avery shrugged and looked at the ground for several seconds before he finally looked back at her. "I brought it."

"How much trouble are you going to be in if I tell your mom about this, Avery?"

She couldn't have gotten a better reaction if she'd pumped a million volts into his rear end. "Oh, jeez, Kelli . . . please don't tell on me." He was sweating now, worried, and that meant she had him exactly where she wanted him.

"You get your little butt home right now, Avery, and maybe I won't have to."

Teddy was the one who started to protest, but one look from her while she waved the magazine was enough to make him shut up. After a few moments of hemming and hawing, she gathered the two boys together and walked Avery back to his house three blocks over.

Three blocks doesn't sound like a long walk, but when it came to handling Avery and Teddy, it was closer to three miles. They were boys, and they were energetic boys at that.

Avery looked pale and worried the entire time, and for the first time in the months she had known the kid, he was quiet. When they reached the walkway leading to his front door, Kelli put a hand on his shoulder.

"You okay, Avery?"

He swallowed hard and nodded his response.

"Are you sure?" He looked like he was going to faint dead away and that made her a little worried. He looked at her with brown eyes that threatened tears and nodded again, his throat bobbing up and down.

Finally, she reached into her jacket and pulled out the Penthouse, wrapped in a bag from the comic store she knew the two boys frequented. "Well, you go put this back where it belongs, Avery, okay?" She hadn't been sure about whether or not to let him have the magazine back until just that moment.

"Y-you're not gonna tell?" She shook her head. He looked like an angel in that moment; relieved, happy, and much more relaxed.

"But you know what?"

Avery shook his head.

"You don't pull that sort of stuff; you can't get in trouble for it."

He rolled his eyes and nodded. The kid's whole body got into the aww, shucks, ma'am expression whenever he made it.

"Get inside before you get yourself in serious trouble, Avery, and stay home for the rest of the night, okay?"

"Thanks, Kelli. You're the best." He probably would have yelled it to the world like he normally did, but it was dark out and he was supposed to be inside. Sometimes Kelli wanted to swat him, but mostly he was okay.