Blood Flow
Christine “Chrissy” Jackson was a logical person. She liked things to be understandable and clean-cut, which is why the blood bank robberies, or the “Blood Flow” as it was called by the media, was frustrating. There were no prints to track, no IDs left on the scene, and not even a piece of their outfit or a strand of their hair was to be found. She prided herself on being an ace detective, had been since she was ten, and had solved The Case of The Stolen Pencil (spoiler, Eddy Maxon had just kept it inside his bag instead of his pouch and forgot about it). But one thing she had noticed in her rather illustrious career as a P.I. was that there was always a discernable mark, a motive, and a place to sell to tie the crime to a particular person or a group of people, but the only marks left here were the missing blood bags, shattered glass, and security guards who woke up dazed in the morning without a clue what had happened the night before. As for motive and a place to sell, well, those just led to a bunch of dead ends. A sharp and hit anger coursed through her veins when she thought about all the people who couldn’t be helped with the shortage that the robberies were creating.
In her musings, she forgot to take the turn that takes her to her small, but functional one-bedroom apartment on Park Street. There was another way to go that would take her to her destination, but the abandoned Wells Lane was avoided for a reason. She sighed as she went anyways, for she knew that Alex, her black tabby, would scratch the door and disturb her neighbors until she fed him. Her hand drifted to her gun, knowing better than to let her guard down. She whipped it out when she heard a dull clang, her heart racing, then laughing as she saw what had caused her almost heart attack. A fuzzy grey kitten regarded her with its neon green eyes, then purred and plopped away. Laughing to herself, she started walking again. “Mom was right, I am WAYY too high-strung and jumpy.” Another clang was heard from her right, her instincts screaming at her to investigate it. “I’m not going to waste more time finding another cat.” She told herself firmly, then wondered if she was going crazy. Another thud sounded, closer this time. Groaning to herself, she turned towards the noise, gun at the ready then almost dropped it and screamed.
“What the?!” she gasped out loud, then got a hold of herself, trying to understand what she was seeing in a logical way. “A 6ft tall person, build seems male, pure white with blue veins sticking out, no hair and wearing only a torn beige pant and a blue barely there tee.” She listed to herself. But the most troubling part of the read that streaked around his? mouth, the jagged canines that poked out of it, and the pure black eyes that were unseeing. He looked, well he looked dead. And she would have certainly written him up as dead if they weren’t liking their fingers clean eagerly. Her breath hitched a little when she saw the small pile of plastics that had the logos of the blood banks which were robbed. She almost called out to him, then stopped herself before she could. Better to find out where he lived and why he was doing this before taking any action. So she stayed silent and watched as he cleaned up the area, then took off at an inhuman speed. She ran after him as quietly as she could, losing him at some points, but quickly picking up where he was with the bloody footprints. But it suddenly stopped at a dead end. She looked up and the tall building and groaned, still a little out of breath from all that running. She watched as a light flickered in one of the apartments in the building, A sudden gunshot echoed around the area before she could formulate a plan. Abandoning all thought, she ran up around the building and quickly found the entrance and ran up the stairs, gun blazing. She kicked the door down and yelled “Get on the floor!” “Who are you?” a guttural male voice growled, and she turned just in time to watch him start to lunge at her. On instinct, she shot at him, then gasped as it hit her mark. Black liquid oozed out of the hole in his chest, and the man choked out something to her, but the only sound that came out was the gurgle of his blood. Before she could reach her phone to call an ambulance, his eyes got an, even more, glossier sheen than before, and she knew with a certainty that she hadn’t felt in a long time that he was dead.
A sob worked its way up Chrissy’s throat. She had never been a squeamish person, but seeing dead people always broke a piece of her heart. They had been somebody’s something and it got ripped away from them. But she pulled herself together. She still had a job to do. She quickly looked around the small apartment, careful not to disturb anything. There were many scientific instruments with bubbling liquids around the small apartment and many journals. She picked one up and started to read the latest entry.
Monday, 19th June,
Research has been going brilliantly. The formula seems to be working so far, but without a human source, it is hard to confirm. The bloodlust has been increasing more, and the latest cure didn’t work. I shouldn’t have tested so quickly. I am failing the people I wanted to protect. But…. This cure is of more importance. I can make it work. I know I can fix this.
She dropped it. Her hands shook as she collapsed in that house, the body of the man that tried to fix the world, cold and dead beside her. “What have I done?” she thought to herself. Picking it up again with trembling hands, she started to read it again.
Years of work have finally paid off. A few more days and a cure for cancer will be in my hands. And hopefully, a cure for my “Vampire” condition. I can be free again. I can help again. My life is finally getting back on track. Maybe my old lab will let me in after I cure myself. Maybe my friends will come back.
Once the cure gets released, I will stop with the blood as well. Whatever happens, I can rest in peace knowing that I did something right.
Chrissy whimpered to herself. What had she done? The cure that could help millions, was lost, just because she was impatient. As she looked around, she could see the remnants of a great scientist trying to right by this world, a world that seemed to hate him.