Bloodthirst Read Free

Stanger turned away from him and started following the tricorder again. McCoy tried this time to maintain a respectable distance. “You
do
know what day it is, don’t you, Doctor?”
    McCoy frowned. “Stardate”
    â€œNo, I mean Old Earth calendar.”
    â€œOh. Uh, October something I think it’s the last day. Is it the thirtieth or the thirty-first? I can never remember that damn poem”
    â€œThe thirty-first,” Stanger said helpfully.
    McCoy grinned in spite of himself. “Well, I’ll be It’s Halloween. I’d forgotten. Not many people celebrate it these days.”
    â€œA shame, too,” Stanger said. “My folks did. It was my favorite holiday when I was a kid.”
    â€œWell, that explains it, then. These people are having a Halloween party, and they’ve invited us.”
    Stanger chuckled. “Thank God we remembered to wear our costumes.”
    McCoy smiled, feeling a little more relaxed. He liked Stanger. Personable, good sense of humor, and seemed to know what he was doing. But awfully old for an ensign. There was some sort of rumor going round the ship about him, something bad he’d supposedly done that Tjieng had been repeating to Chris Chapel, but McCoy had been too busy to stop and listen. Besides, he disapproved of gossip in theory, anyway. “No wonder I was feeling a little skittish.”
    They inched their way along the corridor until Stanger planted himself in front of a closed door and gestured at it with the tricorder. “In there.”
    â€œWhat do you think we’ll find?”
    â€œBats hanging from the ceiling,” the ensign retorted, but his eyes were faintly anxious.
    â€œWell, then, after you.” McCoy gestured gallantly; Stanger turned to face him. “You
are
the security guard, after all.”
    Stanger’s lip curled beneath the field suit, and he shot the doctor a sour look. “You know, that’s the trouble with this job.” But he went in first—not without resting his free hand lightly on his phaser. McCoy followed close behind.
    The flashlight swept the room at eye level.
    â€œLooks like their sickbay,” McCoy said. And a small one at that, barely big enough to accommodate three or so people. “See if there’s anyone on the diagnostic bed.”
    Stanger lowered the flashlight. “Funny, I’m not reading anything now, but I could have sworn the tricorder said in here”
    McCoy’s communicator beeped, and he flipped it open. “McCoy here.”
    The ray of light shot straight up, painted an insane zigzag on the ceiling, then disappeared as the flashlight rolled into a far corner. “GEEzus!” Stanger gave a muffled cry. The faint outline of his suit showed him sprawled across the floor.
    â€œStanger! Are you all right?” McCoy dropped the open communicator.
    â€œWhat the hell is going on down there?” An angry voice emanated from the communicator on the floor.
    Stanger emitted a small bleat of disgust and pushed himself away and up into a standing position. He was on his feet by the time McCoy recovered the flashlight and shone it on him.
    â€œMy God, Stanger”
    Deep red fluid beaded up and dribbled down the front of Stanger’s suit, repelled by the energy field. McCoy grabbed his arm, but Stanger shook his head and pulled his arm away.
    â€œI’m all right. Fell over something—someone. Feels like a body—still warm.” He pointed at the floor.
    The beam shone down into the dull eyes of a woman, beautiful, bronze-haired, dead. On top of her, face down in a gruesome embrace, lay the still, white form of a darkhaired man.
    McCoy gave the flashlight to Stanger to hold while he bent over the man. The woman was cold, dead for a few hours at least, but the man’s body was still warm to the touch. McCoy shook his head bitterly. If they had only gotten there a few minutes earlier He gently rolled the body