South Beach Slayer--A Retro Rusty Special

(The following post is the exact text for a short story that will be appearing in an anthology of online writers called *.fiction. The editor is Scott McKenzie, who can be found at this blog site: www.stardotfiction.blogspot.com. This story is based on the prior posts comprising the South Beach Diet series of posts--you can find the original series of posts in the November 2006 archives of this site--November 15-30, 2006 When the book is available, further information on how to get a copy will be posted and provided at that point. Until then, enjoy the story. More original posts are due over the next week.)

South Beach Slayer


I stood high above the crowd below, hidden from curious eyes by darkness and distance in my rooftop perch. From this spot, I could watch both the pulsating crowd below and the wide, nearly empty stretch of sand and waves known collectively as South Beach.

I wasn’t here to enjoy the sights and sounds of South Beach. This was a hunting trip.

There was a very prolific, very sick serial killer loose on South Beach. This unknown killer had killed four young people on four consecutive nights and left their bodies ripped open and splayed out on the beach to be discovered in the morning. Each body had been missing at least one vital organ.

Somehow, in one of the busiest nightspots in the United States, each victim had been killed, laid out on the beach, and been at least partially eaten all without any witnesses who were willing to come forward. The killings had continued even as the police presence had been doubled after the second killing and redoubled again after the third. The local authorities were at their wits end. That was when they called on the FBI to do something.

The fourth killing took place despite the presence of nearly twenty undercover FBI agents blanketing the most popular nightspots and a very sophisticated surveillance project that had been hastily put into place all over the area. The media was now crawling all over the story and the whole region was seemingly in the grip of panic over the lack of any progress on finding this mysterious, cannibalistic killer who had been named the South Beach Slayer by an enterprising news anchorman.

This was the fifth night.

The Bureau was desperate to put a stop to these gruesome murders. One of their best profilers, Agent Jennifer Wilson, had told them that this killer was something more than human. That’s when the decision was made to call on the Bureau’s only agent who also happened to be something more than human…or, as I preferred to think of it, formerly human.

Before I get much further, however, a brief introduction is called for. I am Agent Rusty Bones. I was a street cop from Dearborn Hills, Michigan who was killed in the line of duty. I was brought back to this…unlife…because I had also been a participant in a formerly secret (and definitely evil) government program called the Omega Project that sought to reunite the souls of slain subjects with newly enhanced bodies in an effort to show that it was indeed possible to create immortal super soldiers. I was the lone success of the project-- and its biggest failure-- since I subsequently helped to shut the thing down. I don’t quite think of myself as an immortal super soldier, but I do benefit from the fact that I can’t be killed. I have also acquired a few other special abilities that have been useful from time to time.

Seeing nothing of note moving on the beach, I turned my gaze towards the crowd below. While most sensible people were sensibly tucked away in their homes, there was still a sizable core of young, rich daredevils of all ethnicities gathered beneath me. They were partying with reckless abandon that I found quite amusing. There was a tension in the air that was palpable. These were the type of people who would throw a party on the eve of Armageddon.

From this distance I could pick out the undercover police officers and FBI agents as they mingled through the crowd looking for any likely suspects. The Slayer wouldn’t be so easily spotted. If Agent Wilson’s profile was to be believed, the Slayer was a doppelganger—a mythical creature that could change shape at will, exactly mimicking its victim.

I unfocused my eyes and shifted my vision from this world so that I could survey the scene below in the Shadowland—a separate dimension that parallels the physical world that you are already familiar with, but where the spirits of both the living and the dead are visible to those who can access it.

In this view, the police officers and undercover agents were even more distinct from the more colorful, inebriated spirits of all those potential victims. The spirits of the law enforcement officers were less colorful, more subdued in their hues, focused and vigilant.

There! About halfway down the block at a small, open-air sidewalk café, I caught a glimpse of someone, or better yet, something that was out of place. It was a small, dark spirit that seemed oddly out of place. As soon as I tried to lock my gaze on it, it slipped away into a thronging mass of spirits that obscured my sight. I was going to have to get closer. It seemed to sense me almost as soon as I saw it.

I slipped back into normal vision long enough to get a fix on the place and called the Shadow.

The cool, comforting darkness of the Shadow surrounded me. Using my will, I shaped It into a portal and stepped through.

I emerged from the Shadow in a side alley. I stopped at the mouth of the tight space for a moment to take in the festive scene from my new vantage point—pounding music, snarled traffic, pulsing neon lights, and a gyrating crowd of underdressed people of all races, genders and orientations milling about in their desperate searches for excitement and hook-ups.

A young woman in a skimpy bikini top and a multi-colored skirt stumbled into the dark alley and retched onto the ground right at my feet. She looked up from my puke spattered boots, staggering up to one knee. “Hey buddy, whatcha doin’ back here?” As her eyes traveled upward from my boots, her eyes grew wide. She got up quickly and stumbled off to rejoin her friends.

I stepped over a puddle of fermented vomit, emerging from the comfort of the shadow. I joined the pulsating stream of tense human sexuality that was the South Beach night life. I started towards that open-air café where I had seen that strange spirit.

If the dress code of the partying crowd was any indication, it was about 80 degrees and humid out. Even the bikini-clad gals and the bare-chested young studs were shiny with beaded sweat. I was, of course, the lone exception. I was wearing a lightweight, black windbreaker over a loose black sweatshirt. My sturdy jeans were properly distressed while my heavy black steel-toed work boots were brand new. I wasn’t used to being this exposed.

While preening, inebriated minnows darted and dodged all around me, I was the trolling, brooding shark seeking bigger, more dangerous prey.

I switched my vision back into the Shadowland so that I could scan the crowd easier for that spirit. I had gotten pretty good in the last year at moving my body through the physical world while keeping my vision primarily in the Shadowland. Compared to the kaleidoscope of colors of the Shadowland, the neon signs and Art Deco décor of the physical South Beach was almost bland and boring.

It wasn’t long before I caught a second glimpse of that strange spirit again. It stood out from the large cluster of younger, brighter spirits gathered outside of a particularly flashy nightclub just down the street from the café. It was a darker, smaller form than those of most humans, and it felt my presence as I honed in on it.

The small head of the form swiveled in my direction as soon as I locked my gaze onto it. Two laser red eyes bore into me for the briefest of moments before a massive explosion of intense light knocked me from the Shadowland and back into the realm of normal vision.


The crowd was milling about, oblivious to the dance between two hunters as I tried to associate the out of place spirit I had seen with the right physical body in the swirling, dancing, flirting mass of humanity.

With all of the glances of fear, disgust, and disdain that I was getting, I knew that my appearance was even more zombie-like than normal. I hadn’t found my prey yet. I was reasonably certain, however, that I stood out well enough to let the Slayer know that he or she wasn’t alone at the top of the food chain any more. The minnows danced and darted about, too exhilarated by life to realize that the true dance of death had only just begun.

I slipped back into the Shadowland, hoping to catch a glimpse of my prey yet again, only to find that the creature had slipped away for the moment. I shifted back to normal vision, clenching my fist in frustration. I pulled the Shadow closer, hoping to use It for cover as I redoubled my efforts to locate the Slayer before it struck again.

Standing on the edge of Light and Night, of City and Beach, I was in Shadow. A watchful, vigilant Shade that moved from one world to the next with the ease of a moth flitting around a light bulb, one moment fully visible and real, the next moment a figment of the imagination.

In this new state of being—suspended halfway between the living and the dead—I could walk among the evening revelers leaving no more memory of my passing than that of a strange, cold shiver that caused a tingle along the spine and raised the hairs on the back of the neck.

There was a certain timeless quality to this half-in, half-out existence that I was now in. I was unsure whether I had been searching for five minutes or an hour when I noticed the strange cloud of Shadow darker than any normal night obscuring part of the beach across the street.

Without hesitating, I turned, stepped out into the street, easily slipping between the cars stuck in traffic. I needed to see what was being concealed over there.

I slowed from a jog to a cautious walk as I reached the threshold of the obscured area—it was large enough to conceal any number of dangers. The Shadow parted for me like a curtain. What I saw on the other side of that shade would have caused me to retch if I had been physically capable of it.

The body of the Slayer’s fifth victim lay spread-eagle in the sand, her torso ripped open. A man knelt down beside her with his back to me, holding something dripping and wet to his mouth and tearing into it with his teeth. The lip-smacking sound of him eating one of her organs was enough to throw me into a rage. But one glance at this man’s sickly spirit was enough to convince me that this man couldn’t be the one responsible for weaving the curtain of darkness that was obscuring him from being seen by anyone else.

I reached out and grabbed the man by his long, greasy hair, yanking his mouth away from his disgusting meal and lifting him from his knees. “Hold it right there, asshole! Who helped you do this?”

The man’s eyes were glassy, his mouth dripping blood and bits of the young woman’s liver. He tried to ignore me by bringing the rest of the organ up for another mouthful.

I knocked his hands down with my left hand and spun him around. “I’m talking to you! Who helped you with this?”

Still dazed from his orgiastic feast, his eyes grew wide as he laughed. Bits of liver and blood spewed from his mouth as he did. As I raised a fist to bring an end to his sick display, his eyes narrowed. “Are you Bones?”

That shocked me enough to halt my fist. I could barely keep my response civil. “Yes, how do you know who I am?”

The sick bastard giggled. “The Beast said you would come.” He nodded towards the waterline to his left. “It wants to talk to you. I don’t know why, you don’t look like you would taste very good.”

I ended the conversation with a blow that was sure to keep him unconscious for hours and dropped his sorry ass next to the poor wretch he had been feasting on. I had a date with a doppelganger. I stalked off in the direction the maniac had nodded in.

A figure strolled in the darkness near the gentle surf off to my right. It was walking that line between earth and ocean, alone, just as I moved between the world of Shadow and Light. Its physical form was that of a lithe young man. Its spirit was something other, something that I had not seen before. It was small and dark, exuding a roiling, seething hatred.

The doppelganger was issuing its challenge to me. Come play.

It was time to make a proper introduction. I called the Shadow, wrapping myself fully within it. I gave the dark energy the twist that took me from one place to another and stepped out directly in front of the creature.

The fleshy face of the young man melted away as I stood at arms length from the creature. I was standing face to face with a being that now had no discernible face.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Hunter.” No mouth opened as it spoke, only a slow, grating whisper emanated from the creature.


“Why are you killing these people? What have they done to you?” I stood facing the thing in a combat-ready stance. My hands were open and ready to trigger my batons to drop into place from my wrist holsters at the first sign that it was done talking.

“It is time to hunt again. Have you not heard the call?” Its form shifted slightly, its arms growing slightly longer than would be normal for a human being of its height. Its hands shifted into large, wicked looking claws.

“What call is that?” I rose up on the balls of my feet and shifted my balance forward ever so slightly.

“The Call of the An’girasii, that which has not been uttered in over six hundred years, ever since the Burning Times. How can you not hear it, Brother?” It reached one razor sharp talon towards me slowly, pointing towards where my heart used to be. “Lord Dracaar walks the land once more. My spirit sings with his Call. I feast so that I may grow strong enough to serve him once again! Shall we dine together tonight?”

I brushed the talon away with a sweep of my left arm while reaching up to the sheath across my back that was not actually present in the physical world. Somehow I didn’t think my batons would be of much use against this creature.

“Look buddy, I don’t hear any call from Dracaar or anyone else, but I think you’ve had your last meal on this or any other beach.”

It drew back from my brush off and gathered itself for a lunging attack, both monstrous claws ready to strike with its leap.

It leapt before I could get my hand on the hilt of Excalibur, knocking me backwards onto my back in the wet sand. We became a tangle of grasping hands and claws, kicking legs and tussling forms in the gently rolling waves.

It wrestled with the strength of several men, moving lightning fast with the ferocity of natural predator as it tried to keep me from reaching the blade that it somehow knew was there.

“You are known to us, young Hunter. You have much to learn before you will inspire fear in any of us the way your father did.” It was not straining to speak as we wrestled, it kept the upper hand, always anticipating my next attempt to wrest my hand free to reach for the blade.

“Drake was not my father, dammit!”

It gave off what could only be considered a chuckle as it leaned its grey, blank face close to mine. “It was only through him that you were born into this existence. He is your father in every way that matters.”

I stopped struggling when I realized that this creature, this doppelganger, was sitting astride my chest in the shallow surf, holding me down, but not otherwise trying to harm me. I stared into its blank mask of a face, trying to pierce the veil into its spirit. “Who or what exactly are you and why did you draw me here?”

Two pinpricks of red light grew into glowing orbs of eyes. “I am a humble Servant, a messenger, if you will. I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

It reached into the dark robes that I now realized it was wearing and drew out a rolled up piece of what looked like leather sealed by some sort of wax. It placed the bundle on my chest as it let go of my right arm with its other claw and stood up.

“Read this soon. It is a message for your eyes only. You’ve seen the fifth and final victim already. The human feasting on her carcass is my gift to you. He will serve the needs of your human justice system well enough for now.”

“I can’t scapegoat some poor schmuck for your crimes!”

It stood over me, its eyes fading back into the grey of the mask. “Oh, I’ve chosen well for you. He’s killed far more of his fellow men than I have lately. If he weren’t so fallibly human, he might have been of more use to us. I have enjoyed this meeting, young Hunter. Until we meet again, fare thee well.”

I sat up, grabbing the thick leather scroll before it fell into the water. As I did, the creature faded into Shadow and was gone