The snoring was loud enough to be heard from outside the car, rendering the stakeout all for naught. Frank was never good at sleeping. Nightmares plagued his nights, jolting him awake in a cold sweat. On the rare occasions he did fall asleep, it wasn’t long before the cops were knocking on his door, concerned by reports of blood-curdling screams. It had been twelve nights in a row without rest, and now his eyes were laser-focused on the warehouse up ahead.
Three men in hoodies patrolled around the warehouse gate, occasionally glancing in their direction. Despite this, they never made a move against him and his partner. The discipline these crooks had irked him and goosebumps rose up from his skin.
Frank poked Alan on his side, “Alan, wake up. Stop snoring”
Alan in the driver’s seat woke up with a jolt, breathing heavily. "Where am I? How'd I get here?" His breath reeked of alcohol. He glanced at the two men standing by the gate and immediately started hiccuping. He turned to Frank, confusion etched across his face. "Frank, where are we and why the hell am I here?"
Frank sighed, his patience wearing thin. "You're supposed to be helping with the stakeout, Alan. Instead, you're passed out and snoring like a chainsaw. You’d think they’d have shot at us by now with all that snore of yours."
“It’s not the right time to argue, those things, what are they?” Alan asked.
“They’re just bodyguards, what else could they be.” Frank answered.
“I knew it man, I knew it. It’s the same feeling from this afternoon. We shouldn’t have gone nowhere and just stayed home man, jesus christ, I don’t wanna die man.” Alan cried out of his mind like he saw something he shouldn’t have.”
“What the fuck are you saying, I don’t see nothing out there.” Frank squinted at the two men. “Wait, two? Where the other one go?”
Frank accidentally looked at the passenger’s side mirror. He was startled to see the silhouette of a man in the reflection. It made him jump. But the next moment, the man wasn’t there anymore, and the third man appeared in front of the gate again. Frank thought it was just a hallucination from staying up for twelve days straight.
“Frank, that man was really behind the car the whole time,” Alan said, his voice trembling. “He was staring at me in the rearview mirror. The next moment, he went back to the front gate.”
Frank's skin prickled, goosebumps crawling even harder through his skin.
“This is probably more dangerous than the last case. It has something to do with what Jonathan gave you,” Alan continued, his words spilling out in a frantic rush.
Frank interrupted, his irritation mounting all the more with a growing sense of unease. “Who the fuck is Jonathan?”
Alan blinked, his face pale. “I mean Carl. You know what I mean!”
“Then fuck it, they already know we’re here. Let’s just go over there and say hi” Frank said, furrowing his brows and then chugging the coffee in the thermos from the middle cup holder.
“It’s not a good idea man. I got a bad feeling about this and I’m drunk!” Alan screamed.
An eerie silence followed. All three men slowly turned their heads in Frank’s direction. He couldn’t understand why they stared at him when Alan was the one who screamed, but a deep, instinctual fear told him they wouldn’t make it out if they tried to speed away. Alan had looked terrified of the three men the moment he woke up, and it was no coincidence Frank's goosebumps felt pricklier than usual.
“You ain’t getting me out of this car, sorry man. I don’t wanna fuck with whatever those things are” Alan murmured.
Frank's mind raced. He knew Alan was right. Something was off. "Alright, fine. Stay in the car. Keep the engine running," Frank said, his voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through him. "If anything happens, be ready to get us out of here."
Alan nodded, his eyes wide with fear. Frank took a deep breath, steeling himself, and stepped out of the car. The night air was cold, and the tension was palpable. He walked towards the men, each step felt heavier than the last. It wasn’t just a feeling, it was his legs were literally heavier as he moved towards the gate.
As Frank approached, the men didn’t move, their eyes locked onto him. "Evening, gents," Frank said, trying to keep his voice casual, also to keep his wits calm. "Nice night for a stroll, isn’t it?"
The three men stared at Frank in silence. Their eyes were hollow, devoid of apparent thought. Their breathing was nearly imperceptible, and their breaths didn’t create fog in the late autumn night. The growing sense of eeriness became almost deafening.
The scene reminded Frank of the final moments of their last case. A girl, motionless, standing in the middle of the forest, wearing a torn red dress. Alan had wanted no part of checking if the woman was okay, despite being a cop. The next thing Frank knew, Alan was driving drunk at 120 miles an hour, desperate to escape the girl with the teeth and claws that did not belong to humans.
The gate of the warehouse opened with a creak, snapping him back to reality. The men still didn't say anything. Frank felt an inexplicable compulsion, as if he were being invited inside. He walked in, his steps hesitant yet uncontrollable.
The three men tracked him with their heads. One of them even turned his head all the way to his back to keep an eye on him, making Frank's skin crawl even more.
Inside, he was greeted by an old Chinese lady, likely in her mid-50s, below average height.. She greeted him with a giggle, but her eyes did not smile. "The boss wasn’t expecting anyone at this late hour," she said.
Frank tried to ask, "What were those men at the gate?"
The old lady's expression hardened. "Not human, we both know that. Don't ask too many questions about things you shouldn’t know, or it might get you killed, or worse."
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"What's worse than death?" Frank asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
She fixed him with a cold stare. "You tell me. Aren’t you experiencing it right now?"
Frank knew this old lady had intel on him. He already knew he was this popular, but he didn’t know how far his reach had gotten. He has only ever gotten himself involved with the Americans in this other world. He gripped his fist tighter, frustrated at how powerless he is. Only his obsession pushed him further down the rabbit hole.
They walked through a long hallway to the other end of the warehouse. He looked around, noticing boxes up on boxes of miscellaneous items, at least that’s what it looked to his eyes. Most were covered in yellow tape, much like a crime scene. Squinting his eyes, he could see red Chinese markings on the yellow tape, calligraphy or symbols or whatever it was.
The old lady gestured around the warehouse. "Take a look. You wouldn't even know what these things are even if I told you. A man who only puts one foot in Aur will never understand."
Frank furrowed his brows, extenuating his wrinkles even further. What she said was true. He was too much of a coward to dive head first into their world. It was a place where even the smallest mistake could cost him his life in a modern age where food, water, and shelter were taken for granted.
Finally, they reached a door. The old lady turned to Frank. "Just call the man 'Laoban.' Don’t bother asking for his name." She knocked twice and then opened the door, ushering Frank inside and then closed it behind him.
There, Frank saw a man, sitting behind the desk staring intently at the laptop screen. The man had a ghastly presence, as if he didn’t even exist in the same plane that he was standing on. His face looked sunken, probably due to lack of food and his eyes were also hollow. He had a yellow tape with similar markings from the boxes earlier wrapped around both of his arms. Frank couldn’t even guess his age, but he was clearly also Chinese.
“Hello, Frank. It’s so great to finally see you.” The man’s chummy voice betrayed the expression on his face, similar to the old lady.
“Laoban, I’m going to cut to the chase. I don’t care what you guys do here, our precinct just wants to know where our men went” Frank was as frank as he could be.
“I’m afraid I can’t really tell you that since I also want to ask you where our man went,” the man laughed, though his face remained expressionless. The room's temperature gradually lowered as he continued. “You see, Frank, we’re missing our man. He’s very important. Really important. For some reason, he disappeared just as your men talked to him.”
“Look, man–” The room’s temperature plummeted further. Frank rephrased his sentence, “I mean, Laoban. The idiots at the precinct have no idea what’s happening here or who you are. Heck, I don’t even know why they were following your man.”
“Then why?” The man’s voice seemed to emit two frequencies: one normal, one much lower.
It was then that Frank regretted not reading the reports the captain had given him. His smart-ass decision not to read it, assuming it was just more crappy paperwork, had backfired. The man in front of him was powerful. There was no way he was getting away from this like he had with the lady in the forest.
“Laoban, let’s calm down a bit. Where did you last see your man?” Frank squeezed out a response. “Forget about my men. You know my rep, right? I can help you find your guy.”
The temperature stopped plummeting immediately.
“Apologies, my friend. I don’t mean to scare you. Our man had a peculiar role in the warehouse. He was in charge of the yellow tape you see around the boxes,” the man replied.
“So, was he wrapping up the boxes with yellow tape when my men approached him?” Frank asked.
“He wasn’t. I have the footage in front of me on my laptop now. Do you care to see?” the man turned around the laptop and played the footage, not waiting for Frank’s response.
The footage showed the man called Ian Huang. Frank recognized him from the photograph in the report he had discarded. Ian walked towards the washroom and two men approached him—undercover cops. As soon as they met, the audio distorted, preventing Frank and Laoban from hearing anything. Bright sparks appeared in the background of the warehouse. Frank couldn’t tell if they were magical or technological in naturel.
Suddenly, the background stretched and distorted, and a pure red silhouette appeared. Frank’s right eye felt as if it were pierced by millions of needles, and a headache set in on the left side of his head. The man across from him also crumpled in pain, though seemingly less affected.
The red silhouette vanished with the spatial distortion as quickly as it had come. The next moment, Ian and the two undercover cops were gone, and the video ended.
Frank recognized the pain in his right eye all too well. The red silhouette looked oddly familiar, like the illusionary residue left behind at a scene 17 goddamn years ago. Though the pain was less intense than before, it was the same sensation.
“As you can see, the disappearance was caused by an unknown assailant, but it only happened when your men approached my employee,” the man explained. “For all I know, your two men might not even be cops if you know what I mean.”
“That’s not possible. I’ve known those two for a long time. They only started their undercover work last year. It’s not possible they’re from Aur,” Frank defended adamantly.
The man’s expression remained unreadable. “Be that as it may, something doesn’t add up. We both have missing people, and this unknown force is at play. Something unknown even to us in our world needs to be eliminated.”
Frank took a deep breath. “Alright, Laoban.What d’ya say we work together to figure this out. You want answers and I want answers because of something else, definitely not related to the police.”
The man nodded slowly. “Agreed. But remember to put priority on my questions. I don’t want to have a little accident at the precinct. Here is my business card.” A bluish card appeared out of nowhere on the man’s hand. Whether it was sleight of hand or something else, Frank didn’t want to know.
The business card showed the man’s real name, Ryan Huang, logistics manager, H. Associates. The card itself didn’t feel like paper, or something from the human world. It was definitely a product of Aur.
“It’ll save you once should you need it, that’s it. But I doubt someone like you would need it with your kind of luck. Just in case you need help, call me,” said Ryan, looking down at his laptop, resuming his work without giving Frank any further attention.
Frank felt Ryan’s last sentence seethe with cold rage. The connection between the missing person and Ryan was obvious. Ian was important to Ryan, but whether as an employee, a relative, or both, Frank didn’t care.
As Frank walked through the warehouse and out onto the street, all he could think of was the red silhouette. Passing by the three men, still in the same position as when he entered the gate, he waved goodbye to them as a joke. To his luck, they didn’t give him a reaction.
Opening the passenger’s side door of the car, he found Alan wide-eyed and with dilated pupils.
“Your hunch was goddamn right, Alan. I almost died. This is dangerous,” said Frank.
“I don’t like this at all, man, we’re going too deep, and I don’t wanna look that deep” Alan sighed, defeated. He knew Frank all too well, especially the look on Frank’s face—a grin and eyes growing lively. “So, where to?”
Frank glanced at the business card in his hand. “We’re going back to the precinct to fetch some papers then back to my place. We need to dig deeper into this, and fast. Whatever’s going on, it’s bigger than we thought.”
Alan nodded in agreement, and with a determined look, he started the car. They were heading back to the precinct, but Frank knew they were diving deeper into something far more sinister than they could have ever imagined.