Interrogation Room A-5
The barrel of the suppressed sidearm lowered with a faint waver; Tall Guy's brown eyes stared into the young man's- the monster's- dimming eyes. Suddenly, a spasm ran through it before it stiffened and shuddered in the chair, anticlimactically slouching in its seat as its limp head lolled down to its chest.
A long moment stretched out between the living duo in the room before Tall Guy holstered his sidearm with a sniff and looked away, doing his best to ignore the image of viscous globules of blackened blood crawling down the creature's surprised face from the jagged bullet hole in its forehead. He also ignored the fact that the blood was still too red and too fluid to be truly vampiric.
"What the fuck was that, huh? You promised!" Short Guy spat, getting into Tall Guy's face and angrily motioning with the long dagger in hand—small reflections of the overhead light playing across its surface.
Tall Guy's brow knitted together. "It felt right. Now do it—we have to go," Tall Guy criticized with a harsh whisper and a stony expression, roughly brushing past his partner with a shoulder.
Short Guy's already sour expression deepened further, his mouth twisting as though he had tasted something bitter.
"I've got the camera," Tall Guy added softly as he strode to the corner of the room. He positioned himself beneath the solitary camera, angled to capture the room's interior. He unzipped his stolen policeman's parka, searching within its inner pockets.
Short Guy's gaze tracked Tall Guy, lingering on his back for a moment before he sniffed disdainfully and redirected his attention to the creature's corpse with a sneer. The posture of the creature in death was a grotesque tableau; its arms dangled limply, its legs were awkwardly folded beneath it, and its chest was unnaturally angled upwards. "Disgusting filth," he muttered as he approached, his lips curling into a grimace. Grasping a handful of the corpse's icy hair, he yanked its head back to peer into its eyes one last time, just as the sound of footsteps and muffled voices from outside the room cut through the heavy silence.
Policemen, chatting lightly and unaware, passed just beyond the thin wall that separated them from the grisly scene.
The pair inside of the room froze, barely daring to breathe. As the footsteps and voices faded away, an oppressive silence settled back over the room.
"Fuckin' close," Short Guy muttered, his grip on the vampire's hair tightening even more.
Tall Guy had shot a withering glare over his shoulder. "Hurry," he urged, unhooking a small, matte black cylinder from his belt and extending it by tugging on one end. An additional foot of the cylinder extended, tapering to a tiny, magnetized cap. He reached up, placing the magnet end onto the flat, circular surveillance jamming device, and carefully slid it along before pulling it off the camera's chassis. Catching the device as it fell, he swiftly pocketed it into one of the pouches at his belt before retracting and stowing the rod. "Got it. Thirty seconds," he announced, turning back to his partner.
Short Guy grunted, "If only we had more time..." the menacing murmur escaping his lips. Positioning the dagger's tip over the corpse's heart, he watched as the fabric around the blade grew damp with the dark blood that began to pool. Leaning closer, he hissed venomously into the corpse's ear, his voice thick with barely concealed rage.
"Do you feel it, vampire?" As the blade sank deeper, a steady stream of blood began to weave around the metal, flowing in rivulets down the corpse's chest to soak the front of its shirt. Still, the corpse remained motionless. Short Guy's expression twisted into something nearing madness, as if he felt the silence from the corpse was a form of defiance.
"I know you can hear me," he snarled, his gaze darting to the unhealed bullet wound in its forehead. A shadow of doubt crossed his features. Could it truly already be dead? Was it so frail? It couldn't be. They never were, and for some reason, he wanted- needed- to be the last thing it ever saw.
"You know you're about to die, right?!" he furiously spat out, abandoning all reason and pushing the blade in further, only to feel an unexpected resistance.
"Twenty-three seconds—what are you doing? We have to go!" Tall Guy urgently whispered, already by the door, gesturing frantically for his partner to hurry.
Short Guy acted as if the words didn’t reach him, absorbed in his attempt to prolong the vampire's final moment. And maybe, just maybe, he genuinely hadn't heard his partner's words.
"Fuck!" Tall Guy hissed under his breath, his patience wearing thin. He moved closer to the door, pressing his ear against it, the urgency in his posture palpable. It was then he heard it—a stir from outside, a sound alarmingly close. Whipping his head around, he warned in a rush, "They're coming—maybe ten seconds," his voice laced with restrained panic.
Short Guy clenched the dagger with a white-knuckled grip, his anger momentarily giving way to the urgency of their situation and a clear sense of purpose. His expression hardened into a grim mask of vengeance.
"I'll see you in hell," he vowed, channeling his entire strength into the dagger, driving it deeper into the corpse. Dark blood began to lazily pool and then flow down the vampire's chest, soaking its clothes.
Tall Guy turned away from what he was seeing and back to the door, pressing his ear against it once more. The commotion outside grew louder, more immediate. They had to leave the room and blend into the surroundings now or never—
Sch...lick—gurgle… CRA...CK!
The chilling sounds of metal slicing flesh, tendons snapping, and a wet, gurgling death rattle filled the air.
Tall Guy let the sounds wash over him- felt the goosebumps rising on his arms and the back of his neck. Then, he went back to gauging the timing for their escape despite the approaching footsteps and urgent voices. He spun around to speak, "All right, let's—" but his words froze in his throat, his eyes widening, and an icy hot adrenaline surging through him.
The vampire's left hand was clasped firmly around his partner's shoulder, its right hand gripping the dagger that had, moments before, been buried in its chest. The entire blade had been thrust cleanly through his partner's neck, the handle's cross guard pressing tightly against one side of his partner’s throat while the tip protruded from the other, impaling a chunk of torn muscle and flesh that now dripped bright-red blood onto the floor beneath. His partner’s shirt slowly saturated with the blood gushing from his neck.
Short Guy's body convulsed violently in its final throes, his knees trembling as they struggled to support him, his hands beating futilely against the vampire's blood-soaked chest. The movements were reflexive, weak—like those of frightened prey unable to comprehend, unable to accept... that it was already dead.
Silently, the vampire cocked its head, its gray eyes observing the fading struggle in its grasp as bright arterial blood sprayed the floor. Then, abruptly, it yanked the dagger free. Baring its fangs in a silent scream of hunger and fury, it tore into what remained of his partner’s throat. Drawing the dying man closer, it gorged itself with dark enthusiasm. Yet, its gaze was pinned on Tall Guy over the shoulder of its victim, a silent challenge in its eyes, as if daring him to intervene.
This all unfolded in barely a second.
"Mother—" Tall Guy had burst out of his shocked stillness, shrugging off the eerie sensation of being regarded as mere prey. In a frantic motion, he tore through his stolen policeman's parka, unholstering his sidearm with such urgency that it seemed he might rip the fabric. He aimed the gun at the vampire's head, aligning the iron sights in a split second.
Two rounds fired off in quick succession.
The muffled sound of the suppressed shots echoed in the confined space. In a tragic misfortune, one round struck Short Guy's unprotected left shoulder, causing his body to jerk spasmodically in the vampire's grip. A pitiful, bubbling grunt emerged from his torn throat. The second round lodged in the back of his vest.
The vampire rose slowly from the chair, Short Guy's struggles diminishing as he grew weaker, the pain and confusion in his eyes fading into a dazed lethargy as shock took hold.
"Shitshitshitshit—" Tall Guy's initial panic morphed into focused determination as he sidestepped, firing three more rounds in quick succession. He aimed to incapacitate the vampire with a precise headshot, but luck was not on his side.
With unsettling ease, the vampire hoisted Short Guy into the air, using him as a shield against Tall Guy's attempts to fire, rendering the bullets ineffective as they were absorbed by the vest. Blood now streamed freely down Short Guy's trousers, forming a growing pool on the floor the vampire nonchalantly stepped over. The once vigorous spray from his partner’s severed artery had weakened, now merely splattering the vampire's face and chest instead of painting the walls.
The vampire's indifference to the blood on its face unnerved Tall Guy deeply; never had he seen a vampire remain so collected and silent during a fight. What sick fucking nightmare was he in?
He didn't allow himself to linger on the question, reaching for his dagger while still firing with his dominant hand.
He had just touched the dagger's hilt when an iron grip seized his right hand, wrenching his arm upward. His fingers were painfully pinned against the sidearm’s frame.
None of that seemed to matter, though, for he found himself staring into the vampire’s unblinking eyes, mere inches away.
The next moment, the grip tightened excruciatingly, and he broke eye contact, his attempt to pull away futile. His fingers began to break, one by one, under the immense pressure. A pained cry tore from his throat as the handgun discharged aimlessly into the ceiling, once... then twice.
A disturbing calm enveloped Tall Guy as he locked gazes with the vampire, a stark resignation flashing through his mind: 'I'm going to die.' Emotionlessly, he observed as the bullet wound in the vampire's forehead began to heal. Bone fragments extricated themselves, and the skin knitted back together, leaving no trace of the once-fatal injury.
Tall Guy abandoned any further attempts to reach for his dagger—it was pointless, more a futile gesture of instinctive defiance and rigorous training than anything else, especially since the knife was more a tool meant solely for finishing off vampires, not for close combat. The pain in his completely crushed right hand transitioned from a searing agony to a warm numbness.
"I meant... what I said," he gasped out, stealthily shifting his left hand from the dagger's hilt to a small rectangular device on his utility belt. He pressed a button, and a small red light blinked to life.
"I've got no regrets—but you?" he taunted, managing a chuckle of lofty confidence despite the dire circumstances.
"You'll look back—" His defiant words turned into an agonized scream as the vampire tore into the side of his throat.
Wet gulping...
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An echoing scream...
Gushing blood...
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"Hurry it up, Fleury!" Carilas shouted, weaving through confused constables and only just narrowly avoiding a collision with one particularly sleep-deprived officer clutching a cup of steaming coffee and a doughnut.
Joshua was hot on his heels, the duo racing through doors, whipping around corners, and finally exploding into the interrogation hall's corridor that bridged the two areas.
"Come on, let's—" Carilas's command was abruptly cut off as the door at the corridor's end detonated off its hinges in a violent gust of jagged wood, metal, and splinters. The remains of the door and debris struck the opposite wall of the corridor with enough force to crater it like day-old papier-mâché.
"Jesus Christ!"
"Fucking—what?!"
"Ah—god!"
A cacophony of curses and bewildered shouts filled the air, echoing from both ends of the station as officers spun towards the source of the commotion. Meanwhile, those nearer to the blast instinctively sought cover behind anything within reach.
Carilas, lowering his arms from his face, cautiously drew his sidearm, advancing a few steps into the corridor with a wary eye.
Joshua, mirroring Carilas’s approach, also readied himself.
Yet, both men came to a standstill, rooted to the spot by the scene before them.
Crunch…
Crunch..
CRUNCH!
Their prime suspect in a double homicide case emerged from the interrogation room, uncaringly stepping over spilled debris on the linoleum floor. He halted in the corridor's center, silently surveying the devastation, his gaze fixed on the mangled wall across from him.
"Laberge..." Joshua's voice carried a slow, urgent cadence. He barely resisted the urge to recoil at the sight before him, his primal instincts screaming for him to flee in the opposite direction as quickly and as far as he could. Yet, he quashed the burgeoning fear with a mixture of sheer willpower and discipline. Still, that initial seed of dread had firmly planted itself in the recesses of his mind, causing an involuntary shudder to travel down his spine.
"I see it," came Carilas’s grave response, his expression turning to stone. The grip on his sidearm became noticeably firmer.
The suspect was armed with what seemed to be a silenced Glock in his right hand and a blood-drenched dagger of some kind in his left. The stark red of blood smeared across the front of his appropriated streetwear was chillingly vivid.
"Mr. Rivers!" Carilas's command echoed authoritatively through the hushed corridor.
At the sound of his name, Emerson's head swiveled in their direction, his body following a beat later in a motion that was both profoundly eerie and disturbingly fluid. Especially as they caught sight of the fresh blood smeared around Emerson's mouth. A wave of disgust briefly marred Carilas's features before he masked it with the detached demeanor born from decades facing the harsh realities of their line of work.
"All right, Mr. Rivers... Emerson..." Carilas attempted a more personal approach, hoping it might yield better results. "-I need you to put down the gun and the knife—immediately," he commanded in a tone that was slow and deliberate, as if negotiating with a cornered animal.
"Then... I need you to slowly turn around, get on your knees, and interlock your—" His instructions were abruptly cut short. Suddenly, he found himself in the crosshairs of the suppressed firearm. With an incoherent shout, he hurled himself both backward and to the side, colliding with Joshua, who had been covering him. They tumbled to the ground in a clumsy heap of limbs and profanity, just as the hushed echo of gunfire reverberated down the corridor.
The sound of thundering boots grew louder until doors at both ends of the corridor burst open. Three officers entered from behind Carilas and Joshua, and two more from behind Emerson, all with weapons drawn and shouting commands over one another.
"Get down!"
"Careful now!"
"On your knees!"
"Wait- Watch the cross!"
Then, they saw their superiors on the floor, including the Chief Inspector, who was grimacing and clutching at a bleeding shoulder.
"Go free!"
"Shots—open fire!"
With a loud bang, Emerson was sent staggering back two whole steps as a round caught him dead center in the chest. He remained silent, and stood taller, locking eyes with the officer who had shot him.
A heavy silence fell.
Everyone stared at Emerson, unable to believe what they were seeing. The officer who had fired felt a chill run down his spine, feeling as if he were caught by a predator's gaze.
"What the—"
"Down, now!"
"He's on something—"
THWIP!-THWIP!-THWIP!
Despite all eyes on him, no one saw Emerson raise his gun, but the shots were unmistakable. The two officers taking up a staggered firing pattern behind Carilas and Joshua cried out as they reeled from seemingly getting hit with a sledgehammer in the vest.
"Watch out!" came a panicked cry from down the corridor as the two other officers helplessly watched a knife-and-gun-wielding homicidal drug addict rush away from them and toward their friends and co-workers. And they couldn't shoot for fear of hitting one of their own! Finally, the two officers tacitly agreed with a glance and slowly started deliberately making their way up the corridor.
The five policemen across the corridor watched in fascinated horror and disbelief as the suspect stood over fifteen meters away one moment, and the next, he was suddenly a meter away. His blood-drenched clothes, vacant gaze, and expressionless face would have sent shivers down their backs. If they had time to react.
Because the moment their minds registered the suspect standing beside their two superiors, it was already too late- the sound of rapid, suppressed gunfire rang in their ears.
This time, Emerson was significantly closer. He didn't miss.
Two of the rearmost constables stacked against the door frame screamed in agony as their hands burst into a horrible mess of blood and bone, followed by the metallic thunk and clatter of their sidearms hitting the floor. Another round grazed the cheek of the third officer, who reflexively discharged his pistol while ducking and caught Emerson in the stomach. The officer, however, couldn't take notice of his accidental success because the fourth and final round caught him in the shoulder.
The policeman dropped his sidearm with a yelp and heavily crashed sideways into the wall with a bang and the scraping of equipment.
But before the same officer's gun hit the floor, the suspect had already pivoted and plunged the dagger straight down into the top of Joshua's head- the blade's entire length sinking in until the cross-guard caved in the top of his skull. Then, with a twisting flourish, the dagger was yanked out with a spray of blood and brain matter.
Joshua's eyes rolled into the back of his head as his twitching corpse unceremoniously sprawled across the floor and spastically seized like a fish out of water.
Carilas could only shout before a fist caught him in the side of the head, dislocating his jaw, fracturing his eye socket, and sending a spray of blood and an errant tooth into the wall. A cooling numbness and warmth spread through him as he fell into a semi-lucid state of shock. Then, he felt nothing at all after something cold slid across his throat.
The corridor broke out in a chaotic mess of roaring gunfire, muzzle flashes, and angry, incoherent shouting as the remaining two officers finally caught up. After dazedly witnessing the casual murder of so many of their coworkers and friends, the pair freely opened fire since the hallway was clear and the other officers were no longer stacked against the opposite door.
The killer staggered as round after round pounded into his center of mass, sending small puffs of blood and clothing into the air. The next moment, however, his figure blurred as though he were a distant mirage on a sweltering summer day.
The closest officer found themselves face to face with a pair of cold, gray eyes. Then he felt something press against the bottom of his jaw.
THWIP!
The officer died instantly as blood, bone, and brain matter burst from his nose and the top of his head.
Emerson stared into the corpse’s mangled, bloated face as blood steadily gushed from the corners of its eyes like tears. Then he grabbed both sides of the man’s head and twisted, snapping the corpse’s neck with enough force that it spun around to face the officer.
It was the final straw that broke the camel’s back in a night of one impossible thing after another.
The other policeman incoherently shouted himself raw as he randomly opened fire in the killer’s general direction. Most of the bullets tore into the corpse of the other officer, either striking the vest and neck or blowing another hole through the head. The final round sent the mangled, unrecognizable corpse collapsing to the floor in a bloody heap.
The surviving officer's wild, crazed eyes looked everywhere but couldn't find the murderer; a thin curtain of white smoke hung in the air.
The outlines of unmoving bodies propped against the walls or sprawled across the floor peeked through the haze.
Breathing heavily while backing away, the policeman ejected an empty magazine that clattered to the floor, disturbing the white smoke around his feet. He fumbled with a spare in his belt pouch before sliding it home and racking the slide as his eyes frantically swept the hallway. The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end as a chill shot down his spine. It felt like he was being watched.
He spun around and found himself standing nearly eye-to-eye with the killer.
He pulled the trigger.
The bright muzzle flash between the two men illuminated their clothing, highlighting the clean-pressed, modern policeman's uniform and Emerson’s blood-soaked, ragged.
The officer's ears rang like a lousy phone dial, but he didn't notice pulling the trigger.
Emerson didn't move. Didn't flinch. Didn't even blink.
He allowed the policeman to fire again. And again. And again, with each trigger pull bringing a bright flash of fire, wisps of white smoke, a thunderous roar, and the musty, sulfuric smell of spent gunpowder. Finally, the trigger clicked, and the room fell into an eerie silence.
Neither man moved, but the policeman trembled as he looked into those lifeless eyes. And then, a sharp pressure pressed into his abdomen as the killer slid the dagger into the policeman’s stomach.
The policeman gasped and reflexively dropped his gun to grab Emerson’s arm as cold agony ate away at his insides. His eyes widened as though he couldn’t understand what was happening. Blood steadily dyed his blue dress uniform.
Emerson cocked his head to the side, then reversed his grip on the dagger and slowly dragged it across the officer's torso, carving through the man as though he were made of paper mâché.
The officer's mouth opened wide in a silent scream of pure agony as he felt the blade deep inside his torso, deep enough that he felt it push against his spine. He couldn't think. There was only pain. He thought he was screaming- his throat was vibrating and also hurt. But he couldn't hear anything over the ringing in his ears. Then, finally, he felt the blade pull out, and he looked down to see deep-red coils peeking out of a massive gash. He reached up with shaking hands.
‘Are those-' that was the last incomplete thought he possessed before the shock, trauma, and blood loss made his eyes roll into his head. He fell to his knees, the jarring impact causing more of his pulped intestines to spill out before he fell onto his face and lay still. Dark blood spread out beneath him in a thick, lazy puddle.
Emerson impassively watched the body collapse to the floor. He then looked up at the sound of the three officers he’d shot earlier shifting at the end of the hallway.
The trio almost pissed themselves and immediately spun around, tripping over one another and shouting in pain as they aggravated their wounds, held their lacerated hands, stumbled into one another, or crashed into the walls as they fled.
Beautiful, dark laughter echoed in Emerson's ears. A small, gentle hand rested between his shoulder blades. Lips beside his ear, a breath tickling his thoughts.
'Keep going, handsome...'
Emerson's previously expressionless face twitched, and something flashed in his eyes- flecks of red shone within his gray irises. A low growl reverberated deep in his chest as the strangely familiar woman's voice stoked the flames of a newly born instinct to chase.
To feed.
To kill.
To hunt.
His heart thumped. He moved.
An ear-piercing shriek of pain echoed throughout the precinct.
The two officers scrambling away reflexively looked back- and instantly regretted it.
The constable who'd been lagging behind the rest clutched at a hand protruding from his chest. The limb was covered in viscera and a still-twitching, shredded heart, spilling an ungodly amount of blood onto the floor. The officer's face was frozen in a grotesque rictus of disbelief and terror as he weakly pawed at the wrist sticking out of his chest. Then he slowly died, his whole body gradually falling limp and hanging as though impaled on a skewer.
One of the watching officers was utterly frozen, his feet rooted in place as he uncontrollably shook.
The other officer took one faltering step back with profound fear etched on his face. Then another, and another, before suddenly whipping around and crashing into a desk as he clumsily sprinted away as fast as humanely possible. The gear on his person jingled and shook as it slapped against him and other things he ran into on his way to the nearest exit.
Emerson pushed the constable's corpse off his arm in one motion and crushed the heart into a goop that sloughed to the floor between his fingers. His figure blurred as he appeared before the silent, trembling officer. His gray eyes bore into the policeman’s own- piercing through and entering his mind.
A voice with a hauntingly beautiful tone and inexplicable sensuality suddenly whispered in Emerson's ear, 'He wants to die... grant him... release...' There was no one beside him, and the voice seemed to endlessly echo through his mind.
The red flecks in Emerson's eyes flashed.
The officer's stiff posture suddenly relaxed as he lost himself in Emerson's eyes.
The officer's vision tunneled, completely narrowing until he felt like he was falling through an endless, dark tunnel until suddenly, he wasn't. Instead, he stood in a dark, blank space. He wanted nothing more than to sleep. Yes, he wanted to sleep. But how? How could he sleep?
And then, he was looking at his twin. Another him stood directly in front of him. It smiled warmly and pointed at his hip. He looked down and saw the butt of his handgun. He looked up. His doppelganger's smile widened, then it nodded. A smile bloomed across his face, and he nodded in return.
‘Thanks, friend,' and without hesitation, he removed his gun, placed the barrel to the side of his head, and pulled the trigger.
Blood sprayed across a desk, coating an empty mug with the department’s logo, as well as a stack of paperwork, and a keyboard.
Emerson grabbed the gun from the corpse's grip before it collapsed heavily in a heap.
Stepping over the corpse as though it didn't exist, a trail of bloody footprints followed him as he silently pursued his prey.