A fresh cadet was en route to his introductory shift among Station Bay's finest. His stomach was full of pacing gerbils as he rolled down the highway, reciting things to himself and trying to calm his nerves.
"Hi, I'm Officer Andrew Thompson, it's an honor. I look forward to working with you. Hi, I'm Officer Thompson, thank you for the warm welcome. I look forward to twerking with you. Twerking?"
The coffee gauge was low. He came to a traffic jam on the freeway. The hour grew late, and he was increasingly anxious to get to the station already.
"Come on, what's the holdup?" he groaned.
He frowned, his paperwork and badge lying beside him on a self-help book laying on the passenger seat. "Screw it, I need gas anyway." he shrugged, taking the nearest exit.
A minor detour.
He filled up, got himself some donuts, and did his best to ignore the clerk's little giggle. "Yeah, well, who doesn't like donuts." he rolled his eyes in the parking lot.
Then, his eyes lit up as they fell on a bright green overpass sign.
Station Bay, 20 miles! Andrew smiled. "The promised land at last. Nothing can stop me now!"
A hot pink car flew past him, swerving erratically around the road, blaring music. Andrew's face fell.
"A-Aw, come on, man." he grumbled.
He supposed it was good luck that he’d been allowed to keep his cruiser from his short-lived stint in the Chicago police force, but it felt odd that his first arrest should be before he even reached his new place of work.
He put his lights and siren on.
The car pulled over, which would have been convenient except for the fact that it wasn't really a pull over lane, and hardly a shoulder.
"Ok, deep breaths." Andrew talked himself up, dusting crumbs off his uniform and straightening his collar.
He strolled up to the car and knocked on the window. It opened, and he looked into the flushed face of some extremely drunken 30-something blond woman with heavy lipstick.
"Evening, offcr." she winked.
Andrew screamed internally, but kept a straight face.
"Do you know why I pulled you over, miss?"
The woman gave a guilty grin. "I'va'guess."
Andrew's nose twitched at the alcohol fumes. "Have you been drinking tonight, ma'am?"
The woman looked at her backseat full of empty bottles. "Could's ay dat." she said sheepishly.
Andrew scratched the back of his head, smiling awkwardly. "Do you want to step out of the car?"
The woman visibly thought about it. "N'rlly. S'chilly."
Andrew pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let me rephrase that. Please step out of the car?"
She became gradually more coherent, and was surprisingly cooperative.
"Blow into this?" Andrew showed a breathalyzer.
"Let's not waste each other's time, hon." she chuckled. "I'm under arrest, right?"
Andrew nodded nervously.
"Well, go on." she said.
Andrew started trying to cuff her, and continued botching the Miranda Rights. He somehow managed a different combination of fuck ups each time. He lost his place somewhere past "anything you say can yada yada" when he wondered what was up with these fucking handcuffs.
"Other way, hon." the woman helpfully pointed out.
Flustered, Andrew started the speech over again. "You have the right to silent. Goddammit." he whined.
"No no, keep going, you're doing great." the woman said.
"Don't pity me!" Andrew yipped.
The woman couldn't help it. What was this kid? 19? 21 at most? And clearly not used to talking to girls.
"Just... Start walking, please." Andrew gestured to the car.
"You're supposed to walk me there, sweetie." she said.
He reluctantly took her arm and walked her to the cruiser, gently herding her into the backseat. When he tried to call in a tow for her abandoned sports car, he was met with static.
"What is with the signals today? Whatever, I'll let someone know to pick it up when I reach the station." he grumbled.
"Why the DUI tonight?" He turned to face the woman, staring at her with a serious look on his face.
"I've got nothing, hon. Just irresponsible." she said, surprisingly honest.
Andrew couldn't help but chuckle. He had no better luck reaching dispatch than he did calling in a tow. "Son of a - Whatever."
He flipped on the radio, only to cringe and change the channel when he realized he'd left a boy band CD in.
"Was browsing." he blushed.
"Sure, hon." the woman giggled.
"So, why's someone with social anxiety working as a cop?" the woman asked, slurring less this time, as she evidently sobered up quickly.
"Because I'm trying to overcome it,"
Andrew was annoyed, to say the least. He wasn't used to anyone prying into his life, he usually kept to himself and his own thoughts.
He stared straight through the windshield, waiting to turn on the radio and call into dispatch once more before he could drive off.
"So, like, if I was a black guy, what would you have done?" she teased.
"Officially? Arrested you." Andrew said.
"And unofficially?"
"Just keep driving and whistling to myself." Andrew said.
She chuckled again. "You're really tense. Relax." she advised.
"Can we just do the thing where the criminal isn't trying to give the arresting officer advice?" Andrew pleaded.
"Sure, hon." she said.
…
"...you want a bite to eat?" she asked.
Andrew went to answer, then sighed, realizing he was hungry.
"...yeah." he said.
They found a drive-thru. "What do you want?" Andrew asked.
"Still have beer goggles a bit." she said.
Andrew read her the menu. She mulled it over, and decided.
"I'll have a double bacon burger, loaded fries, and a small diet cola."
Andrew looked at her incredulously.
"What?" she asked.
"Why would you order the artery-clogging special only to get a small diet soda? What are you trying to prove?" he asked.
"What? I like diet soda." she said.
“That’s cursed!” Andrew cringed.
...
As they took the exit, Andrew noticed that the high towers of the nearing city rose out of a sea of opaque fog, blanketing the metropolis. Something about the sight made his stomach churn, an eerie atmosphere settling in even before the thick mist swallowed the cruiser. Andrew put his high beams on, for all the good it did him, slowing to a crawl.
"Can't see 5 feet in front of me, geez." he said.
Dark shadows seemed to writhe around, fluctuating in and out of the fog, and a chill like winter was in the air. The streets were strangely desolate and lightless as he slowly and cautiously cruised down the street. Andrew shivered and switched off the A/C, rubbing his arms for warmth as an unease rose in his gut. The drive was beginning to feel less like a routine patrol and more like a trip to a ghost town.
His nav went the way of his radio signals, going offline. Luckily, he had a rudimentary memory of the way to the police station, and breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled into the parking lot, and took in the welcome sight of the pristine building.
"Wait here." he told his alcoholic captive.
She gave him an incredulous look, as if to say 'like I can go anywhere.'
He ascended the old stone staircase, the antiquated gothic architecture bringing to mind a cathedral more than a police station. The fog had caused the glass front doors to mist over, and he rubbed a hole in the condensation with his sleeve to take a peek inside. He passed through the double doors, into a lobby of waxed tile floor. It was dark and empty. He walked through slowly, taking note of the vacant help desk.
"Too quiet." he said.
He looked around, his flashlight casting a beam through the darkness.
If he recalled proper procedure, he was supposed to book the woman, but his shaky rhythm was thrown off by the eerie, vacant atmosphere of the building.
"Hello?" he called out, being met with echoes.
Deeper in the building, he came upon a banner welcoming him, as though a party had been prepared for his arrival, and then abruptly abandoned. There was a somber air about the place, and he had a mental image of fluttering windchimes and empty prison cells. The atmosphere was heavy. Glutinous.
"Something's not right..."
Everything was abandoned, files left open and scattered around, chairs untucked, and mugs of coffee gone cold, as if everyone had suddenly just vanished in the middle of the night. Andrew swallowed a lump in his throat.
"Hello?" he called out. "Anybody here?"
He held his breath as the building creaked and settled around him.
Andrew's flashlight made contact with the ceiling and found it covered in thick layers of dust. He swept the light over to a broken ceiling fan, its blades long since stopped moving and covered in dust.
"Anyone around?" he called out again, this time with more urgency in his voice.
Finding the whole of the place empty, he startled as his radio crackled to life. Under a clearing buzz of static, a message came through. It was a summons for all available police in the area to converge on the hospital, though it cut out before he could make out the details.
"Guess that's where the party's at." he quipped.
He returned to his cruiser, and was startled as the drunk woman spoke up.
“Miss me?” she chirped.
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"Jesus, I forgot you were back there. Don’t startle me like that!” he hissed, gripping the steering wheel and trying to calm down.
"What's the hold up?" she asked.
"Place is empty. We're taking a little detour to the hospital." he said.
It wasn't hard to find. There were dozens of SBPD cars parked, lights still flashing, the interiors empty.
Andrew gulped. What kind of incident required the entire goddamn department?
Andrew's heart pounded in his chest as he cautiously stepped out of the cruiser, motioning for the woman to stay put. The fog seemed to thicken around the hospital, adding to the eerie atmosphere. He walked through the entrance, his flashlight cutting through the darkness.
Inside, the scene was surreal. Equipment was left abandoned, papers scattered on the floor, and a sense of urgency hung in the air. The silence was broken only by the distant hum of flickering lights and the occasional creaking of the building.
"Hello?" Andrew called out, his voice echoing through the empty hallways. He received no response. He continued to navigate through the hospital, his flashlight illuminating signs of a hasty evacuation.
As he reached a central area, he noticed a flickering light coming from an open door. He cautiously approached it, his hand resting on the grip of his holstered weapon. Peering inside, he saw a room filled with computer monitors, each displaying different surveillance footage.
"What the hell?" Andrew muttered under his breath.
He moved closer to the screens, his eyes widening as he realized they were displaying live feeds from various locations throughout the city. The scenes were chaotic—streets in disarray, people running in panic, and buildings engulfed in flames. It was a city in turmoil.
Andrew's mind raced, trying to comprehend the situation. What had happened to Station Bay? Why was everyone gone? And what was the connection to the unfolding chaos outside?
He saw officers on one of the feeds, standing in a hospital corridor, opening fire on an unseen figure. He heard the shots echo through the ceiling, and jumped. Correlating the picture of the map he took to the room the feed showed, he sprinted up the echoing stairwell to a higher floor.
Buzzing fluorescent lights illuminated a scene of grisly carnage; tile floor and white walls, soaked in blood. Its broad frame filling the hallway, a towering beast stood like a bastion of primal wrath from some primordial foodchain.
It was a skeletal abomination of bone and discolored sinew. Its stance was bipedal, hunched, but still nearly filling the hallway. A humanoid skull sat in the open jaws of a saurian mouth, like a bleached t rex skull. Sharp, angular silver pauldrons like organic metal growths spurred from its shoulders, identical plates shielding its outer thighs, growing downward from the waist. A long, spinal cord-like tail flitted about, tipped with a nasty-looking spur of white bone, like a macabre stinger. The eyes of its skull glowed with eerie, predatory light.
Andrew stared in shock, unable to process the sight in front of him. He felt all the hair stand on end on his body, a sickening sense of terror rising in his chest as if something deep, primal was warning him of the danger they were in.
“What… the hell?” Andrew muttered, a dry lump in his throat.
The creature looked back at him impassively, its empty eye sockets lit up by an eerie pale blue glow, like the cool embers of will o the wisp flame. In the beast’s claws, limp, bloodied, and wheezing, was the half-conscious body of one of Andrew’s fellow officers, head lolling back. The beast’s hand enclosed the man’s entire shoulder, and looked like fingers indenting dough.
“That is one hell of a costume, but Halloween already passed.” Andrew said, trying to keep his cool. He drew his gun and trained it on the beast, nodding toward the wounded cop in its grasp. “I need you to do me a favor and put my colleague there down.”
With a half-interested grunt, the creature dropped the cop onto his back, eliciting a pained hiss, the officer arching his back and straining, teeth gnashed.
“Another ineffectual lawman come to detain me?” the beast asked in a low, raspy voice filled with a clinical, cold edge, like a frozen razor cutting Andrew’s eardrums.
“Who are you calling ineffectual?” Andrew quipped.
The beast’s tail flitted about, and hovered over its shoulder, looking like a scorpion’s stinger arched and ready to spring. The pinpoint shadow of that hypodermic needle fell over the fallen cop as the latter tried in vain to twist away and crawl to his feet, managing only to flop onto his belly, and reach a hand out toward Andrew.
“H-Help me!” he grunted, coughing blood from his mouth.
The tail arched.
“Stop right there!” Andrew said, cocking his gun and taking aim.
“Or what?” the beast murmured.
“Don’t make me answer that question.” Andrew said, face slicked with sweat, a black bang falling loose from his combover and dangling in his eye.
The tail struck down, planting itself between the fallen cop’s shoulder blades. He grunted, the shriek of pain truncated as the tail began to splay inner, recurved barbs, anchoring itself in the man’s back.
Andrew’s shock broke, and he opened fire. A single shot struck the beast in the skull, to no visible effect. Even without visible eyelids, it somehow gave the impression of blinking indifferently at Andrew. Then, the tail began to move, constricting as lumps moved up its length, like a python swallowing large meals wholesale. It was accompanied by a sickening draining sound as the cop’s groans gave way to gurgly, liquid sounds. His body wrinkled and lost tone and color, rippling, and begin to shrink and sag inward, like a piece of rotting fruit on time lapse. Soon enough, it would split open and cave into itself, Andrew knew in his gut. With a horrified cry, he let loose a volley of shots, emptying the chamber. They had negligible effect, until he took aim at the anchor point of the hollow spur at the end of the beast’s tail. It shrieked and jerked back, tail flailing madly, as the shot severed the stinger. It roared, the first showing of real pain or distress. Andrew reloaded, but his second volley of shots was brought to a premature close as the beast flung something from its wrist. A spur of bone lodged itself in the muzzle of Andrew’s gun. When he pulled the trigger, the jammed pistol exploded in his hands. He screamed and fell backward, cradling his trembling, bleeding hand, the fingers jittering with nerve damage.
Damn near blew my fingers off! he hissed.
The monster threw its head back and roared, the saurian skull trembling, teeth saturated with ropey tendrils of saliva, and it lunged, charging forward with frightening speed, the floor trembling beneath its mighty tread. Andrew’s good hand flew forward before he processed his own intent, and something flew headlong into the beast. A massive flash of light, accompanied by a boom like a thunderclap, engulfed the hallway, and Andrew felt his ears ring, turning away and shielding his eyes as he was caught in the outer ring of his own flashbang’s blast radius.
To his welcome surprise, that seemed to accomplish something, and he saw the beast shielding its face, having fallen onto one knee. Its unpredictable tail was curled over its face as well, as if to provide extra shielding. Fighting his instincts to turn tail and run as fast as he could, Andrew dashed forward for the body of the half-drained cop at the beast’s feet. With a tuck and a roll, he slid past the beast, ducking under its clumsy, blinded claw swipes, his fallen compatriot’s gun in hand. He wouldn’t be needing it now, after all. Regaining its senses, the beast roared skyward, shaking the hallway and freezing the marrow in Andrew’s bones. In anger, it stomped its saurian foot on the fallen cop’s skull, pulping it like a rotted pumpkin crushed beneath a sledgehammer. Flecks of blood, skull shards, and gray matter splattered in a halo.
Andrew opened fire on the dead man’s behalf, managing this time only to land an inconsequential shot on the beast’s shoulder guard. A metallic shriek sounded off, and a cascade of sparks churned from the scuff. The beast’s body made sickly cracking sounds as it puffed its chest forward, its ribcage rattling like straining guitar strings. Ligaments rearranged themselves, and from the gaps between the beast’s ribs, a volley of bone spikes were jettisoned forth in a shotgun blast. Andrew ducked behind a corner, the bone spurs embedding themselves in the far wall.
He nearly lost his footing, sliding across the blood-slicked tiles, but regained balance and sprinted for the doorframe marked by a helpful neon green ‘exit’ sign. He felt a gash in his right shoulder as something arced overhead, and then a group of oblong, serrated objects sunk into the ground before the exit. A lob of bone javelins that the beast had fired in a parabola, one nicking Andrew’s shoulder before they found their mark, sealing off the cop’s would-be exit.
“Leaving so soon?” it rumbled, lumbering toward Andrew, tail flitting irritably.
It stood, crouched, its long, geometric leg guards scraping the floor where he bent at the knee. His eerie eyes fixed on Andrew, glowing with hunger.
Andrew looked up at the looming beast, face pale and mouth agape. Then, he grit his teeth.
“Alright, fine!” he tossed his police cap aside and unhooked his baton from his utility belt. “Let’s go, you freak!”
The skeleton moved. Andrew was already flung onto the ground, and rolled away as the saurian foot stomped down, cracking tile. Andrew rolled into a crouch, ducking under grasping claws and darting between the thing’s legs, out the other side. He gasped as the beast’s tail cut a right angle to jut toward him like a spring loaded spike trap. He sidestepped, tripping over himself as the dart at the end of the tail very nearly struck him.
“Dammit…” he growled, flipping his baton and lunging, trying to bring it down on the beast’s back. It made a sound like a yardstick dragged across stairway rail posts as it slammed in between the ridge-like vertebrae of the beast’s back. It twisted on its neck, 180, to look at Andrew. Andrew gulped, jumping by sheer reflex as the tail swung in a broad stroke to take Andrew’s feet out from under him.
Unfortunately, going airborne left him prone.
The skeletal monster unleashed a vicious backhand strike into Andrew’s face and chest, the monster’s hand easily as wide as the span of Andrew’s shoulders.
Andrew’s back skidded across the floor as his chest heaved, the air knocked out of him. He felt his vision swimming, and had to squeeze his eyes shut to stop the room from spinning. He heard his own voice in his head, telling him to keep fighting, to stay on his feet. Andrew pushed himself up to one knee, then two, wheezing as he tried to breathe through the pain in his chest.
Think, come on. Calm down and assess the situation.
What weak points did it have that Andrew could exploit, he wondered?
He felt the shadow of something looming over him, and looked up. The beast’s tail had risen to the ceiling, swaying like a cobra from a snake charmer’s basket.
“Fuck!” he rolled out of the way as the tail slammed down, splitting the hallway tiles down the middle.
Conversely, now it would take a second for the monster to rechamber.
Andrew sprinted toward the behemoth, baton spinning. Andrew ducked under a claw swipe, and sledged his baton into the side of the beast’s knee. Andrew knew it was a hail mary. The baton was, for all its hardness, little more than a kid’s toy when compared to the monster he was facing. But it was the only thing he had left. The baton smashed into the beast’s knee, and the thing stumbled. It flailed its arms out as it tried to maintain its balance, its tail rising in a curve.
Without a second to waste, Andrew rushed forward and smashed the baton into its face. The monster roared as the baton slammed into its inner skull, cracking fangs and sending them flying to different corners of the hall. Its head rocked back on its neck, the thick cords of discolored gray muscle and sinew holding surprisingly taut and pliant, keeping the beast from suffering too much whiplash.
That hurt him!
Andrew followed up with a volley of strikes to the various joints of the creature’s limbs, trying to disable it piecemeal. Every blow rattled through the baton, shaking Andrew’s arm and making him feel like he was going to dislocate his own shoulder. He kept swinging, his mouth set in a steely grimace as he fought through the pain.
What kind of horror story had he stumbled into?
He whiffed an attack as the thing suddenly dropped into a cat crouch, moving way faster than its bulk implied it should have been capable of. His baton scraped off of the armored shoulder plate to no effect, and the monster planted the sole of its huge saurian foot in Andrew’s stomach, like a furious undead ostrich. Andrew was sent sprawling, the wind knocked out of him as he landed hard on his back. He stared up at the creature, his vision blurring. He couldn’t breathe, and his heart felt close to bursting as the beast stood over him, tail lashing angrily, the bone spikes along its back rippling like the splayed mohawk feather of a cockatoo.
That kick could have ruptured his bowels. He could be bleeding out internally even now, for all he knew, and he didn’t have time to drag this fight out, nor could he retreat now even if he wanted to. This was where he’d hold the line. Nausea gripped him, and he suddenly doubled over and lost his lunch all over the tiles. A bit of blood was mixed in with the vomit. He felt the urge to vomit again when he saw the remnants of that evening’s donut.
Fucker got me in the stomach, full-bore. I left myself wide open and exposed my weak points. Tactical vest was like a snail shell to that thing.
Andrew’s watering eyes scanned the behemoth, trying to find something he could do. Those thick, corded ligaments, muscles, and sinews were sturdy as hell, keeping all of those massive skeletal parts bound together in a powerful form that moved like an organic force of demolition. Even targeting the joints only did so much in the face of ligaments with such massive tensile strength.
Then again, they were still nerves.
As the thing loomed over Andrew, his hand flew to his waist and retrieved his taser.
He pulled the trigger. The barbs sank into the monster, and it grunted in pain, flinching back as Andrew rolled away, scrambling for space to regain his bearings. The beast seized up and growled, its jaws struggling not to lock up as it jittered and hissed in pain. There was no no skin or fatty tissue between the taser’s barbs and the monster’s exposed nervous system. Even as it struggled to stay on its feet, the high voltage electricity crackling and surging into its body, its knee, joint knocked askew from Andrew’s precision strike earlier, betrayed it. The beast went down on one knee. Andrew kept his fingers on the trigger.
“Gotcha now!” he cried out in adrenaline-fueled manic glee. With his other hand, he aimed the gun he had seized from his fallen comrade, and began firing shots into the beast’s face, aiming between the jaws of its t-rex-like outer skull. They fell open, as if coming unhinged, as the bullets sank into the cracked bone of the thing’s humanoid face. Andrew fired, shots ringing in his ears as the monster flinched around him. It fell to the ground, its skull shattered and its eyes dim, and Andrew raised his gun, ready to finish the thing off once and for all.
This had to be it.
He pulled the trigger - click.
“Huh?” Andrew’s eyes widened.
The beast planted its huge clawed hands in the ground, piercing tile. It growled as it pulled itself into a kneeling position, tail plunged into the ground as well for support, as though it was ready to act as a carjack to lift the bulky main body. Those eerie eyes burned into Andrew.
“Lost count of ammo?” it hissed, its voice scathing and hateful.
Andrew lunged forward, to the beast’s shock, and slammed a knee into its exposed face. To his surprise, the beast growled in pain and stumbled. Andrew followed through, punching it again and again, landing blow after blow before the thing fell to the ground. If it was stunned before, its confusion now made it even more vulnerable. His eyes locked with its eyes as he raised his fist, ready to finish it off, ready to take down this monster.
“F-Fuck!” Andrew screamed, suddenly clutching his own knee. The surge of adrenaline had worn off a bit, and he could now feel how the knee strike he delivered to the thing’s face had nearly cost him a shattered kneecap. He saw the monster lunge.
What happened next was a blur, but he ultimately rolled out from beneath the beast, narrowly avoiding being trampled. Moments later, the skeletal brute realized that Andrew had left a triggered flashbang wedged in its ribs.
“Huh?” it grunted in shock, moments before the flashbang went off.
Andrew was lying on the floor, his ears ringing from the blast, and for a moment, he was unable to move. Then, as the creature faltered, his ears started to function once more. He watched as it stumbled backward. Andrew advanced, voice muffled by the ringing in his ears. “Stay down!” he shouted in exasperation.
He raised his fist.
The monster fired a bone dart from its wrist, zooming toward Andrew like an arrow. It sank into Andrew’s shoulder, biting into muscle and bone alike. It was like a pin sunk into a pincushion. Andrew screamed. The monster raised its hands, claws splayed and grasping. Then - click.
Andrew fell backward, clutching his shoulder, and slumped against a wall. He forced one scrunched-up eye open, glimmering with success, as he surveyed his achievement. The monster’s wrists were bound in handcuffs. It tilted its head down, bemused, taking a moment to process when Andrew had slapped the cuffs on him.
“You’re… cough… fucking under arrest!” Andrew panted.
The beast looked down at its wrists, palms open and turned upward. Then, he nonchalantly pulled his arms in opposite directions, snapping the link between the cuffs like twine.
Andrew blinked a few times, sweating profusely.
“Well that’s not fair at all.” he said, mouth dry.
The beast's bones suddenly seemed to crack and twist, its body growing slightly larger. It stepped toward him, its face growing closer…
The beast's inner human skull retracted into the maw of the t rex skull until it was out of sight, leaving a black pit. Eerie blue mist seemed to collect around the thing's jaws, weaving themselves into strands of glowing white-blue light. These lines of light began drawing inward, congregating in the beast's open maw, coalescing into a ball of plasma in the thing's jaws that grew larger and brighter. As it did, a low hum gradually began to grow louder.
If Andrew didn't know any better, he'd say this thing had a fucking kaiju-style breath weapon in its jaws.
Outside the hospital, a gigantic column of white-blue energy exploded through the walls, scattering shattered glass and concrete. The beam surged far, far beyond the radius of the hospital itself, eventually striking and melting a far-off billboard.