Chapter Text
Nicolas Dillon eased off the gas as they approached the flashing lights of the state patrol’s vehicle. His partner glanced up from his burger and gave a soft groan. It took a second, but as they pulled up on the other side of the road, Nick figured out what got Coach’s attention.
A News 10 van was parked beside the yellow tape.
“Christ, already?” Nick hissed between his clenched teeth. Coach sighed beside him and wrapped the burger back up, setting it on the dash. The door was open the second Nick put the vehicle into park and he stepped out, the car lifting with the massive weight lifted. Nick would normally have started to tease him, but the sight of the van made his skin itch. He hated journalists. He hated reporters. Who cared about the truth when they could demean and crap all over the hard work they did?
With a snort, Nick followed the older man out, and while Coach put himself between the reporter—some chick that was already moving their way with the camera on them—and the familiar truck of the state patrol. He had a feeling it was the same trooper from before, and when he caught sight of the light brown curls under the hat, he knew he was right. The trooper turned and Nick’s stomach did an annoying twist as those bright baby blues focused on him.
“Hey y’all!” the southerner shouted happily, tipping his hat as Nick approached. “I thought it’d be the two of you,” he stretched out ‘you,’ making it sound like it had a hard w. Nick hated the accents down in the south, but something about this kid’s voice had him craning his head toward him anyway.
“Of course, we handled the previous two,” Nick muttered. He ducked under the tape and walked over to the slightly shorter man. Coach gave a nod to the reporter and cut her off before she could speak, quickly following Nick under the tape and heading over to the two.
Nick didn’t have to look far to find the reason they came out this far south. The tell-tale sheet splayed over the body in question was as clear as day. He moved over to it and lifted it up just enough for him to look. It was bad. The same way the previous two victims were. They had been beaten and torn up so badly that they became, as Nick pointed out last time, ground beef. Clothes were left behind, sure, but they were in pieces. The first body they found was splayed out on the hot road in the middle of summer, and by the time someone found it and called them, they could not figure a single thing out until the coroner had finished the autopsy—what little they could do.
The first was a young man, roughly in his twenties, Caucasian, brown hair. His cause of death couldn’t be narrowed down to one thing: he had been torn apart, clawed, ripped, even bitten that the coroner lost count of individual injuries on the report. An animal, everyone’s first thought was, and that’s what they were going to put officially until a month later the second was found.
Female, thirties, blonde, had been pregnant at one point in her life, was killed the same way as the man, but neither one had anything to identify them. But this time, the female was found before decomp could take her as far as the first. The coroner found human nails—not her own—embedded inside her wounds. A human had clawed her to death. The case was quickly labeled homicide and so was the first—now they had a John and Jane Doe, and nobody knew anything about them.
This third one, one week after the second, five weeks after the first, was clearly a man. He had been recently killed; the blood had coagulated but was still bright. He hadn’t been dumped; he had been eviscerated here. And as Nick scanned the area, there was no weapons, no tire marks, nothing that showed the killer even left. Nick walked past the corpse and under the other side of the tape, scanning the ground. Nothing—no footprints—
Wait, Nick narrowed his eyes and walked further away, at least four yards away, were footprints and handprints, like they leapt from the body to this spot, and as Nick glanced into the foliage of the forest they stood beside, he could tell from the broken branches that the killer most definitely went this way. But they didn’t walk or run—they were jumping?
He stood, wiping his forehead from the beads of sweat that gathered there. The summer sun was hell, and he hated it. He hated the south. He went back to the body, rubbing his nose with a knuckle. He was used to death—even rotting corpses in the middle of the summer—but he saw the young trooper glancing off to the side, slightly pale. He was a rookie, clearly. Coach and Nick knew this smell, came too familiar with it, but sometimes it still took him off balance.
“So?” Coach asked as Nick approached him. “Anything?”
“Yeah, the suspect has fuckin’ springs in his legs. He just jumped off into the forest,” Nick glanced that way, speaking low so only he, Coach and the trooper could hear. The annoying reporter kept leaning over the tape, trying to hear.
“What?” Coach eyed him, and then went over to see for himself.
The rookie, the state trooper, glanced up at Nick from under the bill of his cap. “F’real?” he asked.
Nick nodded at him. “Yeah—how long have you been out here, uh--?” He paused like he tried to remember the name. Of course, he knew it. He couldn’t forget the name of the owner of those damned piercing eyes.
The boy smiled toothily, crookedly, charmingly—stupidly, Nick added, trying to ignore it.
“It’s Ellis McKinney, sir,” he said happily.
“Right, Ellis. Knock that sir shit off. I’m not your boss. It’s Nick.”
“Yessir,” Ellis grinned, and it was teasing, like the young man knew it got to Nick. Like he knew how Nick’s stomach flipped. Bullshit, he’s just full of himself, Nick told himself, turning back to the body.
“When is the forensics due out?”
“Ah, he’s comin’ in ‘bout…” He stopped, checking his watch, “should be here any minute, actually.”
Nick glanced past the truck and down the road. He couldn’t hear a car coming, so he figured they were running late.
“Excuse me!” The woman called, waving her hand to get Nick’s attention.
“Y’shouldn’t leave a lady hangin’, Nick,” Ellis said with a devious grin, “ain’t gentlemanly, after all.”
Nick glanced back at the shorter, younger man with a sneer. He didn’t talk to reporters and was relieved when Coach returned, shaking his head. He was just as puzzled as Nick was.
“Got it, got it,” the older man sighed, heading over to the woman. Nick watched, leaning back against the trooper’s truck beside the rookie, pulling out a box of cigarettes from his pocket. He tapped one out, flipped it into his mouth and lit it with his old lighter. He took a drag just as the woman began to talk.
“Hi, my name is Rochelle Hampton,” she started, holding her hand out. Coach shook it.
“Darnell Coleman,” he said simply, “but my friends call me Coach.”
She smiled, flashing a good-looking smile that Nick found himself eying a little more than he ought to.
“Why do they call you that?”
“I teach ball down at the Beverly’s Home for At Risk Teens,” Coach stood up straight, proud, “in between cases.”
“That’s big of you,” she exclaimed. Nick blew out smoke, making a note that she lacked the local dialect unlike the two others with them. The cameraman hadn’t spoken, so he had no idea about him.
“It ain’t much, but it’s somethin’ I can do,” he gave a nod.
“So—what’s with this case?” she asked, leaning a little more over the tape. “Isn’t this the third time you’ve been called out here? Homicide? Do you have any suspects?”
“Ain’t answerin’ at this point,” Coach said easily. “We’ll know later. So why don’tcha pack up and head off, and we’ll give ya a call when we’re good?”
She laughed. “Look, I get it, you guys just showed up. But you can see the camera isn’t even on right now. I’m not recording anyone. So… how about a little bit of info?”
As Coach continued to deny any information, Nick glanced back at the man beside him.
Ellis was young—he looked way too young to be where he was. And he was so… quiet today. Normally, the kid couldn’t stop talking, but today…
“What’s got your tongue, sport?” Nick asked, as casually and uncaring as he could. Because he didn’t really care, it was just something to distract him.
“Huh?” Ellis looked over, blinking a few times in confusion. He gave a soft chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. “Oh… My buddy Keith ain’t back yet. Guess I’m a lil’ concerned for ‘em.”
“Your buddy?”
“Partner,” Ellis nodded in reply.
“Wait, he left you alone here?”
Ellis jabbed a finger behind him, “naw, he just headed that way to take a piss and ain’t been back yet.”
Nick glanced the way he pointed, the way that the killer may have gone. He frowned, but he hadn’t heard anything weird, and if the man was out there, they would have certainly heard something.
“I called him up but he said he hadn’t found a good place to go yet, somethin’ ‘bout feelin’ watched.”
That got Nick’s attention back to the kid, and his brows knit together. He pushed away from the vehicle and listened as well as he could. It was quiet, not an animal or bird making a sound. There was no wind, nothing to make even the plants rustle. Ignoring the words of the two behind him, Nick’s skin began to crawl. He had just assumed this was another body they’d have to wait to find anything about, he hadn’t been thrilled to make it out this far from the city today, not when it was this hot. The heat had distracted him, lagged his brain behind, made him dumb.
Made him realize they should have been paying more attention.
“Coach!” Nick called, stepping away from the vehicle. He kept the cigarette between his index and middle finger, stopping at Coach’s side as the larger man looked his way.
“Ah—this is Detective Dillon, isn’t it?” The reporter—Rochelle—said, grinning bright eyed up at him. Her smile faltered at the expression on his face.
“Whassit now?” Coach turned to face him proper.
“It’s quiet.”
Coach raised an eyebrow. “An’?”
“Coach, it’s quiet.”
The emphasis seemed to help Coach’s brain catch up, another victim of the heat—seriously, why the hell was it this hot so suddenly?
Coach turned, scanning the trees, the grass, the road, everywhere.
As soon as Coach turned to look at Nick, opened his mouth to reply, a bloodcurdling shriek rang through the air, causing all five people to jump. Nick unholstered his gun as did Coach, and Ellis yanked his truck’s door open, reaching for the shotgun that was left inside.
“What’s going on?” Rochelle asked, worry clear in her voice. Her cameraman had nearly dropped the camera, glancing around with a paling expression.
“Dunno, we’re gonna find out, stay here,” Coach said. He headed to the tree line with Nick at his heels—the latter paused to look at Ellis.
“Stay with the civvies,” he ordered, and Ellis gave a nod, moving closer to the two by the van.
Except as soon as they walked into the forest, there was another scream, this time from behind them.
Both detectives turned, looking back at the road. Ellis had gotten the two behind the tape and himself, raising his shotgun at some unseen person. They jogged back together, and both skidded to a stop as they stared past Ellis.
There was a person—is person even the right word? —crawling across the road, carefully, planning each place it planted its hands and feet. It wore a hoodie, so the face was difficult to see, but it was noticeably clear this person was not okay.
“Stand up, put yer hands in the air!” Ellis ordered; gun still raised. Nick and Coach did he same.
“Stand up an’ put yer hands on the van!” Ellis again shouted.
But the hoodie clad man ignored him, and within seconds, let out another scream. He pushed off the ground and actually flew threw the air at them, arms outstretched and aiming straight for the rookie.
Bam!
The shotgun blared and both Nick and Coach flinched, ears ringing from the closeness. The man had fallen and lay twitching on the ground.
“He—he ain’t—he ain’t human,” Ellis babbled, shaking. Coach grabbed Ellis’ shoulder, pushing the gun down.
“S’okay son, s’okay—” He stopped, moving to the twitching man and crouching, only to quickly stand back up. “What the shit—”
Nick looked between them before he stepped closer to the man. Ellis was right—whatever this was couldn’t be human. The man’s skin was a deep grey, boils covered his arms and some had popped, oozing out green pus. His face was distorted, looking burned around the eyes. His teeth—with his mouth wide open—were sharp, and his nails, those hands that reached for Ellis were claws. Claws that could rip a human to shreds. They’d found their murderer.
Nick was at his car in seconds, grabbing the radio and calling in a shots fired at their location. The only reply he got was static. Confused, Nick continued to call in as Coach began to look over the creature.
It twitched as Coach rolled him over onto his back. The shotgun had done its duty across his chest, blood leaking from his wounds.
“Hey, I’m not getting any response from dispatch,” Nick called out.
“There’s no signal,” Rochelle called out, shakily as she tried her phone for the fifth time.
Another scream echoed and they all jumped, looking around. From the area the hoodied man—creature—came from, came rustling. A lot of it. Groans, screams, shrieks. “Back up!” Coach shouted at them, and Nick jogged to get back to the group. Together, the three kept the cameraman and reporter behind them as they headed back into the forest.
The things that came out of the trees on the other side were just as hideous as the one on the road. Except they looked far more like people and less like the one on the ground—these were messed up people, that was for certain. Coach and Nick shouted warnings, but they just charged them anyway. The three shot once each, but the hits did nothing to stop the charging masses.
“Run!” Coach hollered and they all turned, heading further into the forest. “Stay together!” He called again.
“Where are we goin’?!” Ellis asked from beside Coach.
“I got no clue, just run!”
So they did.
Suddenly, people—monsters—creatures—whatever they were—began to pop up from all sides. Rochelle ducked one’s outstretched arms, sprinting ahead of the men. It was only a second, but Nick saw something much like the one on the road leap from the trees, grabbing the cameraman and taking him down into the tall grass.
“Steve!” Rochelle screamed, turning to run back to him.
“No!” Nick shouted at her, moving to grab at her arm, just as she reached the outstretched hand of her cameraman.
And took that hand with her as Nick yanked her from the monster tearing into Steve’s back.
Rochelle stared at the hand as she staggered, being pulled by Nick, and silently dropped it, her eyes wide with confusion and shock.
Nick didn’t say anything either, focusing on ahead of them, of the two silhouettes ahead of them that he followed.
“Up ahead! There’s a house!” Coach shouted.
“Hope they don’t shoot us for trespassing,” Nick sneered. The trees cleared and it was most certainly not just a house.
It was a mansion. A gigantic, at least four floors mansion. Old Victorian style it looked, but well kept.
“Hurry!” Ellis cried, stopping to let Nick and Rochelle pass him. He shot twice with the shotgun, reloading as he started to run backwards.
Coach was the first one to the large double doors, banging into it. He pounded loudly before he tried the knob and it swung open, allowing the four entrance. They didn’t hesitate.
They ran in, and Coach and Nick spun around to slam the doors shut, locking them. The things outside rammed into the doors, banging loudly, screaming and clawing. The windows shook but held strong.
Coach sagged into the door, panting hard, as Nick ran a shaking hand through his hair. Rochelle had slid to a sit as soon as she entered, staring at the black and white tiled floor. Ellis, however, was trying his radio repeatedly, for anyone listening to pick up.
He only got static in response.
Nick stepped away from the door as he caught his breath, glancing around them. The foyer was large, with two gigantic staircases straight ahead of them leading to the next floors. Two doors were on their left, and two on their right. There was a red carpet that lined the floor from the doorway to the stairs, leading up. A large chandelier hung over their heads. The electricity worked.
“Hello?” Nick called. “Anyone home?”
His voice echoed, but he got no response.
The four glanced at each other, then back at the trembling front doors. They were safe for now.