The two police officers had been called in to the scene of an incident which took place a couple of miles South of Derry. They turned to walk along the street together when a small gust of wind blew past them. They turned towards where the wind blew towards but realised that, no matter what happened, they would still have to face what they went there to face, regardless of what it may turn out to be.
An awkward silence was lingering between them. They knew that you couldn't live anywhere near Derry without having heard about the kinds of things that happen there, well, unless you lived under a rock that is. They were always huge events: hundreds of police officers poking around trying to catch the culprit, and because of that, they didn't want to discuss what might be lurking around the corner, or what they might see. There are some things that, despite how hard you try, you can't un-see.
It had been raining for two days straight, cold raindrops pelting the windows of houses and cars, awnings collapsing under the weight of water and streets becoming deserted, trees losing their branches to the wind, there had even been one or two trees collapsing, but it had all stopped exactly an hour ago, which was hopefully long enough for all of the evidence to still be intact. They were there during a lull in the storm where the wind had dropped and the rain had stopped, but the grass was still wet, there were giant puddles lining the streets and there was a sense of heaviness in the air, as if the storm could start up again any second. Whenever it rained in and around Derry, it rained. A river ran down the side of the road, flowing freely into the storm drains and the pipes running just below the ground. The overflow from the roads was so heavy that the two of them could hear it running beneath their feet as they walked, and they were hardly light walkers. Slowly, and as steadily as the flow of water through the pipes, they neared the corner past which was the scene they had come to investigate, but as they braced themselves for what might come, their pace slowed to little more than a snail's.
As they turned the corner and saw what they had been dreading seeing, a strong stench hit them, causing them to spin away from the mess which was in front of them. On the ground was a puddle unlike any other. It was a deep crimson red colour and beside it lay a grass stained, white, training shoe with flecks of dry blood lining the tongue. Strips of fabric lay next to the wall, also stained with blood. They walked slowly along the road, trying to avoid stepping in any of the bloody puddles, when they found the object that they had been dreading the most. Lying beside a very expensive looking brown leather wallet lay a recently dead body. It had almost been ripped to shreds. Down the left hand side of the face were four long cuts, nail marks most likely. The blood had been streaming out of the cuts and had created a puddle which surrounded the slumped, lifeless, head. Judging by the size of the puddle, the amount of blood and the angle at which the head was lying, the skull had also been cracked in the collision with the ground. One of the arms looked as if something, or someone, had attempted to chew through it. There was no skin left on the area, it was red, there were pink strips of muscle hanging from the wound and the blood was running off into the gutter. A small raindrop fell from above them and, looking up, they saw an orange balloon stuck to a dimly lit street lamp. Then, when they were looking down, they saw that, on the wall, scrawled in blood were the words "We all float down here".
That was when the weather came back in. First, there came a strong gust of wind that blew the balloon away into the dark grey, cloud filled sky. Then, lightly at first, progressing into a flood, the rain started to fall again. It washed the blood down the side of the street and into the storm drain. They stepped back as it flowed freely down in a river beside them, washing away strips of clothing and clumps of fallen leaves from further up the road. It washed away the writing on the wall in long steady streams, which added to the river of blood running down the hill. They managed to catch the leather wallet before it was washed away into the sea of water in the storm drains. They shook off the majority of the water before opening it to see who the unfortunate victim was, but all identification had been taken out as if it had all been planned. The two officers looked at each other with a look of dread and the one nearest to the wall asked:
"So, what's going on?" and the reply,
"It's back."