Disclaimer: I do not own CSI: Vegas or the characters. I'm just borrowing them. ^.^
Enjoy the story! =)
Greg couldn't be more ecstatic to arrive at a crime scene in his entire life. He'd do almost anything to end the country music torture that Nick had forced him to listen to. Riley didn't seem to mind the music at all but not everyone could be as tolerant as her. He wanted out, and it would be nice if this scene was closer to the city.
As the Denali slowed to a stop at the end of the driveway, Greg practically leapt out of the SUV. Riley exited once the car was off and chuckled lightly at Greg's actions. Nick was the last to exit the car and couldn't help but make a comment.
"What's a matter, Greggo? Couldn't handle a little twang?"
"That was 43 minutes and 26 seconds worth of country music hell."
Riley laughed outwardly now. "Country isn't that horrible."
"Yes, Riley. Yes it is. There's no variation!" Greg exclaimed as he opened the back of the Denali then handed Riley her kit and then grabbed his own.
"Hey! There's no such thing as bad country music." Nick responded, sounding insulted as he pulled out his own kit before closing the back of the Denali. "And there is variation." He added.
Greg shook his head in denial but said nothing more as he and Riley followed Nick up the dirt driveway. As the group approached the captain of homicide turned and addressed them.
"So what has no variation?" the captain, Jim Brass inquired.
"Country music. It's an ongoing debate." Nick stated.
"There's no debate-" Greg began, but Nick interrupted.
"So what do we have here, Jim?"
Brass responded, "A 32 year old, Joshua Harmon. His friend said that something was up when Josh missed his own birthday party the other day. He said Josh was a major party man and would never miss an excuse to get drunk. No sign of forced entry but the front door was wide open. The property's been secured. The guy's throat's been ripped up. Philip's already here and thinks the guy was probably attacked by some animal. He's down in the basement. Just go into the kitchen, there'll be a door that leads to the basement where the body is."
"Alright. Thanks, Jim." Nick nodded his thanks and waved the rest of the team to follow.
They entered the home and found their way to the kitchen and saw the door to the basement.
"Wow. That's one solid door." Riley noted. "Reinforced steel," she moved the door back and forth, "and heavy."
"With a bunch of locks to boot." Greg added as he observed the door. "Who or what was he trying to keep out?" Greg wondered.
"Or what was he trying to keep in?" Nick countered.
He then proceeded on his way to the basement, taking out his flashlight to see in the dark. The other two followed. They found David Philips squatting beside the body of Joshua Harmon, pulling out a thermometer from the liver.
"Hey, David." Nick greeted. "What do you have for us today?"
"Hey, Nick. TOD's around 30 hours ago. COD may be from a loss of blood but we won't know for sure until autopsy. Looks like an animal has gotten to him though. I suspect maybe a big cat or coyote; something with fangs."
"Happy birthday." Nick muttered as he looked down at the former Joshua Harmon.
David quirked an eyebrow. "What?"
"He was apparently killed on his birthday." Nick informed him.
David mouthed an 'oh' before he started putting his tools away.
"Maybe he had an illegal pet and kept it down here." Greg proposed. "Then it turned on him and got free."
"Would explain the heavy door." Riley acknowledged.
"Sounds plausible. Alright; Riley, you go upstairs and look for any clues, paw prints or something that can confirm our hunch." Riley nodded and started up the stairs. "Greggo, you take pictures of the body so David can take it away and then search for any signs of an animal being in here. I'm going outside and checking out the property for any clues and tell Jim to send out an alert that there might be a man killing animal on the loose."
Greg nodded as well and began taking photos of the body right away. Nick took this as a good sign and jogged up the stairs.
"Why would anyone keep a wild animal in there basement? They're just asking to be killed." David said, trying to make conversation.
Greg snapped a photo of the man's hands."I dunno D-man. From what I've learned from this job, people are crazy…. Ugh, now that freakin' songs stuck in my head!"
David's lip tugged into a smile, "What song?"
"I don't have a clue what it is." Greg walked to the other side of the body and crouched down, snapping more pictures. "I just know it's some country song where a guy kept singing 'God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy'. And now it just keeps playing over and over again in my head; and it's gonna drive me crazy."
"I thought you didn't like country?" David questioned, surprise alighting his features.
"I don't." Greg looked up from his camera for a small moment before looking back through the lens and snapping a photo. "Nick forced me to listen to it on the way here. An entire 45 minutes worth of country hell."
David laughed. "Nick would do that."
"Alright, D-man. Body's yours." Greg said as he stepped back from the body.
"Why, thank you." David said as he and another man put Joshua in the body bag that was awaiting him.
They carried it up the stairs in a stretcher and were gone. The only people left in the basement now were Greg and one of Jim's officers. The man's tag read, Reed.
Greg started searching for signs of an animal that may have been in the basement. There was some blood that had covered the victim and that had covered the floor, but it was smeared so that he couldn't get anything out of it. So he searched for hair, in this case fur, and paw prints or teeth marks in one of the pieces of junk that was down here. He lifted his flash light and found something promising.
"Jackpot." He muttered and took a photo of it.
There in front of him was a steel cage made of bars. He entered the cage and found bones.
"This is one sick bastard." Greg said.
He put a marker down beside one of the bones and let light illuminate the dimly lighted area before picking it up. There he held a femur in his latex gloved hand.
"Hey, Nicky; we got ourselves sick one here. Over." He spoke into his radio.
"Why's that? Over." Nick responded.
"I found a human femur in a cage I suspect held whatever he was keeping down here. He was feeding it with people, Nicky. Over."
There was a long pause before Nick replied. "Guess whatcomes around goes around. Over."
Greg's lip twitched with a sad smile, "Guess so. Over."
He placed his radio back in its pocket and put the bone on the ground. He raised the camera back up from hanging from his neck and placed another marker by a collar bone. As the flash filled the room he heard a thud and something that sounded like muffled gagging.
Greg spun around, dropping the camera and quickly turning his flashlight off. He slowly took his gun out of its holster and aimed it somewhere near the ground, hoping it was somewhere near the animals height. The muffled gagging slowly ceased and he heard something he couldn't identify. It wasn't chewing like he thought it might be, but something else.
He could just well enough to see where he was going but not well enough to know what was what. As he neared the staircase the noise got louder and he could see the outline of something hovering over what appeared to be a body.
He tried not to breathe too loud as he took shelter behind a wooden beam that was about 10 feet away. Slowly he peered out and took aim. He lifted the flashlight up beside the gun and pressed the button.
A stream of light blared through the dim room and illuminated a skinny, leathery, tan-skinned human- like body with a balding head with its face buried in Officer Reed's neck. Suddenly the thing's head twisted in Greg's direction and hissed as the light hit its eyes.
Greg's eyes widened as he took a sharp breathe in. This was definitely not the kind of animal he was thinking of. He didn't even think it was an animal. It looked like an ugly old man with sunken eyes, pointy nose, and fanged teeth. Blood coated its face, lips and teeth and it was looking at him like he was its next meal.
"Shit." It came out as a whisper, and as the thing turned around and started heading for him he cursed again. "Shit!"
He held down on the trigger and let the bullets rip as he began stepping backwards. Every bullet hit its mark squarely in the chest. Problem was; they weren't doing a damn thing. The demon looking thing lunged at him, screeching loudly as it clasped its long fingered hands onto his shoulder, digging the nails in before it took it's fangs into the curve in his neck.
"Ahhh!" Greg let out a blood-curdling cry of agony. He felt his back hit the cement ground and his head smack on it. But the pain was small compared to the pain that was now emitting from his right shoulder.
The monster made noises between a growl and whine as it bit into his neck again, like it was trying to get a proper hold with its teeth. He cried out again as he struggled against the beast. Nothing he did worked; he may as well be trying to punch a brick wall.
He could feel the life drain out of him; like it was all being passed into the creature on top of him. He groped for something on the ground with his hands, anything he could use against this thing. He felt something in the tip of his fingers and he reached for it. Once he got a hold of it he realized it was a wooden stick.
He immediately thrusted it into the neck of the creature with all the strength he had left. The beast screeched into his ear, but he didn't care because he was immediately filled with relief as its jaws unclenched from his shoulder and neck. He jerked the wooden piece in its neck and kneed it off him. The creature rolled off and thrashed about on the floor beside him, and let out one last gargled/muffled cry. Then it laid still, which unnerved Greg more than it being alive did.
He pulled himself onto his elbows and dragged himself away from the creature. He brought himself to the beam and laid against it. There, he let himself relax and let his head fall to the side. He allowed his heavy eyes to droop close so he could focus on his breathing, which was becoming harder by the second.
The attack felt like it lasted minutes, but in reality he knew it was probably only a few seconds. Hence the reason Nick and Riley were only just arriving, stomping down the stairs like a bunch of elephants.
Greg grasped his neck where the thing had bit him, rasping for air. He tried to relax himself so he could attempt to breathe properly, but that idea wasn't working so well. He could hear Riley and Nick call his name simultaneously.
"Shit!" Nick swore.
Nick was either swearing about the creature or Greg and the officer; probably both. Greg couldn't tell, so he opened his eyes. He still couldn't tell, because now Riley was kneeling before him.
She took her bandana and pressed it to his wound. He grunted from the pain it caused.
"God, Greg; what happened?" Riley asked. Greg could hear Nick calling for an ambulance which was probably too far away to arrive on time.
Greg didn't really have the breath to explain, so he just shook his head and closed his eyes. He swallowed hard before taking another big breath in.
"Okay, okay. We'll talk about it later." Riley reasoned. He felt her hand be placed to the side of his face and he leaned into its support. She let her thumb massage the side of his face to comfort him.
"The copter will be here soon, Greggo. Just hold on for me, okay?" Nick said. Greg opened his eyes to see Nick's filled with fear. Greg nodded the best he could before he closed his eyes again. He needed to focus on breathing regularly.
Riley and Nick exchanged worried looks before the sound of Jim Brass thumping down the stairs were heard.
"I got the First Aid kit, and I've got back up that will be arriving here shortly." Brass said.
"Thanks." Nick nodded as he took the kit.
"Jesus, what the hell happened?" Brass asked as he looked at the scene in front of him.
"I have a hunch that thing with a wooden stake in its neck is the one to blame. You the one to get it, G?" Nick asked.
He mostly asked Greg because he wanted him to stay awake. He knew he was alive by the loud rasping, but he needed him awake as well. It was just a race against time.
"Mm." Greg nodded slowly, his neck was feeling stiff.
"Damn, Reed." Brass looked despairingly at the man by the stairs. "He's got a wife and son." He whispered to Nick and Riley.
Nick shook his head in anger. He didn't want to get angry though, not in front of Greg when he was still struggling to stay alive.
Suddenly Greg's rasping became louder and he grabbed Riley's forearm. His eyes shot open as he struggled to breathe.
"Greg?" Riley gasped. Nick shouted Greg's name. Jim asked for the whereabouts of the emergency helicopter.
Greg's body began jolting and he fell onto his side, dragging Riley's arm with him. His breathing was labored and irregular as he clutched to her.
"Easy, Greg. Just try to relax, okay?" she asked, trying to sound as calm as she could.
"How far are they?" Nick asked Jim desperately.
"About ten minutes." Jim responded quietly.
"We don't have ten minutes!" Nick growled through clenched teeth.
Greg's gasping slowed and his eyes became distant. His hand clasped to Riley's shirt began to loosen its hold.
"Greg?" Riley asked, alarmed. "Greg! Don't you even freaking dare!" She shook him and shouted, "Greg!"
Brass and Nick looked on in distress. They couldn't do anything but watch their friend die.
Soon Greg's whole form lay still and Riley knew then that Greg was gone.
So, how was it? Good? Bad? Tell me what you think! This is my first CSI fanfic, so any constructive criticism is welcome, just don't be harsh. Thanks!
Talk to ya next time!
~ Butters 3