Chapter 2: Fallout
On a Friday night in December, Canal Street was relatively quiet. People came and went, huddled warmly against the bitter air, dodging in and out of the halos of streetlights.
Parked on the curb outside the lighted windows of a twenty-four hour Starbuck's, Sergeant Leonard Meyers and his partner, Officer Craig Martin, sat nursing warm cardboard cups of black coffee. They watched the street silently through steamed windows, enjoying the night.
That was until the screams.
Lenny knew it wasn't unusual for someone to be screaming their head off for no apparent reason, especially on a Friday night, but in the short time he'd been working with Officer Martin, he knew the man took no chances.
He really did live up to his reputation—both a hardass and a perfectionist to a fault. Most of the time, it just sent them running circles halfway across the city to investigate the tiniest things. But every so often, Martin's predator-like obsession paid off.
This was one of those nights.
As the squad car pulled up behind the huddle of people on the sidewalk, the siren lights lit up the building sides. The flash of a camera erupted from the crowed to meet them. Quickly, the two men scrambled out of the car.
Martin was the first to push through the crowd. "All right, all right. Everyone get back!"
"Sweet mother of God…"
Lenny struggled through the mass of bodies to the center of the commotion. When he finally got a glance, he couldn't believe his eyes.
Someone… something had jumped. It lay practically embedded in the concrete sidewalk, now nothing but a twisted, gory mess of blood, organs, and body parts steaming in the frigid air.
Whatever it was, it definitely wasn't human.
"Lenny, get up on that roof," Martin ordered, pushing the crowd away from the body.
Lenny hadn't noticed he'd been standing there with his mouth open. He quickly glanced up to the building's rooftop, towering a good ten stories above them, and felt like his stomach had been pumped full of ice water.
"Not without backup," he replied.
Martin nodded and started clearing the crowd away as Lenny called it in.
In an instant, the once-quiet street was filled with light and noise. The news crews swarmed in like vultures and the body was literally scraped off the sidewalk in bloody chunks like a fresh wad of gum.
As the body was bagged and carted to the ambulance on a gurney, Lenny knew it was going to be one hell of a long night.
Detective Howard Davis had been awake for forty-eight hours straight just trying to make sense of the situation. Though thirty years on the force meant he was no newbie, he'd never seen anything quite like this.
Sighing, he leaned forward heavily on the piles of paperwork littering his desk, rubbing at his temples.
At least for now the body was bagged and in the morgue. The guys down in forensics were having a hay day, too—having their fun taking samples and making their crazy theories about whatever that thing was.
That thing. He just couldn't get it out of his head. Sure, he'd seen his fair share of blood and guts, and he'd learned enough to be unfazed by it, but that thing had utterly terrified him.
He had a family to worry about; a wife and a little girl, and they didn't live too far from where they found it, either. It was sickening to think that creatures, monsters carrying swords like some kind of horror movie ninja serial murderer could be lurking around anywhere in the city.
Down in the morgue, Lansing had said it came from the sewers. It'd been running around right under their feet all along, doing god knows what.
Davis knew that whatever that thing was, if it carried weapons like that, it couldn't be friendly. And if there was one, there's probably more lurking right under their noses, waiting for the right opportunity. The people were in danger, his family was in danger, and it was his duty to protect them.
He'd gotten off the phone with the FBI just minutes ago, granting him a full-scale government investigation. A SWAT team was arriving tomorrow to search the sewers, and a pair of agents were scheduled to arrive on the hour to remove what was left of the body.
Then, he called his wife, told his daughter he loved her, and promised he'd be home for dinner. Selina was making mac n' cheese.
And in that small moment, Davis was reminded of just how much he had to protect, and everything he had to lose.
He'd keep them safe, no matter what it takes.
