The shadow stuffed her face with metal rods and handfuls of tangled rainbow wires caked with crusty brown dried blood, lapping up the spilled fluids like barbeque sauce.
She panted, forcefully dragging her cold plastic hand across her lips, blood and drool dribbling down her ever extending chin.
The shadow especially enjoyed the red wires.
They tasted like cherry Jolly Ranchers, the long, hard sticks in their cheery red packaging. The kind she used to get with long gone friends on hot days at the gas station with a handful of pennies.
She crawled on her hands and knees to the opened chest of the frog carcass, curious to what could be inside. She reached in with a clawed hand and grabbed a handful of rotting offal.
She sniffed, then shoved the meaty handful in. She reached into her furry green prize bag, rotting corpse gas falling around her like a dirty fog and ripped out a steel bar. She groaned with pleasure and chomped down, bending the metal and cracking it open with her teeth, shivering as the lubricative oils filled her mouth and drained down her throat like a juicy steak.
She still wasn't satisfied.
The shadow leaned into the carcass and started grazing from the opened torso, chewing directly from the inside of a complacent beast.
Chewy rubber sinews were quickly spat out at the wall as vinyl slid down her throat. She sucked oils from hydraulics and packed herself full of encrusted alloys and wires, yet still never satisfied.
Full.
Not hungry.
She understood that feeling.
What she had was more, and it could only grow hotter and more intense than it already was.
A craving.
A need.
"What the hell is that?"
The shadow looked up, blinded by the flashlight beam.
Dammit, she'd forgotten about silent alarms in her need to feast!
"What the hell?"
The shadow lunged, mechanical legs thrusting her into the air, towering over the police officer. The officer next to him jumped back, dropping his flashlight, already calling for backup.
The shadow howled, lights snapping on and temporarily blinding her as she shielded her eyes.
"Over three years of false alarms and suddenly we have a real one!"
The shadow howled, covering her face with a metal claw, jaws snapping and coiling with a series of whirs and hisses.
The first officer stared up at her, jaw dangling open as he took in the black smears across the walls and the shattered mirror, as well as the sights of a humanoid crawling with extra limbs.
After taking in the sights, he gagged on the smells and passed out, but not before vomiting on checked tiles.
"Tonight we're taking names 'cause we aren't messing around," The still conscious officer said, voice shaking. He looked completely unprepared.
The shadow, now in full light, scampered further into the dark corner and growled, black sweater plastered with fluids and mouth drooling uncontrollably.
"Put your hands up where I can see them." He commanded, "You have the right to remain silent."
The shadow howled loudly, lunging forward on thin legs and slid into the showroom. She jumped onto the bar and growled loudly. She climbed onto the shelf.
Red spread from her thighs and she gasped loudly, a sharp pain punching through her stomach.
Not tonight, she was busy!
More officers poured through the entryway and into the showroom.
The shadow screeched like a broken windup toy and grabbed the first thing she could reach and threw it, face still being shielded with her arm.
Glitter sprayed over the discombobulated police officers of LA. They hadn't seen her yet, funny enough.
They were already reaching for their weapons when they saw the shapeless creature hanging from the ceiling.
This place was about to blow.
The shadow panicked, scared for the first time since its creation and grabbed a bottle at random, a knotted rag from it's back pocket, and lit it with a box of matches snatched previously from the counter and threw it, escaping by hanging from the ceiling.