Chapter 6: Night of the Blood Moon
[Author's Note: I couldn't resist doing a Halloween scene here. I mean, come on guys, the Bat Creature on the loose in October? It's a given, right?]
Harmon Avenue
Austin, Texas
October 31, 2018
7:30 PM
The yearly Halloween festivities were in full swing for the citizens of Austin. What made this particular Halloween just a bit creepier, however, was the fact that the entire city was bathed in a blood moon. This somewhat rare phenomena occurred as a result of the normally whiteish moon was in a total lunar eclipse, turning its color to either an orangish red or an almost rust-colored brown.
On Harmon Avenue in the Hancock neighborhood, off-duty Austin firefighter Jake Patterson took great joy in taking his two kids: 8-year-old son Jordan and 6-year-old daughter McKenna, trick or treating. Patterson was a tall and well-built brown-haired white man in his early 30's who wasn't in costume. He was instead dressed in a navy-blue pullover Austin Fire Department sweatshirt, blue jeans, and light brown hiking boots.
The kids, on the other hand, were fully customed. Jordan was dressed in the costume of his beloved Spiderman while his younger sister McKenna looked adorable in a glittery pink princess costume. Her long blonde hair and beautifully deep blue eyes made her look like Sleeping Beauty's younger sister.
They had scored plenty of candy at most of the houses along the avenue. The two kids very gleefully looked back at their dad as they ran like enthusiastic baby cheetahs toward the end of the neighborhood, laughing and giggling away.
"Whoa!" Jake called out to them, "Whoa, guys! Let's slow down a bit and watch for cars, huh?"
Jordan and McKenna honored their father's request, slowing down as the family came upon a very derelict and rundown Gothic-style house at the very end of the street. The house's very commanding appearance sort of created a type of unofficial dead end.
"Daddy", Jordan said to his father with a certain apprehension in his voice, "Do you think this house has any good candy?"
It was then that Jake happened to look down and noticed what appeared to be very real drops of blood, starting the edge of the spooky house's property and appearing to end on the curb of the avenue not more than 15 feet from where the 3 of them were currently standing. "Uh", he said with an equal amount of trepidation in his voice, "Uh…I don't know, buddy. Tell you what, why don't you stay here with your sister and I'll go up and ask?"
"Can I go with you, Daddy?" McKenna sweetly inquired to her father.
Jake turned and looked back at his children as he cautiously made his way toward the house. He gave them one of those fatherly looks that silently indicated to the two children that they'd better stay put, which they did.
This tension-filled situation was then broken up by the very abrupt arrival of a marked Austin Police Department patrol car as it quietly rolled onto that particular section of Harmon Avenue. As luck would have it, Officer Ken Brixton happened to be behind the wheel. Brixton and his wife had been neighbors with and good friends to the Patterson family for many years. Their 6-year-old daughter was best friends with young McKenna.
Brixton rolled down the driver's side window of the patrol and stuck his head out. "Evening Jake!" he cordially greeted his friend before noticing the kids standing near him, "Hey kids!"
Mckenna then darted up to the patrol car in response, giddy to see Brixton. "Hi Uncle Ken!" she pleasantly said to him as she held up her bedazzled pink tote bag that contained her candy haul, "Look at what I got? I even got more than Jordan!"
Brixton chuckled as he saw Jordan remove his mask and blow a raspberry at his sister in retort to her comment. However, he was torn between responding to McKenna's sweetness and addressing Jake, who had a very uneasy look on his face. "Uh", a now ill at ease Brixton started to reply, "That's awesome, honey. Why don't you go back over by your brother and wait while I go talk to your daddy, okay?"
As McKenna did as Brixton had requested, the officer stepped out of his patrol car. Officer Ken Brixton was a white man in his early 40's with cropped brown hair stood at a very lofty 6'3, dressed in a black Austin Police Department uniform. He then hurriedly jogged over to where Jake still stood.
"Hey buddy", Brixton again greeted Jake, this time with a noticeable amount of concern in his tone. "What's up?"
Jake Patterson motioned to the blood on the ground with his eyes. "I've been an Austin firefighter for twelve years, Ken" he said, "I know real blood when I see it."
Noticing the same thing Jake was seeing, Brixton nodded and ushered his friend slightly back from where the blood was. He then grabbed the portable radio mic off the front of his uniform shirt, keying the mic and briefly eyeing the dog-eared numbers on the rusted mailbox in front of the house. "Bravo-Two-Four-Seven to Dispatch", Brixton said into the radio, "I've got some suspicious activity at Fourteen-Twenty-One Monroe Avenue. Send me two backup units and an EMS unit as soon as possible, please. Possible injured subject on location. Over."
Brixton then made his way toward the house, removing his flashlight with one hand and his Sig-Sauer P-228 handgun with the other. Turning the flashlight on, he carefully stepped inside the front room of the dilapidated, cobweb-ridden house. "This is the Austin Police Department!" he called out in a very authoritative tone, "If there's anyone in here, please make yourself known immediately! If you aren't able to speak, please make some kind of noise so I can find you!"
The officer heard nothing in response as he rounded a corner into a very dirty, dust-covered, and antiquated kitchen. As he scanned the bright beam of his flashlight along the black and white checkered tile floor, he noted the presence of at least two or three deformed four-toed animal prints in the immense coat of dust coating the tiles. He had noted the presence of such a print just inside the front door, approximately 25 feet from the current location.
"What the hell is this?" Brixton softly muttered as he stealthily made his way toward a closed closet door in the farthest corner of the kitchen, at which point he took note of even more blood at the threshold between the edge of the floor and the lower corner of the door itself.
"Hello?" Brixton called out, this time in a tone that was equal parts commanding yet somewhat apprehensive.
He then turned off his flashlight and put it back on his belt and opened the door with his now free hand.
Officer Brixton was then coldly stunned by what he saw literally hanging from the ceiling of the small closet: the biggest bat he'd ever seen in his adult life, one that was so big that it nearly dwarfed his own human height. The ghastly creature then spread its gargantuan wings open and let out a screech that was so high pitched it was nearly deafening. Brixton's screams were then heard from inside the house, followed by the man's desperate screams for help.
Clay's BBQ
Guadalupe Street
8:15 PM
Meanwhile, Sergeant Mercedes Lucia joined both John Doggett and Fox Mulder for dinner at Clay's BBQ, a popular chain barbeque restaurant. The trio sat at an outdoor dining table close to the street, where Lucia nursed a beef brisket sandwich. Doggett dined on a small plate of pork ribs, while Mulder dined on a smoked sausage that was on a hot dog roll.
"You guys are telling me that this isn't some garden variety flesh-and-blood murderer", Lucia said, "But that's it's some sort of weird bat and human hybrid. Are you kidding me?"
Mulder shook his head as he momentarily sat his sausage down. "I'm afraid we aren't, Sergeant" he very candidly replied, "I can very confidently say that this creature is totally unlike anything that you've probably seen during your time at Texas Fish and Game."
Lucia gave the man a nervous, crooked smile before turning her gaze to Doggett. "And you're on board with this shit, too, huh?" she straightforwardly asked.
Doggett wiped his mouth with a napkin before shrugging his shoulders in retort. "Honestly Sarge", he said, "If this was, say, back in the late Nineteen-Nineties, I bet that I would've been just as skeptical as you are at this moment. However, as straightforward and by-the-book as I've tried to be in my career, I can't deny any of the crazy shit to which I've borne witness during my time on the X-Files."
Mulder grinned at that. "You've come a long way, John" he candidly said to him, "It seems like yesterday you were questioning anything and everything outside of your admittedly narrow field of vision."
Doggett scoffed. "That was before I dug a huge parasite out of Agent Scully's back", he said.
"…Or chased my extraterrestrial doppelganger off an Arizona cliff", Mulder added.
"…Or jumped with you off the edge of an exploding oil platform that had been infested with that evil black oil stuff", Doggett went on.
A now utterly speechless Lucia bounced her gaze between the two men as she tried to keep up with their fantastical anecdotes. "Okay", she finally said, "I definitely have to hear more of these stories."
Their now very strange conversation was quickly interrupted when a very loud emergency tone was heard over Lucia's portable radio that she had set in the middle of the table. "All Hancock area units", a male dispatcher's voice said, "We have a report of an Officer Down at Fourteen-Twenty-One Munroe Avenue. All available units respond immediately."
With that, the trio jumped up from the table, with Lucia snatching up her radio and keying the mic. "Fish and Game Two-Forty-One to Austin Communications", she said into the radio, "Be advised, I'll be responding in plainclothes to Monroe Avenue to assist. I'll also be bringing two plainclothes FBI agents along, over." She then got into her personal vehicle, a light green 2012 Toyota Prius. She activated the blue strobing emergency lights that were clipped to her passenger-side visor and drove off.
Doggett, meanwhile, quickly left the money for their food on the table and hurried to his waiting silver 2016 Ford F150 XLT pickup, with Mulder jumping into the truck's passenger seat.
Sergeant Lucia and the agents soon arrived at the chaotic scene outside the derelict house at 1421 Munroe Avenue. Exiting their respective vehicles, they took in the bedlam of the situation.
Officer Ken Brixton was being wheeled out toward a waiting ambulance by the paramedics, thankfully still alive. Both his arms were well bandaged up to his elbows. Meanwhile, the Patterson family sat on the back bumper of a second ambulance, both kids crying while Jake Patterson was interviewed by a young female patrol officer.
Lucia made her way over to a tall gray-haired older white man appearing to be in his early to mid 50's who wore a beige sport coat with an Austin Police Department Lieutenant's badge on a small chain around his neck. "Hey Ross", Lucia greeted the man.
"Evening, Mercy" the man replied, "Hell of a way to see you again."
"No kidding, right?" Lucia said before gesturing to Doggett and Mulder, "These are Agents John Doggett and Fox Mulder with the FBI." She then gestured back in the man's direction. "Fellas", she continued, "I'd like you to meet Lieutenant Ross Murnau. He's the commanding officer of Austin PD Homicide."
Murnau gave each of the men firm handshakes. "I apologize for the circumstances, gentlemen" he cordially said to them, "But it's nice to meet you both. What's the Bureau doing here?"
"We were with the sergeant when the call went out about your officer", Doggett explained, "She's been assisting us on a case we're working here in Austin."
"Oh right", Murnau said, "Darnell Willmore mentioned you guys. He got called away to work a shooting case across town, so I'm here in his absence."
Mulder nodded. "So", he said, "What went down here, Lieutenant?"
"Apparently", Murnau began explaining as he gestured to the Pattersons with his eyes, "The Patterson family over there was trick or treating here in the neighborhood when they stumbled upon what Mister Patterson said was an actually real blood trail in front of the house. I know Jake and he's been one of our firefighters for about twelve years. He knows what he's talking about."
"I see", Lucia said, "So Officer Brixton responded?"
Murnau nodded. "Actually", he clarified, "Ken Brixton just happened to roll up in his patrol vehicle. He knew Jake and the kids personally so I imagine he decided to check things out for their sake."
"And he was attacked inside the house", Doggett said, "Is that right?"
"As far as we can tell", Murnau explained, "Ken radioed in to Dispatch reporting suspicious activity at this address, he made his way inside the house, and was surprised by his assailant in the kitchen. He then discharged four rounds from his weapon. All of this was evidently heard by the Pattersons from all the way out here. Jake called Nine-One-One and the closest unit was here in just under three minutes."
"How's your man Brixton doing?" Mulder asked with genuine concern in his voice.
"The medics tell me he's got some pretty bad wounds up and down both arms", Murnau replied with a regretful tone, "But he was awake and alert when they made entry, so we have high hopes that he'll be okay. He's on his way to Travis County General now."
With that, Lucia rolled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, showing the lieutenant her still-bandaged arms. "I'm going to be blunt with you, Ross" she said, "We think that the same suspect who attacked your officer tonight was the same son of a bitch who killed my partner and bit the hell out of my arms in Harker's Cave."
Murnau hung his head and sighed with great compunction. "Damn, Mercy" he said, "I had no idea. I'm sorry."
Lucia consolingly shook her head. "It's alright", she replied, "But you should notify the hospital that Brixton should be tested for rabies. Long story."
Murnau nodded. "Will do", he said, "If it helps, the little Patterson girl told me when I got here that she heard someone scream the name 'Adrian' after they had apparently heard Brixton's screams."
Doggett, Mulder, and Lucia then traded looks with one another. "This damn thing can speak?" Lucia softly said to the two agents.
"I guess so", Mulder said, "We know more now about it than Doggett and Scully did eighteen years ago. That's for sure."