Leroy charged the cultist, spraying him with bullets. The cultist fell down, dead.
"Think that's all of them?" Hale Senex said.
"I certainly hope so. My gun's out of bullets, and these guys don't have the right ammo for it," Leroy Brighton said, putting his Glock back into its holster before grabbing his radio and talking into it. "All seems to be clear, begin roll call on the students immediately."
"Well, now that that's over with, I'm going to see if I can find any of the fluid. You, on the other hand," Hale said, pointing to Leroy's bleeding arm, "are going to the hospital. I'll meet you outside." Leaving Leroy alone, Hale sprinted to the nearest classroom, where he remembered there to be a jar of the liquid still undamaged. Grabbing it, he headed outside.
"Any missing children, Harold?" Leroy said to the deputy, grabbing his wounded arm.
"Looks like there's around 50 kids missing, but we're hot on their tail. Plainclothes have been following their caravan of sorts, so we've got a lead on where they're headed. Do you really think you should be moving with that arm, Leroy?" Harold said, finally noticing his fellow officer's injury.
"No, but I don't see any paramedics here yet, so I don't have much of a choice."
At this point, Hale came out of the door, clutching the jar he had retrieved from the room. He quickly closed the distance between himself and the policemen, dragging along one of the cultist's corpses.
"You guys might want to take a look at this," Hale said, pocketing the jar and taking the cadaver's mask off.
"Isn't that... no, it can't be. There's no way that's the superintendent. I've known that man for years, there's no way he could be a terrorist," Harold said.
"Believe it; no matter how improbable, it's the truth. I'm pretty sure it's the juice I found that did this, so I'm going to see Brown, see if I can get him to analyze it." Hale walked off to his car and drove off.
"I just can't believe that the superintendent could be with these people. He's been an active member of this community for years! You can't just hide that you're a cultist for that long," Harold said sadly to Leroy. Leroy put his hand on his shoulder, then began talking.
"I don't think he was. I went to the same church as him, he never looked nervous or out of place there. Besides, he was never the sort to lie."
"Yeah? Well, I guess it's no good crying over spilled milk," Harold said, then turned and began talking to another investigator. Leroy did the same.
"Anything yet, Brown?" Hale asked, leaning over the doctor.
"No, and with you hanging around here it's no wonder why. Don't you have anything better to do than sit here and watch me suffer?" he replied.
"Not in the slightest, my good fellow. So, found anything?"
Ignoring Brown's retort, Hale began pacing around the room. Trying to make sense of it all, he began thinking of ideas he'd let rot for over a decade. It was a fair time later that he finally turned his mind back to the world.
"-And like I said, thanks to that, the serum causes an inhibition of dopamine in the brain. This leads to-" Brown was saying.
"Could you repeat that, Brown?"
"Why? Weren't you paying attention?"
"No, I was busy thinking of my stint in a religious group."
"Fine. The great me will try to recap what I was just talking about. This fluid," Brown said, holding up the jar, "is essentially a mind-controlling serum. It blocks the brain's pleasure centers and instead gives a new way to receive dopamine; obeying the orders of a certain being."
"And that being is..."
"Not a clue, but by all accounts it's not human. Remember what you were saying back in Chapter Three?"
"Chapter three? What are you talking about?"
"Nothing of any relevance. It's just for when this eventually gets turned into a story. That way, it looks like I'm breaking the fourth wall. Anyways, you were talking about an ogre, and I think that idea's actually correct."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Good question, and I've got the answer for it. From what I can tell, the serum's made from swamp muck, the aqueous humor of an animal's eyes and the blood of a large, mammalian being. My trawling the Internet provided me with a match for the first two of those things, not to mention the late nurse. Speaking of which, it seems that she'd been infected by the serum beforehand, too."
"You're saying that something's taking control of people to terrorize the town? What sort of bad horror story is this?"
"One written by a bunch of teenagers, I'd say, but that's beside the point. Remember what the nurse was saying when we came to arrest her?"
"Yeah. 'Shrek is love, Shrek is life.' Why?"
"Well, my research on the Internet shows that that's the name of a bunch of terrible fanfiction based around the movie Shrek. In addition, it would explain the phrases the nurse said before she died. Most of them either referenced or were directly pulled from the movie series. The Happy Shrek Juice-"
"Happy Shrek Juice?" Hale said incredulously.
"Yes, Happy Shrek Juice. Can we move on now?"
"Go on ahead."
"Right. Anyways, the Happy Shrek Juice, we can assume, has the blood of Shrek. I've sent in the DNA of it for analysis, but it'll take a while before the results to come back. I expect it to be at least two months before-"
"DNA results came back, boss!" a passing laboratory aide said. "No matches on the criminal database."
"What sort of stupid TV show is this?" Brown cried out, before sighing and sitting down. "Anyways, we'll save the rest for next chapter."
"Next wha-"