Metal groans and glass shatters, echoing through the dark and empty streets, smothering the siren of the lone police car parked outside. The two officers inside the cruiser sit in their frustration with their lack of options. Normally, a situation like this would call for three to four fire trucks, a minimum of ten police cars, and at least three ambulances cycling between here and the hospital. But tonight, they will have to make do with what they have. Nick takes inventory of the cruiser. With only a megaphone, a roll of duct tape, and a handful of flares in the trunk, he finds himself grimacing at how ill-prepared they are. He knows there's a small med kit in the glovebox, but it's old and outdated. He opened it once, a long time ago. It smelled like antiseptic and dust. Nick growls as he stares at his walkie-talkie in his paw, cursing the moose on the other end. They were supposed to radio in when the next paramedic or officer or anybody was available for backup. That was fifteen minutes ago.
The fox looks at his partner, who hunches over in the passenger seat to avoid the low ceiling of the vehicle. Leonard stares out the window with blank intensity, like a soldier steeling himself before battle. Every second spent sitting here is a second that Leonard spends psyching himself out. So far, he's doing a better job at controlling his anxious ticks, but Nick still catches the occasional nervous twitch. Keep it together kid, Nick thinks, glaring at the walkie-talkie, I need you for this. The two continue to sit, listening to metal groan and glass shatter, waiting for the black box to spit out any sort of chatter. Nick itches to get out of the car. To fling the door open and run out into the street and...no. The fox erases the thought, not out of cowardice or fear, but because heroism based on impulse always brings disaster. Running into a collapsing building with no backup would be suicide, and he can hear his wife's voice nagging at him exactly how many rules he'd be breaking by doing so. He needs a plan. Nick brings up a mental checklist of his resources, racing through possibilities and outcomes. The thoughts streamline themselves into a single, flowing idea.
—megaphone police cruiser flares tape Leonard radios med kit building collapse how much do metal beams weigh? too much too heavy dangerous glass on the ground will it cut footpaws? tires on cruiser pop if roll on glass? start simple dumb fox how to find out if people inside? megaphone loud announcement hello if anyone's in there you need to find a desk or something can anyone hear me stay where you are good now Leonard afraid but strong panther huge big guy what can muscles do here? not much sprint inside maybe too dangerous he's not ready find a way to clear glass make path safe flares duct tape med kit flares duct tape med kit put them together? no dammit dammit come on dumb fox dumb dumb dumb—
The passenger-side door clunks open, breaking Nick out of his thoughts. He looks over to see Leonard slide out, making his way purposefully towards the back of the car. For a fearful second, Nick thinks that he might be getting out to vomit up his nerves, but that idea is dashed away when he hears the trunk open. Unbuckling, Nick hurries to the back where he finds his partner grabbing the flares and megaphone under his arms. His eyes are intense, gazing into the gaping maw of the open trunk. The panther takes a shaky breath before turning to Nick. His mouth hangs open silently, like a child deciding whether or not to mouth off to their parents. Nick waits for him to speak, cautiously raising an eyebrow.
"We need to find out if people are in there. I'm not sitting around anymore. Fuck protocol." he says, then shuts his jaw defiantly and turns towards 'The Spire.' Nick grabs Leonard's arm before he can get past the hood of the cruiser.
"Slow down, kid," he says, "we only have protocol for the cops who are too stupid to make safe decisions on their own. If you're gonna break the rules, you need to be smart about it."
The panther pauses to acknowledge that his senior officer is allowing him to break the law. The fox grins at him, and Leonard suddenly feels belittled. A brief headline flashes across his mind. It reads; Idiot cop rushes in to save the day—gets friend killed. He will be missed. He shakes his head. Focus, he thinks, eat what's your the plate. The panther looks at his partner.
"What's the plan?" he asks, and Nick stares down one of the alleyways, smiling.
"There's a roll of duct tape in the back. We'll start with that."
Nick would be lying to himself if he said he wasn't excited—his tail wags discreetly behind him. Judy's going to kill me if I live through this, Nick thinks as he tests out his new "shoes." Constructed out of two layers of soggy, alleyway cardboard and duct tape, they wrap tightly around his feet, cramming his toes together uncomfortably. The tape wrapped over the top of his feet yanks at his hair, but he supposes that it's better than having glass jammed into his skin. They're ugly as sin, but then again, he never was one to have a sense of fashion. Leonard wobbles next to him, unsure of the new footing. They slide a little too much for the panther's liking. Nick tries to infect his partner with a sly smile. They look ridiculous.
But not nearly as ridiculous as their new, upgraded police cruiser. A mustache of cardboard covers the front bumper, ending at the wheels. Nick hopes that this can push some of the larger chunks of glass out of the way while they drive up to the front of the building. He has no idea if it's going to work, but it's the best thing he could come up with in ten minutes. Placing a paw on his belt, Nick asks the panther if he's ready.
"Yeah," he says, tail lashing, and heads for the passenger side door.
The cardboard mustache works better than Nick thought it would. He can still hear the tires crunching over smaller pieces of glass, but it sounds like most of the larger chunks are being shoved aside. Glass glints sharply in the headlights like a field of diamonds, reflecting the red and blue lights of the cruiser. It looks dangerously beautiful. Leonard drops another flare out the side, marking the clear path they've made by wiping away the glass. They keep the windows down in case someone yells for help. Nick feels a strange sense of tranquility for someone inching their way towards a building on the verge of collapse—monk-like almost. Nick gets a funny image of himself sitting on top of a mountain, barechested with long, wise whiskers and closed eyes. He grins at the stupid idea of being some kind of mountain guru.
Nick scans over the decrepit garden outside 'The Spire,' as they roll slowly by, shaking his head. Whoever is in charge of groundskeeping should be arrested for this travesty. Brown patches cover the grass like cancerous spots, and in between the periodical shatter of glass, Nick can hear the gurgling hiss of a sprinklers stuck beneath the ground. The cruiser scoots along the cement pathway, swerving between dying flower beds. The fox doesn't need to look out the window to know what is planted—he can smell them. Most of them are more common, like roses and tulips, and he can catch the faint scent of gardenias and lilacs. The smells bring back days spent with his mother learning the fragrances of the flowers in her planter boxes. She would have him close his eyes while she held different plants under his nose. Those were the times he loved the most—spending hot summer days in a world of blind fragrances. His mom never had a ton of money when he was growing up, but when she had a little extra, she would always find a way to bring some new life into the apartment they lived in at the time. The cruiser rolls over the corner of a flower box, crushing a row of tulips, jolting Nick from the memory. He steadies the car, keeping it rolling along the cement pathway at a glacial pace. The fox shakes his head. They're close to the entrance of 'The Spire.' The statue of an eccentric donor edges by—an otter sitting in a thoughtful position with a book in his paws. Nick laughs at the bird shit leaking from the top.
"Serves him right," he says, and then glues his eyes back on the pathway.
"Manuel?" Leonard asks, pointing at the statue, "Wasn't he caught trying to bribe a weapons dealer a few years back?"
"Yep," Nick confirms, "thought he could buy his way into black market dealings. But get this, the person he tried to talk to? Black Hoof Betty."
"What? He tried to smooth talk Black Hoof Betty? I thought it was just some sleazy alleyway dealer." says Leonard, and Nick laughs.
"Oh no, he fucked up big time," he says, and the officers fall into silence.
They've arrived.
It's intimidating up close. Parked fifteen feet outside the entrance, the two officers are able to see the full damage of the building in gruesome detail. Steel webbing—once straight—waves like seaweed, glass crinkling as the metal wags back and forth. Almost all of the panes on the second floor have broken, leaving the top of the building bald of glass. The dark interior of the first floor is only disrupted by a small lamp that wrestles against the blackness, flickering weakly on a desk in the center of the room. There is no sign of life inside. Leonard drops another flare out the window before opening the door, stepping delicately out onto the pavement, keeping his paws hooked over the top of the car. When he finds that his cardboard shoes hold, he puts his full weight on them, flinching as glass cracks beneath his feet. Their success does little to calm his nerves. Nick gets out next, bringing the megaphone with him. He flicks his finger over the trigger, clearing his throat before speaking. The fox's voice echoes strangely as it bounces around the shattered room.
"If anybody is inside, try to find cover underneath a desk or table, or find your way to the nearest part of the building without a glass ceiling. If you are injured or need assistance, an ambulance will be on its way as soon as possible."
The two officers wait, straining their ears against the screech of twisting metal. The grating sound works against everything they try to pick up. Shifting glass, a cry for help, whimpering. But they get nothing. Shaking his head, Nick switches to his nose. While it's more reliable to find someone through scent, it's easy to lose a new one in the thousands of other smells that constantly circulate through the air. Scents are much different for species with sensitive noses. The smells are constant, day and night. It's impossible to escape them. The only way for species like foxes and wolves to catch a break is to tune it out—let it run in the background as a sort of white noise. And it's hard to turn off once it's on—like those stupid posts Nick runs into on the internet that say "U R noaw breathing/blinking manually. Have fun XD!"
He takes a deep breath, drinking the scents of the night, each of them sharp and unique. Bugaburger wrappers with decomposing cheese, tangy, wet grass, sweet honeysuckle, crass, rusting steel, Leonard. He catches an interesting whiff off his partner, and decides that it's none of his business before continuing to take deep breaths.
Nick recoils when his nose is assaulted by an acrid, vile stench. The fox's reaction is involuntary—his paws jump up to cover his snout. The smell scrapes at the inside of his nose. It reminds him of the awful days he spent in science class with his eyes leaking and nose running because of the chemical experiments. It's like someone mixed vinegar, spiced mustard and alcohol wipes before setting them both on fire before being shoved into his nose. Overwhelming and horrid, he feels as if his nostrils have been subjected to an electric shock. It burns. A whimper escapes from his lips, and his partner looks over to see the fox with his paws over his snout. Leonard's ears clamp down.
"Jesus, you okay? Officer Wil—Nick, what can you smell? Is someone in there?" the panther asks frantically.
Nick ducks his nose into his uniform, handing the megaphone to his partner. The smell is inescapable. It tracks him down, even through the cotton of his shirt, and it's getting worse, too. Bile, tears, sweat and something that Nick can't quite place add into the mix, adding a gross naturalness to the chemical smell. The fox's stomach curls. He opens his mouth to speak but ends up gagging. Instead, he uses his paws to signal to Leonard. Nick points at the headlights of the car, then the nearest flare that Leonard dropped behind the squad car, and makes a chucking motion with his hand. It takes Leonard a second to get the meaning, but the panther eventually runs over to the cruiser, turning on the headlights, and retrieves the burning flare, handing it to Nick. The headlights don't work as well, reflecting dully through their unclean glass cover. The flare hisses, spitting light and smoke as the fox takes it in his paw, painting his orange fur a harsh red. He chucks it overhand through one of the broken windows, and it sails like a violent comet as it arcs through the air. For a second, the little glass that remains on the side of the building glows red as well, reflecting the angry, red flare back at the two officers. It lands to the side of the desk in the center of the room. The two officers let their eyes adjust to the light. As Nick squints into the room, he finds the answer to smell he couldn't place before.
Urine.
The stench of liquid fear wafts strongly through the broken panes of 'The Spire,' and the hackles on Nick's neck rise. He can't identify the species, and it unnerves him—urine is one of the easiest ways for investigators to figure out genus and gender at a crime scene. But this is something completely alien to him. The only thing he can tell is that it's female. Someone is in there, and they're either too injured to call for help, or trying to hide. Neither of the scenarios are ideal. Nick curses into his shirt. This just turned a terrible situation into an abysmal one. No ambulance, no firetruck, no backup, possible criminal or civilian of unknown species in an unstable building. The red fox tries to start thinking of a plan. How to figure out if the person inside is someone who needs to come out in cuffs or not, and how to get inside the building without risking getting sliced up by falling glass.
A small cough from inside 'The Spire' breaks his train of thought. His ears snap forward, and he holds a paw out to Leonard to grab his attention. Both fox and panther focus intently on dark interior of the building. Leonard moves to bring the megaphone up to his mouth, but Nick stops him. Glass skitters and crunches.
Something lurks.
Beyond the light of the flare, Nick barely makes out a slim, dark shape stepping through the darkness. It makes its way slowly over the floor, towards the entrance. It stops at the edge of the shadows. Nick fingers his tranquilizer. The shape paces, seeming to weigh its options. The fox listens for a frustrated growl, snort, or snarl—anything that can pin a species to the person. With the suddenness and fragility of a wine glass dropped in a quiet restaurant, a cry comes from the inside. The voice is pitiful, scared, and broken. It moans out of the darkness.
"Oh god, help me."
Thanks to those who have stayed with me through this! And a huge thanks to otterly delightful, who helped look through this and fix it. Check out his story "Getaway," on fanfiction!