Night watch part 1 involved a neighborhood patrol and their chilling discoveries. This next episode shares more of what’s waiting for them in the dimly lit quiet. The fracture in the mundane began with a cadaver discovered near the community’s retaining pond. Before we find out if Jaz and Slim answer the call for aid, we need to step back. Travel to where that fissure first began.
Trigger Warnings
Things will be violent and uncomfortable. Tread lightly
“Girls, they’re all the same, you know? You can’t tell what they want. They don’t even know,” he pauses to take a drag, “They wear their frilly stuff, showing their soft skin, and tell us we can’t touch. Then they smile at us, like they know, they fucking know what they’re doing.”
He tapped long unkempt fingernails on the metal table. The dirt and grime beneath them screaming of guilt. Still gotta keep it together. Silence the assumptions. Play the part.
“Yeah, I feel you man. My girl took a long time to come around. With enough pestering I wore her down eventually,” I say with a little smirk.
He reaches his hand to me with the cig in an offer, but I shake my head. He shrugs and sits back in the chair.
“You get it. Most people fucking get it, ya know? They just don’t say it out loud. Girls are always chasing me too. They like what I got going on. The nice shit I have. The gifts I bring them. They may say leave me alone, but I see them out there. Always looking for me. Missing me. But they’re shy. At least,” he drops his voice to a whisper, “the ones that taste the best are.”
I hold back a gag. Days like today made me wish for a new face. One less agreeable. One with less…less of whatever gave the scum across from me an inclination that I agreed with him on any level of morality.
“Yeah, Shelly. She looks sweet,” I say with a little lilt to me voice. Sounding like I needed to know more despite imagining unloading my clip into the mother fucker right then and there. Fuck needing more answers. More evidence. This guy didn’t deserve another second of sucking in air.
My fingers twitched as the smile spread across his face. He snuffed the cig and crossed his arms on the table. I leaned into meet him. Like we were best friends sharing a secret. His hushed words surrounded me like an acrid cloud. Vile and suffocating. I pretended to eat them up. I willed my fists to unclench, and licked my lips. Mirroring his own insatiable desire.
“Shelly was a perfect ripened treat. Coy. Feigning disinterest. Her eyes betrayed her though. The way they lit each time she saw me. She wanted me there, watching her. The way she would dress at the park. Tits out and all. A show just for me,” he closed his eyes and bit his lip. Relishing in some disgusting memory. I snagged his attention before he could drift further into delusion.
“Chicks love doing that, don’t they? Tease us, like we aren’t going to get fed up and just take what’s ours,” I add.
Another line to haunt me later. When I was staring at the ceiling counting all the ways I’d never sleep again. I was in deep with the monster now. Holding its hand like a friend. Making it forget where we were, and the uniform I wore. Coaxing it further inward. A sick distraction from the noose I prepped for it.
The walls of the interrogation room faded leaving a darkened pit. One orb of yellow light shown from the charm around my neck. Eating away the glamour a clump of cells at a time until the man before me blurred. Flashing light revealed rapid decay. First the pale skin sloughed away in fat strips slapping to the floor. The brown greasy hair fell in clumps. Slowly a fiend was revealed. Its head slick with mucus and covered in wide eyes rolling with lust. A pointed tongue lulling to the side of jagged teeth.
I wondered if the creature before me remembered when it had become possessed. If they recalled the words whispered in the night. If they realized their pleas for company were manipulated into an invitation. I search within the oozing corridors of its psyche for any sign of prismed light trapped within. Holding out hope that some innocence remained hidden from the ravenous force devouring it’s humanity.
Its voice lashed me. A tenor that didn’t belong here, but I didn’t flinch at the gravel and phlegm pelted in my direction.
“Shelly, was such a little slut in the end you know. I had her begging,” a high pitched laughter echoed around the void. Its voice shifted to mock that of girl sobbing, “please stop, I want to be home. Let me go!” The laughter continued to seep from its closed lips as it relished in the memory.
The crime scene flashed before me. A fourteen year old Shelly crumpled in the dirt. Shredded fabric indistinguishable from her ribboned flesh. Her blood in a dark clotted pool staining the soil. Her eyes wide with terror, and mouth frozen a loud silent scream.
The fiend whipped its head to the side keeping its eyes fixated on me. Some of them slitted.
I looked down at my hands now full of my revolver. Fuck. It was too late now. Too late to do this by the book. I had enough evidence anyway and if Kris had a problem, I didn’t give a shit. This tar filled bastard deserved a few slugs in the brain.
Quick as lightning I let two shots loose. The slippery shit bounced to the side taking the bullet in its hind leg. The scent of lust deepening to wrath. Foaming jaws snapping wide to let out a guttural cry. It began to claw at the dark walls. Searching for a hole in the bubble of darkness. I chuckled knowingly. This was my domain.
“Be a good guest, and quit drooling on the floor,” I said before firing another shot in its direction. I sighed as it dodged. Instead of the bullet hitting it in the head, the shot grazed its shoulder. The smell of sulfur leaked, and the viscous oil dripped from its fresh wounds.
“You’re like me,” it seethed, “I see it sitting back there. Watching me with hunger. Like they all do. Poor thing’s ravenous living off the scraps of its brethren.” The fiend took the time to laugh, but quickly stopped when it saw my lack of surprise. Switching tactics its voice lost the sharpness. When it spoke again honey coated its words, “Why don’t you let it out to play?”
A soothing warmth brushed my skin. An energy I inherently recognized. Sickeningly sweet. A lure to let go of my restraint, and resentment. Languid words attempting to soothe the steadily growing throb in my head. I couldn’t hold this space much longer. I tried to raise my gun again, but it grew impossibly heavy. Damn it Kris.
This shit is evil. We know it. We gotta take care of it.
I shot the thought towards the shadows cloaking what lurked in the corners of my mind. Silence lingered. I know what it wanted. Definitive proof there was nothing left to save.
There’s nothing left. We have to end it, or it’ll escape. More bodies to discover. More blood on our hands.
A soft voice finally answered.
Okay, Terrence.
My hand flung up with sudden freedom and the shot went wide taking out a few of the fiend’s teeth. Ear shattering screams reverberated endlessly off of the dark walls. I crumpled to the ground, cupping my head. Darkness slowly seeped back into me revealing a narrow strip of light. With little hesitation the demon fled through the crack dripping an acidic trail of steaming globs of tar.
I’m sorry, Terrence.
I give myself a few blissful seconds as the comforting cold embrace as the darkness returns to me. A balm against the sting of failure.
Its okay, Kris. Time to go hunting.
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