Chapter 2: Proving One's Worth (Part 5/7)

Without even any effort on my part, waves of warmth and chills began coursing through me, sensations that I was very familiar with. These feelings, in this moment, provided a sense of rising to the challenge of combating this growing unease. At that point I began to hear some repetitive and low toned beeping noise from some instruments that a few of the plain clothes had strapped to their belts. 'What now!' I thought to myself as I saw them swiftly pull out those instruments that I assumed were triggered by the offness I was sensing. The tall redheaded woman in the group performed a scan all throughout the room as she turned a full circle. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it seemed like she hovered over my general area just a little bit longer than others before finally fixating on the corpse of the lizard man. With their attention and weird gadgets pointing away from me, I felt a palpable relief that was more than offset by the increasingly hair-raising feeling that continued to grow stronger. A murky blackness seemed to be filling the open air within the dementia unit. The focal point of where it all appeared to be going, was into the lifeless corpse that had yet to be placed on the stretcher. What really worried me is that no one else gave any indication that they could see what I was seeing, at least not to the degree I could. I did see a few people shiver and rub their arms a little, while their eyes darted around at the closed doors in the unit. In my vision, more and more darkness gathered, coalescing to form tendrils that were either being sucked or being forced into the corpse. Maybe it was a trick of the light or a warping of the view from the darkness, but I could have sworn that I saw one of the clawed fingers just twitch. . .. . . . . .The Heebie-jeebies I was feeling just ratcheted up a few dozen notches as goosebumps spread across my arms and neck all over again. A few seconds more and a palpable silence briefly descended upon the room as I'm sure I wasn't the only one seeing the now more frequent twitches coming from the 'dead' monster. All the other police and plainclothesmen that had been trying to convince the coroner to back up, quickly became much more urgent in their encouragement. At that moment, the coroner who was very absorbed in his work, gazing into his portable microscope and looking to be completely oblivious to the happenings around him, appeared to finally realize that something drastic had occurred. Unfortunately, he realized the danger too late as the once still and cloudy eyes of the lizard man moved and refocused on the spectacled figure leaning down next to him. With a quick stab of its claws, it embedded its arm wrist deep into the poor man's side before withdrawing it again holding the coroner's ropy intestines. "AAAAHHHHHh!" The coroner screamed out in pain and overwhelming fear. Blood came gushing out as well, staining his pristine white lab coat and in reflex his assistants yanked him back away from the monstrosity as his scream remained unabated. My gorge rose as I watched the bloody and greyish-brown intestines being drawn out from the gaping wound as his assistants pulled him away from the still alive cadaver. "What the Dusts!?!" The bark of outrage and terror struck a chord of the detective next to us as he swore out loud while watching the scene. I could hear the sounds of multiple guns being unclipped from their holsters as those on the other side of the doorway witnessed this new development. The coroner had curled up trying to hold in and protect his insides but the trailing intestines were still grasped by the creature's claw. Other than the ropy intestine connecting the coroner with the monster, the area about 7 feet in every direction around the creature was clear of obstruction and personnel. The police captain was barking out orders and as one, those around him raised their firearms. "Alright we need to move now!" The detective's last word was punctuated with the voice of "Fire!" from the Captain. Rapid shots from multiple firearms discharged outside the doorway of the dementia unit as everyone that had a gun started raining lead and steel upon the animated carcass. From the onslaught of the firefight the claw that was holding the intestines was blasted to pieces and the now unconscious coroner was freed. The few individuals that had been on the inner side of the doorway had already scattered to the sides of the narrow unit in an attempt to stay away from the creature and line of fire. Magnetically sealed doors were forced open on the opposite side of us, as the desperate coroner assistants dragged their boss's limp body away and made their escape. I felt supremely jealous of all but the one with trailing intestines as there were windows in all the rooms that they could escape from. Unfortunately, the nurses' station that the detective, Jeremy, and I were behind did not have an easy escape that didn't involve risking being close to the hail of bullets. The sheer number of bullets had pushed what remained of the corpse further down the large common room, about halfway past the nurses' station. Gazing down at it from behind the raised desk, I could see that it had far more holes than any Swiss cheese I'd seen before. If it wasn't dead before, it sure looked to be so now. At this point, the detective called out to the others outside the unit with his radio to confirm a ceasefire. Then with rapid instructions he ordered Jeremy and me to follow him out the back exit at the far end of the hall. Jeremy and I looked at each other and we could see the relief in each other's eyes as we followed instructions to leave this sanity forsaken unit. I, however, felt I shouldn't let my guard down as we skirted around the corpse, so I kept a very close eye out for any additional movement. Taking a quick glance away to the right, I saw the exit to the enclosed patio which was a very tempting lure. I wasn't sure if I could scale the patio wall to get outside the compound, but as long as I was out of the path of gunfire, I wouldn't care. Despite the large drying puddle of blood spilled there from the late Miss. Clifford, that path was looking more and more tempting, but the detective continued to lead and corral us to the back exit which was several meters further. As we had just reached halfway between the nurses' station and the exit, a new sound was heard along with another influx of darkness that only I could see. The sound appeared to originate from the creature itself, as those black tendrils had made another appearance, and began leeching towards all the places the creature had lost its scattered pieces of flesh. The noise that came from the mass sounded like a wet squelching noise similar to when the old skin of Mr. Smith was trampled on by his new form. Turning back, I saw the corpse begin to shiver and twitch again. "Move Move Move!" Screamed the detective as he pulled me, the closer one to him off to the side where the exit to the patio was. Jeremy wasn't so lucky as a few trigger-happy and scared individuals opened up fire once again on the moving corpse. "Cease Fire! Cease Fire!" was yelled out since we were in the line of fire. I had turned again only to see Jeremy jerk once, screaming out in surprise and pain as he fell to the ground with red streaming from his right leg. He had gotten tagged in the brief bullet fire. "Oh ****!" cried out the silver haired detective. "We need a paramedic in here!" A brief pregnant silence filled the room, broken only by the squelching sounds of the creature as it shivered in place. No one was willing to enter the unit. I made a move to go help pull him out of the way, but I was hauled back by the detective forcefully. "Leave the hero work to the professionals" he said to me gruffly. All this time, Jeremy had not ceased his struggle in moving back to us, as he sought to escape from the horror just a few feet away from him. His attempts to get up and hobble over were hindered by his crippled right leg. My thought was that the bone too had been shattered or fractured from the bullet that struck him or else he wouldn't be so slow considering the situation. More darkness spilled forth from the creature, and I had begun to realize that the pieces of flesh scattered about appeared to have become much fewer and smaller in number and size. "Let me go!" I screamed at the detective who was holding me steadfast. Seeing as I was the only one who likely could see what was really going on, I realized that things were escalating way faster than they could understand. "Andrew! Help me! Please!" His pleading became more frantic and I believed that Jeremy too realized that things were far more dire than they might appear to the others. As he was closer to the seemingly invisible and incorporeal black tendrils, I believed that he must have been able to sense something that the others, as further back spectators couldn't fathom. His cries became filled with hysteria as they cracked from a broken voice. "Let . . Me . . Go . . NOW!" I cursed at the detective as I sought to reach and aid my co-worker and friend. I had almost broken free from the older man's grip when suddenly a limb far too long and thin to have been natural reached out from the carcass and grabbed onto Jeremy's right leg. I backpedaled as fast as I could, taking the detective off guard as we both crashed to the ground sliding along the blood-soaked tile, almost all the way to the patio door with residual inertia. Even from that distance, I could clearly see the limb dragging back Jeremy's screaming body an inch at a time closer to it. The claw (if you could even call it that), looked to have dug deeply within his leg at the point of entry of the bullet. In my vision, the majority of the dark tendrils had focused their movements upon Jeremy's open wound and the fleshy limb appeared to pulse with energy or blood as if sucking it from his leg. What held me back from getting back up and tearing him from the monster's grasp was seeing that the flesh of his leg was necrotizing right before my eyes at a very rapid pace. When its claw touched Jeremy and as his flesh deteriorated, the last of the pieces that had fallen off of the creature began to turn to smoke and re-converge to their original place, forming once again into whole flesh. I was still debating strongly about how to come to his aid when the detective pushed me back and started shooting near point-blank range at the monstrosity. Holes continued to be made which too soon once again closed up as if nothing more than a minor inconvenience to the monster. Despite the very proximal shooting, It kept raking at Jeremy with its claws as the necrosis kept crawling up his leg and body, seeming to be stealing his life force to fuel his own healing. Jeremy had not ceased to scream hysterically while thrashing about this whole time, but his wails began to turn to quiet whimpers as his body stilled, and then silence. I believe that it was only the detective's proximity to the creature, that kept the army of officialdom from showering its unholy visage with a hail of bullets. I feared that the detective had made a terrible mistake with his actions. Jeremy was sad to say a lost cause by now; His body nothing more than a mess of rotting flesh that had been disposed of even by the monstrosity that consumed his life energy. Cutting and running while shooting from a distance were our only practical options in my opinion. But something seemed to have broken inside that older man, something that made him look like he had aged several years within a short-few seconds.